Ever feel that workdays tend to blend together into one incomprehensible mess? That’s not unusual. Many people find themselves struggling to define their achievements in the workplace. Setting yourself different types of goals at work can break the jinx. It is a fantastic way to provide structure, stability, and progression to your career. There
What is Moral Integrity? Moral integrity is doing the right thing when no one is watching. We know what is right and wrong, and we choose to do the right thing. Doing the right thing when it’s the easiest or the most profitable thing isn’t what matters, though. When things are easy, anyone can
Growth is fundamental in establishing the success of a business. For most of the for-profit companies this growth means increase in sales, introduction of new products and/or increase in market share. Whichever goals are set, companies need an elaborate plan that will guide them through. An organisational strategy is such a detailed execution plan.
There are many pieces of the puzzle when it comes to determining how your business performs. A company’s productivity depends on many diverse things. Like the technology in use, ongoing processes & systems. It is also also shaped by the techniques used in different functions. For example, how do you bring leads in, nurture and convert them into paying customers. One key piece
It’s not unheard of for managers to ask a lot from their employees. Often employees do their best to accommodate what is asked of them, but that’s not always enough. But at times, managers cross the line and start asking a little too much of their direct reports. This is the beginning of a world filled with
Businesses, employees, managers, take your pick: every entity needs a plan for success. Of course, a plan can take many forms. Consider a “back of the napkin” personal timeline or a formal business development document. The best plans combine two fundamental concepts: goals and objectives. Goals and objectives may appear similar on the surface, there is
Deliberately or not, group decision making happens in every team. Most teams look at the process of group decision making to improve quality of decisions. But they tend to overlook its potential for enhancing the company culture & collaboration. This article explores 7 different techniques to use in group decision making. It lays down the ground rules, advantages, disadvantages of these group
Organisations are in a state of flux. Knowledge & technology organisations, more so. Given that the technology & knowledge is always advancing, they cannot afford to lose steam. Continuous learning, is the key for them. Of course, the same applies to individuals as well. Don’t keep up with the new learnings & you’ve become stagnant
To many, modern performance management process may mean fairly straight forward & mundane – that’s what managers do, right? Unfortunately, most supervisors seem to have missed the memo on that one. According to Forbes, almost 80% of knowledge workers in the United States are not managed well. They do not feel encouraged, supported, or motivated
Whether you’re an individual contributor or a manager leading a team of individuals, effective feedback is crucial in the workplace. But what constitutes a quality feedback? What are the various types of feedback, and how do they apply in the workplace? While the article below is by no means exhaustive, it lists out a few
Communication is at the core of any business. Be it a one man owned grocery store or a large multinational software development firm. Failure to communicate your thoughts & ideas is a recipe for disaster. Now, there is nothing novel in this fact. Everyone knows & agrees to it. But few individuals at workplace pay
Success is a habit. Or better phrased, success is choice to make changes to your daily routine. Changes that are difficult, even uncomfortable. Develop good habits outside of work, and that is bound to improve your performance in the office. Figure out areas of improvement, make plans and stick to them. Developing good habits can
Knowledge workers dread meetings. With little planning going into them, meetings rarely produce the desired results. Follow Scrum or Kanban for project management & you are already a part of bunch of other meetings. Then there are town halls, team meetings & and other gatherings specific to your organisation. But amidst all this noise, one
According to a Glassdoor study, employees aren’t using their vacation time in its entirety. They are afraid of falling behind in their work commitments. Here it is not employees’ fault, as they are afraid of losing out on valuable time. Their company is to blame as well. If a company understands the importance of time-off
Everybody defines and measures success in their own ways. For some it could be measured by their salary or bank balance, the size of the house they own, ability to give back to society, etc. Many people seek to know the best ways to achieve their goals, be it personal or professional. Some are
Globally approximately 15% employees are engaged in their work. The numbers vary according to different countries but haven’t exceeded beyond 40% in any of them. Millions of dollars are being spent on employee engagement activities and yet the numbers haven’t increased yet. (Source) Another study reports that people’s well-being peaks are weekends and holidays,
Performance management has been evolving since the past few years. We are moving away from traditional practices such as annual performance reviews and closer towards agile performance management. The latter is a more collaborative, continuous feedback and development practice suitable for today’s fast paced environment. Employee reviews are now more holistic owing to 360 degree
We have written extensively about how OKRs are beneficial to the company. The methodology helps employees and managers set goals that are SMART i.e. specific, measurable, actionable, relevant and timely. As the goals are aligned throughout the organization, transparency increases to a great extent. Everyone becomes aware of what their teammates or other coworkers are working on and how
According to a Gallup study, only 14% of employees strongly agree that their performance reviews inspire them to improve. That is a remarkably low percentage. While there could be various reasons behind this abnormality, one of them stands out quite clearly viz. annual performance reviews. These reviews did work well to some extent in the
Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence – two of the most trending words in the world today. It seems every other groundbreaking innovation relies on either of the two terms here. Artificial intelligence is increasingly being adopted across multiple industry verticals. It has transformed the way we conduct everyday tasks by providing platforms that are
On an average, office goers spend approximately 9 hours every day in the workplace. That is more than half your waking time!! The amount of time that you spend with your coworkers is almost as much as the amount you spend with your spouse or family. Given that you spend so much time in
In the book Jack: Straight From The Gut, the legendary Jack Welch talks about how he heavily focused on creating a high performing culture at GE. Only those employees who conformed to standards he set, were allowed to stay. The rest had to part ways with the company. This book talks about how he did not
We need to talk. 4 simple words. Yet they are enough to make the best of us nervous. How often have we avoided talking to someone simply because we do not want a difficult conversation? Not just in personal, but professional life as well. Although in the latter, difficult conversations may be essential in certain situations.
The meetings may be over but how they went will be seen by what happens next. Incidentally, in both cases, the HR team got in touch with the managers to discuss about their reportees. Joanne from HR got in touch with Ray to discuss about the ‘future of John’ at Acme Inc. Ray, being
The D-day – The actual day of performance review meeting. How the meeting is executed is determined by a couple of factors. The first primarily dependent on the preparedness of both manager and employee. And the second on the the company culture. Lastly on the mentality and attitude of all parties involved. The last
Preparing for a performance review is never easy. Particularly if it is not clear what to expect from it. It is no wonder a vast majority hates the phrase performance appraisals. It is not possible to narrow down the causes to a single/ universal problem. There could be multiple reasons leading to the entire process
Each new year represents a blank slate, giving everyone an opportunity to begin anew. The most common way people go about this, is by setting Resolutions. Majority of the times these resolutions are common across the board with a few tweaks here and there. On a personal front, there are the usual ones (but unfortunately
In the past we have helped you manage performance reviews with 450+ handy performance review phrases sorted by functions. In this article, we will provide you with an extensive list of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) organised by function. You can just pick the ones that are applicable in your use case & refine them further. If
At the end of every year, agencies like Glassdoor publish a series of articles such as Top companies of the last year ‘X’ unique benefits introduced in ‘z’ year and so on. There are various parameters behind these assessments such as salary, perks and benefits, work culture, etc. While there are some aspects that employees still
Timeboxing, a key component of Scrum and Agile project management methodology, is quickly gaining in popularity over traditional to-do lists. Why? Because it eliminates some of the most common shortcomings of to-do lists and elevates the agility and visibility of current and completed tasks. Timeboxing is the simple practice of allotting a fixed unit of
Collaboration is a buzzword these days. Especially so in the corporate lingo. But rarely do individuals & companies, pay attention to the basics of collaboration. Collaborative decision making is at the root of most successful teams in the world. But what is collaborative decision making, really? Collaborative decision making occurs when a team of individuals reaches a consensus.
You’re halfway through another long workday. But you’ve still got some work to do before you can clock off for the night. A co-worker is talking to you. And you start to feel yourself getting tenser and tenser the more they distract you. You’re unable to make eye contact and feel yourself emotionally closing off to
Edgar Schein is considered as one of the forefathers of modern organizational psychology. He was the mind behind the “Career Anchors” framework. This framework hypothesizes that an individual’s workplace inclinations adhere to eight specific categories. The attributes of these proverbial anchors dictate how they perform at work. If your people end up in positions that don’t