By: Angela Caban, MHRM

There is nothing quite like the opportunity to get away from the everyday routine of your office and attend a conference to build up your career. The learning, networking, and professional lunches may have you feeling amped up, energized, and ready to share with the world everything you have learned.

However, conferences can also have a crazy period of nonstop meet and greets, to the point where your head is spinning from all the overwhelming connections being made. Plus, you are probably thinking about getting settled back into your office, tackling the emails waiting for you, and attending the meetings that will follow. It’s easy to get overwhelmed and lose the momentum built within a few hours of returning home.

How will you remember everything you learned, and, most importantly, how will you preserve the post-conference glow and maintain your revived energy?

Before heading home, there are a few must-do items that will help keep the momentum going and get you organized before you dive back into the mayhem of the office.

1. Brain dump.

Have you ever arrived home to read over your notes and not understood one word you wrote? Somewhere between the overload of conference information and the hastiness with which you wrote down the ideas you wanted to remember, you may realize that this would be the perfect time to know shorthand. Two things to do before heading home, when everything is still fresh in your brain, are to review and to rewrite important notes. I typically carry two notepads with me—one for housing the scribbly day of notes and the other for rewriting any important ideas I want to remember and share with others. Here’s another tip: Search the conference hashtag online. Oftentimes, on the day I travel, I will dive down the hashtag rabbit hole and jot down anything I may have missed from other attendees and sometimes even the speakers.

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By: Jennifer Morrison

Remote career opportunities are replacing the traditional brick-and-mortar way of employing people.

According to a Global Workplace Analytics and FlexJobs report, the number of remote job positions has increased 115% in just the last 10 years. As telecommuting gains popularity, employees are looking to take advantage of this option. Many are going so far as to use it as a negotiation point either in accepting a new job or in lieu of a pay raise. While the benefits for employees seem obvious—no commute time, cost savings on commuting expenses and office attire, and a better work-life balance—employers may wonder, “What does it do for me?”

The benefits

There is an obvious cost savings to having employees conduct their responsibilities from the comfort of their homes (or coffee shops). Fewer employees in a physical office means there are lower overhead costs associated with in-house items, such as office space, supplies, and utilities. Healthcare costs are also diminished for remote workers. A Staples study of its employees found that those who telecommuted were less stressed and able to make healthier choices when compared with their experiences in a traditional office setting.

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