My Leadership Solutions

lead·er·ship: not only for those with a fancy title. High doses can lead to success. Side effects include courage and confidence

Death and Communication

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Recently I stumbled upon an article, The 5 Regrets of the Dying, by Joe Martino based on a book with the same title written by a palliative nurse who was with people leading up to their final days.  One of the main regrets expressed is “I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.”

It’s easy to go through day-to-day life without thinking about death.  After all, it would put a damper on the day if death was always on the forefront of your mind.  However, if becoming aware of your own mortality helps you face some of the conversations that you’ve been putting off, then it’s not that bad to think about it once in a while.

Expressing feelings and having tough conversations is vital to helping you be the leader in your personal life as well as in your work life.  E-mail, texting, and social media make it easier to forgo having real conversations and expressing real feelings.  Instead, they make it easier to project what you want people to think you’re feeling.  They also remove the personal element from the communication.

Yes, these are all forms of communication, but communicating isn’t always just about getting a message across.  You really make an impact when your communication involves genuine feeling and connection.

Think about someone in your life, whether personal life or business life, with whom you’ve been meaning to have a certain conversation with.  It could be any type of conversation you’ve been putting off –whether to express gratitude, to convey certain feelings, to express appreciation, or to say you’re sorry.  Imagine how you would feel if you or that person weren’t around to have that conversation.  Now, schedule a time to have the conversation.

None of us can know how many days we have left in this world.  What we can do is make the precious time we do have here really count.

The Rise of Applicant Tracking Systems

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Do you remember having to print out a resume on nice paper and putting it in the envelope to send to prospective employers?  I never did mail a resume, because ever since I started working, jobs were posted online and resumes were submitted online through the “applicant tracking system.”

However, when I first started working in Human Resources about eight years ago, I received paper resumes from candidates because the option was available to them.  I do admit that some companies took longer to adapt than others.  Now when I did my informal survey and looked at fifty or so company job postings online, I noticed that none of the postings provided a mailing address for paper resumes.  Some did point out that you stood no chance to get the job if you didn’t apply online (stated in a much nicer way, of course).

Even though I wasn’t around in the age of mailing paper resumes myself, I do empathize with people who had been accustomed to the old system.  They told me that while companies were switching to applicant tracking systems, many were still giving the option to mail a paper resume.  Now that option is obsolete.  After all, the applicant tracking system makes life so much easier for the recruiter or hiring manager.

As a Human Resources Consultant, I do admit that I’m on the side of the applicant tracking system.  Of course, there are hiccups every not and then, but it’s much easier to overcome those hiccups than deal with thousands of paper resumes.  However, I do want to take a moment to mourn the death of mailing paper resumes for those who enjoyed printing it out on fancy paper and putting it in the mail.  If you’re one of those people who are mourning the loss, the bright side is that you can save money on the stamps it took to mail out all those resumes.

The applicant tracking system is just one piece of human resources technology that companies have embraced.    Many more human resources systems are making their mark and will become as commonplace as the applicant tracking system in the years to come.

Bored, Bitter, and Bound at Work?

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How to Untie Yourself from a Bad Work Situation

I’ve noticed there a lot of people complaining about their jobs lately.   At work, they’re disengaged and unhappy but try to fake happiness so they can get through the day.  Some don’t even try to fake it and wear bitter scowls on their faces most of the day.  In order to avoid the same fate, you almost want to shake them and ask them, “What’s wrong?  How did you turn into this person?”

Yet, they refuse to move on.  It’s as if their hands and feet are tied and they can’t move.  The job has become routine to them or their managers are tyrants or there’s some other reason that they’ve become disengaged.  The job has turned into an unpleasant necessity less pleasurable than taking out the trash.  Boredom and monotony envelop their days and they see no way out.

Sure, boredom has a way of seeping into almost everyone’s life at some point.  We all do things that we don’t enjoy doing and we realize that those things are a part of being grown-up professionals.  However, once that boredom turns into bitterness, then there’s a problem.

Do you experience any of the following symptoms?

  1. You find your job boring and monotonous the majority of the time.
  2. You would rather do household chores or any of the activities that you find unpleasant than go to work.
  3. You feel as if you have no other options.
  4. You give one-word answers or snap at people.
  5. You’ve been at this company/job for so long that you don’t know what else you would do.
  6. You feel as if you’re getting less intelligent by being in your job or work environment.
  7. You just don’t care about what you’re doing anymore.
  8. You have nightmares about your manager.
  9. You are intrigued by almost any other opportunity; however, you have lost the motivation to even put effort into finding and getting another job.
  10. You feel as if your skills are being underutilized and, therefore, wasting away.

If you find that you’re showing symptoms of turning into one of the bored, bitter, and bound employees, don’t panic.  There are steps that you can take in order to get out of the black hole of regain control of your career.

  1. Think back to what you used to find enjoyable about this job or about a previous job.  Try to find projects at work or side projects outside of work that have those characteristics.
  2. Set short-term and long-term goals for yourself and your career.  Evaluate how your current job helps you achieve these goals.
  3. Choose a skill that you want to improve in order to reach your goals.  Find a way to work on that skill in your current job or find a volunteer opportunity or mentor to help you improve that skill.
  4. Evaluate why you feel as if you’re stuck in your current situation.  What obstacles are standing in your way of making a change?  Then brainstorm as many different ideas that you can think of about what you would want to do if you lost this job tomorrow.  Talk to people you know if you can’t come up with anything.  After brainstorming the list, go through it and circle the ideas that are realistic for you.
  5. Make a list of your strengths and how you can use them in your current role.  Share this information with your manager and peers.
  6. Mix up the order of things that you do during the day if you can or add a new behavior to your day.  It can be something simple such as greeting a person you don’t know every day or finding one article a day that helps you with your goals or showing appreciation every day to at least one person.  Be creative.
  7. Find professional organizations and groups in your area that specialize in your area of expertise and network with them.
  8. Have an updated resume just in case.
  9. Talk to people about what they do and their goals.  Let them know about what your skills are and what you want your next career move to be.  It shouldn’t be a desperate I-hate-my-job-and-need-a-new-one complaint or a sales pitch, but a two-way dialogue that allows people to keep you in mind for opportunities they may come across.

Employee Recognition is Worth It

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 Recognize employees while sticking to your budget

Employee recognition is one of the keys to improving employee motivation.  But you can’t just build an employee recognition program in a vacuum.  You first need to know what behaviors you want to recognize and reward people for.

Keep in mind that the reason for these programs are not to make everyone feel happy (although it is a nice side-effect), but to encourage certain behaviors that lead to higher employee engagement.

Spending extra money in a down economy for something that doesn’t add value is not smart for anyone.  This is why you need to assess your current organizational climate and implement the employee recognition program that works best for your company.

Where’s the Proof? 

The proof is in the numbers.  A study by Watson Wyatt found that organizations with high levels of employee engagement performed better than organizations with low levels of engagement by 47 percent.

An employee can go from being “highly engaged” in the organization to being “highly disengaged” in only a year and a half.  Since recognition is an important tool for employee engagement, you need to look at ways to recognize your employees from the onset.

Employee Engagement Assessment Tools

In order to gauge where your organization is at in terms of employee engagement, conduct a survey.  Certain survey tool companies charge $100,000 in order to do a full-scale assessment of your workforce by designing and monitor employee engagement surveys, but these are not necessary.

There are cheaper options to consider.  Zoomerang is a company that conducts online surveys for businesses, including employee satisfaction surveys.  The price is as low as $500, depending on how many employees you want to survey.  If you’re fairly in tune with the temperament of your employees and need to just figure out recognition ideas, you can even design your own survey.  The Survey System run by Creative Research Systems  gives you the tools to tailor surveys for your organization and also gives free advice.

Employee Recognition Ideas  

There are many different types of recognition programs that you can put into place.  I’ve given you different options ranging from low-cost (one $) to high-cost (three $) so that you can use whichever one best fits into your budget.

1.  Manager feedback to Employees:

Put a program in place where managers and employees can send out online positive feedback cards to people who want to recognize someone for going above and beyond.  Turn it into a contest.  The person who collects the most cards will win a prize at the end of the month.

You would be surprised by how excited people get about a mention in the company newsletter for their achievements.

2.  Personal Recognition: $

Get creative with the different types of rewards and tailor them to the individual if possible.  It doesn’t have to be an expensive camera or a trip to theBahamas.  Give someone a half day off to spend time with his or her kids or if you know someone’s hobby is making candles, give them a coupon to a candle-making class or a gift card to a store that has candle-making supplies.  Employees will be grateful for the personal touch.

3.  Employee of the Month or Competition: $$

It’s best that you only implement this type of program in cases where competition isn’t going to lead to behavior that is going to hurt your business practices.  In addition to this, you should also give recognition to employees who did reach certain goals instead of just the one person who surpassed everyone.

4.  Outsource Recognition: $$ – $$$

Michael C. Fina has an employee recognition program that ranges from medium cost to high cost, depending on how you tailor it.  They help you set up a program based on the employee behaviors, anniversaries or special accomplishments that you want to recognize and reinforce.  Every behavior is worth points and once the individual collects a certain number of points, he or she can choose a prize from the catalog.  Because Michael C. Fina is a luxury gift retailer, you can guarantee that the prizes are all quality, name-brand products.  http://www.mcfawards.com/