Blog | Honestly

Personal Development: Help Yourself and Your Employees Grow

It’s human nature to want to grow within a role. Job satisfaction isn’t static–it changes over time. A job that you felt lucky to get at 20 will likely not be as fulfilling once you enter your thirties. That’s why personal development should matter to companies that want a motivated and productive workforce. Personal development activities ensure that employees can see a clear path forward between where they are now and where they want to be.

Cultivate Your Conceptual Thinking for Visionary Leadership

There are certain qualities that we expect to see in leaders–tenacity, intelligence, and an ability to inspire the people around them. The traditional image of a leader is someone who is exacting, who makes carefully considered decisions based on evidence and facts. They are logical and rational. However, there is one characteristic of successful leaders that is often overlooked: creativity. While logic and reason can minimize risk and maximize existing resources, they are little help when it comes to making something new.

Employee Advocacy: Could it be your competitive advantage?

What was the last great experience you just had to share with your friends? Did you have a mouth-watering meal at a restaurant or watch a suspenseful new movie? Usually, when people have better-than-expected experience, they want to share the story with the people around them. Particularly in the age of social media, people want to share stories that make them look good, or let people in on a new experience that they recommend.

Budgeting for Employee Engagement

Do you find budgeting for employee engagement challenging? Well, you are not alone. As an HR professional, you regularly need to evaluate where your company’s HR spending has generated the most success, and where you can afford to save. While many human resource experts have preached the importance of creating a workplace environment where employees are motivated, fulfilled, and healthy, one question always lingers: Where do we find the money?

20 Ideas for Rethinking Employee Performance Reviews

The employee performance review is a rite of passage at every job. It’s an accepted convention that once a year, you will meet with your boss one-on-one to discuss the quality of your work in the past year. Your strengths and weaknesses will be covered and your salary may be renegotiated. But is this the best way to inform employees of their progress? Can one annual conversation really do the job?

Employee Engagement Begins with your Company’s Core Values

In any community, shared values are what bring people together. They let members know what’s right, what’s wrong, and what outcomes people should prioritize over others. Shared values keep people moving toward the same goal. In a way, they are the foundation of any relationship–I trust that you will behave in this way because we both believe behaving that way isn’t right. It’s true too for workplaces. While codified corporate values might seem a little cheesy now (remember the “flair” in Office Space?

Mentoring: How Does it Work and Who Should be One?

Experience is a powerful resource that isn’t always easy to quantify. While some companies hire for potential value over previous experience, the deep knowledge gleaned from years within a role or organization is incredibly valuable. Millennials are now entering intermediate and senior level positions, and will comprise 75% of the workforce by 2025. Mentoring is one way to prepare millennial employees for leadership positions and guide them through their career development.

One-on-One 101: A template for better conversations with your employees

When was the last time you had a frank, one-on-one conversation with your direct manager? Hopefully, it’s not hard to remember the date. While you might think that downplaying roadblocks or minimizing your concerns might impress the boss, it’s easy to forget that a manager’s #1 responsibility is to manage. That means it’s in their interest to have an honest account of what’s working, what isn’t, and what they can use their power to influence.

Workplace Wellbeing: 50 Ideas for Healthier and Happier Employees

Successful companies are finally beginning to figure out that considering their employees as whole, complex people—as opposed to tools that perform a necessary function—is the right, moral, and profitable thing to do. Groundbreaking research into employee engagement and workplace wellbeing over the past two decades has revealed that healthy, happy employees are more productive and valuable overall. Find out how Sunrise used our solution to make their employees happier and more productive Read our case study While there is still a natural inclination in management to separate the personal and professional, in practicality, they are intertwined.