Employer Blog

Raise your hand if you love random meetings!

Okay, then, raise your hand if you love weekly team meetings. Quarterly check-in meetings? Client check-in meetings? Committee meetings?

If you’re like most people, you’re not a huge fan. And you’re probably frustrated with the lack of preparation, organization, progress, and productivity.

If you do have your hand in the air, you’re probably in the minority. Perhaps you’ve never been to a meeting. Or maybe, just maybe, you’ve learned the secret to great meetings.

Many of us understand that our work not only reflects on us personally, but also on our coworkers and our organization. Unfortunately, there are times when our respective workstyles and expectations are not in alignment.

Having the right people performing the right roles is a bit science, a bit art. We get people into roles for a variety of reasons – sometimes good and sometimes not so good. When we get a mismatch, we need to fix it – quickly.

Or are you wasting more time by not doing it?

Sure, it might be a little embarrassing for you or your employees to admit to a lack of knowledge or skills, especially when it comes to the basic office programs and technology you use every single day.

But here’s the kicker: You might not even realize what you don’t know— until someone shows you a better way.

Ever wonder how much time and productivity is wasted because people don’t really know how to use the programs they need to do their jobs?

These days, proficiency in basic office software is both expected and assumed. We’re told to leave this detail off our resumes because it’s a given. As a result, no focus or training is invested in educating staff on how to efficiently and effectively use those programs. This is a giant mistake.

Remember that time you switched schools as a kid? You know, when you pretended to like sitting alone and being referred to as “the new girl” for an entire year? Okay. Maybe you don’t remember. Maybe that was just me.

Finding and hiring the right people is a critical part of your business success. But if all of those fantastic employees are working alone or in silos, you won’t get the results you’re looking for.

Yes, it’s important to have capable contributors on staff, but successful companies also require successful collaboration, communication, and teamwork.

Onboarding employees can require way more time, energy and effort than you ever expect it to. If onboarding new staff members is a regular part of your job, you’re already well aware of this fact.

If you’re new to the onboarding game or only bring people on occasionally, you’ll want to do some serious planning beforehand to keep from becoming frustrated or falling behind. 

Of course you want more sales! Everyone does. But hiring a new salesperson who can produce on par with your most successful salespeople is one of the most difficult hires to make. And the truth is, you might not even need to.

When things aren’t going the way we want them to, the knee-jerk reaction is to immediately blame our people. After all, if our processes and systems have worked in the past, then it must be the people using the processes and systems who are failing, right?

Not necessarily. It could be your company culture.