Jason's Blog

Is it just me or does it seem like we are overcomplicating everything in our workplaces? Policy manuals, competency models, career lattices, even performance appraisals...complicated, often convoluted, stuff. We even make simple things complicated. "Dress...

Over the past year or so, the phrase "employee experience" has barged its way into conversations about human resources and employee engagement. This prompted some eye rolling from some who felt like this was just another example of repackaging the same old HR stuff...

Yesterday, I spent some time at the WELCOA Annual Summit. If you aren't familiar with the work of WELCOA, you should be. They are one of the leading voices in corporate wellness in the world and they are boldy leading the practice of workplace wellness into the...

As technology has advanced, it's become almost too easy and cheap to survey your employees. Gone are the days when surveys were expensive and cumbersome. There are still expensive ways to do it, but you have options. The fact that we can survey employees easily and...

Over that past few years, I've been hearing the idea floated more frequently that employees should be accountable for their own engagement. This is an appealing idea to management because it shifts the burden off of their shoulders (and lord knows that management...

For most of my life, I've had a natural curiosity about and pull towards the work of strategy and envisioning the future. I need to understand what's coming and where we are headed when I'm involved in something that matters. But, I've been repeatedly shocked at how...

Humor me for a moment.  I'd like you to pause and consider the following questions.  If you'd like bonus points, write down or type your answers out.  Ready? Here you go: What is organizational culture (or corporate culture)? What is employee engagement? What is...

A couple of weeks ago, I found myself in front of a room of people talking about courage. Courage is a topic that I've been interested in for years. It is courage that helps us take action in the face of fear. And I believe that fear is the primary reason that so many...

Most who measure employee engagement for a living can show you data that links the level of trust in the senior leaders of the organization to overall employee engagement. Most will go so far as to say that trust in senior leadership is a driver of engagement. This...

When you look for data about what drives employee engagement, the list is always pretty similar. Feeling valued Trust Knowing someone cares about me and my development Appreciation Here's the funny thing. If I were to show you just this list and ask you what it...

When I was growing up on a farm near a small town in rural Iowa, I remember my parents being a part of a number of different social groups. There was the card club that met once a month where half a dozen couples gathered to play 500 (the card game of choice) on a...

Last week, I had the opportunity to speak at and attend WorkHuman, a conference hosted by HR technology company Globoforce. As someone who’s been crusading to make work human for many years, I’ve been an admirer of this event since its creation a few years ago and was...

A post titled "Why Happiness Doesn't Matter" showed up on my radar this week.  It's the typical "happiness isn't engagement" debate frequently used to stir up a reaction. But this article made me angry. The author,  a startup CEO, is making an old argument to prop up...

Note: Today I'm sharing a post written by my friend and fellow keynote speaker, Jeff Havens. It's about one of my favorite topics, relationships. I think you will enjoy it. You can also learn more about Jeff at the end of the post.  There are a lot of numbers in my...

Many years ago, early in my management career, I had an employee who came into my office and said these words to me. Actually, it wasn't quite that nice.  Here's what she actually said. "You are being a real a**hole lately." And she was right. I was stressed. I didn't...

I have a confession to make. For years, I've been arguing that you can't "buy" employee engagement with compensation. I was pretty certain of this fact. I'd even gotten pretty skilled at explaining away the low scores on pay questions within employee engagement...

The longer I spend studying employee engagement and managing other people, the more I notice how we love to overcomplicate things. Engaging employees isn't nearly as complicated as many would have us believe. As managers, it often boils down to consistently doing some...

Make work human. This has been my professional purpose for over a decade now. I'm encouraged by all of the conversation recently about creating more human work experiences. I hope that it isn't simply the latest marketing strategy, a new way to package the same stuff...

Last fall, a colleague sent me an email introducing me to Joe Sullivan, the founder of a company called Vohtr. He thought I'd find Joe's product interesting.  He was right. Vohtr is one of the most innovative new approaches to employee feedback I've seen in a long...

Have you ever had the opportunity to work for a leader who you absolutely loved? What was it about that leader that had such a profound impact on you? For me, the leader made me feel "more" in so many ways: More confident More successful More accepted More understood...

Last week, I had the opportunity to do some training with the front line managers at a manufacturing firm. Our focus was the role of the manager in creating an engaging work experience for employees. We talked about things like clarity, connection, and love. It was a...

Who is that person in your life that always makes you feel good? Someone probably jumps to mind. It's the person that, no matter how you are feeling before you see them, you feel better afterward. One of mine is my Grandma Lois. I'm blessed to have grandparents as...

A friend was recently sharing with me some of the challenges he was having with managing his team. I can't say for certain since I've not seen him work, but I think he's probably a pretty good manager.  He was sharing with me his challenge to break the habits of...

Last week I had a conversation with a leader who explained to me that he really doesn't buy the whole "employee engagement thing.”   When I probed a little bit, he revealed that in the past, he worked for an organization that spent big money on an employee engagement...

Working from a home office has its ups and downs.  One of the benefits for me is that when I'm working from the office, I don't have to shave every day. Maybe it's my decade of trying to look the part of a corporate executive, but I take delight in the freedom to rock...

Sometimes, changing our results is as much about what we stop doing as what we start. CEO's around the world have recognized that critical importance of talent and they are looking to HR to lead. To step up to this challenge means abandoning some bad habits and...