While telecommuting and work-from-home options continue to be adopted by a large and growing percentage of employers, several have moved to reverse the trend of work-at-home employment, forcing employees back into corporate offices.

Why do companies resist work from home?

Many employers struggle with it because managers are unable to discern the productivity level of remote workers. Understanding how to optimize employee effort and output (productivity) is essential, and a new breed of analytics solutions called “people analytics” enables organizations to observe overall work trends and productivity of employees—whether they are in the office or working remotely.

Your non-paperless office is costing you more than you think, but the benefits of going paperless can deliver an impressive level of return on investment. Studies show that enterprise content management (ECM) offers some of the highest direct ROI rates ever reported. One study reported nearly 60 percent of ECM users achieved payback in 12 months or less — a single budget cycle — and 28 percent experienced positive returns after just 6 months.

If your organization is just now starting down the paperless path, you can take heart knowing there is tremendous financial growth to be had which will make the transition considerably worthwhile.

As with all transformations, only with truth can you see the light. If organizations are prepared to take on the real work that is needed for process automation, they’ll reap the rewards of cost savings and greater efficiency, giving them the means to support better employee and customer experiences.

I don’t think having or not having a Facebook (or any other social media) account has anything to do with how productive someone is. You can shut down one source of distractions, but if the fundamental aversion to your work that is driving you to distraction is still in place, you’ll find something else.

Overloaded inboxes can wait – it’s time for my productivity gut check for 2018. Here’s why we shouldn’t wait for our employers to seize the day, and why the digital skills gap factors in.

THINK for a moment about your typical workday. Do you wake up tired? Check your e-mail before you get out of bed? Skip breakfast or grab something on the run that’s not particularly nutritious? Rarely get away from your desk for lunch? Run from meeting to meeting with no time in between? Find it nearly impossible to keep up with the volume of e-mail you receive? Leave work later than you’d like, and still feel compelled to check e-mail in the evenings?

Take a moment to consider everything you know about being productive. Perhaps you think about methodologies and concepts; Getting Things Done, Inbox Zero, The Pomodoro Technique. Your thoughts go to the tools you use, like Evernote, OmniFocus, or Knowmail. And all kinds of productivity tips and advice can come to mind: “don’t multitask,” “eat the frog,” “no screen time after 9 pm.”

Information Overload is a large and growing problem that detrimentally affects individual, group, and organizational performance and productivity.

At the age of 10, Benjamin Franklin left formal schooling to become an apprentice to his father. As a teenager, he showed no particular talent or aptitude aside from his love of books.

When he died a little over half a century later, he was America’s most respected statesman, its most famous inventor, a prolific author, and a successful entrepreneur.

What happened between these two points to cause such a meteoric rise?

Underlying the answer to this question is a success strategy for life that we can all use, and increasingly must use.

An insightful book containing the definitive experiment on “Quiet Time” in a corporate setting.