Why Performance Management Might Be the Most Important Part of Your Post-COVID Company Plan
This past year has been chock-full of ups and downs. Between reduced hours, the move to remote work, forced adjustments of goals, furloughs, and even layoffs, COVID-19 has changed how businesses operate. In response, your organization has had to adjust performance management strategies. This has likely affected how you communicate with remote workers, how much you compensate each team member,...
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How to Unleash Your Team's Creativity: 4 Easy Steps
Creative people are great at solving problems. They can view challenges from different perspectives and find solutions regardless of constraints. Plus, creative people will often solve these problems without being told to; the relationship between creativity and proactivity is well established. Who wouldn't want a team full of these superstars at their disposal? No wonder some business...
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3 Body Language Tips for Enhancing Your Virtual Communication Skills
Body language is just as powerful in the virtual zone as it is in an in-person situation. From the nuance of gestures to vocal variety and eye movements, these telltale indicators help us deliver our messages effectively and provide instructions on how to read another person's true attitude or feelings. In the work-from-anywhere era of global teams, intentional nonverbal virtual communication...
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The MBTI Is Backed by Solid Science. Why Do Some Claim Otherwise?
In the recent article titled "What HBO's Persona Gets Right and (Mostly) Wrong About Personality Test," the author makes some good points about the recent HBO documentary Persona. First, both the author of the article and the creators of the documentary were correct that some companies are misusing personality assessments. My company, The Myers-Briggs Company, has taken the consistent stance...
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Spring Clean Your Business: 5 Ways to Refresh and Reenergize Your Company This Season
Spring is here. The weather is warming up. For many, that means it's time to clean house, get rid of the clutter, and make room for what's to come. Carrying that spring cleaning ritual into your business is also a good idea for many reasons. And I don't just mean tidying up the office. For a business, spring cleaning can go a lot deeper. Here are five ways to give your business the spring...
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Waldenomics: Modern Professional Lessons From Henry David Thoreau
Article by Jen McGivny Henry David Thoreau hasn't aged well since his death 159 years ago. Through modern eyes, the 19th-century author looks like an out-of-touch dreamer, a privileged loafer. The guy who avoided a real career to live in a cabin in the woods now has his words relegated to hiking guides and inspirational notecards. A counterpoint, if I may. Thoreau couldn't be more...
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3 Ways Remote Work Is Changing Internships for the Better
Much like traditional employment, internships have been severely impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. Last April, 22 percent of employers surveyed by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) said they were revoking offers for summer internship programs. Luckily for students seeking the experience and networking that internships offer, many organizations have retained...
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The 7 Common Success Traps, Part 2: Lack of Long-Term Employee Training and Development
The "seven common success traps" are the traps I've learned about over the course of my career working with clients and collaborators from some of America's top organizations, including Fortune 50 and Fortune 500 companies. These traps are based on both my personal experience and the stories shared by my clients and collaborators. These success traps can and do happen to the best of us....
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To Build Great Teams, Get Onboarding Right
Many companies think of new hire onboarding as the logistics of getting people a desk and a computer. Yes, it is that, but it should be a great deal more than that, too. Onboarding should be about how a candidate becomes part of the community as an employee. It should be how they learn the real culture and philosophy of the company. During the interview phase, you establish that a...
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As Businesses Seek Long-Term Growth Over Short-Term Efficiency, Talent Teams Are Stepping Up to Drive the Transformation
For all the damage it has caused, the COVID-19 pandemic has also sparked a mass awakening across business sectors. In fact, according to a recent Forbes survey, almost 80 percent of executives feel the pandemic has actually revealed their organizations' strengths. These companies are now in a position to reset and reorient themselves, and many executives are prioritizing long-term growth over...
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3 Simple Ways to Improve Your Digital Employee Experience
Working from home has completely transformed the employee experience for millions of workers over the past year. Companies have found it challenging to create and maintain productive work environments in the absence of once common workplace norms like face-to-face meetings and team events. However, COVID-19 is not entirely to blame. The issue was simmering long before the pandemic arrived....
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How to Navigate Money Conversations in the Workplace Based on Your Personality Type
Money is a pervasive part of everyday life, from romantic relationships to friendships to the workplace, so it's needless to say that money conversations are really important. That said, they can also be pretty tricky and uncomfortable, especially when they involve colleagues or employers. Let's take a deeper look at the importance of these conversations and how to engage them in the...
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Keeping Employees Safe During COVID: How Technology Can Help
Amid all the wrenches the pandemic has thrown into our personal and professional lives over the last year, it's important to look for the bright side wherever you can. One of the few silver linings of the last year has been watching employers across industries adopt new tools and technologies to keep workers safe, engaged, and productive. Whether you plan to eventually bring your employees...
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What the Growing Corporate Sustainability Movement Means for Recruiting Top Talent
It wasn't that long ago that corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainability teams were shoved in back offices, miles from the core operations of a business. Even worse, responsibility for corporate sustainability would sometimes be awkwardly shoved onto an existing role with little care or attention from senior leadership. Now, the picture looks very different. A perfect storm of...
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The Pandemic Offers Us a Chance to Reimagine the Talent Life Cycle. We Should Take It.
The COVID-19 pandemic has been hard on nearly every industry, causing unprecedented challenges as companies struggle to adapt. As hiring freezes end and unemployed workers re-enter the workforce, the recruiting process has been particularly difficult to navigate. To meet the moment, employers must reconfigure their selection systems to efficiently handle higher applicant volumes. Many look...
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6 Qualities to Look for in a Potential New Hire, Inspired by Marvel Characters
When you have the right people on your staff, your employees become a team of everyday superheroes. Whether they're solving complex problems or designing more efficient processes, great employees swoop in when and where they're needed to improve outcomes for the business. So why not look to Marvel characters like the Avengers for inspiration as you interview prospective hires? You may not...
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The Softer Side of Onboarding New Talent in a Work-From-Home World
Prior to 2020, many companies didn't embrace work-from-home (WFH) models, but the need to protect employees and business operations in the face of COVID-19 forced even the most reluctant companies to shift to remote work arrangements. In a matter of days, the way most businesses operated changed irrevocably — especially in terms of recruiting and hiring. HR pros and talent acquisition...
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10 Essential Books to Read for Women's History Month
Article by Megan Nicole O'Neal Although we certainly don't need an excuse to celebrate women's stories, March is Women's History Month, which means it's an especially perfect time to do so. And what better way than to dive into fantastic books written by and about women? Whether you're hoping to be transported into history, get lost behind powerful prose, or fancy a healthy dose of...
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How Unpaid Digital Labor Is Harming Your Employees
It's a scenario we all know too well: You're sitting down to dinner with your family. Your youngest is telling you about the A she got on her math test, and just as you reach across the table for a high five, your phone chimes. It's a work email. You know it. Your family knows it. You consider your options: A) Check it now, and risk your dinner getting cold and your family annoyed while...
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SEO Is the Secret Recruitment Weapon You're Not Using
The pandemic has impacted nearly every aspect of life, including recruitment. Remote work has made it easier than ever for candidates to search for job opportunities and even interview without ever leaving their homes. On the flip side, remote work has also opened up national and even global talent pools for organizations that had once been tied to the idea of only hiring local...
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Recruiting Top Talent When Everyone Wants to Work From Home
When the pandemic forced companies worldwide to suddenly let employees work from home, top talent got a taste for it. Now that they've tried it, many workers no longer want to return to traditional office buildings. Moving forward, recruiters will face two challenges as they look to place candidates: attracting the right talent for non-remote jobs and managing the influx of (not always...
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Adopting New Benefits to Win the War for Talent: How Small Businesses Navigated the Pandemic
Just before COVID-19 arrived, unemployment hit 50-year lows, creating steep competition among employers looking to attract the best talent. That all changed when the pandemic hit. Unemployment soared beyond 14 percent in April 2020, with more than 18 million unemployed or furloughed. Small and medium businesses (SMBs) have been hit the hardest by these fluctuations in the economy, as...
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How to Ask for Feedback That Will Actually Help You
Depending on how your company is structured and your company's management style, you may receive feedback on a regular basis, or you may only get it at your annual review. If you're reading this, we're guessing that whatever the case, you want more feedback from your bosses. Getting transparent feedback is essential to professional growth because it helps you identify your strengths...
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Freelancer Compliance: 5 Ways to Keep Your Company Safe When Working With Freelancers
In the wake of COVID-19, a growing number of employers have found themselves relying on freelancers to get things done. Your organization may be among them. The use of independent contractors was growing even before the pandemic, and more and more professionals turned to freelancing throughout 2020. By 2027, more than half of US workers may do freelance work in some...
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In the New Future of Work, the American Employee Must Be Versatile
Just a little over a year ago, it was business as usual for the American workforce. Companies were prepping for the next decade of digital transformation, adding to their technology stacks while encouraging employees to develop new skills for the digital, automated workplace. With close to half of American businesses adopting robotics over the last five years, the path ahead to the future of...
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Building an Authentic Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Initiative: 3 Lessons We Learned
Most corporate diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives focus on examining recruitment practices, salaries, raises, types of work, and internal training opportunities, looking for signs of potential disparities between employee demographic groups. These are, of course, important components of any initiative — but if an organization wants to really shift corporate mindsets...
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HR Pros Can't Fix Everything Wrong With the Workplace, but Creating a Culture of Appreciation Goes a Long Way
While COVID-19 has affected us all, it has made the jobs of those in HR especially challenging. The human resources team is the keystone of an organization. These individuals commit to inspiring and motivating employees; finding the best candidates; keeping people engaged; and building atmospheres of equity, diversity, and inclusion. What makes the division so special is in the name...
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How Women Entrepreneurs Are Shaking Up the Status Quo and Pointing the Way Forward for a Post-Pandemic World
There are approximately 12.3 million women-owned businesses in the US, and they're reinventing how business gets done. The disruption caused by COVID-19 has shown us that alternative work models can, indeed, succeed. With more American workers demanding change, this is a pivotal moment for US businesses. Women entrepreneurs have always been pioneers of new business models and values. They...
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Side Hustle Smarts: 5 Metrics to Measure Success
Article by Amy Anderson Committing time to your side hustle is a big decision. The hours and resources you spend need to pay off in a tangible way — but are they? Smart business owners ensure they're investing the right time, energy, and money into their side hustles by measuring the right metrics. The finer details might be different for a creative contractor than for a real estate...
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Are You as Objective as You Think? How Traditional Hiring Methods Keep Us From Building More Divorce Workforces
"Why does it matter what our leadership team looks like? We hire and promote people based on their performance, not on the color of their skin." If you've ever been involved in discussions of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in the workplace, you've likely encountered some variation of this protestation. Maybe you've even uttered it yourself. At first glance, the logic is...
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'As the Individual Evolves, the Company Evolves': LinkedIn's Scott Shute on Cultivating Compassion in the Workplace
Scott Shute is LinkedIn's head of mindfulness and compassion programs — a unique title if ever there was one. Just reading that sentence, you might start to wonder why LinkedIn would have such a "squishy" position on staff. After all, LinkedIn is a professional networking site, a venue for finding jobs, making deals, and keeping tabs on your industry. How do things like "mindfulness" and...
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Effective Upskilling and Reskilling: How Workforce Planning and Development Improve Productivity and Talent ROI
It's no secret that automation and digital transformation are rapidly restructuring the talent landscape, putting as many as 85 million jobs at risk. What many people don't realize is that this same trend is also poised to create an additional 97 million jobs and an additional $8.5 trillion in global revenues. There's just one small caveat: We have to upskill more than half of the global...
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The 7 Common Success Traps, Part 1: Overreliance on Technology and Automation
The "seven common success traps" are the traps I've learned about over the course of my career working with clients and collaborators from some of America's top organizations, including Fortune 50 and Fortune 500 companies. These traps are based on both my personal experience and the stories shared by my clients and collaborators. These success traps can and do happen to the best of us....
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The Most Powerful Recruiting Tools Might Just Be Behavioral Health and Well-Being Programs
Employee behavioral health and well-being dramatically affect a company's culture, productivity, and overall success. Robust behavioral health and well-being programs are considered reliable indicators of a positive culture, and many candidates specifically prioritize employers with such programs in their job searches. That's why recruiters would be wise to highlight their company's...
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What HBO's 'Persona' Gets Right and (Mostly) Wrong About Personality Tests
The new documentary Persona: The Dark Side of Personality Tests is a confusing and often muddled look at the world of personality tests, but it does raise some really important issues. First, let's look at what the documentary gets right. The documentary focuses on a legal case first brought many years ago against Unicru, a personality test provider that once was used by Kroger and many...
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5 Rules for Engaging, Motivating, and Recognizing Employees in a Post-Pandemic World
The pandemic has challenged us — as individuals, professionals, and organizations — in ways we could never have imagined. As the light at the end of the tunnel glows brighter and we take our initial steps towards recovery, business leaders can start to examine the impact the pandemic has had on both their organizations' bottom lines and the morale of their people. In the wake of the...
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Salary Bands: Good Intentions, Bad Outcomes
Could something as simple as offering candidates and employees an expected salary range actually diminish workplace performance and equity? I believe so. Salary bands (also called "salary ranges") are growing more acceptable in companies worldwide. While they're intended to create transparency in pay grades and elevate equity, diversity, and empathy in the workplace, they can have...
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How the Shift to Remote Work Is Revitalizing Employee Benefits
Any disruption is a chance to evaluate and revitalize old processes. COVID-19 has been, for many companies, the catalyst to rethink benefits structures and compensation arrangements as employees adapt to an increasingly virtual work environment. The dramatic changes to the way people work have given employees all across the country an opportunity to rethink their priorities when it comes...
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McDonald's Could Reach Its Diversity Targets Faster If It Had the Right Data on Hand
As we move into the second quarter of 2021, more and more companies are working toward greater levels of gender parity in their leadership ranks. While this is a noble endeavor, good intentions without results are as bad as — or worse than — doing nothing at all. The many repeated commitments to progress are encouraging at a glance, but how many will turn out to be token gestures leading...
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18 Out-of-the-Box Ideas to Spark Creative Inspiration
Article by Lydia Sweatt When inspiration strikes, powerful things happen in the creative mind. A novelist might add five chapters to a book after wrestling with the introduction for months. A painter might finally confront the blank canvas, bringing an idea to life with broad, confident strokes. But just like lightning, inspiration doesn't always strike twice. You can't necessarily...
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12 Ways to Make Hiring a Priority — Even When You're Swamped
Welcome to Recruiter QA, where we pose employment-related questions to the experts and share their answers! Today's Question: Your company is slammed with work — but you also need to make a hire or two to keep the team running at full capacity. What do you do to ensure hiring doesn't get put on the back burner? These answers are provided by Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an...
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Worried About Employee Retention in the Post-Pandemic Era? You Really Should Be.
Economic upheaval tends to make employees skittish. When all around us businesses are shutting their doors and slashing their staff sizes, the people lucky enough to keep their jobs often balk at the prospect of making a move. Who's to say that company courting you now won't go under next month? The devil you know is always better, after all. But a handful of recent reports suggest the...
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Effective Remote Collaboration: The Tools, Tech, and Training You Need to Support Remote Teamwork
Within the past year, we've seen significant changes in how employees work with each other and their employers, most obviously in the shift to remote work. Some companies may make remote work permanent, while others may adopt a hybrid structure mixing remote and in-person arrangements. Regardless, remote work and the flexibility it affords will likely be part of companies' policies in some...
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How Your Small Business Can Hire Top-Tier Freelance Talent
If you're not already hiring freelance and contingent talent, you probably will be soon. The use of contract, freelance, and otherwise flexible labor — as opposed to full-time employees — has been on the rise for years. Partly, it's a matter of agility: Business moves fast these days, and working with contingent talent allows an employer to scale up or down as needed at a moment's...
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Reconnect With Your Company's Core Essence to Come Out of the Pandemic Stronger Than Ever
As we continue adapting to some of the biggest and fastest changes our country has seen to date, it can be hard to maintain a stable sense of what your company stands for. Despite all the new developments and obstacles, an organization can rise up stronger and more secure than ever before. Yes, I really believe that — and I believe it starts with redefining or recommitting to your...
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Stay on Track — Don't Look Back! 7 Tips on Actually Reaching Your Goals
Setting goals can sometimes feel overwhelming, but if you plan your goals incrementally, you set yourself up for the best shot at hitting your target. When you set smaller, more attainable goals on the path to your bigger goals, each goal you achieve becomes a motivator, pushing you further toward your ultimate aim. You might fall off track from time to time. That's okay — do not be hard...
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This Women's History Month, Cut Unconscious Bias From Your Interviews With These 6 Tips [Infographic]
March is Women's History Month in the US, which means many companies are rightfully taking the time to reflect on how far working women have come — and how much further there is to go. The danger, however, is that the discourse can quickly become self-congratulatory. Between all the flashy tweets, enthusiastic press releases, and searching think pieces, you might start to wonder whether...
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The War for Contingent Talent Is On — Here's How to Win It
We're in the midst of a workplace evolution. When it comes to the rapidly changing employee-employer relationship, the stakes are getting higher as we all try to envision what the future holds. One thing we know for sure: Contingent work is growing more appealing to both employers and employees. As a result, competition for the best contingent talent will be more intense than we have ever...
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