Horizon Point Consulting

Category: Performance Management

We provide full service talent management and talent development consulting services. Read our blogs in this category for stories and best practices from real clients and real research on Performance Management.

  • 3 Things Business Leaders Can (and Should) Do to Help Marginalized People

    3 Things Business Leaders Can (and Should) Do to Help Marginalized People

    This year, I have the opportunity to take part in Leadership Greater Hunstville. This program focuses on educating and equipping business leaders to also be community leaders through intense exposure to all facets of the community.

     “Human Services Day” took place this week.  It focuses on understanding the needs of the community and the not-for-profits that help meet these needs, many of which focus on helping marginalized people. The day began with a poverty simulation (CAPS), and we spent most of the afternoon hearing from a variety of not-for-profit entities in the community.  One of the not-for-profit leaders participating said that there are estimated to be between 1600-2000 not-for-profit organizations serving the community in just Madison County which currently has a population of around 375,000 people. 

    I was shocked by this number. I was also shocked at how little was said about business leaders/employers doing what employers should do best- employing people- to combat the systematic issues in the community that many of the not-for-profits we heard from sought to address.  It seemed like that focus was on the business community giving the nonprofits money and possibly volunteer hours.  What about providing meaningful employment and living wages? 

    I think business leaders can make one of the biggest impacts on marginalized individuals by focusing on employment and employability.  This should create a sustainable and far-reaching impact.  

    Here are three things to consider in doing so as seen through quotes of leaders that have spoken to us throughout the Leadership Huntsville experience: 

    1. “Get in the arena.” First, hire people on the margins. Whether it be someone with a physical or mental disability, someone with a criminal record, the single mom that has been living in generational poverty, or the veteran, etc. make an active effort to connect with these individuals and meet them where they are to offer employment. 
    2. “Breaking down barriers is the role of a leader”.  There are multiple barriers that prohibit marginalized people from getting employment and sustaining it.  The poverty simulation we participated in placed a large emphasis on the barriers of transportation and childcare.  My role in the poverty simulation was that of a 20-year-old mother of a one-year-old trying to go to college and work part-time.  Due to the fact that childcare for a week cost more than I could make part-time in a week, I was “forced” to leave my one-year-old with my nine-year-old brother in order to go to work and not have to pay for childcare.  In a world where I actually have a one-year-old son and nine-year-old son, I would never leave my nine-year-old to have to keep my one-year-old while I worked, but I don’t have to worry about earning enough money to feed them both.  What would you do? As business leaders, we need to think long and hard about how we can address these barriers and examine what role providing living wages plays in this. 
    3. “Think to ask. You need to know the story to lead.” Breaking down these barriers requires a knowledge of the barriers and understanding that, yes, sometimes poor choices have created those barriers, but also many barriers go well beyond issues of choice and behavior.  Provide compassion and empathy to those you employ and seek to employ by asking what challenges they face and why. Then help connect and provide resources to address the issues.   Sometimes the help to address the issues is simply an understanding of the issue.  I’d encourage all business leaders to find a way to connect with someone who is a part of the marginalized population and spend regular (weekly) time with them one-on-one.  You’ll learn a lot and grow a lot as a leader. 

    As the founder of Manna House told us to kick off the day, “God didn’t ask me to quit this to do that,” speaking of her experience to continue to work full-time as a government contractor and open Manna House to help address food vulnerability in the community.   Her story was impactful.  My hope is business leaders realize they don’t have to quit their day job to impact the most pressing issues in our community.  In fact, their day job is probably the best way to address them through an effort to hire and retain people on the margins, providing meaningful work and living wages.   I would dare to say we’d need a lot fewer non-profits and a lot less government programs if we all did this. 

     

    How are you making an impact through your business leadership? 

  • Are Your Employees SAD? How to Help Employees Who Struggle with Seasonal Affective Disorder

    Are Your Employees SAD? How to Help Employees Who Struggle with Seasonal Affective Disorder

    It’s that time of year. The weather is changing, the leaves are falling, and you’re SAD. But you’re not alone. Nearly 10 million Americans suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder. While SAD is most prevalent in those ages 18 to 30, it can affect anyone, and the effects are different for everyone. 

    Symptoms of SAD include: 

    • Fatigue
    • Loss of concentration 
    • Insomnia/Inability to wake up
    • Mild to severe depression
    • Weight loss/gain

    Employers may see these symptoms in the form of attendance issues, decreased productivity, mistakes in work completed, or a lack of concentration in meetings. Your initial reaction may be to consider disciplinary action, but before you do, consider the behaviors you’re seeing. Are these recent changes to an otherwise well-performing employee? If so, did these changes occur around the change of the season? While SAD affects most people in the cold weather seasons, some individuals do suffer SAD in the warmer season as well. 

    So how can you help an employee who may be suffering from SAD? 

    • Utilize your EAP. If your organization provides employees with an Employee Assistance Plan, now might be a good time to remind employees of this benefit. Send out a communication to all staff reminding them of the EAP benefit and the services it can provide to them. 
    • Up the lighting. Take a look around your facility at the lighting. Are all areas well lit or does your office exude that dim ambiance? While dim lights might be preferred in the summer months, you might want to turn up the lights in the cooler months. 
    • Encourage employees to get outside. If your office is in a great location for walks, encourage your employees to take advantage of that and get moving outdoors. Consider forming a walking team that meets daily to get outside and walk for 15-20 minutes. Think about setting up a basketball hoop, volleyball net, cornhole, or other outdoor activity to encourage employees to get outside during their breaks or lunch. 
    • Talk more. Check-in with your employees more often, just stop by to say hi and see how they’re doing. And be an active listener. If you listen, you may read between the lines that they aren’t as okay as they say they are. 
    • Offer flexibility. If possible, consider a more flexible work schedule. That may include shifting your hours and letting employees arrive a little later or it may mean allowing affected employees to work from home on their bad days. 
    • Offer up FMLA and/or ADA. Understand that while most people who suffer from SAD are able to struggle through, some aren’t. In some cases, SAD can be debilitating and lead to severe depression. In these cases, employees may need and qualify for FMLA and/or ADA accommodations. 
  • Is Employment Really At-Will?

    Is Employment Really At-Will?

    One of the questions I often help employers work through is can they terminate an employee. And too often I hear “But we’re in an at-will state” or “we’re an at-will employer”.

    At-will employment is often misinterpreted to mean that an employer can terminate an employee whenever they please, and while at-will employment policies do state that the employee or employer can terminate employment at any time, with or without cause, and with or without notice, there are limitations to that on the part of the employer. 

    First, all states are at-will employment states. Some states have added legislation that further limits the bounds of at-will employment, but the overall objective is the same. 

    So what does at-will employment really mean? 

    Yes, employees can resign their positions at any time, with or without notice, and with or without reason. And yes, employers can impose penalties if employees do not give notice within the limits of federal, state, and local laws, such as setting a vacation policy that requires 2-weeks’ notice to receive a payout of accrued, unused vacation time upon termination. And yes, if an employee gives a 2-week notice, the employer can opt to take that notice effective immediately, and it’s still considered a voluntary resignation. 

    But what at-will employment does not mean is that an employer can terminate employment with or without notice, and with or without cause, if doing so violates other employment laws. 

    When reviewing an employer’s request to terminate an employee, there are a few things that I take into consideration:

    1. Is the employee in a protected class? For example, are they female, are they over the age of 40, are they a minority, are they disabled?
    2. What is the employer’s reason for wanting to terminate employment? Are there performance issues and if so, have they been addressed with the employee, and has the employee been given the opportunity to improve performance? And have those performance issues and conversations been documented? Is it an attendance issue? Is there documentation of poor attendance and disciplinary action for violation of the attendance policy? Is there a written attendance policy? 
    3. Is the termination a layoff? If so, is it truly a layoff or is the employer using that reason as means to get rid of an employee they just don’t want? While there are no legal limitations on how long a position must be vacant in order to constitute a layoff, the adhered to standard is six months unless there is a significant change in business. If an employer lays off an employee and refills the position in 2-3 weeks, chances are it wasn’t really a layoff but an excuse to terminate an employee they didn’t want. 
    4. Is there an employment contract that impacts Employment-At-Will? Employment contracts are a legally binding document that outlines the terms of employment, and often includes the length of employment under the contract and penalties for terminating the contract early, both for the employee and the employer. Such contracts may create limitations to employment-at-will.  
    5. Would a judge find this termination justified? If an employee were to file a lawsuit for wrongful termination, how would a judge see it? Have I as an employer covered all my bases to make sure the termination was within the law? Documentation is critical to this decision. If an employer wishes to terminate an employee, they must be able to show justification for that decision. 

    Employment-at-will is not a free pass to terminate employees “just because.” The employer is still responsible for ensuring that the termination is justified and within the limits of federal, state, and local laws. 

  • Tails and Tales of Remote Work

    Tails and Tales of Remote Work

    “I’m sorry, I’m working from home and my dog is barking.” How many times have you said or heard this lately? I have a mini schnauzer with a not-so-mini personality, so I’m an experienced “I’m sorry my dog is barking” professional. So is the HR leader who said that exact sentence on our call this morning. 

    By now, many of us have been working remotely for months. Some for years. We’ve adopted new methods, like wearing pajama shorts under that sharp shirt and blazer because no one really ever sees below our shoulders. We’ve found a new rhythm. We work when the kids are doing homework or the baby (and/or dog) is napping. We’ve got this. 

    But are we engaged? Are we growing? Do we feel connected to our colleagues, our leaders, our organizational and personal purpose? We’re working longer hours and producing great work, but we don’t know if it’s sustainable. The events of 2020 are taking a collective toll on our mental health. If you are an HR leader or a manager of people, consider some best practices for supporting remote workers. 

    1. Offer options. Remember that employees have different learning styles, different engagement preferences, and different abilities. We have more options to accommodate differences when we can be in person in an office setting and use technology. Our options shrink when we’re forced to rely exclusively on technology. However, shrunk isn’t nothing. There is really great HR tech out there. There are free online tools. We’re not stuck. We can still offer different options for communication, learning, and engagement. Employee wellbeing is negatively impacted when they’re boxed into a corner. Give them some wiggle room.  
    2. If it ain’t broke, don’t break it. If you had systems in place prior to the disruption that still work in a remote environment, leave them be. For example, if you used to send an email or pick up the phone and call when you had a question, but now you’re defaulting to a video call, take a step back and ask yourself why. Do you feel required to use video calling because it’s “more engaging” than phone calls? Video calls certainly add value to a remote work environment, but they should be limited to scheduled group meetings that you would normally have in person, just like scheduling a conference room. Video fatigue is real, and our mental health slides when we feel forced into unnecessary camera time. If the good ol’ telephone ain’t broke, don’t break it.  
    3. Seek feedback. I know you know this one. Are you doing it? Openly, regularly, meaningfully? The only source that can tell you if employees are feeling energized or overwhelmed, engaged, or burned out (or Zoomed out) is…drum roll…employees. Talk to them. Remember #1 and offer options to talk to them by email, phone, video, anonymous survey, etc. Pay attention to the options they choose; that’s immediate feedback. The employee who always uses video calls may be signaling that they need social interaction. The employee who emails at midnight may be navigating a schedule with a newborn baby. Next time you’re in a virtual meeting with everyone, use a polling feature or link to a 3-question survey in the chat feature to ask for anonymous feedback about wellbeing and engagement. Here are some tips for effectively using pulse surveys. 

    We all have barking dogs and laughing children who are equal parts of our remote work environment, and with the right support and good leadership from HR, we can find high work engagement and general and mental wellbeing in this new worklife. We’ve got this. 

  • The Way We Fail at Work with our Words and our Gifts

    The Way We Fail at Work with our Words and our Gifts

    Expressing love at work may seem like a little too much.  But in reality, showing love is really showing people you care.  It isn’t about recognizing people’s accomplishments, it’s about appreciating people for who they are. 

    When we are talking about love at work, we are really talking about how to show people you appreciate them.  We talked about how to apply quality time as a love language at work on the blog last week. Quality time is a love language that is sometimes hard to know how to apply to work, but the love languages that are most and least desired in terms of frequency of those who have completed the Motivating by Appreciation (MBA) Inventory assessment-a tool to assess showing appreciation through the love languages at the office- are two of the most frequently used forms of showing appreciation at the office. 

    But are we applying these two love languages correctly? 

    The most frequently used method of showing appreciation at the office is tangible gifts, yet it is the least frequently desired.  The employee recognition industry is a multi-billion dollar one.  But according to research cited in The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace, “Only 6% of employees choose tangible gifts as their primary language, and 68% report it is their least valued appreciation language.” 

    The most desired form of showing appreciation- chosen by approximately 45% of employees surveyed through the MBA– is words of affirmation.  People wanted to feel appreciated by what you say to them. 

    The fact that the most frequently used way to thank people, or to show them appreciation, is the least desired one and that the most desired is so desired one points to what I think may be wrong with showing appreciation in the workplace in general. 

    We go wrong with gifts and we go wrong with words because we don’t do a good job of making them personal.   In fact, we’ve written about the best way to thank employees is to make it personal. 

     

    The Way We Fail at Work with our Words

    The way we make our words of affirmation mean nothing is by: 

    1. Not being specific. Saying, “thank you” or “atta boy” and leaving it at that.  We need to personalize our appreciation with specifics.  What did someone do or how do they consistently behave that you appreciate?
    2. We give our words in the wrong context.  Some people like public praise and some do not.  Making our words personal means knowing the right context to give them in.  Research cited in the The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace notes that 40-50% of employees do not want to receive recognition in front of a large group.  Most of the time though, words of appreciation are given in a formal setting with a large group once or twice a year at company events. 
    3. We only provide words of affirmation when performance warrants it.  Sometimes we need to praise for consistent behavior over time that is actually a reflection of someone’s character.  This still needs to be specific, but often people want to be noticed for who they are, not whether it led to an immediate result or not.  Character, in fact, is what leads to lasting results. 

     

    The Way We Fail at Work with our Gifts

    Tangible gifts are most often given to recognize people, not to show appreciation to them.   We get a watch or a plaque for our years of service, or a gift card for Christmas.  These are the types of things that make the employee recognition industry big business.  But they aren’t the things people desire. 

    Gifts go wrong when: 

    1. They aren’t personal. Does everyone want a watch or a plaque?  I really don’t care to have either myself.  What actually often means the most is when a tangible gift is given that you show you know a person well enough to give them something they want.  Giving someone a gift they don’t want or value actually has a worse effect than giving no gift at all. 
    2. They are lip service to appreciation.  When everyone gets the ham for Christmas every year, do you actually feel any appreciation?  My guess would be no. Especially if you are a vegetarian.  Lip service for appreciation is usually so depersonalized. 
    3. Stuff is the focus instead of experiences.  Gifts often fail to be what people actually want in a tangible gift.  What people often want if they value gifts are really experiences, not stuff.  They want tickets to the sports game, a gift certificate to the spa, or a small getaway.  But again, be sure not to violate number one.  Don’t give me a sports tickets and don’t give my husband a trip to the spa. 

     

    How often do you use words or gifts to show appreciation at work?  Which one do you default to and why? And do you make your words and your gifts personal?