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!

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.

Organizational growth can be based on a number of different strategies, including growing capacity, expanding or changing customer base, or offering new or upgraded products or services. Further, strategies may be executed using different tools, including organic or acquisition based growth. Regardless of strategy, there are common lessons learned about what works, and what does not work, in successfully driving and supporting organizational growth.

As an HR consultant, almost every leader I have worked for immediately understands the critical importance of recruiting. Yet, throughout these interactions, I’ve been puzzled why a function like recruiting, which is so universally accepted as being essential is generally given such little focus and not nearly leveraged like other key business functions. It's been my experience that initiatives within the recruiting function are almost always reactive. General enhancements, surge support, and third-party recruitment assessments are typically conducted to address deficiencies as opposed to seizing opportunities. Having effective recruiting capabilities and processes can do three major things simultaneously: It can reduce the time to hire; It can generate more business revenue (depending upon the business, of course); and It can be the key business differentiator when it comes to finding qualified candidates in a hot market. Reducing the time to hire metric is important not only to get qualified talent in the door quicker but with an effective team and process in place, it can greatly reduce the amount of time your hiring managers and recruiters spend as well. To the same point, if these open reqs are positions that directly impact your revenue, you want to get them hired and onboarded in a timely manner. In today's market, employers must move fast and they must be intentional about creating a memorable experience to attract and hire key talent. And I think we can all agree that talent is so often what sets a company apart from its competitors.

The federal government has spent a significant amount of time attempting to assure equality throughout the United States' workforce. Whether it is ensuring the EEO statement includes gender identity, sexual preference, or genetic information; ensuring there are not vast discrepancies between the salaries of men vs. women or based on race, or deciding whether to provide paid paternity leave. The world is changing and expectations of employers are too. Is your organization prepared to be inclusive for all?