The Future of Work: Offsite Becomes Onsite

It is easy to focus on the exciting parts of returning to shared workplaces, large gatherings, or even smaller commitments with friends and family. But critical conversations about how we move forward loom, and we cannot ignore them. With vaccination rates rising, the prospect of returning to old office routines seems possible. But will companies return to their pre-covid ways, even when it is safe again? 

Before the pandemic, only 8% of workers with office jobs worked primarily from home, according to www.conferenceboard.com. This same article, “Covid-19’s Biggest Legacy,” shows that the same figure could settle within the 20-50% range in the post-pandemic world. As companies look to life after the pandemic, they choose among three primary options for returning to the workplace: 

• Call everyone back to the office.

• Adopt a hybrid model.

• Provide more fully remote opportunities.

Having operated remotely for an extended period, many professionals do not want to return full-time to their offices, and they seek something more tailored to their personal needs.   

The main reason for this shift in workplaces is due to remote work going better than expected through the pandemic. The mass requirement to work from home in 2020 showed that it is possible to give employees a choice without sacrificing productivity or experience. Employees now expect flexibility, which means most organizations will need a plan to support both in-office and remote workers. Those who are already returning may find changes to office design and/or policies for team productivity to help this massive shift in working culture and behavior. It is as if the pandemic accelerated evolution for the workplace, forcing flexibility with hours and meeting employee personal needs. 

Many large companies, especially those specializing in administrative work, are announcing a hybrid model for workdays. In addition, the pandemic has challenged companies and managers to rethink their work environments. This cultural change presents a challenge for many employers whose work options require physical proximity. Because the hybrid and remote models are often preferred, it is harder to find people to work these in-person jobs. In addition, hybrid work environments give employees more options when choosing when and where to work, changing what we consider a perk of employment. For example, someone may choose a lower-paying job to skip the commute two days a week or look for a new job to gain the option of staying home when a family member is ill.   

Management must think critically about the development and execution of their return-to-work plans. This thinking starts with understanding the workforce challenges we face in a post-pandemic world so that leaders can ask the right questions and act as a sounding board for their teams. In addition, because the risks COVID-19 poses continue to evolve, companies will need to keep flexibility in reshaping the future of work.  

At Bauman Consulting Group, we tailor consulting services to the needs of your business. In addition, we offer training for teams transitioning to hybrid models for work, including virtual team building. Please email us at info@baumanconsultinggroup.com for more information, or look at our website for further details at www.baumanconsultinggroup.com. 

3 Tips for Attracting Your Boss’s Attention While Working Remotely

There’s no doubt that COVID-19 has changed many things about the way we live and work. Many of us have been relegated to working remotely, which comes with a variety of challenges. Among those, being physically absent from your office makes it harder to be “seen” by your boss.  This lack of visibility may make it more difficult to stay on track for key assignments and promotions or to stand out in performance reviews. 

When bosses can’t see and monitor you, they may think you’re not being productive or less motivated than usual. Remote workers can easily fall off the radar of supervisors, themselves dealing with the challenges managing during a pandemic brings. 

The following tips are good practices in general, but especially important when working from home. 

Take initiative. 

Don’t wait to be asked to contribute. Be proactive when it comes to problem solving and idea pitching. Volunteer to take on projects others may pass up or that keep ending up on the trash heap of forgotten ideas. Bosses love it when employees do things before being asked. Consistently deliver quality results that get noticed. 

Communicate. 

Make sure your physical absence doesn’t equate to a communication absence. If anything, over-communicate. Speak up and proactively participate in calls and online meetings rather than fading into the background. Make regular calls and emails to your supervisor. Initiating regular check-ins with your boss can open an ongoing dialogue that gives you the opportunity to highlight your work and successes. 

Stretch yourself. 

Just because you’re working remotely doesn’t mean you can’t pursue professional development. Whether it’s undertaking an industry certification or attending an online conference, there are ample opportunities to participate in virtual career training, networking and professional growth. 

Take this time to stretch beyond your comfort zone. Learn a new skill – like a technology or process - that normally would fall outside of your area of interest of expertise. Volunteer to take on a difficult task such as leading a project or chairing a committee. 

 Demonstrate your ability to be a team player. Seek the opportunity to collaborate with others either in your department or across disciplines to meet a challenge or create an out-of-the box solution. Those who can successfully drive cooperative problem-solving tend to get recognized by organization leadership.

 At Bauman Consulting Group, we provide both individual and group coaching to help people achieve their personal and professional goals. Find out more at www.baumanconsultinggroup.com.

Fifteen Fun Healthy Workplace Competitions

Many organizations incorporate competitions into their workplace wellbeing programs. These competitions can be a way to engage employees, build teamwork, and bring a bit of fun into the workplace. In fact, research demonstrates that workplace wellbeing competitions can result in decreased absenteeism, reduced stress, and lower health care costs. These competitions can also increase job satisfaction, increase brain power and performance, improve employee sleep, increase employee retention, and foster team building. And these benefits can be found regardless of whether your employees are in the office or working from home.

Workplace challenges can be done on an individual basis, a department level, or even an overall team goal for the company. It’s always nice for there to be some sort of a prize associated with the challenge, but you can be creative and find inexpensive options. Have fun with it! For example, one company we work with bought an incredibly ugly blazer from a thrift shop. This blazer is passed from champion to champion after each wellness challenge. The employees love the honor of having the championship blazer hanging in their cubicle. Another company created a homemade trophy that is displayed in the winning department. Others provide gift cards, bonuses, gym memberships, and self-care rewards to winning participants. Just remember to find a reward that is meaningful to your organization. 

There are a great number of well-being challenges that you can create for your workplace. Many require very little in the way of cost to the organization to run too. Here are fifteen different workplace challenges you can start at your organization to build the well-being of your colleagues.

 Physical Fitness Challenges

1.     Step to It – Challenge employees to get the most steps into their day. Many people now wear fitness tracking devices or can monitor their steps using their smart phone. Pedometers can be obtained inexpensively as well – and can be customized with your company logo! Set up the challenge to encourage the most steps in a given month by individual and/or department. You might consider a special reward for everyone if the entire company hits a certain number of steps. Partner this activity with encouragement for workers to walk on their breaks.

2.     Plank You Very Much – Planking is an exercise that is great for the core and can be done quickly and without any equipment at all. Employees can track the amount of time spent holding planks and compete for amount of time total over a given month as well as the longest time spent planking. This is a great one to use as a team building activity. Employees can earn bonus points for sharing photos of their planking in unique locations.

3.     Work it Out – Encourage employees to engage in any exercise activities that they enjoy and track the minutes spent doing those activities. This can be a great activity because it encourages individuals of any fitness level to participate at what they are most comfortable doing from simple stretching to running marathons. It’s also great opportunity to give out water bottles or other fitness items with the company logo on them.

Nutrition Challenges

4.     Drink Up – Encourage employees to drink the daily recommended 64 oz of water each day. They can track individual ounces or they can record the number of days that they hit the goal. Set up special water stations around the office with infused water (try water with citrus slices in it) or sparkling water to keep it interesting. It’s another great opportunity to get out those company water bottles!

5.     See Ya Later Soda – Help your employees say goodbye to their soda pop addiction by holding a challenge to give up their daily fix. Employees can record each day their abstained from drinking soda pop. Of course, this works best in offices where the soda drinking is common place. Other offices may find that their daily coffee run or morning doughnuts are where the employees wish to cut back. 

6.     Eat your Fruits and Veggies – Americans rarely get the recommended number of fruits and veggies in their diet, so challenge your employees to make it happen. Have them track the number of servings of fruits and veggies that they eat each day. Consider challenging for the greatest number possible or meeting the 5-a-day goal. Offering healthy snacks in the office like a veggie tray or a salad bar during this time can be a great way to encourage success. Employees may decide to go out to lunch at a local salad bar for some off-site bonding too!

Mindfulness Challenges

7.     Unplug and Unwind – Encourage employees to turn off their screens and spend time relaxing in other healthy ways. Employees can record the number of hours that they shut down electronics and read books, worked puzzles, gardened, etc. 

8.     Gratitude Goals – Have employees create a daily challenge to list three things that they are grateful for each day. Employees can earn points for each day that they complete the challenge. Consider a reward for a certain level of points earned for the company. Consider sending employee submitted thank you shout outs in a monthly email. 

9.     Meditation Minutes – Foster a more focused environment by encouraging employees to meditate daily. There are free apps like Insight Timer or Calm that can be used for those new to meditation (and those with experience too!). Consider a daily challenge of meditating for at least five minutes.

Giving Back Challenges

10.  Simple Acts of Kindness – Challenge employees to engage in simple act of kindness. Purchase a stranger’s coffee order. Carry an elderly person’s groceries for them. Cut your neighbor’s lawn. Small acts have a big effect on both the recipient and the giver.

11.  Community Cares – Volunteering is good for the community and for the heart. Set up a volunteer challenge for the departments at your workplace. Can each department engage in a monthly volunteer opportunity? These can include opportunities such as a departmental jog/walk in a charity 5K, visiting at a nursing home, beautifying the community, or serving at a soup kitchen. This is a great way to involve employees families as well!

Financial Challenges

12.  Feed the Piggy – Encourage employees to set aside a dollar a day to build their emergency savings account. While we know the importance of having six months of our salary set aside, most Americans aren’t even close to accomplishing that. See how creative your company can be at developing ideas for saving that extra money. Set a company-wide goal for the amount of total dollars saved.

13.  Home Chef – It’s not a surprise that it costs significantly more to eat dinner out than preparing a meal at home. And cooking at home can offer healthier options too! Challenge employees to cook at home and not dine out – offering incentives based on the number of days in a month they cook at home and avoid dining out. Send out weekly recipes to encourage and keep employees motivated. They’re waistline and their wallet with thank you!

General Well-Being Challenges

14.  Break a Bad Habit – Have employees identify a bad habit they have that they’d like to break or cut down on. Some may wish to stop smoking. Others may consider cutting back on alcohol. Others may decide that now is the time to stop procrastinating! Have the employee identify the habit that they’d like to change – and track their weekly progress. Form teams of those who are interested in changing similar bad habits to support and encourage one another.

15.  Get Some Shut Eye – Most of us fail to get the recommended 7-8 hours of sleep each night. Whether that’s due to late night hours working or too much time spent in front of a screen, it’s causing major health problems. Challenge employees to get a minimum of 7 hours of sleep each night. This can be a great one for fun prizes and incentives such as sleep masks, slippers, pillows, and throw blankets.

There are so many options for workplace wellbeing challenges. Consider trying a challenge in your workplace each month or two and rotate between the different categories of wellness challenges. Let us know how it works in your organization! 

We at Bauman Consulting Group just kicked off our May workplace wellbeing challenge. We’re teaming up with the University of Cincinnati Blue Ash to compete for the greatest number of steps taken in the month of May. This is part of a larger effort by the college to raise money for scholarships. We’ll be posting our weekly numbers online each week. It’s not too late for you to join us! You can register online at https://foundation.uc.edu/UCBAStepsChallenge. Let’s get moving!

Successful Strategies for Working from Home

With much of the globe shifting work strategies to account for social distancing measures to curb the spread of COVID-19, many individuals are turning to working from home. While this may sound wonderful to those who have not had the work-from-home experience in the past (and it is!), it is not without its challenges. At Bauman Consulting Group, the majority of our employees work remotely. As such, we’ve developed some tried and true tips for this over the years which we thought we would share with you in case you’re in the process of shifting to remote work as well.

1)    Set up a dedicated workspace. This doesn’t need to be anything particularly fancy, but you want to have a designated space that is your “workplace”. At a minimum, you’ll want a location (such as a dining room table) where you can set up your computer and office supplies. If you can find a location that affords you some natural light, near a window perhaps, you’ll find that to be a wonderful bonus. Take some time to organize this space and set it up as similarly to your office workspace as possible. Make sure that the other members of your household understand that this is your workspace now and should be off limits. This is particularly true if you have small children! 

2)    Set your work hours. Your company may do this for you, but if they do not, it is imperative that you set boundaries around your time. This means identifying what hours you are “at work.” This is important for both you and for others in your life. One of the challenges of working remotely is that others (your boss, your family, your friends) and you can find it easy to blur your times. You may find yourself working more frequently because work is always right there waiting for you. Or you may find yourself struggling to put in enough hours because it is easy to get distracted by household responsibilities (I can throw in another load of laundry!) or others (I can call during the day now, because she works from home!) Setting and maintaining those boundaries are important to your success and productivity. You may find it helpful to even post those hours near your workspace as a reminder to yourself and your housemates that you are working during that time.

3)    Set up a routine. It can be difficult to switch into work mode when you are working from home. As such, routine is critical. Adapt your office routine to your new home-work life. There may be some tasks that you can no longer complete from home. Other tasks may be easier. Your employer may have different expectations for your at-home work. Have the appropriate conversations with those your work with and then map out your daily schedule. This will help you to stay on task and will help you to maintain a sense of normalcy in this time of upheaval. 

4)    Dress for work. One of the things that we hear the most from people when they hear that BCG employees work from home is that we must all work in our pajamas. While that certainly sounds appealing, there is much to be gained by continuing to dress for work. Part of the work routine is the getting up and getting ready part! It is what helps us prepare for the shift from our home lives to our work lives. Research has also demonstrated that we tend to be more productive and more professional when we are dressed more formally. Now, we are not suggesting that you put on a suit while you’re working from home. That may be a bit over the top! But what we are suggesting is that you put the same amount of time and attention into your appearance that you would if you were going to the office. This may involve wearing business casual, or at least stepping it up beyond workout apparel. Trust us – this makes a difference in how you feel when you’re working. If you’re dressed for work, you feel more ready to work.

5)    Prepare to use remote technology. You likely already utilize many of these resources in your daily work in the office, but now you’ll be using them more frequently. And if you haven’t been using these regularly, now is the time to experiment and learn. 

a.     Even though you work from home, you’ll find that meetings are still a part of your work week. There are several free options that you can utilize (if your company doesn’t have paid resources for you). Resources such as Zoom or Skype can allow you to have video face-to-face meetings. If your company uses Microsoft Office, the Teams platform is also a nice option for video meetings. 

b.     Conference calls are another way to manage remote meetings. If your office does not have a conference line for you to use, there are several free sources available such as Free Conference. 

c.     Instant messaging apps make it helpful for you to have quick conversations with office mates – and still maintain the friendly relationships that you had in the office. There are many great apps available. Those using Microsoft Office can utilize Yammer or can chat within Teams. Others may wish to consider apps like Slack or WhatsApp. 

d.     Email will be your best friend. This is a great way to stay in contact and to share information. You’ve likely relied on this heavily in your in-office work – you’ll be even more dependent on it now!

e.     Do not hesitate to pick up the phone. Working from home can get isolating. While using digital technology can seem efficient, it can also result in misunderstandings. When a phone call would be a more efficient method of communication – call someone directly.

f.      If you find yourself in need of office equipment that you don’t have at home there are many apps that give you the ability to transform your cellphone into these tools. For example, Genius Scan and Adobe Scan affords you the ability to create pdfs through your phone camera. Doodle is a great site to find compare availability for conference calls or meetings or to gather opinions through polls. 

6)    Engage in professional development. With some extra time on your hands, it’s a great opportunity to engage in some professional development activities. There are so many great online options – many of which are free of charge. 

a.     Utilize Lynda or LinkedIn Learning. There are great online courses that you can stream on these sites. And many public libraries offer a free way to access these online. Check out your local library’s website to see if they offer remote log-in.

b.     Read books or articles related to your work. Now is the time to spend some hours reading that book on productivity that you’ve been putting off for years. Read up on leadership strategies. There are so many great books and articles out there that you’ll have no problem filling in your extra hours – and benefitting from it! If you need recommendations – send us an email and we’d be happy to provide you with some!

c.     Listen to podcasts. There are some truly wonderful work-oriented podcasts out there. Recently we shared a list of our top podcasts for women in the workplace. We’ll be posting another soon that lists our top podcasts in general for working individuals. In the meantime, put google to work for you and test run some of the podcasts out there!

d.     Enroll in online trainings. What better way to spend your remote time? Many organizations offer online learning (BCG being one of them!). If you’re going to have some down time, you might as well catch up on your training time. Check out your usual provider to see if they offer online options. (Or check out our list of online trainings if you’d like to register for one of those!)

Working remotely can be a great experience – if you plan for it and approach it with the right mindset. Set boundaries and enjoy the change of office scenery. If you’re like our team, you won’t want to head back to office life when the time comes!