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4 Strategies for Dealing with Workplace Stress

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StrategyDriven Practices for Professionals ArticleMost people have experienced work-related stress at least once in their lifetime. Even if you love what you do, you can inevitably feel a bit of pressure to either meet a deadline or complete a challenging task. On the one hand, a certain amount of stress can be useful because it can keep you alert and help you complete that job with a higher determination. On the other hand, being exposed to prolonged stress can eventually take a toll on your health.

While it is impossible to avoid stress at all times, one can still figure out a few ways of dealing with stress. Before doing that, you need to learn what the factors that cause stress are. Low salaries, excessive workloads or work that isn’t challenging are just a few of them. If you’re willing to make a change in your work life, here are a few strategies.

Establish Boundaries

Due to the fact that people spend most of their time at work, they somehow feel the need to remain connected to their work-related problems even when they are at home. If stress is taking over your personal life and it is affecting your relationships, you might want to establish some boundaries. For example, not checking your emails in the evening or not answering the phone while you’re with your family can be a good start. Although it might be difficult to leave stress behind, you should somehow separate your personal and professional life in order to diminish the amount of stress that you’re dealing with.

Take Time to Recharge

Taking time to recharge is without a doubt the most efficient way of dealing with workplace stress. No matter what kind of job you have to perform, breaks are essential. If you want to avoid the risk of injury or even a burnout, taking time to recharge is that you need to do. Disconnecting from time to time allows you to allocate time for yourself, time that you can spend focusing on your well-being. However, if you’ve already been injured due to repetitive strain, you could contact The Compensation Experts. Keep in mind that your health is a lot more important than anything else and you should not be afraid to speak up when something bad happens.

Learn How to Relax

At times, it can be difficult to take a whole day off and focus on your well-being. That is why you need to learn some equally effective practices that don’t take long to complete, but that have great results. Meditation, mindfulness or deep breathing exercises are very useful for everyone who is dealing with work-related stress. Being able to concentrate on a single task without distraction will change your life.

Talk to Your Supervisor

Your supervisor should know exactly what to do when an employee is complaining about work-related stress. They should know that healthy employees are more likely to be a lot more productive, so their main focus should be on their worker’s health. Write a list of your stressors and have an open conversation with your supervisor. This will help you create an effective plan for managing your stress, which will improve your performance.

Workplace stress is a serious problem that should not be treated as a regular occurrence. Check out these tips for some guidance, and if they are not helpful, you might want to consider a career change.

How to Encourage Teens to Get Jobs and Save Their Own Money

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StrategyDriven Professional Development ArticleInstead of allowing your kiddo to laze around the house this summer, encourage your teen to get a job and save their own money instead. How so? Here are a few methods for talking your teen into taking on responsibilities and making their own cash this summer.

Encourage Your Kids to Search for Local Part-Time Jobs

Older teens, around 15 and older, can apply for part-time jobs. Check bulletin boards, encourage them to look at reputable online resources for hiring positions, and take them to fill out applications at local grocery stores, fast food restaurants, or retail shops. There are plenty of places that would be happy to hire a teen for the duration of the summer, on a part-time basis.

Or, for Younger Teens, Set Up a Chores and Rewards System Around the House

If your teen can’t apply for a job outside of the home yet, set up a list of daily chores and offer a rewards system for around-the-house help. Sure, they have the average chores that they should be doing anyways, such as cleaning their room, making their own breakfast, and doing their laundry.

Make it a Rule to Set Back 30-Percent of Each Paycheck

When your kiddo gets a job, even if it’s doing chores at home, you should implement a 30/70 rule. They should put 30-percent of their paycheck into savings, like a lock box or bank account, and then they can keep 70-percent for whatever they need, want, etc.

Help Older Teens with Resume, Job Prospects, and Goals

Older teens need to get a little more serious about job prospects and cash management in general, so help them make a resume for their part-time applications. Then, help them pinpoint both short-term and long-term job goals. For example, where would they like to work as a starter job? But where would they like to end up, career-wise, in the long run? You could even suggest recruitment agencies Boston for start-up opportunities in a plethora of niche markets.

Yes, your teen probably works hard in school, but a part-time summertime job will ensure their summer is productive. AND they still get some summertime downtime when they get home.

Where Do They Go To Get Business Advice?

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StrategyDriven Big Picture of Business ArticleBusinesses operate at a pace such that they grab for help wherever it is available. More often than not, they reach toward the wrong resources, the untied advisors and sources that send them down rabbit holes.

It is lonely at the top. There are many demands upon entrepreneurs and senior management of companies. Each organization is confronted with challenges and opportunities, both real and perceived. It is tough to tackle all the obstacles and feel that substantial progress is being made.

Businesses spend so much time on momentary pieces of their puzzles that they neglect long-term Strategic Planning and miss potential successes. Costs of band aid surgery and make-good work cost six times that of planning for business on the front end.

The need exists for comprehensive business ideas and growth strategies. The need is ever-present for interfacing with senior executives and updating management skills, to avoid burnout and stimulate the seasoned professionals toward new heights. Top management regularly needs the creative inspiration to take the company to new heights. Cutting-edge executives (the very top and those about to take the mantle) need seasoned advice and inspiration.

Here is where they go to get ideas, strategies and help, in the order where they commonly go. The lower numbers represent introductory resources. The highest numbers are where they should be reaching.

1. Hearsay and third hand

  • Comments heard at parties and networking functions
  • Uninformed sources
  • Friends of friends
  • High participation networkers
  • Research and surveys

2. Special Interests

  • Websites containing educational material as a way to sell services
  • Surveys and their feedback

3. People Selling Stuff

  • Vendors who distract you, using expressions like “funding to grow your business.”
  • Online marketing firms
  • Internet solicitors and sellers
  • Website consulting

4. Internal Management

  • People you work with
  • Mid-managers and supervisors
  • Corporate leadership

5. Niche Experts and Consultants

  • Trainers
  • Freelance consultants, per industry niche
  • Banking, insurance benefits, human resources, etc.
  • Technology consulting firms
  • Researchers

6. Educational Programs

  • Speakers
  • Seminars
  • Panels at forums
  • Workshops
  • Conferences
  • Webinars
  • Material published or broadcast in the media

7. Books

  • Articles excerpted for meetings
  • Blog material posted online
  • Thin self-published books by people seeking to establish a platform
  • Online articles and blogs
  • Serious books in libraries
  • Cutting-edge books with original material

8. Advocacy Groups

  • Business clubs
  • Chambers of commerce
  • People with whom you work in community and charity leadership roles
  • Boards of directors
  • The Better Business Bureau
  • SCORE
  • Small Business Development Center
  • Trade industry groups
  • Associations
  • Political action committees
  • Community alliances
  • Professional alliances
  • Consortiums of business
  • Cross-industry cooperative initiatives

9. Mentors

  • Pier advisory groups such as Vistage, Silver Fox Advisors
  • One-on-one coaching
  • CEO roundtables
  • Corporate heir apparent training
  • Programs such as Shark Tank, Fox Den, Ted Talks
  • Leadership programs

10. Senior Business Advisors

  • Professional service firms, including lawyers, accountants, marketing, public relations, quality management

11. Major Business Gurus

  • Track record experts with many years in advising strategically

About the Author

Hank MoorePower Stars to Light the Business Flame, by Hank Moore, encompasses a full-scope business perspective, invaluable for the corporate and small business markets. It is a compendium book, containing quotes and extrapolations into business culture, arranged in 76 business categories.

Hank’s latest book functions as a ‘PDR of business,’ a view of Big Picture strategies, methodologies and recommendations. This is a creative way of re-treading old knowledge to enable executives to master change rather than feel as they’re victims of it.

Power Stars to Light the Business Flame is now out in all three e-book formats: iTunes, Kindle, and Nook.

Top Apps to Have When Traveling for Business

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In contemporary times, time is of the essence. Advancements in technology have led to increased company projections, growth and the enhancement of capitalist ideals.

The internet has also contributed to the advancement of the global village phenomenon, flying from one place to another for a couple of business meetings is now the norm. At times, one-on-one meetups are quite important because one can learn so much more from them about their fellow business partners.

Before setting up meetings in far-away lands, one should ensure that they have a couple of handy apps at the ready. Gadgetgestures.com covers topics like these to help ensure that one is able to achieve maximum productivity. These apps are made to ensure that the meeting proceeds unencumbered since one is able to keep track of progress back at work without having to be present. We’ve listed a couple of the top apps we believe every businessman needs up their sleeve.

Asana

Asana helps ensure that irrespective of one’s location in the world, they are able to keep tabs on what’s happening in their work circle and communicate with others back at the office. The Asana app enables easy communication, deadline progress monitoring, and the management of tasks to employees. Thus, if one’s business entails team management, output goals definition and a number of deadlines, Asana is the go-to app.

Twitter

The #hashtag feature on Twitter helps ensure that the top trending topics in the world are associated with a specific topic. As a business and thought leader, one should ensure that they stay in tune with the happening in the cyberspace world.

Through Twitter, one can also check out their team’s social media statistics over a given period and look at possible ways to boost engagement. To do this, all one needs is a stable internet connection.

Google Drive

Google drive allows the mass collaboration of various teams from anywhere on the globe. One can share documents, track team input and adjust their calendars to keep track of what’s incoming and find out the natures of the team’s discussion.

Concur

Concur is an amazing travel/expense manager that has the potential to dethrone all business-oriented apps from whichever throne they sit on. The app has fantastic expense management tools, features to automatically export expense reports and the ability to sync to the office in order to facilitate necessary approvals.

One of the tools on Concur is TripIt which helps make itinerary planning is a breeze and that all reservation numbers are easily stored up in one place for ease of access. To create a master itinerary, all one needs to do is forward the confirmation emails and the app will get hard at work to create everything one needs.

Circleback

This app is perfect because it helps maintain contact records, consolidate them and ensure they remain accurate and up-to-date. In addition to all contacts feature, the app has impressive business card scanning and email signature capturing provisions.

4 Hacks to Become More Productive In Business

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Productivity levels are as important to a business as its revenue streams. In fact, the true character of a company can only be found out from the productivity levels of the workers. Still for many businesses productivity levels seem to be an abstract concept. The point is that a business without a tight grip on its productivity levels is bound to suffer. Here are 5 hacks to become more productive in business. They may take some time to implement and some more time for the workers to get used to it, but the long-term results are promising in terms of work satisfaction and revenue generation.

Control of phones

All organizations must keep a close eye on their workers’ tendencies to use their phones at work. It’s a worrying habit because everyone is a victim of it. All it takes is one notification sound to divert their attention for 10-15 minutes or even more. However, to avert this, a business can establish no notification zones.

In the workplace there should be no notification zones where it’s not allowed to check the phone for notifications. Unless it is a phone call, employees should not be allowed to take out their phones at all in these zones. In case they need to check their phone, they should excuse themselves and leave the room to do so.

To do list apps

Several software companies make specialized apps for businesses to use. A to-do list app that can be centrally accessed can work wonders for an organization. The benefits of such an app are aplenty, some of them include:

• Keeping track of all job schedules.

• Supervisors are able to check which worker is lagging.

• Allotment of work becomes easier.

In case the organization is unable to afford investing in a personalized application, it can always look for free alternatives in the app stores.

Reading business articles

Reading business magazines and journals, especially the types that are suited to the workers’ job requirements must be encouraged by the organizational heads. Here’s how an organization can encourage its workers to read more:

• Subscribing to magazines and newspapers related to the field of work undertaken by the organization.

• Sharing websites and article links on a common social space for all workers to view and read. There are several knowledgeable websites which business professionals must read. For instance, Fabweb.Org is a great website which keeps its readers up to date on the latest technological and business advancements around the world.

Refusing additional work

Productivity does not mean taking up a large number of tasks and not being able to finish any one of them. It is measured in terms of how successful the worker has been in the process of completion of all the tasks that have been assigned to him/her. If they feel that taking up additional work could hamper their chances of finishing their assigned work, workers should be given the chance to refuse it.

Apart from following these guidelines, you must also have trust in the workers and give them their freedom to do their best. Only then can your business become truly productive.