Last week, SilkRoad presented a webinar, Employee as Consumer: Building a Differentiated Experience Through the Lifecycle, with HR Daily Advisor. We talked about the consumerization of HR, the creation of a meaningful employee experience throughout the lifecycle, and how design thinking, talent activation, and employer branding play into it. At the end of the session, Jennifer asked: How do you create an experience that...

We started talking about the consumerization of IT several years ago, as employees began to demand technology solutions at work on their own terms, via their own devices. It was natural, then, that the discussion eventually moved to the consumerization of HR. People now expect an experience at work that is comparable to the experience they have at home via apps like Netflix and Amazon. To be more explicit, employees are...

Last week I wrote about apprenticeship, the ancient business strategy that I recommend every modern manager use. But, ahem, not all managers read my blog and even the most well-meaning managers don’t always follow best practices when it comes to training and coaching employees. (And yes, I know it’s weird to write about apprenticeship when this is going on…) While you can’t change your manager&rs...

Have you ever thought about how you learned to do your job? While there are new challenges every day, of course, there is also so much that you seem to just “know.” That proficiency not only inspires your clients and team to trust you, but it creates a self-confidence that boosts you to perform even better, day after day. But when you think back, it’s hard to remember how you figured out the ins and out...

One of the bad habits that I talk about in my best-selling book What Got You Here Won’t Get You There is “Passing judgment: the need to rate others and impose our standards on them.” Some of you may have a boss who does this, some of you may do this yourselves. Let’s analyze this bad habit. While, there’s nothing wrong with offering an opinion in the normal give and take of business discussi...

In the leadership development work I do with mid- to high-level professionals, we begin by focusing on how to help each individual lead his or her own personal life in more positive and enlivening ways. You can’t lead anything well (including others, projects, growth, or organizational behavior) if you’re not honest, brave, emotionally self-aware and mentally healthy. After all, you’re a person when you sh...

It’s not a new concept. In the late 1790s, American statesman Thomas Paine called for a universal payment of £15 per year to all his countrymen in exchange for the right to hold private property. First suggested over 200 years ago, the idea of universal basic income never quite went away, and in many circles, it’s actually picking up steam. Progressive Finland is officially the first sovereign na...

A Lesson from the Un-Friendly Skies of United Airlines 4/13/17 by Michael Kennedy “Society is always taken by surprise at any new example of common sense.”~ Ralph Waldo Emerson They’re called “Moments of Truth,” those critical points of customer contact that can make or break a business. Every interaction with a company makes us feel either better or worse than before we arrived. These...

Do you have a drug-free workplace policy in place? Until 2010, the Department of Labor (DOL) enforced the drug-free workplace program, under the authority of the Drug-Free Workplace Act of 1988. This statute requires federal contractors with contracts of at least $100,000 and all federal grantees to agree that they will provide drug-free workplaces as a precondition of receiving a contract or grant from a federal agency. Th...

Regulations implementing Executive Order 13706, which requires affected employers to provide paid sick leave of up to 56 hours per year to certain employees, became effective on January 1, 2017. While it remains to be seen whether the Trump Administration will withdraw or modify the Executive Order and its implementing regulations, it has been in effect now for more than three months. Despite the effective date, many...