As recruiters, many of us have been fortunate enough to continue working from home during the last few years and, though adjusting to new ways of working is not easy, we are privileged to be able to carry on working.
One particularly difficult adjustment has been staying motivated at a time when there are fewer companies hiring and we’re away from the busy sales environment that we’re used to in the office.
Here are 4 top tips for staying motivated at work:
- Create new goals
- Get help from people around you
- Find new ways to keep old traditions alive
- Keep a good work/life balance
1. Create new goals
Us recruiters are target-oriented people, but it’s not useful to keep targets to the same as previous months or years. We know that good recruitment is based upon strong relationships with candidates and clients, so we’ve asked our teams to use this time to build new and existing connections with their networks.
This doesn’t mean we’ve given up on making any placements! But we are considerate about what the team can realistically achieve now, so that we are all in the best possible position when this lockdown ends: strong relationships with clients, valuable candidate networks and ready to hit the ground running.
2. Get help from people around you
Trying to keep everyone feeling productive is a big task, so try not to let this fall to one person. Find other people who are championing positivity around the business and help spread this by connecting them with the rest of the business. Share the funny moments from Zoom meetings and the achievements of different team members with the wider business to build a sense of momentum.
We’re lucky to have a team that has a high energy and it is so important to make this visible to the whole organisation. Whether it’s Jordan’s motivational morning videos or the latest social media challenge, we encourage people to get involved and share, share, share.
3. Find new ways to keep old traditions alive
It’s funny what you miss when you can’t go to the office; the daily rituals that you don’t always give much thought to until they are taken away. For us that has been hearing the gong when we’re celebrating a win and ending the week with Friday drinks from the beer fridge.
We want to replicate these traditions as much as possible, so we’ve found new ways to do them virtually. Friday drinks still happen, we’re just in our homes and connected by a Zoom call and those that have had a really good week get a special takeaway treat from the boss. One of my favourite things has been seeing how creative the team has been in finding new ways to hit the gong when they’re celebrating – you can see exactly what they’ve been up to here.
4. Keep a Good Work/Life Balance
I’m sure we can all agree that it can be hard to keep our work and home lives separate sometimes, especially as working from home is becoming the norm. Our humble abodes have now become our homes as well as office spaces.
A good work-life balance allows individuals to thrive in both their personal and professional lives.
How to Have a Work Life Balance
Fortunately, there are a number of things you can do to keep your work life and personal life seperate, for example:
- Create a work space and home space – i.e. If you can, have a dedicated work area set up in a separate room to where you spend the most of your free time, instead of working in the living room.
- Stick to a good routine – For some individuals, sticking to their usual routine will help distinguish between their work and home lives. But for others, this could be an opportunity to change things up a little bit. Perhaps look at having dedicated ‘sprints’ of activity, focusing on a particular task for a dedicated period of time, then have a small break, and set a new task and goal.
- Try and limit how much you talk about work when you’re not working – If you are working all day and then talking about it to your partner or family when you arrive home, it’ll be hard to switch off from it all. Instead, try banning all work chat after hours or avoid talking about it over dinner.
Get in touch with our experts to discover how our recruitment solutions can help you. For more tips and tricks around the wonderful world of recruitment, check out our career advice blog.
