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Work first, interview later
What Staffup Weekends Can Teach Us About Better Recruitment
The internet provides us with endless articles on the art of the interview:
- Dress according to the vibe of the office
- Mirror your interviewer’s body language
- Be engaged and ask questions
- Don’t mention an interest you have in something that no one else in the office can appreciate—Wait, what?
This last one may seem a bit ridiculous, but it’s true.
Multiple studies have shown us that traditional hiring practices put too much weight on an applicant’s academic pedigree, pre-formulated answers to rigorous questioning, and whether the individual “fits” with the company. Why is this? Human nature.
All human beings are subject to unconscious biases, which can result in certain applicants being passed by for a role they may be well-suited for. Generalizations often play a role in forming our biases. For example, we may perceive that someone with certain interests will be a better fit within our team or that an Ivy-league education correlates to a stronger skill set.
Companies around the world are noticing the effect of biases within flawed hiring processes: Its effect on employee turnover and the costs of hiring and training is significant. In 2012, consulting firm Leadership IQ revealed that from 20,000 new hires, 46% of them had failed within 18 months. In 2013, Google also discovered the inconsistency between acing interviews and job performance:
“We looked at tens of thousands of interviews, and everyone who had done the interviews and what they scored the candidate, and how that person ultimately performed in their job. We found zero relationships. It’s a complete random mess.”
— Laszlo Bock, Senior Vice President for Google’s People Operations
How do we combat biases that we aren’t consciously unaware of? What can we do differently?
Enter Staffup Weekends
Brooke Allen launched Staffup Weekends with the hope that the event might help companies hire in a less biased, more effective and more humane way. Allen advocates that the solution to hiring resides in a call-to-adventure, not an advertisement: Bring together all job-seekers for a hands-on, skill-testing weekend so they can show their skills, not just talk about them.
At the end of the 48-hour adventure, not all who first walked through the doors will remain. Many simply can’t hack it: their degrees, the name of their university, and their extra-curricular interests won’t help them conceptualize and complete the project. Those who do have the opportunity to present the product of their weekend efforts in small teams to potential hiring managers in the room.
For hiring managers, this is a chance to see what a person can do, how they think, what their work style, strengths, and weaknesses are, without anyone having to convince them. Instead of talking about their qualifications, the applicants demonstrate them firsthand! The weekends also allow recruiters to scope out candidates at a fraction of the cost of traditional recruiting.
“The fact that people stayed for 48 hours to work on something put them head and shoulders above the thousands of applications we receive because the participants are people who show up and see things through.”
— Chris Nicholson, Head of communications and Recruitment for FutureAdvisor
At this point, the idea of Staffup Weekends is new and not commonly used, but there is a lesson from innovative hiring practices here: “Seeing is believing.”
This is good news for you and your potential hire: You get to see that your candidate is capable of what their resume boasts they can do, and your new employee feels confident stepping in to work on their first day because they know you already believe in them and value their skills.
If employee engagement is heavily based on keeping your team feeling valued, this shift in hiring strategies is gold. Think of the energy your recruits are bringing into the company! Gone is the pressure to prove themselves and, in its place, is an invaluable confidence knowing they bring something needed to the team.
That sense of value is going to translate into greater creativity, better communication, and higher work quality earlier on.
This shift in hiring practices could be a platform for initiating powerful relationships between companies and their employees. You no longer need to wait for your recruits to start work to confirm that they can deliver or work well with your staff: find a way, whether it be through a Staffup Weekend, or another hands-on approach, to put applicant skills to the test. Get to know them, chat with them, work alongside them, and be more confident in your recruiting process than ever before.
Effortless onboarding is just one way Qarrot can streamline your recognition process - book your free demo here!
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What startups can teach big business about efficient use of talent
“…how startups attack problems and mobilize talent make them unique.”
— Forbes
Beyond the trendy work spaces, quirky perks, and flexible work hours, startups have something big businesses lack: an extremely efficient use of their talent.
Because of their small size and tight budgets, startups rely on innovative, passionate, and focused employees to push their business to new heights. Not only is there an expectation of collaboration and creativity, the testing-out of new work strategies and constant self-analysis means efficiency is always being pursued.
Many big companies can learn from this.
Regardless of the size of your company, actively supporting employee autonomy and idea sharing will result in a workforce that is both accountable and creative. It’s time to take a queue from your startup next door - commit to hiring the right kind of talent and gain the know-how to build an open and trusting workplace culture!
It starts with the talent
In a startup, smaller teams place a huge emphasis on hiring the right person. New hires need to mesh well with the current team, have diverse capabilities, and bring in a self-starter attitude. If the applicant isn’t as passionate about the company’s objectives as the rest of the team, it may not be the right fit. Passionate people are accountable, are more focused, and aren’t afraid to push beyond what they know, making them versatile assets to the company.
If you are a large business, you have many advantages. With a bigger name and opportunities for employees to earn promotions and pay raises, you could simply watch for the cream of the crop up-and-comers and make an offer to pull them onto your team. But that’s not always the best strategy. Finding candidates with a passion for your business and an openness to work across a range of responsibilities with a deep sense of accountability may be the better approach. But finding the ‘right’ hire often takes time and isn’t always easy when so many candidates apply for an open position. Patience and persistence are often required.
Once you have these gems in your ranks, make sure you keep them. Establishing a culture where employees feel valued because they can see they are personally responsible for organisational success is something startups excel at.
Give your employees autonomy and space to create!
Startups exist because someone took a risk.
Big businesses can become rigid, choosing the safe option and calculating everything to the point of restriction. Startups often don’t have the data to validate their ideas, so taking risks becomes a necessity. Calculated risks are the product of creative employees seeking out new ways of doing things, working on solutions to big problems, or spotting a gap in the market and taking the dive to fill it.
New ideas can be brought to life on a regular basis by putting a bit of backing behind the right area: make creativity a focus. From sales to product development to customer service, encourage your employees to propose new ideas and take risks! Startups are not afraid to fail; from the little things like allowing employees to try their own work methods to the large-scale endeavours like conceptualizing and launching a new product, these sparks of innovation are the blood of the business.
“While large companies can’t necessarily pivot or introduce new services with the same ease of a startup, they can research new developments in the field, encourage an active research and development department, develop rapid prototyping methodologies, and pilot proof-of-concepts and minimal viable products.”
— Microventures
As your team starts to share their findings and inventions, give them space to pursue the work autonomously. Often in startups, employees are expected to work on side projects with minimum supervision; there are simply not enough resources to have constant managerial staff hovering over everyone’s shoulders. But, this works because employees feel like they are making a significant contribution to the company and are trusted to do so on their own. Autonomy and trust are huge motivators. Combine that with listening to their ideas and you have the recipe to a seriously productive workforce.But we know that too much of a good thing can lead to problems. Inefficiencies can multiply when there is an absence of structure and focus on the overall objectives of the company. Again, do like startups and continually self-evaluate to ensure that your team or organization is on track.
Encourage Adaptability
Startups are masters at continually assessing themselves as individuals and as an organisation to see where improvements can be made. As unexpected shifts in your marketplace arise, how do you respond? Just because what you are doing now has worked in the past, doesn’t mean it will benefit you forever. Don’t let the comfortable place you are sitting in be an excuse not to experiment. Do and be better.Startups constantly test, assess the data, and adjust. This mindset can be adopted by your business and keep you competing with companies of all sizes.Keeping creativity and adaptability momentum year-round is simpler than you think. Organize brainstorming sessions for your departments, assign team leaders to head and oversee projects, and have informal self-analysis exercises to keep everyone looking for ways to be better, faster, and more efficient.You may be the big guy in town, but you can think like the little guy.
Take a tour of Qarrot and see for yourself how powerful recognition can be!
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Unhappy at work? Try this to turn things around
With every job, there are bound to be days where things are less than perfect, and you head home at the end of an 8-hour grind feeling deflated and unrewarded. At least you can take solace in knowing this kind of a day is a one-off, an occasional occurrence, and a good sleep will likely be enough to reset and make tomorrow better.
But, what happens when it’s not just the occasional day that has got you down? What do you do when work leaves you unsatisfied more days than not?
The first reaction many of us have when work is making us unhappy is to start packing-up and looking for a new job. Of course, jumping into a new role at a different company is likely to make you feel engaged and rewarded for a while, but the novelty and excitement can quickly wear off.
What this habit does to your resume and, most importantly, your long-term sense of fulfillment, however, should have you considering your current situation more carefully.
Before you go the route of “I’m out of here!” consider what this response will look like to potential future employers. Every time you are unhappy at work, your instinctual habit will be to start looking for something new, because hey, it must be the job that isn’t right. Right? Job after job, your resume will begin to look more like a directory than a professional CV and would-be employers may be concerned about hiring someone who has bounced around so much. And you still haven’t found that perfect position…
This doesn’t have to be your situation.
There is an old saying that knowledge is power. How true! However, you need to put that knowledge to work to truly benefit. Accordingly, the more you can dissect your situation and your feelings, the more power you will have. By identifying the specific things you find irksome and those things you need in your job to feel rewarded, you can reduce the risk of being a job-hopper.
Over the course of a week or so, make a list. This list can include the things you find frustrating, the work-life balance you wish you had, the inefficient work processes around you - anything.
When your list is completed, ask yourself:
Is it my job, or is that just part of it?
There is usually some part of our job that we don’t love as much as everything else. The good news is, you can work with that! The next step is to identify what element of the job is bringing you down. Brainstorm some solutions to the problem - decreasing the number of tasks, sharing the work volume with a colleague, or changing the approach to the work could all be viable options. If you find yourself in a job that doesn't let you do what you do best and enjoy most, try to be creative in finding ways to do more of those activities. Making time for these tasks, even if just in small bursts or brief times over the day or week, can have a significant impact on your energy, engagement, and happiness.
If your list reveals to you that your general state of discontent is coming from missed lunches, extra hours, or an absence of appreciation, think about what changes need to happen for you to feel valued or to achieve a work-life balance.
Next, bring your insights to your manager and let them know you’re not feeling as engaged as you have been previously. This isn’t just a meeting for you to complain, though. Initiate a conversation about what you need to feel fulfilled at work and provide constructive solutions to help you both make that a reality. Remember, your employer is not a mind-reader, they can’t know you’re unhappy or help you out if you wait until you quit to inform them!
If, after your conversation, you ultimately decide to leave your job, at least you will know it was an informed decision; everything you have learned about what you need as a person and professional will help you to find and negotiate future job offers.Just remember: don’t make your career choices a guessing game. Knowing yourself better will ultimately lead to finding the right job.
Don't wait any longer to engage and motivate your team - book your free demo with Qarrot today!
Resources
- Forbes.com - Unhappy at work: either change what you do or change how you do it
- Themuse.com - What to do when you hate your job and you don't have anything else lined up yet
- Experience.com - Ten things to do if you really really hate your job
- Forbes.com - Five ways to get unstuck and break out of a career funk
Is stress affecting your workplace?
Is stress affecting your work? Or perhaps you’re seeing warning signs that others in your workplace may be buckling under the pressure of too much stress?
In many work environments, being busy and under pressure is a sign of importance and stress is all too often worn as a badge honor. For this reason, many workers are often reluctant to let others know they’re stressed or suffering from the pressure. However, if you’re feeling too much stress, it not only affects you, but it can impact others around you as well as your company.
Here’s why:
Eustress, which experts define as “good stress,” helps to keep you motivated, focused, and push you through some challenging projects. On the other hand, distress can be crippling.
Distress is an overload of Eustress, where the good stress stacks up to become more than you can cope with.
So, what are the signs that your Eustress has tipped over into the danger zone?
You might notice symptoms manifesting in your emotions, behavior, thoughts, or physical wellness. For the sake of your long-term mental and physical health and for that of your employees’, it’s important to notice signs of high-stress levels as soon as possible.
Your Brain Just Isn’t The Same
One of the first things to go when we are experiencing high-stress levels is our cognitive functioning. If you find you are experiencing abnormal anxious thoughts, an inability to concentrate, or are having trouble remembering things, your body is likely responding to stress.
Emotional Slump
Your coworkers may notice emotional irregularities before you clue into them, but it likely won’t take long for you to ask yourself, “what’s going on with me?”Emotional symptoms can include feeling depressed, irritable, lonely, pessimistic, or anxious. In the office, these intrinsic shifts will quickly affect the way you carry yourself, interact with others, and the quality of your work.
Bad Habits Creep Into Your Routine
Last week, you were a healthy, responsible creature of habit with a great diet and regular workout routine. This week, you couldn’t be more different.Stress hits our eating habits hard. For some, stress may result in a loss of appetite while for others the release of cortisol produces intense cravings for anything fatty or full of sugar and salt. Your use of alcohol and cigarettes may also increase as your body attempts to relax.Sleep and work habits fall victim to stress too; Sleeping too much or too little and uncharacteristic procrastination are indicators of a body and mind being plagued by stress.
You’re Crashing
Numerous studies have shown that stress has a strong correlation to health problems like obesity, depression, and asthma - to name a few. Hopefully, you will notice the more immediate symptoms and avoid these serious health conditions.
Many people report having aches and pain throughout their bodies, often followed by catching a cold or the flu. With or without a cold, you may see other cold-like symptoms emerge like dizziness, nausea, a loss of sex drive, diarrhea, constipation, and chest pain.The perceived magnitude of the events stressing you out is not a reliable indicator of how stressed you actually are - your body can react just as strongly to an argument with a co-worker as if you’re facing a true life-or-death situation.
Choosing to push through stress, regarding it as a temporary state that you will leave behind in a week or so, is not an advisable choice of action. The more your emergency stress system is activated, the easier it becomes to trigger and the harder it becomes to shut off.
Conclusion
The real key to minimizing the impacts of stress is to catch it at its initiation and examine what you could be doing differently to help out your body and mind. A full day at the spa may have you on a cloud for a few hours, but come Monday - when you are back to your everyday routine- your triggers will be waiting for you.
Take some time to research techniques for stress prevention and management that you can use inside and outside the office. You may find breathing exercises, meditation, or a lunch-hour workout does wonders for providing mental space and inner calmness.
If you manage employees, be sure to check-in regularly with them about their stress levels. Remember that recognizing your staff for their hard work helps them feel valued and can infuse them with positivity and appreciation. You may also consider programs to promote recognition and wellness in order to boost overall morale.
Many organizations are getting an immediate ROI from investments in these types of programs in the form of a happier, healthier and more productive workforce.
Let Qarrot take the guesswork out of employee recognition for your team - book your free demo today!
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Is your body language demotivating your staff?
Have you ever considered how your body language affects your employees and colleagues?
If not, you should.
Body language is a powerful method of subliminal communication and reflects your energy levels, emotional state, and personality. Because it is extremely easy to misinterpret, it is important that managers and executives be aware of what their body language is communicating to others within their organization.
Take charge of how you are coming across; body language can be a positive contributor to overall effective leadership. Knowing how to utilize your body language and interpret others’ will give you some useful tricks to keep employee engagement levels up.
Show interest in your employees
When in meetings or having one-on-one conversations with employees, ask yourself: What message is my body language conveying right now? You may be engaged and interested in the discussion, but your employee won't be aware if your body language is sending a different message.
And while you may think you appear engaged, take note of those little habits that say otherwise. For example, are you checking your watch, replying to text messages, or scanning the room while an employee is speaking? Don’t discourage your employees from contributing by sending a message of disinterest.
Attentive body language will encourage employees to contribute and engage in conversations. Eye contact, directly facing the person speaking, and non-verbally responding to input by smiling, nodding, and tilting your head, are all clear indicators of an interested listener.
Your body language will also signal to your team what is expected in meetings. If you are actively engaged in your team’s responses, your employees are more likely to emulate you and demonstrate engaged, supportive body language.
How do you hold yourself?
From the moment you enter a room, your posture informs employees of your mood, attitude, approachability, and interest. Maybe you are fatigued, or maybe you have never thought about your posture. But, you should know that other people are seeing it - and it has an effect.
An executive who sluggishly moves around the office doesn’t exactly energize her staff or inspire them to be their best. Show you are physically and mentally engaged yourself through strong body language; stand tall, with your shoulders back, and don’t forget to smile.
Smiling lets everyone around you know that you are approachable, cooperative, and open to communication. If you want your workplace to encourage idea-sharing, foster an inviting culture, and to motivate employees, smiling is an integral ingredient.
Respond to each employee accordingly
When two people are communicating effectively, they are often mirroring one another’s physical nuances. This physical synchronicity is called body mirroring and often happens involuntarily. But, that doesn’t mean you can’t consciously employ it.
If you notice an employee keeps a few feet of distance between himself and his coworkers when speaking, he probably has a larger personal bubble. This may be because of cultural or personal reasons. You can demonstrate your respect for his boundaries and make him feel more comfortable communicating with you by being aware of his spatial preferences. This way, you avoid making an employee feel nervous or stressed, consequently distracted by his emotional state and unable to fully engage in the conversation.
The personal gestures an employee uses when communicating are also important to notice. Do they make eye contact? Do they use specific, unique hand gestures? The more you observe how your employees are trying to communicate, the more versatile a communicator you can become. Your message will probably come across either way, but these small adjustments improve your employees’ engagement by showing them that you are more engaged.
Book your free demo with Qarrot to unlock the power and motivation of peer-to-peer recognition!
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How to provide a welcoming employee onboarding
“If you want people to perform well, you have to get them off to a good start. That’s kind of obvious, isn’t it?”
— Dick Grote, author of How to Be Good at Performance Appraisals
After a lengthy search, you’ve finally found the perfect candidate to fill that open position on your team. Congratulations, but your job isn’t finished yet! The next crucial step is to properly welcome your new hire with a well thought-out onboarding effort.
Getting your new employee operating with maximum efficiency and effectiveness relies on a comprehensive onboarding process. In our view, a plan that goes beyond the usual formalities of corporate values, compliance, and org structure to include a fun and meaningful introduction to company culture, opportunities to meet and socialize with team members, and a few short-term goals to focus on while coming up to speed, can go a long way to engaging your new hire quickly.
Human Resource managers often refer to the four aspects of new employee onboarding as The Four C’s: compliance, clarification, culture, and connection - all of which are important. Yet, too often an onboarding plan can become bogged down with “compliance”. Sitting in a boardroom with pamphlets of information, your new-hire is left with an unexciting, solitary first experience.
As you plan out your onboarding process, don’t forget to schedule time for “connection.” Taking a few extra measures to ensure an employee feels accepted and at ease with the organizational culture of the company will go a long way to integrating them within your team.
Many executives are beginning to recognize the engagement power of a smooth, organized cultural integration. Some companies are going so far as to send over the benefits information and an employee handbook ahead of a new-hire’s first day.
Before your new-hire even arrives in the office, you can set up some activities and surprises to make him feel welcome and express everyone’s excitement at him joining the team. Make things personal by having a small gift, decorating his desk, or getting the whole team to greet him when he first arrives. Within the onboarding plan, organize for him to buddy-up with other members of the team. Here, he can shadow colleagues, learn more about how the company works, and make connections with co-workers.
Once in the office, be sure to not only review your new hire’s core job responsibilities, but to discuss the company’s strategy and how his role fits into the overall picture. Ideally, focus on a few short-term tasks or responsibilities rather than jumping into too many different divergent tasks all at once. And frequently check-in over the first couple of months – don’t assume that your new hire remembers everyone or everything he’s learning right off the bat! In meetings and within projects, encourage questions and solicit his input - making him feel comfortable contributing now will solidify his ease at doing so throughout his employment with the company.
Onboarding is an ongoing process, so look for ways to fold your new-hire into the culture of the office in the weeks to come - looking beyond that first 24 hours. Does your company organize events? It could be a team lunch or maybe the company softball game, but he should be invited!
Another way to continue the trajectory of cultural integration and company familiarization is by assigning a mentor. A mentor can touch base with the new-hire in scheduled meetings or maybe a company funded lunch date. Never underestimate the power of peer-to-peer learning and communication.
This gives him a safe place to direct questions and a starting point from which to build those interpersonal relationships!
The most important thing to remember with onboarding is don’t wing it. Even if you have just 30 minutes to sit down and plan out your new-hire’s first 24 hours, you are doing yourself and your company a huge favour. Optimally, think about how you want your employee’s first 90 days to go: What will his training look like? Who will he connect with? How can you make him feel a part of the team from the get go?
Your effort to improve employee engagement and consequently, employee productivity, should start from Day 1, it just takes a little bit of effort.
On the hunt for more ways to engage your team from every corner? Qarrot might just be what you're looking for!
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Motivating different personality types
Here is a winning leadership strategy you may not have thought of: Know the ins and outs of your employees’ personalities and you will unlock exactly how to maximize their effectiveness within your organization.
The more an employer understands the unique traits in each team member, the easier it is to interact with them, inspire them, and have every individual operating at their full potential.
Not only that, but by understanding which personality types work best together and which tend to butt heads, you can more confidently ensure harmonious teams.
But apart from routine interaction with your team members, how can you learn their personality types?
Reliable personality tests take the guessing work out of employee placement and motivation.
Personality tests can be administered at any time - even as part of your onboarding process. Have your employees complete one online and get the results within minutes. An awareness of what your employee holds as a moral belief, what fills her with passion, what behaviour she can’t stand and what their own behavioural habits are is enlightening for both of you.
Take these insights one step further and arrange a personality-type education seminar for the entire office. Without having to point out an example in the office of every personality type, your employees are likely to recognize traits and behaviours in themselves and in their co-workers. An awareness of how to interact with and motivate co-workers is invaluable.
Personalities can be categorized in many ways: for a detailed analysis of the psychological traits in your employees, you can have them complete the Myers Briggs Personality Test. However, even simpler surveys can provide you with useful insights into the relative preferences, traits, and attitudes of your staff.
As an introduction to identifying the different behaviour styles in your organization, here is a brief description of A,B, and C personalities. This approach to personality categorization describes traits exhibited related to work ethic and communication style.
Below is a brief description of these personality types, how they tend to function, and where you may want to consider placing them in your organization
Type A
- These individuals are fuelled by achievement and recognition, often making them more vocal than other personalities in their pursuit of success.
- Extremely organized, impatient and decisive, you will typically see type-A employees’ work spaces covered in lists, schedules, reminders, and sticky notes.
Where To Use Them
Type-A individuals are often suited to leadership positions where the constant demand for decisions and action necessitate someone with their more aggressive, competitive, and achievement-oriented nature.
Type B
- Type-B personalities contrast strongly with Type-A; they are less stressed by external pressure, have more patience, are less competitive and achievement-oriented.
- Their perceptive, compassionate, and supportive nature drives them to make a difference in the lives of those around them, co-workers and clients alike.
Where to Use Them
You will want to place Type-B personalities somewhere where they can have frequent interaction with others such as in customer service or human resources. When it comes to rewarding these employees, letting them know you appreciate them verbally goes a long way.
Type C
- This last personality type tends to be highly analytical and detail-oriented, valuing time to themselves to achieve precision.
- Unlike Type-A and Type-B, these employees will be appreciative of autonomy. Although they may still enjoy a good conversation, the presence of other people with whom to connect and collaborate is not nearly as effective in keeping them engaged and inspired.
Where To Use Them
Often, these employees will naturally gravitate to roles where most of their work is done not with people, but with numbers or other inanimate objects. Most Type-C personalities will not crave a leadership role and can be relied on to get that behind the scenes work done reliably and accurately.
It’s not uncommon for someone to demonstrate a blend of these personality traits, making the need for each employee to complete a thorough personality test all the more evident!
Some of your work force will be capable of filling numerous roles, so the tricky part is deciding which one will take advantage of their unique qualities best—that’s where a thorough personality test like Myers Briggs comes in.
Strategic arrangement of your staff can introduce your company to higher levels of engagement and profitability than ever before!
Explore Qarrot to see just how easy recognizing multiple employees and teams can be - book a demo today!
Resources
- Crestcomleadership.com - 4 Personality Types that all Leaders Should Learn to Recognize
- Owlcation.com - What is Your Personality Type? Type A, B, C or D?
- Fastcompany.com - 8 Personality Types And How To Manage Them
- Smallbusiness.chron.com - How to Manage Different A,B & C Personality Types at Work
- Theundercoverrecruiter.com - Which Type of Office Worker are You?
- Thenextweb.com - 6 personalities in every office – and how to manage them
Boosting productivity through workplace wellness
Just think of how many hours a day you spend in the office...
It would be naive to think that the environment we spend most of our day in doesn’t affect our mood or health. To that end, the space employees live, breath, and work in can either support engagement levels or erode them.
If your office is plagued by gossip, high-stress levels, and limited opportunity for physical activity, know that your employees and your business are suffering. On the other hand, when our place of work promotes and enables healthy routines and positive interactions, we perform astronomically better.
But supporting your employees’ wellbeing doesn’t have to be complicated or costly. Below, we review some simple ways in which you can help your staff achieve a healthier and more productive workday.
Well-rested employees are more productive
This one is a no brainer. Sleep-deprived employees are not going to operate at peak performance levels. As a manager, you can play a role by monitoring how much time an employee is putting in and managing workloads.
This is not to say you should discourage your employees from taking on extra work or reaching out to fulfill tasks outside their job description. Rather, you must find the balance.
Workloads, new projects, and priority jobs can be shared amongst multiple employees to avoid one over-worked team member. If you notice employees putting in extra hours every night, let them know you appreciate their work and give them a morning off to catch up on their rest.
Not only will your team members be more awake and engaged, but also they are likely to stay healthier and have fewer sick days!
It’s a win-win all around.
Get up, get moving
Employees absolutely need to have the opportunity to get up and move. Sitting for long stretches of time zaps energy, engagement levels, and overall employee health along with it.
Your company’s productivity isn’t the only thing taking a hit. 70% of all healthcare spending can be attributed to lifestyle choices meaning insurance premiums are likely steadily increasing while your employees stay seated.
If the physical environment your team spends the majority of time in promotes healthy habits, you can effectively counteract rising insurance costs.¹ This could be as brief as a ten minute stretching or walking break all the way to company-wide fitness classes.
Your office space, however, doesn’t necessarily have to house the treadmills and weights: 51% of employers today are looking to launch wellness initiative programs to improve workforce health.² According to a 2016 SHRM survey, creating a culture that promotes wellness and/or providing incentives for healthy behaviour both ranked as top effective strategies for healthcare cost management.³
Gossip is never good
Negative talk and gossip spread like wildfire.
It only takes one grumpy or naturally negative employee to set off a string of unproductive, demoralizing conversations that put a black cloud over everyone’s day.
Preventing toxic talk begins with upper-level staff. The leaders in your organization should embody the attitude and behaviours you want to see in everyone. If employees see their manager gossiping in the lunchroom, they are likely to fall into the same habit.
Once it exists, the only way to stop workplace gossip is to tackle it head-on. Although confronting the source of the problem may feel a bit awkward, addressing the individual(s) will allow you to make them aware of the big-picture implications of their actions.⁴
This conversation should always be done privately in person and never through an email or instant messenger.
If the office morale is suffering and you can’t quite determine why, it may be time to initiate a program that recognizes individuals for demonstrating positive behaviours.
Peer-to-peer recognition programs, in particular, can be an effective tool for promoting healthier attitudes and behaviours throughout the organization.
Everybody appreciates snacks
We're not saying feed the whole office lunch every day, but a snack bar with healthy food options is guaranteed to put some pep in your employees’ step.
Company-provided snacks let your employees know that the organization is thinking about their needs. But providing healthy food options is particularly powerful.
Vending machines are too often filled with foods that often lead to sugar crashes and sluggishness. Your healthy snack options will literally energize your employees’ bodies. Healthy options are a great supplement to promoting physical activity, supporting long-term employee health and lower insurance premiums.
Another option is to organize a bi-weekly or monthly lunch date with your team where everyone goes out or eats in together. Have your whole team schedule it in so it becomes a mandatory group affair. This will give everyone a chance to unwind, bond, and socialize!
While in-office gyms can be expensive undertakings for smaller businesses, there is a number of options for any organization to promote employee wellness, both physically and mentally. Simply starting by recognizing and rewarding the behaviours that lead to the wellness outcomes you want to achieve is a great way of building a healthier, more productive workforce.
Curious if your team could benefit from peer-to-peer recognition? Reach out to us, we would love to chat!
- ¹ SRFM - Employee Benefits: Benefits of a Healthy Workplace
- ² Zanebenefits Blog - Do Wellness Programs Really- Reduce Health Insurance Costs
- ³ SHRM 2024 Employee Benefits Survey Overview
- ⁴ Inc.com - Marcel Schwantes: If You Do These Things You Qualify As a Gossiper
Resources
Going green one pen at a time: how to be an eco-friendly business
Warming oceans, dwindling ice caps, and noticeable shifts in weather patterns… are you concerned?
Although Global warming is on everyone’s mind these days, Canadians and Americans are not pulling their weight in the global effort to save the planet. In fact, Canadians rank in last place for municipal waste contribution out of 17 developed countries with the USA not much farther ahead!
Both consumers and businesses need to adapt. They say old habits die hard, so do your part by starting with the little changes that you can make right now. Reducing your footprint on the environment is not only possible, it's urgent.
And hey, its not bad for your bottom line either! Green business practices can improve your ROI by significantly reducing the cost of office supplies and energy consumption.
Little Things Make a Difference
- Switch out those pens that end up in a landfill for refillable ones! Just think of how many pens one person goes through in a year…
- Look for companies that make products out of reused materials. Did you know you can get paper clips made from post-consumer metals? Well, now you do.
- No. More. Rubber. Bands.
- You’ve heard it so many times, but we have to say it again: Recycle. Even if it’s just a general recycling box in the staffroom or one for paper by the printer - it makes a difference.
- Make the leap and become a paperless office. Millennials grew up on computers and probably won’t miss it and you’ll earn points with consumers by being so green!
- If you absolutely can’t say goodbye to paper, use recycled paper. Or, save paper by not printing whenever possible and practice double sided printing when do you.
- We would never say stop drinking coffee…but think about all those filters you throw out! Thank goodness for recycled paper coffee filters. We promise you can’t taste the difference.
- Investigate what products are being used to clean your office. Eco-friendly cleaning supplies not only smell fresh but will actually leave your work space just as clean and less toxic.
- Turn off lights and computers when they are not in use. It will save you money on energy bills and decrease the overall power consumption being used by hosting servers.
- On that topic, make your website hosting green!
We know change is hard, so even if you can implement one thing from this list, at least it’s a start.
This short list reflects some of the easiest eco-friendly changes you can make. If you are ready to commit to change on an even grander scale, check out how other companies have gone totally green.
If you can’t get on board the ‘save the planet’ train, think about it this way: waste is waste, and waste means you are throwing away money.
Not only is physical waste adding up in dollars, but your company’s costs incurred by paying for health insurance and employee sick days are affected too; A healthier workplace can result in up to a 20 percent decrease in sick days taken by employees.
Whatever your reasons for going green, both the world and your bottom line will thank you.Wondering how to motivate greener behaviors in the work-place?
Contact us to learn more about connecting employee engagement to your drive to become more environmentally-friendly.
Recognizing a job well done is small gesture that can drive big results - book your free trial with Qarrot today!
