The business intelligence software market is estimated to be worth around $23.4bn in the US alone. This is up from $16.56bn in 2016. The reason? Companies are becoming more dependent on data to stay competitive. 

Business intelligence software helps manage and interpret useful data. But, what is business intelligence software exactly, and how can it benefit your business?

What is Business Intelligence Software?

Business intelligence (BI) software is a tool that helps businesses make data-driven decisions through various capabilities including data mining and visualization.     

Put more simply, business intelligence software solutions use internal and external business data as inputs and present it intuitively through dashboards, graphs, and reports. This enables businesses to improve efficiency, identify opportunities, and understand business performance. 

All departments can use business intelligence to make better decisions. For example, HR can use business intelligence to identify skills and characteristics required to be successful in a specific role. Given that the average cost per hire can be as high as $4,425, this is important information.

How Does Business Intelligence Software Work?

BI software solutions tap into data warehouses to source information. Data warehouses are like a warehouse of information that source information from multiple sources into one digital location. Some modern solutions may also directly source data using Hadoop, though data warehouses are still a more common choice.

More advanced solutions also offer artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) capabilities. AI and ML can further empower businesses to gain deeper insights into data sets. For example, a BI solution might source geographical information and use geospatial mapping to render visualizations.

How Can Business Intelligence Benefit Your Business?

The primary benefit of BI software is its ability to facilitate data-driven decisions. These data-driven decisions, in turn, offer the following benefits:

1. Efficient Decision-Making

BI software solutions can pull raw data from multiple sources and convert it into intuitive dashboards and reports. Leaders can gain deeper insights without manually compiling data or learning code.

Being able to visualize data on interactive dashboards offers valuable insights. You can quickly establish relationships and pick up patterns, allowing you to make impactful, data-driven decisions.

2. Competitive Edge

Having the right tools to source and interpret business data can give you a significant edge over competitors.

With BI software, you’ll be able to use data for multiple tasks (like staffing, budgeting, and risk analysis) more efficiently than competitors that rely on conventional business analytics tools.

Using a modern BI platform, you’ll also be able to track competitors’ data, such as sales and marketing data, and use it for predictive analytics. Tracking their strategies’ performance can provide actionable insight when coming up with your own strategy.

3. Better Data Quality

Big data almost always has inconsistencies and noise that skews the analysis. If you can source and consistently update data, you’ll put yourself ahead of many of your competitors.

BI platforms can work as data aggregators, pulling data from various sources. Collecting data from multiple sources improves the data quality and helps paint a clearer picture that’s closer to reality.

4. Real-Time and Accurate Reporting

A business intelligence platform collects data from multiple sources, converts it into reports, and updates them in real time, so you always have all the information needed to make effective decisions.

Reports are typically easy to read and include visualizations, allowing you to spend more time on strategy than interpreting reports. However, some BI tools also add interactive elements to their reports, allowing business users to manipulate data and variables visually and more effectively.

Lenovo India is an excellent example of how a business can use BI to improve reporting efficiency. The team at Lenovo India used Tableau, a BI platform, and increased reporting efficiency by 95% across multiple departments.

Interestingly, their HR team was able to consolidate various monthly reports into a single BI dashboard using Tableau, allowing faster decision-making.

5. Improve Customer Experience

With business intelligence software, you can create department-wise dashboards to pull data from multiple fronts like support and sales.

The data helps you identify opportunities to deliver better customer experiences. You can also study customer segments, current industry trends, and competing products to better understand what your customers are looking for.

Your customers probably research you and your competitor’s products before contacting you. Using data to identify an average customer’s objections to buying the competitor’s products and yours can help focus on their pain points, helping you drive home a sale and improve your offering.

What are the Types of Business Intelligence Software?

Business intelligence tools come in various forms. Some tools wrap multiple applications into one interface, while others offer a more focused set of capabilities.

Here are the most common types of BI software based on applications:

1. Operational BI (OBI)

OBI provides real-time operational data to managers, enabling them to make better decisions faster. For example, you can use operational data to identify productivity bottlenecks for a team or project using a BI tool’s reports.

You can have the OBI pull data from various internal and external sources like an ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) tool and data warehouses. It compiles the data and presents it visually so you can evaluate it against benchmarks.

2. Online Analytical Processing (OLAP)

OLAP is a vital component (rather than a standalone type) of any BI system and is ideal for complex queries and calculations, “what if” scenarios, limitless report viewing, and more.

Business data is generally multi-dimensional. Put simply, business data can generally be segregated into multiple categories (or dimensions). For example, HR data might have dimensions related to qualifications, experience, and profile.

However, data sets are stored in tables in a data warehouse. Each data set can organize data in only two dimensions. OLAP can pull this data, reorganize it multidimensionally for processing, and offer better insights as a result.

3. Embedded BI

Embedded BI helps integrate reports, data visualization, and an interactive dashboard within an existing business application. The BI solution processes the data, but the host application is responsible for displaying the data in its interface, which can improve usability. Essentially, you get embedded analytics within a tool that you’re already using.

The major benefits of embedded BI include:

• Placing information more contextually within an existing application
• Gentle learning curve
• Easy adoption because the BI tool is embedded in an application the team already uses.

4. Open Source BI

Open source BI tools are typically available for free and at a price. If you’re a startup or young company, open source BI might help you keep costs to a minimum.

Open source BI allows you more flexibility because you can always modify the code. For example, you can add modules for industry-specific compliance requirements such as HIPAA, provided you have someone on the team with relevant skills.

The downside? You might need to rely on the online community when you need support. As a business, you need professional support that can solve problems fast, which might be less likely when you rely on the community.

5. Location Intelligence (LI)

LI uses geospatial data analysis to help make geographic decisions. For example, a retail company might want to gauge the footfall before leasing a store in a specific location. That’s where LI can help. You can also use LI for logistics, marketing, and real-time merchandising, among other things.

Since location analytics is more visual than other forms of advanced analytics, its output is easier for laypeople to understand and interpret. When you have location-based data on a map, your teams can quickly identify the location of an event and determine why it occurred.

For example, LI can help you understand why a specific location’s revenue increased by 20%. Did the increased foot traffic have anything to do with the weather conditions or the season?

Prepare for the Future with BI

BI will likely become a must-have as opposed to a nice-to-have as more businesses, including your competitors, start capitalizing on the power of data.

Sure, a BI tool requires an upfront investment, but you’re likely to earn that money back, and then some, when you use it to make data-driven decisions.

Sometimes, you might get a business intelligence solution as part of another software solution’s suite of applications. 

For example, ERP systems often include a business intelligence tool. If you’re considering a complete suite of business applications that also offers a business intelligence tool, read our guide on the 10 Best ERP Systems for Small Businesses on a Budget.

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As team leaders navigate new challenges in the modern workplace, nuanced resources like leadership blogs can educate and inspire managers to carve their own path in this new way of work.

The landscape of remote and hybrid models, diversity and inclusion programming, and workplace culture satisfaction, are no longer nice-to-haves but must-haves in order to retain and support your people. Plus, with an increasing 52 percent burnt out employees, leaders should revitalize their old way of doing things with a fresh perspective.

To help leaders keep up with trends and expert thought leadership, we rounded up 20 leadership blogs to help any manager in their journey to becoming a stronger, better leader in this new era.

1. People Managing People

People Managing People are passionate about creating and encouraging the best practices in leadership and management, company culture, employee engagement, and talent and human resource management. To do that, they created a platform for business leaders and HR professionals where they can gain access to expert-led discussions in the form of articles, podcasts, and videos as well as learn about the latest in HR software and join a community of passionate HR professionals.

2. The Leader’s Digest

Leadership Coach Suzi McAlpine has been a leader and senior executive, a headhunter, and a practice leader for one of the largest HR consulting firms in the world. Her award-winning blog The Leader’s Digest is a must read for entrepreneurs, offering leadership insights and practical advice to coach people leaders no matter where they are in their own journey.

3. Tanveer Naseer’s Blog

Tanveer Naseer is an internationally-acclaimed speaker, leadership expert, and author. Named by Inc. Magazine as one of the Top 100 Leadership and Management Experts, his leadership corporate training and consulting firm Tanveer Naseer Leadership works with top executives and managers to help with leadership development and team-building.

His website’s blog provides leadership insights from the art of listening in a multicultural team to conflict management. He also hosts the long running Leadership Biz Cafe, where he dives into the nuts and bolts of leadership with renown experts.

4. BLACK ENTERPRISE

BLACK ENTERPRISE is a premier business and investing publication for African Americans. Since 1970, BLACK ENTERPRISE served as an essential business resource, providing top business owners and executives with leadership advice and wealth building education.

Along with digital and physical distribution, BLACK ENTERPRISE highlights Black entrepreneurs in various industries, news, and lifestyle through broadcast productions, podcasts, and events. All of their outlets centers around the idea of wealth creation, and helping African Americans become active participants in wealth building in the global economy.

5. Ask a Manager

As a former chief of staff of a successful non-profit, Alison Green managed the hiring, firing, and all the nuances of workplace culture in between. Now, Alison works as a consultant, helping teams with the same topics she covers in her leadership blog Ask a Manager: from giving advice on how to communicate with your higher ups, how to put your best foot forward in the hiring process, and how to excel as an employee or employer.

Some of her favorite blog posts offer leadership skills on dealing with a difficult intern, what to do with a new person in a leadership role, and what to do if you’re not great with criticism. Her goal is candid advice and information, and Alison is refreshingly up front about her biases and how she prefers to manage. The blog is perfect for a newbie manager or one wanting a fresh perspective.

6. Lolly Daskal’s Blog

Founder and CEO of Lead From Within, Lolly Daskal is one of the top executive leadership coaches in the world. Through her work with Lead From Within, she brings cross-cultural expertise to over 14 countries, six languages, and hundreds of organizations.

She’s a best-selling author of two leadership books, was named on of the Top-50 Leadership and Management Experts by Inc.com, and is one of the 100 Great Leadership Speakers by Inc. magazine. This is all to say that she’s a trusted expert on leadership. Her blog covers topics from being an introverted manager to how to cope with change exhaustion.

If you’re looking for a blog to help with current workplace trends and topics and growing as a manager, Lolly’s blog is a great resource for effective, actionable advice.

7. Leadership Freak

Boasting over 500,000 followers and subscribers, Dan Rockwell has written the popular Leadership Freak blog since 2010. He’s a speaker, author, and leadership expert, who coaches leaders and consults with organizations. Through his programs he helps teams manage remotely and leaders manage “while the house is on fire.”

According to the Center for Management and Organization Effectiveness, Leadership Freak is one of the most shared blogs across the Internet.

Unlike other leadership blogs with stock image photos of people and teams, Leadership Freak uses handmade memes with puppies and sunsets, creating a collage-like, welcoming home page. With 300-words per post, Dan covers everything from Charlotte’s Web author E.B. White’s perspective on hope to advice for career growth. The takeaway? There’s inspiration and leadership lessons from everywhere.

8. The Harvard Business Review

While the Harvard Business Review (HBR) is only published six times a year through a subsidiary of Harvard University, the digital and podcast side of HBR continues to provide a business lens to current events and trends affecting enterprises.

Startup founders and business school students should subscribe to this business blog to stay up-to-date on industry changes, expert takes and interviews, and to glean practical advice on the flowing trends of the workplace. Learn the next business trend, how to swap industries, or best practices for managing a remote team.

9. Leadershipnow

Leadershipnow is a go-to resource for many leaders around the globe. The publication’s mission is to guide those on the leadership track to think and see differently, in order to develop deeper, more empowered decision-making skills. Their digital outpost, The Leading Blog, covers leadership thinking, advice, and principles to challenge and grow their audience’s perspective on what makes a strong leader.

Michael McKinney of Leadershipnow creates fresh and actionable leadership content over compelling, relevant issues affecting teams today. The blog focuses on leadership, management, and personal development, boasting more than 650,000 web sessions per month.

10. Power to Fly’s Blog

Launched in 2015, Power to Fly is a women-led recruiting and retention platform focused on empowering underrepresented talent. Along with regular events, a weekly newsletter, video library, and mentors, Power Fly offers a blog resource directed towards women and intersectional leaders.

Blog categories include working from home, diversity and inclusion, and career advice. Posts provide a mix of media with text and video. Subjects can range from practical tips for hiring or managing. You’ll also see interviews from women and ally leaders in a range of industries.

11. Full Focus

Rebranded as Full Focus, Michael Hyatt and Company provides high-power coaching and corporate training for emerging leaders. The company’s blog seeks to support high-agility managers with growth and decision making.

The blog emphasizes ways leaders can commit to continuous growth and towards company success. Posts cover productivity, entrepreneurship, and professional development.

12. Kevin Eikenberry’s Blog

World renowned leadership expert and consultant Kevin Eikenberry has worked with Fortune 500 companies, small businesses, and universities to help teams realize their true potential. By investing their time, energy, and focus through The Remarkable Leadership Learning System, Kevin leads teams through active participating in the resources for success.

As a two-time best selling author and coach, Eikenberry’s blog follows his philosophy in work and play— making both fun.Think posts about making work culture matter, interpersonal skills, and why we need to talk about procastination.

13. Red Shoe Movement

The Red Shoe Movement is the first women leadership development company powered by a community united to support women’s career success. They are focused on offering executive coaching and resources for multicultural women leaders.

From tackling imposter syndrome to defying stereotypes and gender bias, the Red Shoe Movement blog covers hard to tackle topics many working women face, along with accessible, informational posts on leadership from executives in the industry.

14. Skip Prichard’s Leadership Insights

Growth-oriented business leader, best selling author, and global keynote speaker, Skip Prichar’ offers his industry expertise in his blog Leadership Insights. He’s the writer of the Wall Street Journal’s bestselling book, The Book of Mistakes: 9 Secrets to Creating a Successful Future, where he shares his expertise in change management and growth.

The Leadership Insights blog covers the importance of rest, navigating leadership transformations, and even accepting leadership. Posts embraces the idea of investing time and hard work, but also navigating it all in a meaningful way for future success (and not burnout).

15. Women on Business

The Women on Business blog is an award-winning online resource launched by Susan Gunelius, President & CEO of KeySplash Creative, Inc., a marketing and communications company that offers business and article writing.

The Women on Business blog covers topics to support and foster successful female entrepreneurship. Categories include leadership profiles, employee satisfaction, business partners, and more all to support women as they close the wage gap and make their mark.

16. Forbes

A leading publication in entrepreneurial and business success, Forbes provides a range of perspectives through their contributing writers, many of who are successful executives and thought leaders in their own industries .

The Forbes community covers everything from current workplace trends, world news, celebrity entrepreneurs, startup unicorns, and more. Leaders looking to get authentic and tangible takeaways from key names should follow and read.

17. Her Agenda

Her Agenda is an award winning digital media publication, covering the ambition, achievement, and magic of millennial women in business. Motivated to inspire and help career women in a world where women leaders are still overlooked in terms of promotions and raises, Her Agenda is a go-to resource for women leaders at any level.

Her Agenda’s platform seeks to inspire women at work and provide resources for upcoming scholarships, conferences, and job opportunities. Most interestingly, you can take a peek into the agenda of powerful women, join the Power Directory with other leaders throughout the country, and network through their events.

18. Risha Grant’s Blog

Along with being Founder & CEO of her consulting firm Risha Grant LLC, Risha Grant is a speaker, author, and world renowned inclusion and diversity expert whose passion, humor, and exuberance empowers students and attendees. Her diversity consulting and communications firm helps teams tackle unconscious bias, racism, classism, and inclusion for teams like Levis and Google.

Her company’s blog addresses all topics from inclusion to allyship, and is a great guide for leaders looking to consciously lead with diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). The blog itself is fun, edgy, and insightful, providing actionable advice and examples. It’s a prime resource for how organizations can create an inclusive, welcoming team which will in turn nurture successful leaders.

19. Zone of Genius

Launched by Ramon Ray, motivational speaker and expert on business growth, Zone of Genius aims to help leaders live fulfilled lives. Focused on personal development and embracing the “woo woo” means looking at your own past experiences and trauma to find the “zone” to live a better life.

Zone of Genius is a great leadership blog that focuses on helping the personal growth, whether that’s in mindset, family balance, money, and career. The goal is to develop a true relationship with life and not be overly transactional. And that is simply inspiring.

20. Inc.com

The U.S. Business magazine Inc might publish only six times a year, but Inc.com is a year-round resource for entrepreneurs and leaders looking for inspiration, a wide-range of business news, and spotlights on some of the best and brightest business leaders in the nation.

Known for its Inc 5000 list of privately owned, small business throughout the U.S., Inc.com captures the SaaS, startups, and local businesses making waves. It’s perfect for learning more about your industry and seeing real examples of business leaders breaking from the norm.

Closing Thoughts on Leadership Blogs

No matter where you are on your leadership journey, finding the right thought leader or leadership blog to inspire, motivate, and even challenge you, will support your growth as a new, modern leader.

Some further resources to help you develop as a leader:

• 10 Best Leadership Development Programs 2022
• 14 Leadership Books For New Leaders To Read In 2022
• The People Managing People podcast
• Servant Leadership Examples and Characteristics
• Clarity, Responsibility, And Accountability (CRA) Model of Leadership

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How well you listen can be directly tied to success in leadership. A leader who barks at everyone, interrupts constantly, and accepts zero feedback is rarely seen as an effective leader.

Instead, a leader who truly takes the time to listen, asks pointed questions, hears and acts on employee’s concerns, and who clearly demonstrates empathy is usually both a better-liked and even more-effective leader.

There are 5 levels of listening that coaches use to determine how engaged someone is. Being aware of them will help you improve your communication skills.

Why is listening important?

Have you ever heard the long-term spouse joke about ‘selective listening’ or ‘selective hearing’? Even Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg once joked that in every long marriage it helps to be “a little deaf.” 

This may be true at home, but in the workplace it can be incredibly frustrating when we work with managers or colleagues who we can tell simply aren’t listening to what we have to say.

Listening is such an important part of how we engage with others, and how we communicate. We know intrinsically that there are different levels of listening. That is why we come alive when we know that someone is truly listening to us, and we really feel heard. 

Conversely we tend to shut down when we know that someone is half-listening and barely paying attention. 

In the coaching sense, being able to listen deeply is a crucial communication skill for connecting with employees and establishing relationships. 

So what are the different levels of listening that are out there, and what do they look like day to day?

What are the different levels of listening?

There are five different levels of listening, and each one takes a different level of skill and effort.

Ignoring Listening

Speaking to a listener who’s ignoring feels like you’re talking to a wall. This is when someone is outright either not even acknowledging that you’re speaking, or you can tell that they hear you but they are not engaging or not responding. If you’ve ever had to call someone’s name repeatedly before they pay attention, they were likely ignoring you.

Pretending Listening

This could almost be called ‘presentation listening’ since it is often what happens when we’re pretending to listen to a speaker but we’re not really taking in what they have to say. We may be able to fake it with smiles and nods until they ask a direct question, and we’re caught like Homer Simpson with his fake glasses meant for falling asleep in court. 

Selective Listening

This is the Ruth Bader Ginsburg approach to marriage as mentioned above, and can often be common with couples or even close friends and family. Effectively we ‘hear what we want to hear,’ and we don’t really pay too much attention to the rest. 

A listener’s body language might be a great indication of whether or not they are practising selective listening. If they keep trying to push you to the end, or demanding to know the point, they’re not listening to the entire message. This can quickly lead to miscommunication, or even misunderstanding, because they’re missing the greater point of what you have to say.

Attentive Listening

Attentive listening denotes a high level of engagement. A listener is giving you their time, attention, and their focus, and they are truly listening to what you have to say. They are literally paying attention, and they are taking in the message without losing focus or getting distracted. Their body language should suggest that they are highly engaged in the conversation.

Most of us are attentive listeners on our best days, and that is admirable. However, the challenge is that attentive listeners hear the world through their own lens. If you’re telling an attentive listener a difficult story, or speaking about something vulnerable, they will often come back with a personal anecdote or speak about how it impacts them.

Attentive listeners are trying their best to hear the other person, but they are ultimately thinking about themselves just as much (if not more) than they are thinking about you. To break out of that mold takes an extra level of attention, focus, and dedication. 

Empathic Listening

An empathic listener is giving you their full time, attention, and focus because they are trying to see and hear the world through your eyes and ears. They are not only listening attentively, but they are thinking the entire time about how what you say has impacted you, not them. 

Empathic listening is not easy! It takes time and attention to be that involved in a conversation, and you give your entire heart and mind over to the process. 

This is level of listening required if you’re going to be a coach, a crucial part of leadership.

How to improve your listening skills?

There are some naturally good listeners, but it is possible to become a better listener, and practice one’s listening skills. 

Next time you listen closely, focus on what the other person is telling you and where they are coming from.

Before you rush to speak or interject, put yourself in their shoes. Focus on the person’s body language, and stay tuned for both their verbal cues and their nonverbal cues such as they’re breathing, pauses, eye contact or movement, and hand gestures. If a person is in distress, their body language may say as much as their words do. 

Also remember that your body language and nonverbal cues as a listener says a lot about your listening skills, and whether you are practising effective listening. 

Keep your eyes focused on the other person, your shoulders aimed towards them, and your hands as calm and relaxed as possible. This shows the speaker that you are giving them all of your focus and attention. 

A few last words for those still Listening

Effective listening can help make you a better partner, relative, friend, and colleague.

People who need an ear will be glad to come to you knowing that you’re paying attention, and can help see the world through their eyes. Even better, they’ll be more open to listening to you when you need an ear in return.

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We’re passionate about the world of work, and how we can make it better. To help satisfy our curiosity, we’ve launched an interview series where we pick the brains of experienced leaders, business owners, managers, and individual contributors to get their thoughts on how we can collectively build better workplaces.

Join us in our next installment below as Joe Phoenix—Cofounder and CEO of Givinga—shares his insights with us.

We’d love to get to know you a bit better, tell us a bit about your backstory.

How long do you have? My backstory goes back a ways. I started my career in asset management in the late 80’s, worked for the same company for 25 years, turned 50 and decided I wanted to do something entirely different. Following my “North Star” of wanting to make an impact, I’ve been working with philanthropic technology—or Philantech® as I call it—for the last 7 years. 

If we were to ask a friend to describe your personality to us, what would they say?

I think the two words that you would hear the most are relentless and calm. And I’ve found those two attributes work very well together. Building a business has taught me patience that I never really had before, the ability to balance the good with the bad and to appreciate and find humor in the process. It has also made me a much better listener. Figuring out how everything fits together is what I really enjoy. 

Thinking back to your career journey, what’s an interesting story that stands out? 

The 6 years I spent overseas running an international division for an American based company were super impactful to my career and outlook. A story that really sums this up occurred literally the first week in July that I arrived in London.

We had a highly productive French sales team and their “leader” came into my office to make sure I was aware that he was going on vacation in August. When I told him “Great, enjoy your time off,” he clarified that not only was he going on vacation in August, but that he was taking the entire month off. And by “off” he meant that he would return no calls and respond to no emails during that time. This structure went against everything that I had learned up to this point, but I agreed and let it happen. And for the 6 years I was over there this salesperson took the entire month of August off and his team crushed the next 11 months.

American companies have a very specific ethos around work/life balance, bureaucratic hierarchy and what constitutes a productive employee and, in many countries, our perceptions and beliefs are diametrically opposed. Learning to not only balance those competing philosophies, but be open to learning and understanding alternatives to what’s been ingrained in the US structure was really critical to my growth as a manager.

What’s the most impactful lesson you’ve learned over your career thus far? 

Without question, it’s how fragile a company’s brand is and how important it is to protect that. In the past, I’ve personally watched a brand get destroyed in 3 months and I remember being shocked with how quickly things turned negative. Once the fabric of a brand is torn, it’s almost impossible to repair completely. And believe me, when you’re in the middle of that it is no fun and you NEVER want to be there again. Brand is directly tied to culture and culture is just another word for people. So I focus on hiring great people, and then constantly reinforcing what the company’s North Stars are.

I love friction, independence and diversity of opinion, but I make sure they orbit around, and support a clear and uncompromising core set of values.

Thanks for giving us some insight into who you are! Let’s jump into things. When you hear the phrase “build a better world of work”, what comes to mind?

That phrase reminds me of, as I mentioned before, how culture = people. As companies, especially startups, evolve and expand, brand identity and company culture are purely reflective of the people who work there and the community that is being served. We’re witnessing a societal shift, where employees are searching for more purpose within their workplace, and demanding their brands take action to positively affect each of their communities. Employees are no longer joining companies and passively adapting to the culture, they want to be actively involved in defining that culture. 

For you, what’s the main blocker you see as standing in the way of building a better world of work?

If you don’t set North Stars and get your culture centered around those, it’s very hard to create a sustainable and competitive organization.

It’s really amazing what a team can accomplish when employees believe in and relate to the mission at hand.

Everyone at Givinga believes in the power and impact of what we’re creating, and it shows in the way they collaborate and the work they deliver. And the initial team is absolutely critical in establishing the foundation of the company. 

What’s one thing within our control that we can practically do to build a better world of work today? And, how do you recommend going about it?

To build a better world of work, I challenge companies to give their employees and communities the opportunity and autonomy to give back to charities and causes that matter most to them, in a sustained impact throughout the year. 

A lot of people want to give back, but they don’t always know where to start. One way people can get access to proactive technology, so they can be prepared to give back to their favorite causes or respond immediately to critical events, is to turn to their employers. Some firms assume philanthropy is a cost of doing business, instead of a strategic brand-enhancing investment. We want companies to look at philanthropy as an integral, measurable investment in their communities, employees and brands. 

Workplace culture is transformed when an emphasis is placed on philanthropy and giving back. 

75% of employees who engage in corporate giving programs have longer tenures and,

Additionally, customers are more loyal to your brand when they can see the impact your company is making in their communities and know your company is actively supporting what’s important to them. 

We can build a better world of work by fostering a culture of giving that supports what’s important to the employees and positively increasing return on impact to our communities. 

Now more than ever, it’s imperative, easy and cost-effective for brands to build a better world of work with strategic philanthropy. Harnessing the power of this collective impact, aids more charities throughout the year by being proactive with the dollars brands already planned to donate, gives their employees the opportunity to give back and choices of where to give, and involves their consumers in positive impact. 

Can you share one thing you’ve experienced, seen, or read about that is leading us towards a better world of work?

Related, I think there’s a healthy discussion taking place around defining the “workplace” as we move out of Covid. The fact that we’re even having this discussion reinforces the importance of proactively engaging with your employees. 3 years ago, the concept of working virtually was so “radical” that most companies didn’t even consider it as a viable alternative to the 9:00-5:00 office job. Yet there was obviously this incredibly strong employee undercurrent that just had no way to surface. Fast forward to 2022, and, not only is the virtual workplace active and growing, the huge stigma associated with this alternative has basically disappeared.

So you have this massive shift in the workplace structure that is overwhelmingly supported by a wide cross section of employees and it literally took a global pandemic to bring it to the surface. I think companies are beginning to understand the productivity potential from being more flexible and more employee centric.

I’m curious, thinking about building a better world of work, is there a company and/or leader who stands out to you as someone we should follow? If so, what are they up to?

I’ve admired Patagonia and its leadership team for years. The Yvon Chouinard story is legendary, and his North Stars can be seen all over the Patgonia culture to this day. It’s an amazing brand that has remained consistent in its messaging and, more importantly, led by example for over 3 decades. It’s one of the few “walk the walk” companies that I can think of.

How can our readers follow your work?

They could follow me or Givinga on LinkedIn, or sign up for Givinga’s monthly newsletter at givinga.com.

Thank you for adding your voice to People Managing People’s interview series on How to Build a Better World of Work!

Add Your Voice To The Conversation

Join our interview series and share your ideas for how we can build a better world of work.

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We’ve all been there. We’re working hard, putting in the extra hours, and suddenly we hit a wall. 

We’re tired, we’re cranky, and everything feels like a chore. We may even start to dread going into work. 

This is burnout, and it’s a real problem that can have serious consequences for our health, our careers, and our lives. 

In this article, we’re going to explain its symptoms, causes and show you how to deal with work burnout should it affect your life.

• What is workplace burnout?
• Understanding workplace burnout and its symptoms
• How to prevent burnout?
• How to deal with existing burnout?
• Dealing with burnout in your team

What is workplace burnout?

Let’s start off by putting a definition to the name of what we’re talking about. Burnout syndrome is a work related stress syndrome characterised by feelings of exhaustion, mental distance, and negativism towards one’s job.

It’s most frequently seen in individuals who have traditionally high-stress or emotionally demanding roles at work, but can be developed by anyone under the right – or in this case, wrong – conditions.

Understanding Workplace Burnout And Its Symptoms

Burnout isn’t just an ‘excuse’ people use to get out of work, it’s a real occupational phenomenon recognized by the World Health Organization. Specialists view it as a distinguishable problem with quantifiable effects that differ from regular workplace stress.

Burnout was first discovered in the 1970s by American psychologist Herbert Freudenberger, who used the term to describe the implications of high stress levels and ideals in ‘helping’ professions. He found that individuals who experienced prolonged stress without adequate support or rest eventually became irritable, cynical and emotionally exhausted. 

While the effects of burnout were first discovered in the ‘helping’ professions, it’s now estimated that over 75% of employees experience burnout on the job. And it’s not just affecting our mental health, recent data from Gallup shows that workers suffering from burnout are 63% more likely to take a sick day and 23% more likely to visit the ER. 

What Are The Symptoms Of Workplace Burnout?

Chronic workplace burnout can lead to serious physical and mental health issues, so it’s important to be able to identify the symptoms early on.

According to the World Health Organization, symptoms of burnout include:

Exhaustion

This is the most commonly observed symptom of burnout and refers to the physical and emotional fatigue individuals feel as a result of their work. It can manifest in a number of ways, including feeling physically drained, mentally ‘foggy’, or emotionally depleted.

Mental Distance

This is characterised by a growing sense of detachment from one’s work. Individuals may begin to feel like their work is no longer personally meaningful, and may start to see it as a series of menial tasks. This can lead to a decrease in productivity, and may eventually lead to complete disengagement from one’s work.

Negative Attitudes

This refers to the development of negative or cynical attitudes towards one’s work. Individuals may become critical of their organization or colleagues, and may begin to see their work as a source of personal stress. This can lead to further decreases in productivity, and may create a toxic work environment.

Decreased Professional Efficacy

Decreased professional efficacy refers to a decrease in one’s belief in their ability to perform their job. Individuals experiencing this symptom may feel like they are not meeting the demands of their role and begin to doubt their skills and abilities. This can lead to a decrease in quality of work, and may eventually lead to job dissatisfaction or resignation.

What Are The Common Causes Of Burnout?

As we touched on earlier, burnout is a phenomenon most commonly seen in professions that are innately fast paced and high demand as  the nature of these jobs makes it easy for factors that cause burnout to manifest. 

However, individuals in any profession can develop burnout if the right conditions are present.

Some of the most common causes of workplace burnout include:

Workload

A healthy workload is an amount of demand that matches your individual capacity. It offers you enough challenge and feat to grow and develop as a professional, however still leaves you time for recovery and rest.  

An unhealthy workload is one that consistently exceeds your capacity, leading you to compromise on other facets of your life. In these cases, you end up working longer hours, taking work home with you, and feeling like you’re never ‘caught up’. This can lead to feelings of being overwhelmed, and eventually lead to burnout.

Lack of Control

A sense of control over your own work is essential to feeling  satisfied and engaged in your role. When you feel like you have no say in how your work is done, or what tasks you’re assigned, it can lead to a sense of powerlessness. 

This can be particularly damaging if you feel like you’re not being given the opportunity to use your skills and abilities to their fullest potential. Over time, this can lead to feelings of frustration and resentment, which can eventually lead to burnout.

Work-Reward Imbalance

The concept of work is pretty straightforward – you commit your time, effort and talent to a particular project or task and receive compensation for it. 

But what about when you’re given less than you expect? Whether it’s feeling like you’re not being adequately compensated for your work, or not receiving the recognition you feel you deserve, an imbalance in this equation can lead to frustration and dissatisfaction. 

Over time, this can lead to a feeling of devaluation, which can eventually lead to burnout.

Community and Social Support

The workplace is not just a place where we go to complete tasks, but it’s also a community of people with whom we interact on a daily basis. 

In order for this community to function well, there needs to be a certain level of social support present. A lack thereof can lead to feelings of isolation and alienation, which only points you  further down the road to burnout.

What Are The Consequences Of Burnout?

While burnout may seem like something that only affects the individual experiencing it, the consequences of burnout reach much further than that. In fact, workplace burnout can have a significant impact on both the individual and the organisation as a whole.

Some of the most common consequences of burnout for employers include:

• Decreased productivity
• Increased absenteeism
• Higher rates of turnover
• Decreased work quality
• Negative impact on team morale
• Damage to company reputation.

Some of the most common consequences of burnout for employees include:

• Decreased job satisfaction
• Increased anxiety and stress
• Depression
• Insomnia
• Substance abuse
• Heart disease
• High blood pressure.

How To Prevent Burnout?

At the end of the day, prevention is much more effective than care when it comes to burnout. By taking the right steps to stay in check with your own wellbeing, it becomes possible to foresee and mitigate many of the  risk factors for burnout before they have a chance to take hold.

There are a number of things you can do to prevent workplace burnout, including:

Invest In Psychometrics

A psychometric assessment is a scientifically validated test that measures an individual’s psychological traits. These tests can be used to measure things like personality, aptitude, intelligence and more. 

While they are often used in hiring and development processes, they can also be incredibly useful for individuals in terms of self-awareness and growth. Taking a psychometric assessment can be a great way to better understand yourself, your needs, and how to prevent burnout.

Taking a psychometric assessment can help you to:

• Identify your strengths and weaknesses
• Gain insights into your personality type
• Understand how you process information and make decisions
• Find out which careers would be a good fit for you
• Learn more about how to manage your time and energy levels.

The STRONG and MBTI Assessments are two tools that can help you identify the answers to these questions. At mindfulcareer.ca we specialize in the administration and analysis of these tools to guide to increase your self awareness and provide you with the clarity around identifying you strength, personality type, how your mind works to process information and make decision, what careers are best for you and how you can manager you stress and energy levels. 

Take Control Of Your Workload

Workload is one of the most impactful factors at play when it comes to burnout and is therefore a good place to start when trying to mitigate it. 

For many professionals, especially those whose character or role incline them to be people pleasing, taking a proactive effort to control their workload can be difficult. 

It’s important to remember that your time and energy are finite resources, and it’s perfectly acceptable to say ‘no’ when you’re already feeling stretched too thin.

Try these strategies:

• Planning your workload
• Prioritizing your tasks 
• Delegating work as needed
• Saying ‘no’ when necessary
• Letting go of perfectionism.

Assess Your Circumstances

Burnout is the result of circumstantial stressors that exceed our ability to cope. Therefore, another key way to prevent it is to take a step back and assess what factors in your life may be putting you at risk. 

Once you’ve identified these risk factors, you can begin to put systems in place that will help you to better manage them.

Some things to consider when assessing your circumstances:

• Are you taking on too much responsibility?
• Do you have adequate social support?
• Do you feel like you’re being fairly compensated?
• Do you have a good worklife balance?
• Do you feel like you have enough autonomy?
• Do you feel like your work is fulfilling?

Know Your Stress Profile

A stress profile is a test that considers your individual circumstances, traits and habits to gain a holistic understanding of the unique factors that influence your wellbeing. There are several tests out there, but two of the most effective include:

Personal Stress Profile Test

This is a comprehensive stress profile that covers all aspects of your life. It includes a detailed questionnaire and an in-person interview with a qualified professional.

Stress Resiliency Profile Assessment

This assessment is designed to help you understand how well you currently cope with stress and identify areas where you can improve. It includes a series of questions about your thoughts, feelings and behaviours in response to stress.

Both of these assessments can give you valuable insight into the things that contribute to your stress levels and help you to develop a plan for preempting managing them.

The one I recommend is the following administered via psychometrics.com. It is called the Stress Management Report and it uses your results on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI®) assessment to describe how you are likely to experience and react to stress.

It also suggests ways you can manage stress successfully. A sample report can be found here. 

How To Deal With Existing Burnout?

If you’re feeling like it’s already too late and that you’ve been consumed by workplace burnout, rest assured that there are a number of things that can be done about it.

Master A Good Mindset

Your mindset can be extremely influential to your overall quality of life—whether that’s in regards to work or personal  matters. 

A fixed mindset, characterised by negative beliefs such as “I’m not good enough” or “I’ll never be successful”, can lead to feelings of inadequacy and insecurity. This, in turn, can lead to increased anxiety and stress, which only further perpetuate the cycle of burnout.

But for many people, having a ‘good mindset’ isn’t as simple as just flipping a switch. It often requires unlearning years of negative thinking and replacing it with positive, more productive outlooks.

Try the following strategies to better understand and manage your inner thoughts:

Identify And Address The Reasons For Your Feelings

When you’re feeling down, ask yourself what the reasons for these emotions might be. Is it a specific event or situation that’s causing you to feel this way? If so, can you do anything to change it? If not, what can you do to change your perspective?

Talk To Someone Who Can Help

If you’re struggling to manage your emotions on your own, it may be helpful to talk to a therapist or counsellor. They can help you understand and manage your emotions in a more productive way.

Practice Gratitude

One of the quickest and most effective ways to change your mindset is to start practising gratitude. When you focus on the things you’re thankful for, it’s difficult to simultaneously focus on negative thoughts.

Make Self-Care A Priority

Self-care is often the first thing to go when we’re feeling overwhelmed, but it’s also one of the most important things you can do to prevent and recover from burnout. When you don’t take care of yourself, both physically and mentally, it’s difficult to perform at your best. 

Some self-care ideas to try:

• Get enough sleep
• Eat a healthy diet
• Exercise regularly 
• Take breaks during the day
• Spend time outside
• Disconnect from work after hours
• Make time for hobbies and activities you enjoy

Dealing With Burnout In Your Team

What if burnout isn’t just affecting you, but your whole team?

If you’re a manager or leader, it’s important to be aware of the signs of burnout in your team members. Common signs to look out for include:

● Decreased productivity

● Increased absences

● More mistakes being made

● Decreased motivation

● Increased conflict.

If you identify that someone on your team may be struggling with burnout, there are a number of things you can do to support them.

1. Encourage Them To Seek Help

If someone on your team is exhibiting signs of burnout, the first thing you should do is encourage them to seek help. 

This might mean going to see their doctor, talking to a counselor, or taking some time off work. 

Remember, it’s important to respect their privacy—only offer support and assistance if they’re comfortable with it.

2. Create A Supportive Environment

You can also create a more supportive environment at work to help prevent and manage burnout. This might involve:

● Making sure everyone has a clear understanding of their roles and responsibilities (the CRA of leadership).

● Encouraging open communication

● Providing opportunities for breaks and flexible working arrangements

● Encouraging a healthy work-life balance.

3. Be Willing To Make Changes

If someone on your team is struggling with burnout, it’s important to be willing to make changes to help them recover. 

This might mean changing their workload, providing more support, or giving them some time off.

Don’t neglect burnout

If you’re feeling like you’re on the verge of burnout, don’t wait to take action. Use the tips and strategies outlined in this article to start making changes in your life today. You can also always contact a career counseling service that can help you on your journey to healing. 

And remember, always make self-care a priority. When you take care of yourself, you’re better equipped to handle whatever life throws your way.

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We’re passionate about the world of work, and how we can make it better. To help satisfy our curiosity, we’ve launched an interview series where we pick the brains of experienced leaders, business owners, managers, and individual contributors to get their thoughts on how we can collectively build better workplaces.

Join us in our next installment below as Maggie Smith, Vice President Human Resources at Traliant, shares her insights with us.

We’d love to get to know you a bit better, tell us a bit about your backstory.

I unknowingly stumbled my way into Human Resources back in 1998.  I had accepted an offer for a full-time office manager role while I was still attending college as a non-traditional student at Northeastern University in Boston. One day, a benefits enrollment form arrived in the office via fax (those were the days!) and when I asked the CEO who received benefits enrollment, she replied, “You do!”  Thankfully, I was in school, so I began to take human resources courses for my electives and to network.  I leveraged our insurance broker and providers to learn a lot about benefits administration. The scope of my office manager role seemed to expand to encompass more HR duties.  Eventually, I left the organization so that I could join an HR team and learn from colleagues.  

If we were to ask a friend to describe your personality to us, what would they say?

They would say that I don’t take myself too seriously – I like to laugh and have a good time and encourage everyone to find a company to work for where they can do that.  They would also say I am like a dog with a bone – in a good way!  More like, relentless in the pursuit of goals.

Thinking back to your career journey, what’s an interesting story that stands out? 

My first “job” upon graduation from high school was an enlistment of 4 years’ active duty in the U.S. Army working as a flight operation specialist in Army Aviation.  While this doesn’t directly relate to my current career in human resources, it exposed me to many people from all different backgrounds – the ultimate DEIB (diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging) experience. This served me well in my HR career in terms of interacting with others and helping me develop the grit and determination to build scalable systems for organizations and their employees.

What’s the most impactful lesson you’ve learned over your career thus far?

I have learned how not to treat people. Unfortunately, I’ve witnessed poor culture as a result of leaders not leading with empathy or people who will do anything to get ahead.  I read “No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention” and agree with their ‘no brilliant jerks’ rule.  This rule is that Netflix won’t hire brilliant jerks – you shouldn’t either. 

It’s almost impossible to build a great team when you have brilliant jerks on the team. 

Although it may be tempting to retain them due to their skill level and output, don’t. They will be a detriment to your culture and your team’s morale.  

Thanks for giving us some insight into who you are! Let’s jump into things. When you hear the phrase “build a better world of work,” what comes to mind?

That we, employers and human resources professionals, overall, have a lot of work to do.  I feel we need to build a better world of work by implementing what Stanford economist Nick Bloom refers to as ‘being nice to people policies.’  Bloom is referring to pro-work-life-integration policies such as maternity leave, job sharing, part-time work, work from home, etc.  I would add encouraging employers to give their employees flexibility to the extent that the employees’ jobs permit. 

We have these outdated constructs where we require people to work between the hours of 9 am to 5 pm and within four walls.  Why? 

A ‘being nice to people’ policy would better support the work-life integration for employees.  As long as people get their work done on time and do a good job, why do we care where or when they work, as long as they are supporting their internal and external stakeholders.

For you, what’s the main blocker you see as standing in the way of building a better world of work?

Antiquated thinking is a significant blocker to building a better world of work.  Innovation is going to be what moves us all forward.  Employers need to trust their employees and treat them like adults – empower workers with flexibility. 

What’s one thing within our control that we can practically do to build a better world of work today? And, how do you recommend going about it?

One good and easy way is through surveys.  Then circle back with your employees.  Let them know what you learned, what’s possible, what’s not possible (and why).  Manage expectations before deploying the survey, tell employees you value their opinion and want to hear from them on what you can do to build a better world of work today.  Let them know that it’s unlikely you will be able to take action on everything, but you want to know what’s important to them and you will act to the extent possible. 

Closing the loop is key – if you don’t, people will stop sharing information with you.

Can you share one thing you’ve experienced, seen, or read about that is leading us towards a better world of work?

It’s a very interesting time, post-pandemic.  Employees are sharing their opinions and it’s getting attention.  For example, I just read an article about employees at a global tech giant who launched a petition to protest the company’s mandate to return to the office three days per week after Labor Day.  This would be the end of two years’ of work-from-home for the employees.  I am hopeful that employers think outside of the four office walls and the 9-to-5 schedule and get creative in a way that supports the needs of the business. as well as the needs of their employees.  

I’m curious, thinking about building a better world of work, is there a company and/or leader who stands out to you as someone we should follow? If so, what are they up to?

I say, look towards the leaders who have the courage to try something new.  That’s how we build a better world of work.

How can our readers follow your work?

Look for me on LinkedIn – happy to connect!

Thank you for adding your voice to People Managing People’s interview series on How to Build a Better World of Work!

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Join our interview series and share your ideas for how we can build a better world of work.

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It’s been said that businesses are all about who you know. However, it’s also true that favoritism and nepotism are frowned upon to ensure that the people you hire are qualified. As a business owner, it’s easier to trust people you know, even if they aren’t qualified.

Being in a network is very important for any business professional, especially entrepreneurs. It can help them develop critical skills and knowledge that will allow them to succeed or fail.

Look for Potential Connections

There are numerous networking opportunities available, both in person and through virtual groups. These are based on the various factors that you can consider when it comes to finding people. Look to those within your local region, industry, demographics, or education to find those potential connections.

Go to Events

One of the most effective ways to expand your network is attending various events. This can help you meet people from different backgrounds and geographical areas. In-person events can also be a great way to build connections with individuals who share similar goals.

Various events are designed to provide a low-pressure environment for socializing and learning. These can be events that are designed to help you develop new skills or hone your existing ones.

Join an Organization

Being in an organization can also help you meet like-minded individuals. Various groups cater to different types of entrepreneurs. For instance, the Business Collective is for those just starting, while the Founders Society is for established entrepreneurs.

Maintain The Relationships

Maintaining a connection is one of the most critical factors you should consider when it comes to networking. Although making an initial connection is simple, it doesn’t guarantee a lasting relationship. That takes time, effort, and participation.

Ask Questions

Before you start networking, it’s essential that you thoroughly research the people in your network. Doing so can help you better understand their needs and provide you with valuable insight. Having a few questions can also help you find solutions to your problems or help make stronger connections.

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We’re passionate about the world of work, and how we can make it better. To help satisfy our curiosity, we’ve launched an interview series where we pick the brains of experienced leaders, business owners, managers, and individual contributors to get their thoughts on how we can collectively build better workplaces.

Join us in our next installment below as Sara Sheehan—Consultant & Executive Coach—shares her insights with us.

We’d love to get to know you a bit better, tell us a bit about your backstory.

In early 1995, I began my consulting career working and traveling from Dallas, TX. Prior to that, I completed both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in Communications from the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. Over the next 27-plus years, I have worked with some great thought leaders in the management consulting industry, not to mention wonderful teams and great Fortune 100 clients. I have worked for global leading consulting firms my entire career including Accenture, IBM, KPMG, and Deloitte. Additionally, I have worked in my area of expertise of human capital the entire time helping people and organizations through transformation.

My consulting business focuses on helping clients through big, complex business transformations from a human capital perspective. I specialize in strategy, organization design, change management, talent development, and talent optimization. Typical business triggers that reveal the need for a change consultant include mergers and acquisitions that need to be integrated, require strategy, and organizational design work, a new senior leader on the executive leadership team indicates the need for strategy and leadership alignment, digital transformation creates demand for change management, training, and communications just to name a few.

If we were to ask a friend to describe your personality to us, what would they say?

They would say that I am kind, genuine, and authentic and that I have an objective perspective. They may say, “I would like to know what Sara’s perspective is on that situation…”

Thinking back to your career journey, what’s an interesting story that stands out? 

When I started my business in earnest, one of the things that stood out for me is that I was so focused and calm despite the circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic. I believe the fact that I am spiritually grounded really helped me set aside the noise of dis-harmony, ambiguity, and uncertainty. I’ve been consistent and focused on business development and it makes a difference.

What’s the most impactful lesson you’ve learned over your career thus far?

One of the partners I worked with at IBM pulled me aside and told me that I play everything too safe. The conversation was an important one. I needed to hear his message. I realized that I may need to be big and bold. It helped me understand the difference between pleasing others, leveling up my performance, and being a showboat. While I will never be a showboat personality, I can show up more intentionally in all that I do. I can also make sure that I am in the right mindset and energy zone for important meetings.

Thanks for giving us some insight into who you are! Let’s jump into things. When you hear the phrase “build a better world of work”, what comes to mind?

The genesis for building a better world of work evolved into a movement following the COVID-19 shutdown experience. The business world was able to continue forward under new expectations with more technology, autonomy, and delegation. Considering the art of what’s possible really left professionals across all demographics longing for a workplace, whether it is physical, hybrid, or virtual, that they looked forward to.

Building a better world of work means that workplaces thoughtfully consider where work is done and why, how employees are engaged, supporting the wellbeing of the organization, and the business results delivered.   

For you, what’s the main blocker you see as standing in the way of building a better world of work?

The tough part really comes with balancing personal desires and business needs across where work is done and why, how employees are engaged, supporting wellbeing, and delivering business results.

Command and control work styles of the past may have difficulty changing company culture.  

What’s one thing within our control that we can practically do to build a better world of work today? And, how do you recommend going about it?

Engage your employees in developing the solution of what a better world of work means for your organization as soon as you possibly can. Employees know what they want, and would welcome the opportunity to co-create the future with leaders. Use engagement tools in meetings so you can get feedback, understand the sentiment, and capture questions that you can answer later.

Can you share one thing you’ve experienced, seen, or read about that is leading us towards a better world of work?

Based on some of my recent readings and client experiences, a critical first step to building a better world of work is opening the door for employee engagement strategies which leads to business performance improvement.

I’m curious, thinking about building a better world of work, is there a company and/or leader who stands out to you as someone we should follow? If so, what are they up to?

I highly advise you to check out and follow Gretta Brooks, Founder, and CEO of Salesboost. Salesboost offers one of the most advanced skill-based learning platforms I have seen. Gretta is going to be incredibly successful and I believe she has a balanced view on achieving business results and supporting well-being.

How can our readers follow your work?

You can visit my work on my website or follow along with me and my content on LinkedIn.

Thank you for adding your voice to People Managing People’s interview series on How to Build a Better World of Work!

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Join our interview series and share your ideas for how we can build a better world of work.

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HR certification and courses are helpful in any management position, not just the Human Resources department.

Taking courses gives you tools to broaden your management abilities no matter what area of the company you work in. While bigger companies tend to have at least an HR manager, having a good understanding of HR within your department is a benefit as well.

In this article, I’ll explain the best online human resources certificate and courses available to support your department and give you additional tools to be a great manager.

20 Most Popular HR Certificates and Courses

1. HRCI Certification

HRCI certification is one of the top credentialing organizations when it comes to human resource professional standards. Their courses and examinations set a standard for HR rigor and excellence in the field and in flagging people with HR expertise. They have been in the business of teaching HR for more than 40 years and are one of the most respected organizations that offer professional certifications. The courses offered are for those who are just starting out in the field, those who want to upgrade their skills, and those who want to learn about a particular area of HR. They cover all the topics that you need to attain certification or simply take on a basis of interest.

• Price: Begins at $149 per course
• Duration: Variable
• Exam Required: Yes, for most certificates
• Online, In-Person, or both? Both
• How many hours of instruction: Various
• Eligibility Requirements: None – most beginner courses are open to all

2. SHRM Certification

The SHRM certification is meant to enhance an individual’s effectiveness in the workplace and move their careers forward while networking with other business leaders. SHRM focuses on helping students understand that effective people management is needed to make sure the company and employees who are hired are on the same page and have similar goals. Students learn how to apply the knowledge gained in courses to their workplace so they can be part of a team to enhance and support the company’s goals.

• Price: Begins at $500 for exams
• Duration: Variable
• Exam Required: Yes
• Online, In-Person, or both?  Depends on timing
• How many hours of instruction: Various as you can take courses elsewhere before the exam
• Eligibility Requirements: None – variable depending on which stream you are in

3. George Brown College

The college offers human resources certification programs aimed at those who are already at the management level. It was created to assist those who are already working on the administration side of HR in an effort to expand and upgrade their skills. It is also a great course if you are aiming to move up in management as a human resource professional and are just beginning that process.

• Price: $319 per module (10 modules) 
• Duration: 6 weeks per module
• Exam Required: Yes
• Online, In-Person, or both?  In-Person
• How many hours of instruction:  36 per module
• Eligibility Requirements:  HRM 1031 Human Resources Management 

4. Certificate in Human Resources Management 

This course is designed by York University for students to gain a good understanding of concepts in HR while accessing networks of professionals. You can study this HR certificate program while balancing both your professional and personal lives, learning the core competencies of the HR professional as set out by the Human Resources Professional Association. A quality human resources certification program for all who want to improve their standing in the field without having to take time off from work to do the course work.

• Price: $6,921
• Duration:  2 years
• Exam Required: Yes
• Online, In-Person, or both?  Online
• How many hours of instruction:  9 courses – flexible timing
• Eligibility Requirements:  1-year college or university – general qualifications to be admitted to the University.

5. Human Resources Certificate Program  

Cornell University offers numerous courses in Human Resources that allow you to obtain full certification or take courses one at a time. The university combines the insights and real-world input of academic researchers grounded in reality and have been utilized in the real world. These courses are meant for those who are new to HR as well as those who are accomplished in the field. There is something for every career.

• Price: $5,400
• Duration:  4.5 months – 2 weeks per course
• Exam Required: Yes
• Online, In-Person, or both?  Online
• How many hours of instruction:  3-5 hours per week
• Eligibility Requirements: Global professionals, line-level HR professionals 0-5 years, those who want to be in the field. 

6. Human Resource Management

This is one of the top Human Resource Management programs available online. Golden State University offers courses where students learn to understand and deal with the problems and situations that are coming up in an ever changing human resources industry. You also learn good personnel management techniques and people analytics along with organizational structures and skill sets. You gain firsthand experience from the best teachers available. The options for accessing the courses are flexible but the timelines are set. Make sure you have the time to dedicate to these professional-level courses.

• Price: $600 per course – 15 courses for certification
• Duration:  1 term
• Exam Required: Yes
• Online, In-Person, or both?  It can be done online or in San Francisco if you are local.
• How many hours of instruction:  Various depending on the module
• Eligibility Requirements: Various depending on the module. Some have prerequisites.

7. Human Capital Institute

Based in Cincinnati, Ohio the Human Capital Institute delivers Certification programs and Conferences virtually worldwide. They have 3 core beliefs: that the greatest accelerator of organisational success is in aligning human capital with business strategy; that businesses with aligned human capital strategy outperform others; and to enable organisations to do this, Human Resources and talent management professionals must have the right strategic skill sets and mindsets. 

The Human Capital Institute has a number of offerings that allow you to gain new skills, get certificatied, attend virtual conferences and webcasts, as well as corporate solutions for your HR teams. 

• Price: Ranges from $1,195 to $2,795
• Duration:  Most are delivered in Half Day sessions over 4 to 6 weeks
• Exam Required: Yes
• Online, In-Person, or both?  Both
• How many hours of instruction:  Depending on the program 
• Eligibility Requirements: None, all courses are open to everyone 

8. Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development

CIPD is a 100 year old professional body for the experts in people at work. Their work involves setting professional standards for HR and people development and driving positive change in the world of work. CIPD offers membership-based access to more than just certification programs but also a community, wellbeing helpline services, and employment law support. Courses are focused on practical operational know-how and high-level strategic insight, among others.

• Price: Membership ranges from £98 for students, to £260 for Affiliate
• Duration: Go at your own pace, lessons are downloadable course workbooks 
• Exam Required: Unknown
• Online, In-Person, or both?  Online
• How many hours of instruction:  Flexible access, some just taking 30-45 minutes per lesson
• Eligibility Requirements: None openly stated on the website 

9. International Association for Human Resources Information Management

IHRIM has been around since 1980, helping both novice and experienced HR professionals adapt to technological revolutions in the HR landscape. Through IHRIM, you can earn the Human Resource Information Professional Certification (HRIP). The HRIP is designed to help HR professionals build their credibility, demonstrate their expertise, and send a message that you are knowledgeable and committed to quality.

• Price: Depending on your membership status, fees range from $445 to $790
• Duration: Exam Review Courses are scheduled and last 3 weeks
• Exam Required: Yes, via recorded proctoring via webcam
• Online, In-Person, or both? Online
• How many hours of instruction: 75 minutes per session, 6 sessions in total
• Eligibility Requirements: None, but 3-5 years of experience in HR technology solutions and/or management is recommended 

10. McMaster Human Resources Management Program

McMaster University offers a comprehensive human resources program that includes 4 3-course certificates and 1 diploma program. Many courses are approved by the Human Resources Professional Association and can be applied towards a CHRP or CHRL certification. 

Certificates are offered in a virtual classroom format and help build skills HR management, talent planning and acquisition, workplace health and safety, and intercultural competency and communication. Work towards your CHRP and CHRL designations while building confidence and forming valuable network connections all through virtual learning or online self-study.  

• Price: $59 non-refundable application fee + $700-800 per course
• Duration: Each certificate consists of 3 courses (3.0 units each) and can be completed in approx. 4 months.
• Exam Required: No
• Online, In-Person, or both?: Online
• How many hours of instruction:  approx. 36 hours per course
• Eligibility Requirements: Have an O.S.S. Diploma or be a mature student

11. Calgary University Human Resources Management Certificate

The Human Resources Management Certificate at University of Calgary offers 300 hours of instruction with 3 core courses and up to 13 additional optional credits, all culminating in a certificate. Perfect for those looking for a foundation in HR or who are preparing for the CHRP designation. 

The program offers a variety of optional courses such as conflict management, employee benefits, and building a positive workplace that can help you specialize and steer your interest in a direction best suited for your career.

• Price: $105 application fee + $5400 tuition fees
• Duration: Complete certificate in approx. 4 months to 1 year, you may enrol in single courses
• Exam Required: Unknown
• Online, In-Person, or both?: Online
• How many hours of instruction:  300 hours
• Eligibility Requirements: 18 years of age and have your Grade 12 diploma

12. Simon Fraser Human Resources Management Certificate

Simon Fraser University offers a 9-course certificate is accredited by CHRP British Columbia and Yukon. The program culminates to a CHRP National Knowledge Exam that can accelerate the process of your CPRP designation, achieving it much faster if you receive a grade of B-. 

The completed certificate can also be applied to the Graduate Diploma in Business Administration at SFU Beedie School of Business, no undergraduate degree required. 

• Price: $75 program application fee + $749 per course
• Duration: 8 weeks (7-10 hours per week)
• Exam Required: Unknown
• Online, In-Person, or both?: Online
• How many hours of instruction:  36 hours per course
• Eligibility Requirements: Grade 12 diploma or at least 5 years of work experience

13. TMU Human Resources Management Certificate

TMU offers a 6 course Human Resource Mangement Certificate through the Chang School of Continuing Education. The majority of the courses offered by this certificate are exempted by the CHRP and can be applied directly to your designation. The certificate consists of 2 core courses and 4 optional courses that offer a practical approach to HR management focussing on diversity and inclusivity, training, and HR strategy. 

• Price: $75 program application fee + $500-700 per course
• Duration: 6 courses can be completed in approx. 4 months to a 1 year
• Exam Required: Unknown
• Online, In-Person, or both?: Online and in-person
• How many hours of instruction: 36-40 hours per course
• Eligibility Requirements: Grade 12 diploma with 6 M or U credits or mature student status, cumulative GP of 1.67

14. Human Resource Management Graduate Certificate 

Established in 1988, this program is the only one of its kind in Canada. Perfect for those wanting to learn about all aspects of human resources and who are interested in pursuing a field placement or internship. Humber offers comprehensive core courses that are recognized by the HRPA and can be applied to the HRPA designation. Study with HR specialized faculty who focus on hands on applications and have a track record of guiding students towards successful work placements and careers. 

The program also has a rich network of professionals and mentorship programs via the IGS Industry and the Community Connector Hub which connects students with the career resources they need. 

• Price: $440 program application fee + $5966.40 tuition per year
• Duration: 3 semesters
• Exam Required: Unknown
• Online, In-Person, or both?: Online and in-person
• How many hours of instruction: 36-40 hours per course
• Eligibility Requirements: Bachelor’s Degree

15. The Academy to Innovate HR (AIHR)

AIHR offers an entire online library of HR certification programs and courses. The academy offers a specialized full program that allows students to choose unlimited, multiple certifications to be completed during an extended period of time or you can choose to hone in on one specialty area and earn your certification in subjects such as Strategic HR Leadership, Digital HR and HR Metrics and Dashboarding.

The AIHR focusses on developing T-shaped professionals through 4 requirements: data literacy, digital integration, business acumen, and people advocacy. 

• Price: $997 USD per course or $1,797 USD to enrol in Academy
• Duration: 12 months
• Exam Required: Unknown
• Online, In-Person, or both?: Online
• How many hours of instruction: 30-40 hours per certification program
• Eligibility Requirements: No experience needed

16. Talent Management Practitioner by the Talent Management Institute

Known as the world’s largest certification institute for specifically talent management, if you know you want to specialize in talent management, this could be a good choice for you. The program offers three different credentials, TMP (Talent Management Practitioner), STMP (Senior Talent Management Practioner) and GTML (Global Talent Mangement Leader) that are all globally recognized as talent management certifications. 

• Price: $625 USD
• Duration: 180 days
• Exam Required: Yes
• Online, In-Person, or both?: Online
• How many hours of instruction: Self-paced and self-study
• Eligibility Requirements: Dependant on application

17. Certified Professional in Talent Development (CPTD)

This certification offered by the Association for Talent and Development (ADT) and is geared toward more developed business professionals. The courses follow the Talent Development Capability Model developed by the ADT which focusses on personal, professional and organizational capabilities. You must apply through the website for the exam and to access study materials. 

• Price: $975 USD for members and $1350 USD for non-members. 
• Duration: 3 hour exam
• Exam Required: Yes
• Online, In-Person, or both?: Online
• How many hours of instruction: Self-paced
• Eligibility Requirements: 5 years of related work experience and 60 hours of professional development 

18. Sheridan College Human Resource Management Certificate

Sheridan College offers a Human Resources certificate that offers two exam prep courses that can be used as a pre-cursor to the CHRP and CHRL designation exam. The course begins with 2 introductory courses, followed by 9 compulsory courses in finance, analytics and occupational health and safety. 

• Price: $975 USD for members and $1350 USD for non-members. 
• Duration: 4 months to 1 year
• Exam Required: Unknown
• Online, In-Person, or both?: Online and in-person
• How many hours of instruction: 30-40 hours per course
• Eligibility Requirements: Unknown

19. Mastering Talent Management: Recruiting, Retaining and Rewarding A+ Talent

This program offered by Wharton School at University of Pennsylvania is unique in that they have developed an HR study model that focusses on whole organizations instead of individual outcomes. If you are a C-level human resources professional who has aspirations of becoming a CEO, or working in an executive position, this course will help you to upgrade your skills and apply concepts in a experiential format. 

• Price: $2,600 USD
• Duration: 6 weeks
• Exam Required: No
• Online, In-Person, or both?: Online
• How many hours of instruction: 4-6 hours per week
• Eligibility Requirements: Years of experience working in an HR or business field

20. University of Toronto Human Resources Program

University of Toronto offers a human resources program and 3 certificates in Human Resources, Human Resources Management Essentials and Managing, Investigating, and Resolving Workplace Harrassment Complaints. Some courses fulfill credits for CHRP and CHRL designations and are taught online as well as in-person. Go at your own pace and enrol in individual courses or choose a full program of study. 

• Price: $795 per course
• Duration: Self-paced
• Exam Required: Unknown
• Online, In-Person, or both?: In-person and Online
• How many hours of instruction: 30-40 hours per course
• Eligibility Requirements: Unknown

Final Thoughts

Whether you are interested in taking one course or a full set for a human resource management certificate, you can find many to suit your needs. If you want to build your knowledge base before an exam at the HR Certification Institute, there are courses for all levels. The HRCI offers SPHR certification for those more senior, recertification, and basic certification as well for those newer to the field. 

For further insight into the HR field and information that might interest you, sign up for The People Managing People newsletter. You will find lots of interesting reading, support, and advice in the field of Human Resources.

Other Related Content:

• Top HR Podcasts
• Chasing Change, Pursuing The Possibilities

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Establishing workplace trust is the cheapest way to run a company. 

You will spend less on management and get more out of your employees when they buy into a trustworthy enterprise.

This article is about my experience helping build a high-trust organization called Electroimpact. Use these ideas to build trust in your organization—especially in the modern hybrid workplace.

Key concepts:

• Make trust a core value
• Hire smart, authentic people
• Empower them with real autonomy
• Enable transparency
• Expect high personal integrity and show it in return.

Why Does Building Trust In The Workplace Matter?

Most traditional organizations are built on the “command-and-control” model. This model is fundamentally structured around setting out explicit instructions and follow-up. 

Think military units. Managers don’t intrinsically trust employees. There is a natural tension between management expectations and what the employees think they can get away with doing. The result? Energy spent on friction and noise of verification rather than directed toward productive output. 

Even many newer startups are launched from the founder’s vision of how people should work, typically modeled after the founder’s way of working. These organizations sometimes appear to have a high level of trust but, in reality, they often just lack structure and oversight in the gap between the founder and the workers. 

Nobody builds a startup so they can have lots of managers but, as companies grow and expand, this layer thickens and the gap can widen. Eventually the company can stray from the mission and then there can be a pretty massive reset driven by strong “leadership” from the founding team. 

The founding team realizes they can no longer focus on their work and trust that the rest of the organization knows what to do. Workers realize that, while they thought they had autonomy, really there was just chaos in between them and the founding team.

All kinds of unpleasantness ensues, including top talent disengaging, increased turnover, and frustrated communications from an out-of-touch management team.

In contrast, an organization with authentic trust stays in tune from top to bottom. When workers trust that their leadership puts value on their interests, they exhibit high personal integrity in their work and engagement approaches altruism. 

When leadership experiences this buy-in from the team they are incentivized to continue and support the model because they can see how it makes their day-job very easy, reduces the costs of oversight, employee turnover stays low, and productivity is high.

How To Build Trust In The Workplace

High levels of trust in the workplace seems to be such an unusual experience that many people have a hard time relating to the idea. 

At Electroimpact, trust was instilled from the founding principles. The owner founded the company to be “the ultimate engineer’s company” and the mission statement is to “have fun and make money designing, building, installing, and supporting quality automated equipment.”

In this view, great engineers do not like or even need management, bureaucracy, departments, oversight, or really any kind of rules in order to work effectively.

Whereas most engineering or manufacturing companies are founded to make and sell the founder’s widget or idea, this company was built to be a great place for engineers to work, and then focus on “what will we make and sell?” 

Essentially the owner believed the people he hired would know to “do the right thing, and do things right.”

Since inception, the company grew faster than the aerospace industry in the boom times. During most of the industry dips, the company shrank back less than peers.

Growth was driven by the ability to rapidly scale when the market demanded it. We grew engineering headcount by as much as 30% in a single year, all through direct hiring—no recruiters! This is a lot of work in a company where engineers make up 75% of the headcount. 

So how is building high levels of organizational trust achieved in practice?

Make trust part of your core values

As mentioned above, Electroimpact was founded with autonomy, and therefore trust, as one of the core values. These are enshrined in the employee handbook.

The Handbook itself is only about 20 pages. It does not prescribe all kinds of rules. Instead, it answers common questions and certain guidelines with a strong emphasis on personal integrity:

• The #1 personnel policy statement is “Electroimpact has a nearly flat organizational structure and the company demands and supports individual integrity and effort.”
• New employee orientations review the fact that there is not a cohort of managers looking over employees’ shoulders and people are trusted to work as they see fit.
• On day one, employees are given a key to all the buildings and broad network access
• Even unlimited purchasing authority is granted on day one, yet no formal employment contract is signed.

Hire smart, authentic people

Electroimpact’s owner once said, when asked about the secret to success, that he’d “give his competitors the drawings for his products, but not give up how he hires his people.” 

Company growth and success is about the quality and integrity of the people.

Trust begins at hiring.

The hiring process must include evaluation of trustworthiness illustrated by robust degree programs, personal integrity, and demonstrated skill.

Often, student engineering team projects are a great way to evaluate how someone performed and related in an environment with limited oversight and guidance.

It can be a challenge for experienced workers to unlearn the habits acquired in previous organizational cultures. Focusing on “feeding the bottom” by hiring recent grads enables people to grow in the trust model and has, of course, the additional advantages of bringing in the latest education and lower salary costs.

For all of these reasons, Electroimpact resisted hiring mid-or later-career individuals.

Enable Transparency

Trust is the result of shared positive experiences. Negative feelings and distrust can be avoided with high levels of transparency. 

So how do you build transparency into your organization? Answer: make everything openly accessible and communicate often.

For example, Electroimpact gives everyone purchasing authority and encourages them to buy what they need to get their job done. This is the first obvious (and shocking to some) side of a “trust triangle”.

Purchasing happens in an ERP where everyone can search and see what everyone else is buying. Everyone can see what you’re spending company money on via quick and easy purchase order search tools. 

Project financial reporting, available to everyone, shows the cumulative costs of labor and materials vs what the customer has agreed to pay.

Similarly, open access to design data across and between projects allows people to find, review, and capitalize on others’ work to minimize reinventing the wheel. Successes and failures are visible to all. This is the second side of the triangle.

In cases where customers have data privacy expectations, this is an opportunity for high-integrity individuals to implement the minimum necessary security to avoid inappropriate access and demonstrate that to the customer. Most customers enjoy understanding they are only paying for the overhead they ask for!

Access to company financials and pay and operations transparency are a third side of the trust triangle.

Each month a company management meeting is held. All employees are welcome to attend, but typically it’s mostly group leaders and project managers. 

Going around the room, those attending in-person and virtually each get a few minutes to talk about what they’re working on, what’s coming up for their team, what needs they have, and what resources and new developments they are making available. 

This includes ownership presenting on the state of the business and what technologies and opportunities they’re excited about. 

Detailed minutes are taken and then distributed to the entire organization via email and archived on the intranet. Everyone can easily keep up on the big picture. 

These minutes have become artifacts of the quality management system as evidence of executive review of the company’s mission.

How transparency prevented pay discrimination

A quick note on this. The owner’s innate desire to keep things simple by posting everyone’s salary on the wall grew into a natural means of preventing pay discrimination by gender, age, and other non-work-related criteria. 

A great example of how this is powerful includes when EEO investigators come looking for situations where traditionally-underrepresented workers are paid less for similar work. Any employee can easily show individuals’ contributions via purchasing reports and design data and show how they are compensated. 

One case included a husband-and-wife engineer employee pair. Both happened to be mechanical engineers of similar tenure and experience. The EEO investigators found that the wife was paid more than the husband, which was justified by superior work output. Nobody was surprised by this finding.

Empower people with real autonomy

Many organizations create difficult situations by assigning responsibility without providing adequate authority to carry out the work. 

This is really frustrating for workers who lack empowerment yet have constant targets to hit. They feel stuck without support from management.

In contrast, leadership that grants real autonomy with local and immediate decision-making by workers empowers them to deliver on their assignments. By proper and effective use of this autonomous power in getting the job done, the workers demonstrate they are trustworthy. This leads to a virtuous cycle with increasing responsibility and performance.

So what does this look like at Electroimpact?

The environment in which people work is an open campus. There are no guards, gates, sign-ins, receptionists, badges, or permissions needed. Customers and suppliers are quickly able to interact with employees as needed.

Vertical responsibility in this model means that engineers are marketing and selling and making contracts with customers.

Upon winning work, the engineers need to perform all the project functions typically including building a team, doing their own calculations, simulations, and analysis, CAD modeling, presenting to customers, drafting, purchasing, assembly, debug and testing, installation, and support at the customer site. 

Typically, each employee is providing a sub-system within the context of a larger overall project deliverable to the customer. 

If it was a custom car, one person would be doing the engine, another the drivetrain, another the body, electrical, etc. Everyone recognizes the car won’t run without all contributions running and on time, and lessons are directly learned so errors are not repeated (by that individual, anyway.) 

A very important feature of this model is the real autonomy to choose what you want to work on. 

Maybe new hires don’t get to work on what they think is the coolest part of the product when they first join. But, after proving themselves, they’re awarded mobility to continue developing in a particular area, or move on to another area to expand both the product value and their experience.

The project manager’s (themselves an engineer) responsibility is to enable the team to get their work done by removing roadblocks to success, whatever that means in the moment. 

Upper management’s job is to curate this environment and make the hard decisions and judgment calls that escalate to them. 

Engineers love this model of being able to personally bring their ideas to reality, a rarity in most organizations. 

On the flip side, management’s job is made easier—if something goes wrong, they need only look at the individual. Something went awry either at the concept level, the execution, or follow-through. The individual is likely very close to the issues and does not get to point the finger at others!

Peer reviews

An aside, perhaps, but something worth mentioning. Peer reviews are a powerful tool to help spot things that could potentially be an issue. Most people look at their own work through the same eyes as during creation—it’s just hard to find errors ourselves. 

Organizing peer reviews at logical steps in the product development and execution process brings fresh eyes. 

A really good peer review includes diverse members of not only the immediate working team but also outsiders willing to give some time. 

A really excellent review can be had if one invites “less-friendly” peers. You know what I’m talking about… everyone has some sort of a “nemesis” who is more critical of your work. 

As hard as it seems to invite that person to critique your work, it’s likely they will find more issues than your friends will. And you want any and all issues to be surfaced and addressed, because otherwise your personal efforts will be increased in the recovery. This requires a certain amount of bravery to be sure!

This applies not only to the design engineer and technical work but also to the work of preparing proposals and pricing new products and services. Most people prefer catching things early rather than pitching in to assist in the recovery later.

From an employee discipline perspective, when someone has not performed, most often it’s often due to a miscommunication of expectations. 

In a high-trust, high-autonomy environment, new hires frequently start work without much instruction (certainly much less than in the academic environment from which they have just arrived).

A two-way conversation between manager and employee can usually clear things up, though sometimes a change in team is needed. In some cases there are actions and decisions which are obvious breaches of trust.

When this is wilful and deliberate it is straightforward for the organization to recognize the individual does not exhibit the level of trustworthiness needed to succeed in this model.

Expect high personal integrity and show it in return

Personal integrity is valuable at all levels, and at work and in our personal lives. Without integrity a person can’t be trustworthy. 

Basic integrity means doing what you promised. For the daily engineering work this means following the project requirements, meeting the specifications for performance, delivering on-time and within the project budget.

Meeting all of these basic requirements is often difficult and displays the character and capabilities of the individual within the project environment. 

For obvious reasons, managers tend to prefer team members who make good on their promises, remembering that it’s likely the employee signed up for the particular work.

The manager can show integrity in return with things like sincere mentoring, coaching, advocating, giving good performance reviews, and removing barriers. 

One barrier some can get tripped up on is keeping the best people for your team.

Contrary to common practice, it’s not ideal for a manager to collect all the best people for themselves.

It’s imperative to enable each individual to go as far as they can for the overall best outcome for the organization, and managers should not hold people back. They should encourage and promote when deserved. 

This career enablement shows high integrity at the manager level, which should be viewed and rewarded by the next level up. With encouragement from top management, this success ladder goes all the way to the top. 

Ownership

The personal vertical responsibility model shows the ownership each individual has for their own success and collectively the success of the project and the company.

A powerful way senior management can show trustworthiness and advance this model is in how they distribute company profits. 

The basic profit equation is the money left over after operations (overhead) and project costs are subtracted from income. 

A simple formula retains a portion of the excess profits to grow the business and then distributes the remainder back to employees proportional to tenure and pay as proxies for contributions to company success. 

By transparently illustrating how individual labor and purchase decisions create the profit margin, and then sharing excess profits with the employees, the company helps people feel personally responsible for profits. 

A common refrain heard in the organization – “hey, knock that off! You’re wasting my profit sharing!” 

This is real ownership of the model at all levels in the organization.

A Note On Remote Teams

Remote or hybrid work is easily enabled in a high-trust organization.

Few new tools are needed when the leadership trusts workers and has already empowered them to work with self-direction and spend money and time wisely.

There are great tools like straightforward and reliable network access, slick digital collaboration tools, and PLM and ERP systems in place for visibility around effort and productivity in a trust-but-verify model. 

And how are these tools identified and brought into the organization? In the high-trust model, the employees are empowered to select, acquire, and deploy the tools they want to use for the way they work.

When the culture adapted to the sudden remote-work situation with suppliers and customers no longer able to visit the campus, EI responded by quickly running through Slack, Teams, Zoom, Skype, WebEX, and more in just a week or two in late March-early April when the lockdowns began in earnest in the local area.

Most of the organization settled quickly on Teams for internal use, and maintained some capability for all the rest in order to stay connected with customers and suppliers who chose other platforms. 

This high level of flexibility, competency, and rapid rollout enabled the organization to lead customers and suppliers through the pandemic’s early months with a reassuring “we got this, we’ll help you out” attitude which mirrored the company’s reputation in the product and service marketplace.

Trust Makes For A More Fun Workplace

Having fun is greatly improved when you trust your fellow team members, leadership, and company ownership.

In an age where “increasing shareholder value” is no longer viewed as the primary mission for companies, and talented employees are in high demand, workplaces must show that they recognize there must be some fun in the workplace to attract and retain talent. 

Feeling like you’re valued, and seeing that value reflected in the trust and autonomy in your daily work, is a very powerful retention mechanism. It’s why I stayed in the same company for almost 30 years!

My time at Electroimpact taught me that there is a better way to work than many organizations provide.

I absolutely loved working with and for some of the highest-caliber engineers in the aerospace industry, in an environment where we trusted each other at work and hung out together while our families grew. 

We all had a passion for the work as a true team, and, on many projects, the customer was part of the team at the working level.

I received a lot of feedback about how awesome the team was to work with and I think this stems not only from technical competence but also a positive attitude where good intent is assumed.

Especially enjoyable was giving tours of Electroimpact to outsiders ranging from aircraft OEM executives down to schoolchildren.

All came away with a sense of wonderment about the work culture and the capabilities it unlocked. Electroimpact changed the way aircraft are built and I am very proud to have been a part of it. 

Some further reading/watching:

• My TedTalk on workplace trust and transparency
• Trust and inspire: a mantra for modern leadership
• Build a culture of trust to improve performance

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