Everyone wants to have a more productive workday every day. To get more done, do it well, and to eventually leave the office feeling accomplished. However, in the busy and hectic modern workplace, that’s often easier said than done.
Gal Baggins' Post
Everyone is guilty of workplace procrastination from time to time. Whether you’re checking social media or chatting with coworkers, procrastination can be easily abused, and can wreak havoc on your task management, productivity, performance, and even your health.
Our modern American culture glorifies busyness. In fact, the Journal of Consumer Research has found that “Those devoting more time to work and less time to leisure are often viewed as having more status.” But even the most packed schedule is not an automatic sign of productivity. A long to-do list might look impressive at first. However, the number of tasks, deadlines and appointments on your calendar does not always mean those obligations are done with excellence.
Company culture and communication go hand-in-hand. Without communication, it’s hard to build a culture where employees thrive and engage with their work because they’re likely to feel less involved, while also being less trusting and less connected with the company as a whole. An organization built on communication brings employees in, and encourages them to share their ideas, connect with their co-workers, and build relationships with the leaders who guide them. Communication is an enabler for employee engagement.
The ability to listen is one of the most important skills you can leverage as a leader and manager. Not only does this ensure that your employees are heard, but it broadens your perspective too. There are four types of listening that you should master.
Look around at any airport and you’ll see people surrounding outlets, sitting on their laptops and phones. According to the State of the Remote Job Marketplace report, 43 percent of the workforce works remotely at least some of the time. A major perk of distributed work is the ability to be traveling while on the clock.
Most business communication is done in writing, usually via email and chat messages. According to data from Radicati, there are about 124.5 billion business emails sent and received each day. Writing skills are important.
Americans could use a vacation and unplugging from the digital world. Recent data shows that an estimated 53 percent of Americans continue to work over the weekend, 52 percent outside of designated office hours, and 54 percent still work even if they call in sick, according to Deloitte.
We’ve explored the importance of listening in this series, and now it’s time to talk about some simple and practical strategies for honing your listening skills. It’s especially important for leaders, who have employees to manage and guide. Because simply standing in the room while someone talks is not enough.
Listening is critical to your workday and poor listening skills can ruin it. Top executives for a Chicago manufacturing plant were asked to survey the role of listening in their plant. After hearing a seminar on listening, Ralph G. Nichols and Leonard A. Stevens explain in their Harvard Business Review article, that one of the most common responses was:
“Frankly, I had never thought of listening as an important subject by itself. But now that I am aware of it, I think that perhaps 80 percent of my work depends on my listening to someone, or on someone else listening to me.”
This is true for nearly anyone who works with other people. Having good listening skills is critical to avoiding miscommunication and staying connected with other team members and managers.
