Podcast: Pushing Performance
Today’s podcast is a how-to guide on influencing your employees to do the things that will make your organizational successful. You’ll learn what really motivates your employees (tip: it’s not just money). You’ll also learn how to design reward and recognition programs that push performance to the next level.
This is my first attempt at using the Presentation Zen style of presentations, so feedback is very much welcome. Also, if you haven’t yet, subscribe to Manager’s Sandbox to receive a free copy of the Pushing Performance ebook.
Quick Links: November 25, 2008
Image by dcJohn
Every few weeks I post a list of great stuff I’ve found on the web. Enjoy!
- Steve Roesler’s All Things Workplace had an interesting article on the impact of job titles on social interactions in the workplace.
- Jason Pankow also has a great article on Fistful of Talent about job titles (and how misleading they can sometimes be).
- Also on Fistful, Jennifer McClure writes about the importance of maintaining a positive candidate experience from start to finish.
- Lance Haun of Your HR Guy and HRM Today published two awesome articles over the last few weeks: Good Leadership is Stupid Easy and Why You Hate HR & How to Fix It.
- Dan Schawbel of Personal Branding Blog has a fantastic piece on employer branding.
- Scoebelizer has a fun read on resumes that suck (and ones that don’t).
Happy reading, and for my American readers, have a great Thanksgiving weekend.
Build a Better Training Program: Know Your Audience
This post is Part 3 in the three-part series Building a Better Training Program. If you haven’t yet, you may want to read Part 1 and Part 2.
Image by Louisville Joe
Imagine this: You’ve signed up for a training seminar called “How to Build an Effective New Hire Onboarding Program.” This is one of your key initiatives for the year, so you’re pumped. You’ve registered and your company has paid good money for you to go spend two hours at this training.
You arrive, grab a seat, the presentation starts. You can’t wait (yea, admit it - you’re an HR dork, just like me). The trainers walks out and starts… and then spends the first 45 minutes talking about why onboarding is important and why you should care.
By the time she gets to the good stuff - building an effective onboarding program - half the audience has zoned out. And when she’s finished, she’s only really given you a surface level look into effective onboarding. The trainer had great information and a captive, willing audience, but the training failed. She didn’t consider her audience.
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Develop Your Strengths or Fix Your Weaknesses?
Image courtesy of Popoever
Gary Vaynerchuk, blogger and creator of Wine Library TV, had a fantastic (and short) video on his personal blog yesterday titled “I suck!”
Gary spends the first 60 seconds rattling off a list of things he’s horrible at, and then begins to explain how instead of dwelling on what he’s bad at, he’s instead chosen to work his butt off doing things he’s good at.
In HR, we spend a lot of time looking at both strengths and growth areas. There’s an emerging school of thought which argues that our time would be better spend enhancing and further developing an individuals strengths rather than focusing on fixing their weaknesses.
The argument is that if someone is not naturally good at something, they will at best be mediocre at it. And while you’re spending all of your time fixing things they’re not really all that good at, they don’t take full advantage of their existing strengths. I think there may be something to that. I’m not sure you should ignore all weaknesses, though.
I’d like to open this up for reader discussion. What’s your take: Grow strengths, improve weaknesses, or both?
Looking for a gift that’s a little less… boring?
The holiday season is just around the corner. Are you looking for a gift that’s a little less… boring?
Image courtesy of Lumaxart
In addition to Manager’s Sandbox, I also run a DVD slideshow business called Photo Frog DVD. We create custom DVD slideshows from your photos, complete with music, interactive menus and more. Our slideshows are the perfect gift or keepsake for any holiday or special occasion.
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