Author Archives: kate

Nov11

What is Social Loafing and Why it Shouldn’t be Tolerated in the Workplace

Posted on by
What is Social Loafing and Why it Shouldn’t be Tolerated in the Workplace

So you were on your way to the office pantry and noticed that the coffee maker wasn’t working. Like a professional representative from any tech support company ever, you try the universally tested troubleshooting standard of plugging and unplugging, turning the thing off, waiting 1min, then turning it on. The pesky thing still isn’t working so you just walk away knowing that you’ve tried the best you can in a maximum effort to fix the coffee machine. You walk away thinking “well, I tried to fix it. It’s not my job to make it work.”

But did you really give your best effort in fixing the coffee maker? Was there anything else you could’ve done to fix it? Did you try to report it, maybe? Be honest, did you really do your best?

Social loafing is the social psychology phenomenon of low performance and reduced productivity. It’s when someone makes fewer contributions to a group effort than they would if they were solely charged with the responsibility. In this case, you didn’t try to fix the coffee maker because you’re confident that someone else will. In other words, it’s not doing your best or doing just the bare minimum because you think someone else will deal with it. Basically, when any number of people can potentially take it upon themselves to fix the coffee machine, social loafing says a high percentage of individuals in the group will assume that someone else will pick up the slack and try to fix it. Hence, the social loafing phenomenon.

How do you get rid of it at the office?
Social loafing is inevitable. It will occur in team projects and anywhere teamwork is required. Some will always try to get away with being a “free rider”. The way to discourage it is to empower the employees. When employees feel that they can make decisions and have free agency over how they do their work, they will naturally take initiative in working toward completing tasks and projects.

Managers should trust their team to make the right decisions – that will reduce social loafing in itself. Hire smart people and people you can trust – then get out of their way and let them do their work. Most social loafers are that way because they think they don’t have the capacity to make big decisions. They won’t take the steps to introduce new ideas to a team or suggest new ways to attack a difficult project because they think that’s not their job. But if managers give them the power to decide and trust their judgment, they will see many more people stepping up and taking the necessary steps towards improving team projects.

Are there any instances of social loafing in your office? How do you address that? What tips do you have to reduce social loafing at the workplace? Share them with us in the comments. Remember to stay humble and hustle hard.

Written by Jaie O. TheHelp

Nov4

3 Steps to help you Prioritize your Workload

Posted on by
3 Steps to help you Prioritize your Workload

Are you being eaten alive by your inbox? Are you drowning in a mountain of paperwork? Are you eating lunch at your desk because you can’t step away from that project? Are you being overwhelmed with work?

On any given day, office workers can juggle multiple projects and tasks while keeping an eye out for email replies and deadlines. It’s enough to make an employee feel overwhelmed. Driven employees fall into the trap of taking on too many tasks. When the usual productivity tricks no longer work, how can you get your groove back and get some work done? To prioritize your workload, ask yourself these three questions:

Is it important?
When you’re drowning in tasks and projects, the very first (and most important) thing to ask yourself is “is this important?” Ask this for every single task and answer honestly. You have to decide what tasks are imperative to your project. Things like ‘answer emails’ and ‘make copies’ are low-value tasks and can wait until you have time to work on them. Be sure you only work on tasks that have a direct impact on achieving your objectives or can contribute to the success of your project. Be ruthless in cutting out low-value tasks, at least until you can get back to a more manageable workload.

Is it urgent?
The next thing to ask yourself is “is this urgent?”. These tasks are usually low value but have to be completed, otherwise, it can lead to a negative outcome. For example, booking a meeting room will not directly impact your project but not having a meeting room can lead to not being able to discuss the project with stakeholders. Make sure to give yourself a timeline. You need not spend a lot of time on urgent tasks, they are usually completed in 5mins. Anything longer and you’re wasting valuable time that should be spent focusing on the more important tasks. Urgent tasks are usually comprised of dealing with the daily crisis. Get them out of the way and shift your focus.

How do you decide?
Here’s a tip: not everything is important or urgent. The business will not fail overnight if you drop the ball.
Just make sure you do not drop a huge ball. Knowing which tasks are important takes a lot of practice and a lot of introspection. You have to be honest with yourself and not blow the importance of tasks out of proportion. You don’t have to do everything yourself. Most people fall into the trap of ‘overwhelm’ by taking on too much and saying ‘yes’ to everything. There are a few things you can do: to push back, delegate, or ask for more time. Each of these can buy you more time to manage your workload.

How about you, how do you manage an overwhelming workload? What are your tips on prioritizing a huge workload? Share your workload management tips with us in the comments. Remember to stay humble and hustle hard.

Written by Jaie O. TheHelp

Oct28

Starting a Tradition at Work

Posted on by
Starting a Tradition at Work

Starting and celebrating traditions at work is a very important aspect of employee well-being. It encourages employees to get to know one another better, build camaraderie, and have fun at the same time! Sure, you might have your occasional corporate volunteerism activities where you organize clean-up drives or volunteer at an elderly home for a day. However, these are different from building traditions that are pure celebration and 100% fun.

Here’s an idea, since Halloween is coming up, why not start a Halloween tradition. Halloween isn’t connected with any particular religious practice, and most people love the festivities associated with it anyway, so it’s the best way to insert traditional celebrations into your daily work rotation. After all, it is the second most widely celebrated and largest commercial holiday. The first, of course, is…you guessed it… Christmas.

A fair reminder though: if you do decide to make an event a yearly tradition, make sure that it is not mandatory. Unlike regular work, celebrations are not part of the regular work agenda. It should be voluntary and employers must not put unnecessary pressure on employees to participate.

Plan the activities
If you don’t have an events team in place, you might want to group together and form a cross-functional committee to plan and execute the Halloween activities. The exercise of planning an event will build teamwork, spark creative thinking, and enhance organizational skills. You can ask in-house departments to take turns planning the events out. The rotation will be good for creativity as fresh ideas will be generated for every event. It also gives them a chance to transfer leadership and responsibility and no one team or group will carry the burden of planning work events. Everyone can take turns planning, participating, and just enjoying the celebrations.

Here are some Halloween related activities to get you started:

Costume party
People will always enjoy an excuse to dress up. While you won’t be getting candy for your efforts, a costume party is a fun way to show off employee’s individuality and creativity. You can plan costumes around a theme like famous movie stars, superheroes, villains, music icons, national costumes, the ’80s, Netflix shows, etc. You can also give out awards like the best costume, scariest costume, funniest costume, most creative, etc.

Halloween buffet
Food is always a huge draw in any gathering. Though the event will not be mandatory, people will always come for free food. So, plan a buffet or potluck. You can have Halloween breakfast and serve pumpkin and apple pie with assorted fruits and pumpkin lattes. Or have a Halloween luncheon or dinner with Halloween themed entrees and drinks.

Halloween decoration contest
You can divide employees into groups or even via existing departments and offer a major prize for the best-decorated work area. If teams don’t have specific work areas, they can pick an area to decorate (like a lobby, break room, pantry, etc.) or section off their shared work area per team.

Do you have your own Halloween traditions at work? How do you celebrate? Share your stories with us in the comments. Stay humble, hustle hard.

Written by Jaie O. TheHelp

Oct21

How do you measure your career success?

Posted on by
How do you measure your career success?

It’s hard to measure success. Others perceive success as an amazing job title, others define it by a big salary, while some believe they’ve made it when they get the corner office. A lot of us fall into the trap of measuring success against other people’s standards. However, like any other area of our life, career success should be defined entirely by your own standards. Each has their own career path to embark on and what works for others may not be a perfect fit for you. 

So what should be the measure of career success if it’s not to be measured by salary, job title, or office real estate? Here are some questions to ask yourself to help you measure if you’re successful in your career.

No Sunday Night Blues

Do you dread going to work on a Monday morning? Do you experience Sunday night blues? Are you thinking of quitting your job at the slightest provocation? If you feel like getting a root canal is better than another day at the office, you are unhappy at work. Something different happens to people who are successful in their careers. They are excited to come to work and look forward to the week ahead. If you can honestly answer “are you happy at work?” with a resounding “yes!”, then congratulations to you. 

Making Waves

One of the biggest motivations for employees is relevance or how much clout they could exercise. Do you feel like just another cog in the wheel or do you think you’re making an impact at work? The answer to this will probably be the bar for how you measure career success. You see, people who know that they are influencing change and feel that they are making valuable contributions to the business go on to have successful careers. If you can confidently say that your opinions are valued and that you are appreciated at work, then congratulations to you.

Learning and Growing

Over time, you will develop a unique set of skills that makes you good at what you do. No one else will have the exact same skillset as you. The lessons you have learned and the experiences you have acquired will help you along your career path. However, trainings, certificates, and accolades will not only get you so far. The true measure of success is how you use your skills and what you have learned to improve yourself and help the people around you. Do you use your learnings to improve the business? Do you inspire and nurture future leaders? Do you create opportunities for yourself and for others? How do you react to failure? What challenges have you overcome and did you improve as a result? If you are still learning and continuing to challenge yourself to grow and improve, then congratulations to you.

How about you? How do you measure career success? We’d love to hear your thoughts. Leave us a comment. Stay humble and hustle hard.

Written by Jaie O. TheHelp

Oct14

The 10 Worst Mistakes Career Changers Make

Posted on by
The 10 Worst Mistakes Career Changers Make

At one point in your life, you might have felt that you may have picked the wrong career. You might have dreamt of switching to a different career, one that is more aligned with your vision…or at the very least, with the course you majored in college.

However, jumping from one career to another isn’t easy. We are all held back by fear. On one hand, a career change could mean more avenues to explore your potential and new opportunities to discover. One the other hand, it could mean starting over from scratch and not being equipped with the skills needed for your career to take off. If only there was a guarantee, but like everything in life, there are no guarantees. You can only jump in and hope that everything goes your way. 

If you’re planning on switching careers, best of luck to you.We know that you can make it work. Make sure to avoid these career switch mistakes and you’re all set.

The mistake of chasing money

Your deciding factor should be how well the job suits you, not how much it pays. Most career burnout horror stories start with being lured to switch to that high paying – high powered job only to burnout and be left with a life’s worth of mental illness. A career switch isn’t a solution if you’re looking for bigger pay. You should chase growth and purpose instead of a paycheck.

The mistake of thinking a switch will make you happier

Sure, you’re unhappy at work. You dread Mondays. You’re working for the weekend. I could go on with all the “ I hate work!” cliches but answer this: Is it really your career that’s making you unhappy? Could it be the work environment? Could it be that you’re surrounded by difficult people? Could it be bad boundaries? Think hard about this: is the industry to blame or is it the bad work environment? You might be better off looking for a new opportunity while staying in the same industry.

The mistake of comparing yourself to others

Seeing someone you know do well in a different industry is really a huge draw because you see their success first hand. You might be thinking “I am very determined to learn and if they can do it, so can I!” When your friend makes a killing in sales and you’re stuck in the office as an HR professional, it’s not a long shot to entertain thoughts of switching to a career in sales. However, remember that you do not have the same skill set and skills are not acquired by simply observing from the outside.

The mistake of switching to a “hot” field

Not all industries are created equal. Some really do pay more than others. Some are so in demand that you don’t need to look for a job, the job finds you. But “hot” careers come and go and although you might have the skills and knowledge to make it big in this “hot” career, it is still prudent to assess if it will still be a “hot” career down the line.

What tips can you give those who are planning on switching careers? Share them with us in the comments. Stay humble and hustle hard.

Written by Jaie O. TheHelp