by Kathleen Quinn Votaw | Jun 11, 2017
It’s well past time to ditch traditional performance reviews. Evaluations of your people should reflect your organization’s unique culture and the individual you are reviewing. Forget the negative reviews based on flaws and “opportunities for improvement” in favor of continuous feedback. Far beyond measuring performance, when you take a more timely and humane approach to performance reviews, you help engage and retain your most important asset—your people—improving morale and saving costs. I offer some options that allow you to dip or dive into new review processes.
by Kathleen Quinn Votaw | May 11, 2017
Being nice is an attitude, and it should be at the top of the list of characteristics you look for in recruiting new employees. In fact, niceness should apply to all of your decisions: who you hire, who leads, and who participates on teams. When your culture aligns around niceness, you increase engagement and, along with it, productivity and performance. Being nice shows respect—and exceptional business acumen. This article explores the costs of tolerating people who don’t play nice, and the benefits of hiring those who do.
by Kathleen Quinn Votaw | Apr 11, 2017
It takes equal amounts of courage and confidence to be an effective leader in today’s environment of constant change and uncertainty. There is little of the tried and true to fall back on. However, there are some basic strategies that can help you meet ever-moving targets and challenges, in order to provide a constant vision for your people and a learning culture that will help you succeed in ways you may not have expected. Effective leadership begins by surrounding yourself with the right people.
by Kathleen Quinn Votaw | Mar 11, 2017
Every organization competes for the kind of people who ask “why not?” instead of “why?” because they are the curious innovators who can grow your business. Attracting them requires that you develop a talent strategy based on today’s desired workplace environment—one that offers things like flexibility, possibility, challenge, professional growth, and work-life balance. Start by digging deep into the realities of your culture and the complexities of the people who currently work within it, and those to come.
by Kathleen Quinn Votaw | Feb 11, 2017
Education and experience have been replaced as the first things to consider when hiring. Today, the emphasis is on things like how people behave and adapt, what their values are, and what motivates them—things that you can’t easily understand from resumes and interviews. But you can get this critical predictive information through pre-employment assessment. People aren’t just looking for a job; and you shouldn’t be just hiring anyone with a certain skill set. This article explains how both candidate and employer can benefit before the offer is made and accepted.
