Organizations like this are the future of work. Please, before showering me with contempt, go to Google and enter the words: equity investment firms, Silicon Valley.

Thus far, Elon Musk has taken on the insurmountable task of paving the way for an urgent need to transform our world to electric mobility.

10 Years folks. The tipping point of the impossible is taking place right now. Every auto manufacturer is converting to electric, and in its wake, the petrochemical cartel is, shall we say, “acting out?”

The world doesn’t need more armchair critics.

The world needs new workers. Problem solvers. Artisans of their own lives. The roles are infinite. Solutions and beauty. Lest there be any doubt about the urgency at hand, consider the fact that one of the first applications of the technology revolution is cleaning up after the filthy industrial revolution before it.

This helplessness thing does not suit us. Nor does responding to someone’s success with cynicism and contempt.

As for Elon Musk, I study him. Here is a man who didn’t “buy” Twitter. His success as an innovator is so thorough that his name alone financed that purchase.

The post Study Him appeared first on Inspired Work Services.

That we find ways to collaborate and respect each other, recognizing that political differences are superficial, especially when compared to what is possible.

I also pray that we recognize much of the turmoil in this country is about change. Upwards of 48% of our workers characterize themselves as underemployed.

That means that about half of our country’s workers are being kicked to the curb by change. With so many underemployed workers in our midst, of course many will buy into the notion, “there isn’t enough.” Our tone and our outlook transform when we commit our lives to produce enough for everyone.

We would have to go all the way back to John F. Kennedy to find a political leader with the courage to tell the truth rather than manipulate their fears or create political campaigns from focus groups. And yes, he was a deeply imperfect leader. But, he consistently told Americans that we were responsible for our lives. He never said he would take care of us. He didn’t trade on hope. In fact, he inspired millions of people to become engaged in service and to take action in solving challenges throughout the world.

Kennedy would probably tell us that self-change is learnable. He would offer a differing vantage point. Technology is offering us freedom from tasks. The rate of change especially in any work that involves tasks, will increase. It is our responsibility to not only keep up with change, but to produce change as well. Find what you were born to do. Go find the problem you really want to solve.

The industrial revolution gave us a promise. That if we accepted rote and monotonous work we would be rewarded with predictability and survival. The rewards for letting go of predictability and survival is freedom. That is what technology is giving us. How do we move boldly into the future?

Become active learners. Grow what you know every single day. The payoff for continual learning is growth and that is also where we find today’s security. And, listen. The biggest payoff of all is in growing into better versions of ourselves every-single-day.

Learn how to connect with others fluidly, harmoniously, and effectively. Recognize that drawing attention to ourselves can be quite uncomfortable, at first. But, the source of our failures is rooted in isolation. Some of the most isolated people I have met sit in rooms packed full of people in the same boat. But, we learn nothing of value by studying dysfunction. Pay attention to those who are succeeding, the more wildly successful, the better. If you cannot do this for yourself, do it for your children because they will not do what you tell them to do. They will do what you do.

Rather than responding to these suggestions with cynicism and contempt, try them on for a bit, just like clothes. See where the suggestions take you. At that point, if the results don’t suit you, either find someone to help you get over a hurdle or try something else.

There are plenty of people who want to help you, even if it takes a little courage to find them.

Lest any of my readers think my missive is “pie in the sky,” consider the fact that underemployment is virtually unheard of in countries such as Germany. Employers, educational resources and government work hand-in-hand to keep workers competitive and up-to-date. For example, in manufacturing, there are rarely layoffs. We find assembly lines filled with technology and robotics. We also find employees working beside them. Common sense has dictated they always are treated as assets. So, they are retrained to become problem solvers, to use the technology to become even more masterful with their results.

Here, we lay people off the moment they become obsolete.

So, I suggest that anyone who is having difficulty with underemployment to stop waiting for something to change out there.

Nothing short of full self-change is in order and every aspect of how to do this is learnable.

Brought to you by David Harder, President – Inspired Work, Inc.

Schedule 15-Minutes to Discuss Your Workplace or Career with David (Here)

(C) Copyright, 2018, Inspired Work, Inc. – (All Rights Reserved)

The post My Prayer for the United States of America appeared first on Inspired Work Services.

However, I am not pointing a finger at politics.

I am suggesting that underemployment is creating the kind of turmoil that sets the stage for the politics at hand.

When we believe subconsciously or pointedly there isn’t enough, basic human nature steps forward and hordes what we have, even if it is progressively obsolete jobs.

We tout 3.8% unemployment, a political number for decades. But, polls suggest that 30-48% of Americans characterize themselves as underemployed. That means they have been kicked to the curb by change.

Just what is underemployment?

It is holding onto an obsolete job in a shrinking industry, hoping the death angel doesn’t come around the corner.

It means holding 3 jobs to keep a roof over our families head.

It is believing our children will not have the kinds of opportunities we had.

While that last statement is true, if we present the idea they will have less opportunities, they will not even look for the abundance of new jobs that are more interesting, exciting, and in some cases, world changing.

In Future Shock, published in 1970, Alvin Toffler predicted that advancing technology would provoke accelerating change. By the turn of the century, large masses of people and entire cultures would be in a paralysis brought on by trying to absorb too much change in too short a period of time.

I don’t believe Toffler could have imagined just how far beyond his predictions we have come. Unless we have leadership that tells us to change or resources that direct the underemployed to learn how to change themselves, the next round of disruption could have negative implications for those of us who work, for decades. Even the most successful workers ought to be concerned. Because a culture that doesn’t believe there is enough is a place we might not want to live.

For example, trucking is the #1 job for 5.2 million men in our country. Robotics will dwindle that number to 800,000 in less than 8 years.

Today’s college graduate will change careers not jobs 4-6 times.

The good news? Technology is offering us freedom from tasks and the kinds of jobs that forced workers to become machine like.

Meaningful leadership would help. But, our nation’s leaders make statements like, “We ought to get these coal miners into trucking.”

For 28 years, my company has served individuals who work and organizations that strive to become better places to work. We work off a business model like most of our competitors. We fiercely protect our intellectual capital and then we sell it to the highest bidders, usually successful professionals and large employers. The underemployed sit at their computers trying to hack a solution to their work challenge.

On Labor Day, we launched a funding campaign to launch a new company called workskunk. We want to develop, as quickly as possible, a digital platform that provides meaningful solutions to work challenges for individuals and talent development for employers. In other words, we are committed to taking all of our career, leader, learning, and engagement offerings and provide them to our country without charge.

This is a community effort.

We are looking for more than gap funding for this initiative. We are seeking partners that have the passion, interest, and means to help solve one of the core problems that is undermining the world’s greatest talent pool on earth.

If my words resonate with you at all, please visit our campaign at http://bit.ly/workskunk

Match your contribution to your level of enthusiasm. If you have thoughts of how you could contribute with talent, connections, and other resources, please feel free to send me a note here.

For this, I am prepared everything we have, on the line.

The post What if the Turmoil Isn’t Political? appeared first on Inspired Work Services.

This past year, I came to the conclusion that much of the turmoil rolling through our country is but a symptom of too many people getting kicked to the curb by change. For example, a 3.8% unemployment rate sounds good. But, in a wide range of surveys, 30 to 48% of working Americans characterize themselves as “underemployed” and the segment is growing. Everywhere that we look, we find the impact of change. For example, trucking jobs will decline from 4.8 million to 800,000 in less than 8 years.

Technology offers us new forms of freedom and for every step forward, there are new opportunities to actually improve our quality of life and work. Unfortunately, our culture is not effectively wired in helping people define and find the work that matters, that brings meaning into their lives and makes the world a better place in which to live.

We are about to do our part and we need your help. Inspired Work has had a really good run. When we deliver The Inspired Work Program this weekend, it will be 28 years since we launched our services. Over 43,000 participants have used our programs to transform their lives. But, did we change the world? No, we didn’t and much of that has to do with how the entire human development industry works. Quite simply, we fiercely protect our intellectual capital and sell it to the highest bidders. Affluent professionals and large employers have benefited from our services for years. But, the underemployed sit at home on their computers trying to hack solutions to their career challenges.

Without an intervention, even those of us who have wonderful relationships with our work will be impacted by the numbers of individuals who cannot catch up to change. If I am not being pointed enough, why has homelessness in Los Angeles surged by 75% in just 5 years? The growth in homelessness is primarily from underemployed workers who miss one or two paychecks and find themselves on the streets.

Make no mistake. Their problem is our problem.

We had an urgent question to answer.

“How can we take care of everyone?”

Today, we launch a journey to develop a digital platform that provides for individual workers, employers, and entrepreneurs. We will deliver these solutions without any charges for core services. The curriculum that has been used by many of the nation’s predominant employers will be available to all employers and single users without charge. The Inspired Work Program, which has been the centerpiece in all of our offerings, will be carefully storyboarded, videos will be produced by leading Hollywood talent, and rendered in ways that allow people to transform their relationship towards work at home.

The spirit in which we are making these changes isn’t just to bring innovation to Inspired Work. We are intent on providing a laboratory where anyone who works will be able to bring innovation into their careers. We will continue to help all employers become better places to work.

Cutting-edge organizations set up laboratories to hatch new inventions and are often referred to as skunkworks. workskunk will become the destination for people who want to reinvent themselves and for organizations to become better places to work.

To move forward, we want and need your help. Today, on Labor Day, we launch a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter. The spirit of the campaign is to add enough to our investment to launch workskunk as quickly as possible. Funds will be used to design a technology platform, develop video and interactive content, launch an embedded news station and hire a few key employees.

If you are enthused about this message, please take a look at our campaign. You will hear from graduates of our programs, colleagues and clients describe in detail, why it is a good idea to support workskunk.

Please contribute anywhere from $10 to 10,000.

Please get the word out to your friends, family, and colleagues. Every contribution will be greeted with inclusion into the new community and will offer opportunities to get the most out of our new platform.

Here is the link to our campaign: http://bit.ly/workskunk

Become a Skunk!

The post A Whole New Game to Solve Underemployment appeared first on Inspired Work Services.

This is a key trait that I look for in all candidates whether they are working at Inspired Work or with one of our clients. If they work with me, there are several more. You see, in 1990, when I was designing what became Inspired Work, I began redesigning my own work based on a new standard: Happiness. Not just any happiness would do. I wanted Irrevocable Happiness. In other words, if I were in an unrelenting state of happiness, what would my life look like? I find that when we raise the bar that high, the answers become deeply personal. One of the answers to that question changed my professional life forever.

“I would only work with brilliant and loving people.”

It seems that human nature is such that we don’t write out many words like this because something inside of us believe greatness isn’t possible. But that day, brilliant and loving became a standard and hence, it changed my life.

Let’s return to gratitude. I find that many employers and hiring managers look for either a great functional fit (technical skills, motivation, culture fit, etc.) or someone who fits their bias (someone they are comfortable with). But, once we have defined that a few candidates are good fits, what about gratitude?

When somebody embodies gratitude, they uplift everyone else. With gratitude we become more contributive and practice a higher degree of courage to protect a valuable state-of-mind.

Let us also suggest that gratitude is just as important to develop amongst hiring managers and organizational cultures. How do we see this?

Robert Maurer, the Director of Behavioral Science at UCLA Medical School has long studied success behavior and he tells us that successful people are generous in both giving and receiving praise. Expressing our gratitude towards others is optional in a mediocre culture but it is essential to a great culture. And, as others praise us, it is equally important to accept the praise graciously. When we tell someone, “Oh, it was nothing,” what are we actually saying?” Think about this. We are telling them don’t look at me, don’t give me attention, and don’t reward me. Unfortunately, people who run from attention are often the first ones to be laid off.

Grateful employees, leaders, CEOs, partners, colleagues, and bosses fuel good in others.

So, when you are lucky enough to have several great candidates to choose from, ask your hiring influences a few questions:

“Which one will be so grateful to be here he or she will do whatever it takes to succeed?”

“Which one will love our tribe so much, they actively learn the skills to stay competitive and effective?”

“Which one will tell the world about us with enthusiasm and joy?”

“Which one will I be most grateful to include in our tribe?”

You see, gratitude is a practice that can transform mundane days into remarkable experiences. It can elevate a routine job into a turning point. Gratitude can take what looks like an ordinary job and have it turn into a home.

Brought to you by David Harder, President – Inspired Work, Inc.

Schedule 15-Minutes to Discuss Your Workplace or Career with David (Here)

(C) Copyright, 2018, Inspired Work, Inc. – (All Rights Reserved)

The post The Single Most Important Trait in a Hire? Surprise! appeared first on Inspired Work Services.

The business of retailing, like all categories, is facing wildly convulsive change. Quite a bit of ink has been spilled on the specter of Amazon taking over the world. And, while the press spends time looking at the dark ramifications of the company’s growth, little is said of why this is actually happening. When it comes to buying value, the only distinction in why people would go into a store rather than spending a few minutes on the computer is in the customer experience. And yet, the very organizations that are in the greatest deal of trouble are the ones that are so focused on short-term shareholder value, they cut expenses on the quality of their talent as well as the customer experience. The leaders of these organizations are bean-counting their businesses out of existence. In the end, the only way retailers will compete with Amazon is by providing a customer experience so faultless that people are willing to go across town to buy what they want.

Yesterday, after many years of loyalty, I ended my relationship with Walgreens. My customer experience deteriorated over time. I got used to long lines of people and staff members continually stressed out. I considered moving my business to the local CVS, but the disengagement of their workers is so bad that cashiers point to the self-service checkout kiosks instead of smiling, looking me in the eye, and demonstrating an interest in their job. So, I’m moving my business to a small pharmacy in the neighborhood and will pay the higher prices. Here’s why: In trying to deal with Walgreens over the course of one week, I lost four hours of my time. After making the decision to leave, I sent a note to Walgreens corporate. I only send notes in the spirit that a big store in our neighborhood influences the quality of our community. The store manager called. There was panic in her voice. She talked about how the most recent manager quit, they are short staffed in the pharmacy, she was offered the interim management position and would I be willing to come back? She offered a $20 gift card. I responded that when I added up lost time, my economic loss was several thousand dollars. I also pointed out that she wasn’t responsible, Their CEO Stefano Pessina is responsible for creating a culture where the customer and the employees take a back seat to short-term shareholder value.

Dan Banes is the CEO of Trader Joe’s where the average tenure of cashiers is eighteen years. At Trader Joe’s “team” isn’t an aimless marketing phrase. Their culture is so democratic that if a manager is the first person to walk a store, he or she scrubs the bathroom and the toilets. Dan shows up to the stores, just like his predecessor, and meets with the employees. He asks what they need and he listens. The company delivers value with a smile. Recently, I lost a pair of sunglasses at Trader Joe’s and they called by the time I got home. In thanking them, the assistant manager said it was his pleasure to do anything to make my day a little better and he thanked me for our loyalty.

The advancement of technology is leading us to a common-sense outcome. If our retailers are producing customer care workers who don’t look us in the eye, are waiting for the moment to leave, who feel they are not valued, leaders are perpetuating the day where customers will only interact with machines. Let us be clear. The tragedy isn’t Amazon, it is the failure in leadership of organizations who cynically believe that customers will tolerate abuse in order to get a deal. But, that thinking is dreadfully impacting large categories of workers that need an intervention, that could be awakened. Instead, these CEOs perpetuate a trance. As for the shareholders, the premium customers of these organizations left a long time ago.

Perhaps it is time for the shareholders of United Airlines, Walgreens, CVS, Spectrum, and Wells Fargo to recognize that customer experience will always trump cutting expenses. Their awakening could be the realization that loving the customer requires loving their employees. The empty complaints about Amazon always miss the fact that the nation’s biggest retailer now employs over 542,000 people.

Here are the words directly from their career website:

“Leaders start with the customer and They work vigorously to earn and keep customer trust. Although leaders pay attention to competitors, they obsess over customers. Leaders are owners. They think long term and don’t sacrifice long-term value for short-term gain. They act on behalf of the entire company, beyond just their own team. They never say ‘that’s not my job.'”

Even some of the most hallowed names in retailing ought to be learning from the leaders of these growing enterprises. For example, the Nordstrom family recently sold its stock in their namesake. While this was happening, I went to a local Nordstrom’s to buy a suit. It had to be wonderful. I found an item that I loved. They only had one size. But, they offered to bring the said item from another store in order to buy the suit at full price. We spent two hours getting to the store, parking, searching and attempting to make a purchase. This “just in time” inventory outlook upended another once sacred relationship. When we got home, I went online to my beloved Gilt.com, originators of the online flash sale for luxury items. There, I got the same suit at half-price in my size and it was delivered to my door in four days.

Gilt’s CEO is a gentleman named Kevin Ryan. In reviewing his leadership of Gilt, I realized he meets the very definition of “What is An Engagement CEO” from my book, The Workplace Engagement Solution. In a recent interview, Mr. Ryan stated that “the CEO’s most important job is managing talent.”

Perhaps rather than hurling contempt and cynicism towards the CEOs of these new category leaders, we ought to be studying them, appreciating them and learning how to bring obsolete thinking into the new millennium.

Brought to you by David Harder, President – Inspired Work, Inc.

(C) Copyright, 2018, Inspired Work, Inc. – (All Rights Reserved)

Schedule 15-Minutes to Discuss Your Workplace or Career with David (Here)

The post Demonize Amazon? Nope! Study Them. appeared first on Inspired Work Services.

This past year, United Airlines was perhaps the biggest demonstration in how a disengaged employee culture can impact consumers. Almost all of us witnessed security guards dragging a semi-conscious passenger off of his flight. While the guards were not employees of the airline, the UA employees took a minor service problem and escalated it by simply not thinking through the implications of their actions – one of the very definitions of disengagement. The incident made world news, destroyed shareholder value, and affirmed the bad experiences so many of us have had with this carrier. One of my most widely read articles was about the UA “culture” when this debacle took place.

A few years ago, United Airlines made a ham-fisted mess of the merger with Continental Airlines, which had been one of the best cultures in the industry. At the time, Jeff Smisek was appointed the new CEO. He drove cost cutting and messaging in ways that repeatedly alienated employees. He cut their travel benefits, one of the very reasons many workers settle for the overall pay. He even issued memos that the company would no longer provide coffee cups to the employees. In other words, they could bring cups from home. The cost cutting extended to passengers when planes had to make emergency landings to pick up toilet paper.

The impact of employee disengagement on passengers is legendary. But, did you know this?

• Unhappy flight attendants routinely ask the pilots to turn up the heat in the cabin. Why? If passengers are knocked out they have less work passing out drinks and selling Tapas boxes. The next time you think you are coming down with the flu, ask them to turn down the heat.
• Pilots have lost virtually every financial incentive to do their best. Now, many purposely slow down flights to get bumped into overtime. If they make a plane a half-hour late that equates to about $70.00. If 200 passengers are on board and their average income is $30/hour the collective loss is $3,000. The most cynical pilots have figured out how to time a flight so that it arrives as late as possible without getting cited. The angriest purposely burn more fuel.

Last year, the stunning images of physician being dragged off of a plane was but one in a series of high-profile PR nightmares. Shortly before that event, Jeff Smisek was removed from office, not because of cost cutting but because he was being pursued by the federal government for a growing corruption scandel. The company appointed the existing CFO, Oscar Munoz into the post. It took days for Mr. Munoz to issue an apology for the dragging incident. The blowback was so fierce that he said he was making visits to employees to hear about their challenges and morale issues.

In an interview, Mr. Munoz talked of traveling around the country to listen to employees and start improving the morale of the workers. He recounted the anger from employees talking about Mr. Smisek’s removal of coffee cups and going downhill from there. After these gestures, what did the company do to turn around morale?

Fasten your seatbelts, it is a rough ride. This past week, United Airline’s President Scott Kirby sent out a memo to all employees indicating the company is removing the quarterly performance bonuses and replacing that income with a “lottery.” In other words, no matter how hard someone works, compensation is now in the hands of chance. For flight attendants who average $38,000 per year, the performance bonus of about $1,200 was a big deal. New pilots are in a similar jam making around $46,000. Many new pilots are assigned to hubs that are far from their home. They often rent apartments filled with a dozen bunks just to get by.

Many senior executives view the airline industry as a commodity. And, commodities, in this country, don’t measure success from customer satisfaction. They embrace a cynical view that the customer will put up with a lot of irritation to get the cheapest ticket, the lowest price at the grocery store, or from the cable company that monopolizes a region. In other words, everyone gets mistreated.

I travel quite a bit. The last time we were on a United Airlines flight was from Los Angeles to London. The plane was virtually empty. We were about an hour away from Heathrow and I felt it reasonable to ask for a cup of coffee. So, I pressed the flight attendant button. After about ten minutes, the attendant stomped over to our seats, reached over my partner’s shoulder cancelled the button and turned away. I walked back to the galley to get my own cup of coffee only to see the same attendant down a handful of pills with a swig of the desired coffee.

United Airlines is a big player in our economy. But, I have not been on one of their flights in four years. Until they treat their employees with some kind of dignity and fairness, getting on one of their planes represents as much dependability as…a lottery ticket.

They deserve better.

We deserve better.

The employer brand is now more important than the consumer brand. Consumer brands give us a promise. Employer brands become the truth.

Brought to you by David Harder, President – Inspired Work, Inc.

Schedule 15-Minutes to Discuss Your Workplace or Career with David (Here)

(C) Copyright, Inspired Work, Inc. – 2018 (All rights reserved)

The post Another Shocking Back Story About United Airlines appeared first on Inspired Work Services.

We frequently select many mid-managers because they get the job done quickly and accurately. We then promote them to manage others or to use that core strength to finish an important project. However, few receive management or leadership skills training. Instead, they are elevated because they were more productive than their peers. Quite often, they continue with their previous workload, sometimes even increasing until they break or leave. Ongoing restructuring, the elimination of career ladders to the executive ranks, and persistent insecurity have diluted the mid-managers loyalty.

In my book, The Workplace Engagement Solution (Career Press), disengagement is viewed as a trance, so persistent that many leaders view it as impenetrable. However, for CEOs, business owners, and organizations that set engagement as a standard, we can solve the problem through culture change and by showing everyone how to change and engage. Engagement is learnable. From my experience, mid-managers need the most help.

In 2012, Harvard Business Review indicated that almost half of the Gen-Xs, which represents the largest segment of mid-managers, planned to leave their jobs within two years. A year before, Bersin & Associates released the findings of their research and indicated that: “Middle managers have fewer resources, manage more people, and are less engaged than all other employee groups.” This is backward! If we think so little of them, why do we let mid-managers lead and motivate the organization’s largest number of workers, usually the ones that directly touch our customers?

Take a moment to consider all of the managers in customer service call centers, grocery stores, department stores, service centers, specialty retailers, schools, insurance agencies, healthcare, and government. As consumers, we complain about the poor customer service we experience and wonder, “How did it get so pervasive?” The problem has grown to the point that many companies routinely do nothing because the competition is exactly the same.

When a CEO or business owner commits to full employee engagement, mid-managers are no longer given the short shrift in development. Mid-managers simply must be given the kind of development that:

• Teaches them how to change, reflect, sell, network, influence, and actively learn
• Shows them how to elevate the use of their time from frenzied activity to value
• Holds them just as accountable for engagement as senior executives
• Moves them from taskmasters to strategic leaders, talent developers, and problem solvers

If there is any doubt about the value of this quest, start adding up the times you encounter a brand ambassador that you remember as a positive stand-out, a look you in the eye and do whatever it takes to make you a satisfied customer.

Why don’t we make that kind of engagement the new normal?

Brought to you by David Harder, President – Inspired Work, Inc.

(C) Copyright, 2018, Inspired Work, Inc. – (All Rights Reserved)

To discuss your workplace or your career with David Harder, schedule fifteen-minutes, Here.

The post Mid-Management. Engagements Final Frontier appeared first on Inspired Work Services.

For many years, organizations have literally protected sexual harassment through settlements and non-disclosure agreements. Consider the message this sends to everyone. Time and time again, we have indicated that money is more important than human dignity or “doing the right thing.” It is time to shatter this practice and for any organization that is reluctant to do so, take a look at how quickly the entire public learns of illegal behavior. But, this is also the time for many women to stop participating in the old system of hiding the crime. I think of the many human resources executives and labor attorneys, all women, who have negotiated these agreements only to have the same executive become emboldened to continue. When we protect revenue generation over protecting our own people, it is time for everyone to know. That is not a threat, it is a simple outcome of modern living. Transparency will only grow. Technology has turned most everyone into a reporter.

I know how the old game works from personal experience. In my early 20’s, I came out of as a gay man. Coming of age in the 80s led to the realization that gays and lesbians had to make themselves visible if we were ever to have equal rights. I shielded myself from getting fired or picked on by always becoming the top revenue generator. But, while I was going down that road to fight for equality, other revenue generators have used that profitability cloak to protect themselves from getting fired or going to jail after a sexual assault. Consider for just a moment how perverse it is for any organization to behave like that. But, we have done this with well-thought-out risk management routines.

I praise the Board of Directors of Comcast for firing Matt Lauer on-the-spot. That one act perhaps signals a shift in how all studios respond to what is in essence, a crime. If we want all women and men to be protected from assault, we must end the practice of paying people off rather than showing perpetrators the door. And, with rapidly growing transparency throughout our culture, this is the time for human capital executives, labor attorneys, CEOs, business owners and board members to re-examine their values. At the beginning, ending all attempts to sweep challenges like this under the rug might feel a bit conflicted. But, consider the probability that we no longer have a choice.

In the last few years, so many women, who signed non-disclosure agreements that were foisted on them to keep their mouths shut have stepped forward to speak out. Think of the courage it takes to do that when they have been they have been warned of financial ruin. All too often, they are taking that stand because the perpetrator has done it again, sometimes with greater violence and harm. The days of protecting a bit of profit by hiding illicit behavior as more and more organization suffer staggering losses in reputation and shareholder value are coming to an end.

Live and work with nothing to hide.

A transparent world sees that.

We are better than we used to be.

Let everyone know that.

Brought to you by David Harder, President – Inspired Work, Inc.

(C) Copyright, 2018, Inspired Work, Inc. – (All Rights Reserved)

To discuss your workplace or your career with David Harder, schedule fifteen-minutes, Here.

The post Shattering the Business of Sexual Harassment appeared first on Inspired Work Services.

For example, let’s use employee engagement as an example of the breakdown.

The CEO walks into the human resources office and tells the human resource executive to “fix the employee engagement problem.” By the time the CEO has hit the door, he or she is disengaged. The chief human resources officer launches an engagement program. The employees look past her or his shoulder to the CEO and witness “business as usual.” The organization conducts an employee survey. The results make the managers feel even more inadequate in producing engagement. A consulting organization suggests it is their fault. Leadership is sent to another development retreat. They come back enthused and the employees respond, “so what.”

Does any of this sound familiar?

If only 13% of the world’s workers are engaged we can presume that many CEOs are also disengaged. CEOs have a wide variety of responsibilities on their plates. For many, it has been all too easy to completely turn issues of culture to the human resources group. As a result, the employees don’t change. Successful engagement requires a fully democratic approach to the problem. Full engagement requires an awakening and growth almost always includes discomfort. We find that disengaged people must learn how to change in order to engage. Many of our workers are so out-of-sync with change, they are simply going through the motions.

When a CEO turns culture and engagement leadership to human resources, progress is more difficult than pushing an egg up a hill with one’s chin. In this scenario, when the culture change fails, who gets thrown under the bus?

Much of our consulting industry does little to change this pattern. For years, talent development has been reserved for the high potentials. America’s employers spend a fortune on leadership but little on transforming everyone else’s behavior. As a result, employee engagement becomes a chronic illness.

Organizations that make it to Fortune’s “100 Best Places to Work” issues make culture number one. And, we find CEOs that embrace the reality that category leadership requires a fully awake and enthused population. They recognize that employer brand has become more important than consumer brand. They often have the reality and humility to be coached by the chief human resource officer on messaging, responsibilities, and engagement accountability.

Here are a few suggestions for human resources executive who are seeking a new opportunity.

• Ask the CEO about his or her philosophy of human capital.
• What role do they play in culture definition and leadership?
• How receptive is the CEO to your coaching?
• How does the CEO envision your partnership?

The answers will probably tell you exactly what to expect.

Happy holidays.

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