News & Tips
Virtual Background Do’s and Don’ts
With typically in-person meetings largely online these days, it can be difficult to set the stage for a successful meeting. While you can create an ambiance with lighting, music, staging, etc. in person, can that be replicated online? Is a virtual background tacky or useful? We believe that, if...
Divides Over Training, Support Lead to ‘Trust Gap’, IBM Report Says
Dive Brief: Executives recognize the pressures employees face as companies move through digital transformations, but many overestimate their offerings to employees in areas such as training, support and job expectations, according to a Sept. 30 IBM Institute for Business Value report. In data...
What’s Wrong With Filler Words, Exactly?
Are, like, filler or weasel words, you know, on the rise? What do the following words have in common: basically, really, actually, totally, exactly, very, highly, just, like, you know, uh, um, I mean, like I said, OK, so, well, right?, and stuff, literally? They’re all filler or weasel words –...
4 Ways to Improve Virtual Onboarding for New Hires
Deprioritizing the onboarding process can have serious long-term effects on employee retention and engagement, so you have to get it right. Onboarding has always been a critical part of the hiring process. Yet it’s also a part of the hiring process that all too often falls to the wayside once new...
Pay Transparency Takes Center Stage as More Workers Talk Wages
From video game publishers to coffee shops, pay disclosures are rattling HR. Sources say employers need to be careful when forming a response. In recent years, workers across entire companies and even entire industries have taken pay transparency to a new level via crowdsourced spreadsheets. One...
4 Steps to Improve the Accuracy of Virtual Interviews
There is no shortage of quotes about success in business. “A vision without a strategy remains an illusion.” ... “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” ... “Business has only two functions – marketing and innovation.” ... The list goes on and each has merit. Yet none of them work without talented...
The Spacing Effect: How to Improve Learning and Maximize Retention
We are not taught how to learn in school, we are taught how to pass tests. The spacing effect is a far more effective way to learn and retain information that works with our brain instead of against it. Find out how to use it here. Every perception is to some degree an act of creation, and every...
How Amazon’s Approach to Meetings Can Help You
As a leader, I have never been a fan of update meetings and they are even more problematic in a virtual environment where everyone already has Zoom fatigue and not enough hours in the day. Everybody has sat through one of these update meetings; a group of key managers gathers to be walked through...
How to Help a Manager Who’s Struggling, Right Now
Not surprisingly, in the last few weeks I’ve been contacted by board and C-level leaders, asking how they can rally and galvanize managers who appear to be buckling under the pressures and disruptions of the pandemic. These clients are grappling with issues like operational and supply chain...