Workplace Wellness

Dear Corporate Influencer:

As someone who has a major impact on the success of your corporation, you’re undoubtedly aware that it's your people who ultimately make your company go. In fact, a dedicated, informed and engaged workforce is likely the only capital asset you have that can’t be duplicated by the competition. 

But your major asset may very well be hampered by the #1 productivity killer faced by every corporation today ... information-overload, and the mental state of continuous stress that it causes. In fact, according to several recent studies, information-overload costs “uninformed” knowledge workers an average of one day a week in lost time––a factor that can cripple your competitive advantage.

For example, would you approve of this job description? ...

POSITION: Senior Manager, Corporate Advisor 

Your duties are to:

• Spend at least 30% of your day reading, processing and managing email requests
• Lead by example. You’ll demonstrate that “effective” employees drop whatever they’re doing to tend to interruptions, emails and other unsolicited requests throughout the day
• Show round-the-clock email activity ... including evenings, weekends and vacations ... which will serve to inspire others to do the same
• Recognize the importance of prioritizing pressing problems and urgent matters over, the “uncertainty” of analysis, strategic focus and long-range planning
• Encourage the use of email to communicate as often as possible so there’s a written record of everyone’s activities
• Urge employees to use “cc” and “Reply to All” when emailing to keep everyone in the loop  

… of course you wouldn’t because it’s a “perfect” recipe for inefficiency, shallow, dysfunctional thinking and burnout, and yet many corporations are paying their knowledge workers more than 20% of their wages for just that!

No corporation would sanction this atmosphere but nonetheless it’s the one that’s most common.

Only you can make certain that your corporate environment is functioning at its best. In fact, by investing just a few minutes in our training program for a single employee, you can easily save over 5 hours a week in lost productivity alone. But what’s even more potentially damaging to your profitability can’t be seen or measured, because if the very people you’ve hired to think aren’t doing their best thinking, then the loss of mental acuity is far more harmful in terms of actual cost to your bottom line. 

What Can We Achieve by Learning to Manage Information-overload?

There can be any number of corporate goals and mission statements that a company can craft, and it’s unlikely that any two will be the same, however there are common habits and behaviors that need to be instilled if a corporation is going to effectively manage information-overload. Everyone needs to ... 

• become aware of how time is frequently misused and lost
• understand how to reduce email overload and streamline communications
• know how to create effective to-do lists that result in prioritizing the most important tasks rather than the easiest
• feel secure in collaborating and sharing ideas when creativity and problem solving are required 
• learn to become proactive throughout the day rather than reactive
• delineate clear lines between work and leisure
• understand that effective meetings should be an empowering focus of creative energy rather than a chance to catch up on email
• utilize technology (email, instant messaging, social media) to communicate effectively
• reduce levels of stress through the creation of a cooperative corporate environment