Do you have a coworker who always seems to have their headphones in, tapping along with the beat or mouthing the lyrics? Maybe you are that coworker who can’t get through the day without your favorite playlists. Have you ever thought about why music is so important to your workday, whether you’re only listening to a few songs or a whole opera?
When the first wave of COVID-19 forced the world into lockdown, business leaders scrambled to pivot out of necessity. Overnight, they had to make financial adjustments and staffing decisions to keep the business afloat. They had to reassure stakeholders, hone their public message, and implement health and safety measures. If being a great leader was difficult before, now it has become even tougher.
Have you ever considered how much time you spend in meetings each day? Attentiv reports that Americans hold approximately 11 million meetings per day, with an average length between 31 to 60 minutes. As the COVID-19 pandemic drove teams away from the office, employers had to adapt to remote meetings. And video calls and phone conferences replaced many in-person interactions.
The problem is that 33.4 percent of meetings are considered unproductive, according to the same report. Leading an effective meeting is a skill, and so is leading an effective remote meeting.
If there’s one lesson the pandemic taught business owners this year, it’s that having a virtual workforce is doable across many industries and sectors. About 50 percent of surveyed companies in the United States and Canada think their employees are more productive when working from home and project this will continue in 2021, according to Talent Trends.
However, the research also indicates that another 43 percent of companies are not sure if they can adapt to a digitally enabled remote work entirely in the months ahead.
It’s time to get out of the productivity box once again in a search for surprising new elements that can make our days at work better. In the past months, we discovered how coffee influences work efficiency, exercised our way into the flow, and learned to break the mental health paradigm at the workplace. Now, let’s take a deep dive into what nature has to offer.
Software-as-a-service, known as SaaS, is a $157 billion market, according to recent reports. With the increase of remote work due to the pandemic, the SaaS market will continue to expand, suggests TechCrunch. While this puts SaaS companies in a fast-growing and valuable industry, it also means there’s more competition than ever before.
This year threw the workforce for a major loop, as millions of people exchanged office cubicles for their own sofas and kitchen tables. And while this shift in daily scenery is one thing for existing employees, for new team members there’s a different story altogether. In a matter of months, remote onboarding has become an even hotter topic.
The email is a communication medium still used by billions of people around the world. From personal to marketing purposes, everyone sends and receives tens of emails every day. It’s also an important element of our lives at work. So let’s take a closer look at when to use it and how to improve our email productivity.
As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, remote working has become more and more widespread. According to Owl Labs’ State of Remote Work survey, at the beginning of this year, 62 percent of full-time employees in US worked remotely to some degree. By now, more than 65 percent are mostly working from home. And the already fragile work-life balance is once again under great pressure. Therefore, avoiding burnout and caring for the mental health of their employees have become paramount for companies from all over the world.
The current workplace environment looks caught between a rock and a hard place. With 77 percent of full-time US employees working from home, we still have record-high levels of remote workers. Yet, in-spite of distributed locations, leaders want their teams to be highly productive. And all of this on top of a sanitary crisis. So, are you ready to dive headfirst into the mental health paradigm at work? Let’s do it!
