However you spent winter holidays, it can be quite challenging to recover your productivity thereafter. Whether you are tired, windbitten, jet-lagged, or simply extremely happy and relaxed, diving back into work is probably the last thing you want to do. Adulting is hard, but it must be done.
When those initial stay-at-home orders went into effect back in March 2020, the mass shift to remote work seemed to boost productivity. But as this pandemic keeps bugging us even a year later, that productivity surge is now on the decline. While some organizations have seen a 5 to 8 percent increase in productivity within these last 12 months, most have suffered a 3 to 6 percent decrease in 2020 overall, according to Harvard Business Review.
For a second, I challenge you to leave aside everything you’ve learned or heard about productivity so far. Every advice that prompts you to wake up before sunrise and read your goals out loud every night. The purpose of this article is not to invalidate the oldest tricks in the book. However, we cannot ignore the fact that many recipes are either hard to follow, or simply won’t work for a lot of people. The good news is there are ways to boost productivity 🙂
Dale Carnegie, the famous American writer, used to say that people rarely succeed, unless they are having fun in what they are doing. Future experiments showed he was onto something 🙂 Turning frowns upside down seems to generate more work effort and engagement.
Team meetings are an inevitable part of the average employee’s schedule. But regardless of their frequency, just how productive are those meetings? And how many prove to be pointless meetings?
For many, 2022 was the first year of normality after two very long years of pandemic. Profound workplace changes for both workers and employers alike, businesses navigating economic downturn, and people feeling the pressure of galloping inflation—the past twelve months were anything but quiet! Now is the perfect time for the 2022 wrap-up, let’s do it together.
According to a recent survey from The Conference Board, 51 percent of U.S. employees (out of more than 1,200) have reported negative mental health outcomes in recent years. With all the stress of this pandemic, the fear of economic uncertainty, and now the threat of a European war, it’s no surprise that many workers feel overwhelmed. So how do you prevent anxiety from ruining your work days and your team’s productivity? Let’s find out together.
Companies all over the world have become obsessed with meetings, so much so that they dedicate several hours each week to sitting in them. In US, on average, employees spend 33 percent of their workweeks in meetings and will attend between 6 to 15 meetings per week. Unfortunately, not all of them are productive. Quite the contrary! Some team meetings often pull employees away from periods of concentration where they can work without disruption.
It’s hard to make it through the workday without hearing the word busy. People talk about how they are too busy to take on extra tasks or lose track of the day because of how full it is. However, being busy doesn’t always mean being productive.
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.
