A colleague reached out to me last week asking for advice. She had recently been promoted and now was in charge of her former peers and friends. She had worked at this company for several years and because of that, had built strong friendships with her team—both inside and outside of work. She now has to struggle with not only a new job and responsibilities, but now leading her friends and peers. She asked me: How can you best manage a team of your former peers and successfully transition?

Around election time, we hear a couple of questions that consistently come up by our clients. Time off for voting, the do’s and don’ts of how to handle politics in the workplace, and most importantly, how to encourage voter participation. Find out how I respond to these questions below!

Spring has approached, which always seems like the time of year I like to get organized and get rid of unnecessary clutter. It is also the perfect time for your HR department to do some of their own spring cleaning for better order in the workplace. As an HR consultant serving as the HR leader for my clients, I typically have a lot going on in Q4 and Q1. We may be managing open enrollments, setting budgets, hiring new employees, finalizing payroll, and conducting performance reviews. Come spring, I like to take advantage to ensure my HR function is up to date with the latest compliance obligations as well as purge files to create less unnecessary clutter. If you are ready to reset for Q2 and the months ahead, here are 10 tasks I tackle each spring to get the HR Department better organized for the year.

The idea of employees having an unlimited amount of paid time off (PTO) is a more complicated proposition than it sounds. There’s already a great article on our site that discusses the pros and cons of unlimited PTO plans, and this particular article focuses specifically on the suitability of unlimited PTO plans for certain organizations and types of workers.

Over the course of my career and consulting with clients, it is not very often I come across professionals that actually like job descriptions. In fact the mere mention of job description development makes most Human Resource professionals cringe and find reason to change the subject. I, on the other hand, get excited during engagements where clients are seeking our expertise on job description development and documentation. Knowing that my services will have an immediate and positive impact on business operations by simply documenting the company’s jobs provides me with a great deal of satisfaction. While I do not expect everyone to share in my love for job documentation, I do have some good reasons to consider liking them a tad bit more than you currently do.