Posts

3 Effective Strategies for Keeping Employees Focused on the Task at Hand

/in , /by


The reason you worked so hard to complete an executive masters in business administration program is that you wanted to make a difference. Over time, you saw areas which could have been handled more efficiently and at lower costs within your organization. Although you were already in a position of authority, you felt you needed better skills to keep things flowing smoother in accordance with best practices, as outlined in the company manual.

The one issue you kept running up against daily was keeping employees focused on the task at hand. You’ve finally gotten that online executive MBA degree and it’s time to put it to use building strategies to keep your team on task.

1. Complete an Assessment of Why and How Employees Become Distracted

The first step in building any strategy is to determine what it is you’d like to accomplish. The end goal sets the stage for any strategy because, by its very nature, a strategy is a roadmap to success. In this case, you are using your MBA to define common causes for distractions, in order to facilitate a more focused approach to the jobs at hand.

2. Create New Policies to Avoid Distractions

One of the best strategies is one in which you set new rules. In the course of assessing the source of distractions, you’ve discovered that altogether too much talking is going on about things totally unrelated to what they are currently working on. While you don’t want to be a hard taskmaster, you do want to keep things moving along to increase productivity. Why not set a rule that talking is allowed only in terms of job-related issues and all other conversation is best left to the break room.

3. Keep Peripheral Distractions to a Minimum

As you studied for your executive masters in business administration online, you knew that you needed to be in a place where there were minimal distractions. As a result, you set aside one room in your home where you couldn’t hear the television and noises from the playroom couldn’t filter in. You can use the same strategy on the job! Reroute foot traffic through areas where employees aren’t sitting at desks or working on the line and try to keep announcements over loudspeakers to a minimum.

Research indicates that distractions on the job cost employers over $10,000 per person per year!

In the End – You’re the Boss

You can clearly see that distractions are costing your company a ton of money each and every year. Not only do distractions cut profits, but they also increase the risk of inferior quality of work. In fact, you may even want to open the floor for discussion among the very employees you’ve found to be most distracted while on the job. Their input could be invaluable. They might define a whole new set of issues they find distracting, after which you can devise strategies to reduce those as well.

Your job as an administrator is to devise and implement strategies. Reducing distractions is a great place to test your newfound skills. Don’t let it be your last.

3 Ways to Lift Morale with Team Building in London

/in /by

None of us like feeling like outcasts, least of all when we go to work. In order for a team of workers to perform at their absolute best they need to be comfortable around one another and have a good sense of community.

Creating a happier and more productive work environment should be a constant consideration for any good manager. Studies have repeatedly shown that happier workers are more productive.

Even if your employees have worked alongside one another for quite some time there is still value to be found in organising a team building event. Working through activities, puzzles, and challenges as a team isn’t just an effective method for breaking the ice with new acquaintances, it is also an excellent way to foster and reinforce the connections that your workers have developed with one another.

There is an endless array of potential team building activities which have proven to be effective training and motivational tools. By encouraging your workforce to bond with one another, you will be ensuring that they function as effectively as possible when operating as a team.

Many of us have had the unfortunate experience of working in a tense or less than friendly work environment. These kinds of places can be intimidating, even for experienced workers, and an unfriendly atmosphere will have an effect on how all those who work within it perceive their jobs.

Team building is therefore a very effective tool for raising the morale of your workforce and of encouraging every employee to give their absolute best effort all the time, and you’d be surprised at the wide range of different options for team building activities in London that you can find if you know where to look. In this article we take a look at three of the team building exercises which produce the best results in terms of raising morale amongst your staff.

Cooking

Even if we don’t have any first-hand experience of working in a kitchen, we all know that a chef’s job is stressful. Remove the customers and commercial imperative, however, and cooking food instead becomes the kind of thing that we might do to relax at the end of the day. Some groups like to add a competitive element to their cooking, perhaps by organising to have any food produced judged by a panel.

Cooking is an effective team building exercise because it requires participants to identify their own skills, and those of the rest of the group, so that they can efficiently organise themselves.

Treasure Hunt

No matter how old you are, treasure hunts are always good fun. The urban sprawl of our capital city makes it the perfect location for a treasure hunting activity. Whether you decide to give participants a list of clues to lead them to the location of physical objects, or instead send them out to gather photographs of various landmarks, a treasure hunt will encourage the participants to work together.

Treasure hunts make for great bonding and morale boosting exercises, in large part due to the fact that, while it encourages your workers to come together and practice working as a team, it is more relaxed and less immediate than many other teambuilding exercises. Sometimes it is beneficial for everyone to take things slower.

Graffiti Workshop

Art, in all its forms, is a powerful tool for therapy. Both individuals and groups can benefit a great deal from engaging artistically with one another and the world around them. Graffiti is more than just obscene scrawling on the wall, it is one of the purest forms of street art around and London provides the perfect backdrop for indulging in it.

The only limit on the kind of activities that you can undertake with your workers, in order to boost morale and foster the relationships between members of your staff, is your own imagination. The above activities are just a small selection of the endless opportunities that exist.

3 Easy Ways You Can Improve Employee Engagement – Starting Today

/in /by

While a small fraction of the workforce says it is thinking of quitting at any moment, surveys have found that a large majority of the workforce is “disengaged”. They are at work, putting in the minimum to get by, but not fully engaged. An engaged workforce is more productive, creative and emotionally healthy. Here are three easy ways you can improve employee engagement, starting today.

Ask Their Opinions and Then Act on Them

Forget the suggestion box or brainstorming session once a year. Review all the ideas you’ve been given to improve the workplace and start implementing them. If you’re faced with a problem, before you rush to an outside consultant, ask your own team how things could be improved. Even better is when staff are given the authority to improve things in their own area, whether better organizing their work area or altering process flow.

Give Useful Training and Coaching

It is amazing how many workplaces assume that a new hire is ready to go as soon as all the HR paperwork is filled out. New employees should be connected with someone to ensure that they are fully on-boarded. How do they get what they need to do their jobs? Who should they ask for guidance when they aren’t sure about something? How do you get an account for every piece of software you use in the course of the day, and how do you learn how to use it? You’ll see far greater engagement from new hires when they feel supported in their integration into the team.

Offering training that upgrades one’s skills so they are suitable for higher positions dramatically increases engagement. If the company wants to see even greater engagement and increase in productivity, pay for continuing education outside of the workplace. For example, the company’s benefits program paying an employee’s tuition for an executive leadership masters online is training a future manager, while requiring the person to work for the company for several more years to pay back that favor.

Apply Lean Principles to Everything

One way to improve employee engagement is to ask employees for their input on what to streamline. You can start small. What company rules and regulations could be removed today and dramatically increase productivity, assuming the rule isn’t required for legal compliance or public safety? Then eliminate the rule. Employees see that management isn’t just asking for advice but taking it. They feel empowered and start giving more feedback on ways to improve the organization. A good masters in executive leadership should discuss multiple process improvement methodologies that teach you how to make systematic small improvements while making sure you sustain the gains with each change.

Conclusion

Employee engagement can be improved pretty quickly if you use the proper procedures. Start by providing useful training to new hires and existing employees so that they are better able to do their jobs and move into better ones. Ask employees their opinions and then heed them. And try to streamline work processes so that procedures don’t become hindrances to getting work done.

How to Motivate Your Employees

/in /by

StrategyDriven Talent Management Article
Employees who lack motivation will only slow down the productivity and growth of your business. Yet, the responsibility to work harder is not solely their responsibility. It is an employer’s job to ensure they inspire their staff each day to maximize their performance. Find out how to motivate your employees.

Focus on Individuals

Employees can often become frustrated in their role when they feel they are simply another number in the business. If a member of staff feels undervalued or isolated in their role, you can almost guarantee they’ll have less passion for the company, and will not be willing to work as hard as they once had for the business.

Take a few moments out of your day to speak to individuals, so you can make your team feel appreciated. Remember to offer direct praise for an employee’s job well done, which could be as simple as a “thank you” or a monetary bonus. Also, if you notice an employee is unhappy or underperforming, take the team member aside to discuss how they are feeling and to find a solution, which will prove you are willing to go above and beyond to make them feel happy and comfortable at work.

Create a Relaxed Workplace

The work environment can significantly affect employee morale and productivity. If you want your office to have a positive impact on your staff’s mentality, you should review the workplace layout. For example, it might be helpful to pull down the cubicle walls to create a more open, collaborative space – or you could introduce a relaxing break room. If you are unsure where to start, contact professional office designers in London to transform a space, such as STOiCA Office.

Provide Advancement Opportunities

Many employees can become bored of the same routine month after month, or even year after year. Providing advancement opportunities will, therefore, give a member of staff a reason to work harder, while helping to grow your business. So, rather than hiring external candidates, utilize the talent and knowledge of your internal employees, who will revel in their new responsibilities and tasks. It’s an effective way to harness their passion for the industry while retaining your best employees.

Lead by Example

An employer sets the tone for values, work ethic and passion for the business. If you’re always late, you can guarantee your staff will follow in your footsteps. If you browse the internet, they’ll do the same, and so on. It is important to lead by example when running a business, as your commitment to the industry and passion for hard work can become infectious across the company. Always try to have a positive attitude to every situation, even when facing difficult challenges, which will encourage your team to mirror your actions.

Develop a Transparent Environment

Employees will fail to trust their employer if they believe the business is keeping secrets from them. You can guarantee they will respect you as a leader if you are open and transparent about the company and any upcoming changes. The more transparent you are, the more comfortable they will feel when approaching you with an idea or problem, too. Introduce an open-door policy to ensure every team member feels their voice is being heard and that their opinions are valued.

Top Benefits to Offer Your Employees for Improved Productivity

/in /by

StrategyDriven Talent Management Article
Regardless of how much you may want your employees to work at their best all the time, this simply isn’t possible. Your employees are people, and they have good days, and bad days, and their productivity workflow will reflect this. Sometimes, however, an employee’s decreasing productivity and effectiveness is more substantial, and that is when you need to step in and help. Stress, and constant stress, can severely impact someone’s health. It can put them in pain, it can lower their immune system, and it could even put them on the edge of a breakdown. Offering your employees benefits can help them manage this stress, meaning that not only will they be happier working for you, they will also be better able to work for you. Here are the top benefits you should offer your employees:

1. A Break Room

Having a proper break room will allow your employees somewhere to get away from their desk and to refuel. Offer complimentary tea, coffee, and even snacks like protein bars to help keep them going whenever they need it. Similarly, you should also aim to have a few kitchen appliances as well, like a fridge, microwave, and even a toaster oven. Encourage your employees to be healthier, and to bring their own food. To do this, you could have a reward program for the employee who brings their own lunch in the most often at the end of the month.

2. A Spa Visit

Stress and sitting at a desk all day causes physical pain. It can cause seriously painful and distracting back problems that lower productivity immensely, which is why a great benefit to offer is an annual or bi-annual massage. Contact heavenandearthmassage.co.uk and set up a program for your employees. They will not only be thrilled with this benefit, but it will help them manage pain and de-stress.

3. Rewards for Milestones

Pitting your employees against each other doesn’t do a lot of good. Instead, it means that those who would achieve the results in the first-place work harder to beat each other, and those that aren’t likely to win will try less. Instead, offer rewards for milestones. That way everyone is motivated to do better. These rewards don’t have to be big. They can be a few extra days of vacation, or they can be tickets to some event in town. Reward your employees so that they work for positive reinforcement, not because they are stressing about not making the deadline in time.

4. In-Office Gym

Depending on the size of your company, you can either offer discounted memberships to gyms, or even install a gym inside your office space itself. Encourage your employees to exercise, so that they have improved immune systems, lower blood pressure, increased mood, and overall a bigger boost in energy.

These benefits won’t cost the world, but they can give a lot back. You don’t want your employees to burn out working for you, you want them to be on top of their game, and these benefits can help them do that.