Building Culture When There’s No Building: Remote Workforces

Even with today’s technology, many people have a hard time wrapping their minds around the concept of a virtual company. When someone asks me where Horizon Point’s office is located and I respond that we are a virtual organization, I often get some puzzled looks. Their first question is usually “If you don’t have an office, where do you work?” And that’s often followed up with something along the lines of “Don’t you miss interacting with other people?” Truthfully, I’m always interacting with people, including co-workers, clients, fellow HR professionals, and other members of the community. I just don’t do

2 Keys to Being a Successful Leader Instead of a Doer

A production line worker is promoted to line supervisor, yet he is still running the line like the rest of his team. A department Vice President is still solving day-to-day issues and is drowning in a to-do list that has nothing to do with leading the people in her department. At every level of the leadership hierarchy, I see it often.  Leaders not leading.  Yes, they are busy doing, but they devote little to no time leading people.   And if they just led more, it would actually shorten their to-do list! They were stars at their functional roles, so what

Can You Really Reduce Turnover?

Guest blog written by: Steve Graham Conversations around reducing employee turnover, also known as talent retention, have been around since work began.  Even though the topic is not new, the challenges facing employers and their approaches to reducing turnover is.   Generational attitudes about how long a person remains at one job has dramatically shifted. For decades, people identified a career or found a job and they stayed with one employer until retirement. One reason for this shift in tenure, is how the modern career path is navigated.  Many of the foundational thoughts on “career” do not apply in today’s workplace.

Preparing for the Worst: Business Continuity Planning

Hurricane Florence had residents and businesses along the East Coast scrambling to prepare for what could have been a catastrophic event. Even though the storm was downgraded, it still had a major impact on some areas hit. My mother, who lives in Northern Virginia, found it hilarious when I called her and made her go down the storm preparation checklist: Non-perishable food? Check. Flashlights and batteries? Check. Candles and matches? Check. Bottled water? Check. Of course she had each item, but I had to make sure just for my own peace of mind. Disasters, whether natural or man-made, can have

Does Your Team Talk in Metaphors?

One of my favorite things to do for companies is to help them understand what distinguishes high performers from average and/or low performers in their organization. The purpose of this could be for a variety of reasons, but oftentimes, it is to help companies create a profile and tools to select the right talent. We ask the clients to provide us with the opportunity to talk to high, mid and low performers.  We ask them a series of job analysis questions and watch them work for a bit.  While we watch them work, we ask them questions about what they