Leadership

Employers around the globe are increasingly seeking employees who fit a corporate culture over skill set. That’s not to undervalue specific skills and training. Rather it speaks to trending in hiring and training employees. A recent study by Video Arts finds Leadership and Development professionals are training on soft skills more than Leadership development. What does this mean in the workplace?

A shift from hard skills to soft skills indicates the greater recognized value of Emotional Intelligence and good judgement in the workplace. Employers are running on tight budgets with a decreased number of workers as businesses rebuild post-recession. There is no wiggle room for hiring two people instead of one. There’s limited space for employees especially employees who don’t fit in with the team.

Every company has a culture driven not only by the management but by the type of people attracted to that company. Software development companies are famous for their blend of hard skills like programming and soft skills of work ethic and teamwork. They invented working from home and casual Friday. The rest of corporate America is still trying to figure out that trend of empowerment and engagement.

Soft skills are often overlooked for the fact that they are difficult to measure. You can’t directly measure work ethic or teamwork but you can measure output of production. Developing soft skills unleashes a power to motivate employees to be more productive. Allowing employees to work autonomously under a shared vision can easily result in the team members pulling all-nighters to complete a project- just like the software programmers have been doing for years.

A business that values soft skills, including individual recognition and treating employees as people first and employees second, may look, at least to outsiders, a bit chaotic and mismanaged, but the results are nothing short of amazing! The reality may be that the CEO is sitting in the middle of the production floor his or her employees. The CEO wants to be heard and seen and isn’t afraid to address employee concerns. This eliminates rumors and negativity from spreading across the organization.

Your business may not be fully embracing what is described above- at least not all in one day or week or even year. The point is to value employees and prospective employees as more than just their skills and/or college degree.

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The workplace is a changed environment and we understand the challenges faced by organizations as a result of these changes. We’re no longer in a “climb the corporate ladder” environment; employees are ready for positions to open – and not at your organization. They understand the value of change and so should you. At Viatech Global we’re helping employers identify, engage and retain the right employees. We’re also helping resolve workplace issues among employees through our value science tools. Many employers are seeking cost-effective ways to re-build employee engagement.

We offer the following five reasons it will benefit the bottom line to work with us:

1.       Build and retain strong teams: Through our series of value science tools we are able to identify the key players of the organization. They may be different than who you perceive your leaders to be and that’s okay. We will help you create and re-create engaged teams who stay with your organization when others may leave.

2.       Cost effective employee training: One of our greatest assets is that we want to train your trainers on how to effectively utilize value science tools to create teams that are engaged and productive. We provide a variety of resources and certification through our certification program, ongoing classes, workshop materials and more.  Viatech University

3.       Value Science Tools: Our suite of assessments provides an in-depth view of employees’ strengths, behaviors and values. Not only will they learn about themselves through the process, your management team will learn how to effectively utilize employees.

4.       Cost savings and increased productivity: Review our case studies to see for yourself how our consulting services and programs help increase productivity and decrease costs at an array of organizations. Our client Memorial Hermann demonstrated approximately $42 million in annualized savings in their system of 27,000 employees.  https://www.viatechglobal.com/praise/success-stories/

5.       FREE Assessment: You can’t beat FREE! Please visit our website, fill out the information on  Viatech Global Free Assessment to receive a complimentary assessment and evaluation.

We value your time and desire to have you make an informed decision about working with us.

Please contact us for additional information and resources via phone at 505-765-9903 or 800-494-5218, via email at info@viatechglobal.com.

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Have you ever wondered about your brain at work? For many of us, how our brains work isn’t something we think about but we should, especially if we’re managers. How our brains function at work can impact our performance. Understanding how brains function, and how our employees’ brains function, we can grow successful teams.

Quick (and admittedly oversimplified) Guide to Brain Function:

  • Hippocampus is also known as the limbic system or our caveman brain. Its function is automatic emotional responses to situations, the fight or flight part of our brain. In days past, we ran away from threats like large animals rather than toward them, for example.
  • Prefrontal Cortex or logic center, regulates other centers of the brain, choosing the actions we take. When this part is well developed, we have overall improved brain function
  • Left brain is known for linear thinking, taking into account details, conscious actions, verbal communication, and language.
  • Right brain is known for processing the big picture, creativity, comprehension, and non-verbal communication.

Your employees have brains that are developed in different areas. These differences impact how each of them performs.

The Solution

At Viatech Global, we provide tools to help our clients gain a greater understanding of individuals, be it employees or associates. . Utilizing three reports, we help managers find solutions to employee performance issues, and prevent future challenges. This involves an understanding of how your employees’ brains process information.

Neuroscientists say 95% of the time our brains are in response mode, which means we often go through our daily routines without thinking about our thinking or our actions.  The only way to make changes to our regular routine is to become aware of it.  The reports create a non-biased way to understand and become aware of the routine responses.  This alone can be very liberating and can become a catalyst for profound change and improvement.

Motivation Report measures passion. When we do things we are passionate about our brain operates on a much more fluid level, much like the brain of a person in-love.

Behavior Report this report not only gives a person’s responses to problems, people, pace of life, and procedures, it also addresses their natural emotional responses.  The foundations of behavior are driven by our innate emotional responses to what goes on around us, do we want to fight back, or avoid situations?  Are we prone to such emotions as anger, fear, love or rejection? If we understand an individual’s emotional responses and emotional potential, we understand performance under stress.

Judgment Report captures the natural tendencies in the processing of information in the three dimensions of regarding people, tasks, and systems. It is perhaps the most powerful of our reports as it assesses not only brain function but the employee’s understanding of the world around them as well as themselves. Understanding self is key to capturing the natural talent residing inside each of us.

The assessment reports Viatech Global provide to clients give a glimpse into how our brains are responding to situations and interactions in the workplace. Working together, we can provide employee engagement and retention solutions.

Would you like to learn more about Viatech Global Reports?  Contact us at Support@ViatechGlobal.com

At Viatech Global we take a science-based approach to employee productivity which is why we have been looking at how multi-tasking is killing productivity.  From the invention of the T.V. dinner to Tupperware to social media, Americans are constantly looking for better, faster ways to meet their goals.  Books have been written about increasing productivity and the secret to success and we’ve all read our fair share of business books.

The ironic part is there is no secret. Scientific studies have proven focus is the key to getting more done.

Which Decreases Your IQ More?  Sending an email while on the phone or smoking pot?

Researchers at the Institute of Psychiatry at the University of London conducted a study of 1,100 workers and determined that multitasking caused a greater decrease in IQ than smoking pot or losing a night of sleep.

Multi-tasking and Brain Function

Multi-tasking makes your brain move fast from task to task without processing the information to the extent it could if you did one task at a time.

Researchers call this “spotlighting”.  By tracking brain function of single-taskers versus multi-taskers, it has been consistently found that multi-taskers are not only the worse at filtering information, they are worse at switching between tasks than single-taskers.

Impact on the Workplace

While multi-tasking employees may seem to get more completed, it is actually the single-tasking employees who are producing more for the company.  Single-tasking means using the brain optimally, without distraction, which means a better product at the end of the project or task.

How can we help employees learn the value of single tasking?

  • Teaching managers about the value of single-tasking, and gaining their support, are keys to being a single-focus production team. That’s not to say everyone focuses on one project at a time.  Rather it means removing the culture of multi-tasking to a culture of project-focused employees.
  • Create an Environment where single-tasking is encouraged. Rather than one team working on multiple projects, create teams that focus on one project.  Each single focus team can provide ideas and feedback to other teams to keep ideas and energy fresh on the teams.
  • Teach employees the value of single tasking and create areas of the office where they can focus solely on phone calls, for example. This eliminates the distraction of checking email while on the phone as well as the distraction of other employees while focused on a call.
  • Change work location at least once a day. This is important especially with a work-from-home team.  Leaving the house to work at a coffee shop or getting up from workspace to take a walk are two ways to encourage focus and single-tasking.

Identifying the key players in this new culture of single-tasking can be challenging and we can help.

At Viatech Global,  http://www.viatechglobal.com/  we provide value science tools to help employers identify, engage, and retain employees who support the workplace culture of increasing productivity and employee engagement.

Contact Michael@viatechglobal.com to see how we can assist your organization today!

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