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YOUR CAREER

What happened to weekends?

April 19, 2023 by

By Lynne Curry If you’ve lost your weekends to work projects begging to be finished and annoying pop-up employer emails, you’re not alone. According to ActivTrak’s survey of 134,260 employees who worked for 900 separate organizations, employees work an average of 6.6 hours, almost a full work day, each weekend. If this fits you, consider these questions: Has your job taken over too much of your life? What do you need to do to recover your weekend? The vanishing weekend For many managers and employees, weekends dwindled in exchange for a flexible work/life balance. You wanted to attend exercise classes at noon on Tuesdays and Thursdays? Go for it. You drop your kids off at nine a.m. and pick them up at three p.m.? No problem, use your weekend to… . . . read more.

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TELEWORK

6 tips to keep your hybrid team productive

April 12, 2023 by

As a medical office manager, you understand the importance of creating a productive work environment for your staff. With the rise of remote work in the last three years, it is more important than ever to create a hybrid work environment that balances the needs of both remote and on-site staff. Here are some tips to help you create a productive hybrid work environment for your medical office. Establish clear communication channels Clear and open communication is essential in any workplace, but it becomes even more critical when you have a hybrid team. To ensure that all staff members are on the same page, establish clear communication channels. This may include regular virtual meetings, email updates, or a shared workspace where everyone can access important information. Set clear expectations When… . . . read more.

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TELEWORK

The nomadic remote employee: Employee dream, employer nightmare

April 11, 2023 by

By Lynne Curry Question: Several of our employees regularly travel out of state. Before the pandemic, they took vacations for several days or weeks. They and we understood they were on vacation. The situation was clear cut. Our current team includes three employees who want to travel and stay for weeks or even months, in places like Hawaii and Thailand or with relatives. While they insist they can work and should receive full paychecks, this doesn’t seem fair to the rest of us who remain onsite and have to pick up the pieces when our “travelers” can’t be easily reached. We agree they can get some work done, but have no way of knowing if they’re putting in 40 hours a week. We tried to explain how messy this felt… . . . read more.

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YOUR CAREER

5 ways to improve your job search

December 28, 2022 by

It doesn’t hurt to have a plan in case you find yourself looking for a new job. Although the demand for skilled talent remains strong, professionals need to be increasingly strategic and intentional when making career moves, says David King, a senior managing director with Robert Half, a global talent solutions and business consulting firm. “Workers should make a point of highlighting the value they bring to potential employers. This begins with knowing what companies seek in prospective hires, and pulling relevant strengths to the forefront.” A recent survey by Robert Half reveals five key considerations for those launching a job search. Resume red flags— When evaluating candidates’ resumes, top factors that give employers pause include: Frequent job hopping (80 per cent) Insufficient skills for the position (80 per cent) Vague… . . . read more.

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TECHNOLOGY

7 tips for leading a video meeting

December 27, 2022 by

We’ve become accustomed to attending work meetings on Zoom and other video conferencing platforms since the pandemic lockdown of 2020. But you might not be at ease as the leader of a Zoom meeting for your medical office team. Here are some tips for conducting a successful video work meeting: Set a clear agenda: Before the meeting, create an agenda that outlines the topics to be discussed and the goals of the meeting. Send this agenda to all participants in advance so that they can come prepared. Establish ground rules: Set some ground rules for the meeting, such as requiring all participants to mute their microphones when not speaking and encouraging people to use the chat function to ask questions or make comments. Start on time: Respect the time of… . . . read more.

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POST-PANDEMIC WORKPLACE

Managers hold the key to employee engagement and retention

December 15, 2022 by

With many workplaces now allowing hybrid work, new complexities in managing the workplace are emerging, says the The Conference Board in a new report. Recent evidence suggests that productivity among US workers has declined significantly from heights experienced during the pandemic. Remote and hybrid work arrangements combined with ill-prepared managers may be a cause. Why it matters Managers lie at the nexus of employee engagement and retention. Given the added challenges of a post-COVID world of work, it is essential to strengthen how employees are managed and led. Care must be taken to create an organizational culture welcomed by employees that also supports organizational goals. The path forward Postpandemic, managers and employees must learn how to adapt effectively to each other’s emerging needs and preferences. This can be done by… . . . read more.

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REMOTE WORK

Digital presenteeism: Faking you care, faking you’re even there

November 17, 2022 by

By Lynne Curry A surprising number of employees, determined to hold on to their “work from home” status and aware that managers and others suspect remote employees of working less than their required hours, practice digital presenteeism. Digital presenteeism involves remote employees demonstrating they’re hard workers by responding to additional emails, attending additional meetings, and contributing comments in every meeting. According to a recent job trends report, the average remote employee works 67 additional minutes daily in an effort to convince managers they’re fully engaged in their jobs, https://www.flexjobs.com/remote-jobs/company/talentwise. The same report reveals that a record 85% of managers find it difficult to know for sure if their remote employees are productive. The problem—these actions erode morale and don’t equate with higher productivity. Said one mid-level manager who called me… . . . read more.

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TELECOMMUTING

Flexibility is the key to remote work practices

November 8, 2022 by

“The name of the game is flexibility,” says Carl Kutsmode, Senior Vice President at Talentrise, an executive search and talent management consulting firm, talking about the nature of remote work since the coronavirus pandemic. Kutsmode discusses how the pandemic has changed the workforce, likely for good. Additionally, his perspective provides tips to help employers adapt to new business and networking practices in a post-pandemic world. Pandemic’s push for career reevaluations The confinement of the pandemic enabled people to pause, reconnect with their families, and establish a work-life balance that had not existed to such an extent before 2020. As the world slowly moves away from the pandemic’s restrictions, employees are motivated by new, different factors than they once were and, as such, have different expectations of their employer. As the… . . . read more.

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REMOTE WORK

Make online team meetings work for you

November 4, 2022 by

By Lynne Curry If you dread online meetings–attending them, hosting them–and long for meetings to become more than a necessary evil, you can make it happen. Recently, I hosted a two-day, 15-hour meeting that the 17 attendees said “zoomed by,” “was fun, kept me engaged the entire time;” and “made an hour seem like five minutes.” Here’s how we did it. A “you” start We started with the “real,” with questions like “how is remote working for you this week?” Real value Before I launched into the first topic, I asked everyone what they hoped the meeting focused on and what results they wanted from it. Everyone listens to the same radio station, WIFM, “what’s in it for me”. If your meeting attendees know from the start, they’ll receive value,… . . . read more.

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RECRUITING

How to attract employees in the post-pandemic job market

July 19, 2022 by

By Lynne Curry The pandemic has changed employees and what they want out of a job. It’s up to employers to recognize these new attitudes toward work and figure out how to attract good staff. See if you relate to the situation described here by a manager in another industry, and if you can use some of the advice.  Question: I always thought I was a good manager. Not anymore. I feel outgunned by what’s happened with my employees. A third of them have left for “better” jobs. The ones who’ve stayed have made it clear they expect higher wages and to work from home when they want.  The woman we hired to handle HR and accounting tells us she’s doing her best, but she hires “the best of the… . . . read more.

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