Six Tips for Managing a Vacation Hangover Business Articles | August 17 nike air max plus tn ultra femme pas cher , 2006 Are you suffering from a "vacation hangover"? What's that, you ask? Perhaps you are feeling lethargic and unenergetic. In fact, you wonder to yourself, "Wow! How did I lose my edge in such a short period of time away?" You feel as if you can't complete one task let alone all of the tasks that are dropping on you like spent fireworks from a Disney World celebration. What to do? Simply follow these success tips.
I have been talking to a number of business professionals who are all suffering from what I refer to as "vacation hangover." What's that you say? Let me illustrate for you.
You scrambled to get everything done before taking a much needed and deserved vacation. Like most people, you centered vacation around a key holiday like the 4th of July. You escaped to a location where there was no possibility of hooking into any of your electronic gadgets - cell phone, PDA, laptop - perhaps even a regular land-line telephone. Seriously. In fact, you enjoyed a relaxing vacation filled with long walks, boating, reading and of course, some great eating. You arrive back home completely unplugged and relaxed and ... WHAM! You are inundated with a backlog of voicemails, emails, and paper mail, both at home and in the office.
The usual, right? Wrong. This time something is different. What's the deal? You are feeling lethargic and unenergetic. In fact, you wonder to yourself, "Wow! How did I lose my edge in such a short period of time away?" You feel as if you can't complete one task let alone all of the tasks that are dropping on you like spent fireworks from a Disney World celebration.
The result: your stress is up, a headache ensues, and you know in your gut, no amount of Tylenol is going to take the edge off. Congratulations! You are now experiencing a vacation hangover. But don't fret. This is a sure sign that your vacation accomplished what it was supposed toWhat to do? Simply follow these success tips.
1. Set-up voicemail message stating you are out of the office. Provide callers with an alternate contact person, and choose the option that does not accept voicemails during that period. This will help prevent a back-log of phone calls that need to be returned when you get back from vacation.
2. Set-up an email response stating when you are out, when you will be back, and when you will be responding to email. This will set expectations for work colleagues and customers that are emailing you and help prevent the need for them to email you repeatedly on the same topic or other topics when you are unable to respond.
3. Schedule a day post-vacation for catch-up and include that as part of your "vacation time out of the office." This allows you a day to ramp up and get caught up before people think you are actually back in your office.
4. Create a task list, prioritize tasks and complete the most critical items first. Remember that it took a week or more for everything to pile up and realistically, you won't be able to tackle everything on your first day back.
5. Schedule breaks into your day so that you can take a brief walk, enjoy a beverage or simply breathe. This will help to extend your vacation and provide short opportunities for you to regroup throughout the day. A good practice anytime!These tips should help you re-immerse yourself into the work environment. If these don't help, do what I do. Plan your next vacation. After all, it helps to have something to look forward to!
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Helpdesk Metrics Are Relatively Easy Business Articles | October 25, 2007 You will not be able to see immediate profits when it comes to helpdesks, and the cost may be large as well. This normally costs all corporate companies a great deal. Some people will be surely perf...
You will not be able to see immediate profits when it comes to helpdesks, and the cost may be large as well. This normally costs all corporate companies a great deal. Some people will be surely performing better than the others. It is also good to keep track, as there would be a lot of cost that is going into training facilities for staff.
While looking at designing some metrics for helpdesks, it may look very easy. However there will be great difficult y in doing so, if you really want the metric to be very effective. Some people often forget that the metric represents the actual performance of the companies. Most of them just look at the figures, but nothing being done about it.
A lot of agents look at the time that is being spent on a call. A lot of them are also under the impression, that if this time is reduced, there will be better performance and also more people can be helped. You might find it difficult to get statistics for a helpdesk, but later with time, if the system is well designed, you will be able to look at the performance of the agents as well as the entire helpdesk.
While some problems are simple, others will take time to solve. You should not think about minimizing the call time, as this might lead to serving the customer in a very poor way. The number of calls which are taken should also not be measured, as it is really does not mean that one with more calls is performing better.
Depending on the time spent at working at the desk, the number of calls taken can be measured. With a fixed amount of time in place, this system is looking at the number of calls being taken by the helpdesk. Most of the time, there will be pressure to keep the calls short. Agents will not be affected, but there will be the need for these managers to pass on the right requirements.