Ever wondered how to get promoted? Don’t wait for someone else to do something about it! You will have to put yourself ‘out there’ and advocate for yourself!

This week’s guest, Laura Terrell is a coach and advises her clients on how to make partner or get promoted. Before this her promotions include a trip as special advisor to the President in the White House so she knows a thing or two! Her wisdom in this episode includes:

Question Everything: Want that promotion? You’ve got to ask the right questions of the right people.

Ladies, Listen Up: Apply for the job even if you don’t check every box. Your potential is far greater than a checklist.

Be Your Biggest Advocate: Embrace a role as your own PR person. Familiarize yourself with your accomplishments.

Seize Your Moment: Waiting for someone to tap you on the shoulder? Don’t.

Context Matters: Sometimes, it’s not about you. It’s about the environment, the team, or the situation. You might need to leave.

Find Laura at lauraterrell.com.

Find me (Andrea) at thehrhub.ca for HR support in Western Canada.

The post Getting A Promotion At Work – Tips for HR Professionals appeared first on HR West Consulting - Elevating Success.

I did an episode on ROI in HR!!! (That’s return on investment). I found someone who knows a lot about it and it was a good opportunity to understand how we might do this in HR! Even HR can leverage standard financial techniques to analyze our projects and make our case.

This was the conversation I had with Evelyn McMullen from Nucleus Research. She is NOT a finance, business, or economics major and maybe this is why she is pretty good at explaining it! She says:

When you are thinking about the bells and whistles… remember there is no ROI on things we don’t actually use.

∞ ROI is greatest when a task is repetitious and applies to a wide range of people. Think payroll.

Often, we tend to rely on intangible benefits like “increased employee happiness” when promoting our projects. While these are valid considerations, but ROI is better.

Find Evelyn at Nucleus Research nucleusresearch.com.

She mentioned an ROI Tool (free!) and ROI University. Go check them out!

Ian Campbell (her boss) published a book on called The Value Sale. Find it on Amazon.

You can also reach out to me for HR consulting in Western Canada! www.thehrhub.ca.

The post How to Calculate the ROI of HR Projects appeared first on HR West Consulting - Elevating Success.

Don’t do an HR audit if you think anything less than an A+ is failure. We don’t assign grades, but an absence of suggestions leave no opportunity for growth. I suppose you might want an A+ for the purposes of a certification, but that’s not what I explored this week with Elissa Lok.

Elissa has one of the most diverse skillsets of any HR person I know. She is an HR Consultant with HR West, a facilitator of Spacemakers, and a trainer. She also does audits. She says:

Don’t be embarrassed! We all have our own journeys including our HR functions… It’s an opportunity to learn and get a sense of priorities.

You won’t make decision in an HR audit. It’s really just a summary of risks, opportunities, and strengths.

You can structure it following the employee lifecycle. From recruitment to departures.

≠ A large sophisticated business will not get the same audit as a small business. We are all trying to improve but obviously starting in different places.

Find Elissa at elissa@hrwest.ca or at Spacemakers Canada spacemakersgroup.ca.

Reach out to Andrea for HR consulting at andrea@thehrhub.ca.

The post How to Conduct an HR Audit appeared first on HR West Consulting - Elevating Success.

Let’s talk about handling those “difficult” employees we encounter as HR professionals. You know, the ones who regularly seem to make our lives a bit more ‘interesting’?

We’re supposed to be giving advice in HR, but sometimes it’s hard for us to know!

I spoke with Emily Lord, Senior HR Consultant with HR West. She is a master of reframing (not spinning) and handling people with decency. She recognizes these are tough and says:

1⃣ Mis’s happen: Miscommunications. Mistakes. Misunderstandings. Watch for them and don’t be afraid to acknowledge them!

2⃣ Shine a light on blind spots. Ever had a team member genuinely unaware of a problem? This is when performance management is most likely to work well.

3⃣ Reflect on the role of leadership: Sometimes it’s not the employee and we have to walk a fine line in HR.

4⃣ Don’t wait, take the plunge: Procrastination won’t solve anything, my friends! Don’t let probation pass knowing there’s a problem to solve!

Find Emily at www.hrwest.ca for consulting in Western Canada.

The post Handling Difficult Employees appeared first on HR West Consulting - Elevating Success.

The cliche (probably true) is that most of us are terrified of public speaking. This is likely true in HR too and yet the skill will increase our effectiveness, improve support for our work and help us advance. But how? And how can we avoid the same tired tips we were taught in highschool?

Enter Brenden Kumarasamy. He has a his own YT channel called MasterTalk and, at a relatively young age, is a public speaking coach! I see why (and need to take a lot of his suggestions to heart).

He shares three impactful exercises that, with consistent practice, would significantly enhance your skills. They will definitely help me.

I tested Brenden’s skill and he totally delivered!

Talent is not a prerequisite for success. It helps, but practice will help most of us far more.

He avoided all the tired public speaking cliches like “picture your audience naked” and “speak clearly” and “tell a story”. Although we did talk about telling stories.

Don’t miss out on this opportunity to transform your public speaking skills and make an impact at your next presentation! Check this out!

Find Brenden at his youtube channel MasterTalk. He offers free workshops at rockstarcommunicator.com.

Find Andrea at www.thehrhub.ca for HR consulting in Western Canada.

The post Tips to Improve Public Speaking Skills appeared first on HR West Consulting - Elevating Success.

I am a bit tired of how HR uses retention to justify everything from benefits and employee relations to our budget and training. And… I might be somewhat out-of-line.

This is why I went looking for someone to talk to about turnover and retention and found Cara Silletto, Chief Retention Officer at Magnet Culture. She is a retention expert and speaker, and wrote a book on it. She says:

“People join organizations and quit their bosses.” The tired cliche (or at least it’s ‘tired’ in my mind) is at least partly true. What might be more accurate, is that managers can do a whole lot to drive down turnover.

Managers play the biggest role in retention so anything we can do to support their skills and capacity is likely to have retention benefits.

What constitutes high turnover depends on the role. However, on average, tenure is decreasing regardless of the role.

Once again… recognition. It comes up again and again across so many of my interviews.

Find Cara at www.magnetculture.com.

Find Andrea for HR consulting in Western Canada at www.thehrhub.ca.

The post How to Retain Employees: Support Managers appeared first on HR West Consulting - Elevating Success.

Workplace culture is crucial for high performance and a big part of that is psychological safety: can your employees express themselves without fear of negative consequences?

Stephan Wiedner, coach and CEO of Noomii and COO & Co-Founder at Skillsetter, took me to task when I asked (on behalf of my husband) if this means we have to talk about feelings a lot more. The answer is yes. Yes: we need to talk about feelings, but we don’t have to become therapists. Other tidbits from Stephan:

He sees psychological safety as a proxy for high performance because there is considerable evidence about the correlation.

1⃣ Google conducted a significant study that found psychological safety to be the #1 predictor of the teams they rated as high performing.

Canadians beware! Politeness is not psychological safety!

This was a great conversation – I definitely built on my previous knowledge and I’m sold! Thanks Stephan!

Find Stephan on LinkedIn or at Skillsetter.

Find Andrea for HR consulting at www.thehrhub.ca.

The post Psychological Safety at Work appeared first on HR West Consulting - Elevating Success.

Improving the employee experience can be done in 5 steps. I didn’t say easy – but it also isn’t that hard considering that step 1 is simply to CARE.

I interviewed Prem Bhatia from Cooleaf this week. He’s the cofounder of a platform designed around improving the employee experience (EX) and they live and breathe it. He said:

1️⃣ Recognition has an outsized impact on employee engagement. So don’t forget that piece – it can go a long way for relatively little cost.

2️⃣ As I said at the beginning of this, you need to truly care. It’s not something that will work if you’re half-hearted.

3️⃣ Tech can help. EX is ultimately a totally human thing, but tech can improve communication, integrate platforms, and just make it easier.

4️⃣ It’s good business: Beyond the inherent value of caring for our employees, investing in the employee experience is also a smart business move. Research consistently shows that organizations with highly engaged employees outperform their competitors.

Find Prem at Cooleaf.

Find Andrea for HR consulting at www.thehrhub.ca.

The post 5 Steps To Improving Your Employee Experience appeared first on HR West Consulting - Elevating Success.

I have been to sooooo many presentations where the presenter says “and this will increase retention!!!” as a selling feature for their product or initiative. But will it?

Actually, it might if it improves management quality. This was the main point of my conversation with Cara Silletto, Chief Retention Officer of Magnet Culture. She wrote a book called “Staying Power” and helps companies address retention. She said:

Too many leaders conveniently attribute employee departures to the character flaws of their employees: “They just want a buck more an hour!” Sorry. Not true. Their own behaviour has a much bigger impact than they want to believe.

Leaders need to listen to their employees. Ask questions and don’t defend.

Your new employees have the highest flight risk especially in low-pay positions. Retention efforts here may have a big impact!

TRY not to give new employees the crap work and crap equipment.

Find Cara at www.magnetculture.com.

Find Andrea for HR consulting in Western Canada at www.thehrhub.ca.

The post Why Good Employees Leave (And How to Keep Them) appeared first on HR West Consulting - Elevating Success.

In this video, I dive into a topic that is often discussed but not always fully understood: executive presence. You might want to get promoted! And as gatekeepers of talent and culture, HR plays a pivotal role in identifying and developing leaders who have this quality. We can also help others develop it because it’s a competency (or a collection of competencies).

This was the focus of my conversation with Stephan Wiedner, CEO of Noomii and COO & Co-Founder at Skillsetter. With his team, they have developed a way of measuring it and then helping leaders develop it. I discovered I have an image in mind when it comes to executive presence and it’s someone who is tall, white, and male. So I appreciated having my horizons expanded:

3⃣ Executive presence is based on three characteristics and anyone can possess them.

Most leaders rely on their expertise to lead but that is limiting.

You need to flex your various ‘muscles’ that help you have executive presence depending on the situation.

We talk about attractiveness, but you don’t need botox.

Find Stephan on LinkedIn or at Skillsetter.

Find Andrea for HR consulting at www.thehrhub.ca.

The post Developing Executive Presence – It’s Necessary For HR Too appeared first on HR West Consulting - Elevating Success.