Work Hard, Like the Others

 If you work in an environment where everyone is busy and working hard you will tend to work hard yourself.  There will be fewer distractions and your work level will be visible to others.

At break time, you can take a trip to the water cooler or coffee machine and have some social interaction with others - discussing work issues or last night’s football.

If you work from home, you miss out on this collective, productive environment snd leave yourself open to lots of potential distractions.  If you are not naturally single-mined and laser focused, you need to find ways of keeping your mind on the task in hand.  (It helps, of course  if the task is inherently interesting and you have ready access to all the information and tools you need to complete the task.

If you need help with focus, try the 20 minute promise.  Set a timer for 20 minutes and promise yourself to maintain task focus until the timer runs out.  Then give yourself a tiny reward - a biscuit (or something less sugary.). Then repeat the process.

The simple answer is to put yourself in situations where distractions are minimised and hard work is the norm and the role model.

Does Money Notivate?

It is commonly accepted that money is a prime motivator for employed people [ie - they come to work earn money to live and will leave for another job if its pays more.

Of course, people work to earn money to live - but that is certainly not the only reason … not necessarily even the most important.

People work for a variety of reasons and are motivated by a variety of factors - and those two lists may overlap but not agree exactly.

The assumption that money is the prime motivator can lead to poor decision-making by some executives… and even  by boards of directors who continue to award CEOs ever higher salaries (and bonuses) assuming this will be reflected in performance.

Motivation is, however, a trickier art than simply throwing money at people.

One issue is that some factors can be short-term motivators.  People can, for example,  be motivated by ‘status’ though this is more than simply the job title they are given.  Otherwise all those people labelled as VPs and SVPs would be performing like crazy.   They might be motivated to achieve VP or SVP status but once there, with the key to the executive washroom, it no longer motivates.

What’s really important is to stop spouting the mantra ‘Our people are our greatest asset’ and start believing it.  

Develop staff skills so the=y can develop their role in, and contribution to, the organisation.

Then find out - at least in general terms - what makes them tick - and what they are looking for in their employment.

Trust them to take the small decisions that relate to their own work tasks.

Congratulate them when they perform well and praise them as individuals or as teams.  

You should find their motivation - and their productivity, rises.

Not Mere Minutes

I was talking to a distant relative the other day who has been working from home for more than 2 years - and loves it.  He told me about the various co-ordination meetings he had to make sure he was up-to-date in relation to his various projects.

I asked him how his firm managed the process of minute-taking and distribution and he looked at me blankly.  We all take our own notes, he said.

My experience tells me that whatever is recorded may be formal minutes or informal notes but there must be one ‘master copy’ which as a minimum includes actions agreed, due dates and those responsible.

Without this shared information, it is impossible for people to keep on the same page and coordinate their information and activity.

If this relative’s company does not maintain a master note, I am sure they will fail somewhere in the coordination process and I am convinced the productivity of all the various teams will suffer.

Some elements of productivity are obvious and simple.  Omit them at your peril.

Oh No, Not Mondays

An online  survey of American workers suggests that they feel at their most productive on Monday mornings.  The week is new, memories of the weekend cast a rosy glow and the world feels good. 

So, why do so many firms insist on holding g Monday morning meetings - just when employees are at their most productive.

Try to get people to focus on key tasks  - urgent or important … or preferably both.

You can review progress and plan ahead on Wednesday just as well -. Don’t take away the natural momentum of Monday  - use it snd build on it to get a free productivity boost.

Communication Is Not Always Good

We are constantly urging firms to communicate effectively with their employees - letting them know what is happening … and why.  This is particularly true of issues that affect those employees.

Communicating should be easy as the range of media and tools available has grown

substantially over the last couple of decades.  

However effective communication only happens when there is a real will to communicate - and to be honest and transparent.

The downsides of all this communication are that employees can be, or feel, overwhelmed and can be distracted from their real work tasks by responding to the range of communications they receive.

The sheer volume of emails, memos, instructions, progress updates and so on can outpace the ability of some employees to process and deal with it

This means that firms should establish/create:

• a clear communications strategy which sets out the kind and forms of information that should be sent to specific individuals, groups and teams;
  
  
• tools which enable staff to mange multiple inboxes in a coherent and coordinated way;
  
  
• training programmes for staff in how to manage multiple messages;
  
  
• an audit programme to check on what messages are actually being sent to which individuals and groups and whether this pattern of activity is in line with the agreed strategy.

A little initial planning could save a lot of time subsequently and ensure that staff are not distracted from their real work - and yet are kept fully engaged and informed.