In the world of work, there are not many constructs that are as widely acknowledged yet largely misunderstood as the notion of job performance. It is such a large and ambiguous concept that most of us, managers, employees, and specialists alike, have our own unique definitions of what it is and what it looks like. [...]
More and more organizations are discovering the need for trained facilitators as they move in the direction of implementing continuous process improvement (CPI), Lean, and Six Sigma. In this blog I will refer to this position as Lean facilitator. The purpose of this blog is to (a) describe the roles and responsibilities of Lean facilitators, (b) describe the areas of knowledge [...]
Guest author blog, written and researched by: McKendree J. Hickory, Michael P. Yoder, Teanna S. Ziegler Employee engagement has become an increasingly familiar topic in both organizations and research. Leaders want to know how to best encourage and utilize their employee’s engagement, while research has strived to make this construct clear. Engagement includes aspects of [...]
Teams are the backbone of most organizations – almost everyone who has been employed has been a member of a team at one time or another. This article seeks to explore the conditions that are necessary for effective team performance. Teams have a few things in common: they have clear boundaries on membership (you’re [...]
The IRS Audits Itself In response to a potential shortage of managers and technical employees at the IRS, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) recently audited the agency’s new-hire onboarding processes. The results of this analysis highlight the need for all organizations to have a strategic process for hiring, integrating, and retaining new [...]
By: Nathan Iverson, Amy Blackshire, and Robert Bullock Virtual teams may be defined as teams composed of members who combine their efforts to achieve a common goal by working over time and distance using technology or electronic communication (Bell & Kozlowski, 2002). The following recommendations for constructing and maintaining effective virtual teams are based from empirical [...]
We all know that employee turnover is costly: the average cost associated with turnover for an entry level employee is equivalent to roughly 1/2 of his or her yearly salary. There are a number of direct and indirect costs associated with turnover, and this infographic from Compliance and Safety does a fantastic job of breaking down those [...]
Learning is embedded, either formally or informally, in almost every aspect of our lives. Much of what we learn each day is acquired with little or no conscious effort. For example, we learn about current events by watching the news, or learn about other people by listening to their stories. Now shift into action learning [...]
What is Servant Leadership? Servant leadership is defined as a leadership style (many would call it a leadership philosophy) that emphasizes the leader’s responsibility to the success of the organization as well as his or her moral responsibility to subordinates, customers, and other stakeholders. Although it may seem like a new leadership style is being introduced [...]
What do executive coaching, employee development, and 360 feedback have in common? They all work to encourage change. And the techniques that support processes like the ones above are most effective when they are based on established theories of behavioral change. The purpose of this blog is to present Prochaska’s widely accepted model of change and to [...]