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If you were to ask every married couple the secret to a happy relationship, you might hear the same answer: good communication. And I believe this goes the same for every relationship you will ever have in this life, be it a romantic relationship or a workplace relationship.  When it comes to workplace relationships, specifically team relationships, proper communication goes a long way towards the organization’s overall success. According to a 2016 LinkedIn survey, communication is the most sought-after soft skill among employers.  Employers who establish good communication among their subordinates succeed in boosting their employees’ motivation and productivity. At the same time, employees who invest time and energy into delivering clear communication will always be valuable assets to an organization.  With the importance of clear communication in mind, it is no surprise that miscommunication can lead to many repercussions — including lost productivity, failed missions, and broken relationships.  Here are the most common types of team miscommunications and a few tips on how to resolve them. 1. Setting unclear expectations It is your role as a leader to set expectations for your team that revolve around your project’s purpose. Your team deserves to know how you picture the outcome because they play a huge role in the whole progress of the project. If you ask a member to do a task, it is your duty to provide them the details they will need. Additionally, you should also set out success metrics. Remember to be specific, or you may be disappointed. 2. Poor phrasing Written communication is more complicated than its verbal counterpart. It’s hard to know the tone of the speaker just by looking at the text. Worse, a poorly phrased email can confuse your team members, which might lead to errors and counterproductive arguments. Writing clearly and concisely is even more critical these days since most of us are working from home due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Those teams who used to rely on verbal communication must now learn how to use emails and instant messages properly to prevent miscommunication. 3. Time zone differences Another miscommunication problem that remote teams are facing is managing time zome differences. Make sure to set core hours companywide, especially when your employees are having a hard time adhering to a specific timezone. This will help you ensure that each team member can reach those in other time zones whenever needed. 4. No communication What’s worse than unclear communication is no communication at all. One of the biggest recipes for business failure is failing to discuss the issues that your team is facing. No matter how frustrating and doubtful it can be, you need to talk it out with your team. Never let the day go by without pointing out an issue that needs to be addressed. Always reach back out and ask. Communicating is important especially when dealing with ethical issues. If someone is disobeying the social distancing protocol, don’t turn a blind eye and take action immediately. Silence does nothing but tolerates bad behavior to continue. 5. Micromanaging employees An extreme has an equally dangerous consequence, just like a lack of communication. And while it is not as obvious, overcommunication can also be dangerous to your team’s productivity. After all, nothing kills productivity quite like micromanagement. Due to micromanagement, your team will likely remain silent because they feel like you are overpowering them. Try not to be overbearing, and you’ll get better results from your team. 6. Blaming others A simple act of finger-pointing can create tension even on the strongest teams. An unproductive accusation can only lead to bad relationships, so don’t ever think about doing it. Instead, teach your employees accountability. Let them know that if they make a mistake, it is their responsibility to own up to it. And if they score a win, well, they deserve a merit for that too. 7. Giving unconstructive criticism Yes, your team needs criticism in order to improve their performance. Sadly, not all types of criticism are valuable. If there’s a type of criticism you have to avoid, it is unconstructive criticism or giving disapproval that doesn’t suggest a better alternative. Always give constructive feedback by peppering words of encouragement and praise, no matter how poor the employee’s performance is. If your harsh criticism is badly needed, you can try to reframe your feedback as a question. Asking “what would you do differently next time?” can be both conducive to learning and less aggressive. As a leader, it is your duty to lead your team by being an example. The better you communicate with your team, the better they’ll communicate with each other. Make sure to look for these miscommunications you are probably guilty of, so you can build a more productive and collaborative team.

In essence, effective meetings are meant to boost the team’s productivity and efficiency. Meetings help keep everyone on the same page, so they can work towards their goals by the end of a specific time. And when everyone is on the same page, it can give awareness to the team about what should be done and can help them accomplish even the most challenging tasks. In reality, while meeting with the team seems like an obvious requirement, we find ourselves stuck at unproductive meetings with no sense of purpose. We even spend 18 hours a week at meetings on average, which might be one of the biggest time-wasters at work.  Yes, meetings have earned a bad reputation as the biggest time sucker. But that doesn’t mean you can’t turn it into something productive. Effective meetings can help a team move forward by helping attendees come to a decision and find ways to solve a problem. Apart from that, an effective meeting can inspire team collaboration which has a direct effect on every employee’s happiness.  So how do you run an effective and enjoyable meeting? These tips will surely help you. 1. Ask yourself whether the meeting is really a meeting. Before you send out invitations to the attendees, it would be better if you determine if the meeting is actually a meeting. There are a lot of culprits out there pretending to be meeting-worthy, but in reality, you can just skip them to save your time. For instance, if the meeting is just one person talking while the others are trying their best not to check their phones, then it’s likely a presentation than a meeting. To keep the attendees engaged, you can send them the slides in advance, so you can use the time together to do group discussions. 2. An effective meeting should have a clear objective. A meeting will only be as productive as you want it to be if you have a clear objective from the very start. Perhaps, the meeting is all about generating new ideas, making decisions, gathering information, or all of the above. You have to be sure of what you’re trying to accomplish, or else, your meeting will just be one of those time-suckers.  Entrepreneur and influencer Neil Patel said it best. For him, he doesn’t want to have a meeting just for the sake of having a meeting. He believes in “no purpose, no meeting.” Keep in mind that meetings are not social gatherings. You are gathered for a purpose, and that is to assess goal-oriented agendas. While there is nothing wrong with hanging out, you should not do it during a business meeting. Keep the meeting goal-focused. Always remember that when you start with the goal, you’ll be able to finish with success. 3. Always be prepared. Preparation is always the key to successful and effective meetings. Right before the meeting starts, you should provide all attendees with an agenda. Make sure that your agenda includes the following:  topics to be covered short description of the objectives a list of participants who will lead each topic time and location any background information attendees need to know about the meeting 4. Make sure to start on time and end on time. Let’s face it. Nobody likes waiting for the person in charge to show up. A lot of those in positions of power fall into the habit of being late for everything. Perhaps, it’s because they are busy. Or maybe, they like being reminded that their time is more important than everyone else’s in the room. Whatever the reason may be, being late is not a good habit since it only wastes everyone’s precious time. Just as important it is to start the meeting on time, you should also end it on time. Having a definitive end time can help ensure that you can finish everything on your agenda. Additionally, it can help get everyone back to their work promptly. 5. Have a stand-up meeting. A stand-up meeting is an effective way to keep everyone engaged, more collaborative, and less territorial. Also, standing on your feet during a meeting gives a strong sense of urgency which pushes the workers to give their best when suggesting ideas and voicing out their opinions.  Professor Bob Sutton and Jeff Pfeffer, the authors of Hard Facts, observed that they were able to cover everything more effectively when they have no place to sit. As a result, they were able to conclude that groups took 34% less time making decision during stand-up meetings. While a stand-up meeting is not the most practical, you might want to consider it if you want to be more time-efficient. 6. End an effective meeting with an action plan. Leave the last 10 minutes of the meeting to talk about the next steps. Feel free to discuss about the responsibilities and what the deadlines are. Your meeting will only end up useless if you don’t have an action plan at the end of the meeting. Now that you learn how to conduct an effective meeting, make sure that you always keep it short, simple, and effective.

I just want to start by saying that leadership is never easy. There will always be leadership challenges that will come for you — from all nooks and crannies and even from within. Just because you are placed in a leadership position doesn’t mean these challenges will go easy on you. To tell you the truth, you will encounter more bumps than you ever did in your life once you become a leader. And it’s up to you how you will let it get the best of you. Whatever your leadership position may be — a business owner, a manager, or an HR staff —  it is how you approach such challenges that will make you a winner. If you think about it, these leadership challenges are existent in every leader. But what makes winners different from the rest is their perspective. Winning leaders see these obstacles as opportunities — a chance to learn about themselves and a chance to improve their skills.  Intrapersonal Leadership Challenges Perhaps, the reason why you’re here is that you’re going through challenges yourself or you just want to prepare yourself in case a challenge surfaces. Either way, you must know that the first and most persistent source of difficult leadership is you — the leader yourself. More often than not, it’s your own feelings, thoughts, and reactions that create the biggest obstacles in leadership. That’s why this is where we need to start — the intrapersonal challenges that we must face head-on.  1. Dealing with changes The fact that you agreed to a leadership position is a change on its own. But you need to know that there will be more changes you will encounter every day. Some of them are offsprings of your past decisions, while some are the luck of the draw. As a leader, you should not let these changes faze you. You have to always prepare yourself in case a new change surfaces or handle it on the fly in case it occurs out of the blue. 2. Boosting your self-esteem What some people don’t know is that there are leaders who struggle with their image and self-esteem too. And the higher up in the ladder you are, the more you have to battle with your intrapersonal thoughts. This is what we call impostor syndrome or that echo inside your brain that tells you you are not enough. The sad thing is that impostor syndrome affects up to 70% of people at some point in their lives — and leaders are part of them as well. This is a type of leadership challenge that can be particularly painful because it creates so much self-doubt. At worst, it can damage your ability to lead, motivate, and be a role model for your team. You have to have healthy self-confidence, so you can understand your value to the universe, particularly to your team.  When your self-doubt starts to creep in and say you are not enough, your self-confidence will say, “I am more than enough.”  3. Maintaining focus Admit it or not, it is so easy for us to break our focus, especially when we’re presented with much more interesting things. Remember that this is all part of your leadership challenge, and you have to fight back the distractions or the “shiny objects” that get in your way. You are in your position because you have a team to lead, a project to complete, and a goal to reach. So it’s your duty as a leader to make a plan, stick with it, and keep your focus on the important matters. 4. Staying humble as a leadership challenge You might think that it sounds ironic how I’ve mentioned self-confidence a while ago then proceed to talk about staying humble. But remember that humility is not the opposite of confidence. Humility is knowing that leadership is about influence and not authority. When you are humble, you become more influential, you attract more people, and you gain more respect and loyalty. Sometimes, it can be challenging to stay humble especially when you’ve been getting back-to-back achievements lately. But it is an essential leadership quality that will make you even more successful in the long run. 5. Facing your fears Nothing else can get in your way of making good decisions and moving your organization more than fear does. From the fear of changes to handling new situations, the fear of making wrong decisions can impact your whole team. These what-ifs will only stop you in your tracks — whether it’s economic changes or market shifts. Yes, fear is human nature — and leaders are no exception from it. But it is something that you must face to become an effective leader. 6. Dealing with burnout There are times when you will lose your motivation, and your will to lead will vanish entirely. Just by looking through this list, how does one simply not feel burnout from all these leadership challenges? Feeling burnout at work is a real thing. To tell you the truth, a lot of leaders, even the successful ones, have gone through this situation. When you push yourself too hard and never rest, it can take a toll on your emotional and mental health. Bear in mind that you won’t be able to lead anyone if you don’t deal with your burnout first. Before you can lead other people, you must first lead yourself. Take care of your body and mind and step back from the things that fill your own hell. After all, how else can you lead and inspire others if you’re going through tough times yourself? 7. Staying motivated Have you ever had those days when you struggle with even the simplest tasks? Like, you just want to stay in bed all day, staring at the unknown while doing nothing. This happens especially when you dwell on something that isn’t working and let it sap your energy. Sadly, staying motivated can be very challenging for leaders to work

It’s a good thing that you have goals of your own as a leader, but what about team goals? Have you ever talked with your team about where you want to be by the end of the year, and what is it you want to achieve as a team? If so, are you making any progress towards your team goals? Honestly, setting team goals is a lot more complicated than setting personal goals. There are a lot of people involved in it, which means you have to take into account their personal goals as well as each individual progress. It is even harder to work together towards a specific goal due to individual differences. Setting a team goal might be challenging, but it goes a long way towards your team’s long-term success. When you set specific and challenging goals for your team, it boosts employee engagement, productivity, and retention. Unsurprisingly, it can also lead to motivated employees and a collaborative team. Golden Rules of Team Goal Setting Unfortunately, only 7% of individual employees have a clear understanding of their company’s business strategies. Meanwhile, a massive 44% are unable to name their organizational goals even when they are already familiar with them. This problem boils down to one root cause: not setting effective team goals. So how do you set goals for your team to ensure effectively to ensure that everyone’s on the same page? We’ll show you. 1.  Find out what it is you want to achieve. As a leader, it is your responsibility to initiate goal planning. Before you communicate with your team, you must be ready to provide them with answers regarding goal-related questions. Think about the reason why you want to achieve these group goals. How will it benefit your organization? At the same time, how will it benefit every individual member?  When setting goals, you must provide measurement so that you can track your progress as well as completion. 2. Set a team goal based on the team’s perspective. What is it that your team members have in common? Perhaps, each of you is striving for a promotion. By knowing your common goals, you can easily set goals for the team. And when your team has a meaningful goal to work towards, it’s likely for you to be collaborative with each other. All the more, it will help your team focus on the goal rather than attempting to beat one another. Make sure that you write your goals once you’ve identified them. Research states that there’s an 80% higher chance of achieving your goals when you write them down. 3. Let your employees develop their own goals. Give each employee the freedom to develop their own goals out of the team goal. If, for example, they want to set their own deadline apart from what you’ve set for them, let them do so. It’s important that they have personal initiative and goals that are relevant to the greater team objectives. Just be sure to provide them with the support that they need. Guide them to develop achievable goals, so their personal goals are still aligned with the team goals. 4. Hold your team accountable. Holding your employees responsible for their duties will make them feel that they are truly part of the team. Additionally, it will be easier for you to keep track of everyone’s progress.  Ensure that you keep your employees accountable by having them report to you by the end of the day. And when you do hold them accountable, make sure that they do it with trust and transparency. 5. Track progress on team goals. Your team goals should be tangible and measurable in the first place, so you can easily determine your success. By checking in with your employees, you will know where to course correct, which tasks are going smooth as planned, and which tasks need more focus.  Not only does tracking goals help you measure success, but it can also keep your team stays motivated when they see progress. In the end, everyone becomes even more motivated when they see progress in what they set out to do. 6. It’s alright to tie team goals to incentives. Look, tying team goals to incentives is alright — as long as you know where to tie both ends. Some managers like to set high sales goals and to tie them with an awesome incentive. Unfortunately, this can only lead to a toxic work environment and may result in your members going through inappropriate lengths just to make sales. Rather than doing this, you can give incentives to those who were able to highlight their strengths. You can also give merits to those who were able to show outstanding behaviors while reaching the goals. 7. Help each other meet your team goals. As a leader, you are responsible for your employee’s personal goals as well as team goals. There are many ways you can do this: Set a time to talk to them one-on-one to see how things are going. Let them know that you’re open to answer questions and give guidance. Give them regular feedback. Help them define milestones, so they will be inspired to reach them. Give them advice on how to achieve their initiatives. 8. Accept and learn from your mistakes. There are situations where things will not go smooth as planned. Perhaps, you have set too high goals, or you’ve experienced unpredictable changes throughout the quarter. When this happens, your team must be prepared to accept defeat and face such failure. But keep in mind that being prepared for failure doesn’t mean accepting mediocrity. Your team should strive to achieve outstanding results while being open to the idea that it is possible to fail. What’s important is that you will be able to learn from your mistakes. So that when you’re about to set new team goals, you’ll know what to do differently by then. With that, you can move on from your failure and do better things.

I’ve noticed that there are so many articles about interviewee techniques posted online but not so much about interviewer techniques. Being the interviewer can be as nerve-wracking as being the one to answer the questions — well, sometimes. And knowing that your company’s first impression rests in your hands can be pretty overwhelming on your part. During the interview process, the candidates are deciding whether they want to work for your company just as much as you are deciding whether you want to recruit them. With that, you have to make a good impression to attract top talent to your company. Above all, asking good questions is a must if you want to determine whether the candidate is a perfect fit for the position and the company in general. That’s why to ensure that you are only hiring the best candidates, you must be equipped with outstanding interviewer skills and strategies. Below are some of the most common interviewer techniques as well as tips for a successful interview process. Most Common Interviewer Techniques  Interviews can take on different forms depending on the goals you are aiming for. Most people might think that there is only one type of interview — and it is a one-on-one office interview. But there are a lot of other common interviews, including phone interviews and group interviews. Here are summaries of the most common interviewer techniques you might want to implement on your next applicant search. 1. In-person interviewer technique An in-person interview is the most-known interviewer technique. It consists of a candidate meeting with an employer in the office to see if they would be a solid fit for the position. If your goal is to know whether the candidate will fit into the culture and climate of the office, an in-person interview should be your go-to technique. 2. Phone interviewer technique Usually, a phone interview comes right after an email transaction. A phone interview is when a recruiter or a hiring manager calls the applicant to get a feel to know if they would be a good option for the job. Phone interviews are not unusual. You will likely do phone interviews with a candidate before inviting them for an in-person interview. 3. Group interviewer technique From the name itself, a group interview is when an employer invites multiple candidates to be interviewed together. This is an efficient interviewer technique for those who want to vastly reduce the time they spend on interviewing. Plus, group interviews can be challenging for candidates. Their ability to perform well goes to show that they can perform in highly stressful situations. Moreover, a group interview is a great way to identify who the most competitive candidates are from the group.  4. Panel interviewer technique A panel interview is just like a traditional interview but with a twist. It consists of a candidate being interviewed by multiple interviewers at the same time. Just like a group interview, a panel interview can be challenging and can showcase whether a candidate can perform well under pressure. Moreover, it shows how well a candidate can navigate a group setting while handling different personalities. 5. STAR interviewer technique A STAR interview technique stands for Situation, Task, Action, and Result. Employers use this technique to analyze jobs and define the qualities and skills of a candidate. Each word stands for a step that a job applicant can use to answer a behavioral question. By incorporating the four steps, the applicant will be able to provide a comprehensive answer.  This is what the concepts in the acronym comprise: Situation. Describe a situation in which you faced a challenge at work. Task. What is your responsibility in that situation? Action. Describe how you were able to complete the task or how you were able to meet the challenge. Result. What were the outcomes or the results of the action you made? You can also emphasize what you’ve learned and accomplished in that situation. Using this STAR interview technique can help the interviewees structure their responses to be able to answer an on-the-spot-question. Read: Step-by-Step Guide to Terminating an Employee Gracefully Essential Interviewer Skills for a Successful Interview After we review the interviewer techniques, we will take a look at the most important interviewer skills. In this part, we will focus on these interviewer skills that every effective interviewer possesses. 1. Ability to understand the candidate’s perspective An interview is not just about hearing the interviewee’s skills and qualities. It is just as important for an interviewer to understand the perspective of the candidate. By listening carefully to how the candidate answers, you’ll be able to get the feel of how they work and act in a workplace setup. Additionally, you must able to understand the role of the position you are hiring for. In this way, the interview can lead you to make better decisions at every step of the process. 2. Being prepared Being prepared is perhaps one of the must-have skills of an interviewer. After all, preparation is a critical skill for successful decisions. Preparing yourself to conduct an interview means many things, from understanding the industry to being aware of the labor pool you are hiring for. Moreover, you need to understand what skills are required for the position, so you can match it to the candidate’s experience and work history. Good thing, you don’t have to get a deeper understanding before the interview. The candidate will supply you with such information, so you don’t have to read too much information from the resume. 3. Master of good communication skills Communication skills are a must for every job role, but in this case, we will focus on its importance for interviewers. Good communication comes down to two things: being a good communicator and being a good listener. Being a good communicator is important for interviewers to ensure that the audience truly understands what they are trying to convey. On the other hand, having good listening skills will help you understand the

Hiring, training, and managing employees are three of the challenging tasks that every HR employee has to face, but terminating an employee is a whole different story. Even though letting an employee go is something that must be dealt with professionally, it’s hard to be the one breaking the bad news.  To be honest, the termination of employees is never going to be a pleasant experience. Whether it’s a termination for a cause or a layoff, you might have to take a deep breath or two before giving the lowdown to the employee.  But you know better than anyone else that there will come a time that you have to encounter such a situation. Whatever the reason for the termination is (so long as it’s legal), you have to be practical and fair during the entire process. Bear in mind that how you fire an employee sends a powerful message to your remaining employees.  If worse comes to worst and you are now down to your final resort, take a look at these tips to see how to terminate an employee the right way.   1. Document everything before terminating an employee. Documentation is a critical step you must make, so you must have a record of the entire process. While this step takes time, it will serve as your friend that will defend you and your decision.  For reference, you can use a Progressive Discipline Warning Form to document the whole procedure. Read: The Right Way to Get Eye-Opening Feedback From Employees 2. Be clear when hiring. From the very start, you must be direct with the requirements you’re looking for in an employee. It is only right that you provide them with a solid understanding of their responsibilities before their first day in the company.  Remember that each of us comes with our own perspectives that don’t always match with our boss’. For this reason, you have to define their role to make it easier to spot and correct their shortcomings. 3. Be clear when firing. The rule remains the same when terminating an employee. If you must fire them, do so — but with grace and respect. Before holding the employment termination meeting, you must talk with the employee first. Be straight to the point. No one wants to talk about the weather or last night’s basketball game before hearing the grave news. Also, you have to be prepared to answer questions about the employee’s last paycheck, health insurance, and unemployment benefits. Read: 10 Modern HR Responsibilities: Guide for Employers 4. Upon breaking the news of terminating an employee, get ready for emotion while keeping yours in check. Some employees might not bat an eyelid upon hearing the news. But some might go through a mixture of emotions from shock to grief and at worst — anger.  The best way to deal with their range of emotions is to show empathy. Avoid using any harsh word during the termination of an employee. Regardless of why they were let go, always be respectful even if they express anger or rage. 5. Don’t humiliate the employee. Getting fired is one of the worst things that could happen to anyone. You don’t want to add fuel to the fire by humiliating them in front of others. There’s only one way you can fire an employee– and it’s in private behind closed doors. If you terminate an employee in front of everyone, you also risk draining out the morale of the other employees. Keep in mind that this is not just bad for that individual employee, it can also put the employee morale of the company at risk. Read: Everything You Need to Know About Employee Development Planning 6. Have a witness. When terminating an employee, you and the manager should be the only two people with them. You may grab a witness, like a trusted employee or a lawyer if necessary. Having a witness during the talk is important in case the terminated employee comes back with a lawsuit. In this way, the witness can confirm the legal and ethical procedure you’ve had when terminating the employee.  7.  Don’t surprise them. Terminating an employee due to a policy violation is a different story. But if the reason for the termination is poor performance, you need to give them a warning and a performance review before firing them. You must do performance reviews at least twice a year to assess whether all the employees are doing well. If you’re lucky enough, giving them an honest performance review is enough to kick them in the pants, and you won’t have to fire them. You should always give the employees a chance to improve first before resorting to firing them. But if the employee still doesn’t improve despite your warnings, don’t wait any longer and fire them already. Read: Get to know the top 7 benefits of workplace diversity. 8. Tell the other employees that you terminated an employee. Most of the time, it’s necessary that you tell the other employees that their co-worker has been fired. You might use this as an opportunity to tell them about the changes in workload or new opportunities available. However, it’s much better if you don’t go into detail because it might result in gossip-fest around the workplace. Always maintain professionalism throught the process of terminating an employee. It’s such a dream to have all the employees perform at a high level and you’d never have to go through the entire process of letting someone go. But sadly, that’s not just realistic. In a realistic setup, terminating an employee is just one small part of management.  Despite that, always remember that you have to do it legally, with civility, and compassion. 

In this time where companies are adapting to the digital trend, confidentiality in the workplace is becoming more challenging. Say, for example, trade secrets and client lists are now stored online, which means there’s a higher risk of data leakage. But I’m not blaming it all on the technology — in fact, employees are the highest risk to a company’s confidential information. They may accidentally leak information by clicking on phishing links. Additionally, it can be an inside job planted by an opposing company. There’s truly no room for assurance in today’s upsurge of highly competitive companies. You need workplace confidentiality more than ever to avoid catastrophic consequences for your business. Failure to secure confidential data can lead to the loss of clients. Another result is the stolen data can be used for illegal activity, which might cause you a costly lawsuit. Confidential Information in the Workplace To establish confidentiality in the workplace, you must know what types of information are needed to be protected. Confidential workplace information is generally divided into three categories, including employee, business, and management information. The leakage of such information can be subject to legal actions under Republic Act No. 10173 (Data Privacy Act of 2012). 1. Employee Information Personal information is considered sensitive and confidential in the workplace. Such information includes: Social Security number Home address Telephone number Email address Parent’s full name Driver’s license number Health information Immigration forms To secure such sensitive data, companies must release data privacy notice and consent form for an applicant prior to his first day of work. 2. Management Information Management information is simply the rules, policies, and management tactics of a company. While disclosure of this type of information is not directly illegal, it can cause damage to the spirit of the company. 3. Business Information Also called “proprietary information” or “trade secrets,” this information isn’t generally known by the public. Common business information includes financial data, forecasts, computer software, ingredient formulas, and business plans. Common Examples of Violation of Confidentiality in the Workplace Former employee disclosing your list of clients to your competitor Copying data from the office computer to a flash drive or hard drive Using work email to send a personal email  Outsource software company using the same software they sold you for another business 3 Ways to Ensure Workplace Confidentiality 1. Add confidentiality clauses to your employment contracts While it may sound pessimistic for some, employees are the biggest threat to your company. You can lessen this threat by having employees sign a contract with a confidentiality clause. As a result, this makes them legally responsible for any kind of confidential information that must only be between them and the company. They must not compete with your business by joining a similar business, solicit other employees, nor reveal any sensitive information even after their employment. Make sure that your agreement contains a clear definition of what confidential information is. By doing this, it would help eliminate misunderstanding between you and the employees. Another thing involves the agreement to ownership of a newly created project (also known as “work made for hire”). Specifically, this agreement must specify whether the company keeps the right to the project after the employee resigns from the company. 2. Create social media policies and mobile phone policies Confidentiality training is an integral part of a company’s on-boarding process. It is done through employee handbooks, training, or online lectures.  There are two policies that every company must implement as part of their confidentiality training: social media policy and mobile phone policy.  Social media is another threat to workplace confidentiality. Sadly, only 29% of companies implement a policy for this. The reason why social media is a risk to your business is that it can damage your reputation. Moreover, it can be a medium for information leakage. Even what might seem like a harmless tweet could pose severe damage to the company. Another thing is mobile phone policy. Most employees use their mobile phones to communicate with external entities (friends, family, or even competitors). This could compromise data in unobvious ways, like taking a picture of private data, dispel information, or upload them to their device. Make sure to develop a mobile phone policy as it covers the use of mobile phones in the workplace. Moreover, don’t forget to include penalties for violation of the policy. 3. Develop a response plan and an employee exit process Create a contingency or response plan for when private data gets leaked. Make sure to plan for all possible situations, like published trade secrets or an employee feeding private data to competitors.  It is important to plan for various situations, so to prepared if confidentiality violations occur. The HR department must have a clear process for employee exit. This is to ensure that they won’t be leaving with any private information. Your employee exit process must include an exit interview with the employee. Also, he must submit all of his work and return all properties owned by the company. Furthermore, make sure to disable all employee accounts, emails, and remove database permission on the day of his official resignation. Extra Tips to Maintain Confidentiality in the Workplace 1. Store private data in a safe place For manual files, there should be separate folders for I-9 forms and employee information. Make sure to keep private data in a locked cabinet or area. While for computerized information, you can protect it by installing a firewall, encrypting the data, and changing passwords regularly. Then for software like payroll software, choose a payroll software company that guarantees security.  Take note that these files should only be accessible to select employees — particularly those in the upper rank and some HR and IT employees. 2. Maintain organization to preserve confidentiality in the workplace Employees must show their confidentiality skills by organizing their desks regularly. Always make sure to clean the desk of any confidential information before going home at the end of the day.  Additionally, avoid discussing confidential

There’s a reason why getting feedback from employees is a secret tool for increased productivity. Think about it: when you receive constructive and honest employee feedback, it’s easier for you to retain your workforce and improve the employee experience. After all, who else can provide better guidance other than your own employees? The employees are the greatest asset to the organization. And it is only right to let their voices be heard by their manager as well as the whole organization. In this way, you’ll be able to build a strong, collaborative team that thrives with respect and trust. If you rarely ask for feedback from employees, you might want to start doing it now. We’ll show you the right way to get employees’ feedback so that you can take employee retention to the next level. 1. Know who to ask. Some organizations are new to this whole feedback thing. If your organization is one of them, you might want to start with a close, trusted employee. Ask for their opinion on something minor. If you ask them for a request, you can use that to build momentum until you feel comfortable enough to ask other employees.  It doesn’t matter what the employee’s role in the company is. By asking for feedback, it shows that you respect them enough to value their opinion regarding company matters. Once getting employee feedback feels more natural for you, you can start asking for it during group meetings as well as one-on-one meetings. Read: 10 Modern HR Responsibilities: Guide for Employers 2. Find the perfect time to get feedback from employees. But before you ask the employee, you must take into account the time you can approach the employee. Generally, here are some good times to ask for your employee’s opinion. Before or after major meetings. These times are the perfect opportunity to gather constructive feedback. Since experiences and challenges are fresh in their mind, it will be easier for them to partake, collaborate, and learn from the situation. Once the meeting is over, you can ask them their thoughts about the meeting. Then, you can build to a full interview by asking what worked well, what didn’t, and how you can improve it. During performance reviews. Your organization likely has a formal process for employee evaluation. You can use that time to engage in a reverse review. Ask them to evaluate your leadership, but be careful not to make it too formal. Make the setting casual, like in a coffee shop or a restaurant, so you can get candid feedback from them.  During day-to-day activities. Some opportunities often pop up during simple interactions in the workplace. You can utilize such moments to ask for feedback that can lead to potential growth. 3. Find the most suitable method to ask for feedback from employees. There are different ways to collect valuable insights from your employees. You can review these methods and find the most suitable one for your workplace: New employee surveys.  After a new employee’s first 90 days at the company, you can send them a new employee survey to learn more about their overall engagement and satisfaction. Ask them questions about how they feel around their new team, how they’re settling in, and if the company’s goals match with theirs.  Pulse survey. This kind of survey is shorter compared to other types of surveys. Usually, the company will ask 1-3 questions weekly to get a regular pulse on employees’ satisfaction. This also works best if you want to hear timely feedback. Stay interviews. This is a great way to solicit feedback from your top talent to help you retain them. Their managers should do the part of sitting down with them to talk about what they like about their job — and what they don’t like as well. Using these accumulated opinions, you can customize your plan to retain your top performers. Employee suggestion box. Who says you can’t do this the old fashion way? Some employees fear sharing honest feedback through other means, and the next best thing to do is to place suggestion boxes in the work station. Feel free to place a box somewhere easily accessible, like the front desk. Read: Everything You Need to Know About Employee Development Planning 4. Some things you need to do to get helpful feedback: Make your employees feel at ease while being honest and direct. Here are some tips to help you coach them through this: Ask future-centered questions. There’s a higher chance you’ll get honest answers when you ask questions with concern for the future. Rather than asking them about what they did wrong in the past, it’s much better to ask them what they can improve as they go forward. Be candid. Tell them not to hold back. After all, their honest feedback plays an important role in your organization’s performance. Let them know that they’re doing you a huge favor by being honest.  Give them time. Some employees need more time to process your questions. Let them do so. Give them time to think your questions through, and meet with them later to discuss their feedback. 5. Know how to respond appropriately Here’s the thing: how you respond to their feedback can make or break your organization’s culture. Remember that it’s better not to get feedback from your employee in the first place rather than responding to them poorly.  For the record, here are some tips that can help you respond professionally to your employees’ feedback: Ask follow-up questions. Show that you’re really listening to them by asking open, probing questions. The goal of doing this is to understand your employee’s opinions rather than changing their mind. Don’t defend. This practice is not made to initiate any debate or argument. Prepare yourself not to give off a defensive vibe.  Thank them and let them know that you will think things through. Show appreciation for their courage to share their opinions with you. After that, let them know you’ll

What are the HR responsibilities in your company? In this article, we listed down the 10 main roles of human resources. We will also go through each role and explain how doing them right can significantly affect both the people and the organization positively.  What are the key HR responsibilities? The HR department might be the most confusing department for the whole company. Sure, everyone knows its importance, but only a few employees know why. Some would say that the role of HR is to primarily deal with the most uncomfortable aspects of work like layoffs, firing, and HR violations. But honestly, human resources does more than that. They are placed in their positions to support employees. Literally, they are a resource for humans. The following 10 passages will get into detail about what HRM professionals do in today’s modern era, and how it plays a vital role in the organization’s success. 1. HRM professionals find and recruit employees that contribute to the company’s objectives. Nowadays, the role of human resource executives is not limited to posting ads and interview candidates to fill open positions. In this modern world of competitive organizations, it is one of the responsibilities of HR to formulate employer brands to attract the right job candidates. In this HR responsibility, the leaders work together to promote their organizations as highly commendatory workplaces. To do this, the HR executives make sure that they create a positive culture and provide satisfactory compensations to attract the perfect-fit candidates for a job role. 2. One of the HR responsibilities is to assure adequate benefits and compensation to the employees. Fair benefits and compensation are keys to a good human resource management role. No one works for free. Therefore, employees deserve to be compensated satisfactorily so that they will be motivated to do their best and stay with the company. The HR employees are also responsible for computing payroll, including taxes and hours collected. To make sure that the process is error-free, the company invests in outstanding payroll software that streamlines important procedures that the entire company creates. 3. The role of HR is to provide employees with career assistance. Today, it’s not enough to simply evaluate employees’ performance on a checklist. Rather, HRM professionals must take a proactive role in helping employees advance their careers. They must make sure that the employees are improving at the hands of the company by identifying areas for improvement and developing specific action steps. 4. They maintain employee records. As mandated by law, maintaining records is another role of HR employees. These employee records help employers recognize each employee’s skill gaps which they need to address sometime in the future. Additionally, these records contain personal details and emergency contacts for all the employees. 5. It’s HR’s responsibility to serve as leaders of change. The challenging nature of the modern industry calls for people who will lead the changes for every organization — and that’s exactly what HRM professionals do. These professionals must yield strong management skills, including helping stakeholders connect change initiatives and strategic needs. In return, this will help them reduce change resistance and employee rest.  As leaders of change, another human resources responsibility is to shape organizational culture so that they can adapt to the modern changes of today’s workplace. 6. The HR staff must provide help to domestic violence victims. In a forecast by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), they found that 1 in 4 women and 1 in 7 men can experience domestic violence in the United States. This issue has grown so prevalent that it’s not the best idea to leave all the matter to the local authorities. Instead, the firm must step in to extend any help they can give.   The HR staff can help in this situation by promoting an organizational culture where everyone is free to approach HR employees with domestic violence concerns. 7. One of the HR responsiblities is to advocate for employees. In this regard, HRM professionals play an important part in the success of organizations. They contribute to building a healthy workplace where employees feel happy and satisfied. Since all companies want this outcome, HR leaders implement practices such as goal setting, open communication, and employee engagement. This leads to increased workforce productivity and better consumer experiences. 8. They make sure to update policies whenever needed. As the organization changes, it is ideal to updated policies at least once a year. It’s HR’s job to make legal updates to policies and suggest changes.  Additionally, the HR employees need to be prepared and consulted with especially when the update is a reaction to an occurrence. 9.  HR employees also participate in planning and development. Human resource executives also serve as strategic partners. They are included in the identification, development, and execution of objectives. In this regard, the HR executives need to align the objective of the company to their job. This allows HR leaders to gain a wide understanding of the activities that aid in the growth of the organization. 10. It’s an HR responsibility to ensure that there’s no cyberbullying at work. We know that workplace bullying often happens in the office. But today, the internet extends bullying to the victim’s safe space, an activity called cyberbullying. Everyone knows that there’s a high chance that it happens in every workplace, yet dealing with this issue can still be challenging.  Despite this, HR employees know how to take action to eliminate this terrible activity in the workplace. The human resource department plays a vital role in a company’s culture. If HR is toxic, it can result in discouraged employees and a high employee turnover rate. However, if HR shows genuine care to its employees, rest assured that the company culture will be one of growth and comfort.

In this article, we will explore everything you need to know about employee development. From its meaning, all the way to creating an effective development plan, we’ll examine all the facets of employee development. We will also go into detail on the role of the HR department in creating a comprehensive, pragmatic employee development plan for their organizations.  What is Employee Development?  Employee development is universally defined as a strategic tool for organizations that want to improve their growth, productivity, and employee retention. At a high-level, it can be defined as a process of improving, enhancing, refining, and honing existing skills of employees, as well as developing newer ones, to remain true to their organization’s mission and goals. Along with those definitions are some finer points of interest: Employee development planning is more than just implementing mandatory employee training. It goes a long way beyond developing L&D strategies. It’s also not enough to have annual meetings with employees to discuss their limitations and highlighting improvement needs. When you execute employee development successfully, even though it requires a lot of investment from the company, it will pay off more over the long-term. Here’s an example: both letting go of an employee with limited skills and improving those skills to the organization’s standards will cost you money. But, employee development efforts will benefit the company better when you implement a carefully planned professional development plan. Using the same example, choosing to develop employees will result in a positive aftermath for the whole organization. For one, it will help them avoid the costly process of replacing the employee. It will also profit from the “sunk capital” that they invested in that employee. And lastly, it will allow HR professionals to maintain the organizational culture instilled in that employee instead of building from scratch. The Benefits of Employee Development As we mentioned a while ago, a carefully planned development strategy can help your organization on multiple levels. And if you were able to execute it well, it can gather up multiple benefits to all parties concerned, from the employees to the broader organization. The benefits of a development plan for employees, as well as the whole organization, include: 1. Performance enhancement For companies to stay competitive, they need to outstrip their competition. Luckily, employee development can let you do just that by helping the organization meet– and possibly surpass — performance projection.  According to a 2017 report by CSO Insights, they found that sales manager development can heavily improve performance metrics (quota attainment, win rates, and revenue rates). For some, investing as little as $500 in employee development rendered $5,000 investment produced, 51.4 % more wins, and 46.1% win rate improvement. Read: Get to know the top 7 benefits of workplace diversity. 2. Professional development planning can help attract new employees. Ask any HR professionals and they will tell you that it’s not enough to only advertise job vacancies. The reason is because candidates will always look for a company that offers good compensation and benefits, a healthy and positive workplace, good organizational culture, and even a company that promises career development plans. So in conclusion, a company won’t be able to attract the best candidates to help them remain competitive without an employee development plan. In a Whitepaper produced by ATD Research titled Building a Culture of Learning, The Foundation of a Successful Organization, they stated that companies are more agile, competitive, and engaged when an organization implements a learning and knowledge-sharing culture within the workforce. 3. Helps save money through employee retention To keep the ship afloat, it’s essential to invest in in-house employee development programs. Doing this can help ensure that employees stay in the know and remain competitive. Also, employee development planning can also help the organization save money in the long run.  AT&T found that only 50% of its 250,000-strong workforce had the right skills to support their company through a cutthroat competition. As a result, they decided to invest in a $1-billion retaining program. This employee development plan helped them save a lot of money. The reason is that replacing them also increases as employee base pay increases.   Read: The Complete and Epic Guide to Successful Employee Management in 2020 4. Through an employee development plan, companies can handle unexpected situations better. The nature of today’s business environment brings about constant changes. And those constant changes can bring challenges for the workforce. But if handled properly, these challenges can open unexpected opportunities which are vital in handling ever-growing situations efficiently. With the right development plan for employees, you can train the employees to be adaptable. As a result, they can greatly improvise solutions, unlike with less-developed employees who would simply accept the status quo. 5. Grants the company the flexibility to innovate, expand, and compete vigorously. Such employee development programs not only develop existing skills, but they also let you deliver competitiveness in the long run by inculcating new skills that will surely be helpful in the future. These newly-learned skills grant the company the power to be flexible, nimble, and accommodative to the needs of the external forces of the company. Additionally, they can help you innovate and compete for various business opportunities, which is crucial for a true market leader. 6. Employee development planning helps improve employee engagement. By implementing good training, it’s easy to drive employee engagement so that they can remain motivated to the company’s goals and mission. According to the Dale Carnegie Institute, a highly-engaged workplace can lead to a 202% improvement in productivity. Moreover, even 85% of leaders believe that employee engagement is a high-priority strategy for success. By having a well-defined employee engagement program, you can balance all the employee engagement factors, from skills development to training. Doing this can also result in delivering the benefits of a fully-motivated workplace within — and outside — the organization. Read: 10 Change Management Strategies That Will Make Your Initiative Successful What is the Role of the HR Department in Employee Development? While