What a Flexible Workplace Has to Do With Trust and Creativity

Marissa Mayer wants everyone at the office. Other companies don't even have offices. Where do you fit?

Chegg, a Silicon Valley online textbook rental service, introduced unlimited paid vacation; so far, no one has abused the privilege. When I was running software companies, women on maternity leave were told to come back when they wanted to, on a schedule of their own devising; they never let me down. Strategies like these inspire terrific loyalty--but I wonder how many companies use them?

By 2025, Generation Y and its successors will comprise more than half the global population and 75 percent of the workforce, according to consulting firm A.T. Kearney. And 80 percent of them want to be able to work flexibly. How many, I wonder, will get what they want?

Although many companies these days are comfortable demanding constant attention from their employees, few are at ease with the idea that this needs to be reciprocal. And many still persist in thinking this is a women's issue when it isn't. It's a talent and retention issue. Here's why:

Read the full story: http://www.inc.com/margaret-heffernan/what-flexible-workplace-has-to-do-with-trust-creativity.html

Training: Making the First Day Count

Tips for building a successful employee acclimation and training strategy.

“You never get a second chance to make a good first impression.”

How many times have these 12 threadbare words been preached to job-seekers? More importantly, how many companies look in the mirror when uttering them—particularly on that day when a new hire first reports for work?

Starting an employee off on the right foot isn’t just about efficiency. At Billtrust, our mantra is to build a strong, unified team where every person feels he or she has a real stake in the company’s success. Everything we do—from our informal, open office environment to our after-hours social events—is carefully planned to make that goal a reality.

Because of our emphasis on teamwork, it’s important to us to make sure each new employee is a good fit for our company culture. That’s why we have a rigorous, multistage interviewing process. And since we put so much effort into finding the right people, it’s that much more important to us to make sure they succeed. To ensure that, we’ve built a successful employee acclimation and training strategy that includes the following elements:

Read the full story: http://trainingmag.com/content/training-making-first-day-count

Building a culture of trust

s your organization built on a culture of trust?

Look around you; there are plenty of clues as to whether trust abounds. How quickly are decisions made? How many people do you copy (or worse, bcc) on e-mails? Do executives check in on the “troops” even when on vacation?

Given that 82% of workers don’t trust their boss, trust is a scarce resource in many organizations.

When it comes to creating a trusting workplace culture, the best place to start is with you. As a leader, you either believe in someone’s trustworthiness or you don’t. Leaders who try to split the difference with “trust but verify” won’t build a culture of healthy organizational trust.

Read the full story: http://smartblogs.com/leadership/2013/04/09/building-a-culture-of-trust/

Not A Happy Accident: How Google Deliberately Designs Workplace Satisfaction

While much has been said about Google's enviable employee perks, those just scratch the surface of how it totally re-engineered traditional HR to ensure a happy and profitable workplace.

Few businesses in the world’s history have had as profound an impact on human life in such a short period of time as Google.

Pause to consider that just 15 years ago, Google’s search engine, now used globally over 100 billion times a month, didn’t exist. Products most of us take for granted, including Google Maps, Gmail, Translator, Google Earth, and Android all were created since 1998 when Larry Page and Sergey Brin cofounded the firm with the soaring ambition of making the world’s information available to everyone.

To punctuate the obvious, Google’s inventive achievements in a mere decade and a half are simply stunning.

But in Google’s short lifespan, it has also grown from a two-man startup to an organization with nearly 37,000 employees in 40 different countries. This notable and relentless workforce expansion begs the very important question: How have they successfully managed and integrated all these new people while concurrently motivating them to be consistently loyal, ambitious, innovative, and productive?

Read the full story:

http://www.fastcompany.com/3007268/where-are-they-now/not-happy-accident-how-google-deliberately-designs-workplace-satisfaction

Ten ways to turn your staff into teammates

Teambuilding conjures images of trust falls and wall climbs, but often once those tasks are done your employees are no more united than they were in the morning.

"Performance within groups typically does not just happen. For a group to really perform well it needs practice,” CMI Teamwork CEO Bruce Hodes said. “The group needs to understand the best way to organize itself for performance.”

It’s something sports teams and the military understand – Boot Camp for the military and pre-season workouts for sports teams are the norm. In business, there is far less interest or appreciation of group development and the need for practice. Team practice, for the most part, is not factored into the business or corporate world.

Read the full story:

http://www.hrmonline.ca/article/ten-ways-to-turn-your-staff-into-teammates-173528.aspx?p=1

6 steps to embedding organizational culture

I’ve had the pleasure of working with many organizations, all with their unique culture. I can tell if the culture has been embedded effectively by talking with employees and asking them to describe their organizational atmosphere.

When I hear consistency in their answers, it’s music to my ears –I know that leadership has put intentional effort into building a culture that employees can describe to others.

If you want to create a specific culture within your organization, you need to be precise and explicit about what that is. Otherwise, you get the default culture (whatever that is), which may not be to your liking or in the best interest of your business.

Read the full story: http://smartblogs.com/leadership/2012/09/19/6-steps-embedding-organizational-culture/

How To Recruit & Retain Millennial Employees

When it comes to the Millennial generation there are a lot of misconceptions around how hard they work and how committed they are to their jobs. Turns out those misconceptions are just that, and employers that wrongly buy into them will face a difficult time managing and retaining a group of people that will have a huge impact on the future growth of companies across the country.

“The large significant misconceptions from more senior generations about Millennials are that they are entitled and don’t want to work as hard, but my own experience has been the opposite,” says Lauren Stiller Rikleen, Executive-in-Residence, Boston College Center for Work & Family and founder of The Rikleen Institute for Strategic Leadership. “My sense is this generation is very accomplished, have done a huge amount in a very short period of time and do work hard.”

Read the full story: http://www.glassdoor.com/blog/recruit-retain-millennial-employees/

New weapon emerges in war for talent

Employer branding is giving canny businesses an edge over the competition to attract staff.

Finding ways to attract and retain top talent is emerging as a key concern for many businesses in the face of an ongoing shortage.

This is why so many are turning to employer branding, which is giving them the edge needed to win the best in the market.

A recent survey by social media platform LinkedIn found that 70 per cent of companies rank employer branding as one of their biggest priorities in 2013.

Steve Barham, senior director, LinkedIn talent solutions says employer branding is the key to improving staff retention rates.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/small-business/trends/new-weapon-emerges-in-war-for-talent-20130217-2el5m.html#ixzz2LHjmj9eA

Don't Let Strategy Become Planning

I must have heard the words "we need to create a strategic plan" at least an order of magnitude more times than I have heard "we need to create a strategy." This is because most people see strategy as an exercise in producing a planning document. In this conception, strategy is manifested as a long list of initiatives with timeframes associated and resources assigned.
Somewhat intriguingly, at least to me, the initiatives are themselves often called "strategies." That is, each different initiative is a strategy and the plan is an organized list of the strategies.

Read the full story:

http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2013/02/dont_let_strategy_become_plann.html

Secrets Of America's Happiest Companies

Disengaged workers cost the U.S. economy $350 billion a year in lost productivity. Here's how the happiest companies boost morale and the bottom line.

“Being able to be truly happy at work is one of the keys to being happy in life,” says Heidi Golledge, CEO and cofounder of CareerBliss, an online career database. And what company couldn’t use a little more joy among its ranks?

Read the full story: http://www.fastcompany.com/3004595/secrets-americas-happiest-companies?utm_campaign=hr-market-intelligence-newsletter&utm_source=hubspot_email_marketing&utm_medium=email&utm_content=6488756&_hse=information%40insightlink.com&_hsmi=6488756&_hsh=407b584d8fb750806d6c4d8eca8641d7

Start the clock! T minus 12 months to engage staff

Employers have an increasingly short amount of time to engage their new employees before the novelty factor of the new role wears off, and the grace period may even be less than one year.

That was the conclusion of a recent global study by rogenSi into the mindset of new and existing employees which found that employees with more than one year’s service with an organisation are feeling unenthusiastic, underappreciated, uninspired and unmotivated by their leaders.

Read the full story: http://www.hrmonline.ca/article/start-the-clock-t-minus-12-months-to-engage-staff-171131.aspx

Fight the Nine Symptoms of Corporate Decline

How do you know a team, company, or country is on the slippery slope of decline and needs a culture shift? I found nine universal warning signs of change-in-the-wrong direction in research for my book Confidence, which compared downward spirals with the momentum of success. The good news is that they are all reversible. Watching out for these behaviors is the first step toward building better habits.

First, the signs that there is more trouble ahead:

Read the full story:

http://blogs.hbr.org/kanter/2012/12/fight-the-nine-symptoms-of-cor.html