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During times of stress, it can be all too easy to fall into the habit of shortcuts, self-neglect, and other bad habits. What if, instead of adding new bad habits, we did a little self-assessment and worked to address some existing bad habits?

As most of the country is entering their second month of isolation, self-improvement is a hot topic (along with where to buy toilet paper and how to touch-up your roots). Whether staving off depression and anxiety or trying to fill a suddenly empty day planner, this could be the perfect time to address some bad habits in both your personal and professional life.

Procrastination

Are you a procrastinator, waiting until the deadline is taunting you to even get started, then rushing through and delivering subpar work? That bad habit is likely to cost you career advancement or even your job.

This bad habit isn’t going to go away easily. Start small by beginning each day getting one dreaded task (that you would usually put off) done and out of the way. If you don’t have any small tasks, put in 20 minutes of quality effort toward a larger project. Then sit back and acknowledge your accomplishment.

Poor Email Communication

Oooh, boy. If you’re working from home right now, this is an even bigger issue. When we don’t take care to consider tone and clarity in our emails, it can lead to ruffled feathers, confusion, wasted time, and so very much frustration.

Take the time this week to review/revise your emails before you send them. Check for tone (are you coming across professionally?), grammar/spelling, completeness (did you address all the points?), and clarity (is it detailed, clearly written, organized, and correct?).

Addiction to Scrolling

This is going to be another that is even worse working remotely. Whether it’s Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or whatever, turning to social media for escape or a mind-numbing scroll, especially during times of crisis, can become even more addictive.

As luck would have it, there is now technology to protect us from technology! Apps such as Freedom, StayFocusd Chrome extension, and Waste No Time for Chrome and Safari allow you to temporarily block certain websites so you can focus on your work.

Poor Time Management

Do you ever wonder how your colleagues manage to accomplish more in a 3 hour period than you do all day? It might be that they’re super-human…but more likely they’re just better at managing their time effectively.

There are plenty of time management tips and techniques out there, many of which can be used in concert. Try them out and see what works for you. Some favorites include:

• Pomodoro Technique. You’ll be amazed what you can accomplish in 25 minutes if that’s all the time you give yourself. This technique also forces you to take regular breaks, which is good for productivity.
• Make a to-do list for the next day at the end of your workday. Stop wasting time trying to figure out where you left off and what you need to accomplish.
• Find your productive time frame and time block.
• Batch your work. Instead of bouncing from application to application, take a page out of manufacturing’s handbook and batch similar tasks together.

As you work on your bad habits, remember that while it takes 21 days to form a new habit, it takes much longer to break a bad one. You’ll have setbacks and bad days, and those are to be expected. So take baby steps and focus on the progress.

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Training employees is one of the most important parts of running a business. This can make or break how well your company functions and the amount of revenue you make. Since it is so important, how much should be spent on training employees? How do you balance the amount spent on training with the amount that they will bring in?

Every December the Association for Talent Development releases a report of the average amount spent on employee training by businesses in various industries and sectors. The latest report on the average company spending for the year on training employees shows that there has been an upward trend in direct learning expenditure. In fact, 2018 was the sixth year in a row to see that pattern and the number of employee learning hours has maintained a healthy increase as well. The Association for Talent Development published that in 2017 there was an average of $1,296 spent by companies on training each employee (2018 State of the Industry). Despite our leanings toward technology as a society, almost half of employee training is still done in-person or in a traditional classroom training.

It is also important to look at not only the average cost of training but also the average amount of time that employees are being trained for. The trend for number of hours has been increasing in correlation to the amount spent with the average hours for 2017 being at 34.1 hours, the same as in 2016, 33.5 hours of training in 2015, and with 32.4 hours in 2014 (ATD Releases 2016) (2018 State of the Industry). It makes sense that the number of hours would increase with the amount spent, but it is surprising that the hours with in-person training remained the same.

We are seeing that employers are putting more into training as the years go by. What does this say about the business world? Are we seeing this increase because of unavoidable inflation of overall spending and costs? Or, does this have anything to do with a trend to spend more time training employees? It has been shown that spending more time training can help with the onboarding process and employee productivity, so these numbers could be a good sign of measures taken to prevent employee turn over. Knowing these statistics can be especially useful when making future decisions and should be monitored to see how your company compares to others in your industry.

You may also like:

The Importance of Periodic Self-Evaluations
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Well, Spring has officially sprung…along with COVID-19 turning all our lives upside down. I’ve seen so many people taking advantage of the quarantine by organizing their homes, starting messy house projects, and digging into the yard work. Who is ruthlessly scrubbing away at their professional life though?

During your excessive hours on Facebook and Twitter, trying to feel some human interaction, make sure you are tidying up your public profiles and keeping them appropriate for public consumption.

93% of hiring managers check the social media profiles of every candidate prior to making a final hiring decision. What would yours say about you (especially right now), and how do you put your social media to work for you all while remaining authentic?

According to Jobvite’s 2017 Recruiter Nation Report, the biggest red flags when researching a candidate tend to pop up in a social media search. When recruiters are browsing your profiles, we’re looking for indicators of your personality and whether you’ll mesh with the company culture. And let’s be real, we’re also looking for any indicators that things aren’t what they seem.

So, what are some of the biggest red flags?
• 61% of recruiters are turned off by marijuana use in the last year (although the attitude toward marijuana use is changing as more states legalize it, and this number has decreased 10% in the last year).
• 51% shudder at your political rants.
• 48% are judging your spelling and grammatical errors. After all, clear and effective communication is an important quality for any candidate.
• 35% are turned off by alcohol consumption.
• 19% roll their eyes at showing off wealth. Not having wealth, but showing it off.
• 16% might rethink their decision if you’re showing too much skin.
• 12% will start to question what’s going on if you have a limited social presence.
• -7% are done with the selfies.

In general, I would strongly suggest you just lock down your Facebook and Twitter privacy settings and keep LinkedIn completely professional. Anything you’re sharing publicly should be something you’re okay with grandma seeing.

So, what should you make sure is visible? Work samples, accomplishments, volunteer/community work, and anything that shows you’ll be a good team player who is nice to work with. While you’re at it, add a little polish to your LinkedIn profile by getting some strong recommendations from past/present managers, clients, and co-workers!

You may also like:

Spring Cleaning: Spruce Up Your Resume
Spring Cleaning: Update Your References
Social Media Profiles: What Does Yours Say About You?

And just like that, people everywhere have been thrown into working remotely.

The oh-so-coveted remote position brings its own wealth of struggles that people often don’t realize until they are mid-battle. How do you stay on-task with so many distractions around? How do you self-motivate? Who is going to keep you in the loop? What if you get lonely? What if your kids barge in on your conference call?

At Reach Your Destination and our sister company, TDM & Associates, we know all about working remotely, so we thought we’d share some of our favorite tips for success when working from a home office.

Julie Blodgett, Senior Search Consultant at TDM, has been working from a home office for over 20 years. Her expert advice is:

• Try to separate yourself as best you can from the hub of the house.  It’s always nice if you have a door on your office to close when needed.
• Make your work area as comfortable and inviting as possible.
• Stay focused on your work task - you can always tackle laundry, dishes etc. after work hours.
• Take a walk during lunch and get some fresh air!
• Try to keep to your normal schedule for starting and ending as well as lunch and breaks.

Stephanie Swilley, Search Consultant at TDM and Resume Writer with RYD, has been working from home for 10 years and currently has two children under 10 underfoot with school closures. She suggests:

• Follow the 80/20 rule. Especially if you have young children at home, you can’t expect your workday to be just like in the office, so focus your energy on the 20% of your work that yields 80% of your results.
• Use time management techniques like Pomodoro to keep yourself on-task. I’m not like Julie – the laundry and dishes are going all day long! But I set timers and take care of those while I’m taking my breaks from work.
• Take time to socialize. Call a friend from the office to catch up (and make sure you’re in the loop on everything at work). Remote work can be very isolating.
• Over-communicate. Be as clear as possible and don’t assume anything in your emails because you won’t run into each other at the water cooler and clarify later! Also, keep as much in writing as possible because it’s harder to follow up on things you forget when you aren’t in-person.
• Disconnect. This is still a big struggle for me, but do as much as you can to “leave” at the end of your workday. Your brain needs the break to be able to be productive the next day.

And our biggest piece of advice: give yourself some grace. Transitions are hard anytime, but a transition that comes along-side a pandemic will always be harder. And your kids probably will do something to embarrass you during this time.

Wishing you all good health, much sanity, and extra rolls of toilet paper in the coming weeks!