With every new year or calendar marker, most of us try and take a break don’t we? Whether it’s for a laid back holiday by the pool, a mud bath and exfoliation, or an all-out sense of enlightenment with a super-chic Balinese ritual at a mountain resort.

Whatever form your recharge pleasures take, eventually it’s time to rise from the yoga mat and get back down to business.

If you’re looking for means of re-entering the management world with strategies that will keep your people engaged, happy and loving your brand in 2018, here are six quick, free and slightly out-of-the-box strategies that bring a holistic rejuvenation to your pursuits.

1. SAY THANK YOU

All those things your mother told you about the magic words are true. A Podium Designs survey found that only 16% of employees had heard the words ‘thank you’ from their boss in six months. Not a great statistic! Saying thank you is a meaningful and powerful strategy. It motivates people and lets them know they’re appreciated. A small gesture that goes a long way.

2. PUT DOWN THE DEVICE

Human relationships are what make people truly happy. Great leaders know how to send subliminal messages to their employees which indicate, ‘I am listening to you and I am completely engaged with what you have to say.’ Body language is key. When your phone pings, buzzes, flashes or beeps, this subtly says that your device is eventually going to take precedence over the flesh-and-blood person vying for your attention. So don’t hold it or have it beside you while you’re in conversation. Remove it completely. Put it on silent, and place it well out of reach. Be seen to do so! Hell’s bells, you could put it in a drawer. This way, all temptation to be distracted by or fidget with it disappears, allowing you to be completely attentive to the person in front of you.

3. GET SOME SLEEP

Whether you’re the CEO of a multi-million-dollar company or the administrator of a 24hour distribution plant, the psychological demands of running a business are equally exhausting. Our bodies each have the same basic needs. And sleep is a big one. Every element of our lives is enriched if we get enough of it. Nurture yourself and don’t be afraid to start pushing up more zeds – you may find that this makes you far more interesting and engaging!

4. KINDNESS

Authentic and consistent kindness is a truly powerful thing. Grow the ability to be nice without expecting something in return – or calculating the leverage you’re gaining! Kindness has to be habitual and firmly felt. Strangers are important too, and niceness shouldn’t be reserved for only those you know. Treat every person you meet as if they are the most important person in the world - because they are. If not to you, then maybe to someone else.

5. FRIENDLINESS

Friendly behaviour involves smiling, giving encouragement, conversing and laughing - attributes that studies have shown are appreciated, respected and often admired by those we work with. Friendliness requires neither agreement nor approval and is rarely offensive if it is authentic. Best of all, most people have learnt this skill well before they have met you. So friendliness is something you need only role-model, rather than teach. ‘Don’t wait for people to be friendly, show them how.’ Wise words, if anonymous.

6. PERSUASION

Building agreement when points of view differ around the table can be tricky. Sure, sometimes an authoritative approach or executive decision may be required, but simply insisting it’s your way or the highway without bothering to get buy-in from your team can be really unsettling. To get others to buy into the way you see things, you’ll need to ask the right questions. Asking your colleagues to think about things - by asking the right questions – often allows them to arrive at the same conclusion themselves. This is the art of persuasion.

Building good relationships with the people around you is guaranteed to achieve great results. Favouring a natural blend of professionalism and humanity brings a new lightness and enjoyment to our workplaces year in, year out and creates something truly magical.

You need only keep it kind and simple and you will soon find that you are fostering an awesome platform for that deepest workplace joy - employee engagement.

In the throes of a new role, new-starters can be depended upon to burst onto the scene with a bucket load of excitement. Meeting new people, gaining exposure to fresh ideas and new challenges, it’s incredibly exciting and pumps us up.

Recently, I caught up with a chap who was in just this zone. With a spring in his step and a jovial demeanour, he oozed the energy that we all wish we felt every day on the way to work, and which our employers would like us to feel too.

This guy had more bounce than Tigger. So what accounted for it? Well he’d changed jobs and was past the drone of on-boarding. A project manager, the serial contract nature of his career means he changes employers more often than most. And as a top performer, there’s never any shortage of high profile companies lining up engage him on their next big development.

Having worked with the best on contemporary and ground-breaking projects, he always has insights to spare and share, and this time was no different. His new employer was leading big changes in the Australian market, he said, launching innovative concept stores across the nation. A small business doing big things. The job, he said, was awesome. But it was everything that went with it that put the spring in his step.

Here’s his top 6 of why this job stands out from all others:

1. ACCOUNTABILITY

When recruiting, the CEO asked every new starter a very direct question. ‘Will you let me down?’ His directness and ambition made it crystal clear from the on-set that he preferred his people full of grit and prepared to take accountability for their actions. My friend liked that. It gave him a pleasingly high benchmark to reach for.

2. CLARITY

Job title and seniority was paid scant regard by his new employer. From CEO to administrator, everyone sat on the same chair, typed into the same technology and wrote with the same kind of pen. No one was precious about anything and anyone suffering a momentary ego outburst was swiftly reminded to pull their head in.

3. FUEL

With only super-expensive café-style choices available in the company’s locale, my friend had opted for the supermarket for cheaper lunchtime choices. Ready-made salads and other heathy snacks – paleo, organic, no sugar, low fat – all the staples were there, in a battery of choices, good to go and ready to eat. Lower carbs and sugar put paid to the 2pm slump many of us experience, and he no longer needed an early afternoon caffeine pick-me-up.

4. LOCATION

A small, cramped workplace made him more likely to head outside at lunchtime. Since the office was opposite a beautiful iconic beach, this meant he was straight into the freshest air in the southern hemisphere. The excuse to get away from his desk and out of the office was a golden opportunity, and sent his afternoon productivity levels soaring.

5. TRANSPORT

The out-of-city-centre location changed his commute from train to bus. Such a small thing, he said, but with surprising impact. Dedicated bus lanes and express services were surprisingly efficient. There was always seat, and a chance to relax and catch up on podcasts and the newspaper - a novel change from strap hanging on a city commuter train.

6. INTELLIGENCE

Every person in the team was hand-picked. Not just in how they fit the job criteria or for their technical skill, but for their outlook. As a team they were all very different, he said, but the difference worked for them not against them. Good solutions were arrived at fast. They all came at things from different perspectives and sometimes there were odd viewpoints on the table, but there was also no pretence – and all opinions counted.

Six simple things. Unremarkable in isolation, but collectively they made a tangible and refreshing difference in both pleasure and productivity. My friend was engaged and relaxed, and completely satisfied that he was in the right job with the best group of people.

Sure, some of these changes were self-led, others the result of solid leadership. What that demonstrates is that engagement is a partnership. Both employer and employee need to get it right. That’s the springboard from which amazing things can happen.

Taking the helm of any business is a leap of faith and a little like strapping yourself in for a roller coaster ride. As you head up the first rise born aloft on a stream of ideas and energy, you feel the wind in your hair and the euphoria of healthy business growth.

Cameron Herold, business coach to successful entrepreneurs calls this the ‘uninformed optimism’ stage – when you’re bursting with excitement, aware there are challenges ahead, but not really able to see what’s beyond that first big rise. A tower of terror or a smooth cruise to early success?   

As you continue to round corners and defy the force of gravity, it can turn out to be a wilder ride than you anticipated. Sure you get to enjoy the euphoric highs. But you’ve got to endure the lows as well.

These twisters can come at you right out of the blue. The moments when you revisit the high start-up costs against the low early revenue. The days when programming or development efforts are unproductive. The time when your partner’s positivity is on the wane and it’s up to you to keep things on the up.

On days like this it’s hard to visualise a smooth road ahead. Clear thinking is gone with the wind. You’re pinned to your seat, paralysed and screaming all the way down.

The way Herold tells it, the roller coaster of entrepreneurism has a one-way ticket and there’s no getting off. And how you weather the highs and lows will determine your success.

So let’s talk strategy:

1. BREATHE 

Grab the safety rails and remember the basics. When your mind is whirling with misgivings, your anxiety levels are heightened too. This affects your ability to make smart choices.  So take time out for a breather. A walk in the park, pounding it out with boxing gloves - whatever your chosen medium is. All the science shows that connecting with nature and taking a short burst of exercise are essential for resetting that mind, reducing stress and staying healthy.

It helps you reconnect with your inner adventurer – the one that got you started on this voyage.

When your calm, centred-self returns, revaluate any decisions you made. Make sure they were meaningful, sensible and insightful. The secret to weathering the ups and downs is staying on track.

2. CONNECT

With your feelings.  Strange advice for a business owner? Not so. Understanding your feelings and being ready for them when you round a corner and see what’s ahead, is essential. 

Talk to your team, partner, spouse. Identify the scary moments, and be open to feedback about managing them. Bring people inside the volcano and get them to support you. You’ll find out who’s got the strengths to last the distance, and ultimately, it will build resilience in those around you.

Herold asserts that highly driven episodes are a normal part of the entrepreneurial journey – they drive growth and makes things happen.  However, times like this must be managed efficiently and used to an advantage, or crisis is unavoidable.  

3. JOIN A FORUM

The feeling that you’re ultimately alone on your journey is one familiar to many entrepreneurs. Share those moments with like-minded individuals and you offset the force-of-gravity vulnerability this loneliness can turn into.

Choose the right forum – one that’s less about advice and more about sharing experiences on the road travelled. Mo Fathelbab, angel investor, corporate culture advisor and Founder of the Forum Resources Network, believes that forums are an important tool in dispelling feelings of isolation and learning from your peers.

Forums connect you with people you can confide in, trust and turn to. If direction is what you need, they can link you with services - legal, financial, planning and support.  These can help you put the brakes on or accelerate as required - reducing risk and guess work, getting the pivotal business moments right.

Membership is generally free, so this becomes a cost neutral exercise with big impact!

And when you get back in the front seat, keep in mind that the thrills and spills are part of the ride. It’s a blast one moment, and a dead-stop the next. Your responses will help you stay on track.

Surround yourself with people who can help you tame the beast, and keep your strategy fixed in place. That way, whether you’re racing downhill, pulling out of a lull, or cresting a rise, you’ll stay in motion.

Then put your hands in the air and wave! Because it’s all about enjoying the journey.

We think about office design a lot at #HR. And we’ve noticed that small business owners tend to shy away from innovation and creativity.

What kind of impression are you creating in your space?

Research about visual imagery in content marketing has us all convinced of the power of visuals. An active consumer will be swayed to your brand once they are visually stimulated. If what they see and feel is compelling, they will remember you. Best of all they will share their experience with others.

BAM! Free marketing.

In her article ‘The Power of Imagery in Content Marketing’, commentator Savannah Louie cites the findings that people remember just 10 percent of what we hear.

Yada yada.

What we read is only incrementally better – we remember 20%. There’s a lot of waffle being written, and read.

But of what we see and do we remember a staggering 80 percent.

So doesn’t it pay to design the space your people see daily, where they do a great job for you with this in mind?

Imagine the scene through a new recruit’s eyes. They arrive at your office to find a fit-out dragged into this millennium from the ‘80s. Mix-and- match furniture, clunky partitions and colour schemes far from on-trend. How is this making your recruit feel? Excited to be joining you?

Take the scales from your eyes, we say! And get visual!

Your target recruitment pool – the millennials - will be less than interested in such a space. Depending on your market segment you might be limiting your sales capacity too if the hackneyed feel of your surroundings extends to your branding.

Bye-bye, free marketing.

Sure, the Baby Boomers may still be satisfied with your traditional approach. That’s because it fits them like a tatty old slipper.

But Gen X and the Millennials may not even step through your door, let alone consider a good position you have vacant.

Great news! It doesn’t take a big budget to make simple changes and turn things your way. It’s about planning first and executing smartly.

It takes imagination and creativity. And that one clever individual who knows what they’re doing, to pull it together effectively.

Are you saying goodbye to your staff too often?

Worse still, have you got a revolving door where staff are concerned? And are those still with you looking fidgety? These are signs you shouldn’t ignore!

Often it’s the simplest of things. The things your mother taught you.

A new survey in the UK found that only 16% of employees had heard the words ‘thank you’ from their boss in six months. Podium Designs did research with 750 workers to find out about workplace satisfaction.

Ask yourself: when did you last say thank you, and mean it? If you value your staff, how do you show it?

It’s easy to keep it simple and let your employees know they’re appreciated. You know it. Your mum knew it. Here’s three off the top of our head:

• Leave a post it note on someone’s computer saying ‘thanks for that report – top job!’
• Better still, stick your head round their door and say it in person.
• Next time you send out an email to everyone about a win you’ve had, thank one or two people who made a difference.

But beware! Don’t leave anyone out. If it helps, be methodical. Write yourself a list of names and tick them off as you thank them. Don’t do it too often. That would be weird. And don’t write it on a whiteboard in your office.

But get that revolving door to stop turning. (And don’t leave anybody trapped inside.)

If you start to notice gaps in the list, ask yourself what’s going on. Is someone not pulling their weight? Or are you ignoring them?

We get it, we get it. You don’t want to feel as if your mum is trailing you round the office telling you to mind your Ps and Qs and say thank you. How boring is that?

So, get more adventurous! Saying thank you doesn’t have to be a chore. Develop a cunning plan around staff motivation – and get known as the way coolest and most welcoming place to work.

We love this post from 6Q blog with 40 great ways to say thank you to your employees.

The writing’s on the (office) wall. Leaders who say thank you have more motivated staff, better rates of retention, and a better reputation as an employer.

So get onto it! Say thank you! And when you’re done saying thank you, talk to your staff. Talking is free and the outcome could be profitable.

Got a unique or favourite way of thanking your staff? Leave us a comment below!

In small business your focus is so often on operations - building, marketing and delivering product. The business grows, time passes and market needs are catered for. All good.

More business means you recruit more staff. And there’s the rub. Because replicating success doesn’t necessarily mean replicating your people.

Unlikely though it sounds, to build on the success you’ve achieved so far, you need people who think differently from you.

There are typically six different ways of solving a problem and they’re all equally valid, says Juliet Bourke, Partner of Consulting at Deloitte, in her Ted Talk on human capital.

It seems we each think in just a couple of those ways. A staggering 93% of those surveyed in Bourke’s research said that Outcomes and Options were the factors most important to consider when making a decision.

That left the four remaining factors of People, Process, Evidence and Risk deliberated by a mere 7%.

This is dangerous stuff, says Bourke. If you’re sketchy on Process, People, Evidence and Risk, you ask fewer questions about different ways to solve problems. You listen less when someone gives you an idea that’s different. And frankly, you may not care.

Even more worryingly, she says, 75% of senior leaders who were surveyed focused entirely on Outcomes and Options, at the expense of the four other vital factors.

Bourke points to leaders and thinkers who actively engage with people whose perspective differs from their own. Obama, President of a world superpower. Warren Buffett – the world’s most successful investor. Charles Darwin, father of evolutionary theory.

We should learn from these guys. Because whatever your politics, none of them are Muppets.

Bourke suggests that for business to be smarter, it’s vital we don’t give in to the ‘bias of sameness’ when recruiting. Don’t clone your point of view. Do something to rebalance the conversation.

When it’s time to recruit, think differently. Think laterally and smartly. Diversify.

Recruiting differently will not cost you any more. It simply requires you to have an open mind. And if your craft is not recruitment, ask for help. Don’t expect to be able to do it as well as a specialist - outsource!

Ever been to the doctor, been prodded and poked, clamped, scraped, sampled, screened, diagnosed, prescribed and pronounced all better, only to wish they’d met your eye and said ‘G’day and how are you?’

In management and business we focus on strategy and outcome. The softer skills – managing the people who implement the strategy and bring us the outcomes - are often learned on the job. We acquire them though our own personal fumbles or, if we’re lucky, a mentor who imparts their wisdom. And we don’t see them as part of our core business. Big mistake.

You’re not alone if you find great people management, for all its perception as a ‘softer skill’, one of the trickier to master. But it’s essential if you want your people to feel – and perform - better.

Books, podcasts and even social media are great platforms for sourcing expertise. The methods you’ll read about are tried and tested, which takes away the guesswork and gets you up to speed quickly.

Mark Horstman author of The Effective Manager and podcaster of The Management Tools  is a go-to influencer on this subject. ‘Regardless of how long you’ve been managing or how many people report to you, statistics show you probably aren’t getting the most out of your team,’ he says.

So let’s run our hands under the hot tap, slip behind the consulting room curtain and examine how you could build better relationships and drive performance. There are four critical behaviours.

GET TO KNOW YOUR PEOPLE - 'SO BE FRIENDLY'

It’s simple: get to know the people who work for you and look to you for influence. Understand each of them, and know what they do well and not so well.  Your primary responsibility might be to achieve results, but giving the right tasks to the right people makes all the difference.

 ‘People and their behaviours are what deliver results to your organisation – not systems, not processes, not computers, not machines.’ - Mark Horstman

The best way to get to know your people, says Horstman, is to talk to them. Fancy that!  Fact: smiling, giving encouragement, talking and laughing are all behaviours that people absorb and appreciate. They’re the behaviours that encourage others to like you and be open with you. So being friendly, in a natural and authentic way, really is an insider’s ticket to knowing your staff well – with all that promises. Who knew?

TALK ABOUT PERFORMANCE - 'POLITELY AND PROFESSIONALLY'

It’s okay to share your thoughts about an individual’s performance – provided you have the skills to do it politely and professionally. Feedback shouldn’t be reserved for when things are going badly. Just as you might expect your boss or clients to communicate often with you, your direct reports are hoping for the same. 

If you’ve made the effort to connect with your staff, delivering feedback gets easier with time. Better still, once this kind of open communication is part of your culture, it’s a seamless, easy and cost-free way to achieve results and retain your team.

ASK FOR MORE

Raise the bar. Keep everyone within their comfort zones and you’re nothing more than a caretaker for the business, says Horstman. Team performance has to evolve at the same pace as the business grows. Everyone has to meet demands and it’s your role as manager to make that happen.

‘To be an effective manager means encouraging and inspiring all of your directs to higher performance even when they say they don’t want to – because you know that the organisation needs that to stay competitive’ - Mark Horstman

Horstman is clear on the need to challenge the status quo and keep average performers moving. That way, when the bar is raised, they’re less likely to become worrisome under-performers.

PUSH WORK DOWN

If there’s a task you can do but the same can be done by one of your direct reports – then push the task down. Sure, they might not do it as well as you, but if the quality will be close enough, enable them and hand it over. It’s empowering for them, and here’s the rub: it’s good for business too.

Once you’ve done that, turn your attention to what’s being pushed down to you – whether it’s from your boss or your clients. Show your employees that work is best shared not siloed. It’s a great tip for increasing productivity and creating capacity in your organisation.

That’s it in four. Know your people, talk to them, ask more of them and push work down. So-called soft skills which we prefer to see as a recipe for organisational health – and a way to lift your management game all round.

It would be impossible, and pointless, to pick who’s smartest between the Australian Chief Executive Women - 400 of Australia’s most senior and distinguished women leaders - and the Male Champions of Change - a coalition of decent, powerful men stepping up beside women to create a more gender equal world.

Why, they’re equal in their smartness and their greatness, of course.

Between them, the members of these two initiatives hold the top CEO jobs in the country. Collaboratively, their latest dispatch firing the synapses of the business world is In the Eye of the Beholder – Avoiding The Merit Trap, a 15 page report packed full of ideas which are gaining traction everywhere – and rightly so.

When we talk about engagement in the workplace and building teams which gel and are productive, often what’s perceived to make things work well is similarity - in gender, ethnicity, taste. Such characteristics and qualities have a potential to cluster within organisations. When we recruit unconsciously, we replicate patterns over and over again.

While we might believe that we’re recruiting on merit, and not factors like gender, un-interrogated thinking limits the talent search. And our business suffers from that ‘bias of sameness’ we’ve talked about in our earlier posts.

This is the Merit Trap.

President of Chief Executive Women Diane Smith-Gander explains. ‘Too often, decision-makers think they're selecting the best person for the job on the basis of merit, but in fact they're favouring people who look like them or think like them and ignoring the organisation's future needs,’ she says. ‘When this happens, they've fallen into the merit trap.'

Elizabeth Broderick AO, former Australian Sex Discrimination Commissioner and founder of Male Champions of Change in 2010, says. ‘If women make up 50% of this population in Australia, indeed 60% of the most educated people, why are we not seeing them in equal proportions in organisations?  That tells me there is something other than merit operating in the environment.’

Put bluntly, as only we can, the upper echelons of our business world just might be continuing to recruit based on gender sameness. But they’re calling it merit.

AVOID THE TRAP

Avoiding the Merit Trap means setting out deliberately to create a culture of diverse minds. Employees engage with each other not because they’re able to cluster together comfortably with people who think along the same lines as them, but because they see their business being stimulated and enhanced by others who think differently.

Hard-wiring this new thinking into our strategic planning is a big and brave step – but an essential one. It takes a collective acknowledgement at the uppermost level that future challenges might not be answered in the same way as past ones – relying on the same minds, and the same answers.

ADOPT DIVERSITY

Jayne Hrdlicka, CEO of Jetstar Group is an early adopter of such thinking. ‘We make small changes to the system because no one believes it’s broken. But if we only tweak, we never get change. To move 180 degrees we have to have someone holding up the mirror at every stage of the process asking ‘why do we think that?’

THE FILTER DOWN EFFECT

The Merit Trap is usually a systemic problem, and it takes authentic and innovative leaders and innovative leaders to bring about real change. And here’s what happens. Once our business leaders are thinking about diversity as a means of keeping employees engaged, that thinking filters down through the organisation. Different viewpoints, life experiences and professional knowledge bring a bucketful of enhancement that creates – you guessed it - big impact.

Imagine you’re getting married. How did you ‘recruit’ your spouse?

Did you go looking for someone with a Proven Experience in Breadwinning, and a Degree in Neighbourliness with Honours in the Politics of the Bedroom?

Or did you team up organically with someone you liked? Their ideas, life experience and world view was different from your own, but something about them struck you as right. You connected. And they passed the friends test.

Okay we live in dangerous times full of tiger mothers and speed dating and some people go at marriage with a checklist and will answer yes to Option One.

Whatever you do, take a broader view when recruiting for your business.

Recruitment. That word sends shivers down the spine of many a small business owner, and an echo ricocheting through the echelons of big business.

The right recruits create the culture of your workplace, for better or worse.

It’s like a marriage. So get it right!

A survey by online job site Indeed reported that '97% of small business owners have difficulty making the right hire.’

Many employers see recruitment as a deviation from their core business. We say it goes to the heart of your brand and should be given your fullest attention.

'If you think hiring professionals is expensive, try hiring amateurs." - Anonymous

Outsourcing is an attractive option, but daunting once you calculate the agency fees. Although in-house recruiting costs in time, once absorbed it can be preferable to a jaw-dropping invoice.   

Those in the know use a handful of golden strategic moves.

RESEARCH

'A clever business thinks first. It’s the only way to get value from your advertising budget.' - Jen Gutwenger, #HR

Become the candidate. Search the internet as if you’re the job seeker. Key in the job title and location, and use the data generated to kick start the process. The top search results give you the best advertising sites to use, similar vacancies, and highlight variances between your job and the rest.

How does your role or company differentiate itself? What will the best candidate be looking for? Are you offering it? And how could your job ad look and read better. 

“Write a creative, pithy, eye catching ad and you’ll get candidates to match. Write a humdrum ad and you’ll get the rest.” - Fiona Stocker, Boutique Communications

AUTHENTICITY

Be yourself. The standout skill in recruiting is your own ability to create a comfortable environment. It gives the candidate every opportunity to be themselves and talk candidly. 

Prepare the room for a conversation, not a briefing.  Desk and chair placement is paramount - don’t sit behind a desk!

If prescribed questions are your thing, write them down and use them. But do so in a relaxed fashion and be comfortable with moments of silence. These prompt gold nugget moments – when the candidate fills the space by talking unscripted.

“Just write out some questions and ask them." One of the biggest mistakes in conducting an interview.

BEST PRACTICE

There are many HR and recruitment agencies offering e-books full of tips and templates for in-house recruiting and best practice principles.  

Government agencies have specific on-line resources, particularly for small businesses.

 In Australia the Fair Work Ombudsman provides many useful templates and guides for the lawful employment of staff.

The challenge is finding appropriate recruitment tools and techniques for you, closing the gap between your offering and best practice principles. Great candidates are attracted to the company which appears most professional. Don’t let them slip through the net due to simple oversights here.

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

Hire on merit, not technical ability - it’s a classic mistake. Anything technical can be learned – software skills, the nature of your widget manufacturing. What you’re looking for is not a background in widgets. It’s the attributes which will be a great fit with your team and bring something new and wonderful to the table. A great team player; a lateral thinker; and if it’s an executive, someone who genuinely gets on with everyone, from the shop floor to the Boardroom.

Hire on merit. That doesn’t mean someone who thinks like you. It means someone whose thinking you like. Hire the person you’d like to spend time and generate ideas with. Hire the person who speaks from the heart, to yours.

A business should never be quiet.  Sure, there might be some moments when you hear only the clicking of keyboards or the gentle hum of a hard-drive. That’s when you know your team is head-down making the magic happen. Give yourself a pat on the back. But make it brief! At #HR we never recommend resting on your laurels – because things can change in a heartbeat.

When they’re not heads down over a keyboard, database or phone line, there should be a healthy balance of movement and banter about your people. And there’s always one or two who stand out, for all the reasons small business owners love and admire. They’re the ones who love your brand and put their own heart and soul into making it work. Others may have talent. These people bring something extra to the table – what Tim McClure, Professional Speaker and Brand and Leadership Consultant, describes as creativity, ideas and keenness in his article for Jonathan Mills.

The inspiration and aspiration of these highly motivated individuals can, if nurtured, bring an extraordinary exuberance and pep to your business and drive it forward just as vibrantly as you can.

So it’s a worst case scenario when your most passionate employee goes quiet. As a result, there’s a palpable unease and a lack of the usual energy rippling through the place. As McClure observes, ‘Passion is contagious, and so is not having it’.  

What should you do when you notice the effects? You should act straight away.

Doing nothing is all-too common a response, and it’s definitely not best practice, taking you down a bumpy and complex road of uncertainty and possibly expense – if this pivotal person leaves and you have to replace them.

Here are our top three tips for dealing with the situation:

1. BE QUICK TO RESOLVE CONFLICT IN THE WORKPLACE

Problems can manifest overnight, or in moments around the water cooler.  They become contagious, and even toxic. If you value your team, you’ll act on discontent the moment it manifests. And because you recognise the value of that special player within your ranks, you’ll be focussing on them.

2. ALWAYS LISTEN TO YOUR EMPLOYEES - BE CANDID AND OPEN

This is one of the most mission critical people in your organisation. They help create the culture. If things have gone off-track, this individual will have something insightful to say about it and you need to know what that is. So stop, and listen. Respond but don’t interrupt. Create a comfortable space and time where they have the chance to talk without negative comeback. You’ll learn something, and you’ll have started equipping yourself with the knowledge you’ll need to fix it – with your employee alongside you.

3. DEMONSTRATE STRONG LEADERSHIP - BE DECISIVE AND PASSIONATE

In his article, McClure outlines the reasons why a passionate employee loses their mojo. Often it’s because of an issue with your leadership – a breach of trust, a lack of consistency, overlooking someone. It’s essential to get your leadership mojo back in good shape quick smart.  Resolve your employee’s problems decisively, and most importantly, get their buy-in. How you handle their grievance will determine whether they continue to love your brand - or move on to love another one. 

Dealing with passionate, smart people can take all the emotional intelligence skills you have. And showing them how valued they are is critical. If you’re facing a situation like the one above, think about getting help to address it. If that means bringing in a consultant who is across best practice and can mediate talks between you and a passionate employee, what better way to show that person what they mean to your business. 

In business we like things to be forecast – facts and figures, spreadsheets, bottom line and top growth. And as humans we get great pleasure from knowing the simple thing, like where we sit, the hours we work, what the office etiquette is around the coffee machine, and how well we are performing.

Still, unpredictable things happen in the world of work. Benchmarks move and expectations change. It can be a sign of healthy growth, or that we’re capable of more. Either way, it must be spoken about – and well.

When things change, especially unpredictably, communicating well is not just best practice, it’s the growth stimulant that will keep your garden green. If you’re keen to keep your healthy workplace eco-system flourishing, your employees engaged and your people passionate, choose your words well.

As leaders, despite our best efforts, we don’t always get the balance right. One day we’re awesome. The next we fumble something, our reputation suffers and our brand takes a hit.

Here are two occasions in which a misplaced word or a communication blind spot can plant weeds instead of seeds:

1. DON'T SAY TOO MUCH

Recently a major Australian retailer made a very public announcement that they were in the midst of a billion-dollar corporate restructure. Every media outlet published a headline and details about ‘tough decisions’ being imminent.

So many words, so much newspaper print. Most ordinary Australians went on with their lives – all except the corporate staff of the retailer. “The first we knew of the re-structure was through the headlines,” one senior manager relayed to me. “That fuelled office banter and speculation. Everyone was talking about it, everyone except management. It was the worst time, disastrous for all of us working in the team.”

What created a disconnect for this gentleman was the world knowing first, whereas his team, the people at the coal face, were left with speculation, unpredictability and uncertainty.

Keeping staff engaged and helping them understand new directions encourages new growth. Saying too much, and not to them, is dangerous if you want to keep your people passionate.

Or as John Wayne once said, “Talk low, talk slow, and don’t say too much.” It’s not the winning maxim of a headlining CEO, but it’s pretty snappy.

2. KEEP IT CRYSTAL CLEAR

Recently, I met with an Account Director from one of the largest and most respected professional service networks in the world. The company has supported her career from graduation, providing her with international roles and flexibility when children took her out of the office. She has many reasons to love her employer and it’s evident that her employer appreciates her loyalty and dedication.

However, she came to me feeling a little baffled. “I think I have just been blindsided,” she said. For months she had been squeezing what was really a full-time job into her agreed-upon three days. Naturally this took its toll on her usual cheeriness, and her astute senior manager picked up on this. He agreed that her workload was beyond three days and suggested that she should be paid for four instead, to compensate the growing demands of her role. Brilliant, she thought, reading this as a straight pay-rise for the same commitment.

A week or two later, HR met with her to confirm the new terms – three days in the office and one day working at home with the children. It wasn’t what she understood had been communicated to her. Nor was it what she wanted.

Meaning and clarity can get lost in translation, especially when there are different departments and individuals involved. Fail to spell out the details clearly and you can end up with a compost of uncertainty, confusion and mistakes. One party assumes the other knows what they mean. The other draws the wrong conclusions.

Napoleon Hill put it succinctly, as one might expect. “Think twice before you speak, because your words and influence will plant the seed of either success or failure in the mind of another.” Besides being an impresario and author of the world’s first personal success books Hill was an advisor to two American Presidents, Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D Roosevelt. His book ‘Think and Grow Rich’ has sold 20 million copies worldwide.

Good communication is like photosynthesis. Get the words down pat and the conditions right, and we all keep reaching for the light together!

A collaborative workplace is like an ecosystem in full swing. An interplay of organic and productive relationships. People are friendly, and kindness is in natural abundance. They make genuine connections and are encouraged to do so. Even quirky differences have a place, accepted with grace and a celebration of diversity – in thinking and style.

It’s a natural habitat for engagement and a mutual sense of easy accord – a place of abundance, oxygenated and breezy with energy.

Enjoy rich moments like these and relish the journey you’ve been on. A flourishing workplace is no small feat. It’s most certainly a milestone you should enjoy - and handle with the utmost of care. 

When everything is flourishing, it’s the best time to let your dynamite team forge ahead. Make some assumptions – about what they’ll generate and create. You’ve planted the seeds by putting best practice in place. Now watch them reach for the light!

If you’ve faced some challenges and had the productive flow stemmed in recent times, enjoy the refreshing change and the blooming scent of success. And work on teasing more of it into life. 

Don’t rest on your laurels too long. Just as natural disasters can sweep through without warning, businesses and ecosystems must always safeguard against any coming storms. After you’ve thanked your staff, take a moment to review these helpful strategies and checkpoint your management style.

CHOOSE YOUR WORDS WELL

The words you choose influence the way you are perceived. They’re a vital factor in the decisions people make about you - and your brand - and can build or destroy a relationship.

Mohammed Qahtani, the Saudi Arabian security engineer who won the 2015 World Champion Toastmasters title with his inspirational speech  The Power of Words, tells us, ‘A simple choice of word[s] can make the difference between someone accepting or denying your message.  You can have a very beautiful thing to say, but say it in the wrong words and it's gone.’

Take the time to think about what you’re going to say. And we’re not just talking about grand speeches. A few simple words carefully chosen and passed in a thoughtful tone are memorable to those around you.

Words have power and it’s worth reflecting on how your chosen words helped you get to where you are. And tweak. Your words will be listened to, and noticed.

MIND YOUR EGO

The ego-centric self, and we all have one, can be one of the biggest barriers to success. False pride and its antithesis self-doubt both have the capacity to cast a blight on healthy growth.

It’s crucial not to forget that you can be competent at something but not necessarily the best at it.  Sometimes it’s important to acknowledge that what you’re good at might never get any better than that – good.  To be truly great at something takes a deeper level of mastery. This doesn’t have to come from you. It could be someone specialized and supremely well resourced.  Recruit such a person on merit, and satisfy your ego with the company of a fellow clever-self to join your friendly, increasingly accomplished and ever-flourishing team. 

THE ONE THING

Steve Tobak, management consultant and author of Real Leaders Don’t Follow, says ‘Picasso painted. Henry Ford made cars. Einstein was obsessed with light. They excelled at what they did because they focused their passion and attention on one thing at a time. Bill Gates had Microsoft and now the Gates Foundation. Mark Zuckerberg has Facebook.’

The more seeds you plant, the more time you need to nurture them all.  Generating ideas, growing plans, putting in place multiple strategies, will spread you and your time thin.  So choose carefully and know when it’s time to thin out your seedlings – or bring in extra hands, minds and capability. 

Complexity in the workplace is brought about by just one element: us. If you’ve got people, you’ve got complexity. Employees, customers, peers, colleagues, leaders. Our unpredictable and occasionally thorny nature and dynamics between us can test our leadership in a different way from other operational challenges.

There’s no denying it’s a tightrope walk!

And if your own personal talents don’t extend naturally to managing the complexities of your people, well it can feel like a highwire act with a troupe of monkeys.

What’s worse, the dynamics we enjoy with family and friends differ enormously to those we have in the workplace, so you can’t fall back on natural intuition. It’s best to understand the distinction between interactions inside the workplace and out - and then develop meaningful strategies to deal with them. That way you encourage productivity, a healthy culture and a love for your brand.

People issues can nosedive really quickly, but these three simple strategies are guaranteed to help you stay aloft.

KNOW YOUR STAFF – BUT KEEP YOUR DISTANCE

Keep your interactions professional from the onset and set reasonable workplace boundaries. This helps eliminate distraction and keeps everyone focused on completing tasks. It’s true that some workplace relationships develop into personal ones over time. But as a rule of thumb, interaction between co-workers, supervisors, clients and customers should stop at the end of the working day.

Having different boundaries for different individuals or within the hierarchy creates ambiguity and misunderstandings too, so stay the line. Keep it clear for everyone at all times and don’t go swaying in the wind.

Knowing your staff means knowing how they stay on track and perform their best. Getting through the working day is a balancing act for them too. Notice the small things about their performance. Generally, people perform their best at specific times of the day; they get distracted by the same things; and they get back on task by consistent means every time. Know these things. What makes them teeter and what restores them?

In understanding these nuances, you’re able to plan and benchmark expectations. By being upfront and showing you understand how they best keep their heads up and their gaze frontwards, you’ll both be clear about the end-goal and relaxed about the journey.

GET TO GRIPS WITH NATURAL DIFFERENCE

Value the differences between individuals. We don’t all think the same way nor perform at the same level. (See a previous blog post on why this is a strength in your team!) Why is it you can email one employee with a list of tasks which they immediately jump to, but another needs more direction, dialogue and input from you?  For one the journey is a swift trot along a tight zipline. For the other it’s a wobbly affair requiring a safety net.

In Debra Worthington and Margaret Fitch-Hauser’s book ‘Listening: Processes, Functions and Competency’ (page 78-79), they discuss Cognitive Complex.  This is the means by which we perceive incoming messages, organize them and use them to interpret what is being said.  One individual may require information that is detailed, specific and complex. Another may need only high-level facts for the same task. This cognitive complexity is not related to smarts, say the authors, but rather our mental agility in organizing elements and making sense of tasks.

By adapting your leadership style to suit individuals, you create enormous opportunity to minimize performance based issues and variances in productivity. Some just need a longer balancing pole than others.

PERSUASION 

Building agreement when points of view differ around the table can be tricky. Sure, sometimes an authoritative approach or executive decision may be required, but simply insisting it’s your way or the highway without bothering to get buy-in from your team can be really unsettling.

To get others to buy into the way you see things, you’ll need to ask the right questions. Asking your colleagues to think about things - by asking the right questions - allows them to arrive at the same conclusion themselves. This is the art of persuasion. 

Management consultant Dan Pink says, 'The key here is that we tend to think that persuasion or motivation is something that one person does to another.' In fact, he says, the trick is to get the person to persuade themselves.

So pre-plan. Arm yourself with the right questions to build dialogue - and employee engagement.  Keep the conversation on track but be flexible in your approach. You may be surprised at the outcome, and perhaps even find a new way to complete the journey which you hadn’t even considered.    

Despite our complexities, there’s one thing we all share. We like to feel valued! Thank your staff often.  It’s an easy and cost neutral habit that genuinely encourages engagement and builds your reputation as a leader.

These simple strategies help avoid complexities in the workplace. Take the trouble to measure your leadership style against them and tweak it accordingly. It takes time, skill and effort to manage the skywalk that is running a business. So balance your complexities, stay smart, fleet of foot, and don’t take a tumble! 

If you hired someone to be a senior executive in your retail business, you wouldn’t have them stacking shelves on their first day, would you?

One national high street retailer did just that to a newly appointed senior manager, who spoke to us recently about his strangest on-boarding experience ever. The company was trialling a new initiative, he was told. Although his first day would be spent at head office meeting and greeting, the rest of the week was an ‘in-store experience’. 

For ‘in-store’, read ‘supermarket’. And for ‘experience’, read ‘shelf stacker’.

Never mind the impressive resume which was a roll-call of well-respected retailers, and forget about the six figure salary he was on. This gentleman spent his first few days juggling the pet mince, shining the Granny Smiths and donning freezer gloves to replenish the frozen berries. His most fervent hope was that he didn’t have to follow the other newbies onto the check-outs.

Each day he worked a respectable eight-hour shift, taking regulation tea breaks and wearing all the appropriate personal protective gear that came with the task – including the hairnet.

Initially he felt quite up-beat about the initiative. By the second day he was questioning his career move.  It was clear the rest of the intake was struggling too. Each day brought one less face at the morning briefing.

With complete candour, he told me that it wasn’t about feeling demeaned or unstimulated. On the contrary, he met some great people and still pops into the store for casual visits.

But the experience fell far short of adding value to his role within the company. ‘One size does not fit all’, he said. 

The value gap between what he gained from the experience and the cost of using a senior management resource in this way, signalled particularly poor thinking, he said. As an initiation, it was meaningless. ‘When I finally got to my own desk in the office, I felt like I was having my first day all over again.’

Maybe the company had its own agenda for leading their new corporate recruits such a merry dance in their on-boarding practice. Possibly the initiative was the result of an impressive thought-shower or blue sky session. Way cool.

In the real world, it poses the question: how far do we need to go to get the most out of our new starters?  

In her white paper on on-boarding, Professor of Management at Portland University Talya N Bauer asserts that an alarming fifty percent of all senior outside hires fail within eighteen months on the job. The on-boarding experience you offer a new executive or worker are critical in making transitions smoother – and resulting in better retention rates.

While it’s less wacky, a natural blend of professionalism, compliance and branding is a pretty good place to start, for a healthy transition from a previous employer to a new one – and a longer turn round the corporate dance floor for all concerned.

No one really expects fireworks on their first day. And you shouldn’t be looking to light up the skies. Following these few simple best practice principles helps promote new employee engagement, and adds value during this period where their productivity is inevitably a lot lower than it will be, once they’re in the swing of things.

1. BUDGET

Set one! Think about when you need the new starter to be up to speed and on the job.  This will help you plan the induction schedule and prioritise tasks. 

2. EASE THEM IN

Locking a newbie in for back-to-back meet-and-greets might seem like a great starting point, but over-whelming them with a day full of names, technical detail and data really takes the shine off things.

A start date should always be assigned to an empty calendar day in the line manager’s diary.  That manager doesn’t have to be devoted to this employee for the entire day, but it’s always best to offer complete availability to the new starter.  Things like hosting them at lunch and checking in with them regularly, go a long way. Play this by ear though: maybe they’d like a breather and some downtime over lunch.

3. MAP OUT THE DANCE FLOOR

Give the new starter a floorplan - a candid sketch of all the important office stuff. Like who sits where, the closest printer and where the stationary cupboard is, the fire exits, and most importantly the facilities! Meaningful information gives the new starter their independence, to move around the office with confidence, and takes away the awkwardness of waiting around to ask simple questions.

4. GET THE DETAIL DOWN

Provide an information sheet with payday details, IT passcodes and important email addresses like payroll and administration. You could even go the extra mile and add local eateries and coffee houses.  Detail like this creates a big impact – it’s professional, it’s welcoming and it’s free!

5. PRIORITISE THE DANCE CARD  

Think about the key players this person will need contact with.  Who will they benefit from meeting on their first day, and who could wait until they have more time to settle in?  Be strategic - less is sometimes more with these situations. Consider the benefit of scheduling meetings with key contacts when they have specific tasks to work on together.  Of course, casual banter is just as important in these early days. But it’s more constructive and value adding if it follows a morning briefing. Let them eat cake and talk strategy!

6. COMPLIANCE

There is a very boring part to on-boarding, which should not be ignored or delayed.  It’s the most formal part of the induction, the first few all-important steps of the employment journey. The new starter must be familiarised with your company policies, safety regulations, confidentiality requirements, harassment prevention and departmental procedures.

It goes without saying that asking an employee to sign off on their understanding and acknowledgement of this is paramount best practice. It’s also the time for you to answer any questions they have arising from compliance documentation.

Later down the employment track you might be called upon to answer questions on how well this was executed, so best be thorough and concise, without cutting a single corner. This might just save you a buck or two in litigation or mediation costs - which are rarely budgeted for.

7. GET YOUR BRAND STORY RIGHT

You can bet your new starter has made some assumptions about you and your company before walking through the door. More than likely they have stalked your social media accounts, googled their new colleagues and possibly even driven past the office to check for parking, dress codes and true hours of operation. They might well arrive with a head full of pre-conceived ideas!

Be transparent and candid from the onset. The way you interact personally makes all the difference.  If you project well, they are more than likely to love your brand.

Set the tone for open engagement. There’s no harm in chatting through company information they might already know, or their feelings about joining your team. Why not ask how they felt on their last day with their previous employer? Their answers could reveal the knowledge and energy they bring to the table and how seamless the transition might be into your workplace. Enjoy their company! As Samuel Beckett puts it: ‘Dance first, think later. It’s the natural order.’ Although we recommend you’ve done all your thinking in advance.

8. KISS!

Finally, the on-boarding process should not be complicated.  Keep it simple, but meaningful.  Sure, there are many cool induction initiatives happening in larger organisations, but they have the revenue to cover this process, where a small business typically does not.  The lack of fireworks will be forgiven, if you can offset that with a nice balance of professionalism, compliance and branding!

As we saw at the start, the kind of high kicks those larger corporations engage in might do you an injury anyway!

Cast your mind back to 1991, when Billy Crystal and Jack Palance went head to head in the blockbuster movie City Slickers.

Not many of us are mustering cattle in the wild west twenty-five years later, and our behinds probably still hurt just watching the movie, but its central drama still has huge resonance. And raises a chuckle.

Gary Keller, author, entrepreneur and cofounder of one of the world’s largest real estate agencies, recalls a pivotal scene from the movie in his bestselling book, The One Thing.   

Curly: Do you know the secret of life?

 Mitch: No. What?

Curly: This. [He holds up one finger]

Mitch: Your finger?

Curly: One thing.  Just one thing …

Mitch: That’s great, but what’s the one thing?

Curly: That’s what you have to figure out.

Keller reflects on why this struck a chord with him. ‘Where I had huge success, I had narrowed my concentration to one thing, and where my success varied, my focus had too.’  Concentrating on just thing at a time, even those itty bitty ordinary things, can make extraordinary things happen.

Best-selling author, global presenter and Smallville founder Andrew Griffiths and co-presenter Bree James ran a podcast recently on ‘Becoming More Productive in Business’.  In it, Griffiths observes that we are all time poor. The trick is to slough off all the things that are a distraction – and identify the one thing you can do right now at any given moment which will lead you on to success.

Keller and Griffiths both believe that good business is about investing your time and energy wisely and precisely – keep things moving, but don’t create a stampede.

Distractions can be hard to ignore – they’re made that way! Some of the biggest names have achieved success by designing the digital space to be deliberately inviting. No wonder we get distracted.

According to Keller, when we stay focused on exactly what matters the most at any given moment, that’s when real success becomes obtainable. If all your energy is channelled in one direction, things are achieved sequentially – one thing at a time.

So saddle up and let’s keep achieving with 3 key strategies:

1. BLOCK TIME

Schedule a regular appointment with yourself in which you prioritise and tackle the most important task on your list.

‘Think of it like going to movies. You’re there for ONE Thing—to see the film. Because you’re really clear about that, you turn off your cell phone, you grab snacks in case you get hungry, and you probably even make a pit stop before you go in. All this so you can have an uninterrupte experience.’

2. USE FIVE MINUTE WINDOWS

"Over the course of the day, I can get literally a hundred or more little tasks done in those five-minute windows," says Andrew Griffiths. Develop two lists - tasks which require a block of time, and tasks which need just a few minutes – before a meeting, between phone calls, before the teleconference, or when you’ve got a spare quarter hour.

3. SIMPLIFY

Make sure things get done efficiently.  If your computer takes 15 minutes to load, consider an upgrade.  If your interruptions are always for the same reason – approvals, social media management – think about automation.   What can be can be delegated? Is your five-minute list so long that a new resource is needed? 

Let’s finish on a high, by looking at one company that has done ‘One Thing’ really well.  Keller writes, ‘From 1998 to 2012, Apple’s ONE Thing moved from Macs to iMacs to iTunes, to iPods to iPhones, with the iPad already jockeying for the pole position at the head of the production line.’ Apple stand out. Their drive to deliver just one outstanding product at a time has changed the game. Sure, they brought out other popular gadgets, but those hummed along in the shadows.

Or as Curly would have said, ‘This cow’s having a baby. Now reach in and pull out the calf!’

Many years ago in my BC days (Before Children), I had a gold nugget moment with a good friend. We were discussing the inevitable shift that comes with being a stay-at-home parent. Flying around were phrases like ‘career suicide’ and ‘bottom of the ladder’.  How we laughed at the folly of those who stopped scaling the corporate heights and went off-piste into the nursery.

Ultimately, we decided that you don’t actually deliver your brain with your baby. But years later, as one moves back into the workforce after an extended period ‘out of the office’, it seems that your potential new colleagues appear to believe you did just that!

As a society we talk a lot about gender equality and support for working parents. We have many services for outsourcing the kiddies, as well as in-house employment programs such as part-time roles, job sharing and flexible hours. This is a good thing – for those who want to get back into the swing promptly. 

However, there is a cohort that just doesn’t fit this profile – those who decide that sacrificing one income indefinitely is actually manageable. They want to enjoy being at home for longer - wearing clothes crusted over with banana, watching Playschool, going to baby yoga at the community centre.

They leave their blossoming career for that other kind of labour, the kind that’s paid only in love. They do it because they want to. And they have no regrets.

What happens to this cohort when they are ready to re-enter the workplace? Do they risk their professional credibility by taking a longer gap in service? Is there a fallout in their capacity to keep up with industry trends and technical developments? Has their career been sucked up the tubes like so much stray Lego?

Unfortunately, being proficient at domestic duties isn’t a skill most employers are looking for.  What happens time and again is a return to a junior role, and having to prove one’s worth on the job – all over again.

So here are a few strategies to fit in between Kinder Gym and Kids’ Cooking Class – things you can do while ‘off the job’ which can look really favourable when you want to jump back in. 

#1 - PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIP

When you’re in the thick of a career, you may not have the need or the inclination to join an industry body. Or maybe you do because it’s subsidised by your employer?  Don’t hesitate to join an institute when you’re ‘out of the office’ and if you’re already a member, don’t even think about letting your membership lapse! Most Institutions offer discounted training seminars, events and regular magazines.  Keep an eye out for the occasional course that you can fit into your schedule, or an article that takes you on a nice journey.  Stay open to professional development during this time. 

#2 - SOCIAL MEDIA

I don’t mean posting images of your deliciously creamy latte or status updates from the park - these are important but best left for your personal account.  Be smart, choose a platform and open a professional account.  There you can follow chosen intellectuals, read interesting updates and re-post them to gain followers and fellowship.  Set aside 5 minutes a day to check in or 1 hour a week to focus on your profile. It’s manageable, intellectually stimulating and best of all, free!

#3 - LINKEDIN

The platform for staying connected.  Keep abreast of any movements and changes in your industry.  Congratulate your connections when they are promoted or make a move.  Make a point of reading posted articles. Take the time to perfect your profile and keep it updated with any of those industry courses you’ve fitted in.  Years down the track you will thank your clever self for staying current in this way. 

#4 - NETWORKING GROUPS

Yes, you can forge new connections outside of playgroup. Networking is a great way to do this and keep your skills relevant.  If you can’t find a network specific to your industry in your local area, join a general business group that meets quarterly or biannually. That’s not hard to fit into a busy parenting schedule – and it will pay dividends. Sure, you won’t be representing an actual business, but keeping in touch and even offering valuable advice and recommendations to new business contacts keeps your mind engaged, and can be just as rewarding!

In short, don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater, and don’t throw the brains or the career out with the baby either!