Expert Office Advice

When planning a meeting it is easy to forget that the room in which you are holding the meeting is a key element that should be given due attention. A bit of planning before the meeting as to the seating, refreshments, heating/cooling, presentation and other arrangements can go a long way towards ensuring a successful and productive meeting.

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That file must be somewhere here… Whether you are going through your papers on a messy desk or entering various keyword combinations in your email search box, doing this too often causes not only stress and aggravation, but can ruin a healthy and composed atmosphere at work.

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Has the invitation to the office Christmas party been warming your pocket for weeks yet you’re still in doubt as to what to expect from this event and how to prepare for it? Office Connection is here to help! We’ve compiled a few pointers - things to do before and things to avoid during the party.

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Stress is a natural part of everyone’s life, whether personal or professional. Healthy level of stress can be good and useful, but stress overload results in anxiety and panic attacks, moodiness and depression, irritability and negative physical symptoms. In some cases too much of stress drives the sufferer to resort to drinking, smoking and overeating.

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The smoking debate continues to roar with both sides having equally valid arguments, however with the UK becoming ever more smoke free, what impact will this have in the offices around the country? A brief history on smoke free laws may help to see where the very issue has come from, and what ignited the nation in public area bans.

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If you work in an office, it’s important to have plenty of lunch options available to you. Everyone needs to eat, and the more choices you have the better. In this article, you will learn more about some convenient and creative ways to have lunch at work. The first option we’ll discuss is having food delivered to the office. There are several ways to do this.

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Are you drowning in papers? Is your office so cluttered, you don’t know where to start when it comes to cleaning? Don’t despair, there is hope for you. The thing to do is break down your tasks into small chunks. Take one chunk at a time, and then you won’t feel overwhelmed.

The first task should be disposing of rubbish. Rubbish is anything you don’t need. Throw out duplicate copies and outdated information. Any papers containing personal information should be shredded. You may be able to cut your paper pile in half just by throwing unneeded papers away. Next, sort the remaining papers into piles. Each pile has its own category; such as “clients”, “employees”, “financial”, etc. After you’ve finished sorting the papers, file each pile in the appropriate file folder. Hopefully you have already established a filing system. If you haven’t, you need to. A filing system is necessary to keep any office organised and de-cluttered.

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If you work in an office, it is important to understand good office health practices. Many people don’t give much thought to office health, and they pay the price. Illness, injury, weight gain and stress can result from poor office health habits. The longer you go without attending to these issues, the worse they can become. This is why it’s so important to adopt healthy habits in the workplace. Most people work at least eight hours five days a week. This adds up, and the way you spend this time can really have an effect on your health. It doesn’t have to be a negative effect, however.

One aspect of good office health is ergonomics. Improper posture can lead to injuries like tendonitis, repetitive stress injury, carpal tunnel syndrome and back strain. First, make sure your computer screen is positioned at eye level. Your chair should support your lumbar region and allow you to sit up straight without slouching or bending. Your thighs and knees should be parallel to the floor with your feet positioned under the knees, flat on the floor. Your arms should also be parallel to the floor, with your fingers comfortably reaching the keyboard without reaching or straining. When you type, your wrists shouldn’t rest on the wristpad or keyboard but should hover in a straight line above the keyboard.

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Your desk is an important aspect of your workplace. After all, it is the place where you spend the majority of your time. There are many ways to make your desk more appealing and personal. When you personalise your work area, you make it a more pleasant and inspiring place to be. Often people are more productive when they feel comfortable and happy in their working environment. Therefore, making improvements to your desk may result in better performance at work. Even if you don’t experience an increase in productivity, you can still enjoy your new and improved work space.

First, make sure you understand the policies of your workplace. Some companies allow personal items to be displayed on desks, others don’t. If you work for yourself or work at home, this is not an issue. The first thing you should do when personalising your desk is clear everything off of it and empty all the drawers. You want to start with a clean slate. Once your desk is empty, you can go through all your papers and belongings. Toss anything you don’t need, take care of any urgent matters and create a filing system for papers that need to be kept or dealt with at a later date. Some people file by date, others file alphabetically. It’s not important how you file; it’s important that the filing system you develop makes sense to you and is easy to use.

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With national ‘Ban bullying at work’ day on November 7th this year, several issues are once again raised. As terrible as it sounds, bullying in the workplace is still an issue for many and life threatening for some.

While bullying at work may not necessarily take on the guise of the playground bully, it’s effects can be just as emotional and threatening. Bullying at work can be described as ANY of the following:
• Staff who are good at their jobs being criticised, given jobs below their skill level or even having responsibility removed.
• Being shouted at.
• Continually being picked on by co-workers or bosses, either in public or private.
• Getting deliberately blocked on promotion.
• Regularly excluding other employees from activities or ignoring them completely.
• Making difficult workloads and deadlines.
• Attacking a member of staff about their appearance or lifestyle.
• Consistently making the same person the issue of jokes.

This small list is just an example of what bullying CAN be, you can probably think of several more right now, but every situation will be different and being general can help you to decide if you may be a victim of bullying or maybe you’re bullying and didn’t realise it!

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