Why HR is a Major Player in Business Strategy

Crafting a company’s strategy can never be a one-person job. Its foundation should be a 360-degree view of the organization, meaning that you need to collect perspectives and insights from different angles to form an accurate picture of what’s really going on. No matter how eagle-eyed you fancy yourself to be, you won’t be able to keep track of every detail.

When you’re drawing up your company strategy in the boardroom, it’s crucial for an HR representative to be there. Nobody else has such a good view of what’s up with your people–and no matter how well-thought-out your strategy is, it’s going to crash if you don’t factor in the employees.   

HR can bring the following to the table:

Direction checking

A company, even as it’s made up by different people who come and go over the years, has a certain identity–and this identity is grounded in the company’s mission statement or original vision. Of course change is expected: rebranding isn’t uncommon, but it’s often intentional and backed up with extensive planning.

What you need is someone who can constantly monitor if your strategy still aligns with your company’s values. HR knows this best, considering that they’re the main champions of company culture. Going against your values for the sake of success will have bad consequences over the long run, even if it might lead to quick wins.

Gathering employee feedback

Your HR team is keenly aware of whatever is going on with employees–and you definitely need this information before, during, and after your strategy-planning.

HR is extremely familiar with your employees’ habits, pain points, and reactions. When anything new is implemented, they can catch firsthand how employees are taking it, beyond what’s being said up-front to management.

As with products, strategies are hardly done after the first execution. You need to check for feedback, both directly from the employees and indirectly from the straight-up observations of HR, then adjust your course of action.

Spotting problems

Because HR is in charge of team-building events, onboarding, training, and more, they’re the gatekeepers of your company culture and can spot glitches that might lie well beyond your radar. Culture will always impact strategy, and vice-versa. Tweaking your company culture for the better can produce huge gains in terms of performance.

Consult with your HR about inefficient processes or areas of your company culture that need improvement, and brainstorm on how you can trigger organizational transformation simply by working on your culture. While the big idea will come from the top, HR plays a significant role in how it will trickle down to employees.

Recruiting

As your company evolves, job openings will increase, new people will stream in, and there might even be restructuring of departments or shuffling of roles.  When your strategy involves expansion and bringing new people in, it becomes especially important for HR to be there.

HR is primarily responsible for recruitment, but even before that, they can help determine what additional positions are needed and what characteristics candidates should have. It’s been said that a company is defined by its people, and HR is the main facilitator here, guiding employees from hiring up to resignation.

The post Why HR is a Major Player in Business Strategy appeared first on Sprout.

source https://sprout.ph/blog/why-hr-should-be-a-player-in-your-business-strategy/

Should You Follow Your Passion?

Eventually, everyone has to confront the question of: “What should I do for a living?”

It’s expected that people would struggle with this when they’re young–say, right after leaving school or during their first job–but even those who are well into a ten-year career can be at a loss for an answer.

If we spend eight hours a day working, then that amounts to 80,000 hours for the rest of our lives. That’s also equivalent to at least one-third of our day, with another one-third occupied by sleep. What we do at work, then, also has a huge impact on our happiness and wellbeing.

Option 1: Go with what you love  

One school of thought says, “Follow your passion”–and this is quite radical, considering that it has only been recently in history that we’ve conceived of work as something more than paying the bills.

The most typical statement of this is that you’ll be better off doing what makes you happy rather than plodding away at a soul-sucking job that you dislike.

The main obstacle to this path is money, but with our increasingly flexible economy, people are becoming free to create their own jobs centered around their interests (just look at the diverse topics of bloggers out there).

It’s a protest against the 9-to-5 grind where employees are treated like machines, and it also addresses the fear of being crushed by regret on your deathbed because you never pursued your own dreams.

Option 2: Be pragmatic 

On the other hand, a backlash is also emerging: Google “why follow your passion” and most of the links that show up will be about not following it. The argument from this side is that following your passion is inspiring, but ultimately, it’s only a feel-good platitude.

For all that we highlight success stories involving passion, there have also been lots of cases–even more–where people took the leap and ended up poor, disillusioned, or dissatisfied. Moreover, if you examine some of the people today who are happiest with their  work, what they’re doing right now isn’t necessarily something that they had been passionate about originally.

Cal Newport, author of “Be So Good They Can’t Ignore You,” explains that passion should be cultivated instead of followed. We become passionate about what we’re good at–and we can become good at nearly anything with practice and concentrated effort over time.

Weighing the pros and cons

The “follow your passion” mindset provides a compelling narrative, but applying it is difficult. What if you don’t have one burning passion, or what if doing it for money turns out to be unappealing?

It also gives the impression that your path will be effortless, and you’ll always feel good about it. But no matter how much you love doing something, it’s inevitable to get tired of it sometimes, or even to feel frustrated.  

However, what the passion mindset gets right is that happiness with work does matter. For one, our emotional state bleeds over to the quality of our work–we perform better when we’re intrinsically motivated rather than miserably going through the motions.

It also seems like a stretch to insist that we can be satisfied in absolutely any job–there are certain activities, after all, that naturally engage us more than others. However, we’re bad at predicting what makes us happy (and this can lead to erroneous job choices).

This means that, rather than making predictions from the comfort of our sofas, we’re better off trying out various kinds of jobs, plotting how we feel after doing them, and going with what gives us the most energy and satisfaction.   

Conclusion

What’s emerging as a compromise between these two viewpoints is that we ought to strive for contribution or impact.

Instead of asking what our work will do for us, we should ask how our work can bring value to other people. It’s scientifically proven that being altruistic makes us happy. You likely won’t weep on your deathbed about your job if you felt that you made people’s lives significantly better.

By anchoring our job to a sense of purpose beyond ourselves, all of the highs and lows come together into something meaningful. The days that we put into it all make sense; nothing is wasted.

The post Should You Follow Your Passion? appeared first on Sprout.

source https://sprout.ph/blog/should-you-follow-your-passion/

A Closer Look at the 2017 Minimum Wage Hike

On Sept. 14, 2017, the NCR wage board decided to increase the minimum wage in Metro Manila by P21. The announcement caused quite a stir in social media as labor unions have been campaigning for a while, pointing out that the original minimum wage (at P491) is hardly enough to survive on, especially if one has dependents.

For a quick summary, you can visit our blog post.

The formal announcement can be found on the National Wages and Productivity Commission website.

The Basics

The table below from the National Wages and Productivity Commission shows the new minimum wage in NCR:

The sectors covered are non-agriculture, agriculture, retail or service establishments with 15 employees at most, and manufacturing establishments with less than 10 employees.  All of the workers in these industries get a P21 hike in their minimum wage, resulting in P512 for the non-agriculture sector and P475 for the rest.

What is COLA?

The minimum wage consists of basic wage and COLA (P10 in this case). COLA refers to Cost of Living Allowance,  which is added to basic wage in order to offset the increasing prices of everyday goods.

The COLA is incorporated into the contributions to SSS, PhilHealth, and Pag-Ibig, but it isn’t included when calculating for other benefits like night differential and overtime pay. In the recent minimum wage hike, only the basic wage increased, but not the COLA.

Special Cases

The hike doesn’t apply to strictly all workers earning minimum wage, though. The following are excluded:

• Domestic workers
• Persons in the personal service of another
• Workers of duly registered BMBEs (Barangay Micro-Business Enterprise) with Certificate of Authority

Employers who fail to follow the minimum wage will be fined and may be imprisoned. However, they may be exempted, completely or partially, if they fulfill the following circumstances:

• Distressed establishments
• Retail / service establishments regularly employing at most 10 workers
• Establishments affected by calamities

How was it decided?

Regional wage boards make their decisions based on the criteria specified in the Wage Rationalization Act.

The minimum wage should be enough to maintain decent living standards, ensuring that workers will remain healthy and productive. Factors to be considered include the needs of workers’ families and changes in the cost of living.

The wage hike will be made effective on Oct. 5, 2017.

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source https://sprout.ph/blog/a-closer-look-at-the-2017-minimum-wage-hike/

What Every Team Needs to Be Successful

There must be a formula for building a great team–or, at the very least, a common characteristic underlying all of them.

The hunt for the perfect team

This was Google’s premise when it launched Project Aristotle, which studied hundreds of internal teams to isolate what makes a team successful. You’d expect that it’d be as simple as finding competent individuals–who work great on their own–and putting them together.

But great teams can be made from more average members, and collaborations between high performers can go down in flames. Given that there seemed to be no outright similarities between great teams, it took Google a while–two years–to figure out the answer.

What Project Aristotle discovered

Rather than the individual members, a team’s effectiveness lies in the relationship between members, or the norms of a group. Google discovered that there are five major factors:

• Meaning – having a personal connection with your work and being internally motivated  
• Impact – believing that your work will make a difference
• Structure and clarity – goals are clear, and members know what they’re supposed to be doing
• Dependability – members can be relied on to do their part
• Psychological safety – feeling secure enough to express contrary opinions and take risks

If you look back on your own experiences of failed groupwork (and I’m sure you’ve been there), you’re probably going to complain that people were unreliable, or you had no clear idea what your tasks were, or you weren’t motivated.

The right amount of challenge

Surprisingly, though, psychological safety is the most important out of these five.

It’s imperative that you trust the members of your team and feel free to act as you are. In a psychologically safe team, you wouldn’t be held back from voicing your concerns because of fear or self-consciousness.

Teams that make more mistakes have been shown to be more successful. The more you make mistakes, the more you learn and adapt. Healthy debate is encouraged.

The good thing about psychological safety is that it’s the middle ground. You’re challenged and stimulated, but not excessively–just enough to grow and go beyond your comfort zone.    

Fostering psychological safety

You can increase psychological safety in your team by following these three tips:

Admit fallibility

If you’re a team leader, you need to set an example–and this starts with acknowledging that you can make mistakes, too, rather than being dictatorial.

Proactively ask for the feedback of your team members, and consider all opinions, even if they clash with yours. A good rule of thumb is that everyone should speak at least once.

Allow for vulnerability

An interesting exercise that you can try is asking each member to reveal something about themselves that you didn’t know before. You can also do the High/Low exercise before a meeting, where members say what went well for them and what they struggled with.

Be a team

Whenever there’s conflict, keep in mind that, ultimately, you’re a team. Your purpose is to collaborate–you win together and lose together.

Every member of your team is a human being deserving of respect. Be mindful when commenting on other people’s experiences, and avoid being dismissive by scoffing at ideas. When your team experiences a win, take the time to celebrate.   

The post What Every Team Needs to Be Successful appeared first on Sprout.

source https://sprout.ph/blog/what-every-team-needs-to-be-successful/

Innovating with Agile in the Philippines

NCR Wage Board Approves P21 Minimum Wage Increase

After extensive petitioning by labor unions, the regional wage board (Regional Tripartite Wages and Productivity Board – National Capital Region) decided on Sept. 14 to increase the minimum wage in Metro Manila by P21. This will affect more than six million workers across 17 cities and municipalities. From P491, the minimum wage will go up to a total of P512 starting October.

This is a milestone, considering that the last major hike took place under President Cory Aquino, with minimum wage nationwide increasing by P25.

However, it is significantly lower than what the three labor unions were asking for: specifically, a total of P675 requested by Associated Labor Unions (ALU), P750 by the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP), and P1200 in four tranches by the Association of Minimum Wage Earners (AWE).

According to Alan Tanjusay, the spokesperson of ALU-TUCP, a P21 increase (4.27%) isn’t enough: “The P21 increase in daily wage remains insufficient for families to cope with rising prices of goods and increasing cost of goods.”

The purchasing power of the original P491 is lower than it seems, after all: just P354.51 as computed last July. An ALU petition says, “The increases, small as they were, have been overtaken by the increases in power and water rates, in health and education costs, the prices of oil and its products, LPG, and of basic goods and services.”

Tanjusay also pointed out before that living on less than P360 (the actual value of the original P491) per day is hardly enough if one is in charge of a family of five. Such a wage would lead to nutritional deficiencies and less productivity among workers. Raffy Mapali from TUCP added, “The wage increase isn’t just about restoring purchasing power. It should be about raising living standards too.”

Labor groups are likely to continue further petitions, such as a P500 subsidy from the government to be given to minimum wage earners.

The post NCR Wage Board Approves P21 Minimum Wage Increase appeared first on Sprout.

source https://sprout.ph/blog/ncr-wage-board-approves-p21-minimum-wage-increase/

People Analytics: Where Data Science Meets HR

For all its buzzword status, it’s difficult to hype up data science.

90% of the world’s data–taking into account our entire timeline, billions of years back–was amassed over the past few years. The evidence is right in front of us: we can spend our entire lives clicking on every webpage, and we’ll never get to the end.

New content is being created every second. The smallest things we do–our purchases from a certain shop, how many seconds we’re late to work–get measured and tracked.

The emergence of data science

This huge, overwhelming mass of data that we’re swimming in could have been treated as a mere side effect of technology, but human beings decided to turn it into an opportunity: wrangle insights out of these data so we can make better decisions. From there, data science was born.

Data science is a notoriously lucrative industry. Aside from how demanding it is to learn–it’s a fusion of programming, math, and deep business knowledge–it also provides significant leverage for companies that invest in it.

Its traditional domain has been fields that naturally generate a lot of numbers, such as banking and sales, but it’s already being used by companies to optimize as many of their processes as possible. This includes HR.

Unconventional partners: data science meets HR

The intersection of data science and HR is interesting because of the subject matter: people.

Human behavior can defy logic, and there seems to be a vast disconnect between numbers, graphs, spreadsheets and real, flesh-and-blood people. HR demands a huge amount of emotional intelligence, empathy, intuition; data science is more comfortable with clean, precise logic.

Because of this difference in approach, the combination is especially powerful: you get a well-rounded perspective of the people in your organization.

Moreover, human capital is always behind a company’s success: figure out how to improve employee engagement or recruitment, and you drastically up the entire company’s performance.

However, people analytics isn’t as mainstream yet. HR is practically a minefield of data, from employee profiles to long-term retention rates, but for data to be analyzed, it has to be “clean.” Most companies don’t have reliable data (or you’d have to sift through lots of paper to extract them), although automated systems are helping with this.

71% of companies want to prioritize people analytics, but this doesn’t carry over to actual practice. It’s a chance, then, for competitive advantage. Mike West goes as far as  to say that companies not taking advantage of people analytics will get crushed by companies that do.

People analytics in action

Google is a great example of a company that leverages people analytics.

For one, their entire hiring process is data-driven. They already have an algorithm that assesses hirability based on various test scores, they’ve figured out the best way to interview, and they even collect feedback from new employees to improve onboarding.

They also conduct initiatives such as Project Oxygen and Project Aristotle, which are based on intensive study of their own teams.

Project Oxygen determined the eight characteristics of great leaders, and Project Aristotle analyzed what makes a great team. Both projects came up with surprising insights that informed companies all over the world.

Conclusion

The potential of data science for your organization is unlimited–and still untapped, as of the present. This is especially true with people analytics, which can answer relevant problems such as “Why are these employees quitting?” and “What’s the best way to form teams?” By making the most out of your people, you can give your company’s performance a significant boost.

The post People Analytics: Where Data Science Meets HR appeared first on Sprout.

source https://sprout.ph/blog/people-analytics-data-science-meets-hr/

The Unwritten Rules of Work Email

You will write hundreds of emails.

That’s not such a bold claim: the average office worker gets 121 emails daily, and the sheer number of emails sent in a single day amounts to 269 billion. According to the McKinsey Global Institute, we give away 13 hours to email every week.

From these figures, email is unavoidable–you can even say that office workers live and breathe email. It’s still the primary means of communication at work (excluding face-to-face conversations), especially when reaching out to people outside your company.

Regardless of your position or your industry, writing is one of those skills that you’re not allowed to neglect. Given that email is so prevalent, you should be well-versed already in the unstated rules of writing work emails, but here’s a refresher:

Follow the standard structure

It’s a formula you see nearly every time–have a definite greeting and closing, then end with your signature block.

You have several options for greetings, ranging from “Hi” to “Dear” to “To whom it may concern.” Gauge which one to use based on how formal you should be, and include the recipient’s name as much as possible to keep it personal.

For closings, classic choices include “Sincerely” and “Best,” although you may want to try out “Thanks” and “Thanks in advance” since they tend to provoke the most responses.

Finally, your signature block should contain your full name, your position, and the company you’re working in, along with your contact details. Keep your contact details concise: you don’t have to include your phone number, unless you want the recipient to call you.

Be mindful of your grammar

The details matter! Emails may be more flexible than letters, but they’re definitely not as lax as texts or instant messages. Emojis are generally to be avoided, although you can use an occasional smiley.

Hold your language to the same thoroughness as if you were writing a full-blown report: capitalize the first letter of your sentences, put in proper punctuation, and aim for perfect grammar. You never click Send right away: take the time to read through your email for possible errors.

Likewise, be neat with the formatting. As much as possible, use the same classic font and color all throughout (it’s kinder on the eyes!) and avoid all caps (because that’s the written equivalent of yelling).

Consider your tone

This is where your discernment comes in. You have to adapt your tone to whoever you’re sending it to.

When in doubt, it’s better to be too formal than the opposite–especially when the recipient is someone outside the company. With coworkers, though, there might be a bit more leeway for you to be casual.

Take note that email (or anything that’s written) can be easily misunderstood because it doesn’t include body language: a joke that cracks people up when you tell it in person may fall flat in an email. Moreover, it doesn’t have the emojis or stickers–the additional expressiveness–of more casual messaging.

To avoid giving the wrong impression, don’t send emails when you’re enraged or highly emotional. Calm down first, then write.

Be concise

The purpose of an email is utilitarian: it isn’t meant to be art. Keep it short, sticking to 150 words or less. Be considerate of the other person’s time.

This also applies to the subject line, which should be clear and self-explanatory. People usually decide whether to open an email or not based on the subject line. If they’re viewing their inbox on a mobile device, that’s all they get at first glance.

Here’s something interesting: emails with no subject lines are opened more, probably because they stand out and pique people’s curiosity, but we definitely don’t recommend this–it’s unprofessional, and looks like spam.  

Respond on time

Make it a personal policy to reply to all emails addressed directly to you. Aim for a 24-hour response time. If you can’t give a full-blown response right away, send a quick email confirming you’ve seen it and you’ll follow with a more detailed reply in a bit.

HubSpot recommends shortening the time frame to 12 hours when it comes to your teammates–they might need your response to continue with their work. For emails from outside the company, you can stretch it out to until end of the week maximum.

The post The Unwritten Rules of Work Email appeared first on Sprout.

source https://sprout.ph/blog/the-unwritten-rules-of-work-email/

Win the Talent War with Strong Employer Branding

Companies are doing double duty these days. Branding has become three-tiered. Companies still have to cater to customers, yes, but there’s also employee experience to consider, and–here’s the kicker–you have to look good to job applicants, too.

The war for talent

Traditionally, it’s a one-way relationship. Job applicants approach companies, rarely the other way around. The approach used take it or leave it: if an applicant doesn’t like the company, then recruiters move on to the next CV.

But hiring has become much more competitive, to the point that it’s been described as a war for talent. New businesses pop up every day, and technology makes for a flatter playing field–to gain competitive advantage, companies have to be alert and responsive all the time.

At least 60% of job applicants research a company online before hiring, and if what’s up there isn’t flattering, they simply won’t apply.

Building a strong employer brand

The need for good employer branding evolves from this talent economics.

According to Beamery, employer branding is “a company’s ability to differentiate and promote this identity to a defined group of candidates they’re interested in hiring.” It’s becoming a priority for companies globally, although larger companies are more likely to invest in it.

The most outright benefit is that you stand out in a good way–and applicants naturally flock to you, garnering you as much as twice your usual pool. No matter how high the pay is and how hefty the benefits, people would shy away from a company with bad reputation.

This spills over onto retention, with employees more likely to stay if they’re proud of their company (and how it treats them).

The surprising thing is that it also affects your customers–why would they buy a product from a company that they wouldn’t even consider working in?

It’s about authenticity

Because employer branding is based on your company’s identity, it’s rooted in your vision and your values. However, being able to articulate these isn’t enough.

You can have an inspiring mission statement, but you need to go beyond words–it has to be reflected in your company culture.

What pops up right away in people’s minds when they think about employer branding is social media. Visibility is a major part of the story, of course–make sure that your company at least has presence on Facebook and LinkedIn–but employer branding is much more than putting up a social media post every few days.

Get your employees involved

At the crux of your employer branding is your actual employees: how do they feel about your company?

People will always listen more to what an employee says rather than outright ads, especially if the employee is part of their personal network. Case in point: comments and ratings on online forums such as Glassdoor.

Employee branding doesn’t work only on the surface level–you can’t fake it. It’s a must for you, then, to take into account feedback from your employees and build an awesome culture.

The only way is organic: turning your employees into authentic brand ambassadors. Encourage them to tell their stories and share on social media.Word will naturally get around about your company, and you’ll have more applicants knocking on your door.  

The post Win the Talent War with Strong Employer Branding appeared first on Sprout.

source https://sprout.ph/blog/win-the-talent-war-with-strong-employer-branding/

What Your SSS Contributions Mean for Your Retirement

SSS isn’t an unfamiliar term: you had to submit an SSS number before getting hired, and your payslip clearly indicates that part of your salary is automatically deducted for the sake of SSS contributions every month.

What is SSS?

To get specific about it, SSS (the Philippine Social Security System) is an insurance program that’s probably most well-known for providing  pension upon retirement, but it also comes with other benefits that you can avail of in several situations: sickness, maternity, disability, even death. In a sense, it rewards its members with assistance–or a safety net–when these major life events happen.

Despite its name, it isn’t universal among all Filipinos. It was formed specifically for private employees, with government and military systems having different systems altogether.

If you’re self-employed, you can also apply, although you’ll have to be in charge of your own SSS contributions. Otherwise, if you fit neither of these categories (OFWs, for example), don’t despair–you can still contribute by filing for voluntary coverage.

How It’s Funded

SSS isn’t funded by taxes or by the Philippine government–the money comes directly from you and your employer. Because it’s an insurance and not a welfare program, what you get out of it is based on how much you put in over the years.  

The current rate is at 11%, meaning SSS members are required to contribute 11% of their salary as contribution every month. Take note, though, that from the perspective of SSS, your monthly salary is capped off at P16,000. Whether you’re earning P20,000 or P50,000, you’ll have the same contribution amount.

But you’re not paying this in full–the amount is split between you (3.63%) and your employer (7.37%). For self-employed members, there’s nobody to split the payment with, so the entire 11% has to be shouldered by them.

This 2017, though, President Duterte approved a P1000 increase in the monthly pensions of SSS members, and the additional payment has been rolled out since March. To prevent SSS from going bankrupt, the increased pension needs to be balanced with increased contributions from 11% to 12.5%. This was supposed to be implemented on May, but it has been delayed to 2018, so the standard 11% rate above still applies.  

What This Means for Your Retirement  

When you retire, assuming that you’ve paid 120 months of contribution (that’s equivalent to at least ten years!), you’re entitled to a pension from SSS that you can receive as a recurring monthly payment for the rest of your life.

On the other hand, if you didn’t make it to 10 months of contribution, you’ll still get your retirement benefits, but only as a lump-sum amount that’s equivalent to how much you and your employer have paid over the years, compounded by interest.

To arrive at your monthly pension, you actually need to use three formulas. Whichever results in the highest amount (with an additional P1000 in line with this year’s pension adjustment) will be the one followed:

1.) 40% of average monthly salary credit

2.) P1200, if your number of credited years of service is greater than ten but less than twenty (10 < CYS < 20); P2400 if CYS exceeds 20

3.) P300 + 20% average monthly salary credit + 2% average monthly salary credit for each credited year of service (CYS) beyond 10 years

Example

Assuming that your average salary is P40,000 (remember that P16,000 is the monthly cap, though) and you’ve rendered 40 years of service:

Formula 1

40% x 16,000 = P6400

Formula 2

Because 40 years exceeds 20: P2400

Formula 3

P300 + (20% x P16,000) + (2% x P16,000 x (40 – 10 years)) = P13100.60

Out of these three results, Formula 3 yields the highest amount at P13100.60. With the P1000 increase in pension this 2017, this becomes P14100.60, which is the monthly pension that you’ll receive.

Conclusion

Even if you’re still far from retirement now and your monthly salary is still prone to a lot of changes, it’s a good eye-opener to calculate how much pension you’ll get based on your salary so far. You can then compare it with how much you think will be enough for your needs once you’re a senior citizen, and plan accordingly. In order for you to have a comfortable life come retirement, it’s important to save and invest as early as now.

The post What Your SSS Contributions Mean for Your Retirement appeared first on Sprout.

source https://sprout.ph/blog/4566/

What’s Your Natural Working Style?

Fact of life: people work differently.

Do you thrive when given a detailed list of instructions, or do you shudder and ignore it in favor of doing your own thing? Would you rather read books and articles, have someone explain it to you face-to-face, or get dirty with your hands?

No matter how we look at it, it’s obvious that people have preferred ways of working that come naturally to them–that’s probably how they’ve been ever since they were kids.

The Kolbe System

Kathy Kolbe proposes an intriguing system for distinguishing people’s working styles, and it’s already been used by several organizations to manage their teams better. Her system stems from the theory–proposed by ancient philosophers all the way to modern scientists–that the mind has three faculties: thinking, feeling, and acting.

Kolbe’s system focuses on how we act instinctively. Because it doesn’t consider thinking and feeling as much, it’s neither a personality nor an aptitude test.

According to Kolbe’s findings (from more than 500,000 case studies), we have four action modes: quick start, follow through, implementor, and fact finder. We exhibit all of these modes at various situations, although not equally.

By finding out which action mode you rely on the most, you can be more productive by adapting tasks to follow your natural style and choosing compatible projects–playing to your strengths, in other words.

The Four Action Modes

Quick Start

What you love: Coming up with new ideas, taking risks

General approach: Let’s wing this and figure it out along the way

You’re an experimenter by nature–you’re guilty of jumping into things without thinking and surprising people with sudden, unexpected decisions. The best environment for you would be creative and chaotic.

How you learn is through trial and error: you need to be able to pursue several projects at once, but also have the license to fail and move on quickly to the next. You’re likely to have an entrepreneurial streak, bringing a big vision and an unconventional approach to any venture.

Follow Through

What you love: Structure and organization

General approach: Let’s do this step by step

Your gift is formulating systems. If you get thrown into an environment where everyone is running around and papers are flying everywhere, you’ll definitely get stressed–but you’ll take action and set about bringing order, whether by straightening up the place, making a team checklist, or laying down the steps to your goal on the whiteboard.

Because of your need for closure, you prioritize finishing whatever you start, and you prefer working on one thing at a time.

Implementor

What you love: Hands-on activities

General approach: Instead of talking about it, why don’t we build it?

Implementors are probably the least understood out of the four. You’re likely to have found school stifling because of your strong preference for handling physical objects and engaging your senses rather than listening to lectures.

You need to move around and find it hard to stay in one place for too long. When explaining an idea, you’d rather build a three-dimensional model rather than draft a verbal report. You may also have a talent for fixing things and are driven towards craftsmanship.

Fact Finder

What you love: Information

General approach: Let’s learn as much as possible about this

Fact finders need details. They won’t start a task until they’ve thoroughly researched it and have extensive knowledge about what they’re supposed to do. They’re notoriously shrewd buyers who’re skeptical and hard to fool.

If they’re cooking something new, they’ll go over several recipes, watch videos, and have the procedure memorized even before the grocery-shopping! They’re excellent at gathering information from all angles, fact-checking, and investigating in depth.

Working together

You’ll notice that each action type has a blind spot. One way to succeed in a project is to pair with someone who has a different type from you o you can balance each other out.

Counterintuitive as it may be, imagine if you pair a quick start and a follow through–the follow through will ensure that the quick start commits to the project, while the quick start can push the team to take the necessary risks.

The official test is found here, but you can also read through these descriptions and discern for yourself what your preferred mode of action is.

The post What’s Your Natural Working Style? appeared first on Sprout.

source https://sprout.ph/blog/whats-your-natural-working-style/

Promoting Mental Health in the Workplace

More than 300 million people all over the world live with depression, and the number of people seeking psychiatric help is increasing at an alarming rate. It’s clear that we’re having a global epidemic of mental health problems.

Even though the Philippines is supposed to be one of the happiest countries, it isn’t any better here. 1 in 5 adult Filipinos are said to have mental disorders, and suicide rates have steadily hiked up, averaging 7 cases per day.

Only recently did we get our own Mental Health Act, which decrees that mental health services be made a part of our public health system.

Mental health at work

There’s still a lot of stigma around the issue, and this is very much apparent in the workplace. Given that we spend one third of our day sleeping and another one third at work, we can’t deny that our career affects our mental health. To point out the extremes, people have been driven to nervous breakdowns or even suicides because of overwork and workplace bullying.

Despite this, mental health is hardly discussed. Employees are scared that they’ll be judged, or worse, get fired if they reveal that they’re having problems. Taking a day off from work because you have a fever is normal, but very few people would attempt to file a leave and cite their mental health as the reason.

Companies have a motive to care about mental health beyond mere humaneness: looking at the business side of things, happy employees get more done and make better decisions.

So much of what we do also falls under a knowledge economy, which means that being mentally well is essential to our performance.

What we’ve done so far

To be fair, companies today are more concerned about their employees’ wellbeing compared to before. Health insurance is mandatory, and corporate wellness programs are becoming a trend.

However, most of them only take into account physical health, not mental health. The few that do include perks such as mindfulness training, counselling sessions, or meditation classes.

These are a step in the right direction, but they aren’t enough: more fundamental changes are called for.

How to promote mental health at work

Work culture

Does your work culture encourage wellbeing?

Clarify that your company has policies that protect against workplace bullying and harrassment. As important as it is to be productive, don’t force employees to work beyond their hours, too–and watch out for understaffed projects where employees have no choice but to take on extra load.

Since we spend so much time at work, it’s inevitable that it gets tied to our identity. Employees need to derive a sense of accomplishment from their work while feeling appreciated. Give positive feedback when someone’s doing well, and acknowledge how they’re contributing uniquely to the team.

Education

Despite the statistics, not a lot of people are aware of mental health issues–especially in the Philippines, where we’re still building up our resources.

What’s important, then, is to establish openness about it in your company. Encourage leaders who’ve gone through their own problems to talk about it. When onboarding, express your company’s commitment to the mental health of its employees

Even better, organize talks that explain the basics of mental health, and point out resources such as free screenings online. By keeping people informed, stigma is reduced, and misconceptions are eliminated–such as believing that depression is just a temporary mood rather than a  chronic condition.

Management

Team managers are crucial if you’re seeking to promote mental health at work. For starters, hostile or overly demanding managers can have very negative effects on their employees’ self-esteem. Check whether the management style across your organization is causing unnecessary stress–if so, tweaking it can be beneficial for both the managers and the employees.

Beyond that, fill them in on mental health issues. They’re not counselors, but they should know how to recognize warning signs in their employees, such as when an employee’s eating habits suddenly change or if he keeps dropping his work.

Mental health should also be discussed in one-on-one meetings and performance reviews. Ideally, managers wouldn’t hesitate to reach out to team members who seem like they’re struggling, then refer them to sources of support.

Conclusion

Mental health issues are a worldwide problem, but awareness is spreading, and the importance of mental health in the workplace is being recognized gradually. With the approval of the Mental Health Act of 2017, it’s time to realize that, as Ben Congleton says, we ultimately bring our whole selves to work.

The post Promoting Mental Health in the Workplace appeared first on Sprout.

source https://sprout.ph/blog/why-mental-health-matters-in-the-workplace/

Take a Risk: Hiring for Potential

It’s a classic hiring dilemma: should you hire for experience or for potential?

Admit it: hiring for experience feels safer

In principle, both seem to have equal ground. In practice, though, HRs tend to lean towards hiring for experience because it’s a classic, tried-and-tested method.

Imagine that you’re trying to pick the best candidate for a web developer position. You’re faced with two choices: a seasoned developer with eight years of experience in that specific framework, or a fresh grad who has interesting projects in his portfolio but who doesn’t have a lot of experience yet.

Chances are, you’ll be tempted to pick the seasoned developer. There’s a lot less risk involved.

Experience is also much easier to quantify than potential–just take a look at your applicant’s history, and there you have it. Potential is trickier because it has no concrete metrics. You’re pretty much basing it on your own judgment, which is prone to bias.

But hiring for potential is becoming a necessity

Hiring for experience, however, doesn’t work all the time–and it may even be impossible. Several hybrid fields are emerging, breaking down the walls between industries.

For example, UX design is very popular now, but you weren’t seeing any job posts about it ten years ago. It can be described as a combination of graphic design, psychology, product management, even programming.

Because formal education hasn’t caught up with UX yet, there’s barely anyone with a degree in UX design. Consequently, people enter into it from different, even unrelated backgrounds.

The same applies to content strategists, social media managers, and many more. For these roles, one is forced to resort to hiring for potential.

When to hire for potential

As with all dichotomies, there’s no hard and fast answer. Rather, strive to use both, and know their proper context. Here are situations where you might consider hiring for potential:

• If it’s a new role (like those mentioned above)
• If the role represents a new business process in your company and it hasn’t been filled in by anyone before
• If creativity and problem-solving skills are part of the requirement, but not deep domain knowledge that only comes from experience
• If you’re hiring for a startup and roles are still prone to change and redefinitions–you need someone who can grow with the company

The hallmarks of hires with high potential

Claudio Fernández-Aráoz, a global hiring expert who wrote “It’s not the How or the What but the Who,” describes five hallmarks of potential to watch out for.

First and foremost is a burning drive to make a significant impact. Others are curiosity, insight, engagement, and determination.

Incidentally, these are qualities that tend to be inherent in the person. You can’t exactly train them into someone the way you can teach hard skills associated with experience.

Why the risk is worth it

The most important skill that a good hire based on potential can possess is the ability to learn. Jobs are changing at an unprecedented space.

With robots automating a significant part of the labor market, problem-solving and people skills are becoming increasingly valued–and these tend to be present in high-potential hires.

Moreover, millennials tend to be on the lookout for opportunities and aren’t afraid of branching out into unfamiliar territory. Taking on a job that’s different from what they had before isn’t shocking for them–it’s a norm.  If you hire based only on experience, you miss out on a lot.

Hiring for potential also lends fresh perspective. A pitfall for hires who’ve spent a while in the industry is the “experience trap,” where they favor conventional methods and have difficulty discarding bad habits that they picked up along the way.

Having a mix of experienced and rookie but high-potential employees guarantees that you have a diverse team, with one group correcting the mistakes of the other.

The post Take a Risk: Hiring for Potential appeared first on Sprout.

source https://sprout.ph/blog/take-a-risk-hiring-for-potential/