2009 was a tough year, especially from the perspective of economics. As a consequence of the economics there was a “bad effect” which spread within all important sectors and departments striking all companies from small ones to large ones. There were drastic measures taken in order to face the financial crisis. Employees were requested higher productivity and there was a better control over their activity.
In 2009, 54% of US companies have decided to block social networks at work and 8% have already fired employees because of the use of Facebook during working hours.
Cyclope-Series has made a study on 200 employees monitored* with a non-invasive employee monitoring software to see which the trend of the internet usage within a company was. The study was conducted during June 1, 2009 – December 31, 2009 and dates were provided from more companies.
• Employees are checking personal e-mail up to 5 times per day during working hours*
• 24% of employees spend more than one hour on social networks during working time
• Facebook is the most popular social network and 90% of the employees are logging periodically into their accounts from work Continue reading ‘Internet usage at work – statistics for 2009′
Happy New Year everyone! Cyclope-Series team is pleased to announce that a new version of Cyclope Internet Filtering Proxy will be soon released.
Our developers have worked really heard to a new version and their work will be rewarded when the new version will be launched. I don’t want to spoil the surprise, telling you many details about this new version but I can assure you that you will like it. A complete new interface, modern and fresh, a new overview page providing better organized information and new profiles for better control over Internet content. Other details related to the features will soon when the new version will be made public. Then you will be able to test and take advantage of it. Until then, have a nice week.
So here it is! Christmas is knocking on our doors and it’s time to enjoy vacation and get fresh forces for the New Year. Cyclope-Series team wishes you Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! We thank our evaluators and users for their feedback and for being loyal and we hope the New Year will bring increased productivity and many benefits for your business.
Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year!
PS: As we are also on vacation until January 4, 2010 the answers to your e-mails might be slightly delayled. But, we want to assure you that everybody will get an answer as soon as possibe. Thank you for understanding.
Everyone has faced at least once a difficult boss and maybe, some of you were able to pass over or to manage the situation while others felt frustrated, insignificant and maltreated. I think it is important to know how to deal with a situation like this even if sometimes you have your part of fault.
Here are some tips that might help you to get over difficult situations:
1. Don’t yell and overreact. It’s enough that one person is yelling in a confrontation. If there are two persons, yelling, then there is no way to remediate the situation or to understand with each other. No matter how bad the situation is, keep your voice down and calm. The chances to solve the problem will increase significantly.
2. Listen and then explain. Just wait for the other person to tell all the problems, and only after he/she finishes the complain, you can start explaining your point of view. Otherwise you will jump into conclusions too fast and there are chances to waste a lot of time trying to solve a problem you do not know exactly (or to solve only one part of that problem). Continue reading ‘How to deal a conflict situation with your boss’
Defeat is not something you should be scared of. It happens even to the best of us and we should see in it a new start, new opportunities and a lot of challenge. Believe me, being defeated is more then just slant your head and accepting the humiliation. It is about being strong, accepting the facts with pride and showing up your competitors some fair play.
So accepting defeat involves a couple of aspects both related to your behavior and inside feelings.
Trying to understand these facts must be more or less difficult for some of us, depending on our character. For example, I was the kind of person that was getting out of the way if there was a failure instead of a success. This is the first mistake someone could do because in this way you will never be able to straight things up, you will loose the self-confidence but will also make the others stop putting hopes in you. At one point, you must be able to watch things from outside and realized that this behavior is making things even worst and that being defeated is not such a big deal. The major actions and consequences come only after the failure. So here are some tips that can be followed in case of defeat: Continue reading ‘How to accept defeat’
Some month ago, researchers said that allowing social networking (used with moderation) at work could increase productivity. It seems that this study did not impressed managers too much because there was an increasing number of companies that blocked access to social networks.
Robert Half Technology, an IT staffing firm conducted a study revealing that:
Lack of imagination, lack of fresh ideas or the impossibility to focus on a specific subject/project is something that everyone faced up with more then just once. What is important for us is to find ways of getting fresh ideas when we need them and a little bit of imagination. Eliminating the causes why we lack imagination or why we cannot focus on getting fresh ideas could be an important step, but this is more difficult and needs work in time. The tips I will provide, are let’s say, a security measure taken on the moment.
- Write it down! If an idea rises in your mind then write it down no matter what you are doing in that moment. If you decide to write it later, then later might mean never.
- Correlate ideas. Once you have a small idea, write it on a piece of paper and not on your computer. It’s much more easier to visualize and to complete it if you first write it down on a piece of paper. The second step is to create correlations. Starting with that idea, try to find other similar ideas.
- Look in the neighbor’s yard. Sometimes, taking a look to your competitors might wake up your predator instincts and will release your imagination … in a productive way
Continue reading ‘10 tips to come up with fresh ideas at work’
Creating and working in team is one of the most challenging things to deal in a company because working and cooperating with people is challenging. Creating a team is not difficult: just gather some people and that is all. However, creating productive teams than this is another story. It’s not just enough to get people together, but you must know their skills, aptitudes, interests and even their personality. Each member of a team must understand the mission and objectives of your organization. Even if he has a specific job function and belongs to a specific department there must exist unification in order to accomplish a common goal.
The failure of a work team appears when leaders fail to define the team they wanted to build. That is why it is important to have some strategies and to know to create an efficient work team. So before making a team, consider the following strategies. Continue reading ‘Building effective work teams’
Organizational culture is the key to productivity. Why? Just look at these giants: FedEx, IBM, and I. E. DuPont Nemours are just a few of the organizations which have an organizational culture so strong, that it spreads not only through companies’ members but also to outsiders.
A poorly designed work environment will sap the employees’ spirit and will lead organization into “slippery grounds”. Even if on the outside, things seems to work fine there are many situation when managers and employees are frustrated of the inability to complete plans and projects because of confusion, stress, pressure and even sabotage. This unhealthy, passive-aggressive work environment will not bring any benefits for your company. People do not want to work in a company where rudeness triumphs and the ones that work there will lack motivation, communication and innovation. They will just do thing to be done or will do things just to be better then the other.
Continue reading ‘Correlation between organizational culture and productivity’
Happiness provides everyone positive attitude and makes us stronger while dealing with difficult situations and day by day routines. For example if you are happy, fulfilling a task is more pleasant and maybe you will finish it faster than in another situation.
Let’s consider the following situations:
A. Your boss has prepared for you a new project and he says: you have to fulfill task 1 until 10 am, task 2 until 12 pm, task 3 until 3 pm etc. At 12 pm you can take one hour break for lunch. And this is not all. While completing your tasks, the boss is regularly checking your work and it’s keeping an eye on your work.
Continue reading ‘Give employees freedom for an increased productivity’
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