Human Resources
Developing self-aware leaders
Leadership opportunities provide another means of engaging employees. They also upskill your people at a time your organization needs it most. When developing leaders, it’s important to teach the value of self-awareness. Using behavioral data, you can objectively walk employees through their unique behavioral strengths and caution areas. Then, you can compare their behavioral makeup to others…
Maintaining career pathing
Traditionally, career pathing is an opportunity to identify and create new roles as your organization grows. It’s also a way to incentivize employees and reward high performance. The dynamics change significantly in a crisis scenario. You may have a hiring freeze in place. Without the ability to bring on new employees, you don’t have the…
Empowering employees to be resilient
Resilience is the ability to manage through adversity by reacting to situations and managing them rather than letting them manage you. It’s what will hold your business strategy together, even when times are tough. But resilience also applies to the people of your organization. When the chips are down, every action or decision your people…
Promoting leaders at every level
Your culture is not defined just by those at the top. Every person in an organization has the ability to impact the culture. That’s why it’s important to support culture leaders at every level. Sometimes, even those with the least amount of formal authority can play the biggest role in culture. Give employees an opportunity…
Rewarding and recognizing employees
Reinforcing your values will increase employees’ belief in the culture you’ve created. Determine which behaviors should be rewarded and which should be discouraged. For example, the company pushing for improved teamwork could create a rewards system that recognizes individuals who exhibit team collaboration. What about addressing a behavior that’s NOT aligned with the culture? What…
Strengthening values and norms
“Set It And Forget It” is a great motto for a rotisserie oven, not for your culture. Many factors impact a culture, including changes in leadership, company acquisitions, and even day-to-day decisions. It’s up to you and all employees to help maintain the culture you want. This requires you to check on it often. Communication…
Understanding your company culture
Before jumping to improving or maintaining your culture, let’s discuss the specific culture types. Cultures can be defined by two major competing value propositions: Based on those values, an organization will fall within one of the four organizational cultures: So, which culture is right for your organization? To best answer that question, you’ll need to…
Coaching employees
Managing your employees and providing feedback is important, but coaching them on how to get there is vital to their success. Schedule a recurring meeting to have open discussion about their personal and professional development. Remember, your responsibility isn’t to directly set a goal for them. Instead, ask clarifying questions and discuss paths they can…
Holding employees accountable
Much like feedback, holding someone accountable to something means there needs to be a clear goal or expectation set. Even CEOs struggle with holding people accountable. So, how do we get better? Consider yourself. Are you holding yourself accountable? If the answer is no, then you’re not setting the right example for your employees. Demonstrate that…
Giving feedback to employees
Now that your employees have something to work towards, it’s critical they’re able to assess how they’re doing through feedback. Providing feedback is something many struggle with, but there are principles you can follow to make giving feedback easier: This way the employee understands exactly what they did right or wrong and how the company…