Category: Contributed Posts

Office Technology that Will Improve Your Staff Productivity

Three of the key focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money, Business/Entrepreneurship and Technology. A key to running any business/organization today is having the proper technology in place. Doing so will have improve your staffs productivity and your overall efficiency. The following contributed post discusses this and is entitled, Office Technology that Will Improve Your Staff Productivity.

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If you would like to stay competitive in your marketplace without having to invest a lot of money in new processes and procedures, you can rely on technology to help you improve the productivity of your staff while making their life in the office easier. Companies are looking for new ways of providing more value to their customers at a lower cost, and some smaller IT improvements can do just that. Find out more below.

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Customer Chat

It is important that you answer customers’ queries as soon as possible. Today’s consumers’ attention span is much shorter than the previous generation’s and they are looking for immediate answers. You can find a system that will gather all the feedback and pop up on one of your employees’ computers, so they don’t have to stay logged into various systems and get distracted just to provide excellent customer service.

Shared Calendar

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If collaboration is something that is necessary in your business, you will need to allow your staff to work on projects together and collaborate. You can create a virtual workplace where they can share and update projects. While a Google Suite system might do the job in the beginning, you might want to talk to an expert at inc-systems.com/services/managed-it-services/ to find out whether or not your business could benefit from a custom calendar and a CMS system.

Cloud Computing

It is crucial that you encourage the use of cloud computing. You will not only be able to automatically back up your files and take notes, share insights, update your team on the go, but also share information with your customers faster. You will have to install advanced security, though, so you can prevent the accidental disclosure of sensitive information.

Social Media Tools for Scheduling

If you are involved in digital marketing, you might have a member of staff updating your social media accounts and posts regularly. If they have other jobs as well, they will find managing everything very challenging. Instead of giving them half an hour a day, every day, you can allocate a few hours every month when they can schedule the jobs ahead. You can use an advanced scheduling and posting service and a social media calendar to make the most out of your reach and engagement.

Digital Learning Platform and Knowledge Base

It is also important that you empower your staff and help them become more efficient. This is why improving your office technology is necessary. If you have a knowledge base available for staff, they will find the answers without having to speak to a manager, and deal with customer queries faster and more professionally. You might also deliver your regular training or updates using your internal systems accessible any time, so they can complete the tasks when they are not compromising customer service or their own productivity.

Upgrading your office IT system can help you manage the different tasks in your company and improve your staff productivity at the same time.

Use Remote Team Lessons With Long-Distance Relatives

A key focus of my blog is Health/Wellness. A major component of life is the relationships with our friends and family. In some instances, career and life circumstances geographically separate us from our loved ones. Thanks to today’s technology though, we can still keep in contact with family no matter how far they are away unlike any time before. The following contributed post is entitled, Use Remote Team Lessons With Long-Distance Relatives.

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Life has a terrible habit; it puts distance between those who used to have a close relationship. Whether it’s your family or your friend, life has more than one way to tear your apart. Maybe you’ve had to leave your best friend behind when you went to college in a different state, and it’s been difficult to keep in touch. Or perhaps you’ve relocated for a job, and your parents now live several hours drive away from you.
Geographic distance used to be an insurmountable obstacle in the past. But nowadays, businesses have long proven that they can create a feeling of belonging with their teams, even though nobody lives in the same town. Indeed, remote teams are proof that you can bypass geography and still bring everyone together. As surprising as it might sound, it’s time for the business world to teach us a thing or two about keeping our family and friends close by.

Make a family t-shirt

Communicate as often as possible
Successful remote teams have understood that communication is vital to creating a sense of togetherness. Indeed, as explained in a previous article of the blog bigwordsarepowerful.com/2019/, businesses need to consider digital solutions to implement a healthy communication strategy. Collaborative tools and chat systems are favorites, as they make sure that everyone is on the same page at all times. Ina private environment, there is no room for collaborative solutions. However, group chats are an option. You can create a private group chat on Facebook, for instance, which can let you share your news and interact with your relatives. Additionally, Whatsapp offers a similar option. As you use online groups, you also need to accept that not everyone might be online at the same time. However, both Facebook and Whatsapp enable all participants to review the messages they’ve missed while they were logged out. In other words, you can get an answer both in real time and at a later point too.

Facebook lets you create private groups

A collective project brings everyone together
Remote teams also share a sense of purpose. They collaborate on the same project. Distant relatives and friends, however, may not have any common objective. But nothing is stopping you from introducing a collective project you can share. For instance, why not plan a big family reunion with tailored t-shirts for everyone? You can use a vinyl cutter – see here for more info vinylcuttingmachineguide.com – to design your family logo, for instance. Make sure, however, to use a heat press to transfer the logo onto the t-shirt. You could also create a party board for your next family Christmas or the next round birthday. Ultimately, you can start a project and assign tasks to each other, so that you’ve got a reason to organize a meetup and share your creations.

Respect each other’s lifestyle
Last, but not least, remote teams value flexibility. Everyone knows and understands that other members may not be available at the same time. But that’s precisely what collaborative tools are about. Similarly, you also need to display the same understanding with your relatives. Not everyone returns calls; not everyone is active online daily, etc. Build your long-distance relationship on mutual respect instead of high expectations!

Modern businesses have a lot to teach us. They introduced a practical solution for long-distance relationships, which can not only help you to stay in touch with your relatives but also build new memories to cherish and remember.

Online Improvements For Hotels

Three of the key focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money, Business/Entrepreneurship and Technology. The internet has changed the game in terms business and commerce. The Hospitality Industry is no different, and hotels that aren’t properly marketing online stand to lose business. The following contributed post is entitled, Online Improvements For Hotels.

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The Internet is a very useful tool for businesses to communicate with their target market. Almost everyone has access to the Internet these days, and people use it to compare prices and make travel arrangements. Hotels can get a lot of business from their website. However, if your business isn’t employing the correct hotel web marketing techniques, then few visitors will end up converting into customers.

https://pixaby.com/illustrations/internet-marketing-1802610/

There is a lot of competition in the hotel industry, so it’s important to do everything you can to attract the right customers. The best hotel website design won’t only attract lots of people to your site, but it will also encourage them to spend longer on there, and potentially make a booking. If someone finds your website online and it’s of poor quality or looks amateurish, then they will often click off and visit somewhere else. If your website takes too long to load, isn’t organized correctly or is difficult to navigate, then people will look elsewhere, as no one wants this sort of hassle. After all, the Internet is all about convenience.

Effective hotel marketing will give your hotel the right image. All hotels, even small bed and breakfasts need to have a professional website that shows off their brand well. When it comes to getting people to visit your site, there are a few different options. Since most people will find websites using a search engine, hotels will benefit from using SEO strategies. SEO or Search Engine Optimization is the process of making your site more attractive to search engines. When done properly your site will appear higher up in the results listings and stand a greater chance of getting clicked on. The best hotel website will also load quickly, contain lots of useful information and be very easy to navigate.

Is Your Hotel Suffering From A Lack Of Repeat Business?
Repeat business is imperative in the hotel sector, and while you may deliver a fantastic stay to your guests, this doesn’t mean they are automatically going to book again. Therefore, if you are suffering from a lack of repeat business, read on for some advice on hotel marketing online that can help to rectify this problem.

The first thing you need to do is get to the bottom of why customers are only booking one stay at your hotel and then not returning. Nine times out of ten this is because you are failing to follow up on their experience to build a loyal connection with your customers. You need to build an authentic relationship if you are to generate the loyalty that encourages customers to come back to your hotel again and again.

This is where hotel Internet marketing comes in. There are three keys aspects of hotel marketing that can help to ensure you benefit from repeat business – social media marketing, your online booking system, and email marketing. How easy is to for customers to book again? What appointment booking software do you use? Do you provide discounts for loyal customers online? Is their information remembered?

Email marketing is imperative for keeping your customers up to date with your hotel and everything that is going on. One of the best ways to increase your chances of repeat business is to offer voucher codes and special offers via email to your customers.

Aside from this, social media provides the perfect platform for customer engagement, as it allows your customers to get as close to your brand as possible. You need to post regularly on your social media accounts, and you need to ensure you are communicating with your customers, rather than merely posting a string of in-your-face advertising messages.

Feeling Inspired? Some Of The Things That Can Help

The first principle of my blog is Creating Ecosystems of Success. To do anything of meaning in life, having a sense of inspiration is important. Individuals are in fact inspired by different things. The following contributed post discusses ways to find inspiration and is entitled, Feeling Inspired? Some Of The Things That Can Help.

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Often to do anything in life, we first need to feel inspired to do it. This might be inspired to start a business, motivated to make some changes because you have been inspired by somebody else, or generally wanting to make a difference because of somebody else’s actions. Inspiration is something that we all need throughout our lives in order to do things, but often, seeking out the inspiration to get started can often be harder than you think? So if you are actively looking to feel inspired in some way here are some suggestions.

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Attending events or seeking our past speeches

One of the biggest ways that we can often feel inspired when it comes to our business or the direction we want to take in life is attending different events and listening to their guest speakers. This can be very insightful, and often very specific information being shared. Of course, not all of us can attend, and sometimes you may need to look for past events. Especially when you are looking for a specific guest speaker, such as Burkitbayev who specialises in chemical faculty and science based exploration. Finding past speeches could even open your eyes up to other people that you find inspiring, and knowledge you never knew was available to you.

Looking online for videos and articles

Thanks to the internet, we have a wealth of information online these days. Platforms like YouTube will be full of videos of either famous talks and speeches from the past and even video footage of conferences and events you may not have been able to attend. This is when you can really start to get into the depths of things. Further to that, you could also look for articles online where specific people have shared their words and knowledge through a different creative outlet.

Using social media to feel inspired

Social media is one of the best ways to feel inspired these days. Visually you have Instagram full of amazing pictures, for news and up to date information you have Twitter, and Facebook is great for a mixture of the two. This is why social media can be a great way to feel inspired and you can follow specific people as well. Many people share what they are up to day to day, from pictures and captions, to insights and knowledge. You never know what you will be able to find out simply by following someone you admire and feel inspired by.

Surrounding yourself with positive quotes and affirmations

Finally, the last thing you can do to help you feel inspired is to consider surrounding yourself with positive quotes and affirmations. These things can really help you when it comes comes to how you feel, and remind you why you might be doing something? It could be a simply “go out and get it” style quote or something more insightful with depth. Positive affirmations that you tell yourself can also help you to be in the right mindset with a positive outlook on life.

Let’s hope this has help you to feel more isnpired.

How To Make Sure That Your Days With Friends Are Memorable

The first principle of my blog is Creating Ecosystems of Success, and a key focus is Health/Wellness. A key aspect of a happy life is spending time with friends and relatives. It’s important to consider how you can maximize your time with them. The following contributed post is entitled, How To Make Sure That Your Days With Friends Are Memorable.

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OK, so we know what you’re thinking. When you see your friends, all of the things that you do with them are memorable, right? And anyway, isn’t the most important thing that you can spend that time together, whether you’re doing the most exciting – or the most boring – things ever? Whilst this is true of friendship, you should also make sure that you can look back on your time together, and be sure that you all did some exciting things, rather than sitting in the same old seats, in the same old bar. It’s just not the same really, is it? Here’s how you can make your days with friends memorable.

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Go on a road trip

When it comes to making (and sometimes breaking) friendships, there really is nothing like a road trip. Figure out which ones of you are up for driving, and whose car you’re going to take, and get out there and experience things. The best conversations that you’ll have are in motels at 2am, or on the top of a mountain, looking out there at all of the stars. Sometimes, friendships are made a lot stronger by experiencing what the world has to offer together, and you will have to solve some problems together along the way. This is what will make you friends for life, so pick out a route, and get out there with your friends.

Join a sports team together

Another thing that undoubtedly makes your friendship stronger is joining a sports team together, and there is no level of comradery quite like those who are in the same team with each other. Perhaps you’re into baseball or basketball, or you want to try out a new sport? Why not get some golf gear from www.rockbottomgolf.com and see whether you can have some great fun out there on the course? If your friends are sporty then this is a great idea, and your successes and losses will really bring you together, and mark out some memorable days for the future. Try something new, and get your buddies on board!

Eating is important

OK, so eating is important for reasons related to staying alive, but it’s also an important part of any friendship. As Anthony Bourdain said (a little more eloquently), a meal doesn’t fix everything, but sitting across from somebody at dinner is one step of the way there. Sharing a meal together with your friends (and some drinks) is one of the best ways to catch up with one another, and to really spend your time enjoying each other’s company. No phones at this table, thanks, we’re having a good ol’ fashioned chin wag, and enough food to make us almost fall asleep in the restaurant. This is what friendship is all about.

So, if you want to make sure that your days with friends are memorable, then travel together, join a sports team, or simply just go out for dinner. You never know what’s going to happen, and that’s why it’s better to give your old haunts a miss for a while, in favor of something new!

How Business Intelligence Can Help You Improve Your Digital Marketing

Three of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money, Business/Entrepreneurship and Technology. Marketing is arguably the lifeblood of any business operation which itself is a potential cost. Today it’s important to understand how best use the digital marketing tools available. The following contributed post is thus entitled, How Business Intelligence Can Help You Improve Your Digital Marketing.

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If you are running a business online, you might want to reduce your admin costs as much as possible and start making informed decisions based on intelligence gathered using advanced tools. There are plenty of ways you can improve your marketing campaign and optimize your results, but using intelligent data is the most cost-effective and simplest method. It will give you an edge over the competition and help you understand where you need to make improvements.

Market Research

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You can gather market intelligence to make your marketing decisions better and based on data. From understanding the main players and the customer preferences to predicted growth and a SWOT analysis, there are plenty of things you will need to create a plan that will help you improve your strategy and talk directly to your target market. If you don’t know your audience, you will not be able to stay competitive and stand out with your offers. You need to conduct market research before launching a marketing campaign to stop shooting in the dark and start focusing on the results.

Customer Behavior

It is crucial that you understand the buyers’ preferences and their journey. No matter if you are entering a new market or are trying to keep an eye on the changes, you will need to get to know your ideal client. Find the market segment that is the most likely to buy from you and engage with your brand. You don’t want to waste your marketing budget on people who are not really interested; stop focusing on the tire kickers and find the prospects who already see the value in what you have to offer.

Market Trends

If you want to win the game of digital marketing, you will need to make sure that you keep an eye on market trends, There are plenty of free reports you can get your hands on, or choose to conduct your own research online for free. You need to gather information and analyze it using a Smart Room tailored to your industry and your company’s needs. If you are not able to get a snapshot of the market trends, you might make the wrong market penetration decisions.

Conversion Tracking

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Some people say that digital marketing is data driven today, and argue that we are losing our soft skills due to technology. However, the two aspects of research and strategy can work hand in hand. You can gather data and create messages that resonate with your audience and create an emotional connection between them and your brand. After all, knowing your facts is crucial, but engaging with your target market will improve your conversions.

Competitor Analysis

Knowing your competition can give you an advantage of creating a strategy that will build on your strengths and eliminate your weaknesses. You will have to map your market position and strategy, find out your exact share in the niche, and find the right strategy to stand out. If you know what your competitors’ main marketing messages are, you will be able to create your own unique brand identity that will impress the right type of potential clients.

AB Testing

It is important that you track the results of your digital marketing, so you can make improvements and get a better result. No matter if you are setting up your first landing page or lead capture post, or are engaged in email marketing, you will need to use AB testing to find out which messages your potential clients are responding to. You can set up variants or headlines, call-to-action, or even images and pick the winner to improve your marketing.

Marketing Cost Analysis and ROI

When you first invest in digital marketing, you will not know whether or not you will see results and if your campaigns will be worth the investment. There are plenty of ways you can measure the conversion rates and the cost per acquisition in your marketing. If you are getting an order worth a hundred dollars and your ads only cost you 25, it is something that you should carry on doing. That is why measuring the return on investment in your marketing using business intelligence can help you improve your profitability.

If you want to make the most out of your digital marketing, don’t forget to turn to advanced business intelligence tools to help you make better decisions. Improve your digital marketing and make the most out of your data analysis skills to see better results and conversions.

Reducing Accidents in Your Workplace

Two of of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. Depending upon the type of company you’re running, you want to think about employee safety and minimize accidents. Accidents can not only disrupt productivity, but they can also increase the likelihood of lawsuits. The following contributed post is entitled, Reducing Accidents in Your Workplace.

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Workplace accidents can be costly in many different ways. As an employer, you could find yourself facing legal action if a member of your team, a customer or a visitor is injured in your workplace. You could lose money as productivity drops during any confusion or repairs. You could find yourself working without a valuable member of your team, and you could find that your reputation suffers, that you are no longer able to keep or attract the best staff and that your customers start to ask questions about what goes on in your company. Especially if the accidents begin to add up.

Of course, accidents happen. We all have the occasional trip, or we make a mistake during a loss of concentration. Machinery and equipment fail us, human error can never entirely be eradicated, and unfortunately, things don’t always go quite to plan. There will still be accidents in the workplace, just as there are on roads and in homes. But, as an employer, finding ways to reduce accidents in your workplace can increase profits, lower staff turnover, improve your reputation and the consistency of the service and products that you offer and give staff morale a big boost. It’s undoubtedly worth committing some time to look at ways to reduce the accidents in your workplace, even if there aren’t that many in the first place.

Assess Your Workplace and Staff

Some accidents can be avoided just by taking the time to look at what is going on. You should complete regular risk assessments, to help you to spot any potential risks and find ways to reduce them.

It’s also worth assessing your staff. You might want to consider drug testing services, as a sober team is always going to be less accident-prone and less of a risk to others. But, even without measures like this, it’s good to have regular staff appraisals, where you speak with your team one on one. Use this time not just to assess their performance, but also to ask them if there is anything that they need extra help with, or if there is anything that you could be doing to make their job easier and safer. As the boss sat up in the office, it’s not always easy to know what’s needed.

Does your staff also work in other locations? When you are considering how to reduce workplace accidents, it’s also smart to think about any other working environments. Perhaps you have field staff who are working on-location or are out on the road for long hours. They might be out of sight, but you can’t forget about the possibility of a fatal truck accident or a safety incident during the delivery of goods. It’s essential to consider how to keep them safe even if you don’t have eyes on them at all times. This might include things such as tracking drivers, ensuring they are well-trained, and maintaining vehicles.

Keep Maintenance up to Date

Most businesses use some kind of equipment. It might be heavy machinery, it might be vehicles, or it might just be fridges to store stock. Whatever you use, when it goes wrong or isn’t able to work at its best, it becomes more likely to cause an accident. Keep maintenance up to date, schedule yearly services, and act at the first sign of trouble.

Keep the Workspace Clean

Whether you work in an office, a shop or a factory, a dirty and messy workspace can cause trips, slips, banged heads, falls and many other accidents. Make sure all staff and customer areas are kept clean, and that your employees follow a clean as you go policy. Give them the tools that they need, such as cleaning supplies and wet floor signs, to do this efficiently.

How Do You Learn Best?

The first principle of my blog is Creating Ecosystems of Success and a key focus is General Education. We know that everyone learns and processes information differently. When looking to incorporate new information into your life, it’s important to know how to effectively do this for yourself. This also important for educators to know. The following contributed post is therefore entitled, How Do You Learn Best?

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Learning is something we all do every single day, and quite possibly, we’re learning all hours of the day. But there are some of us out there who have distinct learning styles, and that’s what we want to explore today. After all, the more you know about the way you take in and retain information, the better you’re going to be at helping yourself grow. So here’s just a couple of the main learning styles we know of, and what helps foster them.

Whether you like using an online source and all of its capabilities, or you prefer a good old text book and some highlighters, you’ve got a way to learn no one else has. (Source)

Are You a Practical Person?

Being a practical person means you like to have a hands on approach to whatever it is you’re learning, whether it be how to use a chainsaw or cooking up an eggy storm in the kitchen. You’re not just someone who can sit by and watch as someone else does it; you need to be involved, because it’s just how you learn best.

And there’s plenty of ways for you to foster a learning style like this. But one of the best ways is to invest in experience days! And this covers all sorts: things like learning how to drive a race car, or flying a plane.

Do You Need More Freedom Away From a Classroom?

A classroom can be a very strict setting. It’s one few of us actually thrive in, and as a result, there’s been quite a few ways to make a lecture hall seem a lot more interesting in the modern day and age.

We now have tablets we can take into a class with us, with all kinds of apps to keep us entertained as we learn. Or we can skip the class altogether, and still get the benefits! You can now choose to learn online, and consider the benefits between campus led and online programs at sites like Online Degrees.

Do You Need Someone Else Present?

A lot of us like to have someone around us when we’re trying to learn something, seeing as that person can help keep us on track, and we can collaborate with them when we’re not feeling too hot about the subject at hand.

So, you may be a bit of inattentive learner, but that’s perfectly OK! There’s plenty of ways someone like you can get to know the contents of a course you’re following – you can use fidget toys to keep yourself still, or you can doodle the information in your notebook, just to make the presentation a bit more creative. Or you can choose to use others to help keep you on track – making yourself beholden to someone else, whether because you promised them a presentation by the end of the week or because you’re meant to be going out tomorrow, is a great way to foster your focus.

How do you learn best? Let us know!

4 Healthy Indicators Of High Self-Respect

The first principle of my blog is Creating Ecosystems of Success, and a key focus is Health/Wellness. Self-Respect is important not just for yourself but in terms of interacting with others as well. A high level of self-respect can drive your decision making and ability to navigate life as well. The following contributed post is entitled, 4 Healthy Indicators Of High Self-Respect.

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Being able to look after yourself and respect yourself is hugely important. Not only does it make for a happier and more fulfilling life, it’s also hugely effective in terms of keeping you physically healthy too. The mind and body are essentially two sides of the same coin, and the more that you pay attention to one, the more the other benefits alongside too. But if you are feeling as though you might not allow yourself the right level of self-respect, then you are probably keen to do something about that. As it happens, there are a whole host of ways in which you can hope to improve your self-respect, and it all starts firstly by understanding it as a process as well as you can. In this article, we will look into some of the healthy indicators that you have high self-respect. If you can see these qualities, you know that there is a lot of self-respect there too.

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Good Physical Health

We have already alluded to the way in which physical and mental health work together. It works both ways, and if you happen to have good physical health which you keep up with a lot of the time, it’s highly likely that this is mostly down to having a good level of self-respect. When you respect yourself, you are much more likely to push your body and to improve it through training, as you both want it to be in the best possible shape and you feel much more able to do the necessary training to get it there. Conversely, if you are not in great shape, it will almost always indicate that you are not quite as happy with yourself as you could be.

The trouble here is that it is the kind of thing that can easily become a cyclical problem. If you allow your physical health to worsen, that will cause a decline in your emotional health, and then you will feel less keen to go out and exercise again. Before long, you are going to find that you are letting both slip, and that is not a situation that you want to be in. So make sure that you are staying on top of your physical health as well as you can, and you will find it helps to keep your self-respect up high as well.

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The Ability To Self-Regulate

This is something vital that we should all have, but which can become undeveloped or forgotten in many people at different stages of their life. Self-regulation is the term for being able to act in ways which you know are for your best future interests in the long term. This should generally trump anything else such as immediate desires which you know will cause you damage – although in practice, everyone in the world engages in some kind of damaging act at least sometimes. But the ability to self-regulate is a hugely powerful indicator that you have a high self-respect, and if you happen to notice that you don’t really have this yourself, then it’s likely you have self-esteem problems somewhere.

As with many things, this is something that usually starts in childhood. The process of teaching self-regulation to young students and children can be hard, and for many parents it doesn’t ever become a priority. Those children will then not develop a natural sense of what it means to take care of themselves for the long-term, and once you become an adult you might find that this shows up in a variety of poor behaviours which you then try to fix. Idf you find yourself in this position, don’t fret – it is still something you can work on at any point in your life, and you should never feel as though all is lost. But you will need to start actively thinking about what matters for your health and wellbeing, and to make the right steps and changes to make it happen. The more you do it, the easier it becomes, until eventually you are going to find it is a fairly natural skill which you have developed.

Confidence

Who doesn’t want to be confident? Confidence is much-admired, but mostly misunderstood, and it’s that misunderstanding which stops people actually being able to take it for themselves. A lot of people feel that confidence is somehow always being on top in social settings, or even being domineering of those around them. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Actually, confidence is much more like not caring whether or not others like you, and doing whatever you want, regardless of whether other people like it. Clearly, this kind of no-nonsense get-what-you-want attitude is a sign of a healthy self-respect, and it is for this reason that you should seek it out. Of course, as with anything, you can practice either and you will get more of the other – and if you don’t feel you have much confidence, you can do a lot to generate it in yourself.

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The best way to build confidence is to make a point of focusing primarily on yourself, and doing what you want. Pleasing number one firstly is the best thing you can do. You should then think about slowly but surely stepping outside of your comfort zone, until you are at the point where you can appreciate that you are capable of more than you thought. In this way, you will surely and slowly build up your confidence, and at the same time your self-respect will start to soar as well. Confidence is hugely addictive, so it’s exciting to get started in building it up.

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Kindness

Funnily enough, even being kind to others is a sign that you respect yourself, as long as it comes from a healthy place. If you are over-pleasing, then it’s not healthy, but if you are instead being normally kind because you want to be, then that is a very good sign indeed. It takes a strong self-awareness and understanding to be kind to others, and this is one of the first things you should think about developing if you are keen to respect yourself more. You’ll be amazed at what a difference it makes.

Employee Engagement Ideas For Remote Teams

The first principle of my blog is Creating Ecosystems of Success and two focuses are Business/Entrepreneurship and Career Discussions. A great perk for many employees is being able to work remotely. Working remotely gives a lot of flexibility and can add to productivity. There’s a downside to it too, and management must consider how to get the most of teams of employees working remotely. The following contributed post is therefore entitled, Employee Engagement Ideas For Remote Teams.

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Ensuring your employees are engaged is not always an easy task, yet it can become even more difficult when dealing with remote teams. Nonetheless, the following employment engagement ideas from Unum should give you a helping hand…

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Frequent Communication

When dealing with a remote team you should never take the ‘no news is good news’ stance. This is likely to lead to disengagement, as the team members may feel you don’t value them enough to tell them what’s going on. It is definitely a case of the more communication, the better.

Embrace Instant Messaging

A lot of managers believe it is more efficient for them to be the only point of contact. However, you risk alienating the team in question, and this is extremely damaging. Why? Well, information won’t flow effectively and work relationships won’t develop. Instead, promote healthy communication via the use of internal instant messaging.

Consider Various Communication Tools

When engaging with a remote team you need to make sure you use the right tool in relation to the message you are giving. If you merely need to rely on a simple message, an email will suffice. However, when something is more elaborate, or complex, or requires brainstorming, it will be more effective to use an advanced video tool. You can easily find these on the Internet, and some are even free to download. However, managed solutions come highly recommend, as they will be developed to suit your business.

Better Scheduling

Why should those on the other side of the world always have to take a conference call whilst they should be sound asleep? A lot of businesses schedule in relation to what is convenient for their home office. However, if you consider your remote teams and schedule for their benefit in some instances, you show that they are just as important and this keeps them engaged.

Give An Explanation

This is a simple yet effective engagement idea for remote teams. Often, everyone in the home office will know what is going on and consequently their reason for performing a particular task. However, remote teams may be asked to do something and they have no clue why. This may interrupt their current workflow and thus cause irritation. Moreover, it may lead them to feel disengaged because they are working on something without purpose. Therefore, all you need to do is explain why.

Create Personal Connections

It doesn’t hurt to ask someone how he or she is and what is going on in their life. A lot of managers neglect to do this because they feel they are wasting time. However, creating a human connection is time well spent. If you can’t spare five minutes of your time to get to know an employee, no matter where they are located, they won’t feel valued. Instead, they will feel overlooked.

So there you have it, six easy yet highly effective employee engagement ideas for your remote teams. As soon as these practices are implemented you will immediately notice a difference. Start today by making a personal connection when you next communicate with someone in a remote team.