One of the most effective methods to boost employee productivity is to encourage your workforce to work together in order to achieve their goals. Workplace collaboration allows multiple employees to combine their efforts and energies into a common project, adding value to the final product and often completing it more quickly. The benefits don’t end there, either. Here are some of the other advantages gained by encouraging collaboration among your workforce.
Owning any piece of technology in today’s day and age is like a playing with fire. While it’s a great tool that has allowed civilization to grow and make great strides toward a better future, there’s also significant risk involved with owning such an expensive piece of technology. If it breaks down on you, you’ll be left with both a dent in your pocket and possibly even a chunk of your data missing. Here are three ways that even the average PC user can improve the performance of their technology and extend its life cycle considerably.
How many hours a day do you work? Chances are that, as a business owner, you put in more than the average worker. Your team might put in the requisite eight hours, but you might find yourself putting in more. After all, working more hours means more productivity, right? Well… wrong. A recent study shows that eight hours of work, while revolutionary 200 years ago, is still too long to expect good work from your employees.
Let’s be honest; when was the last time you seriously went out of your way to take a day off from work? The corporate business environment often leads both business owners and normal office workers to overindulge themselves in their work. Plus, the mobile-first business model isn’t making it any easier to take time off, as you’re connected to the office no matter what. However, science is proving that it’s not just beneficial, but practically necessary, to take time off on occasion.
For every business, it’s essential to be prepared for any unforeseen problems that can disrupt day-to-day operations. One easy way to do this is by keeping an extra workstation on hand.
As a business owner, you walk a fine line between boss and friend. While you want to be approachable and have a company culture that’s friendly, you can’t have your employees be your closest friends. Being too close to your staff will blur your authority, breed favoritism, and make it difficult to fire people; but not being friendly will make for a cold working environment. How do you manage this social dynamic?
One of the biggest challenges of running a business is attracting and retaining quality workers. To accomplish this, you’re going to need more than an old-fashioned “help wanted” ad. These days, you will need to offer what quality employees are looking for--a flexible workplace environment.
Everybody loves a vacation from work, but nobody enjoys the stress of catching up when returning from said vacation. It doesn’t have to be this way. By taking a few precautions, you can avoid ever again having to say, “I need a vacation from my vacation.”
Revising documents is a task that can take forever, especially when multiple people have to make edits and suggestions. Before you know it, the sidebar will be filled with comments and the text will be so drastically changed that it will feel like you didn’t write it in the first place. In these instances, it might help to view the original document and the new one side by side. Here are two great tools that let you do so.
Today’s workplace productivity has reached a peak, but thanks to this enhanced amount of work, the office environment can often feel hectic and stressful. This usually leads to workers skipping breaks just so that they don’t fall behind. While this maintains the semblance of productivity, it can often lead to a significant decrease in creativity and physical health.
Every business owner knows what’s expected of them when it comes time to onboard a new hire. When the training videos are all watched and the new employee is lined up to kick butt and take names, is that when your job as overseer ends, or is there more that you can do to get more productivity out of your staff?
Sometimes you feel exhausted when you get out of work, but you have no idea why. It might be because you’re straining your eyes too much by staring at the computer screen. Or, maybe it’s your back that’s killing you, and even moving slightly is a pain. Perhaps it’s carpal tunnel ravaging the nerves in your wrist. If any of this sounds familiar, it’s safe to say that you could use a workstation overhaul.
When it comes to the workplace, people want more than they used to. It used to be all about the salary and decent working conditions, but that has significantly changed in the past decade. In order to attract the best talent and stay ahead of the competition, you want to provide optimal working conditions when possible. Thankfully, by providing your team with a few accommodations, it doesn’t have to be difficult for everyone to enjoy their workday.
Everyone is well aware of how mobile technology is changing everything. Therefore, it's a matter of time before we see new tech drastically change the office layout. This is what's happening in forward-thinking offices with a trend called "hoteling." If your business enjoys mobile technology and you want to get the most collaboration out of your staff, then hoteling is right for you.
How familiar are you with the IT equipment owned by your business? If you don't keep detailed records of your equipment and enact security measures and policies, then you're making it easy for theft to occur. We've written a lot about protecting your business from data theft, but it's equally important that you take precautions to safeguard your stuff.
The office is a unique place designed solely for the purpose of getting work done. Therefore, no matter how your workplace is designed, there's always room to improve it in order to squeeze out a few more precious minutes of productivity from each worker. As productivity goes, every minute saved adds up!
When you experience an error or a performance issue with your company's computer system, you will troubleshoot the problem in hopes of resolving it quickly. Before you open the case of your hardware and start messing with components, check your cables. Even a small cabling issue can cause big problems with your entire network.
Technically speaking, it needs to be 158°F for a raw egg to become firm. The summer heat doesn't get that hot, but outdoor objects like sidewalks and car hoods that come in contact with it can. Thus the phrase, "It's so hot you can fry an egg on the sidewalk!" When it's hot outside, you need to keep your server units cool inside.
We've come across a fun, furry idea to relieve workplace stress. Kitties and puppies! In a fun twist to the workday, many companies are allowing staff to bring their pets with them to the office, and the results are adorable!
They say that home is where the heart is, and thanks to easily accessible remote networking tools, home can also be where your work is! One evidence of just how much employees love working from home comes from a recent survey of office workers where 25% admitted that they would take a reduction in salary if it meant they could work from home.