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Archive for the 'Management' Category

How Colors May Affect Your Productivity and Success

Monday, June 15th, 2009

Color and productivityColors are everywhere and their impact on us shouldn’t be under-estimated. Our nervous system requires input and stimulation. And color choice is the best way to help it.

Colors can change our mood, make us work or feel tired – imagine, your room colors may be the reason for your bad productivity or lower creativity! The human eye sees about 7,000,000 colors.

Certain colors and color relationships can irritate, cause headaches, or make you feel sick. Other colors and color combinations are healing and soothing.

Consequently, the appropriate use of color can maximize productivity, minimize visual fatigue, and relax the whole body. Here are some basics to start from:

Color Physical background Feelings Effect on productivity
Thermal / warm colors (stimulate and raise blood pressure) Red Red raises blood pressure, increases breathing, heart rate and central nervous system functioning Makes people feel hungry; subconsciously symbolizes dominance Makes people more cautious and detail-oriented; => Make people’s work more accurate
Cool colors (calm, ease inflammation, and lower blood pressure) Blue Blue lowers blood pressure, the pulse rate and body temperature Least appetizing; calming Boosts creativity
Green Green in the center of the spectrum has a stabilizing effect on the human system as a whole. Relieves stress, makes you calmer Researchers have also found that green can improve reading ability

Now, just a few details to support the data listed in the table:

Red:

color red

It may look weird that while making you more energetic and excited, this color also makes you more productive and attentive to details. This phenomenon is explained the following way: (more…)

3 Steps to Getting Organized: Manage Twice as Much as Your Competitor!

Friday, June 12th, 2009

Time managementStarting your own business is tough. You have to think about so many things at a time that you can easily get lost. Apart from your usual professional assignments, you need to hand the whole bunch of other tasks from managing (new) co-workers to building new business connections.

The world starts going crazy… So how not to get lost? Get organized!

First, define what things keep you busy every day

Day by day, you watch your time spent nowhere and you feel you no more have any control over it. Now, sit down, grab a notebook and a pen and create a list of things you do every day. Mine is going to look something like this:

  • Checking email box, killing spam, replying to some messages and sorting other for later references;
  • Checking all your active social media accounts (Twitter replies, Facebook inbox, StumbleUpon shares…);
  • Checking all recent blog posts (are there any comments outside the site itself? on Twitter, Digg, Reddit, etc);
  • Checking morning business news, Digg and Reddit front page, etc
  • Looking for some material for new blog posts, brainstorming for new post idea (lots of coffee here!)
  • Doing some client work, creating daily reports for clients;
  • Talking to online friends and partners;
  • Checking my feed reader (especially those blogs which are updated daily).

Ok, going through this list, it seems I definitely need more than 24 hours a day… Ok, now let’s figure how to manage all those things and to get everything done. (more…)

Ten Of The Best Employers In The United States!

Sunday, May 24th, 2009

Employees play a major role in the success or failure of a company. Happy employees are motivated and they take a company forward. Here are the secrets of some of the companies that are given top ten rankings by Fortune Magazine and Great Place To Work Institute, for being the best employers.

NetApp

This company specializes in proprietary network storage and data management. They have more than 130 offices throughout the world. It is ranked high, at the very top for being the best employer because of the workplace quality and the high-trust culture that is part of the organization.

The company management believes in maintaining a great rapport with employees and taking care of their every need, being completely supportive in every way and at all times. This generosity is taken to heart by the employees and makes the company one of the best-networked organizations.

Edward Jones

This company, with managing partner James D. Weddle at the helm, offers financial products for individual investors and currently have more than 7 million clients, with 10,800 offices in the United States, Canada and United Kingdom.

Culture: Their main focus is training and they provide an average of 149 hours of training each year to their employees, which is said to be far greater than the average of 45. The best part is that employees are not just trained for the job they are in, but are also allowed to develop new skills. Even the fact that employees can seek employment elsewhere with these skills does not deter the management. They believe in their philosophy that employees who are passionate about their job enjoy working for the company. (more…)

Risk Management

Friday, June 29th, 2007

Risk management is the merely the procedure to evaluate risk and build up strategies to handle the hazard. Considering the model of risk management, a prioritization course of action is pursued where in all the risks with the highest possible loss and the ones of the superlative probability of happening are taken care with an immediate momentum. While bringing risk management to practice, the process can be extremely intricate. And above all, the balancing between the highest risks and the lower risks can be awfully confusing as sometimes the risks with lesser probability but higher losses can be frequently bungled up.

A lot of big corporate companies formulate several risk management strategies to lend a hand in preventing monetary catastrophes and workforce hazards. Scores of social fraternities and further analogous corporations have engaged risk management procedures to help out in preventing accidents caused due to alcohol addiction. Risks are not only restricted to the alcohol addiction accidents but also include slave trade practices, intoxicated injuries and employee fights. Certain risk prevention centers employ matured drivers along the week, clear-headed festivity supervisors. Various centers across the region often come up with cells that handle assessing of the risk management policies and promote speakers to talk about the dangers of alcohol. Overall, risk management aspires to prevent and eradicate the living dangers of life. (more…)

Office Management

Monday, May 28th, 2007

The details can make or break a business. A company might have terrific technology, a firm business plan and a wonderful vision, but if the phones don’t work and you have no paper to print the powerful messages on, you’re out of luck. The small things in a business keep things running smoothly, and it’s important to stay on top of all aspects of office management.

Paper, pens, staplers and desk supplies are small, but crucial. Larger items such as telephones, printers, and scale might mean the difference between instant success and a delayed start date. The greatest marketing plan in the world is not effective without business cards, brochures and other means to communicate. (more…)

Management and Strategy

Monday, May 28th, 2007

Every aspect of employment requires management. Even the lowest level of employee must manage time and resources effectively in the day to day operations of a company, but managers and small business owners have considerably more at stake. They must be in control of a great many things and possibly employees at a given time.

A business is a living thing. A good manager helps it grow from an idea to a profit center and then must continue nurturing the business to ensure it grows and changes as the economy demands. The manager must have knowledge of the industry as a whole and be aware of what the competition is doing as well as what is happening at each level of the company itself. (more…)