First Time Managers

Newly minted first-time managers and new leaders are usually part of the biggest population of leaders in any organization: frontline, first-line, and entry-level managers, supervisors, and directors. They directly manage more people than any other managerial level. The stats show first-time managers and new leaders rarely get the training they need to be effective in their new position.

For at least the past five years employee engagement has been has been a major topic for HR professionals and thought leaders around the world. You can find conferences, panel discussions, articles, blogs, tweets, etc. about employee engagement. With the dismal numbers of first-time managers and new leaders receiving inadequate training employee engagement will continue to be a major topic for HR professionals and thought leaders around the world.

In my blog post Managers Need Training Too I talked about the importance of managers receiving the proper training to be successful. If first-time managers and new leaders aren’t receiving the training necessary to be successful employee engagement will decrease. If employee engagement decreases the quality of the service being provided or the product being produced will also decrease.

Upper management needs to invest in training so first-time managers and new leaders can be successful. The success of the organization is directly or indirectly tied to the success of first-time managers and new leaders.

Employee Disengagement

Employee engagement has been a hot topic in HR world-wide for the past few years. Employers across the globe are trying to figure out how to get and keep their employees engaged.  For the most part engaged employees are happy employees.  Engaged employees stay at their jobs longer than disengaged employees and engaged employees provide an emotionally stable work environment.

While upper management and HR are trying to figure out how to get and keep their employees engaged, employees continue to focus on obtaining a work-life balance. Many HR professionals believe providing a work-life balance for employees will facilitate engagement (I’m one of them).  In the past few years I have read only a few articles and participated in a limited number of conversations that focused on making sure employees did have a work-life balance.

If upper management and HR truly want what’s best for their employees they would recommend employees go home on time. Gemma Dale is an HR professional that resides in London, in her blog post Go Home On Time she provides a good case why employees should “go home on time”.  Upper management and HR professionals should seriously consider Gemma’s suggestion.  As an employee of any organization you’ll agree that Gemma’s assessment is accurate.

If you have questions about this blog post or anything else please contact me at corjoejen@yahoo.com and www.linkedin.com/pub/cornell-jenkins/11/476/897/

Appreciate Your Colleagues

A few weeks ago I attended ASTD’s International Conference and Expo #ASTD2014. After spending a couple of days with other T&D professionals, it reminded me why I’m passionate about T&D. As with any conference, you leave rejuvenated and excited ready to go back and apply what you learned. However, this year’s conference gave me another level of appreciation for my T&D colleagues. Listening to some of the difficulties other T&D professionals are having with management or clients made me feel normal. It was comforting to know that other people are having similar problems.

Some of their stories were so intense I wanted to hug some of my colleagues. The issues they were dealing with weighed on them so heavily they almost burst into tears. I also wanted to hug my colleagues (weather presenters or attendees) that provided solutions to the problems others were having. Watching people sympathize, empathize and provide solutions to other professionals was heart-warming.

As HR professionals (regardless of discipline), we are always talking about management providing recognition to employees. Why not look across the aisle at the person who is doing the same thing you’re doing and say, “Thank You”? Thank you for being so passionate about our profession. Thank you for sharing your experiences, I learned a lot from you. Thank you for the taking time to encourage me. Thank you for sharing your wealth of knowledge with me

We blog and tweet because we’re passionate about our profession. Every Friday, Christopher Demers does his weekly Best Blogs. Christopher highlights other bloggers because he appreciates the good information they provide other HR professionals. In the vein of appreciating other professionals there are several people I’d to thank; Halelly Azulay @HalellyAzulay, Dan Steer @dan_steer, Rory C. Trotter @SomethingDifferentHR, and Christopher Demers @ChristopherinHR. Thank you for spending time with me! Thank you for putting out good content for your colleagues.

I appreciate what you do for our profession. Keep up the good work and keep putting good information out there for the rest of us! Your labor for our profession is not in vain!

If you want to know other ways you can demonstrate appreciation for your colleagues, you can contact me at corjoejen@yahoo.com and http://www.linkedin.com/pub/cornell-jenkins/11/476/897/

Balance

Christopher talks about work-life balance from a different perspective. For many in the business world the term work-life balance is just a buzzword. When you talk about work-life balance in reference to yourself are you using it as a buzzword or do you really mean it? When I have work-life balance it means I have time to myself (i.e. me time, family time, and time to spend with friends). Having a work-life balance isn’t solely for running errands. What does work-life balance look like in your life?

If you want to discuss work-life balance in further detail you can contact me at corjoejen@yahoo.com and http://www.linkedin.com/pub/cornell-jenkins/11/476/897/

ChristopherinHR

How do you tip the scales?

Like many other things in American business the discussion around worklife balance has now fully migrated from curiosity to debate to fad to branding bullshit to old news. We don’t talk about it anymore. Like employer of choice its an antiquated phrase that connotes the speaker (or, ahem, writer) is not current.

Too bad: the concept deserves a place in our day to day business considerations.

What is Balance

Thinking of balance like a set of scales probably isn’t the most helpful notion. This view implies that things should be relatively equal (e.g., balanced) and also connotes only two parts to our being: “work” and “other” on either side.

Life is more complex than that.

What if we thought of balance like a river with ebbs and flows, eddies and currents sometimes rushing headlong and sometimes pausing just to feel the sunshine?

Thinking of…

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