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Productivity Shortcuts For Stressed Human Resources Professionals

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StrategyDriven Practices for Professionals Article |Productivity Shortcuts|Productivity Shortcuts For Stressed Human Resources ProfessionalsGetting on top of all your HR obligations is a massive challenge. There’s just so much work that needs to be done on a typical day that it can make your head spin. That’s why, in this post, we take a look at some productivity shortcuts that you can use to get more done in less time. Check them out below.

Set Priorities

One of the reasons that you feel rushed off your feet all the time is that you’re not setting priorities. Some jobs are more important than others. So when you leave them to the last minute, it makes you feel like you’re racing against the clock.

Setting priorities allows you to get all the most critical work done first. In the morning, spend 10 minutes putting all the tasks for the day into various “bins” representing your priority list. Start arranging them into perhaps five categories and then work your way through each of them. If high priority tasks arrive during the day, return to category 1 and start working your way through them again. This way, you can use your time more effectively.

Choose The Most Challenging Tasks First

People tend to be at their most productive in the mornings. That’s why it’s a good idea to do your most challenging tasks first. Don’t leave them until later. Get them out of the way and then save all the easy stuff until the afternoon when you’re feeling more tired and sleepy.

Avoid Multitasking At All Costs

Ignore the propaganda about some people being good at multitasking: it’s mostly untrue. You’ll get more done if you block time for specific activities. Focus on one thing at a time and you’ll get more done throughout the course of the day.

Use Productivity Tools

Not sure how to sign a PDF electronically? It’s actually way easier than you think. Mostly, you just need the right tool.

Want to organize your colleagues’ time more efficiently? There’s a tool for that too.

In fact, you can find productivity apps for practically any rote task that you find yourself doing daily. Make sure that you use them.

Meditate

This might sound a little strange, but it’s a good idea to meditate daily. Being an HR professional is a tough gig. There are so many pressures on your time that you can sometimes feel rushed off your feet. Avoid this through daily meditation and focus. Remind yourself that your work isn’t your life. It’s just something you do to make your leisure more enjoyable.

Set Work Sprints

Work sprints are a relatively new concept, but they tend to work exceptionally well. Instead of slogging through every day like one long marathon, take shorter sprints followed by breaks. Many people in the HR profession, for instance, like to work-sprint for 45 minutes and then take a break for 15 minutes at the end of it to recharge. Then they do it all over again. Research shows that breaking up the day like this can actually increase productivity.

6 Steps to Scale Your Small Business

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article |Scale your business|6 Steps to Scale Your Small BusinessScaling should be a primary objective for all business owners. Scaling up your business will improve efficiency, boost productivity, and increase your bottom line. Scaling your business might seem like a difficult or impossible task, especially in today’s economy. However, you can achieve sustainable growth with careful business planning and determination.

Here are some steps you should follow to scale your business and increase profits:

Step 1: Evaluate your business

You need to evaluate your business and check that you are ready to grow. Scaling a business requires investment and you must make sure that it’s the right step for your company. Take a good look at your business and identify what you need to do to increase sales and profits.

Planning is a crucial part of scaling a business and you should take the time to write a detailed expansion plan. Consider your growth objectives and what action you will need to take to achieve each goal. For instance, you may need to hire more skilled staff to handle larger order volumes and increase sales revenue. According to business.com, your growth plan should include information on business expansion opportunities, financial goals, and a growth marketing strategy. You can download a template online to help you write a detailed business growth plan.

Step 2: Calculate the cost

Scaling a business usually costs money. You may need to hire new staff, purchase technology and equipment for your business, or invest in your marketing campaigns to achieve growth. You should calculate how much money you will need to scale your business and decide where you are going to find the funds.

If you have profits built up, then you could use this capital to invest in your growth strategy. You could also take out a business loan or look for investment to boost your business. Take a look at this article by Fundbox for 10 different business financing options. Weigh up your funding options carefully and choose the best option for your business needs.

Step 3: Start outsourcing

Outsourcing is one of the most effective ways to scale up a business. When you outsource, you will have more time and resources to invest in growing the core areas of your business. You can outsource various business activities including recruitment, marketing, customer support, and human resources. Experts at HR Dept explain how they help Matlock businesses by handling their HR needs so the businesses can focus on the most important aspects of their business.

Think carefully about what business activities you could outsource and form partnerships with skilled professionals and companies. Outsourcing will help you grow your business and it is also cheaper than hiring more permanent staff.

Step 4: Invest in technology

Modern technology will make it easier to scale your business and increase profits while conserving valuable resources. There is a wide variety of technology that can streamline your business operations and boost efficiency. For instance, automation technology can improve productivity, reduce labor costs, and lower operational expenses.

Evaluate your existing systems and consider what technology could improve your business. You could install chatbots to enhance the customer experience or invest in communication software to improve collaboration between your team members. Make sure that you invest in technology that will give the best returns.

Step 5: Expand your team

If you are planning on scaling up your business, then it is likely that you will need to hire new staff to accommodate growth in your company. Invest in your recruitment strategy and take the time to attract and hire skilled employees who will support your expansion plans. According to uschamber.com, you can hire quickly by leveraging recruitment software and automating interview scheduling.

If you have an urgent need for skilled employees while you are scaling your business, then you should consider hiring freelancers or outsourcing to specialists. This approach is often more cost-effective, especially if you’re unsure whether you will require permanent staff long-term.

Step 6: Increase sales

Increasing sales is essential and you must create a strong sales strategy that will help you boost revenue and profits. There are dozens of ways to increase sales e.g. by offering loyalty programs to improve customer retention rates or selling your products to international customers. Think about which sales tactics will be most effective in your business.

Summary

Scaling up a business can be a challenge, but it might be easier than you think. Above, are six essential steps that you should take to scale your business and increase revenue. These powerful growth strategies will help you scale your company and meet your strategic goals.

Engagement: 5 Pragmatic Solutions to Apply Today

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StrategyDriven Practices for Professionals Article |Employee Engagement|Engagement: 5 Pragmatic Solutions to Apply TodayIt’s not perks and policies that move the dial on employee engagement. It’s the boss’s behavior. If you’re a boss, here are five tools to up your game.

Just about everyone in the U.S. has a cell phone. No news there, right? According to the Pew Research Center, in 2018, 99% of 18- to 49-year-olds, 97% of college graduates, and 98% of people with household incomes of $75K+ owned a cell phone. And nearly just as many people had access to the internet. The upside of these stats is positive, and the pandemic proved it. During long periods of isolation, we had technology to stay connected when we couldn’t physically keep in touch with one another.

But even pre-pandemic, a downside to this connectedness was observed in workplaces across the globe. With more technology—and, as a result, more data—came less face time. Managers and supervisors became glued to their reports, their screens, and their devices. Since technology became our third arm, we’ve gone heads-down and are less physically connected at work. Our leaders at every level have become less visible and their presence less felt.

At least, that’s what our observations from some 30,000 assessments have revealed. The more advanced the company’s technology, the less prone leadership is to be out on the floor, walking and talking with their teams. Even casual connections have become less purposeful. While the boss may still be in the game, using data to report what’s going on, he or she may not be perceived to be so by employees.

It’s time to show you’re in the game

Before the pandemic, engagement scores were terrifyingly low. If you sat in a meeting of 10 people, potentially eight of them were not fully present. Some of them could even have already mentally quit but stayed on. They weren’t engaged in your business, or worse, they may have disengaged and been actively working against you.

Take some consolation in the fact that you aren’t alone. These stats are global and ubiquitous the world over. But clearly, this knowledge isn’t helpful if you’re struggling to make your numbers, trying to achieve that next level of performance, or looking to transform your business. You need to aim for a 10 out of 10 engagement score. You need everyone to be all in.

So, how do you move the dial?

Tip 1: Get in the game. Lift your nose out of your devices, go heads up, and get in the game. Look, listen, and learn about what’s going on around you and how your team is feeling and performing. Prioritize people connections over internet connections. Whether you get out on the floor or attend more team meetings, get visible.

Tip 2: Practice HeadsUp leadership. When you routinely raise your head from your device and connect with people, you start to practice HeadsUp leadership, one of the simplest ways to immediately create better relationships with your teams. Doing so also results in safer, more productive, and engaging workplaces. Why? Because you see and hear things you can’t when you retreat to your reporting and devices.

Tip 3: Build a rhythm into your day. To help your team perform, use what we call “1.5.30.” Every day (1), check in for a quick catch-up. Every week (5), check in for 30 minutes to talk about overall performance progress. Once a month (30) check in for 60 minutes for a deep dive into how the job is going.

When you move this routine into a rhythm, you earn the right to provide performance feedback and to coach and guide people. But you also learn what you need to do to help people be successful by finding out what’s holding them back and developing your own action plans to improve the ecosystem in which people work.

Tip 4: Finetune your management behaviors. Do your own behaviors engage your people and kick-start continuous improvement? Are there clear objectives to your conversations? Do you and your teams plan assignments and agree on how often you’ll review progress?

Executed well, these behaviors enable your team to self-manage the variances out of their day—the difference between what was planned and what was actually achieved—and decide when they need your help.

Tip 5: Adopt the right tools. Do your management tools help you not only report results but also systematically plan and manage them? Are you using your forecasts, plans, schedules, reports, and action-planning tools to know which resources you need to do what, where, when, and how? When you have the right tools, you know exactly where you are and where you need to be. Which enables you to do what’s most important: engage with your teams to close any gaps.

What should be clear from these tips is how closely related engagement is to performance and operational results. Engagement gives you a multiplier. When you manage to engage, you address the healthy side of business (what we call humanize) and the fit side of business (what we call the optimize). Bring the two together, and you balance people, productivity, and profitability. While it’s great to add perks and policies for better engagement, what really moves the dial is when you manage to engage.

About the Author

StrategyDriven Expert Contributor | Pamela HackettPamela Hackett is the Global CEO of the international consultancy Proudfoot. Throughout her 35 years in management consulting, she has advised, led, and guided some of the world’s most prominent companies and brands through major change. Her new book, Manage to Engage: How Great Managers Create Remarkable Results, is a compendium of ideas and resources that will help any business focus on what matters—their people—to be more productive and profitable. Learn more at pamelahackett.com.

Improving Productivity in the IT Department

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StrategyDriven Tactical Execution Article |Productivity in the IT Department|Improving Productivity in the IT DepartmentThese days, the IT department is often one of, if not the, most important parts of your business because it is a technology that keeps everything up and running effectively. So, it stands to reason that, if you can increase the efficiency of the IT department, you can improve productivity across your business as a whole.

Okay, but how exactly do you do that? Here are a few ideas:

Improve the infrastructure

Whether using faster processing products like this MicroATX motherboard or updating to the latest server technology, anything that you can do to improve your existing IT infrastructure will help your employees to carry out various processes more quickly, thus improving productivity. Investing in the best technology is rarely a waste of money because its return on investment, when productivity is taken into account, is almost always going to be pretty high.

Embrace automation

These days, a lot of business processes can be automated completely, from factory assembly lines to customer service responses. By taking advantage of automated apps and software, you can save time and money, and redeploy your IT staff to more important tasks that really di need an experienced human brain.

Cover the basics

Your IT team can hardly be as productive as they should be if they are forever dealing with viruses that have been downloaded by office staff or issues caused by hackers, so be sure that you implement a good level of cybersecurity measures, including software and staff training, so your IT team doesn’t need to waste their time firefighting when they could be innovating.

Set goals

It might not be high-tech, but there is no denying that setting goals in the IT department is a great way to improve productivity. When employees have a goal to shoot for and a clear path of how they are going to get there, they are more likely to do so quickly and efficiently than they would if they were just floating through life without much direction from management at all.

However, many managers all but ignore the IT department because they don’t understand the complexities of technology, so they think the IT team will just automatically know what to do. This is a bad approach and collaborating with them to make mutually beneficial, achievable goals is by far the best way to go.

Increase free time

This might not seem like a good way to improve productivity in the IT department, but it really is. You see, when IT professionals are given free time, their brains still work even as their body relaxes, and they are more likely to come up with novel solutions to all of the problems you may be experiencing.

If you’ve been neglecting your IT department, it’s time to change that because when your IT is running right, and your IT professionals are on fire, the rest of your business will naturally be more productive, creative and successful. It really is as simple as that, ns as you can see, improving productivity in the IT department is pretty simple!

Launching Your New Business, the Stress-Free Way

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StrategyDriven Starting Your Business Article |launching a new business|Launching Your New Business, the Stress-Free WayWhen you decide to launch a new business, you may find yourself being put off or even sidetracked by the potential stress that may come alongside your new venture. You may have heard stories about unsuccessful business launches, or you may have heard about chaotic startups, and they may have put doubts into your mind about whether a new business is a way you want to go. Well, fear not, it is not all as bad as it seems or as it is made out to be. The process of launching a new business can be enjoyable and stress-free if you want it to be, and the way to make this happen is to plan as much as you can. Plan for all eventualities, and always utilize the assistance and guidance of experienced business professionals.

Write a Business Plan and a Marketing Plan

Without a business plan and marketing plan, you will not know what you are doing, when, and why, so make it a top priority to create them. A business plan will allow you to see where your business needs to be, and a marketing plan will allow you to see what action needs to be taken to reach your customers and target audiences. Both are interdependent on each other, so try and create them simultaneously if you can.

Get Your Finances Straight and In Order

Knowing how you will finance your business and knowing how you will keep track of the finances will take a huge weight off your shoulders. When you get your finances straight and before your launch your new venture, you will ensure that you can start and run your business efficiently and effectively.

Utilize Professional Guidance and Assistance

When you launch a new venture, you can be tempted to try and undertake every role or aspect yourself, and this might not be as beneficial as you originally anticipated. However, utilizing professional guidance and advice from professionals such as William Bevins, a financial advisor in Franklin TN, will ensure that your business is set up correctly from the start, helping you avoid any unnecessary stress, pressure, or hassle. In addition, when you utilize advice and guidance from professionals, you avoid common pitfalls, pitfalls that may cost you both time and energy.

Break Up the Startup Process

Having false illusions about how quick it is to launch a new business is one of the things that can add unnecessary stress and pressure. Do not expect to do everything overnight as this will not happen; instead, plan for the process of getting your business up and running to take a few weeks. Break up what needs doing into small and manageable chunks and targets, and this way, you will get everything done in a stress-free and easy way. When you break up larger jobs and tasks, you make them more realistic and achievable, and this is what you are aiming to do when launching a business, a stress-free way.