Why Team Members Work Better When They Care For Each Other

When workers work in groups, companies thrive when members focus more on how they can benefit others and not just themselves, according to research published in the journal Academy of Management. This type of behavior is defined as prosocial motivation, which highlights the social viewpoint of work by emphasizing individual concerns about how their actions can affect others’ well-being. According to the study, prosocially motivated people are described as givers concerned primarily with contributing benefits to others rather than calculating personal returns.

The research was based on 67 teams from six companies and a lab study with 124 student teams at the University of Notre Dame. The study revealed that when staff members looked out for the well-being of others, employees were less likely to leave their teams voluntarily.

The highest level of team effectiveness was performed when team motivation to benefit others, and the interdependence of tasks among team members was both high,” Hu said.
The study’s authors said the study should encourage companies to build teams with employees who keep others’ best interests in mind.

Management attention should be directed toward enhancing motivation to help others, as teamwork is a coordinated action, and showing concern for others may bring about smoother interactions and more effective cooperation within the team,” Hu said.

Based on the research, Hu advised organizations to look at the types of teams they have. Some teams don’t require employees to work together closely. For these teams, Hu suggested administrators increase interaction within the group, add employees who are highly motivated to benefit others, and take a more active role in leading by example.
Hu said teams previously filled with employees focused on others’ well-being could improve their team performance by establishing a higher level of interaction and coordination among members.”
Tips for motivating staff members to work together
Any employer knows that motivation is the key to group productivity, individual performance, and a happy workplace. So, how do you motivate your employees? Here are some easy ways to ensure your employees receive the motivation they crave.

Make the workplace attractive. Employees don’t want to spend their time in a dingy, dull space. Having a well-lit, functional, and aesthetically pleasing environment will make work much more pleasant. Make sure employees have access to updated, working equipment. Keeping the space clean and attractive, this will make the environment more enjoyable and, in turn, motivate employees.

Be honest, respectful, and supportive. Employees don’t want to work in an environment where they aren’t respected. The easiest ways to motivate your workers are, to be honest, supportive, and considerate and to have a clear open communication. If employees know that their employer respects and supports them, they will be more loyal to the business.

Offer awards. To keep employees motivated, consider starting an incentive program. It doesn’t have to be monetary; it could be something as simple as a gift card or an employee-of-the-month day off with pay. When employees are rewarded for their hard work, they are more likely to do a good job and perform more efficiently.

Offer room to improve. If the business is growing, a great motivator is to offer your employees room to grow within the company. Not only is the money portion appealing, but employees will also feel respected for their work.

Give positive feedback. Everyone wants to know that they are doing a great job, so don’t hesitate to hand out positive feedback. This includes feedback that customers have given you about an employee. Letting your staff know that they made a customer happy will make them feel good and provide them with the motivation to continue doing their best.

Recognize accomplishments. Sometimes, all staff members want is a little credit for doing a good job. If you have an employee who has been working overtime or has gone out of their way to help their co-workers, don’t delay to praise them. It’s not about merely being recognized; when employees feel appreciated, it pushes them to continue working hard and helping others.

When you notice yellow, do you think about the sun or feel cheerful? When you observe red, do you associate it with anger, or perhaps emotion? Colors directly affect your moods, and subconsciously connects you to particular symbols or experiences. This is an essential factor to consider when you’re picking a color scheme and crafting […]

Learn Why Social Media Integration Is Important

Over the past several years, share buttons on articles and websites have become the standard. From “follow us on Facebook!” widgets on a company website to live Twitter feeds on a blog, businesses have consolidated social media integration as a simple, wise marketing practice.
The method of social media integration cross-promotes your channels so they can be more commonly used, shared, and explored. Here’s what you need to know about social media integration, and how you can incorporate it into your marketing strategy.

What is social media integration?

Customers like to use different forms of communication, which is essential to cater to each preference. If you don’t use or integrate specific platforms, it could reflect poorly on your authority and trustworthiness. Some customers prefer to send a message on Facebook; others will tweet you or message you through Yelp versus sending a traditional email.

Why is social media integration so important?
A study shows it takes five to seven interactions before a customer remembers your brand. Therefore, social media integration is essential because it gives your web visitors a fast and straightforward method to connect with your brand. Social media integration gives you more chances to interact with them. The more comfortable you make it for your customers to interact with your brand, the more conversions you will have.

Make it easy to share your content
If you have a blog, sell products, or just post articles on your website, make your content shareable with social share buttons. Share buttons allow customers to easily share or endorse a product from your website to their social media network.

How can you incorporate the integration into your marketing strategy?
Video
Videos are a common and effective way to introduce your brand to your market. Create short, absorbable, and exciting videos to promote your brand and engage your customers.
Content
Create unique, useful, and well-thought content is still essential. But it needs to be outside the box to cause any engagement.
Opportunity
It’s vital to create opportunities to connect with your audience. A popular way to do this is by adding live chat to your website so customers can get immediate responses to their inquiries.

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How Working From Home Increases Productivity

Many workers and business owners alike have been working from home for years. Due to the recent pandemic COVID-19 outbreak, most companies and their workers are following suit, raising the subject: Is this working arrangement a productive one?

A 2019 survey by Airtasker says yes. Researchers surveyed 1,004 full-time workers throughout the U.S. about their productivity, their commutes and other aspects of their lives. Among that group were 505 people who worked remotely. The study found that working from home not only helps employees by eliminating their daily commutes, it also increases productivity and leads to a healthier lifestyle. It’s a win-win circumstance that workers relish for its versatility – but often at the cost of their work-life balance.

To help your team stay focused and efficient during this work-from-home phase while combating stress and maintaining work-life balance, here are some tips to help you out.

Take A Break

The most efficient way for remote employees to stay productive, according to the Airtasker survey, was to take breaks (37%). The study found that office workers took shorter breaks than remote workers, though longer breaks have been shown to increase productivity.

Follow A Schedule

The second most popular way employees stay productive at home is having set work hours (33%). Urge employees to sustain the same schedule they did when they went into the office. Following a system will help your workers feel more structured and efficient, and it will help keep their attention directed.

Keep A To-do List

The Airtasker study also exposed that 30% of remote employees reported that keeping a to-do list helped their productivity. Inspire employees to write down what they wish to accomplish each day, so they are not jumping from assignment to assignment. Now that you and your team are working remotely, communication is critical. Set daily or weekly meetings where you and your team discuss and prioritize projects, including deadlines, so you can stay on track.

Lastly, as a business, examine using video conferencing to get your employees together at least once a week, so they still feel like they’re part of the team. [Read the following recommendations of the best video conferencing services of 2020.]

#Facts

According to one study, remote employees work 1.4 more days per month compared to their office-based counterparts, resulting in more than 120 additional hours per year.

29% of remote employees said they struggle with work-life balance, and 31% said they have needed to take a day off for their mental health.

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Are your products needed In a COVID-19 world?

There is no remedy or solution in sight for COVID-19, but we are starting to have a better understanding of the risk we are facing. We can’t pinpoint the specific date on which everything will go back to usual, but we are starting to have a good sense of what the trail leading to this date will be.

Most likely, we are looking at a method with a long end. Countries will begin to carefully lift internal sanctions, starting with essential services.
Having choices of freshly brewed coffee is still a while away. If all goes well internally, international pathways will start to open back up. New outbreaks of COVID are more likely than not, so we should expect some difficulties as well.

By now, your business has gone through the first two most immediate steps:

1. Keep your staff safe

2. As a result of (1) move everyone to remote work, set up remote work plans, and attempt to go back as much as possible to business as usual.
There are things up in the air, many fish to fry, and any other colorful description of your choice that points in one direction: business leaders need to make a host of critical decisions and make sure their businesses stay afloat.
With a laundry list of items that demand a decision, it is essential to remember one crucial fact that is true to all businesses. Whether you’re a startup that’s just raised its seed round or a corporation with offices in every capital of the world, this rule applies to you.
Companies sell products, and they are only as good as the products they sell.
My company, your company, her company, we are only as good as the products we sell. And our products are only as good as the problem they solve.
What has just happened? COVID-19 brought the world to a near standstill. This disruption is redefining the priorities of companies and how they do business. Things are not as they used to be, and as the start of this piece suggests, it will take time to go back to normal. Even then, we are starting to understand that the future “normal” will be different from yesterday’s “normal.” Here’s one example that for many companies was unthinkable and is now a reality: working remotely. Many companies are now learning that working “remotely” is a) possible, and b) in some cases, preferable.
All of these changes mean that companies are back at the draft table. Priorities, plans, and strategies are changing. What was critical yesterday, has been downgraded, and things that sounded imaginary are now at the top of the list of priorities.
With all of these changes and disruptions in motion, can you say with great certainty that your company’s product still has Product Market Fit?
Products People Want Now
First, there has to be an obstacle. Next, there has to be a solution to the puzzle. This solution has to be desirable – meaning people should be interested in having it. Next, it needs to be available – we need to have the technology and operational expertise to build, service, and support this solution. Finally, there has to be a viable business model that justifies bringing such a solution to the market. When we follow all of these stars, we have a product people want. It is only at this moment that we can begin to contemplate scaling our solution.
As we know, these “stars” are not stationary. New problems emerge every day, and people’s tastes and desires change. Technologies are not fixed; they evolve. We discover new business models. To this end, Product people need to be continuously evaluated and re-evaluated.

COVID-19 has forced us into a vital storm. Everything is changing. With such significant changes, does your company still have a product people need? Is the problem that you set to solve is at the top of your client’s disturbances? Are there better emerging – opportunities your company can help resolve? Can new technologies help solve the problem your product is addressing in a better way? Does your business model still float in a post-COVID-19 world?

Companies sell products, and they are only as good as the products they sell.
My company, your company, her company, we are only as good as the products we sell. And our products are only as good as the problem they solve.
What has just happened? COVID-19 brought the world to a near standstill. This disruption is redefining the priorities of companies and how they do business. Things are not as they used to be, and as the start of this piece suggests, it will take time to go back to normal. Even then, we are starting to understand that the future “normal” will be different from yesterday’s “normal.” Here’s one example that for many companies was unthinkable and is now a reality: working remotely. Many companies are now learning that working “remotely” is a) possible, and b) in some cases, preferable.
All of these changes mean that companies are back at the draft table. Priorities, plans, and strategies are changing. What was critical yesterday, has been downgraded, and things that sounded imaginary are now at the top of the list of priorities.
With all of these changes and disruptions in motion, can you say with great certainty that your company’s product still has a product people need?

Here is a list of valid questions any industry leader or owner should consider right now:

1. What has to be right for your business to prosper?
For a business to succeed, several things have to be true. Take, for example, a detergent company. For such a company to succeed, dirt and filth must exist. Staying clean has to be a priority for most people. There has to be access to make soap. This typical soap company will need to change, as well. Think about your company. What “truths” needed to exist for your product to be successful before COVID-19? Which of these truths has COVID-19 changed? There may be easy fixes you can deploy to meet these new gaps. You may need to reconsider more significant changes, or maybe these gaps can help you identify new business opportunities.

2. Stay close to your clients: Your product has users, and your users are affected by COVID-19. Understand what is changing in the world today. Learn how they plan to respond to these changes. Under these settings, and considering their changing priorities, does your product still have a need? What gaps begin to open between your product offering and the new preferences of your end-users? As before, it’s time to fix, pivot, and jump on a unique and better opportunity.

3. What are your focus abilities? Companies build, ship, and service-specific products. The exciting thing is that by doing so, companies also develop unique skills. Sometimes, the skills are more sustainable and vital than the products they support. If, by taking the above steps, you will realize that your products are not needed, have an honest look at your core capabilities. Consider what the market needs and how your core capabilities can serve as a portal for identifying new opportunities.

The world is changing today, and we must change with it. Take an in-depth, solid look at the products or the service you are providing. Follow your stars, set your products on the right path, and, by doing so, regain the resources your business requires.

How Can I Shield Myself Of COVID-19/Novel Coronavirus?

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control has issued a range of actions that you can take to protect yourself. The best way to prevent sickness is to avoid being exposed to this disease.
The virus is thought to increase mainly from person-to-person who are in close contact with one another (within about 6 feet) and through respiratory droplets produced when an infected person coughs or sneezes.
These droplets can land in the mouths or noses of people who are nearby or possibly be inhaled into the lungs.
Take actions to protect yourself:
Stay at home — except to get the essentials like food and medicine.
If you have to go out, keep your distance — stay at least six feet away from others — and wear a mask to cover your face. This is especially important for people who are at higher risk of getting very sick.
Wash your hands frequently with soap and water for at least 20 seconds, especially after you have been in a commonplace or after blowing your nose, coughing, or sneezing.
If soap and water are not readily available, use a hand sanitizer that contains at least 60% alcohol. Cover all surfaces of your hands and rub them collectively until they feel dry.
Avoid touching your eyes, nose, and mouth with unwashed hands.
Avoid close contact with people who are sick.
Stay home if you are sick, except to get medical care. Learn what to do if you are sick.
Cover your mouth and nose with a tissue when you cough or sneeze or use the inside of your elbow.
Visit the CDC site here to learn more on how to protect yourself: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prepare/prevention.html
It’s essential to remember that older adults and people who have severe underlying chronic medical conditions like heart or lung disease or diabetes seem to be at greater risk for developing more severe complications from COVID-19 illness. Please consult with your health care provider about additional steps you may be able to take to protect yourself.
Source: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prepare/prevention.html

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