Emails, reports, subscriptions, market research,  newspapers, books, and brochures are just some of the information sources that we are inundated with, in our modern workplaces.
 
Like it or not, we are caught up in an age where there is an explosion of information. With this constant bombardment of information it has become more and more difficult to manage efficiently the information we receive. It is only natural to sometimes suffer from information anxiety and a sense of being overwhelmed.
 
It has become crucial to have systems in place to be able to organise this information efficiently so we can find it easily.
 
Following are four strategies that will help you keep your information organised.
 
Strategy 1 - Have a place for everything and everything in its place
An analogy can be made with your kitchen. There is a place for your cutlery, plates, utensils, etc that enables you to find them quickly. This is also desirable in your workplace. You want all incoming work/information in a specific home so you know where to find it and are able to retrieve it efficiently when you need it.
 
Strategy 2 - Have the most frequently used items closest at hand
Items that you use frequently should be stored in an easily accessible place, close at hand. Items that you would rarely use could be stored for instance, in a cabinet across the room.
 
Strategy 3 - Keep like items together
Organise similar information by bunching them together in a way that makes sense to your brain so it can be efficiently retrieved.
 
Strategy 4 - Only keep what you need.
Make an assessment of the value of the information when you receive it. Determine if you have used this type of information before, if the answer is not often, then just get rid of it. The trick is to be lean, because the leaner you are the more efficient you are likely to be.
 
Over time we can develop certain ‘habits’ which sabotage our efficiency. Assessing systems we have in place and adjusting them if needed is a positive step towards greater productivity.

Collagis is committed to helping businesses like yours to optimise workforce and organisational effectiveness. We'd love to share with you how we can help you to organise information more efficiently.

​The Personal Efficiency Program (PEP) helps individuals and teams to improve personal productivity and gain back on average 2 hours per person per day for meaningful work. Ask us for more information about how this could help your organisation to thrive.

With the impact of Covid19 on our workplace, the percentage of people remote working from home has skyrocketed. Working from home has its own unique challenges but if your goal is to increase productivity, it is important for you to understand how crucial the role habits can play.

The habits we develop can have a significant impact on our productivity. Our goal should be to replace bad habits that are often caused by reactive patterns of behaviour with good habits that will make us proactive and enable us to take charge of our own agendas.
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While we are experiencing workplace changes, it is an opportune time for us to review our work habits to change any unproductive habits and build new more productive ones.

The following are 12 ways to form habits that increase work productivity.

Habit 1 - Start each day with a plan.
Having a plan can drastically increase your work productivity. A plan can enable you to focus on what’s important instead of getting distracted by unforeseen tasks that inevitably pop up.

It is a good habit to create a plan during the afternoon for the following day. Select any essential tasks that are crucial for you to finish by the end of the day and then block out times in your calendar to complete them. For the most important work it is suggested that you use the most productive times of the day when you are most efficient.

Remember, if you fail to plan then you plan to fail.
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Habit 2 - Try to minimise distractions
Minimising unwanted distractions will help keep you on task and increase productivity. Wearing headphones when there are noise distractions or reducing visual distractions such as pop-ups on your computer screens are just a couple of simple ways to increase productivity.

Habit 3 - Concentrate on one thing at a time
Single tasking is one key action towards improving productivity. Research has shown that multitasking can negatively influence your productivity. You may think that by multitasking you will get more done, but when you jump between tasks, your cognitive processing is hindered and you are less productive. By focussing on a single task enables you to get into a deeper state of mental concentration and achieve your most efficient results.

Working deeply can take a lot of energy and effort so it’s important that you take breaks. The Pomodoro Technique provides a useful guideline when working intensely. Work 25 minutes of focused work, followed by a 5-minute break.

Habit 4 - Start your day early
Early in the morning is a time when it has been shown that your creativity and willpower is strongest. Coupled with this is the time of day when you feel fresh and energised. By starting early you can also reduce the number of interruptions you may get as emails, phone calls and personal interruptions become more frequent during the day.

Habit 5 - Time-blocking works wonders
Time blocking is an excellent way to organise your time more efficiently by assigning tasks to time blocks that you have divided the day into.

By time blocking you can be proactive by prioritising your most important tasks and focus on one task at a time increasing proactivity.

Habit 6 - Close your inbox
Email is one of those 21st Century tools that you could not do without but it can also be one of your biggest distractions. By time blocking specific times to check and reply to messages and having your inbox closed and out of sight for the rest of the day can be a significant habit that will lead to greater productivity.

Habit 7 - Take small steps
A huge project can often feel daunting and we begin procrastinating over it. We find other tasks such as cleaning out our desk or redesigning our work space to put it off. A more effective approach is to break the project into smaller achievable steps that forms a list of tasks that are much more manageable and motivational.

Habit 8 - Reward yourself
Create a positive mental cycle by rewarding yourself for completing work and doing a job well done. When you finish a task, reward yourself and this will make you feel more inclined and motivated to begin the next task. For mental health, the habits of treating yourself when you reach milestones and celebrating success will have a positive effect on future productivity.

Habit 9 - Eat smart
The World Health Organisation has estimated that eating the right food can boost our brain power by up to 20%. An important habit to increase productivity is to eat healthily and regularly. Choosing nutritious foods and avoiding sugary snacks that make you crash will help you work at your best. Skipping meals can make you tired, irritable and mentally fatigued  negatively  affecting your productivity.

Habit 10 - Exercise regularly
A healthy habit such as regular cardiovascular exercise can be a crucial factor in working productivity. Exercise can boost your memory, attention span, creativity and can also lower stress and improve mood - a plethora of positive outcomes to increase your productivity.

Habit 11 - Use productivity apps
If you want to be the best you can you need to take advantage of the best, most efficient tools that are available to you. There are many apps that are available to boost your productivity and you should be building your arsenal of technology to give you the edge in a very competitive market. A great example of this is Microsoft To Do. This app syncs between your mobile and desktop to help you keep on top of your to-do lists and organise tasks by stream and deadline.

Habit 12 - Delegate wisely
Taking the burden and workload of too many tasks can be anti-productive. If you are trying to carry too much weight on your shoulders you likely to crash and burn but by delegating wisely you can share this load. If there is someone else who is better suited to a job then delegate it. Smart delegation of jobs when needed helps you achieve your goals without sacrificing productivity.
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By developing good habits you can build a productive workplace to help you work to your potential.

​Collagis is committed to helping businesses like yours to optimise workforce and organisational effectiveness. We'd love to share with you how we can help you to improve productivity.
​
The Personal Efficiency Program (PEP) helps individuals and teams to improve personal productivity and gain back on average 2 hours per person per day for meaningful work. Ask us for more information about how this could help your organisation to thrive.
​

Having a strong positive organisational culture motivates everyone to do their best work. Businesses with a positive, well defined culture have systems in place and widely shared beliefs that promote employee engagement, performance and productivity. It is important to understand that workplace culture is not only about the behaviour of employees but also about the values the organisation believes in.

“A team is more than a sum of its parts. The best teams invest a tremendous amount of time exploring, shaping and agreeing on a purpose that belongs to them collectively and individually. By contrast, failed teams rarely develop a common purpose. ” Jon R. Katzenbach

What is Organisational culture?

Organisational culture can be defined as the behaviours and values that contribute to the social and psychological environment of an organisation that help to guide its employees. An organisation's culture determines the correct way to behave and interact and also determines how work activities should be carried out.

Organisational culture consists of shared beliefs, values, expectations, assumptions, philosophy and goals that are established by leaders and then communicated and reinforced, ultimately shaping employee perceptions, behaviours and understanding.

The Importance of Organisational Culture

The following are several reasons why organizational culture is important.

· Increased Productivity.
Employees who have shared beliefs, values, expectations and the resources and tools they need to succeed, increase productivity and performance levels overall.

· Improved Engagement.
​A work environment that is driven by effective leadership, clear expectations and purpose, inspires employees to be more engaged. Increased engagement drives increased productivity.

· Improved Employee Satisfaction.
A positive organisational culture where employees are valued and respected, means employees are more likely to be happy and satisfied. Satisfied employees develop a strong connection to a business, which in turn creates a positive work atmosphere and improved productivity.

· Positive Team Environment.
Having a strong connection to an organization and its people creates an atmosphere of positivity. Team members who are informed and have a clear understanding of strategy, structures and processes will unify together, helping them work together with purpose, resulting in improved organisational effectiveness.

· Effective Training Programs.
An organisational culture where employees are transitioned into new roles through orientation, training and management programs, helps employees to feel more connected, needed, loyal and show increased satisfaction towards their job. Organisational culture can have a profound appeal on employees and can inspire and help attract and keep your best people.

How Do We Measure Organisational Culture?

How do you measure organisational culture to ensure you realise all its benefits? The following are two of the most common methods that can be implemented to aid in assessing the culture of your organisation.

· Culture surveys
Culture surveys enable organisations to review their beliefs, behaviours, and practices of their company against how they’re perceived by their employees. These surveys are designed to enable organisations to define and diagnose their organisational culture. 

· Engagement Surveys
Employee engagement is related to the levels of commitment and enthusiasm employees have towards their organisation and their individual goals. Due to the correlations between organisational culture and employee engagement, engagement surveys are one of the best way to measure ongoing culture. The Gallup Q12 survey is one such example that provides a "Rubik Cube" style view of engagement across teams, role types, locations, tenure, etc. 

Ways to improve Organisational Culture

Here are some tried and proven ways of developing a strong positive organisational culture.

· Establish clear and defined organisational values and goals.
Ascertaining your organisational values, goals and behaviours, and communicating these to every employee is crucial. Your values, goals and behaviours construct how your employees will view the company and the company's expectations of them. Understanding what is expected reduces uncertainty and ensures everyone is aligned on how things should be done. Having employees’ goals aligned with organisational goals will enhance dedication and motivation to accomplish objectives.

· Promote Trust
Building trust in your work environment is a key element in a successful organisational culture.
In a high trust culture, employees are not afraid to speak the truth. Promoting trust boosts relationships, improving a team's ability to face uncertainty and change.

· Empower Employees
All employees, no matter what their role is, will drive an organisations success. Empowering employees means giving your team members permission to make decisions and take action within your organization. Empowering employees requires effective communication, clear accountabilities and strategic delegation.

· Encourage Employees
Appreciate and reward great work. When employees perform beyond their expectations, recognize their achievements and reward them. Encouragement boosts employees and motivates them to perform better. And in doing so, reward and recognition can be use to reinforce positive organisational culture behaviours.

· Hear What Your Employees Have to Say
It is important to respect the needs and ideas of employees. Collaboration is essential so be sure to make time and opportunities to listen to employees. By hearing what your employees have to say informally or in a formal forum, you are able to build trust, gauge employee’s motivations and inspire confidence.

· Use Modern Technology
Effective use of modern technology is an important enabler to building an effective organisational culture.  Communication platforms, need to be used to reinforce and enable the companies values and behaviours.  Slack, Teams, Zoom,  Yammer, Jira, Google Apps for Business are examples of such platforms. Once you've defined your organisational culture & behaviours, considering effective use of technology to bring these behaviours to life is crucial.

Culture is the soul of a company. It is the compass that directs a company towards success or failure.
Neglecting organisational culture is not only detrimental to an organisation's growth, but can also be detrimental to a company's brand and future. There are many examples in the public domain at present of organisations facing regulatory consequences related to poor underlying organisational cultures. The culture of your organization impacts everything from productivity and engagement to retention and growth. Through concentrating on your organisations culture, you are providing employees with clear expectations of what your company stands for and how to behave, and providing the best possible environment for your employees and business to thrive.

Did you know? “One in four Australian workers (25%) would sacrifice company perks for better wellbeing in their workplace and one in five workers would sacrifice a promotion (21%) or a pay rise (19%). Stressed workers would more readily sacrifice company perks (28%) and a pay rise (27%) for better wellbeing in their workplace” (McMillan, 2017 Workplace Wellbeing).

Implementing a workforce wellbeing program can be one of the levers organisations can pull to help their teams thrive. See below some suggested actions organisations can take in order to help improve wellbeing of their workforce.

Offer Health and Wellness Benefits
Providing resources for employees to engage in health and wellness activities is a common way of supporting employee wellbeing.

This may be in the form of onsite workout facilities (Google, Hootsuite, Adidas), gym discounts, team fitness activities (e.g., step challenges, team games, sports days), or just encouraged scheduling of regular fitness time in the calendar.

To address mental wellbeing, several companies such as Yahoo, Google, Nike, Pearson, and Salesforce offer onsite meditation rooms for their employees to rejuvenate their mind and body (MarketWatch, 2018). Providing access to, or encouraging use of, apps like Insight Timer, Headspace and Smiling Mind are another way to offer these services remotely.

Setting Priorities and Boundaries
One of the most common factors impacting wellbeing is workplace burnout. This can be prevented by setting realistic goals for your employees, helping to provide time management tools and training, helping employees set healthy work-life boundaries and respecting these boundaries. Being clear on priorities and setting realistic deadlines are also key.

These things are easier said than done, but as burnout continues to rise after a challenging 2020, Managers and employees alike would benefit from new tools to maintain energy in the workplace.

Addressing employee engagement
Studies reveal that highly engaged teams tend to be 21% more profitable than non-engaged teams (Forbes, 2019).

Understanding the level of engagement and the factors causing these levels is just the start; being able to create and implement plans that address underlining issues of engagement is crucial to engendering positive change.

Learning and Development
From financial education to physical and mental health education, employers can provide individuals access to training that improves their personal wellbeing as well as their professional wellbeing.

Access to Professional Support
Many companies offer employee support programs to provide critical professional services in times of difficulty. Whilst very important in a time of crisis, these services can also be beneficial for everyday mental health. To improve uptake of these services, organisations would benefit from reinforcing anonymity and suggesting commonplace uses to remove any barriers and stigma from utilising these services.

Social wellbeing
Managing your employees remotely can mean employees may sense a feeling of isolation or disconnection. This should be considered in a change communication and engagement plan – being sure that both formal communication forums (such as Town Halls, team off-sites) and informal social interactions (e.g., social events)  allow for authentic social connection. Games such as fun questions, guessing games, and personality quizzes can help provide icebreakers that break monotony and promote camaraderie among employers.
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Time
Breaks. Time off. Annual Leave. These are all important factors supporting health and wellbeing. One of the easiest things organisations can do to support overall wellbeing is to provide the time for employees to reenergise and renew.

Whilst there are no quick fixes or silver bullets to address wellbeing in the workplace, the list above provides a few examples of what organisations can do to address employee wellbeing. Managers must set an example, to provide the permission for others to do the same. And we all must take action to ensure  wellbeing strategies and programs come off the shelf and become part of our everyday lives.

Collagis is committed to helping businesses like yours to optimise workforce and organisational effectiveness.
We'd love to share with you how we can help you address workplace wellbeing in your workplace.

Links to references

           Food Mag. (2018, April 09). The cost of absenteeism. Retrieved December 10, 2020, from FoodMag: https://foodmag.com.au/the-cost-of-absenteeism/#:~:text=On%20average%2C%20Australian%20employees%20take,%2444%20billion%20per%20year2.
           
             Oswald, A. J., Proto, E., & Sgroi, D. (2015). Happiness and productivity. Journal of Labor Economics, 33(4), 789-822.

           Tay, L., & Diener, E. (2011). Needs and subjective wellbeing around the world. Journal of personality and social psychology, 101(2), 354

           Wu, H., Sears, L. E., Coberley, C. R., & Pope, J. E. (2016). Overall wellbeing and supervisor ratings of employee performance, accountability, customer service, innovation, prosocial behavior, and selfdevelopment. Journal of occupational and environmental medicine, 58(1), 35.
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Whilst workplace wellbeing has always played a pivotal role in ensuring optimal utilisation of human resources (Nordea, 2020), its importance since  the 2020 pandemic cannot be overlooked.
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How we invest in human capital at this time may prove the difference between businesses that stand the test of time and those that do not. Our people survived through 2020, holding on to optimism that things will eventually return to normal. As 2021 is upon us, and a new normal emerges, are we prepared to
help our employees thrive in this new world?​

Collagis is committed to helping businesses like yours to optimise workforce and organisational effectiveness.
We'd love to share with you how we can help you address workplace wellbeing. 

COVID-19 has accelerated the transition to remote working, forcing companies to adapt or die. Those companies not re-imagining the way they do business in a digital world, will not find a place in this new reality. The office, customer events, the boardroom and the commute have all changed forever.

As with all things, there are pros and cons of this new way of working, prompting many to ask not when should we go back, but if we should?

Here’s a quick synopsis of how the argument is currently shaping up:
 
The Highs:

1. Losing the commute: If time is our most precious resource, finding another 1-2 hours a day has been a tremendous gift of the pandemic. Giving time back for balancing family and home life, or extra productive work time, is a big advantage. The consequence of no “workplace” to go to means work changes from somewhere you go to something that you do. The boss must trust that you are working (a difficult transition for some) and the focus must shift to outcome rather than face time.

 

1. Employee Productivity: According to the Harvard Business Review (HBR), researchers studied knowledge workers in 2013 and again during the 2020 pandemic lockdown and found significant changes in how they are working. They learned that lockdown helps people focus on the tasks that really matter. They spent 12% less time drawn into large meetings and 9% more time interacting with customers and external partners. Lockdown also helped people take responsibility for their own schedules. They did 50% more activities through personal choice and half as many because someone else asked them to. Finally, during lockdown, people viewed their work as more worthwhile.  The number of tasks rated as tiresome dropped from 27% to 12%, and the number we could readily offload to others dropped from 41% to 27%.

 

1. Bottom Line savings: Dynamic office spaces such as hot-desking (pioneered by IBM) focused on maximising office utility (read reducing office footprint cost) rather than employee well-being. Employee reception to this was luke-warm. On the contrary, working remotely (especially from home) has the potential to be the single biggest impact on the cost of corporate spaces. The company benefits from a massively reduced costs in office space whilst at the same time can address the problems of dislocation, disconnection and privacy concerns cited by employees as their main concern with hot-desk environments.

 

1. Acceleration to Digital: The pandemic has forced a rapid and accelerated shift to many superior digital ways of working. Corporate travel whilst not possible right now, will never be the same again. Companies have learned, through necessity, new ways of working, and the reduced travel bills and non-productive travel time are now pains of a by-gone era. Companies are re-imagining the old ways of doing things and recreating processes to operate more efficiently and effectively in the new world.

For example:

• Sales calls replaced by video calls (Zoom, Teams, etc) and physical marketing events being replaced by virtual conferences (e.g.: CES 2021, Amazon’s AWS, Adobe Summit, etc), webinars and contextualised one-to-one marketing.
• Virtual Workshops enabled through virtual whiteboards, post its to support interactive brainstorming (with a digital record to enable effective post workshop action planning!)
• Digital Signatures replacing slow and arduous paper sign off processes.
• A “truly” digital first mindset to customer journey design.

 
Enterprises are compelled to accelerate investment in contactless technology as well as re-engineer processes for the digital world. Whilst before it was a customer expectation now it is a customer necessity. Those that are doing it well are mindful to transform in the move to digital, not just shift and lift, to improve the outcome from the digital experience for both the business and the customer.
 
The Lows:

1. Impacts to Employee Wellbeing:  The feeling of burn-out and being always on has been accelerated by remote working. Research is showing that employees are struggling to switch off and create boundaries between personal and office spaces, as well as experiencing increased mental anxiety and increased financial security concerns in the face of the pandemic. As a consequence, employee wellbeing needs to be an ever-present consideration in the current environment, and companies need to be mindful that the transition to remote working is still a work in progress.

 

1. Employee Social Activity and Collaboration: The social life of employees is radically altered in remote working, creating a void that remains unfilled. This is in part due to COVID lockdown restrictions but also because the opportunity for employees to establish friendships at the office has not yet been effectively replaced in remote working. Employees working in the same office also had the greatest potential for collaboration and creativity due to constant proximity. As a result, many companies are exploring how we leverage existing office space to provide these social and collaboration opportunities in the new world. Organisations into the future will need to consider how to embed and manage culture with remote working, to ensure a company’s culture can continue to be experienced in our home offices and digital interactions. In particular, Companies will need to consider how to manage new staff/ inductions, to help onboard a new employee and make them feel part of the organisation when they may not visit a physical location or meet anyone face-to-face.

 

1. Work from Home Office Environment: We have spent decades crafting our offices spaces to be ergonomic and optimised towards productivity and well-being. Due to the sudden nature of the pandemic, organisations are still discovering how to enable employees to set up an optimised home office space. This can be anything from ventilation and natural lighting, to the right seating, screens, hardware and software to do their job effectively. And even more so, how to ensure safety, security and work/home balance, to create an environment conducive to wellbeing.

 
 
As the effects of the pandemic continue to change the way we work forever, putting people at the heart of what we do today is even more crucial. Whilst we move to a digital, always on environment, we need to find new ways to build human connections and provide new tools and processes that allow people to continue to perform at their best – efficiently and effectively in the new world.
 
 
Links to reference
 
Hot Desking
 
The Psychological Impact of Hot Desking
 
https://www.opensourcedworkplace.com/news/psychological-impact-of-hot-desking#:~:text=Positive%20Psychological%20Impact%20of%20Hot,and%20communication%20in%20the%20workplace.&text=%2D%20Can%20lead%20to%20quicker%20employee,with%20employees%20outside%20their%20team
 
Hot desking affects wellbeing for eight in 10 office workers
 
https://www.personneltoday.com/hr/hot-desking-affects-wellbeing-for-eight-in-10-office-workers/
 
Working from home
 
Working From Home Increases Productivity
 
https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/15259-working-from-home-more-productive.html#:~:text=The%20study%20found%20that%20working,of%20their%20work%2Dlife%20balance
 
Why working from home is bad for productivity
 
https://www.smh.com.au/business/small-business/why-working-from-home-is-bad-for-productivity-20200618-p553wn.html
 
Australians more productive working from home
 
https://ia.acs.org.au/article/2020/australians-more-productive-working-from-home-.html
 
Research: Knowledge Workers Are More Productive from Home
 
https://hbr.org/2020/08/research-knowledge-workers-are-more-productive-from-home
 
 
Connecting with Customers in a COVID world
 
Connecting with customers in times of crisis (McKinsey)
 
https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/marketing-and-sales/our-insights/connecting-with-customers-in-times-of-crisis#
 
4 Ways to Reconfigure Your Sales Strategy During the Pandemic (HBR)
 
https://hbr.org/2020/10/4-ways-to-reconfigure-your-sales-strategy-during-the-pandemic
 
Eight ways to keep up with your customers during and after COVID-19
 
https://www.ey.com/en_gl/consumer-products-retail/changing-customer-behavior-growth-strategy

Data Quality has a big impact on your bottom line and is a key factor that can differentiate you from your competitors. However, as the issue of data quality is complex and spans multiple business units, the impacts of data quality often go unchecked and unmeasured.

Data Quality issues are systemic across many businesses: For example: 

• Dun and Bradstreet estimate that 41% of companies cite inconsistent data across technologies, such a CRM’s, as their biggest challenge.
• Chief Marketing say that only 16% of companies characterise the data they are using as ‘very good’
• Reach Force predicts that in the next hour, 59 business addresses will change, 11 companies will change their name, and 41 new businesses will open, and some will close.

The impacts of data quality

Data Quality issues can have direct and indirect impacts on your organisation. The direct impacts are easily quantifiable, including how much money is being spent on 3rd party data, data cleansing, and manual data remediation efforts. However it is the indirect impacts that create the higher cost for many organisations.

Three common in-direct impacts of data quality include:

• Reduced effectiveness in decision-making – Low data quality can lead to reduced confidence in analysis and scenario modelling, and can lead to wasted time debating about data inconsistencies and reporting measures. This then leads to an inability to make timely and effective decisions and actions, which could lead to a slow market response and/or loss of first mover advantage.

• Reduced Productivity – Good data quality enables a focus on actual revenue producing activities as opposed to continuously validating and fixing data; especially for Sales and Marketing teams.

• Reduced Marketing effectiveness – Better data enables more accurate targeting and communications, and as a result more effective marketing return on investment, with a higher response rate and reduced media wastage.

So what is data quality costing your business? What is the opportunity cost of leaving this unchecked? 
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No doubt, with some measurement and investigation, there is a strong business case for value creation by addressing this often overlooked and under managed issue. It takes an analysis of the direct and indirect impacts of data quality to get a true sense of why data quality is important and to understand the true cost to your business.

Collagis is committed to helping businesses like yours to optimise workforce and organisational effectiveness. We'd love to share with you how we can help address data quality in your organisation.
​
Contact us today 

As seen in the Australian Financial Review 

The “new normal” of work is more a work in progress than a done deal but there’s no doubt
that the momentum for change is unstoppable. A survey of 2,500 “working professionals” by recruitment firm Hays in November found that 61 per cent believe that a hybrid working model – part-remote and part-office working – is the most productive.

Hays managing director Nick Deligiannis says the rapid shift to working from home necessitated by the lockdown and social distancing requirements established that “a large percentage of the workforce can work productively and successfully from home”.

Hays research has also discovered that 47 per cent of employers, noting that productivity and
business continuity were not adversely affected by having employees working remotely, are open
to retaining working from home as part of their workplace mix. For many employees, according to Hays, overall performance, job satisfaction and work-life balance improved as less time was spent commuting or dealing with the distractions of office working.

The challenge for employers as the economy reopens is to strike a balance between the work
preferences of employees and the needs of the organisation. This is particularly a consideration
for business leaders who believe that having staff working in a central office has cultural, creativity
and collaboration benefits.

“Employers are looking to the future and how they and their staff can benefit most effectively
from this new way of technology-enabled working,’’ Deligiannis says. ‘‘Organisations everywhere will be going through this process ... [A] hybrid working model could be the ideal middle ground that allows
employees to work flexibly on certain days of the week then come together with colleagues in a
central workplace on others.”

The boon to employee productivity and job satisfaction has been one of the big surprises of
what has been widely dubbed “the great working from-home experiment”. A survey of 2800 knowledge workers in the UK, the US, Canada and Australia found that Australians were more productive working from home than their overseas peers. The survey by business transformation and managed services company Adaptavist found that 85 per cent of Australians, compared with the global average of 82 per cent, reported being equally or more productive when working from home. One-third of respondents said they were more productive than being at the office.

But there were also some downsides to digitally-enabled working from home: one-third of
Australian respondents reported stress arising from being “always on”. “An overnight transition has been forced upon the business world and companies have had to rise to the challenge by doing whatever seems to work immediately,” Adaptavist CEO Simon Haighton-Williams told the Australian Computer
Society’s Information Age.

“Now it’s time to reflect and analyse this, to see what positive patterns have arisen that we need
to reinforce and what negative patterns we see that need to be changed.”

Paul Ventura, managing director of management consulting firm Collagis, which specialises in
workforce and organisational effectiveness, says “everybody is trying to get their head around what
the new reality is going to look like”. “I don’t think there’s been a bigger or more profound adjustment, certainly not since the industrial revolution,” Ventura says.

“What’s happening now has been possible for a long time in terms of available technology but
what’s changed is the mindset around the workplace and employee wellbeing.”

Ventura says the “nature of work” has changed and “remote working is here, and here to stay”. “For many workers the commute will no longer be part of their daily life. For them, work has changed from somewhere you go to something that you do.”

While most employers are satisfied that the working-from-home experiment has been
successful, that recognition is just the beginning of the business transformation that needs to
occur as the economy reopens.

“Dealing with change, navigating the uncertainty and striking the right balance between the benefits of a flexible workplace and the needs of the organisation are the challenges
that now face businesses,” Ventura says.

“The working-from-home experience has created the momentum for change but organisations can’t afford to be too aggressive in pursuing new ways of working. “Changes have to be balanced, reflecting the
needs of employees, the needs of the business and the needs of the customer.”

For many organisations the transformations they embark on will not be limited to the workplace.
“There will be opportunities to grow and expand that weren’t there previously. Equally,
products and services that were a solid basis for growth in the past may no longer be relevant or
sustainable or may be subject to supply-chain disruptions,” Ventura says. “Some organisations will need to consider a change of business model.” Although questions about the future shape of organisations will be more complex for larger organisations, Ventura cautions that “fundamental change is important whatever the size of the organisation”.

The good news, he says, is that whatever form the “new normal” takes, the end result will be
“more efficient and more productive” businesses.

In the age of analytics, data quality plays a critical role in helping organisations achieve better and more sustainable results. However, as it is a complex issue often with distributed ownership, many organisations fail to tackle the issue of data quality holistically. Siloed business units and individuals can have different points of view of what data quality is and where data quality issues may exist. Unconnected projects can pop up that may not tackle root causes and may not work together towards a common goal. Because data is such an intrinsic part of the way we do business today, we see data quality as a foundational element of organisational effectiveness.

What is Data Quality?
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Data Quality is basically the shape that all your information is in.  Is your company's data fit for purpose? Is it complete, accurate and reliable?

Our clients rely on data driven insights, whether it is to develop key strategic initiatives or to help improve relationships with clients via marketing and servicing. The quality of data will determine your ability or inability to solve business problems and will greatly influence your ability to make sound and accurate decisions. In short, the impacts data quality cannot be underestimated.

Defining Data Quality Dimensions

Data quality management  is multifaceted, so when defining data quality in your organisation, it is important to create a common language and understanding of​ the dimensions of data quality.

Here's an example of  6 dimensions of data quality that are useful in defining data quality.
 
1. Consistency - Is there only one version of the truth? Can you compare data across data sets reliably?
2.  Completeness – Do you have all the information you need? Are your key data attributes populated for your data set?
3. Accuracy – Is your information correct? Have you a process to manage errors?
4. Uniqueness – Does the information you have uniquely describe each individual? Can you identify a unique individual across data sets?
5. Timeliness – Is the information fresh? Do you have real time access to the data?
6. Validity - Is your information in the correct format?  Make sure that the data you have is user friendly and aligned to business rules.

Data quality can be a very complex and challenging business problem to solve, but breaking down the problem and reaching a common understanding of what the problem is, can be a helpful first step to commencing a well designed Data Quality Management Strategy.
 
Collagis is committed to helping businesses like yours to optimise workforce and organisational effectiveness.
We'd love to  share with you how we can help address data quality in your organisation.

Contact us today

Change is the only constant thing and it is necessary in an organization or business. However, it can often take a toll on the employees so that they start to suffer from ‘change fatigue’ - increased stress, exhaustion and decreased commitment among employees. Over time, change fatigue can lead to burn out among your employees. Change fatigue is actually a form of ‘passive resignation’ and can have serious implications on your business.
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Here is how to reduce and combat change fatigue in your team.

1. Facilitate the change from the perspective of the entire team

Many organisations launch and manage change as individual projects within departmental boundaries yet this is not the reality of change. Change, even the smallest changes, sends ripples into other areas of the business. It may be a change specific to one area of the organisation but it will eventually affect the whole team. Stop managing change as a collection of projects but as an interconnected journey that the organisation is taking. If your plan is going to cause ripples, reduce the number of changes and increase your employees’ ability to handle change.

2. Begin at the end with every change

When initiating change of any size, start with an intended outcome that is understood and meaningful to the people affected. You cannot initiate change without having a clear outcome and communicating this outcome visibly to those who are involved. Outcomes expected from changes should be documented and communicated in a clear, concise and concrete way. It not only reduces the risk of change fatigue but also sets you up for success.

3. Build the change leadership strengths

Don’t separate leading and managing change from general operations because then leaders will easily overlook the impact of day to day leadership and management of the organisation on how the employees’ response to change. How you lead and manage when you are not implementing change will either improve or hinder your employees’ ability with change. To solve this problem, it is necessary for you to know the leadership and management activities that strengthen your organisation’s ability to handle change and those that do not. With this knowledge, you can do more of those activities that strengthen your capabilities and do away with those that weaken them.

4. Expand the involvement of the recipients of change

When implementing change, it is only a specific group of change management team that is involved in the planning and implementation. The others affected by the change become the recipients of the plan. This approach is not effective because there is no active involvement of the change-recipients. Therefore, they begin to feel like the change is being done to them and not with them. To solve this problem and avoid change fatigue, expand the level of active involvement in the areas and levels affected by the change.
Change fatigue is something you want to avoid in your team because it will slow down your progress and ability to accomplish your goals. 

Collagis is committed to helping businesses like yours to optimise workforce and organisational effectiveness. We'd love to hear from you to share how we can help you drive effective and sustainable transformational change. 

​Change can be frightening and intimidating to your team. For many, it might be something they want to avoid. But not all change is bad. As a matter of fact, it creates an excellent opportunity for growth, new directions and renewed energy. If you want to make change a positive experience, then use these tips:

1. Be strategic about change

While change is a necessity in an organisation, it should also be strategic. Don’t decide on changes without having a solid rationale for change. Look out for signs of change within your industry or organisation and how these changes affect the role of your team or your organisation. Besides making contingency plans in the expectancy of change, build scenarios for those possible changes. Spend time writing your case for change and helping to make this consumable for all different roles and personality types (simple, visual, data-driven, rational, emotive). Make sure the need for change can be understood from several angles and can also be justified to yourself!

2. Communicate the change

There is nothing as discouraging for employees or team members as having changes made in the organisation without their awareness or involvement. When employees have no communication about any changes taking place, they will be passive about the whole process and make it out to be a negative experience even when it was for their benefit. It is important for you to make an effort to communicate what you could see happening now and what might happen in the future.

You should encourage your team to express their perceptions and ideas. You may just be surprised at the insights they have. Furthermore, they will feel that their contributions are important enough to be considered in the change strategy. Having them as active participants is less likely to result in any negative energy or experiences in the course of implementing the changes.
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3. Coach for change

When implementing changes in your organization or team, it is not only important to have a change management team but also a training and coaching program for your employees. There is need for continuous improvement in all areas if change is to be successful and seen as a positive thing. Meet your team or employees on a regular basis and make them individual champions of change in the areas of their responsibility. It is good to encourage them to think and plan strategically for their roles and future roles. In addition, coach them so that you can help them develop the skills they need to implement the anticipated changes.

4. Try mini changes

Try small changes in your organization before the implementing the actual change. For example, you can encourage your team or employees to experience tasks outside their normal duties with other employees. Mini changes create a dynamic in an organization that promotes organizational cohesiveness.

5. Celebrate changes

​Take note of the little changes that happen on a daily basis. Make comments on them and when necessary, appreciate and celebrate them. Giving positive feedback on change to one employee leads to positive performance and creative thinking in the others. With all these said and done, still expect some resistance from some people in your team. Regardless of how well you prepare them, some people will still resist change. Nevertheless, these strategies should help you have more people having a positive experience with the changes than those who are not. 

Collagis is committed to helping businesses like yours to optimise workforce and organisational effectiveness. We'd love to hear from you to share how we can help you drive effective and sustainable transformational change. Contact us today at info@collagis.com.au

What goes into a strategy? What makes it either good or bad? In simple terms, a strategy is a way to deal with a problem or challenge. A good strategy must therefore identify the challenge to be overcome and design a way to overcome it.

The three elements of a good strategy

In order to spot a good strategy, you should look out for these three important elements:

1. A diagnosis - A good strategy defines the challenge and simplifies the overwhelming complexity of reality down to a simpler story by identifying areas of the situation which are deemed critical. The diagnosis uses analogies, metaphors or existing frameworks for simplicity and comprehension. If you don’t know the problem you are solving then you cannot develop guiding actions.
2. A guiding policy - This is an overall approach that is chosen to either cope with or overcome the challenges identified in the diagnosis. It is the guiding policy that directs and constrains actions so that they follow a certain direction without exactly defining what will be done.
3. A set of coherent actions - It is not enough to have a guiding policy. A strategy needs coherent actions that dictate how the guiding policy will be carried out. The actions should be in coherence such that the use of resources and the pathways undertaken blend together without clashing.

Other elements of a good strategy include:

• Simplicity 
• Coherence such that all actions taken by an organisation reinforce and support each other
• Focus and coordination of efforts to achieve an outcome
• Leveraging sources of power to overcome an obstacle

The elements of a bad strategy

There are four major hallmarks of a bad strategy which include:

1. Fluff This is a strategy which uses inflated words to create an illusion of high-level thinking. Substance needs to underpin every good strategy.
2. Zero challenge A bad strategy is one that fails to define the challenge to overcome which makes it impossible to evaluate or improve.
3. Goals instead of a strategy Goals are essential but they are not a substitute for a strategy. More often than not, people make statements of desire rather than actionable plans for overcoming obstacles. Goals should not be confused for a strategy.  A strategy is what dictates how the goals are to be achieved.
4. Bad strategic objectives A bad strategic objective is one which fails to address critical issues or is impracticable.  When strategic objectives are bad, so is the strategy itself.

Use these pointers to evaluate your strategy, and determine if your business has a well-formed strategy or if correction needs to be done. Strong strategic planning is the first step towards effective execution.

Collagis is committed to helping businesses like yours to optimise workforce and organisational effectiveness. We'd love to hear from you to share how we can help you build clear and effective strategies for your business.
Contact us today at info@collagis.com.au

​Many organisations have been unable to turn their strategies into action mostly because they start with the wrong strategy or they get caught up in a model that no longer works. Compelling visions that cannot be seen or believed by others remain only in the mind. This is why organisations must understand how to bring a strategy to life. While it may sound like a really difficult thing to do, there are five simple ways that businesses can do that:

1. Writing it down - The only way a strategy can come to life is if it is put on paper. A strategy should be put on a single piece of paper which will then serve as a strategic framework for the operation of all leaders and employees. When you write it down, it no longer remains an exciting vision in your head but you can actually get others to see it, read it and be convinced about it. Writing down a strategy is the first step to bringing a strategy to life.
2. Sharing it - There is no use in keeping a strategy to yourself. It sounds obvious, but you need to effectively share the strategic framework to ensure that your leaders are aligned. Better yet, give your employees and leaders a chance to build the strategy with you in the first place, so they can understand the context and have co-created the direction. They will therefore also be better placed to make the strategy relevant for their different teams. Everyone in your organisation should be aware of your strategy,  and be engaged in crafting it in a way that is relevant to them, so they can feel a sense of ownership for the outcome.
3. Using it consistently -  Consistency creates familiarity. You should use your strategic framework consistently in your communications with employees so that it they become familiar with it. They should be able to see what is happening and how it ties to the strategy. The importance of the strategic framework will only become important when they see and hear it from multiple sources.
4. Updating and communicating -  There is no way that your thinking at the beginning of the year will remain the same at the end of the year. In the course of time, you have new ideas that you would want to incorporate in your strategic framework. As such, update your framework as your thinking evolves. Communicate with your employees on a regular basis so that they are in the loop and understand the reasons behind your decisions.
5. Celebrating - Celebrating wins has a way of encouraging and creating a positive momentum. Always connect back to and reinforce the core elements of the strategy even as you celebrate your wins

Collagis is committed to helping businesses like yours to optimise workforce and organisational effectiveness. We'd love to hear from you to share how we can help you build clear and effective strategies for your business and enable effective execution. Contact us today at info@collagis.com.au

The failure to effectively execute a strategy is not uncommon in organisations. But businesses sometimes miss that their failure to execute  is because there isn't a strategy worth executing.

Reports are written, town halls held and budgets are set aside, but after all these steps are followed, still nothing happens. The major reason why failure occurs and there is no action on the “new strategies” is that these strategies are often not strategies at all. 

Is your strategy real?
The big question is therefore what a real strategy refers to. A real strategy is one that involves a set of clear choices that define what the organisation is going to do and what it is not going to do.
Understand that a real strategy is one with clear choices. Therefore, if a strategy does not represent a set of clear choices, it will fail to be implemented even with ample efforts of hard-working people. 
 
Goals vs. strategy
In so many instances, people mistake strategies for goals. A statement that only covers what you hope your outcome will be but not what you are going to do to get there, is a goal and not a strategy. You still need a strategy to accomplish those goals. So if you only have ‘hopes’ and no actionable plans, then you have a ‘false’ strategy and you are bound to fail in your execution process.

Priorities vs. strategy
Sometimes, it is not just goals that are confused for strategies. Some organisations have a set of priorities and choices which they pass for a strategy without forming a coherent direction when considered in conjunction. For example, the priorities of your business may be to increase the operational efficiency of your business, target markets outside your country and divest in a certain business. While these are excellent priorities, they cannot be combined to form a strategy. 

When you have your priorities, a strategy presents a clear set of choices which fit together to form a direction for the business. If there is no clear strategic direction, any execution process is doomed for failure.

Ask yourselves these questions to determine whether your strategy is real?

• Is my strategy a clear set of actionable choices and plans or is it a set of hopes and desires with no direction on how to achieve them?
• Do I have a logic behind the plans I have made?
• Have I communicated this logic to others?
• Is my strategy a top-down, one-way trickle-down cascade of decisions or a bottom-up co-creation process?
• Do I insist more on telling people to change their behaviours rather than identifying and countering resisting forces and reinforcing driving forces?

If your strategy is not real, then you need to work on making it real. If it is real, your halfway there, and  tackling execution challenges is your next focus.

What other tips do you have for determining if you strategy is real?

Collagis is committed to helping businesses like yours to optimise workforce and organisational effectiveness. We'd love to hear from you to share how we can help you build clear and effective strategies for your business.
Contact us today at info@collagis.com.au