Time management is one of those key skill sets that teams place a high premium on, but often fall short of maintaining. In this installment of The Productivity Box, we want to introduce you to time-blocking—a technique that will help you and your team reclaim the workday.
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?
Employee turnover can have a significant impact on your bottom line. Employment professionals estimate that turnover costs between 1.5 to 2 times an employee’s salary. For every employee that quits who earned $100,000, your company could spend $200,000 in hiring and training costs—not to mention the lost productivity from other employees who need to pick up the slack.
The average American works about 1,750 hours per year. That’s more than six other high-income nations: the U.K., Australia, Sweden, Belgium, France, and Germany. Even with all those hours on the clock, 88 percent of the workforce procrastinates for at least one hour each day. In other words, no matter how many tasks are written down (or crossed off) on their to-do list, people are still wasting valuable time and losing out on productivity. This is why it’s important to balance strategic vision with tactical execution, a work balance, if you will.
Effective communication is crucial in the workplace as it allows us to build relationships, improve cooperation and productivity, resolve conflicts, and make better decisions. As we previously learned, active listening is one way to conduct communication in an efficient way.
Communicating effectively within a company is critical both for the organization, but also for the individuals involved. The most successful people on the planet are the best communicators. The most successful companies are those able to communicate their message in the most effective ways. At this point, the importance of communication in the workplace is unquestionable. However, it can be classified in several ways, depending on who, and how, is sending, and receiving the message.
The great resignation has forced a shift in workplace dynamics across all industries. In its wake, employees are re-evaluating their work environment and culture to determine if it meets their specific needs. Furthermore, having a sense of belonging is crucial for collaboration and teamwork.
Poor sound quality can be a significant distraction for your conference calls. If participants sound far away, have crackling associated with their line, or cut in and out, it’s hard for attendees to focus on what’s actually being said. With meeting productivity in thin air—you don’t need any other issues.
Organizations require employees to collaborate with more people than ever before, both internally and externally. This ever-increasing demand can be tough to keep up with. It ultimately leads to frustration and sometimes even to collaboration burnout.
In today’s hybrid workplace, any organization needs an efficient, seamless, cohesive strategy that makes it possible to collaborate from anywhere. With team members scattered across various locations—some at home, others in the office, and even some in different time zones—poor virtual collaboration can affect the overall work performance. Strong communication and teamworking have, once again, become mission-critical.
