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Employee Engagement

You Aren’t a Perfect Leader. But Your People Still Expect It.

I If you’ve ever held a leadership position, you’ve probably already figured this out: you are held to a higher standard. You are expected to be more. More authentic, more compassionate and most importantly, more ethical than the average working Joe or Jane in your office. Your daily actions are intensely scrutinized. Author S. Chris Edmonds, author of the book The Culture Engine, and Good Comes First (with co-author Mark Babbitt) jokingly tells his coaching clients, “Now that you’re a leader, you’ll never be able to run a yellow light in this town again.” There is No Such Thing as a Perfect Leader I agree with Chris on this point. Taking on a leadership role is a huge responsibility and the scrutiny is intense. Is it fair? No. But it’s the responsibility of leadership. If you’re to lead well, learning to be a positive role model is essential if you are to have a thriving, healthy culture for your department. (Or, for your business unit or organization, if you have a wider scope of responsibility.) Here’s the rub: …

The Huge Cost of Bad Hires — And How to Stop It

Consistent turnover can affect almost every part of an organization, especially payroll and the wasted onboarding costs but as substantial as these costs are, they only represent the tip of the iceberg. Hiring mistakes hurt morale, productivity, customer relationships and brand image. Once a company acquires a reputation for having heavy turnover, it will be seriously challenged to attract new talent, new customers and even suppliers. So why are companies making poor decisions when it comes to the hiring process? It may be that your company in too much of a rush to fill a position and your vetting process is simplified to save time. Your business may be assessing the wrong skills and a complete overhaul of your assessment tools is needed. A lack of behavioral interviewing, discovering how a candidate acts in a specific employment-related situation, is an issue because you won’t get a sense of how a hire will work for company until their first day.  Establishing a standardized, documented hiring process with skilled personnel will help you reduce the risk of making a bad hire. With …

Managing Your Chronic Disease and Your Job

Do you have a chronic disease? If so, you are not alone. The Centers for Disease Control define chronic diseases as those that limit the activities of daily living or require ongoing medical attention, and last at least a year or more. When defined that way, it’s not surprising that six in 10 American adults have at least one chronic condition, and four out of 10 live with two or more. If you want to learn more about how to manage your chronic disease at work, or if you work with people with chronic diseases and want to help, read on. Chronic diseases include conditions such as cancer, diabetes and heart disease. These conditions are not only prevalent but are primary causes of disability and death. They also contribute significantly to the 3.8 trillion dollars that Americans spend on health care every year. Many chronic diseases are caused by lifestyle behaviors that could be changed or modified, including smoking and being exposed to secondhand smoke; following a diet that contains a lot of saturated fat and salt and few vegetables …

Small Acts of Kindness Can Matter So Much

Kindness From a Stranger This is the first time I’ve shared this story. It’s not earth-shattering, traumatic, or dramatic, just a small act of kindness that meant a lot to me at a time when I REALLY needed an extra serving of kindness. Many years ago, during a time period when I was looking for a job and was really struggling (financially, mentally, and emotionally), my wife and I went to a fast casual restaurant chain that serves home-style meals. This one lets you choose the food items (entree, side items, etc.) you like and the person behind the counter places those items onto your plate. When I told the restaurant employee which food items I wanted, he did something that meant so much to me. He smiled and placed a little extra serving of the entree item on my plate and said, “It looks like you could use a little bit extra.” I’m not sure if …

6 Pro Tips for Sharing Employee Engagement Survey Results

Sharing employee engagement survey results isn’t always fun, especially if the results are negative, telling you a discouraging story that you didn’t want to hear. But, seemingly discouraging feedback can turn into a valuable opportunity for growth when you share the results with the people who need it. Providing employee engagement survey results with your team is key to producing actionable strategies to create a rewarding and engaging experience for employees year after year.   …

How To Gain Buy-In From Your Team

When my daughter was in elementary school I chaperoned a group of second-graders on a field trip to the ArtPrize exhibition in downtown Grand Rapids. Picture this: ten 8-year-olds, excitedly dashing around parks and gardens, in and out of exhibition buildings. They were so excited to experience the art displayed throughout our city. Naturally, their first impulse was to run. And touch. And cross streets without supervision. Their enthusiasm was beautiful. The chaos it created was exhausting. As their field trip leader, I was constantly balancing the twin needs of safety and exploration. When getting ready to enter a building or cross the street, I’d instruct, “Blue team, line up! Green team, line up!” and they would do so, but only until the next amazing new sculpture (“Look, a dragon made out of pop cans!”) presented itself. Getting people to line up— whether it’s a group of second-graders or a team of colleagues— can be challenging. Why Is Team Buy In Important? Team buy in is important to any change you want to make or idea you’d like …

3 Ways Employers Can Incorporate Remote Work For Their Employees

Right now, there are tons of people searching to find the right work-life balance. Adults are juggling the responsibilities of caring for kids, caring for parents, and trying to care for themselves, all while trying to be productive employees. On top of that, now that people are beginning to move out of big cities and into the suburbs, long commutes to work are starting to eat away even more time. According to search results from thousands of job searchers on Job/Searcher, the solution that many people have turned to is remote work.  The transition into remote work has been one of the largest workplace trends in 2020 and 2021. While the pandemic accelerated this trend and made it a necessity for businesses to continue operations, the success of remote work has kept it around for the long haul for many companies.  There are companies who are still highly resistant to remote work for a number of reasons. Maybe remote work is too difficult on collaboration needs, or maybe workplace culture is suffering because employees aren’t interacting every day and …

Is flexible working the future of employment?

According to a report published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), 46.4% of employees in London worked at home “at some point” in 2020, with many taking this new-found way of working into the new year too. Many companies, in fact, decided to pivot towards a more flexible way of working over the past year, giving their employees freedom to choose their hours and whether they want to work from the office or to be flexible. The benefits of flexible working for employers There are a few elements that led to employers making the shift towards a more “relaxed” way of working, one of which is the financial element, with employers seeing WFH as an opportunity to cut costs. While before the primary use for a central HQ was to centralize all operations by having the team work together, as we move towards a more flexible way of conducting business, Head Quarters are turning into a “company landmark” used primarily to build trust. As the number of employees deciding to work remotely increases, the amount of office space …

Why Cross-Cultural Communication Is Crucial In The Workplace

Like most countries around the world, the U.S. is a proverbial melting pot of cultures that we encounter almost everywhere. Including at work. The only real response is to embrace it, as cross-cultural communication can and does drive workplace success. The U.S. already is home to thriving communities from various cultures. According to figures from 2018, more than 44 million people in the U.S. were born in other countries. So, even if there isn’t much cultural diversity in your workplace yet, things aren’t likely to stay that way for long.  Cultural diversity can expose us to aspects of life that we would never have considered, even in our wildest dreams. It also can have significant benefits for your company. Attract And Retain Top Talent You can’t have cross-cultural communication without people, and when it comes to the workplace, you want the best people for the job. Your company can attract and retain top talent when drawing from a multicultural pool. A 2020 Glassdoor survey found that 76% of job seekers and employees think of diversity as an important factor …