Me Time for Busy Women

Oh, how timely.

Look at this article "Bankers resort to alternative therapy to boost efficiency" in today's Economic Times.

"JAIPUR: Public sector banks in Rajasthan have found a natural way to increase the efficiency of their staff. They are resorting to naturopathy, yogic sciences, reiki, music therapy, sujok, magnet therapy, colour therapy, meditation and other alternative techniques of healing to keep stress at bay."

http://tinyurl.com/6q94ep


... "The productivity level is said to have gone up by 60% in few cases."

Holistic Healing for your business, hmmm, what's that!

While looking at stress management and holistic healing for busy executives, it occurs to me that large corporations offer more holistic approaches to healing individuals and business problems than small and medium size businesses normally do.

My experience in Fortune 100 companies over the past 10 years shows corporations interested in workforce diversity and respect, cooperation in place of competition among team memers, and empowering employees to take ownership for their work. Companies pay a lot of attention to stress management to keep the organization functioning at the required fast pace. There are frequent communications to employees, departments and teams to help them realize their contribution, their tiny cog, is IMPERATIVE to the success of the company overall.

Corporations participate in "bring your daughter to work day", have family picnics or annual get-togethers, encourage celebration and recognition for work well done. Most companies have private "nursing rooms" and some have chair massage therapists come in for employee appreciation events. Many offer family-friendly policies such as flexible schedules and comp time for traveling.

More and more companies are hiring consultants such as myself to implement the use of social media and worker-friendly tools and technology. Corporations are using Wiki pages to communicate within teams, companies are implementing department and individual blogs (with similar usage policies as their e-mail policies) and rolling out team style management training where team members take turns facilitating meetings and developing leadership skills.

Employers are recruiting "risk takers" and people who speak up not just "yes men and women" who may have held a high place in yesterday's comanies. Company policies no longer pay out weeks and weeks of vacation time, you are encouraged to take your vacation and get away from the company once and a while.

I have seen employers offer a complete package of personal enrichment workshops because a happy employee is more productive. Both employers and employees see the benefits of employee retention and staying with companies who "care" about the workforce. This is becomming commonplace and will be necessary to retain tomorrow's workforce.

If you are a solopreneur or home based busines, be sure to offer yourself the same benefits as the large corporations. Put some dollars in the budget for self-improvement seminars or outings. Books and DVD's abound on the topics of stress management and studies have proven that a rested and relaxed worker is far more productive than a harried and scattered one.

Take a holistic approach to healing your business: If your business is suffering, take some time out for reflection and give yourself some breathing room. Take some time out to evaluate the health of your business ... diagnose where it has been and where it is going. Don't be afraid to re-structure (even if you are the only employee); the big companies do it all the time. New, refreshed focus can bring about cost savings and renewed enthusiasm for you -- which results in greater profit and new customers.

You could just work harder, faster, but that is the way to a heart attack not the way to healing yourself and your business.

5 Steps to Healing for Your Business:

1. Analyze what needs healing in your business -- be specific
Processes? Procedures? Attitudes? Growth challenges? Communication problems?
2. Determine the many possible treatments to heal your business
3. Plan and Implement 1 or 2 treatments right away -- not too many at once
4. Don't give up -- stick with your plans
5. Take the time to document lessons learned -- learn from previous behavior

5 Cost Saving Teleconference Tips known by large companies, but available to everyone

1. NO TRAVEL FOR WORKERS OR FAMILYS SAVES MONEY:
Any time you can meet with team members or even family members without actually leaving their offices or their homes, you have saved time and money. In the work environment, team members are receiving an e-mail with the link and sign in information and attending meetings at their own desks to share information.

This works for marathon meetings lasting over an hour or quick information sharing meetings. Online meetings saves the time (and hassle) of scheduling a conference room and allows reduced travel for those who are not in the same location. This can work for families too. Free services are cropping up where families can schedule a time to talk and share information and without traveling just like the corporations do!

2. MORE EFFICIENT COMMUNICATION SAVES TIME and ACCURACY:
When staff members (or even family members) get the same information at the same time, there is less chance of confusion. Information can be shared and presented to the whole group and the facilitator can take questions and answers to clear up any potential miscommunication.

The same meeting facilitator rules apply: Allow each attendee to announce their presence, repeat questions and allow everyone on the call to have an opportunity to speak or comment on the content. A good way to sum up is to ask each person what the number one take away is from this call and if they have anything else to say on the topic. This works for sharing family news -- such as "there is going to be a new member in this family".

3. CONDUCT TRAINING SESSIONS and SAVE MONEY:
Large corporations do not need to maintain huuge training rooms and auditorium style classrooms for employee training sessions like they once did. Today everyone has a monitor right in their office or very likely has access to one.

Besides live training, some online training sessions are self paced and employees have checklists and deadlines for completing the available training. When conducting live conferences, powerpoint presentations or browser based presentations can be followed and referred to for better content retention. Many training sessions involve several presenters to help maintain focus and to keep the attention of the listeners.

4. RECORD LIVE SESSIONS FOR LATER REPLAY:
Most large corporation already have access to Webex or LiveMeeting as an approved conference / webinar application. Again, with a little bit of research smaller companies or home based businesses can find free seminar products such as Instant Teleseminar which will allow them to distribute phone numbers and access codes. Each person dials in at the agreed upon time and the conversation or presentation is recorded for later playback. The link to the playback can be posted online or e-mailed for review or to be played by people who could not attend the live conference.

This is very handy to get people up to speed and accommodate travel and vacation schedules.

5. INSTANT MESSAGING FOR REAL TIME COLLABORATION = saves time & money:
Large corporations are using Instant Messaging for communication among coworkers. While on a teleconference it is quite common for someone to have information to share near the end of the meeting that they did not have when that agenda item was discussed. It's quite a time saver to say -- can we go back to agenda item #2, "I just IMed the procurement department and they said the delivery time is cut back from the originally estimated 6 weeks to 2 weeks, we will have that in house by the end of the month!" That looks a lot better on the minutes than "she will confirm the 6 week delivery time and report on that at next week's meeting".

Many Instant Messaging applications also come with an opportunity to share the presenter's computer screen to review documents. The presenter can "pass the baton" and other team members can update the document, drawing or plan. What once took several attachments being passed back and forth in an e-mail can now be resolved in one document-sharing meeting, Again, saving time is saving money.