Help Your Team Bring Their Whole Selves to Work

How to do it and why it’s critical.

If you’ve been following our journey, you already know that at LYLA, we’ve always believed in order for our society to thrive, we need to bring our entire selves to work.

As of August 2021, 55% of the American workforce planned to leave their current roles within 12 months—and the need for greater flexibility was the top reason cited.

When we try to keep our lives neatly divided into separate boxes: work, family, spiritual life, wellness . . . that sort of compartmentalization only makes the struggle more arduous and the risk of burnout greater. We need to be able to deal with children, with aging parents, with our own physical and mental health . . . and we need our employers to provide the flexibility for us to move between those various life roles.

We’re not just workers.

We’re people. Fully-dimensional, complicated people.

And we work best when we don’t have to hide it.

LYLA provides a service that enables—and encourages—employees to live their full lives. Our app and 24/7 support center provide employers a way to acknowledge that their teams live rich, dynamic lives and that their employment is only one part of that.

When COVID changed the workplace last year, we realized we could be an integral part of the shift from supporting “workers” to supporting whole, real people—regardless of where, when, or how those people get their work done.

We’ve been living in a constant state of flux: stay-at-home orders, working from home, new hours, reintroduction to the workplace, hybrid work. Throughout all of this, LYLA has been a constant for the employees we serve. Our commitment to accessibility has made it faster, safer, and easier for our clients’ employees to reach out for the help they need (all while protecting their privacy).

Through our personalized support and proactive programming, we’re reducing the stressors our users juggle. We handle all those little (and big) tasks that can make your employees feel like they’re not keeping their heads above water. By taking care of those projects, LYLA is getting ahead of the burnout and giving employees the breathing room they need to focus on what’s really important.

Everyone needs help sometimes. And the employees we serve know exactly where to turn when they need to find a dog walker for their day of back-to-back Zoom meetings. Or research local contractors when their plumbing goes out. Or ask for support resources for their child who’s struggling with the new school environment.

We support your employees in every facet of their lives—as whole humans, not just as workers. In fact, the average user leans on LYLA 3 times each month—and saves themselves approximately 16 hours in the process.

LYLA helps your employees feel supported, understood, and cared for. And with that support, they’re less likely to burn out. They’re more likely to feel satisfied with their work and their lives in general.

Simply by enrolling with LYLA, you can:

  • prevent burnout,
  • increase satisfaction, and
  • improve employee retention

All for less than what it would take for you to buy each employee one monthly Starbucks.

It’s time to support the fully-dimensional lives your employees live. Get started with LYLA.

We Can Work From Home (oh, oh, oh-oh)

I haaaaaaate working from home. Always have. I need the discipline of getting up and going somewhere else to work to actually get work done. Also, I don’t get to see my friends at Dunkin’, and they miss me when I don’t visit every day. Also, there’s–

Wait, this will be easier:

TOP TEN REASONS I PREFER TO WORK AT THE OFFICE

  1. The Coke Freestyle machine – Diet Dr. Pepper all day long!
  2. Contact with other humans
  3. Less talking on the phone. (How does my calendar fill up so quickly with phone calls when I’m working remotely?!)
  4. Way more lunch options than what’s currently in my sad fridge
  5. A bigger computer monitor, printers, scanners and all the regular office tech stuff. My apartment isn’t large enough to have all those things.
  6. Not getting jealous of my cats who spend the day napping (well, LESS getting jealous because I can’t see them blatantly throwing their relaxation in my face)
  7. Sunlight! (My Chicago apartment courtyard isn’t nearly as bright as the 12th floor of our downtown office building.)
  8. Did I mention the constant flow of Diet Dr. Pepper?
  9. All my files and “work stuff” are here
  10. A reason to take a shower and put on pants

On the other hand, my co-worker, Ellen, LOVES working at home in Phoenix. She’s got an entire home office set up in her house. She is also a much better cook than I am and her new kitten (hi Posey!) runs around all day.

But what if I had to work from home? In Chicago, we’re fortunate in that we’ve had few very restrictions about being out in public places while we continue to learn more about COVID-19 (coronavirus), but they’re probably coming soon. If I had more time in the day, maybe I’d start thinking about how I can outfit my apartment in case of an emergency without losing too much productivity (and Vitamin D). Luckily, that’s where the Errand Solutions Luv Your Life Specialists can help! I just sent them my top ten list, and they’re already hard at work on coming up with some ways I can have an easier transition to working from home if/when the time comes. (If you’re one of our current customers, take a look at the News tab of your app for all kinds of helpful info about how you can prepare yourself; don’t forget to wash your hands for 20 seconds while singing!)

What if there are members of your team who are like Ellen and always work from home? Remote workers don’t get a lot of the same perks they would find in the office, and that’s not really fair. (I feel bad that Ellen doesn’t get to use the Coke machine.) A virtual solution like the ones we provide is a great benefit that actually benefits your entire workforce, including those who work “off-campus”.

From planning out a productive home office space to finding an automated cat toy that will keep your pets entertained, Errand Solutions can help. Contact our business development team for a demo today!

Work Fumbles During Fantasy Football

As the summer comes to close and pre-season games for fall sports start up, two words strike fear in the hearts of managers: Fantasy Football. In the next few days, millions of people will gather to pick their players for their Fantasy Draft. Over the course of the following 17 weeks, league participants will be researching, building and managing their teams, as well as watching every Sunday, Monday and Thursday nights. Sounds like a great way to spend free time, but what happens when Fantasy Football becomes a priority over your job?

Last year, 57.4 million people participated in a fantasy sport league, primarily football. Of those 57.4 million, 67 percent had full time jobs. Sure—most of those people will claim they didn’t let it affect their jobs, but we know that’s not true. In fact, it was estimated that employers lost approximately $16 billion in productivity last season—and that number has been rising steadily for years. While that number represents just one hour of unproductive work each week, it’s clear that one hour adds up quickly.

Your company may block certain sports websites or pass around memos regarding the issue, but the reality is that fantasy players will find a way. Whether on their personal phones or tablets, if a trade is on the line, they’re going to make it happen. You’ve really got two options here:

1) If you can’t beat ‘em join ‘em.

 In a 2006 survey by Ipsos, 40% of respondents said fantasy sports participation was a positive influence in the workplace. Another 40% felt it increases camaraderie among employees. Set up an office pool and establish deadlines that will require trades and other items to be completed before working hours begin.

2) Get time back from somewhere else. 

Encourage productivity in all other hours of the workday by offering employee engagement programs like the ones we provide at Errand Solutions. In just one month last season, we helped one of our clients get back 3,914 hours. Remember—those hours add up. Using that same math, this client got back nearly $98,000 that would otherwise have been lost.

In both options, you’re doing something really important: getting your employees excited about working for you. In the world of employee engagement, that’s a real touchdown.

Beat the Clock: Ways to Improve Your Time Management

February is National Time Management Month! While it’s not an official government holiday, it’s the perfect excuse to look at your habits and find out how you can make slight changes to save you time at both work and home. Check out just a few of these time management tips:

Track Your Time Waste

To better manage your time, you need to find out where you’re wasting it. What are your time bandits? Do you spend too much time on Facebook? Texting? Watching TV? Start writing it all down! By tracking your daily activities, you’ll be able to form an accurate picture on where your time might be being wasted. There are also apps to help you track your online time, specifically. Programs like RescueTime run the background of your computer or mobile devices and tracks the time on websites and applications, giving you a detailed report at the end of the day.

Make a Plan

Take the information you’ve gained from tracking your time and create a plan. Set goals on how much time you’ll spending on different activities each day and track whether you’ve accomplished them. There are plenty of software programs, apps and other tools you can use to make that happen – including bullet journals. Bullet journals, a recently popular trend, is a journal method that accommodates a variety of different planning systems. You’re supposed to fill the pages with bulleted lists (hence, the name), but also calendars, to-do lists, diary entries, brainstorming notes, doodles and even habit-tracking. Personally, bullet journals were a lifesaver when it came to planning my wedding last year – from lists of potential vendors to sketching out table arrangements, it was the perfect place to keep everything organized. But whether through bullet journals or an app, sticking your plan is key to improving your time management.

Prioritize

Start each day by prioritizing everything that needs to be accomplished. You may have 35 items you want to get done, but if you don’t have the time for all of them (and you probably won’t), it’s important to get the most vital ones done first. A good way to visualize this to think about your day as a bucket, and each of your to-dos is a rock. The truly important items are big rocks and the less important tasks are pebbles. If you fill the bucket with your pebbles first, there won’t be enough room for any rocks. Focus on the rocks first, and if you have time left over, you can start on the pebbles, which will fill in the empty spaces around the rocks. You may have some leftover pebbles at the end of the day, but at least your rocks will have a home in the bucket.

Set Time Limits

There are certain tasks that could take the whole day if you let them, so it can be helpful to set a time limit on those. For example, you could probably spend your entire day just reading and answering emails. Instead, block one hour of time devoted strictly to emails and stick to it. Hate cleaning? Try the 20-10 system – Micky is a big fan! He sets a timer for 20 minutes and spends that cleaning in one area. When the timer goes off, he sets another timer for 10 minutes, and does something fun or relaxing during that time. Micky says he finds that the mundane tasks get done faster when breaking them in to smaller, more manageable pieces.

Establish Routines

Just like you may have a morning routine for getting ready, creating routines for the day can be incredibly helpful. When you know what you’re already going to do next, you don’t have to waste time thinking and trying to decide. When these routines are established, it will become second nature and you’ll start getting through them quicker and quicker. If you plan on a 20-10 cleaning time every night, you can get those mega-cleaning Saturdays out of your routine and make time for something for fun.

Outsource

A huge part of successful time management is delegating or outsourcing certain items when you can. You’re not superman/woman and nobody expects you to be able to do everything in one day. Take advantage of people on your team (or our team!) and ask for help. Did you know you could have a personal concierge at your disposal? A service like Errand Solutions allows you (and your employees/coworkers) to outsource small tasks like making dinner reservations to time-suckers like planning your vacation. When it comes to a company’s time management, Errand Solutions is a huge asset.

Want to learn more? Get time back on your side and contact us today!

10 Tips to Increase Your Productivity

This is my first week at a new job and, shocker, it’s stressful. Not only am I just trying to figure out the lay of the land, but I’m being thrown into new projects and supposed to come up with all new ideas at the same time. In just a couple days, I’ve had countless to-do lists and they just keep growing. Luckily, I know I’m not alone in this.

Whether you’re a CEO or a brand new marketing associate like me, work can be stressful. Everyone has long to-do lists that never seem to get any smaller. While you could give up your social life and just stay at work all of the time, there are plenty of easy things to do to help make the most of your time at work. Check out these 10 simple ways to increase your productivity.

Organize your space.
Take a few minutes in the start of each day to de-clutter your desk. Having a nicely organized workspace helps you think more clearly and produce better results. A clean desk means you can find things more easily and can better focus on the task at hand.

Take short breaks.
Sitting at your desk and staring at a computer screen is not only bad for your health, but bad for your productivity. It’s suggested that a 10-15 minute break every two hours is incredibly beneficial. Use that time to walk around the office, grab coffee from a nearby coffee shop, or visit with a co-worker. Getting away from your desk will decrease eyestrain, improve circulation and give a new perspective when you return to a project.

Enjoy your commute.
Whether you drive or take public transportation to work, you should be making the most of that time. For public transportation folks, use your commute to read, write, knit or other creative projects. And for the drivers, how about listening to an audiobook? When you use your commute to do something you enjoy, you’ll be much happier, and therefore more productive, throughout the day at work.

Don’t check email first thing.
Unless this is required at your company, avoid checking your email right when you get to your office. Get done the biggest priority of the day first before dealing with requests and questions about other things. Then throughout the day, process your emails in batches every few hours. This will help you stay focused and accomplish things one by one without getting sidetracked.

Delegate and drop.
Do you have unimportant tasks on your to-do list? Delegate or drop them completely. When you get the most important stuff out of the way early, you can easily see what isn’t important and eliminate them from your list.

Focus on one thing at a time.
When you have a full to-do list, it can be easy to get overwhelmed. Instead of jumping around from one thing to another, focus on one thing at a time. Focusing your time and energy on the task at hand will not only improve the quality of your work, but improve productivity as well.

Don’t be a perfectionist.
Almost everyone has the desire for their work to perfect. However, perfection isn’t always realistic. Instead of holding on to a project for a long time trying to get every last detail perfect, it’s time to let it go. It’s better to have a completed project than a project in the works for way too long.

Get the worst over with.
Everyone has that one dreaded item on their to-do list that they keep pushing back because they know it’s going to be awful. Instead of continuing to put it off, it’s better to just get that one out of the way first thing. By accomplishing that task in the beginning of the day, the rest of the tasks that day won’t seem as overwhelming and you can stop stressing about that particular one all day.

Plan for the week.
In the beginning of the week, as well as each day, it could be a good idea to sit down and write down the top few things that needs to be accomplished that day or week. Getting into a routine of planning ahead will boost your productive and ensure you stay on top of your workload.

Avoid Facebook.
Everyone knows that Facebook is a time-suck. You think you’re going on just for a minute, and before you know it, five minutes have gone by and you’re still scrolling through your news feed. When you feel you need a break, leave your computer and take a walk instead.

In addition to all of these tips, another huge one is using Errand Solutions. Our goal is to help increase your productivity to ultimately live more purpose-driven lives. Whether it’s taking care of your dry cleaning or planning your next vacation, we can do it all. Give us a call at 312.475.3800 or email us at info@errandsolutions.com to find out how your business can take advantage of our one-of-a-kind service.