My husband has a great analogy for ineffective communication that goes like this: It’s like when they say, “Bring me a rock”. You go outside, grab the first rock you see, and take it to them. They say “No, we need a different rock.” You go back outside, grab a different rock, take it back, and they say “No, not that rock. It needs to be gray.” And so on and so forth until you eventually figure out that they wanted a big, round, gray rock from the bottom of the Mississippi River. How were you supposed to know that?
When was the last time someone asked you how you prefer to learn? Has someone ever asked if you need assistive technology? As a trainer and facilitator, I definitely miss the mark sometimes on inclusive training. It’s hard. There’s no way around it; it’s not easy to design or deliver training in a language, structure, platform, etc. that works well for every learner. It’s hard, but it’s so important to try. There is robust research out there about learning styles, learner variability, and inclusive curriculum design. Let’s look at this excerpt from research about Universal Design for Learning (UDL), a
I recently asked a room full of managers representing dozens of organizations if they actually liked their own company’s performance management system. What do you think they said? Some of us may think of Performance Management as a rubber stamp on an annual review. We often don’t think of it as a living, breathing, system. Others of us may think of Performance Management as monitoring what we’re doing wrong. We may not think of it as monitoring and developing what we’re doing right. When an organization thoughtfully designs, implements, and continuously improves a performance management system, it should look like
Career Development is becoming even more relevant in the workforce arena these days. Career Development as Performance Management is a great tool to attract and retain employees. Revisit this blog post from 2021 for ideas on how to use Career Development as a Performance Management (& retention!) tool. I will be presenting at BSHRM on May 11 on this topic. We would love to see you there! Check out where else we will be in the coming weeks here.
With the great resignation still continuing and baby boomers, who many feel delayed retiring, now retired or retiring in large numbers due to the pandemic, succession planning has never been more important. But as we’ve seen through many of our clients (and ourselves!), the need to get something done and getting it done are two different things. When it comes to succession planning, I think the key challenge is not knowing where to start and the steps to take once started. Overall, you need to: 1. Know your current talent state. This involves several sub-steps of determining: a. What’s your