Navigating Our New Normal

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As we navigate COVID-19 and what our new ‘normal’ will be, there are a few things that come top of mind. Part one of this two blog post series is about our ‘new normal’. Our primary focus is: self-kindness and self-awareness are the roots of managing stressors with positivity.

How we act in response to where we are at with self-kindness and self-awareness can determine our results and outcomes with both professional and personal relationships.

We Are Out of Our Element: Self-Kindness is Key

For some of us, work has stopped completely, or maybe slowed to a ‘work what you can’ from home schedule, to working in a totally changed environment that can be downright scary to some.

Sidebar, thank you to all front line professionals: we see you, we love you, we are grateful for what you are doing for everyone.

In some situations, it is not top of mind that living in this industrial world has conditioned us to have, generally speaking ‘high’ expectations of outcomes and productivity regardless of our environment.

Self-kindness is key more so now than ever before. Self-kindness can take many forms but what I’m talking about is self-kindness first to ourselves. How can we give to our teams, our spouses or our children if we are spinning ourselves?

Now, we must let go of any predetermined notion of what we anticipated accomplishing in the next month, three months, six months and maybe even a year. I am not saying give up on our goals but immediate results and response is the adjustment needed. It’s tough and we are all living it, but just think about how much space and energy we free up for ourselves if we let go of previous expectations of outcomes and all that self-pressure.

These question may be of value in assessing whether realignment with self-kindness is needed:

  • How are my current self-expectations impacting me?
  • Do I have current beliefs of outcomes that are holding me back?
  • What am I doing, right now, to ensure I am kind to myself?

Figuring out how much is in our way or weighing us down is a powerful form of self-kindness and discovery. Minimally, ensuring that we are taken care of through self-care (exercise, sleep, nutritious food and anything else that is a positive change) can allow us to have space for those important things like pivoting, realigning and innovating.

Now is the Time to Elevate our Self-Awareness

Did you know that Emotional Quotient (EQ) is a leading indicator of whether you are a successful leader? Studies have shown that over 87% of leaders who engage with and look to positively impact their teams (servant leaders) have higher levels of EQ and most importantly self-awareness.

So what is self-awareness? In short, self-awareness is the ability to understand in the moment how situations trigger and impact you along with your external responses and how to align your actions with your values. Although many leaders (and individuals) believe they are self-aware only 10-15% studied have been deemed self-aware. Self-awareness is a small proponent but largely important in the grand scheme of emotional intelligence.

Unlike Intelligence Quotient (IQ), EQ can be strengthened, just like focusing on a core group of muscles for strength and endurance.

So how do you start? By doing an EQ assessment(s) for your baseline and looking for candid and honest feedback from individuals you trust. Then you can understand your blind spots and where you want to focus for growth. It is only upon repetition that we can shift our habits and actions.

These questions may be of value:

  • What would you want to discover more about your emotional quotient (EQ)?
  • If you were to discover your EQ how do you think it would impact your professional/personal life?
  • What areas of EQ do you want to learn more about to elevate your professional/personal growth?

Self Awareness During Unsettled Times

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In response to the current events around COVID-19 and the level of fear and uncertainty it brings with it, I see it’s brought out a lot of stressors in our communities near and far.

I think it is important to talk about self-awareness today, in light of this situation and how important it is to draw attention to working towards or improving our levels of self-awareness.

I’d like to start this with: self awareness is an on-going internal relationship and action we have with ourselves.

Understanding that we can continuously work on this skill as it takes time to have realizations turn into an action.

Self awareness is defined as an ability we have (or can build) to determine how we feel or what is coming up for us in different situations before reacting or ‘putting our foot in our mouth.’

From the acknowledgement of our feelings we can then operate from a place of purpose and how we are feeling, what is triggering us and how we want to respond.

It takes our brain six (6) seconds essentially to switch gears or change the chemical balance potentially from a negative to a positive. In those six seconds it’s extremely important to look for a positive opportunity for learning or view how your actions and words will impact the person or people you are speaking to.

Today, self-awareness is a great core skill to have because it does things like:

Strengthen conversations

Improve our relationships

Help us self identify our fears and where they’re coming from

Help demystify false beliefs or beliefs that no longer serve you

Point us in the right direction for positive interactions and reduce negative responses to others

Give us a feeling of freedom in presence to productively contribute to conversations (vs. getting tied up in our emotions and reacting directly from those emotions)

There are many things that we can do to ensure we’re discovering and building on our self-awareness. Things like:

Asking for feedback from loved ones or even peers, journaling, investing in a coach or assessment tool

Reflecting or taking moments (from a place of constructive criticism) to look at our conversations we’ve had throughout the day with the intent to identify how we were feeling – very happy, sad, triggered, or upset and how did we react?

Do we think about our actions or words before putting them out there to the universe or to the other person we’re communicating with?

I encourage everyone to take a moment and think about how the recent impacts of the COVID-19 have impacted our self-awareness: are we in a reactive mode or are we in a place of reflection and purposeful action?

I hope that this quick self-awareness moment has helped you and prompted you to think about your interactions with others.

If you’d like to discover more, feel free to schedule a one-on-one consultation.

How To Design Your Environment For Success

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I’m beginning to realize the lack of control I have over my actions. When I’m with certain friends, I act differently than I would with others. Where I go, will determine what I wear. How I’m feeling, will impact my decision-making. Even the time of day can have an effect on my patience. We have so much less control over our decisions than we think we do. Our behavior is largely influenced by our environment.

If I get a compliment on a new shirt, I’ll be more likely to wear it again. But if I feel out of place, I’ll think twice before putting it on. But that makes sense, right? Past experiences help form future behaviors through trial and error.

When I get a positive reaction, it reinforces behavior and a negative one will deter me from it.

What makes up your environment?

Our environment can be broken down into 5 categories, which influence behavior.

Environment / Example /  Behavior

  • 1. Location / At work / Dress appropriately
  • 2. Time of Day / 9:00 / Drink coffee
  • 3. After event / After eating / Rinse dishes in the sink
  • 4. Social Influence/ With athletic friends/ Eat healthy food
  • 5. Emotional State/ Stressed out/ Eat comfort food

However, our environment is subjective and can trigger a different response for you than it would for me. In the morning, you might drink coffee and I may drink tea. After eating, you might clean your dishes and I’ll leave them on the counter. When stressed, I might binge and you might exercise.

Your environment is the first step in The Habit Loop, which sparks a craving, behavior and then reward. But let’s focus on how you can design your environment to create good habits.

Why is your environment important?

It plays a role not only in your behavior but also on your mood.

Have you ever cleaned your desk and felt a weight lift off your shoulders?

I recently gave away a bunch of stuff in my office and felt more focused. While an otherwise messy desk causes me to feel overwhelmed.

This created a positive association between a clean environment and increased focus. The next time I feel my concentration declining, I might look to clean my environment.

Even better, I may even be proactive in keeping a clean desk to avoid losing focus. And that’s the type of habits we’re looking to create.

How does environment influence behavior?

Your brain is always looking for shortcuts to making decisions. Habits are a great way to make decisions automatic.

Therefore, you can design your environment to cue positive behaviors by reinforcing associations.

For example, how I associate a clean desk with feeling focused. Or when I get into the shower, my brain is cued to wash, and when I take a bath, it’s cued to read and relax.

Over time your mind prepares itself for a specific action primed by a particular environmental cue. However, if you do something different than what was expected, your mind will take notice.

If one day I decide to wash in the bath and read in the shower, my mind will say; “WTF Scott, this isn’t the association we developed!” That’s an extreme example. But the same thing occurs when you take a drink of Coke but find Sprite in your cup instead.

Design your environment for success

You can design your environment to establish certain behaviors. However, it will take time to create new associations. As described, start by creating positive associations within your environment.

This can be as simple as dedicating each location for specific actions – by giving every behavior a home.

  • My computer is for work.
  • Tablet for play.
  • Dinner table for eating.
  • Couch for watching tv or playing video games.

By devoting specific spaces to new habits will help in making them stick. The more environmental cues you use, the stronger the association becomes.

I meditate on the same chair (location), at the same time (time of day), after I shower (after event).

Combining environmental cues helps to make my meditation practice habitual. However, when I used to travel for work, changes in my environment made my habit more difficult. Another example is if you watch TV in bed; you’re creating multiple associations for your bed.

Watch TV and sleep, which can be confusing. Every time you climb into bed you’re brain may be primed for sleep or TV – which are 2 very different associations.

Try and use location cues for similar activities to avoid discrepancies. However, you can also design your environment through other cues.

  • Time – Around 9 am each morning, I drink a cup of coffee.
    After Event – After making a protein shake, I wash my blender right away.
  • Social Influence – When I eat out with healthy friends, I’m more conscious of what I eat.
  • Emotional State – When I feel stressed, I pause and take a few deep breaths to relax.

Habit Challenge

For this week’s habit challenge, design your environment according to the associations you wish to create.

  • 1. Make a list of locations
  • 2. Determine relevant associations for each location (+/-)
  • 3. Design your environment to reinforce positive actions

Here are a few examples of how I’ve re-designed my environment to reinforce good habits.

I keep a water jug in plain sight to encourage drinking.

A book beside my bed as a reminder to read.

Sweets are hidden away in the pantry or fridge and healthy food in front.

I’ve even designated one side of the couch for reading and the other for watching TV!

The goal is to design your environment to make bad habits difficult and good habits easy.

Exhibiting Leadership within a Hybrid Workplace

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Over the past year, one big question has been on everyone’s mind. What does the future of work look like? If the answer is slowly starting to take shape for many organizations, one thing is clear: the future of work will involve a mix of in-person and remote working arrangements. Managers exhibiting exceptional leadership skills will be the most successful at manoeuvring within a hybrid workplace.

A New Reality Requiring Adaptation

The winning formula may look different for every business but a recent McKinsey survey showed that 9 out of 10 organizations intend on combining remote and on-site work in the near future. Motivations include staff well-being, safety and security, real estate costs, increased productivity and greater access to talent.

This may come as good news but management can expect a whole set of new challenges to arise.

Let’s not forget that aside from freelancers, remote work has only gained traction over the past few years and that to this day, most people have acquired professional experience in physical work environments in which people meet face-to-face and work hand-in-hand.

We may be used to technology but managing a team partially or entirely made up of remote workers is a different story and requires time, effort, adaptability and commitment from leadership.

Showing Up as a Strong Leader

In a virtual world, a lot of the usual cues are gone, making leadership skills even more important.

Zoom meetings don’t provide the same level of information as physical interactions, nor do they significantly contribute to create culture – unless handled with that goal in mind.

Surprisingly, a hybrid model combining entirely remote workers and others working from the office at least part-time can prove to be as or even more challenging than a 100% remote team, the risk being of generating two separate cultures.

As a leader, you act as the captain that steers the boat in the right direction. It is imperative that you communicate with confidence and ensure your people have the tools and resources to perform to the best of their ability and feel comfortable in doing so. Don’t pretend to have all the answers. Be open to change and suggestions while realizing that how you show up will impact how they react.

The devil is in the detail and it is by observing people’s reactions, witnessing their behaviors, and testing different approaches that you will know how best to handle the situation and exhibit leadership in doing so.

However, a leader can do so much in brushing up on its leadership skills. Training and coaching therefore becomes an interesting avenue to gain more perspective on oneself and access tools and techniques to elevate interpersonal capabilities.

Getting Started in Leading a Hybrid Workforce

1. Assess your own personal readiness as a leader

  • How do you feel about the changes you are faced with?
  • What biases or concerns do you have?
  • What can you do about them?
  • How might they impact your team?

Make sure to look at the big picture. Identifying how hybrid work can positively impact yourself, staff and the organization may help put things into perspective. As a leader, you are required to do what is best for the organization while taking into consideration the people you are responsible for.

In any case, finding this out will allow you to explore your solutions and make intentional decisions for all moving forward.

2. Assess your team’s readiness

Two-thirds of American workers have reported feeling anxious about returning to work.

Gauge where your employees stand.

  • Are they happy about the situation?
  • If not, what is preventing them from committing?
  • Are there simple measures or accommodations that can be put in place to help?

Taking note of this and addressing it early on will help overall productivity and performance.

3. Seek feedback

When making decisions about organizational policies and processes to facilitate a hybrid workplace, don’t let chance be your guide.

Ask other members of the leadership team for input and advice. What are their strategies to help them lead their teams with more confidence in this evolving workplace?

A leader is also a good listener so don’t be afraid to ask staff for their input as well. Without promising anything, ask them what they think would be useful tools, processes and practices to make their work easier and improve team dynamics. Present it so that everyone understands they have a role to play.

After seeking input, create a clear, consistent policy and process to clearly outline your working expectations.

The next step will be to communicate your plan – clearly and confidently.

In our next post, we’ll discuss how critical efficient communication is in workplace, and how taking into account different types of personalities and communication styles can help bring your team together.

Through workplace training, coaching and human resource solutions, Intuity Performance applies a Whole Person Performance approach to cultivate an environment for growth within organizations.

Contact us to find out how we can elevate your leadership skills.

Creating a Culture of Communication in the Workplace

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Critical to ensure employee performance and positive team dynamics, efficient communications don’t come easily to all, which explains why it can be such a sensitive topic for leaders. Establishing a clear communication strategy is the first step but managers have a role to play to create a true culture of communication in the workplace.

On our Elevate Business podcast, Michael Jansen put it this way: you’re the boss but your job is to enable your staff’ success.

Effective workplace communications can bring people together and get them to stand behind a shared goal and vision. It’s the glue that makes a team stick.

On the other hand, underperforming workplace communications can bring teams to fall apart.

As a leader, it is your responsibility to set the example, whether when dealing with a single individual or an entire team. It is also your responsibility to ensure your team has the resources and the know-how to operate in a concerted way.

Now More Than Ever

In a context where staff are working remotely, proper communication is even more important.

Teams need to know what to expect. What communication channels are being used? How often can they expect to hear from supervisors and management? When, how and where can they access the information they need?

In highly collaborative virtual or hybrid environments, leaders should reflect expectations and obligations through programs and informational tools that allow staff to perform tasks with ease, even when located outside of the physical workplace or collaborating with other staff based elsewhere.

According to a McKinsey survey on the future of hybrid work, the companies supporting small connections between colleagues were the ones enjoying higher productivity levels during the pandemic.

Virtually onboarding new hires are good opportunities to test out an internal communication strategy. If new staff can easily find answers to their questions and start developing relationships with their teammates, chances are that you’re on the right track.

Strong Leader, Strong Communicator

Strong leaders know to communicate regularly with their teams, sharing relevant if not short and simple information. They make a point to maintain communication, even when there is not a lot to say.

Strong leaders know to communicate with integrity. Being honest doesn’t mean sharing everything. It means being able to say that a given information is too sensitive to be shared. It means being able to explain the facts as they are. Everyone may not agree but they will understand and will respect you for it.

Strong leaders know to communicate clearly. A clear message is one that is presented in such a way that it is impactful and easy to understand, and that cannot lead to interpretation.

With this being said, a good communicator is nothing if no one is listening.

Instilling A Culture of Communication

Strong teams seek to understand and rely on transparent and open communications. Employees feeling misinformed will tend to question and disagree with decisions, leaving them dubious and disengaged and resulting in a divide amongst team members.

Ultimately, this will affect employee satisfaction and retention, recruitment, and overall organizational performance.

A good communicator knows to listen and to create a space where people feel comfortable sharing, expressing their ideas, and even questioning other viewpoints.

Working with our clients, we’ve observed the challenges they face in fostering an environment that is conducive to regular, productive, meaningful and sometimes difficult conversations and communications.

These typically emerge as a result of a deficient communication strategy, a lack of awareness on the part of management or a need to develop leadership skills further. Even when personality conflicts arise between individual team members, managers should be able to quickly spot the situation and take action.

Setting Your Organization Up for Success

If establishing yourself as a credible communicator is the first step, understanding team dynamics and personalities will make your interpersonal communication skills that much more efficient. Everyone is different and reacts to information differently. Knowing how to address each one of your staff based on their own style will allow them to better understand where you want to go and persuade them to join you on your journey.

Staff also need to take ownership of their own workplace relationships, developing strategies to find their place and to address communication issues as they arise.

At Intuity, we use the DISC evidence-based model to help individuals better understand their colleagues’ behaviours as well as their own. We have also developed a multi-day workplace communication training based on the model.

In the workplace, DISC is useful in many ways:

  • It helps individuals understand how they show up and how to adapt themselves based on the situation or the person they are interacting with
  • It provides for more honest interpersonal communications based on mutual respect
  • It gives staff the knowledge and training to address miscommunications or to avoid potential conflicts
  • It generates better productivity and problem-solving within teams

Whether it’s in a physical, hybrid or entirely virtual workplace, adopting a proactive communication model and adapting communications not only to the environment but to people can make a big difference in your organizational success.

Contact Intuity today to find out about our workplace communication training and coaching, and our DISC assessments.

The Human Skills of Leaders

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In leading a team, being an efficient and strong communicator is not the only thing that matters. Your overall behaviour plays a big role. Getting to know yourself and further developing your human skills as a leader can have a great impact on your team’s performance as well as your own.

Indeed, Assistant Vice President of Continuing Studies at York University Tracey Taylor-O’Reilly says that “While technical skills may get workers hired, it’s their human skills that will allow them to excel in the workplace”.

Self-awareness and empathy often top the list of the most in-demand human skills in the workplace – along with curiosity, communication, and decision-making, which are directly correlated.

Self-Awareness for Better Performance

How we behave as professionals is no different than how we behave as individuals. We may be able to adapt but who we are transpires in everything that we do and influences our behaviours and our relationships at work.

However, society has placed the focus on assessing performance first. Growing up, schools hand out report cards and the process continues throughout our professional career with performance reviews.

But such processes have been developed to measure our knowledge and actions and fail to analyze the root causes of our performance. They don’t take into consideration the beliefs, the emotions and the behaviours that we are made of.

The reality is that practising introspection and self-awareness gives us the opportunity to truly perform to the best of our ability. In fact, it has been demonstrated that there are significant correlations between emotional intelligence and leadership effectiveness. If emotional intelligence is such an essential human skill to have in the workplace, it’s that it allows us to identify our limiting beliefs and to manage and adapt our behaviour so it doesn’t affect our performance and our relationships with others.

We rarely stop to reflect upon ourselves and on how our actions might affect others.

What makes us cringe at a colleague might be appreciated by others. What aims to express respect can sometimes be perceived as disrespect. But beyond knowing what you dislike in others and recognizing that no one is perfect, it may be worth asking yourself a few questions to assess the situation.

  • What are the behaviours that characterize you?
  • What types of behaviours can’t you stand in others?
  • Do you have a routine and what does it look like?
  • Do you go with the flow and rarely plan ahead of time?
  • Do you ever experience anxiety and when does it show up?
  • What sort of feedback have you gathered from others about yourself?
  • What sort of leader and communicator are you?

The answers to such questions can help you identify how you show up for others, what are the superpowers you need to leverage and which areas require improvement.

Don’t limit yourself to the workplace. Source examples from your private life as well.

The Role of Empathy

Self-awareness and empathy go hand in hand when it comes to the human skills of which the best leaders are made of.

In a recent blog post on self-awareness, I wrote that empathy is “a mindset and a comprehensive approach to being – in the workplace and in life”, and that it is “what gives us the ability to put ourselves in other people’s shoes so we can see and feel from their perspective”.

A high-performing team is one where resistance is at its lowest and trust is at its highest. Without trust, there is no collaborative mindset and no commitment to the team nor the company. And without empathy, there is no trust.

Empathy can be expressed by demonstrating interest, showing appreciation, practising active listening and asking questions. Empathy is about gaining context about where others are coming from, questioning our own beliefs and biases, avoiding criticism and being fully present.

When there is empathy exhibited by leaders and peers in the workplace, trust can automatically follow. This lends itself to a ‘safe to fail’ work environment that we’re all striving for.

At Intuity, we support leaders wanting to adopt trust-based leadership and improve their human skills in different ways.

We often start by working with organizations to understand their team dynamics. Showing our curiosity, we lean into questions like: What kind of leader are you and how do you show up with your team? What type of individuals are part of your team and how do they interact?

This can be done through observation, interviews, as well as our DISC, 360 Leader, Emotional Intelligence-Q, and other assessments and reports.

Coaching is also a great resource to increase self-awareness and help you find the answers within yourself.

Lastly, our Showing Leadership Blueprint Training is a full-day virtual group training that helps teams assess their individual and joint behaviours and how they influence team dynamics and performance.

Want to find out more? Contact us!

Leading Staff Through Change

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The global pandemic has brought forward major change to the way we work but teams need to prepare themselves for additional iterations of what work looks like in this day and age since organizations are bound to evolve if they want to prosper. Leading staff through change and giving them the tools to perform to the best of their ability is therefore imperative.

Innovation as a Centrepiece

Change can be traumatic even when we know about it ahead of time. But having to deal with something new without any notice is stressful – for management and staff alike.

This being said, change is not always bad.

As a leader, you must learn to welcome change yourself, and to encourage a similar mindset within your team.

In fact, according to the McKinsey Global Survey, companies are more than five times more likely to have a successful transformation when leaders have role-modeled the behavior changes they are asking of their employees.

Lead the change, don’t let it lead you. In other words, place change and innovation at the centre of your organization. Encourage yourself and others to question the status quo, to be creative and to think outside of the box.

This is a great way to tackle the beast and to nurture positive conversations on the topic. When innovation is part of everything that we do, when we are constantly challenged to change our perspectives, we are better prepared to welcome change, even when it is unforeseen or negative.

Obviously, the time will come when change will happen whether you like it or not. But leading your organization as if change could happen any day will make it better prepared for the real challenges ahead.

The Role of Empowerment

Organizations that encourage staff empowerment perceive risk-taking and mistakes as opportunities for employees and employers alike to learn and to grow.

The trust you display by handing over the reins to your team allows for innovation to emerge and encourages workers to experiment and to share new ideas – making them feel more at ease with change and therefore more inspired and more satisfied in their job.

Leading staff through change doesn’t happen overnight. It’s a long process that constantly needs to be tweaked, refined and reinforced.

Empowering your team slowly but surely is one thing you can do to set it up for success before change hits.

1. Encourage personal growth

Act as a mentor to your team or implement a mentorship program. Provide professional development opportunities inside and outside of the office. If you cannot pay for them, be at least flexible towards your staff’ work schedule so they can attend classes, and make your commitment to personal growth known within the organization.

Identifying potential within staff and offering them early leadership experiences is also the way to go.

Whether it’s from a hard skills or human skills perspective, providing skilling opportunities to your talents will not only improve their satisfaction and retention but also make them more rounded individuals capable of taking on new challenges to support the organization in the future.

2. Leverage your team’ strengths

Indeed, we all have something new to learn. But it’s also important to be cognisant of people’s personalities, strengths and weaknesses. In the wrong job, the most talented and dedicated individual can become miserable and underperforming. Place people where they have the most potential to thrive.

3. Encourage time off

Observe your team. Take note of their time off. Whenever you see someone in need of a vacation or even just someone who hasn’t taken some time off in a while, encourage them to do so. Disconnecting from work and resting can do miracles for performance.

4. Show appreciation

As obvious as it may sound, leaders don’t express their appreciation often enough . Even when something may seem trivial, take time to thank your staff and to express how grateful you are for them, even if it’s just by stopping by their desk or sending them a heartfelt email. We all need a tap in the back every now and then.

5. Learn to forgive

We’ve said a lot about the importance of creative thinking to develop an innovative and ‘ready-for-change’ workforce. But not all ideas are brilliant. When an individual fails, practise forgiveness. Employees cannot thrive when afraid of being reprimanded. Use failures as opportunities to learn and to grow.

Need help?

Intuity Performance can support you in leading staff through change. We offer educational, training and coaching solutions on individual and team performance and can also create effective systems that are personalized to your specific organizational needs, in collaboration with your HR team in place.

Intuity Performance applies a Whole Person Performance approach to cultivate an environment for growth within organizations. Contact us to find out more.

Addressing Employee Scarcity as an Employer

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These days, we can’t go anywhere or browse the news without hearing about employee scarcity. Job vacancies are peaking across Canada, the United States and elsewhere, in all industries, and employers are deploying immense effort to attract new talents. At Intuity, our take is that retaining your existing resources is at least as important if not more than addressing employee scarcity by hiring new talents.

Trying times for organizations

Let’s face it. Organizations are facing trying times.

If skilled resources and labour were already hard to come by before the pandemic, the situation in which they find themselves right now is far from easy. The future remains blurry, immigration is at a standstill, competition for candidates has increased thanks to remote work and abolished geographical restrictions and employees want more safety and flexibility and are ready to leave their employer to find what they’re looking for elsewhere.

With staff turnover and increased consumer demand requiring additional staff, focusing on measures to attract talent can seem to be a valid solution. But hiring is not an end-all-be-all. In fact, staff retention is the key that will then allow for attracting and hiring to take place more naturally and easily.

Instead of spending time developing new coop partnerships with educational programs that are struggling themselves, spending time screening candidates who have already found jobs elsewhere, establishing virtual hiring protocols and so on, why not devote your time and effort to those who are already on your team?

Remember how Arnold said he was ready to take on a new challenge? Now is the time to give him the opportunity! Help your team find meaning in their work, challenge them, equip them for the future and ensure their wellbeing, and you’ll have addressed at least a portion of your employee scarcity problem by preventing more departures.

After all, employee recognition is something many organizations lack at, and what better way to do it than providing advancement opportunities to the faithful individuals who have helped your business thrive all this time?

This in turn will help you attract more people, inspired by the culture you’ve created and the feedback of existing staff, therefore making your recruitment processes that much easier.

The ideal employee

Start by reflecting on the fabric of your existing team. What are the characteristics of the people you’ve employed so far? What makes them assets to the organization?

Now, how does your ideal candidates differ from this profile? What additional qualities or skills do they bring to the table?

Can you work with your team in place and help it get to where you’d like it to be? What tools and resources can you offer to better support them? Are there trainings, courses or coaching opportunities that would help them get them closer to your ideal employee?

And what about you? What can YOU do to improve as a manager and leader?

Retaining and attracting talent beyond compensation

Let’s not kid ourselves: if employees appreciate feeling they can grow and contribute meaningfully to the organization, it’s not to say that pay and benefits aren’t important.

If you haven’t done a comparative analysis in a while, now is the time to do it. Evaluate how you are compared to other organizations in your industry. Also, evaluate each position in the more global context. How are you faring in terms of salary, vacation, pension and other standard benefits? Do you find your business to be at par, below or above?

Although being above is a definite asset, it’s not the only thing that matters. What are other perks that make you stand out or that could help you stand out?

If you listen carefully, your staff will tell you what they want. You might be surprised to find out that a higher pay is not always at the top of the list of priorities.

Perhaps they’d like you to contribute to their RRSP. To develop partnerships to allow them to take care of their physical health at a discount or to receive an ergonomics specialist in their home office. Maybe they’d appreciate PD days, like those enjoyed by staff at numbercrunch. Or an opportunity to unwind in a dedicated, quiet space of the office.

Our solutions to employee scarcity

In alignment with organization goals, Intuity Performance offers a variety of services to help you address employee scarcity and increase team engagement and collaboration – from strategic human resources planning to HR infrastructures, policies and performance systems, to culture alignment programs.

The sky’s the limit. Find what it is that makes your people tick, respond to that need, provide them with a positive atmosphere and the proper resources and opportunities, and you will increase your likelihood of keeping them – while also attracting the right people to fill those vacancies.

5 Questions To Ask Yourself To Become A Better Leader

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When stepping into a new leadership (team) role, there’s often a lot to take in. You are now responsible for your team’s productivity in addition to the myriad of other responsibilities your new role requires of you.

While you may not be brand new to the workforce, learning how to lead and manage people can be daunting. Pulling from our experience working with growing start-ups, we’ve compiled the top 5 questions emerging leaders want to know.

1. How Do I Motivate My Team?

There are a lot of moving parts when it comes to motivated teams, but there are some key ingredients to success.

First, what are the goals of the organization? Think about the company’s vision and what it’s looking to achieve. Clear expectations help people to feel invested by letting them know what they are working towards. This encourages teams to work collaboratively.

In addition, if you can follow the vision piece with clear and measurable goals it will allow your team to track their progress in a measurable way.

Next, consider how each member of your team fits into this equation. Is there something in particular that makes each person excited about the work they do? If so, how can you use those interests in alignment with desired outcomes? When we look at the work we do from the human side we can better understand why 2 people with the same training/skills perform differently within a role.

2. How Much Work Should I Delegate vs. Execute Myself?

Delegating effectively means assigning work to people that align with the desired outcome of the task/project – by evaluating synergies you can then capitalize on your team’s skills while simultaneously motivating them as we previously touched on.

Delegation also means giving people the autonomy and the trust to make decisions and overcome obstacles.

Some leaders are reluctant to delegate out of fear of being “out of the loop”. Others have difficulty relinquishing control over work historically they were responsible for.

But delegation isn’t about letting go of control; it’s about gaining perspective and providing your team with the tools and a safe-to-fail environment in order for them to grow and succeed.

3. How do I Have Difficult Conversations With my Team Members?

It may sound obvious, but it’s important to be honest about your concerns and expectations before you start a conversation with a team member. If you’re not being clear about what’s going on, then it’s harder for them to respond appropriately.

Communicate in person. It’s always better to talk face-to-face, but that’s not always possible — especially if you and your team work remotely. Emailing or messaging back and forth can create misunderstandings, which could make reaching a resolution difficult. Having a flexible goal in mind will give the conversation direction – the solution to a problem isn’t always immediately clear but if you discuss and can openly brainstorm a resolution it will go a long way in building trust with your team members/team.

4. How do I Build Trust and Accountability Among my Team?

Show up as your best self; as a leader, you set the tone for organizational culture and performance, so if you are perpetually late, push deadlines, or don’t acknowledge your own mistakes your team will see this as an acceptable way to conduct themselves.

In addition, teams need feedback; if behaviors or outcomes surface that don’t align with organizational objectives, there is a good chance there is a lack of clarity around expectations. Communicate with your team to try and identify where you can help close the communication gap to realign your team.

And, most recently…

5. How Can I Get The Most Out of A Remote/Hybrid Team?

Working remotely has presented new workplace challenges for leaders. Still, with some flexibility and the utilization of some great networking and organization platforms, leaders can find themselves successfully leading dynamic and organized teams from the comfort of their living rooms.

By adopting a flexible mindset, leaders can benefit from shifting focus from hours to outcomes. A stellar Q1 report remains stellar regardless of when it was sent/received.

Flexibility filters into team interactions as well. No longer are we meeting at the copier or popping into an office for a quick chat; setting up weekly team meetings and one-on-ones helps keep your team on the same page and allows the human side of your remote team to stay in focus.

In many cases, new leaders jump into the role and react to the challenges they face, learn from (hopefully) good managers and evolve their leadership skills with time. But what if there was a way to practice PROACTIVE LEADERSHIP?

Proactive leadership aims to eliminate or reduce the impact problems have on your team by implementing measures based on identified risks.

Want to know more? Using a coach-approach Intuity Performance can be your bridge from knowledge to actions so that YOU can become an effective human-centric leader.