Tag Archive for: HR solutions

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.

The Future of Work – Towards a More Human-Centric Model

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Throughout history, the face of work has gone through several iterations, from an agrarian economy relying heavily on manual labour in which the wealthiest didn’t take part, to the mainstream knowledge economy as we know it today, relying on computerization, automation and intellectual capital rather than production.

The future of work is now

While the pandemic has accentuated this trend and made certain skills appear irrelevant moving forward, it has also demonstrated the flaws associated with a technology-driven economy and therefore highlighted the need and accelerated the implementation of a human-based economy and of a human-centric workplace.

Welcome to the future of work – a world where know-how takes a step back and human skills are no longer an asset but a definite must for workers and organizations, acting as a counterbalance to the overpowering technology.

In this bizarre era, human skills can no longer be ignored by organizations when it comes to positioning themselves as trustful and successful employers, partners, brands and leaders.

In the future of work, human skills allow organizations to:

  • Show their true colors and express their individuality
  • Retain and attract talent
  • Build a culture that people want to be a part of
  • Get management to lead more intentionally and more efficiently
  • Engage workers and make them feel listened to
  • Benefit from enhanced individual and team performance
  • Model diversity and inclusion authentically
  • Make their technology more impactful and relatable
  • Make a hybrid or remote work environment more efficient

Human skills are what make us adaptable, well-rounded individuals leading adaptable, well-rounded organizations ready to face this ever-evolving workplace and economy.

In short, human skills are the catalyst of a successful organization. Even business schools are trying to incorporate them in their curriculum.

Ok. But what are human skills exactly?

Human skills, soft skills, interpersonal skills. These are all synonymous.

Human skills and soft skills are HR concepts that refer to personality and behavioral traits and a certain set of transferable skills that focus on people and their capacity to interact with one another, solve problems and manage situations. To the contrary of ‘hard’ skills or technical skills, soft skills are inherent to a person. This is not to say that you are necessarily born with them. Such skills can be learned through experience and can be improved over time when cultivated.

Amongst them, we find communication, trust, empathy, adaptation, curiosity, resilience, leadership and flexibility.

Communication

Being a good communicator and creating a culture of communication is not an easy task and involves different things: concision, clarity, intention, honesty, collaboration, active listening, enthusiasm and leadership. When done well, it can achieve miracles for organizations.

Empathy

Empathy is what makes us relatable. It’s about being able to see the world through someone’s eyes, to authentically put ourselves in other people’s shoes and to say ‘I know how you’re feeling’. It’s showing that we are human after all, no matter our role or our position.

Trust

Entrusting others and demonstrating that sense of trust through delegation, collaboration and empowerment is a requirement to avoid frustration and conflict and generate cohesion and adherence.

Flexibility and adaptation

Being able to remain flexible and adapt is one of the most precious qualities one can have in this ever-changing landscape. It sends a positive message to those around while making things easier for ourselves.

Curiosity

Keeping an open-mind and facing challenges as they arise is much easier to achieve when training and stimulating our brain regularly. Forcing ourselves to ask questions, to learn and to read is a good way to generate a fresh perspective on things and to deal with uncertainty.

Resilience

Our resilience is best tested when faced with adversity. It is our capacity to deal with situations, to confront challenges, to look for solutions and to start all over the next time an issue arises. Failing to do this can result in being perceived as inadequate.

Leadership

Leadership is not reserved to management. Everyone has the capacity to demonstrate leadership. It’s about taking one’s place, sharing ideas, collaborating, being able to respectfully state a position and allowing others to take their place.

Not to say that ‘hard’ skills are no longer relevant. But as workers are being replaced by computers, it is clear that learning to be is becoming more important than learning to do. Machines may have an edge over us in terms of savoir-faire. But our very nature as humans still gives us a competitive advantage.

As Manish Bahl of the Center for the Future of Work puts it: “your skills + social and cultural context = hard-to-automate skill”.

More so, Forbes contributor Charles Tower-Clark tells us that “while automation and digitization may displace around 85 million jobs by 2025, around 97 million new roles may emerge that are better adapted to the new division of labor between humans, machines, and algorithms”.

Indeed, there are a lot of synergies for machines and humans to work together. When we look at it that way, it becomes obvious why working on improving those complementary soft skills is so important.

Ultimately, this is what will lead to more compassionate and better performing workplaces.

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 help you take on the future of work.