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      How Can Oversharing in Job Interviews Damage Your Prospects?

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      Everybody has that one talkative friend who is always guilty of oversharing. What they did over the weekend, what they’re doing next weekend, what they had for dinner, who they’re dating – it can be exhausting hanging out with them, or even reading their social media posts, due to the onslaught of information they always feel the need to provide. But they’re our friends, so we forgive them for monopolizing conversations and clogging up our Facebook feed.
      Some of us may even be guilty ourselves. Perhaps you’re the chatty one, and love being the center of attention in social circles. For job seekers, being an extrovert can serve them well, as those who are outgoing are known to have an advantage in the workplace. However, while being a people person might give employees an edge when climbing the corporate ladder, job seekers should be wary of coming across too verbose in interviews. Though sharing information is a necessary part of the job application process, oversharing could cost candidates the job. Let’s look at a few reasons.
      Bad First Impression
      A job interview is meant to be an exchange of information. Interviewers want to get to know candidates, asking them several questions in order to determine their fit for the role and organization. Candidates in turn share information about their job history and relevant work experience. When a candidate talks too much in an interview, it causes the interviewer to feel as though he or she has lost control of the situation, which should never happen. While candidates should feel free to be themselves, they should let the interviewer control the direction of the interview in order to gain the information they seek.
      Lack of Respect
      Interviewers are usually on a tight schedule and must interview multiple candidates in addition to their daily responsibilities. Job seekers who monopolize the conversation show a disregard for the interviewer’s agenda and disrespect for their time. If the meeting nears its end and the interviewer still hasn’t gleaned the information needed to accurately evaluate the candidate for the position, it puts them in the awkward position of having to run late to their next appointment or end the interview without the facts they require to make a hiring decision.
      Lack of Focus
      The main purpose of a job interview is to evaluate candidates, and an experienced interviewer knows what questions to ask to determine which candidate would be the best fit for the role and company. However, if candidates are easily distracted and have trouble staying on topic when answering questions about their work history or qualifications, the interviewer might have concerns regarding their ability to focus on assigned tasks or complete projects within deadlines once hired. While sharing personal stories and examples can be helpful in interviews, candidates should keep them brief and ensure they’re relevant to the interviewer’s questions. If the interviewer then requires more information, he or she will ask.
      Confidentiality Concerns
      Running a successful business involves handling confidential information. This may include company sales figures, employee salaries, client details, etc. Nearly all employees above entry-level encounter some type of information that should not be shared outside the company. If candidates show a lack of restraint in sharing irrelevant stories or personal details during a job interview, this may be seen as a red flag regarding their ability to maintain confidentiality when given access to sensitive company information. Interviews are a good time to start building trust with employers. In addition to sharing personal information requested by the interviewer, candidates should also demonstrate they know when not to share.
      Social Media Behavior
      Oversharing isn’t just limited to face-to-face conversations; it can also occur online. Too much has already been written about social media etiquette, and most job seekers know that they will likely be judged by their online behavior. In fact, according to a recent CareerBuilder survey, 70 percent of employers use social media sites to screen job candidates before hiring, and seven percent plan to start. If an employer finds dozens of frivolous social media posts while researching a prospective employee, this could prove damaging to the candidate’s personal brand, regardless of whether he or she deems the content “appropriate.” Candidates should remember that social media posts don’t have to be lewd or profane to jeopardize their job prospects.
      In nearly every role and industry, success requires being aware of one’s surroundings and acting appropriately. Job interviews are the first step toward career success, giving employers the chance to observe and evaluate candidates’ behavior. Though they may think they’re just being friendly, candidates who love talking a little too much may make a poor first impression in job interviews. However, those who demonstrate to the interviewer that they know when to talk and when to listen, and how to answer questions directly and succinctly, are more likely to make a stronger first impression, leading to a positive interview outcome.

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      Here’s How to Solve the Productivity Puzzle

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      All of us are born with a desire to contribute; we are hard-wired to be useful to each other and to society as a whole. If you think about it, there are few things more satisfying than a job well done. Having a sense of purpose, mastering a task, and having others approve of, or even admire what we achieve is highly motivating. It feels good.
      Problem is, as we grow older and our experiences build over time, many of us become disillusioned, disappointed, or just plain bored by the work we do – we get in a rut. The joy diminishes from the day-to-day piling up of things to do that do not align with personal values, personal motivations, aspirations, and/or the types of skills we wish to master. There are few things more demotivating than this.
      Of course, this happens to everyone at some point; however, when dissatisfaction lasts months, and months turn into years, something has gone wrong. Why continue doing something that does not align to one’s personal motivations and desires?

      There comes a time when you ought to start doing what you want. Take a job that you love. You will jump out of bed in the morning. I think you are out of your mind if you keep taking jobs that you don’t like because you think it will look good on your resume. Isn’t that a little like saving up sex for your old age?

      — WARREN BUFFETT, INVESTMENT GURU, CHAIRMAN AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER OF BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY
      There is a certain truth to what Warren Buffet says here; however, when one must worry about a mortgage, school fees, a car payment, or a student loan to pay back, the mind becomes focused on this at the expense of aspiration and desire. The real reason that so many of today’s workforce end up in a rut is far more complex than just pulling up your bootstraps and going out to find that perfect job. In fact, many of the reasons people fall into uninspiring work are outside of their control.
      If you think about the economic realities the vast majority of people face on a day-to-day basis it’s no wonder that we sometimes fall into a trap of taking what is on offer at any given point. Often the dilemma starts from a young age: Do we go to university? Can we afford it? Can we make the grade? Or do we skip further education and go for an entry-level position and work our way up? This is a profound decision for a 17- to 18-year-old. However, this is where most of us start our quest for that perfect job, the ultimate career. To add to the daunting task, perfect jobs do not grow on trees, so even if a teenager has a clear view about what they want to do, how do they find that job? And what do they do to support themselves until that job is discovered? After all, it can take years to get where we want to be.
      Additionally, if you think about the current state of the world of work, the method by which people find careers and careers find people is largely unchanged since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. True, today we have LinkedIn and some digital job posting boards, but largely the process is the same as it has always been: employer posts job, prospective employee finds posting (mainly online, these days) and applies. From there, the process of interview and assessment, selecting candidates, and getting them onboarded is also largely unchanged. It’s a very two-dimensional world controlled by supply and demand, navigated with a bit of luck (for both employee and employer). It’s highly inefficient, time-consuming, and rarely gets the right person, with the right skills and the right motivations in the right job at the right time. Throw in the whims of the normal business cycle – growing economy followed by a shrinking economy (supply and demand) – and the complexities multiply. This traditional way of finding and deploying the workforce is constantly changing market conditions, I would argue, is the fundamental reason why so many people find themselves doing uninspiring work and feeling trapped in it. Pull up your bootstraps and go find that job! Good luck with that.

      Everyone has been made for some particular work and the desire for that work has been put in every heart.

      — RUMI, ANCIENT PERSIAN POET PHILOSOPHER
      What would the world of work be like if we could turn technology and technological change to our advantage and use it to match the perfect person to the perfect job; a job that gives purpose, the opportunity to master new things, and the opportunity to be left to get on with that work without too much interference by others? What if we change the mindset (and processes) to think differently about bringing in new talent and deploying it at the right time and right place with the right skills and right motivations. Most would say this is impossible in today’s workplace – the tools we have are very one-dimensional and do not help us to think and do differently. And you can add to this today’s economic realities, where there is a complete focus on quarterly results, profits, cutting costs, growing the top line, and saving the taxpayer money (in the public sector) that override many people’s desires and motivations: just get on with the work! Produce more with less, meet objectives, meet the deadline, and at all costs, deliver! Most of us get caught up in these whirlwinds and we put our heads down and plod through, quarter after quarter – a treadmill.
      But does the world of work have to be this way? Is there a different way to do things, a different way to look at things? Maybe the simple ‘equation’ given in Figure 0.1 can illustrate a way forward.
      Figure 0.1 People engagement, innovation, and performance (PEIP)

      An illustration shows an equation for working smarter. The equation is ‘the sum of right people, right skills, right place, right time, and right motivation yields PEIP’.
      What if we created a workforce ‘marketplace’ that not only balances supply and demand of resources, but also maps people’s skills, motivations, and aspirations to the right job at the right time (PEIP)? If we can achieve this, then (as postulated by Rumi) the chances that people ‘made for some particular work and the desire for that work’ find and succeed in that work go up dramatically. The benefits for individuals, and society at large, would be tremendous – even miraculous.
      Imagine, then, if we ‘turbo-charged’ this equation with emerging ‘intelligent’ technology, as pictured in Figure 0.2, using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to further maximize the efficiencies of PEIP – a new way of working where individuals and organizations use smart technology to find each other, to get the right people in the right role. People doing jobs they love for organizations they love will be highly engaged and create great places to work. Imagine that, once PEIP is in place, people could leverage smart technology to help them be even more productive than they are today; robots working for us, and with us, to make work more fun and fulfilling. Let the robots do the mundane work and free up humans to do higher-order work. Sounds like science fiction, but it’s not – the technology to make this happen is available today, and the time for this to happen is here and now. Demographic and other trends in the work environment are rapidly emerging alongside the latest technology trends and are creating a ‘perfect storm’ of challenge, but also opportunity.
      Figure 0.2 Turbo-charge PEIP

      Consider trends such as the elongation of human life-span, the realization that people on the autistic spectrum bring incredibly innovative ideas, there are more senior and experienced women in work, and the fact that we have a much better scientific understanding of the workings of the human brain and what truly motivates people. These trends, combined with PEIP, demonstrate that we may be on the cusp of a truly transformative time in the world of work. One where ‘everyone has been made for some particular work and the desire for that work’ can be realized.
      Tim Ringo is an author, speaker, board advisor and senior executive. His new book “Solving the Productivity Puzzle” is out now. Find out more about Tim on www.timringo.com

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      Supporting Long-Term Remote Working Post COVID-19

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      Companies like Twitter and Square recently announced their employees could work remotely forever. But, while remote working can provide many opportunities for the companies of today, longstanding adoption is only beneficial if the transition is completed in the right way.
      Here are the vital steps leaders should take to ensure successful, long-term remote working:
      Develop a culture of trust
      Culture is more important than ever in a virtual environment, not only because staff should feel connected to their teammates, but also so they know when to ‘clock-off’ after a day working from home.
      Businesses should consider offering a flexible, remote workday schedule, outside the traditional 9-5. One benefit is this provides flexibility to meet personal needs and family responsibilities conveniently. Being granted an environment where staff can better balance work with personal demands ensures improved concentration and productivity on tasks during work hours.
      If you’re looking to further align your remote working goals with employee needs and satisfaction, keeping regular dialogue and seeking feedback from employees can help a company better understand the sentiment of staff and which benefits they’d most appreciate during prolonged home working.
      Encourage exercise-related activities, at work, at home, and in the community
      It’s essential to ensure musculoskeletal health is protected while employees work from home. However, research shows more than half of employees receive no employer guidance on how to set up a workstation that supports healthy posture, despite employer’s having a legal obligation to look after the health of long-term desk workers.
      Employers should issue and check Display Screen Equipment assessments are completed and if possible, provide access to face to face and remote physiotherapy services to help both prevent and treat musculoskeletal issues.
      With more employees becoming engaged with fitness during lockdown, there is also an opportunity for businesses to capitalize on this momentum. Companies should help staff maintain enthusiasm for keeping active by making benefits available that facilitate this like access to both onsite and remote fitness services.
      Continue to support virtual mental health offerings
      Post lockdown, many companies reported online video counseling sessions became more popular among employees, showing many now feel comfortable accessing support for mental wellbeing via technology.
      Whether you do or do not already have emotional wellbeing services, it is an important time for all businesses to see which options are available that could make a real difference to your workforce. While those returning to the office may have access to face-to-face offerings, there are also plenty of wellness options that can be offered to staff remotely.
      These include cognitive behavior therapy, which can be delivered safely and effectively by phone, video, or email for flexibility and privacy. Other types of therapy, which are also safe, effective, and accessible remotely, include counseling (e.g., relationship, bereavement), interpersonal therapy, and access to psychiatric assessments.
      Expand staff healthcare support
      Many of today’s offices are filled to the brim with the latest technology, from standing desks to tech which enhances connectivity and workflow patterns around the office.  If these are available for those when in the office, businesses should extend the same courtesies to their remote workforce.
      Consider offering or expanding employee allowances to subsidize work-related purchases. Whether you find a way to provide the same office set up to your remote employees or provide a fixed regular sum paid as a salary or as expenses, so they can purchase what they see fit, assisting them in setting up a home office is a key perk.
      Some options for staff could include ergonomic chairs, extra monitors to help them process computer tasks more efficiently, and access to high-speed, adequate broadband. Not only are these helpful to staff but improving workstation ergonomics can reduce symptoms associated with musculoskeletal disorders and shows you are a responsible business, who cares about the health of your employees.
      By Kevin Thomson, Corporate Healthcare Director, Nuffield Health.

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      5 Alternate Ways to Ask Your Employees “Are You Okay?” 

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      As HR professionals, we’ve felt the intense impact & pressure COVID19 has had on our companies. We’ve had to re-structure and organize our operations, re-visit our strategies, put in place new training and regulations… whilst also dealing with living in a pandemic! Every news station is discussing the changing workforce, and it’s true the workforce has been disrupted in a manner we’ve never experienced before, but what about our employees? Can’t the same be said about our workers? The global pandemic has had a drastic impact on the mental health of individuals, with a shocking 1,000% increase of individuals calling mental help hotlines.
      You know that feeling when you’re in a terrible headspace but you’re uncomfortable letting yourself cry or complain in your current environment…there’s been countless times where someone has attempted to comfort me and the fireworks have let loose. Whilst it’s comforting to know someone cares, it’s also uncomfortable to feel so overwhelmed. And, whilst your intentions are coming from a place of care, you may cause tension if you simply ask “Are You Okay?” because this sentence has connotations of implying there’s something wrong with the disheartened individual. Fortunately for us, there are other ways we can show our support.
      1. Buy them a coffee.
      It doesn’t have to be a coffee, but you know what I mean. We’re humans, and we have the tendency to overthink and work ourselves up over our emotions. The more we think about them the more intensely we feel them which is a vicious cycle. Sometimes, all it takes is a small act of compassion to pull you back to reality and center you…so, when someone buys a ‘coffee’ for you, you begin to focus on their act of compassion and slowly the negative thoughts and feelings you had to seem fainter. This is a great way of showing someone you care about them, and you acknowledge they need some support- WITHOUT being overbearing. If you’re working remotely, like most of the world, you can still do this! Heard of Uber Eats or DoorDash? Maybe even ‘Jimmy Brings’ if they need some serious cheering up…
      2. How can I support you?
      If you know (or sense) your colleague or employee is going through a rough time, you already know that. You know they aren’t okay, so what is asking them ‘are you okay’ going to do? It’s not beneficial and draws attention to their seemingly off demeanor. What you need to do is show your support. Give them a helping hand, and cut to the chase. We’re nosy beings.. we love to know all the nitty-gritty details of someone else’s life and drama, (hence the huge market for reality TV), but don’t get your curiosity confused with your intentions. Skip the chit chat, ask them how you can support them. Ask them what they need from you. By showing them you want to give them something, it takes away the tension of them having to approach you and ask for something (which is very hard to do).
      3. Mention a concern, then approach.
      This one is a bit tricky but works well if executed in the correct situation. I think the best way to explain it is with an example… Imagine this scenario;
      Your work colleague comes to the office noticeably not themselves. They always say good morning and have a chat before diving into work- but not today. If they’re not themselves, they aren’t going to act the way they normally would- but SOMETIMES that’s exactly what they need to do! You aren’t strangers, you can still approach them… “ Hey, you seem a bit distant today, how are you going? What did you get up to over the weekend?”. YOU take initiative, just because someone’s seemingly unsettled it doesn’t mean they aren’t human beings with social instincts.
      Reach out, if they wanted to talk about their feelings they would tell you but the reality is they don’t owe you any explanations, and you shouldn’t want one. If you care, the only thing you should be concerned about is their wellbeing and how you can make a difference.
      4. You can vent to me if you want.
      You shouldn’t want to pry, you shouldn’t aim to get the latest tea, BUT you should offer to listen. Everyone is wired differently, some people don’t want to talk about what they’re feeling and others are dying for someone to vent to, but don’t want to be a burden and unleash a heap of negative thoughts on someone else. It never hurts to offer your time and attention, usually we’re able to think objectively and see our situation from a different perspective when we speak out loud and air our thoughts. When taking this approach on board it’s important to remember the ball must always be in their court, don’t overstep, and don’t be forceful.
      5. Open-ended questions.
      The biggest concern with asking “are you okay?” is the minimal room for a response. “Yes, I’m okay” or “No, I’m not okay”. Either way, neither of these responses offer insight into the mind of your colleague or employee. Therefore, what’s the point of asking them? You’d need to ask them another question regardless of their answer… so skip the useless closed-ended question and start with open-ended questions. You provide them with an opportunity to elaborate and express themselves how they want to. You’ll receive more in-depth and insightful answers that’ll enable you to continue the conversation and hopefully discover what is disrupting them and how you can help.
      These are a few alternate ways to check in with your colleagues and your employees. Now’s the time we need to step up and look out for one another, we’re all in the same boat so there are no excuses. You know what you need, thus you know what your peers need. We must step up and be proactive rather than reactive, the wellbeing of our employees shouldn’t be forgotten or overlooked in these times of distress. Check-in before you regret not checking in.
      A list of help hotlines
      Mental Health America 1-800-273-TALK (8255)
      Crisis Services Canada 1-833-456-4566 toll-free
      Lifeline Australia 13 11 14
      HopeLine UK 0800 068 4141
      Cassandra Diamantis is the Marketing Specialist at My Recruitment Plus. Cassie writes content that aids HR and recruiters efficiently recruit, onboard, and lead. Her company aims to modernize recruitment and onboarding processes through enterprise-grade technology and round the clock client success support.

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      7 Crucial Communication Strategies for Working Remotely 

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      Unfortunately, it seems as though Australia has yet to eradicate COVID19. While we expected this, we still need to continuously review and update our business operations to ensure maximum productivity.
      The most significant difficulty regarding working from home is the lack of face to face interaction, which can cause communication issues. Fear not, I’m here to help you work from home with maximum communication capabilities!
      1. Listen
      Many employers and employers underestimate the power of listening when, in fact, attentively listening to your colleagues is a crucial factor in effective communication. Without excellent listening skills, you can’t effectively communicate! The two go hand in hand. Make sure you listen to whom you’re speaking to, and are responsive. That means acknowledging what they’ve said and providing feedback or verbal and non-verbal cues.
      2. Hold Open Meetings
      Bleh, we hear meetings and instantly zone out! We’ve all been there… our eyelids getting heavier and heavier…. then slowly closing halfway through a meeting. We need to be stimulated! That’s why open meetings are the way of the future. Open meetings provide all involved with a chance at holding the mic and expressing their opinions and thoughts. This interactiveness ensures engagement and effective communication.
      3. Communicate with humor
      What’s the difference between humans and AI? Simple, humans are emotive and creative. Use it!! You can have friendly banter, and develop friendships with your colleagues. In fact, you work better with people you have relationships with! There’s a higher element of trust, therefore taking on board constructive criticism. You can make jokes to get your point across and incorporate sarcasm when needed. It’s a good idea to maintain a balance of professionalism and personalism.
      4. Email
      While companies more often than not use casual communication platforms such as Zoom and Slack, to maintain a level of professionalism, you should send confirmation emails! For example, if you’ve spoken to a college and given them a brief, recap that discussion in an email, so there is hard evidence that acts as a deterrent of miscommunication. As well as this, if you schedule a call or meeting, you can send a confirmation email to add it to their calendar to avoid any mishaps! Yes, emails are old news in the world of technology… but it doesn’t mean they aren’t effective!
      5. Training
      Let me make this clear, training DOESN’T HAVE TO BE BORING. You can incorporate visual aids, such as; videos, gifs, images, and graphics. With the current pandemic, it’s important now more than ever, that your employees are up to date on all business operations and expectations! This assists communication strategies as it makes it clear what is and isn’t acceptable. All employees receive the same information, therefore resulting in uniformity amongst behavior and communication. You can end the training sessions with quizzes… heck you can even incentivize employees with a prize for the individual with the greatest correct answers!
      6. Set scheduled hours, and STICK TO IT.
      There are multiple elements to this. Firstly, set one-on-one meetings with your employees and colleges, and make sure you’re on time! Nothing screams unprofessionalism more than showing up late to a meeting. You wouldn’t do it if it were face to face, so don’t do it if it’s online.
      Secondly, set scheduled hours! Working from home is beneficial if managed correctly. It allows you to balance your social life and working life, with a mix of activities and sunshine. However, it also can reduce effective communication channels if not managed correctly! To combat this, set scheduled hours. This can change weekly but should be a set period of time that everyone is available online. Thus, during this time, everyone is assured they can contact whom they need to and receive immediate feedback and responses.
      7. Encouragement and feedback
      You can be critical, but you must be constructive! No one appreciates their work being criticized without any useful feedback. Give your feedback but offer valid reasons and suggestions. You and your colleagues are a team; therefore you are responsible for supporting and encouraging one another! You can express your thoughts kindly, be considerate, and effectively communicate. If you’re simply bagging out your colleagues’ work, it’s plausible they’ll stop listening to you and detest coming to you for advice.
      To quickly summarise all the above, here are your QUICK TIPS.
      DO: Be fun and humorous
      DON’T: Let your jokes overtake your professionalism
      DO: Be honest
      DON’T: Be emotionless, you’re human and being emotive is a strength. Honesty with a side of emotion, please! Use it to develop relationships and effectively communicate
      DO: Set the tone- what’s acceptable and what’s not!
      DON’T: Incorporate swear words or extensively slang- be professional.
      There you have it, all you need to know about how to communicate effectively.
      Communication is key my friends. Implement your strategies and watch the good times roll!
      Author: Cassandra Diamantis is the marketing specialist at My Recruitment Plus.

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      Create a Sense of Belonging Within Your Organization

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      Belonging is a feeling. None of us wants to participate in communities where we don’t feel good, welcome, or appreciated. We certainly won’t invest our full effort unless—and until—we’re vested in this manner. Of course, what makes us feel welcomed differs from person to person.
      When possible, people leave places where they don’t feel belonging. They proactively move to where they do feel it. At the end of the day, any thriving organization wants to create a feeling of belonging among its employees. Otherwise, you’ll never get the best from your team members.
      What creates belonging?
      Research indicates that belonging shows up when we experience two feelings:
      Feeling valued (or needed) by the entire group or some part of it.
      Feeling that we’re a fit for what’s needed in the community and the environment that’s been created.
      Reflecting on the past 20 years of research and practitioners’ experience, we say that the feeling of belonging usually arises when participants experience some of the following feelings, at some level:
      Accepted
      Welcomed
      Valued
      Cared for
      Appreciated
      Possessing insider understanding
      How can we create these feelings?
      To produce these feelings, a community must provide an experience in which participants can notice they are accepted, welcomed, valued, cared for, appreciated, or in possession of insider understanding.
      Successful leaders generate positive feelings in their employees and colleagues. Though this can seem like a magical task to some, after you’ve learned the principles that make communities work, it will sound more achievable. To start:
      Understand it’s a first-person experience. As a feeling, belonging is experienced internally as a first-person experience. These experiences are difficult for a third-person observer to measure, but that difficulty makes the experience no less critical.
      Many first-person experiences, particularly those that are important in relationships (and the world), don’t lend themselves to quantified measuring, such as a mother’s love or the trust in your neighbor. Measuring belonging is similar to measuring a mother’s love.
      Promote the “inside view.” You can magnify a sense of belonging by helping community members share insider understanding, which simply means sharing things insiders understand that outsiders do not or cannot.
      Here’s an example: Melissa Allen is a retired firefighter captain. She shared how much she appreciates spending time among other firefighters in her community because they understand the complexity, pressure, and passion that often comes with the role. The firefighters share a never-spoken understanding and compassion for one another. This is so strong that Melissa notices that if a firefighter’s spouse joins the group, the conversation changes. This isn’t because spouses aren’t welcome or loved. It’s because they never share the insider understanding that career firefighters gain.
      Usually, when we seek out people who have shared an experience similar to our own (fighting cancer, living overseas, running a marathon), we’re searching for this shared insider understanding.
      When an organization embraces the principles of building community, employees are drawn in because they share some values more intensely than do outsiders. We want to feel understood by the people who share our values. We want to see that the people inside understand this more than the people outside of our community.
      Be selective. By the way, this is one reason why a community can’t succeed if it accepts anyone, anytime, with any values. So be careful to recruit people who not only embrace your organization’s core values but also fit with your culture.
      Charles H. Vogl is an award-winning author, speaker, and executive adviser. Carrie Melissa Jones is the founder of Gather Community Consulting. Their new book is Building Brand Communities: How Organizations Succeed by Creating Belonging. Learn more at buildingbrandcommunities.com.

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      WFH: How to Keep Your Team On Track

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      Working from home is great, but it also comes with many unique struggles that can impact productivity and hinder growth. According to Buffer’s 2019 State of Remote Work survey, 17 percent of respondents reported that communication and collaboration as their greatest struggle working remotely while 8 percent of workers said that motivation was their biggest adversity.
      Tuning into your team’s struggles and integrating preventative strategies like these will help you promote wellness and productivity for everyone. Before you get started, make sure that you have some time to set aside and ask for feedback. Although these tips are a great way to combat many of the common remote work challenges, it’s best to personalize your approach so you can address the most pressing barriers to productivity in your company.
      Use Public Task Lists
      Every employee will have their own itemized agenda for the day, but a team-wide task list will help coworkers stay connected and more conscious of how they spend their time. Collaborative software can drastically enhance productivity for a remote team by eliminating the need for cross-platform communication; instant messaging, progress tracking, goals, and project deadlines can all share a common space.
      Working from home removes the pressure to perform that a physical office provides; this pressure is not negative, and it’s a fundamental aspect of a strong workflow for many people. Recreating that environment on a computer is a challenge, but remote team software like Basecamp, Asana, and Fellow make it easier.
      Hold Midday Meetings
      Halfway through the day, motivation starts to wane. People think more about dinner plans and Netflix than their current tasks, which results in many simple and easy duties being pushed to the next day. To prevent this from creating a decline during your work hours, hold a meeting shortly after lunch to talk about what’s been accomplished so far and set goals for the last half of the day.
      Acknowledging accomplishments first, however small, has two immediate benefits. First, it shows employees that you are aware of what they do each day and not only see but appreciate their effort. Second, hearing about what others have done can reinvigorate employees and inspire them to refocus and try their best for the last few hours of their shift.
      Setting goals and connecting them across various divisions or individual workers creates a sense of unity. Teamwork boosts remote team morale and inspires everyone to take pride in what they do. Rather than slogging through tasks, they are able to see the bigger picture and know that even the mundane items on their to-do list have greater significance.
      Check-in With Everyone Regularly
      Only hosting virtual meetings or sending out reports won’t keep a team close together. As the leader, you need to model engagement and hard work by routinely reaching out to your employees. Every hour, send a message to your remote team. It doesn’t have to be a major ordeal to be significant. Something as simple as, “Hey, team. How are we doing so far?” can go a long way.
      Employees who struggle to motivate themselves at home will be more likely to prioritize work when they know you are actually paying attention. It’s easy for people to slip into the mindset that their contributions don’t matter; give some extra one-on-one attention to any members of your team who are falling behind or appear distant.
      Focus on Your Own Routine
      Make sure that you are practicing good remote work habits while helping your team stay on track. Wake up on time each morning, get dressed and eat a nutritious breakfast away from the computer. Stress the importance of a healthy work-life balance by sharing personal tips and tricks with your team.
      Self-care is difficult for many leaders because they always focus on solving everyone else’s problems; you may get so involved in monitoring and managing your team that your own productivity falls to the wayside. By optimizing your own schedule, you’ll put yourself in the best possible mindset and mood to guide your team with the level of patience and compassion they need.
      Work Together
      Live editing in G Suite can make many projects happen ten times faster. Rather than waiting for individual team members to review, edit, or offer feedback, let everyone connect at the same time and achieve goals together. Working as a group not only gets things done faster but also promotes a strong collaborative culture. Teams are built through shared experience, which means you must emphasize the importance of real-time communication when working remotely.
      If your work can’t be done in G Suite or another collaborative platform, consider hosting daily scrum meetings. This project management philosophy is primarily used in software development, but it can be adopted by any team and help streamline the work process.
      Use Incentives
      As you build a remote team, it’s important to consider ways you can connect their virtual professional life into the real world. Small incentive programs can do just that. Monetary rewards for a job well done can make people feel more connected to their work; other incentives are social and include short shoutouts during meetings or mentions in team emails.
      Personalize incentives to match your business’s line of work and your team’s personal style. Vary your rewards but make sure everyone is always aware that they’re on the table and available to anyone; the point is to make everyone feel like a part of a team, not cause tension or competition.
      Final Thoughts
      Be patient with your team and know that change takes time. Reach out to the workers who are performing the best and ask for their secrets, and speak with those who struggle the most. Rather than immediately trying to correct them, seek to learn about their challenge so you can support and guide them to greater achievement. And don’t forget to prioritize your own well-being along the way.
      Brandyn Morelli is the co-founder of HelloCecil, a SaaS platform helping small businesses make smarter hires through video interviewing.

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      in Workplace

      Why the Time Has Come for a Four-Day Week

      by

      The coronavirus pandemic has changed every aspect of our lives, and it’s had a particularly marked effect on the way we work. The largest flexible working experiment ever conducted has taken place out of necessity, and the early signs are that it will leave a lasting change in work culture. More workers than ever before have been able to fit their work-life around their home life by working at different hours – increasingly necessary due to childcare commitments during the closure of schools. With 44% of UK workers set to request permanent flexible working policies (according to research from Direct Line), there are no signs that it’s going away anytime soon.
      The four-day week has always been a popular topic in the flexible working discourse, and although it has been adopted by some employers, it hasn’t yet gone mainstream. Here’s why its time has come.
      Employee wellbeing
      A secondary effect of the coronavirus pandemic has been its effect on our mental health. Months of anxiety, coupled with increasingly difficult economic conditions and less contact with friends and family, have unsurprisingly taken their toll.
      As countries seek to kickstart their economies again, any steps that will safeguard the mental health of workers need to be seriously considered. Figures from the ONS show that 17.5 million workdays were lost due to mental health problems in the UK in 2018, for example, underlining the drastic impact mental health problems can have on the economy as well as the workers themselves.
      Mental health and employee wellbeing, in general, have always been one of the principal driving forces behind the four-day week. It’s seen as an important step towards a greater work-life balance, allowing for effectively a three-day weekend each and every week. Workers would have more time to recover from a stressful work week, freeing up that time and energy to pursue other hobbies and interests that can be beneficial for their mental health. With work-related mental health problems increasingly widespread, measures such as this are more important than ever.
      Increased productivity
      The four-day week not only makes sense in terms of mental health – but it also benefits the company’s bottom line. Although, as fewer hours are worked overall, the expectation might be that production (and therefore profits) suffer as a result, the opposite is actually true.
      What the four-day week experiments reveal is the importance of the quality of the hours worked, rather than necessarily the sheer quantity of those hours. Happy workers are productive workers. What’s better: an engaged, rested, happy employee working for 30 hours a week, or a burned-out employee working for 40 (or even more)? You can probably guess the answer.
      The human brain is not a machine, churning out hours of equally productive work hours, but a sensitive organ with complicated needs of its own. To run at its maximum, most productive capacity, it needs rest. The same principle can be seen in a normal working day. Working for eight hours straight, with no break, will produce worse quality work than a smaller number of hours that have been split up with breaks. Such is the power of a break for the brain.
      Now is the time
      The coronavirus pandemic has only strengthened the case for a four-day working week. With unprecedented public health and mental health challenges, a struggling jobs market, and an ailing economy, it’s time has truly come. Workers will be happier and more productive, and the wider economy will also benefit. With an extra day of leisure, domestic tourism will also benefit – workers would have three days to recharge their batteries instead of two, giving them the time and energy to go further afield at the weekend and contribute to the wider economy.
      It may seem like a radical step, but so did the move away from a six-day week of 12 hour working days. Rigid, traditional ideas around work culture can be difficult to break down, but these should not stand in the way of positive progress – both for employee wellbeing and the productivity of the company as a whole.

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