Category: Management, Supervision & Leadership
Workplace Stress Evaluation: Tips for Managers
In today’s fast-paced workplaces, managers must balance mission demands with staff well-being. A stressed-out workforce doesn’t support mission success: critical thinking is impaired, people forget to communicate with each other, and staff may not prioritize tasks appropriately. A certain level of stress can keep people focused. Periodically systematically assessing and…
Read More
Crisis Management Planning
As companies take steps to mitigate Coronavirus impacts, it is a good time to pause and assess your current approach to crisis management and planning. Here are some factors to consider as you evaluate and adjust. Communicate! In the face of fear and uncertainty, more than anything else, people crave…
Read More
Tips for Managing Remote Employees: Jumpstarting and Sustaining
As we write this, Coronavirus is appearing in different workplaces across the country and around the world. Organizations are quickly evaluating their ability to have a large part of the workforce working remotely. Some organizations have been doing telework and remote work for years; others are just getting started. Here…
Read More
Five Tips for Employee Engagement in 2020
As we enter the New Year, many of us optimistically create resolutions for the 12 months ahead. At the same time, many managers face the task of developing action plans to respond to employee engagement survey results. Here are five tips for blending New Year’s resolutions and engagement change management:…
Read More
Employee Engagement: A Case Study
In this article, we share a case study about an organization that dramatically improved its employee engagement scores related to performance management. The organization received feedback that high performance was not sufficiently differentiated and acknowledged in the organization, and rewards were not well aligned with performance. First, the management team…
Read More
Women in Leadership
We recently worked with a female leader who had gotten feedback from a 360-degree feedback exercise. The feedback was positive, with constructive comments on the leader’s strengths and a few suggestions for expanding her impact as the organization grew. This leader was clearly making a positive difference in her organization.…
Read More
Leadership Skills for the Future
The world is an uncertain and fast-moving place, and the leadership skills needed in the past are not the ones that will get you to the future. Here are four leadership skills and characteristics that are particularly important in this environment: Technology and Process Savviness: While a lot of leadership…
Read More
From a Distance: Team-Building for Remote Workers
Many of today’s workplaces include a mix of local and remote employees. How does a leader conduct team-building with employees who cannot be here face-to-face? This article shares some ideas. Embrace video and build team member awareness. Today’s technologies, like Microsoft® Skype®, Google™ Meet, Zoom and Apple® FaceTime®, offer easy…
Read More
Team Building: Activities and Art
Here’s a set of team-building activities that combine a “team-building day out” with short team-building activities and brain teasers that follow. First, plan a team-building day out with your group. While this may take some time, the investment is worth it to relieve stress and build camaraderie. Examples may include:…
Read More
Words to Lead by: Shaping Company Culture
Think about the words that people use to describe your organization. Are you going to war each day, with language like “beating targets,” “market dominance” or “fighting fires”? Or, is the focus on people growth, with terms like “No Walls” and “One Voice.” Would you call the company a “well-oiled…
Read More