Improve Remote Team One-on-Ones with This Weekly Update Template
Reading Time: 5 minutes Remote workers say communication is their top challenge, while remote managers tend to worry more about productivity. It can be challenging to strike the right balance, but the right weekly update template can serve as a guide for addressing both concerns at once. Many companies use weekly updates or one-on-one meetings as a way to […]
Autonomy in the Workplace: How Much is Too Much?
Reading Time: 5 minutes Is it possible to have too much of a good thing? When it comes to autonomy in the workplace, the answer is: absolutely. While many self-sufficient employees benefit from fewer distractions and more time for core work, it’s possible to go overboard. Left unchecked, autonomy can start to feel more like abandonment for your team. […]
How to Talk to Your Team About an Employee Departure
Reading Time: 6 minutes When an employee leaves the company, it’s always a little painful for everyone involved. For the remaining team members, a team member resigning or being fired can be particularly destabilizing. Not only do they have to adjust to a new workload, but it also threatens their sense of stability and can even lead to waves […]
3 First-Time Manager Mistakes: How 6 Leaders Learned from Their Missteps
Reading Time: 5 minutes Congratulations—you earned your promotion, and you’re a proud first-time manager ready to take on the world like the boss you know you are. The problem is, you’ve never managed anyone before, at least not in this specific role. While you crushed it in your previous position, your work did not prepare you to manage others. […]
360-Degree Feedback Is a Minefield for Employees. Here’s How to Navigate It.
Reading Time: 5 minutes Remember Minesweeper? It was a standard computer game in the 1990s, in which, to play, you were obligated to click on boxes that were either empty (safe) or were filled with a mine (not safe) that abruptly ended the game. The uncertainty of every click filled you with anxiety. Gameplay included few or nonexistent context […]
Only 5% of Managers Think Manager Training Works. Here’s What Needs to Change.
Reading Time: 8 minutes This summer, Uptick conducted a survey in which we asked managers about how manager training prepared them for their roles. Their answer was clear: it didn’t. (You can download the report here). Of the 82 managers we surveyed, only 1.3% said that manager training made them feel “very prepared” to start their job. And that’s […]
Creating a Professional Development Plan: Tips for Small Teams
Reading Time: 5 minutes The number one reason for employee turnover for 10 straight years? Lack of career development options. Statistics like this are sobering, but they don’t necessarily help you address the issue. When you’re still figuring out where your small business will go, it’s tempting to put professional development plans on the back burner. But unless you […]
A Professional Development Plan Template: Craft Your Employees’ Story Arc
Reading Time: 6 minutes If you made it to the last page of a novel, and none of the characters had grown or evolved, you’d probably think it was a boring story. You may be writing an equally stagnant story about your own company if you aren’t helping your employees craft their individual story arc. It’s not just that […]
How These 5 Companies Are Prioritizing Employee Health in the Era of COVID-19
Reading Time: 5 minutes The uncomfortable truth is, no one is okay is right now. Grief experts (a real thing) say that because of massive social changes and uncertain futures brought on by the pandemic, we’re all dealing with a sort of collective grief. Because of that, a lot of companies are rethinking how they support their team’s mental […]
What Talent Development is and Why Most Companies Get it Wrong
Reading Time: 7 minutes In most companies, trying to improve talent development feels like trying to get a birthday present for your niece or nephew: you have the best intentions, but you end up buying a Lego set when the kid wants a guitar. According to 2017 research from Deloitte, companies spend over $100 billion annually on training and development […]