If you ever feel “working mother guilt,” this post is for you. No matter how flexible your job, conflicts inevitably arise. A child gets sick on the day of an important meeting. The preschool Mother’s Day Tea is at 10:30 a.m., smack in the middle of the business day. A meeting runs long, and you must scramble to find someone to pick up your child, because you can’t get to the school on time. An urgent business call comes in at 8 p.m. as you are reading your child’s bedtime story.
A surprising number of organizations still deliver once-a-year performance appraisals without providing much interim feedback. Have you considered the dangers of this approach?
In your organization, how much employee input does management get before deciding a course of action? Not much? You might want to rethink that.
Is your company inadvertently pushing good people away? Are some of your best performers leaving? If so, “adverse selection” may be at work in your organization. Have you pinpointed all the ways you are driving diversity out of your enterprise?
We base our first impressions on external appearance. Grooming. Teeth. Attire. Accessories. Accent. We notice scuffs on shoes, extra pounds, and age. Then, we unconsciously jump to conclusions about the person’s potential and abilities. We decide in a split second whether individuals are competent, even before they’ve opened their mouths to speak. When we reflexively act from a prejudiced place, are we really prizing diversity?
“A ‘squeaky wheel’ isn’t the highest priority project. It’s the loudest or most noticed. In many organizations, it gets the grease, while projects with greatest potential to bring about business results get delayed or set aside.” This quote, from the book Everything’s A Project, is playing like a mantra in my thoughts. We focus on squeaky wheels because they are irritating, not because they are important. We want the irritation to go away. But oil isn’t the answer.
Many authors have written about people management, project management or corporate culture as separate topics. But a new book by Ben Snyder ties together all three subjects and paints a clear picture of how they interact to nurture (or damage) employee engagement and organizational performance. Read this review, find the book and set fire to the status quo.
Your corporate culture is your soil. It’s where your employees grow or wither. Are you cultivating it? Or are you washing it away in your quest to maximize this year’s profits?
In recent weeks, several articles have offered worthwhile ideas on how to boost worker motivation. But experts have been sharing this counsel for years, and employee engagement continues to decline. This post focuses on nine specific things that damage engagement. What’s at play in your organization?
To conclude this summer’s Harry Potter mania, it seems fitting to study the HR implications of J.K. Rowling’s seven volumes. Her novels explore human nature, communication dynamics, moral dilemmas, and social issues, so why not use them as a source of business inspiration?
