Thursday, March 31, 2011

Power To Move

A wide range of wheelchairs are available in the market these days. From the old-fashioned manual wheelchairs that still remind one of an antiseptic hospitalized room to a modern sleek design that looks like a plane seat. Wheelchair manufacturers have been quick to capitalize on the growing demand for wheelchairs. Most wheelchairs these days are available in a power version that is easy to use, convenient and versatile.

Some of the models available in the market look like a fancy toy with speed control knobs and glossy colors. The jazzy chair series for instance is available in attractive colors like jet blue and jet red. The latest models are highly maneuverable not only outdoors but indoors as well. The ability to navigate a powered wheelchair in tightly cramped space is extremely important. With living space becoming smaller given the high cost of real estate and rentals disabled people have no choice but to live in a small accommodation. Wheelchairs need to be designed keeping these aspects in mind.
The jazzy power chair series not only has ease of use but with its compact design and tight turning radius it is perfect for small spaces. Highly durable and lightweight the range of electrical wheelchairs available on the market are designed keeping in mind the varied requirements of a disabled user. While some can be operated with the hand or arms, for those who have lost use of their hand mouth-operated wheelchair models are also available on the market.

Electric wheelchair models are available in both front-wheel drive and rear-wheel drive. An intelligent braking feature is also present in some of the models. The wheelchairs from Pride Mobility allow a user to navigate the wheelchair with ease outdoors and indoors. Powered by 12-volt battery that is loaded on the wheelchair itself, the power chair is easy to service, another advantage for the disabled user. The speed control knobs allow speed control between 1 and 5 mph. The Active-Trac suspension gives improved outdoor performance.

Having power wheelchair also makes life convenient for care givers and healthcare facility providers. A bed ridden patient can be motivated to get better really quick. Obese people who are unable to move or travel for long distance can retain independence using a power wheelchair. With weight capacity of up to 350 lbs the two motor two wheel drive is good for outer use as well. Seating that is an important factor in a wheelchair is given special consideration in the modern wheelchair. Not only the look and feel but seating comfort is also taken into account.

Jazzy Power Wheelchairs

Wheelchairs do not have to be functional and bulky nor expensive and for the rich alone. The demand for wheelchairs has given rise to a number of manufacturers and rapid advancement in wheelchair technology. This has helped disabled people who now have access to economical wheelchair models with an array of useful features. Striking designs, eye catching colors, lightweight but with a capacity to hold huge weights and a battery charger that is on board the wheelchair, these are just few of the features that are present in modern motorised wheelchairs.
An obvious advantage in owning a motorised wheelchair is the ease of use and convenience.
Though power wheelchairs have an electric motor they are still controlled by the person on the jazzy power chair. Wheelchairs are being designed keeping in mind the special requirements of disabled persons. These designs allow the wheelchair to be controlled manually by the hand, mouth or other workable body parts. This feature is vital to a person who is a paraplegic or handicapped and unable to use their hands or arms.

Wheelchair manufacturers are constantly innovating to ensure disabled people have mobility. The fact that there are hordes of wheelchair firms, online websites and medical stores that sell electrical or power wheelchairs in all styles and for different individual requirements has made the life of a disabled person easier. Companies are even game to customising requirements at economical costs.

Interestingly wheelchairs are not only for the disabled but people who may be bed-ridden due to a disease or patients undergoing treatment that leave them with high fatigue. Also some people may not be able to walk long distances due to a treatment or obesity, even they require a wheelchair to move around at times. The wheelchair market is taking all this into consideration hence custom units, light weight units, stable and comfortable chairs along with sturdiness are aspects that are kept in mind while creating a wheelchair.

Though wheelchairs, especially jazzy power wheelchair, are becoming popular there are people who may be disabled, injured or old but still cannot afford these due to costs involved. Wheelchair companies have introduced power wheelchairs that have basic features to cater to this category. Jazzy 614 for instance is considered a value for money wheelchair that is economical and provides good features. These include a 160 watt in-line motor, an advanced ATX suspension, and innovative electronics that work together providing a safe and powerful electric wheelchair. The 614, which is the latest model from Pride, is easy to service making it a good buy for those who want a simple solution to their movement issues.

Bariatric Scales

Lifestyle changes happen due to a combination of factors including longer working hours, a higher disposable income; and easy availability of junk food has triggered an increase in obesity. The rise in obesity and its associated diseases including type 2 diabetes, hypertension and high blood pressure has raised alarm bells globally. The US First Lady Michelle Obama has taken serious cognizance of this alarming trend terming child obesity a threat to national security and even starting a campaign to eat healthy. All this reflects the importance of monitoring and treating obesity and the related increase in demand for weight monitoring equipment.

One such equipment that is specifically designed to determine weight of obese people is bariatric scales. These scales are weighing equipment that offers a high enough capacity to determine weight of people weighing over 500 pounds. The medical scale allows doctors and patients themselves to monitor weight which is not possible at times with common fitness scales or physician’s scales.

Bariatric scales have replaced traditional scales for determining body weight of obese people as they are more accurate. These digital scales also provide protective railings that a patient can hold on to while getting weighed. They are designed in such a way that they are easy to move and quite flexible. The reasons for providing such ease of use is to accommodate health care providers and obese patients. Manufacturers incorporate extra-wide weighing platforms and heavy duty components to accommodate patients. Body mass and body fat are just some specific units that these scales can measure.

Some bariatric scale manufacturers even have provision for wheelchair-bound patients. They have designs that can allow weight of a bariatric patient who is wheelchair bound to be weighed without any strain. There are designs that also allow bed-ridden patients to be weighed. Makers of these digital scales ensure that they are covering all unforeseen circumstances including old patients who need to be handled with care as also handicapped people. They also keep in mind the risk of injury to a caregiver that increased weight increase is bound to bring. Some innovations that equipment makers have brought about include bariatric walkers, bariatric rollator, and bariatric wheelchairs.

Other life-changing innovations that scale makers have conceptualized include the ability to discern the weight of a bed and that of the patient if a bed-ridden patient is weighed along with the bed itself. Patients undergoing intensive dialysis and nutritionally challenged can also be precisely measured as changes in fluid loss and gain can be monitored immediately and a caregiver can be alerted of the change.

Monday, March 28, 2011

Inbox Zero

Sitting on an endless list of unread mails where 90% of them are the ones you need to go through but don’t know where to start from can get a little frustrating. Managing emails can be tricky and painstaking. And if we fail to manage emails properly, it can lead to numerous issues. A cluttered inbox can be quite nagging and to get rid of it you may at times resort to drastic processing of these mails, and in the bargain you may miss out on some vital mails.

You do not have to waste time in responding to emails immediately it is not at all advisable. So how do we get our inbox zero? You should always start by sorting the emails received, make different folders and categorize them, say for the ones that need immediate attention go into one folder; mails where you need to collect certain information and then reply can go into another folder, so on and so forth depending on the nature of your work. Most importantly keep deleting the obvious spam mails, do not sit on them. Once you have no more emails to sort, you can then start responding to the emails from each folder, subjected to the priority and urgency of that email.

This process would help you to organize your inbox better and would enable you to be on top of your inbox at all times. Another important thing in maintaining inbox zero is deleting the mails that have been taken care of and are not going to be used as future reference.

Getting your inbox zero means you have organized your inbox in a such a way that the emails that needed immediate attention have been responded to, emails that demand undivided attention for they have exquisite details/information have been categorized into one folder and the emails that are just FYIs’ or not so important have been sorted out and are not mixed with the ones that are vital and urgent.

Your emails keep piling up for you may or may not have enough time to respond to all of them, which is certainly reasonable. However since they are all sitting together you may lose track of the important emails you haven’t responded to in time which can result in unnecessary stress. Inbox zero is a process to get you out of this exasperating situation.

The term inbox zero does not necessarily mean that your inbox is absolutely empty. Inbox zero helps you to reduce the number of emails in your inbox that are not necessary. Thinkproductive a UK based training organization conduct soft skill training on regular basis. Visit their website thinkproductive.co.uk to know more about their training sessions.

Email Training need of the hour

Email is a big part of life and especially businesses so email training for the employees is very important. For email is the way we communicate nowadays, so we cannot afford to be sloppy in the way we write emails. It has been observed that people across the globe are blundering at it and some commonly done mistakes are, flooding in too much of information in one email or writing lousy, unprofessional emails. Because more often than not is email is considered to be informal mode of communication.

To write crisp professional emails email training is important. There are various organizations that conduct soft skill training for Corporates, it is vital for a business to have one these training companies organize email training for the employees.

The points that are dealt with usually in email training programs are:
Grammar check- where they teach you to check for typos, grammar, sentence formation
Tone of the email- for example writing in uppercase is considered to be rude, in email training session they teach you to maintain a professional and courteous one throughout the email
Length of the email- the amount of information being divulged in a single email. There are times when people write almost a book in a mail. Email training session would teach you to maintain the apt length and amount of information that needs to disclose in a single mail.
Copying etiquette- most of us are not aware of this particular rule and as result are not aware of the fall back if we do not follow this rule properly. They discuss when and in what situation BCC and CC should be marked and when marked what is the kind of information that needs to be disclosed in such mails.
Signature details-in email training they teach you to use signature and the details that need to be included in it.


These are a few highlights that an email training program would mandatorily have. Beside these they explain the rules with situations and case studies for better understanding.

Email as said earlier is a big part life now, whether it is personal communication or professional, email is the dominant mode. Hence it is quite natural for employees to be informal in their communication via email even at work; however, this unawareness has a potential to cause a lot of damage to the business process. So in order avoid such situations it is very important for any business small, medium or big to have email training sessions conducted for their employees across the board.

Effective management comes from proper training

Every time we come across poor quality product or service the management is blamed for it; well we know it isn’t easy to manage processes and people. While it is said that you learn from your mistakes, it is better more often than not that we avoid making mistakes in the first place, hence the managers and leaders can always use a little guidance on effective management.

It’s a highly competitive world, where to succeed you have to offer superior quality of products and services. This is the reason why Training for management is so much in demand. People are changing, trends are changing, work culture is changing; we are growing at a rapid pace and to keep up with the change, control and manage, the leader has to be dynamic and positive.

Let us first check out some of the common mistakes that are committed while leading or managing a team and a project:
No Time for Your Team- It is quite understandable that as a manager you would have your hands full almost at all times, however making a little time for your team is very important. Due to the lack of your adequate support and guidance your team would lose the objective.
Being over friendly- There’s a difference between being approachable and being too friendly. Some members of your team may take advantage of you being too friendly with them, which would result in things slipping out of your control.
Fallacies around motivation- Please understand that it is not just the monetary gain that motivates every one of your team members. Failing to understand what motivates your team and thus failing to motivate them effectively could be quite devastating.
Avoid delegation- Delegation is easy and effortless; however it is not easy to trust someone to do the job correctly. But delegation is important, failing which you would never be able to focus at a macro level that most of the managers or leaders are responsible for. And you would also fail to develop your team members in order to take the pressure off you and prepare them for the next level.
Not providing timely feedback- Failing to provide feedback is a common mistake, which leads to graver problems. Most of the leaders and managers fail to provide feedback on a timely basis. If you do not point out what is wrong at the right time, your team would continue to do the same mistake and your process/business would end up suffering.


I am sure we all agree to these mistakes that are more often than not made by the managers and leaders. These are common mistakes, no one does this deliberately, however in the mad rush of things, you tend to overlook and make these mistakes. To get a better insight on what exactly is a leaders role and how to approach the responsibilities effectively, attending a training for management is much needed.

Here’s a synopsis of what a good training course for management would cover:
How to motivate your team and improve their effectiveness
Effective coaching and developing of your team
Understanding team dynamics
Effective delegation of work
Motivating, rewarding and engaging your team
Conducting effective performance management
Handling crisis situation
Communicate with all levels, clients, team, co-workers on a professional level
Learning to provide productive feedback


Some of the other exercises and aspects that are covered beside the ones listed above are; approach and attitude towards work and team, decision making skills, time management, appetite for risk, owing responsibilities and trusting fellow workers.

Training for management

Training for management focuses on the key skills of management such as motivation, guiding and supporting team members. Beside these they also provide essential tips and productive feedback on job delegation, decision making, conflict management, taking responsibilities, handling crisis, and most importantly setting and achieving goals individual and team.

Training courses for management are quite dynamic, practical and extensive in nature; the training providers can even customize these training courses depending on the specifications given by the clients. These courses usually deal with following aspects:
Individuals qualities and strengths
Determine the nature of responsibility and authority
How to be self motivated at all times and to motivate and guide others
Methods and techniques for productive job delegation
Understanding undefined and underlined management responsibilities
The dynamics involved in a process and it’s effects on emotions
How to manage overall performance and provide constructive feedback
Conflict management and effectively handling crisis
Learning to respect and trust relationships and individual roles at the workplace


After attending these sessions’ participants feel more confident about their own ability to manage work and others better. Periodic training for management is essential for there is not set rule for managing people and their performance, the nature of the management's role is quite dynamic and versatile which keeps changing with time and generation. Basically, there is no defined right or wrong way, all you need to do is build on your strengths and try to work on the areas of improvement which are your weaknesses.

Attending a training program does not mean that your personality would be transplanted, however they help you to see your roles and responsibilities in a lucid way. So that you stay in charge of the situation at all times, recover swiftly from a damage or a wrong foot, handle miscommunication (which is of course inevitable), understanding the process and people so well that you know how to work around in case of crisis. Most importantly enjoying your roles and responsibilities.

There are various training institutes that conduct various training for management; they either have open-house sessions where you have free access to workshops, or conduct customized training sessions for the clients. Thinkproductive is one such training providers based out of UK who conduct and provide training sessions for various, soft skills and organisational skills. For more details of their training courses and method of conducting training sessions please visit their website http://thinkproductive.co.uk/.

Training for management- for successful leadership

Not everyone is a born leader; some have to develop leadership skills in order to become great leaders. A lot have been said and talked about leadership skills, but truly it is pretty difficult to define leadership exactly or appropriately. However, having said that, one can easily identify a good leader from bad.
Trends are changing by the day, earlier we had IQ (intelligence Quotient) to judge people on, now we talk about EQ(emotional quotient). So now the entire focus is on human psychology rather than intelligence, and a good leader is someone who can deal with different human psyche effectively and make them work towards a common goal.
It takes a lot to make a great leader; every day is a learning process, every day you need to widen your bandwidth. And something that is most essential in today’s day and age is training for management. These leadership training programs help the participants to gain a personal insight about what makes or breaks them, helping them to reach beyond the comfort zone and improvise and take more risks.
Some of the highlights and aspects that are covered in training for management programs are:
· Identifying and defining strengths and quality
· Understanding and knowing good Leadership approach and behavior
· Most important enhancing interpersonal and communication skills
· Determining your perception of what is happening around
· Understanding and gaining insight into rules, patterns and beliefs
· Understanding the commitment and getting things done accordingly
· Decision making
· Handling stress, yours and your teams
· Motivating, empowering and inspiring fellow workers
· Mapping individuals goal with that of company’s
In training for management sessions, the most important part is that they focus on the perception of the participants about the things around, which includes the work environment, co-workers, nature of job, behaviour and approach of seniors and clients et al. This is the grass root level where they start from and then move on to developing other skills, based on your perception about yourself and thing’s around you.
It does not matter whether you are the owner of a company, running an NGO or an employee of a company handling huge projects and big team size; you can never excel if you fail to empathize with others. It is the ability to understand other’s point view clearly, that will help you to develop your approach towards them, motivate them and achieve the goals successfully.

Need for training providers

When you hire good training providers for your employees it not only improves the performance and productivity of your staff, but also increases the organizations profitability. It is the outcome of effective training courses where these organizations start to provide better customer service, thereby retaining the existing customers and also gaining from word of mouth thereafter. These training sessions help to motivate the staff which results employee retention and enhanced quality of work or services by them. So happier and motivated your skilled workers are better the quality of your product or service.

These training providers aim at providing flexible and customized training and development solutions to various organizations, they have solid experience and expertise in conducting training sessions and delivering developmental and learning programs which are in some cases even tailor-made to the requirements of the hiring company. They conduct these workshops via customized in-house training sessions; classroom sessions or on-job training sessions, depending on the need of the organization or project.

Some of these training consultants even provide off-site training workshops for employees, either at a location as specified and agreed by the clients or through open access workshops, which are conducted by seasoned training providers who have extensive experience in designing and conducting training courses in various organizational and business environments. The training providers can also help enhance the skills and level of motivation of the employees through continuous training and development programs.

Renowned training consultants have exhaustive portfolio of training courses that comprises of a wide range of soft skills required to successfully stay in the business; these training courses are designed to enhance customer service skill, presentation skill, leadership, interpersonal and organizational skills, email etiquette, time management, et al. They have it all and as mentioned earlier they can even customize these training courses for you. Beside offering or conducting these training workshops, these training consultants even provide need based analysis to help their clients identify the area where there is a need for employee development in order to enhance the overall performance and productivity.

Thinkproductive is a training and development firm based out of UK who has been providing training and development solutions to various clients. They have been one of the leading training providers for years now, who have done extensive work in the field of employee development through various on-site and off-site soft skill training workshops. You could check out their portfolio and details of various training courses offered by them by visiting their website http://www.thinkproductive.co.uk/.

Get help of a training provider to succeed

It’s a mad world, competition is cut throat and if you wish to survive and achieve success then just hard skills won’t get you through. Today, besides having the technical skills required for a job, it is essential that an individual possesses strong soft skills to stand tall amongst the crowd. Soft skills would include effective communication, interpersonal relationship, team work, attitude towards coworkers and work, approach, organizational skills et al. While we may feel we already have these skills or some may feel it’s easy to acquire; let me tell you it isn’t so. These are unlike hard skills, which u can learn, put to test and measure where you stand through quantifiable yardsticks; soft skills on the other hand have no formulas or defined parameters to be judged on. These skills are needed for conditioning your mind to adapt yourself to the work conditions so that you deliver your best and work cohesively in a team, they are needed to deal with people effectively and remember every individual is different hence approach cannot be standard.

Self-help is the best help and I do not disagree to that, but to excel at work and otherwise, it goes without saying that getting trained for soft skill would help us to go a long way. There are exclusive training providers who conduct dedicated training sessions for various soft skills; their courses are dynamic and are well designed, they can even customize the training course depending on the requirement of an organisation. Some of these training provider’s courses are designed based on various case studies; this is to ensure that they develop practical and logical training solutions to support organizations and their employees improve performance and productivity.

The training providers usually employ different methods and ways to conduct a training session, like practical at-desk coaching, fun workshops, in-house training session, outdoor training camps, et al. They help the participants to brain storm over challenging situations and come up with solutions to deal with such challenges in an effective way. The learning process in these sessions is effective and stays with you life-long. These dedicated trainers have considerable experience across different sectors or industries, which help them to add value to employers and individuals.

Whether you need to sustain and succeed in your current job or look for the right opportunity, only hard skills would not help you out if these situations. Employers throughout the world are looking for candidates with a perfect balance of hard and soft skill. So do not ignore anymore; seek help of a training provider to help you build on your soft skills.