Check out your Company Bowl for anonymous work chats.
Are you the kind of person who can’t go more than five minutes without swiping to unlock your iPhone? You're not the only one. According to a study released by Deloitte, Americans collectively check their smartphones upwards of 8 billion times per day. National “looks” at phones increased from 33 times per day in 2014 to 46 times per day in 2019. With the widespread use of smartphones and tablets in our day to day lives, the line is becoming increasingly more blurred between personal and work devices. BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) is a new phenomenon that lets employees bringing their own computers and phones to work instead of using devices that their company provides. You should evaluate the pros and cons of BYOD policies when deciding your company’s stance.
Microsoft’s 2017 announcement that Teams would replace Skype for Business (S4B) caused plenty of angst in the user community. Loyal Skype users were only slightly appeased by the distant end date, July of 2021. But making the switch from S4B to Teams may not be as difficult as you think. Both tools have revolutionized the way we communicate and have continue to have some overlaps in functionality. After giving Teams a chance, it might win you over, as it has for many at TSP. If your business is using Slack, Skype or any combination of these services, consider switching to Teams. It’s slick, quick and consistent on all your devices. These are the top 8 reasons you should try Teams.
People can only be influenced by those they feel connected to, by a person they feel understands their needs, drives, hopes, concerns and goals. Influence can only be given through consent — if someone doesn’t want you to influence them, your only other options are leading through force, a less effective tactic that requires both command and control. These methods are ultimately unsuccessful in the long term, and unhealthy for company culture and the organization as a whole. But what exactly is influence, and how do you grow it? Those with influence have sway, the power to create change and help move an organization forward. People with influence are not merely regarded, they're trusted. They respect others and have earned their respect in turn. These are qualities that can’t be purchased — they have to be earned over time.
Disruptions generally take years to adapt, but with more frequent technology use and easier accessibility for innovators, disruptions now seem to happen almost overnight. These are the seven technologies that could shake up the industry in 2020.
One of the best ways to prepare for a job interview is practicing your responses to common interview questions — these 9 interview questions that CEOs love to ask and how to best answer them.
Security used to be simple — lock the filing cabinets and the doors at night before you leave. Today, there are so many security options that if you ran them all, it might feel like you were operating your business with both hands tied behind your back. Sometimes this or that security measure seems right, but if you add enough of them up in the wrong combination, it can make daily operations a real hassle for you and your employees (not to mention clients). Instead of being sold on security software or practices that might not fit well together and could actually end up compromising your business instead of protecting it, get educated on what’s available and choose the solutions that will create a more custom fit for your needs, goals and operations.
Have you ever met someone and been unsure about whether to shake hands, bow or hug? Understanding why others have different values and priorities is having cultural intelligence. Cultural intelligence is the ability to relate to and work effectively with people from different cultural backgrounds. Those who have cultural intelligence are able to bridge divides and fill in knowledge gaps that naturally exist between people from different backgrounds. Often times, companies will prioritize cultural intelligence during business-related trips to foreign countries but not in internal office relations. It’s equally important to integrate cultural intelligence into your everyday routine to maximize your company’s success.
Days on the job can feel long, exhausting and stressful. Before you know it, a week of work has flown by and hopefully you shrunk your to-do list. Crossing off items on your to-do list requires hard work and effort. Do you ever acknowledge this effort? If you don’t, you could benefit from a weekly self-evaluation. The fast-paced office environment hinders evaluations of yourself and your work. Take the time and add self-evaluation as a weekly task to focus on yourself and reflect on your accomplishments. Practicing self-evaluation creates an opportunity for one to examine and identify their strengths and weaknesses in order to further personal development. Not only can you assess and set goals for yourself, but also goals for your career. In fact, individuals who set goals for themselves are 50% more likely to achieve them than those who don’t.
Small businesses have a lot to keep track of, with fewer people to manage the many decisions that come up on a regular basis — which technology innovations are passing trends, and which will have the best return on your investment of both financial resources and training time?
Commuting is one of the daily realities of modern life, but finding a better, less boring, less stressful way to do it can be tough. According to the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics, Americans take 1.1 billion trips every day, which averages four trips for every person. Daily travel averages almost 40 miles per person each day, adding up to 11 billion miles. This, for context, is not one but two complete round trips from Earth to Neptune and back. In other words, every single day, people in America alone cumulatively commute to the end of our solar system and back — twice. According to data from the 2017 Census Bureau’s American Community Survey published by the Washington Post, commute times in major metropolitan areas are getting longer. If your daily commute feels like it stretches to the run time of the latest action movie, these tricks might help reduce some of the strain on your brain and body. Or, you could do what David Pike does, and commute by jet ski, but parking might be a problem if you’re landlocked.
