No Rules, Just Shoes for Sensitivity Training

One of our favorite clients requested that we come in and conduct “sensitivity training” for employees.   According to Wikipedia, sensitivity training “is a form of training with the goal of making people more aware of their own prejudices and more sensitive to others.”  The client wanted to make sure that employees understood how to conduct themselves around each other and customers and to understand the legal standards around discrimination. Of course, we at Horizon Point aren’t very good at conducting your standard, run-of-the-mill employee training that revolves around an instructor standing at the front of the room telling you what you

Get a best friend at work and other tips on work and life wellbeing

At the recommendation of the Alabama Society of Human Resource Management’s Wellness Director, I downloaded a copy of Wellbeing:  The Five Essential Elements by Tom Rath and Jim Harter. The book describes the five essential elements of wellbeing (in order of importance) to be:  Career Social Financial Physical Community The authors emphasize how each element is intricately interwoven with each other. Here are some tips for maximizing work wellbeing by seeing wellbeing from a holistic perspective: Don’t be a workaholic.  “While you might think that people with high career wellbeing spend too much time working, they actually take more time

2 Ways to Get What You’re Worth

Out looking for a job or considering a discussion with your boss about a raise?  If you are, you need to do your research to consider what the knowledge, skills and abilities you have are worth in the marketplace and to the company in which you work or are negotiating with. (Note:  The best time to negotiate your worth is before you accept a job. Once you get locked in a job and a salary range, usually the only way to get a substantial raise is to switch jobs either through a promotion or a move to another organization.)  

Now don’t go changing your compensation structure without….

You’re worried you’re not attracting the right talent or that you aren’t able to keep good talent around for long and you think it might be because of your salary structure.   Before you launch into a compensation structure overhaul (we’ll tell you how to do this next week on the blog), you need to: Know for sure that the reason you are having the problems you are having is in fact compensation related.  It may be that all your supervisors are jerks and people may leave even if you paid them twice as much.  Surveying employees, especially through exit

Leaders are Noticers

“The real heroes anyway aren’t the people doing things; the real heroes are the people NOTICING things, paying attention.”  John Green, The Fault in Our Stars According to my editorial calendar, I’m supposed to be writing about job shadowing today, but I’ve noticed something. In the past week I’ve had conversations with three people about their work.  One just quit. One is DONE with her work and is planning her quit, and one just realized she wants to quit, but hasn’t started the plotting of her exodus yet. (By the time I see her again next week though, I imagine