The state of work has never looked as different as it does now. COVID-19 has profoundly changed how people look at a job and their careers in general, and will continue do so for the foreseeable future. With continuous ups and downs in sight, it’s highly probable that hybrid work environments based on remote workers and onsite teams will continue to emerge in 2022 and further develop.
You may have heard that classic expression, laughter is the best medicine. As cliché as it might sound, it’s actually the truth. In past iterations of The Productivity Box we’ve talked about how mental health and stress management have an impact on your job performance. In this month’s edition, let’s turn the lens on laughter and examine how this positive emotional release can make you more productive, whether you work from home or in an office.
Since the dawns of humanity, people have used the cyclicity of time—sunrise/sunset, day/night—to make it measurable and easier to predict. Because when you know what follows, things are easier to deal with. Back in the day when people lived in caves, they used this known variation to optimize their hunting process. And then slowly, days turned into weeks, months and years. We invented work days and week-ends and now we know when to work and when to rest. Suddenly, at some point in history—most might not know it, but there is a perfectly logical explanation for this—the beginning of a new year has suffered a dramatic transformation. It swiftly became a threshold, a time when you leave the past behind, gaze into the future full of hope, and even make a resolution of some sort.
Since 2021 is reaching its glorious end in a couple of days, now it’s the perfect time for a wrap-up. Almost two years in, COVID-19 continues to affect how we work, live, and play. Lots of people around the globe are following strict social distancing rules or even are under lockdown, while many are still experiencing pandemic fatigue. As a society, we continue to challenge the modern workplace and come together to create healthier and safer social environments.
Mindfulness has found its way into mainstream culture, but does it have a place in the business world? Research points to a connection between mindfulness and optimal work performance, specifically the practice of meditation.
For some people, working from home during the pandemic has been a dream come true. For others, not so much. According to Cigna, 61 percent of Americans reported feeling lonely in early 2020. Mental health experts believe that the number has increased significantly ever since due to prolonged social distancing and repeated lockdown. In time, people started losing their sense of community and became less engaged to their company’s life.
Customer service isn’t just a helpful feature for a business to have, it’s essential to grow and maintain profitability. According to this survey, 54 percent of consumers make buying decisions based on experience. Furthermore, 68 percent will pay more to shop at a company with good customer care. So this is just as important to small businesses as to large enterprises. However, many customer service tools are marketed to large companies only. It’s time to change that! Let’s start with the call center.
Change is the new normal and we’ve all had to manage major shifts in our lives since the beginning of 2020. The larger and more impactful the change, the more of a paralyzing effect it can have on resilience, flexibility, decisive action, and productivity. However, change is necessary in the workplace. While major transformation can feel unbearable to manage sometimes, some smaller, consistent changes are easier to handle and can lead to major impact.
Emails and chat messages are quick and easy communication options. Yet, we’re in a remote and socially isolated work scenario going on for far too long now. Let’s not overlook the impact of hearing your colleague’s voice on the other end of a phone call! Do it for your productivity and to create stronger bonds with your team.
If you look on social networks, it may seem like video, chat and email have replaced telephony for good. There’s an entire war going on about who does communication better. Hashtags after hashtags, studies and researches, everybody has an opinion. But when it comes to productivity, the traditional voice calls may be just what you need.
