7 POLICIES COMPANIES SHOULD ELIMINATE IN 2017

The ways companies handle their employees have been pretty much the same for decades now despite the fact that society and people are ever evolving. Thankfully, some employers have realized the need to keep up with the times so they are slowly starting to adapt Human Resource policies to reflect today’s culture. However, there are still quite a few policies that are stuck in the stone age that need to be changed as of yesterday.

1. Unpaid leave

We understand that employers can’t and should not pay for every employee to have limitless days of paid leave. However, if one of your good workers has used up all of their paid leave but they still need to take a personal day for illness or other reasons, do not penalize them for living in the real world. Sure, do not pay them for the day off, but let them deal whatever it is and be able to return to work without a problem.

2. Co-worker rankings

Some companies have a horrible practice of ranking their employees and releasing the results. While some healthy competition is a good thing, pitting co-workers against each other is just asking for trouble and backstabbing.

3. Internal transfers

Allow your employees to request internal transfers without having to talk to their managers for permission. Think about how awkward that is for everyone involved. Besides, you do not have to talk to your boss before applying for a job outside of the company, so do not give them a reason to do it. Instead, give them a means to move internally without added stress.

4. Harsh dress codes

I get that you want your employees to look their best but instead of telling them how to tuck in their shirts or tie their shoes, try giving a general standard such as “business casual.” You may have to talk to a frumpy employee every now and then, but you will also let your responsible employees breathe a little easier around the collar.

5. Proof of death

When an employee is grieving a loved one, the last thing you should make them do is prove that they attended a funeral to miss work. Take their word for it if at all possible. Granted, if they attend their grandmother’s funeral three times in a year – you may have reason to question the validity of their absence.

6. Salary worker abuse

We have all seen the salaried employees working on projects late into the night and taking calls on the weekends. We have also seen the same employees get thrashed for being a few minutes late getting to work the next day. Show them some grace and let them take a few more minutes in the morning if they need it.

7. No flextime

If you have employees that can come into work, get their job done to the level of quality expected and still have time to spare – why not let them work flexible hours that make more sense for their life? Flextime has been a huge success for some of the major companies that attract top talent because employees feel appreciated and seen.

They say, rules exist to be broken and this is especially important in the corporate world. Depending on where you live, breaking these company rules can significantly improve your career life, but again it all depends on your boss. Be wise when applying for a job in 2017.

3 TIPS TO BECOMING A SUCCESSFUL MENTOR

Ah, the sweet smell of success! It hovers around you like a fine cologne. When you enter the room, heads turn. People gravitate toward you, clamoring for your time and attention, seeking your advice on make-or-break issues that have taken you years of experience to master.

How did it come to this? When did you become the go-to guy or gal in your field? More importantly, now that you are irreplaceable, how do you plan to replace yourself when the time comes? What will be your legacy?

When you were first starting out, before you gained this rarefied level of experience, you knew you had to find someone with more knowledge about your topic than you. You needed a mentor—someone to cut short your learning curve and guide you through the subtleties of your craft.

Whether consciously or by default, you became someone’s protégé. Your mentor taught you well, letting you fall down when you needed to and helping you get back up, brushing off the sting of embarrassment.

“Feedback is a gift,“ you were told. “Accept it graciously, and give thanks.” There are times you gladly would have smacked your mentor with that precious “feedback!” Now you merely chuckle at the memory.

Since those early days you have been on quite a journey, and now you have a tale to tell about your adventures. Just as in the Hero’s Journey, you departed from your known world, crossed the threshold of adventure, and returned home again with the Golden Key. The spoils of victory are yours to share with others.

In other words, you are ready for the task of mentoring a protégé yourself—someone to carry on your work. You have a chance to leave a legacy for the next generation and help shape the course of history.

It sounds great, but where do you start? Like most things, mentoring a protégé requires a systematic approach including an intention, an ideal candidate, and a clear goal.

The Shape of Mentoring

Few things are more rewarding than guiding someone else through the maze of knowledge about your chosen field. Arguably, the mentor-protégé relationship is the ultimate teaching experience.

You can transfer your accumulated ideas and experience to someone else, and both you and your protégé will benefit materially and in intangible ways. Your protégé becomes a link in the chain of human history, and as a mentor, you leave the best kind of legacy.

Protégés are common in the realm of commerce and more. Across a variety of industries, experienced professionals routinely adopt a protégé and provide coaching on their best practices. Business, manufacturing, construction, medicine, religion and the entertainment industry all make use of mentoring as a standard practice.

The mentor-protégé connection can be formal or informal. Formal mentoring programs are usually found within a company, an organization or industry. Informal relationships abound as well but tend to fly under the radar of common notice.

The Service Corps of Retired Executives is a great example of an established formal mentoring program. Retired business executives invest their time and expertise in developing protégés in the business sector. They come from every sector, every walk of life, and they represent a rich reservoir of experience to tap.

With informal mentoring, relationships tend to develop naturally, even spontaneously, when an experienced professional provides guidance and help to a newcomer.

This kind of mentoring can be effective, but it may suffer from a lack of structure unless the mentor-protégé pair set concrete and realistic goals.

Having a definite timeline and end-game will ensure the relationship’s viability. Like most projects, success is within reach only with a clear, written set of tasks and milestones. As a mentor, your calendar and To-Do list are your greatest allies. These tools can be your best gift to your new protégé as well.

You don’t have to be a great guru to have something worthwhile to offer as a mentor. With your experience in a skill or industry, you can help someone new to your field. Watching new talent unfold could be one of your greatest pleasures.

3 Tips for Mentoring Success

Here are some key ideas to keep in mind as you begin your mentoring journey.

1. Mentoring is a partnership. It allows for an exchange of ideas, and the exchange needs to flow both ways. Each party must be committed and fully participate in order to learn from each other.
2. Besides skills and business behaviors, your protégé will acquire attitudes from you. A positive frame of mind is essential to success as a mentor.
3. Stay open to new ideas which invariably come up during the process. Encourage dialogue, exchange, and inspiration. Tap your protégé for the skills they’d like to learn, and you might even be surprised at the things you learn along the journey.

As you take on your role as mentor, focus on activities and actions that help your protégé become more independent. Don’t just hand them success. They need to succeed on their own merits, not by riding your coattails.

When you coach a young protégé to success, you’re leaving a lasting legacy, and the future belongs to both of you.

7 REASON FOLLOWERS DREAD TO BECOME LEADERS

I am sure you are familiar with the saying, ‘Lead, follow or get out of the way.’ There is a distinct relationship between leaders and followers. Some people naturally prefer to lead others, while others would much rather be a follower.

Either way, the clear distinction is this: Leaders lead. Followers follow. Let’s not demean the role of being a follower. If anything, followers greatly influence how leaders conduct themselves. Turns out you can learn to be a good leader by being a good follower.

Sometimes, though, you just may not want to assume a leadership role, and that’s more than okay. It does not mean you are weak or unable to complete the tasks necessary in a leadership role, it might be other factors. It could be personal, the vision of leadership may not be personally fitting and so on. Here are seven reasons why followers may dread to become leaders:

1. Responsibility

Let’s be frank here: Leadership means you assume the responsibility of being in service to others, including those who follow their leaders. That’s a big role and large shoes to fill no matter the type of leadership role you assume. Being a follower could mean that instead of swallowing the burden of responsibility of leading others and constantly being in service to others, you can concretely provide an outsiders perspective.

2. Would rather not risk their reputation

No matter the role of leadership, if you fail, so does your reputation. It is harsh, but it happens. Regaining that trust from those who follow you after a failure is a difficult thing to regain. However, you should assume a follower-type role, you may have tumbled down hand-in-hand with your fearless leader, but you have saved your personal reputation.

3. Original and innovative ideas

A leader is an innovator. They are a dreamer and someone who can conceptualize innovative ideas to address current needs of their role. Whereas a follower may not specialize in this type of creativity. A follower will most likely be able to assist in the implementation of novel and original concepts that have been asserted by a leader.

4. Comfortable with complacency

A common trait of a leader is never being satisfied or always seeking a way to do things better. Someone who assumes a follower role may be just fine with how things are going. Whereas, a leader is usually seeking change and looking to implement change in their role.

5. Keen awareness

Being a leader requires keen awareness and that requires dedication to the leadership position. Keen awareness is required in order to be connected with the various audiences you report to, including your colleagues, superiors, followers, customers, and the public. Leadership requires awareness of other people’s needs and their potentials. Followers, on the other hand, learn to read people and understand what may upset and motivate them.

6. Courage

Assuming a leadership role also requires you to take a large dose of courage. Meaning, leadership starts from within. A leader lives and breathes their role twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Now, I am not asserting a follower does not have courage, but I am merely stating that the type of courage that is required of a leader is life-consuming.

Another reason why someone may politely decline a leadership role, which there is nothing wrong with that if anything, it is responsible if you are not up for your personal life being absorbed by a leadership position.

7. Making tough decisions

Finally, the last reason why someone may not want to land in a leadership role is the aspect of making decisions that are not so easy to arrive at. Sometimes those in leadership roles have to make decisions that are not always the most favorable but are necessary.

Leadership requires an understanding of how to balance emotions with reason. These decisions ultimately should positively impact their followers, superiors, customers and public.

Leadership roles are not for everyone and please know that is more than okay. Being a leader does not mean you are superior to others and being a follower does not mean that you are lesser of a person. Each role has a crucial role within.

Both leaders and followers have a symbiotic relationship with one another when one is out of place the other suffers. Regardless if you are a leader or follower, know that each role asks different things of the individual.