Top Takeaways (so far) from #SHRM18

So far, #SHRM18 has proven to be an inspiration of ideas and people.  My top takeaways from the Windy City include: “Drama is emotional waste.”  @CyWakeman I love Cy Wakeman and her book, Reality Based Leadership.  In her presentation, Cy described how our brains are binary.  We toggle between the lower order brain, our ego, where drama exists and our higher order brain.  Our higher order brain allows us to focus on reality in order to respond in creative, innovative ways.   Cy’s message is that a leader’s main job is to toggle people up to the higher order brain by

6 Ways to Build Energy

“…every movement of your body, every emotion you have, and every thought that passes through your mind is an expenditure of energy. Just as everything that happens outside in the physical world requires energy, everything that happens inside requires an expenditure of energy.” From The Untethered Soul “Coach, I’m tired,” said one little boy to my husband on his 7-8 year-old baseball team. Practice had only been going on for ten minutes and they hadn’t even been running. To which my husband asked, “Why are you tired?” “Well, I played at the trampoline park all day.  I’m wore out,” he said. This

The 2018 Edition of HR’s Biggest Pain Points

Each year at the Alabama SHRM State Conference, we survey participants to gain insights into what their biggest pain points are. Before I even looked at the data this year, my guess was that recruiting was at the top of the list or has at least risen to the top of the list. With the unemployment rate now lower than 4% national wide, the pain of finding talent is real. But what we saw in the results left talent sourcing/acquisition in the middle of the pack: Tied for the highest pain points were leadership training and employee development.  If we

Do You Need to Raise Your Wages?

Steve Boese had a great blog post recently titled “CHART OF THE DAY: Your semi-regular labor market update”. In it, Steve shares charts that show the unemployment rate dropping below 4% for the first time since 2000 and the average time to fill for positions continuing to trend upward.  It’s a great post, read it.  If you’re a business owner, HR pro, recruiter or anyone that remotely has a pulse on hiring, it gives credence to the pain you are probably already feeling. Where can we find good people to fill positions?  Heck, I had someone tell me the other

6 Ways to Design Your Performance Management System Around Company Values

“….In other words, only 10 percent of organizations have be goals (what Andy Stanley means by a set of values that guide our decisions) effectively integrated in their daily practices. Mind you, many organizations write about their mission, vision and values in their annual report, but that’s only lip service unless those be goals are integrated into their recruiting, training, evaluating and promoting. How can an organization claim that its be goals are important when none of its leaders’ performance evaluations or pay is based on adhering to those values.” I was recently in a meeting talking about performance management