Why Well-Slept Employees Perform and Feel Better at Work

Why Well-Slept Employees Perform and Feel Better at Work As an employer, there are many things you can do to help ensure your staff are working to their full potential. Whether it’s employee perks, free fruit or a comfortable working environment, you can often have a big influence on the motivation and positivity of your team. One thing you can’t change however is the quality of sleep they get. Bed and furniture specialists Time4sleep recently conducted a study, speaking to sleep experts, as well as surveying 2,000 UK residents asking how their sleeping habits affected their well-being at work. The results could help employers provide support to employees and understand how their working lives are affected by sleep. The Effects of Poor Sleep at Work Feeling Positive Members of staff that complain all the time can have a damaging effect on those around them. The research from Time4Sleep suggested that lack of sleep could be what’s behind the negativity in your workforce. Of the workers asked, 49% who said they felt positive about work in the morning rated their sleep between eight and ten â€" only 3% of those who rated their sleep between one and three said they felt positive at work. Following this trend, a third of those who said they felt negative about work in the morning rated their sleep below a three. As an employer, this shows that there should perhaps be some empathy shown towards those who struggle at work due to lack of sleep. Getting Motivated It can be difficult to keep employees motivated throughout the whole working day, and a similar trend between motivation and the amount of sleep we get was evident in the survey. 49% of those who rated their sleep between eight and ten also rated their motivation at the same level. On the other side of the coin, only 3% of those who rated their sleep between one and three said their motivation was above seven. There’s science behind this behavior. Sleep science coach Jason Piper explained that: Poor emotional regulation and impaired decision making might be affected by sleep. Sleep deprivation has been associated with reduced blood flow in the area of the brain responsible for attention, alertness, and cognitive processes such as self-control, emotional responses, and decision making. Being Content in Their Careers As an employer, it’s vitally important that your staff feel content and happy in their careers. It leads to decreased attrition rates and helps to build a positive mood in your workplace amongst other things. One factor that might influence this could be the quality of sleep they’re getting. 40% of respondents who rated their sleep between eight and ten said they were happy in their career, this is compared to 9% who rated their sleep between one and three. So, for employers and HR departments who are dealing with unsatisfied workers, asking them how well they’re sleeping could be a good starting point. How Can You Help Employees? Most employers probably don’t see it as their responsibility to help workers with their sleeping habits â€" employee’s lives outside of work are a personal thing. However, helping your staff with some tips on getting a good night’s sleep could make a huge difference in their working lives and performance. Sharing some of this guidance with your team will set you apart from other employers. Wind Down for Bed We’ve probably all been guilty of spending some time looking at our smartphone or tablet after lights out or watching TV in bed. However, this could be one of the worst ways to prepare for sleep. 49% of respondents who admitted to watching Netflix or TV before bed said they’re not getting at least seven hours of sleep â€" with 22% getting five hours or less. It was a similar story for smartphones and tablets, with 48% of users getting less than seven hours sleep and 24% getting five hours or less. As an employer, actively encouraging your employees to stay off company emails after a certain time could make an important difference. Counting Pillows The survey showed that the number of pillows you use is much more than just a personal preference, suggesting that using fewer pillows is conducive to a better night’s sleep. Only 41% of respondents who use three pillows get at least seven hours sleep in a night, this is compared to 49% of those who use two pillows and 56% who use one. Jason Piper explained this: You should only need one. Pillows help to offset differences in your mattress. If you are needing to use multiple pillows, your mattress may be too firm which is keeping your head too far from the mattress or you’re putting your neck in an unnatural position. Find the Right Position Getting a good night’s sleep could well be linked with the position that you choose to sleep in. The research asked what side of the bed respondents slept on, with 36% of those who slept on the right-hand side rating their sleep as eight or more, compared to 29% on the left-hand side. More important, however, is the position that you lay in at night. The perfect position for sleep is on your non-dominant side in a fetal position. This is an evolutionary choice, like your heart, internal organs, and reproductive organs are protected. Leaving your dominant arm free to defend yourself. As an employer, your care for employees should go well beyond office hours. Helping your team understand their difficulties with sleep and offering advice on how to overcome them can have huge benefits for you and your business. Not only that, as an employer it’ll help you be more understanding and empathetic when your team is struggling. About the author: Mark Wiggins is a writer from Leeds, England. With years of experience in people management, he specializes in writing about workplace motivation and staff retention.

How to Attract and Retain Talented Staff

How to Attract and Retain Talented Staff Hiring and retaining really good people is a challenge at the best of times. Management guru Jim Collins said that “the single biggest constraint on the success of my organization is the ability to get and to hang on to enough of the right people.” McKinsey coined the term ‘war for talent’ in 1997 when referring to the increasingly fierce competition to attract and retain employees at a time when too few workers are available to replace the baby boomers now departing the workforce in advanced economies. Top talent is scarce and the best candidates may be picky about which offer to accept. Employers need to pay attention to the employer brand and their image in the jobs market and ensure they make a good showing when they offer vacancies. Aim to be an employer of choice. Employer brand determines whether candidates will choose to engage with the organization. Talent attraction is not a one-off exercise, it’s a process aimed at building and nurturing a talent pool. Showcase your assets One of the most effective things you can do is the use the assets already to hand. If the organization has good levels of employee engagement then the workforce will be happy to advocate and share stories about the organization. Employee referrals are a very cost-effective strategy as referred applicants come with the recommendation of an existing employee and will have some familiarity with the culture and how the enterprise operates; after all, employees only recommend people they think will be a good match. Culture is a big draw; it will attract like-minded people so showcasing company culture is important in increasing the chances of appointing the best candidate. Talent will consider whether the organizational culture aligns with their personal values; a strong link between personal values and corporate values makes the employment offer more attractive. A positive organizational culture shows that the organizations put the focus on creativity and innovative work in a collaborative environment that values teamwork, engagement, and high performance. Flexible benefits are increasingly attractive to candidates at all levels. If you can devise a ‘pick your own’ package rather than a one-size-fits-all system that will be an advantage. Don’t forget that research suggests that employee’s value non-monetary benefits over money based incentives. Make sure you highlight training and developing opportunities as this a major area of interest for the best candidates. Lack of development is the primary reason that good people move on. Talk about career progression and personal development at an early stage. Talented people always want to develop and grow both personally and professionally; ongoing training and development mean employees know that the organization is serious about investing in staff and retaining the best. Nurture your talent Good people also tend to plan a career path,  so an organization that helps by investing in talent and improving the skillset and career prospects of staff is more attractive than the sink or swim attitude of many employers. At 10Eighty we emphasize the importance of using regular career conversations to engage with the workforce around skills, strengths, and aspirations. Remember that not everyone is climbing the career ladder, but good employees want new opportunities in new areas, feedback, responsibility and an awareness of their contribution to the overall operation. It is a huge mistake to assume you will retain people because you are a good employer; first, earn the trust, commitment, and loyalty of staff and then ensure that the organization aids them in enhancing their skills, networks, and options. Providing career planning gives an organization an edge over the competition and a major advantage in retaining talented staff. Quick tips to attract and retain talented staff: Attract people whose values align with those of the organization and where possible use existing contacts to find those likely to be a good fit Consider organizational objectives and seek out candidates with the strengths, skills, motivation and professional to adjust quickly to the environment and culture. Retain talent by paying attention to motivation, engagement, and career planning to help staff to grow in their roles.

Its Christmas time

Its Christmas time The Christmas music is playing in the shops and bars. There is no way around it, you can’t avoid the fact it is Christmas time. A time to eat and exchange gifts and cards. Wow, where did the autumn go? Now is the time to rest, recuperate and complete outstanding applications. Deadlines looming!!   For some of you it might be the time to consider where you go from here. You have been to careers fairs and events, made applications, got your CV and covering letters checked but what next? Your friends might have assessment centres to attend in the New Year or be working over Christmas in a temporary post that is helping them to develop their skills and earn cash. Feeling a little lost? Wondering what you can do next or who can help you? Where did the time go? Maybe you started this academic year with firm ideas or maybe it was all a bit of a blur. Maybe you thought you would get an idea by attending the fairs and it all looked too busy. Maybe now you look at your copy of the Times Top 100 graduate employers and think ‘but most of the deadlines have gone….’ A wise man once said ‘don’t panic!’ and there are still opportunities out there. There are websites to visit and applications to be completed. CVs can still be created and checked. Yes, the graduate recruitment cycle means that there are lots of companies who need to get people though their application procedures but these are just 20% of all graduate jobs available. The smaller companies still want graduates and these SMEs (small to medium enterprises) make up 95% of the labour market and cover the entire UK with companies in every sector. But you have to start to think what you need to do and what  you need to prepare. Time to get thinking and planning Career planning is a dull, dull term for thinking about what it is that you want to do with the degree you have studied and the skill sets you have developed but it is an important one. Motivation is the key. Don’t  feel left out because most of your friends seem to be making applications, decide why you want to apply and to whom. Consider what you really know about the company? Is there someone working there in your network? Do you have a network? Do you have a LinkedIn profile? What other information do you have to help you to make that decision that will kick start the rest of your life and career? Stop and think! Who can you talk to who is impartial? As a Warwick student you have access to resources like MarketLine Advantage, a business database which enables you to research companies. Not all companies think in one set way â€" think what you really want and what your values are. Are you a match? Do you want to set up your own business? There is still time to get work experie nce but you will have to act quickly to get the seasonal work that is still out there. If you aren’t registered with Unitemps some of this may have passed you by. It’s never too early to start thinking about the future What about those of you in your first and second years? You may feel this is all for the finalists to get to grips with. Yes it isn’t too late to tackle career planning but it isn’t too early either! Make your new year’s resolution one of finding out more about what the future can hold for you. Explore summer internships and years in industry. Think about work shadowing and volunteering and if you are still thinking of applying for spring weeks why not get your application checked before you send it off? It isn’t just the banks that offer these opportunities. Do you have additional support needs? Your Careers team will be on hand and can help but there are a range of resources from TargetJobs to your academics with industry experience. Do you need to find out what that assessment centre is about? Or how to get through psychometric tests or situational judgement tests? There is a lot to take in and think about. So, another year over… Christmas is a time of year that we stop and consider how the year has treated us and what the next year may bring. We have had a year of highs and lows. Hopefully 2016 treated you well but with Brexit looming ever nearer to being implemented understanding what we need to do and who can help us to achieve our goals is one way of moving forward in a very uncertain world. But Christmas will be over as quickly as it arrived and when it does we will have to get on and start again so make sure you have a plan! So, enjoy the break from your course work and see you in 2017!

Personal Branding Interview Alexandra Samuel - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

Personal Branding Interview Alexandra Samuel - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career Today, I spoke to Alexandra Samuel, who is the Director of the Social + Interactive Media Centre at Emily Carr University of Art + Design, the co-founder of Social Signal, and a blogger for Oprah.com and the Harvard Business Review. In this interview, Alexandra talks about important technologies, the impact of the internet on our lives, research shes uncovered while building online communities, and more. Which technologies do you wish we still have and which can you not live without now? There are only a couple of technologies I miss on a regular basis. One is I want Sandy, which was this awesome virtual personal assistant that could help with scheduling, task management and communications using natural language. You could send her an e-mail like remind me to ask Sarah tomorrow about whether she wants to work on our new project, and the next morning, youd have an e-mail from Sandy reminding you to talk to Sarah. The other is the busy signal: even though I now find it shocking and irritating to get one (and it only happens once or twice a year), I can see that a world without busy signals is a world of constantly accumulating e-mail and voicemail inboxes. As for which technologies I cant live without: I cant think of a single one. That said, there are so many technologies I wouldnt choose to live without that Ill just name the devices and applications Id miss the most: WordPress, my iPhone, my MacBook Pro, Evernote, Google, Twitter, delicious, Skitch, single-app browsers (i.e Prism Fluid), HootSuite, Plex (for our home media center) and of course, my label maker. I love, love, love all these tools, and am so constantly connected to and by them that I suspect Im what other people call an Internet addict. But I have absolutely no doubt that I could live without any or all of them; at the end of the day it would be far easier for me to live a life without the Internet than a life without regular, intense face-to-face contact with the people I love and the people who challenge me. Remembering that we are able to live happily offline is essential to making conscious, deliberate choices about how we live online. How has the internet changed how you interact with the important people in your life and build your professional identity? The Internet hasnt changed how I interact with most of the important people in my life, but it expanded the circle of who feels important. Most of my very closest friendships pre-date the Internet; interestingly, very few of my closest friends are enthusiastic social media users and two of my three best friends arent even on Facebook! But even without Facebook, I find a way to connect. For years I could count on the fact that on any given day, something I was wearing had been purchased in the company (and with the advice) of my BFF. Its now been a decade since we lived in the same city, so I recently started sending her collections of my should I buy this? photos online so that I can get her advice! Of course the exception to the rule is my husband: we have a very online marriage and the Internet is part of almost (I emphasize almost) every aspect of our relationship. The most obvious part is that we created a social media agency together, largely because we were coming home every night from our respective jobs and geeking out together about the then-emergent phenomena of blogs, RSS and online community; once people started asking for our professional advice it was a no-brainer to go into business together. But the Internet is also part of our parenting (not just by handing our kids an iPhone or iPad, but by doing family craft projects together like setting up our daughters Etsy store for her emoticon jewelry http://2dots1symbol.com), part of our social life (we have a handful of dual-geek couples who share our love for Battlestar Galactica and all things Mac-related) and our one-to-one relationship (ask anyone who watches us tweet through our date nights, or just visit wetweet .ca). Part of what I love about building my professional identity online is that these personal aspects of web use arent invisible I get to be on the web as a whole person. So many of the problems in the world come from us trying to put part of our identity on a shelf from 9-5, but the strongest ideas and solutions come from our ability to connect with one another, to feel empathy, and to bring our full intelligence to any problem. While Im certainly conscious of creating a professional identity through my online presences, particularly on Twitter and my blog, I think that a professional identity can also acknowledge that Im a person with a family, friends, and plenty of neuroses. Of course Im lucky because more and more of my professional identity is about helping people deal with the personal implications of life online, so being personal is part of being professional! What research have you uncovered through your involvement with online communities? I draw on a lot of different sources of research in my work in online communities, social media and most recently, social e-books. I did the initial research for the Internet chapter in Robert Putnams Bowling Alone, and that has influenced just about all of my work for the past 13 years, since (unlike Putnam) Im actually quite optimistic about the Internets capacity to support the creation of social capital namely, the community bonds and social trust that correlate with everything from personal happiness and public health to civic participation and economic performance. Barry Wellman and Caroline Haythornthwaite have really been leading the investigation into how social capital can be created online; a lot of my applied work at Social Signal, especially on projects like Tyze, has been an effort to put those aspirations for building social capital into action. But the longer Ive been online the more I see these struggles playing out at a very personal level, as people look for ways to make their time online more meaningful for themselves and for their communities. So these days Im looking at models for how to offer people those kinds of deeper experiences online; most recently Ive been drawing on something called The Reader to Leader Framework by Jennifer Preece and Ben Shneiderman; I think their work offers a very pragmatic way to think about deepening peoples engagement online. Do you feel like what search engines and social networks say about people will replace resumes? Never. But thats partly because Im a ruthless copy editor, so the first thing I do with any résumé is to look for errors. Particularly when Im hiring for a communications or public-facing role (which are the kind of hires that Im usually involved in) I feel like I learn a lot from the level of accuracy and literacy that people bring to telling their own stories. And of course thats what search engines can never replace: that first-person, heres who I am self-presentation. Any smart hire will now look at both. (You can see how we used social media in our Social Signal process by visiting http://bit.ly/socmedhire). What three predictions do you have for the future of technology as it relates to personal branding? Im going to give you three contradictory predictions: Social media becomes synonymous with social media marketing, so we think only about our online lives in terms of how they project our message or brand out into the world. In our online lives, we define ourselves as personal brands and evaluate all our interactions through the lens of how they affect our individual brands. As we spend more and more of our lives online, we become so used to interacting with one another as brands that we stop relating to one another as human beings. In ten years, you go to a party and get introduced as Meet Dan hes the great brand I told you about. The social media masses rise up in mass resistance to their corporate overloads, and hack, deface or simply ignore the increasingly pervasive ads that litter the social mediascape. In the absence of advertising revenue, a lot of social media services go belly up, while other start charging significant fees for services, and make the revolting masses nostalgic for the days of you-give-us-your-data, we-give-you-your-Facebook. Marketing becomes part of social media the way its become part of lots of other forms of media, but it frames the conversation rather than pervades it. Social media users informally patrol the divide between genuine conversations among interested users, and staged conversations created by brands: they disregard or challenge companies who pretend to be people (for example, joining an online community and gradually building relationships with members before coming out with the pitch for the great new product theyve created JUST for this niche) and people who pretend to be brands (for example, strategizing everything they say around building an image or followers rather than genuinely connected with other people based on their actual interests and beliefs). Social media services thrive on the the revenue they earn online (not just from marketing, but from delivering many different kinds of value to both businesses and consumers) while social media users thrive on conversations that cont inue to excite them, to give them opportunities for authentic expression, and that provide them safe places to connect with other actual human beings. I know which of these predictions I hope to see come true. And it is absolutely within our power to choose which one will come to pass. But to get there, we need to see each other first and foremost as human beings online and off. Alexandra Samuel is the Director of the Social + Interactive Media Centre at Emily Carr University of Art + Design, the co-founder of Social Signal, and a blogger for Oprah.com and the Harvard Business Review. She writes about how social media is transforming our politics, our work and our personal lives. Her writing on technology issues has appeared in media outlets like the Toronto Star, CBC Radio, Business 2.0, and the Chronicle of Higher Education. Her writing on social media is informed by her experience as a web strategist and by her research background. As a principal with Social Signal, one of the world’s first social media agencies, she has shaped the online strategy for a wide range of online community projects, including Tyze, Change Everything and NetSquared. Visit her website at alexandrasamuel.com.

How to Make Your Resume Great Again CareerMetis.com

How to Make Your Resume Great Again Job opportunities come and go. The funny thing is that they usually come at times when you expect it the least. And when your resume isn’t… in the best shape you are told to send it ASAP!It doesn’t really matter if you are an active job seeker or currently employed professional looking for a new opportunity. When it comes to new career challenges, it often boils down to how convincing your resume story is.evalSo the question is how do you make your resume great again? Your main marketing document is what can make a difference between you and the other candidates after all.Skimmable Resume FormatevalIf you are thinking that recruiters and hiring managers will read every single word on your resume then you can’t be further from the truth.In fact, during the first evaluation they spend seconds to skim through the things on a resume to understand whether a particular candidate deserves a closer look. With such limited time, your resume has to attract employers’ attention, you c an’t afford to list your credentials in a way that you like.Resume writing isn’t about you after all. It is about what prospective employers need and how you can address those needs. It may sound weird but your resume format can make a difference between a lifetime interview opportunity and being disregarded.Make your resume easier to skim. Don’t write long paragraphs It should be focused completely on what you can offer as opposed to what you want. Showcase your value proposition. List those skills that will be relevant for the target audience There is no single rule for resume length. “How long should a resume be?“ is a question to be answered individually. It used to be that one-page resumes were highly preferable by decision makers. However, that is not so today.Therefore, depending on your experience and skill set, you should choose the perfect length for your document on your own:If you have less than 7 years of work experience, it is likely you can easily fit the mo st important information on one page.For those job seekers, who have 7+ years of experience, a two-page resume format should be just fine.C-level executives with 15+ years of experience can sometimes extend their resume to three pages.Resume KeywordsMore and more companies use applicant tracking software Add Portfolio/LinkedIn/WebsiteWhile the resume remains to be the most powerful marketing tool, it shouldn’t be the only one. We live in a digital world where people spend their lives online: they sell, buy, play, interact, and have fun there.Limiting yourself to just one resume isn’t the smartest move job seekers can make today. There are plenty of other opportunities to say you are the right fit.evalFor example, LinkedIn is becoming an essential recruiters’ tool. If you don’t have a profile there, you must set one up. Make sure your profile tells a convincing storythough before you share it with prospective employers.Additionally, it may be a good idea to create an online p ortfolio of your works. It can significantly make a difference between you and the competition.Lastly, turn your entire resume into a website. In fact, it can be both your portfolio and resume depending on how you want to organize it. Just don’t forget to include all of the links on your main resume version.KEY TAKEAWAYSIf you need to update your resume and send it to a potential employer asap, then make sure your resumeis easy to read/skimcontains your value proposition at the very beginningis not too long and is not too shorthas industry and job-specific keywordscontains links to your LinkedIn profile/portfolio/websiteThere’s always a huge temptation to update your resume by simply adding new information.evalHowever, simply adding new content won’t make it great again. Things that have worked in the past don’t work today. Because the jobs market is extremely competitive, job seekers need to be wise when presenting their career story on a document.For more insight, you chec k multiple resume critique examples (there are tons of them online) to see what kind of mistakes job seekers usually make when writing or editing their resumes.

Job Action Day - Whos Your Cheerleader

Job Action Day - Whos Your Cheerleader This post is part of an entire day of useful career advice called Job Action Day, sponsored by Quintessential Careers.This weekend I was part of an amazing event The New York City Marathon. No I didnt run. I was a cheerleader. I made it a point to bundle up and go out along the marathon route and encourage runners.Why you ask? Because everyone could benefit from a cheerleader to help them achieve a milestone.For me, I was amazed to see the runners smile and pick up the pace when fueled by the sights and sounds of the countless fans pulling for them. Thousands cheered alongside me for everyone brave enough to make the effort. It was contagious.That very energy made me think about the many different ways we can cheer each other on through the current economic challenges and how we need to encourage each other to continue to follow through on our dreams.Cheerleaders have always lifted my spirits when Im struggling. Theyve kept me going when I wasnt sure I could, and applauded me when I ve achieved. And I do the same for my clients.So with today designated Job Action Day maybe it is not about an action directly for you and your job situation. Maybe its a little reminder for you to reach out to someone you know, someone you love, or even a friend you havent met yet and encourage them to finish their marathon. Encourage them take action with their careers.Trust me it is contagious.Who needs your cheerleading today? How might you help that person follow through on their dreams and take action with their careers? Believe me, your spirits will be lifted as well.

In the Fog About Your Ideal Job Part II - Hallie Crawford

In the Fog About Your Ideal Job Part II Do feel like you’re in the dryer on spin cycle confused about your ideal job? Over the next few Career Corner posts we are looking at the strategies you can use to help you get clear. Strategy #2: Clarify what you want by identifying what you don’t want As a career coach, Ive discovered that when I ask people what they want in an ideal job or career, they cant tell me. But if I ask them what they dont want, or what they didnt like in previous jobs, they can give me a long list of complaints or things theyd want to change! Like a less demanding boss, fewer deadlines or less stress. If this is the case for you, it may feel like you are checking things off of a list and identifying what you dont want, instead of moving forward by clarifying what you do want. This can be frustrating! Homework: Download a worksheet to help you with this here. *For more help with your transition contact me for a complimentary consultation, Im here to help.* Hiring Hallie is the best investment I have made towards my new line of work Hallie has helped me become more focused and assertive in my career aspirations. Read more testimonials here. Expert