Why Is It SMART To Set Goals?

Setting goals is a simple and effective way to boost your productivity and project a plan for your future progress.

Stating out your personal daily goals as well as long-term goals is a good way to get started and can inspire you to improve yourself during these challenging times.

The SMART strategy is an excellent method to follow for practical goal setting.

  • Specific: Ensure your goals are planned in detail so that you have a clearer understanding of what you want to achieve.
  • Measurable: Having measurable and quantified goals means you can record your progress and know exactly when you have achieved them.
  • Attainable: Your goals also need to be realistic and achievable. Having goals that are too far out of your reach (at least for the time being) may instead demotivate you.
  • Relevant: Keeping your short-term goals relevant to your broader, long-term goals will help you stay on track.
  • Timebound: Set time limits for your goals to keep yourself accountable and driven to achieve them.

You can also implement this measure in a business setting or a personal/private environment.

For example, you may have a business goal of gaining five new clients over the quarter. Is this measurable? Is it attainable? Is this short-term goal relevant to your broader, long-term goal?

Discuss with your colleagues or employees precisely their goals for their time with the business. Is it to attain new skills or to improve on existing ones? Does it align with KPIs, or is it a goal to allow for self-improvement?

Whatever your reason, having a strategy for setting goals can be a game-changer. Why not give it a try?

Remote, Hybrid Or Office-based, Here’s 3 Ways To Smooth Out Your Work Days

More and more businesses are pushing forward hybrid roles – part-time in the office, part-time WFH.

Ensuring your workstyle practices allow you to seamlessly integrate between working from the office or working from home is crucial. Try adopting these changes to make your transition into the office space more manageable.

Structure Your Daily Routine

Working in an office space structures your day, and this is an important feature to bring into your workday, even when you’re working from home. Create a work-based routine that works for you at home and the office.

For example, you may find that using the first hour of the day to respond to emails and enquiries and using the later part of the day for meetings works best for you. It is important to stick to that routine as best as you can to then provide yourself with some structure when moving between workspaces.

Prepare For Distractions

Without the common distractions that an office space comes with, employees may find that they are more productive at home. However, there may be some distractions in the home that the office is without (such as interruptions from family, etc). Consider incorporating collaboration meetings and calls into your work day when working from home.

Brainstorming sessions and daily stand-ins can be great ways to reintroduce socialisation with your colleagues to make social interactions productive and less distracting when working from home or in the office. Consider setting boundaries if you need to reserve portions of your day for important tasks, and let your colleagues know so they don’t distract you.

Maintain Stability

Working from home has left employees much more free time during the day, allowing them to pick up new hobbies and interests. These activities may have been a source of relaxation when working from home, so try to continue indulging in these activities once you transition back into working from the office part of the time. Upskilling for personal fulfilment can be rewarding and even contribute to better mental health and well-being.

Feel Like Your Job Has Stagnated? Here Are Two Reasons To Stay (And One To Leave).

Have you been feeling a sense of stagnation while performing your job? Are you struggling to stay motivated or lack a sense of professional purpose? You might need a professional seachange to your career- but it doesn’t have to be a monumental process.

It’s not uncommon to think about your career in terms of progressing from point a to b to c. Career progression is often a linear concept in many people’s minds, with hiring processes tending to not hire outside of our industry or across skill sets.

Making a choice to switch careers can be daunting and not without its challenges. For instance, to make a cross-industry chance, you may have to go back to the very beginning of your career, retrain and reprove yourself, and sacrifice your current level in your career to do so.

Consider these three reasons behind whether or not you should stay or leave your current career rather than drop everything and go.

  • If you’re happy with the company’s culture, and get along well with your boss and co-workers but feel like you are not growing as you should, stay. You could do external self-education to further your skills or ask for more challenging work to broaden them.
  • Unhappy with your company’s workplace culture, struggle with leadership and politics but are still learning from your work? Stay, as it’s an excellent opportunity to grow your stakeholder management skills further and learn how to influence and negotiate in challenging situations.
  • Leave if you aren’t learning, are bored and do not like the culture of the company. This can be for the best, particularly if it impacts your mental and physical health.

Challenging yourself with difficult situations can further your career growth. Still, it’s essential to recognise and respect whether or not those situations will help stimulate your growth.

Communicating With WFH/Hybrid Employees Can Be Tough – Here Are Our Tricks

Do you have employees who are remote work from home or hybrid (part-time in the office?

If your business has made a shift from full-time, face-to-face work to providing remote working options, it may be putting productivity and quality at risk if effective communication is not maintained.

Just because you no longer see your staff face-to-face doesn’t mean your communication has to suffer. Here are some ways you can keep your remote team on track.

Have A Communication Plan

Having a set schedule for work calls and virtual meetings or requiring employees to provide reports or updates at certain times, keeping a clear communication plan can help keep your staff on track with their work and with each other. It’s a good idea to record this in writing using tools such as shared calendars or reminders.

Define Goals And Roles

Outline project goals and objectives to ensure everyone is working towards the same result. Delegate roles and obligations to each team member to avoid confusion and overlap. This will keep the team on track despite not physically seeing what each other is up to.

Utilise Messaging Tools

Messages are a great way to communicate with your staff and keep a written account of tasks and ideas. If your business relies on teamwork, group messaging chats are essential to keeping everyone on the same page; otherwise, miscommunication and confusion are huge risks.

This will also allow employees to chat amongst each other in a group setting as they would normally do in the workplace and can help them retain a positive work attitude by providing a sense of collegiality and normalcy.

Provide Performance Feedback

With everyone working remotely, it can be hard to monitor the performance and quality of your employees. Providing performance feedback fortnightly or monthly can help your employees continue to learn and improve, as well as keeping them productive knowing that their work will be reviewed.

Recognition

Providing positive and encouraging comments in the office seems very natural and easy to do. Still, when it comes to remote workers, it is easy for employers and managers to forget about taking the time to show recognition for the work employees are doing. Just like anyone else, remote employees should receive adequate praise and recognition for the high-quality work they do; without it, they are likely to become disengaged.

Don’t Let Stress Decide Your Life!

Stress is normal when running a business. Unfortunately, it can grow to be a major issue for many entrepreneurs.

Excessive or overwhelming levels of stress can interfere with one’s productivity and have a negative impact on their physical and emotional health.

Just because stress is impossible to avoid doesn’t mean it should be allowed to dictate our lives. Managing stress levels is not about making a big lifestyle or career change. Instead, individuals can learn to manage their stress levels with a few tweaks to how they perceive and respond to stressors.

Socialise

Regularly seeing friends can help decrease stress hormones. Maintaining strong social connections can prevent feelings of loneliness and isolation, as well as create a sense of belonging. It can also increase a person’s sense of self-worth, something that can benefit everyone, especially entrepreneurs facing difficult times in their business.

Eat Well

Eating the right food can reduce stress levels and put you in a better mood. While many stressed people opt for foods with high sugar levels, like muffins and cakes, the instant pick-me-up that they provide is short-lived. Eating whole-grain carbohydrates can help boost productivity levels and avoid the ‘roller coaster ride’ effects of sugar.

Relax

Relaxation techniques, such as meditation and yoga, can be very useful in combating acute and chronic stress. Allocating a specific time to relax every day is a critical step in preventing and managing stress. Sleeping is an effective way to promote body and mind recovery. Studies have shown that a lack of sleep can have a greater impact than having a poor diet. Making sure you have sufficient sleep every night can help you to get through stressful situations. Adopting healthy behaviours, such as switching off from work-related activities at a certain time each day, can also help in working towards a work-life balance.

Exercise

Even when busy, making time for health is extremely important. As well as being significant for physical health, exercise is an effective stress reducer that can help maintain a well-balanced mental state. Exercising releases endorphins and can shape your mood depending on the activity, helping you feel energised or putting you in a calming, meditative state. Being active for at least 30 minutes a day can reduce stress levels and stimulate your body’s endorphins and other natural chemicals that act as mood elevators.

Thinking About A Career Switch?

Switching careers later in life can seem daunting and risky.

Still, with the proper planning and preparation, it doesn’t have to be.

If you’re tired of the same job you’ve been doing for 20 years, or you’re finally ready to pursue the thing you’re passionate about, a career change can be exciting and allow you to learn new things and love your work.

However, it can be a scary move, especially if you have to think about financial stability, location change, or supporting your family. Here are some things you should consider before taking the leap.

Self-assessment:

Are you capable of pursuing the career you want to switch into? Will it fit your personality type, values, and interests well? To better understand this, be realistic about what you’re capable of through experience-based evidence, and evaluate what you do or don’t find interesting or enjoy.

This will reduce the risk of you starting a new job only to discover that it’s not as suitable for you as you imagined. You can hire a career counsellor, or other career development professionals to help you do this accurately.

Training And Education:

Does the job you are considering require extra qualifications and skills? Do you have these qualifications, or must you undertake further training and studies to be eligible for the job?

Having a midlife career change means that you have accumulated years of experience from working, and you may have transferable skills from your past jobs that can be used for other careers. Research what the job requires of you and if further qualifications are needed, think about whether the added training or courses would be suitable for you to complete.

Career Field Demographic:

What is the typical age of those working in the field you want to pursue? This can help you determine the likelihood of employers choosing to hire you or not based on your age.

Unfortunately, it is common that some companies prefer younger workers due to perceived technology savviness and career growth potential. In saying this, many employers actually prefer older workers as they can offer experience, maturity, and wisdom. Research the demographics of the job and evaluate your prospects of getting hired.

Making Mistakes At Work Is Not The End Of The World…

Mistakes always happen; although they can be embarrassing, you can recover from them.

Whether the mistake was minor or costly, handling the error with professionalism can save your dignity and credibility.

Next time you forget to hit send on that important email, rest assured you can recover quickly by adopting the following tips:

Gain Some Perspective

Feeling ashamed or distressed when you make a mistake at work is natural, but looking at it in a broader context can help you let go of these negative emotions. Most mistakes, unless they are life-threatening, can be corrected, so forgive yourself and move on. Instead of wallowing, look at ways to rectify your mistake immediately.

Acknowledge And Apologise

If your mistake has affected someone else or negatively impacted the business, acknowledge your wrongdoings and apologise. Admitting you made a mistake shows self-awareness, responsibility and accountability. Try to avoid justifying your actions or over-apologising.

Restore Trust

The best way to show you care about what has happened is by learning from it and ensuring it does not happen again. Correct the mistake as soon as possible and evaluate what you can do differently next time. If you continue to deliver great work, more often than not, your mistake will be forgotten about.

When Should You Be Taking A Mental Health Break?

People won’t hesitate to take a break when their physical health is bad but are reluctant to treat their mental health equally.

Your mental health plays a massive role in your ability to work and maintain a positive lifestyle, so taking some time off to focus on your mental health isn’t something you should feel guilty about or ashamed of.

When considering taking mental health days off, make sure you know the distinction between wanting a day off and genuinely looking after yourself. Some signs to look out for that may mean you need a mental health break can include:

  •       Moods: constantly feeling angry, irritated, tearful, depressed or anxious.
  •       Behaviour: actively disconnecting from others, lashing out at people easily, decreasing work performance, not being as motivated, making more simple mistakes or accidents.
  •       Thoughts: having pessimistic and negative thoughts, feeling disillusioned, resentful or discontent.
  •       Physical: being constantly tired, body tension issues, adult acne, constant colds, headaches and migraines, sleeplessness, difficulty focusing, significant weight loss or weight gain.

Everyone has their own way of caring for their mental health, but if you’re unsure where to start, consider the following tips.

Do Emotional Work

Consider the reasons why your mental health has been low. Ask yourself what you can do about things that make you feel bad instead of putting the blame on external factors. Engage in some problem-solving or reframing situations more positively and realistically. Consider if going to therapy, talking to someone you trust, or taking an extended break will benefit you.

Socialise

Try to spend some time reconnecting with your friends and family. Human connections and socialising are linked to mental well-being and can help avoid social anxiety and loneliness.

Do Activities You Enjoy

Working full-time or having other commitments can mean that your hobbies are deprioritised. You can spend some time in your break going back to activities you like, whether painting, reading, music or watching movies. This can help you relax and enjoy yourself.

Connect Your Team More Effectively With These Activities

Team building sounds like a cliche approach to creating a cohesive workplace, but it’s one of the most important. However, it can sometimes be an undeveloped or underutilised aspect of staff development, which can lead to a lack of cohesion within the team.

A company is only as strong as its parts, so it’s important to put time and effort into building a healthy, developed team.

Team building activities are usually aimed at one thing — to grow and develop your employees so that they collaborate better with one another and produce results. These activities can take a few hours to days depending on the size of your company and how much planning you’ve put into the activities. But overall, you should achieve the following by the end of your efforts.

  • Let your colleagues/employees get to know one another by opening communications and interacting with one another during team activities that allow them to learn about personalities, interests and skills.
  • Improve the attitude towards the job by rekindling positive behaviour (e.g. interest in the position, dedication)
  • Promote teamwork and cooperation without the pressure of evaluations
  • Discover new skills that can translate to work opportunities, such as creativity, resourcefulness, collaboration or even leadership.
  • A lighter and more positive atmosphere throughout the workplace from the perception of being taken care of by the company.

If you are looking for examples of team-building activities to take to your workplace, why not try:

  • Taking MBTI tests as a team to learn more about each other’s strengths and weaknesses.
  • Icebreaker games to connect team members to one another
  • Developing core values as a group (such as code of conduct, agreed-upon workplace rules, etc.).
  • Self-assessments & group assessments of members

Handling Difficult Employees In 4 Easy Steps

Every now and then, you might come across an employee who is particularly difficult to handle. A difficult employee could be one who is incompetent, doesn’t follow instructions, behaves rudely in the office or some other behaviour altogether. However, as a business owner or manager, you must maintain professionalism when responding to such an employee.

The first thing you should do is try, once again, to listen to what your employee has to say. Once we have decided that an employee can be troublesome or difficult to handle, we might fail to make a genuine effort to listen to what they have to say. However, listening will allow you to understand how you might be able to improve the situation. You will be able to gain an understanding of the situation the employee may be in and figure out potential solutions.

Another key aspect is to document interactions with particularly difficult employees. This will be essential documentation if you decide that termination is the only way to go. Documenting incidents isn’t necessarily ‘negative’, it simply allows you to have proof of interactions that led to your professional decisions.

Set consequences if you find that the behaviour is still not changing. These consequences should be specific and set out clear expectations that the employee needs to meet. If the employee does not meet these expectations, then you need to act upon the consequences that you had stated.

Finally, don’t be afraid to fire a difficult employee. It is in no way an easy task, but if it does get to the point where termination is necessary, then don’t give yourself excuses not to do so.