Tag: remote work

An Important Leadership Key: Empathy

Post author By rs_ph_website
Post date August 23, 2021

An Important Leadership Key: Empathy

rs_ph_website
August 23, 2021
8:02 pm
0 comments

Leadership is a big word that comes with bigger responsibilities. While a leader gets praised for their team’s success, they are also responsible for its troubles. After all, there are many challenges employees face in the workplace. This is true whether it’s remote or in the office. This is where leadership comes in to make sure nobody gets left behind in precarious situations when the dust finally settles.

It is important for a leader to have eyes for both the trouble and the troubled. It is not enough that they only care about the challenge, as they must also be considerate of who these hurdles are affecting. Saying that a leader requires the greatest amount of empathy is an understatement. A person in charge must know their team members by heart, and always remind themselves that these diligent workers are also people.

Read: Filling the Void: Leading with Empathy while Working From Home

People have lives outside of work, and their personal struggles and challenges can affect how they perform. They can lose focus, be less vocal, have a lack of energy, and have an overall lack of motivation to work. Being the person at the helm means you need to spot these changes in behavior as soon as they begin and come up with a solution.

By having empathy, we’re able to identify people in crisis with their personal lives, but what should be the next step?

Encourage Breaks

Plenty of employees end up not using their paid leaves. This may result from having trouble scheduling these incentives or may stem from an area of bigger concern. People tend to be afraid of being thought of as replaceable while they’re on break. Others don’t take breaks because they want to show that they’re the most productive in the team. All of these reasons are a product of a worldwide work culture that is only beginning to realize the benefits of taking breaks. As the one leading the team, advocating rest and work-life balance can begin with you simply adjusting team culture to honor days of rest by taking those paid leaves.

Offer Flexibility

With the dawn of new technologies came new opportunities in working and management. Great leaders make use of all available resources to maximize productivity. Offering a flexible schedule to certain individuals has the potential to boost their efficiency. This stems from others having their performance peak at different times of the day. Offering others a work-from-home opportunity also gives wonderful results. Being with their family at home, and being able to manage their own time helps with their work-life balance. Cutting commute times to zero means leaving time for their hobbies. Working from home also gives health benefits that would surely reflect in their performance.

Trust the Team

We invite leaders to learn when to let go and when to pull in the reins but with intention and empathy at the fore. It’s tempting to require everyone to update you on their progress all the time. For people working from home, it may even become the default. However, wiser leaders put trust in their team. This means allowing them to work independently. It can be a scary thought, but employees and bosses who have built a good relationship become more productive in the long run. It saves plenty of time as you no longer have to talk repeatedly about the same tasks. People can now focus on their work. While this doesn’t mean removing meetings entirely, it limits them down to the essentials. Hours become more meaningful, and that extra time can be used by everyone for a well-deserved break.

While it requires a great deal of change for plenty of people in leadership roles, these empathetic reactions to work-life balance issues are definitely worth the time and effort. Taking care of the team means that the team will take care of you and the company. Making sure that everyone is in a state of balance makes happiness, and happiness can only lead to good things.

About Rocket Station: Rocket Station prides itself in nurturing top talents in order to give the best possible service to its clients. With this in mind, Rocket Station works to ensure that its remote workers have a good work-life balance to truly reach their full potential. If you’d like to know more about how we enhance lives and better businesses, then sign up for our mailing list!

Time Managing Lifehacks for the Remote Worker

Post author By rs_ph_website
Post date August 12, 2021

Time Managing Lifehacks for the Remote Worker

rs_ph_website
August 12, 2021
7:47 pm
0 comments

While the saying “time is gold” gets thrown around a lot, there are many of us that still need a helping hand managing our time. The demand for this skill becomes a larger necessity in remote work. Remote workers are given additional freedom as they are no longer under the direct sight of their supervisors. This independence means they carry a bigger responsibility for getting the job done with utmost efficiency. The responsibilities at home may also blend in with the tasks at work. Simple everyday chores can suddenly become an obstacle in achieving your goals in a timely manner.

A mature sense of responsibility is required to avoid common hindrances like procrastination. However, even when we’re positively motivated, not having the right processes and tools can still decrease the productivity of skilled workers. These situations bring to light the necessity of being equipped with as much knowledge and wisdom as possible.

To advocate for better work-life balance, Rocket Station curated the lifehacks that’ll make your scheduling woes from home disappear.

Use Proven Tools and Methods

Luckily, we’re not the first ones to encounter a time management problem. It is an issue that persists in multiple industries and has created an initiative of finding modern solutions. Seasoned experts have made organizers and time management methods that have been proven to work. One task organizer is the Eisenhower Matrix that can help you identify what you need to do now and what you can save for later.

For time management difficulties, remote workers are free to use Prioritizing by Organizing, Streamlining, Economizing, and Contribution or POSEC. As the name suggests, it’s a long-term scheduling method based on set priorities and includes small responsibilities such as chores into the timetable.

Use Management Software to Track Tasks

Technology has simplified a significant portion of our work. This includes tracking our tasks as well. Aside from removing the hassle of organizing your to-do list, management software can also give you notifications for tasks you need to do on a set schedule. They aid in preventing missed goals and make it easier to view everything that needs to be done. Some of these programs include Trello, Wrike, and Monday. As these programs come with free tiers, we recommend trying them out to see how they work for you.

Identify Time Wasters

There are times when we get stuck with bad habits. Identifying these habits and removing them will be a challenge, but one that is worth doing. Time-wasting habits can be as small as looking at your phone to checking messages too frequently or simply drifting into random thoughts in the middle of a workday. It would be a challenging adjustment at first, but the process will free up a lot of time, and increase overall efficiency. More than that, it’ll allow us to pause and review what among our actions are actually necessary.

Communicate with the Team

Informing the rest of your team about what’s on your plate is an important thing to do. When everyone is aware of the team’s workload, teammates can engage in assisting those who may find themselves lagging behind. Communication also creates an opportunity to decline non-essential work when you’re under a heavy load. It is worth noting that taking in more tasks than you can handle is a self-destructive habit that only harms your progress.

Learn that Multitasking Has Its Place

It may be tempting to process tasks in parallel all the time. However, multitasking can sometimes cause more harm than good. Being unable to bring in all resources into a project can significantly delay its progress and even reduce its quality. There is a time and place for everything, and knowing when to concentrate on a single goal is a life skill to be desired.

Stick to Your Plans

Having all the tools and planning in the world won’t help if we can’t stick to our set routines. Having stability can make or break all of the tips that were just mentioned. Have a clear goal, and maintain focus in finding success. Avoid distractions as much as possible, and you’ll be on your way to taking back control of your time.

Green Exercise: The Workplace Stress Buster

Post author By rs_ph_website
Post date April 22, 2021

Green Exercise: The Workplace Stress Buster

rs_ph_website
April 22, 2021
4:14 am
0 comments

For past 20 years, exercising in the workplace has been one of the go-to methods for reducing stress at work. So much so that almost every contemporary workspace has a set gymnasium available for this purpose alone. This is all to get the endorphins running and keep us in good shape even if the job can get stressful.

Read: The D.O.S.E. of hormones you need to stay productive at work

Recently, there has been a new advent in exercise called, Green Exercise.

What is Green Exercise you ask? It is simply exercising while being exposed to nature. A pilot study conducted in 2014 refers to Green Exercise as the “synergistic benefit in adopting physical activities whilst at the same time being directly exposed to nature.” In this study they gathered 14 individuals and had them exercise in an office set-up or indoor gymnasium versus an outdoor workout regimen. They measured cortisol levels (levels that can determine the amount of stress in the body), restoration, blood pressure and affective state (also known as their feelings or their mood).

The results came back with the group that exercised in nature having more improved moods, an overall more positive affect, lesser cortisol levels (meaning, lesser stress) and better diastolic pressure (rate at which the heart beats).

They concluded that Green Exercise at the workplace could be a profitable way to manage stress and induce restoration among employees.

In 2019 a systematic review on the effects of Green Exercise on physical and mental wellbeing, studies found that Green Exercise helps in alleviating ones mood, is proven to successfully lower cortisol levels, it helps maintain work-out motivation, it aids in post-work out attention or focus.

Have we convinced you enough?

If we have, here are some tips and tricks you can do to start getting into Green Exercise while at home or during your spare time.

Commit 25 minutes walking in nature in your schedule.

Various health and wellness sources state that all you need to keep active is to have 25 active minutes per day. So, the commute to work or a simple brisk walk to the nearby mini mart would be a more beneficial one if you took the more scenic route. During lunch break, if you are lucky enough to be near a park, take a walk there and have your lunch with a co-worker. Whatever you do, do not forget to get that extra 25 minutes of fresh air and nature.

Add some plants and greens to your workplace or workout area.

If you cannot go to nature, bring nature to you! Line your workout space with potted greens to help simulate the experience of Green Exercise.

Listen to sounds of nature while meditating.

Studies show that even listening to nature is enough to help bring cortisol levels down. So, in your next meditation session after a tough work out, have the sound of the ocean queued up and let it do its magic.

Schedule a hike with teammates outdoors

Taking the whole team to a hike is the best way to relieve stress and find ways to bond. Having the common goal of reaching the peak enables everyone to work together and have a sense of solidarity.

Participate in active outdoor events.

The organization should be able to provide team members outdoor events whenever necessary to help with the engagement of the company and with a cumulative effort in depleting stress levels through nature. On your own, you can do activities that entail outdoor settings such as swimming, trekking or simply walking about in nature.

At Rocket Station, we place value in the health and wellness of each teammate and seek to empower them to lead a healthy lifestyle. This April, join our community by signing up in our newsletter to read more interesting articles about health and wellness and how it can help you at work.