It's Spring. Time for some "life-changing magic of tidying up" Communications.
Here in Boston it doesn’t feel like it, but it is officially spring. New Englanders start to emerge from their wintry cocoons, and dare to imagine flowers and flipflops again.
And everyone from Martha Stewart to the Container Store to Marie Kondo impress upon us that it’s time for spring cleaning – getting rid of stuff we don’t need it, lightening our material loads a bit, and generally making room for fresh air and new energy. Same sensibility happens at work. Here’s the advice I shared in a webinar for the Boston IABC professional communicators network on “Breaking through Employee Communications Clutter and Overload.”
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Gratitude is a superpower. Appreciation expresses why. Recognition shares it.
At this time of year we naturally take stock and think about what we’re thankful for. What we’re grateful for. What and who we appreciate. We recognize what matters to us.
Gratitude. Appreciation. Recognition. Let’s have more of all, please. But what’s the difference, actually, it occurred to me to ask, especially in the context of the organizational culture and communication work I do. What is gratitude at scale, so to speak?
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The One Thing to Know about Gallup’s New State of the Workplace Report
The just-updated Gallup State of the American Workplace report is out, all 214 pages of it. And we’ll be quoting its employee engagement factoids and workplace trends non-stop as we have with its 2012 predecessor. (Spoiler alert: engagement rate is stagnant from the 2012 report, with still only a third of U.S. employees engaged; 51% indifferent; and 16% actively working against the organization.) It’s a valuable accounting of what matters and works (and doesn’t), and do read it all when you can.
I’ve read the whole thing and was in the process of summarizing it for myself and my clients but realized two things.
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Once Is Not Enough: Creating a Culture of Feedback
Last week the Boston Globe announced the 2017 Top Places to Work in Massachusetts. One hundred and twenty-five companies are very happy to have made the lists. Perhaps even more important, these companies (and hundreds of others that didn’t make the lists this year) gained critical insights into what their employees think and feel about working there, so the organizations can take action and improve. (This is the heart of an employee engagement strategy.)
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“Be well.” At scale. My conversation with Mari Ryan.
It's really simple: Employees who experience higher levels of well-being = higher performance well-being for the organization. And then there's the virtuous circle of engagement <-> well-being...
Mari Ryan, founder and CEO of Advancing Wellness, and I are in wild agreement about the role of employee engagement in wellness program success (and overall organizational performance.) Mari and her team help organizations walk the well-being talk, with program design and operating strategies that flatten healthcare costs, improve morale and increase engagement. She’s a petite powerhouse I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know recently.
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