upstartHR

Tag: Communication

  • Employee Communications: Stop Emailing Your Employees

    Employee communications are dominated by email According to a recent survey, up to 28% of our time is spent creating, reading, and replying to emails at work. In the average workweek that’s about 11 hours of time that you won’t get back, and we do that every single week. There’s something else I’d like you to…

  • Running, Calories, and Manager Communication

    If you’ve followed for a while you know I enjoy running (I’m on MapMyRun, if you’d like to connect!) I’m also a bit of a nutrition nut due to a high school stint in wrestling, several years of running marathon distances and longer, and generally being a nerd. One thing that I have learned over…

  • Better HR Communication for a Better 2015

    Early every year, the President of the United States makes an address to the nation. The purpose of the annual “State of the Union” address is to give an account of the year’s events and discuss the priorities of the coming months. If communicated properly, this is an opportunity to reach a larger audience, share…

  • How I Burned Myself on 450 Degree Steel (and what you can learn from it)

    Years ago I worked for a small machine shop owned by my parents. One thing that you might not know about steel is that it can vary wildly from piece to piece. The quality, flexibility, hardness, etc. are all subject to the creation and subsequent treatment processes on that individual piece. Occasionally we would have…

  • I Sent You a Meaningless Email–Um, I Mean eCard

    I sent you an eCard. No, really. I care so much that I took the two minutes to fill out an online form and email (spam) dozens of people all at the same time with a message that is so vague and so general that I could have sent it to people that I don’t even know…

  • How to Avoid the “Let Me Get Back to You” Trap

    HR is always a day late and a dollar short. -Chris Powell, CEO BlackbookHR That comment from Chris Powell has stuck with me since our initial conversation, and I think it’s a reality we all need to be aware of and try to mitigate. Think of it this way — when someone asks finance, sales,…

  • Using Culture to Drive Policy Decisions

    Decision making isn’t always a process of identifying and communicating facts. There’s often an underlying foundation of history, preferences, and other elements that add a layer to the decision making process. Recently I talked about how even something as seemingly simple as a policy decision can be affected by the organization’s culture. The corporate culture…