Absenteeism is an obvious problem. But just because your employees are physically present at workplace, it does not mean they are actively contributing. Being present is at least better than not showing up at all, although there is no guarantee that employees are there to do what they’re supposed to do. Distraction from personal emails, phone calls, bothersome coworkers, noises from someone else’s desk or anything else can and will prevent an employee from being 100% at work.

 Anytime an employee is distracted from works, the company suffers. Considering a single notification on smartphone can keep a person out of focus for more than 23 minutes[1], leader has to find ways to get rid (or at least minimize) the problems.

Being present is good, but being at-work is much better

An increasing number of employers have embraced more flexible workspace policies. More frequent breaks and longer lunch time may seem counterproductive at a glance, but employees have better work-life balance because you provide more opportunities to mind their own businesses even when they’re on the clock. As long as they deliver results, work environment policies never have to be overly restrictive. Emphasize on employees’ abilities to complete all tasks listed under the job description rather than on being merely present. With the right technology, it is not impossible that even field workers can deliver reports on time.

For positions where employees have to be present all the time (for example in production or assembly line), more frequent breaks may not be a viable approach. In such situation, revisit the employment policies instead. If you have to force employees to work more hours than they can cope with, they will not be focused all day long anyway. They need downtime to recharge energy and refresh the mind. You want them to be fully at-work when they’re present, so you don’t have to get frustrated by poor performance. Paid sick leave also encourages employees to stay home and recover much faster instead of coming to work in a bad shape.

Keep off the non-work notifications

Technology has changed the way people communicate, both for personal and work-related purposes. Unfortunately sometimes the two get tangled with each other. Personal emails, text messages, and alerts on how many steps you take can be a distraction at workplace – in the same way that work emails ruin family dinner. Notifications on smartphones, especially from social apps, will immediately draw attentions; if the users respond, it would add more minutes to regain focus.

As a leader, you should not dictate what your employees see on their smartphones. However, you have the authority to enforce a rule that minimizes usage of personal devices at work, for example turning off notifications. If they have to check messages, they can do that during the breaks.

Have meetings for important discussions

Regular scheduled meetings are excellent to get feedback, celebrate accomplishment, and address on-going projects. On the downside, mandatory meetings every week can decrease productivity. As long as the organization has good communication practices across departments and throughout all layers of hierarchy, proper delivery process of information does not require scheduled meeting. If scheduled meetings are necessary (for example to improve communication in the first place), make sure it does not take too long. A meeting itself is a distraction that prevents employees from working at their desks or stations.

The point of a meeting should be to address urgent issues or brainstorm new ideas. Also, not every employee is required to be present. Ask an experienced person to represent employees, so they can stay focus on their jobs while the meeting is taking place in another room.

Coach on time management skill

With so many possible distractions at workplace, leaders often have difficulties in maintaining good level of focus among employees. Bear in mind that productivity is built on the foundation of good time management, so teach your employees on how to manage their own schedules. Distractions are unavoidable, and it gets more dangerous in today’s always-connected world. Time management skills are therefore invaluable attributes all leaders (and employees) must possess. Ask employees to set timer on their desks, group similar tasks, or use breaks to check only on important personal notifications and not to play games. You probably can allow employees to leave early (as long as they finish today’s work) to prevent them being distractions to others.

Make good choices and have a great day! Only you get to choose how you feel about it!

Thanks so much for reading! Please share this with someone you care about.

Dr. Paul Gerhardt is a tenured professor of management. He is a diversity and leadership well-respected and trusted trainer who helps organizations get amazing returns on their training investment. Dr. Gerhardt is the author of several publications available on Amazon.com, including Diversity at Work, The Diversity King; Leadership Lucy and the Leadership Handbook. Consider inviting Dr. Paul Gerhardt to do customized leadership or diversity training at your organization. Most organizations find that diversity and leadership training by the right trainer yields a significant instant return on investment. You can get your FREE COPY of the Leadership Handbook by clicking this link: http://bit.ly/LeadershipHandbook

All leaders expect their employees to work hard. The general idea is that more times at work equal to better chances of success. With modern technologies like smartphones and cloud computing, it is now easy to keep everyone at work all the time regardless of time and location. Your employees are most likely connected to the Internet even at home, and therefore have constant access to company’s database. Although the “always-on” culture allows them to do more for the organization, the inability to enjoy personal time leads to stress which then reduces productivity at the end. Just because such management style appears to be the norm, it does not mean you have to follow suit. It is an ineffective way to manage people; and if you have already exercised the same practice in your company or organization, you should put a stop to it. Employees need downtime to manage stress levels so they can come back ready and at full power the next day.

 Give time to power down

It is entirely possible that you use computers at workplace not only for work-related tasks, but also for personal affairs such as making dinner reservations, buying books in online stores, or making video calls with friends. Technology makes the world seem smaller and everything is just few clicks away. Whether or not you want to admit it, employees have the same constant access to the Internet. Despite the ease of establishing communication between leader and employees, it does not mean the former has the rights to call all the time.

 There must be distinction between work devices and personal ones, although both are often the same technology for examples smartphones, tablets, and laptops. You can make personal calls using company’s phone, but it would be irritating if your personal phone is flooded with work emails on your days off or leisure times. If this applies to leaders, it also does to everybody else.

 Employees work for you; that much is true. That being said, they don’t work for you 24/7 throughout the year. Give them time to power down so they can reserve their energy and intellectual for the appropriate time a.k.a. their office hours. Relentless demands for information, updates, confirmation, revisions, reports, and everything work-related is draining their physical and emotional well-being. It is demoralizing because employees can see this as an obvious sign of distrust.

 Be careful with what you consider “urgent” situations

 About 57% of employees agree that technology has its roles in ruining their family dinners, while 40% have no problems answering work emails at dinner table as long as the circumstances are deemed urgent, according to infographic of Work/Life balance in the Modern Era by Family Living Today.[1]

 Not every work problem is listed under “urgent” category. Deadline and crisis may fall under that category, but things like project planning or customers’ complaints can wait at least until the next morning. It always depends on the kind of organization or company you lead. In a healthcare company, for example, there can be a lot of situations that fit perfectly under “emergency” list, while a utility company has a different approach to task prioritization.

 Clients (and public at large) like companies who treat their employees as real people. Employees are not robots in the sense that they need to wind down every now and then, have time for a personal life, and be mentally recharged by having the opportunities to rest and stop being busy on regular basis.

 Appreciate the boundaries between personal and work times

 Perhaps you are one of those who enjoy working on weekends because it allows you to be better prepared for everything when Monday comes. But expecting your employees to do the same is no different from taking away their rights to have personal life. You have all work hours during weekdays to demand performance, so be willing to limit communication off the clock. It is a good way to keep them fresh, motivated, and best of all, enjoy what they do when you need them the most.

 Make good choices and have a great day! Only you get to choose how you feel about it!

Thanks so much for reading!

Dr. Paul Gerhardt is a tenured professor of management. He is a diversity and leadership well-respected and trusted trainer who helps organizations get amazing returns on their training investment. Dr. Gerhardt is the author of several publications available on Amazon.com, including Diversity at Work, The Diversity King; Leadership Lucy and the Leadership Handbook. Consider inviting Dr. Paul Gerhardt to do customized leadership or diversity training at your organization. Most organizations find that diversity and leadership training by the right trainer yields a significant instant return on investment. You can get your FREE COPY of the Leadership Handbook by clicking this link: http://bit.ly/LeadershipHandbook

Turn Fear into Power to Build Better Team

 Being afraid of doing something is not particularly an ideal state of mind to engage in any kind of activity. However fear of failure is also a strong motivation to make better preparation, craft more efficient plan of actions, and devise smarter exit strategy. All business ventures and undertakings come with risk of losses, but there is a way to take advantage of “fear” and turn it into power to build better team. As a matter of fact, the ability to take control of seemingly-unwelcome situations and transform it into constructive attribute is among the most obvious trait people see in a great leader.

 Unfriendly situations force you to develop and be creative

 As the project is approaching an imminent deadline yet there are still a lot of things to do, a leader is the first to demonstrate willingness to increase work intensity. A leader shows how to get things done and propose brilliant ideas to finish the job well. The fear of missing the deadline makes you think harder, prioritize only the most important, and ignore distractions. In some ways, “being afraid” is the way that human body prepares for uncomfortable circumstances ahead. Fear can be an efficient motivator.

 Admittance of fear can come a long way to build loyalty

 The whole idea is NOT to “lead by fear” in which employees are under constant pressure to perform with perfection otherwise they’ll be humiliated, penalized, or even fired. It is the exact opposite; fear is meant to build common ground among leader and employees. It is about creating a work environment where leader understands that the tasks at hand have many rooms for errors. Everyone works together to overcome the challenges, knowing they have the supports from the leader regardless of the outcome.

 As a leader, you are often told to appear invincible in front of employees. Being invincible is impossible; you have fears and you can fail, but you can be courageous about it. By admitting to the employees about how difficult the obstacles will be and failure is always a possibility, you take the first step to induce the sense of unity in a team; you are both leader and part of the working team. The admittance also displays high level of trust, which encourages employees to do their jobs with higher confidence. If dealing with fearsome challenges is not a scary thing to do, the workplace becomes more comfortable environment too.

 In the eyes of the employees, you are a realistic leader who understands the difficulties they may encounter. The admittance, in addition to being a sign of trust, demonstrates readiness at the same time. In short trust and readiness are the natural byproduct of the fear you have.

 Common fear binds the team together

 “Leadership by fear” is one sided, meaning only the employees experience the dreadful feeling while leader exercises the power to determine the consequences of falling short of expectations. When leader shares the same feeling, on the other hand, fear turns into a positive attribute that bounds the team together. Everybody in the team must be on the same page, and that includes the leader. The fear of failure “as an organization” is a strong driving force behind effective teamwork. It is always about creating a collective effort in which everyone contributes to collective success. Individual accomplishment is appreciated, but it is only a portion of a larger-scale achievement.

 Remember trust if the glue of all relationships. Trust must be given first to people around you in order to get it. Relationships are fragile! So, treat each human interaction with kindness and respect. It is harder to fix relationships that were broken due to use of fear, coercion, or disrespectful actions. Employees can make mistakes, but it is best to build loyalty by being loyal to your employee all the time. They will most likely be loyal to you if you don’t waive in supporting their success. Lead by example. Be open to new ideas of employees, and always listen with an open mind.

 Avoid using fear as part of your leadership style. People will always remember how you make them feel. Leaders have the biggest influence over the organization’s culture. When people feel safe to share ideas, take risks and be their authentic self—free of judgement and fear, then they will most likely take actions that benefit the organization.

 Make good choices and have a great day! Only you get to choose how you feel about it!

Thanks so much for reading! Please share this article with someone you care about. 

 Dr. Paul Gerhardt is a tenured professor of management. He is a diversity and leadership well-respected and trusted trainer who helps organizations get amazing returns on their training investment. Dr. Gerhardt is the author of several publications available on Amazon.com, including Diversity at Work, The Diversity King; Leadership Lucy and the Leadership Handbook. Consider inviting Dr. Paul Gerhardt to do customized leadership or diversity training at your organization. Most organizations find that diversity and leadership training by the right trainer yields a significant instant return on investment. You can get your FREE COPY of the Leadership Handbook by clicking this link: http://bit.ly/LeadershipHandbook