Have an Employee Bored as a Gourd? Not an ideal employment state!

What’s one thing that is extremely detrimental to both employers and employees? Boredom at work! I once worked with an adult client wanting to make a career change.  She was an extremely talented individual, and in talking with her about her then current employer she says she felt like she was just a “warm body”.  One of the main reasons she wanted a change was because she was bored as a gourd at work!  She worked for a government contractor (a waste of taxpayer money as she sat there bored) and none of her talents and skills were being utilized in

A Look Back On the Best Way to Thank Employees is to Make it Personal

In 2015, we worked with a client where one of the company’s core values was relationships.  The value they place on relationships, with their employees and their customers, leads to a competitive advantage for the company. But I don’t think they do it because it creates a competitive advantage. They do it because it is just the right thing to do. One thing I learned from them is how this value actually plays out in the way that they recognize and reward employees. As an outsider looking in they: Get to know their people as people, not just as workers

4 Ways to Help Change Happen When Change is Hard

“For anything to change, someone has to start acting differently.” from Switch by Chip and Dan Heath Change is all around us.  In our personal and professional lives, just when we might get to used to something, it changes.  Many of the most life-altering personal changes that we choose like marriage and children we tend to embrace and get excited about.  We put ourselves in these situations of change. At work, though, changes often occur, and we didn’t prompt them. They are unsettling and hard. We work a lot with clients helping them manage change.  In addition, when we are

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

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.