What are Super Cognitive Foods? And Other Reads To Help You Work Better (Work Management Roundup)
Today is Friday the 13th, the subject of many an old school superstition and many a horror movie. If you're stuck in the office today feeling terribly unproductive and a tad superstitious as to why, then we're here with the Work Management roundup to turn your horrible day into a day for productivity education. Read on for more inspiration! The Superfoods That Are Actually Superfoods (Medium): Are there foods that can really help you focus on your work right now? Yes! Dave Asprey lays out some “super cognitive foods,” which include butter, coffee, vanilla, and chocolate and explains how non-inflammatory foods help you. (This is not an excuse to stock up on peanut butter M&Ms!) Things You Can Do to Grow More Brain Cells (Lifehacker): On the subject of brain enhancement: a recent TED video by neuroscientist Sandrine Thuret explains how our brains can grow new cells through activities such as learning and running. Spend More Time Managing Your Time (Study Hacks): Cal Newton schools us on the need for deep thinking about your commitments. You need to block off some time in order to plan out how you will tackle your tasks this week. 10 Free (and Nearly Free) Ways to Spur Business Growth (Social Media Today): Andre Bourque lists 10 strategies that startups need to use to grow quickly and corresponding tools, most of them free. The Buddhist Priest Who Became a Billionaire Snubbing Investors (Bloomberg): This 83-year-old billionaire Buddhist priest Kazuo Inamori built up Japanese electronics giant Kyocera, and his attitude toward investors is decidedly "un-Western". His advice: Forget investors. Instead, spend time making staff happy. In his own words: "If you want eggs, take care of the hen." What Not to Do at a Business Lunch (Fast Company YouTube): And before you go out to eat, watch this humorous take on the business lunch and how to avoid spiraling into cringeworthy terrain.. More Work Management Reads Think About This: Doing Good Tech Versus Doing Good with Tech by Bryan Johnson (Medium) The Power of Routines in Sustaining Creativity (Fast Company) The Purpose-Driven Workforce Is 42 Million Strong (Fast Company) 8 Genius Ways To Make Your Small Business More Money This Holiday Shopping Season (When I Work) Go Try This: If You Want to Become a Leader, Start Acting Like One (Inc) The Positive Impact of Creating Limits (The Next Web) 62 Tips From Y Combinator’s Startup Instruction Manual (TechCrunch) The Complete Guide To Skyrocketing Your Customer Service Skills (When I Work) Browse Marketing Speak on Flipboard If you use Flipboard on your mobile device, then you might enjoy our links to all things digital marketing via our Marketing Speak magazine. View my Flipboard Magazine.
Why Your CWM Must Have BI Reporting Tools and Workload Management Built-In
We’ve come a long way in a short time during this blog series. So far we’ve detailed: Leveraging an organized project intake method, rather than managing work in spreadsheets Enhancing team collaboration and speeding up design asset approvals Automating repetitive tasks and moving work forward fast Improving client transparency, sharing, and tracking project progress The final article is about digital advertising reporting, managing team resources, and ensuring all your work stays secure. Compiling digital campaign data is laborious Digital marketers have more data at their fingertips than they can manage, and as advertising spend continues to rise, the need to optimize campaigns grows stronger. The growing digital advertising spend only adds to the mountain of data marketing executives are accumulating elsewhere in automation and analytics platforms. Meanwhile, CMOs and other marketing leaders have identified two blockers to effectively using analytics: Proving the value of analytics to marketing efforts Demonstrating the overall impact that investing in data will have on their organization Curating all the available data is challenging because everyone, including non-technical members, must be able to view, interpret, and act on it in real time without requiring external resources. Of course, numerous BI reporting tools can tap into the digital marketing channels, yet the data often requires an analyst to interpret it for marketing team members. Even when data is extracted by data reporting tools, it’s not standardized in a uniform view. YouTube and LinkedIn, for example, have “subscribers” and “followers,” respectively. Both are the same metric but are traditionally looked at separately. After standardizing the data, presenting it in an actionable way remains a struggle. Digital marketing moves too fast for teams to mess around attempting to interpret the findings so they can iterate in real time. Think about ad auctions where it takes, at most, 300 milliseconds to complete an auction, of which billions occur every hour. Data review and adjusting strategy that takes weeks or months isn’t acceptable. Marketing leaders must have complete visibility and an easy way to automate data collection so they can iterate in real time to optimize results. Balancing team workloads is an ongoing issue If you collaborate with freelancers, an agency, or a professional services team, you know that to maintain profitability, team workload management is crucial. Too much work and you’ll have a long backlog you’ll never get to address. Not enough work and you may struggle to keep everyone working at full capacity. In both scenarios, you need a workload management tool that empowers you to reprioritize and reassign work in an instant. Then, there’s the issue of billable versus non-billable work. Not maximizing billable hours opens the door for more non-billable activities that won’t contribute to the bottom line. When you don’t have full visibility into everyone’s capacity and work coming down the pipeline, how can you expect to balance their workload and maintain profitability? It’s an ongoing headache and one that can be avoided once you have a CWM solution with built-in capabilities for time tracking and resource management. Your data isn’t behind lock and key Company-wide, teams operate with a variety of sensitive information — financial and legal documents, employee records, upcoming product announcements — that requires extra safeguarding. Coupled with the digital transformation era and the global shift to cloud computing and securing data gets even more complicated. From the organization’s perspective, the cloud serves two key benefits: huge savings and the convenience of accessing resources and data without having to manage the servers that store the data. Meanwhile, these same companies also want to enjoy the benefits of collaborative work technology, especially highly regulated industries like healthcare and financial services. These industries must comply with even more strict rules, so they often forgo using any cloud apps. All want to be reassured that their work will only be accessible to those with permission and won’t fall into the wrong hands. Without that level of enterprise data security, companies run the risk of failing to comply with federal regulations but also losing their customers’ trust. But who controls the data and who has access? If you don’t know or aren’t satisfied with the answer, look for a CWM that offers enterprise data security software with encryption codes and a digital paper trail of who accessed the data and when. How Wrike solves each pain point Wrike Insights Wrike’s advanced reporting and business intelligence enables you to sync with 50+ apps for real-time digital campaign performance data, including Google, Amazon, Facebook, LinkedIn, AdRoll, Microsoft Advertising, Yahoo, TikTok, and more. By unlocking this cross-channel analysis, users get 360-degree visibility into campaign performance and where to iterate for the best results without requiring BI reporting tools or data analysts. Built-in data visualizations and analytics dashboards will help your team be more confident on where to take action to maximize ROI. Wrike Resource Management As workloads increase and your team scales, Wrike Resource Management allows complete team availability at a glance with shared tasks, folders, and projects so that managers can reprioritize or reassign work as necessary and optimize performance. It’s a single, collaborative workload management tool that anyone — even external stakeholders — can access from anywhere. Here you can plan, schedule, and allocate resources to set priorities and distribute work. The built-in time tracker and detailed timesheets let you measure effort and review how long projects take to complete. Meanwhile, the Workload view allows you to boost performance and prevent employee burnout by reassigning and reprioritizing tasks based on bandwidth. With this additional transparency, team leads can manage dependencies using Gantt charts and prevent bottlenecks from happening via Table view. Packaged all together, it’s true end-to-end quote-to-cash visibility where you can balance team workloads and help ensure profitability. Wrike Lock Keeping data secure in the modern age goes beyond username and password login details. Wrike’s enterprise data security provides users with customer-managed encryption keys along with an extra layer of encryption by locking the keys to their data. Think of it this way — it’s akin to having a secret code name to get access to the vault’s password, before you can see what’s behind the vault. Furthermore, Wrike doesn’t store your master encryption key, so only you have access. Wrike customer feedback Derick Dahl, Director of Product at Sonance, speaks about the benefits his marketing team has experienced using Wrike Resource for team workload management: “Wrike Resource helped control the otherwise overwhelming nature of our marketing team’s work by allowing us to identify and correct overtaxed employee workloads, reducing the average number of active projects per employee from 12 down to three.” Torsten Mühlhoff, Marketing Controlling & Corporate Projects at ABUS, speaks to the value of Wrike’s security features: "It’s easy to assume that an on-premise solution would be more secure than the cloud. However, our provider and its partners are much better equipped to guarantee the security we need. We’ve also reduced our admin workload and made life easier for our own IT....Wrike is one of the most secure collaborative work management platforms out there, and we really feel we’re in the right hands." Select the best CWM solution for your team This article series isn’t an exhaustive list of pain points that hyper-growth and enterprise teams experience and how a CWM solution can be the answer. As you evaluate vendors, what is exhausting is comparing features head-to-head and reading reviews. Get your free copy of our new eBook, Empowering Teams With CWM: 13 Common Pain Points and How to Solve Them, which highlights the 16 most important CWM features to answer the most common pain points. Try out Wrike today and see why 20,000+ customers rely on our collaborative work management platform to streamline their workflows, get work done faster, and scale.
What is a SIPOC Diagram & How is It Used?
At first, creating a new business process seems simple. But even if you’ve identified a complete, linear path from your suppliers to your customers, you may start to notice complications. Wrangling a list of departments that need to get involved. Figuring out how to transfer a product from one department to another. Finding a way to simply codify it all so you don’t end up with 40 versions of the same basic business process document. To solve the problem of complexity, many companies turn to the SIPOC diagram. Working from a SIPOC template helps create a “blueprint” for any new business process you want to create. Done right, you’ll gain a clear understanding of what needs to happen to launch a new product or service, down to the smallest details. But it won’t work until you know how to mold that SIPOC diagram into a rock-solid plan. What does SIPOC stand for? SIPOC stands for Supplies, Inputs, Processes, Outputs, and Customers. It refers to an A-to-Z approach to the entire business process. This is useful for high-level management because it helps you document any new business process from a bird’s-eye view. You might have also heard COPIS, which is the entire process in reverse. Why start with “Customer” at the beginning? Some companies want to emphasize the customer’s experience and reverse-engineer their business process around that. For others, SIPOC’s chronological order makes more sense. Without supplies and inputs, there are no outputs and customer-facing products or services. Think of SIPOC as an essential way to distill the business process down to its core steps, from A to Z. What is a SIPOC diagram? A SIPOC diagram is a workflow chart that illustrates every stage of your SIPOC. This brings the SIPOC meaning in your business from an abstract acronym into a visualization of workflow. According to some statistics, visualization like this can boost performance by as much as 89%. In other words, SIPOC diagrams help you see a new business process before you implement it. A SIPOC process can be as comprehensive or as simple as you like. But at the very least, it will need to include a component part of each of the following: Supplies: What are the tools, products, services, or raw materials that need to be a part of the business process to create an end result for your customer? List them all here. Inputs: Are there data inputs that need to go into the process at this stage? What do you need to add or modify to the existing supplies? Processes: Here’s where you’ll list the essential functions of your business as you carry out the new directive. What processes can be automated? Which ones will be manual? Will you have to hire new workers to handle the processes and inputs? Answer those questions here. Outputs: This is where you should think about maintaining standards, as well as installing processes for quality control. Any testing you do with your products/services before they go to market will take place here. Customers: This stage doesn’t simply refer to the point of purchase. Think about the entire customer experience. In fact, you might even want to consider doing a few COPIS exercises just to get a sense of what you want the end result to look like before you build the process around it. SIPOC diagram example We’ve put together a step-by-step illustration of a SIPOC diagram below: Keep in mind that a SIPOC can be as big or as small as you need it. This is just a high-level diagram dividing the key components into five steps. But under every step, you can list all sorts of essential variables to create the comprehensive results you’re looking for. If that’s too abstract, let’s take a simple but specific example. Let’s say your business process is going to the grocery store. Here’s what that could look like: Supplies: Fully stocked grocery store, address of the grocery store, car to drive you there, money to purchase groceries. Inputs: List of ingredients. Scheduling a time to visit the store. Process: Purchase groceries, return home, put groceries away. Outputs: List of recipes. Food preparation. Customers: Happy, well-fed family. It might not translate to something as complex as a 500-employee business. But a trip to the grocery store helps solidify exactly what a SIPOC diagram is: a blueprint for getting things done. What are the benefits of SIPOC diagrams? Dwight D. Eisenhower once said that plans are worthless, but planning is essential. The idea? You may need to adapt your plans when the rubber meets the road, but the act of preparing plans is what prepares you to handle any obstacles. The SIPOC diagram forces your business to do the essential work of planning. By creating a SIPOC diagram, you see the entire workflow from beginning to end. Along the way, you can fish out blind spots, brainstorm new ideas, and reduce red tape that isn’t necessary to create the end results you want. But the act of sitting down and planning isn’t the only benefit of SIPOC diagrams. Here are a few more to consider: Cost savings: There’s a reason you don’t build a house until you have blueprints in place. When you make a mistake in the blueprints, you can erase them and not lose thousands of dollars in labor and costs. Think of SIPOC as your blueprint for business processes and you’ll understand why you want such a clear picture of a business process before you begin. You’ll identify many of the potential bugs before they have the potential to cost you serious money. Beginning the process: With SIPOC diagrams, you’re already beginning the planning stages of developing your business. You’re already brainstorming suppliers, considering which departments need input, and thinking about the key people who will be part of the process. When you’ve effectively built out a SIPOC diagram, your end result will be a blueprint that’s ready for feedback and adjustment. Making strategic decisions: Along the way, a SIPOC forces you to see business processes as a result of cause and effect. Some data suggests it helps you identify patterns as well. This puts you in the position of making strategic decisions at the outset. How will the supplies you acquire affect which customer segments you target? Will you need to hire people to provide key inputs that you don’t already have at your company? What challenges should I be aware of with SIPOC analysis? A SIPOC analysis is low-cost and high-benefit — it only takes advanced planning. But it doesn’t mean there won’t be challenges along the way. One key challenge: untangling knots. With a SIPOC diagram, you have to answer cause-and-effect questions. And sometimes, it can be difficult to handle these without the ability to experiment in action and see which solutions work best. The temptation is to skip the SIPOC analysis and get straight to taking action, but this can lead to its own problems. The best way is to complete the SIPOC as much as possible. You might also refer to a Gantt chart to help supplement this issue. Another key challenge is communication. You have to keep key decision-makers in the loop with SIPOC diagrams, and if you make business process decisions without their input, it can not only introduce complications but friction. Visualizing data has a way of making communication effective — after all, a picture is worth a thousand words. Harvard Business Review refers to data visualizing as “visualizations that really work.” How is SIPOC used in project management? You’re probably already getting a grasp of how a SIPOC diagram can help make project management more streamlined, efficient, and stress-free. But, there are a few more things to keep in mind to reap the benefits for your projects. Use specifics: Don’t say, “we will need enough graphite to put in our pencils.” Get specific about how much graphite you need if you’re building pencils. A good template for handling the Supplies and Inputs variables is to use formulaic statements. For example: “We will build X-quantity of Y-material into Z-units before moving to the next stage of the process.” Don’t leave the work of estimating quantities to the future. That’s what SIPOC is here for: to create your blueprint. Document the types of customers you have and what they need: Project management without an emphasis on the customers’ experience is ultimately an internal-facing process. But it’s not completely SIPOC unless you include customer considerations. Make sure you know who your target customer is. What are their concerns? What problems are you solving? Knowing these questions and feeding them into the rest of the process will help you innovate in ways that wouldn’t be apparent if you were solely focused on the first four stages. Record your progress: Even if you don’t nail a SIPOC analysis on the first try, record your progress every time you and your team sit down to discuss the details. Remember to think of your SIPOC diagram as a blueprint. You wouldn’t get halfway through sketching the plans for a house and then say “we’ll remember this when we sit down again.” Document every step you’ve specified, including any key numbers and people you’ve identified as part of the new process. Gather feedback: Once you have a SIPOC ready to go, it’s time to involve any key decision-makers who might have a say, even if they’re not going to make key decisions in the process itself. Take a scientific approach. Your goal is to poke holes in the process and come up with solutions before implementation. Once you have a thoroughly vetted SIPOC diagram in hand, you’ve defined your new business process in full. This isn’t to say it will go perfectly smoothly when you launch. But when something does go wrong, you’ll have a much clearer picture of what needs to be done to get back on track. Rather than making your processes rigid, the end result of a SIPOC diagram is that you make yourself more flexible and adaptable. You’ll build a business that can adjust on the fly. You might throw out old plans once in a while. But if you approach it the right way, the simple process of planning can take you anywhere.
Why High Achievers Forget "Someday" and Hustle Today (Work Management Roundup)
It's another Friday of yet another week, and this week, I've decided it's time to get "weird." You may be thinking, "But why?" Well, we discovered this week that being weird is actually a plus for you — especially if it means you're forging a path others have not yet trod. And especially if it means you're creating a life you want to live. Welcome to [inlinetweet prefix="To read:" tweeter="" suffix="via @Wrike"]this week's weird, yet inspirational, edition of the Work Management Roundup[/inlinetweet]! Wake Up and Get Off the "Someday Island" (Entrepreneur): Matt Mayberry talks about how achievers aren't postponing doing the things they love "someday," they're creating their own circumstances in life right now. So if you're not happy with your work, career, or life in general, change it! 7 Things I Did To Reboot My Life (WilWheaton.net): If you need inspiration on changing your life, take a cue from actor/celebrity Wil Wheaton whose essay details both the thoughts and the process behind his personal pivot. Why Being Weird is Your Best Creative Trait (Medium): Ever have moments at work where you're suddenly sharing TMI? That may be a good thing. Because that impulse to share irrelevant information is the same impulse that won't filter out the creative breakthrough ideas. Excellent read on why weirdness is being cultivated and how to embrace your inner weirdo. How the Internet Of Things is Changing Work (Fast Company): Sure, the Internet of Things will connect millions of gadgets around the home and the office. But how will this impact actual human beings doing human jobs? 3 Tips for Future-proofing Your Digital Career (BusinessesGrow): Alongside IoT, self-driving cars, and automation in many work systems, how do you ensure you won't lose your job to a robot in the near future? By emphasizing the human element. Pump Up the Jams and Feel Powerful (Kellogg Insight): Here's something that athletes have known for a long time: the right "high-power" playlist can help you construe information better and help you take initiative. In short, the right background music empowers you to be productive. And yes, this is backed by research. More Work Management Reads Think About This: Mayo Clinic Launches Ambitious Study on How Being Indoors All The Time Affects Us (Fast Company) 6 Ways Work Will Change in 2016 (Fast Company) Warning: Cars’ Voice-Activated Systems Distract Drivers, Study Finds (NY Times) Better Brainstorming in the Workplace (Gorilla Office Supplies) Go Try This: Be Different: Three Unique Ideas For B2B Brands Trying To Stand Out (Inbound.org) The Internet’s Laziest People Share Their Cleverest Life Hacks (BGR) How to Promote Your Flipboard Magazine: Advice from the Pros (Medium) Improve Communication In The Workplace (Employee Scheduling Pro) How to Boost Morale in the Breakroom [Infographic] (Burris Inc) Browse The Work Management Roundup on Flipboard If you use Flipboard on your mobile device, then you can choose to read these links via The Work Management Roundup magazine. View my Flipboard Magazine.
How to Create the Ultimate Wellness Program for Your Company
We spend a significant part of our lives at work, which means our jobs play a significant role in our overall health and wellness journeys. And it’s not surprising that sitting at our desks and staring at computer screens all day isn’t necessarily the best for our health. That’s why many organizations – even big players like Google and Microsoft – are implementing wellness programs to better support the health and wellness of their employees. Companies with wellness programs are going the extra mile to promote employee well-being in fun and engaging ways. And even better? They’re reaping the benefits that come from taking top-notch care of their employees. If your company doesn’t have a wellness program yet, don’t panic. It’s not too late to get started. In this guide, we explore the ins and outs of employee wellness programs, share different types of wellness activities, and outline our best tips to help you get started. Keep reading for the ultimate guide to creating an employee wellness program your workers and your overall organization will love. What is employee wellness? It’s no secret that employees are every organization’s greatest asset. But for employees to perform at their best, they need to take care of their overall health and well-being. That’s where employee wellness, which you’ll also hear referred to as workplace wellness, comes into play. You can think of employee wellness as the overall well-being of your employees. Are they working in safe conditions? Are they maintaining and prioritizing their physical health and fitness? Are they looking after their mental health and emotional state? But when we talk about employee wellness in a more specific sense, it refers to an organization’s method and policies that promote and support healthy behaviors and outcomes for its staff. Put simply, what are organizations doing to ensure that employees can experience and maintain a high level of wellness? To ensure that wellness is a core focus (and not just lip service), many organizations create and execute a formal employee wellness program. What is an employee wellness program? Generally speaking, an employee wellness program refers to a variety of initiatives that an employer sponsors or leads to promote healthy lifestyles amongst employees. This isn’t just about handing out step trackers or putting healthy snacks in the break room. Initiatives might include physical, mental, emotional, financial, or environmental aspects, to name a few. In some cases, an employee wellness program might even extend to an employee’s spouse or dependents, depending on the company’s size. Employee wellness programs aren’t one-size-fits-all and can be customized to the needs of your employees and organization. Many of the best employee wellness programs incorporate a variety of activities and efforts that span all sorts of different dimensions of health. Rather than focusing strictly on exercise, for example, a more holistic employee wellness program might include initiatives around movement, healthy eating, managing stress, and financial planning. You might be thinking, “An employee wellness program sounds like a lot of work! What do organizations get out of programs like these?” Let’s take a look at the benefits of an employee wellness program and why your organization should consider implementing one. What are the benefits of a workplace wellness program? Here’s an even more impactful question to ask: What pitfalls do organizations experience when employees have poor health? According to Kaiser Permanente, poor health increases the risk of chronic conditions. And chronic conditions can increase your health insurance premiums and the cost of workers’ compensation, make it difficult to maintain productivity, and lead to more sick days. Not to mention that you could see increased employee turnover if employees need to leave their jobs and focus on their health. That’s a lot of extra money your organization has to spend. When you have a workplace wellness program in place, you’re working against the long-term impacts of poor health (and saving money simultaneously). In a report published by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, studies revealed that well-designed workplace wellness programs have an ROI ranging from $1.50 to $3 per dollar spent, in addition to other benefits like increased job performance, improved overall well-being, and happier employees. Employees acknowledge and appreciate the benefits of workplace wellness programs too. In a survey conducted by United Healthcare, more than half of people with access to wellness programs claimed that those programs improved their health. Additionally, three out of four employees who did not have access to wellness programs wanted access to them, which means these initiatives may help boost retention. What types of corporate wellness programs are there? Remember that the most effective wellness programs cover multiple dimensions of health, which means there are many types of programs to choose from. Let’s dig in and take a look at corporate wellness programs through the lens of different health dimensions. Physical Physical corporate wellness programs include initiatives and activities related to movement, exercise, and physical well-being. Any activity that requires some level of movement or deals with the physical body (e.g., biometric screenings) is part of a physical wellness program. Emotional and mental Emotional and mental wellness refers to managing emotions and promoting positive mental health. These programs might emphasize healthy relationships in the workplace, stress management techniques, and overall emotional well-being at work and home. Financial Financial wellness programs are tailored toward activities that promote financial stability and smart money moves. Programs in this area are likely to be more educational, helping employees learn and understand financial literacy and behaviors around money. Social Social corporate wellness programs can help your employees improve their social interactions at work and home. For example, team-building activities are a great way to improve social wellness. Environmental Organizations have a unique opportunity to create environmental wellness programs to help promote sustainable living. In some cases, these programs might start with the immediate environment through sustainable changes in the office space before expanding more broadly. Volunteering Volunteer activities help support other elements of a holistic wellness program, including emotional, mental, and physical wellness. Sponsoring volunteer opportunities as part of your corporate wellness program is a great way to hit several wellness dimensions simultaneously. Your employee wellness program can include as many or as few of these types of focus areas as you’d like. It’s also worth connecting with your employees to find out which ones carry the most weight with them. Employee wellness activities: inspiration to get you started Incorporating employee wellness activities into your wellness program doesn’t have to be daunting, complicated, or expensive. Many activities require little effort and coordination, yet they remain effective and practical for meeting wellness goals. Here are a few employee wellness activity ideas to help you get started: Create a walking challenge. Walking challenges are a simple and accessible way for organizations to encourage more physical activity. The benefits of walking are endless, and this type of activity is perfect for in-office and remote employees. Offer free fitness classes or gym memberships to your employees. On-site fitness classes and covered costs for gym memberships can help your employees incorporate more physical activity into their routines. Additionally, on-site fitness classes give employees a chance to mingle outside of work conversations. Host a heart-healthy lunch for your staff. Hone in on healthy eating by providing a healthy lunch for your employees. Add educational components to teach them about nutritional habits and changes they can make to their diets. Conduct meditation sessions for stress relief. Stress management is an essential part of wellness in the workplace. Encourage and help employees manage their stress by offering coordinated meditation sessions and breaks. Bring in financial experts to discuss planning for retirement. Educate your employees on how to prepare financially for a stress-free retirement. Promote smoke-free lifestyles and smoking cessation programs. Through expert seminars, incentives, and more, you can help employees leave their smoking habits behind and implement more positive habits and routines. When it comes to employee wellness activities, the possibilities are endless. And thanks to the internet, remote workers can participate in employee wellness activities, too. Employee wellness activities for remote workers While many wellness activities can easily be adapted and modified for the remote workforce, here are some specific wellness activities to consider for your distributed workers: Offer subscriptions to on-demand fitness platforms. Remote workers might not be able to attend on-site fitness classes. So instead, consider offering on-demand fitness accessibility so they can exercise at their leisure. Send healthy snacks to your employees to enjoy at home. In place of a healthy in-person lunch, try using a subscription service or curating your own healthy snack box to send to employees. Empower your employees to adopt meditation habits with an app. Apps like Headspace and Calm can help teach your employees wellness skills while being part of a dispersed workforce. Consider offering subscriptions to employees for self-learning. Tips for implementing a workplace wellness program Are you ready to start implementing a workplace wellness program? These tips will help ensure your corporate wellness program is set up for success. 1. Conduct assessments to understand what your employees want Rather than put together an entire program based on what you think your employees want, conduct assessments to figure out how you can best support their wellness needs. Employee surveys and health assessments can help you evaluate and understand your organization's wellness interests and needs so you can tailor your program accordingly. You can also conduct an environmental assessment of your workplace if it feels applicable. 2. Establish a strong wellness committee to support your program Wellness programs shouldn’t fall solely on one person to manage and coordinate. While it may be the responsibility of an individual within your organization to lead an employee wellness program, you should establish a committee to support them. This committee should help to plan and implement all wellness programs, monitor and evaluate wellness activities, empower team members to participate in wellness efforts, and coordinate any post-program incentives. Aim for cross-departmental participation for this committee so you get a well-rounded view of how your program is doing. 3. Determine how to make the most of your budget An effective wellness program should be planned and well-managed, which means you should have a dedicated budget to consider how you’re going to spend that money ahead of time. While some wellness activities have little to no cost, others may require more of your budget. Budgets may need to be used to cover vendor fees, program incentives, wellness subscriptions, snacks, or other essential program items. 4. Divide and conquer different components of your wellness program Consider mapping out your program activities for the entire year. Determine which activities you want to include as part of your program and divide up the planning and scheduling efforts for those unique activities. Then, come back together and create your wellness calendar for the year ahead to share with employees, so they know what will be available to them. 5. Don’t forget to add rewards and incentives Helping your employees change their unhealthy behaviors can be tough, but rewards and incentives can help them see success. In addition to incentivizing employees to participate in a wellness activity or stay involved in your wellness program from start to finish, rewards can boost participation rates. Be mindful of the types of rewards you select for given activities. If an employee completes a healthy-eating challenge, a gift basket full of sweets may not be the best prize to help them stay committed to their changed behavior. 6. Test different activities and adjust your program along the way After implementing your wellness program, continue surveying your employees to understand which wellness activities they like and dislike. Your program should be flexible to reflect the wants and needs of your organization over time. Don’t be afraid to test different ideas and activities to find what sticks. How to organize wellness program for your company using Wrike From understanding the different types of wellness programs to coordinating and scheduling wellness activities, there’s a lot of information you need to organize to best support the health and well-being of your employees. A project management tool like Wrike can help you stay organized and execute your program vision. With Wrike, you can: Lean into cross-team collaboration with your wellness committee Use team calendars to coordinate wellness activities Access our Communication Plan Template for rolling out your wellness program to your company Integrate with other tools you may need to make your wellness program a success Making steps toward improved employee wellness starts today. Sign up for your free trial of Wrike and get working on your wellness program right away.
Team Collaboration Tools: Why Wrike’s Features Are Essential for Team Success
Just because more teams are dispersed now than pre-pandemic doesn’t mean work is slowing down. If anything, the pace of work for many teams remains the same or even sped up. More work can translate to more available resources and it’s not always in-house. Freelancers and agencies remain valued team members and can’t be forgotten since they’re relied upon to get work done. Keeping everyone inside and outside your organization up to speed on work proves to be more challenging as workloads increase and more team members get integrated into your workflow. That leads us to the next pain points in our series. Pain: Work visibility is too limited Teams need to have an overview of all their projects and be able to share work views with external stakeholders securely. When all stakeholders can’t see project progress at a glance, they risk missing updates and deadlines. As timelines change, all dependencies should dynamically change as well. You don’t want to spend time updating related work just because one item changed. There’s technology to assist with that — team collaboration tools are essential to helping your team clarify their work. Having a high-level calendar view of all your team’s work is necessary to see every project in progress. However, that’s not sufficient since individual tasks and projects need to be monitored at the micro-level, too, especially when multiple departments are tracking the projects in the context of their own unique workflows and reporting. Therefore, having a system to label work for multiple teams without duplicating efforts would make everyone happy. Pain: Reporting isn’t simplified and requires experts In a few clicks, can your team collaboration tools determine how many of your projects are new, in progress, under review, completed, overdue, and canceled? Can you identify any bottlenecks and resolve issues so that more of your team’s work avoids being delayed? If you answered “no” to either question, it’s time to reevaluate your reporting process. You need deep visibility and insight to ensure your team’s best results. But not all reports have the power to give you adequate insight, but the bigger problem is, not everyone has access to separate BI tools. Or maybe you rely on a business analyst to pull and analyze the results. Either way, collecting and interpreting the data on a weekly or monthly basis is a drag. Not only does your reporting process need to provide the necessary insight, but the reports should be visual with options like pivot tables, calendar heatmaps, pie charts, and bar charts so that you can understand the results. Furthermore, reporting dashboards should be interactive that get updated dynamically, and be customizable to how you work so that you can focus more of your time on producing results. Solving each pain with Wrike Wrike’s shared team calendars allow everyone to visualize priorities. When work is automatically synced to a shared calendar, it’s easier to see deadlines and future work coming soon. Calendars in Wrike’s online collaboration tool are customizable to match team needs, like the beginning of your fiscal year, or viewable by day, week, quarter, and year for a detailed snapshot of your team’s progress. Expand or collapse selected layers to get an overview of department, team, and individual workloads while spotting any potential bottlenecks and adjusting deadlines as needed. At the micro-level, Wrike’s cross-tagging capabilities increase transparency among all teams and open up the visibility of your work so that everyone involved can track progress. It’s not limited to tasks, either. Subtasks, folders, milestones, phases, and entire projects can be cross-categorized into multiple work streams. For example, to cross-tag a folder, navigate to the Space that has the folder you want to tag, and then follow these steps: In List view, use the folder icon in the top right to open the info panel. The folder's tags are listed under the title. Click + to add a tag and search for your desired folder in the dropdown list. To remove a tag, click the “x” next to the tag you’d like to remove. Cross-tagging benefits a wide variety of teams and individuals. Whether you’re part of a marketing team looking to open up visibility to others, doing daily standups to report on work in progress, or a Project Manager in a PMO ensuring that all work gets done on time, tagging your work makes it more accessible to those who need it. This functionality has proven to be a game-changer for customers and although competitors have cross-tagging abilities, their functionality is extremely limited to the task level. To track project progress, Wrike Analyze gives your team visibility and business intelligence without requiring access to a separate BI tool. Through our online collaboration tool, you can build customizable reports based on your use cases and choose from a range of visuals to convey the results. Any dashboard you build will update dynamically so you can get a snapshot of how your team is performing and where you’re experiencing bottlenecks. Topgolf relies on Wrike calendars and reports Meredith Selden, Senior Marketing Project Manager at Topgolf gives her thoughts on Wrike calendars and reporting: “Wrike is best for complex cross-functional projects where customizable calendars, dashboards, and reports are needed to automatically roll-up (to) projects and results in data... Applicable to any department and both waterfall and Agile methodology.” Alex Bacon, Assistant Communications Manager at Moneytree experienced the power of cross-tagging in Wrike: “...Through Wrike’s platform, we were able to create and deploy a new section on the blog in 2.5 days, complete with content. Wrike kept everything organized and transparent, so it was always very easy to see the status of the different elements and because of the tagging feature we were able to keep things moving very quickly...” Improve transparency and share work securely Increased workloads doesn’t mean that tracking work and transparency have to take a back seat. A team collaboration tool must be able to scale at your team’s pace and workload. Anything else is unsatisfactory. Download our new eBook, Empowering Teams With CWM: 13 Common Pain Points and How to Solve Them to learn the 16 most important components of a CWM solution. Then, try out Wrike’s online collaboration tool to see why 20,000 customers rely on our platform to get work done faster, share their work securely, and keep team members updated on project progress.
3 Reasons You're Unproductive at Work (Work Management Roundup)
So it's the Friday before Halloween, and while the rest of the United States is busy screening reruns of Freddy Krueger's and Jason Voorhees' greatest flicks, we discovered this week that your stressful job is literally killing you, and your inability to be productive at work is lowering your efficiency. Welcome to this week's terror-filled edition of the Work Management Roundup! 3 Ways You're Screwing Up Your Productivity at Work (Business Insider): The 2015 Work Management Report revealed the top three productivity mistakes. Here's how to avoid those mistakes and reclaim your day. Your Stressful Job is Literally Killing You (Washington Post): A new study by researchers at Harvard and Stanford has quantified just how much a stressful workplace may be shaving off of Americans' life spans. 3 Tips for Maximizing Your Happiness at Work (Inc): Happiness at work lies not in getting everything done (an impossible task, I might add), but rather, setting boundaries to avoid overflowing your to-do list. The WorkingMemory.txt File Hack (Study Hacks): Cal Newport demonstrates a simple way to work through a block of admin tasks: use a simple text file to capture, organize, and ultimately clarify all relevant information — leaving your brain free to execute. Is a Solid Customer Experience Enough to Ensure Customer Loyalty? (Forbes): Apparently the answer is no. The customer will always say "who cares?" about your service until you make a good enough impression on them. Which is why you need to give them a reason to keep coming back. 15 Customer Retention Strategies that Work (Help Scout): And if you're looking for concrete ways to put the above into action, here are 15 strategies, divided into 5 groups: communication, reciprocity, selling, support, and loyalty programs. The 3 Ways My Kids Give Me an Edge as an Entrepreneur (Medium): Is starting a family while starting a company a bad idea? Not according to this CEO who explains how his family motivates him to be a better entrepreneur. The Lying Down Desk (FastCo Exist): The entire standing desk frenzy has officially cooled down, with studies saying it isn't necessarily any better than sitting. But this new invention will probably be the nail in the coffin. Presenting: the lying down desk. Doesn't this remind you of the hoverbeds that the humans in Wall-E rode? More Work Management Reads Think About This: Screw Finding Your Passion (Mark Manson) How Our Tech Addiction—And Constant Distraction—Is A Solvable Design Problem (FastCo Exist) Why Too Much Choice Is Stressing Us Out (The Guardian) Founders, It's Not 1990. Stop Treating Your Employees Like It Is (Medium) Go Try This: Calculate how many other people have the same education, income, work hours, and commute as you do (Flowing Data) How to Foster Collaboration on Social Media (Inc) 10 Free and Paid Online Resources for Learning Creative Skills (Wrike) 5 Ways to Learn and Remember Absolutely Anything (Inc) Browse The Work Management Roundup on Flipboard If you use Flipboard on your mobile device, then you can choose to read these links via The Work Management Roundup magazine. View my Flipboard Magazine.
Telecommuting Leads to Decreased Job Satisfaction (Work Management Roundup)
Fourteen years ago today, Apple introduced the very first iPod at the staggering price of $399 and basically disrupted the way we purchase and consume music. It may not be hoverboards or "Jaws 19" (sorry, Back to the Future II), but at least we have portable music libraries in our pockets and virtual reality goggles. And furthermore, the way we do our work today is a definite improvement from the way our parents worked 30 years ago. Which only means we're on the right path. So let's keep creating those disruptive technologies and improving the way we work. Our weekly roundup gives you some tips on how to work smartly, lead humanely, and manage excellently! A Lesson in Negotiation (Lenny): A little over a week ago, Hollywood actress Jennifer Lawrence penned an essay for Lenny, the feminist newsletter run by Lena Dunham, explaining how she failed at negotiating for a better salary because she didn't want to appear spoiled or difficult. Lesson: know your worth and fight for it. Translating Quotes into Woman Speak (Washington Post): To illustrate exactly how difficult it is for women to speak honestly in the workplace, Alexandra Petri of The Washington Post tried converting famous historical quotes into how a woman would have to say them in a meeting to be taken seriously. Eye-opening, to say the least. Good Managers Know How to Listen (Entrepreneur): Speaking is only half the equation. Matt Mayberry over on Entrepreneur writes: If you can listen properly, you'll be a better leader. And not the "pretend" listening you do when you're on the phone while Mom shares neighborhood gossip. You need to practice careful, invested listening where egos are set aside so that the needs of the one speaking can be addressed. Young Entrepreneur Mistakes (Fortune): In Fortune Magazine, Wrike CEO Andrew Filev talks about the common mistakes that young entrepreneurs make. The best bit: "If your gut and your data are telling you the same thing, it’s time to listen. Don’t let burning all your cash be the thing that brings you down." A photo posted by Wrike (@wriketeam) on Oct 21, 2015 at 3:42pm PDT The Dark Cloud Around Remote Work (Fusion): We all know working from home is a growing trend worldwide as companies seek to save money leasing office space and workers seek to avoid horribly long commutes. But an article on Fusion.net shows new research that is casting doubt on the benefits of telecommuting. Their telecommuting productivity statistics say that people who telecommute 2 days a week experience decreased productivity and job satisfaction. So the advice now is: only work from home in small doses, and make sure your working-from-home equipment is up to scratch. Top Jobs with the Best Work-Life Balance (Fast Company): If you're dissatisfied with your current job and you're looking for a job that gives you the work-life balance you crave, then check out this Fast Company article. It lists the top 25 jobs with the best work-life balance. Although if you really want to reclaim control of your life, you could simply follow the Mayo Clinic's advice for workaholics. No One Cares How Much You Work (99U): Whether you work in an office or in your garage, please don't confuse effort with results. Oliver Burkeman over at 99U writes,"if you’re judging your output at the end of the work day by your level of tiredness, you’re sure to be misled". There's a difference between simply doing busywork and working smartly to get results! More Work Management Reads Think About This: How a Former Factory Worker Built a $7 Billion Fortune (Medium) Making the most of your 5–9: Why You Need to Take Microadventures to Stay Inspired (Medium) 10 Simple Practices for an Uncreative Life (Medium) Go Try This: 5 Reasons You Should Be Podcasting Right Now (LinkedIn) How to Have the Perfect Workday (Infographic) (Wrike) 6 Sleep Habits of Productive People (Fast Company) Browse Productivity Works on Flipboard If you use Flipboard on your laptop or mobile, then you'll enjoy our magazine on productivity tips. Check out Productivity Works or click on the widget below: View my Flipboard Magazine.
2 CWM Must-Haves: Enhanced Collaboration & Speedy Asset Approvals
For teams to work faster and deliver positive bottom-line results, two key conditions need to be met. First, teams need to be able to communicate asynchronously. Without an easy-to-use and mandated communication method, a team’s ability to collaborate effectively takes a hit. (One of the biggest productivity killers is time spent searching Slack, email, and more for the latest updates.) Second, everyone must be using the same collaborative work management platform to provide the feedback and grant the approvals that move work forward. Lacking one, or both, leads to slower progress, fractured teams, and reduced productivity. In part one of our “selecting the best CWM solution” series, we examined the four major pain points that modern hypergrowth businesses and enterprises face: A lack of process makes accepting and assigning work requests difficult. Managing a team’s work in spreadsheets is time-consuming and inefficient. Working without project tracking (visibility) into project progress means teams are siloed. Working out of multiple tools prevents teams from staying on the same page. In part two, we’ll focus on teams working together and fast-tracking approvals. Pain: More tools isn’t the answer As it goes at many companies, some technologies, like Slack, Zoom, or Microsoft Teams, and email, are used by everyone. Then there’s the siloed software used only by specific teams with access. For example, the product team works out of Atlassian and Miro. Meanwhile, the creative team uses Adobe and Figma to collaborate. Customer success uses Totango, Accelo, or ChurnZero to keep tabs on accounts, monitor churn, and look for upsell opportunities. With all these disconnected tools and limited team access, how do you provide visibility across teams to share files, tasks, reports, and project progress? It gets murky when you don’t have a single solution that everyone has access to for project updates, asset approval and management, and shared team calendars. Of course, one method to extend visibility is the @mention to get their attention and spark a conversation. Collaborative work management tools should include the @mention functionality by default but that’s only setting the stage for how teammates and stakeholders should be collaborating. File sharing and providing feedback on HTML and design assets are also important components because these features allow everyone to collaborate in the same interface. When your chosen software doesn’t allow you to do either one, you’re forced to work out of multiple platforms and critical feedback could be lost in translation. Pain: Design asset approval takes too long Marketing campaigns don’t go live until all assets are finalized, and just one unapproved asset can delay an entire campaign. When multiple assets live in disparate locations, keeping track of everything can be overwhelming. The result is a lengthy approval process when multiple stakeholders need to sign off and not everyone has access to all your tools. Approvers must be able to access the same software and communicate in real time. Even better if everyone can compare version histories to see what’s new. With design feedback, having the ability to pinpoint specific areas with edits is ideal instead of drafting screenshot mockups. Furthermore, your CWM should have established workflows where you can automatically move assets (and projects) to the next person and stage in production. Collaboration is in Wrike’s DNA The @mention functionality is an easy way to draw someone's attention to a high-priority conversation or message. Whereas some collaborative work management tools allow its users to @mention colleagues in limited areas, others don’t support project- or folder-level collaboration. Hypergrowth and enterprise teams need more. Wrike has the @mention, of course, and what’s great is that conversations are streamlined at the folder, project, task, and subtask levels. Descriptions are organized above conversation threads and support multi-user live editing. In addition to conversations, teams may have files in separate places that other stakeholders will need to collaborate on for projects. Wrike’s file sharing and uploading capabilities accepts files from your computer, Google Drive, Dropbox, Box, Microsoft One Drive, SharePoint, YouTube, and website links, along with digital asset management providers MediaValet and Bynder. Pretty much any file source you have, Wrike can upload. Launch campaigns on time with speedy asset approval Now that you’ve uploaded your file, your team needs to work together to finalize the asset. Wrike’s proofing capabilities boost team productivity and creative output because you can visually mark up and compare images, videos, PDFs, Word documents, PowerPoints, and HTML web content for easy edits and fast approvals. Highlight text, click images, or select time markers to leave clear, contextual comments. Reply to and discuss feedback inline, and resolve comments as edits are made. As a bonus, you can access the functionality inside Adobe® Creative Cloud® applications to view feedback and make changes without switching tabs or tools. You can also invite external reviewers if they’re outside your organization, and it’s all secure with password protection: Aerotek speeds up asset approvals with Wrike Aerotek eliminated weeks from their planning time by using Wrike, and Matt Andrews, Marketing Campaign Manager, loves the proofing capabilities: “Having the ability to critique work, mark it up within the tool, and have it go directly back to the team saves us a lot of time… “There’s no functionality for mark up in email. Now we’re able to skip some meetings and do everything in-line while capturing the history of all the comments and revisions.” Experience the Wrike difference Evaluating CWM software is more than just reading customer reviews and comparing functionality on a pricing page. It’s not a decision to take lightly — your team’s work depends on having a solution that enables them to work their way. Download our new eBook, Empowering Teams With CWM: 13 Common Pain Points and How to Solve Them to learn the top 16 most important CWM features for hypergrowth and enterprise teams. Whether your team is fully remote, hybrid, or returning to office full-time, you can always collaborate better and approve work faster. Let Wrike show you how by starting a free trial today.
Spend Less Time Working & More Time Learning (Work Management Roundup)
It's Friday, dear readers. The week's best work-related and productivity-centered reads await you in our Work Management roundup! Some of the most interesting links this week talk about how working less (and learning more) will lead to more satisfaction with your life. Curious? Read on! Why We Should Spend Less Time Working, and More Time Living & Learning (Open Culture): In this long-form blog post, read how two 20th century thought leaders — Buckminster Fuller (American architect/inventor & visionary) and Bertrand Russell (British philosopher & social critic) — both challenged the notion that we must have wage-earning jobs in order to lead fulfilling lives. Their view: we are entitled to indulge our passions and interests even if it leads to no monetary gain. How To Create (At Least) An Extra Week Per Month for Professional Development (Michelle Ockers): "That's all good and well," you say after reading the article above, "but where do you get the time to devote to learning?" Michelle Ockers has a solution: a little bit everyday, especially in the mornings when the brain is freshest. Read her 4 principles for making time for professional development. Getting More Done At Work Won’t Make You As Happy As Just Working Less (Fast Co. Exist): And then there's this article which correlates money, employment, and overall life satisfaction, and shares this food-for-thought: "In that sense, being productive at work helps— but only if you think it’ll lead to a raise." 3 Surprising Habits That Will Increase Your Joy at Work (Inc.com): But if you really want to be happy at work and satisfied with your career decisions, then you have to stop listening to the absolutes being fed to you by other people and start listening to yourself. Here are 3 habits that might help you. Start Something: The Power of Side Projects (Medium): While we're talking about happiness at work, why not start a side project that uses your talents and incites your curiosity? After all, that's how Uber, Instagram, and StumbleUpon all started. More Work Management Reads Think About This: The Rise of the Outrageously Long Commute (The Atlantic) Road Warrior Productivity: 9 Tips & 8 Tools for Being Productive While Traveling (Wrike) Why Entrepreneurs Should Never Feel Guilty for Sleeping (Infographic) (Entrepreneur) Why I Unfollowed You on Instagram: The Social Network is Yesterday, The Interest Feed is Tomorrow (Medium) Factors that Influence Startup Success in 2015 (Infographic) (Design Hill) Go Try This: Two Useless Phrases You Must Eliminate from Emails (Fast Company) Night School: Does Sleep Learning Work? (Aeon) How Should You Be Marketing to Generation Z Through Social? (Infographic) (Adweek) 6 Lists You Need to Make Everyday Productive (Fast Company) A Productivity Lesson from the Prison Debate Team that Defeated Harvard (Cal Newport's Study Hacks) Browse Productivity Works on Flipboard If you use Flipboard on your laptop or mobile, then you'll enjoy our magazine on productivity tips. Check out Productivity Works or click on the widget below: View my Flipboard Magazine.
Selecting the Best Collaborative Work Management Solution
From here on out, organizations are going to have to accommodate a distributed workforce. Depending on the line of business, some organizations will return to the office, others will stay remote, and the rest will adopt a hybrid model. Regardless of the model your organization selects, a company’s workforce will need to be connected and in sync. As the last year has demonstrated, the only way teams can stay connected and productive is by adopting collaborative work management (CWM) tools. Because a CWM tool is designed to be the hub of all your work, selecting the best solution to fit your unique needs is essential. It must possess the core capabilities and key features needed to enhance productivity while being configurable enough to conform to your workflows without sacrificing scalability. Today’s post is the first in a five-article series that details the most common pain points businesses face in managing their work and how Wrike solves each one. Pain: No organized method to accept new projects Work requests can come from anywhere — Slack, email, standup and virtual meetings, or desk drop-ins. These aren’t ideal or sustainable. Compounding this problem, oftentimes requests lack the details needed to get started. As a result, you end up chasing down the requestor to fill in the blanks. Adding to the mess, a disjointed intake process guarantees that those who need visibility into a project or task won’t have it. You need a simplified, one-stop channel to accept and view all new and upcoming projects. Whether your team operates within Agile or Waterfall, your CWM should include templatized request forms, easy-to-configure dashboards, workflows, and reporting. If your CWM is so rigid that you have to conform to it, it’s time to look for an alternate solution. This brings us to ... Pain: Spreadsheets aren’t a work management solution Spreadsheets are great for organizing data, but managing complex workflows and tracking progress in Excel or Google Sheets is worse than “old school”; it's a potential threat to the bottom line and your business’s longevity. First, spreadsheets are disconnected from email and chat tools like Slack and Microsoft Teams, killing cross-functional collaboration. Of course, you can tag somebody in a comment thread, but ongoing communication gets messy in a hurry. With a variety of work deliverables often in progress (e.g., emails, landing pages, prototypes, graphic design, videos, etc.) trying to manage everything in spreadsheets is a nightmare. In addition, spreadsheets lack the visualization tools like Gantt charts and interactive dashboards to track project progress; identify risk; and manage resources, workflows, contract types, and customizable fields for project start and end dates. Relying on an antiquated method to manage your team’s work prohibits collaboration and slows down your ability to scale and deliver results. Pain: Too many tools, not enough time Spreadsheets are a drag for sure, but too many tools can be just as bad, maybe worse. Some organizations are using too many applications to collaborate and get work done. Cross-functional teams like marketing, sales, product, and customer success use separate tools, but everyone must work together to achieve a common result. With too many scattered tools, there’s no master system of record for teammates to collaborate, move work forward, approve assets, track billable time, and more. There’s a better solution, one that hypergrowth and enterprise teams use to get work done and scale at their pace. Not to mention the countless hours you and your team spend getting disparate tools to play nice. Follow the paper trail (that’s a good thing) A single source of truth, where a record of all team communication and how projects reached completion are kept, is a good thing. If you’re constantly switching between Slack, email, product management, and design tools, then you’re keeping some team members siloed in those tools and out of the loop of other (related) project questions. Plus, you lose valuable time copying details from one software to another to update other teams or clients. How Wrike solves each problem To simplify and organize incoming work requests, Wrike has dynamic request forms that channels work to the right teams or individuals based on form inputs. These customizable forms and blueprints make it simple for requesters to input their exact needs and the responders to collect the necessary information and begin work immediately. No more chasing down the stakeholder to get clarification on dependencies, specs, budget, and the deadline. Upon form submission, the request gets sent to the correct teammate, automatically saving time assigning the work. This automated intake system enables team members to have visibility into the new project. No more checking Slack, email, or handwritten notes for project details. Wrike’s dynamic request forms allow account and Space admins to create rules, such as: Designating additional assignees or project owners. Adding subtasks or subprojects to the submitted form. Setting up approvals for the task or project created. What Wrike customers have to say Charli Edwards, Head of Design at Built Environment Communications Group, on why her team relies on Wrike’s automated project intake process: “We use the request forms for a creative briefing which are then automatically linked to our in-house resource, this means everything is one place, fully trackable and transparent — everyone is always clear on what they are doing and how long it should take.” When you have repeatable projects, Wrike users can save time creating tasks and dependencies using blueprints, which let you manage your project, folder, and task templates to plan your work while keeping it separated from ongoing work. Launch a blueprint to quickly create a task, folder, or project with attributes you've already specified. As your team scales and more projects get greenlit, you’ll need an efficient way to collaborate and have a centralized hub to host your work. Wrike is a recognized leader in collaborative work management, acting as a single source of truth with enhanced collaboration capabilities, file uploading, custom workflows, fast-tracking approvals, tracking billable time, and more. No more hectic processes trying to manage all your work with dozens of spreadsheets, chasing down approvals, or work slipping through the cracks. With Wrike’s CWM platform, you’ll have a master system of record for all comments, document versions, and approvals. A win-win-win. Brynne Roberts, Director of Creative Operations Fitbit on how Wrike speeds up their product launch preparations: “Before Wrike, there was no structure with product launches. We used to spend hours building and managing a complex spreadsheet to track marketing materials for upcoming launches. We’d be late on deadlines and working overtime every day. Burnout was at an all-time high. Now we can see what’s on everyone’s plates with reporting. And timelines allow us to project and provide transparency on how long it will take. We work faster, update key dates for deliverables much more quickly, and eliminate human error. We’ve likely saved around 200 or more hours per year in our launch prep.” Shaun Carlson, Director of Continuous Innovation and R&D at Arvig: “In the past when we onboarded new developers, it took 6-9 months before they reached peak productivity. With Wrike as a single source of truth for the knowledge and activities surrounding our work, and the Kanban methodology to help us prioritize tasks, that onboarding timeline is only 3-4 months now which has been a game-changer for our enterprise business growth.” Get more from your collaborative work management software Most teams experience the same growing pains accepting work requests, managing their work, and having a historical record of all communication. With many CWM solutions on the market claiming to be the answer, how can you feel confident you’re making the best decision for your team? Get your free copy of our new eBook, “Empowering Teams With CWM: 13 Common Pain Points and How to Solve Them” to learn the top 13 pain points and the 16 most important features to address each need. Then start your Wrike free trial and see why Wrike is the leading collaborative work management solution having won awards from Forrester and GetApp.
Top 5 Things That Stress Workers Out (Work Management Roundup)
It's Friday, friends! Which means there's a week's worth of good reads waiting for you here in the weekly Work Management roundup! This week we bring you links to articles that will help you excel in the workplace. The 5 Things That Stress People Out the Most At Work (Inc.com): Stress is a common roadblock to productivity at work. But what are the top 5 causes of stress at work? This article tackles the top "what"s and "why"s, according to 1,500 survey respondents of the 2015 Work Management Survey Report. Individual Productivity? No. It's About Team Productivity (LinkedIn): With so much focus on personal productivity especially within the workplace, there's been a significant lack of talk surrounding how to make entire teams more productive. Here are 3 tips. The High Cost of Multitasking (Wrike): The problem is that when we jump from task to task, we aren’t really getting more done. Instead, we’re forcing our brains to constantly switch gears, which means we're exhausting our mental reserves and working harder to do things at a lower level of quality. 15 Things Every Newbie Needs to Know About Starting a Business (Entrepreneur): Brandon Turner shares 15 of the biggest lessons he's learned over the past decade about building and growing a business. And some of them are surprising. How to Ditch Your To-Do List (LinkedIn): Productivity author Tony Robbins explains how to-do lists focus only on what you need to get done. Checking them off doesn't necessarily mean you’re actually making any real progress. More Work Management Reads Think About This: The Mechanics of MVP Software Development (MentorMate) The Price We Pay for Sitting Too Much (Wall Street Journal) The Book I Always Recommend to First-Time Managers (Medium) Go Try This: At last! A Cheat Sheet for Writing Blog Posts That Explode Traffic (3 Simple Hacks) (Inbound.org) All The Productivity Tips You Need In 9 Infographics (Lifehack.org) 5 Unsubscribe Emails That Made Me Smile (Nudgespot Blog) Productivity Experts Share their 10 Best Tips for a Morning Routing Makeover (Fast Company) 2 Simple Email Marketing Tricks You Should Be Using (TheNextWeb) Browse The Work Management Roundup on Flipboard If you use Flipboard on your laptop or mobile, then you can also read these links via The Work Management Roundup magazine. View my Flipboard Magazine.
Would Your Company Survive a 6-Hour Workday? (Work Management Roundup)
It's Friday, which means it's time for the weekly Work Management roundup! And since it's the first Friday of October, it's also National Manufacturing Day. So, just a little aside: kudos to all who build and manufacture goods and services here in America. Anyway, this week we have compiled links to articles that will help you build yourself into a better worker. Sweden is Shifting to Six-Hour Workdays (FastCoExist): It's been proven that clocking in longer hours is detrimental to both the individual and the organization, which is why Sweden is taking that info to heart. The six-hour workday is becoming more and more common for Swedish companies as organizations strive for a better work/life balance. The Top 6 Free "Getting Things Done" Software (Capterra): So you want to get organized, and you need some tech recommendations? These 6 GTD tools are free for at least one user. Check them all out. The Best Time for a Break Might Be Mid-Morning, Not the Afternoon (Lifehacker): New research suggests that it’s better to take a break before you’ve used up your mental resources, in order to actually refresh and recuperate your mind and body — which means taking breaks earlier in the day. How to Fly Like a Pro (Business Insider): Do you travel a lot for work? Sick of the stress of flying? Here are twenty illustrated tips on how to fly like a pro. For example: avoid coffee & drink green tea instead (so you don't dehydrate yourself). 17 Books to Inspire Creative Teams (Wrike): If you're part of a creative team, you need to feed the mind to ensure that you never run out of fresh ideas. This list of 17 books will inspire you and provide you with energy and creative juice for the work ahead. More Work Management Reads Think About This: Why Having Friends at Work is So Important (Fast Company) How Louis C. K. Became Funny and Why it Matters (Cal Newport's Study Hacks) Go Try This: Forget Business School--Just Watch These 10 TED Talks (Inc) 15 Types of Photos You Can Tweet (Even if Your Product is Ugly) (AdWeek) How to Stop Micromanaging Your Team (Harvard Business Review) 7 Ways to Ensure Fans Don't Miss Your Facebook Page Updates (Marketing Profs) Browse The Work Management Roundup on Flipboard If you use Flipboard on your mobile device, then you can choose to read these links via The Work Management Roundup magazine. View my Flipboard Magazine. Image Credit: The Evening Commute by Jamie McCaffreyon Flickr. Some rights reserved. Changes made.
3 Ways Collaborative Work Management Fuels Enterprise Agility
Embracing change in the current post-digital world to remain relevant and competitive has become more critical than ever. Read more to learn how collaborative work management can fuel enterprise agility and help your business stand out from the rest.
Stop Procrastination by Understanding the Underlying Emotions (Work Management Roundup)
It's Friday, which means it's time for the Friday Roundup. But even better, it's September 25th, which also happens to be National Comic Book Day! In honor of that, we present to you the latest batch of links to articles that will make you a superhero in the workplace, at home, and yes, they'll even power your project management. Up, up, and away! To Stop Procrastinating, Start By Understanding the Emotions (Wall Street Journal): Procrastination is an emotional reaction brought on by stress. If stress is your kryptonite, then time management strategies can only get you so far. You will need to conquer it by first understanding the emotional reasons for why you delay work. If you can, you'll soon become invincible. 4 Tricks to Sharpen Your Mind at Work (Wired): While these tips won't turn you into the genius Professor X from X-Men, they will allow you to tackle work with fresh energy, and give you a sharp perspective that might seem a little superhuman to your colleagues. 5 Project Management Lessons to Learn from Superheroes (Wrike): Spider Man, Green Lantern, Thor, and others superheroes all have something to teach you about project management. Learn something to boost your leadership from these famous leaders. Creative Exercises for Creative Teams (Medium): If your super creative team faces the evil menace called artist's block (it threatens to destroy all work!), then choose an idea from this list of 29 creative exercises that are sure to get the ideas flowing once again. 131 Actionable Ideas from Ten Books I Wish I Had Read Ages Ago (Medium): Here's a collection of the important action items from 10 books on productivity, habit-building, and business. It's Cliff Notes for workers who are too busy to read full books, but still want to power up their skills. Long Hours Backfire for Companies and Workers (Harvard Business Review): Research proves that working long hours harms workers and inevitably, companies. It's a story of burnout and diminishing returns. And if you keep at it too long, even superheroes can begin to wilt. More Work Management Must-Reads: Powerful Lists 26 of The Best Collaboration Apps for Your Team (Medium) 54 Seriously Cool Apps to Make Everyone’s Lives Easier (Wrike) 131 Actionable Ideas from Ten Books I Wish I Had Read Ages Ago (Medium) 100 incredible things I learned watching 70 hours of TED talks last week (A Life of Productivity) Insightful Essays Multi-tasking: how to survive in the 21st century (FT.com) What's Worse for Your Career: Boredom or Stress? (USNews) This Graphic Explains 20 Cognitive Biases That Affect Your Decision-Making (Lifehacker) How to Test and Validate Startup Ideas (Medium) Browse The Work Management Roundup on Flipboard If you use Flipboard on your mobile device, then you can choose to read these links via The Work Management Roundup magazine. View my Flipboard Magazine. Image credit: life, cubed 08.12.09 [224] by timlewisnm on Flickr. Some rights reserved. Changes made.
4 Ways to Measure the ROI of Work Management Tools
Whether you’re trying to decide what solution is worth the investment, prove the investment to key stakeholders, or show the ROI for a solution you already have, here are the 4 key ways you can measure the ROI of your collaborative work management tool.
9 Phrases to Avoid If You Want to Sound Competent (Work Management Roundup)
It's Friday — time for the weekly Work Management Roundup. This week we tackle what phrases to use to sound more competent, note-taking with pen and paper, customizing stock photos, and using kindness as a strategy. Plus more articles on tools, productivity hacks and work.
How to Be Available Even When Out of the Office (Work Management Roundup)
It's time for the Friday Roundup once again. Today also marks 14 years since the tragedy of 9/11. We wanted to put together an especially heroic collection of links to the best articles on work management, productivity, and work. So grab your drink of choice and warm up your Wrike Chrome extension to bookmark the articles you'll want to read later on the ride home. Here they are: How-To Articles: Successful Entrepreneurs Are Never 'Out of the Office' (Entrepreneur): Entrepreneur and sales expert Grant Cardone suggests 2 rules so that you're always open to opportunity, even when you're technically offline. And no it's not a recipe for becoming a workaholic, rather, it's a plan of action for never turning away new business. To Become a Leader, Think Beyond Your Role (Harvard Business Review): Excellent read on defining your role broadly and how thinking like an owner can actually help you lead more fruitfully. Design a Pitch Deck: Lessons from a Seasoned Founder (Medium): The founder of men's fashion app Mylo explains the dos and don'ts of creating and designing a pitch deck. Bonus tip: even Slideshare says bullet points are bad. Find the Cheapest Flights With These 5 Travel Apps (DailyTekk): Forget the days of the mega-sites that promised cheap tickets but never really delivered. This list of 5 travel apps will transform how you shop for flights. Just, be warned that frequent business travel is bad for your health. Get New Content for Your Site (Audience Bloom): Yep, you constantly need new content for your company blog. Marketers know the struggle is real. But here are 7 ways to get new content for your blog from guest posts to interviews and more. And they're all free. Master Twitter Like a Boss (Medium): Buffer put together a guide for Twitter newbies which condenses and combines their best advice on this social media platform —all in one blog post. More Work Management Reads How Can I Leave at 5 P.M. Without Looking Like a Slacker? (Fast Company) The Project Management Guide for Beginners (Wrike) Digital Sabbaticals Don’t Make Sense (Cal Newport) 24 Life Changing Productivity Tools (Medium) 15 Habits That Will Change Your Life (Devious Gentlemen) The Ultimate Guide to the Perfect Meeting (Wrike) Looking for more Startup Advice? Follow our Flipboard magazine Startup Spark Up for links to articles on emerging businesses, founder advice, and best practices for entrepreneurs. Image credit: alone by Giorgio Montersino on Flickr. Some rights reserved. Changes made.
The Work Management Proficiency Index: Paving the Way to Post-Digital Success
In a post-digital era, companies must meet customer expectations for on-demand products, services, and experiences. We’re excited to announce Wrike’s Work Management Proficiency Index, which synthesizes work management experiences with over 20,000 leading companies and data analysis into a simple and actionable framework!
How to Build a Best-in-Class Creative Team & More (Work Management Roundup)
BWelcome to the Friday Work Management Roundup, where we bring together the week's best reads on productivity and work. This week, we feature articles on how to build an internal creative agency, earn a 4-day workweek, unlock new ideas, and meditate for creativity. Not to mention many more lifehacks and work tips. Read on! How-To Articles: Build a World-Class Internal Creative Agency (Wrike): A free eBook and a comprehensive guide to finding the right talent, and building your creative team into a true strategic partner within your organization — not just "the people who design the website." Convince Your Boss to Give You Every Friday Off (FastCoExist): A 4-day work week is possible — but you'll have to do a little convincing to get Fridays off forever and make sure you bring your A game to the office. Unlock New Ideas (Fast Company): 10 ultra-creative people share their secrets to unlocking new ideas, from uncovering past experiences to constant trial-and-error. Transform Your Day with Meditation (Fast Company): Can meditation really lead you to more fruitful creativity? An initially skeptical writer tested the waters, and now she's talking about how it worked for her and how she hopes to make it a daily habit. Open All the Links For Your Project in One Click (Cloud Coach): A really simple browser trick! Save a set of sites that you use frequently into a folder of bookmarks, then open them with just one click with this quick tip. Engage Employees More Fully (When I Work): A good list of activities that will be sure to fully engage your employees, including: parties, trainings, learning lunches, and more. More Work Management Reads: The Project Management Guide for Beginners (Wrike) What Happens to Your Brain When You Eat Junk Food (And Why We Crave It) (James Clear) The billion-dollar aphorisms of Ray Dalio, who built the world’s biggest hedge fund by running it like a cult (New York) How an Accidental Email Sent to 33,000 People Created a 'Reply All' Nightmare (Entrepreneur) 25 Quotes Leaders Read Daily To Motivate Themselves (Employee Scheduling Pro) Finally Reach Inbox Zero: 4 Expert Solutions for Your Email Personality (Sidekick) 100 Fresh Blogs for Creative Professionals to Follow (Creative Boom) Follow "Social Project Management" on Flipboard If you use Flipboard on your mobile device, then follow our magazine Social Project Management for links to project management technology, PM techniques, and tips on collaboration and team management.
How to Prioritize Wrike Tasks With an Eisenhower Decision Matrix
If you're the typical worker, you'll start with the most immediate fire being shoved in your face the minute you get to your desk. But that isn't ideal. There's a smarter way to determine priority, and it involves a tool invented more than 50 years ago by the 34th president of the United States: Dwight D. Eisenhower.
How To Survive Being Surrounded By Geniuses (Work Management Roundup)
Welcome to the Friday Work Management Roundup, where we bring together the week's best reads on productivity and work. This week, we feature articles on how to fight back when you're too busy, unmotivated, and feeling a little, well, stupid. But not in a negative way! On the contrary, some of it will make you laugh. Read on: Must DO: How to Kick Ass Even When You Are Stupid (Medium): With a title like that it better be hilarious. And it is. Writer John Altucher talks about how he's constantly surrounded by smarter people. These are his tried-and-proven coping mechanisms for surviving — without trying to fake intelligence. How to Keep Yourself Motivated (Medium): If you ever feel unmotivated to get through your work, here are 3 tips to help you keep on keeping on. It's includes a pretty unique tip we're reading for the first time: get yourself an accountability buddy. How to Be a Great Manager vs. an Average Manager (Medium): For you comics fans, here's a webcomic illustrating 5 typical situations in which managers communicate with their people. The difference between Great and Average lies in the choice of words and the accompanying actions. How to Start a 30-Second Habit with a Lifelong Impact (STARTUPS + WANDERLUST + LIFE HACKING): Super simple. After every meeting or significant experience, take 30 seconds to write down the most important points. Read about why this matters. Must READ: Your $4 T-Shirt is Costing You Millions (Medium): One entrepreneur advises companies to spend twice as much on logo emblazoned t-shirts so they get 10 times the value. Because people really will keep wearing your company's t-shirt if it looks and feels good. The Cult Of Busy (Medium): Dina Kaplan's insightful essay on how we tend to glorify busywork, and brag that "my to-do list is longer than yours." A great reminder to step back, make time for what's important, and stop using "I'm busy" as a status symbol. The Science Behind Broken Work Cultures (Fast Company): Amidst the debris of the Amazon culture debate, this article looks at research on motives. As it turns out, the better our reasons for working, the better we perform at work. Makes sense. Take a deep dive into the 6 fundamental motives of why we do anything. I Spent a Month Replying to All of My PR Emails With "I Love You" (Hexjam): The founder of a PR agency decided to prank everyone who emailed him by professing love in his email communications. Hilarity ensues. Work Management Listicles: 8 Strategies Famous CEOs Use to Fight Ineffective Meetings (Business.com) 6 Project Management Lessons from Fantastic Four that Guarantee Project Failure (Capterra) 5 Major Ways Freelancers Will Change the Economy by 2040 (Fast Company) 10 Best Growth Hacks of All Time (Medium) 5 Fantastic Free Apps for Fighting Forgetfulness (Fast Company) Browse The Work Management Roundup on Flipboard If you use Flipboard on your mobile device, then you can choose to read these links via The Work Management Roundup magazine. And if you don't use Flipboard yet, this is the perfect time to give it a try: iTunes Store | Google Play Store Image Credit: Brainy vs. Brain by JD Hancock on Flickr. Some rights reserved.
5 Best Practices for Managing Incoming Work Requests
Managing this deluge of requests is time-consuming, unwieldy, and difficult to sustain as your company scales. Follow these best practices to bring order to the chaos of incoming work requests so you can spend more time completing important projects and less time apologizing for dropping the ball.