Get prepared for Stationery Shop Saturday

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So, it’s day 6 of National Stationery Week 2019 and this year we’re celebrating Stationery Shop Saturday! Let’s face it, most of us have a favourite pen, a beloved battered notebook or even a well chewed pencil that we always have close at hand at our workplace.

In honour of Stationery Shop Saturday, why not celebrate and give those old friends a rest and try out some of the fab alternatives that are available over at Quills? If you haven’t got an account, simply send us a message on Live Chat or email sales@quillsuk.co.uk and we’ll set one up for you.

Here are some of our top tips on great 2019 stationery trends to look out for:

COLOURFUL
You don’t need to limit yourself to black or blue ink: using highlighters or coloured ball pens is a known and proven way of managing projects (‘Bullet Journaling’ to give it its proper name), allowing you to visually track jobs as you progress them.

HANDWRITTEN
Agreed, the heyday of letter writing may be long over, but that’s no reason to abandon it altogether! Why not make an employee or customer feel special by sending them a written card congratulating them on a piece of work rather than just lazily sending a mass text or email to everyone on your smartphone?

MAKE A STATEMENT
On the subject of envelopes don’t limit yourself to white or manila – why not choose a brightly coloured one instead? This is great for personal mail, but it’s also a proven hit for business mail as well and is far less likely to be binned-without-opening – could you resist the lure of a silver envelope?

LABEL LOVE
Keeping on the mailing theme, don’t just bung on a bog standard label – give it some love by adding your company logo, a graphic or 2, and use a legible but more personal looking scripted font – ‘Angelina’ is one of our favourites! The DYMO label machine, for example, is extremely quick and easy to use!

Job satisfaction and happiness in the workplace

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As we spend an average of 35% of our adult life at work, we all strive to find a company where we can be happy and have a good work-life balance.

So what makes an employee happy?  Take a look at our infographic below for tips on how to achieve job satisfaction and happiness at work.

How Using A Professional Shredding Service Can Benefit Your Business

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Whether it’s paper, clothing or unwanted goods, shredding is a must for securely protecting sensitive items and business data. Client confidentiality should be a top business priority within your organisation but how can it be carried out efficiently when you have so many other priorities to focus on? Take a look at our article below to find out how outsourcing your shredding requirements can help your business.

  1. Save time and money

Why paid your skilled employees to stand there and shred for hours when they could be generating revenue for your business? Internal shredding routines are extremely time-consuming and have to be maintained on a daily or weekly basis. For example, shredding a single document can take several minutes and you have to be mindful of factors such as:

–    Straightening sheets of paper

–    Removing any paper clips or staples

–    Disposing of the shredded paper

–    Cleaning up any excess paper, paperclips or staples

Furthermore, you also have to take into consideration the cost of maintaining an internal shredding routine and often enough, this is a lot more expensive than outsourcing your shredding requirements. A small selection of managing your shredding in-house include:

–    Purchasing shredders

–    Buying disposal bags

–    Utility expenses

Sound familiar? Outsourcing your shredding can save an extensive amount of money for your business. Quills, can arrange a personalised audit of your office needs and provide a quotation which includes the frequency, number of bins and what you’ll be shredding.  There are no installation charges and the bin hire and replacement bags are free too!

 

2. Reduce the legal risk

With legislation such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Fair and Accurate Credit Transaction Act (FACTA) all in full swing, it’s crucial that you keep client data confidential and safe during the disposal process.

Our secure shredding service is NAID AAA certified meaning that all destruction of your documents complies with the privacy protection policies outlined in the above legislation. In addition to this, we also provide a certificate of destruction so that you can be sure your data is safe in the right hands.

 

3. Maintain your businesses reputation

Reputation. One of the most important assets of a business. It’s very simple for your businesses confidential documents to get in the wrong hands and just like that, a data breach can happen and cause extreme worry and distrust.

When using a professional shredding service, all paper, media and products are collected and destroyed safely and securely. Constant monitoring, full CCTV coverage and an official certification of destruction are provided after every collection which means you can relax and focus on the more important things in your company.

 

4. Consider mobile shredding Services

If you’re considering outsourcing your shredding requirements but still have a concern about your information leaving the premises, then explore the possibility of using an on-site mobile shredding service. This ensures that all shredding is carried out on-site and gives you an opportunity to closely supervise what shredding is carried out and have absolute security.

Quills offer both on-site and off-site shredding service and can collect and shred data at your home or office. For more information, take a look at our secure data destruction brochure. 

 

5. Efficient recycling process

It’s well known that recycling has a positive impact on our environment but be careful as time and time again shredded material is often stolen with the hope of gaining access to confidential data.

Outsourced shredding services ensure that your personal information is secure at all times. All shredded goods are still recycled but without comprising confidentiality as it takes place in a locked and private building with constant surveillance and security.

To find out how Quills Secure Shredding Service can benefit your business, get in touch today and request your free quote. Alternatively, take a look at our latest brochure for some more information on our data destruction service.

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How to make meetings more productive

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Out-of-the-box thinking doesn’t happen in a box…right? In this article, we consider some different ways to help reignite the motivation for attending those weekly or monthly meetings.

Some people might say that most meetings in the workplace are often pointless and attendees feel anxious as there are always deadlines to meet and work that needs to be done. But what if the problem isn’t the actual meeting itself but more the environment and layout that it’s being held in which can sometimes be formal and uninviting…

Take a look at our tips for making meetings more inviting…

1. Only hold meetings if they’re essential

Save meetings for projects that are a necessity and for when all the team can get involved. If it can be replaced by a telephone call or an email, don’t hold it. If the meeting does need to be held, be conscious of time and try to keep it short – schedule no longer than 45 minutes per meeting so that employees recognise that you value their time and have an agenda.

2. Don’t get into a routine

If you schedule meetings for the same time every week, in the same location; eventually employee motivation and interest is going to plummet. If you want your team to find a solution to a task or you’re working on a long project, then you need to mix it up a little, try mornings and afternoons and see which time provides the best engagement and ideas. Consider carrying out some meetings outside of the office, perhaps in a coffee shop or over some lunch.

3. Is your meeting space inviting and inspiring for ideas?

If not, it might be worth considering re-decorating your meeting room and introducing some artwork to make it a more welcoming space for being creative. According to Forbes, 78% of respondents in a survey of over 800 employees working for 32 U.S companies claimed that art in the workplace helped reduce their stress.

4. Consider standing desks

Employees spend most of their working day sitting at a desk so it’s not particularly motivating to move from one rolling chair to another. It’s been mentioned time and again that sitting does you no good… yet the same is true about standing all day! What you really want to do is alternate between the two with the help of a sit-stand desk. This will ultimately help you reduce the health risks posed by both. Consider ditching the standard table and chair set up and opt for this healthier way of working. Meetings may then seem like a refreshing change of scenery.

5. Informal workspace meetings

Sometimes a formal meeting isn’t required, have you thought about introducing informal employee workspaces where ideas can be brought to life away from your desk without the need to be in a meeting room? Curious? Take a look at some ideas here or check out this brochure for inspiration.

6. Offer incentives and rewards


Competitions and mini-games can be a great way to encourage enthusiasm and attendance for meetings. After all, everyone loves a freebie. Giving away snacks and refreshments during the meeting will generate interest and depending on your budget, consider rewards for the best ideas that are brought to the table.

What is archiving and why should I be on top of it?

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There’s a lot of jargon surrounding the term ‘archiving’ and you may ask, what actually is it? In fact, it’s a term that employers and businesses shouldn’t only be aware of, but completely understand.

In summary, archiving is a vital records management process and over here at Quills, we know how valuable a well organised approach can be for your business. So, take a look at this handy guide to find out more about archiving and why you should be on top of it.

What exactly is archiving?

First things first, what is archiving? Search Data Backup defines the process of archiving as “moving data that is no longer actively used to a separate storage device for long-term retention.” It’s important to note that archived data can be made active again at any point. This is a massive benefit for businesses who can therefore retrieve any necessary information at short notice.

Why should you archive your files?

As data is continuing to grow, archiving data is becoming more important than ever. If you want to save your business time and money, then having an effective archive strategy in place is necessary.

As well as adding value to your business, archiving the right data can save your business a huge amount of time and money. In the past, a number of companies stored all their data in their ‘primary storage’ system as they were afraid that their information may get misplaced or lost whilst being archived. Some employers also didn’t understand what was involved in the process of archiving data and were therefore very hesitant to do it.

Today, it is becoming more obvious that an effective archive strategy is key for businesses who handle large amounts of data. For example, they may end up losing information as a result. With an effective strategy in place, organisations can easily search for, access and maintain data that is relevant and adds value to the business.

In addition to the above, your business can also save money on expensive primary storage. Not only will you reduce the amount of data in the primary storage, you’ll also improve the overall backup performance. Therefore, you can manage your time more efficiently and deal with the documents that you need to access on a regular basis.

So, you now know what archiving is and why you should do it; but what’s involved in the archiving process?

When you archive files, they are stored and managed within optimum conditions to minimise the risk involved in the process and also to ensure that files are always protected. Likewise, scan on demand and scan back services, as well as traditional based document storage and retrieval, scan back distribution means you can access your files wherever you are, whenever you need them – quicker, cheaper and greener access to your company data.

How can Quills help me with archiving files?

Quills can provide you with a quicker, cheaper and greener way of accessing your company information. Our dedicated account supervisors can provide you with knowledge and support throughout the entire archiving process, as well as offer nationwide coverage with same/next day delivery.

Some of our key services include:

• Workflow, EDRM, digitisation and scan back
• Storage of files and boxes
• Storage of wills, deeds and original documents
• Storage of digital media
• Consultancy including best practices, Record Management policies and retention policies
• Special projects including inventory, purging, back scanning, filing audits, filing relocation and rationalisation
• Nationwide coverage offering same day/next working day delivery

If you require any more information regarding archiving and want to know how Quills can help your business, don’t hesitate to get in touch.

CONTACT US

Evolution Acquisition

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We are pleased to announce the acquisition of Evolution Group Ltd on 2nd January 2019.

Andy Efstathiou, Managing Director of Quills said “For Evolution customers the acquisition will mean the same high levels of service with the additional benefit of our internal infrastructure, additional customer services and features like Live Chat to provide answers quickly to any queries or questions. We’re an organisation constantly striving to improve how we do business every day.”

The existing Evolution team will move across to Quills (Customer Services, Sales and Drivers) which will ensure a smooth and seamless transfer.

We look forward to working with Evolutions employees and customers and extending a warm welcome to all.

 

8 Ways To Add Some Fun To Your Office!

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With the World Cup over and summer coming to a close, a lot of our office cheer is taking a dive. No more pizza and beer on evenings that England are playing, no more flag decorations hanging from the ceiling, no more ice cream days . . . the summer months can often massively improve the atmosphere of the office and we’re sure that, like us, you’ll be sad to see them go.

However, while the sunny weather might leave, who says the office fun has to? Today, we’re sharing 10 ways that you can add some fun to your office even without the good weather.

1. After work drinks

One of the biggest ways you can encourage fun in the workplace is to make sure that you’re having fun out of it. After work drinks are a great way for your workforce to bond on a personal level instead of surface level, “work appropriate” chit chat.

Many studies have proven that employees with friends at work are more engaged, more productive and happier at work – so it’s worth encouraging your workforce to build relationships with one another.

2. Order food in

Nothing bonds people like food! Once a month, why not order in a pizza and have a long lunch break eating together and having a friendly chat? This is a great opportunity to get to know your coworkers better and is an effective ice-breaker for bosses and employees to sit down and have a casual chat.

NOTE: You probably want to avoid the work talk here, unless you want to use this as a way to hold informal meetings. Nobody wants to be nagged during their lunch break.

3. Friday early finish

A great way to boost morale is to let your employees go a little early on one Friday out of the month. It builds excitement for the weekend – plus, there’s a lot of research behind the fact that working shorter hours can make us more productive.

4. Bring in a fruit platter (or sweets!)

We’ve already mentioned food on this list, but it’s worth a second idea – after all, eating the same kind of food together can build relationships and boost feelings of trust, all great things for people working in a team! Not to mention the other benefits:

  • If you have a strategically placed snack table, it can encourage employees to stand up and walk to get snacks. This not only encourages people to walk a bit more – which is beneficial for their health – but this can also act as a quick break from their work. We’ve already spoken about the numerous benefits of taking breaks, but the take-home is that break that makes employees more productive and they produce higher quality work.
  • Having communal eating / breakout area can give employees a place to congregate and interact with each other away from their desk. 
  • If you’re trying to encourage a healthier workforce, providing snacks allows you to control what snacks people are eating. People snack throughout the workday; it’s inevitable. In fact, being in the office makes you snack a lot more. However, people tend to snack on unhealthy food – not only can this lead to lower productivity, it can cause health problems that can result in absence. When you provide snacks, you can to a certain extent control what’s people eat – so you can make sure your employees are eating the right thing.

5. Try some FUN team building exercises

“Team building activities” is a phrase that can send a shiver of dread down your employees’ backs. Things like ‘trust falls’ or circles where people say one fact about themselves . . . to be blunt, they’re boring and people tend to dislike them (or worse, feel patronised by them.) However, there are a large range of fun team building activities that are actually worth a try. Here’s a few:

Team building exercises don’t have to be awful; they can actually be used to help your employees get to know each other and break the ice. It’s all about picking the right activity!

6. Let dogs come in once a week!

There are a whole host of benefits to having dogs in the office – most notably: increased employee satisfaction, decreased stress and improvements in productivity – but we acknowledge that dogs are not going to be the right fit for every workplace. Issues with allergies, insurance and potential damage can all arise, not to mention the fact that some people just don’t like dogs!

A great compromise that allows you to reap the benefits of pets in the workplace, while still keeping it a treat, is to allow dogs in once a week – maybe as a Friday celebration or a Monday mood boost.

7. Get a pool table

If you follow us on LinkedIn, you’ll probably be familiar with our pool table and how much our office loves it – and, if you don’t, why not give our LinkedIn a follow? Pool tables can be a great addition to a meeting room, especially as a way to break the ice with potential clients, and they’re a fun workplace activity for all the team to get involved in.  Our pool table doubles up as a meeting room table too as it has a removable top to create the table…genious!

8. Have a silly dress up day

Casual Fridays are the norm – in fact, a lot of offices don’t have a strict dress code to start off with – so you want to do something that stands out. Why not try a dress up day? This is a great way for people to show off their personality and a great conversation starter.

Image result for office fancy dress

We hope that this list inspired you to try introducing some fun into your office!

The Benefits Of Having Friends At Work – Why Your Business Should Encourage Coworker Friendships & How

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When you think about the factors that make your employees good workers, a lot of key things are often overlooked. Happiness, fulfilment, workplace design . . . all of these tend to fall to the back-burner. In fact, the emphasis seems to be on much more numerical things. How much holiday time employees take; the qualifications they hold; the number of hours they work. But what do employees think?

70% of employees say that having friends at work is the most crucial element to a happy working life. – Source

Today, we’re going to be talking about one of the unsung heroes of a successful office – workplace friendships – and how your business can encourage them.

The benefits of having friends in the workplace

In all likelihood, friendship is not one of the things that springs to mind when you think of productivity – but that attitude might be entirely wrong. Instead of touching on the obvious benefits to having a friendly workforce, like efficient teamwork and a better office environment, we’re going to take a look at some of the lesser-known benefits.

People with workplace friendships are nearly 3 times more likely to say that they love their companies and 2 times less likely to be poached by another company. – Source

1. Friends at work make you more productive and motivated

Work can be many things. It can be exciting, fun and fulfilling . . . however, it can also be boring, stressful, difficult and demotivating. When you’re working in the positives, you’re likely to be engaged and focused on your work. Producing high quality results and going the extra mile!

People with a best friend at work are 7 times more likely to be motivated and productive. – Source

When you’re working in the negatives,  you’re not going to be working to the best of your ability. You’ll be uninspired, possibly making mistakes – even worse, you might just not care. When you are not happy at work, your quality of work suffers.

Having a friend at work means having support; having someone to cheer you up when you’re down, let you vent when you’re stressed and have a chat when you’re bored. It means having something to look forward to when you go into the office. This can massively improve how much you enjoy your time at work – something that reflects in the work you produce. In fact, employees with a friend have a 35% higher dedication to quality than their counterparts.

2. Friends at work boost job satisfaction

 Studies have found that close friendships at work increase employee satisfaction by 50 percent – Source

As you can imagine from our previous point, the result of all of these benefits of having workplace friends is a higher level of workplace satisfaction among employees with friends at work. A lot of businesses overlook the importance of workplace satisfaction, but it is absolutely critical to maintaining a strong workforce and retaining your top talent – plus, having a workplace that’s well-known to be good to work for (think Google or Apple) is great for attracting new hires.

Why is employee satisfaction important?

50% of employees with a best friend at work reported that they felt a strong connection with their company. – Source

58% of men said they would refuse a higher paying job role if it meant not getting along with coworkers; 74% of women said the same. – Source

3. Friends at work just make people plain happier

Again, you may not see the immediate importance of this from a business perspective, but your employees’ mental health can be just as important as their physical. In fact, it can affect their physical health – recent studies have shown a link between high levels of mental distress and an increased risk of dying from cancer. Happy employees take less time off (12.7% of all sickness absence days in the UK can be attributed to mental health conditions), are healthier and generally produce better work.

People with strong interpersonal relationships are less likely to suffer from depression and anxiety. – Source

How to encourage employee friendships

Now that we’ve convinced you that workplace friends are a critical component to workplace success, let’s have a look at how your business can encourage employees to build them.

1. Use a buddy system to welcome in new hires

When people first join your business, it can be a daunting experience – they’re thrown into a completely new environment with people who already have strong pre-established bonds with one another and often just left to get on with it.

A great way to encourage friendships between new and existing employees is to implement a buddy system. Each new hire has an assigned “buddy” to help them integrate with the team and introduce them to everyone. This can be help new people feel like part of the team quicker and gives them a chance to develop a friendship with someone off the bat . . . which we’ve already discovered makes them a lot more likely to stay with you.

2. Have a weekly lunch together

Sometimes within the confines of the traditional office, it can be difficult to breach hierarchies and build relationships with people more senior to you, or in different departments. A weekly lunch can be a good chance to get to know your workforce in an informal setting without eating into outside hours or personal time (which people may not be keen on).

Plus, studies have shown that eating the same kind of food together can build relationships and boost feelings of trust – what better way to bring the office closer together?  You may end up finding out that your colleague needs support on a more personal level and confide in you once that trust begins to grow.

3. Play office games together

Office games can be a great way to relieve tension, have a bit of fun and just get to know each other better. They don’t have to be fancy or disruptive – plus, a lot of them are quick!

A few ideas for some fun office games:

  • Have a word of the day calendar and see who can naturally work the word into conversation throughout the day
  • Office prank competition
  • Photoshop tennis (a game where an image is sent round the whole office and people add an edit or drawing to it, then the final result is printed out)

We love this list of inoffensive, silly little office games you can play throughout the day.

4. Introduce some (real!) team-building activities

Team building admittedly has a rough reputation – and it’s not entirely undeserved. After all, in all likelihood your employees don’t actually want to have to do “trust falls” into your arms all morning! However, if you take the time to invest in some real, fun team building activities the payoff can be great!

5. Allow a dog in the office

We’ve spoken at length about the benefits of allowing dogs in the office, but one big benefit that applies here? The social aspect. Most people love dogs – and nothing starts a conversation like a friendly, cute puppy running round the office.

We hope that this post has helped you to understand the value of friendship in the workplace and gave you some inspiration for ways that your business could try to encourage it.

Why Your Business Should Embrace Employee Breaks

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Here’s a statistic that will probably surprise you:

The most productive workers actually take a 17-minute break for every 52 minutes they work. – Source

Most office workers will be familiar with the pressure to always look busy. Especially in open office plans where your coworkers (and your boss!) can see your screen, nobody wants to look like they’re slacking.

If you’re familiar with this style of working, however, you’re probably also familiar with the pitfalls of it. Brain fog, lack of concentration – and, possibly worst of all, boredom. It’s an ineffective way to work. Worse, it means that the work you’re producing is likely to be error ridden and of such low quality that you’ll end up spending more time redoing it.

Today, we’re going to be explaining all the benefits of taking breaks to you so that you can start to introduce them into your workday.

Benefits Of Taking Breaks During The Work Day

Breaks increase productivity

One of the largest benefits of taking breaks from work is that they help you to be productive while you’re working. The idea of taking breaks being negative is usually because of a misconception employers have; they assume that breaks are time taken out of time that would otherwise be spent working.

By this logic, you can’t blame your boss for not encouraging breaks. If you could get 7 hours of work out of an employee for the same cost, why settle for 6?

Why is this logic flawed? Because it assumes that all time spent “working” is time spent producing quality work, when the opposite is usually true. We all have energy spikes and dips; times when we’re tired or unfocused and we start to work slowly – when we start to make mistakes.

All that happens when you don’t take breaks is that when you hit one of these dips . . . you keep working at that low output.

Image result for productivity drop

Let’s look at an example:

When you’re working at 100%, you may be able to log 100 orders in an hour. You’re energised and refreshed – fast and clear-headed. You’re in your zone. 

When you’re working at 50%, you may be logging 35. You’re slower, firstly, but you’re also unfocused and making mistakes that you then need to go back and correct.

If you work 3 hours at 100%, you will start to feel yourself burning out – it’s inevitable. From here there are a few options:

Firstly, you could recognise you’re burning out, take a break and give yourself time to recharge your mental batteries; after which you can return to working full throttle.

The option most people take, however, is to push through. While you may think you’re making yourself look like a dedicated employee, what is actually happening is that your productivity levels are just going to sink lower and lower. If you’re burnt out already, think of what the effect of working extra hours on top of that is going to have on your mental resources.

Breaks help to increase creativity – and your brain needs to switch between “focus” and “diffuse” mode to problem solve

The brain has two modes; focused and diffuse. Focus mode is the setting your brain slips into while concentrating – when you’re forcing yourself to hone in on one particular activity. Things like learning and reading activate focus mode.

Diffuse mode is your brain’s relax mode, when it’s free to wander and drift. Day-dreaming is a prime example of diffuse mode at work.

Initially, you probably think that focus mode is what you need to hone in on to be productive – but that’s not entirely true. While focus mode is what most of your time at work will be spent in, diffuse mode plays an integral role in creativity and problem solving too.

In fact, your brain does a lot of its problem solving in diffuse mode. Have you ever had a “Eureka!” moment? A completely random moment of creative clarity? Well, what you’ll notice is that these moments usually happen in the middle of doing something completely unrelated to the problem at hand – like showering or driving. This is diffuse mode hard at work!

Taking breaks actually helps us to concentrate

Studies have shown that focusing on a task for too long is actually counterproductive and hinders performance. Taking a small break, however, allows your brain to refocus on the task at hand.

“We propose that deactivating and reactivating your goals allows you to stay focused,” Psych Professor Alejandro Lleras said. “From a practical standpoint, our research suggests that, when faced with long tasks (such as studying before a final exam or doing your taxes), it is best to impose brief breaks on yourself. Brief mental breaks will actually help you stay focused on your task!” – Source

As we’re sure you’ll agree, there are a multitude of benefits to taking a break every so often that your work and productivity can highly benefit from. Especially in this summer heat where it can be easy to get overwhelmed, don’t hesitate to take a ten minute break from the computer screen – your work will likely thank you!