Tag: time management

  • The Ultimate List Of Remote Work Tools And Resources

    The Ultimate List Of Remote Work Tools And Resources

    “People are more productive working at home than people would have expected. Some people thought that everything was just going to fall apart, and it hasn’t.”  –  Mark Zuckerberg

    While everyone might not agree with Mark Zuckerberg, he has a valid point. For years, business leaders have been doubtful about the success of remote work. However, the secret lies in effectively managing and enhancing employee productivity and experience. We aim to emphasise the availability of tools & resources for remote workers and how they help in remote team management.

    Today, there are a plethora of tools and resources available for remote workers who work in different time zones. They collaborate with colleagues from different parts of the world and need to stay connected, thus making remote work more efficient, productive, and enjoyable.

    Various communication and project management tools, as well as time-tracking and file-sharing platforms, are available to remote workers.

    This comprehensive list will cover some of the top tools and resources for remote workers, providing a one-stop-shop for anyone looking to improve their remote work experience. Whether you’re a seasoned remote worker or just starting out, this ultimate list will have something for everyone.

    #1. Trello

    Manage Team's Projects From Anywhere

    Manage Team’s Projects From Anywhere

    Trello is a collaboration tool that organizes your projects into boards. In one glance, it tells you what’s being worked on, who’s working on what, and where something is in process.

    It brings your tasks, teammates, and tools together. A project management tool loaded with powerful features, Trello is the corporate world’s favourite.

    • The ‘Views’ feature lets the users see projects from every angle with Board, Timeline, Table, Calendar, Dashboard, Map, and Workspace views.

    • The ‘Automation’ feature allows users to automate the workflow with Butler.

    • The ‘Power-Ups’ feature powers teams by linking their favourite tools with Trello plugins.

    • ‘Templates’ give a blueprint for success with easy-to-use templates.

    • ‘Integrations’ to find the apps team is already using or discover new ways to get work done.

    #2. Slack

    Bring team communication and collaboration into one place

    Slack keeps everyone connected with a user-friendly interface. Having all your people, tools, and communication in one place enables the team to work faster.

    It is the productivity platform that empowers everyone with no-code automation and AI, makes search and knowledge sharing seamless, and keeps teams connected and engaged

    • ‘Channels’ let users stay organised and focused with central spaces for communication, files, and tools.

    • ‘Slack Connect’ provides collaboration with teams at other companies.

    • ‘Messaging’ makes way for efficient and organised team chat.

    • ‘Accessibility’ boasts keyboard accessibility, animation preferences, and visual controls.

    ALSO READ: Remote Workforce Essentials: Perks and Benefits That Promote Work-Life Balance

    #3. Zoom

    Get more done in a frictionless video environment

    Zoom is a video conferencing tool with a touch of the in-person experience. Being a unified communication and collaboration platform, it allows users to hold virtual meetings and team chats.

    Among different product categories, Zoom offers unique features under them.

    • Zoom One – It brings together options for team chat, phone, whiteboard, meetings, and more into a single solution to help deliver frictionless communication and collaboration experiences.

    • Zoom Rooms – It is a software-based room system that provides an integrated experience for audio conferencing, wireless screen sharing, and video conferencing.

    • Zoom Events – It is a versatile platform that allows you to create a variety of engaging virtual experiences for attendees will love. You can manage your own branded event hub, track ticketing and registration, control user access from one dashboard, and allow networking during your Zoom Events.

    #4. Dropbox

    Backup your most essential files to the cloud

    Dropbox is a reliable and secure cloud-based file hosting service for storing and sharing the most important files. With Dropbox, you can do more than just store files.

    • ‘Backup’ automatically backs up important files on the devices and restores them.

    • ‘Dropbox Sign’ helps users prepare, send, sign, and track agreements with legally-binding eSignatures.

    • ‘DocSend’ securely sends important documents and gets real-time analytics.

    • ‘Capture’ creates screen recordings and video messages.

    • ‘Dropbox Shop’ provides advanced access to the newest product experiences.

    #5. Asana

    Enable teams to work together effortlessly

    Asana is the go-to resource for remote workers. It comes as a comprehensive toolkit with a solution for the unique needs of different organisations. The tool can be used as a lightweight CRM for project management, campaign management, creative production, request tracking, agile management, and more.

    With Asana, teams are more confident, move faster, and accomplish more with less—no matter where they’re located.

    • ‘Workflow Builder’ creates automated processes to coordinate your teams.

    • ‘Timeline’ builds a beautiful Gantt chart quickly.

    • ‘Boards’ allow users to see and track the work.

    • ‘Calendar’ allows teams to plan, manage, and visualise their work in a shared team calendar.

    • ‘Reporting’ to get real-time insight into progress on any work stream.

    • ‘Automation’ streamlines processes and reduces errors.

    • ‘Workload’ checks how much work team members have across projects.

    Trello Vs. Asana: Trello is focused on Kanban boards, whereas Asana offers multiple project views such as timelines, calendars, and workflows.​

    #6. Hubstaff

    Manage remote workforce efficiently

    Hubstaff is a time-tracking and productivity-monitoring tool that automates many aspects of running a growing business. At its core, Hubstaff helps teams track time in easy, automated ways that produce more accurate, detailed timesheets.

    In addition, it offers one-of-a-kind features under different categories that benefit employers and employees, which include:

    • Time tracking
    • Employee monitoring
    • Workforce analytics
    • Agile project management

    #7. Blueboard

    Reward your employees with fun, memorable experiences

    Blueboard is a unique employee reward and recognition platform to show employees how much they matter. Organisations can recognise and reward their employees for different moments in different forms, such as:

    • Anniversary awards

    • Sales incentives

    • Spot recognition

    • Referral incentives

    • Company values awards

    • Wellbeing gifts

    • President’s Club

    • Onboarding gifts

    Blueboard offers organisations a 360-degree view into complete rewards lifecycle – from reward delivery, to scheduling, to completion.

    RELATED READ: The Connection Between Employee Recognition and Retention

    Final Comments

    Businesses today are adopting remote trends and hiring talent across the globe. But, without any doubt, the biggest challenge is to nurture, guide, and support team members.

    Having appropriate resources for remote work is crucial to support remote employees in their day-to-day work, facilitating effective communication and collaboration, boosting productivity, and promoting overall well-being. Employers should ensure that remote workers have access to the necessary resources to perform their job effectively and thrive in a remote work environment.

    It might become a tough gig to manage remote workers, but the tools mentioned above and resources are certainly there to assist your business.

    Hire the talent that matters to you!

    Besides the remote team management tools and resources, hiring the right talent impacts the results. Therefore, ensure to hire the top talent for your organisation by partnering with the most reliable team of recruitment experts. Want to know about the sectors we serve? Visit us here:

    Our Expertise

    Cornerstone Global Partners (CGP) Singapore provides the best recruitment solutions. Access a rich network of contacts and expert information on Singapore and Southeast Asian job markets.

    FAQs

    1. What resources are needed to work remotely?

    Remote work is a hot issue, and many companies have wholly adopted remote work. To make remote work easy, the team can use a few resources.

    Resources like Zoom and MS Teams are ideal for video conferencing. Chat applications such as Slack, Google Hangouts, and Workplace by Facebook have eased communication.

    Google Drive, Dropbox, Microsoft OneDrive, and Media Fire are highly suitable for file storage.

    2. Why do you need resources for remote Work?

    Resources for remote work are essential for several reasons:

    • Access to information and tools – allowing remote workers to effectively carry out their tasks and stay connected with their team.

    • Productivity and efficiency – Having the right resources can enhance productivity and efficiency in remote work environments.

    • Communication and collaboration – Helping to maintain effective teamwork and achieve project goals.

    • Training and development – Providing remote employees with opportunities for learning and development, which can contribute to their career advancement and success in remote work roles.

    • Well-being and work-life balance – Helping remote workers maintain their physical and mental well-being, manage stress, and achieve a healthy work-life balance.

  • How To Deal With Burnout In The Workplace?

    How To Deal With Burnout In The Workplace?

    Herbert Freudenberger, a psychologist, was the first to use the term burnout in 1974. The term burnout is often seen as a medical condition, but the reality is that it is a psychological syndrome.

    What is burnout?

    Burnout is a state of physical, emotional, and mental exhaustion, doubt, and pessimism. It can destroy employee productivity, affect their mental well-being, and destroy their career.

    The World Health Organization defines burnout as “a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed.”

    It was in 2019 when the World Health Organisation declared burnout an occupational phenomenon in the 11th revision of the International Classification of Diseases. The reason behind such a significant declaration was the constant pressure to address the concern.

    With the rising economic pressures, it is imperative to cater to the growing concern of burnout at work. But burnout doesn’t necessarily mean you need to hunt for a new job. While some of you may think you need to do a flip on your career, there are always better and well-thought solutions.

    Let’s help you tackle your burnout and prevent it from being a huge block to your purpose. Additionally, the blog will introduce tips hiring managers (and employees) can adopt to help everyone in an organization maintain work-life balance and mental well-being.

    How can Employees Deal with Burnout?

    #1. Pay Attention to What and When You Feel

    Start identifying your emotions because they constitute a major part of burnout. Monitor your feelings and check for them when they arise, lest resentment and frustration should follow you.

    The best way is to talk to yourself and seek answers to questions such as:

    • What am I feeling now?

    • Why am I feeling this way?

    • Is someone’s actions affecting me?

    • How can I cope?

    #2. Release Your Stress

    Letting stress buildup within you can lead to an explosion (not literally!) but will lead to emotional outbursts. Find a way to vent out that is disrupting your mental peace and has the capacity to destroy your career.

    Everyone is unique, and so are their ways of releasing their stress. However, the most common ways to let the pressure out are:

    • Talking to a friend or a family member your trust.

    • Going out for a walk and spending alone time.

    • Playing your favourite sport.

    #3. Build Healthy Relationships with Co-workers

    Make it easier for yourself to ask for help by developing healthy relationships with your colleagues. Not only will you be able to share good times with them, but it will also give you access to shared resources and a sense of community.

    Consider doing the following:

    • Identify like-minded people and interact with them daily.

    • Stay away from negative people but don’t disrespect them.

    • Talk to your seniors, express your interest in interacting with the team’s brilliant & intellectual minds, and seek their assistance.

    #4. Stick to a Work Schedule

    Undoubtedly, work possesses the potential to keep you sane throughout life. Nonetheless, it can also affect your health and mental well-being if you stretch yourself and make your life revolve only around work. Instead, try setting and sticking to a work schedule that leaves you enough time to focus on other activities..

    Try the below-mentioned tricks:

    • Log out all the work email accounts and communication platforms from your personal devices.

    • Be an early riser and reach your workplace ten minutes before the scheduled time.

    • Don’t discuss or let office-related issues disturb your family time.

    #5. Find Ways to Make Work More Fun

    You can take charge of making your work life fun and interesting. However, we do not mean to indulge in fun activities in a way that starts affecting your work productivity. Ask your manager to incorporate fun yet mind-boggling activities that can make you learn and unwind simultaneously.

    You can take up a few ideas:

    • Finding creative slogans to define your team’s mission

    • Sharing the best & worst work-life experiences.

    • Bringing up innovative ideas to fuel your department’s growth.

    How Can Hiring Managers Deal with Burnout?

    #1. Provide Employees with Recovery Time

    Remember! Your employees are humans first and have personal lives too. Seeing your employees push themselves daily to handle the pressure or meet deadlines is a warning sign for you. Therefore, you must provide recovery time.

    But before that, ensure the respective managers meet the team member in person and get to the problem’s root cause. Also, checking on employees should be a regular activity.​

    #2. Extend Social Support

    The old proverb “United we stand. Divided we fall” supports the prevention of burnout and educates hiring managers to foster community among employees, powering team support and letting employees connect. This will help employees seek guidance to battle workplace burnout.

    Additionally, managers can schedule weekly team lunches or plan activities that bring the team together.

    RELATED READ: How Can Employee Engagement Benefit the Company?​

    #3. Connect Employees to the Organisation

    Help employees connect to their purpose and make their work life meaningful. People who relate to their role in the organisation feel more connected to the company and its purpose.

    Managers can build a connection between the organisation and its workforce. On top of that, shed light on how each employee contributes to organisational success and why their role matters.

    Why should Companies Worry About Employee Burnout?

    The facts here will justify the reasons why there is a need for companies to take employee burnout seriously. Employees who experience burnout are:

    • 63% more likely to take sick leave

    • 13% less confident in their performance

    • 2.6 times more aggressive in hunting for a new job

    • 23% more likely to visit an emergency room

    Bottom Line

    With burnout reaching its pinnacle in today’s corporate world, is it possible to hope for better? Of course, it is. Burnout is preventable. It requires good organisational hygiene, better data, more timely and relevant questions, smarter (more micro) budgeting, and ensuring that your well-being strategy includes wellness offerings.

    The employees, hiring managers, and organisations need to understand the severity of dissatisfaction with work before taking steps to curb it. Watch for symptoms and detect them in yourself and your coworkers. Across the globe, employers can play a key role in improving people’s health in several ways. With collaboration and shared commitment, employers can make a meaningful difference in their employees’ lives and their communities.

    FAQs

    1. What are the five symptoms of burnout?

    The five symptoms of burnout are Excessive stress, Anger & frustration, Detachment, Loss of energy and Lack of motivation.

    2. What is the best way to recover from burnout?

    The best way to recover from burnout is the combined efforts of employees, managers & hiring managers, and the organisation.

    Employees must identify their feelings towards work, talk to their seniors or vent out in a comfortable way. They should also stick to a work schedule and make work fun.

    Managers and hiring managers must give them time to recover if they feel a person is experiencing burnout. Moreover, they must extend social support and make them feel valued.

    Lastly, organisations should take measures to cope with burnout and create policies that support their efforts.

    3. What is the major cause of workplace burnout?

    The major cause of workplace burnout is a heavy workload and excessively long work hours. These reasons frustrate people as they have less time to devote to themselves and their families.

  • 5 Effective Tips For Time Management For Recruiters

    5 Effective Tips For Time Management For Recruiters

    Recruiting is a time-sensitive occupation and being a recruiter means you hold one of the busiest and most in-demand jobs in the corporate world. Therefore, you will tend to have multiple tasks to juggle at once whilst being relied upon by people looking for help with their careers.

    You can succeed if you make use of every minute of your workweek. Also, responding to candidates quickly and always remembering to follow-up will help you to stand out.

    So, we are here with 5 time management tips that you can implement in your work plan to make you more productive. There are several recruiting techniques available, but we have chosen the best that will work for all situations for any busy recruiter.

    Read the following tips and make them part of your workday!!

    ​Write Everything Down

    The first step for every recruiter to successfully manage their time is to jot down everything. Every time some task comes across your mind, write it down immediately.

    This will save you from forgetting important tasks, and you need not to remember each and every minute detail.​

    Plan Your Day

    • Make a To-Do List: Stay on top of your daily to-do list. By doing so, you will no longer feel anxious about not completing the tasks and be more productive.
    • Set Your Priorities: Setting your priorities helps you streamline your work. Organise your tasks according to their urgency. When you have a task that’s due at the end of the month and one that’s due at the end of the week, you can easily decide which task is most pressing.
    • Set Rewards: You should reward yourself with small pleasures when your work is completed, or your goal is accomplished. You could go to watch a movie with your friends or do whatever makes you motivated.​

    Time Management Apps

    There are so many time management apps available online. These apps are used for presenting the different stages of the tasks. They can also help you divide your tasks into stages and make them easier to manage.

    You can keep track of the progress of the task throughout. For example, start your task and file it under started, then halfway through, file it under progress, and at the end, file it under done.​

    Inbox-Zero

    Recruiters generally rely on emails to communicate with candidates. And those emails need to be organised correctly, or it can be a big time waste.

    This time management technique is primarily for your emails. It can help you keep your email box well-managed.

    So, now, if you want to keep your inbox empty, here are a few tips:

    • Designate a part of your day to check your emails and ensure you stick to them.
    • Prioritise your emails
    • Use labels and mark your emails as per their priorities.
    • Firstly, reply to the essential emails or the ones you can respond to quickly.
    • Archive or delete the unwanted mails from your inbox.​

    Eat The Frog Technique

    Eat the frog technique is prioritising your tasks. Being a recruiter, you are constantly surrounded by urgent and essential tasks. This technique will help you select your most important task and tackle it first.

    To do this, you have to identify the tasks and label them according to their priority like:

    Task A: Most urgent and most important task.

    Task B: The second most important task on the list but can be done only when task A is done.

    Task C: A task you could do, but if you don’t do it, you won’t face any major consequences.

    Task D: A task that someone else can do.

    Task E: A task you don’t need to do here and now; you can do it some other day.

    In this way, you will be able to know which task needs your utmost attention so you can devote more of your time to that task.

    So, these are five tips for time management that you can follow to achieve fruitful results in the organisation.​

    Our Final Words

    ​Recruiters are always expected to have excellent interpersonal skills and communication skills. But time management is something extremely important yet consistently overlooked.

    ​However, if you follow the tips and practices mentioned above and implement them in your work, you will see a reduced time for completing any task.​

    Career with CGP

    Cornerstone Global Partners Singapore is one of the fastest-growing recruitment companies in Singapore. We are always on the lookout for exceptional individuals who are looking to join our unique, fun, and innovative business and become future hiring experts. If you are the one, CGP wants you!

    Get in touch with us today »

    ​

    Frequently Asked Questions​

    Why is time management important for recruiters?

    ​Time management is one of the most important aspects of being a successful recruiter. Assuming you’re sourcing candidates for a specific role, you need to be efficient to use your time best.​​

    How can recruiters manage their time?

    ​Recruiters have much work to do! They must keep in contact with their clients, post jobs, review resumes, interview candidates, and so on. Here are some tips on how they can manage their time effectively:

    • Keep a list of priorities. This will help you stay organized and focused.
    • Set deadlines for yourself and try to stick to them.
    • Delegate tasks whenever possible. This will lighten your load and allow you to concentrate better.
    • Take breaks periodically to rejuvenate your mind and body. A refreshed recruiter is a more productive recruiter!​

    How do recruiters schedule the day?

    ​Answer: Recruiters can use a variety of methods to schedule their day. Many recruiters keep a traditional daily planner with them at all times. This allows them to track their daily appointments, tasks, and goals. Other recruiters prefer digital scheduling tools, such as an online calendar or To Do list.

    ​Many recruiters also find it helpful to schedule specific blocks of time for different activities. For example, they may block off an hour each day for making phone calls, conducting interviews, or researching potential candidates. By dedicating specific chunks of time to recruitment-related activities, recruiters can stay focused and avoid getting distracted by other tasks.