How a $20 Cake Uncovered My Employees’ Concerns
If you and I talk long enough about HR and the challenges that businesses have with keeping employees engaged, one of us will likely bring up the topic of employee surveys. My own opinion of them? There’s some really great...
HR in the Wild: What Mom and Junior Golf Taught Me About Failure
My bag was heavy. I was lost in the woods of giant maple and oak trees (again), trying to find my golf ball for the gazillionth time in that 9-hole round. My 11-year-old self already felt like I shouldn’t be there: I was...
Bootstrapping 101: Life Lines & Lessons Learned
In the last couple weeks, I heard myself answering questions about People Spark Consulting’s history, explaining that we incorporated over a year ago. Just like that, an entire year flew by, and we can officially say we’ve...
This One Piece of Feedback Changed Our Focus.
“Can I give you some feedback? You have an entire room of people in there who want to work with you, but don’t know what you’re offering.” Of all the feedback we’ve been given in the last year as People Spark Consulting,...
Do They Really Not Know Or Don’t They Care?!?
Have you asked yourself this question? Each time you find yourself retraining an employee because employees say they don’t know, you’re thinking “I don’t have time for this!” or “I have so many other things I should...
When Giving Feedback Feels Like Doing Laundry…..And Not In a Good Way
I am in a laundromat watching the dryer spinning and it reminded me of a conversation I had with a manager just this week. Yes, seriously…….I am at the laundromat AND it does remind me of giving feedback to employees....
Two Sentences That Make Giving Feedback Easier
A husband and wife are sitting on their front porch one evening enjoying the night air. The husband says to the wife “In the moonlight teeth look like pearls”. The wife says “Who’s Pearl and what were you doing in the...
Giving Feedback: The 2 Things You CAN Say as a Manager
At every speaking engagement Kristen and I have delivered, and in all of our roles before People Spark, we have coached leaders and managers on giving feedback to employees. Typically before our discussions progress,...
How to Rock at Employee Recognition (Without an Expensive Program)
Want to hear something scary? According to this article by Globoforce, 45% of U.S. workers surveyed in this study had not been recognized at work in six months or more. Even scarier? There was another group of 16% who...