A good friend of mine recently sent me an article detailing the benefits of vacations for optimal brain function. The complex processing of our brain is what makes us special, but also requires a great deal of oxygen and glucose (sugar). In other words, when we are running on empty we do not have the required fuel for our brains. No wonder we have the 3:00 p.m. slump!
Another idea that I have been thinking about is that each of us has a “craft” that we practice each day. Most of our organizations desire that we’re innovative in our chosen area of expertise. Yet, how much innovation comes out of your office with emails pinging you right and left?
Even when I am in a professional development webinar, seminar, or conference, I am also responding to email and dealing with things that come up during the natural course of the day or in my hotel room in the evening.
What if we combined these two ideas into a learning vacation? No, that is NOT an oxymoron. We need vacations to rejuvenate and see things more clearly, and we need time away from the everyday hustle and bustle of life to learn and grow in our chosen area of expertise.
This year, I have decided to take a learning vacation. My dual purpose is to relax and to learn. I will go away somewhere, read a book or two, and spend dedicated time just thinking. I will let you know how it goes. In the meantime, I am curious about how you take time to rejuvenate and also take time to learn and develop. What do you do? How does it work? What advice do you have for the rest of us?
Jennifer Rufatto is a consultant at FlashPoint. She focuses her consulting in the areas of workplace learning, leadership development, and strategic planning.
As part of the 2010 Indiana State Human Resources Conference, FlashPoint asked HR professionals across the state to tell us about the innovative HR-related programs they have introduced at their organizations. I had the opportunity to collect these innovative ideas and present them at the conference where attendees were invited to vote for the idea they considered most innovative. While a winner was selected (to be highlighted here soon), FlashPoint thought that all the ideas deserved a little more attention. Now I get to share the details of these exciting and innovative programs. My hope is that these “mini case studies” will inspire you and your organization to be innovative!
Innovative idea submitted by: VirginiaWhitham, VP/Director of Human Resources
Organization: Monroe Bank
Monroe Bank, a division of Old National Bank, was founded in 1892 as a community bank. With primary offices located in Bloomington, Indiana, they also serve Central and South Central Indiana with locations in Monroe, Jackson, Lawrence, and Hendricks Counties. This traditional community bank provides a variety of financial services, including: personal checking and savings accounts; business account management services; commercial, mortgage, and personal loans; personal and corporate trust services; and, investment and brokerage services.
Joellyn: Can you briefly describe your innovative HR-related program?
Virginia: Monroe Bank wanted to fully utilize the company’s intranet website software. Most organizations have an intranet which integrates with in-house products. Tracking of personnel items, outside of payroll, was done manually by HR assistants. In the last couple years we’ve reduced our department and have limited administrative support. Therefore, I had to find a way to automate our processes without adding to the bottom-line. There was no budget to expand our ADP products or to purchase an HRIS system. Instead, I’ve made full utilization of our intranet software working with IT to learn how to program our HR intranet site to host forms, processes, lists, question and answer sections, meeting requests, and our annual review process. There was no additional software expense as the resource was right in our own backyard. I invested my time, which was well worth the end result—more efficiency.
Joellyn: Why did you develop this program? What problem/situation were you hoping to address?
Virginia: I needed to address the reduction of administrative support in human resources. There was too much paperwork and not enough administrative support to do data entry and tracking of numerous personnel forms, meetings, and employee relations events. Automating our annual review process allows me to export data into Excel and generate reports by department, category, and overall results.
Joellyn: Why do you consider it innovative?
Virginia: I consider this innovative because I used internal resources that were already available. I took the time to think outside of the box, and learn a new skill myself, including how to do some very simple site programming. There was no additional software expense. We already had the technology and IT professionals willing to do some basic training.
Joellyn: What impact have you seen? How did the program address your problem/situation and how has it improved the company and/or the HR function?
Virginia: This resulted in increased responses to requests, quicker turn-around, better documentation, and better tracking of personnel issues. In addition, I now have the ability to export data into Excel for reports and data mining and have achieved overall stream-lining of the administrative work. It has improved efficiencies and our ability to manage personnel data. We have more time to address issues rather than chase paper.
What idea does this inspire for you and your company? Each month I’ll highlight another HR-related innovative idea. I invite you to subscribe to FlashPoint’s Blog so you don’t miss similar posts.
I’m not sure if it’s human nature or something about our culture, but as we approach the end of one year and start thinking about the next, most of us tend to look ahead and form plans. It’s almost expected of us—we’re supposed to make new year’s resolutions, figure out how we’re going to do things differently, or come up with ways we’re going to make our lives better in the next twelve months.
I’m itching to write that this is all trite and overblown, but I’m going to stick with the storyline and insist that yes, this is indeed a good time to evaluate where you’ve been and develop a plan for moving forward in the months ahead. Specifically, if you’re in charge of human resources at your company, it’s a great opportunity to conduct an HR assessment and set priorities for how you’re going to develop your programs in the year ahead.
Why do I say this? I do so because for many of us the past couple of years have been challenging. Our HR programs have been under stress. We’ve had to do more with less, so we need to figure out the state of our HR affairs. As we’ve asked our employees to take on more duties, are their job descriptions accurate or do we need to update them? Are our compensation programs still competitive? Are we giving employees the training they need to do their jobs?
An HR assessment can help you answer these questions and others, and it can help you figure out which areas need the most attention. If you’re interested in learning more about what an HR assessment covers and why it’s important, you can check out this article on FlashPoint’s website.
So this year maybe you’ll resist the urge to set personal resolutions that you know you’re going to break by, oh, say . . . January 2. I support that. But if you’re an HR professional, I do encourage you to consider the HR assessment and the benefits that it can bring to you and your organization. Good luck and happy new year!
In describing what FlashPoint does, one of my colleagues recently said that she believes we put the “human” back in Human Resources. I have thought a lot about that statement. It’s possible that I’m more reflective due to the holidays, but I find myself amazed at the wisdom of what she said.
What would it look like in your organization if leaders took time to know their employees as people—to know their challenges, triumphs, personal successes, or professional stresses. I myself make the argument that it wouldn’t be possible because it would be unproductive and an irresponsible use of time. But the nagging holiday spirit stops me in my tracks and asks me to think “what if.”
Maybe employees would invest their hearts and minds into their work because leaders took the time to learn and care about them as people.
Maybe we would have less employee relations issues if people believed that leadership cared about them.
Maybe we would have higher productivity because employees wanted to be at work and give their best.
Maybe employees would be cared for in a way that inspired them to forward that outstanding care and compassion to the customers.
How do you put the “human” into your daily interactions? Do you find yourself, like me, running so fast that you miss opportunities to make a real difference to someone? If so, join me in slowing down during the holidays to look for those opportunities. Maybe nothing different will happen. Or maybe . . .
Jennifer Rufatto is a consultant at FlashPoint. She focuses her consulting in the areas of workplace learning, leadership development, and strategic planning.
FlashPoint’s graduate assistant, Megan Crowley, found a helpful resource we want to share with you. I/O at Work: Bringing the Science Behind HR to You, collects the most recent research from established psychology, business, and I/O journals and summarizes it. This allows you to know the latest and greatest research in the human resource field without reading a lot of highly-technical research articles. Not that you can’t handle highly-technical research articles, but sometimes it’s nice to read something a little more friendly. You can even search by topic. Enjoy.
Coaching. Yes, you know it is the new management and leadership trend. But what is it? I find that people avoid implementing coaching programs simply because they don’t know what it is or how it can help their organization.
Last month I read Quiet Leadership by David Rock and he described coaching in the simplest way I have ever heard. While discussing his leadership philosophy he notes that what we pay people to do at work has significantly changed in the past 50 years but our leadership style has not changed. Years ago we paid people to DO something; run a machine, work an assembly line, file papers, etc. The command-control style of management was very effective for workers who, essentially, conducted processes. Today we have found ways to automate or outsource most processes—now we pay people to think. Yet, the dominate management style has stayed command-control. If the nature of what we ask employees to do has changed from conducting a process to thinking, doesn’t it make sense to change our management style?
Rock suggests that if we pay employees to think, then managers and leaders should help employees learn to think better. That is the essence of coaching. Coaching is helping someone learn to think better.
Consider this example which demonstrates the difference between the two management styles.
Managing the Process
Employee: I have a customer who is irate that we charged shipping even though the product was three days late. What should I do?
Manager: Was it our fault the product was late?
Employee: Yes, we ran out in the warehouse.
Manager: Then credit the shipping and offer a 10% discount on the next order.
Helping the Thinking
Employee: I have a customer who is irate that we charged shipping even though the product was three days late. What should I do?
Manager: Sarah, you have good instincts about customer service. What do you think?
Employee: It was our fault since we ran out of the product, but the customer knew when they placed the order we were backordered. I don’t know.
Manager: If you were the customer what would you want the company to do?
Employee: I would want the free shipping, but I wouldn’t expect them to give it to me.
Manager: What would you think about the company if they did give you free shipping?
Employee: I would be impressed they went above and beyond. Our mission is to exceed the customer’s expectations and that would do it!
The manager took 60 more seconds so the employee could learn how to think instead of how to do. Next time the employee is in a similar situation she will have the confidence to handle the issue and will take ownership over the solution.
See, this coaching thing isn’t so complicated. Take time to help people think better and you are coaching!
Try it out and let me know how it works for you.
Jennifer Rufatto is a consultant at FlashPoint. She focuses her consulting in the areas of workplace learning, leadership development, and strategic planning.
“On the other side of right thinking and wrong thinking there is a field. I’ll meet you there.”—Rumi
During a section of a recent leadership development training session which I facilitated, participants were exploring the impact of their personal style on the way in which they deliver feedback. Participants were tasked with reviewing their unique areas for improvement (based on their style) and identifying what they could do differently to be more effective. Suddenly, a participant raised his hand and asked, “How can the overuse of praise be ineffective when giving feedback?” After a brief group conversation, I suggested to the questioner that when the same type of praise, said in the same way, such as “thank you,” is used repeatedly, it may lose its significance and meaning. As the questioner nodded in agreement, I added that because of his natural style, he might want to be more specific in the feedback that he provides to employees. Nodding in agreement once again, he said, “So, I should say, ‘thank you, s—head.’”
Fortunately, his response was very funny to others in the group, and his colleagues erupted in laughter. In that moment, I was so glad to be laughing along with everyone else in the room, because I didn’t really know how else to respond to his sarcasm. When the laughter subsided, the questioner became much more serious and shared a couple of ideas for how he could be more specific in giving feedback. Being given the space to be sarcastic and funny, he quickly rebounded into what he could do to improve his effectiveness as a manager.
This experience reminded me of the important message in the Rumi quote above. In the facilitation of leadership development, there is no right and wrong. My role as the facilitator is to create a safe place for learning to occur. Who am I to say what will work for someone? I do not walk in the shoes of any participant; the participant must come to the perspective that works best for him or her. I can certainly share my personal experiences and what I have seen work for other leaders, but never can I credibly give the participant advice on what he or she should do.
As a facilitator, focused on development, I am meeting the participants on the field beyond right thinking and wrong thinking, for this is a safe place for growth to happen.
Andrea Moore is a senior consulting manager at FlashPoint; Andrea focuses on leadership development, training and performance improvement solutions, and one-on-one coaching.
Whenever I dress up for Halloween I often go as someone (or something) that’s related to a current event. Depending on who’s been in the news, and what he or she has been doing, that can sometimes be controversial.
So take it from someone who’s turned a few heads—allowing your employees to dress up for company Halloween celebrations can be trouble. The problem is, when you allow employees the opportunity to come to work in costumes, you open yourself up to claims of harassment and creating a hostile work environment. As much as you’d like to think your employees will use good judgment, sometimes they don’t; sometimes they show up to work in outfits that are inappropriate and do things that they wouldn’t dream of when not in disguise.
As an example, a few years ago we learned of a company that hosted a workplace Halloween party. A couple of employees dressed in outfits that were degrading and performed a skit that insulted some of their coworkers. The company ended up defending itself against an EEOC charge and making amends.
You don’t want this to happen to you, and the easiest way to prevent it is to prohibit Halloween costumes altogether. I know it’s not very fun, but it’s best to keep the workplace professional and leave it to your employees to celebrate on their own outside the office. If you do decide to allow costumes, at least be sure that you:
Provide guidelines about what kind of costumes are not appropriate. Make sure that employees understand you won’t tolerate outfits that others may find insulting, offensive, or discriminatory.
Whether you’re a company owner, a manager, or head of HR, you have enough to deal with on a daily basis. The last thing you need is a Halloween nightmare on your hands. Be safe!
When I started working for FlashPoint earlier this year, I got to sit in on one of our strategic HR peer groups. As the marketing manager, it was one of the best onboarding activities I could have done. I got to hear first-hand about the challenges that HR professionals face, witness peers suggest solutions based on personal experiences, and learn about best practice alternatives from Krista Skidmore, the facilitator. Ok, so maybe it’s not really akin to a play date. But I consider it fun to get like-minded people together and experience great outcomes.
In December, we’ll kick off our 7th year of facilitating the strategic HR peer group. From my co-workers, I sense great excitement of welcoming a new group of HR professionals who are ready and willing to commit to thinking strategically about their roles within their companies.
Have you ever wanted to be in a group like this but wondered if you have the time to commit to it? Perhaps you’ve felt anxious about opening up with your peers or admitting that you and your organization face challenges? Those are questions I would have. To get some perspective, I sat down with Krista and posed my questions. In this video, she shares about the vision for the group, answers questions that prospective participants might have, and provides an example of a success story.
If this sounds valuable to you, if you have questions, or if you would like to apply, contact us at info@flashpointhr.com or 317.229.3035. You can also get all the details on our website. You’ll learn things like how you can get strategic recertification credits toward SPHR, PHR, and GPHR recertification. You’ll also see where some of the other participants work and what they have to say about the program.
Is this a program that would benefit you and your organization?
As part of the 2010 Indiana State Human Resources Conference, FlashPoint asked HR professionals across the state to tell us about the innovative HR-related programs they have introduced at their organizations. I had the opportunity to collect these innovative ideas and present them at the conference where attendees were invited to vote for the idea they considered most innovative. While a winner was selected (to be highlighted here soon), FlashPoint thought that all the ideas were deserving of a little more attention! Now, I get to share the details of these exciting and innovative programs. My hope is that these “mini case studies” will inspire you and your organization to be innovative!
Innovative idea submitted by: Anne Eaton, Manager, HR & Corporate Services
Organization: Aero Engine Controls
Business Basics for Engineers
Joellyn: Can you briefly describe your innovative HR-related program?
Anne: “Business Basics for Engineers” is a program that has been created in conjunction with the Purdue Krannert School of Business to develop some basic business savvy for engineers in our aerospace business.
Joellyn: Why did you develop this program? What problem/situation were you hoping to address?
Anne: AEC is a joint venture between Rolls-Royce and Goodrich. The US subsidiary was launched in the fall of 2009 with approximately 60 employees (and approximately 55 of those employees were former Rolls-Royce engineers). The small business model of AEC differs significantly from that of RR, and it became apparent very quickly that these highly technical employees needed to be able to think in new ways.
Joellyn: How did you actually develop and implement this program?
Anne: AEC partnered with the Purdue Krannert School of Business to develop a set of three, one-day sessions focusing on Marketing, Strategy & Business Development, and Finance Basics. Each program uses engineering language and scenarios to deliver the concepts, which greatly enhances the learning.
Fifty seats were split evenly between AEC and RR engineering; although RR placed a high percentage of senior-level engineers in the program, AEC chose to invite all levels, from graduate engineers to senior managers. This resulted in terrific multi-generational discussion during each session and also in follow-up meetings of the AEC participants.
Joellyn: Why do you consider it innovative?
Anne: The average working engineer is technically focused and generally thinks very linearly. We have created a program that takes some of the basic concepts of business management and introduced these concepts to working engineers such that they now are able to think beyond the technical problem at hand. This has been done with minimal cost or time out of the office – a perfect solution for a new company that operates on a cost model!
Joellyn: What impact have you seen? How did the program address your problem/situation and how has it improved the company and/or the HR function?
Anne: Engineers are problem-solvers. In fact, traditionally, they can engineer the solution in an endless loop. By introducing these basic business concepts, engineers at AEC are already thinking about how cost affects customer satisfaction, or how one technical solution has the potential to create business development opportunities, or how late delivery of engineering milestones affects the bottom line.
Several participants offered different versions of the comment, “I’ve been with Rolls-Royce for 15 years, and have taken dozens of courses. I learned more in this one day than I ever have in any other class!”
What idea does this inspire for you and your company? Each month I’ll highlight another HR-related innovative idea. I invite you to subscribe to this blog so you don’t miss other, similar posts.
A good friend of mine recently sent me an article detailing the benefits of vacations for optimal brain function. The complex processing of our brain is what makes us special, but also requires a great deal of oxygen and glucose (sugar). In other words, when we are running on empty we do not have the required fuel for our brains. No wonder we have the 3:00 p.m. slump!
As part of the 2010 Indiana State Human Resources Conference, FlashPoint asked HR professionals across the state to tell us about the innovative HR-related programs they have introduced at their organizations. I had the opportunity to collect these innovative ideas and present them at the conference where attendees were invited to vote for the idea they considered most innovative. While a winner was selected (to be highlighted here soon), FlashPoint thought that all the ideas deserved a little more attention. Now I get to share the details of these exciting and innovative programs. My hope is that these “mini case studies” will inspire you and your organization to be innovative! 
I’m not sure if it’s human nature or something about our culture, but as we approach the end of one year and start thinking about the next, most of us tend to look ahead and form plans. It’s almost expected of us—we’re supposed to make new year’s resolutions, figure out how we’re going to do things differently, or come up with ways we’re going to make our lives better in the next twelve months.
In describing what 
Coaching. Yes, you know it is the new management and leadership trend. But what is it? I find that people avoid implementing 
“On the other side of right thinking and wrong thinking there is a field. I’ll meet you there.”—Rumi
Whenever I dress up for Halloween I often go as someone (or something) that’s related to a current event. Depending on who’s been in the news, and what he or she has been doing, that can sometimes be controversial.
As part of the 2010 Indiana State Human Resources Conference, FlashPoint asked HR professionals across the state to tell us about the innovative HR-related programs they have introduced at their organizations. I had the opportunity to collect these innovative ideas and present them at the conference where attendees were invited to vote for the idea they considered most innovative. While a winner was selected (to be highlighted here soon), FlashPoint thought that all the ideas were deserving of a little more attention! Now, I get to share the details of these exciting and innovative programs. My hope is that these “
