Jason's Blog
Words of Gratitude #3: Remembering My Roots
Note: I’m writing a note of gratitude on the blog each day in November leading up to the Thanksgiving holiday. My hope is that these posts will inspire you to do the same. Write an email, Facebook post, or a text to tell people they have made an impact on you....
Words of Gratitude #2: Start With the Most Important (A Love Letter to My Wife)
Note: I'm writing a note of gratitude on the blog each day in November leading up to the Thanksgiving holiday. My hope is that these posts will inspire you to do the same. Write an email, Facebook post, or a text to tell people they have made an impact on you....
Words of Gratitude
In the work relationship, few things are more powerful or important than appreciation and acknowledgment. Knowing that someone recognizes our efforts and cares that we showed up each day is vital. And one of the most effective ways to create this experience for others...
Why Performance Management Still Sucks
Who is responsible for designing and deploying and maintaining a system for managing performance across the organization?
An Underutilized Tool for Engaging Employees
Asking for help is a sign of strength and confidence. It shows an awareness that you rely on others to succeed (we all do). And it demonstrates both trust and respect for those you ask.
Technology’s Evolving Role in HR #HRTechConf
I personally think that most of the talk about AI is distracting us from what really matters in making work better.
The Blindspot in Employee Engagement
A couple years ago, as my wife and I were returning home from an employee engagement conference where I had spoken, she said something to me that I didn't fully understand at the time. I remember it sounding something like this. "The content here was good, but it was...
Wellness 2.0
About eight years ago, I joined an organization that was pretty serious about workplace wellness. Since the wellness team rolled up to me as the HR leader, I got pretty serious about learning what it was all about quickly. Most of the focus, I learned, was on...
Making the Invisible Visible with ONA
Well over a decade ago, I walked into a session at a conference in Tucson, Arizona. I wasn't sure exactly what the session was going to be about, but it sounded interesting. The presenter was a professor at the University of Virginia named Rob Cross. Rarely have I...
Designing Employee Experience (A “How To” Series)
As I'm seeing more and more discussion about employee experience, I'm not finding a lot of content about how to activate and do the work. The reason I'm so bullish about the concept of employee experience is that it is proactively actionable whereas traditional...
Does Your Company Discourage Vacations?
A few weeks ago, I had an interesting chat with my Lyft driver on the way to the airport in San Francisco. He was a career business development professional who uses Lyft to supplement his income. Our conversation turned to company culture and work experience...
Relationships and Accountability
If you’ve been following my work over the past couple of years, you know that I’ve been evangelizing the message that “work is a relationship, not a contract.” Because employees experience work this way, work and the workplace should be designed around the same...
Calling for a Retreat
In my June newsletter, I shared that my wife, Angie, and I had a “retreat” scheduled. For those who may not know, Ang is not only my life partner but is also my business partner. This quest to make work more human is a family affair for us. On a walk together in...
6 Tips for Graduates (and anyone else) about Succeeding at Work
It's that time of year when videos of famous people giving commence addresses start showing up in our Facebook and news feeds. Most are full of inspirational platitudes about how these young people can manifest a greater future for us all. These are inspiring...
Talking about Gender at Work
I've been thinking a lot about gender equity in the workplace lately. I'm sure many of you have been as well. There is so much work we need to do. This is an issue that I've been called to for some time but have struggled to find my voice in the conversation as a...
Embracing the Yin and Yang of Human Experience at Work – #Workhuman
Last week, I had the privilege to speak at and attend Workhuman. It is a remarkable event hosted by the visionary people of Globoforce. I feel privileged to have been a part of it this year. This is the first of a few posts inspired by the event. There are far more...
5 Reasons I’m Looking Forward to #WorkHuman
Next week, I am headed out to speak at and attend the WorkHuman conference in Austin, TX. While I am always excited when given the opportunity to speak, I'm really looking forward to this event for a few reasons. I'm debuting some new content. The session I'm doing...
6 Tips for Learning to Speak Like a Pro
I've been speaking professionally now for about a decade. I enjoy telling new people I meet that I'm a professional speaker because they often react as if they've just discovered an alien species. It's fun. By nature of being a speaker, sometimes I get asked for...
A Crisis of Trust
Last week, the 2018 Edelman Trust Barometer was released. In case you aren’t familiar, this is a report of findings from annual research conducted in 28 countries to understand and trend trust and perceived credibility in institutions globally. The survey includes...
3 Simple Steps to Improve Employee Engagement this Year
It's that time of year again. The time for resolutions about how we will make the upcoming year our best ever. If you have the privilege of leading people at work, hopefully, one of your resolutions is to create a more engaging work experience for them. If you go...
Two Great Learning Opportunities to Invest in Yourself in 2018
One of the lessons I will take from 2017 is a reminder of the importance of making time to invest in my own learning and growth. As a speaker and author, my job is to facilitate and inspire learning for others. My work forces me to continuously learn to stay relevant,...
4 Leadership Qualities that Drive Employee Engagement
There are volumes written about the qualities that make for a good leader. Each one recommending a slightly (or radically) different approach. If you are studying to be a good leader, this is overwhelming and confusing. The first page of results for a Google search...
Why aren’t we more grateful? (No really, why?)
It's Thanksgiving week in the U.S. which marks the official start of our holiday season. Thanksgiving is an interesting holiday because its meaning varies widely from person to person and family to family. For some it's about eating yourself into a food coma. For...
Policies don’t Fix Anything
One reason I was always an outlier when I worked in HR is that I have a healthy disdain for policies. Don't get me wrong. I understand that necessity of some policies. I'm not completely anti-policy. But I am anti-unnecessary policies. Here's the problem with...
2 Steps to Building Trust as a Manager
One of the most common questions I get from managers and leaders is about building trust. In most cases, they understand the importance of trust to a healthy and productive relationship with their employees, but they are stumped about how to do it or even where to...
Fixing Work with the Relationship Test
I've been making the case now for a while that a primary reason that employee engagement remains so dismally low within so many organizations is that leaders (and HR) treat work as a contract instead of as a relationship. When the goal of management shifts from...
Can Technology Drive Employee Engagement?
Next week, I'm headed off to Las Vegas to speak at and attend the HR Technology Conference. I'll be spending the week with those who build, consume and generally are interested in technology solutions to human resources problems. If you will be there, drop me a note....