Workplace Tips Archives - NuTech Services LLC

Aug, 2022

How You Can Help Keep Your Employees Healthy in the Workplace?

Looking back at the past few years, it’s little wonder that many people have become more concerned about their health—particularly when it comes to the workplace and spending extended amounts of time in the vicinity of other people. This makes it important that you do everything you can to make your workplace a healthier and safer-feeling place to work… but how?

Fortunately, the technology available today gives you a few different options. Let’s touch on them to see what would work effectively for your needs.

What Can I Do to Help Ensure My Employees Remain Healthy?

Depending on the processes you’ve established for your workplace procedures, the right technology can facilitate more health-conscious practices. For instance, the fewer the number of people actually in the office, the less likely it is that a pathogen will be carried in and spread.

Remote/Hybrid Work Offers Health Advantages

Like we said, the fewer people that are in the office at any one time, the less likely it is that a germ is being carried inside. Remote and hybrid work allows your team to remain productive while spending at least some of their work time outside the office—so, while you’re keeping a germ from spreading through your workforce, you aren’t necessarily losing valuable time. Honestly, it’s a win-win.

Taking advantage of this win-win situation, however, will require some preparation. Namely, you need to ensure that your team members and business have access to the technology that remote work relies on, and that you have policies that address these options specifically.

Refurnish Your Office (and Reconsider How You Use It)

Changing workplace conditions is nothing new—it’s why computer mice are increasingly molded to better fit in one’s hand, and more and more focus has gone into break rooms and other amenities. Lately, people have been questioning how healthy it is to spend so much time seated at a desk, or seated in general. Studies have shown that remaining seated for such long periods can increase the chance of a heart attack… yikes.

Nowadays, standing and convertible desks are available to help encourage employees to stand every now and again. Likewise, you can also change the way that you carry out certain business functions. Maybe that regular meeting you have with one or two people can transition into a walking meeting.

Mental Health is Health, Too

It isn’t uncommon for people to focus on physical health—the size of their gut or the pain in their backs—over the needs of their mental health, despite the latter being a major aspect of their health overall. Having safeguards in place to ensure that your employees’ mental health is well taken care of is therefore a wise investment. Develop a positively-charged workplace and give them the support they need (seeking out feedback so you can do so effectively) to see some real benefits in their work and work lives.

Health and Safety Leads to Productivity

If you were able to improve your business’ success through simply making it a safer and healthier place to work, why wouldn’t you? NuTech Services can help you ensure your team remains healthy in any form by providing the technology that enables their operations either in the office or remotely. Find out more about our managed services by calling 810.230.9455.

Jul, 2022

Are Tensions High at Your Business? How to Get Relief

There are countless stressors that must be taken into consideration for your business, but there are two that stand out as chiefly important during the workday: digital/workplace friction and interpersonal friction. What can you do to help make them less of a problem for your employees?

Let’s examine what digital/workplace friction can do to disrupt your employees’ productivity.

Digital/Workplace Friction Comes from Excessive Options

Your team members have specific applications which they are expected to use for communications and collaboration, but how many of them actually have a choice in what they use? Simply put, the more options that your employees have to choose from, the greater the chances that they will have difficulty finding it later on—particularly in the realm of data storage and information processing. You could say the same thing about your company, to a degree.

Communication is the same way. The more ways that people have to get in touch with each other, the less clear the lines of communication will be, leading to miscommunication or being unavailable on platforms which someone expects them to be available on. Consider how many of these communications are strictly necessary and trim the fat, so to speak, so productivity can become the central part of their workdays.

Soothing This Kind of Friction is Relatively Simple…

To streamline the tools you use for communication and collaboration, consider removing your business’ legacy applications and systems, as they could be holding your organization back while also putting it at risk, if you aren’t properly maintaining them. Really, after a certain point, it becomes a question of value, as well. Surely there is a better application that fulfills the needs of your business, right? Remember to keep your eyes on the outcome and your mind open to the tools that help facilitate that process.

Interpersonal Friction is a Somewhat Different Beast…

…and it’s one that remote work has created complications for. Furthermore, since it is easy for employees to hide behind their keyboard, dead giveaways for friction like body language can go unaddressed, allowing feelings to fester over time.

If left unchecked, this kind of friction can eventually lead to a disdain for the company or even resentment, something which will impact your bottom line. Imagine a workplace where people would rather call in sick than deal with the interpersonal friction they might experience, or the mental health problems it can exacerbate.

It’s In Your Best Interest to Minimize Interpersonal Friction However You Can

Fortunately, you can do something about this before it’s too late, and it all starts with involving your remote team in more communications. This starts with ensuring that your business’ employees have access to the tools they need to work with each other in a productive and personal way, like video conferencing and instant messaging. They can all be found in modern collaboration platforms, for the most part.

It’s also incredibly important to be able to spot potential problems with your employees, all while opening up the conversation and ensuring that communication tools are there to help you facilitate it. While in a video conference, for example, you might notice body language cues or tone of voice. Little things like these can be powerful hints as to what must be addressed with interpersonal friction.

We Can’t Help You Ease Workplace Tensions, But We Can Give You the Tools You Need to Do So

NuTech Services wants to help your company overcome its friction through the use of better communication and collaboration strategies. To learn more, reach out to us at 810.230.9455.

Jun, 2022

4 Steps to Improve Your IT Decisions

Businesses are rarely successful without the ones steering the ship having the ability to make great decisions. Whether it’s managing your workforce, supporting your customers, or procuring the right equipment to best facilitate productivity, good decision making will be at the heart of any organization’s success. Let’s examine how you can make better decisions as they pertain to your technology solutions.

The most important part of procuring any new technology solution is how it will impact your workflow. With so many technology solutions out there, you need to implement those that make sense for your business. To ensure this happens, consider the following four suggestions.

Consider Alternative Costs

Implementing a new solution is wonderful, but only if your staff know how to use it. If you try to implement a solution to enhance productivity, you’ll need to also consider the return on investment in terms of how much time you’ll have to spend getting your team on board with it, along with the time spent training and testing your staff on its use. It might not seem like an immediately apparent cost, but we assure you it is a very real one.

Involve the Right People In the Discussion

When discussing new technology implementations, it’s important to get the perspectives of the people who will be using it. This might mean asking your staff, particularly experienced employees, or other stakeholders and management. With these valuable perspectives on your side, you’ll be able to make the most educated decisions possible about any new technology implementation project.

Choose Your Partners Carefully

When it comes time to add new solutions to your infrastructure and processes, you’ll want to work with businesses that have your company’s best interests at heart. In other words, the vendors you work with should be invested in your company’s success rather than just looking for their next big sale.

Remember to Set Achievable Goals

Without realistic and achievable goals, any new technology implementation will be doomed to failure. Big changes might be a big deal for your business, but only if they have direction. Otherwise, you could wind up being mired in the processes that drag your business down and prevent it from making any forward progress. With clear objectives and goals, you’ll be able to optimize your chances for success.

When it comes to implementing new technology, it’s best to leave this important task to professional technicians with years of experience and expertise. NuTech Services can consult your organization on the best path forward. To learn more about what we can do for your company, reach out to us at 810.230.9455.

Jun, 2022

Computers Don’t Like Physical Persuasion

Sometimes it might be tempting to just smack your computer to make it work appropriately, and while it’s often a joke that this can fix the problem, it’s not something that we would recommend you get used to doing. Let’s discuss why it might not be a good idea to abuse your computer.

Repair-via-Violence is Sometimes Referred to as Percussive Maintenance

Yes, there is an actual term for hitting your technology to make it work. According to Techopedia, the definition is as follows:

“In IT, percussive maintenance is the art of shaking, banging or pounding on something, in order to make it work. Experts generally define percussive maintenance as the use of rough impact on physical hardware to solve some type of malfunction.”

It might work for you in your own life, particularly with technology like radios or televisions, but why shouldn’t you do this with your office technology?

Because It Can Break Your Business’ Technology, That’s Why

The reason why percussive maintenance might work sometimes is that issues can come about due to loose connections, and the impact could actually reposition the internal components. However, the opposite could happen, and you could damage your computer even more.

Comparatively speaking, the odds of making a problem worse through percussive maintenance are just as high as you resolving the problem. It’s not a risk that you want to take with something as expensive and important as your office technology. It’s like dropping your phone; your heart drops as you fumble with it, knowing full well that it will cause more harm than good if it hits the ground.

Even though percussive maintenance has been known to work on occasion, it’s not something that we ever recommend. You should leave your computer problems to us so that you don’t have to beat your technology to make it work.

With Managed Services, You’ll Have a Better Option than Just Hitting Your Device

NuTech Services can help you identify the causes of your technology problems and take the appropriate steps to resolve them. To learn more, reach out to us at 810.230.9455.

Jun, 2022

When Working Remotely, Cybersecurity Has to Be a Priority

Cybersecurity is something that must be reinforced both in the office and out of the office for your remote employees, and it’s unfortunately quite difficult to maintain. Let’s take a look at the unique circumstances surrounding the remote worker and how you should reinforce security best practices for them, even if they are not physically present in the workplace.

Best Practice: Provide Them with the Tools to Stay Secure

It’s important that you give your employees the tools they need to stay secure while outside the protection of your in-house network. We recommend that all remote workers utilize a fully up-to-date antivirus software at all times, as well as a virtual private network (VPN) connection. A VPN in particular is an excellent tool for just about any business, as it can keep onlookers from snooping through the traffic moving to and from your employees’ devices.

Best Practice: Emphasize Password Security Even More

There are several password best practices that should be followed, including a couple that we keep near and dear to our hearts at all times: never write down your password, always use a different password for a new account, create a passphrase that is difficult to crack, and so on. Remote employees should be held to the same standards as your in-house workers, and perhaps they should practice even more stringent guidelines. You want to craft a culture of cybersecurity that reinforces appropriate password best practices so that these standards stay at the top of your priority list at all times.

Best Practice: Reinforce Physical Protections

There is more to cybersecurity than just the digital component of it; you must also consider the physical security side. Be sure to keep unexamined peripheral devices away from your work hardware, and be sure that any and all hardware used for work is kept secure at all times. We recommend that you reserve it for work exclusively rather than using it for your personal use, too. Doing so helps to keep it secure, and it helps to keep you sane, too.

These tips are only the beginning of an appropriate remote cybersecurity policy. We recommend that you contact NuTech Services for even more great tips and tricks on cybersecurity. To learn more, give us a call at 810.230.9455.

Feb, 2022

It’s Important Not to Overdo Things When Working from Home

Contrary to what many might assume, remote work is commonly associated with overwork—employees working longer hours and having difficulties disconnecting from professional life during their personal time. This can have some serious consequences if not offset in some way, so let’s discuss how this can be accomplished.

Overwork is a Serious Issue, Especially for Remote Workers

Recent years have seen a lot of work and workplace-related issues come to the forefront that, quite frankly, this blog isn’t the place to discuss… things like racial imbalances and wage inequality have gotten more attention than ever. However, overwork is a challenge that we can tackle here.

There are many ways that your business could be influenced by the impacts of overwork. Your employees can quickly become burned out, as overworked employees experience anxiety and fatigue, along with physical symptoms like pain, headaches, and vision problems. Remote work can also become detrimental to the communications your employees share with one another… and we can’t forget all the added stress and pressure that the pandemic has brought.

All things considered, it’s no wonder that overworking could ultimately be a detriment to an employee’s overall performance and productivity. So, what can be done to prevent this kind of overworking?

Reducing Overwork in Remote Work

While it isn’t realistic that you can hold each of your employees’ hands throughout their workday (and doing so might result in more than a few HR inquiries), there are things you can do to help reduce how much your employees are held back by the tendency to overwork themselves—starting with your policies in and out of the office.

Encourage Schedules

In the home and in the office alike, adhering to a schedule is an effective way to keep the amount of time an employee commits to work processes in balance with their off-hours. This should include not only the time spent working in terms of keeping to their scheduled work hours, but also as a way to help them establish a routine in their personal life that helps them better prepare for their time working.

Track Their Time with Specialized Tools

While time tracking can help keep your team accountable to you, they also help keep them accountable to themselves. Giving them a referenceable way to gauge where they are in their day and their assigned tasks can be of great help. If you need assistance in establishing which of the available time-tracking tools would be best for your needs, we’re always here to provide this help to you.

Empower Your Team to Chime In

If your team members are becoming overwhelmed by their work responsibilities and simply cannot finish all they are assigned in the time available to them, you need to be sure that they know they can come to you to inform you of this. They also need to be comfortable doing so, so operational issues can be resolved as they are revealed.

If you are in need of the tools that can help encourage your team’s success, NuTech Services can help. Give us a call at 810.230.9455 today.

May, 2021

Working from Home is a Mixed Bag for Parents

For all its benefits, remote work can introduce plenty of complications. These complications can easily make employees question a lot of things about their careers, including whether or not they should continue working for the same company they have been. This has been particularly the case amongst workers with children also in the home.

Let’s consider a few of the many considerations that remote work has introduced, and how your employees with families might be feeling in response.

How Children Can Complicate COVID Considerations

Or, more accurately, the family dynamic as a whole.

While raising a child can be challenging in and of itself, trying to work remotely while also ensuring they remain safe, cared for, and educated adds an additional level of difficulty into the mix. Just consider how many relied on regular childcare services in order to balance their responsibilities in a responsible way before the pandemic began, even in addition to the fact that the lion’s share of their childrens’ days were spent in school. Once schools closed down and social distancing principles spread, it became nigh on impossible to both work and parent effectively without some give and take.

This has created an assortment of concerns for working parents in addition to the assorted challenges that remote work can have in terms of professional performance and business relationships. For instance, many different considerations have occupied the thoughts of parents who are now working remotely, including concerns about returning to the conventional workplace in general. Childcare responsibilities concern 49 percent, second only to the risk of being exposed to COVID-19 (53 percent), and above decreased work flexibility (48 percent), diminished work-life balance (46 percent), or office politics (31 percent).

Concerns and Impacts of Remote Work

Working parents also have a lot to worry about, professionally speaking:

60 percent of parents have felt impacts of burnout, as compared to a general population rate of 56 percent.
41 percent report worse-off mental health since the pandemic began, as compared to 38 percent of the population.
19 percent of parents worry about their chances of promotion while working remotely, while only 14 percent of all respondents do.
22 percent of parents report their skills suffering, while the general population rate is just 19 percent.
Working parents have also been struggling with boundaries and various complications while working from home.
- 40 percent overwork, or work longer than they should
- 36 percent deal with distractions unrelated to work
- 28 percent have to deal with unreliable Wi-Fi connectivity
- 26 percent deal with tech issues that need troubleshooting
- 24 percent are worn down by video meetings
- 18 percent have issues maintaining their relationships with coworkers
- 16 percent have issues maintaining their relationships with their bosses

In turn, the realities of raising children while also trying to work remotely has had a varied impact on the employment status of many parents:

43 percent of parents have seen no impacts
21 percent cut back on their working hours
16 percent quit work while planning to rejoin the workforce later
4 percent had a partner reduce their hours
2 percent quit work with no intention of returning
2 percent had a partner quit as a result

However, Employees Don’t Want to Give Up Remote Operations

So long as their industry enables them to do so, many want the capability to work from home—to some extent, at least—to continue once the situation normalizes. The success that many have seen makes this a reasonable goal. After all, if businesses have maintained their operations remotely during this time, why couldn’t or wouldn’t they once a return to the office was feasible?

Many have reported that the elimination of the commute alone has had impacts on the rest of their itineraries that make life much easier to manage, with increased family time being another benefit of such flexibility.

Otherwise, lots of workers predict that remote work will help to support workplace gender equality, along with a litany of other benefits to the workforce and employers alike, including heightened productivity, an improved work-life balance, and fewer office politics.

One way or another, the question of remote work and the concept of a flexible work environment is one that most companies are going to have to answer at some point. NuTech Services can assist you in implementing the technology needed to support all of your operations, in-house and out. To find out what we can do for you, give us a call at 810.230.9455.

Feb, 2021

Tip of the Week: Embedding a YouTube Video into a PowerPoint Presentation

If you’re trying to share an idea in a presentation, adding a brief video clip can make it very simple to communicate with your audience. With this in mind, it is quite helpful that Microsoft PowerPoint makes it simple to embed a YouTube video directly into your presentation, whether you’re using PowerPoint 365 or PowerPoint 2016.

Embedding a YouTube Video in PowerPoint 2016

To embed a video into your presentation:

Navigate to YouTube and find the video you want to include in your presentation.
Find the Share option and select Embed from the menu that appears when you click into it.
You’ll see a preview of your chosen video’s thumbnail, along with a series of code and some other options that allow you to control the point from which the video starts, whether your embedded video will provide viewers with controls, and the ability to enable a privacy-enhanced mode (which pertains more to videos that are posted on a website). Copy this code in its entirety.
Back in PowerPoint, click into the Insert tab and select Video. Select Online Video from the provided drop-down.
A box will appear. Paste the code you copied into the From a Video Embed Code field. Alternatively, you could attempt searching for the video you wanted to use using the YouTube search field.

Embedding a YouTube Video in PowerPoint 365

The process when using PowerPoint 365 is very similar:

Find the video you wish to embed on YouTube. Copy its URL from the address bar.
In PowerPoint, click on the Insert tab. Select Video, then Online video…
Paste the URL into the Online Video dialog box.
You can also add various effects to the video preview (not the video that plays) via the buttons in the Video Format tab.

Regardless of the version you’re using, Microsoft PowerPoint has an excellent reputation amongst those who know how to use it. It, like many other solutions, provides much-needed capabilities that no business can fully go without.

Whatever your needs may be, NuTech Services can help you see to them. Give us a call at 810.230.9455 to find out more about what we have to offer.

Oct, 2020

Clearing the Ethical Hurdles of Employee Monitoring

Employee monitoring—the practice of keeping an eye on your employees and their computer activity during work hours—isn’t exactly a new practice. However, with remote work suddenly seeing a huge boost in popularity, many businesses have sought to confirm that their workers are spending their work time as productively as possible. If you do choose to go this route, however, it is important to be aware of the lines that you cannot cross.

Monitoring Employees Without Their Knowledge

We figured it would be most appropriate to discuss the no-go option first, which would be to start monitoring your employees without their knowledge or consent. As you would imagine, this is the shadier side of the monitoring spectrum, and is actually illegal in most cases. Unless you have reason to believe an employee is actively acting out and are investigating them, you are not allowed to use monitoring software to keep an eye on your team without telling them.

So, as much as I hate to have to say it, don’t do that. Instead, inform your team of your intention to monitor their systems, what you will be monitoring, and—most crucially—why. This is the real key. Transparency is the most important thing to have with your employees. Studies have even shown that this kind of transparency makes your team more comfortable with these kinds of arrangements.

Monitoring Employees While They Aren’t Working

Again, with so many employees working remotely, it may be tempting for many employers to just continue monitoring these devices even after work hours have ended. It’s one less thing to worry about that way, right?

Wrong.

What if the employee ends their day or takes a break, and decides to log into their bank account to check in on their finances? You could easily capture sensitive information without meaning to, putting you on the hook in the legal sense. To avoid this, you have a few options you can exercise. Your first option is to simply ban employees from using work technology for personal matters. Your second option is to enable your team members to turn off the monitoring software when they are not actively working.

Not Making Use of Your Monitoring Data

A big part of ethically monitoring your employees comes down to your intent, your motivation for doing so. Are you looking to improve productivity by identifying inefficiencies and bottlenecks? Great. Are you ensuring that there are no data leaks that need to be mitigated? Fantastic. Are you simply using it to make sure that your employees are at their desks working? There are better ways to account for that.

Employee monitoring should always be a means, not the end. Whenever you implement it, it needs to be in service of a specific goal. When used in this way, and not just because you want to keep a closer eye on your team, it can bring some significant benefits.

NuTech Services can help bring these benefits and more to your operations. To find out how our team can help you implement and manage the technology your business needs supporting it, give us a call at 810.230.9455 today.

Oct, 2020

Should You Use Wired or Wireless Connections?

It hasn’t been too long since connectivity required an actual physical connection between the connecting endpoints, making a wired connection the de facto option for businesses. However, now that wireless connectivity is so widely available, businesses now have a choice… but which is the better option? Let’s compare some of the pros of each to make the answer a little clearer.

Why a Hardwired Connection?

Security

The fact is that a direct connection is inherently more secure than one that is broadcast over the airwaves, as these have the potential to be snagged in transit much more easily. Therefore, if security is paramount, a wired connection is the better option by default. That said, there are ways to secure your wireless connection, utilizing a VPN.

Speed

Wired connections are also much faster than a wireless one, whether data is being communicated within your business network or to and from the Internet. In terms of efficiency, the wired connection comes out on top.

Stability

Save for a case of infrastructure failure, the only way you could lose a wired connection would be if the wire were to be unplugged. This stability not only makes them more reliable; it contributes to the consistency of the aforementioned higher speeds.

Why a Wireless Connection?

Convenience

The lack of cables that a wireless connection requires just makes Internet access so much simpler for a business to implement. Without the need to adapt any existing infrastructure to run wires and such things, it is far easier to add, subtract, and move users around as need be.

Mobility

Wi-Fi’s inherent mobility works so well for businesses because a user can pick up what they’re doing and bring it with them if they have the right device. This makes it much more practical to implement in the workplace, especially if collaboration requires meetings to happen in various places in the office.

Scope

Speaking of the right device, a wireless connection enables work to be done on a much wider, and yes, more mobile assortment of solutions. On a related note, businesses that interact with the public regularly can configure their Wi-Fi to offer guest functionality. This enables these businesses to offer their patrons a convenient perk.

Why Hybrid May Be Best

This is the real important takeaway: you don’t have to choose between wired and wireless connectivity.

Embracing both options can effectively negate the shortcomings of either, ultimately improving your business’ capability to get work done—large tasks performed over the wired connections, with communication and collaboration sticking to Wi-Fi. It all comes down to your business’ individual needs and situation.

Whichever option works best for you, you can count on NuTech Services being the best resource you can turn to. Find out what we have to offer in terms of assistance and support by calling 810.230.9455.

Sep, 2020

Tip of the Week: Minding Your Manners in the Office Again

In the office, there are certain courtesies that most people follow, simply to make sure that the environment remains a peaceful and effective place to work. Working at home (as many have) makes many of these courtesies redundant. As many return to the office, resuming these manners will be important. Let’s go over some of the biggest shifts that your employees should remember as they head back to the office.

Mobile Device Use

When working from home, the reasonable threshold for mobile device use is significantly different. Theoretically, you could talk to someone on speakerphone with the phone across the room (although you shouldn’t). However, there are other people with you in the office that you could potentially distract.

Take a moment and remind your team of this. Instead of holding long conversations at their desk, make sure they try to keep their calls brief and that they do whatever they can to avoid disturbing others—including leaving the area, if necessary.

Instant Messaging Use

Again, we have the kind of situation where the standards in the office are much different than those for a remote worker. When working remotely, your team needs to be able to communicate and should do so in both a professional and social manner. This is not so much the case in the office.

Allow me to clarify. When a team is working remotely, some socialization via instant messaging can be considered appropriate, so long as it is not interfering with the workday’s processes. This is simply because they are working remotely and can’t socialize with one another face-to-face. In the office, your team can—and almost certainly will—socialize throughout the day amongst themselves. Again, if done in moderation this encourages cooperation, but it can become a hindrance to your productivity if it goes too far. There is also the risk that if your messaging solution is used too much as a stand-up special your team will be less likely to read the important messages that are shared.

Moderation is key, so make sure your team is aware of that as they come back in.

Proper Communications

With so many working from home, remote conferencing solutions have seen a lot of use in recent months. While it may have been out of necessity at first, many users have begun to see the value of the integrated webcam on their laptop when it comes to holding a virtual meeting.

Of course, if these technologies are so helpful to us now, why should that change once people are back in the office? Communications with prospects and clients alike can be improved through a good conferencing solution. Continuing to embrace their options will only help to make the business and its processes more agile.

Whenever it is that people finally get back to the office for the long term, there’s a good chance that some bad habits may have developed by that time. Make sure that you address your expectations in a comprehensive written company policy. Reviewing these policies with your team, along with your privacy and security standards, will help smooth out the transition process and make your expectations clear.

If you’ve already transitioned back, tell us, how has it gone? Are there any challenges that you didn’t expect? Share them in the comments and reach out to NuTech Services for any technical assistance needed. Give us a call at 810.230.9455 to learn how we can help your team remain productive, wherever they’re working.

Aug, 2020

How to Set the Tone for Workplace Collaboration

Collaboration—one of the more popular workplace buzzwords you hear nowadays, it serves a very important function for any successful business. Therefore, establishing healthy collaborative processes should be considered a priority in any establishment’s operations.

Let’s review what true collaboration is, and how you can lead your company towards more collaborative behaviors in your day-to-day undertakings.

Teamwork and Collaboration Aren’t the Same Thing

First, it is important that we define the difference between these two seemingly synonymous terms. While it is possible to work as a team without collaborating, collaboration requires some element of teamwork to be present.

Consider it this way: by definition, teamwork is the combined action of a group of people. While this could mean that each member of the team is contributing to each step along with their teammates, signifying collaboration, it might instead signify that the task and its requisite responsibilities have been divided up amongst the group.

Teamwork, yes. Collaboration? No.

Other differences between these apparent synonyms:

There is a tendency for a team to have a set leader to set the course of whatever project is being worked on, while collaboration thrives in an egalitarian group setting.
Teamwork can be effective in completing a business’ short-term goals, while long-term goals are better served by collaborative behaviors.
As we hinted at, teamwork requires someone to be in control of the group. Collaboration requires the group’s members to trust one another.

Collaboration Can Benefit Your Business and Your Team

Embracing the cooperative elements of a collaborative work environment can have universal benefits to those involved. For instance:

Your Operations

As the saying goes, two heads are better than one. However, if you have a whole team’s worth of heads, why not make the most of them to help advance your business? With collaboration instilled in your workplace culture, you will find it easier to come up with solutions to your operational challenges. Furthermore, your employees will be more engaged in their work, which itself brings considerable benefits, including increased revenue growth, diminished turnover, fewer accidents, and heightened productivity.

Your Employees

When it comes to the people you’ve hired to work for your business, collaboration can improve their experience as well. In addition to the shared knowledge that can benefit everyone’s quality of work, collaboration can improve the relationships between your employees. This is particularly important, as a study has shown that office friendships are the most important facet of work satisfaction for 70 percent of employees. Fittingly, collaboration leads to increased morale, which positively influences productivity and employee retention alike.

Encouraging Collaboration

So, with so much riding on your office collaboration, it is important that you endorse it in any way you can and actively encourage it amongst your workforce. But how does one do that?

There are a few strategies that you should adopt to accomplish improved collaborative habits.

Unite the Team with a Mission and Establish Expectations

It is important that your team understands how crucial they each are to your company’s success, as this can give meaning to their responsibilities in the context of your company’s shared overarching goal.

This goal is essentially your company’s mission. Once your mission is clarified, it becomes easier to set benchmarks that need to be met and what each team member’s individual role will be in accomplishing it.

Reward Collaboration and Innovation

Naturally, a positive response to collaborative efforts is going to provide no small motivation for your team to adopt them. A similar attitude toward new approaches in the office should also be in place. Risks can often lead to rewards, which means that an employee who is willing to try something new might discover a better method to fuel productivity. At the very least, they’ll confirm that you’re on the right path if your current methodology proves more effective.

Foster your team’s creativity and embrace input.

Support Your Team with Collaborative Tools

Here’s the hard truth: your employees are bound to have varying skill sets. Brian may be a brilliant writer, while Beth may have an affinity for customer service. Allowing your employees to work at those tasks they excel at will only benefit your outcomes. These outcomes can be augmented further using collaboration tools. With more people than ever before working remotely, these tools are more crucial than they have ever been. Make sure that your team is equipped with the technology solutions to collaborate even while distant from one another.

NuTech Services is here to help your business collaborate as effectively as possible, with the tools and resources your team will need at the ready. Learn more about how we can help sustain your effective operations through our managed services by giving us a call at 810.230.9455.

Mar, 2020

How to Encourage Collaboration in Your Place of Work

Collaboration: it is the gold standard of teamwork that so many businesses seek. If your employees aren’t naturally drawn to the idea, however, there are some ways that you can help to sell the concept. Let’s discuss a few of the ways that you can coax your users into collaborative behaviors.

Have Them Socialize Outside of the Office

Let’s look at how kids behave for a moment… if told to partner up, they—almost automatically—gravitate toward their friends, the people they are comfortable spending time with. Your employees will do the same, both in and out of the office.

Collaboration greatly relies on some level of trust and familiarity, which is most effectively developed outside of the professional environment. Encourage your staff to socialize outside of work hours, or even treat them on occasion, on one condition: no shop talk. While your employees may not all be fast friends afterwards, they’ll understand one another much better and be able to work more effectively.

Tell Them What You Want

Speaking of efficacy, make sure your team understands what you expect from them in terms of results. This goes double when collaborative work is involved. A clear understanding of a task makes it easier to determine how to accomplish it, and how their combined efforts can best serve their purpose.

Walk the Walk

If you really want your team to work collaboratively, make the first move and involve yourself in the process. “Rank” or “position” should have no bearing on how able someone is to participate in a collaborative process, and there is no telling who could be struck with inspiration. Actively seek input from your team and demonstrate how you want your employees to work together.

Use Your Resources Wisely

While there’s a time for either, there is a difference between combining your resources to accomplish a given task and having your employees collaborate. The former is great if a lot of a single task needs to be finished quickly, but if a complicated process needs to be completed, it helps more to give the task to a group of people who have different proficiencies. This way, you have a better chance of the necessary skills being present in the group.

Acknowledge Accomplishments

A team that doesn’t feel appreciated is a team that won’t accomplish much. Why would they, if it doesn’t seem to matter whether they excel, or put out a thoroughly mediocre performance? This is especially the case if a single member’s performance is publicly singled out, as though they did all the work.

To encourage your team to perform well as a group, make sure that the entire group receives some recognition of their combined efforts.

Make Collaboration the Easy Option

Regardless of how motivated your team may be to collaborate with one another, it just isn’t going to happen if they don’t have the opportunity or means to effectively do so. While this may have been a more reasonable obstacle in the past, today’s available technology invalidates any excuse your team may have… mostly due to the Internet serving as the greatest collaborative tool the world has ever seen. The easier the collaborative process is, whether you lean on an Internet-based application or an internal resource or both to simplify things, the more likely it is for your employees to work with each other.

We’re Here to Help.

NuTech Services is ready and willing to deliver the solutions you need to promote collaboration among your staff. Give us a call at 810.230.9455 to hear more about your options.

Feb, 2020

Tip of the Week: Four Fundamental Small Business Tech Tips

Technology impacts the business landscape more than it ever has, and its impact shows no sign of slowing. This is especially the case for the small business, which now has a much larger pool of competitors to deal with. As a result, it is more crucial than ever that small businesses take advantage of technology to assist them. Let’s go over a few tips that every small business should act upon.

1. Adopt Technology Solutions

Regardless of your industry, who your business serves, or even where you operate, there are some universal changes that technology has brought to how the average small-to-medium-sized business functions. Methods of collaboration have shifted to digital formats, “coming to work” is no longer a prerequisite to working, and the filing cabinet has been rendered woefully obsolete by other, better options. Cloud solutions are a major contributor to this. I want you to take a moment and consider something: why were any of these changes made in the first place?

It is for the same reason that the assembly line process was adopted, or why we cook our food before eating it: it provides greater benefits than the old way. It is the same with business technology, and you will see this as a common theme throughout these tips. Don’t disqualify yourself from competing by removing your ability to do so.

2. Don’t Shortchange Email

Email is now the gold standard for business communications, for numerous reasons. While a small business might find it redundant to email an announcement, doing so can prove useful to their operations. For instance, let’s say Mary manages a small office with four or five employees. She could easily just announce an important message to the room, but what if James was at the dentist that day, or Rob had excused himself to the bathroom just before? What if Ellen had just connected for an important phone call?

Email provides an easy way for you to communicate with others in your workplace that ensures everyone gets the message, without disrupting operations too much.

3. Go Mobile

While we’re on the subject, let’s consider Ellen for a moment. In the past, making a phone call would tie her to her desk, so any distractions in the office would be an unavoidable issue. Nowadays, there are many ways that Ellen could hypothetically remove herself from the situation while still fulfilling her responsibilities. For instance, a Voice over Internet Protocol solution could allow her to make and take calls from anywhere she could establish a connection, so she could presumably find a quieter area to work without sacrificing her ability to do so.

Other solutions also offer some form of mobility, assuming they are backed up with enough security. For instance, if James was unable to get to the office after his dental appointment, he could still work on his assigned tasks from home with the right cloud-based solutions. Again, this helps eliminate his reliance upon getting to the office in order to produce.

4. Don’t Underestimate the Cloud

We’ve already touched upon how the cloud has shifted businesses, primarily focusing on how useful it is for hosting and storing data. However, this isn’t the only thing the cloud can do. Cloud technology enables today’s businesses to make use of tools that would ordinarily be out of reach. Yes, its storage capabilities can help make data more accessible to team members who need it, but it can also assist you in preserving your data in case of some disaster, give you access to computing resources that you couldn’t procure yourself, and provide you flexible access to your business applications.

5. Improve Your Security

A small business’ size once protected it from cybercrime, but nowadays, all businesses are fair game. In order to remain secure against these attacks, the right defenses need to be put in place. Things like firewalls, spam blockers, antivirus, and assorted other solutions help to reduce these risks. Additionally, any employee could potentially let in a significant threat, so all need to be educated on how to spot them, and the proper procedures to dealing with them.

NuTech Services is here to assist you in implementing these modern IT essentials, as well as maintaining them for you through our remote monitoring and access capabilities. To learn more about how else we can help your growing business, give us a call at 810.230.9455.

Dec, 2019

What to Include in a BYOD Policy

A Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policy is something that many organizations have adopted, for a few good reasons: employee satisfaction, cost savings, and productivity boosts included. However, it’s crucial that you don’t just assume that you can adopt a policy like BYOD without establishing some ground rules that your employees need to abide by.

Here, we’ll go over a few topics that your BYOD rules need to address.

Password Practices and Other Security

It’s hardly a secret that some people utilize lax passwords – especially on their personal devices, where there isn’t an IT department establishing policies to help ensure password strength. According to Pew Research Center, 28 percent of smartphone owners don’t use a screen lock. Obviously, this isn’t something that can be allowed in the business setting.

So, if your employees are going to use their personal devices to access business resources, you need to have a policy that their devices are set to lock after a certain period of inactivity, and require some form of authentication to unlock. Furthermore, the device should further lock down if an incorrect authentication code is input so many times.

Your policy should also include any required security solutions you plan to utilize as part of your mobile monitoring and management toolset. All devices should have antivirus installed, along with mobile device management and unified endpoint management solutions.

Provisioning and Network Security

Provisioning a personal device that is going to be used for company work helps to ensure a few things. Not only does it help to make sure that productivity applications are configured properly, it also helps to boost your security. Furthermore, your network needs to allow your employees’ devices to access the business network – not just a guest network you have set up. Of course, there should be procedures and safeguards in place to ensure that this is done securely.

Tracking, Remote Access, and Data Wiping

Accidents happen, and devices can be lost – and sometimes, stolen. Furthermore, any device that is attached to a company network and has accessed illegal content could possibly leave the company liable – especially if this content was accessed via the company network. Your IT team should have the capability to monitor what websites and content each device included in a BYOD strategy has accessed, as well as to remotely access these devices to help ensure their security should they wind up missing. It also helps if they can implement updates to work solutions and security measures.

If worse comes to worse, it is beneficial to be able to delete all of a device’s data remotely – that way, even if it is stolen, your data won’t be at risk for as long. This also comes in handy if an employee is ever to leave your employ and you want to make sure they no longer have your data (or access to it).

BYOD can offer significant benefits to any organization. To learn more about putting a policy in place at your business, give NuTech Services a call at 810.230.9455.

Dec, 2019

Tip of the Week: Tips to Help Manage Your IT Inventory Better

IT inventory management, also known as IT asset management or ITAM, is an important process for any business to undergo. This is effectively the process of ensuring that all of your information technology resources are accounted for and protected. Here, we’ve assembled some practices that will help make this process much simpler.

First, let’s delve into what ITAM actually covers.

Understanding ITAM

Consider all of the internal resources that your business uses, with the exception of your living, breathing employees. Everything that’s left can be considered an asset. ITAM narrows this down further into specifically the assets that pertain to your comprehensive IT infrastructure. This includes:

Hardware (like workstations, servers, printers, etc.)
Software (antivirus, productivity titles, etc.)
Any Peripherals (Keyboards, computer mice, other devices)

With these assets identified, ITAM assists you in tracking their purpose, how they interact, and other crucial details. This means, as you’ve likely realized, ITAM covers a considerable breadth of your resources, which makes it important that you keep it organized.

How ITAM Helps

A well-organized ITAM can help you save time and hassle by streamlining your processes, simply by keeping the data you need in a manageable and accessible record. As a result, you can make a variety of processes easier through improved data. This data can also help inform you of potential issues, or of the minimum requirements you have to meet to implement change.

Making the Most of ITAM

As promised, here are a few ways that you can optimize your use of IT asset management practices.

Make it a proactive process. Managing your technology assets needs to be something that you start before you are required to do so, and that isn’t abandoned after reaching a certain milestone. This will help keep you prepared for a wider range of circumstances.
Leverage automation. While Excel used to be an invaluable tool for asset management purposes, there are better options now that don’t require you to contend with spreadsheets that extend into the thousands of rows. Not only are automated solutions easier to manage, they come with a valuable set of added features to make your work life that much easier.
Track your assets. This one especially applies to your software. There is often a difference between what an agreement says can be deployed, and what can be deployed practically. Keeping your agreements and receipts helps you pass audits by proving compliance.

NuTech Services can assist you with your IT assets. To learn more, reach out to us at 810.230.9455.

Nov, 2019

Tip of the Week: Helpful Outlook Tips

Many businesses turn to Microsoft Outlook as their email client of choice. Did you know that Outlook comes with certain features that make it an even better business option? To help you get the most use out of Outlook, we’re sharing a few of these features as this week’s tip.

Consolidate Your Email with the Clean Up Tool

Businesses will often use email to communicate between groups of people, which is a really useful practice for keeping people apprised and in-the-know of what’s going on. However, these messages can quickly become repetitive, incoherent messes–especially in chains made up of larger groups–as participants reply to them, duplicating the thread within itself. Outlook includes a utility known as the Clean Up tool to fix these problems in your email conversations, and even in entire email folders.

By finding the Clean Up icon in the ribbon at the top of your Outlook window, you can access a drop-down menu. This menu offers to Clean Up Conversation, Clean Up Folder, or Clean Up Folder & Subfolders. Once you’ve confirmed your choice, you can access Clean Up settings, which allow you more granular control over how the tool sorts through your existing conversations.

Schedule Out a Message with Future Delivery

Sometimes you’ll have an opportune moment to send an email, but it isn’t the right time for this email to be received. For instance, if you want to share something with your employees to keep in mind throughout the next day, it doesn’t make sense to distribute it at the end of the day before for it to be forgotten. Outlook allows you to use your opportunity to your full advantage with Future Delivery.

Once you’ve written an email, click on Options, and then Delay Delivery. This opens a Properties box for that specific message, including Delivery Options that include a checkbox labeled “Do not deliver before.” Selecting this option and specifying a time and date will prevent your recipient from receiving your message before that point. Once you’re satisfied, close the Properties box and send the message just like any other.

Taking Advantage of Shortcuts

Keyboard shortcuts are used to simplify access to commonly-used functions in many computer programs and applications, and Outlook is no exception. For instance, Outlook features shortcuts for a wide range of its functionality – covering the basics (like composing a new message by pressing Ctrl+Shift+M), organizational tools (like moving a message with Ctrl+Shift+V) or annotating your messages (like adding flags to important ones with Ctrl+Shift+G).

This is really just the start of Outlook’s capabilities to help your operations. Subscribe to our blog to find out whenever we post other tips or IT blogs.

Aug, 2019

Employee Burnout Can, and Should, Be Avoided

Your employees are your greatest asset, which means that they need to be carefully managed and maintained, just like any of your other productivity-boosting assets. The difference is, your employees aren’t just another solution – they’re human beings, and as such, they aren’t tirelessly motivated. In fact, if your employees aren’t treated properly, they could… burn out.

Burn out?

Oh, no! That certainly wouldn’t be a good thing… but how can you prevent such a thing from happening in the workplace, when you really can’t tell if workplace stress has worn them down, or if it was a more personal issue? You can’t keep things from influencing their personal lives, after all.

Maybe they just need to get more sleep, or something.

Besides, what if you just happen to work in an industry that creates more stress upon its workers by nature of the work? It isn’t as though you can help that, either.

Sure, that’s fair.

You can’t be expected to be in control of your employees’ personal lives… but you should be in control of their professional environment.

What Leads to Employee Burnout?

While general stress can contribute to burnout, certain job factors and features can create “special” kinds of stress that contribute specifically to burnout tendencies. Let’s consider these factors briefly.

Non-Stop High Stress

Look, I’m not saying that a business should be a stress-free area. That just isn’t realistic.

However, businesses typically experience busy, stressful times and once those times are over, there is usually a period of time that employees get the chance to recover. Bookending stress with these low-stress times (and adequately compensating your team for their stress) can make employees feel better – but keeping them in a constant pressure-cooker certainly won’t.

Unclear and Unreasonable Tasks

How frustrating would a puzzle be without a picture on the box to reference?

Each and every time an employee is given an unclear task, they feel that same frustration. They’re just trying to do their job, but they can’t if it is unclear what that job is. It only gets worse if the tasks that they are assigned literally (yes, in the literal sense) can’t be done.

The more stress and frustration that builds up with tasks like these, the more likely burnout becomes.

Huge Consequences for Failure…

Some workplaces have higher stakes than others. For instance, you have those who work for child services, whose work frequently takes them into risky and heartbreaking situations.

People in positions like that have a much more stressful job than, say, a fortune cookie writer or the greeter at a superstore. It probably wouldn’t surprise you to hear that high-stakes workplaces frequently see higher rates of burnout.

…With No Recognition for Success

How would you feel if your considerable efforts were, day-in and day-out, overlooked? If you went above and beyond in everything you did, and not one word was said to you?

Chances are, you’d probably feel unappreciated, demoralized, and unmotivated. Workplaces like this can have a severe morale problem.

Welcome to burnout.

Communication is Neither Efficient nor Effective

Without proper communication, any of the other problems your business is experiencing will only get much, much worse. Unclear and incomplete statements will make issues more complicated, especially if you are trying to deal with an employee’s issue.

As a result, demoralization and burnout become very real risks.

Lacking Leadership

Finally, if a strong, fair, and supportive leader isn’t present in the business, employees could be accelerated on their way to burnout by the lack of guidance the missing leader should be providing. Employees may feel like they aren’t getting something out of their employment – be it recognition, support, or job security – and swiftly lose the drive to perform well.

Clearly, there is no shortage of ways for an employee to reach the point of burnout… but how can you tell when one really has?

The Symptoms of Burnout

There are quite a few signs that can indicate if an employee is truly burning out, or if one is simply having an “off” day. I’m pretty confident that we’ve all felt and exhibited some of these signs – maybe even all of them – at one point at least.

How many of these symptoms have you seen among your employees?

They feel distant from their work, cynical about what they do and who they do it with.
They may be suffering from a variety of symptoms, including headaches, sour stomach, and intestinal issues.
They have slipped in their tasks at work, but their home life is unaffected.
They may keep themselves emotionally distant from their coworkers.
They may lack creativity, and will have trouble concentrating.
They are low energy, feel drained, and feel that they can’t cope.
They are visibly frustrated and stressed.

Again, we’ve all had an “off” day, where these kinds of things are almost to be expected. It’s just a part of life.

It is when these symptoms have become chronic, stretching out beyond hours or days to weeks, that your employees may be suffering from burnout. Thanks to these symptoms, burned-out employees may appear depressed, and are actually at a higher risk of developing depression later on.

Why This Really Matters to You

So, why should you care?

Well, basic human decency aside, burnout can have some significant impacts upon your business itself. For instance, sick leave is much more commonly taken among employees who are burned-out, and they are also far more motivated to find another job.

If they are successful in the latter, you will need to spend the significant costs associated with hiring a new employee to replace them.

You also need to consider the “typical” state of your employees. They might actually be some of your top performers, simply struggling through a hard time. What impact on their productivity will your business be able to just absorb?

A burned-out employee in the wrong position can exacerbate the problem, too, as a burned-out manager can easily create a burned-out team… killing productivity and morale on a wider scale.

You also need to consider the optics that burnout can produce – what business or potential employee would want anything to do with a business that has what is really a very visible issue?

(I certainly wouldn’t.)

Bringing basic human decency back into consideration, this condition can actually do a number on a human being. Not only can the influence of burnout impact an employee’s personal life and relationships, it makes them slightly more likely to visit the emergency room.

What You Can Do to Help a Burned-Out Employee

Keeping these warning signs in mind can help you to better spot when one of your employees is clearly going through a rough patch. While you may not see it as your job as their boss, it is your job as a fellow human being to offer them some support.

The easiest way to start this process? An honest conversation.

Discuss It with the Employee

Have an informal sit-down with this employee and just talk to them about it. Express your sincere worry for them as a person and offer your support with whatever they have been going through.

This support itself could help greatly, and if it is another personal issue, some personal time may be all it takes to help.

Redistribute the Workload

Even the most competent employee you have could potentially bite off more than they could chew. Whether they overstuff their schedules, offer to help with anything they can, or both… before long, this employee is going to fall behind schedule.

You should go through that schedule with them, organizing it and trimming some of the fat to make sure it is humanly possible to accomplish, redistributing some tasks if need be, if not pausing them.

If your business has any collaboration tools, they can certainly come in handy here.

Teamwork makes the dream work, as some say, so if you can leverage your collaboration platform to help the task-redistribution process, it just makes sense to. You can make use of your platform as you manage your team, assigning them certain responsibilities and sharing the weight of their tasks between multiple resources, not just the one.

Email is a great collaboration tool, but many employees can find the amount of emails they receive overwhelming, which (among other things) makes them less productive. You can help them out by introducing them to the different tools that email solutions can offer, like filters and rules to help organize incoming messages, and snoozing, to give them some uninterrupted time.

Switch It Up

If you had an employee that was particularly good at Task A, it only makes sense that you would want them covering Task A as much as possible, right?

However, designating that employee to Task A will likely make that employee pretty sick of Task A before long… and all the employees who always get Task B, or Task C will likely feel a similar way. Try rotating the responsibilities of your team on occasion, taking their preferences and goals into consideration.

Preventing Burnout in the First Place

As we’ve alluded to here, there are many warning signs of impending burnout issues, and we’ve barely scratched the surface here. Doing everything you can to keep burnout from happening at all is a reasonable strategy.

Fix your company culture to focus on self-care. Try bringing in external experts to keep your employees happy and healthy, whether that’s a yoga instructor or accounting services. Remember that your employees have lives outside the workplace to live, and encourage them to enjoy them.

These, and/or many, many other behaviors will help keep your employees engaged, motivated, and happy.

One great way to keep burnout from taking hold is to allow your employees to work how (and when and where) they work best. Remote working solutions can allow you to give your employees the freedom to shape their work habits around their lives.

While this may sound like a way to let employees slack off on work time, many employers have found the effects to productivity more than worth it… and employees have certainly shown their appreciation for the flexibility.

At the end of the day, your employees are going to feel a certain way – you can only try and help them feel more positively about their workplace by giving them better technology, more initiative, and an ear to turn to when needed.

We can help where the technology is concerned.

For solutions to help your employees be more productive, more communicative, and more successful, reach out to NuTech Services at 810.230.9455.

Jul, 2019

Tip of the Week: For Maximum Productivity, Try Sprinting

The value of productivity cannot be understated, especially in the workplace. While there are many methods people use to increase theirs, we wanted to share a specific approach with you for our tip: sprinting.

Don’t worry… we don’t expect you to try and work while you’re running as fast as you can. What we mean by “sprinting” is that you commit to focused, intensive work for a period of time, followed by a shorter period of rest.

The Science Behind Sprinting

The human body has certain capabilities, and is subject to certain limits. The way we are designed, we are meant to spend our time either spending or accumulating energy. These cycles are known as ultradian rhythms. Using our brains counts against this energy.

As a result, our focus is limited to somewhere between 90 and 120 minutes. Research indicates that, in order to perform well again after that, you need to take a 20-to-30 minute break so your brain can recover.

A sprinting methodology fits this pattern to a ‘T.’ By narrowing your focus to a single one of your tasks and blocking out distractions, you are better able to commit yourself to your goal. Once you hit the end of your sprint, you spend your recovery time refocusing yourself and preparing for your next foray into intense productivity.

Various authors and researchers have provided anecdotal evidence as to the efficacy of this approach:

While writing The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working: The Four Forgotten Needs That Energize Great Performance, Tony Schwartz used 90-minute blocks of time to break up his day, only writing for a daily total of four and a half hours. Six months later, his book was finished.
In 1993, performance researcher Anders Ericsson discovered via a study that the most skilled young violinists all followed a similar practice schedule: three 90-minute sessions of morning practice, with breaks in between.
In his book, Schwartz tells the story of how Leonardo Da Vinci would put down his paints while working on The Last Supper and daydream for hours at a time. When he was questioned about it, Da Vinci is said to have replied, “The greatest geniuses accomplish more when they work less.”

Why and How to Leverage Sprinting

One of sprinting’s biggest benefits is something that many people are very familiar with: the feeling of being in “the zone.” It’s that time when you are fully committed to your task at hand, and are enjoying yourself as you apply yourself. Psychologists refer to this as “flow.”

One psychologist, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, has committed his career to studying flow. As he said in his book, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, he wrote:

“The best moments usually occur when a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile. Optimal experience is thus something that we make happen.”

To make flow happen, sprinting once again fits quite well. Incorporating these patterns into your daily routine will help you to work more productively and ultimately, be more successful in your work.

What methods have you used to boost your productivity? Share some in the comments!

Jul, 2019

Tip of the Week: How to Use Instant Messaging Professionally

Communication is paramount in any business environment, which makes it crucial that your business is equipped with the tools that allow this communication to take place. In light of this, many businesses have embraced instant messaging applications in the workplace. For this week’s tip, we’ll go over how to most productively and professionally utilize instant messaging.

Why Effective Communications are So Critical

There are a few reasons that you want your business’ internal communications to be clear and effective.

Fewer Errors

Miscommunication is rarely a good thing, but in the business setting, it has the potential to be crippling to your operations. If the correct information isn’t shared at the right time, with the right people, productivity will suffer. On the other hand, proper communications can help minimize, or even avoid, many potential workplace errors.

Increased Accountability

When an organization keeps its communications open across the board, it is prone to see an associated increase in companywide accountability. From owner to intern, being responsible for (and being held responsible for) certain milestones in a process keeps each member of a team on-task and motivated.

Improved Teamwork

Naturally, when members of a team communicate properly, they are better able to work cooperatively. As a result, problems often become easier to solve, as ideas may more easily flow and develop. Additionally, potential issues between departments are more easily resolved, preventing interpersonal concerns from affecting the work.

Efficient Problem-Solving

The ability to communicate clearly enables a team to better pool their talents to much more efficiently overcome any issues that may arise. Whether a problem is strategic or technical, having the capability to swiftly solve it will only benefit a business’ operations.

Instant Messaging in the Workplace

Naturally, all of the above outcomes can (and often do) result from the use of an instant messaging application… as long as it’s the right one.

You need to make sure that your chosen solution is intended for business purposes, which means you need to use an enterprise-grade instant messaging application. In addition, you also need to be sure that you and your staff are properly leveraging your solution. Try to encourage the following practices and behaviors in your staff to ensure that your instant messaging solution doesn’t turn into an instant messaging problem:

Keep it in check. You don’t want a solution that is meant to be a productivity booster to actually harm it. There’s a very real difference between your staff properly leveraging instant messaging capabilities, and aimlessly chatting all day. Encourage your staff to keep their conversations pertinent to the workplace and the task at hand (at least as much as possible).
Remain professional. Again, conversations on your instant message solution should be far and away focused on workplace matters. It is important that your staff knows this, and resists using the solution to share jokes, GIFs, or memes excessively. Moderation is key.
Don’t rely too much on it. Not all conversations are appropriate for an instant messaging platform, especially those that contain sensitive or overly complicated details. Some conversations are better shared in person, or in an email, where lengthier messages can be sent.

Have you ever utilized instant messaging in the workplace? Share your experience with us in the comments!