It’s no secret that motivated employees make fewer mistakes, show increased levels of efficiency and tend to remain with a company longer. To increase employee enthusiasm, small businesses are often looking for new ways to motivate workers thus increasing overall productivity. Implementing the right technologies into your small business is one avenue on the path to increased employee productivity, in fact 92 percent of small-business owners indicated in a recent study sponsored by HP Canada and the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) that increased productivity and efficiency are a benefit of technology in the workplace.
Listed below are 10 easy strategies you can implement today to help make your employees more productive.
10 Steps to Boost Productivity:
Create a positive environment: Regardless of whether or not you have two or 10 employees, make each one feel worthwhile and important. Don’t play favourites with your staff. Keep office doors open and let your staff know they can always approach you with questions or concerns.
Listen, listen and listen more: Employees want managers who listen to their ideas and concerns, so don’t interrupt when they are speaking. Don’t tap your foot or work on something else. Pay close attention to what your employee has to say.
Match tasks to talents: As often as possible, assign employees tasks you know they will enjoy or excel at. An individual who succeeds at one thing will have the confidence to tackle other projects with renewed energy and enthusiasm.
Promote work/life balance: Respect lunch time, breaks and after-work schedules. Even the best employees need a break during the day.
Give immediate and private feedback: When you assign work, ask your employee to check in at the beginning of the project to make sure they’re on the right path. Never criticise them in front of other staff – it’s humiliating and unprofessional.
Honesty is the best policy: No matter the size of the company, the employee grapevine can quickly spread potential troubling news such as downsizing so talk about these concerns with employees as early as possible. If you are honest about what’s going on in your business, they will in turn be honest with you about what’s worrying them.
Work hard, play hard: Do something nice for the people who work for you. Treat the office to a pizza lunch or take everyone to the movies. Reward hard work with an unexpected day off or by closing the office early on a random Friday afternoon.
Modernisation: Notebook PCs, PDAs and other forms of modern technology can be your best friend. Modern technology allows employees to have access to extensive resources and timely information.
Provide incentives: Incentives can be something as small as a gift certificate or something more substantial such as a performance-based bonuses or salary increases. Giving out “employee of the month” awards will go far in motivating employees.
Acknowledge contributions: Take the time to praise employees for a job well done, preferably in front of their co-workers. If you’re a manager in someone else’s business, make sure the boss knows about the contributions of your team on a key project. When people on your team do well, the owner will see you as being an effective motivator.
Seven habits for better computing
It’s all too easy to put off tasks such as cleaning up your computer’s desktop and protecting your computer from viruses. But is it worth the time wasted searching for files or the hassle of dealing with a power surge that wipes out your system files? We’ve created a checklist of some simple things you can do right now to improve your productivity and the performance of your desktop or notebook PC.
1.Streamline your filing system
Do you waste minutes hunting down an important file? Does it seem like key documents keep disappearing into a black hole? Finding files doesn’t have to be a chore – if you create and stick to a consistent filing system. Remember to separate finished work from current projects. Shortcuts are helpful when you need one file in multiple locations. To create, right-click on the file then click 'Create Shortcut'. Now just drag-and-drop the shortcut to any folder or location, while only retaining one copy of the original.
2. Bring order to your inbox
If your inbox is overflowing, then organising your e-mail correspondence into subfolders is essential. Group e-mails by action required, projects, clients, or whatever makes sense for you. Once your inbox is unclogged, tracking down specific e-mails is a snap with powerful search tools now used by many email programs. In Outlook, go to Tools/Find/Advanced Find to search for e-mails by sender, key words, and other search criteria.
3. Look at the big picture
Again, a good filing system is the key to organising and finding photographs. When downloading pictures, delete the bad and blurry immediately – don’t bother naming or filing them. Then name the keepers with consistent and descriptive titles. Now store your pictures in logically named folders. For example, a master folder for each year, with subfolders such as “Italy Trip”, or “Holiday Party”.
4.Give your PC a tune-up
Like your car, your computer needs regular tune-ups to run at peak condition. Giving your PC a tune-up is easy, just select Start/Accessories/System Tools/Maintenance Wizard, and follow the instructions. The Maintenance Wizard performs maintenance tasks such as scanning and defragmenting, which ensures your files are stored logically. This speeds up your PC and saves you time. Regularly cleaning up disk errors and removing temporary files (from the 'Properties' box for your hard drive) also reduce the clutter slowing down your PC.
5. Be prepared
Don’t be caught off guard if your PC is hit by a disruptive event such as a power surge. Use System Restore to create snapshots in time of your PC’s system files and settings. Then if disaster does strike, rolling back the clock is easy. To start, go to Start/All Programs/Accessories/System Tools/System Restore. Get into the habit of creating restore points before potentially risky activity like downloading software from the Internet.
6. Protect your PC
Viruses and software bugs can make your PC sick, dramatically reducing its performance and seriously slowing down your productivity. Why take the risk? Use the latest virus protection programs. And don’t put off downloading updates when your antivirus vendor notifies you that they are available.
7. Give yourself a break
Extended time in front of your PC is more physically demanding than you might think. In order to stay productive and prevent injuries and bodily stress, be sure to support your back, and take regular breaks to stretch your limbs or go for a walk. To prevent eye strain, give your eyes a 30-second break every 15 minutes. Give your eyes a longer break to relax and refocus every hour.
Top Ten Threat Prediction list for 2007
More people are turning to a life of cyber crime as the motivators behind increase. The bad news is that we are running out buffers to counter these escalating threats. Today’s attackers are using technology to develop new and innovative (and often very lucrative) business models. In years past cyber criminals were happy with a modest $150 here and $1500 there. Today they are out to fry much larger fish. This year is when they could be set to pull out all the stops to try and nail the big boys.
In an interview with Richard Stiennon, network security industry expert and Fortinet chief marketing officer, 2007 could very well be the year that attackers get smart about attacking enterprise data caches in a fashion that could double their cyber crime revenue – moving their market to between $4 billion and $8 billion. Cyber extortion attempts, however, will no longer be limited to financial institutions or enterprises, and even local governments, schools and manufacturers could find themselves trying to protect against normally business-focused attacks.
That said here is Stiennon’s complete Top Ten Threat Prediction list for 2007:
1. 100 Percent Growth in Revenue for Cyber Crime: The cyber crime industry will increase its focus on enterprise data stores and drive up its profitability. Stiennon’s prediction is that the cyber crime industry revenue will come in between $4 billion and $6 billion next year, doubling their current overall take.
2. DDoS in Support of Phishing Attacks: A combined effort between the phishers and the distributed denial of service (DDoS) attackers, with a social engineering twist, could result in an attack against a bank or e-commerce site. Attackers might also expand their targets for these types of threats beyond the usual outlets, so universities, local government agencies, publishers and manufacturers should consider clamping down on security.
3. Successful DDoS Attacks Against Financial Services Firms: Although DDoS attacks are already in progress, 2007 will be the year that attackers attempt more high-profile targets.
4. “Threat of the Year” – Attacks Against DNS: Whereas DNS servers are a part of the critical infrastructure of the Internet, they are also an easy attack target for DDoS DNS servers are exposed by their nature and, because they control where a browser is pointed, they could become the primary target for attackers that want to take down a web site.
5. Identity Theft Continues to Rise: Markets are developing that could make it easier to monetize stolen identities thus increasing the value of stolen IDs while decreasing the cost of “moving” them.
6. More Attacks Against Wireless Networks: Attackers will continue their pursuit of victims through text messaging, “vishing” and malware that infects Symbian phones and spreads via Bluetooth or MMS.
7. MySpace Grows Up and Gets Secure: In 2007, the number of attacks from predators, criminals and hackers will get to the point that MySpace will be forced to tighten up its controls and monitoring. Unfortunately for MySpace, this will make it less appealing to its young adult audience.
8. YouTube Abuse: Like network news, email and IM before it, the new video sharing trend will succumb to spammers who post ads, ad-backed videos and stealth marketing exploits.
9. Network Infrastructure Shows Signs of Overloading: The backbone providers have been resting on the excess bandwidth in which they invested during the dotcom bubble. Now that voice and video are really here, the infrastructure is showing signs of weakness. This could manifest itself in outages, slowdowns and a mad scramble to lay more fiber in 2007.
10. Spread of Windows Vista will have Zero Impact on the Overall Threatscape: It may be several years before Vista represents more than 50 percent of all machines, and by then attackers will have likely matured and refined their tools. Zero-day exploits for Vista are already available for purchase on the Web.
Schools beef up security
SUNDAY , 19 NOVEMBER 2006
By RUTH HILL
Schools are spending thousands of dollars on surveillance cameras and security guards to stamp out bullying, petty crime, drug use and vandalism. And the investment is paying off as schools report students feeling safer, and adrop in the number of exclusions of badly behaved pupils. Delegates at the recent Post Primary Teachers' Association conference told of instances where students had brought guns and knives to school, had thrown desks out of windows and had threatened teachers with rape. Many schools had beefed up security with high fences, security guards, video surveillance and strict visitor identification, and teachers were also more security conscious, carrying phones in class.
At Paraparaumu College, on Wellington's Kapiti Coast, 84 video cameras have been installed over the past three years, at a cost of up to $80,000. "We've gradually added more in corridors, classrooms and around the grounds as we've discovered more blind spots," principal Richard Campbell said. He said most students were supportive of the surveillance, which had reduced bullying. "The kids know that if they feel threatened, all they have to do is to go into anarea that's being monitored."
Wainuiomata High School principal Rob Mill said the number of suspensions and exclusions had decreased dramatically with the installation of 40 cameras throughout the school a year ago. In 2005, Wainuiomata High issued 38 suspensions and excluded 15 students - mainly for drug offences, disobedience or violence. A further 136 were placed on temporary stand- down for bad behaviour. This year, four students had been excluded. Mill said he had been reluctant to install surveillance cameras, "but unfortunately there is a small minority of people who will insist on causing havoc".
In Auckland, Penrose High School principal Iva Ropati said the school increased protection after several security scares last year, including the arrests of armed gang members outside the gate. The school now employs a full- time security guard and has issued all duty teachers with walkie-talkies. As part of next year's $15 million refurbishment, the school will install surveillance cameras and fencing. "We are completely locking down the school," Ropati said. "It makes me absolutely furious that we have to spend money on this instead of education, but we have to keep our students safe and we will spend whatever it takes to do that."
Unruly students putting teachers at risk 26 September 2006
Deteriorating student behaviour is putting staff at risk and the Government needs to act, says the Post Primary Teachers Association. PPTA president Debbie Te Whaiti told the association's annual conference today deteriorating student behaviour had become a health and safety issue for many teachers, who saw it as one of the major deterrents to recruiting and retaining quality staff. "How many professionals work daily in an environment where it is not unusual to be told to 'eff off you dumb cow' or threatened with "I know where you live you ******," Ms Te Whaiti said. "I hear disturbing stories everywhere I go, with some teachers reluctant to do duty or even frequent corridors for fear of pushing and shoving and intimidation from students. "I think we are at the point where we need to take a really hard look at what many teachers are putting up with in their daily working lives." The PPTA's conference paper Managing Challenging Student Behaviour recommended the Government dramatically improve resourcing for schools to deal with difficult students. It proposed funding programmes such as restorative justice, peer mediation, and alternative education. Guidelines should be developed for schools to use when teachers felt unsafe and all other avenues have been exhausted. "We cannot exclude all difficult students from our schools, but schools cannot serve these students well without the assistance and funding to address the range of educational, mental and medical conditions these students face," Ms Te Waiti said.
Nearly 50 per cent of teachers surveyed by the PPTA said the problem was worse than a year ago. Just 10 per cent said it was better, she said. "They say they are spending more time on motivation, control and dealing with challenges to authority."
We have permission from the follow AlphaNZ educational customers to publish their story.....
Paraparaumu College - click here Wainuiomata High School Wellington College Taita College St Patrick's College, Wellington Hutt Valley High School Tawa College Bishop Viard College Wellington High School Horowhenua College Aotea College Titahi Bay Intermediate School
