5 Reasons to Hold Regular All-Hands Meetings

When executed properly, all-hands meetings have the potential to drive a level of transparency and alignment within your team that will make your business stronger. 

What are All-Hands Meetings? 

It is widely known across industries that transparency within an organization drives success and business strength. One of the best ways a company can foster that sense of transparency and trust with their employees and teams is through the use of all-hands meetings.  

All-hands meetings are regular, company-wide meetings where all employees gather with leadership to discuss company matters. The general objectives of an all-hands meeting are to: 

• Share the business updates of the past month, quarter, year, season, etc. 
• Drive alignment around the company’s mission and strategy 
• Celebrate company milestones and recognize the individuals who made them possible 
• Give everyone in the company a chance to ask questions and clarify any concerns 

Any and all organizations can stand to benefit from holding regular all-hands meetings, regardless of company size or age, or the scope and level of the all-hands meetings you choose to conduct.  

Why are All-Hands Meetings Valuable? 

Company-wide, all-hands meetings have the potential to bring your teams together in an incredible valuable way. It provides perspective on the state of the business at team and department levels, and can highlight the importance of every employee’s contribution and effort of moving towards company goals. 

Here are several key benefits to holding regular all-hands meetings for your organization: 

1. Keeps your team updated and improves alignment.

All-hands meetings are one of the best opportunities you have to ensure all your team members are on the same page about everything business-related. This goes beyond simply sharing organizational and people updates, which can be done in much less expensive ways. By emphasizing company mission, strategy, and objectives, all-hands meetings provide you with the chance to accurately align your employees on the company goals, pointing them in the right direction and ensuring success down the line. 

2. Celebrates people and uplifts team spirit and morale.

Company achievements cannot exist without consistent efforts from the people involved. Celebrating your team members’ successes and recognizing their hard work is just as important as keeping them in the loop on business updates. Especially when your employees are feeling overwhelmed or discouraged, one of the best ways to boost their morale is to review the highlights of their efforts and give shout-outs to the individuals who helped achieve them.  

A good way to do this is to involve your team members in the recognition process. Have employees think of one team member who went the extra mile for them or performed exceptionally well over the past month or quarter. Generating a word cloud of the results and projecting it on screen is an excellent way to have several top players feel valued and appreciated, while still shouting out the exceptional performers. Another activity could be to crowdsource company highlights from the employees during the meeting itself. As opposed to having speakers reviewing the highlights, invite attendees to share their personal high points with the people sitting near them, then submit them into an open text poll using their phones and acknowledge the top ones on screen.   

3. Gives a voice to everyone.

An all-hands meeting is one of the best places to generate a forum for employee questions, and address employee concerns from every corner. Holding an open Q&A with leadership may be useful in helping you uncover the most hot-topic issues in the organization, encouraging workplace transparency. A good rule of thumb is to allow for at least 20% of your all-hands meeting time to be dedicated to Q&A. It may be helpful to collect questions in the days leading up to the meeting as well, allowing executives and panelists to prepare thorough answers beforehand and have a general sense of the areas of topics the employees will want to discuss. 

4. Fosters a healthy company culture.

All-hands meetings are one of the best places not only to show your company culture, but to grow it as well. Demonstrating and strengthening your company culture by involving the people that the meeting is first and foremost about is critical. Let them contribute to the agenda and co-create the program and run activities where attendees enjoy themselves. At the end of the day, all-hands meetings are for your employees, so give them good reason to be excited about being there in the first place.  

5. Connects remote teams and workers with executives.

While imagining company-wide in-person gatherings is difficult right now, understanding the value of connectivity that they present is just as important as ever. All-hands meetings are a unique chance to connect your remote workers with headquarters, and truly make them feel part of the company and the organizational community as a whole.  

Certain companies even have the majority, if not all, of their workers working remotely, meaning they run their all-hands meetings fully online. We will investigate best practices for holding all-hands meetings remotely later but understanding the value of connectivity they bring beyond the regular virtual check-ins you may hold with your team is critical. 

Best Practices for Running All-Hands Meetings 

One of the biggest benefits of holding regular all-hands meetings is the opportunity it presents for productive interactions within teams and between employees and leadership. This intermingling can spark new connections, inspire new ideas, and can drive your company forward while keeping everyone aligned and on-track. 

But, not all all-hands meetings are created equal by nature. If you want to get the most out of your all-hands meetings, ensure their effectiveness, and have everyone who walks away feeling included and excited about the future of your organization, there are a few best practices you should follow: 

Prep Your Team

Especially if your organization is not used to holding regular all-hands meetings, worrying your employees during the scheduling process is the last thing you’ll want to be doing. Critical to the success of any all-hands is its establishment as a neutral event beforehand. 

While sending out meeting invitations, include the all-hands agenda, and clearly outline what it is you are going to be discussing. Provide attendees with some idea of what to expect, especially if this is your company’s very first all-hands meeting. Otherwise, people will only be able to speculate, and you risk having your employees assume a worst-case scenario.  

Keep All-Hands Meetings Short and On Time

Especially for larger companies, having every individual in the organization in one room can be daunting, especially when it comes to the challenge of keeping each and every one of them engaged. This is why you should aim to keep your all-hands meetings short and to the point where you can, ensuring they remain effective creating a lasting impression on its attendees. 

Depending on how much ground you need to cover, and how much you have outlined in the agenda, anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour should be plenty. If you have plotted out a day’s worth of events, ensure you break it up with engaging activities and events that will keep your team focused and participating. In addition, it is important that you start and end the meeting on time. Everyone has busy calendars, and you have asked your entire company to step away from their responsibilities to attend this meeting, so it is critical that you demonstrate your respect for their time.  

Focus on the Right Content

Keeping your all-hands meeting attendees engaged and attended is your biggest responsibility, but it can also be your biggest challenge if you waste too much time on the wrong topics. While you may be inclined to share every last detail about certain updates and projects, aim to focus the majority of your time on the content that is relevant and interesting to the entire company. 

Keeping all-hands meetings relevant to the organization as a whole can be difficult, but a good rule of thumb to follow is the three-category strategy: first, discuss the critical information, then dive into present-day business and updates, and end it off with something fun, social, or interactive. If you have a full day planned, try to organize the content and scheduling around this pattern.  

When it comes to the present-day business, avoid going too deep into the minutiae of things. Your presentation or discussion should aim to provide a general overview of what’s happening within your company, and if certain employees want to learn more, they can follow up directly with the appropriate contact person or team.  

Switch Things Up

For companies that have already gotten into the habit of holding regular all-hands meetings, it can be tricky not to fall into the trap of it digressing into an hour-long lecture from your leadership. While keeping leadership input at the forefront is important, you should still aim to keep the meetings interesting and engaging for everyone in attendance. 

Your employees likely don’t want to hear from the same handful of executives every month. Switching up the presenter roster is a great way to keep the audience excited about what they will be hearing and provides them the opportunity to learn more about other teams that they may not have the opportunity to work with on the day-to-day.  

Share Successes and Opportunities for Growth

Involving presenters from specific teams is a great strategy, but it is important to stress transparency in what they present to the wider organization too. It is likely that they are going to want to put their best work at the forefront, and while all-hands meetings are one of the best places to share successes and provide recognition where it is deserved, it’s also an excellent forum for sharing learning opportunities and tips for growth and improvement. 

Celebrate the accomplishments of your team, and recognize their progress and successes, but ensure that people also have the chance to hear what others in the company have learned, and what hasn’t worked well for them. When asking a team to present at an all-hands meeting, ask them to share both their successes and their challenges, and the same rings true for the leadership team. By keeping everyone in the organization informed on team-specific challenges, and the strategies they used to overcome them, those learning opportunities that were only accessible to a single team or leader are then opened up to the entire organization. 

Aim for Interactivity

Employees won’t be very engaged if all-hands simply involve someone standing at the front of the room and talking at them for an hour. Keeping the entire team engaged is essential, so aim to seek out new ways to make your all-hands meetings more interactive. We have already discussed the value of holding Q&A sessions and implementing real-time interaction from meeting attendees. Open the floor regularly for Q&As, and have live questionnaires and responses from meeting attendees, but also consistently seek out inventive activities and events that can promote engagement at your meetings.  

Ask for Feedback

All-hands meetings are pointless if your employees aren’t getting what they need to out of them. One of the most important components of effective all-hands meetings is the mechanisms in place that ensure their continued effectiveness, and there is no better source for that than employee feedback.  

Following each all-hands meeting, follow up for feedback. Ask them what it is they enjoyed about the all-hands, what they think could be improved upon, and what they would like to see changed for the next meeting. Take the time to read through all that feedback and use it as criterion for improvement that will drive the planning and execution of your next all-hands meeting. Taking employee feedback and using it to improve and evolve how you run your all-hands not only increases their effectiveness and impact, but it also makes your team feel respected and heard.  

How Can You Hold Regular All-Hands Meetings Remotely? 

It is likely that many companies are facing the need to shift all their in-person events online for the next while and possibly indefinitely, but keep in mind that running an all-hands meeting in a virtual space can still have as much impact as if you were sitting in the same room together. They key is smoothing out all the wrinkles beforehand. Here are the three general stages to holding your regular all-hands meetings virtually: 

Tech Setup

Choosing a reliable video conferencing tool is the first step. A popular choice currently is Zoom, but other strong platforms include GoToMeeting, Skype for Business, Join.me, Roundee, Adobe Connect, and Google Hangouts. If you plan on presenting slides, ensure they run seamlessly on the platform, and test out any interactive features such as running live polls and Q&As beforehand as well.  

Preparation Phase

Like you would for an in-person all-hands meeting, the next stage is the assign specific roles to members of your team. There should be multiple speakers present at the meeting, since switching speakers helps break monotony and brings in multiple perspectives from different corners of your organization. Introducing a moderator can also be useful, which means having them greet your teammates as they join the call, deliver a kick-off speech, and keep an eye on the agenda. Especially for online interactive activities, assigning someone the role of discussion facilitator to field incoming questions and steer the discussion according to employee input can help keep the Q&A sessions running as smoothly as possible.  

One of the most important parts of the planning phase is to raise awareness of the meeting’s date and time. Aim to put out a calendar invitation well in advance so as many employees can make it as possible, and ensure you attach all the important details to that invitation, such as a link to the conference call, a link to the interactive features, and a brief agenda outline. 

Finally, conducting a dry run of your all-hands is essentially, especially if you are running it in a virtual setting. Test out the technology, review the agenda several times with all the key players (speakers, moderator, facilitators), and rehearse the content as much as you can. 

Delivering Content and Facilitating Interaction

A strong start to your virtual all-hands meeting will set the tone for the rest of the meeting, so make sure your introduction is as punchy as engaging as possible. Have your moderator welcome attendees and dedicate the first few minutes to ideally an icebreaker that can include all. Remote workers across the country are all facing challenges of loneliness and isolation, so spending some time to socialize before the meeting starts can help put your employees at ease. In addition, encourage your colleagues to turn on their cameras for the meeting. It is likely that many of their virtual calls and meetings have been voice-only, but having employee faces on screen can make the virtual all-hands meeting feel much more personal and interactive. 

When it comes to slide presentation, keep in mind that attending virtual meetings demands much more attention than in-office meetings. They are much more prone to distraction when in their home environment, so don’t overwhelm your audience with a too-heavy presentation or daunting visuals. Simplify your presentation slides, keeping them captivating and easy to look at while the essence of the content is in what you are saying. 

Presenting creative ways to deliver content and inviting employee’s participation is also important. You can conduct live polls, gauging employee satisfaction and crowdsourcing their ideas and opinions, or you can turn company stats into interactive quizzes where colleagues can have a guess at how well the organization is doing. Not only does it transform the more mundane topics into something fun, but it helps re-engage your virtual audience in case they have started to tune out. The Q&A also remains just as critical. It can be difficult for teammates to interrupt the presenter and ask questions on a virtual meeting, so setting up a Q&A tool online is an excellent solution. Attendees will be able to send in their questions as they come up throughout the meeting, and your facilitator can build a discussion around the top questions during the Q&A session.  

In Summary 

Running all-hands meetings regularly can be the key to strengthening your business, and now that you know how to optimize your meetings and yield the most successful results from them, all that’s left to do is get all hands-on deck and start planning for your next one.  

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What is Strategic Agility?

In a fast-paced business world, being able to adapt to sudden changes in market conditions or customer needs is as important as ever. Regardless of the source of a business disruption, the ability to respond quickly and rework your organization to suit the new environment is a valuable asset for any modern business today. This asset is referred to as strategic agility. 

What Is Strategic Agility? 

Strategic agility refers to a company’s ability to quickly and appropriately respond to, or drive, change, while maintaining flexibility and focus. It is a complicated practice, and it requires a significant amount of work and continuous effort to maintain strong strategic agility. 

At its core, it relies on the intentional efforts from a company’s leaders and managers to design and construct an organizational structure in which information can flow seamlessly throughout the company. The key to adapting quickly is communicating quickly, so an ease in communicative flow throughout all levels of the organization is equally vital. In addition, it requires efforts in teaching employees at all levels to think strategically, keeping one eye on the future of the business while the other remains focused on what needs to get done today. 

Strategic Agility vs. Operational Agility 

The term “strategy” in management and Human Resources is contested territory, and so too is the term “Agile”. Used differently by various practitioners, writers, and thought leaders, there is no one clear sense of strategy that is universally correct. However, there is a clear distinction that can be drawn when it comes to agility in business.  

Oftentimes, strategic agility and operational agility are noted as the two areas in which adaptions to market and business conditions are driven. Operational agility refers to the review of currently existing products to provide a better, faster, and cheaper way for quicker release to customers. Strategic agility, as we have already discussed, refers to the adaption to new market environments / conditions. Meaning, in some case, it involves the creation of entirely new markets, with new products, that will reach customers. 

Operational agility is beneficial, and in some cases, essential to business growth. However, it does not yield significant financial gain for companies. The modern marketplace is one where competitors are quicker than ever in matching their product improvements to existing services. Power in the market has shifted from brands to customers, making it difficult for organizations to monetize the improvements they put out. Amid rampant competition, consumers have a vast array of choices and access to reliable data that informs those choices, meaning they are much more likely to demand that quality improvements be forthcoming at lower cost, or even no cost at all. While operational agility is still critical in some senses, this shift in market dynamics makes it nearly obsolete in efforts to produce higher profits for organizations. 

Laying the Foundation for Strategic Agility 

Simply put, if a company wants to make a lot of money in the modern marketplace, it needs to pursue market-creating innovations. In other words, it needs to pursue strategic agility. Laying a solid foundation for this type of approach to organizational structure requires three key components: 

1. Clarity 

Cultivating strategic agility begins with attaining clarity of what success will look like. Without a clear picture of winning on the vision board, employees and organizations as a whole risk running in several different directions, especially when encountering unexpected changes.  

Imagine someone asks you to describe and define what the end of the next year will look like for business when your company has been successful. Most leaders will probably have an idea of the financial objectives in place, but what else? Employees don’t make moment to moment, or reactionary, decisions based on the organization’s core financial objectives. Defining and describing what success looks like with specificity across as many aspects of the business as you can is critical.  

When you paint a picture of success rooted in clarity, there is little room for interpretation. Everyone in the organization has an aligned understanding of the company’s ideal trajectory, and thus will have the ability to make the best possible decisions day to day and moment to moment, helping the organization reach its destination. Keep in mind that when you communicate the rationale behind the destination, you need to stipulate how It will benefit customers and employees as well. Maintain a vision of success that your employees and clients will understand, making it much easier to keep everyone working on the same page over time. 

2. Focus 

If getting clear on success represents the starting point for strategic agility, it is keeping your people focused on the goal that is the driving force behind getting there. Employees who are responsible for delivering your product or service day in and day out can easily lose sight of the bigger picture the organization is working towards. Helping them remain focused on the goal by constantly communication the organization’s definition of success in several different ways, and with as much specificity as possible, is critical. 

Some examples of practices that will keep your employees focused include: 

• Beginning every meeting by reviewing the company’s top three strategic goals as standing agenda items, and how they will benefit everyone. 
• Posting visual cues or “brain prompts” throughout the office that will remind employees of the destination, and what it looks like when you have arrived at your goal. 
• Ensuring individual employees understand how their jobs and work are contributing to the organization’s efforts in achieving the goals. 
• When changes occur, communicating how the company will still succeed and why. 

3. Connection 

An employee cannot buy into your vision of success if they don’t feel connected to the organization as a whole. Fostering connection begins with having a powerful vision that your people can believe in and feel good about, and also requires giving honest performance feedback on a regular basis. An essential ingredient of high-performing teams is clear, constructive feedback, regardless of employee generation. When feedback is delivered in a timely and constructive manner, it helps keep employees aligned with organizational progress as a whole.  

Strategic Agility as The Next Big Thing in Modern Business 

The rate of change in today’s business market is not going to slow down any time soon. As the world responds to unprecedented circumstances, and as companies adopt newer technologies and inventive management and work practices by the day, making strategic agility a top priority is as important as ever. With it under your belt, you will be able to respond to it, rather than react, and never lose the focus necessary to keep your organization on track to success.  

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40 Meaningful & Effective Self-Appraisal Comments

With the arrival of your company’s performance appraisal season, there also comes an increased focus on self-evaluation and reflection on your own work. Self-appraisals can be tricky but are a critical component to the overall appraisal process as they communicate directly to managers and supervisors how their employees are perceiving their own performance within the organization.  

The ultimate objective of the self-appraisal process is to ensure that the employee and the management team are on the same page regarding the employee’s performance. However, many employees fall into the trap of thinking of the self-appraisal process as an opportunity to widen the scope of evaluations and go overboard when citing their own accomplishments. A good, thorough self-appraisal is one in which you are able to highlight your positives, but also honestly mention your points of weaknesses too. The areas in which you need to improve upon should be accompanied with a clear sense of your own willingness to proactively work on improving them. Simply put, your self-appraisal comments need to be open, honest, and believable. 

Recognizing the appropriate phrases to use when drafting your self-appraisal comments is critical to ensuring they are as effective as you wish them to be. When your self-appraisal comments are strong, your supervisor can better evaluate your performance, opening the door for the coveted promotion you’re after or the raise in your salary you’ve been working towards. 

In order to help you project yourself well in your self-appraisal process, and set yourself up for success down the line, here are some examples of key self-appraisal phrases you can incorporate during the next evaluation season. 

In a hurry? Take these self-appraisal comments to go!

Communication Self-Appraisal Comments 

1. I clearly communicate my expectations and goals to my team members. 

2. I effectively communicate with all levels of our organization by maintaining contact with department heads and corporate meetings consistently. 

3. I tactfully provide difficult feedback and approach sensitive situations with skill and compassion. 

4. I present my ideas to groups of all sizes in a skillful, effective, and professional manner. 

5. I frequently share relevant information and updates with my peers and supervisors so that our team as a whole can benefit and stay on track and informed.  

6. I proactively communicate changes that consider the stakeholders, coworkers, and customers they will affect. 

7. I frequently acknowledge the successes of my peers both publicly and privately and commend them for a job well done. 

Job Performance Self-Appraisal Comments 

8. I take pride in my work and value doing my job to the best of my ability. 

9. I frequently volunteer to participate in projects that extend beyond by job responsibilities. 

10. I have exceeded my performance goal this year/quarter/etc. by [insert specific number]%. 

11. I have decreased my job costs and customer churn rates by [insert specific number]%. 

12. I frequently challenge myself to perform better. 

13. I am happy to answer any questions my peers may have, and often provide guidance on the subject areas I am most skilled in. 

14. I promote a team-oriented work environment by remaining collaborative and seeking out opportunities to work with my peers on projects I need assistance on. 

Customer Experience Self-Appraisal Comments 

15. I effectively handle difficult or hostile customers by communicating with them respectfully and trying my best to accommodate their needs and wishes. 

16. I actively listen to the customer to better understand their point of view. 

17. I go beyond what is required to ensure that are customers are educated and informed on the topics that may concern them. 

18. I have received [insert specific number]% on my customer satisfaction survey this year/quarter/etc. 

19. I am continuously working towards improving the customer experience by strengthening my outreach with key clients and ensuring my follow up strategy is consistent and effective. 

20. I am mindful of my own interactions as a customer outside of my work so I can better understand our customers’ perspective. 

Innovation and Creativity Self-Appraisal Comments 

21. I regularly look to streamline and improve our work processes in new and innovative ways. 

22. I am committed to my professional growth and have taken training courses specific to the skills in which I recognize a need for improvement. 

23. I regularly seek out opportunities to connect and learn from others in my field. 

24. I stay current on developments in our industry and regularly read up on any new innovations or disruptive projects or companies that may be a source of inspiration for our own. 

25. I have a long-term vision for the future of my career and continually take steps toward achieving it. 

26. I learn quickly and am able to adapt to change in an efficient manner. 

27. I value learning and regularly seek out opportunities to learn something new and of value to my work efforts. 

Performance Improvement Self-Appraisal Comments 

28. I understand that because I remain intensely focused on the task at hand, I may appear to be blunt at times towards my colleagues. I am working towards strengthening my interpersonal skills and easing tensions between me and my peers. 

29. I am aware that not all of my peers may be comfortable with my style of communication. My intent and focus is always to get the job done in a timely manner, and with good results, so I will aim to eliminate circumstances in which my coworkers may interpret my actions as a personal attack. 

30. I have been questioned by many regarding my style of work. I believe that I have been able to successfully deliver results despite working in a manner which is different from others. 

31. I am aware that time management is not one of my core strengths, so I will consciously and consistently work towards managing my time better and prioritizing my tasks more efficiently. 

32. While I am comfortable with written communication, I recognize that there is scope for improvement in my verbal communication skills. 

33. I recognize that while I am able to complete projects within the stipulated deadline, this is not enough to contribute to my career growth. I will need to work on my soft skills to view the true progress of my job. 

34. I have realized that I am much more practical than I am creative in how I approach my work. This sometimes hinders me from offering innovating solutions during challenging situations or brainstorming sessions with the team, so I will continue to make a genuine effort to take more positive risks in my job and consider more creative, outside-of-the-box solutions as and when I can. 

35. I realize that I rely a lot on group effort to get my tasks done. However, I am working towards ensuring that I am able to participate equally, or even more, than my team members in group situations to aid my individual working efforts. 

36. I understand the value of communication with management as well as my colleagues, and I am working towards improving the same in order to avoid any instances of miscommunication with either group. 

37. While I am skilled at delivering results on time, I recognize that I sometimes fall short of following up with my key clients. I am working to improve my follow up activity with clients. 

38. I have realized that I am finding myself uncomfortable with dealing with negative feedback from clients. As time goes on, I hope to teach myself to handle such situations better. 

39. I may not be the strongest in customer relations, but I will continue to work towards reducing the instances of negative customer feedback. 

40. I typically have a very positive mindset and struggle with holding difficult conversations that need to take place, which I will aim to work on in the future. 

Get Started with Your Self-Appraisal Process Today 

The self-appraisal process may sometimes seem daunting, but with the right tools and templates, it does not have to be an intimidating process. Self-evaluations are about much more than simply how you are viewing your own performance. It is an opportunity to look at things from another point of view, reflecting on how others may be perceiving your actions and recognizing the areas that need improvement. 

A great way to collect this type of performance feedback is through the use of SpriggHR’s 360-Degree Feedback Tool, which allows you to request feedback from anyone within your company at any time. Feedback can be given and received anonymously or with full transparency, and templates and suggested action verbs are provided to help you write stronger self-evaluations, make the improvements necessary in your work efforts, and strengthen the relationships you have with your peers and superiors. 

If you’re looking for appraisal comments suited for others, check out this article!

Take these self-appraisal comments to go!

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The Top HR Challenges to Overcome in 2020

Managing people has never been an easy task, but the digital age and this year’s unprecedented circumstances has undoubtedly complicated this effort extensively. Human Resource management in 2020 has gained even more complexity, with its professionals having to face many unique challenges. However, spending the time, money, and effort to identify and overcome these key HR challenges is still resources well spent, since one of the greatest assets your company can boast is your employees. 

What are HR Challenges? 

Regardless of whether you are a small company or a much larger enterprise, you are likely to encounter some amount of challenges when it comes to managing your people. HR challenges emerge every year in response to changes in the economy, political climate, and social context and circumstances. Recently, a renowned focus has been placed on issues such as minimum wage increases, workplace wellness and safety, violence in the workplace, and updating HR policies on substance use.  In 2020 especially, Human Resource departments are facing even newer, and more unfamiliar, challenges to tackle and manage. 

HR management encompasses the ability of your organization to identify, understand and remedy the needs of your employees – an ability that will ultimately impact how your business competes for talent, both now and in the future. The first step to curating your workplace culture and business values to best suit the needs of your employees, while maintaining productivity and success, is to recognize the key modern HR challenges business owners and HR managers are dealing with in today’s workplace.  

The Top 7 HR Challenges in 2020 & How to Best Deal With Them 

1. Attracting Top Talent 

Not a new HR effort by any means, the attraction and retention of top talent has always been a focus for any business seeking sustainably high results. However, in 2020, attraction and retention require more discernment, time, and work than ever, making it one of the most important, and arguably daunting, tasks of Human Rresources altogether. 

In order to attract the right individuals for your organization, you first need to have a clear understanding of the requirements of the job and the objectives of the company. But as roles and expectations are continuously changing in the modern workplace, modifying your recruitment strategy to your shifting organizational culture can be difficult. A good starting point to grappling with this challenge in 2020 is to first examine how and where your company is marketing its vacancies. Identify the platforms and mediums your target talent is most likely to be frequenting, focusing most of your advertisements there. The preferred platforms will depend largely on your target talent’s skills, industry, and job level, so advertising in the spaces where candidates with those target characteristics will see it will save you a lot of time in the screening stage. 

Once you have gathered a pool of potential candidates from your advertisement efforts, it is now time to screen them. Rather than sticking by the traditional screening method of assessing how well the candidate is fit for the job, it is more critical than ever to focus instead on how well they will fit into the organization. Generate interview questions that gauge their willingness to learn, their readiness for taking on challenges, and their comfort level with change and adaption to the current shifting nature of work itself. By focusing on these essential qualities, you are much more likely to create a team of employees who can remain responsive and comfortable with change, even as organizational needs transform and shift over time. Remaining vigilant to the future of your company, rather than assessing they are a good fit today, is critical to overcoming this HR challenge. 

2. Embracing Change  

Aligning with organizational change is essential, affecting every dimension of the workplace from the working environment, to the nature of competition, to customer interactions. However, whether the change is managerial, structural, procedural, or technological, it is likely to invoke at least some amount of discomfort amongst your employees. Especially today, when so many organizations are forced to change in ways they never have before to accommodate the effects of the pandemic on business, the feeling of uncertainty that change evokes can bring about severe levels of anxiety amongst your team. 

Human Resource departments are typically tasked with managing employee morale, happiness, and cooperation through periods of change.  They now need to be consistently upskilling team members, so they are better prepared to meet the constantly changing needs of the business.  

Grappling with this HR challenge is particularly challenging and will depend largely on the nature of change occurring for your business. While many companies are encountering relatively similar demands for change simply based on the global situation, the ways in which your HR department chooses to best prepare your team members will vary. A good starting point for organizations is to simply aim to communicate frequently and transparently before, during, and after periods of change. Provide significant warning and notice of changes that will be coming and equip employees with the skills and competencies they will need to respond to and overcome it.  

3. Developing Leaders 

According to a 2018 survey, employees with poor relationships with their direct managers are four times more likely to separate from their company than employees who feel their leader is competent and skilled. 

Now more than ever, employees look to their managers as a source of inspiration and motivation. But this can be potentially problematic if those leaders-in-the-making stick around long enough to become leaders. And, in an increasingly millennial-heavy workforce, companies are seeing higher turnover rates from potential leaders than ever. This is what makes leadership development one of the largest HR challenges being faced today. 

How you actually go about responding to this challenge will vary, but at its core, retention is largely linked to motivation. Motivating your employees to stay by providing training that aligns with a clear career path is critical, since it demonstrates to your talented employees that you truly value them, recognize their potential for leadership growth, and are willing to actively invest in that growth.  

4. Fostering a Culture of Continuous Learning 

In today’s workplace, more and more employees are choosing to leave their jobs when there is a distinct lack of development opportunities being offered to them. In fact, offering career training and development programs would keep up to 86% of millennials from leaving their current position, according to this study. Essentially, learning and development opportunities are a critical recruitment tactic for attracting and keeping your team members stimulated, engaged, and loyal to your company. 

But, this hinges on a few key points. Training and development programs will only keep your employees engaged and loyal if it includes engaging content and is available in formats that allow for flexible learning styles. Gone are the days when training was a one-and-done, lecture-style process. Instead, companies that wish to remain competitive need to offer continuous training opportunities. 

But to the modern employee, this may make burnout or boredom all-the-more present. Addressing this HR challenge hinges on your ability to leverage the tools available to you. A great example is to implement eLearning options, or installing a Learning Management System into your company’s bank of resources. With online learning options available to your employees, they can complete their development opportunities from anywhere, and at any time. In addition, the unique features that online learning systems offer are much more likely to keep employees engaged in their training from start to finish. They will appreciate the flexibility of smaller chunks of learning and leverage them at times that are most convenient to them, which generally yields the most effective learning. 

5. Managing Diversity 

Globalization and diversification are affecting business everywhere. Not only are customer reaches extended past the traditional Head Offices, but talent can now be sourced from across oceans and borders.  

However, diversity in the workplace come with a few HR challenges, including managing diverse cultures in localized teams. While adhering to local policies and procedures, the Human Resources department’s principle goal should always be to foster a workplace environment that is comfortable, welcoming, and free of conflict. Implementing cultural awareness programs can be helpful in making employees aware of the benefits of a diverse workplace, drawing attention to the better ideas and innovations a diverse team yields, and the wider customer reach attainable for a diverse business. Another helpful tool for managing diversity in the workplace are team building activities, which can assist in integrating employees of different cultures and uniting them towards a collective business objective.  

6. Monitoring Health and Safety 

Keeping in line with health and safety standards have always been one of the most obvious HR challenges faced by businesses globally. Not only are these concerns governed by regional labor laws, they are also incredibly important to overall employee wellbeing, an area under increased focus as of late. 

In 2020, health in the workplace is about much more than just hygiene and safety. Higher demands and arduous workloads can cause the psychological well-being of your employees to deteriorate or lead to employee burnout altogether. Periods of stress are to be expected, and some employees may even produce their best work under times of healthy pressure, but high levels of stress are simply damaging over long periods of time. 

In response to the pandemic, employee stress levels are resting at an even higher rate than usual. This means being receptive to their individual health during this time and remaining aware of the need for appropriate levels of organizational lenience, is as critical as ever. Keeping a close eye on escalating workloads and stress levels, and checking in with your employees regularly, is a good way to overcome this HR challenge. An open-door policy where employees can freely discuss their anxiety, issues with their working hours, and any unfair expectations with you is critical.  

7. Creating a Quality Employee Experience 

High turnover rates in fast-paced, constantly changing companies are relatively common. While you may be extremely skilled in hiring the right people, it is keeping them around that becomes the next obstacle, and one of the largest and most persistent HR challenges professionals must overcome. 

When employees are satisfied with their role, responsibilities, workplace, and peers, they are far less likely to consider seeking employment elsewhere. In a 2018 Job Seeker study, over one third of job seekers reported leaving a job within 90 days of their employment. 43% stated that their day-to-day role wasn’t what they thought it would be, 34% reported that they were driven away by a bad experience, 32% cited company culture, and 11% said they had signed onto a new job but later changed their minds. 

While a strong recruitment process, and appropriately directed vacancy marketing, is critical, employers of today need to place the same level of focus on retaining that top talent. This can be done by focusing on fostering an employee experience that is above that of your competition. Offer engaging online training opportunities, benefits for gym facility access, flexible working time, remote work arrangements (though many organizations have been forced into this practice regardless), or other incentives you feel would best keep your employees content in their working environment. The best way to combat this HR challenge is to create a culture that solicits the opinions of their employees and that responds, by building sustainable programs and initiatives that both address and support those needs.  

Face Today’s HR Challenges with An Open Mind 

The world is seeing significant changes left and right, and the way we do business is changing along with it. Being able to adapt to those changes, however unfamiliar or daunting, is critical for sustainable business success. Above all, the biggest HR challenge professionals face is identifying and understanding the corporate landscape of the future. As industries and technologies continue to evolve, as new generations enter the workforce, as globalization increases competition, and as the nature of work responds and adapts to environmental influences, it will be Human Resources that will strengthen an organization’s key requirement: its people. 

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Building an Effective Corporate Communication Strategy

Communication issues in businesses are not an uncommon problem. For US businesses alone, Inadequate communication to and between employees can cost up to $4 billion annually. The cost of poor communication may be high, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t effective strategies you can implement into your corporation to reduce its risk. By beginning each project with a clear understanding of what your Corporate Communication Strategy is, you can integrate effective time management into your businesses processes seamlessly.  

What Is A Corporate Communication Strategy? 

A Corporate Communication Strategy is the framework used by organizations to plan out communication with employees, customers, suppliers, and investors. When leveraged properly, a Corporate Communication Strategy can be the key to better understanding your company and enhancing its reputation with the people whose attitudes and actions influence your success the most.  

Building a Corporate Communication Strategy 

When it comes to constructing your own Corporate Communication Strategy, there is no in-depth one-size-fits-all solution. While you can probably find countless quick-fixes on the internet, creating an effective strategy is not a simple process. If you want your CCS to best suit your organization, and address and solve the communication issues unique to your business, you will need to invest research and time into the process. 

A Step-by-Step Guide to Developing Your Core Strategy 

Regardless of your industry, there are several aspects that remain universal in core corporate communication strategies. Generally speaking, it comes in three phases: pre-drafting information and research, formulating the strategy, and then examining examples of other communication strategies for further inspiration. This process can be broken down as follows to help you construct your core Corporate Communication Strategy: 

1. Identify and Prioritize Your Executives’ Key Goals

Aim to first understand what each of your business executives sees for the future of the company, and what areas they are truly invested in. In order to collect this information, one of the most useful methods is to conduct individual interviews with as many of your top-level management employees as possible. In the interviews, ask them to clearly outline their top priorities for the upcoming year, and ensure everyone agrees on what message they want to put out for the company. 

2. Conduct In-Depth Employee Surveys

Your employee insight doesn’t stop at high-level management. Employees are at the forefront of your business and are the both the backbone and driving forces for your organization. Understanding how your own employees perceive your company and brand is critical to understanding how others perceive it as well. This is how brand ambassadors come to be – while you construct your Corporate Communication Strategy, you need to ensure their voices are heard. How they respond will help you uncover the best way to go about communicating with your team as a whole. Leverage employee surveys to get them involved in the process and gain valuable feedback and insight into what’s working, and what isn’t. 

3. Research Your Stakeholders’ Input

Stakeholders are one of the most vital parts of your organization, so if you notice that they are communicating something that isn’t confident for the success of your business, you need to adjust your communications strategy to address and fix that perception as quickly as possible. Communicating with stakeholders, shareholders, and investors in a way that is most effective for their own interests in critical for sustaining success and alignment with long-term plans.  

4. Review Your Customers’ Comments

The insight your customers have to offer when it comes to their perception of how your organization is delivering on its promises should not be overlooked. Leverage the countless online, and often free, measurement tools to not only take advantage of social researching methods, but also to learn how to start conversations that will get consumers and potential clients talking about your brand in a positive light. 

4. Include Your Suppliers in Your Research

Suppliers and partners that work closely with your brand can also be great resources for gathering useful information about your strategic corporate communication strategy. Ideally, your suppliers and partners should firmly believe that affiliating themselves with your business is beneficial for their business as well. If this is the case, take note of what it is they say they enjoy most about working with your company. Utilize that feedback not only to add structure to your partner relationships, but also to help strengthen your corporate communication strategy. 

Best Practices for An Effective Corporate Communication Strategy 

Conducting the needed research and interviewing processes is critical to cultivating a successful and effective Corporate Communication Strategy for your business. By gaining valuable insight into how your employees, executives, suppliers, and stakeholders perceive your company, and what it is they prefer when it comes to communication, you will understand what it is your CCS needs to set out to accomplish. Once you have a clear understanding of where you should be aiming, and also how your new strategy will fit into the broader framework of your organization, you need to begin setting up an essential roadmap for its implementation. 

However, before you can begin assessing the key diagnosis and guiding policies for your Corporate Communication Strategy, you first need to understand how it is your company will arrive at those ideal concepts. Consider the following tips while drafting your strategy: 

Look at other corporate communication strategies from successful businesses.

Especially if you are new to the field of communications strategies, taking examples from successful businesses can be extremely beneficial. By looking at communication strategies that have worked extremely well for others, you can get inspired yourself, or even use their strategy as a starting template or jumping off point for your own planning. It is important to keep in mind that communication issues, and hence the strategies put in place to address those issues, will be unique to specific companies. Using a carbon copy of another company’s successful strategy will not necessarily work for your own, and additional research will need to be done to ensure its success for your business.  

Identify your key metrics so you can track the best outcome for your strategy.

Your Corporate Communication Strategy will need to be analyzed for success throughout its use, so it is important to first father the basic key metrics that will be able to show you if it is working the way it should. In addition, statistics gathered from your corporate communications can also show you if your employees are actually using the communication tools being provided. If they are, you will be able to identify how they are using the tools, meaning you can pick apart your strategy and identify the aspects and areas that may need more strategic attention.  

Set intuitive and realistic goals and timelines.

By setting goals for your company that make sense for your objectives and are also realistic in scope and expectation, you will be able to properly estimate the level of difficulty and projected time investment that will be required to integrate and establish your new Corporate Communication Strategy. With a clear picture of what will be required, you can plot out more efficient and worthwhile steps towards updating your strategy, leaning on the metrics you have gathered to identify the areas that will make the quickest impact through strategic change. 

Keep in mind that any and all timelines set should be effective. A good way to accomplish this is to ask yourself questions that allow you to identify the information or data that is too excessive or unnecessary for business. Some examples of questions are:

• What do I want our Corporate Communication Strategy to do for business? 
• Which areas are working efficiently and why, and what areas need immediate improvement? 
• How quickly do I want to be able to reach my business goals for the company? 
• Which communication tools, platforms, and existing strategies are available, given the organization’s size, needs, and goals for what employees should be accomplishing? 

Regardless of your answers to these questions, they should aim to provide clarity into what your Corporate Communication Strategy is setting out to accomplish for your business.  

Use collaboration tools.

Juggling several projects within a team can become complicated way too quickly. Often, organizations find strictly email communications between a large amount of team members to be ineffective in project completion. This is why it can be extremely beneficial to introduce collaboration tools that are useful and effective for project and team management. SpriggHR’s SpriggBoard is a great example of a streamlined collaboration tool you can implement into your strategy. While primarily utilized by Boards, it centralizes and manages all team tasks in one location, safely and securely organizing documents that need to be circulated throughout the team. Meeting agendas can be prepared and distributed, and Critical Paths and Action Plans for events can be shared instantly. By integrating real-time communication, it also eliminates the need for repetitive external email communications between your team members, reducing the time lost to sifting through email threads and allowing your team to focus on project development. 

Actively participate in your teams.

While this practice is easier for smaller organizations where all team members know one another personally, larger companies can stand to benefit from this strategy as well. Part of your Corporate Communication Strategy should include your responsibility to communicate effectively with everyone in your company, and the best way to achieve the success rates you are aiming for is to be a part of the team yourself. Employees are much less likely to follow a leader locked away in an ivory tower, and by avoiding your employees and not engaging in rapport with them, your chances of effective communication dwindle rapidly. Aim to understand how your colleagues communicate with one another and make attempts to adapt to that preferred style of communication so you can reach them better. It is possible to maintain your authority amongst your employees and still communicate with your company at the same time.  

Align your Corporate Communication Strategy to company goals and metrics.

When approaching your Corporate Communication Strategy, you need to ensure its implementation aligns well with your existing business goals. Target your communications to foundational employees, leveraging target audiences, managers, and key communicators. This will allow you to facilitate more thorough and engaging employee communications within your company. Similarly, implementing metrics and analytics into your corporate communication strategy that align with your organizational foundations is critical to evaluating the success of your strategy altogether. Methods such as employee surveys are useful, and should be included somewhere in your strategy, but your research should not rely only on them. 

Aim for a company culture of communication.

If you want to improve corporate communications within your business, you first need to set out to create a culture of communication throughout the entirety of your company. This involves committing to transparency at the Executive level and introduce systems and practices that will support continuous and open dialogue between employees and their management teams. Consistent dialogue and conversation can be transformative for your company culture and can produce tremendous financial results for business. When a workforce communicates effectively with one another, they produce better output, and improve the company overall. 

In Summary 

Constructing a Corporate Communication Strategy that is right for your business does not have to be an impossible process. While it does require an investment of research, time, and thorough planning, once you have a complete understanding of where you strategy sits now, you can focus on how to scale your new strategy in the right ways to yield to greatest benefits from your communication efforts.  

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The Pros and Cons of a 4-Day Work Week

The pandemic has ushered in a host of significant changes, influencing every area of life, including how we work. Employees around the world have been forced to adjust to their new work-life within the confines of their homes, and companies not deemed essential have modified their physical environments and/or shifted almost entirely to remote work. As a result of the increased stress and tension these rapid changes have placed on the shoulders of workers, organizations are beginning to adopt policies and practices that they may have resisted in the past. One of the more prevalent, modern approaches to work that has gained momentum in the past few months is the idea of a 4-day work week.  

What Does a 4-Day Work Week Look Like? 

While flexible schedules have been a topic of interest for some time, primarily leveraged by companies looking to modernize their functions, the idea of a shorter work week has rapidly become a focal point of business debate. In a time of such uncertainty, no organization has all the answers to how to best support their employees, and many have turned to a 4-day work week as a solution for the toll the pandemic has taken on their workers’ mental health. But, what does the 4-day work week look like in action? 

In truth, there is no one best answer to this question, and no one definition or description of a four-day work week. Shortened work weeks come in many different forms, depending on the objectives of the adoption of the practice in the first place. Some organizations envisage a shorter work week as a production of the same output, with the work time being condensed into fewer hours. Other companies may plan to implement longer working hours, spread out over fewer days than usual. Some models of a four-day week mean a three-day weekend, while others are set up for a day off midweek. Simply put, it just depends on the type of organization you run, and how you want to go about responding to this international period of disruption. And, the first step to identifying whether a shortened work week practice is right for your company and your employees, is to weigh out the potential advantages and disadvantages it may introduce. 

The Benefits of a 4-Day Work Week 

The idea of a shortened working week is no doubt appealing to many employees. With an extended weekend, or an additional day off, to work towards, many will likely access a newfound point of motivation, and produce better work as a result. According to a Harris poll conducted in May, when the notion of a 4-day work week began circulating quicker than ever, over 82% of US employees stated they would prefer a shorter workweek. Organizations that have already implemented it as a practice have also contributed to the debate. Perpetual Guardian’s CEO Andrew Barnes stated that his implementation of a four-day workweek in 2018 gleaned lower stress levels, higher creativity, and a major boost in team cohesion for his employees. 

As companies begin to reopen their offices, shifting from remote work to a reformed workweek system leads to many companies as the right way to go. With companies left and right testing the idea, and achieving promising results from it, employees and employers alike may stand to benefit greatly from a wider adoption of this new concept. Some specific benefits that a 4-day work week gleans for organizations include: 

• Increase in Productivity – it is well-known that an overworked employee is much less productive than an employee working a reasonable number of hours each week. Perpetual Guardian’s introduction of the 4-day work week policy saw a decrease in employee stress levels from 45% to 38%. Similarly, the countries that yield the highest productivity statistics, including Norway, Denmark, and the Netherlands, average around 27 hours a week, not the traditional 40 seen in five-day week structures.   
• Equal Workplace – the introduction of a decreased workweek would provide employees the opportunity to better balance their work and life commitments. One of the largest contributors to the widened gap between employed female and male workers is the lack of flexible policies surrounding childcare. Most employees who take leave of absences are women needing time off for childcare. A 4-day work week would eliminate this gendered gap in available working hours, providing a more equitable approach to accommodating the familial needs of employees.  
• Increase in Engagement – a shortened work week has the potential to boost employee satisfaction, morale, commitment, and overall engagement. While a happy workforce may seem like a far-off notion in the current times, providing flexibility in scheduling will do wonders for relieving employee stress levels that may be higher than usual right now. A 4-day work week also means employees are less likely to need stress or sick leave, since they have more time off that they can use to rest and recover. Resultingly, they can return to work ready to take on new challenges, even in times of disruption.  

The Drawbacks of a 4-Day Work Week 

While the arguments for a 4-day work week seem to keep rising, so too do the arguments against it. Many companies are avid in the belief that condensing the work done over five days into four will yield significantly more negative results for your organization than positive ones. While flexibility in how you go about structing a shortened work week is critical, and it can be adapted and adjusted to the needs and demands of your business, there will always be potential drawbacks to adopting a new, unfamiliar management practice. Some of the key arguments against the idea of a 4-day work week include: 

• Good Statistics Indicate Poor Management – the shortened work week has picked up so much steam largely because of the benefits it has yielded for the companies who dove head-first into the new model of work. However, if a company is reporting significant changes in their waste and efficiency statistics and are closing gaps only because they condensed their week, it could be argued this speaks negatively to their existing management system itself. If the firms were properly managed from the beginning, some common-sense adjustments should not have produced such radical improvements in the company’s efficiency. It points to the potential of existing flaws, meaning the miraculous statistical changes circulating online in favour of the 4-day work week are not necessarily reliable. 
• Skipping Workdays Benefits Your Competition – regardless of whether you see massive increases in employee satisfaction, the very possibility that an entire workday is now cut out from your schedule will seem extremely appealing to your competition. If they do not follow the trend themselves, they now have an entire day that they can dedicate to outperforming your organization. They may choose to contact your key clients and customers on a day where they won’t be able to get in touch with your employees.  

• Shorter Workweeks are Industry-Specific – while it may seem like the entire world is exploring new workweek options, there are certain industries and jobs that will need to remain operational within their current workweek structure. A bus driver for example, cannot work extra to be able to take next Friday off, just as a hotel maid cannot condense five days of cleaning rooms into four. Because of their job design and industry, there are some jobs that simply cannot be condensed into four days, meaning a rapid adoption of a four-day work week can only be leveraged by certain industries.  

Above All Else, Your Employees Want Flexibility 

The newfound trend of a shortened workweek has kicked up a storm of debates in the business world, and for good reason. Any new, seemingly radical idea of how to manage a company will cause some disruption, but when placed into a context of global uncertainty and unfamiliarity, the pros and cons are dissected under the world’s microscope. While a 4-day work week may seem like a radical change to introduce in such times, it may be useful to examine how well it would suit your organization. The arguments for and against shorter work weeks are abundant, but as a leader, it is up to you to have the final say in what approach will truly benefit your employees and company in the long-term.  

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The Importance of Leadership Communication

The key to becoming a great leader has always been being skilled in communication. Especially today, when communication channels are rapidly increasing and the need for connectivity between a leader and their employees is in high demand, effective leadership communication is a definitive cornerstone to business success. If you want to be able to implement changes and produce real business results for your company, you first need to learn the skills necessary to have effective workplace conversations. 

Leadership Communication Defined 

Looking at effective workplace communication as a 2-way street is important, but it also glazes over some of the complexities involved in communication itself, particularly from a leadership perspective. Effective leadership communication is far from a new business buzz phrase. Rather, it describes a particular approach to workplace communication that has a clear and critical impact on an organization’s bottom line. 

Leadership communication consists largely of messages related to a company’s culture and core values. These messages are significant to the key stakeholders of the company, including the employees, customers, strategic partners, shareholders, and media. When it comes to communications from leaders, they are critical because of their direct impact on this relayed message regarding the organization’s vision, mission, and transformations. The most important goal of leadership communication is to cultivate a sense of trust in the workplace through the messaging coming from leaders, keeping employees engaged and focused in the right direction.  

The Importance of Leadership Communication 

Communication is a core leadership function, meaning effective workplace communication and effective leadership are closely intertwined. An effective leader needs to be a skilled communicator, applying that skill in relationships at the organizational level, in larger communities and groups, and sometimes even on a global scale. However, according to the statistics, 57% of employees report not being given clear directions, and as much as 69% of managers are not comfortable communicating with their employees in general.   

The problem here goes beyond managers lacking confidence or the skill levels necessary to be successful business leaders. Rather, leaders who are falling short in the communications department will have a direct negative impact on employee satisfaction, motivation, and productivity levels. Without effective leadership communication in place, a leader cannot and should not expect their employees to be engaged and connected in the workplace, introducing a host of other detrimental impacts on the success of the business.  

Keeping employees motivated and driven towards success should remain a top priority for any leader. But, in order to inspire and motivate in the first place, business leaders need to establish and foster a strong line of communication. As a leader, you need to think with clarity, express ideas, and disseminate information to a multitude of audiences. A good leader can handle the rapid flows of information that circulate within the organization, and between customers, partners, and any other stakeholders. Essentially, maintaining strong leadership communication within the workplace is the key to keeping your business not just afloat, but thriving in the industry as a whole.  

Tips to Optimize Your Leadership Communication

Fostering strong lines of communication as a leader introduces a particular set of goals that differ largely from the business skill of general communication. As a leader, it is your responsibility not only to have good basic communication skills, but also to ensure that the lines of communication you open within your business cover the following leadership goals: 

• Align employees with the company culture. 
• Align employees with the company’s strategic goals. 
• Build trust within the workplace. 
• Maintain employee engagement. 
• Encourage two-way conversations and open dialogue. 
• Promote employee collaboration and teamwork. 
• Keep employees informed. 
• Communicate any upcoming changes effectively and in a timely manner. 
• Prevent internal miscommunications. 
• Disseminate important information and make it available to employees.  

Best Practices for Effective Leadership Communication. 

Aligning your communications strategy with the above leadership objectives is critical, but how do you know your skills have matured enough to ensure your leadership communication is as effective as it can be? The number one thing great leadership communicators have in common is they have an accurate sense of situational and contextual awareness. That is to say, they are great listeners and astute in their observations, drawing on contextual clues naturally to heighten their communication skillset. 

A great leadership communicator can read the individuals or groups they are conversing with, sensing the mood, dynamics, attitudes, values, and concerns associated with the other and can easily adapt their messaging to said environment without missing a beat. To know you have reached the point where your interactions as a leader translate to your presence as an excellent communicator, aim to employ the following best practices into your method of leadership communication: 

1. Be honest.

People won’t be open to those they don’t trust, and this is especially true when it comes to leadership. When employees, shareholders, partners, or any other key stakeholders have a sense that a leader is worthy of their trust, they will invest time and take risks for the business in a way that they never would if the leader had a reputation built upon a lack of integrity. However, keep in mind that demanding trust rarely works – it is best earned through right actions, thinking, and decision making.  

2. Get personal.

Effective leadership communication should be a dialogue, not a monologue. The more personal and engaging a conversation is, the more effective it will be for both parties. If you remain at arm’s length from your employees, you will remain in the dark and only ever receive a highly sanitized recounting of the truth. Developing meaningful relationships with people and opening a personable, consistent dialogue with them is key to being able to solve the issues that they encounter before it’s too late. 

3. Be specific.

Effective communication hinges on clarity. Being simple and concise in your communication efforts will always be more effective than being complicated, confusing, or superfluous. Especially today, time is a precious commodity, and the best leaders know just how to trim the fat and hit the high points in what they are communicating. Without understanding the value of brevity and clarity, you won’t ever be rewarded with insight into the granular level of things, since people will tune you out long before you reach that point. 

4. Focus on the leave-behinds.

Being skilled in leadership communication goes beyond having the ability to learn and gather information while communicating. The best communicators are also adept at transferring ideas, aligning expectations, inspiring action, and disseminating their overall vision. When you approach each interaction with a focus on contributing more than receiving, you can consider yourself an effective communicator.  

5. Keep an open mind.

The rigidity of a closed mind, especially in today’s climate, is one of the greatest limiting factors of new opportunities that exists. When a leader is willing to seek out those who hold countering opinions, or who stand in opposing positions, and seeks not to convince them to change their mind but rather to understand their point of view on things, their leadership is elevated to a whole new level. Hold open dialogues with those you confront, challenge, and develop you and your business perspectives. Keep in mind that it is not the opinion that matters, but rather your willingness to discuss, debate, and learn. 

6. Listen.

A long-standing cornerstone of great communication is the ability to simply stop talking and listen. A strong leader has an intuitive sense of when they need to dial it up, dial it down, and dial it off altogether. Broadcasting your message is important but doing so ad nauseum will produce much fewer effective results as starting meaningful conversations with others. The most worthwhile form of dialogue takes place not in the form of a detached lecture or monologue, but rather in an engaging conversation.  

7. Read between the lines.

Any strong leader needs to be able to look past the surface-level of things and understand what is not being said, witnessed, or heard outright. It’s one of the most useful skills needed to be able to paint a bigger picture of any kind of situation, grounding itself in contextual and situational clues that help you lead in a multifaceted way. 

8. Speak to groups as individuals.

A great leader is one who can tailor their communication in such a way that their message still feels personalized, regardless of the size of the audience. Knowing how to work a room and establish credibility, trust, and rapport are the key practices to holding successful interactions with stakeholders.  

Take the infographic to go!

The Cost of Poor Leadership Communication 

One of the biggest barriers to having high-quality conversations is a simple fear of sharing what you are really thinking and feeling. Being genuine is intimidating, but the intimidation should be coming from those insincere conversations, because they cost the company much more than many would expect.  

According to a study done by The Economist Intelligence Unit, the responses received from executives, managers, and junior staff members alike highlighted several key areas where communication breakdowns in the workplace have major consequences for business as a whole: 

• 52% of employees said that poor communication leads to higher stress levels. 
• 44% of employees reported poor communication causes failure in completing their projects. 
• 31% of employees said poor communication causes them to miss their performance goals. 
• 20% of employees in poorly communicative work environments said that they experience obstacles in innovation. 
• 18% of employees report that poor communication leads to an increase in lost new sales opportunities. 

Evidently, the cost of poor leadership communication is extremely high. But, the right internal communications strategy, and the implementation of the best leadership communications practices, can help leaders improve their communication efforts and eliminate the biggest leadership communication challenges being faced today. Communicating with the modern employee can be tricky, but they are relying on you to lead them and align them and their efforts with business objectives and success. You can only do this when you recognize the importance of maintaining an effective leadership communication strategy.  

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11 Causes of Scope Creep & What to Do About Them

Any Project Managers has had to at least at one point face the circumstance where a project started to balloon in size and scope, while its budget and timeline remained the same. Referred to as project scope creep, an unexpected addition to a project’s demands that move past its predetermined limits can cause a serious blow to your team’s success. But, what is scope creep exactly? And how does it get past even the most skilled project manager’s defenses, slowly but surely inflating the scope of a project?  

What Is Scope Creep? 

Scope creep occurs when the scope, deliverables, or features on a project expand from what was originally set, without additional time or budget being accounted for. Simply put, scope creep is about parameters. The scope of a project is always documented beforehand, outlining the project’s boundaries, schedules, and major deliverables. This is usually presented in the form of a Statement of Work. 

How Scope Creep Can Lead to Project Failure 

Scope creep can affect any fixed, measurable parameter set around a project, and it is unfortunately very common. It can occur both intentionally and unintentionally and arise from any number of individuals that are involved in the project. Because of its unpredictable nature, it poses the risk of causing serious harm, and even failure, to a team’s project. Perhaps an increase in needed tasks means the deadline is missed, or new required resources cause you to burn through the entire budget.  

Unaccounted for hiccups in a project’s progress are sometimes unavoidable, but that doesn’t diminish the importance of recognizing key sources of scope creep and implementing practices to avoid them as much as possible.  

11 Causes of Scope Creep & How to Best Deal with Them 

1. Lack of a Clear and Detailed Scope 

Clarity is critical to the success of any project. Without clearly outlining and defining your scope at the beginning, you risk causing major disruptions down the line, and the scope of the project is much more likely to mutate on its own. Stakeholders and even team members can begin defining the scope of the project for themselves, leading to a lack of cohesiveness amongst your team and clients.  

TIP: Ensure that the scope is clear to everyone who will be involved in the project. The Project Scope Statement that goes into the Project Initiation Document is where all the boundaries and parameters of the project should be clearly stipulated. Spend the time finalizing the plan and sharing it among your team so that their expectations are better managed, and so there are no surprises down the line. Involve your team members in setting the scope parameters so they are fully bought into what they are delivering before the work even begins.  

2. Lack of a Client Agreement 

In a similar vein, clarity with the client on what the scope of your project will be is critical. If they are not bought into the exact scope you have in mind, they are likely to change their mind, and hence the deliverables, later on in the process. 

TIP: Clearly communicate the scope with the client, and ensure they have a clear picture both of what it is, and what it isn’t. Sending a completed document outlining the deliverables is not enough. You need to involve them directly, speaking with them and walking them through all the parameters and deliverables thoroughly. Asking questions such as, “Are you clear on what this deliverable is, and what you’ll be getting?”, can be helpful.  

3. Weak Leadership 

While you may have clearly outlined the scope to the client, some may try and change it for themselves to get what they want if they begin to sense that you lack experience, or are not a strong project manager. 

TIP: This cause of scope creep hinges on how your clients are perceiving you. If demands are beginning to inflate the project scope, stand your ground even if it creates some conflict. Communicate strongly during meetings through body language and confident speech. If meetings are being held virtually, be certain to be speaking on camera and presenting the physical plan on screen showing its agreed upon steps clearly. 

4. Differing Stakeholder Opinions 

While some disagreement may arise between you and the client, others may come up between stakeholders themselves. If too many stakeholders are involved in the project, you risk having differing opinions on how to go about completing the project. Even if their desired end result is unanimous, their motivations could be wildly different, meaning they will have differing opinions on what should be prioritized during project development. With an unclear strategy for project development on the table, you risk altering your timelines almost any time a stakeholder chimes in. 

TIP: Evidently, limiting the number of your stakeholders is the solution to this cause of scope creep. If you need a larger group, try to determine what their motivations are so you can arrive at a common ground for the project. If needed, additional requests from stakeholders that come up during project development can be transferred into a future project instead. 

5. Not Involving the Client Throughout the Project 

Projects are no longer being left in the hands of your company alone to carry out with little communication with the client. Spending months doing the work and only sending the results of the work period to the client for feedback at the end of the timeframe is not sufficient and can result in surprises for the project scope. Finalized work may have to be redone entirely, impacting the project timeline and budget.  

TIP: Aim to collaborate closely with the client throughout each stage of the project. Keep them updated on the work as its still in progress, iterate its status consistently, and proactively involve them in the entire process. 

6. Not Raising Issues Proactively 

If issues come up during project development, it may seem easy to hide behind them and not be transparent with the client or stakeholder. However, this could have serious consequences down the line, since it will come as a surprise to the client and they may change their deliverables unexpectedly in response to it. 

TIP: Even if it is challenging, raise any issues with them right away, when they happen. Ensure you have had time to work through some solutions so you can offer strategies alongside it, which will help ease their worry. 

7. Not Prioritizing Features 

Many projects are laid out in a step-by-step format, meaning each feature involved in project development builds up to the final project. This could lead to the perception that every feature in the process is a priority. Without clear priority set among features, it is hard to recognize which areas can be descoped or scaled back when adjustments to the project’s requirements begin to creep in. 

TIP: Prioritize features of your project’s process by identifying which components are critical for delivering a usable end product. A more agile approach to project management may be necessary, where features that are absolutely necessary for users are top priority, meaning there is a working product that can be used by the client at almost every stage. 

8. Not Agreeing on How to Handle Change 

Change is almost inevitable in every project, so not clearly agreeing on how to best approach it at a project’s beginning will make it extremely difficult to work through when changes to the scope begin to surface. 

TIP: Outline in your Statement of Work how you will handle change should it come up. Change Requests are an option, but if you choose to utilize these ensure you clearly stipulate what falls within, and without, the scope, and how to go about raising a Change Request. 

9. Poor Estimation 

Getting estimation of timeline accurate can be potentially problematic. It is difficult to be accurate and foresee any and all changes to a project at its conception, since there are still many unknowns. Certain things may not get properly accounted for, meaning your team will be tied to additional scope in order to deliver the project. 

TIP: Involve everyone in estimation. Making guesses on your own about where the project could head, and what may surface during its development, is a sure-fire way to oversee critical components you should be accounting for. Rather than estimating based on deliverables, keep in mind the following: 

• Estimate for a discovery period where you will determine what it is your end product will be – at the end of this period, you will be able to provide a more accurate estimate for the remainder of the project. 
• Use a Time and Materials pricing model, rather than estimating by a Fixed Price. Actual worked hours on the project are what are billed, so the former can offer much more flexibility. 
• Avoid specifying the exact features being built and how within the scope – be specific but allow some room for change if needed. 

10. New Requests Not Being Properly Vetted 

During project development, it can be very easy to take on new requests or ideas from clients or team members. They know what they are doing, so many PMs may feel that any and all requests from them are the right path forward. However, if you don’t interrogate all requests properly, no matter how ideal they sound, you could end up duplicating existing work, or constructing unnecessary features without even noticing. 

TIP: Review any and all new requests with the entire team. Ensure each team member has a clear understanding of what the request is, what the impact of incorporating it will be, and the outcome it will have for the client. Then, prioritize the new request, and double check that it is not already being delivered elsewhere in the project. 

11. Not Involving Users Early On 

Without involving your end-users or customers from the beginning of the process, you risk receiving feedback from them that you have never heard before, adding to your list of action items when you have almost reached the end of your timeline. It is tempting to think that your team, clients, and organization understands your users well enough to avoid interaction, but without incorporating user feedback early on, you can go far down a project development route that won’t actually test well with your users.  

TIP: Similar to the involvement of clients and stakeholders, the key here is collaboration. Collaborating with customers early and often means you run much less risk of delivering something they don’t need or want. Keep communication lines open, and if possible, have users using the product as early as possible. If your client or budget holder doesn’t want to fund this effort, work through the benefits with them, and also clearly outline the negative impact of neglecting early user validation.  

Managing Scope Creep in The Right Way 

Scope creep does not have to be the enemy for your project development. At its core, it describes unexpected change. The way you go about managing that change is what ultimately affects your project, not the request to change it. Remaining watchful for when you spot scope creep is critical, especially when it isn’t apparent to the rest of your team, so ensuring you raise it before it spirals should be a given. However, change can actually be largely beneficial to your project, if you leverage it in the right way. The objective of your project should always be to deliver the best possible product or service you can, so if that objective requires a change in parameters every now and then, you as a project manager need to lead the way for adapting to that. 

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The Importance of Resource Utilization

Project managers have no shortage of responsibilities and duties, one of which is to track resource utilization. Project managers oversee countless moving parts of an organizational project and are responsible for making decisions both in advance and on the spot. One of their principle duties is to allocate duties and responsibilities among a workforce in order to reach project success on time and within a set budget. They aim to keep every individual busy, while also ensuring their tasks are valuable and billable for the company. 

The importance of resource allocation is not lost on most organizations, but how can you go about ensuring your allocation efforts are successful in the first place? Allocation can get tricky as your team grows and you are forced to assign multiple employees to multiple projects at the same time. And, because of the shapeshifting nature of projects themselves, even the most skilled project manager can still oversee projects that don’t live up to expectations if tools aren’t being leveraged in the right way. One of the best ways to measure your allocation success and ensure all a project’s available resources are being used properly, is to track your team’s resource utilization. 

What is Resource Utilization? 

Resource utilization refers to the metric that indicates whether your whole team, or individual employees, are fully booked. It describes the process of planning a project and ensuring the available resources in the company are being used to their highest potential. It helps project managers identify which of their employees are being overutilized so they can allocate responsibilities to someone else if needed, and can also assist in identifying the people who are underutilized, so they can assign new projects to them.  

Resource Allocation vs. Resource Utilization 

While the purpose of both processes may seem similar, there are some key distinctions to be drawn between the two: 

• Resource allocation refers to a project manager selecting suitable employees for a project, and then managing them as they complete the project, reassigning or altering workloads if necessary. 
• Resource utilization is the process of strategically measuring how effective resources are. Allocation organizes a project, but it is utilization that makes it successful.  

The Benefits of Resource Utilization 

Creating a robust framework for assessing the quality of your resources is a critical step for project success. Some of the specific advantages that resource utilization can offer your projects include: 

• Effective utilization of resources maintains productivity, since employees are not underperforming or being overburdened by their workloads, 
• Resource utilization allows for projects to be managed with better visibility, meaning the risk of oversights is reduced drastically, 
• The use of resources to their maximum potential yield a better ROI for projects, 
• Resource utilization metrics ensure specific resources aren’t being over- or under-utilized, and; 
• They allow project managers to be agile and reschedule resources as quickly as possible, avoiding problems coming up or worsening. 

How to Implement Resource Utilization 

Your project’s resource utilization metric is usually calculated using the following formula, referred to as the full-time equivalent (FTE): 

This value indicates how much of your team’s time is spent working, allowing you to allocate project tasks accordingly. It is best to aim for a rate of around 80% – anything higher risks employee burn out, and anything lower means the resource is not being utilized properly.  

Although the FTE calculation is straightforward, there are a few variables that will need to be worked out before you can actually implement a resource utilization strategy into your project management. One of the biggest questions PMs have is whether they should base their calculation on actual working time from timesheets, or use planned working time instead. The variance in outcomes is what makes it difficult to recommend one universal strategy for resource utilization. The best way to determine how to implement it is to examine both versions of the formula and figure out which approach is best for your organization. Let’s break it down: 

Comparing Booked Hours with Team Availability 

One way to measure resource utilization is to compare a resource’s availability against their planned working hours: 

The primary reason some organizations use this method is that it presents the opportunity to optimize plans if the score comes out too low. They can still return to their schedule and rearrange their project plans to optimize their resource utilization. Perhaps there are some gaps in resource bookings, or there are working hours being divided when it may be more effective to assign them to one person full-time. 

If you are going to use this method, ensure you have a strategy for how you can fill in the gaps in your team’s schedule. Not only will a better plotted out working schedule avoid lost productivity, it also keeps employees much more engaged. On the other hand, you should also keep an eye out for employees who have too much on their plate. If an employee is being overutilized, the risk for their tasks not being delivered on time goes up, and they are much more likely to burn out. If overbookings are rampant in your scheduling, this may suggest the need to bring in new employees to the project. 

Comparing Worked Hours with Team Availability 

Another way you can measure resource utilization is to compare recorded hours (timesheets) against your team’s available hours: 

Most organizations believe that this is the most precise way to calculate resource utilization, since you are operating on actual working hours and not just the estimates. Since this metric is retrospective, any identified flaws cannot be undone. However, it can still be leveraged to help make better decisions for resource utilization in the future. Historical data regarding resource utilization can help project managers assess whether additional team members need to be hired, or whether extra assignments need to be given to existing ones. It also allows for an analysis on your team’s general productivity trends.  

While both methods are useful in their own ways, one of the best ways to glean the most from your resource utilization metrics is to employ both equations. Compare your recorded utilization metrics to your estimated ones and analyze the differences. This could highlight issues in workload estimation and can also bring attention to existing project management problems. Identify whether there are specific employees who are consistently over or under their estimated resource utilization score. By analyzing both metrics, and the gaps between the two, it becomes much easier to spot improvement areas and take action to ameliorate your project management processes. 

Other Tips for Implementing Resource Utilization 

When a company has a robust resource management platform, project managers have access to the tools needed to approach and master effective resource utilization. Some key tips to keep in mind include: 

• Leverage Visibility – especially for larger companies, several projects may be running at the same time, and while they exist separately they still affect one another down the line. Rather than looking at projects as separate entities, formulate a resource utilization plan that can provide insight into project-specific metrics, as well as an overview of all resources in the company. This way, you will be able to assess overall work capacity and resource performance on a bigger picture scale, helping identify any company-wide areas of improvement. 
• Beware of Scope Creep – projects are shapeshifting by nature, so some will inevitably demand additional time and resources. It is the responsibility of the project manager to ensure projects don’t go over allotted time or budget. A resource utilization strategy can help centralize all active projects, leveraging resources equally amongst them to help keep things within their optimal scope. 
• Always Be Prepared – as a project manager, you need to be prepared for any and all scenarios. During your planning process, visualize and run through various situations that could arise, and prepare for a change of circumstances as if it were inevitable. This way, if the budget changes, or a resource is lost, your team will be able to adapt more quickly.  

Measuring Resource Utilization in Real-Time using SpriggHR 

You may have optimized your resource utilization formula to accommodate the needs of your business, but team data is everchanging and your project management strategy needs to be equipped for that. Employee’s future availability will be changing constantly, which can affect your booked hours. Unforeseen circumstances may cause one employee to fall short of the workload they should be performing, impacting the metrics entirely. 

Updating your data regularly and monitoring your resource utilization score constantly is an essential business practice. One of the best ways to do so is to implement a resource management software. SpriggHR offers several features that can help you automate the steps needed to calculate your resource utilization score, allowing you to stay focused on your project management duties. Tracking progress on goal completion is critical to understanding status of project completion and projected results. Project managers need a tool that works as hard as they do. SpriggHR can provide you with the resource utilization insights your company needs to guarantee sustained project success.  

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Promoting Good Employee Health

Now more than ever, employee health should be one of your top priorities. The health and wellbeing of your employees can dictate how successful your workplace is, influencing the costs associated with frequent sick days or leave of absences due to health reasons. 

Approaching workplace wellness from a holistic standpoint is critical, and that involves offering wellness programs that do not singularly focus on a return on investment (ROI). Companies that treat employee wellness in such a way are much more likely to see reduced absenteeism and presenteeism, greater employee engagement and productivity, less scheduled paid time off from employees, fewer workers’ comp claims, increased employee retention rates, greater employee satisfaction and morale, and overall a demonstrable competitive advantage in the market.  

The benefits of promoting good employee health are evidently numerous, but how can your organization actually go about doing so? First, let’s take a look at what employee health is defined as. 

What is Employee Health? 

Simply put, employee health encompasses the physical and mental status of your employees. It covers both illness and wellness, and also stresses the equal importance of maintaining both physical health and mental health. Physical and mental wellbeing influences not only how well your employees perform in their day-to-day work efforts but can also have long-lasting impacts on their overall morale and satisfaction if they feel their health was not properly addressed by their employers.  

It is important to note that the concept of employee health goes further than the simple definition of their physical and mental wellbeing. It also encompasses the wellness and prevention sides involved in maintaining good health habits and eliminating unhealthy habits. For example, smoking, lack of exercise, and poor eating habits are all areas in which companies frequently intervene. Annual physicals and flu shots are often provided by organizations, both of which fall into the overarching employee health package being provided in the workplace. 

How to Promote Good Employee Health 

Any progressive employer is always aiming to keep their employees healthy and happy. This is not necessarily just because they have a good and caring nature, but rather because healthy and happy employees cost employers less and bring in higher productivity levels. Studies show that absenteeism from an employee costs the business up to 28% more than the employee’s regular wage. Even those employees who do show up when they are sick, referred to as “presenteeism”, it still costs the employer money because their work levels are not optimal. In fact, working at suboptimal levels while sick accounts for between 20% and 60% of the total health-related costs faced by employers that can be traced to on-the-job productivity losses. 

Simply put, even the most inward-focused employer stands to gain from promoting employee health. So, what can you do to improve employee health within your organization? Below are some best tips and practices. 

Introducing Wellness Programs 

A relatively new practice, but now one of the most popular choices by employers when trying to promote better employee health, are health and wellness programs. There are two types of employee wellness programs you can implement: 

• Lifestyle management. These programs focus on diet, exercise, and lifestyle changes. While these wellness programs do somewhat reduce health care claims, they ultimately do not lead to significantly lower employer health care costs. However, they can help employees develop healthier habits, which reduces the rate of absenteeism and increases productivity.  
• Disease management. Another great method to substantially decrease absenteeism and increase employee productivity are the implementation of disease management programs. These focus on reducing the unhealthy factors that lend risk to the development of chronic diseases, including obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, tobacco use, physical inactivity and poor nutrition. By reframing lifestyle management efforts as necessary for long-term health, employers can see meaningful reductions in employees who suffer from these factors. 

Encouraging Vacation Time 

Remaining one of the most valued benefits by employees is vacation time, preferably paid. Taking a break from work and taking a vacation significantly reduces employee stress, lowers the risk of burn out, and increases their productivity levels upon return.  

Keep in mind that part of having employee vacation time in place in your workplace is ensuring your employees actually take advantage of it. In some cases, this may mean forcing them out the door. If you allow employees to accumulate their vacation time, and have it paid out when they quit or retire, you discourage vacation and resultingly encourage overwork and burnout. Reframing your policies to not just present but encourage vacation usage is critical.  

Encouraging Preventative Health Care 

Providing free access to preventative health care methods is one of the most effective ways to keep your employees healthy.  Employers who pay for health care for employees, directly influence and contribute to preventative care measures of their workers. 

Preventative care today is tricky. If your business has shifted from remote work and your employees are now back in the office, providing access to COVID-19 testing through the office can be a good idea. Encouraging employees to follow the preventative measures suggested by health officials is also critical. Requiring your employees to wear face masks while in the office, enforcing social distancing measures between workspaces, providing hand sanitizer around the office and disinfecting surfaces regularly, and reducing interpersonal contact as much as possible, are all preventative measures key to maintaining employee health in these trying times.  

Focusing on Mental Health 

Over 300 million people suffer from depression globally. Depression and anxiety and other mental health-related issues costs the global economy an estimated $1 trillion each year in lost productivity. In the United States alone, mental health and substance abuse can cost a business between $80 and $100 billion annually. Other studies have shown that serious mental illnesses can cost American organizations up to $193.2 billion in lost earnings per year. 

The numbers are all there, and the cost of ignoring mental health in the workplace will only grow as more and more employees are facing mental health issues in response to the global pandemic. Though you have no control over this external factor, you do have the ability to control how you develop your workplace culture. Remaining optimistic and encouraging can help employees who feel lost or discouraged and providing the support systems needed for those who are struggling mentally is necessary if you hope to keep your employees at their best. Focusing on mental health in the workplace and prioritizing it as much as you prioritize physical health initiatives is critical. 

One of the most common causes of workplace-related mental health issues is stress, which contributes largely to depression, anxiety, and burnout among employees. Examine your staffing levels. Are your employees overworked? Are managers trained properly so that they can adequately support their staff? Keep in mind that management goes beyond just doing the work, it involves leading the team.  Managers who create toxic environments for their staff will also increase stress levels, damaging workers, lowering productivity and increasing turnover rates.  

Providing an Employee Assistance Program 

Especially now, recognizing that there will be external factors that cause your employees stress is essential if you are hoping to support employee health holistically. Employees may face marriage troubles, financial issues, injuries outside of work, even unexpected lawsuits. The pandemic is now one of the most troubling topics affecting the well-being of employees globally. Around the world, it is causing worry about people’s own health and the health of their loved ones, worry about their financial situation and security, and worry about the loss of support services they relied on. It is causing changes in sleeping and eating patterns for some, difficulty in concentrating in others, and the worsening of pre-existing chronic health or mental health conditions. Even if they are back in the workplace, your employees may still be feeling the negative effects of isolation and loneliness that come with the public health actions like self-quarantining and social distancing.  

While Employee Assistance Programs existed as a measure to promote good employee health before the pandemic, they are becoming one of the most widely used strategies for organizations dealing with the above factors. Employee Assistance Programs help your employees find therapists, financial planners, lawyers, and any other well-being professional that may be able to help guide them through whatever is causing their stress. In response to the pandemic, it may be a good idea to incorporate more mental health crises support sources into your Employee Assistance Program. Do research into suggested outlets for mental and physical health support being provided globally and provide your employees with direct access to those outlets. Everyone reacts differently to stressful situations, but now more than ever, staying on top of the best methods to reduce workplace stress should be one of your priorities when it comes to employee health and well-being. 

In Summary 

When it comes to promoting good employee health, you need to research and understand the options, including the impact of not having any programs in place. Focus on the things that will make a difference for the well being of your employees, whether that be the implementation of revamped wellness programs, or even a complete reforming of the workplace environment itself. Your employees’ health matters, and the positive effects associated with prioritizing it are well worth the effort it takes to get there.  

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