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Training Training and Productivity Tips Wise Ways Consulting

The 2023 No Resolution List

The 2023 No Resolution List

Welcome to January and welcome to a new year!

Sometime after the new year begins, and the first day of work, many people create a list of resolutions – a list of personal and professional desires often encompassing habits, health, or wants. Then, sometime in the first week of February or sooner, all that positive energy fades along with the resolutions.

People consistently fail to see their resolutions to the end of the year. So, I ask, why are you setting yourself up for failure? This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to stop smoking, eat more vegetables, land a new job, or any of the thousands of resolutions people make. You should try to be healthier and happier, but making a resolution is not the way to make it happen.

This issue of Wise Words provides articles and resources to reframe the idea of resolutions toward setting goals, intentions, and the power of small changes for big payoffs.

The beginning of a new year is a powerful time to assess areas of your life that you want to improve. However, that doesn’t mean it’s the only time. Pick any Sunday, any first day of a month, or milestone. Every day is a new opportunity to start fresh.

The dictionary defines resolution as the act of determining. A goal is defined as the end toward which effort is directed.

Resolutions are ideas and goals are actions.

Consider a goal like a commute to work. You don’t wake up in the and then arrive at work, even if you’re working from home. You have a morning routine that may include pets and family members. You have a route to work that may need to change for meeting times or weather. As you complete one small task in your morning, you move to the next, and the next until you arrive at work. Because you’ve been walking through a morning routine and commute, whether it was to school or work for most of your life, you don’t think of the individual steps until something changes, like your car breaks down or you get a new job.

Why is it then, that we make lofty resolutions and rely on willpower and not small thoughtful steps and measurable results?

Reframe your resolutions as goals and treat those goals like a commute through the year. What one or two steps can you take to make slow and steady progress. Complete those and start again. Make sure to allow for unexpected changes. Forgive yourself if you miss a step, pick a new moment, and begin again. In this scenario, any day can be the start of your new year.

I wish you a healthy 2023 full of success however you define it.

P.S. Coaching is an excellent way to set measurable and meanings goals. Email Melissa today! [email protected]

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Training and Productivity Tips

Career Assessment Advice

Each year we move our clocks forward and backward by one hour. For some people, the time shift induces a time lag that makes starting work on Monday harder than usual. I promise you’ll adjust to the time. I’m not so sure you’ll ever adjust to feeling that your job is hard.

Spring is a good time to assess your job, your career, and your teams. With the economy still growing (virus fears aside) there are opportunities to explore. This month, I want to talk about career assessments. Dig deeper than the performance review. Really rate levels of satisfaction.

  • Are you satisfied with the work you are doing?
  • Are your co-workers satisfied with the work you are producing?
  • Are you satisfied with the people you work with?
  • Are the people around you happy?

It’s fine, normal even, for people to not love everything they are asked to do. You assign a recurring project to a particular staffer and he grumbles. Is he grumbling over the assignment or is it deeper? Does his attitude and work product spill into other parts of the department? Maybe he needs a new assignment or maybe he needs a new job.

Career Assessment

If waking up and facing the day is hard for you, evaluate why? Is it the commute you hate, a particular co-worker, or is it the job itself? Issues like commutes and communication in the office can be dealt with. Larger issues of not liking your career need larger solutions.

It’s natural for managers and leaders to feel as if they are responsible for keeping teams on track. But who keeps the leaders on track when they are unsure of their jobs and satisfaction levels? Sure, there is always someone above you. Even C-suite jobs report to boards and shareholders. It’s unlikely though, the chair of the board will sit down with you and say, I noticed you don’t seem happy with your job lately.

It’s important to recognize signs of career burnout in yourself and in your teams.

  • Are you still learning new things at work and from others?
  • Do you care about learning new things?
  • Are you working in a particular industry because you’re fully invested in it – school, training, expectations? By this I mean you went to business school, and earned an MBA but really want to raise alpacas.

If you’re feeling stuck in a rut, seeking outside support such as mentors, career and business coaches, and even professional peers can help. This is good advice for your teams as well. You may have a high performer who is unhappy. Pairing her or him with a mentor, potentially in a different department or even outside your business, could be the difference between replacing someone who leaves or retaining a valuable member of your team.

We lead busy lives, so busy we don’t stop enough to examine if we are satisfied with the work we do or if we are simply stuck in our jobs. Sometimes we need to deal with stuck because stuck comes with a comfortable salary and essential benefits, like health insurance or teleworking. We can also move ourselves and our teams forward with training for new positions and roles, explore how to expand jobs and responsibilities. You may just discover, you do like coming to work, even on a Monday.

I welcome your feedback, ideas, and the chance to connect anytime you want to say hello. Contact me with your questions and goals for the year ahead.

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Training and Productivity Tips

Transition, Boundaries, and Fear

Welcome to summer. Warmer weather, longer days, pandemic, economic distress, riots and protests, and nary a Clorox wipe still to be found. I don’t mean to take any of that lightly. There are a lot of issues to be concerned with now, as well as much change and progress ushering in hope.

Scientists have kicked into high gear, collaborating across the globe like never before, to develop a COVID-19 vaccine. With 100 trials on-going, the medical community is confident we will have a vaccine sooner rather than later.

The economy here in the United States and in other parts of the world is opening. While we should expect on-going uncertainty in the job market, we are moving again.

True social justice and change is crossing the nation with sweeping police reform now being considered across the country. America’s cries for change are being echoed globally as well.

World supply chains are shifting as globally it is seen how a reliance on China for cheap goods and labor is not good for home markets. Internally, the inability to flex and redistribute our food supply and other essential goods needs to improve.

Yet, at kitchen tables across the nation where people have set up their home offices and home schools, there is a lot of worry about a return to work. What does the 2020 office now look like? Is it safe? Is it empty? Are you the one to stay home or the one designated to return? What happens if you don’t feel safe or a co-worker becomes ill? What does company travel look like? Hazard pay?

When you do return, you will have a different view of your co-workers. You’ve interacted with their families and their pets. You’ve spied on their desks and homes and laughed at their choice of Zoom backgrounds. You’ve also worked in a more connected, round-the-clock environment. With everyone ordered to stay inside, many companies have been surprised at the amount of work that has been completed. For others, it has exposed issues and concerns they didn’t know they had.

Reclaiming Work-Life Balance

Change is coming. We must factor in commutes, perhaps longer in traffic as people shy away from public transportation. Employees may use more sick days electing to follow public health advice and stay home. People will vacation again. Our hyped-work environment will change and managers and leaders must help themselves and their employees establish boundaries between work and home once again.

Change is hard. We’ve had so much of it this year with much more predicted. There’s an election in fewer than 150 days.

This issue of Wise Words is devoted to resources to help you navigate the boundaries and transitions that are now coming slow and steady as the workforce returns to physical office space. At least some of it. Work from home and shared work spaces with family will continue too, building a new hybrid work culture.

No matter where you land, remember the power of communication, education, and training. Wise Ways Consulting will always have current resources and programs to see you to your new normal.

I welcome your feedback, ideas, and the chance to connect anytime you want to say hello. Contact me with your questions and goals.

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Training and Productivity Tips

Thank You for Staying Home

Let me tell you a little secret… I’m tired of staying home. I’m tired of hearing how people feel about staying at home. And, I’m tired of being upset when I don’t see people staying at home on the news.

What my mood tells me is an old lesson, the type you need to constantly relearn, concentrate on what you can control.

As we start a new month, no matter where you live, there will continue to be some level of restrictions. If your government says you can go bowling, get a tattoo or massage, and eat at a restaurant, you still control if you choose to do that. You can, and you should, control how you manage your health and your potential exposure to COVID-19 and that of your family.

I’m staying home. That means more Zoom meetings and facilitating virtual training sessions using whichever platform my clients are using. It means adapting to my client, employee, and partner needs. Personally, I’ve been really impressed with the level of innovation and motivation that I’ve seen. I don’t know when the restrictions will be lifted or the virus threat will end; I can predict it won’t be this month. Maybe not the next either.

What I can predict is that many of the innovations and lessons in home office and online communication will become a new, growing industry. Work at home will no longer be a perk. Online communications and meetings will save thousands of hours and dollars in travel time and expenses.

I also predict some less than positive results. Employers will expect their remote employees to always be working and available beyond normal business hours. Online productivity and tracking software will have a Big Brother presence in our lives. And while online communications and meetings will save time and money – they will also result in the loss of connection as well. While some individuals profess to not need this, many others do. The loss of face-to-face communication may further degrade the interpersonal communication skills of Gen Y and Millennial populations.

I also know we will adapt, improve, and become better people for it.

Another prediction I have is we will learn to set better personal boundaries. We all know individuals (maybe it’s yourself) who are struggling now. The put-together person who really isn’t. The person unable to sleep at night and who is also having crazy dreams. It’s not your imagination, well…it is, but you’re not alone.

Many companies and colleagues are learning to treat their employees with more kindness. If you’re sick, seriously, don’t come to work. We’re not at our best, poor video conferencing lighting and lack of haircuts aside. We can see it on each other’s screens. We are learning to share our feelings and set limits on our time, simply because we must.

As we move into another month of government ordered stay-at-home orders and eventually, personal-choice orders to limit our exposure, remember – control what you can. This virus is here for a while longer. It doesn’t matter if you haven’t learned to knit or bake bread. You have learned to adapt and survive. Be proud of yourself. Thank you for staying home.

I welcome your feedback, ideas, and the chance to connect anytime you want to say hello. Contact me with your questions and goals.

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Training and Productivity Tips

Loss, Grief, and Hope

Wow! What has happened to our world since the last edition of Wise Words? Life as we knew it has truly been upended. We began January with the start of a shiny new year, 2020, yet things changed dramatically along the way.

For almost all of us, we are now working from home. What does this mean? For some, it includes trying to schedule work hours and computer access around the access needs of children and spouse. Remember that not everyone in this country has more than one computer at home – in fact, there are many homes in this country where people don’t have internet access, including here in the National Capital Region of Washington, DC.

For others, it means learning to work remotely and be physically on your own all the time. In my case, I am working from my home office, connecting with clients via Zoom and other platforms. We’re delivering training courses that meet the needs of our clients, facilitating strategic planning sessions, and conducting coaching sessions – all via varying online platforms. All of the Wise Ways Consulting team are practicing social distancing as directed by our local state governments.

Loss

What many of us are experiencing is loss. “What kind of loss, Melissa?” you might think. “I’m an introvert, I’ve been practicing for this for the majority of my life! I’m loving this!” And that’s wonderful for you! But for many, there is loss – and it presents in differing ways. The loss of physically connecting with your team members at break, even the ones that drive you a little batty. The loss of your son or daughter’s senior prom or graduation events and trying to soothe their fears that they may not even start college in the fall. The loss of income as friends and colleagues are furloughed or let go. The loss of personal space, for those who chose to self-isolate by moving in with older family members. For those who live alone, the loss of human touch.

And of course, the overarching fear – we may contract the virus or someone we care about will become sick and possibly die. For those of us who have relatives in different locations and countries – the realization that if one of them gets sick, we cannot be there for them.

But before you try to tell people that “our relatives before us had to go to war, we’re just being asked to watch Netflix and chill” recognize the role that loss can play in our lives. Everyone’s loss is legitimate; there is no comparing each other’s loss and saying “well my loss is greater than yours because….” Seriously, no one wants to hear it. The biggest loss is always your own.

Grief

When we deal with loss, we then deal with grief. While we may try to say that we’re not grieving, we are, even in not-so-obvious ways. Grief is the response to loss – and while it is typically thought to be focused on an emotional response, it also includes physical, cognitive, behavioral, and spiritual components. Do you see people on Facebook joking about being pleased with themselves that they managed to shower and brush their teeth in the morning? The loss of normal routine can be extremely stressful for people. People are struggling with physical responses – a lack of sleep, low energy, lack of drive to press forward. As we struggle to identify what our new normal is going to be, people are trying to understand how this will impact them.

Joe Primo works for an organization called, Good Grief. It provides support to children and teens who have experienced a death or loss. In his TEDX talk , which you can find in the articles and video section of this newsletter, he explains that grief is good because it puts your life back to together. And though grief is one of the hardest emotions to work through, it navigates you forward. Grief teaches you about your powers of endurance, character, and friendship.

As a world community, we are grieving the loss of life as we know it. Your grief is different from mine, but just as valid and emotionally draining. I can see it on my video conferences as my clients struggle to “work”. I’m sure you can see it too, either on the faces of your (now) video colleagues, friends, and family, and certainly in the bathroom mirror in the morning through your own eyes.

It’s okay to grieve, in fact it is critical. It’s important to recognize that grieving is a process and to trust the emotion of grief and all other emotions that come with it. Grieving doesn’t work on a schedule; you’re not going to wake up one morning and ‘poof’ it’s over! Talk it out. Keep a journal. Sleep. Exercise. Eat well. Reach out to others. Keep a regular schedule. And most importantly right now, wash your hands and stay home.

Hope

Looking forward to life “post-Covid”, what do you want your world to look like? How will your life be new and unique from what it is now? What do you want to do differently? What might this new future hold for you? Identify goals and set intentions for change and growth. Use this time now to take a class or identify ways to grow toward your new mindset.

Each day, consider these Daily Quarantine Questions (author unknown)

  • Who am I checking on or connecting with today?
  • What expectations of “normal” am I letting go of today?
  • How am I getting outside today?
  • How am I moving my body today?
  • How am I expressing my creativity today?
  • What type of self-care am I practicing today?
  • What am I grateful for today?

Part of the grieving process is having hope for a new tomorrow. We will be a different society as we march into 2021, and I hope next April’s newsletter reflects that hope that we’ve all seen and the lives we’ve helped to create.

I welcome your feedback, ideas, and the chance to connect anytime you want to say hello. Contact me with your 2020 questions and goals.

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Training and Productivity Tips

Fall in Love in with Your Job

This February is a leap year. What are you planning to do with your extra day? And to make the month even more special, it’s been reported that the famous groundhog Punxsutawney Phil, that intrepid weather-predicting rodent, has indicated an early spring. This is all great news to start off the month and should put us in a positive mood to tackle one of our biggest social and employee work issues – learning to like our jobs when we don’t, and the employees who come with them.

People are the number one issue we have in the workplace. Unfortunately, we just don’t like all of them. And when we struggle with the people, we struggle with our roles.

This month I’ve pulled together some tips, ideas, and resources on the ways and the reasons to love your work.

Let’s start with the most important tool – communication. But beyond learning new ways to talk it out in the work place, I think it’s important to talk it out with yourself.

  • Why are you working? Money, prestige, interest, power. Are you simply paying the rent or saving for something larger? Are you working on your career path and focusing on the next position along the way?
  • How do you define success? Job title, salary, leadership, contribution to mission.
  • If you are in a job you don’t like, why do you stay?

Finding a way out of your unhappy workplace maze begins with understanding how you entered and what may be on the outside.

Fall in Love with Your Job

Author Elizabeth Gilbert, best known for her book, Eat Pray Love, speaks often about creativity and the creative process.

In her book Big Magic, she writes about the value of living a creative life. She talks about people who want to cook, woodwork, garden, or take photos – basically any hobby that lights you up that may not be related to your day-to-day job.

Professionally you may be labeled a systems engineer or project manager, but you’re really a musician who wants to play guitar on the weekends. By changing your mindset about your work, it may change how you approach it. She recommends you work to be your own patron. It would be amazing if we could all make a living in a creative work field, but the reality, going back to Da Vinci and Michelangelo, is that without a patron like the Pope, it’s near impossible. You’ll spend your creative energy trying to keep ahead of your bills instead of in the workshop.

If instead when people ask, “what do you do?” you said, “I’m a dancer” instead of “I’m a CPA”, how would that change how you felt about yourself and your work? Would defining your true self empower you to live it and in order to live it, give deeper meaning to your work as a CPA? Okay, maybe not. But my point is when we are unhappy at work or when we are frustrated by employees, we become defined by it. Maybe the issue with John or Jane in the next cubicle isn’t that they’re bad at budgeting, but that they’re better at painting.

Sometimes changing and finding job satisfaction needs to start with us before we can help others. Find what you love and let that become defines who and what you are. Bring that sense of self to work and it may surprise you.

I welcome your feedback, ideas, and the chance to connect anytime you want to say hello. Contact me with your questions and goals for the year ahead.

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Government Agency Training Training and Productivity Tips

Workplace Ethics, Morals, and the Law

The US workforce is experiencing a labor shortage. And while data suggests many workers are underemployed and underpaid, many industries are having a hard time filling positions.

What this means is it’s even more important for managers to develop employee retention programs, ongoing training, and salary adjustments. However, research also shows that salary and benefits are only a fraction of what is needed to retain an employee’s loyalty.

Recognition and appreciation rates are high when it comes to job satisfaction. When an employee is unhappy they become flight risks. This can spiral into bad feelings, bad attitudes, and deeper issues of discrimination and bias.

As we start a shiny new work year, I want to discuss ethics, morals, and laws in the workplace. I know it’s a downer subject. However, understanding how workers and management internalize behaviors at their core beliefs can be a game changer.

Let’s begin with company ethics.

Workplace Ethics

Ethics are a principle of philosophy that governs right from wrong. What should I do? Oftentimes, the ethics of a society, group, or family unit are aligned. Just like corporate culture. A company may have a stated code of conduct, no stealing, expense reports are due with receipts on the first of the month. No one is allowed to fly business class at the company’s expense. The customer is always right and all efforts should be made to rectify complaints.

When you join a company, you accept its code and for the most part, are not asked to behave in a way that violates society’s norms.

Morals

Morals are more personal. Morals and ethics are related and often interchangeable in discussions, but morals refer more to an individual’s personal value system. You can be part of a group that believes in a set of ethics but have different morals. For example. Your company believes the customer is always right. But, what if the customer lied, falsified information, or made personal and false accusations and you don’t believe you should be part of the solution that hands them what has been requested?

You could refuse to follow the customer is always right creed, knowing you could be fired or punished. Or, you could recognize the issues but follow the company policy.

Law

The law refers to a set of enforceable rules set by a governing body in society (thankfully we live in a democracy) with the express intent of people living together in harmony. Yes, not all people agree with all laws, that’s another discussion.

How you decide what is right and what is wrong is often based on the ethics of the group with whom you most identify.

You could share a sense of ethics and loyalty to your workplace but report illegal activity. It could become a case for law enforcement or at the company level, management could decide to stop servicing the client.

I’ve chosen a bland scenario, the customer is always right, to illustrate this discussion. Now, look at it through a lens of sexual harassment, gender-age-racial-able body discrimination, and a workers’ comp situation. Or a case where people are denied overtime pay even though it’s understood everyone works overtime.

When considering the actions of others, co-workers, managers, and subordinates, consider the difference between the ethics of the workplace and what is expected, and the morals of the individual. If their actions do not align with your own or the company, you can take action within the legal bounds of your workplace and authority. If their actions are a matter of differences of opinion, listen. You may learn something or at the very least, understand.

But one thing is certain, a crime is always wrong and should always be reported.

This month’s issue of Wise Words explores workplace ethics and morals to continue the discussion and I hope to provide you with the tools to make your own points understood and respected.

I welcome your feedback, ideas, and the chance to connect anytime you want to say hello. Contact me with your questions and goals for the upcoming year.

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Professional Development Training and Productivity Tips Uncategorized

Are You Earning Enough?

Using a Salary Calculator.

Let’s talk about how much money you make. It’s okay, it’s just the two of us here.

Financial conversations are hard. Whether you are landing your first job out of college or are looking to make a leap into a new position or career, understanding your worth and your financial needs are difficult.

Some companies treat salaries like a competitive game. The less they can pay you, the more they believe they win.

Some companies have unfair and illegal biases against women and minorities.

Some small companies and non-profits simply can’t compete with large companies with full benefit offerings.

Then there’s the education piece. The more you have, the more you’re worth. That also includes the amount of experience and any specific certifications you may have earned over the years.

Let’s add location into the mix. Two people with identical resumes won’t earn the same in New York City vs Detroit. The cost of living in these two locations is too different and salaries are always adjusted to account for the location.

Are you looking for a raise?

My advice is to first take your organization’s pulse. How are the current and projected earnings, rate of hiring, and place in the market? Are you affected by the current trade war like farmers trying to sell their soybeans to China; manufacturing like Boeing; or labor issues like the GM Strike?

Next, determine how much you’re worth. You can try this salary calculator tool. Also, check out my column in Prince William Living magazine for a cost of living calculator to help you determine your worth relative to your location.

Consider your current compensation and benefits. How much is healthcare? What is the organization’s 401K or retirement contribution? How much do you spend to commute and park if you drive? How many vacation and sick days are you given? Are there other non-monetary benefits to include health club membership, access to legal services, or onsite childcare?

Finally, and most important to your company, why should they give you a raise? Just showing up every day isn’t enough. What have you done for them lately?

Come to any salary discussion with a list of accomplishments and ways you’ve improved and helped the organization. Make yourself invaluable and your management will want to compensate you for fear of losing you.

I know this sounds like a lot of work for the sake of your work. Yet before you can have a thoughtful and well-argued discussion about your compensation, you have to have all the facts as they pertain to you and your specific job and location.

Armed with data and a thoughtful accounting of your roles and successes, you’ll also have the confidence you need to have a difficult and important conversation about your compensation.

Studies suggest that the best time to have important discussions is in the morning before decision fatigue sets in. If you don’t have a defined salary review, schedule time on your manager’s calendar. Come prepared, it’ll show.

Contact me with your salary negotiation question.

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Career Development Professional Development Training and Productivity Tips

Making the Most of Employer Feedback

Employer feedback is one of the best-established ways to communicate with an employee. With positive feedback, an employee, or even an entire team, will feel energized about their mission and skills. Negative feedback can, in theory, right a ship careening into a rocky coast.

Let’s talk about some feedback problems

  • Feedback trap – No one wants to hear feedback and no one wants to give any. This means our information is ignored or the feedback we get is thin or simply wrong.
  • Feeding my ego – The employee only accepts information that fits his or her beliefs. The employee pushes back against anything else.
  • Feeding me to the lions – Employees are asked to provide feedback on their boss or senior leadership. Employees fear reprisal and lie or don’t provide any useful information.
  • Feeding buffet – Too much feedback with no action plan, accountability, or follow-up, can loop back to feeding my ego – the employee only responds to what he or she believes is best.

I’m not advising you to ditch your feedback surveys, discussions, and procedures. However, for feedback to be effective, it needs to be administered with care.

Consider what or who you are looking to solicit and provide information concerning specific issues or behaviors. If your organization’s policy is to ask a variety of people to provide input for performance, assure direct reports that the information is confidential – unless they are filing a formal complaint.

Direct your questions to specific areas, not general questions about work habits and issues.

Ask the right people for feedback. If you only solicit information from subordinates or “friendly” sources, you miss essential critical comments from peers, and in some cases, customers.

If you have to deliver a lot of negative feedback, pick one or two of the most important issues where you want to see improvement. A blanket “your work habits are poor, you fail to communicate, and you are bordering on sexual harassment behavior” is not actionable.

If the person receiving the feedback is prone to only listen to what fits his or her world view, action items are essential. My book, How Not to Act Like a BLEEP at Work, takes you through a workplace scenario where an employee is placed with a mentor who helps her see her flaws and turns negative feedback into positive results.

This issue of Wise Words explores feedback and how to ensure it works for you and your employees.

Need some help? Check out my classes including my popular Communicating Strategically class.

Contact me with your leadership and team questions.

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Corporate Teams Training and Productivity Tips

Building a Healthy Company Culture

Let’s talk about company culture.

Much has been said about companies like Google that offer employees snacks and Netflix with free movies. I’ve included a link in the Great Reads section, check it out.

Company perks are not the same as company culture. Culture refers to an organization’s personality. Even the most buttoned-down industries think finance, insurance, and government, can have attractive cultures. These are the places that are committed to employee satisfaction. Your organization doesn’t have to offer free massages for it to be a great place to work.

Time and again, employee surveys show that employees are most likely to be happy at their jobs when they have good management, feel valued, and have a mission to which they feel connected. A company may choose to show its value with freebies, but if movie nights and free vacations a la AirBnB aren’t in the budget, consider how other offerings translate.

  • Paid parental leave for women and men signals a commitment to families and values as employees transition to and from the workforce.
  • Paid tuition and training signal a commitment to training, education, and a growth mindset.
  • Healthcare benefits for part-time employees signal a commitment to health and understanding what matters to people.
  • Flex time and work-from-home options signal a commitment to family-life balance, transportation costs, stress, and employee independence.

Hire for your culture

  • Do your organization value teams and collaboration?
  • Are you based on independent thinkers and doers?
  • Do you provide services and want employees with a servant’s heart?
  • Does management want to see people at their desks or does it prefer online communications?

And while these touchpoints are broad, an organization can break them down to why they are important and how they work, or in some cases don’t work. If face-to-face communication is essential to your organization and everyone works from home, it’s time for a culture change.

In today’s tech-dependent environment, employees do expect perks and view them as part of an organization’s culture. The company with a 50% discount on its services, generous leave package, and management training program is seen as desirable. But perks are not a bandage for unhappy workers. Suddenly offering free Starbucks in the morning isn’t going to make up for poor leadership. It certainly won’t make up for a company’s poor reputation. Define your culture and hire employees who fit. If you can’t find enough qualified employees, maybe it’s time for a culture change.

Need some help? Check out my classes including my popular Change Management for Cultural transformation class.

Contact me with your leadership and team issues.

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