Trick, Treat, or Train: 6 Resources for Scary Good Employee Engagement

Ding, dong, the witch is…hovering over your shoulder micromanaging your work!? This Halloween, instead of Trick or Treat, let’s Train. We’re highlighting two applications of training as an employee engagement solution, plus 6 links to related resources on The Point Blog.  Last week, Lorrie and I spoke about our Illuminate program at the University of Alabama’s HR Management Conference. Before the session, an attendee came up to chat with us about the HR horrors she’d been dealing with at her new company. Her scariest issue: employees’ fear of big, bad HR. She said she felt like the HR monster, scaring

Grown men in tank tops usually aren’t my jam, but… can they teach us something about leading?

Grown men in tank tops usually aren’t my jam. So when Pat McAfee made his appearance on Gameday this year to replace a former Georgia football player that looked really good in a suit (more my jam), I was like what the heck?  I watched him for a minute, determined he was there to sensationalize, pull in a different type of audience, and create some new dynamic I wasn’t into. I thought I’d lost a little bit of respect for the Saturday morning football institution, even if Corso is still there picking his favorite team, glorified mascot head and all. 

Baby Boomers are Retiring – How do we fill their shoes?

This month, we’ve been talking about What’s Impacting the Labor Force Participation Rate.  Last week, Lorrie shared how the Benefits Cliff impacted the participation in When Working Costs Too Much. Another significant factor in this equation is Baby Boomers exiting the workforce. Let’s dive a little deeper. Baby Boomers account for 1 in 4 American workers. As they are exiting in droves, their absence will lead to an even wider workforce gap as companies will need to fill positions made available after the Boomers retire. Check out this article from The Washington Post to learn more: The boomers are retiring. See

The Mental Health “Connection”

Recently, I traveled to North Carolina for our annual family vacation. On Sunday, we attended First Baptist Church of Bryson City. The guest Pastor brought the house down on that rainy day with a message on love and acceptance. He described the ways in which we used to value connection with one another through meal time and went on to emphasize how important social connection is for our mental health. If you feel connected and cared for, he argued, then love has the ability to heal.  That’s wonderful to hear about in Church, but how does that translate to the

4 Workplace Innovations on Repeat

Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to serve on a panel discussing workforce and skills challenges created by the automotive industry’s shift to electric vehicles (EVs).   I’m no expert on EVs.  I’m no expert on cars.  But I drive one. And it broke down at the end of last week.  I got off the interstate from a work trip, headed into my hometown on a highway connecting the interstate to my neighborhood.  When I went to accelerate on the highway, the RPMs jumped way up, and it did not want to shift gears for me to accelerate effectively. Luckily,