Productivity Archives - Page 2 of 20

Exciting Ways to Boost Morale in the Office

July 26, 2018 by Guest Author

By Kayla Matthews

Workplace morale boosters are valuable to any company. They show your employees you care. If you have high employee morale in your office, you’ll have better performers. There’s less stress, which decreases turnover and increases productivity.

Engaging your employees is always a win-win, but you don’t have to break the bank to do it. The funds and effort you do put toward it will pay off in the end, so why aren’t you participating? Check out the following six simple and affordable ideas for boosting morale in your office.

Provide Healthy Snacks for Employees

Healthy office snacks and meals have the power to raise productivity levels and your employees’ overall spirit. Staff members often feel they don’t even have the time to stop and feed themselves. They may have too many back-to-back meetings and just too much work to do.

Make it convenient for your employees to be healthy and well-fed, and keep your office stocked with easy-to-grab snacks like granola bars, nuts and individual popcorn bags. If you have the means, order a healthy lunch spread for your office. Employees appreciate these kinds of gestures more than you realize — especially since they’re able to keep working and still eat.

Have an Office Dog Day

This one is a bit tricky if your building has rules against pets, but many office buildings now allow them, with restrictions that pertain to certain breeds. Check with your landlord or building owner, then consider one day per week, like Fridays, or even just one day a month, to allow employees the option to bring their furry friends to work for the day.

Of course, employees will be held liable for any potential issues that may arise, but with good judgment, this strategy could be a great way to reward your employees. Dogs can also strengthen bonds between colleagues and improve mental health. They can motivate employees to go outside, decrease stress and promote mental breaks — as well as a load of other positive results.

If you have employees who are allergic to dogs or are not particularly fond of their presence, there are plenty of ways to get around it. Try planning an office picnic where employees can bring their dogs. This way, those employees who are allergic won’t be confined to a closed-in office with pet dander.

Throw an Office Party

Yes, every office usually throws a holiday party once per year, but you shouldn’t wait 12 months to get all of your team members together on a more casual and comfortable level. Plan fun events for employees, like a chili cook-off, lunch potluck or holiday party to celebrate Halloween, Thanksgiving or another occasion that’s coming up. Have fun and set up an ugly sweater contest. The options are endless.

This time gives employees a chance to mingle with one another, enjoy great food and bond more with colleagues and as a team. If you decide to have a party or gathering after hours, give employees the opportunity to invite their spouses or significant others.

Set up an Office Happy Hour

Happy hour doesn’t always have to entail alcoholic beverages. You can hold a happy hour once a month. Try a Thursday or Friday at 4 p.m., before employees leave for the day, in the office lounge area or break room.

Serve an array of wine and beer, or opt for soft drinks and other non-alcoholic beverages. Order or pick up some tasty snacks, like nachos and queso from your favorite Mexican restaurant nearby or pizza for everyone to munch on. You can even go off-site to someplace fun so that you’re away from your typical work environment. This plan is yet another great way to encourage employees to get to know each other more outside of meetings and other projects.

Provide a Food Truck Lunch

Everyone loves a good food truck, and the great thing about them is that they’re mobile. Many offices have been trying out food trucks during employees’ lunch hours. This move is easy and convenient because people don’t have to go off-site, but if they didn’t bring their lunch, they still have the option to eat something different.

Book a taco truck for taco Tuesday or a BBQ truck during the summertime months. You can even book an ice-cream sandwich food truck or perhaps a coffee truck. If it’s in the budget, this option is also a great way to give thanks to your employees and let them choose a treat without having to pay.

Do Fun Team-Building Activities

Having a strong team vibe in your environment is essential to success. If employees aren’t connecting, their performance won’t be as great as it could be. Send out an email to everyone to ask if they want to go to a football game together or maybe lunch off-site. Escape rooms and Top Golf are also great team activities that everyone can enjoy. Consider an activity where employees can volunteer together.

Whatever you decide to do, bringing the team together will definitely make employees feel engaged and connected. Help to make your staff feel like work is more than just a job. If they feel they have a higher purpose, they’re more likely to perform better in their day-to-day duties. Empower your employees, and make them feel respected, appreciated and valued.

Boost Morale for a Better Work Life

Show that you care with necessary actions like rewarding good work and granting time off, but also take it a step further. The above six ideas are not only affordable, but they’re also sure to make your employees feel good.

Whether you choose to add healthy snacks to your break rooms, launch an employee dog day or plan a team activity at a local shelter, you won’t regret making the extra effort to boost morale in your office.

About the Author: Kayla Matthews writes about communication and workplace productivity on her blog, Productivity Theory. Her work has also appeared on Talent Culture, MakeUseOf, The Muse and Fast Company.

Featured Image Photo by Matty Sievers on Unsplash

How to prepare your blog for Q4 2017

September 14, 2017 by Rosemary

My Girl Scout training taught me to “be prepared.”

Back then, it meant gathering enough kindling to build a proper fire, or carrying a canteen with extra water.

Now, it means periodically reviewing and reflecting on what’s ahead for my business. At the end of Q3, it’s good to look way back to January to see what your goals were.

Don’t beat yourself up if your current self hasn’t lived up to the hype of your January self. You’ve still got three months to pull out a victory (or two) if you don’t get distracted.

Here’s a handy checklist that will help you do a quick check-in and reset as we move into Q4 2017.

Review How Your Marketing Campaigns Worked So Far

Look through your key metrics for campaigns you ran the first two thirds of the year. How did they do? Do the results mean you need to shift priorities through the end of the year? If something isn’t working, stop doing it.

Prepare Your Content Calendar

If you’re blogging and/or sharing on social media (and hopefully you are), take some time to stockpile some content ideas and schedule them on your content calendar of choice. When the holidays start approaching, you’ll be able to have a pumpkin spice latte instead of scrambling for topics.

Make Sure You’re Up To Date with SEO Shifts

Google changes its algorithm a few hundred times a year; have you changed your SEO strategy this year? Of course you always want to keep your customers’ needs in the forefront of your content planning, but you should also be aware of shifting search priorities. Moz is my go-to resource for SEO.

Leverage End-of-Year Spending

Yes, it feels as though the end of the year is “looming,” but there’s some silver lining in there. Consider offering a special discount or bonus for new customers in Q4. Some organizations end up with budget to spend at the end of the year. You might be able to nudge indecisive prospects with a special deal.

Don’t Coast

It’s tempting to ditch accountability if you haven’t achieved your lofty goals for 2017 yet. Don’t do it! If it’s been a lackluster year, choose just one of your goals and hit it hard now. Set your mind on how great you’ll feel as you put your feet up in December by the fire. Break it down into weekly tasks, and get after it.

If you want to share your “one goal” with us here in the comments, we will cheer you on!

Author’s Bio: Rosemary O’Neill is an insightful spirit who works for Social Strata — makers of the Hoop.la community platform. Check out the Social Strata blog. You can find Rosemary on Google+ and on Twitter as @rhogroupee

Featured image via: Jessica Ruscello

Invest In Your Health For Business Success

March 30, 2017 by Rosemary

By Deb Bixler

Home business owners rarely think about business assets, and when they do, there is one asset they often overlook.

When you work for yourself it is not unusual to become engulfed in the pursuit of income and forget to invest in your most important asset.

Your Most Important Business Asset

Your health is your greatest business asset and you should treat it as such.

With all the activities that need attention in a home business combined with the busy lifestyle of the 21st century, it is easy for a business owner to put their health aside for future consideration, but this is a big mistake.

When your life is balanced between personal and business time, you can prioritize your health and be a more productive employee working for yourself.

Working with a schedule is often the best way to go. Create a schedule that matches the results you want in your business.

If you want a full-time income then plan to work full-time hours. Schedule 40 hours a week for business activities.

For those who want a part-time work-at-home commission schedule, your work hours need to be between 20-30 per week.

While the desired income won’t immediately start flowing, a consistent, steady and balanced schedule that you consistently and steadily work year-round will create the income you desire.

When you take personal time off, you will be more productive and focused in the office. Many major corporations are switching their work ethics to a balanced approach as science shows that fewer work hours and more personal time makes for better employees.

Less work means less stress and a more productive worker.

There is nothing more important than your health because without it, you have no life.

Take the time to exercise! You don’t have to go to the gym, just incorporate everyday activities such as a simple walk to make a big impact on your long-term health.

Health Is Your Best Business Asset

Rarely do we equate the food we eat to our work performance, but what we eat affects us more than we think!

Did you ever notice how difficult it is to concentrate when you are hungry?

Food has a direct impact on our cognitive performance, which is why a poor decision at lunch can derail an entire afternoon.

When you make poor food choices you can have a tough time staying focused and performance drops.

Make a plan to eat three small balanced meals a day and three healthy snacks in between to satisfy between-meal cravings and prioritize your health!

Your Best Business Asset

Your health is the best business asset you have. Invest in it regularly and it will pay off handsomely.

If you work hard and make a fortune it will mean nothing if you don’t protect your greatest business asset… your health.

About the Author:
Deb Bixler is a trained chef turned passionate speaker who focuses on sales education and healthy living. As a party plan trainer she focuses on systems for direct sellers at the CashFlowShowRadio.com and her healthy food website can be found at WowFoodTips.com.

My Productivity Secret Weapon

February 9, 2017 by Rosemary

If your work involves spending any significant amount of time online, you’re always going to be vulnerable to distraction.

Ooh pictures of baby hedgehogs…

Every tab you keep open in your browser represents an opportunity to wander down the garden path. That’s fantastic if you need creative inspiration or you’re spending some downtime. It’s destructive if you’re working against a deadline or trying to “move the big rocks.”

Hey, a new recipe for enchiladas…

Today, I wanted to share my single most effective productivity secret weapon. (Full disclosure: my amazing husband kept telling me about this and I only recently downloaded and fell in love with it.)

It’s called Pocket and if you use it effectively, it can really keep you focused and organized.

Once you sign up for an account, you have a space where you can save articles or web pages of interest. There’s a browser-based interface and an app for your phone, so you can save things from anywhere.

The superpower comes in when you use the browser extension button (it’s available for Chrome, Safari, Opera, and MS Edge). With the extension, you get a tiny magic button in your browser bar. Any time you find yourself on a distracting website, just click the magic button and it’s saved for later.

Yes, you can save fun things like hedgehog pictures and recipes, but you can also use tagging to organize and separate the leisure items in the list from the business-related content. I’ve got tags set up for “research” and “marketing planning” as well as “recipes.”

Sometimes magic happens when the random content you’ve been reading collides with a real-world business requirement. Remember the scene in Working Girl where Melanie Griffith pulls out her “idea” folder and shows Mr. Trask how she put together Trask and radio?

Pocket is my “idea” folder and my distraction terminator. Did I mention that it’s free for most functions? There is also a premium option that adds advanced search, permanent saving of pages (protects against website changes), and other goodies.

I wasn’t asked to promote Pocket, and I’m not an official “ambassador,” but it’s made such a big difference to me that I had to share it!

How do you defend against distraction?

Featured image via Flickr CC: Chief Trent

How to find freelance work

October 27, 2016 by Rosemary

Are you looking for a “side hustle?”

Perhaps you want to have some cash buffer while your real business ramps up.
Perhaps you just want holiday spending money.

The good news is that it’s easy to find gigs that supplement your primary paycheck.

Some marketplaces are focused on writers, some are focused on design, and some are just for general life tasks, so you can choose the type of work you want to do.

Before you sign up with one of these marketplaces, be sure to investigate. Look at reviews from others who have done work for them, and find out their payment policies, be sure you understand who owns your work product.

Above all, be sure that you’re receiving adequate payment for the work you do. Consider the opportunity cost of accepting the gig vs working on your primary business before you proceed.

Upwork

Upwork offers all types of services, from marketing to IT to translation services. All you need is a computer, Internet access, and your mad skills.

Upwork provides a user-friendly platform to help you communicate with your client, share files and project-related documents, track your time, and get paid. It’s free to join Upwork. Once you begin doing freelance work with a client on the platform, they deduct a percentage fee from each payment. So, be sure to price your services accordingly. Upwork also offers premium membership plans for an additional cost.

The Gig Saloon

The Gig Saloon is an app for gig workers.

It’s one streamlined place where gig economy workers can go to find new jobs, stay up to date on gigs, and share their experiences.

The app aggregates jobs from across a wide array of sources, so it includes driving and delivery along with general marketplaces like TaskRabbit.

The cool thing is that you can share your experiences (and read about others’ experiences) in the discussion area. This app is still fairly new, but looks like a promising place to find and apply for jobs across a variety of employers.

Fiverr

Fiverr is a site where you create your ideal gig based on your own talents, time, and experience. Then people who need what you’re selling can come and hire you through the site.

Fiverr includes worker ratings, and provides a secure transaction service, so you don’t have to directly contact the person hiring you for payment.

99designs

99designs is a marketplace for design. Customers upload design briefs for potential projects, choose the “prize” (which is the price level offered for the work), and then designers can submit entries to win the work. Because of the contest format, 99designs could be a way to test the waters if you want to get some real-world feedback on the quality of your design work, or if you’re just getting started as a freelance designer and want to build your portfolio.

There is risk that your design won’t be selected, and you give copyright ownership to the customer, so read the fine print before you join.

TaskRabbit

TaskRabbit’s marketplace revolves more around local gigs, and you can do general errands, cleaning, and personal assistance among other specialties.

You decide what you want to do, you decide how much you want to be paid, and TaskRabbit finds you local tasks. Members of TaskRabbit are called “taskers.” There’s a mobile app, and on-boarding/orientation provided by the company.

Hubstaff Talent

Hubstaff Talent makes it easy for freelancers find quality work, simply create a profile and wait for businesses to start contacting you. It’s an easy to use platform with a clean, professional design. Potential employers are able to reach out to freelancers directly – no middlemen involved, and no fees for either freelancers or the businesses hiring. Hubstaff Talent also recently launched a “Jobs” section on their website where freelancers can search through hundreds of remote jobs to find the right one for them.

Bidvine (NEW)

Bidvine.com is a local services marketplace and covers over 800 services from photography to personal training and handyman services. While some of the services covered by Bidvine require professional qualifications, others, such as furniture assembly or dog walking are available anyone with some previous experience. It’s free to sign up, you can view client inquires for free and you pay a small fee when you want to submit a bid – no commission to pay and all repeat business is yours to keep.

Have you used any of these services to supplement your income? Did I miss any great resources?

Stop being productive, you will get more done

April 28, 2016 by Rosemary

Planners, calendars, bullet journals, Trello boards, post-it notes, Moleskines–are supposed to make you more productive.

Newsletters, books, podcasts, e-books, blogs, live events– are supposed to teach you how to use those things to become more productive.

You’re a busy little bee with your productivity studies.

Tell the truth.

How deep is your productivity “to read” pile right now?

How would you feel if you could purge all of that for a while and just do your work?

That article on “sleeping habits of super-successful people?” Delete it and get an extra half hour of sleep tomorrow.

That blog series about “becoming super-productive in seven days?” Unsubscribe and write some original content yourself.

Those five weeks of podcasts on “super-charging your morning” that are stacked up in your “unplayed episodes” stream? Get real and delete the old episodes.

In fact, stop reading this article right now and go write/create/do something important.

Then you’ll feel super.

Once you’re feeling all super, come back here and share what you accomplished!

Featured image via Flickr CC: Garry Knight