Employee Engagement

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Celebrating Our Similarities . . . And What Makes Us Unique

Posted on by Deirdre Pickerell, PhD Leave a comment
The Ted Talk, Who Are You, Really? The Puzzle of Personality, appeared in my Twitter feed today. As my work often focuses on personality, and specifically how personality impacts communication, conflict, and career I thought it was worth watching. I was right! In his 15-minute talk, Dr. Brian Little explores some of the commonly known […]... Read More
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Diversity Within the Workplace

Posted on by Deirdre Pickerell, PhD Leave a comment
It’s always interesting to me how work clusters within Life Strategies – we seem to go through seasons of topical presentations, typically driven by external requests not intentional marketing. The theme of our current season is “diversity within the workplace.” Earlier this year we conducted research for S.U.C.C.E.S.S. and its government funders on challenges associated […]... Read More
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Pre-Employment Screening in the Workplace

Posted on by Deirdre Pickerell, PhD 3 Comments
Most employers and job seekers are familiar with the traditional methods for screening applicants (i.e., reviewing application forms, resumes, and cover letters, as well as conducting interviews, background checks, and reference checks); however, assessments can be a valuable addition to your screening process. Pre-employment screening assessments can help employers weed out applicants that either don’t […]... Read More
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Leadership During BC’s Business Transformation

Posted on by Deirdre Pickerell, PhD Leave a comment
BC’s career development sector is working its way through one of the biggest transformations in its history. A fundamental shift in service delivery and funding structure will see over 400 employment service agencies  replaced with 73 (read more at http://bit.ly/vjaJ5p, starting on page 20). As one might imagine, there is great debate about whether this […]... Read More
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Appreciation in the Workplace

Posted on by Deirdre Pickerell, PhD Leave a comment
It’s almost Thanksgiving, so we conducted a brief survey about appreciation in the workplace. We appreciate all the thoughtful responses we got – clearly appreciation is alive and well which was encouraging to hear! The good news was that a third of our respondents had been appreciated within the past 24 hours and an additional […]... Read More
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Supervisory Skills: One Key to Workplace Success

Posted on by Deirdre Pickerell, PhD Leave a comment
We’ve just completed work on a supervisory skills framework and training guide for the Asia Pacific Gateway Skills Table. We’ve previously supported many organizations to develop their managers and leaders, and supervisors have a crucial liaison role to play – communicating management expectations to front-line employees and also communicating worker needs and concerns to the […]... Read More
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Fun in the Workplace

Posted on by Deirdre Pickerell, PhD Leave a comment
Did you know there are more than 2 million results when you Google “fun in the workplace”? Clearly I’m not the only one who believes work should be fun! Some of the sites highlight the importance of laughter (e.g., Did you know that preschoolers laugh 400+ times per day compared to 15 times per day […]... Read More
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Keeping the Disconnected Team Connected

Posted on by Deirdre Pickerell, PhD Leave a comment
With today’s flexible work arrangements (e.g., telecommuting, job sharing) and geographically dispersed teams (e.g., satellite offices and multi-national corporations) it is becoming more difficult for employers to build a sense of “we,” maintain a stable and consistent corporate culture, and foster supportive communication and cooperation between team members. Employees who don’t physically work together may […]... Read More
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Employee Engagement Indicator

Posted on by Deirdre Pickerell, PhD Leave a comment
A popular concept for many of today’s organizations is employee engagement. There is a plethora of information available on the topic; a Google search resulted in over 3.5 million hits. In researching employee engagement as part of my doctoral program, I was somewhat surprised to learn that a wide-variety of definitions exist. Each individual, from […]... Read More

The Synergy of Teams

Posted on by Deirdre Pickerell, PhD Leave a comment
People are constantly asking me how I do all that I do – my response invariably is that “I have a great team!” At its simplest, synergy is defined as “two or more things functioning together to produce a result not independently obtainable.” Research has demonstrated that synergistic teams can out-produce even the most talented […]... Read More