MarketMinds Digital Agency

03/02/2023

https://hbr.org/2012/11/how-to-master-a-new-skill?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=hbr&utm_source=facebook&tpcc=orgsocial_edit

We all need to get better at something.

28/02/2017

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People:

Habit 1: Be proactive. ( Not only active)
Habit 2: Begin with the end in mind.
Habit 3: Puts first thing first. ( Both important and Urgent)
Habit 4: Think win-win. ( Mutual benefit)
Habit 5: Seek first to understand, Then to be Understood.
Habit 6: Synergy (1+1 is more than 2)
Habit 7: Sharpen the saw. ( Renewal)

20/01/2015

Engaging Employees, One
Step at a Time

“Employee engagement” is the term du
jour amongst employers seeking to
improve retention and lower costly
employee churn. In light of the oft-quoted
Gallup statistic that 70 perenct of the
workforce is “disengaged,” company
leaders must focus on how to drive
engagement across their workforces.
But what exactly is employee
engagement anyway, and how can
employers ensure that their employees
are “engaged” on a regular basis?
According to the formal definition of the
term by William Kahn, engaged
employees “express themselves
physically, cognitively, and emotionally
during role performances.” Likewise, the
more an employee is involved with,
committed to and satisfied with work,
the more the person is engaged. And this
helps a business's bottom line.
The Corporate Leadership Council
studied the engagement level of 50,000
employees around the world and
determined that engaged companies
grow profits as much as three times
faster than their competitors.
Additionally, highly engaged employees
are 87 percent less likely to leave the
organization.
Related: Here is a Simple and Fun Way to
Boost Employee Engagement
On the flip side, McLean & Company has
found that a disengaged employee costs
an organization approximately $3,400
for every $10,000 in annual salary, and
the American economy misses out on as
much as $350 billion per year due to lost
productivity.
To improve employee engagement and
increase retention, companies need to
focus on specific driving factors, such as
the following:
Focusing on employee health
Employee engagement comes down to
how your employees feel when they
arrive at work, how they process their
work and when they leave work. In our
connected and always-on world,
employees are naturally working harder
then ever before, often at the expense of
their own health and well-being.
But unhealthy employees tend to be the
most disengaged, as poor health
interferes with focus, self-confidence and
motivation. This predicament is not only
worrisome for the state of health of the
average American, it can also be very
costly to a company. In fact, unhealthy
workers cost companies more than $1.1
trillion in lost productivity, according to a
recent Milken Institute Study.
By investing in programs to reward
employees for taking steps to improve
their health, your workforce receives an
important underlying message that their
well-being matters. This kind of positive
messaging can be achieved through
implementing platforms like Keas , a
health management platform that
companies leverage to maximize
employee health and engagement.
Even without an extensive digital health-
management platform, companies can
still make progress when it comes to
stimulating healthy behaviors, such as a
“weekly walking mission” that rewards
employees who have recorded taking the
most steps during breaks in the span of
a week. These kinds of reward-based
challenges not only show employees that
an organization values their well-being,
but also allows workers to express
themselves physically and emotionally:
two keys to employee engagement.
Related: Build Brand Advocacy From the
Inside Out
Contributing to a bigger mission
The next component of employee
engagement is directly linked with all
employees knowing how they are
contributing to a larger mission. How do
their daily tasks tie into the goal of the
company? While any CEO wants to
expand the bottom line, companies need
an even bigger mission that they can
clearly communicate to employees and
stand behind.
For instance, at Keas our big-picture goal
is fueled by the mission to revolutionize
employee health. Our entire team is
clearly aware of and passionate about
our purpose to make it easy for
employees to lead healthier lives by fully
utilizing all of their employer-provided
benefits while also helping employers
solve the headache of health
management in the age of health reform.
Connecting with others
Just as personal health and feeling like a
part of a bigger mission are crucial to
engagement, so is the level of connection
that employees feel with their colleagues,
families and themselves. With
telecommuting becoming the norm in
many workplaces, it’s essential to
provide online systems that foster both
social and collaborative interaction to
keep employees engaged.
The Keas team extends across the
country, with employees in not only our
San Francisco headquarters but also
various regions such as Rochester, N.Y.,
Atlanta, and Minneapolis. Nonetheless,
we all feel connected because our culture
prioritizes team engagement every day --
whether that includes sharing what we’re
eating for lunch or connecting via video
chat throughout the day.
Recognizing and rewarding great
work
As a company grows, it’s easy to get lost
in the weeds and forget to recognize
employees for their contributions.
Instead of waiting for annual
performance reviews, sharing ongoing
feedback -- both positive and
constructive criticism -- goes a long way
in enhancing engagement at the office.
While it’s key to compensate fairly for a
role to retain top talent, employees rarely
leave jobs because they are simply
unhappy with their pay. More often,
employees leave because they do not
feel rewarded or appreciated for the work
they do, and ultimately aren’t engaged.
In fact, 82 percent of employees find lack
of recognition considerably annoying or
a deal breaker, according to a survey by
BambooHR.
Managers from the top down must focus
on creating a rewarding environment to
recognize team members who contribute
to success at all levels of the
organization. Since recognition can help
ignite satisfaction (both personally and
with work), rewarding employees for a
job well done is critical in promoting
engagement.
Cultivating a highly-engaged workforce
takes time, but most of all, it requires
intention. Implementing specific steps,
like clearly communicating to employees
that their health matters and recognizing
their work, can mean the difference
between your workforce falling within the
70 percent of disengaged workers and
the 30 percent who are at the top of their
game, passionate about their work and
fueling your organization’s productivity.

12/01/2015

"The greatest discovery of all time is that a
person can change his future by merely
changing his attitude." -- Oprah Winfrey

10/01/2015

15 Must-Have Business Apps for Getting Work Done
Business and productive apps are making work easier for professionals in every field of business. There are now hundreds of thousands of useful business apps for getting work done faster and efficiently. Most business professionals are only familiar with popular business apps like the LinkedIn app, Basecamp, Skype, Evernote, Dropbox, Box, SkyDrive and Google Drive. But you can add a few more productive apps that can equally handle some of your basic tasks whilst you concentrate on the most important once that need your personal attention most of the time.

These are 15 of the best productive and must-have business apps you may not be using. You can also share with us some of the most productive business apps you or your business is using now.

1, WorkFlowy

WorkFlowy can help you manage all the information in your life. Workflowy also lets you zoom, complete a task, hide completed items as well as expand, collapse and delete items extremely fast, allowing you to type notes at the speed of thought.

2. Shoeboxed

Shoeboxed is an excellent alternative for traditional way of scanning and filing your papers and digital documents. Shoeboxed helps you to turn a pile of receipts into digital data for expense reporting, accounting, bookkeeping, and tax preparation.

3. HipChat

ipChat is a private instant messaging network for companies, teams, and organizations. HipChat helps you share ideas, code, and files with your team in real-time. You can collaborate in real-time with persistent rooms, file sharing and searchable chat history.

4. Brewster

Brewster brings together the people you know and their latest details. Users can quickly access contact information, employment, mutual connections across services and more. Brewster re-imagines what an address book should do for you.

5. Yammer

Yammer is an Enterprise Social Network that brings together employees, content, conversations, and business data in a single location. The service can be accessed through the web, desktop, and mobile devices. Yammer was acquired by Microsoft in June 2012.

6. SignNow

SignNow offers tools to e-sign digital files without the need to scan, fax or mail documents. You can sign your own documents, or invite clients to sign. Personalize your name by typing, drawing, or uploading and create your own custom signature.

7. iMeet

iMeet is a simple space where you and your guests can get together anytime for a meeting. Use it for team meetings, e-learning, candidate interviews, sales pitches or just catching up. Make presentations, watch videos together and share files of any type.

8. CardMunch

The CardMunch app automatically recognizes, captures, transcribes, and creates the contact in the user’s phone, straight from a business card. Take a picture with the app and a business card is converted to a contact automatically.

9. Asana

Asana is a shared task list for your team – the best way to communicate, organize, and track your work. Easily create, assign, follow, and comment on tasks, so you always know what’s getting done and who’s doing it. Asana gives your team the accountability it needs.

10. Trello

Trello is a collaboration tool that organizes your projects into boards. In one glance, Trello tells you what’s being worked on, who’s working on what, and where something is in a process. With a simple board and card system, any project can be easily managed.

11. Expensify

Expensify imports expenses and receipts straight from your credit card or bank account, submits PDF expense reports by email, and reimburses reports up to $10,000 entirely online. Capture receipts and submit expenses everywhere.

12. Workshare

The Workshare platform allows individuals to easily create, share and manage high-value content anywhere, on any device. Workshare enables content owners to accurately track and compare changes. Share knowledge, find experts and get answers.

13. Contactually

Contactually converts your contacts to relationships, all through email. Contactually manages your contacts by prompting you to take meaningful action. The app identifies when you email a new lead and ask a few specific questions to learn more about them.

14. inDinero

Managing financial data is often a nightmare for small business owners. inDinero is a maker of online money-management tools for small businesses. inDinero updates your books for you so you can focus on running your business.

15. Insightly

Insightly as a simple CRM system for small businesses. With integrations to Google Apps, MailChimp, LinkedIn and Twitter, and with great mobile apps for tablets and smart phones, Insightly wants to be he leading customer management system for small businesses.

10/01/2015

Turning the Office into a Peaceful and Culturally-diverse Workplace

The beauty of living in a world that plays host to over seven billion people is the fact that no two of them are exactly the same. It is those inherent differences that exist between people that also contribute to them being true individuals as opposed to being dull and uninspiring members of the pack. These differences are routinely sought out by individuals as they even make it a point to travel to foreign locales just so they can experience different cultures. This is a culturally diverse world, and that reality is now also becoming evident inside the workplace.

Culturally diversity is a thing to celebrate, but it’s not always the easiest thing to deal with. The difficulty arises from the fact that since people come from different backgrounds, that also means that they have grown accustomed to different social norms and practices. Someone may already be performing an act that can be deemed offensive by other cultures without that person even realizing that there was something wrong with what he was doing.

This is the reality that cultural diversity imposes upon people, and for the most part, individuals are more than willing to deal with the differences that do exist. It’s easy enough to practice being accepting in everyday life, but things start to get different when the workplace is involved in the matter.

Right off the bat, you need to be cognizant of the fact that the workplace you are managing or supervising is going to contain a cast of characters that may be different from the ones in the past, but that’s a good thing, since a workplace that values talent and attitude over things such as culture and race is always going to be more productive in the long run. The business world is going to be unkind if you are willfully ignorant of the changes that are taking place in this world, so embrace the differences and turn your workplace into a happier and more engaging environment by using a few of these helpful management strategies.

The first and arguably most important step to promoting diversity acceptance in the workplace is to recognize the inherent differences that exist between people that possess widely varied backgrounds. It’s important to recognize the fact that these differences be physical or cultural. In order to truly everyone feel that they are accepted within the workplace, it would help you to become more inquisitive. Learning more about your employees and their backgrounds is a great way to celebrate the diversity that exists within your office.

The next thing you can do as the manager of a diverse workplace is to treat each and every employee fairly. You need to be mindful of the differences that exist between different cultures and use them as factors in the way you operate. Just be careful not to become too biased towards one person as this may render your efforts to bring about fairness ultimately useless. You’ve showcased fairness and understanding thus far, but your efforts will also be useless if the rest of your employees aren’t on board with making your workplace a culturally-diverse one.

More often than not, the employees that are resistant to all these cultural differences are also the ones that misunderstand them the most. So how can you effectively solve this problem? You can encourage each and every one of your employees to interact with each other. A conversation can do wonders for a relationship, and your employees can really benefit from getting to know their fellow co-workers. It’s a seemingly small step, but it can really promote harmony within the culturally-diverse workplace.

This article is shared by Ted Swanger; an HR practitioner in California and at the same time, a consultant for a marketing firm in Seattle. In some of his works, he tackled Emile Haddad seattle’s contribution to business management.