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Apps that will Help Your Productivity

by sincera | Dec 19, 2017 | Productivity, World of Work

It is true that the smart phone today might as well be an extension of one of our limbs. Starting from emails, to food delivery, travel and shopping – and just about anything one may be able to imagine, is achievable on a smart phone. While it is indispensable, it is also the primary aggregator of distractions. No matter how busy we are, or how urgent the task at hand is, we still look up from work to check our phones every now and then.

In this post, we actually look at turning this object which is the source of most distractions, into an object which helps you stay focused. How? By recommending the best apps that will help you stay productive.

Productivity is now just an app download away!

Freedom

At times even if we may prefer to stay away from our phones, our phones don’t seem to get that. With their incessant buzzing with constant notifications for emails, tags, shares, messages and the whole universe of social media vying for our attention – we just can’t seem to cut off. Putting your phone on silent may not be an option because you can’t miss calls. Freedom allows you to choose specific sites or apps you don’t want to receive notifications from, and allows you to set a timer for the same. Sounds like freedom to work? We agree!
Wunderlist

An especially amazing platform for teams which work from home, Wunderlist is the best to-do list app that there is! You can set tasks for yourself and the app lets you measure your progress. Apart from that, you can also assign tasks to individuals, and collaborate seamlessly with your team on this platform. The app makes visible each persons progress on the assigned tasks, and the results are out there for all to see and keep track of. Not just your regular to-do list, for sure!
Doodle

Working with a large number of clients, or even within a team can sometimes be tough in terms of being able to find common slots for meetings. As a result, who ever the manager is, ends up wasting a lot of time going back and forth and checking with everyone for possible dates – making all the permutations and combinations and finally coming up with a date that works for all. What if there was an app which did this for you? And you end saving all that time. Sounds too good to be true? Well it is true! With Doodle, all you need to do is send the suggestive dates to all concerned, via the app, email or imessage. The participants for the meeting will then vote for the dates that work for them, and Doodle then freezes the date that works best and suggests it as the date for the meeting.
focus@will

Do you have playlists based on moods, or dependent on the time of the day? For example, a work playlist, a drive playlist, and so on? focus@will, true to its name, is a music app that helps you focus on your work. It goes by the description, ‘neuroscience based music subscription service that helps you increase your attention span by up to 400%’, and indeed describes itself quite accurately. All you need to do is choose how you feel, and what you need, from the options the app offers you, and it will curate a playlist to help you stay focused. Sounds like magic?
Calm

This beautifully crafted app is your mindfulness fix for everyday. Loaded with guided meditations, the app helps you get back to the now, stay focused and carry on. With series like breaking habits, working on anxiety, 7 days of productivity, 7 days of focus and so on, the app gives you a true sense of the positive effects mindfulness has on our lives. No time to meditate? You can meditate even when you are commuting and using this app will show you how, with their guided meditations ranging from as little as 2 minutes, to as much as 60 minutes. While not all the options are offered free of cost, you will still have access to quite a few of them. Wondering if you should pay and get access to all? All we can say is you won’t be disappointed!

Productivity never seemed easier!
Got any recommendations from your end? Let us know!

Being a boss your team wouldn’t want to let down – Leadership Matters

by sincera | Jan 5, 2017 | Career, Leadership, Management, Managing Yourself, Motivation

Now that’s a tough one, right? Not just how to be a “good” boss, but how to be a boss your team would never want to let down! Let’s state at the outset that very few bosses are able to find a place in that hall of fame. What makes it tough to be that kind of boss is maintaining very firmly, the delicate balance between being an amazing human being and a strict task master. The good news though is that it really isn’t all that tough to be that person. Thinking about it through these five key elements would probably set you off on a path to practice being that boss!

1. Lead

In one of our previous posts, we spoke about how to be a leader and not a boss. While all bosses can boss, only few bosses can lead. While a boss directs you, a leader empowers you and leads you by example. Your team sticks with you not just because they don’t have any other option, but because they like being in “your” team and they like learning with you. To be a leader to your team, is to exude a personality and a confidence which inspires and motivates your team to always go that extra mile.

2. Trust

Reposing trust in your team is a pre-requisite for your team to repose their trust in you. Trust is one of the most fundamental enablers. When you trust your team, there is an understanding that you have enough confidence in their ability to deliver. One of the most powerful methods of ensuring accountability, is in fact by investing trust in your team. This succeeds in acting as motivation for your team to take total ownership and meet your expectations.

3. Care

Why should being a boss, and in charge, pose as a conflict to your ability to be a good human being, who understands the larger dimensions of being in charge? When you are in charge of a team, you are not only in charge of ensuring the deliverables are met, but also in making sure that you help your team through the odds they may face in achieving those deliverables – which at times may even extend beyond the professional realm. At times, you may have to exercise discretion to figure how far you can really go. To care for your team is to make them feel valued, and secure – a quality that can change all that is wrong in the world of work.

4. Encourage

Not just for the sake of increasing productivity, or during appraisals – but make it a part of who you are as a person. Encouragement can be in many forms – it could be a few words, it could be a smile, it could be just an approving nod or a gesture. While it wouldn’t cost you anything, you never know how it may infuse someone with the energy he/she really needs.

5. Laugh

Be the boss who makes the work environment seem lighter. Wear a smile as often as you can, and laugh with your team as often as you can. Invest at least thirty minutes connecting with your team, sharing and laughing with them. The effect would be almost therapeutic – for you and for your team, resulting in a sense of cohesiveness which ultimately motivates your team to deliver the best.
To be a boss your team can’t let down, you’ve got to start by practicing all the qualities that you would like to see in a person you think you won’t ever be able to disappoint – and then, become that person! Let go of your need to invoke fear and hence get the work done (a tactic most commonly used by employers), and become someone who invokes the best in your team, simply by being all that you want to see in your team mates!

Five Thoughts through Five Favourite Quotes on Performance Metrics

by sincera | Mar 20, 2014 | Business, Business Operations, Management, Performance, Productivity

Numbers tell stories – and metrics are the tools through which these stories get shape and substance. And yes, I am mad about metrics. And I know I am not alone in my fascination for metrics. There are tons of metrics to choose from and the right performance metric for your business may not be the right one for mine. I have been asked many times on how to know when to introduce metrics, what the right metric is, and how to work the metrics so that the metrics work for you. So through this post, I will try to answer these questions through another passion of mine – quotes! I LOVE quotes (as do the majority of internet users going by the number of quotes shared every minute) – do you too get the feeling sometimes when you read a quote – ahh, I totally get that one, I wish I had written that – an Eureka Moment ?

Quotes are distilled pieces of wisdom. And when it comes to metrics, my experience is that getting the perfect metric and the perfect outcome as a result of tracking the metric needs a lot of hard work and experimentation – so wisdom from people who have been there, done that certainly goes a long way in making the metrics journey easier. So, here are the five quotes on performance metrics, pieces of wisdom that have helped me crystallize my approach to key performance metrics:

“Measure what is measurable and make measurable what is not so.” – Galileo

From the Father of Modern Science comes this gem. The thought to keep in mind when you have to begin from the beginning with metrics. The second half of the quote – make measurable what is not so – stands out to me – just because you can measure something easily is no good reason for measuring something. Metrics need to be tied to the desired business outcomes. And we need to spend some time assessing what metrics we have already and what metrics we need, and then going back to work on creating the systems and processes that will provide the data for quantification in a shape and form that will allow us to measure that. Data collection, analysis and management is most often cost and labour-intensive – so that part should always be weighed against the benefit derived from the metric. Don’t start something you can’t sustain in the long run.

“The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.” – Hans Hofmann

What not to measure is sometimes more important than what you do measure. Selection of the right performance metric for your business is critical. Do not introduce metrics just for the sake of metrics – it serves no one and the whole purpose is defeated. Start with what is the business goal that you need to track and improve, what are the processes related to that goal, and what metric would best reflect the productivity of the process. Measure only that which is important, that which provides real value to the process in question, which can be easily understood by all stakeholders and is ACTIONABLE. Control your love for metrics and don’t produce reams of excels and slides and/or dashboards that make peoples’ eyes glaze over right from the start. Be ruthless in cutting down the unnecessary so that the necessary can stand out and shout.

“If you torture the data long enough, it will confess to anything.” – Ronald Coase

One of my favourites and sorry to say, one that I am reminded of time and again in the corporate world. Data through metrics must speak the truth even when (and especially when) it does not serve our personal needs. As professionals, we have a responsibility to ourselves and our organizations to be honest, transparent and collaborative. How you measure is as important as what you measure. Don’t devise metrics out of the data just to show things in a good light or in a bad light – keep doing that and there will soon be nothing left to measure. Design the metrics and the data collection systems in such a way that it throws the spotlight on the business outcome and is balanced to reward productive behaviour and discourage “game playing”.

“There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.” – Peter F. Drucker

This one is a popular quote and one that has served me well every time I enter a new setup or review a long running process. Business is dynamic, why should metrics remain static? What made sense to measure last month, quarter or year may have become completely irrelevant to measure today. Many a times I have found during reviews, a metric that no one remembers why it is being used, knows who is using it or where it is being used. Trust me, the same is true for many processes as well. There may have been a good reason once sometime in the past that makes absolutely no sense today. So keep reviewing, keep questioning and keep going back to the drawing board with your list of chosen metrics so that they remain relevant and useful.

“An idea not coupled with action will never get any bigger than the brain cell it occupied.” – Arnold Glasow

Do I see you nodding your head to that? All data, dashboards, metrics are useless unless the knowledge and insights derived from them are translated into action. Ask yourself – what story does this metric say, how can it help the leadership make the right decisions (more, less, better, different?) and arrive at an action plan when necessary? Every metric should be mapped to an end goal and have an action plan defined for improvement, sustenance and excellence. The action plan reviews should go hand in hand with the metric reviews feeding each other in a continuous loop. If the metrics are chosen carefully and presented properly, then, in the process of achieving their metrics, people will make the right decisions and take the right actions that enable the organization to maximize its performance. And that is when you know you have done your job well.

So, there you have it, the method and mechanism behind key performance metrics through learned wisdom. Metrics matter, metrics need work for them to work, metrics tell a story – the ending of which you have the power to change. Make your Metrics Rock!

What are your favourite quotes on performance metrics? What wisdom have you gathered on setting key performance metrics ? What has worked for your business and what has not? I would love to hear back and learn from you.

Pic Courtesy: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rubyblossom/4674821065/

Five Must-Dos to Improve Employee Engagement – Transform the Zombies into Humans

by sincera | Jun 30, 2013 | Business, Business Operations, Leadership, Management, Performance, Productivity

Did anyone watch any good zombie movies or shows lately? I did unfortunately and the thought running through my mind watching the zombies in there was that we have our own version of zombies in the corporate world. Think about it – some people leave their minds and hearts out the moment they check in at office – put in the hours, do what they are told to do, do their best not to get “committed” and definitely not care…and then there are some for whom work is personal, they care, they come to work to learn and grow, they build relationships at work and in general just have fun.. Employee engagement, also called worker engagement, is a business management concept. An “engaged employee” is one who is fully involved in, and enthusiastic about their work, and thus will act in a way that furthers their organization’s interests. The opposite of employee engagement is a zombie employee. A zombie employee is a disengaged employee that will stumble around the office, lower morale and cost the company money. (Wiki). Valid analogy there, don’t you think? And that brings me to the topic of today’s post – Employee Engagement – Transforming the zombies into humans.

Concentrating on employee engagement can help companies withstand, and possibly even thrive, in tough economic times. Gallup researchers in 2012 studied the differences in performance between engaged and actively disengaged work units and found that those scoring in the top half on employee engagement nearly doubled their odds of success compared with those in the bottom half. Take a look at the table below from Gallup that clearly establishes the connection between employee engagement and critical performance metrics:

So what surprises me is why senior leadership often times just pays lip service to such an important aspect of business performance and growth. One annual engagement survey, a bit of brouhaha over the survey results if they are not good enough against benchmarks, a few actions handed over to the HR teams and then business as usual till the next survey results which of course will not be any different from last year or the previous year.

Employee Engagement initiatives must be enmeshed into the day-to-day operations of the company – I firmly believe that if you take care of the people, the company results take care of themselves. And when I think of the “people” factor of operational excellence, Tom Peters always come to mind. His “Excellence Now” philosophy is centred on People First and I will be quoting him liberally in the must-dos below. He says that an organization is first and foremost a “CATHEDRAL” dedicated to human development. So how do you build and sustain this cathedral on a day-to-day basis? Here are five principles that I have seen work:

**Must Do #1: Hire for attitude and culture “fit” –**

Adaptive organizations will have workforces which are hired for attitude and character and proven teamwork as much or more than for skill. In all my years of managing people, I have never had to give up on a team member for lack of skills. Skills can be developed, attitudes is another story. Your hiring process needs to build this focus into sourcing profiles; conducting interviews and doing reference checks (get tips in this post). Trust me, one talented terror in an influential position can throw cold water over all the good work done by other engagement initiatives. So, you have done a mistake in hiring or promoting a talented terror (a high performer with lousy attitudes), quick – go undo it fast!

Must Do #2: Be Transparent –

This ties in with trusting people and giving them respect. Build an environment of information sharing and transparency at all levels. Problems – share it across and enlist support. Mistakes – Admit it and gain credibility. Successes – Celebrate sooner rather than later, big or small doesn’t matter as long as everyone’s invited. Ask people the “What DO You Think” question often and then act on the feedback (while letting people know that you are on it) – simple way to show that you respect your team and the greatest source of wisdom for you. Senior leadership should share a workable plan to support their vision and ALWAYs back up words with actions to inspire confidence and trust. Employees who don’t feel significant rarely make significant contributions.

Must Do #3: Create Policies and Processes with People First philosophy in mind –

If you want to WOW your customers then you must first WOW those who WOW the customers! There are so many ways to provide the best employee experience and not all of them will cost money (though your return on investment here would be much higher than say. capex investments) Offer competitive base salaries linked to value creation (ever heard the idiom, throw peanuts and you will get monkeys?), link variables to achievable business goals, have a great rewards programs that includes both cash and perks, provide tools and technology environment that help and not hamper employee productivity, take feedback from all employee levels when designing pay and benefits programs. CARE and be FAIR, in short.

Must Do #4: Help People Succeed –

Boss Job #1 is serving employees, helping employees not just “do good work”—but helping them succeed and grow. This one is about people and leadership development and training – about providing career advancement and growth opportunities. Give self- assessment tools and self career management training for all employees so they move to becoming the CEOs of “YOU Inc.” Build the ABSOLUTE BEST Cadre of 1st LINE MANAGERS … or BUST! Provide alternatives to job growth ladders and create and maintain an effective and widely accessible internal job posting process. Create a strong mentoring/buddy culture. Design training programs as a game and fun for everyone. An organization can only become the-best-version-of-itself to the extent that the people who drive that organization are striving to become better-versions-of-themselves.

Must Do #5: Connect, Get Personal and Make Work Fun –

This is part of my company’s vision statement and something that I strongly believe in. Each one of us can get this right – it is simple. As Dee Hock, founder, Visa said – “Ph.D. in leadership. Short course: Make a short list of all things done to you that you abhorred. Don’t do them to others. Ever. Make another list of things done to you that you loved. Do them to others. Always.” Need I say more? We just need to keep this in mind in every interaction, every meeting, every communication that we have in the workplace. Give before you get. Appreciate people who do this always and encourage and participate in fun at the workplace. And the more of us who do this, the more this culture spreads getting engagement levels up slowly and surely.

To sum up, here is the leadership/management manifesto for Employee Engagement from Tom Peters himself: our job as leaders—the alpha and the omega and everything in between—is abetting the sustained growth and success and engagement and enthusiasm and commitment to Excellence of those, one at a time, who directly or indirectly serve the ultimate customer.

So what do you think? Do you think Employee engagement initiatives are a waste of time ? How have you transformed zombies into humans in your organization or in your teams? What do you think I have missed in the points above? I would love to hear back and learn from you.

Five Human Resource Metrics that link People to Business Strategy – Business Operations Performance Metrics

by sincera | Jul 29, 2012 | Business, Business Operations, Leadership, Management, Performance, Productivity

The abundance of information – from both internal and external sources – is the richest possible mine when it comes to understanding the employer brand, employee engagement and what employees want and need from the organization. The vital, and apparently missing, step is to transform the data collected into strategic advantage. The use of analytics, seems to be focused on external stakeholders and is yet to be used to its full effect when it comes to talent management. Only under half of CEOs (46%) use analytics to provide insight into how effectively skills are being deployed in their organizations.

This was a key finding in PwC’s 18th Annual Global CEO Survey, “People strategy for the digital age: A new take on talent”, which seeks to understand how businesses are preparing for the wholesale redesign of the world of work.

Clearly the standard HR metrics of Cost per resource, HR efficiency (no. of HR employees to total no. of employees), etc. which primarily help in driving down the costs are no longer sufficient in an environment where talent is the competitive edge for organizations. The need of the hour is HR metrics that are aligned to the current and the future business plans to ensure that not only is there no shortage of talent when we need it but also that we have processes and programs in place to create the right talent for our business.

When we create budgets for the year, we spend a significant amount of time planning where the revenue will come from and how the spend will be distributed across cost headers. In services organization, labour is the biggest component of both income and expenditure. Do we spend the same amount of time in planning how we would attract, retain and develop this big-ticket item so that the business objectives are met? Annual talent strategy planning is a must to develop and harness the potential of human capital – to proactively drive business outcomes instead of reactively responding to whatever the latest talent shortage crisis is. Based on my experiences in resource management and operations, here are the five human resource metrics that I think can help link your people strategy to your business strategy:

Human Resource Metrics #1: Competency Development Spend % – This one starts with identifying the key skills and talents that are necessary to execute on the company’s strategy for the year and create the competitive advantage while providing a platform for internal employees to learn and grow in their chosen career ladders. These could be technical (specialized software or hardware skills), functional (customer service, selling, tools and technology training) or managerial (leadership development, communication, succession planning, mentoring). Assess the current skill levels and the gap from where it needs to be and then draw up the competency development plan with budgets, timelines and desired outcomes for the year. Monitor the spend against the budget periodically (maybe monthly or quarterly) to ensure that there is focus on developing the right competencies that are needed for business success and that the plan is relevant to the current business scenarios.

Human Resource Metrics #2: Employee Engagement – This is the HR Mantra and enough research has been done to show that the EE figures of an organization are directly proportional to its business performance. Falling engagement levels are the precursor to higher attrition, lower productivity and increasing costs per hire. But an employee engagement survey just for the sake of measuring engagement is a waste of time and energy. The survey should be used as a tool to collect information that helps drive better results. Analysis should be done to isolate sincere actionable feedback from the “noise”. For example – what do your best performers think about your organization – does it allow them to perform to their optimum levels and get better every day? Invest and prioritize the engagement feedback that will really have an impact on key employee retention and overall employee performance and build this into your annual plan.

Human Resource Metrics #3: Quality of Hiring – This amounts to determining how a new hire’s abilities and performance varies from pre-hire requirements and expectations and is a metric that is generally calculated from 3-6 months after the hiring. Combined with the cost of hire (external recruitment spend+ internal labor costs) and the speed of hire (time taken to fulfill an open position), the quality of hire metric forms a great basis to measure the overall efficiency of your recruitment function and its processes (targeted sourcing, speedy reaction time, consistent screening process and continuous improvement). The impact of a wrong hire is huge on the business outcome and we definitely need to spend some time here to ensure we have the right data points and methodologies to ensure that we hire the right people for the right jobs. Some excellent data on this metric here : http://www.ere.net/2009/10/02/quality-of-hire-the-missing-link-in-calculating-roi-part-i-of-a-series/

Human Resource Metrics #4: Resource Utilization % – This is the most common metric used in human resource management and for a good reason. It is the ratio of the resource’s billable work to the total amount of work and hence has a visible and direct impact on a company’s revenue and margins. What I want to highlight here is the need to go beyond this number and look at the underlying reasons for variations in the numbers and focus on them for improvement. Numerous factors can change utilization rates, including inconsistency in calculations of what constitutes work and billable work, late and cancelled projects, increased training and ramp –up times and ancillary job demands, such as paperwork. Keep track of employee expertise areas and availability status in a central skill database, so that you can the quickly move people into a project and maximize utilization. Cross-train technical staff to respond quickly to changes in client demand. Developing a versatile and flexible workforce keeping in mind future customer requirements reduces idle time. Develop a bench strategy and a robust demand and supply forecasting process to stay on top of the target utilization numbers.

Human Resource Metrics #5: Revenue per Employee – This is a simple metric but the most important one to gauge and measure the success of all the plans and initiatives as outlined above – quarter on quarter and year on year. It also helps to compare the performance of your organization with similar organizations and set benchmarks internally for your HR and resource management functions, the data on total revenue and total headcount of companies being easily available. The revenue per employee should steadily increase leading to expanding margins and improved profitability. This is a number that must feature on all management reviews as it helps keep focus not only on the denominator (costs – and there is only so much cutting that you can do) but also on the numerator (revenue – where are we getting maximum value out of our labour and why – to drive strategy in the directions where it is working).

One size definitely does not fit all when it comes to metrics – and you may have your own views on what metrics are best suited to drive the talent advantage for your organization. One thing is common though – we need to collect consistent information on our resources, use metrics that enable decision-making and ensure that talent management strategy remains relevant with overall business strategy and contributes actively to business growth. We need to choose the metrics that help the management to make quick and sound business decisions that are based on facts rather than feeling. What has worked for you in this area – I would love to hear and learn from you.

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