From one of the top HR specialists in the world comes this much-needed guide to help people maximize productivity and increase revenue. Whether it’s in corporate America or in our own living rooms, people are wasting time. From the minute we wake up and check our Facebook page or emails—before we even crawl out of bed—to late at night when we stay up longer than we should, watching our favorite … watching our favorite show.
There’s a precise moment that falls between working enough hours to be productive and working too many hours, yielding a diminishing marginal return. The difference between the person able to master this and most Americans that fail miserably at it is quality of life! If one continues to work past this moment, a negative return will ensue, and that negative return produces guilt. It lowers the amount of time for recreational activities and spending time with family. We’ve siloed productivity to our work life, however; the impact on our personal life is often loss.
An alarming 39% of workers in high-tech companies believe they are depressed, as reported by PC Magazine in December 2018. 72% of people who have daily stress and anxiety say it interferes with their lives—anxiety and stress alone have reduced productivity by 56%. More than 80% of people have experienced some form of anxiety, stress, or depression in the workplace. People are spending more time at work than at home or with their loved ones; or, if they are at home, they are working. They are always “on.” As a result of this disparity, people are not fully living their lives. And the “work-life balance” marketed by some HR consulting firms and employers simply does not work. It’s all work and no life! Studies have also proven that when people are unhappy in their personal lives or careers, their productivity goes down and everything and everyone around them suffers. This causes a domino effect, which trickles into every area of their lives.
Previous generations used to say, “Work harder,” but we’ve now learned we must “work smarter.” Polak has practiced and tested his methods in hundreds of opportunities and has been paid millions by the largest corporations in the world to share these tools. He feels that every individual and business should have these tools, and will share them with us here.
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Author Richard Polak is one of the top HR specialists in the world and his book “Work Smart Now” is a guide to help people magnify productivity, enhance revenue and create a fantastic working practice for employees.
Polak introduces the “inverted pyramid method” to enhance this by putting employees first, the clients second and making money third, this is a fantastic idea and think every company out there would do well to adopt this strategy. There are so many employees out there in the world suffering with stress and unhappiness resulting from their work life, whether it be working long hours and never getting to see family, or poor pay and very little reward, or acknowledgement that things need to change.
This book was such a positive read, it was full of great ideas and principles and insights that I personally think could make the world of difference to someones life, I think it really will for me. If you are a business owner, manager, employee or leader then give this book a read. Highly recommended.
Though this book caters to everyone who is/has been employed and how to be successful, it really seems to fit with support, management, and roles that involve you working with other employees rather than customers. It’s a great book, and really delivers a perspective on managing yourself in a work environment. Polak covers a lot of ground, but the real center of the book (as the title implies) is efficiency and productivity with a dash of professionalism. Aligning one’s mindset to match the values and direction of a company and gearing every work action toward that and/or bettering that objective is a fantastic approach covered in this book…but it’s not all about work. It’s about managing the stress and employee/employer relationship to get the best employee and work frame of mind possible. This book presents research from a top/down approach rather than a bottom-up approach, and that kind of mentality can help a workplace flourish, big or small. Great book, highly recommend.
A book written by someone with vast experience in the workplace with great chapters they even have one on working at all which pertain to me and I liked. A lot of books about helping you in the workplace usually don’t include that and I really appreciated it. I was so happy to get this book and couldn’t wait to read it and now I have an I highly highly recommend it. Richard Palok seems to have remembered everything. Understanding your company and its goals will help you better define your work goals and how to become an employee that benefits the company at large and one they want to keep.although you would think that would be common sense it’s something I had never thought of before. I really love this book and like I said I totally highly recommend it!
“Time is our second-greatest asset. We all run out of it eventually, so we need
to use it wisely.”
Author Richard Polak delves deeply into what it really means to work smarter. His book touches on the need to rethink the idea of working harder into creating balance and quality of life. His research explores the high rates of depression that exist within the workforce and seeks to present methods to maintain productivity and success but allow for a happy and balanced life as a whole.
His book pushes for a better understanding of time and how we use it as individuals as well as companies. I found his take to be an incredibly refreshing and helpful one. I do not normally see people include mental health and happiness in their productivity/entrepreneurial/business books. I found Polak’s voice to be informative, practical, and motivational.
Work Smart Now: How to Jump Start Productivity, Empower Employees, and Achieve More by Richard Polak has a unique twist to managing business and personal efficiency. He starts out with a dialog between a CEO and leaders in their business to show how to start compassionate productivity. There has to be a happy medium to get the most profitable work from your employees with the least amount of stress.
Let me paraphrase Richard Polak to show you the backbone of his book; Work Smart Now, “Time is our second-greatest asset. Integrity is the first, you can have all the time in the world, but without integrity you have nothing.” Wow! I found the author an engaging writer that draws your attention and keeps you reading without the heaviness you often get from business management books. I finished thinking I would love to work for this author. He motivates me to give and do more.
California author Richard Polak earned his degrees in Business Management and Mathematics from Alfred University and continued his studies at Columbia University, the New School for Social Research, and UCLA. He has enjoyed a celebrated thirty-five year career as a Human Resources expert, ‘serialpreneur,’ congressional advisor and creator of compassionate strategies to increase employee productivity. Polak explains his reasons for writing this guide – ‘I have successfully tested my methods in hundreds of opportunities. Every individual and business should have these tools. This is why I wrote WORK SMART NOW, to condense many decades of knowledge into an easy to read book that every top-performing individual, CEO, or high-level executive can refer to for guidance…the lessons herein have been helpful to me in making my whole life more productive.’
Throughout this accessible book the author keeps the information casual, offering conversations between CEOs and employees and other interactions that make adapting his strategies facile. He discusses how we all struggle to manage our work/life time and in guiding us on improvements he shares Compassionate Productivity – a section that applies to everyone in the workforce. Given the Covid pandemic, Polak stresses how the obligatory working from home works to the benefit of both employees and businesses. His techniques for adapting to change – the work from home syndrome and how to maximize the situation: implement a Voicemail Transcription Service, dictate your emails, use keyboard shortcuts, use a password manager, avoid distractions, manage email, avoid multitasking, get enough sleep, and organize your task list. To the point and easy to accomplish, these tips are but a few of the many offered.
After the substantive content of applicable skills he teaches, the author makes the following suggestions: ‘Get your home in order first. Nothing in this book will help your organization if you don’t have solid business fundamentals in place: good leadership and management, finance, recruitment, etc. Get your personal life in order. This means mental health, too. Get healthy; stay healthy. You are no good to anyone if you are not healthy. Set an example. Don’t respond to emails after business hours unless it is a critical issue. Create the position of Director of Productivity to drive the initiative.’
Rewarding information from a HR Pro – a roadmap for living fully and productively and happily! Recommended.
Work Smart Now: How to Jump Start Productivity, Empower Employees, and Achieve More by Richard Polak is written in just the perfect way to motivate you and your employees. The essence of the book is compassionate productivity and the author opens up the book with a conversation between a CEO, remote employees, and those in person in a boardroom. The CEO proposes a new way of doing things. A personal journey of sorts. According to the author “compassionate productivity is the idea that recognizing employees as human beings with their own struggles, triumphs, goals, and motivations results in better overall work.” This is a quite timely book as corporations are re-thinking how to increase productivity while keeping and motivating employees. Without huge sacrifices, today’s businesses can benefit greatly from this new model. Highly informative and written in an easy-to-read manner, this book is highly recommended.
A brilliant book for managers and leaders in business organizations. Even if you’re just an employee looking to move up in the company, I’d recommend this book. It’s broken down into easy to digest pieces that can be read at your own pace. I liked how the chapters were set up, with examples given. I highly recommend this for anyone trying to increase productivity without increasing stress. Also, a great tool for learning how to make your employees feel more included in the process of improving your organization. A must-read for those looking to get the most out of their workdays.
Richard Polak’s experience spans more than thirty-five years, including having advised over 300 of the world’s most innovative multinational organizations in global expansion. His specialty is in Global Human Resources and Labor. He works with firms in selecting locations, increasing productivity, global benefits, along with other solutions to meet the demands of international organizations undergoing rapid global change.
Richard decided to write this book in order to share his experiences, which will empower any business, organisation or employee to increase their own knowledge and productivity. Expertly written, Work Smart Now brings to light the importance of putting individual employee’s needs to the forefront of any successful business, creating a caring and professional atmosphere within the workplace that ensures employees feel like a part of the organisation and not just a replaceable employee.
Highly recommended to everyone out there. A definite 5 stars from me.
Work Smart Now: How to Jump-Start Productivity, Empower Employees, and Achieve More by Richard Polak
I received a copy of the book and I am voluntarily leaving a review.
Having over 40 years experience advising organisations worldwide as well as owning and operating his own company Richard Polak has written this descriptive book, sharing his secrets to empower the whole workspace. Easy to read and understand, although aimed at CEO’s or executives, it also makes sense for any employee to read and comprehend the everyday function and goal of a successful business.
Each chapter begins with a light-hearted dialogue scenario which brings an interesting feature, making total sense to encourage compassionate productivity rather than pressure the “ work harder “ theory. Investing in employees, putting into practice considering human needs and emotions seems to be common sense but as the author has actually had to put this into words proves that it is definitely lacking in the workplace. Work Smart Now brings to the readers attention the importance of recognising staff as having their own individuality and that caring for them in a professional manner works twofold, creating an atmosphere of home and family among colleagues. The result brings a huge difference in engaged employees who sense their employers genuinely have their best interest at heart, wanting them to succeed, therefore allowing the business to also.
I know many of us throughout our working lives have experienced stress, apathy and even burnout in our careers, I know that I have, being directly linked to performance pressure and the overall result is the opposite of what we are endeavouring to achieve. This book is a great help not only in a work environment but also is extremely useful in organising or lives in general with a goal on time saving, better life management and personal optimism.
“ You can have all the time in the world, but without integrity you have nothing. “
I rate Work Smart Now 5 out of 5 stars.