What's New in August

New Team Member!

Join us in welcoming Meriah Rankin to Capstone as our Business Development & Client Success Lead. Meriah comes to us with significant experience in business and client development from a few different industries including restaurant, retail, property management and human resource consultancy. Her client-centric approach to business development and client success is a fantastic addition to our diverse team of experts. She will be focusing on ensuring our clients receive the best service possible while helping Capstone further develop our portfolio and our industry presence through our partnerships, digital and traditional media, conferences and more.

Capstone Featured The Citizen - Huron County's most trusted, independent news source.

The Capstone team, including Rob Browning and Lara Ajimati, was recently selected to assist the Township of North Huron, Ontario with their 4-year strategic planning. Rob, Capstone's Strategic Planning Facilitator extraordinaire and Lara, our dynamic Business Analyst, are guiding the North Huron council members and staff through this process. We are so pleased to be working with North Huron as they work through this important process and plan out their next four years.

Click HERE for the full article.

Capstone Has Been Nominated

Capstone has been nominated for a Digital Nova Scotia Tech Forward Award! We're up for the Diversity and Inclusion Champion Award and our team is so proud for this recognition from our peers. Keep your fingers crossed for us as we anxiously await the awards event coming up on November 9th.

Click HERE to learn more about the DNS Tech Forward Awards.

Show Stopper: Change Management

All companies undergo change routinely; a change manager’s role is to help your team adopt that change as seamlessly as possible. They are responsible for planning, developing, delivering, and tracking the adoption of change within your organization. Some change management deliverables include communications, training, stakeholder engagement, change impact assessment, organizational readiness analysis, coaching, resistance management and change reinforcement. A good leader expects and adopts change, a great leader makes sure their team is ready for it.

To learn more about all the talented Capstone Change Management team has to offer, click HERE.

Check out all of the services available to you through Capstone-on-Demand by clicking HERE.

Shout Out: Hanna Zenzina

Hanna has been with the Capstone team for just over a year as our tenacious Business Analyst. With over 10 years' experience in finance, pharmaceutical, as well as various government sectors, she has succeeded in varied roles including team assistant, office manager, contract and finance manager, project manager, and business analyst. Her excellent communication, time management, planning, documenting, and analytical skills are a valuable addition to our team of experts.

Hanna is the definition of a team player who is well organized with fierce attention to detail. Communicative, responsible, and motivated; she works extremely well under pressure and is quick to learn new skills and adapts easily to new industries and project.

Capstone Knowledge Centre:

Tips for Easing Back into Work After Vacation

The summer holidays are coming to an end. While the sunny and carefree days have made you feel relaxed and refreshed, it can be difficult to go back to your usual routine and pick up the pace. If you struggle to stay motivated and productive, you are not alone. Many professionals experience the post-vacation blues after enjoying time off from work. So what can you do to regain motivation and get back into the workflow?

Schedule a Buffer Day

Whether you flew to Paris or binge-watched Netflix from your couch, chances are some everyday household activities didn’t get done during your vacation.

Eliminate some stress by marking off time to handle everyday tasks before heading back to the office, such as buying groceries or doing laundry. Yes, that might mean returning from your destination a day early or postponing the last few chapters of a page-turner, but you’ll be thankful for it later.

Consider all of the tasks that need to be in place to set yourself up for success each week. Are you a meal-prepper, or do you pack lunches for the week? When is bedtime for you and everyone else in the house? Are there homework or daycare bags that need to be packed? Animals to pick up from the kennel?

These tasks require some time and attention to help your workday run smoothly. If you’re scrambling to prepare everything on your first day back, you’re setting yourself up for a stressful day before you’ve even arrived at work.

Ignore the Urge to Tackle It All

Congratulations are in order if your time off left you ready to take on your job with new vigor. Rejuvenation is a vital part of a vacation, but catching up on two weeks of work doesn’t happen instantly. Focus instead on prioritizing your tasks and setting realistic goals. No need to return home that first evening feeling like you need another vacation already!

For best results, set yourself up for success before you even leave for vacation. Often, feeling overwhelmed is the result of not knowing where to begin.

Create a to-do list for your first day back with time scheduled to catch up on emails and respond to urgent messages. Don’t give in to the urge to start putting out fires. You might actually waste time on something that you discover has already been resolved. Instead, form a list of tasks based on priority and set manageable goals to work through them.

Fly Under the Radar

If you have a good relationship with your coworkers, they’ll probably be eager to hear about your trip, which is lovely—until you’ve shared your vacation stories with several different members of the team and lost several hours of your morning.

Most coworkers will understand the need to catch up and will look forward to scheduling some time to hear about your time away later. As a caveat, though, ensure that you do meet up later. Rather than burying yourself in tasks, make time for connecting to help create some mental space from your duties.

Clear Your First Morning

Along those same lines, avoid booking any appointments during your initial hours back. This will allow you to assess what is urgent and deal with those items before additional tasks start creeping onto your to-do list.

Block off this time on your calendar and any communal schedule. Consider it a meeting with yourself. When you do start heading back into meetings, you’ll be caught up on the status of the projects that occurred while you were away.

Set Boundaries for Yourself

Want to keep that feel-good vacation vibe going? Continue building relaxation and fun into your schedule, even after your vacation has ended. Ensure that you’re not skipping your downtime in an effort to get on top of your to-do list. Begin as you mean to continue.

While you might think, “I’ll get that run in later this week when I’m caught up,” the reality is that the longer you put it off, the less likely it is that you’ll jump back in. Prioritize taking breaks, which will boost your productivity and help alleviate your back-to-work stress.

Thanks to our friends over at FlexJobs for the great tips -> https://www.flexjobs.com/blog/post/going-back-to-work-after-vacation-tips/