Author: admin

What is the world today without internet access? To be very precise, clueless!

With an internet connection, you can be the most knowledgeable person in the room with access to every information under the sun, and you are connected to the entire world. But what if you get stuck at a place with no electricity or no internet?

In such dire situations, we tend to lag and fail every commitment, be it professional or even personal. So, it is very evident that the internet has made us absolutely reliant on it, and thus certain residual hitches have come into existence at the professional front.

• With a rapidly increasing dependence on cloud-based applications, we do not worry about data backup. So, with no internet and hence no access to those apps, we are left with no files and no documents.
• The rise of Internet of Things (IoT) has aided communications greatly. So, in the absence of the internet or electricity, the connected devices do not function leaving an entire business at a brief but costly halt.
• Internet connections come with vulnerability points viz.; network congestion, non-compatible devices, faulty router, fiber-optic cable disconnection, or even natural adversities. Not many, one such vulnerability is enough to annihilate access entirely.

In a nutshell, our greatest challenge these days is to eliminate the obstructions to offline productivity and search for its management techniques.

Even though the internet has taken us to a magical world of accessibilities and communications, it is essential to deal with the residual vulnerabilities for retaining and thereby enhancing productivity offline. So, no more stressing yourself out in case you get disconnected from this present hyper-connected realm. Even with sporadic or no connection at all at certain places, we can keep ourselves productive. Here’s how to do it –

1. Fill yourself to the neck with knowledge by reading offline articles, books, magazines, newspapers, by listening to podcasts offline and by watching informative videos. Many iOS as well as Android applications these days give you the opportunity of saving articles, audios and videos and playing them offline.
2. Practicing ‘brain dump’ writing can be a great way to dig deep into the subconscious and bringing out dormant creativities. After a point when you start reading the write-ups and club some points together, you are bound to pull out a pool of productive ideas.
3. Expand your network by interacting with more people. A little human interaction outside work can do wonders for your psychological wellbeing. You may even engage your colleagues in a spontaneous meeting where you all can get into brainstorming and come out with better and enhanced ideas to pick up on your productivities later.

You always need to give some time and space to your mind for relaxing and no time is better than a period without the internet. Go out for a walk, work out, listen to your favorite music, run the pending household errands, or maybe just sit idle or meditate. Remember, such breaks will help you to enhance your productivity much better when you get back to work.

To conclude, as they say – focus on being productive instead of busy. Without the internet, you will have one perfect day out of your busy schedule to work on your offline productivity management.

With the continuous extension in lockdown and social isolation, it is probably the lengthiest and fastest switch ever watched by the world. With almost little or no prior notice, every company had to shift from the physical office spaces to a remote working structure.

Whereas the safety and security of the employees had been prioritized, handling business continuity in this sudden, but now normal procedure of contactless communications and business, is still a big challenge for most. This transition requires vigilant research and a thorough analysis of all the pros and cons, especially in areas like security and scale.

Starting with security, it had been an all-time crucial parameter for all businesses. With a huge pool of threats gaining strength with the onset of challenging times, security holds the topmost priority for keeping the business intact. Since the COVID-19 outbreak was announced, nations have witnessed a dramatic boom in several email attacks, mostly phishing campaigns.

As per reports, such attempts have given pretty good returns to the attackers. Even though people are working from home, companies are responsible for the regulation of data protection. Rather, stricter and more vigilant security services are necessary to curb the cyber risks and on the contrary, guarantee data confidentiality and integrity.

On another note, it requires more skills, creativity as well as related tools to maintain performance in such critical hours. Organizations have been combing their ways through possible ways of automation and scheduling to keep the operations intact. Organizations in which a minimum of 20-25% of employees are recently traveling to the offices for work are depending highly on automation for excusing the limited staff from the mundane jobs so that they can focus on the high-order security sector.

Even though some organizations had already had their employees working remotely (either part-time or even full-time), but the real challenge that sprung up during this lockdown in the path of business continuity preservation is related to the scaling of the same model.

As per a survey of the Bureau of Labor Statistics in 2019, it was brought to the limelight that before the pandemic, a minimum of 7% of employees was already working remotely in America. In comparison to that, today the majority of employees are working from their homes. Under such circumstances, organizations had to ensure the availability of the critical staff and service providers to run the data centers and scale them quickly simultaneously.

None of the so-called remote work settings could work properly had it not been for the right tools brought together. The most important tool is Virtual Private Networks or VPNs.

Challenges attached to the VPN could also not be avoided as such an infrastructure or a BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) policy had not been established in many companies before the pandemic. Most of the employees are working on personal devices and that raises the security concerns due to unpatched vulnerabilities. So, it has been proved beyond any doubt, that every company should have a BYOD policy in place so that in times of need, companies do not have to make desperate attempts to keep its business up and running.

As per the guidance of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), organizations should consider the cyberspace to be a hostile environment for operations every device as well as network to be compromised. So, security awareness is much more vital these days than it was anytime earlier.

So, not compromising on security and scaling needs has kept the businesses running somewhat successfully during this lockdown. This distanced business and communication are all set to be the new normal and in this new environment, work-from-home is a standard model. For the still struggling companies, identification of the problem areas would be the first step towards the seamless operation. With the most ideal strategies, effective tools, associated technologies, and proper controls, business continuity can go unhampered even during this lockdown and even beyond that.

Offices are opening and visitors are coming in to meet you. But the virus threat is yet not over. New COVID-19 positive cases are still being recorded. How will you now ensure the safety of your workers and contain the spread of the deadly disease in your front office?

Social media posts are always talking about personal hygiene and social distancing. But do you think your front office can completely be safe when you have visitors coming in and using your logbooks and pen to register themselves? We all know that the answer is NO! moreover, it is not humanly possible to sanitize your front office and the stationeries every time a visitor checks in.

What then is the solution?

Touch-free visitor registration and sign-in process through an automated system is something that every organization needs now. This protects both the teams as well as the guests and shows that your organization is skillfully adapting itself to enforce the standard health and safety regulations.

A ‘no-touch’ visitor sign-in helps you to offer a premium visitor registration process and gives your visitors and employees an assurance that your brand thinks beyond the global pandemic and appropriates a digital and futuristic reception area!

NexAEI is at the heart of the digital transformation that is even more relevant in today’s world, and our visitor management application – NexAEI VisMate – has already started helping brands use our touchless visitor registration feature within all types of buildings – the Invite Guest feature.

Given that you would try and control who enters your office space until things go back to being normal, VisMate’s Invite Guest feature will be an absolute delight for you. App users will be able to send out personalized invites to their guests for a meeting or an event. The invites would be sent to the selected guests’ mobile phones in the form of an SMS with a unique guest identification number (GIN). The visitor simply needs to verbally share the GIN with your front office executive and the sign-in process is complete.

Yes, it is that simple and now effectively safe for your teams and guests.

By leveraging the digital treat of NexAEI VisMate and the no-touch sign-in process, you can minimize the spread germs and help the nation fight coronavirus!

Necessary Hacks to Shape a Productive Workforce for the Future of Work

Productivity is regarded as the prime requirement of every organization. Workforce productivity cannot be dodged under any circumstance if you want your esteemed organization to outshine. Even then, the way to attain the much-desired top-notch productivity is filled with numerous misapprehensions as well as various challenges. So, sharing with you some cool hacks to help you lift your workforce productivity up, in case this COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent lockdown has bogged you down.

Firstly, it is immensely important to measure and understand the underlying problem.

You will never be able to fix a problem if you do not know the root cause. The size of your organization, the industry it operates in and the management opinions make a way in determining the aptest approach to measure and analyze your existing productivity. Again, you need to gauge the factors behind the productivity descent too. One imperative step taken towards the said measurement is to set achievable and realistic goals. Pushing your employees towards impractical goals is bound to bring in negative fallouts. So, for improving productivity, one must recognize the limits.

Secondly, communication is key.

Be it for encouragement or satisfaction or even as an alarm, employees need consistent, productive, and insightful feedback from the management. It works as an elixir for broken confidence and incessant blunders. In situations like this, nothing works like effective and transparent communication. In absence of it, frustration, self-loathing, loss of confidence, irresponsibility sets in, and together comes productivity loss. Organizations are required to engage in effective collaborations over and over again and ensure that the methods in use are in sync with both the employer and employee needs.

Thirdly, effective training has no competition.

As per CERIC reports, one big delusion that a company (around 64%) tends to hold on is that if it trains and develops its employees, they might opt for better career prospects outside their existing employer. To be honest, training helps in employee development and also brings down

the turnover rate. All you need is to select the most fitting and sustainable tools for training your employees effectively.

Finally, rewards are crucial in boosting morale.

Not always monetary rewards matter, the non-monetary ones like appreciation notes, spots awards, newsletter mentions, positive feedback, public recognition, and likewise does wonders. An effective reward structure is directly proportional to increased energy, loyalty, and enthusiasm. Awards and rewards prove that the employees are valued and the management cares about them. It is almost a ritual of every successful company to have well-defined processes so that every achievement is recognized, and every dedication acknowledged.

All the four above-mentioned hacks are sure to impact productivity and that too in a positive way. Such little changes in the organizational processes will help immensely in picking up your sinking productivity or even enhancing it further.

On another note, monitoring active screen times of employees is a good way to keep a track of productivity as well. In this regard, Hourly, our integrated solution is perfect for you. It helps to detect active and idle hours of work devices, helps supervisors in consolidated reporting, and take on-demand snapshots of the work screens periodically. Such solutions are a great help in tracking and improving workforce productivity. So, gear up and get started with reviving your work processes for enhanced workforce productivity.

With the incessant hike in the number of COVID-19 positive cases nationwide, all organizations are being forced to continue operating remotely. Even though this phase is supposed to continue indefinitely, it goes without saying that every organization will be required to introduce certain protocols inside the premises once they open to break or fence the transmission chain by restraining human contact.

In such a situation, a digital reception platform might be of immense help in rolling out the plans and protocols in the workplace. It can primarily help in the quick implementation of the interim protocols, probable risk identification, and thereby prompt decisions.

Take a closer look at the various benefits that you can attain by leveraging a digital reception software or application in your office premises during this grave hour of the coronavirus outbreak –

• The customary sign-in feature can put across questions to enquire regarding any recent travel history together with coronavirus symptom identification
• As per the company policies, top-notch confidentiality can be maintained regarding the entire health-culling procedure.
• The management can be alerted on detecting any suspicious case via message or email or even via an application.
• On detection or suspicion, individuals can be stopped right off the bat at the office reception or the entrance kiosk and meetings intermitted.

If you have one such aide at your service, you know you are lucky! To the ones who do not have one, you might mull over it.

For the ones, who have such a system but it is not equipped to execute the actions described above,  you can upgrade to a premium visitor management service and get it going.

Finally, nothing can beat informative content and virtual training sessions when it comes to communicating new protocols or guidelines. So, you can utilize the digital reception systems to educate your employees regarding the entire COVID-19 scenario and all the associated nitty- gritty as they always say – Prevention is better than cure!

With a sudden wave of the digital workplace and remote work redefining the work culture andenvironment, the significance of the new generation EmPal is hitting the roof once again. The COVID-19 pandemic has almost convinced the industry giants to mull over the ‘work from home’ concept in a more detailed manner. According to reports, Tata Consultancy Services might ask the lion’s share of its workforce (around 75%) to work remotely by 2025. So basically, remote working is going to be the probable norm, moving forward. If that is the case, a smart, –efficient, and most importantly, a mobile workplace management application can have no substitute.

Attendance management, leave management, and shift management are the essential chunks of workplace management, and remote working challenges each one of them separately. EmPal plays the most essential role hereby as it connects and brings every employee to the same page. EmPal GPS has been designed to help you go digital and remote. It can capture employee attendance from any device present in any location using GPS tracking and Geo-fening technologies. Capturing the attendance of remote workers, validating the same, and thereby executing a centralized report has never been better and easier. Besides, real-time dashboards make decision-making more convenient.

The Human Resource Department needs not to wrap its head around emails and sorts for managing the leave requests. EmPal offers one flexible and very smart online Leave management service to take care of all the leave-related proceedings. Real-time app notifications and remote access through the app dashboards help supervisors in approving or rejecting the leave requests. Additionally, aiding documents for requesting leaves can be scanned and uploaded through the app, and leaves and holidays can also be customized as and when needed.

Shift management is generally considered an extremely tedious job and it seems to become more tedious if employees work from their homes. But, EmPal makes it stress-free. It works for repudiating the ordeals of shift management, viz. roster assignment, shift swaps, rotations, and likewise. So, even if you are separated by distance, you can easily work across shifts and smoothly manage your employees depending upon their departments and shifts.

So, considering all the prior leads, can you really not call EmPal your most cooperative friend?

Haven’t you got jaded of filling out your details in those age-old register books whenever you enter an office building for the first time?

You are, right? We can totally feel you!

How convenient do you think is it to keep a track of that record and never miss a single detail from the register book? How secured do you think this existing system of keeping a check on daily visitors is?

Why do we still bear with the fact that the receptionist or whoever the front desk employee is, needs to hinge on that outdated register and pen?

It’s about time that we dump our so-called in-time out-time registers, and go digital. By digital, we mean digital visitor management, smart visitor management!

First things first, let us jot down the features of an ideal smart visitor management system that we offer –

1. 1. AI-Based Facial Recognition
2. 2. Paperless Registration
3. 3. Smart Meeting
4. 4. Guest Invitation
5. 5. Backend Support
6. 6. Multi-location Data Centralization
7. 7. Multi-lingual Support
8. 8. Co-Visitor Registration

As compared to the customary register book, a smart and effective visitor management system like NexAEI VisMate is equipped with state-of-the-art features to be solicitous of all the foregoing reception requisites. We promise a complete makeover to your present front office.

We help you rethink visitor management experience where you present your esteemed guests and everyday visitors to a sleek tablet at the front desk. In a way, even in an absolutely new environment, you are undeniably self-sufficient and empowered. Doesn’t that sound like one smart premium reception?

Yes, it does!

With all the dynamic present-day Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML) technologies in place, companies should shift to digital platforms in its visitor management approaches as well leaving behind the old-school methods. Only then can your company be literally called smart, dynamic, and well-managed.

Since the inception of work and workplace, work productivity has been one of the prime requisites. The business world does not operate without paying heed to the workplace or work productivity.

So, what is this work productivity?

As the definition goes, work productivity is the efficiency with which the employees work to complete tasks and achieve goals for their employers. A productive workforce brings in profitability and goodwill to the employer.

Not going far, you can just look around yourselves and find several organizations that are literally grappling to achieve productivity, given the global pandemic we are in. Making your employees work for long hours does not make your workplace productive. Again, providing your employees with all sorts of resources does not make your workforce productive. All you need to do is find the most effective methods that would be a perfect fit for your organization and your employees. One should remember that not every method is supposed to bring in results for everybody.

Five pivotal factors that contribute towards making a productive workplace can be listed as –

• The clear definition of organizational goals
• The environment of the workplace
• The careful watch over employee verdure
• The render ample training
• The processes being followed at work

One vital fact to be noted here – the aforementioned factors remain constant but their way of enforcement alters and evolves with time.

Clearly defined goals being the absolute benchmark of productivity, have been proved to elevate the work productivity bar.

Gift your employees a super supportive and positive workplace environment, and the productivity will take off. Yes, it is that simple! An employee’s mood is known to be directly proportional to the organization’s environment.

Watching over employee well-being makes your brand be looked upon as humane. Your employees are not men of straw and hence they deserve to be put before any deliverable. The resultant magnified job fulfillment will take their work productivity a notch higher.

No amount of training is enough when it comes to development. The more trained the employees are, the more productivity you are likely to perceive. An untrained or undertrained employee will not live up to your expectations. Remember that!

Work process exertion is known to elevate productivity. Having said that, engaging in a series of hit and miss is integral before construing potent work processes inside a workplace.

Even though profit is professed as the most important payback of productivity, companies tend to see positive customer responses as a very crucial payback as well. Whenever a company welcomes a new client or customer, the work productivity and the subsequent goodwill speaks on the company’s behalf.

Coming back to scratch, as productivity is directly associated with the employee self-esteem, every company should ponder over every opportunity that comes its way to keep its employees contented. In the absence of adequately groomed and trained, empowered and indelible employees, businesses cannot bloom. it can be difficult for a business to thrive. Having said that, an employee should be absolutely honest and committed to the felicity of his/her employer as well. Remember, this has to be a win-win set-up for both the entities.

The concluding statement: With the upsurge of work productivity, an organization along with its representatives gains the gift of prosperity.

The entire world has gone into quarantine surrounding the uncertainties posed by the outbreak of the COVID-19. Companies, in order to safeguard the health of the employees, have decided to let them work from home. The new remote working policies around the world have for the first-time separated managers and their employees. 

It is always preferable to establish a clear remote working policy and training well in advance. However, in times of a crisis such as this global pandemic, the required level of preparation was not feasible for most companies and managers.

Hence, we have researched for specific steps that, if taken by remote managers, can help in improving employee engagement and productivity without any extra efforts.

The Common Challenges of Remote Working

At the very beginning managers will be required to understand the factors that make working from home challenging for the team. So, what are the challenges you should be careful about?

The Lack of Proper Supervision

With the workforce going remote, managers, as well as employees, will be facing a lack of in-person interaction and guidance. Some managers will be anxious about some of their teammates not giving his best performance when working from home. On the other hand, employees will feel the reduced access to managerial communication and support – to an extent where they might feel that their manager is not in tune with their needs, and thereby, are no more supportive.

• Reduced Access to Information

The employees who are new to the entire concept of remote working will feel astonished at the time taken and the effort given to locate information from their managers or coworkers – even if they are the simplest of information. This often leads to a state of interpersonal challenges among the remote workers. Research throws light upon the fact that the lack of mutual or shared knowledge among remote workers might lead to miscommunication and misunderstanding that will lead to loss of business productivity.

• The Case of Isolation and Loneliness

Given the lockdown scenario and self-isolation, disconnectedness is one of the most common complaints arising out of the new remote workforce. This is happening especially because these employees are missing the level of interaction they had with their managers and their coworkers in the office. The most affected by this are the extroverts, who have no means now to connect with the others the way they used to apart from audio or video calls.

• Distractions at Home are Real

Often at times, we are given a terrible representation of how it feels like working from home – sitting on a sofa with a laptop or typing on a laptop while holding a baby with a smile. That is not how it works, right? I would encourage you to ensure that your remote workers have a dedicated workspace in their homes to be able to function properly. And given this sudden transition into virtual working, there are chances that your remote workforce may be faced with the challenge of suboptimal workspace, and in some cases, unexpected parenting responsibilities. Apart from this, your workers might also be distracted by their family and home demands. As a remote manager, you might have your workers bogging down due to a lot of distractions during this unplanned and sudden work-from-home transition.

The Pro Tips for You

Although remote working may be fraught with these common challenges, there are also some quick and easy things you can adopt as a manager for heightened effectiveness. These actions include:

• Establishing the Rules of Engagement

Your newly remote workers become more efficient and productive when you set expectations for the means, the frequency, and a scheduled timing for communication with the team. For instance, I am always keeping my team engaged through videoconferencing for daily meetings, and only calling up my teammates whenever any urgent need is arising. You should also let your employees know about the best time and way to reach you during your working hours. Keeping an eye out for proper sharing of information through the best means of communication is something that would help you a lot working as a remote manager during this period of lockdown.

• Carving Out Opportunities for Remote Social Interactions

One of the best means to help your teammates stay connected is by structuring ways for employees to socialize beyond work topics. This is true for all remote workers, especially for the extrovert ones who feel that the coronavirus has suddenly transitioned them out of the office. The easiest way to do so is by leaving some time right at the beginning of a team call to discuss anything apart from work, and that should definitely not include the rising tide of positive cases of COVID-19 patients, as that would give the first-morning call a negative start! What I do with my team is to ask everyone to be ready with their favorite morning beverage and talk to them about how I learned making corn sludge with melted cheese! These sorts of virtual socializing reduce the sense of being isolated and promote a sense of belonging.

• Encourage Your Remote Workforce and Lend Emotional Support

Acknowledging stress and listening to your teammates’ concerns and anxieties is important, especially in the context of an abrupt shift to remote working. You should ask each of them how they are coping with the situation, whether they are facing any challenges, etc. And once they start sharing their points of concern, listen carefully and restate it back to ensure that they are being heard. This may very well be the starting point of your team calls. With this kind of support from you, your employees will be taking up this remote working challenge with a focus and a sense of purpose.

With all this said, let me assure you that “you’ve got this!” Follow these simple yet effective tips and see a stark difference in the way you lead your new remote team to perform far better.

Is the coronavirus outbreak and all the anxiety surrounding taking a toll on your physical and mental health? Is the extensive lockdown coming in the way of your regular fitness routine?

Hakuna Matata! Losing a little control is very natural at such unsettling times. All of a sudden the COVID-19 outbreak and the shutting of the gym have thrown your daily health and fitness routines into disarray.

Furthermore, rationing of the necessary food items has hit your daily food habits as well. But, if social distancing and self-quarantining are being advised by governments and health-care sectors all across the globe, then so be it. We are in it together and we’ll win together!

Even if you are on a lockdown, taking good care of your health is nothing difficult. You need to eat well, get sound sleep, engage in exercise or yoga, connect with friends and family, and engage in hobbies you have almost forgotten given your busy schedule. A healthy body needs a healthy mind too.

I am sharing the tricks am following to stay fit and fine, and I hope this would help you as much as it has helped me and my family – 

• The Diet: Add Vitamin B rich veggies like spinach, broccoli, and beans, eggs, fish, and fruits like bananas in your diet. These help your brain to release dopamine & serotonin – the organic chemicals that induce happiness. Additionally, you may toss in some immunity boosters like garlic, ginger, yogurt, almonds, turmeric, papaya as well to make your diet yummier!
• The Sleep: Sound and adequate sleep will clear out the toxins from your body and repair your body cells mainly. Psychological wellbeing is a compulsion in dreadful times like this.
• The Exercise: Work out! It will reduce your stress, help you sleep better and keep you fit. Even the World Health Organization has recommended a minimum of 30 minutes of movement in a day. Engaging in any form of exercise like brisk walking, yoga, pilates, skipping, sit-ups, walking up & down your home stairs and even dance will seal the deal. 
• The Socializing: Practicing self-isolation can be dreadful sometimes and can get on to your nerves. So it is important to revive your social connections via phone calls, video calls, social media platforms and so on. Be distantly social in the wake of social distancing!
• The Hobbies: Getting hand-on with your long-lost hobbies can easily be stress-reliever. This lockdown has gifted us the opportunity of breaking the monotony and stepping aside from the rat race and engaging in activities that will help in promoting comprehensive mental health. 

Leading a healthy life and maintaining fitness might help to keep you in a better and safer position. The novel coronavirus has already spread across the world like wildfire and is spreading more as we speak and there are yet no medications or vaccines to curb this destruction. So, fitness and isolation might be the most effective weapons to the contagion currently. Let’s pledge to stick by the rules and wipe out the virus in a healthy way!