Summary: Monday, 99% of the business world’s least favorite day, has been dangerously affecting productivity in the workplace for decades. Here at IC, we’ve been vigorously searching for a cure since 1999. We believe to have found a cocktail mix of 3 intranet features when used correctly, can not only prevent and treat the Mondays, but cure them as well.
To the 1% ‘refreshed’ Monday people who’ve had a full breakfast, dropped the kids off at school, been to the gym, showered, done your hair and showed up 15 minutes early to the office … you can stop reading here – I’m not talking to you, CAROL.
I’m talking to the real people out there. To the parents who were up at 5am both days of the weekend taking the kids to hockey, swimming, LARPing, and samurai lessons. The homeowners who spent the weekend cutting the lawn, painting, cleaning, and fixing the dishwasher. To the road trip warriors who got back at midnight and still had to do laundry. The Netflix buff’s who got sucked into the watching the entire first season on the Handmaid’s Tale, and yes, to the ones who are still a little groggy from Sunday’s bottomless mimosas. Let’s face it, Mondays are stressful. It’s the day you need to organize your week and get it off to a good start. It’s also the day you need to catch up on emails, pick up on where you left off in each project, chase approval forms you submitted 2 weeks ago, figure out which version of the policy manual you need to be following, remember when your sales coordinator is back from vacation, and oh great, to top things off, you forgot it was Mo’s 5 year work anniversary and you didn’t say anything to him in the coffee room this morning.
Well fear not my Mondazed peers, there is a cure. Here are 3 treatments, tested on over 500,000 ic users to cure ‘The Mondays’.
1. Don’t go chasing paper trails.
Instead, Create Online Forms and Workflows
Don’t get Mon-delayed. Waiting for a new employee to complete their onboarding forms? To get your expense form signed? For your colleagues to RSVP for the Christmas party? Don’t waste time on printing form after form and misplacing responses or have a hard time reading Becky’s handwriting (Is that an s, z or 2?). Move your forms online. Use a simple ‘drag and drop’ functionality on your intranet to customize forms with formulas and triggers. That way, the next time you need to submit your mileage expense, you’re able to see what stage of the approval process it’s in until it’s been paid.
2. Reduce Email Volume
To Improve Productivity in The Workplace
The most Mondayne task of them all is booting up the computer Monday morning to 200+ unread emails. Having to sift through each one to find the urgent, tasks, responses and deletes, just to find out hours later that you missed an important message from your boss asking you to update them immediately on the VIP project. This is where other communication tools come in handy, like live chat, message boards, discussion forums or company news. The next time your boss needs an immediate response – hopefully, they’ll just send you a quick message and you can keep your priorities in check.
3. Don’t Trust Monday Memory
Keep Organized With Online Calendars
This handy tool prevents the ‘Mond-amnesia’, the forgetful nature of Mondays. For work anniversaries, to vacation schedules, to work parties, it’s much more efficient to keep track of everything online. Don’t forget to RSVP, congratulate someone on a milestone, or forget that your right-hand man is heading to Greece tomorrow by keeping all this information online.
So, the next time you’re leaving work on a Friday afternoon to go home, put your feet up, relax all weekend then prepare for the upcoming week, STOP IT CAROL. I meant to say, the next time you leave work on a Friday afternoon, blink, then your alarm is going off Monday morning, make sure you have systems in place to prevent a serious case of the Mondays.
*The Mondays can be a serious affliction, reducing productivity in the workplace. Don’t let it affect your employees and peers. Make sure you have systems in place to help those in need of a cure. Long Weekend Monday’s do not apply.
What’s your experience with the Mondays? Leave a comment below!
