UND-Pilsa Blog

There are many benefits to offering team building sessions and corporate retreats. At the end of a particularly successful corporate retreat that I recently facilitated, I overheard employees making comments the following comments:

“It’s because of sessions like this that this is one of the best places to work.”

“This company must really value its employees to invest so much time and money in us.”

Here are some tips to help you ensure that your next team building session or executive retreat is just as successful.

Clarify Your Objectives

Before you plan your team building session or corporate retreat, it is important to be clear about your objectives. Far too often, companies end up disappointed in the results because expectations were not clearly identified and articulated. Ideally, outcomes should pinpoint the desired impact on the business and be stated in measurable terms. Unfortunately, many organizations treat team building as a discretionary event and don’t attempt to link it to the needs of the business:

Examples of Team Building Objectives

• Improve customer satisfaction by 15%
• Improve employee satisfaction by 10%
• Reduce churn by 5%
• Improve the closing ratio of the sales team by 12%

Even “softer” outcomes like these could be stated in measurable terms if one takes the time to think through the specific impact on the business:

• Forge stronger alliances between geographically dispersed teams
• Fine-tune your marketing and sales strategy
• Reduce friction and “turf wars” between organizational levels and departments.
• Improve communication between teams and departments
• Improve your decision making process
• Identify strategies to reduce red tape and duplication of effort
• Brainstorm and generate new strategies to resolve business issues and overcome challenges
• Manage projects more effectively even within tight time frames

Planning Considerations for Team Building

Once you are clear about your objectives, it is important to determine:

• number of participants
• positions and levels of participants in organization
• physical disabilities and constraints
• budget
• time frame

If you are using an external team building consultant for your corporate retreat, identify a clear decision making process and decision making criteria. Ideally, you should be in a position to make a decision no more than 2 weeks after contacting prospective vendors. You should allow at least a month, preferably 2 months for adequate planning of your session. It amazes me how often we are contacted with companies who want to pull together a complex team building session in a two week or less than one week time frame.

Select the Right Locations for Team Building and Corporate Retreats

Your choice of location can make or break your team building session or corporate retreat. Let your objectives and theme drive the location selection decision and not vice versa. I recall a time when a prospective client had blown most of the budget on a high end conference facility. The result? There was little left in the budget for a facilitator.

Determine if you will require assistance with location scouting and be fair about it. An experienced team building firm should be able to help you find a location to fit your budget. However, it does take time to call around, check availability and come up with just the right fit. For foreign locations, long distance charges are often incurred. It is not kosher to expect consultants to do your location scouting for free. It is also not appropriate to do the event on your own and use the location suggested by a team building service provider.

If your budget is limited, scout around. You may be able to find some unique and cost effective locations for your events. You can stretch your budget by using summer camps during off-peak season, amusement parks, acting studios. the catering department of community colleges to save on the cost of refreshments, movie theatres, camp sites, and conservation areas. 3 looking to save money on location, it is important to book your session WELL in advance…..3 - 4 months in advance. To book a group camp site and shelter, you would need a 5 - 6 month lead time.

Select Your Theme

One of the best strategies for “spicing up” your team building sessions and corporate retreats is to come up with a theme. Based on your theme, you can select an appropriate venue, energizers, session starters, music, video clips, graphics for slides and handouts, and menu items. The key is to let your objectives and content drive the theme. To come up with your theme, create a mind map. Put your content and topics in the centre and come up with as many themes as possible that relate to your topics. If you want to fine-tune your sales and marketing strategy or prepare your team for “uncharted territory” and change, a Survivor team building sessions would be the most appropriate choice. If you want to hone project management and leadership skills or help them improve their effectiveness in pulling projects together within tight time frames, a team building session based on the TV show the Apprentice would be a perfect fit. If your team needs to improve its ability to cope with a fast paced environment, a surprisingly affordable polo team building sessions would fit the bill.

Set a Realistic Time Frame

Sometimes, companies are totally unrealistic about the time frame for a retreat. It is surprising how many people think that they can do a full blown simulation with debriefing, application exercises, and a presentation by a member of the senior management team in half a day. Let me stress this in bold. A half day simulation with adequate time for debriefing and business application exercises is just not doable. The only way that it can work is if the simulation or activity is very simple or short and you have one very clear and specific objective or core message that you want to convey. Of course, you can always find team building companies that will take your money and promise you the moon within a half day or even 2 hour time frame. Buyer beware. You have been warned. Of course, if your goal is strictly recreational, that is doable in half a day or two hours.

When determining an appropriate time frame, consider if there are items other than team building that you need to include in your agenda. A number of the companies with which we work have included vendor and client presentations, departmental presentations, and presentations about plans for the upcoming year into their corporate retreats and team building sessions. The key is to determine the content THEN select the appropriate time frame, not the reverse. So, what are some realistic time frames and formats for team building. Here are some ideas:

Half Day Team Building Format

1 Hour - Preparation/ Briefing Session Including Senior Management Presentation

1 Hour - Mini-Simulation or Recreational Activity

1/2 Hour - Debriefing Preparation Exercise

1/2 Hour - Debriefing Panels

1/2 Hour - Preparation for Application Exercise

1/2 Hour - Breakout Group Presentations ( Maximum 2 - 3 Groups - 10 - 15 minutes each)

TOTAL = 4 Hours

1 Day Team Building Format

1 Hour - Preparation/ Briefing Session Including Senior Management Presentation
3 Hours - Simulation
1 Hour - Lunch
1/2 Hour - Debriefing Preparation Exercise
1/2 Hour - Debriefing Panels
1 Hour - Preparation for Application Exercise
1 Hour - Breakout Group Presentations ( Maximum 4 - 5 Groups - 10 - 15 minutes each)
1/2 Hour - Breaks
1 Hour - Recreational Activity (Optional)
1 Hour - Evening BBQ (Optional)

TOTAL = 8 1/2 - 10 Hours

These formats are very basic. You will get feedback from some team members that they felt rushed during some of the exercises. Be prepared for this and don’t blame the facilitator. An evening BBQ or dinner buys you a bit more time and ends the session on a high note.

Here is a better format that can include an overnight stay at your location or a briefing a week before your team building session:

Pre-Briefing + 1 Day Team Format

Evening
1 Hour - Pre-briefing for Simulation Team Leaders
Dinner - 1 Hour
1 Hour - Preparation/ Briefing Session Including Senior Management Presentation
1 Hour - Simulation
Flexible - Team Recreational Activity or Competition Related to Simulation Theme
Day 2
3 Hours - Simulation (Continued)
1/2 Hour - Debriefing Preparation Exercise
1 Hour - Lunch
1/2 Hour - Debriefing Preparation Exercise
1 Hour - Debriefing Panels
1 Hour - Preparation for Application Exercise
1 Hour - Breakout Group Presentations ( Maximum 4 - 5 Groups - 10 - 15 minutes each)
1/2 Hour - Breaks

If you want to lengthen the time for the simulation or give people more time to prepare for their business application exercises, devote more time for outdoor recreational activities, vendor, client or departmental presentations, or other agenda items, we suggest a 2 1/2 - 3 day format. Remember, the briefing session can be done in advance and you can cut your session down to 2 - 2 1/2 days

Select Your Teams

There are a number of factors that you should take into account when you select your teams. Ensure that you:

• mix departments
• mix geographical regions
• mix organizational levels
• form team based on learning styles
• give team members who don’t get along with each other an opportunity to work together
• give the newer or more junior members of your team an opportunity to serve as team leaders

Analyze your group and assess their learning styles so that you can make decisions about team composition and a number of other key elements for your session.

Team Building: The Bottom Line

Team building sessions and corporate retreats can be rewarding experiences that pull your team together and bring you closer to achieving your goals and objectives. Careful attention to planning can help you avoid a session that people perceive as “a waste of time” and ensure that you get the results that you desire.

© 2006 Executive Oasis International - All Rights Reserved

Anne Thornley-Brown is the founder and President of Executive Oasis International, a Toronto based firm that helps executive teams in Canada, Jamaica, Asia, and Dubai design strategies to survive, thrive and grow in our turbulent economy. Their services include executive retreats, meeting facilitation, executive team building, and executive coaching.

Some of their executive team building building services include:

• Visexecutaries: Apprentice Simulation for Executive Retreats
• Survivor Team Building: Desert Survival
• Survivor Team Building: Wilderness Survival
• Executive Inc: Breaking Down Silos

For information about our executive retreats, please visit our web site:

Corporate Team Building for Executive Retreats by Executive Oasis International:
http://www.executiveoasis.com/executiveretreats.html

For more articles by Anne Thornley-Brown, check out the Spice of the Month Accelerated Learning Ezine:
http://www.thetrainingoasis.com/ezine.html

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Which sounds more appealing, getting up in front of a group of strangers and talking, while they all sit there looking at you like a dog watching a ceiling fan…or gargling with Drano? It’s no surprise how many would choose the Drano.

Public Speaking has been ranked as the “number one fear” among thousands of us. The anxiety is overwhelming, you start to sweat profusely, your knees are knocking so hard you might break a kneecap, hands tremble like you dipped them in a fryer full of hot oil, voice starts quivering like someone dumped a bucket of ice water on your head and you can’t remember what it is you are supposed to be talking about. Why? Because you are scared to death.

I want to share with you some tips on overcoming this fear of Public Speaking.

1. Picture yourself doing it, go ahead picture yourself standing in front of all these people saying what it is you are going to be talking about. Picture yourself from start to finish. Begin with walking up to the microphone or podium, all the way thru your speech, and then finally wrapping it up to a successful outcome.

2. Practice, practice, practice…do your speech ‘out loud’ over and over again. Now, do the same thing to a real live person..(just make sure they will be honest with you about your presentation).

It’s been said: “Repetition is the mother of all skill”…it really is and you do it everyday in your real life, because you have done the same thing over and over again. You can just about overcome any fear you have by doing it over and over again. Sports are a good example…you see NBA players almost never miss a free throw, PGA players make 20 foot putts, NFL kickers put it thru the uprights. It’s not because they were born with some special skill…it’s because they practiced and practiced and practiced some more. The same holds true for Public Speaking.

3. Whip out the camcorder and tape yourself giving your speech. That way you will be able to see what the audience will be watching and listening to.

4. Get a grip…just before you give your speech, RELAX. Take some slow deep breaths and remind yourself that all these people are here to listen to what you have to say. They don’t know (or really care) what your personal life is like. Honestly, they could care less about anything going on in your personal life that YOU feel is adding to this anxiety.

The more prepared you are, the less anxiety you’ll experience, which in turn, will boost your confidence sky high. Then after you are all “said and done”…you will never look at a can of drano the same way again.

Mark Kessler is a 26 year radio broadcasting veteran and the current stadium voice of the NFL’s Washington Redskins, continues to have numerous Public Speaking engagements across America and is the owner of Public Speaking 411 - a comprehensive free resource on Public Speaking, offering tips and techniques and a wealth of information to help you overcome your fear of Public Speaking.

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Being a good trainer requires experience and skill. Experience comes from practice and skill from learning the theories, applying them, getting feedback and consciously improving.

Some things that will help you improve are:

1. Know your target audience - what’s in it for them? What do they expect? Why are they attending your training?
2. Sometimes go back to basics - it’s a good chance to reevaluate your performance
3. Find ways to generate interaction and get your participants doing something
4. Provide as much variety as practicable
5. Demonstrate where possible - it will save many words
6. Use humour wherever possible. If associated with analogies, this can help participants recall specifics
7. Consider your training as a marketing exercise

When you prepare your session (you DO prepare don’t you?) think of it in terms of you having to make a sale. I know this sounds odd, but when you think about it, you are trying to ’sell’ someone the ideas you are putting across. So there’s much we can learn from the art of salesmanship or marketing.

Think along the lines of the acronym A - I - D - A which stands for Attention - Interest - Desire - Action. Get attention by making a statement that is bold or give an example of what could happen if they don’t do what it is you are about to suggest. For example, if you were about to deliver a road safety talk, you could start off by saying something like, ‘560 people died on Queensland Roads last year … what’s going to keep you from adding to that statistic?’ You may then give them some ‘Interesting’ statistics about how many of those people were drivers who committed traffic offences. Desire is aroused when we want something - in this case, the solution to NOT becoming a statistic. Then, the Action part might relate to a commitment from them to put into effect what you have taught them.

The best scenario I have found is to present a problem or predicament, state how the problem can be solved or the predicament can be avoided, present a preferred option and then ask for the action (buying, adopting etc depending on circumstances).

When planning your session, think about how you can weave AIDA into: Explain, Demonstrate, Question, Practise, Review. It won’t be appropriate to every session, but if it can be used, it’s a sound option. And remember, if you have a large volume of content, you may need to break it (it’s called chunking) into separate chunks each of which has an E-D-Q-P-R.

Questioning is two-way. You need to question your participants to find out if they understand what you have delivered; they need an opportunity to clear up any doubts they have by questioning you. Your review can be a summary (which also includes Q) or it can be a review at the commencement of a later presentation about a continuing topic.

When next you are about to prepare a ‘chalk and talk’ session or perhaps a ’show and tell’, think about how you could make it a little more interesting and interactive by using AIDA and EDQPR strategies. You’ll be pleasantly surprised at what good ideas you come up with. And it will show in your session evaluation.

Copyright Robin Henry 2005

Robin Henry is a human resources and development specialist and Internet marketer. He operates his business, Desert Wave Enteprises, from his home in Central Australia.

He has written numerous articles, many of which are found at Ezinearticles.com. Others are accessible from his site at http://www.dwave.com.au.

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As a coach and consultant, I spend lots of time listening to people describe their situation, their problem, their frustration, etc. My clients expect me to offer insights, knowledge, and perspectives to help them create better results either personally or professionally. In many respects, I am a “professional listener.” From this experience, I have found that hearing is easy and listening is hard.

A quick review of some statistics about listening, compiled by the International Listening Association (http://www.listen.org/), yields some insight into why listening is so hard:

• Most of us are distracted, preoccupied or forgetful about 75% of the time we should be listening.
• We listen at 125-250 words per minute, but think at 1000-3000 words per minute.

As hard as it is to listen effectively, it is still vitally important. Take a look at these additional statistics from the International Listening Association:

• Immediately after we listen to someone, we only recall about 50% of what they said.
• Long-term, we only remember 20% of what we hear.
• More than 35 business studies indicate that listening is a top skill needed for success in business.

My first thought as I began this article was: “I’m about to communicate an idea that everyone has heard before.” However, my experience as a “professional listener” tells me that the topic carries enough importance to justify the reminder. More importantly, I’ll share five tips to help you improve your skill in this vital leadership competence.

1. Listen to understand, not to respond

Effective listening goes beyond hearing someone’s words. Effective listening creates an environment where the other person feels that you understand them.

This tip applies to attitude more than it does to behavior. Many people view dialogue like a tennis match where the two parties square off and hit the ball back-and-forth. In this approach to conversation, both parties are adversaries trying to “score the point.”

To listen effectively, I suggest that you view dialogue more like a pitcher and catcher in a baseball game. The pitcher (speaker) throws the ball for the catcher (you) to receive it. The catcher only throws the ball back after he has it firmly in his grasp.

In other words, listen to receive the meaning. Once you understand, then you can respond.

2. Be quiet

Being quiet gives you the opportunity to hear the words, the tone, and the meaning behind the words. It gives you the chance to observe the speaker’s body language.

To help you remember this tip, I’ll share two quick statements with you:

• “When your mouth is open, your ears are closed.”
• “LISTEN and SILENT have the same letters.”

3. Let them finish their thoughts

In other words, don’t interrupt the speaker. From the previous tip, this idea seems obvious. However, I have seen many arguments and misunderstandings that stemmed from interruptions. It’s hard to remain silent. It’s even harder to remain silent until someone has completely expressed their idea.

4. Maintain eye contact

Effective listening means observing everything about the speaker’s message. People communicate at least as much with their body language as they do with their words. Good listeners learn to “listen” with their eyes as well as with their ears.

If you choose to work on something else (answer e-mail, fill out paperwork, etc.) while someone is speaking to you, they will not “feel” that they were heard.

5. Ask questions to ensure that you understand

Just because you heard the words and observed the body language, don’t assume that you understand. If a particular point is unclear to you, ask a question to clarify it before you respond.

Even if you think you understand the message, make sure you do by clarifying it with the speaker. You might say something like:

• “Just to be sure I understand you, let me repeat back to you what I thought you said…”
• “I heard you say… Is that correct?”
• “If I understand correctly, your concern is…”

When you clarify, remember to let them correct your understanding. You don’t have to agree with their perspective. You do have to make sure that you understand it.

Good leaders are good listeners. Effective listening helps to resolve conflicts, build trust, inspire people, and strengthen teams. It often requires you to “bite your tongue,” and, from my personal experience, I know that it can be hard work. I also know that the results are worth the effort.

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You have enormous promise! Why compromise?

I once heard one self-professed motivational expert say, “When you set your goals, aim for the moon. Aim high. Even if you fall short, you will have reached higher than those who aim low.”

What nonsense. When NASA aimed at the moon, falling short of that goal (compromise), equated to failure. Imagine attempting to convince those imaginary astronauts, lost and adrift in space, that they had succeeded because they got 3/4s of the way there. Set your ideals high. Establish intermediate goals as stepping-stones, not fallback positions. Go for the highest goal. Falling short of the mark does not mean that you have succeeded. Don’t kid yourself.

When you set your goals, be prepared to settle for more, not less.

As soon as you set your mind to the possibility of not quite measuring up to the mark that you have set for yourself, you have already planted the seeds of failure and your willingness to settle for less.

Think of your goals, no matter how high they may be, as your minimum expectation. Be willing to believe in the possibility of more. Be willing to imagine more. Be willing to settle for more.

How often do you hear someone say, “Well, you can’t have it all.”? Why not? Who made that into a truism? Compromisers, failures, that’s who.

Listen instead to the advice of Napoleon Hill, “Anything the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.” Make that your truism.

Set your ideal. Define your prosperity. Establish your goals. Design your prosperity. Conceive of and believe in the possibility, nay, the probability of more.

Have the material and financial success you desire.

Have the Physical and Environmental, Emotional and Relationship, Mental and Educational, Spiritual and Ethical success you desire.

And MORE!

Abundance is the natural order of things in the universe; it is the rule, not the exception. Your personal abundance is a natural thing too. Demand it. Expect it. Settle for it.

Reconcile yourself with prosperity, not paucity.

Get rid of your limiting beliefs. Stop buying into the BS.

The same preacher who tells you that money is the root of all evil, asks you to give him your money. The same guru who avers that the material must be left behind to approach the spiritual has servants to attend to his every physical/material need. Why believe such hypocrisy? Get motivated by love, not fear. Money is just a symbolic measure of the flow of energy from one source of attraction to another. Love is attractive.

The same parent, peer or teacher that tells you that you have to put your nose to the grindstone and accept your lot in life, will be living on a pension, if lucky, and wondering what happened to their life.

Is that what you want? Opt out of limiting beliefs. Reality is what you make it.

You can have spiritual fulfillment and abundance in your life side by side with material abundance and success. You can have gratifying and joyful personal relationships in your life. You can have wisdom and self-actualization.

You can have it all.

There is no reason or rule beyond your self-imposed or assumed limiting beliefs that states that you cannot.

Stop acting as if your beliefs, thoughts, visions, words and deeds are meaningless. They paint your destiny on the canvas called your life.

Don’t live your life as if it means something; live it as if it means everything.

Everything means the fulfillment of all your ideals. What else are you here for?

It’s about time you figured that out, isn’t it?

**This article was excerpted from the eBook, Prosperity by Design.

© Leslie Fieger. All rights reserved worldwide.

Leslie is the author of The DELFIN Knowledge System Trilogy: The Initiation, The Journey and The Quest plus many more success publications. He also the co-author of The End of the World with Hugh Jeffries and Alexandra’s DragonFire with his daughter Ashley. Subscribe to his free and ad-free eZine at http://www.ProsperityParadigm.com or http://www.LeslieFieger.com.

Reprinting and republishing of this article is granted only with the above credit included. Permission to reprint or republish does not waive any copyright.

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Whichever career you may be considering as a student, or that you might already be involved in, it is sure to be competitive. The level of competition will vary greatly at the entry stage; it is all a matter of supply and demand. If your desire is to be an astronaut or a veterinary surgeon, the competition to get those coveted places is enormous. If you have chosen nursing, then entry will be easier. However, whichever career it is, once you have entered that career, there will be competition to progress to a higher level, and it is here that having clear career objectives will be necessary.

It is true that some people may have a successful career without ever having set themselves any personal career objectives; at least, any written objectives. However, as with any competition, those who plan their success the best do give themselves an advantage over those who do not. This applies as much to career objectives as it does to as it does to business objectives and other personal objectives.

Advantages of Setting Career Objectives

There are numerous advantages to setting career objectives, at the various stages in the pre-career and career cycle. Ideally, career objective setting should begin late in school, college or university, at some time prior to applying for any jobs. Thereafter, it is worth reviewing those objectives regularly, even annually as you would normally with business objectives.

The following are some of the more obvious advantages of setting career objectives for yourself:

1. The process of objective setting forces you to, among other things, think clearly about your future career, and consider in detail the field in which you wish to work, the position you would aim to hold, the skills you need to acquire, and the work you need to plan.

2. By going through such a detailed thought process, you may identify before it is too late that a particular career is not for you, or you may in fact reinforce your decision to follow a particular career path. Either way, you are more likely to end up in a career that suits you, at least for the time being.

3. Once you have set your career objectives, they give you a structure on which to pin your career development. You can put together a career plan based on these objectives, and then monitor progress and carry out regular reviews of the way your career is developing.

4. Establishing career objectives, and writing them down, shows you are somebody who has clearly thought deeply and into the future about your career, and what you want to achieve. Not only will this help you to keep track of your career progress, it will also impress employers and potential employers.

5. Regular monitoring of your career objectives will help you to discern when you are not making sufficient progress, and help you to pinpoint why that is so. That can enable you to take corrective action to put yourself back on target for your goals, or to reassess the goals and make them more achievable.

6. Having career objectives may also help you decide that a certain career is not for you, if you have set reasonable objectives and then found you could not reach them and felt no further motivation to do so. You may therefore be in a position to switch to another career sooner than someone who was not monitoring their progress against objectives.

Other advantages to setting career objectives may no doubt be cited, but those above are some of the most common. Generally speaking, though, taking the trouble to set objectives for your chosen career is likely to benefit you in more ways than one.

This career development article was written by Roy Thomsitt, owner and part author of the Routes To Self Improvement website. Do you want to learn to be a success in all aspects of your life? You can, and you can learn online at Success University. Enroll for a free trial now.

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According to Work Life Today, flexibility and overwork are two of the major workforce issues of 2006. With over 33 percent of employees feeling overworked, employees need to find ways to ease the burden on their workers without allowing the costs to skyrocket.

Adding work to already overloaded employees is expected to worsen, since it is expected that the workforce is likely to decrease. The added burden of work on employees can cause problems in the balance of life and work for staff members, as they feel more overloaded with work. Also, with the new trends of employees paying for health insurance and having to dress more formally becoming more prominent, employers will have to find other ways to address the issue of balancing work and life for staff members that shoulder the burden of extra work.

Knowing why employees feel overworked is the first step in finding inexpensive ways to address the issue. Many managers misunderstand what overwork means to their staff. Even though Expedia.com reports that 63 percent of workers work more than 40 hours per week, being overworked is not just about the number of hours the person spends at the office. Most often, employees feel overworked due to having too much work to do in a given day or having too many menial versus challenging tasks. The employee that feels overworked can be costly to an employer, because people who are overworked tend to make more mistakes and harbor anger and resentment toward management and co-workers. People who feel overworked can sometimes lose track of important tasks, which then mean missed deadlines and lost clients.

Many of the issues associated with overwork come from finding a way to balance the burden of work with the things people need for everyday living. Today managers are being viewed as the gatekeepers to work/life balance, since many people continue to feel overwhelmed by the load of work in both their professional and personal lives. With over 26 percent of employees refraining from taking vacation or sick days because they worry about the amount of work that will be piled in their inboxes when they return, it is no longer just about the benefits like insurance or vacation time that appeal to the employee. Potential new hires and current employees want to know that the company cares about them as people, not as a worker-bee. This means that employers need to be more creative in how they approach the feeling of overwork so that employees are more productive and satisfied in both their professional and personal lives.

So what are some ways that employers can fulfill this new role of Gatekeeper? While some companies are offering incentives for people to take vacations, many companies are turning to trainings and personal concierge services to assist their employees to feel less overworked. For instance, one company decided that they wanted staff members to begin dressing more professionally. So they offered people trainings on how to put together professional outfits. Another company offered a company that would assist people in shopping for professional clothing. Trainings can also help people learn how to manage their time better, how to use a wardrobe for success, and even how to succeed in upward mobility.

However, the most recent, and low-cost, trend has companies using a corporate concierge service that will take care of the little things so that the employees focus will be on the big things. For some people, taking care of the grocery shopping, clothing purchases, birthday presents, and more can allow their focus to be directed at work. People have found that they can focus more on their work when someone else is taking care of picking up the dry cleaning or getting their oil changed.

According to BusinessKnowHow.com, overwork is one of the top reasons why many people get frustrated and leave their jobs. Whether you are looking to retain the employees you have or you are looking to attract quality new hires, one of the issues you will need to address is overwork. When employees see that you are trying to meet their needs and make their overall lives better, you will find that production will increase and an overall sense of well being will fill your office. Using trainings, incentives, and personal concierge services can bring about the best in your staff without costing you a fortune.

Tracey Crockett is the Chief Lifestyle Manager of Chores, Errands ‘N More, a full-service concierge and lifestyle management company located in Upstate South Carolina. The company’s sole objective is to enhance the quality of life for its customers. More information can be found at www.choreserrandsnmore.com, or by calling 888-509-5533

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