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Technology Insight Archives - Page 6 of 9 - Shammam Consulting Services

Employee burnout is something that most of us have seen in others or experienced ourselves. Repetitive tasks and overwhelming workloads can easily get the best of us. Luckily, there are plenty of simple ways to both combat and stop employee burnout before anybody reaches his or her breaking point.

Preventing burnout

• Have fun – Making room for fun can alleviate some stress and help to keep employees motivated when they are on the brink of burnout.
• Switch it up – Let employees work on new projects or teams when they’ve been concentrating on one thing for a long time, like Facebook is doing with Hackamonth.
• Encourage breaks – It’s wonderful to have employees that don’t want to quit working until they get things done. Unfortunately, those are the people that are likely to burn out quickest. If you have employees like this, persuade them to take walks or go on a coffee run – anything to keep them from going stir crazy.

For those times when burnout can’t be avoided, there are a couple of things you can do to help ensure that your employees don’t become fed up.

How to cope with burnout

• Accept it – Burnout isn’t always preventable so it’s essential to pay attention to the signs such as lethargy, decreased socializing or irritability.
• Communicate – Growing businesses often experience transformations that leave employees frustrated. Making sure your employees know that they can talk to you is a great way to stop burnout before it gets out of hand.

Although employee burnout isn’t always preventable, it’s vital to know what steps you can take to make it less detrimental to your employees and your business. These simple tips can help reduce the effects of burnout and even prevent it when possible.

If you’d like more ideas on fighting employee burnout, take a look at this article.

Sometimes it seems impossible to locate what you’re looking for when you’re performing an online search. One keyword may lead to thousands of unrelated results. These simple strategies will help you perform stronger searches and get more relevant results.

Keep it simple

Use the fewest number of words or phrases you can. If you’re looking for Chinese takeout in your area, type in “Chinese food” along with the name of your city or your zip code. That should garner accurate results even if you aren’t sure precisely what you’re looking for.

Learn about Boolean

Whether you know it or not, you are probably familiar with Boolean searches. This simply refers to using terms like “and,” “not” and “or” in your online searches. This is a smart thing to do when you are more familiar with what you’re searching for and know which terms you would like to include or exclude.

This concept also works when you use pluses or minuses in your searches. If you want to include a word in your search results, simply type a “ ” before it in your search. If you want to exclude something, precede it with a “-“ when you search.

Be precise

Preciseness can instantly eliminate a great deal of the irrelevant and confusing search results. If the search terms you use are too broad, you are often left with thousands of results that have nothing to do with what you’re looking for.

Quotation marks are typically the international search engine symbol to search for an exact phrase. If you are looking for something specific, using quotation marks can help guarantee that your results are more relevant.

These three strategies can greatly affect the accuracy of your search results. You’ll spend less time sifting through website descriptions and pages of results, and more time getting the information you need.

For even more tips on performing online searches, take a look at this article.

No matter the time of year or the project you’re focusing on, there are always things that can get you off task. Though there is no way to completely eliminate those distractions, there are several ways to minimize them and increase productivity. Here are a couple of them:

Keep a clean office

Clutter often results in distraction. Keeping your office organized and encouraging your employees to do the same can help people to be more focused. Removing those unwanted distractions by cleaning up every once in a while can make a significant difference in employee productivity.

Increase the temperature

In one study, a cooler office was shown to have quite a negative effect on employee productivity. In a slightly warmer office, employees made 44% fewer typing errors and their typing output increased by an incredible 150%. Based on those figures, a bigger heating bill may be well worth it.

Lighten up

One study demonstrated that brighter offices can make a substantial difference in employee productivity. Employees who worked in windowed offices spent 15% more time staying on task than those working in windowless offices.

Not only does this change help to increase productivity, it also can help you save money on your electricity bill by lighting up the office naturally. Because it’s so easy to do, it’s surely in your best interest to open blinds and move employees into offices with windows whenever possible.

These basic office adjustments are extremely easy to make and can make a huge difference in the amount of work that is accomplished.

For even more simple productivity tips check out this article.

Mother’s Day is just around the corner and many of us are still clueless as to what to get. If you’re one of those people, you’re in luck. We have five tech-inspired gift ideas that are sure to please any mom.

Digital picture frame

Every mom loves to relive family memories through pictures. That’s why digital picture frames are so great. They allow your mom to relive a new memory whenever she wants. If you help her set it up, she can sit back and start appreciating the gift right away.

Tech time

Your mom may love using tech but there’s a good chance that she doesn’t know how to use all of her devices. With this gift, you can offer your tech expertise. She might have a gadget that needs fixing or she simply might need you to show her how to use the DVD player. Whatever it is, she’s sure to appreciate your time.

Digital magazine or Netflix subscription

Most moms have a particular TV show they can’t miss or a magazine they absolutely need to read every week. If this is the case, your mom will certainly benefit from a digital subscription. This gives your mom the opportunity to read her monthly magazine without the clutter.

A Netflix subscription will give your mom the chance to catch up on her favorite TV shows on her own time. She can also use this to watch that movie that her friends have been discussing for months now. Either way, it’s sure to be a big hit.

Tablet

A tablet could be a fantastic gift for Mom. Tablets are incredibly popular, instantly making your mom one of the coolest on the block, and are also very portable. Your mom can do virtually anything she’d like with the iPad or PlayBook and carry it with her wherever she goes.

If a traditional tablet is a little out of your price range, the Nook Color may work better for you. It still boasts the portability of the iPad and has a great deal of games and apps available.

Quality time

Many moms feel like they don’t get to see their kids enough. If this is the case in your family, try giving your mom a coupon for video chat sessions with you and your family. This will surely be a standout gift.

We all know our moms will love whatever gift we get for them. These gifts, however, will show you care and you put thought into it. Try surprising your mom this year with a great gift that she can actually use.

For more gift ideas, check out this Unplggd article.

Prezi is a name you might have heard a couple of times if you’re into presentations. It’s an online presentation tool that’s different than most and, because of this, has a lot of admirers. What, exactly, makes Prezi so amazing?

Flash-based

Since Prezi is flash-based, your presentation doesn’t need to be completely linear, like most presentations. Instead, you can easily create a visual map containing anything from words to links.

You can zoom in and out of the image to various ideas, links and images. This eliminates the need for identical slides or backtracking when you have to revisit an idea.

Intuitive

Prezi presentations are created differently than most, which can make it hard to get used to at first. Once you have become comfortable with the program, however, it is like second nature. You can create presentations like you would a thought map, which is fantastic for those non-linear thinkers.

If you are having any difficulty getting used to the user interface, simply check out one of the many tutorials on Prezi’s website.

While Prezi is web-based, it permits you to download your presentation once it is complete. This is especially convenient for anyone who worries about the stability of his or her Internet connection during the presentation. The tool can be used for free or purchased for $59/year for additional storage and privacy.

Prezi is an incredible tool. While not everyone is looking to ditch PowerPoint, this is a great alternative.