Four Tips to Navigate Working from Home

I talk for a living, whether it’s through keynotes, employee trainings, executive coaching, human capital consulting, writing articles or just a chat with a client. I’m lucky enough to have clients from a variety of industries and sectors, giving me a wide view of how organizations are handling similar situations. This week alone I had the honor to chat with people from large consulting firms, start-ups, Federal government, tech firms, mid-size companies, biopharma organizations, large school systems, manufacturing firms, real estate industry leaders, and HR professionals. I learned a lot of best practices for navigating the Covid-19 work from home (WFH) situation and I’d like to share those with you here.

Schedule daily white space

Someone said to me, “It’s just telework. It’s not a big deal.” Wrong. It’s not just telework and it is a big deal. Why? Because the old paradigm of telework was that you worked from home 1-2 days/week, usually while others in your home were at work and/or school. Now everyone is working and learning under one roof, which adds complexity to the situation. I have it fairly easy; our high school daughter can self-manage her day. However, I have one client who has 3 children under the age of 5 at home while both he and his wife are trying to work. Ouch! That’s a tough situation!

So what are organizations doing to manage this? One best practice is to create intentional white space and schedule set times for team calls. One firm only holds calls from 8:30am-noon and then 2-5pm, local time. This allows people to have a midday break to attend to their own personal needs or the needs of those who live with them.

Learn together

It’s easy to disengage on employee development right now. I’ve heard “Training and development is a non-essential, so we’re cutting the live employee training we had planned”. I get it; financial stability and cash flow is vital right now. However, don’t forget about your teams who want to feel a sense of normalcy. So instead of offering a live employee development training, conduct a 60-minute virtual ‘lunch and learn’ on living through change or a 45-minute webinar about stress management instead. It’s easy to do and shows the teams that you are still there for them.

Lempathy

It’s easy to lose focus when WFH, so set clear focus on short term goals and how the goals align with the organizational mission. Create a 2-minute podcast or video to remind your team what you’re working on and use shared docs to create accountability.

It’s also easy to tilt toward excessive empathy, such as “It’s OK that Biva didn’t achieve his tasks today. He has 4 kids at home.” Giving a pass every once in awhile shows flexibility; excessive empathy breeds missed deadlines. Souse ‘both/and’ instead; in other words, try “Wow! Having four kids at home while working is hard. How can you achieve the biggest deadline today and have the kids home? What’s the first step? Second step?” Bottom line: show you care AND that goals still need to be completed. One of my coaching clients calls this “lempathy”: leading with empathy. It works for him; see if it works for you.

Focus on self-care

Stress manifests in different ways, for different reasons. In general, there are three pillars of health: physical, mental and emotional. Take a self-assessment and ask yourself how you’re doing on:

Physical: Maintaining the nutrition, sleep and exercise that your body needs

Mental: Focusing on the task at hand

Emotional: Self-regulating your emotions appropriately with those around you

Whatever you do to manage your WFH situation, remember to keep it fun! People want to feel connected; they are looking for the water cooler experience, where they can just have a fun chat for a few minutes with each other. So set this up with virtual coffee chats, happy hours, walks, exercise classes and even hobby times (knitting anyone?). One company in Boston creates daily entertainment videos for the employee’s children to watch while the parent is working. Another organization spreads smiles via Skype. What will work for you?

Let’s share experiences. Leave a comment below, send me an email, or find me on Twitter.

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Four Resources to Help Employees Manage Change

I recently had the honor and privilege to be interviewed by different publications about changing work dynamics, managing difficult employees and the future of our workforce. The new era of workforce management is here; I hope our interview discussions help you plan for the future in these times of change.

When I spoke to Bindu Nair, editor at The Smart Manager, we discussed various ways to manage unmanageable people and situations.

Supported by my years of experience as a front line coach and consultant, we outlined how to help those unmanageable employees who torment other employees. The methodology we recommend consists of five steps: Commit or quit; Communicate; Clarify goals and roles; Coach; and Create accountability. How can you use this methodology? First, the manager needs to decide to retain this unmanageable employee or not. Ultimately, it’s not only about making that employee accountable; it’s also about the manager’s commitment to the employee’s success. Next, the employee should be clear on what goals she is expected to achieve.

Successful organizations not only manage employees; they also create and manage successful teams. During another discussion with The Uncommon League, we mused about preparing individuals and teams for employee training. What tips did we discuss? First, explain the training context to increase the chances of employees attending that training. Second, build organizational interest in what they will learn, to attract other employees who want to learn these skills as well.

Successful organizations are also nimble and adapt to change, which is important because the way people are choosing to work has changed. Discussing the trends that are shaping the future workforce with Brown Wallace on The Bridge Revisited, we shared our thoughts about the personality traits and key differences of each generation in the workforce. The discussion also included the impact of women starting their own businesses, the importance of workplace diversity and the increasing trend of freelancing. If leaders develop a strategy without knowing about these workforce trends, they will be shooting into the dark.

Finally, at the Women’s Foodservice Forum we exchanged views on how freelancers and contract workers can provide fresh perspectives and help organizations move toward success. To effectively leverage their talents and capabilities, leaders must integrate freelancers in the workplace culture, articulate clear expectations, touch base regularly, and recognize results.

I’d love to hear how you are managing workforce challenges. What works for you and what doesn’t? What results have you seen? 

Let’s share experiences. Leave a comment below, send me an email, or find me on Twitter.

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Three Tips to Manage a Toxic Work Environment

Organizations are full of individual and group relationships. Even if you work on a small team in a mid-size organization, it’s possible to have over 25 different working relationships when you consider a relationship with each person on your team, peers, colleagues on other teams, clients and vendors.

According to the 2014 Globe force survey, 78 percent of people who work between 30 to 50 hours per week actually spend more time with their coworkers than with their families. Having friends at work increases organizational commitment, improves employee engagement and increases overall employee satisfaction levels. However, unhealthy work relationships decrease each one of these factors. 

Impact of unhealthy work relationships

A Harvard Business Review article states that there are three traits top leaders use to maintain healthy and powerful relationships: a clear purpose, an understanding of the kind of relationship needed and a commitment to pursue that relationship even in the hard times. In addition, healthy relationships include trust, integrity and respect.

While we all want healthy work relationships, unhealthy work relationships can develop. Unhealthy work relationships lead to workplace stress, higher disengagement and lack of loyalty. About $500 billion is lost by the US economy because of workplace stress. According to a study by Queens School of Business and Gallup, disengaged workers have 37% higher absenteeism, 49% more accidents, and 60% more errors and defects. Lack of loyalty leads to the increase in voluntary turnover by about 50%.

One thing that creates unhealthy work relations is organizational power dynamics, which refer to how different levels of employees deal with each other and where one of these employees / groups is more dominant than the other employee/group. This use of dominance does not involve use of force; instead it uses workplace influence, which could be created by gender, organizational hierarchy, ethnicity, social bias and other factors.

The development of careers, particularly at senior levels, depends on acquiring power. How does this happen? Individuals gain power in absolute terms at someone else’s expense. As most organizations have a pyramid structure, there is a scarcity of positions as one moves up the organizational hierarchy. This is what determines how the power dynamics play out.

How can leaders spot unhealthy power dynamics before the workplace relationships become toxic?

Three Tips for Managing Workplace Power Dynamics

1. Create clear, professional boundaries

Regardless of the organizational size, ensure there are established, professional boundaries in the workplace. For example, if a boss calls a direct report on the weekend, is the direct report expected to return the call on the weekend or on Monday? Is alcohol allowed on the workplace premises and if so, what are the norms when someone says something inappropriate or wants to drive while under the influence of alcohol? Finally, what is allowed or not allowed while traveling? Establishing workplace norms prevents an imbalanced power dynamic from occurring.

2. Monitor language

Words matter because words become thoughts and thoughts become behavior. So be mindful of the accepted organizational verbiage. Expressions such as ‘Man up!’ or ‘Don’t be so emotional and sensitive’ are generally said by one gender about another gender and therefore sexist. ‘You don’t understand how the game works’ shows an imbalanced power dynamic, as one person implies that s/he is smarter or more experienced than the other. Someone regularly saying, ‘That’s not what happened’ can create a feeling of gas lighting, making the other person question reality and become subservient in the power dynamics. So listen for language that may inadvertently create an unhealthy power dynamic.

3. Notice office volatility

Employees are human, and regardless of how talented they are, every person has flaws. Some of those shortcomings may create a volatile work environment, which creates havoc on work relationships and causes stress for everyone. The key to managing this volatile environment is to manage individual responses. Take time to learn what triggers people’s emotions and avoid conversations that can contribute to the overall volatility. Employees need to stay calm rather than engage in office drama.

Let’s share experiences. Leave a comment below, send me an email, or find me on Twitter.

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Five Tools to Successfully Work from Home

Coronavirus is causing organizations to shift toward telework. Though telework is not new, employees now are working remotely more often, which changes team dynamics. There are tools available that can help organizations streamline remote employee management, enhance professional skills and collaborate successfully.

Some of the most popular tools for remote teams are:

1. Project management: Asana
2. Video conferencing: Skype and Zoom
3. Team communication: Slack
4. Cloud storage and file sharing: Dropbox

Let’s learn more about each tool, to help you better identify the best one for your team.

Project Management: Asana

Skype is a popular voice communication service. People can share instant messages, hold video calls and share screens, as well as call Skype numbers and landline/mobile numbers.

Asana’s key features include project management, task management and file sharing. Asana has numerous features to manage complex projects, so build in time to master the learning curve and eventually manage projects more efficiently.

Want to learn about similar tools?  Check out Trello, Proofhub, ProjectManager.com and Workzone.

Video Conferencing: Skype

Asana is an online management tool that helps teams stay focused on daily tasks, goals and projects. It’s known for its simple functionality, clean design and elegant usability.

This tool offers cross-platform support and is an excellent instant messaging tool, which is important for document collaboration.

Some of the alternatives for Skype include WhatsApp, Telegram and Viber.

Video Conferencing: Zoom

Zoom is a video communication tool. Widely used for virtual meetings, webinars and virtual conferences, it’s a great way of connecting via video when team members and clients are unable to meet in person.

The tool’s key features include video meetings, voice calls, hosted webinars, messaging and file sharing. Some users have had issues with unpredictable video quality so check your bandwidth before you begin working.

Some excellent alternates to Zoom include GoToMeeting, Webex and Adobe Connect.

Team Communication: Slack

Slack is a popular communication tool that brings remote teams together by having all communication in one place. It can also be used for instant messaging and collaboration.

The key features include instant messaging, file sharing, voice and video calls, as well as screen sharing. Some people find Slack hard to search so check it out for yourself.

A few of the alternatives for Slack include Microsoft Teams, Rocket Chat and Flock.

Cloud Storage and File Sharing: Dropbox

Dropbox, popularly known for online file sharing and storage, helps teams working remotely and saves time tracking down files. It is a modern workspace where all files can be stored together in one place and remote workers can easily sync and share documents.

In general, Dropbox is better for casual files; you may not want to store sensitive files here. Some of the alternatives for Dropbox include Google Drive, OneDrive and Box.com.

Technology helps us keep up with the changing times, where telecommuting and remote work is more of a need and requirement. These collaboration tools make it easier to achieve business goals by providing platforms to work more efficiently, regardless of where the employees are located. Once you pick your tool, you may want some tips on how to best present yourself on video. Check out this blog, from our speaker coach, Jezra Kaye.

Want to develop your remote-based employees, but don’t know how? We can help! We’ve designed and delivered interactive webinars for over a decade on a range of management and leadership topics.

I’d love to hear from you. How are you coping in these stressful times? What tools are you working with and what has been your experience?

Let’s share experiences. Leave a comment below, send me an email, or find me on Twitter.

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Three Tips to Manage Constant Change

Let’s face it. It’s a stressful time for everyone right now. As someone who likes to plan, I feel particularly assaulted. I just get used to a new norm, and another change occurs immediately. For example, I went through three changes within 12 hours for my daughter’s school; first it was school as usual, then closed for one day, then closed for 2 weeks and finally closed for 4 weeks. Talk about whiplash! The same happened with my parent’s retirement center; within hours, I was able to visit them, then couldn’t visit them and finally I could visit them if dropping off essential supplies. And let’s not even talk about work schedules, client meetings and workplace priorities changing hourly.

So how does a planner cope with this constant barrage of changes? I’ll admit that I didn’t handle it well at first. I’m a stress eater and was eating peanut butter straight out of the jar; last Friday I had sweet potato fries, toast and ice cream for dinner! I also sat on the couch instead of working out. And I constantly checked my phone, hoping to connect with people, yet feeling oddly isolated.

As I say in the first line of my first book, “If you’re not changing, you’re dying.” I truly believe that. Yet, believing it and living it are two different things. So if you’re feeling like me, here are three tips that might help you navigate the constant change that is our new norm.

Three Tips to Manage Constant Change

1. Plan Your Day, Not Your Week

I love to plan weeks ahead of time; I know every aspect of our family schedule for the next month. Just ask me and I’ll tell you when the next orthodontist appointment is; if I don’t know immediately, I can find the answer within a minute on my phone. Planning gives me a sense of false control, a way to make sense of the chaos of our family life.

Yet, with so many changes nowadays, it’s not possible to plan a month out, let alone a week. So I’ve adapted and now just plan one day at a time. I can still write a plan and cross off tasks, which gives me satisfaction without the anxiety of tomorrow’s changes. I often say “One day at a time” to my coaching clients, meaning that they will master a new skill or behavior by practicing one day at a time. It’s time I brought that lesson home.

Be sure to plan your work environment too. If you have to go to work in times of stress and uncertainty, be mindful and gentle with yourself. If a cup of tea, soothing music or aromatherapy helps relieve stress, bring supplies to create a safe environment for yourself. Remember the airplane oxygen mask rule: take care of yourself first so you can help others.

2. Move Your Body

Regardless if I can leave the house or not, or if our gym is closed, I can still move my body to keep the energy flowing. I finally dragged myself off the couch yesterday and started to work out. I’ll admit it was not my best workout since I was watching a movie while on the elliptical; however, I started to feel better. My next workout was better, realizing that moving my body moved my energy.

It’s also important to move your breathing in times of stress. Try the 4-7-8 breathing tip, which means you inhale for 4 seconds, hold for 7 seconds and exhale for 8 seconds. This type of breathing forces your mind to focus on the breath, rather than the millions of worries in your head. If done regularly, it can help decrease your stress.

3. Help Others

No matter how bad you think you have it right now, others have it worse. Food insecure families are challenged with school closures, medical professionals are working 24/7 and hourly employees are cash strapped without their regular work shifts. So help others to help yourself. Don’t know how? Donate food to your local food pantry, volunteer to drop off supplies to those in need or send a thank you note to your medical professional. These small steps will help you and those in your community get through this difficult time together.

Speaking of which, check in with your loved ones regularly right now. I come from a huge family. I’m the youngest of 8 kids; there are 55 of us at family reunions, including spouses, grandkids and great grandkids. My siblings and I agreed to talk at 7pm every Sunday night for the next few weeks, to check in on each other. I groan because I’d rather tune out and isolate on the couch. Yet, I always feel better when the call ends. So text, call or email someone you love today. It’ll help everyone deal with constant change.

I’d love to hear how you are coping in these stressful times. What is working for you and what is not?

Let’s share experiences. Leave a comment below, send me an email, or find me on Twitter.

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Quick Tips to Drive Employee Engagement, Innovation and Loyalty

By all accounts, low engagement levels and employee turnover rates plague organizations of all sizes and shapes. In fact, recent data from Gallup put employee engagement rates worldwide at about 15 percent and estimate that 51 percent of employees are looking to leave their current jobs. These statistics have significant economic consequences, as unengaged employees tend to be less productive, and organizations are forced to expend significant resources on recruitment and training to replace employees who leave.

Even the most high-performing organizations struggle with the ability to retain and engage high-quality employees. Nevertheless, despite incredible odds, we can also see some “bright spots” – organizations that have higher engagement rates and below-average turnover. Their secret sauce? These organizations promote “intrapreneurship” by encouraging employees to learn and apply entrepreneurial knowledge, skills and mindsets within their current organization. When done well, this approach increases employee engagement and retention by giving creative and growth-seeking employees opportunities to develop new products, services and business ventures – all without having to look elsewhere for these opportunities.

What’s more, there are three basic “leadership actions” taken by leaders who successfully advocate this approach in their organizations: they provide the right types of leadership development opportunities and employee engagement training program, they provide the necessary resources and they enable a culture of innovation. Let’s look at each of these leadership actions in more depth.

Provide the Right Types of Employee Leadership Development Opportunities

Not all leadership development is created equal, and as Deborah Rowland, change management researcher and author, notes, the most effective leadership development is experiential, influences participants’ intrapersonal emotional intelligence along with their external actions, is linked to participants’ specific contexts, and enrolls facilitators who act as guides rather than subject matter experts.

Not all leadership development is created equal. The most empowering intrapreneurship-focused leadership development experiences also specifically target the following proficiencies:

• Being proactive and taking initiative
• Embracing design thinking (solution-focused and oriented toward a desired future)
• Enhancing emotional intelligence, especially coalition-building skills
• Implementing project management
• Taking risks and learning from failure

In other words, while general leadership development, when done well, adds value for all participants, leaders and managers who want to cultivate intrapreneurs in their organization also need to ensure that they are providing training that addresses these specific competencies.

Provide the Necessary Resources for Self-identified, Employee-Driven Projects

More than talking a good game about innovation and creativity, leaders and managers who inspire an intrapreneurial mindset put their money where their mouth is by providing the time, space and financial resources necessary to support employee-driven initiatives.

For example, at Centiva Software Solutions, a Utah-based technical services organization, developers are given two days per month to work on a project of their choice. After learning about the problems faced by a local homeless shelter, developer Blake Kohler and his team were inspired to create a software solution that helped the shelter prioritize beds for clients. After developing and presenting an initial mockup to senior management, their team was given three months to further develop the product – the offshoot of which was a new product for the organization’s commercial line.

Similarly, with Kickbox, an innovation process designed by Adobe, employees or teams with an idea are given $1,000 and instructions and tools to measure progress, along with a Starbucks gift card and candy bar (purportedly to provide the necessary caffeine and sugar boost that innovators need). To date, Adobe has distributed more than 1,000 Kickboxes to employees around the world and made the program instructions available to others under a creative commons, share-alike, attribution license.

Design, Build and Encourage a Culture of Innovation

According to Clinton Longenecker, director of the Center for Leadership and Organizational Excellence at the University of Toledo, and Dale Eesley, director of the Center for Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Franchising at the University of Nebraska, Omaha, organizational culture is the “key gateway” to intrapreneurship within a company.

In our experience, there are four defining features of this type of culture:

1. Employees are given a high degree of freedom and flexibility, which promotes autonomy and, thus, motivation.

Suzanne Smith, social entrepreneur and blogger, recalls how she started her career as a social intrapreneur within the American Heart Association: “The leadership, including now-CEO Nancy Brown, let me invent, lead teams, and grow in multiple roles within the organization.” Smith believes that by following the same methodology, other organizations can better tap into their existing talent pool and especially the Millennial base (those people born between 1981-1996).

2. Employees are encouraged to test out the competition and compare their company’s product or service to products and services from a different industry.

Justin Reilly, head of customer experience innovation at Verizon Fios, describes how he made the case for improving the company’s MyFios app: “On my phone, the Uber app is right beside the MyFios app. If I open Uber and hail a ride in two or three intuitive clicks, and then open the MyFios app and the experience isn’t as easy or fast, I’m going to judge Verizon Fios service on that experience. That means we’re competing against every customer’s last best experience. So that’s what we use as our guidepost to innovation and improvement.”

3. Employees are encouraged to ask questions and challenge processes.

Tim Houlne, a Fortune 500 intrapreneur-turned-startup entrepreneur, recalls that he received a lot of pushback for asking questions early in his career. Now, as CEO of Humach, an organization that provides customer contact solutions, he aims to create an culture where employees are encouraged to poke holes and rethink solutions: “As a tech startup, we must constantly look for better, cheaper and faster ways to operate; we have a culture where everyone feels comfortable presenting their ideas and innovative solutions are recognized.” So create an culture where employees are encouraged to poke holes and rethink solutions.

4. Employees have permission to fail (or understand which types of failures are acceptable and unacceptable).

Most researchers agree that risk-taking is a defining feature of entrepreneurs (cf, Antoncic 2003); however, one of the defining features of intrapreneurs is that they are actually more risk-averse than their entrepreneur peers. With this in mind, organizations that want to enable and empower intrapreneurs should regularly communicate that failure is a natural part of the innovation process and even celebrate failures. In situations where failure is not an option, leaders and managers need to make that clear.

At the end of the day, there are many factors that drive high levels of employee disengagement and turnover. As leaders and managers, we often assume that these factors are entirely outside of our control, which is a mistake. Promoting and enabling intrapreneurship is one strategy that can benefit both employees and organizations. While successfully implementing all three leadership actions is a significant undertaking, it’s also one that organizations would do well to consider, especially if they are struggling to engage and retain high performers.

Let’s share experiences. Leave a comment below, send me an email, find me on Twitter.

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Eight Steps to Create a Learning Culture

Gallup’s report, How Millennials Work and Live, shows that 59% of Millennials say learning and development (L&D) opportunities are extremely important to them when considering a job. Comparatively, 44% of Gen Xers and 41% of Baby Boomers say the same about L&D. Gallup also reports that “An impressive 87% of Millennials rate ‘professional or career growth and development opportunities’ as important to them in a job — far more than the 69% of Non-Millennials who say the same.”

Since the Millennial generation has now surpassed the Baby Boomers as the largest generation in the U.S. labor force, paying attention to what they value in a workplace is crucial to attracting (and keeping) the best talent.

Yet L&D also has an impact on the bottom line. Top-performing organizations are five times more likely to have learning cultures, according to the U.S. L&D Report: 2018. That implies that L&D opportunities are a key component to an organization’s success.

It’s clear that Learning and Development is more important now than ever before. So important, that assimilating it into your organizational culture is a must. But how do you promote a learning culture in your organization? Let’s take a look at eight steps to get you on the right track, based on the findings of the U.S. L&D Report.

1     1. Know that there is no singular model of a learning culture

Unfortunately, there is no clear blueprint for creating a learning culture. Every organization is different—the size, culture, leadership, environment, and industry—all have an impact on what will or will not work. So, while you can have strong principles in mind, truly integrating L&D into your culture will be a process of discovery and adjustment. Don’t get disheartened if you’re not seeing progress—make an informed pivot to try something else.

2. Keep employee impact at the core of all programs|
 

Always communicate the big picture to employees when it comes to L&D programs. Learners should understand how their individual learning makes a direct impact on the organization’s success. Being able to see their personal development as a key component driving the business encourages employee engagement and gives employees a sense of meaning. Research shows that employees who attain meaning and significance from their work are far less likely to leave their jobs. In fact, companies without staff engaged in learning are twice as likely to lose staff before three years.

3. Get executive-level support

Transforming company culture is not possible without leadership involvement. 90% of companies with strong learning cultures said that senior executives were actively engaged in L&D initiatives. In Finding Courses’ survey of U.S. L&D departments, they found that “the number one comment from professionals about how they encourage a culture of learning is through meaningful and overt support from senior leaders.”

What does this support look like? It could be leaders personally engaging in learning, allotting the budget to fund research, creation and implementation of programs, or offering promotions directly linked to L&D.

4. Work with your in-house cultural influencers

While leadership is vital for culture change, working with company influencers is also a powerful tool. One place to start is with the internal communications team. They have direct lines of communication with both leadership and employees and can help promote programs in ways your staff will respond to.

You might also dig a little deeper into the staff itself, seeking out employees that embody the learning culture you are trying to create. Allow them to work as catalysts for change by getting them involved in L&D programs.

5. Use technology to assist, not lead, cultural transformation

You can’t expect technology to inspire and manage a strong L&D culture. Instead, use it as a tool to engage, motivate, and distribute information. For example, creating learner groups on video or app platforms will increase engagement and promote learning.

Not sure what the best technology is for your L&D programs? It might help to take a look at what other organizations use. When surveyed about what types of technology L&D departments would use, the top runner was e-learning at 32%. Up next was virtual classrooms (22%), micro-learning videos (17%), game based-learning (12%), mobile learning (11%) and virtual reality (6%).

At the end of the day, you’ve got to use what works best for your organization, which could include some trial and error. But that’s all part of the learning process!

6. Champion accountability

Accountability is absolutely necessary for the success of any L&D initiative. This means holding employees accountable with feedback and recognition. This also means holding leadership accountable. If a leader isn’t able to commit to learning, the learning culture will not succeed.

7. Measure specific impact

Before you can measure the progress of your learning culture, you have to decide what type of impact you are seeking. Are you looking to increase employee engagement? Lower attrition? Increase promotions to roles being vacated by retiring Baby Boomers?

Once you have a clear understanding of the impact you seek, it’s time to measure progress. You can measure employee engagement with anonymous surveys, analyze attrition data based on previous data points, measure employee promotion and movement compared to years prior, and more. Using data is the best way to know whether or not your programs are succeeding. Otherwise you are relying on intuition, which isn’t accurate often enough to guide the direction of large-scale decisions and investments. HR analytics are powerful—check out the possibilities with our summary paper.

8. Make L&D part of a larger cultural transformation

Building a learning culture can positively impact the organization for years to come. This is an investment in the organizational culture as a whole, as the two are intertwined. It’s not possible to have a powerful learning culture without a strong organizational culture, so both need effort. What might that simultaneous effort look like?

Finding Courses writes, “In order to inspire a learning culture, organizations that we spoke with recommended promoting learning from failure as well as success, advocating for employee freedom to challenge the status quo with new ideas, supporting and publicizing innovation that springs from learning, and if possible, giving learners encouragement and a platform to collaborate with each other after training events have taken place.”

I’d love to hear from people who have strong learning cultures in their organizations. What makes them work? What results have you seen on the culture as a whole?

Let’s share experiences. Leave a comment below, send me an email, or find me on Twitter.

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