Do you know how speed can affect your health, efficiency and family time?

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Nowadays, we are working faster, driving faster, communicating faster, eating faster – in short, living faster. The time savings gained by technology have been offset by increases in complexity, choices, interruptions, expectations, stress, delays and errors. Our bodies are not designed to operate at warp speed and we are faced with a variety of ailments to the point that “getting well” has become another time consumer.
Life in general is being lived at a much faster pace than 50 years ago – or even 20 years ago. We have a love affair with speed. And it borders on the ridiculous. From fast food and instant downloads to one-minute bedtime stories and drive-through funerals, businesses are competing for our discretionary time.
The average business lunch is down to 36 minutes or less. One article claims the average worker eats lunch in 24 minutes. The expression “lunch hour” is a misnomer. Everyone seems intent on packing more and more into every hour, some even gobbling down fast food as they check their email. In the following article written by time expert Harold Taylor you can get an idea of how speed affects the way we work and live. Don’t miss this interesting piece!

The hazards of speed
In order to get everything done, we are sacrificing sleep and discretionary time. The average American now gets 90 minutes less sleep a night than she did a century ago. Drowsiness causes more car accidents than alcohol. In my lifetime, the average amount of sleep we get has decreased from just over 8 hours per night to 6.7 hours. Getting less than 6 hours of sleep a night can impair motor coordination, speech, reflexes and judgment.

10+ universe facts worth knowing

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There is no more exciting nor more significant development in science than modern cosmology. What greater question could we ask than how we came to exist? Whence the Universe? How and why are there galaxies and atoms; carrots and quanta; what does it all mean, if there is such a thing as meaning? Here are some milestones in the development of today’s understanding of the universe.
We learn what we learn about the universe from light and almost all of our natural light comes from a nearby star we call the Sun, either directly or by reflection off the Moon. With our eyes we can see a few thousand stars and five other planets that orbit the sun like the Earth. But, we didn’t look very closely until about 1600.
In a little over 100 years, the genius of Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Newton removed most of the mythology from astronomy.  The sun became just another star, stars became just other suns, and gravity ruled the behavior of rocks and Moons with one unifying, universal law.

Consumer psychology: Why do you end up buying the products you buy?

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Everyday, you and millions of other potential consumers make thousands of decisions. You are not consciously aware of most of the decisions you make, but you make most of them the same way, by reflecting on the drawbacks involved, and then picking that course of action with the fewest drawbacks (or the least painful ones).
Herbert Simon, a Nobel Prize winning economist, referred to this as “satisficing.” Instead of optimizing satisfaction, and choosing an outstanding product in terms of its aspects in one particular area, we compromise on the best so that we do not get the worst in some other aspect. We don’t settle for the best in one area, but the least bad in all areas. This article provides you with useful information on how customers make their decisions. Take a look!

What is ‘Out’ in Social Media and what is ‘In’

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Since 2010, when Social Media first became an internet buzzword, it has proven itself to be not only a cultural facilitator, but also a very real business tool. Social networks powerfully differentiate themselves from previous internet marketing channels in that on a daily basis, they are gathering, parsing and sorting the commercially valuable demographic data of the end user.
Social Media now describes wide range of services, communications and evolutions that are concurrently taking place throughout cyberspace. While the phrase is descriptive, it is better to think of it as one of many views of the internet. It is important to recognize social media as a subset of a larger whole where the component parts and various platforms, protocols and devices are all different ways to see the same distributed information, communications and manufacturing networks.

Self-confidence: go back to the roots and pull out the best in yourself

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The words self-confidence and motivation did not always exist in common conversation. They are expressions that emerged as skills became more technical and one started to analyse them at the same time as human behaviour. In the workplace, self-confidence and efficacy seem to be at the root of success. In this article, we will try to find out why…
Now, let us look at the contrary situation: a person who lacks self-confidence will often sit in a corner, not participate in conversations, which in turn leads to them to doing their work nonchallantly. This proves that self-confidence, motivation and efficacy go together and are vital in the working world. It is important to look at each one of these competences to find the root of their importance.
1. Self-confidence
There are two aspects of self-confidence: the first is competence, whether or not you have the necessary skills and abilities to complete a task. The second is self-assurance and whether or not you believe that you have the ability to complete the task.

Why are Projects Late? An introduction to Critical Chain!

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Project Teams are expected to complete Projects before or on the committed due date, within budget and without compromise to the original specification.  History shows a pattern of project underperformance, with most projects not meeting one or more of these expectations. Many external factors are blamed for this under performance; however the PM method is not questioned.
The frequent switching of the Critical Path (CP) when Tasks are updated is not questioned. This CP switching certainly increases Multi-Tasking in-turn causing excessive set-up, set-down and re-set-up, draining the available Resource capacity. This white paper builds on the foundational work laid by Critical Path and suggests that using well established Process Control Methods, tactically located “Shock Absorbing’ buffers can be inserted into the project network effectively stabilizing the Critical Path, which reduces the wasted energy chasing fluctuating priorities. In addition, these Buffers provide sufficient Early Warning and identify exactly where and when intervention is required to keep the project inside a budget, within due date and to specification.
Critical Path
Critical Path has been the generally accepted method of managing projects since the cold war. Building on this foundational work and introducing the generally accepted method of Process Control, the Critical Path can become a Stable Datum Plane, enhancing predictability while reducing wasted resource capacity.

Organisational success: can’t live without creativity

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Do you know what the ultimate competitive advantage in today’s fast changing business climate is? The answer is: organisational creativity. Business is fundamentally a creation process: creation of customer value, creation of new technologies and processes, creation of new market space, and creation of the better ways of creation itself.  It is therefore safe to say that a world class organisation must exhibit an unequalled excellence in creation in order to be recognised.
Organisations need to develop from within
Harnessing organisational creativity is rapidly becoming the most important ingredient in achieving business excellence in almost all aspects of business. It is a capability that organisations can develop from within. Harnessing creativity to gain competitive advantage is not a matter of waiting for inspiration to descend from the sky, but a deliberate process and capability that is institutionalised in the organisation and can be called upon when deeded.

Are you a smart manager? Do you know how to motivate your employees?

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The objectives of an organization can be achieved only through the efforts of people. And people need to be motivated in an understanding way to put in their best. However, what motivates one person might not motivate another, and therefore for the best results any manager should be understanding and, as far as feasible, get to know something about each of his/her subordinates.
Any manager must endeavour to get the best from each individual member of his/her team or work group, and that might require motivating different members in different ways, while still motivating the team or group as a whole. It requires the building of a good “work environment” based on the spirit of trust and cooperation between management and other personnel. The HR manager – along with other managers – has an important role to play in developing and maintaining a good work environment. Here are some strategies managers can put into action to truly motivate their employees.
Motivation strategies
To a large extent, a high level of employee motivation is derived from effective management practices. To develop motivated employees, HR manager should ensure that HR personnel as well as other departmental managers must do the following:

Refresh your definition of the right Marketing Mix

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You might wonder why there is so much fuss about the importance of the right marketing mix. Well, just imagine you have just come up with THE perfect business idea — a product or service that you think countless people will want and demand. It is time to get a business banking account and lease a building, right? Not yet.
Businesses exist to conduct exchanges with others. Individuals and organizations outside of the firm exchange their resources for the products and/or services of the business. Without those exchanges, businesses will be unable to cover costs and meet expenses and will eventually go out of business.
The product or service that a firm offers is critically important in creating exchanges, but equally important are the prices that the firm charges, the ways that consumers are made aware of and encouraged to trade with the firm, and where and how to get the product or service to the consumer. In marketing, those ideas are known as the marketing mix—product, price, promotion, and place.
Product
A good product or service satisfies needs or wants. Necessity goods and services meet basic human needs (food, clothing, shelter, medical services, etc.). Luxury goods and services go beyond basic needs.

Motivation at work – How to boost your employees’ performance

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Performance management involves many roles. You must be a communicator, a leader, a role model, and a collaborator. Each individual member of your team should understand exactly what their responsibilities and expectations are, and as their supervisor, you should work to help them reach those goals.
Some people find performance management to be a difficult role to play. Some people in particular have difficulty when it comes to evaluating performance. But when it’s done well, performance management is about partnership and motivation at work. If it’s done from this perspective, there is nothing to be uncomfortable about. When this perspective is shared with your employees and they learn to see it that way, performance management becomes a powerful tool that helps your team to become more successful.

Benefits of Performance Management
There are multiple benefits in performance management, many of which are directly related to motivation:

• When roles and responsibilities are clear, motivation is increased. If your team members know what they are supposed to be doing, there is no loss of motion due to confusion or uncertainty. Instead, a motivated individual will be in action, and a team full of motivated individuals will feed off of each other and help keep that motivation going.

Do you really know the difference between leadership & management?

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The question of leadership and management occupies the thinking of even the most experienced person. They sometimes struggle to identify the relationship between the two and the paradoxes that create confusion often mean that the question isn’t answered satisfactorily in any sense of the word. Here we discuss how the two terms are not diametrically different; simply different sides of the same coin.
The difference between leadership and management is really quite simple.
You manage things. You lead people.
Leaders and managers exhibit a set of different skills and behaviours that are closely linked and complimentary to each other. Management and leadership are both necessary for success. Individuals who can excel in both help their employees and businesses thrive in today’s business climate. 
Management is task-focused
It’s short term. It’s a series of checklists and “to do’s” that ensure the work gets done.  It’s how we execute tasks to achieve a specific desired outcome.

What interviewers ask to assess your skills

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Most interviews today are competency based interviews. It is a phrase that can be confusing. A competency is simply an important skill or attribute that is required to do a job effectively. In every job there are specific skills and attributes that the person in that job needs to have in order to be successful in that role. For example, if the job is working in a call centre handling customer service queries, one of the competencies required will be good communication skills.
Companies know the competencies they are seeking in candidates and most of the time the five or six competencies they have identified will be listed in the job description. Competencies that frequently appear in job descriptions include: Communication skills, leadership skills, being a team player and organisational skills.
Let’s take a closer look at these 4 common competencies with examples of questions interviewers can ask to assess your skill, knowledge, experience and judgement in each area.

Common competencies & examples of questions used to assess them

Communication skills
Communication skills is a broad competency and depending on the role emphasis will be placed on different aspects of it, for example, written communication, presentation skills, listening skills. If written communication (e.g. report writing) is an integral part of the job, it will probably be assessed separately. Similarly, if presentation skills are a key competency, you would usually be asked to deliver a presentation as part of the recruitment process.

3 easy steps to more and better emotional energy

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In their popular book “The Power of Full Engagement,” authors Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz write that energy, not time, is your primary resource. They go on to mention four main kinds of energy: mental, physical, spiritual and emotional.
In this article, our focus is on getting you to leverage your emotional energy and become emotional resilient.

1. Hop out of the pot before it’s too late
One of the emotions that you’ve experienced in your life is anger. If you leverage the energy that comes with emotional intensity, you can avoid what I call “the complacent frog syndrome”.
Rumor has it, if you place a frog into a pot of boiling water, it will immediately hop out. But, if you put it into a pot of room temperature water, and slowly bring up the heat, it will stay until it can no longer save itself.
It’s possible to get complacent, and not realize that the environment around you is becoming intolerable. This may have happened in the past, and you have felt powerless to make a change and to act on your own behalf. Making a change, hoping out of the pot, takes energy. Few feelings sap your energy faster than the feeling of hopelessness.

3 ways to tackle sickness absence and save billions

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It is a fact of life that people become ill from time to time and as employers we have a responsibility to deal with absence. Absence can be a serious drain on a business for both large and small organisations, with the direct costs running to billions of pounds a year. Absence places a burden on colleagues and a failure to manage poor attendance can result in poor morale if the issue is not tackled, with a consequent effect on productivity and profitability.
Tackling absence isn’t always straightforward. Absences come in different forms, may be of varying durations and be for a variety of reasons. Employers have to develop a range of proportionate responses. There is no one ‘right’ way of going about it, but any actions you take must always be fair and reasonable. Remember that inappropriate or discriminatory action can lead to expensive legal settlements.
The real key to success to managing absence at work is taking action at an early stage, keeping good records and following correct procedures. Here you can take a look at some basic facts and how to deal with absence effectively. 
Assessing the Cost of Absence
The estimated cost of sickness absence for UK businesses in 2010 was at least £17 billion and 190 million days of absence were ascribed to sickness, with public sector sickness remaining much higher than the private sector.

The ultimate do-it-yourself SEO tips

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 Search  Engine Optimisation is, to put it into simple and rational words, a systematic series of processes that will result in the website moving up the search engines until it can move no more. The good news is that you can perform many if not all SEO practices yourself. In this article internet marketing expert Brian Bentley BSc (Hons) reveals some useful do-it-yourself SEO tips.

Keyword and competitor research
You have set up a website because you want to sell something; products or services or both. Ask your best mate what they would search for should they be wanting what you have on your website. There’s part one of your keyword research done.

Why do people get fired: The most common reasons

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There are many reasons for firing employees. Two of the most common ones are capability and conduct. From an employer’s perspective, if you want to handle dismissals right, you can start by treating capability and conduct separately. You need to recognise the difference between warning someone for a capability matter and warning him for his conduct. If you fail to distinguish between the two, you are much more likely to run the risk of a successful unfair dismissal application. Some organisations have separate disciplinary procedures for dealing with capability and conduct, but this is a matter of choice for the individual organisation.
This means that if your employee already has a warning for misconduct, and then demonstrates a lack of capability, you should issue him with a first warning for the capability matter, quite separate from the misconduct.

Killer language, verbal craft and magic moves for your next presentation

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Most presenters forget the key reason to speak to others is to persuade, changing minds – and hearts: a change that results in action. Experiences of listening and watching others drone on like monotonous graph-huggers, have instilled in others a deep fear of sleep inducing monologues and a revelation of personal flaws.
Those with the know-how in a certain field such as technology, finance or engineering have realised that their knowledge can only be communicated if they engage with their audiences, and not with a data onslaught. In the following lines you can acquire some skills when it comes to the right language to use during your presentation – presented by Alison Kemp, communication coach for technical experts.
Learn how to engage with your audience by using the right language during your next presentation. We have killer language tips for you!
 
Killer language
Many senior executives are tiring of phrases such as ‘thinking out the box’: such language tends to be used by people who can’t get out the box. Several people have expressed their dislike of the word ‘stakeholders’ because it’s too general. It could mean clients, vendors, investors, employees and the list continues.
There are three rules to consider when it comes to the right language during a presentation.

Why Navigant could be a great place to work

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Are you about to graduate and in need a great tip? Navigant, a leading global consulting firm, is recruiting! Whether you are a business, engineering or IT student, this company will offer you your first step towards your future career! Take a look!

What is Navigant?
Navigant is a global expert services firm headquartered in Chicago with offices throughout North America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Their 2,000 consulting professionals have deep expertise in the areas of Disputes, Investigations, Economics, Finance and Risk. Their expertise is leveraged across many industries with significant depth in the Construction, Energy, Healthcare and Financial Services sectors.
When companies meet urgent business challenges, what they need is a world-class professional consultancy firm: that is where Navigant come in. Through senior level engagement with clients, Navigant professionals combine technical expertise with business pragmatism in many highly regulated industries to support clients in addressing their most critical business needs.

Why work for Navigant?
Do you picture yourself in consulting? Did you always want to discover what exciting work it entails? Then you could be exactly the right graduate or future graduate they are looking for. Navigant’s employees around the world work toward the company’s vision by providing advice, information and solutions that make a positive difference for their clients.

Positive Body Language Can Help Your Career

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You might have been a good student back in college, but your boss might think differently about you today.  Your work ethic is good – you’re consistent and creative, but your boss doesn’t share the same sentiments… and this might all be because of your body language. Body language is very integral in building or destroying your career.
If you are currently completing an internship or you have a new job, employers tend to look for small details when evaluating the effectiveness of your performance, and this includes body language.

Your body language forms an impression to your employers. A smile or frown translates to an opinion. The employer asks themselves if you are likeable or if you can be trusted.  What the employer believes about you could be used as a yard stick to gauge your reputation. Body language can be used to determine if you are hard working, result oriented, slack, or lazy. If you are always fidgeting, yawning or staring at the widow when you are conversing with your boss, then this gives an impression that you are always distracted and you cannot concentrate for long periods.

How to achieve innovation – 6 ways

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Innovation is one of the major drivers behind business success. As an example, the giant packaging company 3m expects every single one of their staff to spend 15% of their time on innovation. This is not just innovating around new products and services but about new systems, new methods, and new procedures. That’s because in a fast-moving world, where people expect things to get better and better, and cheaper and cheaper, innovation is the answer to creative solutions and the route to getting ahead of the competition. Besides creative thinking there are 5 pathways to innovation.
Create an innovative climate
Goran Ekvall of Lund University in Sweden has defined three conditions needed for a climate of innovation. They are: trust, dynamism, and humour. Ekvall came to this conclusion as a result of his research into the most innovative businesses in Sweden. One of Ekvall’s case studies was a Swedish newspaper where the team working on the women’s section consistently outperformed all the other teams. The reason? Quite simply, this group trusted one another, had a high level of energy and shared a common sense of humour.