Can crying at meetings be a measure of high engagement? I guess it depends. At my recent Hr Executive peer coaching group session on the topic of engagement one client organization shared that you will not infrequently find someone crying at one of their meetings. BUT, it is not crying out of sadness, but crying […]

Many executives still think about workforce planning as a “project or bolt-on event” or perhaps a “mad scramble every Friday morning to put together headcount numbers” and deal with short-term planning; basically managing the tactics of ebb and tide. Historically workforce planning was something that was working fine when business was humming along. The challenges […]

Last week both my marketing and HR executive peer groups engaged with Catherine Captain and others from Cantadora around the power of storytelling. The topic made for great Fall kick-off sessions that definitely got us all engaged in thinking not only about our company stories, but our personal stories as well. Here are some nuggets the […]

As I looked out over the debris field I had a sense of how heart wrenching the whole experience was, yet I found the scene one of inspiration and hope. There were literally hundreds of people working in unison with one purpose in mind, to save lives and bring closure for all the families and […]

How do internal branding initiatives benefit companies, employees and customers? What is HR’s role in internal branding?  Here are a couple of points I took note of in my HR executive peer group discussion a couple of weeks ago: 1. Internal branding can reinforce a strong recruitment and retention strategy. Prospective and current employees want […]

“Burned into my memory are the images of him, on that slick rock, grasping for something, anything, to hold on to, as he slid slowly but inevitably toward the edge. Worst of all is the memory of him looking back at me, desperate and helpless,  as he soundlessly disappeared. That moment is forever etched into my […]

Over the past several weeks I have been engaging with about fifty executives on the topic of how they manage their careers. It’s been an eye-opening journey. The landscape is definitely changing and you are running the risk of being left in the dust unless you keep up. I will try to distill my key […]

In a recent conversation with my marketing executive peer group we explored internal branding and the importance of effective marketing/HR relationships. If you consider recent research suggesting that organizations lose up to 40% of their marketing expenses if all employees are not able to articulate your brand promise and live it, it behooves us all to […]

I confess to feeling a bit “humdrum” about planning our December HR executive peer group meeting. The agenda was titled “2014 HR Executive Dashboards”, but the focus of the discussion was intended to be on the legislative and compliance environment, not the aspects of HR hat appeal to me personally:  organizational learning, leadership development, culture […]

“Our most engaged workgroup is in a remote community in Siberia” said one of my clients at a recent HR executive peer group meeting. This comment made me realize how very relative the concept of engagement really is and the complexity of creating engagement for companies that operate globally. What is engaging in the US […]