As we are bombarded with political ads describing how horrible the “other” candidate is, we need to remember that kindness matters. It’s easy to get caught up in the name calling and tearing down of individuals whose views are different from our own, but we need to remember that we’re often more alike than different and treating each other with kindness and dignity creates a much better world. At work, do you practice acts of kindness and encourage your staff to do the same

Although most managers won’t admit it, their actions often serve to create or fuel drama at work. Why is it we talk against drama but don’t take steps to avoid it? When change is initiated at your office, do you grimace and your first thoughts lean toward what will go wrong? Do you roll your eyes and make sarcastic comments to your peers or staff? Alternatively, do you try and see the logic behind any changes and consider what opportunities change may bring? When you hear

Historically, we expect the career ladder to include upward movement, often meaning there’s an expectation of adding employee management to the set of responsibilities. When was the last time you looked at the career progression in your company and considered whether it’s working for you and your staff? Most of us have worked with managers who should never have been placed in a position to provide employee oversight. Although certainly most skills can be taught, there are s

As we celebrate HSA day, do you know what they are and how they work? HSA stands for Health Savings Account. These are powerful savings tools that are often unappreciated. If your benefits provide the opportunity for you and your staff to utilize an HSA, I’d suggest you look into them with your employees to make sure you’re getting the full benefit of the program. To be eligible for an HSA you must have a high-deductible health benefit plan. These are often available and po

October is Domestic Violence Awareness month and it’s a good time to review resources and understanding in the workplace. Per the National Domestic Violence Hotline, an average of 24 people per minute are victims of violence by an intimate partner in the US; more than 12 million per year. In addition, 1 in 4 women and 1 in 7 men have been victims of physical violence by a partner in their lifetime. From a work perspective, the organization reports that 44% of full-time empl

It may seem counterintuitive, but sometimes we need to slow down for productivity. In this 24/7 world, it feels like we always need to have something going. There are so many distractions around us that it’s easy to get pulled in different directions Applying focus to our day can help us accomplish tasks. Sometimes we need to step back, take a breath and concentrate on our priorities. If we get caught up trying to accomplish too many things at one time, either nothing get

When I tell someone that I work as a fractional HR Consultant, I’m often greeted with blank stares or eye rolls. What is a fractional HR Consultant and how can it help businesses? Anyone working with people knows there can be challenges and risks. So how do organizations maximize their use of employees and ensure staff are motivated and fulfilled? Fractional HR Consultants can step in and help determine potential miscues and risks by coming into the organization, auditing

We often encourage our staff to be creative, but how do we define creativity? While we encourage staff to speak up with new ideas and processes, are we actively discouraging some changes and sending mixed messages? Creativity can be new ideas and processes, certainly, but it can also be achieved in resolving problems, preparing budgets, and thinking differently. If we assign a task to someone and they go about working it contrary to what we expected, do we step in and stop

If you’ve thought about being an entrepreneur and starting your own business, please check out the book Oh Yes I Did (available on Amazon). I wrote the book with eight other entrepreneurs, telling our stories of what encouraged us to start our own businesses and lessons learned along the way. Whether you’ve always wanted to branch out on your own or circumstances led you to rethink working for others, you’ll likely find something that resonates in the book. In my situation,

As we get closer to the last quarter, we need to remind staff to review their year-end plans and make sure things are on target. Where is your staff with their PTO—do they have a lot of available time off they’ll need to use between now and the end of the year, or are they completely out and will be scrounging through year end? Do you need to discuss how to manage either scenario? Do you/they have established goals that need to be completed by year end? Where are they in g

Unfortunately, employee related scams are constant these days. From interviews with employees and/or companies who aren’t what they seem to emails that include malicious links to fake websites that hope to trick individuals to provide sensitive information, there are lots of opportunities to be scammed. Have you talked with staff about scams? Do you have any processes in place to try to prevent or educate your staff from being tricked? It’s easy to think we know what to look

Frequently in organizations, managers make a rush to judgement, extolling bad attitudes, horrible decisions, and any number of problematic employee actions. In my early career, I would hear these stories and be immediately outraged, frustrated that employees would act in such unacceptable ways. Over time, however, I learned that perception is in the eye of the beholder, and often these “horrendous” acts, were simply misunderstandings or misinterpretations of events. While it

Have you thought about the talents that need to be developed in your company and the possibility of upskilling your staff? Do you work with them to find out what they want to study and encourage them to continuously learn and grow! Or are you too busy with day to day needs to worry about the future? Not encouraging learning and upskilling is short-sited and will cause issues down the road. If staff aren’t constantly growing and learning new talents, they’re more likely to

Making hard decisions is not one of the fun things managers do, but it’s easy to delay making choices because they’re difficult. Often, this comes at a cost to the organization and staff. Managers postpone talking with employees who are struggling often because they’re not sure what to say, or they’re irritated with the employee, or they just don’t want to deal with the conflict. The employee may not be aware they’re doing something wrong and/or others see an employee getti

Today is Women’s Retirement Security Day, dedicated to improving retirement outcomes for women. For various reasons, women’s median 401k is reported as significantly lower than men’s as women contribute less to retirement accounts. There are plenty of reasons, including the gender pay gap, more time away from work over the career span, longer life expectancy, along with other factors. So what does this mean for you and your staff? Concern over personal, parental and offspri

Do you have bullies at work? Is it possible you could be the bully or an enabler? There is a lot of drama in the world these days and it can seem more acceptable to be rude or to yell or to treat fellow employees poorly. But if that’s going on in your organization, you should rethink that type of culture. People tend to be less than their best when they’re frustrated, nervous or afraid. If you have someone in your organization with a short fuse, what damage are they causin

There are times in most of our lives where we need mental toughness to get through whatever roadblock we’re facing. Projects that are difficult for various reasons, physical exertion or illness that strains our bodies, or even difficult choices we make at times require us to find some mental resources that we may not even realize we have. In order to call upon that mental toughness, we need to hone the skill and determine how best to enhance it. Working with our staff to mo

We often think of entrepreneurs as individuals starting their own companies. But staff can be entrepreneurs in the organization they already work for! While being an entrepreneur typically involves assuming personal and financial risk, the key aspect in being an entrepreneur is in driving economic growth and innovation. We all want that within our organizations, and not all individuals want to assume the financial and personal risk involved in branching out alone. So what d

As managers, it’s important to live in the moment. Life is flying by at a rapid pace for most of us, and it’s easy to lose track of time. Living in the moment allows us to enjoy fleeting moments of opportunities that can provide meaning, spark creativity and/or encourage laughter, things we can all use. Remembering to pause occasionally is a good lesson for our teams. Getting too caught up in our projects or tasks can mean we lose sight of what we’re trying to accomplish.

Most of us have worked for someone who was great at part of their job, but when promoted to a leadership position, it was clear they were bad people managers. Not everyone should be put in a leadership position. Many people don’t want it, but they do want to move up in an organization. Often they see that as one and the same, thinking they may not have a choice but to take a management role for career growth. Individuals who aren’t good with people or don’t want to manage i