This entire week, I have been entering work at 8am, one of the consequences of the ‘wake up before 6am’ challenge. The early hour is nothing short of magical - the floor is still empty, my colleagues from halfway across the world have stopped sending emails and the ones here are yet to begin. I … Continue reading 31-day challenge: Sacred Hour
Early this year, the media went crazy. Every other day, pieces titled – ‘The open-plan office is a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad idea’ or ‘The Open-Office Trap’ attacked my inbox and it hasn’t stopped yet. One quick Google search on open offices will tell you that the world hates them. But we always … Continue reading The office from the future
How often have you been asked for a favor where you are expected to put in more hard work than the requester has? Do these requests frustrate you? Worry not. I am going to share a well-known trick in the book. Works every time. The trick: Make them work. Let me illustrate via two examples. … Continue reading Make them work
Fistful of Talent plays a major role in influencing my Tuesday evening watch list. It began with Up in the air, followed by Office Space and last evening I ended up watching Coffee Town. Not only movie choices, FoT also holds a fair bit of influence on what I write. Remember how I said, ‘Once … Continue reading Sit next to the smart ones!
I wonder who came up with this bizarre concept of organizations focusing on making employees ‘happy’ and why it’s suddenly taken center stage. I stumbled upon a recent survey that claimed 61% of respondents say happiness at work is more important than the salary. I’d like to understand just how the respondents defined happiness. It’s … Continue reading The “Happiness” Hype
Remember how mood-tracking apps were all over the place a few years back? It fed beautifully into the whole self-quantification phase that individuals had just embarked on. I wonder why it never became mainstream. I quite liked the idea and to be honest, I still do. The intent was noble. An individual tracks his/her mood … Continue reading How are you feeling right now?
“In a recent survey from workforce consulting firm Right Management, 70 percent of employees said they weren't using all their earned vacation days in 2011. In addition, research from Jet Blue Airways discovered most employees leave an average of 11 vacation days on the table, or 70 percent of their total allotted time off.” This … Continue reading Take some goddamn time off
I fear that this post may look a bit like an advertisement but an app as useful as this does require a dedicated post to itself. Also, there can be no better time than the beginning of the year (though I am 6 days late) to talk about ‘Timeful’. I am a fan of making … Continue reading Timeful
HR giants have been tom-tomming about recognition for a long time now. Recognition quickly then translates into rewards which then ends up with your organization rolling out yet another “recognition” mechanism. We are bombarded by statistics surrounding recognition all the time ‘80% of employees claim that recognition is a strong motivator of work performance’ (http://www.businessinsider.in/10-Reasons-Your-Best-Employees-Are-Leaving-You/10-Reasons-Your-Best-Employees-Are-Leaving-You/slideshow/40318344.cms) … Continue reading Recognition? What?
After the craze of tracking expenditures and calorie intake, there is a new obsession – one that of tracking time. In a small pilot run in our company, we ran one such tool. The results were astonishing. A top management guy realized that he spends 2.5hrs on personal calls in office as opposed to the … Continue reading Track it all!
