For centuries, the hottest, most sultry days of the year have been known as “the dog days of summer”.

While this name actually comes from the Dog Star (Cirus) which is in close proximity to Earth during the summer months, it’s also not hard to imagine a lazy dog sunning himself on a porch when it’s just too hot to move. For most of us (much like that lazy dog), summer means a renewed focus on leisure time, the outdoors and relaxation. This is a very important time of year for us as individuals to unwind and reconnect.

For businesses however, the summer months are often plagued by empty offices, mass vacations, lower productivity, reduced motivation and lack of general focus. In short, it’s often difficult for many of us to focus on our desks, when right outside our windows there’s a beautiful summer day beaconing to us.

Here are a few ideas to help bring the motivation and the focus back to your team during those dog days, when even you would rather be on a patio than tie up those loose ends on your desk.

FIRST AND FOREMOST, HAVE A PLAN

In many organizations, it’s tempting, when summer sets in to simply try and ‘ride it out’. We often try to manage around vacation time and lower productivity that often accompanies the summer months, instead of developing a plan to really get things done.

By developing a specific plan to deal with the summer months, you’ll increase your chances of achieving your goals instead of simply just making it through. Some of the elements your summer plan should include are:

• Specific goals you want to achieve during the summer months, along with timelines and resources required for each. It’s important to keep these goals simple and relatively small (see special projects).
• A resource plan that includes key team members and their availability throughout the summer months. It’s especially important to make note of any projects that require team members who have vacation time and plan accordingly.
• Set completion goals for staff who have vacation time and ensure that their portion of the required work is completed before they leave the office, so work can continue in their absence.
• Build in small incentives for staff who remain in the office, to help keep their motivation and focus while others are away. Make sure any incentives you build-in coincide with your most critical goals. It pays to keep the focus where you want it.
• Measure, measure, measure. The expression “what gets measured, gets done” is true. If you want to be sure it gets done, you need to let your team know you’re still watching.
• Whenever possible, make it fun. If you can’t make it fun, make it interesting. It’s hard enough to get people to focus with the distractions of summer on their minds – it pays to find work that’s inherently interesting if you can.

PROVIDE FOCUS WITH ‘SPECIAL PROJECTS’

With much of the office out on vacation during the summer months, larger long term projects are often stalled or put on hold until the team is back together in September. This can leave the remaining staff with a void of meaningful work – a situation which seems to make the time pass even more slowly for those still in the office.

You can bring back some of the focus and urgency by introducing some smaller, tightly defined special projects to your remaining team. These special projects should have short deadlines (typically 1 day to 1 week) and should not require any resources outside of the team who remain in the office.

A special project such as document filing is one that (when things are busy) is often neglected because its level of importance is low when workloads are maxed and other priorities continue to come up. Yet, it’s a job that needs to be done in order to stay organized for the future. Summer is often a perfect time to really push through a project like this, without other priorities getting in the way.

LOOK TO THE FUTURE

Sometimes, despite your best efforts at planning, there’s just no way to move forward with the current projects you’ve got on the go. Unexpected absences or last-minute fires, on top of planned holidays and other summer slow-downs, often mean that some projects have to be stalled until things return to normal in September.

When this does occur, all isn’t lost. It might be a great time to work with your remaining team on some planning and initiatives for the future. Use the extra downtime to look at issues that don’t always get the attention they deserve. Or have your team ‘get creative’ and solicit ideas to improve processes and productivity in the future.

Why not hold a contest to solicit new ideas or solutions to persistent problems? Take advantage of the fact that a slower pace and more idle time means your remaining team members will be looking for a challenge – something to keep their minds occupied and make the time pass more quickly.

SUMMARY

As Canadians, we know there’s only so much summer to go around. By the time summer kicks into high gear, it’s nearly over. So it’s no wonder our collective focus wanders a bit when the sun comes out.

That being said, there’s no reason that we can’t still accomplish our organizational goals during the summer months. With a little planning, some creativity and some strategically placed incentives, this could be your summer of great results.

Spring’s almost here and we all know what that means. Along with April showers and May flowers, come serious cleaning duties that need to be tackled at home and at the office. And while those windows certainly need to be cleaned, now’s the perfect time to tidy and tune up your rewards and incentives program. Whether you’re into some light dusting or want to do a major overhaul, HBC gift card will make sure everything is spot on.

If you really want your cleaning efforts to shine, the first step is to make sure you’ve got the best tools on hand. No need to reach for the vacuum and mop –you need a powerful all-in-one device that will allow you to create customized, impactful rewards and incentives at the press of a button.  It may sound too good to be true, but with ultra user-friendly navigation, simple layout and the chance to order and reload cards, a website like hbccards.com can help clean up even the messiest of rewards programs.

Once you’ve got the right tools in your hand you can start adding that sparkle to your rewards and incentives plan. When it comes to spring-cleaning, the best place to start is by getting rid of some of the old stuff. If you’re currently combining several different rewards options, you may want to streamline everything to reduce annoying administrative clutter. Rewards like clothing, electronics and merchandise are nice to give but difficult to deliver. Who really has the space to store hundreds, even thousands of items? If you really want to pack light when it comes to rewards, there’s nothing more compact and convenient than an HBC gift card. In fact, HBC gift cards can actually be shipped straight to recipients so that you don’t have to store them in the office.

Once you’ve gotten rid of some of the extra baggage, it’s time to tackle the place one room at a time. Take a look at the accounting group. Who’s new? Who’s working overtime? Who’s exceeding their goals? And who’s approaching a big milestone, like 20 years with the company? Once you’ve finished with the accounting group, do a quick sweep of the marketing group and the sales team too. This is a great time to create a rewards inventory for the overall company, especially if there have been a lot of changes in the last year. You can see if the rewards you’re offering are motivating the team, then iron out any kinks you have.

Now that you’ve decluttered, streamlined, taken inventory of who’s doing what, and whipped your rewards program into tip top shape for the spring, you’ll have the entire office glowing, gleaming and giving their all, 24/7. And after all your hard work is done? Well, take a quick breather. Now it’s time to actually get started on those windows.

When it comes to winter Canadiana, a few things come to mind. Toques. Hockey. All season tires. And yes, our favourite Canadian retailer, the Hudson’s Bay Company. While this shopping icon has long offered incredible year-round merchandise for everyone from Bonavista to Vancouver Island, it also offers something that will warm any cool Canadian heart – it offers history.

The Hudson’s Bay Company’s story is a rich tapestry spanning 339 years.  What started as a trading post has evolved into a 21st century retailer with a loyal following from coast-to-coast. Its major retail channels – the Bay, Zellers and Home Outfitters – together provide more than two-thirds of the retail needs of Canadians. With 1,000,000 products and over 400 stores across Canada, the Hudson’s Bay Company continues to dress, decorate, reward and incent Canadians during the spring, summer, fall, and yes Winter too.

When it comes to buying something for the home, most Canadians head to an Hbc family store location. But Hbc has a lot to offer Canadian businesses too: Same convenience, great service, and same great feeling of satisfaction knowing you’re promoting a true Canadian experience.  Hbc Gift Cards are really one of the simplest, most effective tools when it comes to building an effective rewards and incentives program, regardless of the size of your business.

So why not just reward recipients with a wad of cash this winter, you ask? Well you can, but there’s a certain emotional experience that recipients just can’t get from cash. It’s important to offer people tangible rewards that they can imagine themselves enjoying. With Hbc Gift Cards, they actually have an experience they then connect to. An emotional toast during the holidays is now associated with your company simply because the wine glasses were a redemption item. Or a child’s first bike ride without training wheels was a byproduct of an Hbc Gift Card. This psychological aspect of rewards and incentives programs can be just as important as the actual rewards themselves. And with its history and popularity among Canadians, Hbc has the potential to create more meaningful stories for hundreds of thousands of Canadians.

So this winter, lace up the skates, watch a little CBC, and don’t forget to warm up the office with Hbc gift cards. It’s really “aboot” being a good Canadian.