Engage your employees!

A common problem for almost all workplaces is the lack of employees’ engagement. We may blame it on the employee, but when the majority of employees suffer from it, workplaces know they are also part of the problem, or perhaps their management techniques.

However, employees are not hard to satisfy, and they can be happy in a workplace even if they are not paid very large sums. In fact, in a study, 90% of employees said that a more fun work environment increases their engagement and 72% of the engaged employees confirmed that their opinion was taken into consideration by their company. One may consider stress as a normal factor in work, but constant stress is bad. And although a manager has more experience that the employees he manages, but it does not mean employees do not have great ideas.

So treat your employees like you would treat your date to make them happy: talk to them about their interests, care for their opinion and point of view, and offer them activities that interest them, not just activities that interest your company. Their engagement will return with plenty of benefits to the company!

This content was originally posted on https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6538329110396174336

hashtag#businesshashtag#employeeshashtag#HRhashtag#engagementhashtag#workhashtag#lifehashtag#Lebanonhashtag#tipshashtag#trickshashtag#datehashtag#interesthashtag#opinionhashtag#managementhashtag#MENA

#business #employees #HR #engagement #work #life #Lebanon #tips #tricks #date #interest #opinion #management #MENA

Feeling down sucks!

I know that feeling down sucks. I am an anxious person, prone to depression. I hate feeling down, I tried to keep it low, I tried to ignore it, and yet, it did not go away. Eventually, it was either stop myself from living, or stop my darkness before it takes over my life. You can guess what I chose. I know many suffer like me, many suffer much worse than me. I am not a psychiatrist nor a medical expert, I am merely an emotionally recovering person. So I wrote about what I am doing to get better, I hope it helps you.

The first step is not blaming yourself for it. You shouldn’t force yourself to “feel better” just because people around you do not feel comfortable seeing you like that. You are allowed to feel sad, down, tired, and fed up. You are allowed to be angry, if you don’t feel anger and sadness, you are not being honest to yourself.

Keeping your feelings down, bubbling them up, it will lead to an explosion and a larger damage. But don’t ruminate your dark thought, you are hurting yourself, and hurting those who love you truly. Returning to the same old dark idea is similar to you running with a bungee rope: no matter how far you get, it will pull you back to zero. Cut this cord and keep it as lesson, not as If you can’t do it alone, don’t feel ashamed, seek the help of trusted people or of professionals. You are not a desperate case, you are not crazy, you are not weak, you just need an external party to see things clearer than you.

Allow yourself to give every event its worth, be sad until you feel better. But always give yourself a healing time. If you lost a loved one, grief them, but don’t grief them until you stop living, grief them and understand that it’s ok to move on. You are not cheating on them, you are not being unfaithful because they died and you are still alive. You feel anger? Use the rule of 5: will it matter in 5 minutes? 5 hours? 5 days? 5 months? 5 years? For each yes you give, allow yourself a 30 seconds of anger. If it does not matter even for the next 5 minutes, I will not say don’t be angry, but let it go after 20 seconds. Allow yourself to empty your feelings, but don’t abuse it.

If someone or something keeps upsetting you, fix it or throw it away. You are not someone to push around and abuse, and a job or item should not make you feel bad. Is social media making you feel bad about yourself? Disconnect yourself. Is your friend always negative and making you feel awful? Talk it out. If they won’t stop it, then they don’t care about you, they just want to throw their emotional baggage on you to feel better, and you’re better off without them. Is your phone always breaking and stressing you out? You either repair it or stop using it, but don’t let a pack of inert material make your life miserable.

Get rid of your negative feelings by expressing them and dealing with the source of these feelings, not by repressing them. You may take a hobby, you may curse, you may cry, you may scream, you may shop, you may break a plate. It’s OK, do it. But keep 3 rules: do not hurt others, do not hurt yourself, and put a limit on the time and the resources you consecrate.

Change your online behavior to save the Earth! (2)

It seems strange that being online is causing pollution. We are using a computer, reducing the need for paper, not travelling distances to communicate, and we are using mostly energy efficient machines that have a low average electricity consumption. So why does being online cause pollution? And what can we do to reduce it?
In the previous part, we gave you tips on how to reduce your personal carbon footprint impact. In this part, we are giving you tips on how your company can act greener and reduce its Internet pollution impact!

Internet Pollution

Are you familiar with the term Internet pollution? It is a term that refers to the pollution caused by the data processing servers and data centers, since they consume a lot of energy. In fact, a data center on average consumes the same amount of energy as 30’000 European inhabitants DAILY! Energy is used to power and cool down servers, and ensures that they operate c continuously in case there’s a failure. Since the world still relies heavily on dirty energy, this energy is causing an additional release of CO2!

The Internet pollution, also known as Digital Pollution, originates mainly from activities that require a lot of resources, such as streaming videos, mining for bitcoins, and sending/storing emails.

What your company can do

Companies can adopt greener online behavior as well, and their contribution can reduce immensely their online activities’ carbon footprint by using really simple tips:

– Use the FAQ section to answer your customers’ most common questions on your website. Be clear and straight to the point. Customers will need less time to research and read, you’ll receive less clarification requests through emails and phone calls and you’ll gain a reputation for being a transparent and honest business.
– Optimize your intranet: reduce unnecessary files create and a systematic filing system. Prefer putting your news on the intranet instead of sending emails if you can.
– Encourage live communication, or even phone calls within the company instead of sending tons of emails. Make the emails a un-urgent issue so employees can work uninterrupted, without keeping their eye the whole time on the inbox.
– Use white boards within a department (with nontoxic whiteboard pens of course) for small news, it’ll do the same job as a forward to all email.
– Encourage employees to remove useless emails from their inboxes and to only keep what’s essential. Your company’s party invitation from 5 years ago is a nice memory, but it’s not necessary to keep it in the inbox.

– Remind your employees to send clear emails and include any necessary details to avoid follow-up emails.
– Prefer simple pages and designs to using extremely heavy online content on your website. Most companies do not need to load their websites, it will slow down the website launching and use up too much internet. I have tried to use the same tips on my startup’s website, and it did not affect the traffic nor the amount of information I wanted to share.

Companies, when working together, can achieve goals much faster than individuals. Consider these tips as a head start in your green behavior, they will not cost you money, but they will definitely save a lot for planet Earth

Change your online behavior to save the Earth! (1)

It seems strange that being online is causing pollution. We are using a computer, reducing the need for paper, not travelling distances to communicate, and we are using mostly energy efficient machines that have a low average electricity consumption. So why does being online cause pollution? And what can we do to reduce it?
In this part, we will be giving you tips on how to reduce your personal carbon footprint impact. In part 2, we will give you tips on how your company can act greener and reduce its Internet pollution impact!
I gathered the best advice from various sources, I hope you will enjoy the content!

Internet Pollution

Are you familiar with the term Internet pollution? It is a term that refers to the pollution caused by the data processing servers and data centers, since they consume a lot of energy. In fact, a data center on average consumes the same amount of energy as 30’000 European inhabitants DAILY! Energy is used to power and cool down servers, and ensures that they operate c continuously in case there’s a failure. Since the world still relies heavily on dirty energy, this energy is causing an additional release of CO2!

Retrieved from CCCB Lab, Source: Jon Koomey.

The Internet pollution, also known as Digital Pollution, originates mainly from activities that require a lot of resources, such as streaming videos, mining for bitcoins, and sending/storing emails.

How can I help?

You may think that as a user, you may not make a difference. It is true that the upgrade of data centers and servers is up to the companies. But you can reduce your own activities’ carbon footprint and energy requirements with a few steps:

Take care of your email

Clean your inbox regularly, and get rid of those thousands of emails that you stored a long time ago to read later on, but never did. If you are a nostalgic person and you saved every email your friends and family sent you, just save these letters on your computer and remove them from your inbox, you’ll be doing the Earth a favor.

Unsubscribe from the useless newsletters that you do not read, it will reduce the distraction created by recurrent incoming mail, reduce the number of emails uselessly stored, and help you find the important emails faster.

Send short, clear, and easy to read emails, with optimized attachements. It will require less energy to send and receive the content, and your recipient(s) will need less time to read the email, and understand your goals better. If the email is unclear, you will receive back another email demanding clarifications, which will cause an unnecessary amount of energy to be spent for additional emails.

Use compressed and light format files in your email attachements and when uploading files to an online drive. If you are sharing a photo with family, prefer JPEG format to Bitmap to reduce the size, and you can always resize it. Although a 10 megapixels photo is cool, unless you need professional work done on the photo, you can have a great photo quality for 5 megapixels as well. You can easily resize the photo using Paint or online tools.

Don’t check your email all the time. To avoid missing out on important emails, we advise you to have a personal email for all the personal emails, and a professional email for all education and work emails.
You can stop all the incoming email notifications during work hours from your personal email, and you can disconnect from work by turning off the notifications of your professional emails during your off-work time. Not only will you reduce the carbon footprint, you will also be able to work with much less interruptions and have a better performance during work hours, and be able to disconnect better from work and its stress in your off-duty hours.

Unless you REALLY NEED to, don’t use the “reply to all” option when sending back an email. Send the follow-up message only to the concerned people.

Make use of the subject line in emails to inform your recipient about the content, so they know whether it is urgent/important enough to read on the spot, or whether they can read it later.

Act more responsibly online

This part is really important. You need to reduce any unnecessary carbon emissions that your online presence may cause.

Choose a greener online cloud service, use lighter file formats, and reduce the unnecessary use of online space. We know it’s awesome to have a free cloud storage and put all our treasured memories, but it is also consuming too much energy, when you can keep an offline copy on an external storage and/or your computer. Make sure to back-up regularly your files and remove that 4 year old university project that you saved online when you feared you might lose it.

Reduce the number of photos you share on social media by removing unnecessary photos. These photos take a large space off servers, and with the increasing number of users, companies keep on adding data servers to cover the need. Your school photos are really cute, but do you really need an album of 100 photos to confirm it?

Delete your old accounts if you no longer use them, and don’t create unnecessary email addresses just for fun. Although it’s cool to have 1 extra free month from Netflix when using a new account, it’s doing a lot of harm when you consider the number of users doing it.

Bookmark the websites you always visit, instead of researching them every time you want to use them. It will save a whole lot of energy.

Reduce the time you spend online. Since pages usually keep on loading, if you have a long read, you can download the web page as offline copy, or simply disconnect yourself from the internet until you need to use it again.

Optimize your research by using specific keywords and favorite your frequent searches. Remember that each search is using more energy. Prefer using green search engines like Ecosia, as they use way less energy, and prefer clean energy to dirty one. In addition, many of them use the revenue to support an environmental cause!

Research the companies whose services you’re using. You will discover which ones are working towards greener services and which ones do not care about it at all. A good reference is RE100, a reference for companies that pledged to use 100% renewable energy. RE100 is a global corporate leadership initiative bringing together influential businesses committed to 100% renewable electricity. You can also check Clickclean, an initiative by Greenpeace. They do annual reports on the green performance of large corporations, and they do campaigns to influence companies to turn green through petitions.

The next time you think that you can be more eco-friendly when using online services, think twice! Sometimes, their environmental impact is worse than doing things the traditional way. If you can communicate it live, prefer it to sending emails or instant messages. If you feel safe to store a file on local drives, prefer it to cloud systems.

One person may have a small impact, but when a group of people do it, they can make a difference and inspire others to do so as well. So make sure to inform others on how to reduce their online carbon footprint as well!

Is your private data exposed online?

Every month, we hear about data breaches on some of the most used websites. Most of the time, small data breaches also occur. Is your privacy was breached? How do you know? And what can you do?

Thankfully, there is an easy way to know. Since all services require an email and a password for you to use them, you can check your email addresses and see which ones were compromised, when, on what website, and what information could have been stolen.

How to check if your email was involved in a security breach?

To get these information, use the website haveibeenpwned.com, put your email addresses, and check all the security breaches that affected your accounts. If you tend to change your passwords frequently, you may be safer than others. In case you forgot when was the last time you changed your passwords, it is safer to change it.

How to reduce the chances of having my data exposed?

To keep your data safe, you need to have a safe online behavior. I gathered 12 tips to help you stay safer online:

1- Do not use the emails that contain personal and/or professional details everywhere, have an email for fun, and an email for serious use.

2- Make sure to use a secondary email that is not used much, to secure your more active accounts and be able to retrieve them.

3- Do not use the same password everywhere, and make sure to change it frequently. If you are as forgetful as I am, keep a paper version of your passwords and update it regularly.

4- Check the websites you use carefully, make sure they are protected: if you see the lock icon and the https on the address bar, then the website is secure.

5- If you are sending sensitive data, as soon as you are done, delete the information to avoid the details getting to others in case of any future hacking. Request from your recipient to do so as well.

6- Add the minimum number of personal details, just the essentials, when using any website.

7- Use a browser add-on to check on the safety of websites, like Avira Browser Safety, so you land less on bad websites.

8- Do not download from shady websites, and check your computer all the time for viruses and malware.

9- Pay attention to the emails you receive, too many fall for scams and download malware by downloading content from spam. Even if the email says Apple, check the email address and more often than not, it will not be sent from Apple.

10- If you can afford it, buy an antivirus, Kaspersky have great products for very reasonable prices. If you cannot buy an antivirus, at least download a good one, like Avira, Avast or AVG, update them regularly and scan at least one a week.

11- Add antiviruses to your phone as well and choose carefully the apps you download.

12- Check haveiveenpwned.com regularly to see if your emails were compromised in additional breaches of security.

I wish you a safe internet trip!

Food deliveries plastic-free?? Yes please!

Although I am usually a homemade food or restaurant-goer type of person, many times I cannot take my own food nor do I have time to visit a restaurant, which means I have to request a food delivery or takeaway. Both options mean that I am stuck with large quantities of single-use plastics and loads of non-recyclable cardboard due to food contamination. And this makes me feel extremely bad and guilty.

Luckily, a new company for packaging has launched in Lebanon: Convertec Packaging! Although they are mainly in the corrugated packaging, but these awesome people have found a way to separate the food from the cardboard in order to keep it recyclable, WITHOUT using plastic! In fact, they can offer you a pulp container that can biodegrade within 60 days in a landfill. And we all know that landfills are the most probable destination of our trash in Lebanon. But for once, this is not a bad thing! I was also very pleased to learn that they can also provide paper straws, which is amazing since so many businesses still rely on plastic straws due to the lack of Lebanese companies offering affordable and easily attained solutions.

Convertec Packaging can also offer you cool designs for your packaging, whether it is for catering, beverages, industrial, or protective needs, and they can print on them whatever you want.

If you are a business owner, not only will transitioning to a cleaner packaging help the environment, but it will also enhance your brand image and made it easier for you to reach the niche market of eco-aware individuals.

You can contact the company via their website or by directly contacting Wissam Bacha (T: +961 5 433 142 – +961 5 433 765 ; M: +961 3 904 813 ; info@bachaconvertec.com) or Mira Bacha (T: +961 5 433 142 – +961 5 433 765 ; M: +961 70 087 058; sales@bachaconvertec.com)

Dear reader, if you are not Lebanese, it still concerns you. You can find a similar business just around the corner if you are really willing to become friendlier to the environment, and that is becoming a necessity.Also, since the company is relatively new and needs to have more exposure so that more companies, especially food-related, can learn about it and consider more seriously to become eco-friendly with their packages, you can support it by sharing the news, liking their Facebook page and following their Instagram account.

Don’t forget to follow my own early stage startup news on Facebook, Instagram and the Website. Kindly consider helping me grow by liking my Facebook page, so I can reach more people!

#lebanon #green #alternative #saynotoplastic #clean #greenlife #idea #lebanese #industry #packaging #plasticalternative #company #linventif #food #biodegradable #paper #noplasticstraws 

Green houses innovated à la Libanaise

Sustainable buildings that do not look like caravanes nor space ships? Yes please!

If you are looking to build a house, feel interested in the various construction options available in Lebanon, or just want to know what people are capable of creating to conserve the environment, you have to learn about the Lifehaus project.

The Lifehaus project was created by Nizar Haddad, a Lebanese architect and founder of NH Architectes, whose designs aim on reducing the pollution in construction by using Eco-friendly construction methods, sustainable materials and a lot of passion and creativity. he result? Houses that not only have a reduced carbon footprint, but also use energy very efficiently and are integrated in their surrounding environment.

The houses can withstand the harsh conditions of mountains, and they use renewable energy. They can be the Lebanese solution for a life off-grid without having to sacrifice the use of electric households (a big plus for me, I love my microwave). In addition, their costs are not exorbitant, which means they can be accessible to more people, and they do not cost much on maintenance, especially when we take into consideration the savings in utilities by going off-grid partially or totally.

You may think that creating an environment-friendly house would result in a miniature and strange design, just like the many concepts created nowadays. Surprisingly, Nizar Haddad was able to make the houses beautiful and easy on the eye. The exterior of the houses are beautiful, and their design has a little of a futuristic shape but seems to be inspired by the traditional Lebanese buildings.

It is very important to note that the currently used construction methods, especially the use of concrete, contribute largely in the pollution of the air, water and soil. Therefore the innovation in this essential yet dirty business is a very urgent necessity to save our planet.

In addition to architecture, Nizar Haddad takes the time to create workshops and participate in talks on sustainable solutions, all open for the public. His latest workshop was on how to build an Eco-friendly mass heater.

If you want to learn more about this awesome Lebanese architect and his passion for green buildings, you can check his Facebook page, his professional profile and his past, present and future projects

#greenlife #green #construction #lebanon #ecofriendly #clean #house #architecture

#innovation #passion #lebanese #creator #architect #solution #support

#housing #building #greensolution #linventif #offgrid #nature #environment #clean

Also don’t forget to follow my own early stage startup news on Facebook, Instagram and the Website

How to replace an old zipper

You may have a few clothes laying around, waiting for the tailor to fix their zips. If you can’t find a good tailor or you don’t have the time to drop them to one, you can mend them yourself. But make sure that you are comfortable with the basic sewing skills. This project doesn’t require a very high level of sewing knowledge, but it requires some time, patience and attention.

With the following few steps, you can change your old zipper:

1) Choose a zipper of the same color and length of the old zipper. If you end up with a longer zipper, you can cut it from the lower part using sturdy scissors, then close its ends using a plier to hold firmly the prongs (the metal part used to close the zipper). You can sew the lower part really firmly if you don’t have prongs (check the photo). Make sure that when you cut the zipper to shorten it, the zipper is closed.

2) Remove the old zipper, but still make sure that you know where it was sewn, so that the new zipper will work correctly. Note anything you notice, even the pattern, so you can sew the zipper the same way. Use a seam ripper (the item similar to a 2 toothed fork in sewing kits) to cut the stitches holding the zipper in place. Pull gently the zipper upon cutting the stitches while holding firmly your clothe item.

3) Clean the spot from any remaining stitches or threads.

4) Position the new zipper, using needles to hold it into place. make sure that the zipper and the fabric are well stretched. Use the old zipper’s sewing linings to mark where you will be sewing.

5) Sew the new zipper into its place using a sewing machine threaded by the colored thread of your choice, preferably the same color used for the old zipper. You can sew it by hand but it will take more time and you need to be careful with the distance between each two stitches. You can use the small holes of the old zipper’s sewing as reference, putting the needle in the small holes marked by the old sewing work.

And voila! Your clothes are now as good as new!

Don’t forget to follow my own early stage startup news on Facebook, Instagram and the Website

#sewing #tip #trick #zipper #zip #handmade #diy #lebanon #linventif #mend#dontthrow
#waste #reduction #doityourself #fashion #clothes

This content is based on wikiHow‘s tips and tricks. You can find illustrations to help you by following the link https://www.wikihow.com/Replace-a-Zipper

Eat your food… and its plate

What if you could use a plate and cutlery and then eat them? You can reduce your waste and have less cleaning to do.

This is what Charbella Hosry decided to bring to Lebanon. Her company Eataplatelb offers you platters and cutlery made of wheat bran. You can use them just like any normal tableware, even heat food in the plates up to 180 degrees celsius, all without having to worry about cleaning or adding to your trash. One you are done, you can either eat the plate or just add it to your compost. It only needs 30 days to compost.

Not only is it a green alternative to plastic plates for restaurants and individuals, and a solution for super busy individuals, it is also a better option for your overall health. Wheat bran is natural, while plastic is an industrial product, and if you heat up plastic you will contaminate your food, while wheat will not. Just make sure that you do not have an allergy to wheat before using it.

If you are interested in purchasing these awesome green product, you can contact Eat a Plate Lb on
03 551 025, and follow their news on their facebook page Eataplatelb.

If you are an international reader, you can find similar products, some made of wheat and some made of corn, or bioplastic. If you really want to make a difference, so many green solution creators need your support for their products!

Don’t forget to follow my own early stage startup news on Facebook, Instagram and the Website

#lebanon #green #startup #business #food #bio #biodegradable #clean#wheat #edible #linventif #compost #healthy #bran #eataplate #lb #buy#environment #friendly #ecology #natural

A successful mom business: Da3douka

Since L’Inventif wishes to participate in small and medium Lebanese businesses’ growth as well by including them as priority suppliers in its business plan, we are also sharing about various Lebanese SME that are in the crafts business to show support to fellow entrepreneurs.

I learned about a young startup that was founded by a Lebanese mother from the South of Lebanon, the startup is called Da3douka. This widowed wife and mother of three young people has been working for 2 years on a homemade easy to clean non-toxic play dough for children.
She makes them with her own children at home and sells them at competitive prices. In addition, she organizes events for children and mothers to enjoy themselves with play dough creations.

Instead of buying the toxic industrialized products, it would be a great step to support a family and a small business.

You can check their products on their facebook page https://www.facebook.com/Da3douka/ and call them to learn more about their products and how to get them.

If such products are not available in your country, you can always make your own safe dough using online tutorials, which often use safe products such as salt, food colorants, soap and similar items found in almost every home.

#Lebanese #startup #playdough #nontoxic #linventif #lebanon #sme#support #craft #smallbusiness

Don’t forget to follow my own early stage startup news on Facebook, Instagram and the Website