Horizon Point Consulting

Category: Skills Improvement

We all need a little personal development mixed in with our professional and career development. Read blogs in this category for personal skills improvement.

  • 5 LinkedIn Tips for Job Seekers

    5 LinkedIn Tips for Job Seekers

    Now more than ever, companies are utilizing LinkedIn to seek out job candidates. They aren’t looking at the ones who have “job seeker” in their profile. Organizations are seeking passive candidates that have desired skills, endorsements and connections to reputable individuals and organizations.

    Here are 5 tips for getting the best out of your LinkedIn profile:

    • Tell your story. Your summary should include a brief history of your career emphasizing your key skills and accomplishments. I often recommend using the “summary of qualifications” from your current resume.
    • Include all key skills that a potential employer might be looking for. Do your research here. For example, if your dream job is to be a CFO for a large company, search for job announcements and make sure you include the “required skills” (those that you have) in your list of skills.
    • Endorsements are important. Remember, you often “get what you give”. If you endorse others, they will often return the favor.
    • Get a new profile pic, already! A professional photo is must for your LinkedIn profile. If you are unable to use a professional photographer, no worries. A good camera will work as long as you have a solid background and are dressed in what you would wear to an interview.
    • Recommendations are a bonus. This is one area where I think it’s okay to ask previous employers or coworkers to provide a recommendation. And, you can offer to do the same for them.

    You can let recruiters know that you are in the market for a new career while keeping it confidential. Check out How to Find a Job Using LinkedIn for more details on this along with other tips.

  • 3 Ways to Make your Workplace Harassment Training Successful

    3 Ways to Make your Workplace Harassment Training Successful

    I recently attended an HR luncheon where a good question was raised. How can HR ensure that leadership understands the importance of and supports anti-harassment policies?

    Many organizations focus their anti-harassment efforts on minimizing legal liability and not on minimizing inappropriate behavior within their organization. Their training consists of annual anti-harassment training, usually in the form of a bland training video that most employees sit through, but don’t pay attention to. In order for an anti-harassment training program to be effective, it must focus on minimizing the behavior and should include a few key components:

    • The training must be relevant- Just because it’s a serious topic doesn’t mean it must be a boring topic. Make the training interactive and interesting. I briefly worked as a sexual harassment trainer for a company that designed their training in the form of a game (think Jeopardy). It kept the participants engaged, made them think, and they enjoyed the training. Think of ways to keep your audience actively engaged. The more engaged you can keep them, the more information they will take away from the training.
    • Don’t just check the box- many organizations conduct annual training just to mark it off their To Do List. Harassment training should be a year-round endeavor. In addition to your annual mandatory training, schedule quarterly events, whether those are trainings, brown bag lunches with speakers, articles in the company newsletter, or some other form of communication. Provide training to your leadership on their roles and responsibilities. Make sure they understand the importance of taking claims seriously and involving HR in those investigations. Make sure they understand the policy and how to enforce it. Consider having an employment attorney come and speak with leadership. Do they know that not only can the organization be named in a lawsuit, but individuals can be named as well in some cases?
    • Back up what you say- review your anti-harassment policy. Make sure it is well written and details confidentiality (to the extent possible), your investigation process, and disciplinary process. Also review your policy on anti-retaliation. You want your employees to know that if they come to you with a claim, they can do so without fear of retaliation, but also that if they make false claims, there will be consequences for that. But remember, your policy means nothing if you don’t back it up with actions. If you have an employee file a claim, follow through with an investigation and appropriate action. If you don’t, your organization will quickly get a reputation for not taking such claims seriously. And make sure your leadership and your employees know these policies. Be sure you’re reviewing them during new hire orientations and touch on them again during your annual training.

    Managing harassment claims is never easy. Often times managers minimize the seriousness of claims or ignore claims altogether because they don’t know how to handle claims, they are uncomfortable handling claims, or they themselves don’t see the actions as a serious problem. Developing a strong partnership with your leadership team is key to successfully handling harassment claims and ensuring that your organization is able to minimize inappropriate workplace behaviors. And as always, be sure that all claims and investigations of harassment are well documented.

    How successful is your organization’s anti-harassment program?

  • Be Leary of the First Impression

    Be Leary of the First Impression

    I spent some time (finally) reading for pleasure over the 4th of July holiday week.  A new author, Amor Towles, has struck a cord with me, and I finished up reading A Gentleman in Moscow over the break.

    The writing is eloquent and thought-provoking, and this quote resonated with me as a keen lesson:

    After all, what can a first impression tell us about someone we’ve just met for a minute in the lobby of a hotel? For that matter, what can a first impression tell us about anyone? Why, no more than a chord can tell us about Beethoven, or a brushstroke about Botticelli.  By their very nature, human beings are so capricious, so complex, so delightfully contradictory, that they deserve not only our consideration, but our reconsideration– and our unwavering determination to withhold our opinion until we have engaged with them in every possible setting at every possible hour.

    In the world of talent management, we often label people based merely on first impressions.  Someone gets the tag “Hi-Po” for whatever fleeting reason, and they remain so even when their performance doesn’t dictate it.  And even a greater tragedy, the reverse happens and we write someone off as a low performer when we haven’t taken the time to initially consider or reconsider (as the author emphasize is more important) the context of the person and their overall performance.

    In other words, don’t judge a book by its cover, or its title.  If I had done so, I wouldn’t have ever discovered this gem or a quote or this gem of an author.  And you and I both may be passing up on gems in and for our organization because we haven’t taken the time to get to know them “in every possible setting at every possible hour.”

    Who do you need to reconsider?

  • Getting Off the Ground: 7 STEPS TO DEVELOPING A SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS

    Getting Off the Ground: 7 STEPS TO DEVELOPING A SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS

    Entrepreneurship is one of our passions. We are excited to be presenting at the National Career Development Association (NCDA) conference in Orlando next week about how to start a business. We hope you can join us if you are at the conference, but if not, here are our 7 steps for starting a successful business.

    After the conference, we will be launching an online course with this curriculum, so stay tuned for how you can participate in learning this information in a self-paced format online.

    Getting off the ground infographic (1)

  • 3 Steps to Keep a Bad Employee from Suing You

    3 Steps to Keep a Bad Employee from Suing You

    As the mom of three boys who are full of mischief, I often hear the phrase “I didn’t know” or “you never told me.” And usually it’s in response to something that I had addressed with them at least once. Sometimes I wish I could approach disciplinary issues in parenting the same way I approach disciplinary issues in my career, with a formal sit down discussion and written documentation.

    One of my favorite aspects of Human Resources is employee relations. I love the opportunity to speak with managers about the performance management process and the importance of documentation.

    Having kept organizations from litigation and winning tough unemployment hearings, here is a three pronged approach to avoiding a lawsuit because of disciplinary issues:

    1. Have a Disciplinary Process or Structure in Place. Having a disciplinary process that is well thought out and is executed in a fair and consistent manner is half the battle.
    2. If your organization doesn’t have the documentation to back up those actions, you still risk losing that battle. Keep these tips in mind for documentation:
    • The documentation can’t just be good, it has to be great.
    • Less isn’t more. I think my all-time favorite was the manager who wrote under expectations on the documentation form “Do your job right the first time.” Needless to say, we had a conversation about how to set expectations and goals, and the importance of documentation.
    • Be detailed in explaining the performance issue or policy violation, be clear in your expectations, and be specific in the goals that the employee must meet moving forward.
    • Make sure the employee understands what the consequences are if they fail to meet those goals.
    • Plan to follow up. The conversation can’t just end there. If you see they’re making some progress, but not enough, recalibrate with them. Praise them for the progress they’ve made, but then tell them how they can bridge the gap to complete success. And document it!
    1. Your disciplinary process needs to be a partnership between HR and your leadership team. Collaborate on how you will address the performance issue with the employee.  HR should emphasize that its job is not to tell managers what to do, but to help guide decisions and to help ensure that the organization is applying its policies effectively, fairly, and consistently.

    As a manager, draft your documentation and have HR review it before you present it to the employee, because sometimes you really shouldn’t write what you think! You’d be surprised at some of the things I’ve seen on written documentation. Remember that the employee receives a copy and it could be used for future unemployment or litigation purposes, so keep it professional. Have HR or another member of the leadership team sit in as a witness on the counseling. Never put yourself in a he said, she said situation.

    A Performance Improvement Plan or a termination for performance (gross misconduct aside) should never be the first conversation had with an employee. If it is, then your organization is not executing your disciplinary process effectively, fairly, or consistently or does not have an effective disciplinary process in place. And if that is the case, you’re opening yourself up for potential litigation and HR will have a hard time helping your organization justify its actions.

    The time spent following a structured disciplinary procedure and ensuring documentation is in order is minimal compared to the potential costs incurred by organizations that fail to do so.

    What’s your best advice for avoiding a lawsuit?