It might (not) be surprising that today’s workers are fearless when it comes to posting negative comments about their jobs. While Boomers and Gen-X-ers were predominantly brought up to be “polite” and keep those feelings private; the plethora of review sites from Ebay to Amazon to Yelp, alongside social media platforms, have paved a new path to fearless self-expression for all generations.
Studies show that an alarming million-plus Tweets a year focus on job satisfaction. If you’re an employer this might not be a good thing, especially since negativity dominates our language, thoughts, and the language and thoughts of your employees (which reflects upon your business).
Organizational growth, no mater the size of your company, is inherently dependent on teamwork. In other words, collaborative, cross-department teams projects are impossible to avoid. So, before you kick-off your next project, consider these ideas to smooth the process for everyone involved:
Hey, did you say something?
What’s the number one most important factor in successful project outcomes? If you said “good communication,” you win! What’s the easiest ways to avoid potential communication breakdowns? Right, set expectations and guidelines that foster good communication before the project moves from ideation to execution. It doesn’t take much effort really to ensure that the entire team is aligned and in agreement on which information must be communicated, when the optimal communication time frames are and on which platform. For example are status updates required weekly, monthly or daily and can they be conveyed by email or in person? When everyone starts in agreement and on the same page, everyone succeeds.
The best use of work time – might not be work
Finding balance is key. It’s common for today’s work teams to waste up to 20% of their day by focusing on personal and other non-work related tasks. These distractions vary from water cooler talk and other in-person socializing, to jumping on the Internet for personal reasons (ie: socializing), or taking care of medical appointment, banking and other tasks. Undeniably, checking off a to-do list of some important personal tasks that might be diverting employee attention will result in more productivity, higher job satisfaction and willingness to work harder, longer and more productively overall. However, there has to be a balance. Too much time spent on personal tasks can lead to significant performance issues over time.
Sorry, can you repeat that?
You might find it hard to believe how much money is lost across all industries every year due to interruptions at work. It’s a whopping $588 billion! Therefore, impacted organizations can’t afford to do anything but focus on how to reduce downtime. One of the biggest culprits is messaging apps which were meant to increase productivity by making everyone accessible all the time but when you’re “heads down” on work and someone pings you on Skype, it’s a productivity killer. Encourage your teams to block incoming chats for the sake of the project and think about other tools such as email that are equally distracting. What can you do to mitigate the time lost in these ways?
Emotions are infectious
If the saying, “one bad apple spoils the whole bunch,” wasn’t true we wouldn’t remember it. Have you considered what happens when there are two or more “bad apples” to contend with? Perhaps the bunch spoils faster? Steering the project’s productivity by driving conversations and interactions toward positive outcomes is critical and infectious. Sure, it starts with you and by encouraging communication and agreements upfront, it’s possible for the entire team to adopt a culture of leaving negativity at the door and focusing on the project’s timely success.
Efficiency is a team sport
Tools can be indispensable for guaranteeing productive use of time and there are plenty out there to choose from. Think about all the roles impacted in the project from managing to analytics software to implementation and other technologies. Your team will become your best source for finding and rolling out the tools they need and when you listen and follow their lead, they will be happier and more productive. It’s a win-win.
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