We procrastinate at work in a number of ways.  Give yourself a tick for each of the following that you do:

• Paying bills
• Discussing complaints
• Returning phone calls
• Completing that project
• Updating your Resume
• Hanging around the water cooler
• Excessive networking to avoid working
• Showing an interest in office gossip
• Finding a new job if we are unhappy at work

How well did you score? If you got 6 to 9, then your ability to work is affected greatly by your procrastination.  If you scored 1 to 3, then you are doing well and if you scored 4 to 6 than you can still improve. Tips for improving procrastination follow...

Stress causes a rise in brain chemicals or changes the balance of chemicals, resulting in neurons in the brain not working properly.

This makes us look bad in front of others as we are unable to respond in an objective way. This can cause the following problems:

• You may say something inappropriate
• You will not be able to think one step ahead to solve the situation
• The argument will get worse
• You will get angry and frustrated
• You will look unprofessional
• If other employees are around, they will take sides

How effective are you at completing your workload?  Answered honestly, this questionnaire will help you to understand how efficient you are at work and areas that you need to improve on.  For each of the questions, rate yourself out of 10, with 1 being the lowest, 5 being good or sometimes and 10 being excellent or always.  You can choose any number from 1 to 10 that honestly reflects your abilities.  Grab a piece of paper and write down your scores as you go.

1. Rate the effectiveness of your time management skills.
2. Rate your decision making skills.
3. Rate your ability to understand what is going on in the organisation.
4. Are you setting goals for yourself?
5. Are tasks being managed effectively?
6. Are effective communication strategies being used?
7. Are emails used effectively?
8. Are emails stored in an efficient manner so that they can be easily found?
9. Are individuals contributing effectively to teams?
10. Are team meetings scheduled when needed?

Now, tally up your score.

How effective are you as a leader?  This questionnaire will help to give you a rating on your leadership abilitites and how leadership development training can benefit you.  No-one is perfect and there are always ways that we can improve.  This questionnaire will help you to understand areas that you can improve in and you can find tools on this website to help you to become a more effective leader.  So give yourself an honest rating for each of these areas with 1 being the lowest and 10 being the highest (in the positive).  Grab a pen and paper and rate yourself out of 10 for each of these questions.

1. Are you working effectively in your role?
2. Do you understand the characteristics of being an effective leader?
3. How well do you manage your stress?
4. Do you communicate effectively?
5. Do you listen effectively and ask questions of employees?
6. How effective are your working relationships in your organisation?
7. Do you understand the element of effective working relationships?
8. Do you understand the personality traits of your employees?
9. Do you understand the strengths and weaknesses of your employees?
10. Rate the culture and morale of your organisation.

Add up all your scores.  How well did you do?

A DISC Profiling System identifies the behaviour characteristics of an individual.  The DISC Profiling System is based on four areas of influence including:

1. Dominance - the person's ability to get their point across in a challenging environment, which range from Passive to Aggressive.  They can be competitive, aggressive, decisive and results orientated.  They can at times be impatient, overbearing, rude, not good listeners and prone to making snap decisions.
2. Influence - Their ability to persuade others, people rating high are friendly and suited to customer service or sales.  They are talkative, sociable, optimistic and lively, however, they can be inattentive to details, overly talkative and emotional.
3. Steadiness - They like to remain in one job and don't like a lot of change or variety, this is a good trait for data entry jobs.  They are calm, helpful, patient and modest but can require stability and security.  They can also be indecisive and stubborn.
4. Compliance - Their ability is to follow rules.  They are a stickler for regulations and guidelines and have little flexibility.  This is good for auditing, standards or accredition.  They are precise and logical, analytical and careful.  They can get lost in analysis and can possibly be critical, distant or pessimistic.

Most people are a blend of two of the above personality traits.  Different personality traits have different benefits for different roles in the organisation.  The key is to get the right personalities in a team, with each individual working in roles reflective of their personality traits.

What is Emotional Intelligence (EQ)?

Emotional Intelligence is about being guided by your emotions and thinking intelligently.  This will enable you to perceive, express and understand other people's emotions as well as your own emotions.  You will express your emotions in a professional and effective manner.

What are the Benefits of EQ?

By identifying and understanding the EQ of job candidates, management and staff, the results will be:

1. Better identification and response to EQ
2. Better communication between staff, management and clients
3. Management of emotions in the workplace more productively
4. Management and Employees will be less likely to suffer from negative emotions

How can EQ be Utilised in the Workplace?

 

Managers and leaders can utilise emotional intelligence in the workplace by better understanding the needs of customers and employees and being better able to represent their organisation in the public light.  These leaders set employee morale and have empathy towards the needs of their employees.

Different jobs require different levels of emotional intelligence.  Sales staff will need to understand a customer's mood and know the best time to make a sales pitch or when to keep quiet.  People working in solitude have an individual self discipline or motivation which is emotional intelligence.

According to studies, generally women have a higher sense of empathy and social responsibility; however men have higher levels of stress tolerance and self-confidence.  Men and women are equally emotionally intelligent; they just have emotional intelligence skills in different areas.

Steps to Utilise EQ in Your Workplace

1. Assess the EQ of staff, management and job candidates
2. Identify the EQ of these individuals
3. Understand how best to manage these individuals
4. Demonstrate the use of EQ in the workplace
5. Encourage these individuals to utilise EQ in the workplace

Email is something we use all the time, and you want to make sure that your message gets read in the myriad of emails and responded to, so here are some tips to help you to improve your emails.

1. What is the purpose of your email?  If it is to give the person some information about something that is of interest to them and it contains a lot of detail, then you may need to send an email.  If you require some feedback immediately from that person, then you may be better off giving them a call.
2. Summarise the objective of the mail message at the beginning and if it is long, explain it step by step.
3. If you need something to be done, inform the recipient of any due dates.
4. If you are intending on copying anyone, ask yourself if that person really needs a copy.
5. Attach the sender's message or reply to their message so they know what it is in relation to.
6. Avoid long, drawn out email conversations, a face to face conversation or phone call may be better.
7. Use the invite attendees feature in the Calendar to schedule a meeting instead of writing and sending an email invitation.  It sends the attendee an email invitation which they only have to click yes or no to save them time.
8. If available to your system, request a read receipt for a message instead of calling the person to confirm that the message has arrived.  In the e-mail, click the button and select "Request a Read Receipt for this Message".
9. If you don't get a response from the email, follow up with a phone call.
10. Proof read your email before sending.  Did you write your email in an angry manner or was it polite and the reader will understood the email?
11. Will your email be understood by the other person?  If they are unable to respond to you face to face, they may not understand your motivation behind your email.  In this case, it may be better to call the person.
12. Delivery is not guaranteed.  For whatever reason, sometimes your email does not get to the intended recipient, sometimes they just get lost in email land.  Requesting a Read Receipt will alleviate this if you have the function available and the recipient chooses to send you a read receipt.
13. Be concise as extra waffle may not be read or understood; if possible write ideas or topics in bullet points.  Can you write your email in an effective way with the most important information first?  You may even want to write the email in bullet points to make the email easier to read.
14. Out of office replies need to be taken notice of as your recipient many not have read your email yet.  You could possibly follow up with a phone call at a later date when the recipient is available.
15. Be clear about what you want them to do.  Do you want them to call you, do some work for you or sign up for a product or service?
16. When sending emails within your organisation, use task requests to increase the commitment to a task if this feature is available on your system.
17. Let them know that you are available to answer their questions and the numbers that you can be contacted on.

If you would like some more tips on organising your emails and writing emails to people you know and don't know, subscribe to this website to get emails to work effectively for you.

Workplace Efficiency Training allows you to effectively manage your time in the work place by enabling you to develop your own time management system with our time management techniques.  Different facets of your work are examined in detail to find out which areas you can improve on and what you need to do to move forward by developing your own time management techniques.  The benefits of Workplace Efficiency Training include:

1. Managing your time more effectively by planning your time as well as scheduling appointments for clients and staff through time mangement techniques.
2. Thinking more effectively by utilising mind maps to map out big projects into sizable chunks.  Make decision making easier by using a Decision Matrix to assess the priorities of a decision and the likely outcomes.  These are two great time management techniques.
3. Putting in place routines to ensure your work is done on time and without too much stress by developing your own time management system. Make your staff aware of your routines so that they may adhere to them also, they may also like to develop their own time management techniques.
4. Learn how to deal with changing priorties by developing your own time management system so you can deal with unplanned events as they may arise.
5. Learn to handle interruptions by managing your time more efficiently through developing your own time management system.
6. Manage your email in a more productive manner by developing your own time management system which will result in you receiving less email and spending more time on your work rather than constantly answering emails.
7. Learn to manage your workload more effectively through a time management system so that you can spend more time doing what you want to do rather than doing what you have to do.
8. Another time management system is to organise all your information including paper, computer files, reference materials and projects and storing them in a manner that everyone can understand and find what they need to find.
9. Preparing and running effective meetings so that everyone knows what is expected of them and how they can contribute productively to the meeting is a great time management technique.
10. Becoming a more effective Manager by utilising Emotional Intelligence, effective time management techniques, writing effective goals to achieve a desired outcome, and communicating more effectively either through written or verbal communciation.

If you would like further articles or tools on any of these areas, search this website as there are plenty of ways that you can become more efficient at work and reduce your stress.

A DISC Profiling System could benefit your business in the following ways:

• Clear identification of learning and working styles.
• To avoid the placement of 2 dominant people working together all the time as they would both want to be leaders.
• You can place people in roles which are more suitable to their behaviours.
• To get the right mixture of different people in a team when their roles and behaviours are varied and suitable for them.
• To know where your team members fit into the above categories and ensure their roles reflect their natural abilities.