I shared a LinkedIn post the other day which seemed to resonate, and so I thought I’d take the time to expand slightly on my thoughts in this blog post.
People management is made out to be some incredibly complex topic. There is realms and realms of literature written on the subject. And yet, despite this, we are all familiar with the statistics telling us that the majority of people don’t leave their job, they leave their manager.
Ask me my least favourite phrase from the world of work, and it’s a tough one. You’d have to be a considerably more tolerant person than I am not to grit your teeth when a classic such as “low hanging fruit”, “let’s take a deep dive”, or “I’m going to reach out to them” is trotted out.
However, coming in at Number 1, without a shadow of a doubt, is that all time perennial favourite: “I’m just such a People Person.”
There are a number of articles and blog posts which target line managers: top tips on how to become a better people manager. There are far fewer pieces written on how to help your manager help you.
We are all busy. Ask any of your colleagues how they are doing: if the word ‘busy’ doesn’t feature, I’ll eat my hat. Over time, ‘busy’ seems to have become our target state at work. If we are ‘busy’, we must be delivering. Right?
One of the questions I’m most asked is how I manage to balance a full-time job with taking care of my young family. The irony of the word ‘balance’ is not lost on me, as for me it’s never been about balance. My work responsibilities don’t stop the moment I leave the office, and similarly my home life doesn’t switch off between the hours of nine and five. If you look at those individuals who are successfully combining a demanding role in the office with a demanding role at home, it’s unlikely that they’re seeking to ‘balance’ their home life against work. Success comes when we stop thinking about ‘balance’, and start thinking about ‘integration’.
When I first started out in HR, interviewing seemed like something of a black art to me. While there are days that it undoubtedly still does! – I like to think that over the years I have been able to disperse some of the smoke and mirrors around what an interview process that delivers results needs to look like.
Last week I ran into a problem with my emails. A Microsoft glitch meant that not only did I temporarily lose a large number of them, I was also unable to access Outlook for periods of time.
This week is Mental Health Awareness Week: a week designed to raise awareness of mental health, and how our employee experience at work can impact upon it… both for better and for worse.
I spent part of yesterday delivering one of my favourite training courses we offer via the Benefex University: CPD and Personal Development.
For me, taking ownership of my self-development is always something which has come naturally, perhaps because of my background training as an actor, where ownership of one’s own personal development is essential in order to progress. In the cut-throat world of professional theatre, there are no line managers, annual appraisals, or KPIs. Actors are taught from their first day of training to seek out every opportunity to upskill. After all, if you don’t do it, no one else is going to be doing it for you.
There’s a lot of focus these days in organisations on delivering. Quite right, too. Not before time, we are moving away from the era where performance was judged on hours spent at one’s desk, and to a far more enlightened and productive age, where our stand out performers are those who are seen to be consistently delivering tangible outputs and achieving goals, regardless of the amount of time they spend in the office.
Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén