Human_Experience_Excellence_August_2023

Top Picks

Communication Is Key: Five Tips For Quiet Workplaces

The positive impact of effective workplace communication

- Jason Walker, Co-Founder, Thrive HR Consulting

Practical Insights From Employee Engagement To Communication And Beyond

Mastering essential leadership skills for success

- Kevin Sheridan, Founder, Kevin Sheridan International

Ten Communication Rules For Strategic Planning Meetings

The role of communication in successful strategic planning

- John W. Myrna, Co-Founder, Myrna Associates Inc.

18 29 35

Taming Urgency: Strategies For Managing High-Pressure Work Environments

Five ways to help leaders and teams manage urgency communication and workflow

- Fiona Passantino, Founder, Executive Storylines

Human Experience Excellence - Monthly Interactive Learning Journal

The future is all about going beyond the employee experience to focus on human experience. This monthly interactive learning experience showcases strategies and programs to improve employee performance and strengthen your team.

Human Experience Virtual Events

Virtual Events in the Recognition and Engagement track will give you everything you need to recognize and reward employees creating an inspired workforce and organization that will drive innovation and boost productivity. Sessions feature the world’s top thought leaders in the recognition and engagement space covering topics from customer loyalty, safety, sales, company culture and motivation to what makes an effective and efficient results-based program. Each Virtual Event consists of up to 10 credit webcasts.

Human Experience Webcasts for Credit

HR.com webcasts deliver the latest Recognition and Engagement industry news, research trends, best practices and case studies directly to your desktop. Webcasts are available live online with a downloadable podcast and a copy of the slides (PDF) available before and after each webcast. Earn all of the required recertification credits for aPHR, PHR, SPHR, GPHR, and SHRM Certifications. HR.com’s one-hour webcasts, in every HR specialty including HRIS and Payroll, are pre-approved for HRCI and SHRM credit (excluding Demo webcasts).

IHR Rewards and Recognition Community

Join almost 25,600 HR.com members with a similar interest and focus on rewards and recognition. Share content and download research reports, blogs, and articles, network, and “follow” peers and have them “follow” you in a social network platform to communicate regularly and stay on top of the latest updates. This well established Rewards and Recognition Community is an invaluable resource for any HR professional or manager.

Editorial Purpose

Our mission is to promote personal and professional development based on constructive values, sound ethics, and timeless principles.

Excellence Publications

Debbie McGrath CEO, HR.com - Publisher

Sue Kelley Director (Product, Marketing, and Research)

Babitha Balakrishnan and Deepa Damodaran

Excellence Publications Managers and Editors

Human Experience Excellence Team

Babitha Balakrishnan and Koushik Bharadhwaj Editors

Chinnavel Design and Layout (Digital Magazine)

Vibha Kini Magazine (Online Version)

Submissions & Correspondence

Please send any correspondence, articles, letters to the editor, and requests to reprint, republish, or excerpt articles to ePubEditors@hr.com

For customer service, or information on products and services, call 1-877-472-6648

Debbie Mcgrath Publisher, HR.com

Babitha Balakrishnan Editor, Human Experience Excellence

Crafting the Human Experience: A Spotlight on Effective Communication and Leadership

Atthe heart of successful leadership models lies the essential thread of skillful communication. The capacity to convey thoughts openly and lucidly cultivates an atmosphere infused with trust and understanding. Accomplished leaders bear the responsibility not solely of articulating their visions with precision but also of welcoming insights and viewpoints from their team. This reciprocal interchange erects a bridge that links leaders and employees, reinforcing their rapport and charting a course toward heightened harmony and cohesion within the team. Regular check-ins, collaborative assemblies, and tailored conversations collectively foster a sturdy and dynamic professional connection.

To build a successful and sustainable business, a team of employees - who bring their unique abilities, strengths, and perspectives to the challenges you face - is needed. But to draw and keep talented individuals who have a variety of skills and personality types, you need to learn a key skill: The art of leading diverse teams. Many books on leadership provide valuable insights into key skills and abilities needed to communicate with others. But one concept that is not stressed enough is: to lead a successful team, you need to understand those who are not like you and be able to interact with them in ways that lead to an accurate interpretation of the message sent.

Research suggests that employees' tendency for quiet quitting may be reduced if people managers communicate with their workers on how to produce the necessary quality of work for their organization to succeed.

The August edition of Human Experience Excellence includes informative articles that focus on the relevance of employee communication, strategic recognition initiatives, employee engagement, and much more.

Dr. Paul White's article, Communicating Effectively With Team Members Different From You, emphasizes the crucial role of effective communication in building successful

teams. He underscores the need for leaders to communicate skillfully with diverse team members who possess unique abilities and perspectives.

In his article, Communication Is Key: Five Tips For Quiet Workplaces, Jason Walker, Chief People Officer at Thrive HR Consulting, underscores the importance of effective communication in workplaces, especially to counter the phenomenon of "quiet quitting," where employees disengage.

Kevin Sheridan (Founder, Kevin Sheridan International) offers key management tips derived from a Key Driver Analysis of Employee Engagement. These insights prioritize effective communication for boosting employee recognition, fostering luck in one's career, promoting inclusive language, honoring quiet time, embracing failure, identifying passion, navigating post-layoff situations, addressing DEI missteps, and balancing performance demands with compassion for teams.

In conclusion, the art of communication stands as an irreplaceable cornerstone of effective leadership. By fostering an environment of transparent exchange, understanding, and inclusivity, leaders can not only steer their teams toward success but also create a culture of collaboration and innovation. As we navigate the complex landscapes of diverse teams and dynamic workplaces, embracing the power of communication is not just a choice—it's a necessity.

We trust that the articles featured in this edition are useful and informative. Be sure to send us your valuable feedback on our articles. Your input is important to us as we strive to continually improve and provide content that meets your needs and interests.

Happy Reading!

In a world of unparalleled challenges (global pandemic, racial injustice, political rivalry, digital 4.0, emotional malaise), uncertainty reigns. Finding opportunity in this context requires harnessing uncertainty and harnessing starts with reliable, valid, timely, and useful information. The Excellence publications are a superb source of such information. The authors provide insights with impact that will guide thought and action.

Dave Ulrich

Rensis Likert Professor, Ross School of Business, University of Michigan Partner, The RBL Group

Excellence publications are my ‘go-to’ resource for contemporary and actionable information to improve leadership, engagement, results, and retention. Each edition offers rich and diverse perspectives for improving the employee experience and the workplace in general.

Julie Winkle Giulioni Author, Virtual /Live Keynote Presenter, Inc.’s Top 100 Leadership Speakers

I regularly read and contribute to Leadership Excellence and Talent Management Excellence. I use many of the articles I read to augment my own presentations and I often share the articles with my clients. They are always quick, right on target for the latest issues in my field, and appreciated by my clients. If you want to stay up to date on the latest HR trends, choose a few of the different issues from the Excellence series of publications.

We’re eager to hear your feedback on our magazines. Let us know your thoughts at ePubEditors@hr.com

Dr. Beverly Kaye CEO, BevKaye&Co.

Communicating Effectively With Team Members Different From You

The art of leading diverse teams

By Paul White, Ph.D., Appreciation at Work

Tobuild a successful and sustainable business, a team of employees - who bring their unique abilities, strengths, and perspectives to the challenges you face - is needed. But to draw and keep talented individuals who have a variety of skills and personality types, you need to

learn a key skill: You have to learn how to communicate effectively with people who are different than you.

Many books on leadership provide valuable insights into key skills and abilities needed to

communicate with others. But one concept that is not stressed enough is: to lead a successful team, you need to understand those who are not like you and be able to interact with them in ways that lead to an accurate interpretation of the message sent.

We say to ourselves (or others): “I know that. Everyone is different.” But if you take a closer look at how you communicate with others, it may become evident that you actually interact with everyone pretty much the same – in the ways that are most comfortable for you.

The source and scope of differences across team members are almost overwhelming, including personal and cultural background, educational and work experiences, current life stage and circumstances, personality characteristics, personal values and beliefs, and style of communication.

To truly practice this leadership skill, some foundational principles need to be accepted:

1. You need an effective team to accomplish your goals. You need others to help accomplish the goals you have for the company (if you don’t, your goals are too small), so communicate with others in ways that facilitate mutual understanding and successful collaboration.

2. Other people think, believe, process information, and are motivated differently than you. Some people think “big picture,” while others need specific details. Some are analytical, while others are dreamy, creative types. Some need to see the information, while others need to hear it. Some need both.

3. You don’t know if you understand others unless you check. Listening, asking clarifying questions, and checking for understanding (of what they are communicating and that they comprehend the message you are sending) are critical processes to use.

4. Communicating your way isn’t always the best way for others. You know what you are thinking and believe you are a good communicator. But believe it or not, others often don’t fully understand what you are trying to communicate. You may need to try sharing information in alternative means (written vs. verbal, bullet points vs. paragraphs, and pictures vs. words).

5. You need people different from you to make a good team. Differences are good (although they involve challenges – like communicating clearly). You need detailed, analytic conservative fiscal types. You need energetic, outgoing “let’s tackle the world” salespeople. You need people who communicate ideas effectively to others, both orally and in writing. You need people who communicate through pictures, images, colors, and movement. A successful business utilizes the strengths of its multi-talented team members.

How to Make Your Team Feel Valued

Many leaders do not understand a vital issue about their team members: not everyone feels valued in the same way. Many leaders attempt to reward and motivate their employees in the ways that they (the leader) value. The leader assumes that, because they are inspired by encouraging words, their employees will be too.

Some managers are motivated by verbal praise or being recognized publicly. (But our research with over 375,000 employees across the world has found less than 50% of employees primarily desire verbal accolades.) Some people feel valued when they are included and get to spend time with others who are important to them, such as going to a sports event together. Others appreciate working on a task together and solving a challenging

problem as a team. In fact, we have identified five different “languages” of appreciation in the workplace and numerous specific actions within each language that differ from person to person.

Finding out the unique ways each person feels valued and appreciated is key. If you try to use the “one size fits all” approach, the results probably will be discouraging. First, you won’t “hit the mark” if you give verbal praise to those who believe “words are cheap.” Secondly, you will waste a lot of time, energy, and potential money by giving gifts, rewards, and bonuses to those for whom a little time or camaraderie is worth more than the expensive dinner you treated them to. Finally, you will probably become irritated that your team members don’t seem to “appreciate all I do for them.”

Instead, find out how each team member is motivated, what is

important to them, and what makes them feel valued and appreciated. Then communicate using their preferred language. Your communication will be more effective, and your encouragement will energize them to use their unique skills to improve and sustain your business. And you will create a culture where differences are celebrated.

Paul White, Ph.D., is a Psychologist, Author, and Speaker who “makes work relationships work”. Co-author of the best-selling book, The 5 Languages of Appreciation at Work, he is president of Appreciation at Work.

Would you like to comment?

Communication Is Key: Five Tips For Quiet Workplaces

The positive impact of effective workplace communication

By Jason Walker, Thrive HR Consulting

Human

resources

(HR)

professionals and researchers contend that workplace leaders and people managers must effectively communicate with their in-person, hybrid, and remote employees to increase productivity, retention rates, and overall well-being.

Communication methods include in-person conversations, emails, chat messages, video conferences, phone calls, or any other method of communication.

However, quiet quitting, a classification of a worker that only produces work at the bare minimum effort, is not going anywhere. In fact, a 2022 Gallup poll found that 50% of workers are quietly quitting. If half the workforce is not engaged at work, the assumption is that

productivity and retention levels are low as well. To engage with employees, leaders and people managers must use effective communication.

“Good Communication is key for leaders to have engaged employees,” said Thrive HR Consulting co-founder Rey Ramirez on how to decrease quiet quitting at work.

Research supports Ramirez’s outlook on effective communication at the workplace:

“Any organizational decision, whether strategic or operational, cannot be made without communication of the necessary information,” according to a 2022 study that focuses on the relationship between effective workplace communication and productivity.

“Communication is the mainstream and a critical factor in organizational success.”

And Ramirez points out that “Communicating job expectations and helping employees with their careers lead to good relationships, which then leads to retention of talent.”

How People Managers Can Effectively Communicate

Research suggests that employees’ tendency for quiet quitting may be reduced if people managers communicate with their workers on how to produce the necessary quality of work for their organization to succeed. For example, a 2020 study in the International Journal of Business Communication found that “a reduction in helping others led to diminished work engagement rather than the reverse, indicating that doing good leads to feeling good.”

People managers must do the following to effectively communicate with their employees, according to Ramirez and researchers:

1. Use clear and concise language to convey a message.

“In order for a response and result to be achieved once communication is undertaken, the information transmitted between managers and employees must be clearly understood.”

“...[W]eak communication processes have been blamed for a number of productivity and employee performance shortcomings and failures.”

2. Choose the right telecommunication method to communicate, i.e., email, text, phone, etc. “Channels of communication create an environment

where misunderstandings can be mitigated and errors timeously corrected.”

Establishing the effective communication method to convey a message “must be clearly defined, particularly where job descriptions, task performance, and other operational activities are concerned.”

3. Provide the message in a timely manner – avoid delays.

Timely effective communication will “help organizations make the most of every opportunity through informed decision-making.”

4. Ensure your message is understood, and if not, clarify the message.

Using the “Convergence model” of effective communication ensures that a message is not lost in translation. “In the convergence model, the sender repeats the

message to the receiver, and the receiver responds appropriately to the sender.”

5. Respect boundaries by appropriately connecting with employees, such as conducting afterhours and/or weekends conversations.

The 2020 journal study found that the workplace’s use of technology between managers and employees should be determined by the employees because it “enhances effectiveness at work by, for example, facilitating coordination of work with colleagues over a geographical distance while helping employees maintain their nonwork time. Thus, to benefit from the advantages of communication technology use in the context of workplace flexibility, it is important that employees have control over their communication practices.”

Gallop noted that managers must first be engaged at work in order to reduce quiet quitting.

“[T]he best requirement and habit to develop for successful managers is having one meaningful conversation per week with each team member -- 15-30 minutes,” according to Gallup.

And managers need to hold their workers accountable for “individual performance, team collaboration, and customer value -- and employees must see how their work contributes to the organization’s larger purpose.”

Building Relationships with Employees

Staying productive throughout the day at work will lead to successful outcomes and deters employees from quiet quitting. One way people managers may encourage consistent productivity from their workers is to make sure they feel at ease with effectively communicating with their leaders.

“Employees who feel comfortable [communicating] with their supervisors and managers are more likely to understand what’s expected of them and remain productive throughout the day,” according to a career guide authored by Indeed’s editorial team.

Avoiding miscommunication with employees is also important for ensuring successful outcomes. Miscommunication may cause delays in finishing a project or may cost the business money too. “A survey conducted by Expert Market found that 28% of employees listed poor communication as the reason why they weren’t able to finish projects on time,” according to Coursera. “Miscommunication costs businesses with at least 100 employees approximately $450,000, or more a year on average.”

Essentially, people managers must absorb the messages that employees are delivering to them

to avoid any miscommunication and to keep employees from quiet quitting.

“Leaders must be great at active listening and pay attention to what their employees are saying,” said Ramirez on why effective communication at work is important. “They must understand their employees’ needs and support them.”

Would you like to comment?

Jason Walker is the Chief People Officer, CHRO, and Co-Founder of Thrive HR Consulting, a minority-owned HR advisory firm that provides value-based HR support for mergers and acquisitions, C-Suite executive coaching, employee relations, DEI and belonging, performance management, employee engagement, and talent acquisition.

On-The-Go but In-TheKnow: How to Keep Your Frontline Deskless Workers Engaged?

Expectations, challenges, insights, and practical steps to connect to your deskless workers

By Dr. Angelina Sun, WorkForce Software

Deskless workers are the often overlooked, underserved majority when it comes to HR technology investments. Employee communication capabilities for these workers are equivalent to tools provided to office workers. The irony here is that this employee population usually works on their feet in satellite locations disconnected from their HQ,

often without a desk, a computer, or even a corporate email, yet they require the same level of information, training, and ability to easily find company resources to get their job done. Without access to reliable communications, deskless usually means voiceless and organizations are missing out on significant benefits by not tapping into and engaging these valuable workers.

Their employee experience matters, and it is unique. Our multi-year research has been focused on understanding the engagement needs and expectations of deskless workers and identifying the gap between the perception of deskless workers and the delivery of capabilities by their organizations. Our goal is to provide practical guidance on how modern workforce management solutions can help close this gap connecting the deskless workforce.

Engagement Drivers for Deskless Workers

Deskless workers are healthcare workers in hospitals and emergency rooms, sales associates in clothing shops, plant operators on the assembly line, truck drivers behind the wheel, teachers in classrooms, or utility service technicians in the field – basically, any position that requires workers to be in a physical location to perform their work. Our 2022 Workforce Experience Gap Study highlights some of the challenging realities this population faces.

They work in shifts and are often paid hourly. 55% report that their schedules can vary week-to-week, and the same percentage report they often do not receive their schedules more than a week in advance. At the same time, this worker group is fast evolving. For the first time in human history, there are five generations in the workforce and a rapidly expanding majority of digital natives—who grew up with digital technology, the Internet, and mobile devices—who have different sets of expectations for information availability, communication preferences and working styles.

What matters to this employee population in terms of employee experience? Our report on Deskless Workers depicts some very specific needs and expectations they have in common:

Scheduling flexibility: Deskless workers want to balance their work and professional lives- just like their corporate peers who may have remote or flexible working options. They value having control and visibility over their schedules yet, only 25% of employees report that their organizations use online scheduling software.

Fair compensation: Fair and accurate compensation is crucial, and organizations must ensure accurate and timely payment, as well as providing transparency in compensation practices.

Feeling respected: Deskless workers want to be recognized for their work, for outstanding performance, and milestones.

Having a voice: Deskless workers want the ability to provide input on matters that affect them like better ways to perform their tasks. Per our 2022 Gap study, 74% of employees would choose to work for an employer who regularly asked for feedback over one who did not.

Clearly defined expectation: Deskless workers want to access the resources necessary to perform their jobs. Organizations can empower them to excel in their roles and enhance their overall job satisfaction.

Open communications and connectedness: Organizations can facilitate collaboration and connectedness through digital communication platforms, peer-to-peer communications, and manager interactions that demonstrate a supportive work environment.

Challenges in Engaging Deskless Workers

While deskless workers face substantial barriers to the experience they desire, we have also observed that organizations face real challenges when addressing employee experience for their deskless workforce:

Corporate lack of visibility to frontline teams: Corporate or HQ teams often don’t have visibility to what’s happening on the frontline, particularly across different teams, locations, and functions.

Lack of modern corporate communication tools: Many organizations struggle to provide safe, secure, and modern communications tools for their deskless workers. The investment is usually heavily geared toward desked employees, and employee churn may mean deskless workers are not around long enough to see the benefits of technology investments.

Lack of true Voice of Employee (VOE): There is a lack of understanding of how to collect feedback and ensure employee voices are heard. Capturing sentiment should go beyond the quarterly or byannual surveys employee’s feelings and sentiments should ideally be collected at the moment that work happens.

Reliance on siloed solutions: Organizations often rely on disparate systems for different functions. Employees have to go to different places to get things done, rather than having easy access from systems they are already using. Lack of standardization makes it difficult for organizations to take meaningful action to drive engagement.

High admin burden on directors/supervisors: Frontline managers carry much of the heavy lifting for communicating and managing their frontline workers. For deskless workers, their daily experience is not so much touched by HR or Corporate Comms when compared to their direct managers.

Lack of scheduling automation: This prevents employers from providing employees with greater flexibility and control.

Key Insights from Workplace Experience Gap Studies

Since the start of the COVID-19, we have been conducting annual surveys of frontline workers and managers across geographies and industries to get a pulse of employee expectations and employer delivery in terms of frontline employee experience. Our 2022 Workplace Experience Gap study indicates that while the awareness gap between employees and employers is closing, there is a new gap emerging – one between knowledge of shortfalls in needs and to ability to deliver what employees want. Our study’s insights are closely related to the six areas that matter to deskless workers most, aligned with the above-mentioned engagement motivators.

Scheduling: To achieve an optimal work-life balance, employees desire streamlined scheduling processes and shifts accessible easily from any device, but only 25% of employers utilize online scheduling software.

Pay rates: While there has been significant improvement in alignment in task-based pay, the gap is still visible with a 17-point difference between employees (38%) and employers (55%).

Employee recognition: Recognizing and celebrating employee efforts is vital in supporting engaged and productive employees while reducing the risk of burnout, but a large percentage of organizations are still isolating their employees through outdated processes.

Employee feedback: Employees want to feel that their voices are heard and integral to decision-making but 33% of employees reported that they provided feedback either once a year or never.

Job training: Employees value that their organizations provide the proper training and information necessary to do their jobs, but only 20% of employees receiving training to their mobile phones as an option.

Communications: Employers and employees have made significant alignment, but a large percentage of employees are still not being provided the tools they need to communicate and collaborate with their team members and managers, hence 56% of them use unapproved technology to fill the gap themselves.

The solution is to leverage data and available technologies to facilitate communications. Communication at the time and place work happens is foundational to an engaged workforce. Smart communications enable meaningful interactions between workers, supervisors, and their peers that are integrated into the flow of work.

Smart communications can bridge the experience gap and make it possible to create an engaged, connected workplace that can predict, adapt, and execute change. Leveraging data and automation in real time can create a personalized employee experience for deskless workers while helping organizations become an employer of choice where people love to work.

Time to Activate Change

As a forward-thinking leader, you understand the vital role communications and engagement play in the employee experience of your deskless workforce, and your organization’s long-term success. We’ve

compiled a toolkit, the Workforce Experience Activation Guide, to serve as your quick checklist, helping you craft a compelling business case for change, and to develop a consensus on the value of providing a superior employee experience within your organization.

The rewards of this journey extend well beyond employee retention–improved profitability, elevated experiences, and improved operational efficiency are all within your grasp. The potential to revolutionize your operations and redefine your brand through the lens of exceptional employee experiences is powerful.

Become the catalyst of change within your organization and get started now.

Dr. Angelina Sun is the Director of Workforce Management Solutions at WorkForce Software. A seasoned technology leader, Angelina’s richly diverse experience spans education, consulting, computing, eCommerce, and enterprise software. Inspired by the transformative power of technology, Angelina passionately advocates for intelligent and innovative solutions for the modern workforce. With her doctoral research devoted to women empowerment, work values, and employee wellbeing, Angelina aspires to foster a fair, equitable, and engaging work environment, a commitment she continues to uphold in her present role at WorkForce Software.

Would you like to comment?

3 Steps to Activate Better Workforce Experiences

Our guide serves as a resource to help you build your case for change. Reap the rewards of improved profitability, employee engagement, and operational efficiency. It all begins with delivering better employee experience within your organization.

Ready to lead the charge?

Start now with the Workforce Experience Activation Guide.

Practical Insights From Employee Engagement To Communication And Beyond

Mastering essential leadership skills for success

By Kevin Sheridan, Kevin Sheridan International

WhenI wrote my book, Building a Magnetic Culture, I first asked my chief data analyst to run a Key Driver Analysis, revealing the Key Drivers of Employee Engagement in order of importance. The key management tips below stem from that Key Driver Analysis in just that order.

Improve How You Recognize Your Team

Showing recognition — when done well — creates enormous value, boosting: employee morale,

employee engagement, productivity, performance, talent attraction, and employee retention. To get the utmost value of employee recognition, you want your managers to focus on both the substance of the recognition and the manner and context in which you deliver it. To improve the substance, start by being specific. Describe to your employee what they did and the impact it had on you, the team, the organization, or your customers.

While recognizing outcomes is valuable, it’s also important to recognize the positive actions that led to the outcome. To improve the delivery of your recognition, consider the employee you’re recognizing. Would they rather receive kudos in public or in private - verbally or via handwritten cards? Tailor your delivery method to your employee’s personality. Whatever method you choose, be timely.The sooner you give the recognition after the behavior, the higher the perceived value.

Build Luck into Your Career

Every success story involves some amount of luck. And contrary to popular belief, serendipity isn’t entirely out of our control. Here are two ways to build luck into your career. First, actively practice “serendipitous networking” — connecting with others for the sake of getting to know them, their perspectives, and their stories. Should you find yourself drawn to their story or experience, dig deeper. Ask them questions about how they discovered their passion, what they’ve learned, and what they like or dislike about their role or industry.

Their insights might spur a new sense of motivation or a vision that could lead you to your next career move. Second, look at big changes in your life through a prism of possibility rather than fear. Yes, changes that feel out of our control can be scary but try to see them as opportunities. What can you learn? How can you capitalize on the disruption? It can pay off down the road to go with the flow and trust that new opportunities will arise with time.

Promote Inclusive Language in Your Organization

Words matter, and, unfortunately, the modern-day professional vocabulary is littered with exclusionary terms. To create a truly inclusive culture, take a hard look at how people in your company are using language. For example, make sure recruiters and hiring managers pay careful attention to the language they use when drafting job descriptions so they’re not inadvertently deterring candidates of color, women, people with disabilities, or older job candidates. Terms like “hacker” or “ninja” are not only hard for many people to identify with, but they’re also unnecessary because you can use alternatives like

“programmer” or “software engineer” that are neutral and more widely understood.

You might also generate a list of words and phrases that are forbidden in product development, marketing, and external communications. These might include terms like “the elderly,” “man-hours,” and “crazy,” among others. It can also be helpful to create a company guide to inclusive language. This can outline practical, accessible tips and tools that can be put into immediate action — and it shouldn’t be a static manual. Make sure you also allow for input and co-creation across the organization.

Build a Team Culture that Honors Quiet Time

Life is noisier and more distracting than ever. As a manager, how can you build a team culture that truly honors quiet time? Start by deliberately talking about it. Begin an open dialogue with your team in which each member has an opportunity to answer the following questions:

● In what ways do I create noise that negatively impacts others? The best starting point is to have everyone check in with themselves. Encourage people to question whether any given habit is necessary or if it’s really just an unexamined impulse — a default that needs to be reset.

● What noisy habits bother me most? This isn’t an opportunity to point fingers but to ask people to be honest about what most disrupts their day.

● How can I help others find the quiet time they need? This is an opportunity for everyone to step up and commit to group norms such as “no email Fridays” or “no meeting Wednesdays.”

Get More Comfortable with Failure

We’ve all been there: You make a new year’s resolution and … it doesn’t stick. Why? It’s often because we don’t allow ourselves to be bad at it at first. We fail a few times and then decide to give up. But adopting any new habit is going to feel clunky at first. The key to taking on something new is to get more comfortable with failure. Here’s how. Start by immunizing yourself against big letdowns by trying out experiments that allow you to fail in tiny ways.

For example, if your goal is to write every day, start by committing to one short paragraph each morning. If you don’t like what you write, no big deal! It’s just a paragraph. Write another one tomorrow. Next, make your goal known to others before your selfdoubt creeps in and you chicken out. This layer of accountability will help you actually follow through on your goal — no matter how bad you are at it the first time. And finally, keep a log of your efforts. Over time you’ll notice how far you’ve come. Rather than focusing on the small, inevitable failures, you can appreciate your overall progress.

Don’t Follow Your Passion

When it comes to career advice, the adage to “follow your passion” isn’t all that useful, and it can be misleading. If you’re looking to find a career that will matter to you, don’t just think about the things that come naturally to you, the things you love to do, or the things you’ve always excelled at. Instead, consider the activities that you return to time and time again — despite the fact that they are hard for you or maybe, even painful.

Think of this approach as “following your blisters.” These probably aren’t the activities you’re the best at (yet) — they’re the ones that challenge you, frustrate you, and attract you all at once. Maybe it’s writing. Maybe it’s data analysis. Maybe it’s managing people. Whatever it is, if you follow your blisters, you’ll never be bored, and you’ll always be learning. And eventually, you’ll earn the calluses of an expert.

This tip is adapted from “What

You Should Follow

Instead of Your Passion” by Dan Cable.

How to Move Forward After Being Laid Off

Losing a job is hard. If you’ve recently been laid off, here’s how you can move forward with confidence and patience. First, understand that it’s not personal. People are laid off for many reasons, most of which are rarely about the performance of individual employees and completely out of your control. Don’t make looking for a job your only job. To protect yourself from burnout, decide which part of your day you’ll dedicate to your job hunt and how you’ll go about it.

Next, be honest with people. Don’t be afraid to share your story. You’ll be amazed by how quickly people offer to support you, which is critical to keeping you in the right frame of mind, especially in the earliest days after a layoff. Finally, be patient. It can take six months or longer to find a job, and the timeline varies by industry. Stay open to new opportunities while you wait for a big win. Temping or freelancing in the meantime keeps you gainfully employed and occupied and also helps you expand your network.

This tip is adapted from “What to Do When You’re Laid Off During a Recession” by Marisa Bryan.

How to Own Your DEI Blunder

Sometimes your efforts to be inclusive and call out injustice will backfire, accidentally causing harm to others. Perhaps you use language that some find offensive or problematic, you neglect to name all of the groups that are suffering the injustice, or you make some other misstep you don’t recognize until someone brings it to your intention. What should you do? Start by owning the mistake. Listen and respond to what you hear, and take responsibility for what you said or did — or didn’t do. Don’t try to immediately fix it or explain it away. Acknowledge your responsibility, apologize, and commit to doing better in the future.

Next, demonstrate genuine curiosity in better understanding the nature of your misstep. Ask questions about your word choices, and use this as an opportunity to better understand another culture or point of view. As a manager, you can create a regular dialogue on a variety of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) topics to build a climate of psychological safety. You might even host AMAs (ask me anything) or book guest speakers to give employees the opportunity to learn and share their own experiences and ideas. Throughout the process, lead by example. The more actively you demonstrate engagement with these issues, the more your team will follow suit. The path to creating and sustaining an inclusive culture will never be free of obstacles or mistakes. So own them and persist.

This tip is adapted from “When Your Efforts to Be Inclusive Misfire” by Daisy Auger-Dominguez.

Balancing Performance Pressure with Compassion for Your Team

Many middle managers are feeling torn right now between performance demands from leadership and calls for compassion from their employees. What can you do if you’re feeling stuck in the middle? To start, work with executives to change the dialogue around performance. Help them understand the needs of frontline employees, bringing data to the table about how many people are experiencing hardships.

At the same time, empower your employees. Remember that compassion doesn’t mean you have to fix all their problems for them. Help them see their challenges in a new light, and facilitate connections they need to build and broaden their networks of support. Finally, don’t forget to take care of yourself. No manager will be able to effectively help their employees if they’re also burned out.

This tip is adapted from “Managers Are Trapped in a Performance-Compassion Dilemma” by Heidi K. Gardner and Mark Mortensen.

Structure Your Writing Around One Core Idea

There’s a simple framework that can help you sharpen your writing by presenting your argument in a clear, concise, and engaging way. It’s called the “one idea” rule. In short, every component of a successful piece of writing (a pitch, report, presentation, or even an email) should express only one central idea. To identify what that is, ask yourself the following questions: What do I know about this topic? What inspires me about this topic? What can

I say that will be interesting or surprising to others? Use these questions to narrow down your angle.

Next, find evidence (facts, anecdotes, data) that may be useful or surprising to others, and that supports the point you want to make. Also, take note of any evidence that counters your argument. If you’re able to call out and address counterpoints before the reader discovers them, you’ll strengthen your main idea. Only include information that’s relevant. Anything else will just be distracting. If all of your examples are obviously related to the main topic, then it will be relatively easy to take the next step: order them into a story outline with a beginning, middle, and end.

Kevin Sheridan is an internationallyrecognized Keynote Speaker, a New York Times Best Selling Author, and one of the most sought-after voices in the world on the topic of Employee Engagement. For six years running, he has been honored on Inc. Magazine’s top 100 Leadership Speakers in the world, as well as Inc.’s top 100 experts on Employee Engagement. He was also honored to be named to The Employee Engagement Award’s Top 101 Global Influencers on Employee Engagement for five years in a row.

Kevin’s premier creation, PEER®, has been consistently recognized as a long-overdue, industry-changing innovation in the field of Employee Engagement. His first book, Building A Magnetic Culture, made six of the bestseller lists, including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today. He is also the author of The Virtual Manager, which explores how to most effectively manage remote workers.

Would you like to comment?

HRCI® & SHRM® CERTIFICATION PREP COURSES

GROUP RATES AVAILABLE

For HR Professionals

Show that management values the importance of the HR function, and has a commitment to development and improvement of HR staff.

Ensure that each person in your HR department has a standard and consistent understanding of policies, procedures, and regulations.

Place your HR team in a certification program as a rewarding team building achievement.

For Your Organization

Certified HR professionals help companies avoid risk by understanding compliance, laws, and regulations to properly manage your workforce.

HR Professionals lead employee engagement and development programs saving the company money through lower turnover and greater productivity and engagement.

A skilled HR professional can track important KPIs for the organization to make a major impact on strategic decisions and objectives, including: succession planning, staffing, and forecasting.

1 Less expensive than a masters or PhD program, and very manageable to prepare with

2. legislation and best practices

3. Recognized, Industry benchmark, held by 500,000+ HR Professionals

Group Rate Options

We offer group rates for teams of 5+ or more for our regularly scheduled PHR/SPHR/ SHRM or aPHR courses.

For groups of 12+, we can design a more customized experience that meets your overall length of the course.

Groups rates for HRCI exams are also available as an add-on.

All group purchases come with 1 year of HR Prime membership for each attendee to gain the tools and updates needed to stay informed and compliant

7 Creative Ways To Celebrate Employee Milestones

Reviewing employee recognition efforts with appropriate experiences

By Brett Farmiloe, Featured

Toshed light on innovative ways to celebrate employee milestones and boost morale, we reached out to human resources (HR) professionals and company leaders. From hosting morale-boosting events to encouraging employees to exhibit core values, here are seven unique strategies these experts have implemented in their workplaces.

● Host Morale-Boosting Events

● Provide Experiential Rewards with Wishlist

● Give Public Recognition and Certificates

● Reward Teammates with LinkedIn Recommendations

● Showcase Monthly Achievements with a Highlight Reel

● Try a Long-Service Award and Tiered Reward System

● Encourage Employees to Exhibit Core Values

Provide Experiential Rewards with Wishlist

We have partnered with Wishlist Rewards to gift our employees exciting experiences at memorable moments. The system has given us the ability to automate some rewards for anniversaries and birthdays while also being flexible enough to give spot bonuses when someone demonstrates exemplary work.

What we love most about Wishlist, though, is the experiential nature of the rewards program. We have a younger workforce who seems to be less interested in material things like company swag and gift cards, and Wishlist allows these employees to use their rewards on experiences like massages, sporting events, and wine tastings.

Give Public Recognition and Certificates

Our company offers employees recognition for their accomplishments at Ling App with certificates. For remote employees, these are mailed to their home addresses, while in-office employees receive them at work.

We also share these milestones on the company-wide Slack channel, where the team can show their appreciation. It’s a small gesture, but feedback from the team has been that they’ve never been recognized at any other company they’ve worked for, so it has meant something to them.

Brett Ungashick, CEO and CHRO, OutSail

Jarir Mallah, HR Manager, Ling App

Reward Teammates with LinkedIn Recommendations

Celebrating milestones and achievements with a virtual team can be challenging. One idea for work-anniversary celebrations is to encourage team members to create LinkedIn recommendations for the employee reaching the milestone.

The team should be notified in advance and provided with guidelines, and the timing for posting should be coordinated. Gratitude should be expressed, and a virtual gathering should be organized for the employee to share their experiences.

This inclusive celebration recognizes achievements and fosters a sense of belonging, motivation, and camaraderie among the virtual team.

Showcase Monthly Achievements with a Highlight Reel

A tech company took a creative and inclusive approach to celebrating employee achievements by introducing a highlight reel during their monthly all-hands meetings.

This reel compiled brief video clips submitted by employees, showcasing monthly achievements. These accomplishments included project completions, innovative solutions, personal milestones like marathons, and learning new skills.

This practice ensured that everyone, regardless of their role or level, could be recognized and appreciated. The impact on morale and engagement was profound. Employees felt seen and valued, which boosted their motivation and commitment to their work.

The highlight reel cultivated a sense of camaraderie and mutual respect among employees, as they got to appreciate their colleagues’ efforts and contributions.

This creative method of celebration underscored the company’s commitment to recognizing everyone’s achievements, fostering a culture of inclusivity and appreciation.

Vivian Acquah, Certified Diversity Executive, Amplify DEI

Jodi Brandstetter, HR Facilitator and Career Coach, By Design Brainery

Try a Long-Service Award and Tiered Reward System

The long-service award, coupled with a multi-tier employee reward system (based on the number of years of association), is an effective way to celebrate employee milestones and positively impact morale and engagement.

In my organization, the big emphasis was on the long-service award and the way the award was conferred. An organizationally-vetted process map was developed, comprising a chain of well-synchronized steps to make the employee feel very special about the milestone.

It was a well-crafted series of interventions like a personalized message and letter of recognition from senior commercial and HR leaders, a recognition program at the team level and inter-team level, and the final enactment of a mega celebratory event with other long-service award winners in a town hall setting in the presence of senior company leaders.

The result was easily observable, and the amount of feedback from line management members of concerned employees confirmed the enormous impact.

Bikas Mukherjee, Partner and Advisor Global Operations, Naman Integrated Management Services Pvt. Ltd.

Encourage Employees to Exhibit Core Values

We celebrate achievement through our core company values sightings. We call these sightings “Cheers for Peers.”

Throughout each quarter, every employee is encouraged to “catch people in the act” when they are significantly exemplifying a core value. These value sightings are documented in real-time using an application called “Lemonade Listening.”

Then, at the end of the quarter, we have a Values Happy Hour where each employee reads out their top values sightings for each quarter. The leadership team then awards one person the title of “Most Valued” for the quarter. It’s simple but effective in driving the right behaviors, and our team loves it.

Values drive behaviors, behaviors drive culture, and culture drives performance.

Host Morale-Boosting Events

At Energy Casino, we believe in recognizing and celebrating the exceptional achievements of our employees. To enhance morale and engagement within our organization, we have introduced the Energy Spotlight Initiative, a monthly event that shines a light on individuals or teams who have made significant contributions to our success.

The Energy Spotlight Initiative goes beyond a simple announcement or recognition. Instead, we create an internal feature that showcases the journey, achievements, and insights of the selected employee or team. These features are shared internally through our communication channels, allowing everyone to learn more about their colleagues’ roles and accomplishments.

The impact of the Energy Spotlight Initiative on morale and engagement has been profound. Our employees appreciate public recognition and feel valued for their hard work and dedication.

Max Hansen, CEO and Co-Founder, Y Scouts

Ester Puleo, Talent Acquisition Specialist, Energy Casino

Brett Farmiloe is the Founder & CEO of Featured

Ten Communication Rules For Strategic Planning Meetings

The role of communication in successful strategic planning

By John W. Myrna, Myrna Associates Inc.

Strategic planning meetings can lead to transformational success for HR organizations. However, it’s critical that all participants agree to 10 communication rules beforehand—and that those rules are enforced.

What are those rules? Read on!

Rule 1: Listen Actively

George Bernard Shaw is quoted as having said, “England and America are two countries separated by a common language.” This is an even more dramatic condition between the various professionals in a company. For example, accountants attach a different meaning to the word “revenue” than salespeople do. (In fact, I’ve heard at least six different definitions in planning meetings.) Computer programmers use the phrase “finished” differently than anyone else.

I once said, “I believe in participatory management. I think we all should manage that way.” My colleague’s quick response was, “You’re wrong! I don’t believe in making a decision by voting, that is an abrogation of leadership.” I had to clarify that I meant that I believed everyone affected by a decision should have the opportunity to provide their thoughts and insights before I made a decision. I still had the responsibility to make the decision, just one that was better

informed and more likely to be supported by people who were respected enough to have their opinions solicited ahead of time.

There is always the possibility for misunderstanding—active listening is how you counter it. Active listening requires an interactive dialogue to make sure that people actually understand what is being said. Active listening generates questions such as “What do you mean when you say quality is poor? Give me some examples.” “Why do you think we need an office in London? Who would be the customer?”

Rule 2: Speak Up and Say What Needs to Be Said – There Are No Sacred Cows

“Why do we pay a premium for being the first to purchase the newest piece of hardware?” Sally asked in the first strategic planning meeting she was invited to attend at Scientific Processing.

The predominantly technical executive team was appalled by her question. One of the engineers’ responses was representative: “We are a technology-driven company. Our customers expect us to have the latest hardware. Why even ask the question?”

Sally persisted. “But we don’t seem to have time to utilize any of the new features for at least two years. Wouldn’t it be better to purchase a used machine two years later when it sells for a much, much lower price?” Putting that “sacred cow” issue on the table ended up helping the company move from losing money every month to making money every month.

Shortly after the meeting ended, they replaced their spanking-new hardware with used equipment that cost thousands of dollars less without negatively affecting their customers. All because Sally, a non-engineer, had asked, “Why?”

Rule 3: Focus on Solving Problems Rather than Placing Blame or Being Defensive

Salespeople know exactly what the problem is, “If Bob and his crew in production would get off their butts and deliver what we sold, everything would be fine.” Bob’s response was just as simple and nonproductive. “If the damn salespeople would focus on selling what we can produce instead of making stuff up, everything would be fine.” Wasting time with the two departments blaming each other didn’t get the company any closer to solving the problem of a poorly defined product line. Of course, there are problems. The only time a company doesn’t have challenges is when it’s in a stagnant market or not growing. One of the signs of a healthy executive team is how little time is wasted on placing blame and being defensive.

Rule 4: Respect Differences of Opinion

Each team member brings a different perspective to the table, which is important because strategic issues usually touch multiple functions of the company. An optimal strategy benefits from a 360-degree

view of each strategic issue. Bert, the controller, was bragging a bit about how he had improved the company’s cash flow by shifting the payment of vendors from 30 days to 60 days. “You’d be amazed how much that’s added to our bottom line.”

Carol, the head of production, responded: “Oh? Can that be the reason our vendors no longer give us priority treatment when we need a rush shipment of raw materials? Do you have any idea how much it costs us to priority ship because we had to wait for raw materials?”

The ideal leadership team is a diverse team with members of different ages, with different life and business experiences, different affinities with customers and vendors, and different passions. You must respect the differences of opinion to realize the value of that diversity. (You show respect when you solicit, understand, and consider the opinions of people affected by your decisions before you make them.)

Rule 5: Avoid Cheap Shots

Beyond the obvious negative effects, cheap shots in a meeting can be used to short-circuit decision-making. Often, as the team discusses a long-standing issue, a consensus begins to emerge on the action to take. A decision to act, however, will generate additional work and requires personal accountability. It’s fun to discuss a problem as long as you never commit to a solution. When it appears that this time the team is actually converging on taking action, a cheap shot is an effective way to derail the discussion and save everyone from the necessary extra work that a decision would create. The cheap shot-taker can then sit back and think: “Dodged a bullet! I can go back to work as usual and not worry about adding that task to my already burdened work day.”

Rule 6: Stay Focused

An ancient proverb warns: “If you chase two rabbits, both will escape.” Strategic planning meetings are about deciding which are the right things to do. The team needs to focus on what’s most important or the things that will show greater return. Resist the urge to discuss day-to-day issues or challenges. Without strategic focus, you will end up going down a rabbit hole while both rabbits escape.

Rule 7: Add Only New Information to the Discussion. Don’t Flog a Dead Horse

“Everything would be better if only we had more salespeople,” Omari said. Then ten minutes later, he repeated: “Everything would be better if only we had more salespeople.” Then ten minutes later, “Everything would be better if...”

Finally, someone spoke up and said, “Does everybody understand that Omari feels ‘everything would be better if only we had more salespeople’? We don’t need to bring that up again.”

This rule doesn’t prevent the team from bringing up an issue they have discussed in the past. It just means they don’t need to use up air time repeating it over and over again.

Rule 8: Permit Only One Discussion at a Time

It should go without saying that you can’t listen while you’re talking. No, you can’t listen actively when you’re having a private conversation with the person sitting next to you. You aren’t fully engaged when you’re reading and responding to emails or texts on your smartphone.

Rule 9: Silence Implies Understanding and Agreement

It’s three months after the strategic planning meeting, and the CEO wants to know why Chuck hasn’t implemented his action steps. “Well, I never agreed with that decision,” Chuck protests.

“But you were in the meeting and a member of the team,” the CEO says. “Why didn’t you speak up then?” Chuck shrugs his shoulders.

Life is too short to allow this to happen. Make it clear to everyone on the executive team that they must speak up on a timely basis or forever hold their peace.

Yolanda also hasn’t implemented as planned. When asked why she agreed to something she didn’t believe in, her answer was instructive. “I didn’t understand what you guys were talking about, so I just went with the crowd.” The CEO asks, “Then why didn’t

you ask for an explanation?” Yolanda replies: “Well, I was hesitant to waste everybody’s time asking what cash flow was. I thought everyone assumed I would understand since I was on the team.”

The fact is, business is complicated, and few people can understand every aspect of it. A healthy executive team appreciates this and has no problem pausing to allow one member to provide a short tutorial from their area of expertise.

Rule 10: Finish with Consensus and Commit to Action

At the end of every discussion, ask, “What’s next?” Create, document, and then follow up on an action step that includes who’s accountable for the action and when that action step has to be completed.

Don’t Forget: Ensure the Rules Are Enforced!

Enforcing these rules is crucial and is usually best performed by an outside facilitator. When I facilitate meetings, I empower everyone to be a referee by actually giving everyone a physical yellow “foul flag” they can toss toward the offender. It’s a good way to enforce rules because anyone can flag an inappropriate comment in a light-hearted yet effective way.

Would you like to comment?

John W. Myrna is the author of The Chemistry of Growth: A CEO’s Guide (QuickStudy Press) and Co-Founder of Myrna Associates Inc.

HR Approaches For Improving Employee Performance

Motivating and engaging sales teams

By Tyler Vance, Funnel Clarity

Intoday’s competitive business landscape, sales teams play a pivotal role in driving revenue and fostering the growth of an organization. However, ensuring consistent and high-performance results from sales teams can be challenging. Human Resources (HR) professionals play an essential role in shaping the culture and morale of a company, making them instrumental in motivating and engaging sales teams. In this blog, we will explore several HR approaches that can significantly improve sales teams’ performance, leading to enhanced productivity and increased job satisfaction.

Provide a Clear Path for Growth

The ability to see a clear path for career progression is necessary for salespeople to stay motivated. Here are four steps that HR managers can take to create opportunities for growth for their team:

Step 1: Individual Development Plans - HR professionals should work with sales managers to create personalized development plans for each salesperson. These plans should assess their strengths, areas for improvement, and career aspirations, setting clear goals for growth.

Step 2: Training and Skill Development - Provide relevant training opportunities for salespeople, including workshops on sales techniques, product knowledge, prospecting skills, and communication. Continuous skill development enhances their capabilities and supports their professional growth.

Step 3: Career Progression Roadmap - Establish a transparent career progression roadmap that outlines the various roles and responsibilities within the sales department. Clearly define the skills, experience, and achievements required for each level, empowering salespeople to understand and work towards advancement.

Step 4: Mentoring and Recognition - Pair salespeople with experienced mentors or coaches to offer guidance and support. Implement recognition programs to celebrate outstanding performance and contributions, creating a culture of appreciation that motivates salespeople to excel and grow.

Establish a Comprehensive Compensation Plan

HR professionals can design a comprehensive compensation plan that aligns with the specific needs and motivations of sales professionals, ultimately driving their performance and commitment to the organization.

The plan should combine a mix of base salary, commission or bonus structures, and other incentives to ensure salespeople are rewarded for their efforts and achievements. By offering a competitive base salary, HR professionals can provide a sense of financial security, allowing salespeople to focus on their roles without undue stress.

The commission or bonus structure should be carefully crafted to incentivize high performance and encourage salespeople to exceed their targets. A tiered approach, where higher commissions are earned as salespeople surpass their goals, can motivate them to consistently strive for excellence. Additionally, HR professionals can introduce non-monetary incentives such as recognition programs, awards, and career advancement opportunities. Recognizing top performers publicly not only boosts their motivation but also sets a benchmark for others to aim for, fostering healthy competition and a culture of achievement. A

well-designed compensation plan tailored to the unique needs of sales professionals can be a powerful tool in motivating and retaining top talent, driving sales performance, and ensuring the long-term success of the organization.

Foster a Culture of Continuous Learning

Continuous learning is vital for sales teams because the business landscape is ever-evolving, and sales techniques, market trends, and customer preferences change rapidly. By fostering a cultural atmosphere  of continuous learning, sales teams can stay agile and adapt to new challenges, ensuring they remain competitive and meet customer needs effectively.

Ongoing training and development also boost sales professionals’ confidence and expertise, enabling them to build stronger relationships with clients and close deals more effectively. Moreover, continuous learning enhances job satisfaction and reduces employee turnover, as salespeople feel invested in their growth and development within the organization.

HR professionals can foster a culture of continuous learning and development by providing regular training sessions, workshops, and access to online learning resources. They should collaborate with sales managers to identify skill gaps and design training programs tailored to address specific needs. Encouraging salespeople to participate in industry conferences, webinars, and networking events can expose them to new ideas and best practices.

Additionally, HR can incentivize learning initiatives by recognizing and rewarding salespeople who proactively engage in self-improvement and showcase the skills they have acquired through continuous learning. By integrating learning into the company’s values and

emphasizing its importance, HR professionals can instill a growth mindset within the sales team and create a culture that embraces learning as a lifelong journey.

Motivating and engaging sales teams is a continuous effort that requires HR professionals to understand the unique dynamics of the sales function. By fostering a positive company culture, providing clear paths for growth, implementing performancebased incentives, and providing continuous training, HR can improve employee performance and drive business growth.

Additionally, recognizing achievements, supporting worklife balance, and creating a supportive team environment will contribute to a motivated and high-performing sales team. With

these HR approaches in place, organizations can unleash the full potential of their sales force and stay ahead in the competitive market.

Would you like to comment?

Tyler Vance is the Director of Client Engagement at Funnel Clarity. He works closely with the participants and managers of Funnel Clarity’s training programs to ensure they achieve their expected results.

Taming Urgency: Strategies For Managing High-Pressure Work Environments

Five ways to help leaders and teams manage urgency communication and workflow

By Fiona Passantino, Executive Storylines

For those working in teams who hear “urgent” and “crisis” too often, the word begins to lose its meaning. Eventually, it even gets tuned out. If everything is urgent, then nothing is. If everything needs to happen “yesterday,” then something further up the chain is going wrong...

Done Yesterday

We have a tight agenda, back-to-back meetings, and a long list of deliverables for today. Then a crisis sparks a new urgent task pops up that needs to be “done yesterday”. We make room, somehow, amidst our regularly scheduled tasks and take on the new thing. We don’t ask which of our regular assignments we can drop nor which of our deadlines we can delay to compensate. Most of the time, we put our heads down and get it done, catching up with business as usual in the evenings.

After that, another crisis, another urgent project. And another. Our regular work piles up, which eventually becomes a crisis due to sheer neglect.

Overwhelmed, high-performing teams don’t generally push back or escalate. They work more, organize

better, do it faster, and feel safe in their jobs due to their powers of perpetual over-delivery.

Like the boy who cried wolf, teams who hear the words “urgent” and “crisis” too often, the word begins to lose its meaning, and eventually, it starts to get tuned out. If everything needs to happen “yesterday,” then something further up the chain is going wrong.

If everything is urgent, in the end, nothing is.

Urgency Overload

Most of the time, leaders are appropriately delegating. They are not doing the operational work themselves and sometimes forget how much time certain tasks take to complete. High-functioning teams often spare their leaders the details of small things going wrong in a normal working flow – the endless email backand-forths when a supplier misses a step or the small mistakes that take many hours to resolve.

When the goal is to deliver a quality result, keep promises made, and deliver on time, there is no shame in saying “no” to too much work that compromises the quality of all deliverables.

But in a culture of high engagement, saying “no” is not standard practice. Faint signals that signify a quiet “no” might be emerging but are too weak to hear up the chain.

Five Easy Ways to Manage Urgency

The key is awareness; of one’s own language and of the faint signals arising from an overloaded team. The practice is project classification into urgency categories, usually resulting in downgrading from “screaming” to “indoor voices”.

Step 1: Be aware

● The first step is to pay attention to what you are saying. Is everything a crisis? Do you ever say that something is “low-priority”, “longerterm” or “unimportant”? Or is your own language peppered with terms like: “Burning platform,” “disaster,” or “screaming mess”?

● Ask yourself before you speak: How urgent is this, really?

● Ask yourself: Could I pre-authorize the dropping of a regular task if I announce this urgent one?

● Repeat to yourself: If everything is urgent, then nothing is.

Step 2: Listen for weak signals

● Watch for signs that a team is suffering from urgency overload.

● Verbal signs: Intra-team microaggressions, conflict, misunderstandings, and fewer offers to help.

● Non-verbal signs: Fewer spontaneous social moments, less laughter, fewer jokes, and fewer signs of gratitude.

● Written signs: Emails and texts opening with the words “sorry I’m responding late”, “apologies for not getting back,” and similar, and needing to remind people to respond to emails from a few days ago, doubtless buried under a stack of flagged items.

● Physical signs: Fewer workers in-office (using their commute time to catch up), fewer small social events, fewer people volunteering to organize them

Step 3: Classify

● Have a look through everything your team is doing and prepare a series of (digital) stickers for your (miro) board, about 4 of them, ranging in color as follows:

○ Red = crisis

○ Orange = urgent

○ Blue = normal

○ Green = low-priority

● RED: Certain crises need immediate attention – mostly things we do not expect and cannot control happening to us. These things happen everywhere, all the time, without warning, and are worth us dropping what we are doing to mitigate. These get the (mental) red sticker and truly had to be done yesterday.

● ORANGE: Highly important matters we see coming, over which we have a marginal amount of control, with tight deadlines and high visibility, are worth putting to the top of the backlog and labeled “urgent”. This is not a crisis but a high-impact task that needs to happen now.

● BLUE: The blue sticker is for all those regular “run” tasks that we do every day and is part of our regular cycle. The kinds of things that, if they are a day late now and then, will not disrupt many other processes. A blue sticker is a signal to the team that if they have to take up a red or orange item, they can go ahead and drop a blue or green one without having to ask (and send one more cc email to the world).

● GREEN: When something doesn’t have to happen immediately, regardless of importance, value, or visibility, it is a low priority. This doesn’t mean it gets relegated to the parking lot to die a slow death but can be scheduled during downtimes. Starting an email with the salutation “This is not urgent, but…” says enough. Practice tells that even these openers do not reduce waiting time by very much but do reduce general blood pressure.

Step 4: Set up the board

● In the typical Agile board, you will have certain areas to work with, a backlog, a sprint cycle, and a parking lot.

● At the beginning of a sprint cycle, we build the board. All items, regardless of color, start in the backlog. We pull the orange items first into the sprint cycle and give the top priority. Then, the orange, and finally, blue and green.

● Whatever can’t fit into the sprint cycle stays in the backlog until the next cycle or gets relegated to the parking lot to pull at on a rainy day.

● If more red and orange items appear, they kick the blue and green items off the sprint board and back into the backlog; this gives the team an instant overview of what the priorities are and what needs attention first.

● It also sends the signal further up the chain that urgency comes at a cost; we have to make choices to do the things that matter and not just keep piling higher.

Step 5: Show the board up the chain

● This simple visual tool makes it clear to everyone up the chain that your team has a certain capacity to do a certain amount of work in a certain period of time (in Agile terms, this is called “velocity”).

● During your N+1 board or stakeholder meetings, showing this board will explain the choices you and your team are making in line with current priorities.

Small changes over time add up to total organizational transformation in the longer term; setting the bar as a leader or human resources (HR) advisor sends the message that there are certain more effective ways to communicate and operate that are more sustainable in the longer term, which will lower the temperature for all employees.

This creates a more manageable workflow for HR, above all; overloaded staff tend to quit, and companies with high levels of attrition create more work for HR on all levels. The admin, recruitment, offboarding, and onboarding… all of which are urgent; prevention is key.

Fiona Passantino started as an oldschool comic artist, writer, and video game designer. After a more than 20-year career as a corporate communications professional, she became an Employee Engagement, Communication, and Culture Specialist and Founder of Executive Storylines, a consulting company based in the Hague. She helps leaders and teams be at their best at work, which also involves strategic AI integration. Fiona is a speaker, blogger, podcast host, and the author/illustrator of the 2023 UK Business Book Award-winning “Comic Books for Executives” series.

Would you like to comment?

The Risk Of Low Engagement In A Tight Labor Market

Strategic recognition initiatives

By Raphael Crawford-Marks, Bonusly

Recenteconomic news shows that inflation is falling and unemployment continues to remain low —inflation is below 3% and unemployment is at 3.4%—the lowest level in 54 years, meaning it will continue to be difficult to recruit and retain top talent.

Disengagement, especially in a tight labor market, is a risk that human resources (HR) leaders must address; not only does it affect retention, but low engagement also saps productivity. According to Gallup, disengaged employees cost the world $7.8 trillion in lost productivity. In times like these, employees have a lot of options for where to work, and employee engagement is the difference between a business thriving or barely surviving.

To many, the solution to increasing engagement would seem obvious: higher compensation. In reality, paying above fair market wages does not improve employee engagement or retention and is often too costly for businesses to consider anyway. Think of compensation as hygiene. If you neglect showering and brushing your teeth for weeks, you’re likely to see some negative consequences at work. However, showering three times a day won’t warrant any additional recognition from the boss. Compensation is similar. Employees expect a fair wage, but once that threshold has been met, additional increases do little to move the needle.

Employees aren’t coin-operated machines. Employees choose to stay with a company when they feel a sense of purpose about their work, progress in their skills and career, and belonging with their team. Employees who feel their contributions are valued are much more likely to be engaged.

A powerful way to increase engagement is through meaningful recognition. Certainly, this is not something that HR can accomplish overnight, but the benefits of doing so are profound. Companies with recognition-rich cultures boast 31% lower voluntary turnover rates and see higher levels of productivity and performance.

Building Engaged Teams Through Recognition

You may be thinking, "Sounds great! But where do I start?” What your company needs is an effective recognition program. Here’s how to begin.

First, build a business case for your leadership team. You’ll need buy-in for a successful program because if executives are not behind it, employees will sense their lack of enthusiasm, and participation may suffer. Tie the expected outcomes of the program to specific benefits — the statistics cited above can help.

Moreover, a recognition program doesn’t have to be expensive. A study from the risk management firm Milliman found that the average budget for a recognition program, which includes rewards, internal resources, and administration, costs less than $140 per employee per year

The program itself needs to deliver on recognition best practices. These include:

● Timely: Colleagues need to provide recognition soon after great work so there’s a clear connection to positive behavior.

● Frequent: Employees are making daily contributions at work. Organizations should celebrate these wins, both large and small, on a regular basis. Gallup recommends providing recognition at least once a week, though more often is even more powerful.

● Specific: People need to understand exactly what they did that merits recognition. A vague “good job” leaves the employee in the dark about what exactly was so good, and it can come across as insincere.

● Visible: Publicly recognizing good work amplifies its impact. People across the organization can learn practical tips from public recognition to apply to their own work, and it gives other colleagues the opportunity to join in

on the kudos, further reinforcing behaviors the organization wants to see.

● Inclusive: Ensuring that recognition is inclusive fosters a sense of belonging, equity, and safety for everyone.

● Values-based: Recognition should be tied to the organization’s core values. After all, these are the behaviors that the company wants to encourage.

HR teams must also ensure that rewards, an important part of any recognition program, are meaningful. That means that people need to have choices that go beyond a few different gift cards. Donations to charities, extra PTO, and company swag are great options. Be creative and provide a diverse array of options.

Finally, make sure you choose a recognition platform that will encompass these qualities to facilitate and encourage meaningful recognition.

Building engaged teams isn’t an overnight project, but it’s well worth the effort. In a tight labor market during volatile times, high employee engagement will enable organizations to weather the storms and outperform the competition.

Raphael Crawford-Marks is the Founder and CEO of Bonusly, an enterprise platform that helps companies create high-performance, high-engagement workplaces. He’s passionate about building products that help people connect with their work and each other in meaningful ways.

Would you like to comment?

VIRTUAL EVENTS

The State of Human Experience in the Workplace

August 16, 2023 REGISTER

The Future of Talent Acquisition

The Future of Personalized HR Services and Experiences

View our Upcoming Virtual Conference Schedule and Register Today!

WEBCASTS

Barbara Corcoran Talks the Total Economic Impact of Paycom

September 13, 2023

REGISTER

www.hr.com/virtualconferences

Growing needs, evolving trends: What global employees expect from fertility benefits today

How to Center Your Learning Environment Around Your People

Building a Talent Magnet Organization: Secrets to Attracting and Retaining Top Talent

August 15, 2023

3:00 PM - 4:00 PM ET REGISTER

August 16, 2023

1:00 PM - 2:00 PM ET REGISTER WEBCASTS

August 23, 2023

September 6-7, 2023 REGISTER REGISTER

11:00 AM - 12:00 PM ET

September 6, 2023

11:00 AM - 12:00 PM ET REGISTER

View our Upcoming Webcasts Schedule and Register Today!

www.hr.com/upcoming_webcasts

Thank you for partnering with us!

Paycom (NYSE:PAYC) offers cloud-based human capital management software to help businesses streamline employment processes, from recruitment to retirement. With a robust suite of products including payroll, time and labor management.

LEARN MORE

You find the talent, we provide the platform that enables you to hire, onboard, manage compliance & pay global talent in over 160 countries.

LEARN MORE

THANK YOU

Jobvite is a comprehensive talent acquisition suite that powers a marketing-inspired recruiting approach from first look to first day.

PARTNER WITH US

Designing better ways to work by providing cutting-edge products and exceptional experiences within HR, Talent, Time Management, Benefits and Payroll.