Share Productivity Laws with Employees as a way to Entertain and Make a Point with Your Employee Newsletter

Have you heard of Parkinson's Law? It was first coined by British author and historian C.

Northcote Parkinson, writing for The Economist in 1955.

The law states that "work expands to fill the time available for its completion.” Have you experienced this phenomenon?

A better question is have you seen employees who are given an assignment with plenty of time to complete it, but still manage to only get it to you barely on time, or even late? This is the Parkinson's Law in action.

Your employee newsletter is a magical tool to educate employees about productivity principles like this one within a workplace wellness context. Improving productivity, reducing stress, sharing the information with others, and having a chuckle or two are exciting reasons to educate your employees about productivity laws that cleverly (more so than others) define our lives. 

A bit of research on productivity laws discovers that there are actually nine different productivity laws commonly cited in time management literature and personnel management training. You've heard of Murphy's Law. It happens to be one of these nine.

In the future, I will share more about these laws of cause and effect with you, but the employee newsletter article idea I would like to recommend is composing a simple article on this topic right now. Make it about 100-120 word range. Remember, it is my recommendation that you never have employee newsletter articles that extend beyond 250 words, and keep most in the range of 120-150 words.

When you research these productivity laws, you can make a strong impact with your employees as I have done here taken from a newsletter article I wrote several years ago.

Have you heard of Parkinson's Law? Simply stated, the law states that "work expands to fill the time available for its completion.”  That’s the observation made by the British author and historian C. Northcote Parkinson, writing for The Economist in 1955. The few who are able to overcome this productivity-killing phenomenon are able to work so efficiently that they seem to have magical powers. Here’s how to join this elite group: Shorten the amount of time required to complete a task and correspondingly increase the urgency of completion by promising it sooner. You will develop more efficient work habits with this intervention, and you will find more free time in your life that you struggle to find right now. A simple way to work with this principle is to take a kitchen time and set it for say, thirty minutes and tell yourself you will finish a project before the bell goes off. The move to your next task and repeat the strategy. Subscribe to Frontline Employee -- a newsletter you can distribute to the workforce, rename and call your own, and  finally have an on-time, highly visible EAP newsletter for improved utilization and program preservation.

Improve Morale and Decrease Risk When You Provide Diversity in the Workplace Awareness Education

If you are not providing diversity awareness education in the workplace, you may want to offer about 10-12 minutes of this content during the year . It is a lot easier to do than you think, and a lot more welcome than you might imagine. It's all about the approach (the educational and non-threatening approach we use.) The benefits of diversity awareness include reduced risk of workplace violence, higher morale, improved communication, and most importantly, employees who behave with tolerance toward others while not feeling threatened by the education and awareness information they receive. You also acquire employees who help maintain a respectful workplace by not acting as bystanders to abuse. It is a very synergistic topic that has multiple layer effects for organizations. Reducing the bystander effect is really key to more positive workplaces. I may produce a PowerPoint on this topic alone. See the full unabridged program we offer here. Just scroll and click the video you will see half-way down the page. This program is editable, "brand-able", professionally narrated, and available in DVD, PowerPoint, Video, or a Web course. That makes it good for collecting certificates of participation as proof you took "due care" in the event a legal claim ever happens for something like discrimination. (By the way, I always recommend arm-twisting your insurance company into a discount for reducing behavioral risk exposures. Most states do that already for a drug-free workplace policy. A topic like this one should be no different. See what happens. Let me know.) See the program. WorkExcel Tip: When you purchase products from WorkExcel.com, you can download them, edit, amend, delete content, and acquire them in any of four different formats. All web courses include test questions, handout(s), certification, and you own web course entirely. Web courses or videos operate from your Web server. They upload in minutes--and they are totally self-contained with embedded PDF handout(s). We can even insert additional handouts you might want to distribute. Explore the other links to your left in this email. Phone me with questions. I answer my own phone.

Workforce Trends in 2018 EAPs Should Undertand to Take the High Ground for Program Growth

Forbes has issued predictions for workplace trends in 2018. Interesting . . .50% of the trends relate directly to human resource factors.

The predictions are heavy on issues concerning employee wellness, employee productivity, and reduced behavioral risk that can lead to productivity and economic losses.

Here are the HR related trends:

1. Leaders will encourage more human interaction. Companies will continue to promote their workspaces and design them to facilitate interpersonal relationships between employees. See more.

5. Financial and mental wellness gets prioritized. With 78% of Americans living paycheck to paycheck and student loan debt at over $1.4 trillion, workers are struggling and it's affecting their health. See more.

6.) Employee burnout causes more turnover. Employees are burned out from working longer hours with no additional compensation, while companies are posting record profits. See more.

8. Companies will take diversity more seriously. Employees must become more aware, tolerant, and buy into the value of diversity. See more.

10. The aging workforce. About three in every four Americans plan to work past retirement age and almost two-thirds said they will continue to work part-time. New challenges for HR. See more.
Download the full trends article here.

Are you a workforce professional -- HR, EAP, Wellness, concerned manager? Consider the skills, resources, and opportunities you represent or have to make a difference in 2018 and beyond.

Go Direct to the Forbes Article