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Showing posts from March, 2015

Are adults the present, if children are our future!

Are adults the present, if children are our future! Business, life, politics, we are always planning ahead, so much so that sometimes we neglect the very real present. We attach such importance to age that news articles rarely neglect to mention the chronological number of the star of the story. People are “too young” or “too old”.   When are we like the porridge in Goldilocks “Just right”?   I am not sure if we ever are. We have bought into the idea that if you haven’t achieved certain career objectives by 35 or 40, you never will, success has passed you by.   And guess what?   Hirers often buy into that, making the move into executive roles for the first time at 50 or 55 almost impossible. A disadvantage to women (and men) who decide that work and family during their child rearing years need to be more integrated and less career driven. Just over 15 years ago, I was advertising a management role.   An extremely bright young man in the department came to me wi

Employee Engagement Hierarchy

With thanks to Maslow for the idea. As a leadership group at +Accsys (Pty) Ltd ,  we are constantly discussing ways to create a fully engaged company of people.  While there are obvious reasons around productivity and profitability, it is such a pleasure to be part of a company where everybody enjoys coming to work, and are all working to fulfil the same goals and objectives. Some years ago, we developed our own appraisal system, designed around employee expectations being aligned with employer expectations.  We had a very real concern, at the time, that we only found out what was causing unhappiness and disengagement at the exit interview. Setting up a model that created an environment where the line manager and the employee could openly discuss the job requirements, the company requirements and the employee's attitude and expectations, has made a significant difference. However, like all models, we have found that there are a number of factors that need to be part of this