Worcester Business Journal

30 Worcester Business Journal | April 16, 2018 | wbjournal.com 10 T H I NG S I know about . . . Time management By Jody Staruck Jody Staruk is senior project manager for Milford-based Consigli Construction. Reach her at jstaruk@consigli.com 10) Have a system. Whether it's tracking emails, to-do lists, project management software or notes on the back of a napkin, you need a consistent, easy-to-follow method helping you identify your tasks until they are complete. 9) Start the workflow. Set other people in motion first so they can keep the progress of a task moving forward while you tackle bigger or more complicated items. 8) Do your work, not others. If you're a manager, make sure you are helping your employees figure out how to do their work instead of doing it for them. While it seems quicker to just do it, you're slowing yourself down. 7) Delegation is key. There are only so many minutes in a day. Identify the tasks others on your team can handle, especially if it is something to assist in their development. 6) Hold others accountable. If you need others' input/information to complete your tasks, it is just as important to hold them to their time frames as it is to meet your commitment. Follow up to ensure they are on track. 5) Prioritize. One of the hardest parts of time management is figuring out which items are critical and which are not. You cannot be successful at time management without this. 4) Need vs. want. We all know it is much easier to do the tasks you want to do. Once you've prioritized, focus on the items you need to do. 3) Don't procrastinate. Enough said. 2) Make time for you. You need to manage your time well enough so there is room for you. Whether it's eating lunch or going for a 10-minute walk, prioritize you. 1) Set a hard stop. If you go in to your day thinking you're going to be at work until 7 p.m., you will be. Tell yourself you are leaving by 5 p.m. and then do it. It will improve your focus, and you'll get just as much done in eight hours as you would have in 10. K N O W H O W Adapt to the voice-search revolution 10 1: T o x i c t e a m s S iri. Alexa. Cortana. We live in a world of voice-assistance technology. And, aside from making our lives a bit more convenient (and, occasionally, more frustrating), these voice assistants are changing the way your customers and prospects search for products and answers. Are you adapting to the change? By as early as 2014, more than half of teens and around 41 percent of adults were already using voice technology daily. And those statistics were gathered before voice technology really took off. Amazon Echo was the best-selling prod- uct during the 2016 holiday season. Voice technology isn't going anywhere, and consumers will become more com- fortable relying on voice search, particu- larly on their mobile devices. is is key to understanding how your business can use voice search to your advantage. Folks who use voice search are typically on the go, using their mobile devices, and looking for something within their immediate vicinity (think, "closest movie theater to me"). ey use longer, and more complete thoughts for their search queries, when compared to a standard text-Google search. While sitting at a desktop comput- er, a user might type, "Best Chinese restaurant near me" while on voice search that user might say, "What's the best Chinese restaurant closest to me?" So, how can you prepare? 1. Focus on mobile Voice searches are most likely con- ducted on mobile devices, meaning op- timizing for mobile has never been more important than it is now. On the surface level, that means building a responsive website. A responsive website is a site adapting to any screen size. But it goes beyond that. You want to improve page load speeds, abandon drop-down navigation menus, and for- mat all videos to display in full-screen when a smartphone is held vertically. ese improve mobile user experience. 2. Target long-tail keywords Earlier I gave an example of how voice search includes longer, more complete queries than standard text searches. If you want to rank for these voice search- es, you have to optimize around this more conversational language. Use a tool like Google's Keyword Planner to find relevant long-tail key- words, and target them in your content to cater to natural language queries. 3. Target featured snippets is is a little advanced, but not com- plicated. It's certainly a step we take with all of our clients. We're seeing featured snippets appear more oen these days. ese are the bits of information that, on occasion, Google features before any actual results. Folks in our industry are calling it position zero, and it's an in- credible place to be. Voice search devices read those snippets aloud, giving your brand a huge boost if your page content is the snippet Google opts to feature. Google uses an algorithm to de- cide what page will be featured in that position zero, but you can increase your chances by writing clear, concise and in- formational content. e days of stuffing your pages and posts with marketing jargon are over. Seriously. So, are you ready for the voice search revolution? e rise of personal assistant devices, coupled with the accuracy of voice-recognition technology, means more and more of your customers will adopt to voice search. It's time you joined the ride. Kham Inthirath is the founder and president of InThink Agency, a market- ing agency focused on helping local businesses find and connect with their target audiences. BY KHAM INTHIRATH Special to the Worcester Business Journal W W BY SUSAN SHALHOUB Special to the Worcester Business Journal B ullying each other. Fighting. Complaining. ese are all qualities of a toxic team, ones that managers should be able to recognize and address as quickly as possible. With collaborations more and more a part of our everyday corporate world, teams with healthy synergy are more important than ever. Here are three things to keep in mind to prevent things from getting any more dysfunctional among teams at work. Know the risks. To delay addressing toxic team members will damage your colleagues' trust in you, says industrial and organizational psychologist Marla Gottschalk in a LinkedIn article. It's important not to gloss over bad behav- iors, she said. "You immediately dis- rupt the expectancy that hard work will lead to valued outcomes," she writes. "You then risk top talent running [not walking] toward the door." ose that stay will have their energy sapped if the toxic environment continues without intervention. Debate is different (and OK). Differ- ences of opinion on their own do not necessarily make a toxic team dynamic. But it crosses the line into toxici- ty when things get personal. "Each member must recognize that his or her idea may not always offer the best solu- tion," says Christine M. Riordan of the University of Denver's Daniels College of Business at Forbes.com. "ey must remain open to new ideas, accept input from others, explore options, and work toward win-win solutions." Set standards for all. Abby Curnow- Chavez at BusinessKnowHow.com says setting new standards of behavior al- lows everyone to have a fresh start, but a leader must apply them to everyone. For instance, a ban on negative emails can be a new standard. And it can be tempting to sidestep the most difficult team member. "Too oen the nega- tive behaviors of certain individuals are overlooked or ignored for various reasons. is doesn't help, it hinders," Curnow-Chavez writes. "You get what you tolerate." W

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