Why do you monitor employees’ home working?
With Working from Home still being a a large factor for many organisations, monitoring of employee work habits has become more common. When did they send the email? When did they access the latest briefing note? Questions
What’s on Your ‘Don’t Do’ list?
Most of us have some form of ToDo list. This might be very simple - a list of things in our head that we want to do today or this week - or we might use
Become a Morning Person
Some of us are not naturally morn ing people. It takes us a couple of hours to becomes fully awake and alert and reach peak performance. If in that couple of hours. you’ve had one
Limited Success
The UK is successful in many areas - it has a large, successful renewable energy sector, a whopping great financial services sector and a large tech startup sector. Yet UK productivity does not reflect these advantages.
Thje Right Rhythm
We have known for many years that some of us are larks and some of us are owls. Well, this simple categorisation has been confirmed by experts (2007 study published in Personality and Individual Differences) who suggest there
Get the Balance Right
Many people have been working from home during the pandemic. In fact many of them are still working from home for at least part of their working week. For most of these people, this has
Do Less
Can we raise productivity by doing less? Well, if that lesser activity has a greater impact, then Yes, We Can. You need to shift the mindset of your managers to concentrate on key results and
Know Your Enemy
If it aint broke, don’t fix it. That’s a useful slogan in some circumstances - but not in business. If you expect the status quo to deliver success, you are likely to be disappointed -
Hard or Soft?
Is productivity improvement a hard or soft skill? Is it better, for example, to consider and analyse hard performance data or approach improvement from a softer, behavioural stand point. This is definitely not an ‘either ….
The Productivity Divide
I have written a number of blog posts relating to working from home including ones that describe the difference in view of effectiveness of WFH as perceived by employees and their managers. Managers who think staff
Digital Presenteeism
We know there is a disconnect between the views of employers and employees on the productivity of working from home. Employees are happier and believe they are more productive; their managers are not so sure. Now
Its Not Football
Lots of US sports articles talk about productivity of a team, or a quarterback or other star player. Of course, they don’t understand the meaning of ‘productivity’. What they are talking about is ‘performance’. The two
The Future of UK Productivity
The UK has a new monarch and a new Prime minister- one avowedly committed to economic growth as the way to climb out off the abyss we are in. But, as yet, apart from the
Stop Procrastinating with the 5 minute rule
Many of us procrastinate. We leave tasks we don’t want to do. And work on simpler tasks that we enjoy - or at least tolerate. If this sounds like you, then read on. The five-minute rule
A Fresh Start?
The UK has a new monarch and a new Prime minister- one avowedly committed to economic growth as the way to climb out off the abyss we are in. But, as yet, apart from the
Creating a non-meeting culture
We know that meetings suck time snd energy out of an organisation - so why do we have so many. Especially these days when there are so many other ways of communicating without dragging everyone to
What Should You Do in Your Breaks?
Simple question asked here. Can you do anything in your break times to help your work performance? Well, of course, you can. Drink water - and keep hydrated. Take a walk. Humans are made to move
Behaving Like Children
Bullying does take place in many workplaces. Bullying gets a lot of attention in schools ands colleges - and there are strategies to deal with it and the consequences of it. This rarely happens in
Coaching Success
This summer, in the UK, has been glorious and packed with sport - Wimbledon, Commonwealth Games, European Championships, It got me thinking about how athletes and sports people prepare for a season in which they
Manage the Small Projects
When we think about project management, many people naturally think of large-scale projects - building a new motorway (freeway), a new rail line or a new power station are obvious examples. Small projects, however, need
A Day Is Not Enough
This year, June 20th was World Productivity Day. I only found out about this at the beginning of July. It had already passed me by - with no impact on me, or, I suspect the rest
On Reflection
There is plenty of advice on how to start your working day - by establishing priorities, by reviewing your To Do list and so on . However, the other end of the day can be
Action is not Productivity
If you run around all day long, switching from tasks to task, you may end up completing little, achieving less. You probably need to think more, act less. Plan more, execute more efficiently. This applies
Obsession
Sorry about returning to the subjects of 4 day working weeks and remote working. But I continue to see claims that both of these increase productivity. Most of these clams seem to arise from surveys