The 6 Things You Should Never Sacrifice for Your Job—No Matter What

Ref: https://www.themuse.com/advice/the-6-things-you-should-never-sacrifice-for-your-jobno-matter-what?ref=home-large-tile-0

The typical workday is long enough as it is, and technology is making it even longer. When you do finally get home from a full day at the office, your mobile phone rings off the hook, and emails drop into your inbox from people who expect immediate responses.

While most people claim to disconnect as soon as they get home, recent research says otherwise. A study conducted by the American Psychological Association found that more than 50% of us check work email before and after work hours, throughout the weekend, and even when we’re sick. Even worse, 44% of us check work email while on vacation.

A Northern Illinois University study that came out this summer shows just how bad this level of connection really is. The study found that the expectation that people need to respond to emails during off-work hours produces a prolonged stress response, which the researchers named “telepressure.” Telepressure ensures that you are never able to relax and truly disengage from work. This prolonged state of stress is terrible for your health. Besides increasing your risk of heart disease, depression, and obesity, stress decreases your cognitive performance.

We need to establish boundaries between our personal and professional lives. When we don’t, our work, our health, and our personal lives suffer.

Responding to emails during off-work hours isn’t the only area in which you need to set boundaries. You need to make the critical distinction between what belongs to your employer and what belongs to you and you only. The items that follow are yours. If you don’t set boundaries around them and learn to say no to your boss, you’re giving away something with immeasurable value.

1. Your Health

It’s difficult to know when to set boundaries around your health at work because the decline is so gradual. Allowing stress to build up, losing sleep, and sitting all day without exercising all add up. Before you know it, you’re rubbing your aching back with one hand and your zombie-like eyes with the other, and you’re looking down at your newly acquired belly. The key here is to not let things sneak up on you, and the way you do that is by keeping a consistent routine. Think about what you need to do to keep yourself healthy (taking walks during lunch, not working weekends, taking your vacations as scheduled), make a plan, and stick to it no matter what. If you don’t, you’re allowing your work to overstep its bounds.

2. Your Family

It’s easy to let your family suffer for your work. Many of us do this because we see our jobs as a means of maintaining our families. We have thoughts such as “I need to make more money so that my kids can go to college debt-free.” Though these thoughts are well-intentioned, they can burden your family with the biggest debt of all—a lack of quality time with you. When you’re on your deathbed, you won’t remember how much money you made for your spouse and kids. You’ll remember the memories you created with them.

3. Your Sanity

While we all have our own levels of this to begin with, you don’t owe a shred of it to your employer. A job that takes even a small portion of your sanity is taking more than it’s entitled to. Your sanity is something that’s difficult for your boss to keep track of. You have to monitor it on your own and set good limits to keep yourself healthy. Often, it’s your life outside of work that keeps you sane. When you’ve already put in a good day’s (or week’s) worth of work and your boss wants more, the most productive thing you can do is say no, and then go and enjoy your friends and hobbies. This way, you return to work refreshed and de-stressed. You certainly can work extra hours if you want to, but it’s important to be able to say no to your boss when you need time away from work.

4. Your Identity

While your work is an important part of your identity, it’s dangerous to allow your work to become your whole identity. You know you’ve allowed this to go too far when you reflect on what’s important to you and work is all that (or most of what) comes to mind. Having an identity outside of work is about more than just having fun. It also helps you relieve stress, grow as a person, and avoid burnout.

5. Your Contacts

While you do owe your employer your best effort, you certainly don’t owe him or her the contacts you’ve developed over the course of your career. Your contacts are a product of your hard work and effort, and while you might share them with your company, they belong to you.

6. Your Integrity

Sacrificing your integrity causes you to experience massive amounts of stress. Once you realize that your actions and beliefs are no longer in alignment, it’s time to make it clear to your employer that you’re not willing to do things his or her way. If that’s a problem for your boss, it might be time to part ways.

Bringing it All Together

Success and fulfillment often depend upon your ability to set good boundaries. Once you can do this, everything else just falls into place.

6 Types of Employees Who Frustrate Their Bosses (and How Smart Managers Deal With Them)

Ref: https://www.themuse.com/advice/6-types-of-employees-who-frustrate-their-bosses-and-how-smart-managers-deal-with-them?ref=home-small-tile-1

Being the boss is never easy, but some employees make it particularly difficult. How do you cope with those who do their jobs well but are equally skilled at annoying both you and their colleagues? Tim Eisenhauer, co-founder of Axero Solutions, which makes the workplace intranet Communifire, has some practical suggestions for coping with challenging employee personalities.

Here’s his list of the six most common problem personalities, and how to motivate them to improve their behavior.

1. The Gossip

“It’s estimated that around one in every five office workers engages in gossip, and that office workers spend up to three hours each work week hearing, seeing, and speaking gossip,” Eisenhauer says. If you pay attention, you’ll see that certain employees are always in the middle of these discussions, and often initiate them. “Gossips always know—or think they know—what is going on at the company, and they aren’t shy about forming their opinions and seeking out other people’s opinions,” he notes.

You can’t eliminate, or even reduce, the amount of gossip in your workplace, he warns, and trying will lead only to ill will. Besides, you don’t necessarily want to eliminate it. “Relationships between co-workers have been shown to improve productivity, collaboration, and employee satisfaction,” he says. When employees talk about the things they have in common, including co-workers, managers, and the company, they are creating a bond that will benefit both them and you.

The smarter approach is to use gossip as a tool to encourage all your employees to be better. “As a manager, accept that your employees will gossip about you,” he says. “Use your ‘star power’ to demonstrate behavior that you want to see in your company. Do what you say you are going to do, be open and transparent, and build trust. In short, put yourself beyond reproach.” The more your employees observe and comment on the way you do things, the more likely they will follow your lead.

2. The Grump

The character Stanley Hudson in The Office is a perfect example of a grump, Eisenhauer says: “He is uninterested in his work and the workplace, beyond taking home a paycheck, and clearly does not want to be there. Stanley grudgingly does what is asked of him and nothing more. His negativity and disengagement are palpable.”

Dealing with a grump can make you grumpy yourself, but don’t give in to that feeling, Eisenhauer advises. “Some office grumps have generally cantankerous personalities, whereas others’ grumpiness stems from [their] being unhappy at work,” he notes. “Whatever the case, the best strategy is to kill them with kindness. Give praise when they do a good job and don’t let their negativity bring you down.”

At the same time, he says, try to find out the reason for their unhappiness. “Ask what you can do to make their work life more enjoyable,” he says. “The key is to communicate and listen. Make sure they feel heard and that their contributions are recognized.”

3. The Overachiever

“In school and in work alike, there are always overachievers,” Eisenhauer says. As the boss, it may not be obvious to you why an overachiever is a problem personality. “Authority figures tend to respond well to overachievers,” he notes. “They go above and beyond what is asked of them and clearly care about succeeding.”

You want overachievers on your team, he notes—they propose big ideas, move projects forward, and generally get things done. If you give them a task, you don’t have to wonder whether it will be completed or not.

“However, overachievers can often be impatient,” Eisenhauer says. They may not work well in situations where they have to strictly follow orders. And they can cause jealousy and resentment in their less overachieving co-workers.

“Approach them as a supporter and a coach,” Eisenhauer advises. “Give them projects, but don’t micromanage. Check in often, but not to dictate how things are done. And make sure that you don’t heap praise on these employees at the expense of others.”

4. The Suck-up

“Suck-ups can sometimes seem like overachievers, but they are actually in a category of their own,” Eisenhauer says. “These people do not necessarily perform better or even work more than the average employee. Rather, they strive to tell bosses what they want to hear and ingratiate themselves with authority figures.” Interestingly, he adds, suck-ups may not even realize they’re sucking up.

Suck-ups are usually insecure, he says. Their lack of confidence in their own abilities leads them to attempt to compensate with excessive flattery and ingratiating behavior. “As a manager, don’t get sucked into their behavior and drama,” Eisenhauer says. “Be polite, but don’t reward them for their fawning. Stick to the facts and try to subtly discourage their behavior. When you do issue praise, make sure it’s for a legitimate accomplishment.”

5. The Slacker

Most managers hate working with slackers because they appear lazy or incompetent, or both, Eisenhauer notes. “They may not get their work done, or at least not in a timely manner, and they do the bare minimum,” he says. “Slackers jump on every opportunity to not work and may spend a majority of their work day on non work-related activities.”

You may be tempted to simply terminate slackers, especially if they aren’t pulling their own weight. But before you do, consider trying a few simple interventions that may dramatically improve a slacker’s performance. “Often what they need is more structure,” Eisenhauer says. “Work with a slacker to set goals. Make sure these goals are emotionally appealing, meaning they connect somehow to their interests and strengths. Create a sense of urgency if you can.”

Boredom and being under-challenged can often turn people into slackers, he notes. So try finding something important for them to do, and urge them to do something that will be difficult and outside their comfort zone. “Disrupt their usual automatic way of thinking,” he says. You may discover that your slacker isn’t so lazy after all.

6. The Clown

“The office clown is the grown-up version of the class clown—someone who may be highly entertaining and funny, but at the cost of being disruptive,” Eisenhauer says. Clowns love to play pranks and joke around, and it can be tough for them take things seriously.

Most clowns mean well, but they can still be a big problem in the workplace. “Clowning on the job is distracting and can be offensive or hurtful to other people,” he says. Since clowns crave attention, don’t fall into their trap by disrupting them in the middle of their “act” or having a big blow-up in front of the whole team, he warns. Instead, sit down with the clown and have a serious conversation.

Once you’re in private, you can ask or order the clown to stop being disruptive. Or, you can try a subtler tactic that may be quite effective: Give the clown a big, complicated project with a tight deadline. That way, he or she will no longer have time for clowning around.

Sustainable Pace – A True Measure To Agility

Ref: https://agilegnostic.wordpress.com/2016/01/21/sustainable-pace-a-true-measure-to-agility/

In Agile Software Development, ‘Sustainable Pace’ practice refers to the consistent and sustainable software development through a longer period. This sustainability in development should be maintained continuously until completion of product development with the consistent endeavors to improve the rate of software delivery maintaining the quality output. Originated from the Extreme Programming methodology, and having specially mentioned in Agile Manifesto; the practice has been widely accepted into Agile Software Development. It’s applicable to all kinds of development projects, for both at small and large teams at scaled agile. The phrase ‘Sustainable Pace’ was coined to denote that the team works daily for the same number of hours so that their pace of development remains consistently same or improve slowly without draining teams performance; making them fatigue or raising their frustration level such that they lose interests.

“In the long run, sustainable pace of development is the fastest way to deliver the quality software.”

The Sustainable Pace in very important, especially in long running software projects. It’s similar to maintaining the Constant Pace of Running in long distance running events like Half Marathon or Marathon. Unless a runner maintains constant pace; (s)he won’t be able to run long distance for a longer period. If runner sprints fast or has too much variation in running pace; (s)he will get tired too early and may get injured or body can resist completing the race. In software development also, if team push too hard in few iterations, they will not be able to keep up the same pace for longer period. The small variations in running pace also important, which depends in the nature of race terrains. When a runner gets into the upward or uphill terrain, (s)he slows down the pace a bit to reserve energy until plain/flat surface comes. Similarly, if the development team has come across rough patches in forms of technical debts, impediments; they would need to slow down the pace a bit, so as to take appropriate actions first before moving on with development further. Like running, keeping a constant rhythmic pace of development is important to keep the team energetic and motivated.

Where does it apply?

The sustainable pace is expected to be maintained across the software engineering disciplines; programming, quality assurance, and delivery management. One of the Agile manifesto principles read as following…

“Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.”

This principle states that it’s not just developers but also the sponsors and users; who should maintain the constant pace. Let’s discuss how the sponsors and users can contribute to a sustainable pace of development…

• There must be Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) from customer representing sponsor (most members of Product Management group, Product Owners) and users (end-users of the product being developed); who have vested interests in the development process. 
• They are committed to giving a certain amount of time that is sufficient to the team.  They actively participate in software development process by owning certain defined activities and responsibilities. Activities such as defining prioritizing product features, and taking business decisions whenever needed.
• Users, when interim product increments are given the demo (iteration review meetings) or handed over for review and testing; they should provide active and timely feedbacks. Any changes or improvements can be planned by the team on time earliest with their future impacts.
• Customer provided feedbacks on changes in requirements could be due to any reasons; which should be taken into consideration with appropriate planning in consultation with customer representative (the product owner).

For me, the sustainability in software engineering applies to entire software lifecycle – during the development and while in production; when the product is in actual use. The sustainable pace needs to be maintained across the software product lifecycle from product envisioning, it’s development, quality assurance, and future enhancements and changes; while the product is business facing.

What are the impacting factors?

There are many factors that directly or indirectly impacts the teams sustainable pace.

• Abnormal Working Hours/Days – It has been observed that majority of teams have extended work hours, either they continue working late evenings or until nights, they either miss to enjoy the company holidays or have prolonged weeks working on weekends. Also, in many organizations abnormal and prolonged working hours have become a normal phenomenon. These kinds of working styles for a long time are the major deterrents to sustainable development pace. Initially, it may lead to increase in productivity, but over the longer period, it degrades the  individuals and whole team’s productivity as well as the quality of work.
• Agile Anti-patterns (Culture & Mindset)– Sustainability depends a lot on the ways in which teams works and how their works are managed. The management style depends on the people in the management roles as well as on the organization’s culture and working styles. Many times managers and leaders do link the overtimes works to employees commitments and dedication to finish the tasks in hand. The worst part is many of the managers pressurize the teams to finish the work in comparatively shorter time and make a mistake to see it as increased productivity.Employees working late or on weekends are appraised for their elevated performance, (which truly does not translate to that) thereby creating a culture of imbalance and illusion in projecting achievements. This creates an unhealthy culture and unbalanced work environment. Sometimes even the senior management attempt to make a comparative distinction based on such unreasonable and unrealistic parameters. Organization should create healthy culture and mindset favorable to Agile. Read my post “Four Facets of Agile – Part 1” to get more insights on Agile culture and mindset.
• Distributed Teams – Especially in Software Development space, it has become a very common phenomenon to have distributed teams in which members work from different geographical locations and time-zones. Having the distributed team is the reality today due to various factors like cost effectiveness, availability of talents pools and other such numerous reasons; which can not be avoided. Having team members at distributed locations in different time-zones create challenges in communication, collaboration, work distribution, and synchronization etc. Without effective uses of tools and technology as well as planning of suitable team composition and placements; maintaining the consistent pace would definitely be a challenge. Refer my previous blog “Bringing Agility To Distributed Agile Teams” for more details.
• Inappropriate Planning – Insufficient and inappropriate planning of works, lack of prioritization,unresolved dependencies, unbroken users stories, unidentified tasks and insufficient estimation are the critical factors that hampers the team’s productivity and inability to maintain a sustainable pace.It is of utmost importance that team does the appropriate level of  Release Planning, Sprint Planning on time and revisit them frequently in order to adjust any deviations and anomalies caused by impediments. Having appropriate, revised and meticulous plans help a team to be organized and focused to both short-term and long-term goals; which increases teams moral, confidence and commitments.
• Unrealistic Improvement Pressure – There is constant pressure on the team, both from customer side (i.e. Product Owner) and management; to improve the velocity, by taking more and more work every iteration; even though the team’s capacity remains same. It should be left on team’s discretion and comfort to increase the velocity on a continuous basis through inspection (process, tools and practices) and adaptions (remedies and workarounds).Increased pressure without understanding and removing the root cause of problems, process and practices improvements, reducing dependencies and mitigating the risk occurrences; it becomes impossible for the team to improve velocity (and so as productivity) without working extra time than whatever was planned. In many cases, I observed that teams are pressurized to even plan for working on weekends intestinally due to the growing backlog and pressure to deliver them at earliest. In such cases team is not going to remain productive for a longer period.

How do we measure?

“The pace of development should be sustainable, measurable and predictable.”

With references to team’s daily working schedule, widely it’s been seen as whether team works consistently for the same number of hours or not. This is a common misunderstanding that if a team works consistently for the same number of hours; say for examples 40 hours per week; then they have Sustainable Pace of development. It’s just same as undervaluing the importance of sustainable pace and inappropriately measured.

Daily work schedule and the total work hours per iteration definitely have an impact of team’s productivity, quality and output of work completed. It’s worth noting that actual productive hours must not be compared with working hours.

“The actual measure of sustainable pace should be based on Consistency in Velocity and the Business Values delivered in relation to team’s capacity in every sprint .” 

If a team who havie it’s capacity constant, is able to maintain the same Velocity or Business Value delivery or even slightly improves the delivery rate; then we can say the team has a sustainable pace. 

The velocity and business value achievement should be calculated only for those piece of work that are fully completed; that is those features that are developed, integrated, tested and are production ready without any known bugs.

What to do to be sustainable?

The Sustainable Pace should be looked beyond the perspective of daily working hours. If a team has sustainable pace then through inspection and adaption they can plan to consistently improve the software delivery rate slowly maintaining the deliverables quality utmost. But while improving the delivery rate with improved pace, if the team loses focus to improving on quality then the improvement is not sustainable. The team can only have sustainable pace if they have…

• Sustainable Development – at every iteration works with consistent velocity and business values delivery, maintaining the consistent productivity
• Sustainable Quality – at end of every iteration produces deliverables (i.e. Product Increments) with no or less technical debts accumulation
• Sustainable Delivery – maintains the consistent, frequent and stable software releases to test and production environments
• Sustainable Improvement – continuously improves the processes and practices based on introspection, review feedbacks, and subsequent course correction

Following are few pointers that will help teams to be sustainable….

• Create agile mindset and culture healthy for working in Agile Software Development
• Keep team’s morale high, motivated and committed throughout development
• Trust your team, honor and value their works, give then autonomy to make local decisions
• Allow your team to set their pace and rhythm; achievements will keep them excited and motivated to do better
• Don’t let team members work overtime or force them to work weekends
• Don’t demand to take more and more works or put unrealistic pressure to increase the velocity
• Don’t let the technical debts be accumulated, address bugs at earliest
• Team members should avoid multi-tasking and wasteful works
• Promote balanced work-life and resolve personal issues
• Don’t keep asking team to increase delivery speed without optimizing the processes and practices
• Let the teams find out their perfect velocity and using that plan releases and sprints appropriately
• Team continuously inspects and adapts through course correction and improvements
• Optimize the processes and practices in whole software delivery chain; try eliminating the possible wastes consistently
• Maintain transparency, keep stakeholders and customer informed on any issues, impediments, risks, and blockers
• Wherever possible automate the repetitive manual activities, perform continuous integrationand test automation
• Involve team in estimation and planning sessions; ensure all risks and dependencies are thought off and planned accordingly 

Conclusion…

Sustainability does not mean a team should take their work slow and easy; rather team should be steady and consistent maintaining the pace of software development and delivery with slowly improving on productivity and quality of work. It has more to do with achievement of long-term goals rather than short-term peak performance.

Ten Tips on Improving Employee Motivation (In prospect of company)

Ref: http://www.allbusiness.com/slideshow/top-10-employee-handbook-mistakes-16681018-1.html

1. Build a Foundation

It’s important to build a solid foundation for your employees so they feel invested in the company.

Tell them about the history of the business and your vision for the future. Ask them about their expectations and career goals, as well as how you can help them feel like part of the team. When any new employee starts, make sure they receive a thorough welcome orientation.

2. Create a Positive Environment

Promote an office atmosphere that makes all employees feel worthwhile and important. Don’t play favorites with your staff. Keep office doors open, and let folks know they can always approach you with questions or concerns. After all, a happy office is a productive office.

It’s important to build a solid foundation for your employees so they feel invested in the company.

Tell them about the history of the business and your vision for the future. Ask them about their expectations and career goals, as well as how you can help them feel like part of the team. When any new employee starts, make sure they receive a thorough welcome orientation.

3. Put People on the Right Path

Most employees are looking for advancement opportunities within their own company. Work with each of them to develop a career growth plan that takes into consideration both their current skills and their future goals. If employees become excited about what’s down the road, they will become more engaged in their present work.

4. Educate the Masses

Help employees improve their professional skills by providing on-the-job training or in-house career development. Allow them to attend workshops and seminars related to the industry. Encourage them to attend adult education classes paid for by the company. Employees will feel you are investing in them, and this will translate into improved job performance.

5. Don’t Forget the Fun

Once in a while, you have put work aside and do something nice for the people who work for you.

Treat the office to a pizza lunch or take everyone to the movies. Reward employees with an unexpected day off or by closing the office early on a random Friday afternoon. These little diversions can go a long way toward improving productivity.

6. Acknowledge Contributions

You can make a huge difference in employee morale by simply taking the time to recognize each employee’s contributions and accomplishments, large or small. Don’t take it for granted that your workers know they’ve done well — be generous with praise.

7. Provide Incentives

Offer people incentives to perform well, either with something small like a gift certificate or something more substantial such as a performance-based bonus or salary increase.

Also, give out “Employee of the Month” awards. Such tokens of appreciation will go far in motivating employees.

8. Honor Your Promises

Getting people to give their all requires following through on promises. If you tell an employee that they will be considered for a bonus if numbers improve or productivity increases, you’d better put your money where your mouth is. Failure to follow through on promises will result in a loss of trust — not only that person’s trust, but the trust of every employee who hears the story.

9. Provide Career Coaching

Help employees reach the next level professionally by providing on-site coaching. Bring in professionals to provide one-on-one counseling, which can help people learn how to overcome personal or professional obstacles on their career paths.

10. Match Tasks to Talents

You can improve employee motivation by improving employee confidence. Assign individuals with tasks you know they will enjoy or will be particularly good at. An employee who is successful at one thing will have the self-confidence to tackle other projects with renewed energy and excitement.

8 Deadly Ways to Kill Employee Motivation

Ref: http://www.inc.com/lolly-daskal/8-deadly-ways-to-kill-employee-motivation.html

If you want to make sure you're providing your employees with an environment in which they can thrive, check your workplace for these motivation killers.

1. Toxic people.

If you've ever spent time with truly toxic people, you know how destructive and exhausting they can be. Toxic people spread negativity and suffocate the positive. Let them find a new home--or, if that's not possible, make sure policies and supervision are in place to minimize their damage.

2. No professional development.

Everyone needs to know that they are learning and growing. Without that, the workplace grows static and dull. Professional development for each of your employees allows them grow in their careers and also to know that both the organization and you have an investment in their success.

3. Lack of vision.

A clearly communicated vision sets direction and lets people know where to focus. Without it, even the best employees are less effective, because it's hard to excel if you don't understand the big picture.

4. Wasted time.

If you have the kind of workplace where meetings are called for no real reason and emails are sent to everyone with irrelevant information, it's likely that your workers are deeply frustrated. Show people you value them by showing them you value their time.

5. Inadequate communication.

When communication is poor, people spend half their time second-guessing what they're doing, critical tasks are missed, nonessential jobs are duplicated, information is locked into silos, and destructive rumors thrive. A clear flow of communication benefits everyone.

6. Vertical management.

If you can remember being in a situation where your ideas and input weren't valued or even heard, where it was "keep quiet and do what I say," you know how hard it is to do anything more than a grudging minimum. The more collaboration, the more investment and the more motivation.

7. Lack of appreciation.

When hard work or extraordinary results go unrecognized, when even everyday thanks are unexpressed, people grow uninspired and apathetic. You can reward your employees without spending a dime; it can be as simple as saying "thank you."

8. Bad leadership.

Bad leaders harm every member of their team and their entire organization. Even the best employees need effective leadership to excel. Start with developing your own leadership, then hire and grow the best leaders at every level. It's the best thing you can do to improve your workplace for everyone.

If you recognize any of these deathly killers in your workplace, it's up to you to do everything in your power to become part of the solution. Remember, great people do not stay long in bad workplaces.

6 Effective Ways to Enhance Workplace Productivity

Ref:  http://www.inc.com/john-boitnott/6-effective-ways-to-enhance-workplace-productivity.html

The need to ensure and enhance employee productivity is a reality no business can ignore. If you run a business you'll want to lean away from doing the mundane and routine when you can. However, it's inevitable that you'll encounter factors that may weaken or extinguish employee motivation and dampen productivity.

Obviously, you will need to mitigate these productivity-killers. The first thing to do is identify these factors, so you can consciously prevent them from emerging or aggravating. You should also be able to suppress them if they already exist. However, avoidance is not enough. A proactive stance is always preferable.

1. Get Rid of Motivation Killers

As mentioned earlier, there is a need to identify motivation killers in the workplace. A good manager will find ways to carefully observe the work environment in search of problem areas that adversely affect employee motivation. Typical motivation killers include toxic people, abrasive personalities, lack of organizational vision, absence of opportunities for professional development, poor communication systems, autocratic management styles, and the feeling of lack of appreciation. Addressing each of these requires a variety of approaches but there are ways to kill these motivation-killers.

2. Motivate through Gamification

Motivation is a very important factor in ensuring productivity. Unmotivated employees get bored especially when they are dealing with monotonous routines. Likewise, employees who lack motivation may not have the enthusiasm to complete challenging tasks. One effective way of motivating employees is through the use of gamification techniques. Tasks like completing reports or contributing ideas for projects and policy changes can be gamified to make them more appealing, exciting, or interesting.

Gamification involves the use of badges, rewards, leader boards or rankings, points, challenges, and other game elements to make repetitive and quantifiable tasks more engaging. Enterprise gamification platforms like GameEffective can be integrated with existing ERP, CRM or other enterprise applications, making it easier for employees to use these and get ahead in the game. These can be readily deployed to add a "play" dimension to various aspects of a business operation, like sales and customer service.

3. Set Clear Goals and Provide Feedback

Employees or personnel will be more motivated if they know what they are expected to achieve. Clearly stating goals or having a company vision provides guidance for everyone. Short-term goals, in particular, are effective in encouraging employees to properly manage their speed in doing tasks to meet targets. Additionally, it is important to provide feedback or show that employees are being supervised. Accomplishments should be acknowledged, while errors or failures in meeting targets should be promptly addressed. Good management practices can enhance and help maintain employee productivity.

4. Use Technology Responsibly

Refusing to leverage technology could be considered a grave mistake for any business. There are many technologies that significantly increase productivity in a workplace. To emphasize, using technology is not just about having computers and an Internet connection in the office. It's also important to study and utilize different hardware and software solutions that can improve employee productivity.

Collaborative applications like Asana can be very effective in making employees more productive, especially for organizations with geographically-distributed setups. Some employees do better if they are allowed to work in locations they find more comfortable, such as their homes. In other cases, travel is simply too expensive or time-consuming, and telecommuting, remote working or even co-working are viable options.

Increased mobility can break down barriers to productivity. Mobile devices enable access to communication and collaboration tools, as well as work-related documents and information. It is important, however, to prevent overly thinning the line between personal and professional lives. Work-life balance should be respected.

5. Set Standards and Provide Skills Development

In every business, it is important to establish standards. Employees should be familiar with what the company expects from them. They need to know what they should be doing as well as their assigned roles. Without clear or explicit expectations, people tend to find excuses when they fail to achieve targets. Be clear at the outset: define what you expect of everyone, and how you expect people to perform their assigned tasks and responsibilities.

Moreover, address the aspirational needs of employees by providing opportunities for developing skills or advancing professionally. Management should expect every employee to seek challenges, and to not want to be stagnant. It's not enough that they have mastered the skills needed to efficiently accomplish their current assignments. Let your employees realize that there are other things they can do, so that they can progress to higher positions. If you don't help employees develop professionally, that may become motivation for them to seek a new company.

6. Communicate Effectively and Efficiently

Communication, without a doubt, is a crucial aspect of business operations. Without an effective system of communication in place, you will have difficulty in achieving goals and even in functioning properly. Communication here, by the way, is not just the simple use of devices, such as phones or verbal and written exchanges of information. It is about designing and using communication systems that are appropriate for the needs of a business or company.

Effective and efficient communication means that employees should know the hierarchy and expertise within the company. They should know who to reach out to regarding their concerns.

In terms of tools, take advantage of modern platforms and applications available. Enterprise social networking tools such as Yammer make it easier for employees to contribute to institutional knowledge and help colleagues with onboarding. Cloud-based office suites like Office 365 help contribute to a culture of sharing and helping across the enterprise.

Maintaining and enhancing productivity in the workplace is not always very easy to accomplish but it can also be boiled down to some simple concepts. Here are three key things to remember: the need for employee motivation, the proactive involvement of managers, and the use of technologies and systems that greatly help employees in doing their work more efficiently. If you thoughtfully execute plans with those concepts in mind, you are on the right track.