You’ve always got the time to be kind.

That’s the opinion of various experts and business leaders we talked with as we pondered what seems to be the lost art of acting generously toward coworkers. The idea may be counterintuitive for A-type personalities whose daily objective is to press hard for goals, benchmarks and bonuses.

However, says workplace leadership expert Dianne Crampton, we often forget that kindness can be a catalyst for better performance through empathy, putting oneself in the place of your coworkers in order to identify with their situation.

“The bottom line is that improving empathy and kindness is tied to increased productivity and ultimately improved business revenue,” Crampton said. “So, as a principle required for high-performance work groups, empathy and kindness improvements are both measurable and then trackable in the business bottom line. No fluff.  Not touchy-feely.  Just solid psychological, good business sense.”

Organization development consultant Lisa Sansom, a coach and consultant at LVS Consulting, echoed Crampton’s sentiment, noting that kindness in the workplace also boosts employee retention and participation.

“Kindness in the workplace is important for building positive workplace relationships, setting a strong corporate culture and increasing employee retention and engagement,” Sansom said.

But how exactly do businesses go about achieving those lofty goals of increased performance, retention and engagement?

We reached out to business owners and HR reps to find out. We received some intriguing responses offering ideas for practicing kindness as well as examples of kindness at work in the office.

The Experts Offer Up Easy Ways to Express Kindness

To be kind, you must be intentional about it. Very few employees are willing to bring their schedule to a halt to take a few minutes to ponder what they can do to enliven their colleagues’ spirits.

The time spent on kindness, though, is well worth it.

Say Thank You

Dana Case, director of operations at online legal filing service MyCorporation, says kind workplaces have one common thread: consistent expressions of gratitude.

“One of the most appropriate ways to practice kindness in the workplace is to say, ‘Thank you,’ to fellow employees and make it a regular practice,” she said. “It’s a simple sentiment that goes a long way in making everyone feel valued.”

Be careful, though, says Sansom; if you try to formalize a system of thank-you’s or kindness in general, these transformational moments could become forced and lose their punch.

“It’s possible to institutionalize kindness but, in my opinion, this takes a discretionary fun effort and turns it into a corporate obligation,” she said. “Be kind just because – not because someone else told you to or because everyone else is doing it.”

Send a Note

Alexis Monson, co-founder of Punkpost, a service that lets users send custom thank-you notes via their app, says acts of kindness don’t have to be grandiose, either.

“To spread happiness, gestures don’t have to huge and elaborate,” she noted. “Simple and thoughtful is all you need.”

A note written to a co-worker expressing heartfelt gratitude for a job done well or their willingness to cover for you in a jam can go a long way.

Using a service like Punkpost – or even a handwritten note — is something that can make a difference in a co-worker’s life, she said.

Listen

Another excellent bit of advice came from  Fit Small Business HR Analyst Lauren Hedrick, who emphasized the importance of listening.

We’ve all been the person who tunes out our colleagues because we’re focused on an upcoming deadline or issue. Taking the time to set aside the momentum of your work life to genuinely fix your attention on the person in the cubicle next to you is powerful.

“We warm up our cars and we allow our computers time to load their apps,” Hedrick said. “Should we not give a moment to our human peers to let them know we seem them, care about them and enjoy working with them?”

A Few Reminders About Kindness

As we mentioned early on in this post, you have to avoid formalizing kindness. Employees will sniff out the corporate nature of enforced generosity and they’ll most likely lose interest.

Sansom said another important aspect of kindness is to remember that you need to be discerning about what you say and to whom you say it. Don’t bare your soul to someone you barely know.

“Kindness can be different for different people. What you may see as kind might not come across well with someone else,” she said. “So, unless you know someone well, it may be wise to stay away from anything too personal at the start.”

As you get to know your colleagues, managers and/or employees, you’ll recognize the best way to be kind.

Another benefit of building empathy and kindness in the workplace? Conflicts are more likely to be less severe.

“In work cultures that measure high in empathy, conflict rarely escalates but is quickly rolled back to the root cause,” Crampton said. “There is a recognition that problems usually arise over confusion on how to do something or the way a system works rather than problems that employees have willfully caused to antagonize one another.”

The Consumer Electronics Show concluded this past January with tons of fanfare surrounding the consumer products showcased in what is the premier tech show of the year.

Lost in all this techie talk was the fact there were some innovative products focused on improving the office.

We did some research and discovered some very interesting products that could provide your office with cutting-edge tech that will make your workplace a little more interesting.

In our conversations with exhibitors who hawked their creations to the country’s top investors and businesses, we found everything from the Google of video footage to innovative community phone chargers to ultra-durable power strips that can withstand power surges and the every-day abuse of the workplace.

Stepping Up Your Security with IC Realtime’s Ella

Let’s say you drive to work one day, put in a solid eight of hours of work and, when you head to the parking lot to drive home, you notice somebody sideswiped your car at some point in the day.

Normally, you’d have to connect with your building’s security department and ask them to pore over hours of footage to figure out who hit your car.

With IC Realtime‘s Ella, you can search your footage by using keyword searches just like you would when looking for something on Google.

For example, if you see black paint at the impact point, you can search “black car” and Ella will search through all the footage and isolate clips that include a black car.

The service also recognizes letters and numbers. So, if FedEx is late on a delivery or you never receive a shipment that was supposedly delivered, you can search “FedEx truck” and Ella will pull up all footage of FedEx trucks that pulled up to your delivery dock during the hours you specify.

“There was a lot of interesting buzz, for sure,” a company rep told us. “The Wall Street Journal included Ella in their list of the best tech to see at CES.”

Design Meets Device Charging: Humavox NEST

We’re not saying that charging your phone at your work desk is archaic but using a cord to charge your phone can be annoying for those who work in small spaces.

Humavox NEST has solved this problem by creating technology that can turn virtually anything into a charging station by incorporating near-field radio frequencies to charge phones and tablets.

Here’s how they explain the problem they say they’re solving:

“With the growing number of devices, charging has become a daily hassle that must be resolved with a simple, natural charging solution. But when thinking of what would be the most natural charging experience for users, we realized that it’s not unanimous, (it) changes with different products and between different users.”

Current NEST designs available on the Humavox website reveal personal-sized charging pods as well as community bowls where multiple phones and IoT devices can charge.

This novel idea for charging stations would be a great fit in communal areas where employees take breaks, brainstorm or meet, all without the need for charging cords.

Power to the People: Juice Mobile Power

Imagine the following scenario. You’ve got an event going on at the office — new employee orientation, for example — and dozens of people are crammed into a meeting room. The combination of phones, tablets and laptops needed to take notes means that some people are left without an outlet.

That’s the type of scenario some office managers had to be thinking about when they stopped by Bretford’s booth at CES and saw the company’s newest power solution: Juice Mobile Power.

Juice provides DC power for up to 20 mobile devices. One main power source plugs into the wall, and, from there, you can connect multiple power lines that roll out like a red carpet. The power strips are low-profile, durable and, as the company’s website says, they provide simple power solution without any retrofitting.

Here’s how a company representative explained the problem that Juice Mobile Power solves:

“Juice Mobile Power is the solution to this problem – the cost of rewiring a given room, whether that is an office conference room, an event space, or a classroom, is thousands of dollars and lots of time and energy. Juice Mobile Power takes the existing power available in the room and spreads it in a mobile, safe, adaptable way so people can stay charged and productive.”

There’s not much difference in the way that Bretford approaches power and the way we approach existing cubicles. We provide a simple solution that doesn’t require any work stoppages or costly disassembly of existing cubicles or desks.

Our panel and privacy extenders can be added to existing desks and walls in a matter of minutes. In many cases, we can add our panel extenders without interrupting your team’s workflow.

To learn more about our office solutions, call us at or head to our website.

In our first post about standing out in the workplace, we talked with a series of experts about what it takes to boost your value in a genuine, legitimate way.

The advice we received was on point. Self-evaluation is a key component to increasing your value; know where you’re weak and hone those areas until they become assets.

Offer to take on a few extra responsibilities and, at the same time, offer your help in situations where a colleague may be too afraid to ask for it. Another tip for private contractors – build your brand through a systematic leveraging of your expertise.

However, helping yourself stand out isn’t limited to these four tips. We received an overwhelming response from HR reps, career coaches and other professionals who had plenty to say about how you can increase your profile the right way.

Be Confident, Even When You’re Not

Confidence issues plague most employees at one time or another, whether they’re starting a new job or their first career.

There tends to be a mindset in which you think everyone around you knows you’re a fraud and is waiting for you to fail.

Matthew Kerr, a career adviser and hiring manager at Resume Genius, says sometimes you have to employ the time-tested “fake-it-’til-you-make-it” mentality.

“This old adage can be surprisingly effective when properly utilized. Rather than stressing yourself out wondering how you can become confident at work, pretend that you are,” Kerr said. “Adopt a mantle of confidence and exude it in everything you do. Confidence in the workplace is by far and wide the easiest and most effective way to stand out.”

Offer Your Input at the Right Time

Your ideas will only speak for themselves if you tell other people about them. Utilize planning and strategizing sessions to share your ideas, Kerr said.

Confidence plays a key role here; without it, you’ll be too timid to pitch your idea. Are you an expert in an area in which your managers are seeking input? Then pitch with confidence. There’s no shame in standing by your experience, even if it means offering up a divergent opinion.

“Sometimes it can be difficult to voice your opinions or ideas when they go against the grain – but that’s one of the best ways to stand out,” Kerr said. “Even if your idea isn’t used, you will create a new discussion and perhaps be the source of solutions that otherwise might have been overlooked.”

If you can’t muster up the fortitude to present in front of a group, do a one-on-one with a supervisor behind closed doors, Kerr said.

Know Why You’re Doing Something Instead of Just Doing It

It’s easier to listen to instructions and do them without putting thought to the reason behind the ask.

While this certainly makes life easy in the short-term, it can lead to disillusionment if you aren’t careful. Three or four years down the road you’ll get tired of robotic obedience and you’ll be left with frustration instead of satisfaction.

Jennifer Braganza, founder of training and leadership firm Exponential Success, said you can impress your bosses if you show you’re just as interested in the “why” as you are in the “how”.

“It will allow you to produce a better product if you understand what is trying to be achieved,” Braganza said. “Sometimes people don’t know what they really want.  If you ask the right questions, you can actually help them figure it out and avoid the rework of doing things over and over again.”

The key here is that you’re asking “why” because you want to see and grasp the bigger picture, not because you want to challenge whether you should do the task or project.

Don’t Like Your Job? Exercise Situational Awareness

Career coach Sara Young Wang says the ideal way to stand out at your place of employment is to do what you love.

However, we all know many of us are not in the positions we’ve dreamed of being in. So, Wang said, take a moment to think about how your dissatisfaction is reflected in the way you act throughout the day. These moment-by-moment micro-cues could be holding you back and deterring your ability to stand out.

“Developing more mindfulness of how you respond to requests, how you take feedback/criticism, how you interact with colleagues/bosses in times of stress, etc., allows you to perform your job from a calmer, clearer and more grounded place,” Wang said. “You can stand out as someone who is mature, thoughtful, receptive to feedback/learning and an employee who can be trusted to represent the company. This can contribute to a high potential for promotion.”

 

Part 1

In a perfect world, we’d go to work each day standing out for the right reasons and without much effort.

We’ve all known the coworker who tries too hard to rise above the pack. Their methods often create friction and distance them from the rest of the team.

None of us wants to be that employee; standing out is just as much a matter of being genuine as it is about knowing the right people and knowing exactly what to say and do around them.

We reached out to experts across the nation to find out what you can do to be a standout employee without alienating yourself among your coworkers. This post is the first of two that provide seven different tips for standing out.

 

 

 

Grade Yourself and Make a Plan

Ross Wehner, a career coach and founder of WehnerEd, said a mentor of his challenged him to list all the traits of a professional he could think of then rate himself in those areas according to the following scale:

• 1 – Needs improvement
• 2 – Satisfactory
• 3 – You exemplify this quality

Taking stock of his “skill” level in each of the professional traits he listed helped Wehner see where he was weak, where he was strong and where he was mediocre. He recommends having a mentor or colleague rate you according to the same traits.

“Evaluate your ratings and those from others and identify the areas in which you have the most margin for improvement,” Wehner said.

Once you’ve got all the data, make a six-month plan that will help you` get all those areas to a “3”.

“Review your evaluation process every six months or so and constantly be improving what you’re worst at,” Wehner said. “Before too long your worst skill will be better than others’ best skills.”

Your efforts to improve yourself will start to emerge in the workplace; the change will be noticeable.

Take Advantage of Opportunities for Extra Work

Alexis Zanger, a senior marketing manager at Aegis Software Corp., says the age-old recommendation to volunteer for extra work is a time-tested way to stand out.

“Step up to take on extra tasks and more responsibility without having to be asked,” Zanger said. “Showing initiative is a trait that corporate executives look for in the next leader of a team.”

Be careful with this one, though. There’s a fine line between being eager for more work and being eager to please your bosses by taking on more work. One is genuine and the other is dangerously close to people pleasing.

Offer to Help

Our jobs are an arena where asking for help is like waving the proverbial white flag; there just isn’t much dignity in saying you can’t figure something out. As a result, most of us won’t ask for help when we should.

Knowing this, Jana Tulloch, a human-resources professional at tech learning firm Develop Intelligence, said one way you can build your name at work is to offer your help when you know someone is in over their head.

“One of the best ways to stand out is to always be asking, ‘How can I help,'” Tulloch said. “Often people wait for others to reach out to them when someone is needing an extra hand or some specific expertise; being proactive and working to engage with others regularly will help you raise your profile.”

Again, finesse is the key here. Don’t swoop in with plans to take over the project and the credit for a job well done. Enter the situation with a genuine desire to help.

 Build Your Own Brand

In the age of private contractors and side gigs, using your free time to build your brand is an invaluable talent.

Frances Reimers, principal at consultancy firm FireStarter, said making yourself stand-out as a brand requires grinding. Become an expert in what’s happening in your industry and start sharing your knowledge among fellow professionals on LinkedIn and other social media platforms.

This is the route Reimers took on her way to starting her own firm.

“I started by establishing my social media platforms and posting interesting content on a consistent basis. Then I graduated to drafting blogs, white papers, and infographics. Finally, I added television, radio, and public appearances,” Reimers said. “The success of this evolution led me to open my own personal brand consultancy so that I may assist individuals and small business who want to stand out from their peers.”

In our next, post  we’ll share six more tips that can help you stand out from the pack at your workplace.

Part 2 – Stand Out Employee

 

Call us crazy, but there are times when we watch our favorite shows and think, “that office could’ve really used some panel extenders.”

It’s not that we’re truly concerned about the productivity and focus of the characters themselves, but more so our preoccupation with proper office design and the manifold benefits of panel extenders that go beyond the basics.

That’s not to say that cubicles don’t interest us … we’re more than aware of them when we watch the king of all workplace movies, Office Space.

However, we’re in the business of offering an easy-to-use, effective alternative to cubicles that provides the sound and sight privacy your team needs to excel while still feeling part of a work community.

In that spirit, we’ve compiled a list of three famous Hollywood workplaces that either used panel extenders well or definitely could have used them.

The Office: A Tale of Two Styles

Americans across the country were left both joyful and distraught when the nine-season run of The Office came to a close.

Many of us felt like we were a part of the Dunder Mifflin team, working right alongside Dwight, Jim, Pam and the gang.

But did you ever consider how their office layout actually reflects real office life?

Take Jim and Dwight, for example. The two co-workers were constantly immersed in a battle to annoy and distract each other. Their mischief was made easy by the fact that their desks were perpendicular to each other and no barriers existed in between them.

We find this interesting if, for nothing else, the fact that both Jim and Dwight were salesmen and sales calls should be afforded a certain amount of sound privacy. The solution: panel extenders.

The lack of panel extenders goes beyond just Jim and Dwight, though. The other section of salesmen included three desks with no privacy panels or panel extenders.

What results is a chaotic work environment that makes for great TV but for poor productivity.

What’s interesting, though, is that there is a glass partition/panel that separates two of the three desks in accounting. Famed accountants Angela and Kevin have sound privacy because of the panel but they lack visual privacy.

This is a sensible solution for accounting because of the subject matter being discussed in that department – accounts, invoices, etc.

But, Oscar, the third accountant in the bunch whose desk sits perpendicular to both Angela and Kevin, has absolutely no sound or visual privacy.

Obviously, The Office’s workplace layout had just as much to do with opening up the space for camera work – the more barriers, the poorer the lines of sight. However, we think it accurately reflects how many offices handle privacy.

Halt and Catch Fire: As Open as Open Offices Can Be

This AMC drama focused on the rise of personal computing and the internet. The show is anchored in the rise of a startup named Mutiny. According to the fictional account, the company launched wildly popular video games, was crucial in the emergence of online gaming and is responsible for the popularity of chat rooms and Craigslist/Letgo-style online transactions.

Their offices were based in San Francisco in a cavernous brick building with a completely open floor plan. No panel extenders. No cubicles. Just dozens of computer terminals dotted on desk clumps.

The scene in Mutiny’s offices was often chaotic. Coders were hammering away at keyboards, answering phone calls and shouting across the room to their colleagues.

These scenes reveal what we consider the biggest downfall of open offices: lack of privacy. The brain needs a certain level of security to provide maximum focus and production. Mutiny, like any number of modern startups, lacked both.

The solution could’ve been simple: panel extenders. Installation takes about five minutes and doesn’t impede workflow; nobody has to leave their desk and wires and cables don’t have to be unplugged.

From Hollywood to Your Office: Simple Privacy Solutions

OBEX panel extenders provide a simple, effective solution for audio and visual distractions that plague the workplace.

You can learn more about the products we offer by heading to the Products section of our website, where we feature panels and extenders that attach to existing desks or cubicle walls as well as modesty panels.

You need to make changes to your office and you need to make them fast.

That’s usually the position our clients find themselves in when they contact us about our panel extender quick-ship program. The reasons for these quick changes are manifold: company transition, growth or seizing a can’t-miss opportunity to move into a new workspace with basic desks and/or cubicle walls.

In many situations, you aren’t as concerned about style as you are about function – the panels need to go up fast and the more neutral the color and form, the better.

The scenarios we mentioned here are pretty universal and our quick-ship program reflects that kind of one-size-fits-all situation.

Basically, the OBEX quick-ship can be broken down into three different parts: the panels themselves, shipping and warranty.

Quick-Ship Panel Extenders

While our normal line-up features dozens of different color and material for cubicle walls, privacy panels, panel extenders and modesty panels, our quick-ship program provides one, simple solution: aluminum-framed translucent polycarbonate panels.

We consider this single option a very utilitarian choice – they get the job done without any added frills. But don’t underestimate their design. Design not featuring flashy colors or materials, they manage to stay modern and blend in with just about any office environment.

Looks aside, polycarbonate is an effective way to reduce sound, too. The material is used all around the world as a popular sound deadener in offices as well as a barrier between transportation thoroughfares (roads, tracks) and neighborhoods.

Here’s a quick list of the available sizes (HxW):

• 12×24
• 12×48
• 12×72
• 18×24
• 18×48
• 18×72

These quick-ship panels come in three different install styles: freestanding, desk and panel. The panels you get from this program cover nearly any desk/cubicle situation.

Quick-Ship Shipping

What makes our quick-ship program unique is that your panels will ship within 48 hours of your order and you’ll get a 5% discount on the total order.

Our goal isn’t to gouge you because you’re in a jam; it’s to provide a straightforward solution to get you up and running as quickly as possible.

Our quick-ship shipping comes with a few things you should know. First, the maximum quantity you can order is 25 units.

Second, our quick-ship program requires cash on delivery for the first two orders you make. After that, you can work with OBEX to come up with credit terms to finance future purchases.

Because of the nature of our quick-ship program, once an order has been acknowledged and confirmed, it is final. Returns aren’t normally accepted, but if we do agree to it, there are re-stocking charges involved in the return.

Quick-Ship Warranty

OBEX’s 10-year warranty also applies to our quick-ship panel extenders and covers our products against defects.

Basically, if there’s a defect in your panel extenders that isn’t due to normal wear and tear and you’re the original owner of the extenders then you can file a claim with us. We’ll inspect the panels to verify that the product is defective and will decide if we’ll repair it or replace it.

Aside from normal wear-and-tear situations, other situations that wouldn’t be covered under our warranty would be those random situations in which, say, somebody at the holiday party gets too friendly with the open bar and then accidentally kicks a hole in a modesty panel.

Working With Us: The Leading Office Extender Provider in Southern California

This post has focused on our quick-ship program but OBEX certainly provides more than quick fixes for your company.

If you’ve got more time to make a decision about your privacy solutions, consider taking a look at our acoustical panels. They are, in our opinion, the superior choice for maximizing sound privacy in the workplace.

You see, a panel’s ability to deaden sound is based on two popular ratings: noise reduction coefficient (NRC) and sound transmission class. Our panels reduce sound by more than 50%.

In addition to their ability to deaden sound and provide a more tranquil workspace, OBEX panels are easy to install. In most situations, one individual can put a panel on a desk in less than five minutes. All hardware and the necessary Allen wrench is provided in the panel kits we send you.

Our panel extender installation guide gives you an excellent idea of what the install process is like. If you have questions, we’re happy to answer them. Give us a call at (888)571-8658 or contact us through our website.

Did you start the new year with initiatives and goals that aren’t working out just one month later?

There’s a good chance that the concept of change was the stumbling block that led to your workplace’s sluggish start. And though you may have been excited about new initiatives, you weren’t quite sure how to alter your individual work priorities to meet these goals.

Both of these scenarios present examples in which expert change management could have made a tremendous difference in how everyone responded to your company’s new benchmarks. On paper, everything may have looked perfect. But paper often strays far from reality; goals usually require much more finesse and attention than we think they do.

And think about this – even workplace design changes can create some difficulty. Something as simple as a transition from an open office to cubicles may be the impetus behind a wave of disorientation or discouragement.

Properly managing that change requires a lot more than a good idea and an action plan. Multiple factors are involved: communication, employee panels, accounting and more. Orchestrating all these various moving parts is what separates good change management from bad.

To get some insight into how you can build an effective change strategy, we read through some material from industry experts Work Design and Robert Half.

“By design, change management programs focus on the aspects of a transition that typically encounter the most resistance:  a move across town, a shift from a mostly-closed to mostly-open work environment, a departure from assigned seating,” they wrote in a Nov. 2017 article. “Each project is different, but employees undergoing change often share similar apprehensions. “

Don’t Try and Please Everyone…

If there’s one thing that organizations across the country have learned at one time or another, it’s that there’s always a naysayer who loves to spend his time badmouthing the company’s new direction.

As Work Design points out, adding panel extenders to your office may cause that chronic complainer to say the panels make things too quiet and not quite enough. It’s true; here’s an excerpt from Work Design’s own experience with various companies:

“What stumps us is when the same folks who complain about noise lament both its presence and its absence. ‘When people talk, it’s too loud! When people work, it’s too quiet! The sound masking is too loud AND it doesn’t mask my colleague yelling about his gout,’” they wrote.

Trying to fashion a change plan that caters to every individual’s needs will most likely be a watered-down initiative with too many details and nuances.

By all means, take your team’s input and insight into account when you’re conducting panels on proposed changes. But, don’t make the error of turning a solid goal or change into an appeasement tool.

But Don’t Ignore Everyone

If you take the last suggestion to the extreme, you’ll leave out most employee input and lose sight of what’s needed in the workplace.

While it may seem like holding panels and asking for input could bog down the process, the information you glean will prove invaluable, staffing firm Robert Half says.

This process is even more crucial when the changes you’re making are negative ones like layoffs.

“Upper management can become insular and secretive about changes, especially those related to layoffs or restructuring. Springing major changes on employees at the last minute can lead to anger, resentment, strikes and even violence.”

While we know that involving employees isn’t a cure-all, it does give you a significant advantage as you seek to implement change.

“Involve employees as soon as goals are set. Ask their opinions and get their input on how the business runs today and what they believe should be changed,” Robert Half wrote.

One suggestion for providing employees a voice is to set up an anonymous online platform through which they can voice their concerns and support. Robert Half noted that consulting from McKinsey & Company used a confidential online portal to create needed in-house changes.

Whether your New Year’s Eve was an event to remember or a night to forget, you’re here in the New Year and your employees are heading into the workplace with resolutions in the back of their minds.

Some of those resolutions may be work-related and some may not. Either way, the new year is an excellent time to rethink how you’re motivating your workplace.

You might have found great success in what you’re already doing and 2018 is a chance to maintain the momentum. However, if there’s been a noticeable lack of chutzpah in the office, it might be time to evaluate if your techniques are actually working.

If you think it’s time for a change, then we have some excellent insight into effective motivation techniques.

Break the Big Goals Down into Small Ones

The new year is a time to cast a new vision for revenue goals. We often put those goals in terms of an entire year or quarter. But experts say breaking your goals down into smaller increments of time can boost your team’s belief in achieving the goal.

In an article on Inc.com, e-commerce expert Nicolas Gremion told the site that simple steps are the best way to reaching that complex goal you’ve been wanting to hit.

“You want lofty ambitions, but set up smaller goals along the way to keep people in it. Rather than make a billion this year, focus on getting 100 new customers this week-something that will get you to that billion,” Gremion said. “Then reward the team for achieving the goal with an afternoon off, a party, etc. They will see that your goals are realistic and everyone benefits from working hard.”

Focus on Knowing Your Employees

One way to sap an employee’s motivation is to place her in a position she doesn’t want that requires skills that she isn’t excited about.

What results is someone who gets burned out quickly, feels purposeless and produces results a lot slower than she would if her job put her in the sweet spot between skill and challenge.

Heather McGough, one of the team members at Lean Startup Company, told Inc. you should see noticeable results as you fine tune your understanding of each person in your workplace.

She suggests a holistic approach to knowing your employees: Respect their ideas and their boundaries.

“Ask what they do and don’t like working on, share the big picture company goals, and respond to their questions. Discern their goals and then invest in their professional growth,” McGough said.

She went on to note that you can spur motivation by doing quick check-ins with your team in which you “listen to their ideas”.

Her last bit of advice? Avoid a negative competition environment.

“Don’t ever pit their goals/timelines against each other,” she said.

 

Big Goals Start with Individual Goals

If an organization’s big goal is like the destination of a year-long road trip, then it stands to reason that reaching said goal can’t happen unless all the vital components of your car’s engine are working as they should be.

This is why it’s good to check all your fluid levels and your tires before departing. Even the smallest inefficiencies can have big impacts when spread out over one year.

How does this look in your workplace? Forbes contributor Lisa Quast says it’s a matter of creating individual development plans. Work with each member of your team to understand how they want to perform this year and what they want to do to get there.

“Provide them with coaching and mentoring and help them increase their skills and their sense of competence and accomplishment,” Quast wrote.

Your Cubicles Will Play a Role in Motivation and Morale

Our research of noise, distractions and privacy indicates that humans – whether old-school or Millennial – function best when their minds have a safe space to think and be creative. Our panel extenders provide your workplace with a cost-effective, easy-to-install way to upgrade your workplace with minimal – if any – work interruption.

Contact us today to learn more about how our panel extenders work and what a typical installation looks like in terms of complexity, time and cost.

The new year is coming and with it comes a new series of office trends that will influence decisions about how to organize your office, which furniture you should buy and how you can use solutions like panel extenders for easy, affordable ways to transform your workplace.

One of the things we find fascinating about the world of office furniture and organization is how these trends change from year to year and decade to decade.

For example, open offices are a well-known office environment, but in terms of trends, the open office is old news.

We diligently read the popular business websites to keep track of emerging trends and office concepts that are in decline. Granted, panel extenders are a timeless accessory. However, our interest in office organization goes beyond our products; we like to know the entire landscape of what’s happening.

So, when we came across a recent Inc.com article about 2018’s biggest office trend, we were excited.

Contributor Jeff Pochepan put forth the following observation: Adding home-like features to today’s offices is the focus of this upcoming year. The concept is known as “close to home”.

What Is “Close to Home” Design?

When we talk about this new design trend known as “close to home”, we’re talking about creating workplaces that make employees feel comfortable, as if they’re in their own home.

“It’s the simple idea of making your office feel more like home, a place where employees are so comfortable, they have no trouble putting in longer hours or they feel less trapped by their surroundings,” Pochepan wrote. “Employers are figuring out new and fun ways to entice people into their corporate families and keep their existing workers happy for the duration they spend at work.”

 

 

A Good Example of Close-to-Home

 

This design concept affects different areas of the office in unique ways. For example, Pochepan points out, Jessica Alba’s Honest offices.

Alba’s goal was to make the office reflect her home, according to an April 2017 profile in Architectural Digest.

“The office looks very much like my home. I like vintage and some new things; I like luxe fabrics, but I don’t care about them being designer necessarily,” Alba told the magazine. “I want everything to feel cozy. I want things you can sit on and put your feet on. And I wanted that same vibe in the office.”

Creating a Workplace of Collaboration

Close to Home isn’t just about making an office look like a home. The comfortability this design trend brings is intended to coax creativity out of employees who, in theory, feel at ease enough to ruminate over new ideas and concepts.

Pochepan says as much in his exposition of 2018’s hottest office organization philosophy.

“People are more likely to share their sparks of creativity — even if not fully formed and ready for presentation — with their colleagues in an environment where they feel relaxed and unhurried, and this, in turn, gives rise to collaborating on those ideas to see them from conception to reality together,” he wrote.

Adding a Sense of Home to Your Office

This popular office trend isn’t one that takes a lot of extra money to implement. Though it would be nice to have a break-room kitchen that resembles something you’d find in a house, there are little things, Pochepan says, that can be done to make your office feel like home.

Here are a few examples of things you can implement in your office; some are more practical than others:

• Yoga rooms
• Designated food truck days
• Conversation areas with couches
• Floor amps for lighting instead of fluorescent lighting
• Showers
• Fun outdoor patio furniture

These suggestions may seem trite, but they’re the kind of small improvements that employees notice. Ideally, you’d be able to redesign your entire office — or even move into a new space and start over. Either way, the Close to Home movement is just as much a mentality about the workplace as it is a design trend for 2018.

“When laughter rings through a room, it puts people at ease and work becomes less effort and more engaging,” Pochepan wrote. “If your people know they can work in a place where kicking their feet up is not only allowed, it’s encouraged, they won’t have to go in to work every day, they’ll want to.”

We’ve talked at length about some of the myths behind open offices. Namely, the concept that employees are more productive and creative in an open workspace.

What we’ve learned through experience and research is that the human mind needs some level of privacy – with both sound and sight – to feel safe and focus on work.

We aren’t alone in this conclusion. Here’s a snippet from an article by The New Yorker that examined prevailing research on the brain and privacy:

“Psychologically, the repercussions of open offices are relatively straightforward. Physical barriers have been closely linked to psychological privacy, and a sense of privacy boosts job performance. Open offices also remove an element of control, which can lead to feelings of helplessness.”

“Feelings of helplessness” isn’t really what you imagined as the impact of an open office, right?

So, when we saw a recent article from Harvard Business Review (HBR) about coffee shops being more beneficial for employees than open offices, we weren’t surprised. We were, however, quite interested in what the article had to say.

 You Work Better with Coffee Shop Noise Than You Do with Office Noise

Citing a few different studies, HBR said that researchers have discovered that background noise isn’t always a detriment. In fact, the source of the background noise is the determining factor in whether you’re distracted by the steady hum of conversation.

“In fact, some level of office banter in the background might actually benefit our ability to do creative tasks, provided we don’t get drawn into the conversation,” contributor David Burkus wrote. “Instead of total silence, the ideal work environment for creative work has a little bit of background noise. That’s why you might focus really well in a noisy coffee shop, but barely be able to concentrate in a noisy office.”

Burkus also explored the idea that familiarity can be distracting; you know the people in your office, but the people in the coffee shop? Not so much.

Hearing familiar voices and the names of people you know in a nearby conversation grab your attention. Even face-to-face conversations can derail your creative process and keep you distracted.

“The problem may be that, in our offices, we can’t stop ourselves from getting drawn into others’ conversations or from being interrupted while we’re trying to focus,” Burkus wrote. “Face-to-face interactions, conversations and other disruptions negatively affect the creative process. By contrast, a co-working space or a coffee shop provides a certain level of ambient noise while also providing freedom from interruptions.”

Is it the Familiarity That Hampers you, or the Frustration?

HBR’s conclusions are pretty solid. We do better at coffee shops and co-work spaces because we can’t really get drawn into conversations as we probably don’t know who’s doing the talking.

In the office, it’s different. You know the voices, the stories and the people or incidents inspiring the banter.

However, says Inc.com Contributing Editor Geoffrey James, it may not be the familiarity you have with your co-workers, but the contempt you have for them that distracts you.

In an article in which he discusses the HBR article, James says you probably get distracted with the background banter because someone’s flaws are bubbling up amid the back-and-forth.

“In short, it’s not the noise that makes an open-plan office such a miserable place to work – it’s the inability to escape the proximity of the petty and annoying behaviors of your co-workers,” James wrote.

OBEX Panel Extenders Dampen Noise

Another aspect of the HBR article we found interesting was that we work best when there’s just enough background noise to let our minds wander to creative places, but not complete silence.

And that’s where our panel extenders come in to play. The products we offer install easily, look great and get the job done.

Our panels have NRC and STC ratings (industry ratings for noise reduction) that significantly reduce the noise in each cubicle without eliminating it.

If noise is a problem in your office and you don’t have the time or resources to do a complete overhaul of your current desk systems, stop by our website to learn about the solutions we have.

Our panel extenders can be used in a variety of ways, come in multiple colors and materials, have three heights and eight widths and carry a 10-year warranty.