“Naturally, everyone must find a way to earn a living wage, but the paycheck should not be the only motivation. Employees who are confident in their abilities and somewhat comfortable in their workplace can be highly productive. Please note that my sentence said ‘somewhat comfortable.’ We must become a bit uncomfortable to grow professionally.” This is a quote from a K-12 Career Counselor in our latest Continuing Education Class for Facilitating Alabama Career Development: Assessments & Resumes. For the last couple of years, our team has been working with K-12 career developers throughout the state of Alabama, and one big
MYTH: Individual Contributors can’t shift the paradigm at the organizational level. Our team has a long-term partnership with a multinational company to facilitate leadership training for all of their Managers of People (MOPs) and Individual Contributors here at the local site. The program we’ve developed for them consistently receives glowing reviews, with one caveat: Individual Contributors are skeptical of a real shift among the “higher-ups”. The feeling is something like, “This is great and all, but unless corporate changes the way we do things, I can’t have an impact.” Let’s tackle the myth. Willie Pietersen, Professor at Columbia University and
My sabbatical was great for many reasons, personal and professional. One of the big ones: I could read books! I love to read, and my schedule had gotten so full that there was no time for it. So, the first book I read on sabbatical? Happy Brain by Dean Burnett. 10/10 would recommend. Leading into my extended leave from work, I experienced my first personal mental health crisis. For several months, I felt wrong. Not like myself. My moods and emotions became erratic and unpredictable. It’s very strange, that feeling that you’ve lost yourself. So I did something about it.
This morning I read about 3 economists who’ve been awarded the Nobel Prize for their research and impact on critical workforce issues including minimum wage, immigration, and education. Their research on minimum wage in the 1990s found that raising the minimum wage had no effect on the number of employees, showing that companies could effectively raise the minimum wage, retain top talent, and increase the number of applicants in the labor pool. That was 30 years ago. We’ve come a long way, but as we find ourselves in 2021, employers struggle to find and retain talent – particularly in retail
Today I’ve been back at work for one week. Back at work after four weeks of extended personal leave. I could write a full-length novel about the why, how, who, and what of my semi-sabbatical experience. The short version is: every employer should give extended paid leave, and every employee should take it. I’ll give you three reasons. 1. We are People First. People First is the single most important Horizon Point mantra. We live it and breathe it every day. That’s how we got here – this place in time where each of our team members is taking 4+