Productivity experts have devised some simple methods to increase your productivity.  They consist of either working harder or working smarter.  Personally I like working smarter but sometimes I end up working harder too.   Use just one idea and you could improve your productivity.  Use all of them and you could double or triple your productivity.

1. Work harder— find ways to increase your task focus.

Work when you are working.  Spend less time socializing and focus on what you need to get done today.  Focus on the tasks at hand and don’t wander into new tasks, multi-task, or get distracted.  The key is to focus and not waste your precious time at work.

2. Work Faster—find ways to pick up your work pace.

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In the first part of this article, we discussed Workplace Change and the Speed of Information. In part two, we complete our discussion with a look at information technology’s effect on Social Systems, Skills Displacement, and the Dynamics of Information Technology.

Social Systems

Questions in the information age have been surfacing, causing rifts in the social system of the organization. Changes in thought are occurring as part of the cultural transformation. Work groups are forming as workers move away from linear processing (assembly lines) and toward other models and dynamics, yet we are glued to the computer more. Social interaction as our parents and grandparents knew it is on the decline. Organizations will be forced to adopt changes in order to survive in the fast-paced information age.

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Start by considering what the product is that you produce as an organization and what core processes are needed to produce that product.  In the case of education, the product is learning or a change in behavior as a result of learning something.

Now look at quality in light of behavior change.  What do you design and develop that causes behavior changes.  Certainly that would include teaching methods, but also the curriculum, course length, how the day is structured, homework, grading, extracurricular activities, grade levels, meals served, etc.

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What a year this was. A new policies and procedures manual. New training courses. And, most importantly, over 50 articles on various aspects of business management and process improvement. Our goal here at Bizmanualz is to help you streamline your processes and improve your business performance. If our articles help you achieve this in any way, we feel like we have succeeded.

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Question of the month: How does work environment contribute to effective learning/training?

In July, the focus of our articles was on learning and how it benefits the organization. Learning is often perceived as expensive, time consuming, and even disruptive. While this perception may be fairly accurate for the immediate short term, the long term benefits of learning is well established and cannot be ignored.

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There are claims made in so many trade journal articles and web page texts about how to make “training stick.” (Or, in the vernacular – “training transfer”)  In spite of so many claims, really only a small percentage of internal and external learning will be successfully applied to improve work. 

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In our last article we discussed why creating a culture of learning in an organization is important. One reason is that an organization that values learning is very likely to be an organization that more readily embraces change, including improved technologies and methods. Also, while job-related training is important, a broad approach to encouraging all kinds of educational opportunities really promotes a learning culture.

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Do you feel like training is too expensive or perhaps you cannot afford the lost work time, or maybe you do not want to send your employees on a “mini-vacation.” To some degree these views make sense to those focusing on near term results, such as the production numbers for tomorrow or sales figures for the month. However, does such a view make sense for anyone seeking long term growth and success?

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Part 4 of a Four-Part Series

Last week we discussed how people learn. This week we will discuss how to design your classes to take into account how the whole body learns or how learning is not “all in your head”.

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