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Is Your Performance Monitoring Effective?

Performance monitoring involves regularly verifying and tracking how consistently and productively your digital platforms are performing. This may involve using dashboards and alert systems to track key performance indicators (KPIs). Action may be taken if significant changes in performance occur.

Implement these tips to determine whether your performance monitoring strategy is effective.

Monitor the Data Collection

Make sure your server monitoring platform is scalable. This is essential as your data collection and reporting needs change over time.

Your data collection must have sufficient detail for each metric at the poll interval level. This requires enough storage to hold the data at the poll intervals.

Develop a Baseline

Create a baseline for each server monitoring metric. This lets you set alerts for unusual server or network performance.

Define the Performance Alerts

Performance alerts typically are breaches of a static threshold and baseline deviation. Both require frequent review, especially in the early stages of performance monitoring. Otherwise, normal changes in workloads may create false positive alerts.

Establishing sufficient historical performance statistics for each metric provides more effective predictions of events that may impact service. This results in fewer false positives.

Establish the Report Creation

The server monitoring tools include visual and printed reports showing the performance statistics required for server monitoring. Additional online and paper reports are typically required to help resolve issues.

The visual monitor must be as close as possible to real-time. Also, the data must be properly stored to accommodate increasing workloads. This may involve archiving the data by period or moving it to a distributed database architecture.

Focus on the Data Analysis

Predict which events will impact service and how to troubleshoot them. Also, look for any bottlenecks or potential configuration changes that could benefit the performance of the infrastructure.

Consider using tools that model infrastructure changes. These models help make informed decisions about whether to fix or replace the infrastructure.

Look at the Result Distribution

Share the results of the server monitoring with your IT team. This helps everyone carry out their functions.

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Gamification’s Importance in the Modern Workplace

Some of the most popular apps use gamification as motivation to hold users accountable and reach their goals. This may involve receiving badges for reaching milestones that promote progress.

Social sharing often is combined with badging to provide additional motivation to attain goals. Sharing achievements with others creates a sense of status that supports additional movement toward success.

Gamification can be used to motivate employees in the modern workforce. Combining badging and social sharing elevates employee engagement, performance, and productivity. It also increases job satisfaction, employee morale, and retention rates.

Discover gamification’s importance in the modern workplace and how it can benefit your organization.

Include Gamification in Your Learning Management System

Choose a learning management system (LMS) that combines courses with gamification options and integrates with your other employee experience (EX) technology. Ensure the LMS rewards employees for completing a set number of courses with a time-sensitive component. This may involve a badge or a place on the leaderboard.

Rewarding time-sensitive elements encourages employees to complete courses as soon as possible. It also encourages ongoing learning at work.

Implement Internal Recognition for Learning

Encourage managers to assign training courses with gamification elements connected to them. This encourages employees to complete the courses and further develop their careers.

Internally recognize employees who complete their courses. This may include using your intranet to share employee course accomplishments, scores, and rewards.

Seeing their peers’ accomplishments motivates employees to continue learning. Ongoing learning is important for career development in the modern workplace.

Provide External Recognition for Learning

Implement methods to share badges, course completions, and certificates to employees’ social media accounts as part of the gamification process. It is especially important for employees to share their accomplishments on their LinkedIn profiles for other professionals to see.

Offer rewards for employees who share their recognition on social media. This shows you actively invest in your employees. It also helps attract and retain employees in the modern workforce.

Pair Gamification with Real-World Rewards

Let employees use their badges and leaderboard positions to earn points toward attractive rewards. This may include gift cards, the option to work remotely for a day, or additional vacation days. Providing these rewards encourages employees to complete courses and continue learning. Ongoing employee learning benefits your company’s culture and bottom line.

Integrate Gamification with Performance Reviews

Use technology to include course completion, badges, and other rewards in employees’ performance reviews. This increases course completion and elevates the employee experience. It also promotes learning, career advancement, and loyalty to the organization.

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Tips to Improve Your IT Resume with No Experience

Improving your IT resume when you have no experience helps you establish your career. The information in your resume shows why you are a desirable candidate who should be contacted for an interview.

When improving your IT resume with no experience, focus on other experiences that helped develop your skill set. Demonstrating your strengths, accomplishments, and willingness to learn shows you can be trained to fulfill the job duties and responsibilities. This increases your odds of securing an interview.

Implement these tips to improve your IT resume with no experience.

Update Your Experiences Section

Clarify how you are building the IT skills relevant to the job you want. Listing these experiences demonstrates your work ethic and desire to build an IT career.

Your experiences may include extracurricular activities or volunteer work:

  • Join a tech community such as GitHub or Stack Overflow to learn and share information about programming.
  • Participate in hackathons to solve technology problems in teams.
  • Take advantage of free online resources, tutorials, and open-source software to learn programming languages.
  • Learn to code through Coursera or other online courses.
  • Volunteer with a nonprofit organization focused on IT, such as teaching children to code.
  • Enter technology competitions through Cisco or other IT companies.

Highlight the skills you developed through each experience. Emphasize the skills included in the job posting. Include the goals you attained that are relevant to the role you desire.

Emphasize Your Soft Skills

List your soft skills that are relevant to the IT position. Examples include communication, organization, self-motivation, collaboration, and leadership.

Soft skills are harder to develop than hard skills. As a result, demonstrating examples of your soft skills shows the value you can provide the employer.

Include Your Education

Provide details about your education. Your high school diploma or GED and relevant coursework, IT certifications, or college degree demonstrate your commitment to ongoing learning and ability to fulfill commitments.

You might pursue certification in any of the following fields:

  • Data
  • Artificial intelligence (AI)
  • Business applications
  • Google Cloud
  • Amazon Web Services (AWS)
  • Project management

You could pursue a degree in one of the following fields:

  • Information technology and information systems
  • Computer science
  • Information science
  • Software engineering
  • Computer engineering
  • Cybersecurity

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7 Valuable Soft Skills That Can Help Boost Your Career!

Developing your soft skills helps boost your IT career. Although your hard skills are important, your soft skills have a greater impact on your employability and longevity with a company.

Your soft skills determine how you interact with others. This affects how well you work with colleagues and coworkers to finish projects.

As a result, you should prioritize developing your soft skills along with your hard skills. The following are some of the soft skills to focus on.

Discover seven valuable soft skills that can help boost your IT career.

1. Communication

Communication is required to write, speak, actively listen, and collaborate. These skills are important for writing emails, talking with colleagues and coworkers, and sharing presentations.

2. Productivity

Your ability to strategize, organize, plan, and deliver results impacts your productivity. Showing your teammates, manager, and coworkers they can count on you to have things done by the deadline makes you a valuable team member.

Your productivity skills help you manage your time, maintain focus, and finish your work on time. This also helps you create a plan to reach the goals and requirements of a project within the timeline.

Using your productivity skills helps you balance multiple projects and changing priorities. This also lets you overcome obstacles to get more done in less time.

3. Problem-Solving

Problem-solving skills help you analyze and resolve issues both individually and as a team. Your ability to think critically, ask questions, and make decisions helps you solve problems. You can calmly and objectively discuss an issue, develop potential resolutions, and implement the best one.

4. Creativity

Your ability to think outside the box helps you develop original ideas and perspectives. Your curiosity encourages you to ask questions, learn, and find unique ways to add value to the organization.

Developing your creativity helps you contribute ideas to solve problems and resolve issues. It also helps you remain open-minded while overcoming obstacles.

5. Confidence

Confidence in your ability to complete tasks and reach goals is important. This helps you learn and develop your skills to provide more value to the organization.

Displaying confidence involves finding the resources and support needed to finish your work. This helps you maintain a positive attitude.

Showing confidence means assertively interacting with others. This can help you secure leadership positions.

6. Agility

Your ability to adapt to changing work situations is essential. This helps you complete your work and meet expectations during times of change.

Agility is required to stay curious and navigate through challenging times. It also helps you remain open-minded when talking with others.

Remaining agile lets you make fast decisions when information is limited. It also lets you change between tasks as your priorities change.

7. Self-Awareness

Self-awareness lets you appropriately monitor, manage, and display your emotions in the workplace. This helps you professionally interact with others.

Being self-aware involves reflecting on and learning from your experiences and mistakes. It also includes seeing things from others’ viewpoints.

Displaying self-awareness helps you collaborate with colleagues and coworkers. It also builds trust with others.

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Do You Offer Clear Career Development Methods?

Offering clear development methods is essential for business success. This emphasizes opportunities to add more value and advance within the company.

As a result, managers must look beyond the skills their employees need to fulfill their current job duties to promote career development. Managers also should focus on the skills their employees developed through previous roles, current interests, and hobbies that support advancement within the organization.

Follow these guidelines to offer clear career development methods within your company.

Prioritize Agility

Use technology to break jobs into projects. Then, let your employees choose which projects to work on. This process distributes employees’ skills and contributions according to need. It also supports career development.

Dividing jobs into projects helps you better understand your talent. Knowing their strengths and capabilities helps your employees adapt to changing business conditions and priorities. This includes evolving customer demands and competitors entering the marketplace.

Developing your employees’ skills reduces the need for hiring. Your employees can take on project-based work as part of the learning process. This provides exposure to new situations, colleagues, and coworkers who can help with upskilling while completing work.

Using an internal talent marketplace promotes equity and inclusion. Managers have a larger pool of workers to draw from to gain the skills and competencies required for a project. This minimizes favoritism in deciding which employees get which roles. It also increases engagement, performance, and productivity.

Inventory Employees’ Skills

Maintain a list of each employee’s current and desired skills. This helps managers understand the talent pool they have to draw from to complete projects. It also lets employees take on new projects to develop their skill sets.

Managers can divide the work into projects, then determine which skills are required to complete the projects. Next, managers can match employees who have or want to develop relevant skills to the appropriate project roles. This promotes career development.

You can use technologies that evaluate resumes, LinkedIn profiles, or your human capital management system to create your skills inventory. Then, you can ask employees to add or modify the skills in their profiles. You can use the information to match the right employee with the right skill level to the right project role.

Develop Adjacent Skills

Implement technology to help employees develop skills related to the ones they have. For instance, a programmer who is fluent in one language could learn to code in another language. This process makes it easier for employees to connect with colleagues and coworkers who can help them upskill. It also provides employees with clear career development methods.

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How Can Leaders Build Accountability Within the Workforce?

Building accountability within the workforce is essential for creating high-performing teams. Employees must take ownership of making decisions, solving problems, and resolving issues.

Employees who take responsibility for their actions find ways to fix their mistakes. They learn what went wrong, how to improve, and how to do better next time.

Encouraging accountability in the workforce promotes trust among employees and leaders. This leads to greater autonomy, creativity, and innovation.

Accountability within the workforce means employees own their decisions, behaviors, and results. This improves employee engagement, performance, and productivity. It also increases job satisfaction, employee morale, and retention rates.

Leaders can implement these tips to build accountability within the workforce.

Set Team Goals  

Clarify what employees are working toward and how success will be measured. Ensure the goals are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART).

Include the objectives and key results for each goal. Making the goals trackable promotes accountability within the workforce.

Share how each employee’s role in attaining a goal impacts the organization. This clarifies employee expectations on both the individual and team levels.

Emphasize Accountability During Meetings

Use individual and team meetings to discuss ways to build accountability within the workforce. Consider asking employees the following questions:

  • What should we begin doing as a team?
  • Do you want more or less guidance from me on your work?
  • Are you receiving enough feedback, or is there an area where you desire more?
  • Do you feel you need more coaching or support in any part of your job?
  • How can we improve collaboration among our team?

Assign Action Items

Review each participant’s tasks and deadlines when concluding meetings. Then, email a summary of each action item, who is responsible, and when the deadline is.

When a deadline comes, follow up to determine whether the employee completed the task. Thank the employees who finish their tasks on time.

Talk with employees whose tasks are incomplete. Discuss the reasons why and how you can help. Take appropriate action to build accountability within the workforce.

Provide Constructive Feedback

Privately share with each employee examples of what they are doing well, what they can do better, and specific suggestions for improvement. Show that you care about the employee and want the best for them. Offer to help however you can.

Set up a time to check back with the employee about their performance. Determine whether they implemented your feedback or must take additional action. Proceed accordingly.

Lead by Example

Model the behavior you want to see from the workforce. This includes showing up on time for meetings, finishing tasks by the deadline, and admitting mistakes. Employees should follow suit.

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Daily Remote Work Habits That Make You a Better Employee

Remote work provides benefits that onsite work does not. Among them is the freedom of having no commute and the flexibility of working where you choose.

However, this freedom and flexibility can lead to issues. They include potentially overworking and experiencing burnout.

As a result, you must establish healthy remote work habits to improve your work-life balance. The following suggestions can help.

Develop these daily remote work habits to be a better employee.

Establish Your Workspace

Determine where you will perform your work. This may be in your home office, a guest room, or a section of your kitchen table.

Let the people you live with know that when you are in this area, you are working. They are not to disturb you unless there is an emergency.

You need uninterrupted time to get in the zone to complete your tasks. This promotes creativity and productivity. It also makes you a better remote employee.

Set Your Work Hours

Determine which work hours best fit your professional and personal needs. Adhere to these hours as much as possible.

You may be tempted to work longer hours because you do not have a commute. However, overworking can lead to mental health concerns and burnout.

As a result, aim to work a reasonable number of hours each day. Be sure you reach your deadlines and still have adequate time for other interests. These actions make you a better remote employee.

Prioritize Your Tasks

Determine which tasks need to be completed and when. Schedule them accordingly.

If you are unsure about your top priorities, talk with your manager. They can go over your objectives and help you plan your day or week.

Take Breaks

Include regular breaks throughout your day. Get up and walk around. Stretch, meditate, read, or listen to music. Come back refreshed and ready to work.

Regularly taking breaks, including an hour for lunch, lets your brain rest. This helps you be more focused and creative when you resume working. It also makes you a better employee.

Communicate with Your Team

Let your manager know what you are working on throughout the day. Include your accomplishments and what still needs to be done.

Share with your teammates relevant information that impacts their work. This is especially important for team projects.

Ask for and offer help when needed. This makes you an effective remote employee.

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Ways to Find a Job You Will Love!

Finding a job you will love can be challenging. You might apply to a job posting, interview for the role, and discover the position or company was not what you expected. As a result, the job does not turn into a long-term relationship.

A job you will love fits where you are in your career and where you are going. It serves as a stepping stone you will enjoy for an extended period of time.

Conversely, if you accept the wrong job and it does not work out, you have to start your search over. This takes additional time to find the right match.

As a result, focus on finding a job you will love rather than settling for less than what you want. These tips can help.

Follow these guidelines to find a job you will love!

Write Down What You Want

Make a list of the most essential traits that attract you to a job. You may want to complete a career assessment for guidance.

Use your list of qualities to search for jobs online. You can find roles that match your skills, experience, and interests.

Network

Talk with your professional connections about your search for a job you will love. Include the type of position you seek, your skills and experience, and other relevant information.

The members of your network may know of opportunities that fit what you are looking for. Or, they might introduce you to hiring managers or other professionals who can help with your job search.

Set up informational interviews with employees in roles like the one you desire. Find out more about what they do and why they enjoy it. Determine whether the position is a good fit for you.

Consider Company Culture

Determine whether the company’s mission, vision, and values fit with your personality and beliefs. Include how the organization is structured, what the work schedule is, and whether there are opportunities for advancement.

Read online employee reviews of the company. See what current and former employees have to say about how things are done. Use your findings to determine whether you would love the job or should continue your search.

Ask Questions

Bring a list of questions to ask employers during interviews. Include the topics that are most important to you when deciding where to work.

Ask to meet your potential manager and colleagues. The people you might work with affect the job offer you accept.

If you need additional time to consider a job offer, ask for it. Set a reasonable time for the employer to hear back from you.

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Set Employees Up for Success with a Great Onboarding Process

Bringing a new hire on board takes time and planning. Your new hire’s experience acclimating to your company impacts their attitude about the work, their team, and your employer brand.

A great onboarding process prepares your new hire to become productive and successful in your organization. It helps develop an understanding of your company culture and how to fulfill the job duties and responsibilities.

Your onboarding process must help your new hire feel welcome and included. This promotes engagement, team cohesion, and retention.

Follow these guidelines to create a great onboarding process that sets up your employees for success.

Clarify Company Policies and Procedures

Give your new hire a copy of the employee handbook. Go over the relevant information.

Talk about how your new hire should go about their daily activities. Include where to find the necessary resources to maximize productivity.

Provide an Onboarding Buddy

Partner your new hire with a teammate to provide guidance. The teammate can show your new hire around, answer questions, and help resolve issues.

Matching your new hire with a seasoned partner helps build security and team cohesion. It also sets up your new hire for success in your organization.

Frequently Communicate

Regular communication with your new hire helps orient them to the job and work priorities. It also provides a clear picture of the reporting structure and an understanding of the business processes and procedures.

Provide clear expectations and milestones throughout the onboarding process. Include how progress and success will be measured.

Letting your new hire know what to expect helps them see their movement toward goals. It also helps them feel secure and succeed in their position.

Emphasize Inclusion

Share with your new hire your company resources for inclusion. This may include introducing your new hire to peers with common traits, hobbies, or interests. It also might involve educating your new hire on your employee resource groups (ERGs).

Prioritizing inclusion helps your new hire navigate the work environment and feel like a valued member of your company. This promotes appreciation, respect, and loyalty within your organization.

Request Feedback

Regularly ask your new hire for constructive feedback on your onboarding process. Find out what they like best, what can improve, and specific suggestions to do better.

Improving your onboarding process enhances the employee experience. This increases employee engagement, performance, and productivity throughout their tenure with your organization.

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5 Tips to Improve and Encourage Employee Engagement

Employee engagement measures how strongly employees feel connected to their work and employer. This includes employees’ motivation to perform their best, commitment to the organization, and desire to refer others to the company.

Sustainable employee engagement is based on intrinsic motivation. This includes mastery, autonomy, and purpose.

Your employees’ engagement levels impact their performance, productivity, and morale. It also affects retention and your bottom line.

Engaged employees are passionate, energetic, and committed to your organization. They go above and beyond to support company strategy and elevate your employer brand.

As a result, you must do what you can to improve and encourage employee engagement. Here are some suggestions.

Choose among these five tips to improve and encourage employee engagement.

1. Live Your Company’s Culture

Convey your company’s mission, vision, and values in your behaviors. This encourages your employees to follow suit. It also shows they are part of something bigger than they are.

Using your actions to demonstrate your culture enhances the work environment. It also adds meaning to your employees’ jobs.

Living your company’s culture shows your values align with business functions. This encourages buy-in from your employees.

Employees who understand the company’s culture feel inspired. This encourages employee engagement.

2. Prioritize Onboarding

Your onboarding process impacts how your employees view your company and their jobs. It helps your new hires align with company culture and understand how their role impacts your organization.

Use your onboarding process to show what makes your company unique and why your new hire’s role is essential for team and business success. Include information about the role and expectations. This promotes employee engagement.

3. Emphasize Career Development

Work with each employee to customize a career development plan. Include the knowledge, skills, and experience required to advance within your organization.

Provide the necessary training and development to move to more senior roles. This may include stretch assignments, cross-training, or mentoring. It also could involve seminars, conferences, or classes. Having a clear path for advancement supports employee engagement and retention.

4. Provide Employee Recognition

Regularly point out each employee’s accomplishments. Include the actions your employee took, their results, and how they impacted the organization. Provide a bonus, pay increase, or promotion when appropriate.

Recognizing your employees shows you appreciate their contributions and results. This encourages employee motivation, performance, and engagement.

5. Encourage Feedback

Remind your employees to give and receive constructive feedback. This helps your employees feel informed, heard, and respected.

Your employees can uncover inefficiencies in performing their work and suggest improvements. This enhances work processes and creates a more productive environment.

Consistently finding ways to improve employee and company performance helps reach career and business goals. This encourages employee engagement.

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