The hybrid working environment is no longer a post-pandemic experiment. On average, office attendance is 30 percent lower than before 2020 with most remote-capable workers going into the office just 3.5 days per week. Even though most companies have had a few years to work out their hybrid plans, many still struggle to balance remote and in-office teams.
Most of us can agree that teamwork is more than just a buzzword, it is a cornerstone of success in business. Harness teamwork and this team-oriented approach will ensure that everybody is working in sync, driving innovation, and improving overall performance. Still, we might not realize just how beneficial it is for problem-solving, communication, decision-making, innovation, organizational efficiency, and overall performance.
Perfectionism is often viewed as a good thing. At the same time, perfectionism is often correlated with anxiety because these two concepts snowball together. You want something to be perfect because of the anxiety that comes with failure, which ends up creating more anxiety as you strive toward perfection.
The pandemic made remote and hybrid work environments more popular than ever before. However, the location of your team isn’t the only thing that changed in the past few years. Remote and hybrid work has sent ripple effects through the workplace, impacting productivity, employee needs, and how these collaborate. As a leader, you will need to adapt to these changes.
If you’ve heard of seasonal affective disorder (SAD), you might associate it with those dark, cold winter months. However, while less common, SAD can occur in the spring as well, with symptoms like restlessness, anxiety, depression, insomnia, agitation or limited attention span. Also known by its more colloquial name, spring fever, this form of SAD can pose a threat to your concentration and productivity at work.
Over the past few years, burnout has become a major topic of conversation—especially in the wake of COVID-19 as chronic stress, overwhelm, and exhaustion reached alarming new levels. But there’s another less talked about phenomenon that could be even more detrimental to your work performance (and other facets of your life, too). This silent saboteur is called rust-out, and almost 70 percent of employees have dealt with it.
It has been demonstrated that attention spans are shrinking. People are constantly inundated with short videos, bite-size content, and endless stimuli that prevent them from really focusing on one thing at a time. Even corporate training materials have moved toward digestible content. Though not necessarily a bad thing, it highlights the necessity for companies to accommodate workers who are easily distracted. Similarly, as you tailor your marketing messages for your target audience, you must also modify your communication methods to suit their attention span.
Effective communication drives to better performance at work while poor communication costs money. According to a 2023 report, miscommunication costs companies $12,506 per employee per year. This is significant considering 72 percent of the average employee’s workweek is spent communicating.
Communication plays a crucial role in problem-solving and decision-making processes within teams. More than 70 percent of leaders feel that effective communication skills boost their team’s productivity. So what is the correlation between strong communication and a high-quality job performance? And how can you develop this trait to bolster your own career success?
There’s a lot going on in the current news cycle. War rages across the world while mass shootings continue to plague the U.S. Politically, media outlets are preparing to cover the 2024 presidential election and some candidates have already thrown their hats into the ring. As for the economy, it looks very much like Schrödinger’s cat: we are in recession and not in recession, both true at the same time. This can be a lot for anyone to keep up with and emotionally handle.
