Talent Management Consulting & Coaching Raleigh, NC

Infusing a New Kind of Workplace
For the Future.

The Joy of Understanding Your Workforce

When it comes to having information, many agree that there is often too much of it and not enough knowledge. This is often the case when business leaders try to make important talent decisions that will impact their organization’s future. While companies have amassed significant amounts of workforce information from their enterprise resource planning (ERP) and human resource management information systems (HRIS), leaders are often faced with reviewing reports that lack relevant wisdom.

Harnessing the power of workforce data can enable business leaders to make more effective talent-related decisions in areas such as talent planning, acquisition, compensation, rewards, development programs, and especially deploying critical talent.

Well-defined, high-quality information can provide richer insights into critical segments of your workforce while increasing the level of transparency in communication and highlighting specific trends that help pinpoint the focus on actionable solutions. Listening to your employees by meeting face-to-face and/or through other organizational feedback methods ensures that you know what’s on their minds; what they want, what they need, and their motivations. When these factors are infused with holistic approaches to your talent portfolio, as leaders you can begin to discover possibilities to enhance dialogue with employees and together tackle marketplace priorities.

The new workplace, with its growing diversity in a global economy, presents opportunities to adopt new solutions. Imagine, for example, leading a successful startup as your workforce quickly expands from eight, to 150, to 1,100. How would you plan to stay connected? Or imagine leading merger and acquisition activities in a mid-size to large organization. How would you gain access to critical experts and rapidly deploy talent?

As you move away from basic reports, which offer limited value, and toward workforce analytics, consider the following:

  • How well are you able to understand the generational differences and diversity in your workforce and their impact on workplace culture and business strategy?
  • How do you know which talent investments to prioritize?
  • What retention risks exist across the organization, and what are the trends behind them?

By gaining a deeper understanding of your workforce, you can enjoy the benefits that actionable insights provide. No more guessing about the capabilities of one division over another or relying on employee surveys that no longer represent the faces of your evolving workplace.

As you look to build a healthy culture and drive growth strategies for the future, one of the greatest joys can be in truly understanding your changing workforce.

Given the importance of talent in today’s environment, it’s time to move beyond making talent decisions based on what’s in traditional reports and rely instead on robust information. Gain a competitive edge and drive your culture and talent decisions further by discovering the joy in understanding your people and the many scalable options that actionable insights can provide.

If you would like to learn more about ways to improve your talent decisions and build long-term value with the data you have available today, please contact and/or visit.
©2011  All rights reserved. Judy White, SPHR, GPHR, HCS is the President of The Infusion Group ™ LLC, a next generation people management consulting and executive coaching firm based in the Raleigh/Durham, NC area. How can you become a community member? Discover Here.

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Photo credit:  iStockphoto

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Listening to the Future

 

In today’s changing environment, many leaders are questioning how they will steer their organizations, customers and teams into the future.

Take a quick scan of any of the major business papers and you’ll find a dozen headlines that all spell uncertainty. Dodd-Frank, IFRS and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) are a few of the regulations that stand to fundamentally transform finance, health care and industry as we know it. Given the political landscape, however, some of these provisions continue to be fleshed out, requiring you to maintain a high level of involvement and integration across your company in order to manage new risks and ensure that expertise, processes, controls, capabilities and tools are infused in values that matter.

Finding Solid Ground 

Regardless of your industry, regulation has become an increasing part of the operating environment and is sure to remain a dominant player in shaping future business plans.  What does this mean to you as a transformational leader?  We believe that managing risk requires the involvement and tone of committed leadership both within the C-suite and throughout the ranks that facilitates new levels of collaborative partnerships and agility.

The seismic shifts that are occurring involve collective action and practical management thinking. Are you experiencing some of these shifts in your workplace already?  Are you finding that the organizational structures that once served your company well have become shaky? Rather than generating intended efficiencies, are the old structures and traditional career ladders creating obstacles and holding back innovation?

Moving toward a flatter, more adaptable organization is a step that many forward-leading organizations began taking years ago in order to prepare for the future. These companies were listening. By validating their assumptions and acting on their priorities, they continue to take the necessary steps to build a workplace culture that better enables the delivery of sustainable outcomes for the long term.

As a leader, when you press the pause button on your busy life and listen to the  future, what do you hear?

While there are many key trends shouting for our attention, one of the more pressing in terms of strategic change is demographics. As the U.S. prepares for generational shifts and the impact of a shrinking workforce population around the globe, savvy leaders need to determine how these demographics, generational factors, consumer demographic and buying power shifts will impact their business objectives, culture and workplace design over the short and long term.  For example,

  • Women now control $12 trillion of the overall $18.4 trillion in global consumer spending1
  • 75.1% of women identify themselves as the primary household consumer purchaser2

Given these unprecedented trends, there remains a lot to flesh out. We invite you to journey with us here as we explore fresh approaches to your diverse workplace and new choices to enhance your ways of leading, collaborating and building a sustainable business in a constantly changing environment.

To request reprint permission, please contact the Infusion Group™
© 2011 All Rights Reserved. The Infusion Group LLC. Judy White, SPHR, GPHR, HCS is the President of The Infusion Group, LLC, a people management consulting and coaching firm located in Raleigh/Durham, North Carolina.  Learn more about optimizing your workplace for the future by www.theinfusiongroupllc.com  Follow: @TheInfusionGrpLLC

1 Boston Consulting Group Press Release (September 8, 2009)
2 Mediamark Research & Intelligence, “Despite Decades of Gains in the Workforce, Women Still the Predominant Household
Shoppers” (November 12, 2009)

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What’s the buzz on Google+

 

The long awaited announcement from Google is here.  Introducing it’s newest addition to social media services, Google+ .

Business Insider, an on-line news channel, recently published this article and provides a “Google+ 101″ view of this new social media enhancement. You can read the article here,  http://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-google-plus-2011-6

 

We invite you to join The Infusion Group™ on this additional channel, here,

 

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Lead Your Workplace Where It Is Afraid To Go

Rules of Engagement

When was the last time you can recall hearing people excited to be at work? There is something to be said about a positive work environment. You know it the moment you walk into it. The same can be said of the opposite. Which of the two environments best describe your workplace?

Imagine what it would sound like as people arrived to work in the morning powered up and on-fire to take on the challenges of the week. Their energy levels high and their attitudes are at the top of the charts. What are the possible ramifications? Could you expect greater attention to detail, strategic ‘what box?” thinking, and even positive feedback from your internal and external customers and vendors? Wouldn’t it be refreshing to deliver some good news to your company?

So, how do we make this a reality? The answer depends on where you decide to focus your efforts. What is it going to take to help your workplace feel connected, valued and energized to leap over tall buildings and spread explosive effort?

Lead With Conviction

While change fires up most of us, sound leadership principles and discipline ground us. By the time your CEO becomes aware of the extent of dysfunction, the issues have often become so ingrained into the company that it takes extraordinary leadership to turn things around. Demonstrate extraordinary by finding your inner conviction for a positive and healthy work environment and begin to move forward with the first successful key:

1. Determination – Make the vital decision that cultivating a healthy environment really matters. Communicate the rules of engagement and the importance of respecting new behavior expectations by presenting them to the organization. To avoid any misunderstandings of these new behavior expectations, demonstrate first by your sound discipline and leadership.

Lead With Accountability

Learn from the valuable lessons of the past and why practices may have lead to dysfunctional behavior and take the actions necessary today to instill a more positive workplace environment for the future. This means a healthy balance of recognizing positive employee behaviors and actions, while remaining open to receiving feedback that might identify opportunities for organizational improvement. Begin restoring workplace integrity and build trust step-by-step. Consider success key #2:

2. Practice the Discipline of Accountability – Cultural stewards are tenacious not tyrannical in their approach to creating a positive work culture. Focus on the better qualities of people first and move like “your hair is on fire” when the new rules of engagement are broken. Respectfully enforce firm consequences if violations occur and consistently recognize productive behaviors.

Start Today!
Root out any dysfunction that might be chipping away at your culture by ensuring everyone is clear and held to the new rules of engagement, before it takes your customers, employees, and profits to the doors of your competition.

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©2011  All rights reserved. Judy White, SPHR, GPHR, HCS is the President of The Infusion Group ™ LLC, a next generation people management consulting and executive coaching firm based in the Raleigh/Durham, NC area. To receive the latest tips and resources for building thriving workplaces – Infusing Solutions @Work!, 
sign up here.  For reprint permissions, please write to: contact@theinfusiongroupllc.com    @InfusionGrpLLC

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Tackling Workplace Bullying With a Wealth of New Resources

Over the last several years a plethora of information, advice, and resources have become available on the national topic of workplace bullying.  More recently career sites, hosted media spotlights, and columns have attempted to offer advice to targets of workplace bullying.  Often well-intended to help targets, however,  the dispersed advice is often given in a narrow context and/or is more harmful than helpful, sadly inflicting greater injury upon those involved due to a number of factors found in the depth of this issue.  It is for this very reason that we support the resources available at the Workplace Bullying Institute in Bellingham, Washington.

The expert work of Dr. Gary Namie and Dr. Ruth Namie is unparalleled.  It is an issue that they experienced firsthand.  As a result, they have conducted extensive research and counseled over 6,000 individuals.  Using their proprietary methodology that directly addresses and eradicates this workplace behavior, they seek to enable employers and individuals to understand, recognize and confront workplace bullying.

On a personal note, the course of my own life has been forever changed by the loss of an industry colleague due to workplace bullying  Though I have partnered for many years with people and forward-thinking leaders in creating extraordinary workplaces, that life changing experience …that loss, followed by other subsequent events called us at the Infusion Group to a higher purpose ~ Building the future workplace designed with new possibilities where people can achieve a new level of excellence.

Help is Available!

If your workplace is contending with this issue and/or is interested in additional training,
WBI is offering a comprehensive; research based intensive training beginning in July. Doctors Gary and Ruth Namie will be hosting the:

Workplace Bullying Institute University
Training for Professionals
Small Group Intensive Training

July 8 – 10, 2011
Bellingham, Washington

They will be joined by leading Suffolk Law Professor, David Yamada, author of the anti-bullying Healthy Workplace Bill.

Registration is now open to both workplaces and individuals.  For more information or for future dates, please call  360-656-6630.

A host of valuable resources including relevant research, articles and materials can be found on their website at www.workplacebullying.org

©2011  All rights reserved. Judy White, SPHR, GPHR, HCS is the President of The Infusion Group ™ LLC, a next generation people management consulting and executive coaching firm based in the Raleigh/Durham, NC area. To receive the latest tips and resources for building thriving workplaces – Infusing Solutions @Work!, sign up here.  For reprint permissions, please write to: contact@theinfusiongroupllc.com

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A Whole New Meaning to Office Repairs

An employee’s face looks up as his iPad slowly slips from his fingers; crashing on the floor below. Scattered, plastic remnants are all that remain.  Can it be fixed?

A manager and an employee look across the table at each other, stunned into silence by the bitter and harsh words exchanged during a review.  Can it be fixed?

Many things in the workplace can be fixed and repaired. But some wounds may be laying deep, some setbacks too shattering and some rifts too wide to be infused back together. Experiences such as ethical dilemmas, unsettling turnover, a betrayal, and even physical and psychological abuse can leave management and workers permanently wounded.  As resilient professionals, people live and go on with their work; forever changed.

One high powered executive discovered this in the course of preparing for a divisional transformation. Before her time in that division, a colleague had died (six months earlier) leaving behind many who were still in the grieving process.  Managers no longer knew how to manage their team, for their team was changed by the loss of their friend, colleague and boss. The executive quickly acknowledged that a different change approach was vital, and that the division would need time as they went through the grieving process.  Instead of driving her initial approach, she assessed and embraced the reality that her newly acquired division was profoundly changed by the death. She chose to embrace them for who they had become.

Meeting them where they were, she offered resources for support, encouragement, and time to heal and discover meaning through a new beginning for themselves and their division.  Can it be fixed? In this instance, no, but other alternatives to finding new workplace meaning can be found in the intangibles – impacting the quality of people’s life can be achieved, resulting in growth.

In the U.S. alone, 53.5 million workers1 have been impacted by workplace bullying.  Though outwardly moving on, for many there remains an internal fear for their physical and emotional safety.  It takes an intuitive and emotionally intelligent leader to embrace the people side of transformation to help their organizations restore security and achieve renewal.

Healing and growth can be found and nurtured under the right leadership.  When leaders and employees come together and establish high-quality relationships, create open lines of communication and take responsibility for cultivating and upholding a culture of trust, individuals witnessing unethical behavior that may have even led to a colleague’s suicide can gain the courage to contribute vibrantly.

There is no “quick fix” strategy that will produce a viable, emotionally healthy workplace. However, like this executive discovered, the strategy for shattered equipment and lives and souls in the new workplace is not about a bandage. It’s about being granted the honest and secure gift of starting over, investing in relationships, learning and becoming anew.

As transformational leaders, in what ways do you extend security in your workplace?

To learn more about cultivating a thriving workplace, please visit.

©2011  All rights reserved. Judy White, SPHR, GPHR, HCS is the President of The Infusion Group ™ LLC, a next generation people management consulting and executive coaching firm based in the Raleigh/Durham, NC area. To receive the latest tips and resources for building thriving workplaces – Infusing Solutions @Work!, sign up here.  For reprint permissions, please write to: contact@theinfusiongroupllc.com

1 The Workplace Bullying Institute – www.workplacebullying.org

Photo credit:  iStockphoto

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Turning the Spotlight on Talent

Working in a creative, open culture has its share of ups and downs. Bringing fresh ideas and smart concepts to life calls for highly skilled individuals and leaders who are willing to speak up and who understand how to thrive in a freedom-filled yet intense environment. Leading in this environment requires being able to infuse the right people with the right mix of disciplines to create a team whose members complement each other, rather than compete, and learn to press creative boundaries.

Even the most seasoned leaders can fall into the trap of placing titles and hierarchy above highly innovative ideas, sending their best talent into the hands of their competition or to start up their own company down the street.

The Man Who Could Save Animation

John Lasseter’s love for animation began when he was five years old. His artistic abilities were nurtured during his school years and eventually led him to enroll at the California Institute of the Arts, where he learned from Disney masters. He began a job at Disney studios following graduation and soon came to believe that the studio wasn’t leveraging technology innovations.

With a passion for innovative animation processes, Lasseter’s visions often were far ahead of his time. After seeing the movie Tron, he decided to test some of his animation ideas and shared them with his leaders. According to reports, Lasseter and his colleagues unknowingly stepped on some of their direct supervisors’ toes by circumventing them in their enthusiasm to get the project in motion. The ideas were shot down, and eventually Lasseter was let go.

He moved forward and began working with Lucasfilm, and six months later his department was purchased by Steve Jobs and renamed Pixar.

Imagine a personality conflict breaking out among toys that could not only talk but really come to life when they are neglected by their human owners. How might you respond, as a leader, to a highly unusual idea like that?

Well, you might have guessed: A savvy leader picked up on Lasseter’s genius and moved forward with the idea to create the blockbuster hit Toy Story. The movie brought in more than $360 million worldwide. This marked a turning point for Lasseter, and he quickly earned the title of “The Man Who Could Save Animation.” He continued to create mega hits, including A Bug’s Life, Toy Story 2, Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo, Ratatouille, and The Incredibles.

Whether you work for Google or Walt Disney Studios or a small business down the street, it’s important to hold a clear definition of what talent is and to provide a working environment and leadership culture in which talent can thrive.

What can we all learn from Lasseter’s story? Keen talent stewardship, a unique culture and the ability to hone the best talent and build a team with the right skills at the right time can create remarkable results.
©2011  All rights reserved. Judy White, SPHR, GPHR, HCS is the President of The Infusion Group ™ LLC, a next generation people management consulting and executive coaching firm based in the Raleigh/Durham, NC area. For reprint permissions, please contact@theinfusiongroupllc.com

Photo credit:  iStockphoto

 

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Building Your Toolbox

Home Depot and Lowe’s Home Improvement have officially kicked off their busy season as homeowners and building project enthusiasts seek ways to bring their new ideas, hobbies, and projects to life. This thirst for improvement is big business for the home improvement and
hardware industries, with revenues exceeding $150 billion in 2010.

Like home and garden enthusiasts who attempt to capitalize on the season, it is a time for leaders and high-potentials to launch their development plans by building a flexible and expanding learning tool kit.

Access to Learning Yields High ROI

Actor Will Rogers said: “A man only learns in two ways, one by reading, and the other by association with smarter people.” To spark new growth, consider the books and people with whom you and your professionals associate.

Highly effective CEOs are known to read in excess of 40 books per year.  When it comes to gaining knowledge, books provide a high return on investment. Therefore, if you want to develop a high-performing community, one of the greatest investments you can make is to offer knowledge and learning opportunities through books, videos and internal blogs.

If your organization lacks an on-site library or resource center and you have a large and/or global team, it’s time to build a library of learning opportunities. Below is a recommended reading list for highly effective IT executives and teams:

Ensure the library is on display and easily accessible to your IT community.  Encourage the team to build on the list and invite them to create a simplified checkout process. Have the team present recommendations as to how they will hold the IT community responsible if
materials become missing in action.

Help your technical professionals strengthen relationship-building skills and invite them to contribute a brief summary and their perspectives on materials they’ve read during a team meeting or via virtual channels. You could even invite business partners to join in on a book discussion that provides answers to questions such as these:

  • What three concepts were most relevant from the book?
  • How are these concepts relevant to the IT community and business or economic climate?
  • Were there ideas you would like to have the author expand upon? Why or why not?

To kick-start learning, offer up some cool giveaways such as iPads, Kindles, etc. to those who really strive (for example, 30 books in a single year) and add high value to the learning environment through meaningful discussions and feedback.

Through a shared commitment of learning within and outside of functional areas, savvy executives can continue to power up people and build organizational value.

For reprint permissions, please write to: contact@theinfusiongroupllc.com
© 2011. All rights reserved.  Judy White, SPHR, GPHR, HCS is the President of The Infusion Group™ LLC, a next generation people management consulting and executive coaching firm based in the Raleigh/Durham, NC area.  For more information, visit us. Follow @InfusionGrpLLC

 

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On The Edge of Potential

Standing on the edge of a boat along Japan’s Pacific Coast, pearl divers begin scouting the sea and identify where they will make the day’s dive into freezing waters to find their treasures. Often searching underwater up to a minute at a time with no breathing apparatus, these highly trained pearl divers know the depths of the finest oyster beds lying on the ocean floor. Workers and tourists, like my husband, who took in this captivating sight while visiting family in Japan, wait eagerly for the divers to reappear with their harvest.

Mikimoto, seller of the world’s finest-quality cultured pearls, works with a delicate blend of science and artistry to discover each pearl’s potential. To an untrained eye, many of the pearls found would appear to be of little value. But founder Kokichi Mikimoto, known for his passion for excellence, perfected the process of identifying and refining these natural wonders.

Even for the best-trained divers, the risks of their work can be great. One family, whose ancestors were pearl divers, experienced the dangers firsthand when their eldest son found an unusually rich oyster bed and stayed down too long and died soon afterward. He had brought up with him an oyster containing the perfect pearl. It was the most valuable anyone, including his family, had ever seen.

When World War II broke out, the pearl was hidden. Later, the family was approached by many buyers, but they explained that the pearl was beyond price; it was held in memory of their son’s death.

When your workplace begins scouting new waters and leaps toward new opportunities in hopes of discovering innovations, where will your organization turn? Where will your talent potential be standing? How quickly will you be able to swim back up if business takes another hit?  The answers lie in something already on board; talent, where real potential is standing on the edge.

Mikimoto said: “Pearls are like fingerprints in that each one is unique.”
They are treasures that we hold onto, but a pearl’s real beauty and significance is discovered when its potential is released and shared.

How unique is the talent within your workplace? Is it time to unleash it?

We always enjoy hearing from you.  Please drop us a line or call us to explore your workplace potential further.

For reprints permission, please contact The Infusion Group™.
© 2011  All rights reserved. Judy White, SPHR, GPHR, HCS is the President of The Infusion Group ™ LLC, a next generation people management consulting and executive coaching firm based in the Raleigh/Durham, NC area.   Follow:  @InfusionGrpLLC

Photo Credit: Creative Commons Anan, Tokushima, Japan

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When the Fit Isn’t Right


Before you say “you’re fired,” think about what you’re really losing.

Most leaders agree that talent is their most important asset. For many organizations, when a situation arises that calls a worker’s fit into question, management looks at performance and works with human resources in a process that might end in termination. Forward-leading organizations assess performance, too. But as talent stewards, they work toward a holistic understanding of their talent and the root causes of a performance drop to determine a course of action that can better align organizational objectives with the employee’s strengths and interests.

Consider this actual scenario:

Brian was recruited by one of the leading industrial multinational organizations in the world. His stellar credentials and experience as a physicist and engineer led his new department to achieving remarkable results. Brian earned trust and became a respected leader. He was a critical expert in designing innovative solutions and contributed to advanced technologies that yielded high margins for the company, and management recognized his passion for growth and rewarded his high performance with a promotion.  Brian’s expanded role encompassed two unique disciplines. He experienced some initial success, but over time his performance varied. After collaborative talks and a review of Brian’s learning experiences and performance feedback, management recognized that Brian’s expertise in the additional department didn’t match his knowledge in the areas in which he performed best. Although performance levels had wavered, management recognized that Brian made every attempt to acquire the learning necessary for the new role, lived the organizational values, was honest in his dialogue, remained ethical and maintained professional poise.

Management converted judgment into verifiable fact, acknowledging that the expanded role was too technically distinct from Brian’s previous functions and taking organizational responsibility for combining two roles that didn’t fit. Management’s confidence in Brian didn’t change one iota. They knew Brian was still a highly competent and intelligent expert who added value to the organization, and they took the steps necessary to objectively assess their “assets.”

As leaders, what actions can you begin to take today to strengthen your commitment to talent and build your talent stewardship capacity? We offer:

  • Place people before the numbers.
  • Invest the time to pinpoint critical roles prior to talent acquisition.
  • Increase your understanding of the unique blend of traits and competencies necessary to achieve organizational objectives.
  • Calibrate talent and conduct robust dialogue to ensure talent fits the role.
  • Take appropriate risks and act on pending talent decisions.

Remember that when the fit isn’t right, it signals an opportunity for leaders to identify appropriate talent moves that can better serve the organizational mission and align the interests of key talent.  Focus on the root cause of what might be hindering a proven employee’s success. While this takes strong commitment, the end result can strengthen your workforce and maximize outcomes instead of creating another turnover.

To learn more about how maximizing your talent, click here.

© 2011 All Rights Reserved. The Infusion Group LLC. Judy White, SPHR, GPHR, HCS is the President of The Infusion Group, LLC, a next-generation people management consulting and coaching firm located in Raleigh/Durham, North Carolina.  Learn how we can help you optimize workplace solutions by visiting www.theinfusiongroupllc.com Follow: @TheInfusionGrpLLC
To request reprint permission, please contact the Infusion Group™

 

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