News flash: Employer training programs most productive for older employees

Older employees are more satisfied with employer-based training programs and participate more than any other age group, according to a recent AARP national survey.

Workers age 50 and over are overwhelmingly satisfied (79%) with employer-based training programs offered to them and participate in large numbers. Additionally, over 60% who participated in training in the past two years said it increased their productivity at work.

While two-thirds of workers surveyed said they received all of the training they had desired, one in four said they were only able to participate in some of the training desired and 8% were unable to participate in any of the training.

The study also found that training across education and income levels was uneven. Over 80% of workers with at least a four-year college degree had participated in employer-based training in the past two years, compared to only 50% of workers with a high school degree or less.

“Given the somewhat uneven participation rate, the study called for working to ensure ‘that training opportunities are offered and clearly communicated to all workers,’ including those with less formal education.”

Another suggestion from the report is that organizations consider new ways to “bridge the educational barrier” with customized training for less-educated workers, depending on their needs.

We would like to know ... have you seen similar results at your organization? How do you make training more appealing and customize employee training for different types of workers?

Employee incentive ideas on a budget

So, your budget is feeling a little snug this year? Not as comfortable as it used to be?

Well, don’t get flustered just yet. Recent studies show that simple employee incentive ideas work just as well as handing out high-priced gifts when you want to let workers know how much they’re appreciated and improve employee loyalty.

Open communication is the best way to foster employee loyalty, even better than giving employees raises, according to a recent Management Action Programs Inc. (MAP) Quarterly CEO Survey. The top three qualities people value most in a company, as determined by the MAP survey, are open communication, employee recognition and involving personnel in decision making.

Effective communication also leads to higher profitability, according to the Communication ROI Study by Watson Wyatt. The study found that companies with effective communication programs had a 47% higher total return to shareholders over a four-year span, and an almost 16% increase in market value.

If you get creative, great employee incentive ideas don’t need to take a chunk out of your budget. Improve employee loyalty and increase profitability with simple communication, here are a few suggestions to get you started:

A greeting card. Leave a greeting card on the employee’s desk with a simple message about how they’re doing a great job, or thanks for finishing a report on a surprise deadline.

A simple ‘thank you.’ Call the employee into your office, or stop by their work area to say ‘thank you’ for something great they’ve done recently.

A small gift card for lunch, enough to bring a friend. It doesn’t have to be to a fancy restaurant, just a little something that says ‘thank you’ and enjoy lunch with a friend on the company’s tab.

A free half-day. Everyone likes to spend more time at home, or at least away from the office. So, let an employee know they’ve been doing a great job and they can take off early this Friday afternoon.

Chocolate. Enough said.

Present better, faster with Pecha Kucha

If you had less than seven minutes to give a presentation, what would you do? How about exactly six minutes and 40 seconds?

The answer - Pecha Kucha.

Pecha Kucha, from the Japanese word for “chatter,” is a new presentation style limiting time to six minutes and 40 seconds. The presentation is made of 20 slides, each shown for 20 seconds at a time.

Six minutes, 40 seconds, 20 slides. That’s it.

Pecha Kucha’s 20x20 format is aimed at keeping presentations concise, hanging onto audience attention and allowing as many people to present as possible. With presenters getting to the point faster, there’s more time left for discussion.

Ever since it was developed in 2003, the format has been replicated in over 80 cities across every continent. If Pecha Kucha keeps growing the way it has, we may never have to worry about “Death by PowerPoint” again.

The technique began in the architecture and design field, but has been making its way into the worlds of business and education. Just search YouTube for “Pecha Kucha” and you’ll find hundreds of videos demonstrating how the presentation technique works.

Give it a try at your next training event or make it a challenge around the office to see who can hold the best meeting with the best Pecha Kucha presentation.

Could you imagine what the workplace would be like if we all only had six minutes and 40 seconds to hold a presentation?

Use China's "eight don't asks" to deal with office conflict

The upcoming Olympic games may be a little quieter than usual. Why? Because Chinese Olympic officials have told Beijing citizens what they should and shouldn’t talk about in conversations with Olympic tourists.

The list of “eight don’t asks,” printed on posters displayed throughout popular tourist areas, act as a guide for locals on how to show proper hospitality. Chinese citizens were told not to ask about income or expenses, age, love or marriage, health, someone’s home address, personal experiences, religious beliefs, political views and what someone does for a living.

Not sure what that leaves to talk about ... the weather, Britney Spears?

If you’re having trouble with office conflict, take some notes from the Chinese government and see what happens if you post rules for conversation topics on the walls at work. It may help eliminate any problem-causing chatter, but then again, there may not be any chatter at all ...

Go to the carnival for new employee training ideas

The latest Carnival of HR is up at The HR Capitalist, full of HR goodies, a mini-roller coaster and even Bucky Covington from American Idol. Who would have thought he’d be interested in HR?

The entire list of ideas ranges from recruiting to compensation, but specifically regarding employee training, here are a few posts that may be of interest:

A suit straight off the rack won’t fit anyone perfectly, it needs to be tailored, customized. We have the technology to customize employee development programs for different careers, according to Wally Bock at Three Star Leadership.

Stop showing boring slide presentations and take a look at how Rowan Manahan from Fortify Your Oasis creates effective presentations using a visual approach.

Boost business performance with collaboration. John Ingham at The New Social Business asks, how much “collaboratieveness” does your company have?

Get the most out of employees with different learning and working preferences with a few, easy to implement tips from McArthur’s Rant.

Help two influential teams, HR and training, get on the same page when developing management training programs with tips on how to talk to each other from Dan McCarthy at Great Leadership.

We can all blame the FLSA for global warming, says Michael Moore at PA Labor & Employment. He recommends using the 4-day workweek to cut down on green house gas emission.

Unlearning: How to put old habits in the past

Every once in a while companies decide that the process we’re currently using is no good and must be changed. Most of the workforce jumps on board with no complaints, but many of us are held back by one giant obstacle - old habits.

Just as learning new workplace skills help us to adapt, ‘unlearning’ old skills may be just as important. Unlearning helps us get past the idea that “this is the way we’ve always done it.”

The ability to unlearn old workplace practices has a direct impact on productivity, especially during times of change, according to Dr. Karen Becker, business technology researcher from Queensland, Australia.

“‘Unlearning’ is the process of recognizing prior knowledge, but discarding it to make room for new information, and would be useful when applied to any major change affecting an organization,” according to Becker.

Her research found that in order to make new processes effective, older processes must be let go. Though old habits may be deeply ingrained, they’re not always the best ways to get things done.

To foster unlearning you must raise awareness of upcoming changes far in advance of the change to allow for disturbances, provide support, and teach managers and supervisors how to deal with those resistant to change, according to Becker.

"Often this isn't done, and management training is all about managing the business, whereas it needs to have at least some focus on managing people and their individual reactions to change. I always say the soft stuff is the hard reality - how you deal with people in times of change can affect how your business performs," said Becker.

Providing employees with assistance to unlearn past procedures can ease the transfer to new ways. Recognizing learning hurdles before change happens will increase productivity by minimizing the road blocks that come along with change.

A recent article from the New York Times, “Can You Become a Creature of New Habits?,” examines a similar approach to unlearning that focuses on learning new habits to squash the old.

Brain researchers have discovered that consciously developing new habits creates new brain cells helping us to develop new and innovative tracks of thought. Learning new habits can enable creativity, building roadways in our brains to bypass old roads and habits.

For more of a scientific, in-depth look at the way we learn and let go of old habits, read the full article. The author explains ways to “stretch” your brain every once in a while to help you adapt when new problems arise.

Simple training etiquette: Follow the Golden Rule

As youngsters we were all taught the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” But now we’re a little older and the Rule is buried underneath everything else on our ‘to do’ lists.

When it comes to employee training, the Golden Rule should be followed every step of the way, from the planning stage through to any follow-up training. By treating others how you want to be treated, your training program will be more effective and enjoyable to attend.

“In this case, ‘Do unto others…’ means don’t bore them, don’t waste their time, and don’t make them sit through a presentation you would hate,” says Barbara Jones at BizCustoms.com.

A well thought out training program will take the employees’ perspective into consideration at every point of the process. Here are some tips to implement the Golden Rule and follow simple training etiquette throughout your program or presentation:

Scheduling. Schedule employee training at a convenient time when employees are least distracted. Sit down with employees to find out the busiest time of the day or if there are important deadlines coming up. Proper scheduling will reduce the number of disgruntled attendees and increase the number of focused, engaged employees.

Location. Keep training in house and during work hours. Not only will in-house training save you from paying travel costs, it’s also less burdensome on employees. Off-site or after-hours training requires employees to rearrange their outside schedules and creates resentment. Make training as convenient as possible to attend.

Train vs. lecture. We all know how exciting it can be to listen to someone read from a slide presentation. Passive listening, like hearing a speech or lecture, usually causes boredom. Like we said last week, get your audience talking and they’ll retain more. Involve employees throughout the training process with practice exercises and conversation for more effectiveness.

Repetition. Most people don’t understand something completely until it is repeated or practiced. The more an idea is repeated, the more chance it has to be retained. Give employees something on paper to reinforce the ideas covered in the training program.

Implementation. Don’t put someone through training and assume they will have no problem implementing the new skills they learned on their own. Create opportunities for employees to practice their new skills as soon as the training is complete. If employees do not have the chance to practice, skills will be lost and your training will have been a waste of time.



When designing your next employee training program, take a step back to think about how you would feel as a trainee and how you would like to be treated. Remember those feelings during the planning process, along with some simple training etiquette, and you’ll see the difference in your employees the next time they complete training.

Share the lead for successful teamwork

So, you put together a team to address the latest problem at hand and now you’re wondering who to put in charge. If you want the group to be effective, you won’t put anyone in charge.

At least that’s the latest teamwork advice out of the Wall Street Journal (WSJ). Their researchers found that teams are the most successful and productive if leadership is shared among team members.

“Our research, in fact, suggests that teams that perform poorly tend to be dominated by the team leader, while high-performing teams have a shared-leadership structure,” according to the WSJ.

Generally, teams in a work environment are set up to follow the long-standing model where one person in charge and everyone else falls in line. But, the latest research flips that idea upside down.

When you a team who specialize in the different, the collective knowledge will be greater than having one individual leader running the show. With shared leadership, team members step-up when their specific expertise is needed.

It’s an innovative approach to developing successful work teams, but one that’s also worth a try. The WSJ studied dozens of teams in a variety of industries and found that shared leadership led to the best results.

Like everything, shared leadership does have some drawbacks. The practice is most successful when teams have had time to develop, have a good sense of each person’s strengths and know when each person should be in charge.

Strong personalities may also hinder team success. When team members get too pushy or don’t have the confidence to lead, the shared leadership technique can easily fail. Team members must also have the proper management skills to lead one another successfully.

“Instead of seeing the matter as a black-and-white choice, companies should ask some simple -- but crucial -- questions. When is it a good idea to share the reins? And if we do decide to go that route, what steps can we take to make sure we're ready? Companies that apply shared leadership judiciously can see tremendous gains.”

Read the full WSJ article.

Are you delivering ‘me’ or ‘we’ employee rewards?

“Most companies would love to have all their employees (or their distribution channel and customers for that matter) focused on the best interests of the company. However, that is a difficult task. People typically focus on what they think is important. Especially, if we reward them in that manner.” - Incentive Intelligence

According to those at Incentive Intelligence, with different kinds of employee rewards, you can have a direct impact on the relationship an employee forms with the company.

Depending on how much the reward impacts the individual (me) or the group (we), it will either create an individual or collective bond with the company. Read the original post for a full explanation of the “me vs. we” reward method. They’ve even mapped it all out on a nifty little chart:



Take a look at your rewards program. Are you motivating individuals or groups with rewards? What do you think creates a stronger relationship between employee and company, ‘me’ or ‘we’ rewards?

Do employee incentives improve energy efficiency?

At Microsoft they do.

With energy costs rising daily, everyone is looking for ways to become more energy efficient. Microsoft has found a way to use employee incentive programs to reduce the energy consumption of its growing data centers.

In the past, Microsoft business groups were charged for using the company’s data centers based on the floor space they took up. Instead of charging for space, Microsoft now charges business units on the amount of energy they consumed. The shift made individual business models more conscious of energy consumption, finding new ways to cut back.

Yearly bonuses for Microsoft facility managers are now also based on efficiency improvements. Executives say there has been a noticeable behavior change.

Small businesses, like one New York real estate developer, are also using employee incentives to promote energy efficiency among employees. RexCorp, real estate developer and property management company, offers prime parking spaces for hybrid driving employees, visibly marked “hybrid only.”

From the Environmental Leader, the list of companies developing new employee incentive ideas for energy efficiency is growing:

• GlaxoSmithKline, pharmaceutical company, reimburses employees the first $30 for bus fees.
• IBM encourages telecommuting, with more than 40% of employees working outside of the office.
• 
Verizon reports any idling time of technicians’ vehicles over 10 minutes as a deviation.
• Cisco Systems created 36 VIP parking spaces for hybrids and cars that use biodiesel or ethanol.
• Swiss Re offers employees’ subsidies for environmental purchases including hybrid cars.

What do you think? We know that employee incentives can improve performance and employee retention, but can they improve the energy efficiency of your business?

Employee training tip: Get them talking

Meetings and training seminars where one person rattles on and on for an hour are not only boring, they don’t work. If you expect your audience to retain everything you said, think again ...

The human brain retains less than 5% of what you hear in any talk, but talkers retain 90% of what they teach, according to research.

What can you do? Get listeners involved in the conversation. Mix it up at your next meeting and develop speakers out of listeners.

Plan ahead for your next team meeting or training event and look for new ways to get listeners involved. Here are a few tips on how to involve the audience in your next presentation:

• Before the meeting, divide up your presentation and have each team member present a different portion in front of the group.
• Ask questions throughout the presentation. Throw away the traditional format of talking for 45 minutes and taking questions when you’re done. Throughout your presentation, ask questions for the audience to answer.
• Have a conversation with your group. Bring up a main talking point from your presentation and start a conversation. When everyone in the group is involved, everyone’s retention rates will improve.

Join the discussion on cheap training tips

As a follow-up to our post from earlier today sharing tips for employee training on a budget, there's a new group out there devoted solely to the topic. Training Tracks, a part of the SiteProNews community, is an ongoing discussion on the topic of cheap training tips.

Do you have some cheap training tips or ideas on how to cut training costs? Join the group and participate in the conversation.

5 tips for employee training on a tight budget

The economy is down and the squeeze on your budget gets tighter everyday. Human resources and employee training budgets are the first places companies go to cut down spending, but don’t let go of hope just yet.

With some creative thinking and determination, you can still provide quality employee training even when your budget is taking a hit. Here are five simple tips on how to cut training costs without losing quality:

1. Instead of sending your team to an outside training course, where you have to buy a ticket for each person and pay for travel expenses, find a comparable video training program to bring in house. You can train an entire room full of people for the cost of one video.



2. Enroll your group in online training seminars. Similar to purchasing a video, you can train many for the cost of one and avoid those pesky travel expenses.



3. Find trainers within your organization. In any organization there are those who already play the trainer role. Develop your in-house resources with “Train the Trainer” training programs.



4. Use the company as the classroom. Look at different jobs in the company as training opportunities. If you’re training employees on leadership or teamwork, place employees in new roles around the office for a hands-on learning experience.



5. Become a smart shopper. Use tools like TrainingTime.com to find and compare employee training programs that will work within your budget.

Just because your budget is shrinking, it doesn’t mean the quality of your training and development programs have to shrivel up with it. If you take the time to do some research and get a little creative, your training budget may not look so small after all.

Work/life balance: Simply a matter of choice?

Across the Web, talk about work/life balance is everywhere. Experts write articles and blogs to help us understand how we can all reach a balanced between our work and home lives.

Some say work/life balance is an ideal state of being we can find if desired enough, while others think it simply comes down to the day-to-day decisions we make. If given the choice, most people would opt for a balanced life over an unbalanced alternative.

“That's because the choice isn't between balanced and unbalanced. Instead you have to choose among a number of things to do at any one time. And the choice isn't between work and life it's between different ways to use your time that make up all the parts of your life,” according to Wally Bock at Three Star Leadership.

Every day you make choices. Some days you may stay late to finish the sales report, when you could have been enjoying a family dinner at home. Or, you could take that vacation now instead of holding off until next year. Whatever you choose to do, there’s usually some kind of trade off.

What do you think? Is work/life balance simply a matter of choice or a finish line to cross if we work at it hard enough?

Bad office behavior: Desk rage

Road rage can take a back seat, there's a new monster in town – desk rage.

Anger in the workplace, from grumpy employees to short-tempered bosses, is a common occurrence in the United States. As Americans deal with rising gas prices, increased costs of living, job uncertainty and personal debt, the problem of desk rage may only continue to grow.

Of the workers who responded to research surveys:

• 2% to 3% admitted to pushing, slapping or hitting someone at work – amounting to as many as 3 million people.
• Almost 50% reported yelling and verbal abuse at work.
• One in four admitted to being driven to tears by abusive behavior at work.
• One in six reported anger-induced property damage at work.
• One in ten reported physical violence and fear their workplace might not be safe.
  

If you need some help with desk rage, or know someone who may need an intervention, take a look at these tips for combating desk rage from CNN.com.

Skip the desk rage this Friday, sit back, and laugh at this compilation of some really bad days at the office:

When communication training is not the answer

The Evil HR Lady wrote a great post today, commenting on how one emergency room is requiring that all nurses, doctors, techs and secretaries attend “communication training” lectures. The emergency room staff didn’t think there was a communication problem, their concerns were mainly about “good Emergency medicine and logistical issues related to patient flow and delivery of care.”

Here’s a clip of what she had to say:

“And I can hear a communal HR clucking of tongues saying, "well, if you could communicate with each other more clearly, you would be more safe and efficient." Maybe so, but they aren't going to listen to anything the trainer says. Why? Because the trainer has no credibility, the trainees don't think there is a problem, and the course hasn't been designed based on the perceived needs of the department.”

Like the lady said, if the trainer lacks credibility and trainees don’t believe there’s a problem, the training will be a waste of everyone’s time. When creating an employee training program, you should first identify the problem the training will address and how employees perceive the problem. You may find that there’s really no problem at all.

What do you think? Have you ever had to participate, or develop a training program for employees who didn’t think it was necessary and how did you handle it?

New brain research reveals clues on how to deliver effective presentations

John Medina, a leading developmental molecular biologist, found that our brains are wired to lose attention after 10 minutes, ignore uninteresting subjects and require images to retain information. Carmine Gallo, BusinessWeek columnist, recently interviewed Medina on how his new findings could help business leaders deliver effective presentations to any audience.

Here’s what he learned and how it can help you develop better business presentations:

Your brain tunes out after 10 minutes. If you’re delivering important information to an audience and want to hold their attention past the first ten minutes, engage your audience before each 10-minute increment of your presentation. Plan out exercises, such as telling a story or showing a video clip, at 10-minute intervals throughout your presentation.

Your brain doesn’t pay attention to “boring” subjects. “This comes directly from our evolutionary history. We didn't care about the number of vertical lines in the teeth of the saber-toothed tiger. We cared about whether it was going to clamp down on our thigh. We were more interested in the meaning of the mouth than the details."

Your brain craves pictures. “Conventional, text-heavy PowerPoint decks should be thrown out and replaced with image-rich slides,” says Gallo. The brain doesn’t see letters, only pictures, according to Medina. “If information is presented orally, people remember about 10%, tested 72 hours after exposure. That figures goes up to 65% if you add a picture,"

Need some more pointers? Check out Know HR’s list of the Top 10 Best Presentations Ever.

New icebreaker activities for meetings

We all want meetings to be productive, informative and help deliver results. Many times it is the way you start a meeting that can directly affect those results.

Even when you have a short time frame, icebreaker activities can help get meetings off to a great start. Get everyone talking and engaged with these easy icebreaker activities for meetings:

The Magic Genie - Designate one of the meeting leaders as the ‘Magic Work Genie.’ The genie has given each person in the room three work-related wishes. Ask each person in the room what three work related activities they would change and why.

21 Questions - As each person enters the room, tape a small note card to their back with the name of a famous person, city or topic related to the meeting. Arrange everyone in a circle, with backs to the wall. Let each person go around the inside of the circle, with their back turned to the people in the circle. The circling person must ask questions that can only be answered by a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to identify clues to find out the name on the index card taped to their back.

Office Survivor - Tell the group that tomorrow they will each be stranded on a separate island for an undetermined amount of time. What five (or other number depending on how much time you have) items would you bring? The catch - the items must all come from the office.

Dream Getaways - Ask each member in the meeting to introduce themselves and then share their idea of the perfect dream vacation. Encourage people to go into detail as to where the vacation will be, who they would bring and for how long.


After the activity is over, have a quick debriefing and ask everyone in the meeting why they think you played the icebreaker game, as well as how the quick activity may have impacted communication and teamwork. Get your meetings off to a great start every time with a fun icebreaker activity that gets everyone involved and engaged.

Waistlines a heavier workplace issue, Japan passes obesity law

Japanese employers are now legally required to fight obesity in the workplace or face fines. The law that went into effect April 1, 2008 forces companies and government, the two sources of health insurance in Japan, to measure the body fat of employees between 40 and 74.

If waistline measurements exceed government limits (33.5” for men, 35.4” for women), employers must pay more into the national health care system.

Employees working for Japanese companies in the U.S. have no need to fear mandated body fat measurements just yet. Japanese firs say the law will not lead to disciplinary measures against overweight employees in America, according to a recent article from Workforce Management.

While the government may require it in Japan, wellness programs in the U.S. are still mainly voluntary and incentive based. “While most companies say they have a genuine concern for their employees' well being, the rising cost of health care is obviously part of the equation,” according to a recent CNN.com article titled “Can your company force you to be healthy?”

Take a look at some interesting workplace obesity statistics covered in the article:

• Obesity-related health issues cost U.S. companies approximately $13 billion every year.
• Almost one third of companies offering health insurance benefits to employees also provide a wellness program of some sort.
• Fitness, smoking cessation and weight-loss programs are provided most frequently.

Although they can be helpful, some employees think workplace wellness programs are intrusive and make them “bristle at what they perceive as having lifestyle choices dictated by an employer.”

Implementing a wellness program is not always easy and just because you have one in place doesn’t mean employees will immediately jump on board.

“As it turns out, maintaining a successful wellness program can require the same sort of commitment from a company as working to stay healthy does from an employee.”

What are the best ways you’ve found to get employees involved in corporate wellness programs?

Is a four-day work week in our future?

Thanks to Independence Day, most of us are looking forward to a three-day weekend. Wouldn’t it be nice if it was that way every week, all year long?

With soaring gas prices and pressure from employees who want shorter workweeks, some companies and local government offices across the country are making the move to a four-day work week.

This summer, Utah will become the first state to institute a mandatory four-day work week for most state employees. The Utah governor reduced the federal work schedule to reduce the state’s carbon footprint, increase energy efficiency, improve customer service and provide workers more flexibility.

There’s a slight catch to the deal – employees will work four 10 hour days instead of five eight-hour days. Not a bad trade off.

Enjoy this holiday weekend!

Ideas for everyday training on a budget

Keeping communication lines open and employee training on track during tough times are vital to employee satisfaction. Organizations that communicate effectively are four times as likely to report high levels of employee engagement, according to the 2007/2008 Communication ROI Study by Watson Wyatt.

During times when budgets are strapped, it may take a little creativity and ingenuity to keep daily employee training from falling by the wayside. Some easy communication and information sharing ideas can help you provide valuable employee training.

By implementing just a few simple and cost-effective ideas for everyday training, you can enhance employee communication and boost job satisfaction. Here are a few to get you started:

Start a book club. Get a group together, possibly by department, and select business or career development topics everyone is interested in. Hold club meetings in a large lunchroom or meeting room and order some food. Buy the books at bulk discount and have employees pay their own lunch tab to attend. Generate discussion based on reading topics and allow everyone to share their opinions.

Begin a lunch program. Get employees together for a structured lunch meeting. It could be pizza or a nice lunch downtown, depending on everyone’s workload. Prepare an agenda including the latest industry-related news, interesting new articles and informative websites relevant to your business. Encourage all employees to come to the meeting with discussion topics and opinions. Plan for a question and answer period at the end of the lunch meeting.

Both programs should be completely voluntary, employees may turn away from anything extra curricular they’re asked to do. And remember, keeping it fun and interesting will keep employees coming week after week.

New employee vacation trend: Staycations

With high gas prices and a slowing economy, more people are opting out of expensive vacations and signing up for something closer to home – a staycation.

Hectic schedules sometimes make it difficult to explore the area you live in and high airline prices make it just as difficult to leave. Opting for a staycation gives you the opportunity to explore what your community has to offer, without having to book costly hotel rooms.

Time spent away from work, whether in the sunny tropics or on your back porch, can help you unwind and return to work refreshed. Vacations are an essential piece to the work/life puzzle that ward off burnout and allow employees to be more productive at work.

Vacationing at home comes with a risk - work. With technology readily available at home and no roaming fees, the temptation to get a little work done may be too much to handle while on a staycation. With any vacation the risk is high, a Career Builder survey released this year showed one in four workers will be staying in touch with work while on vacation this year.

Another risk of staycationing is the allure of the couch. It can be easy to fall into sloth mode, wasting your vacation in front of the television. But, there are some ways to pull yourself away from the appeal of a cushy couch and make the most of your time off.

Here are some tips on how to successfully staycation:

Treat it like a real vacation - make plans. Make a list of all the places in your area that you haven't explored yet and start checking them off.

Pretend to be a tourist. Don't be afraid to check out the "touristy" areas, maybe even buy a funny hat. It's easy to overlook all the little parks, museums and tours that can be found within close radius to home.

Put down the Blackberry and hide your laptop. Easy access to work can be tempting. Pretend like you're on a remote island in the Pacific with no Internet access or phone lines. Let your coworkers know that you will be unavailable for calls and email during your time off.

Save some money on your next vacation and become a tourist in your own town. Take a staycation and discover everything your community has to offer, you may be surprised what you find.