Anytime you use teaching strategies to deliver real-world experiences to your classroom, it’s a positive time for everyone involved – for you, the students, and even the special guest!
Likewise, studies show that when your bring in a guest to share his or her work-life stories, students are much more engaged in that day’s lessons and then they go on to be much more aware of the choices they make in society at large.
Today on TeachHUB.com, frequent contributing writer Janelle Cox, herself a seasoned elementary educator based on the East Coast, looks at some teaching strategiesto bring the real world into your classroom.
Janelle intones us to:
Use current events/the news
Invite guest speakers
Take a field trip (even a virtual one)
And more!
Janelle sums up his article thusly: “Bringing real-world experiences into the classroom is a great way to give students a memorable experience that they can always take with them. Whichever approach you choose to try, remember that your goal is to create an authentic experience that will help students engage in their learning more.”
How do you bring real-world experiences into your classroom? Do you have any tips that you would like to share? Please feel free to leave your ideas in the comment section below, we would love to hear what you have to say.
Professional Development: How “Teacherpreneurs” Can Save Education
Just recently, one of our frequent contributors, Meghan Mathis, went out to attend the Teachers Pay Teachers third annual conference.
Teachers Pay Teachers is the first and largest online “Community of millions of educators who come together to share their work, their insights, and their inspiration with one another.”
Meghan came away wowed and inspired, an atmosphere where teachers shared their best ideas without fear of their being stolen or lifted.
Meghan summed up her article like this: “If districts could begin to think about their teachers like the
TpT planners thought about their teacherpreneurs, imagine how much more productive professional development could be!”
Do you have any ideas about how “Teacherpreneurs” can save education? Let us know in the comment section!
Differentiated instruction, or the process by which teachers craft custom lesson plans uniquely tailored to each individual student’s learning style, has been the rage of academic circles for some time now. Differentiated instruction can make all the difference when it comes to learning, but tailoring lesson plans to each individual student (or groups of students) can be a time-consuming undertaking.
However, with a little bit of planning, educators can easily differentiate their lesson plans. Today on TeachHUB.com, frequent contributing writer Janelle Cox, herself a veteran elementary school educator based in Upstate New York, looks at some low-prep ways that teachers can employ methods of differentiated instruction.
Janelle’s ideas include:
Homework options
Student choice boards
Writing prompts
And more!
Janelle sums up today’s article like this: “These are a just a few of the most popular low prep ways that you differentiate instruction. Other ways include: Flexible seating, using reading buddies, think-pair-share, menus, open-ended activities, miniworkshops and lessons, explorations, games, and apps, to name a few. Remember, the payoff comes when you can see your students achieve more on your classroom than ever before, and when you see them thriving and becoming more involved in classroom discussions.”
In which ways do you differentiate learning in your classroom? Do you have any easy, low-prep ideas that work for you and your classroom? Please share with us. We would love to hear your thoughts.
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By subscribing to the TeachHUB.com newsletter, you’ll get the best news of the week delivered straight to your inbox every Friday. The newsletter contains the best of our lesson plans as well as links to some great archived articles we’ve published in the past.
We’ve got a real technology in the classroom treat for you on TeachHUB.com today. Recently, online shopping giant Amazon announced it would be entering the technology in the classroom foray with a new platform resource called Inspire.
We know, it’s difficult to be inspired (ha) to positively anticipate yet another technolgoical behemoth invading our classrooms with yet more expensive and difficult to understand software and/or hardware products.
But here’s where Amazon begs to differ. Amazon is prominsing the “The world’s largest open educational resources platform with Inspire. Within its cloud, teachers will use Inspire to tap into well-known educational content providers like Folger Shakespeare Library and the Department of Education’s College Scoreboard.
But here’s another kicker. Participating teachers will also have the opportunity (much like with Teacherspayteachers.com) to upload and share resources. TeachHUB.com contributing writer Jordan Catapano, himself a seasoned high school English educator based in the venerable Chicago suburbs, notes that “Creating a venue where teachers upload their own content is not a new idea, but Amazon offers size, familiarity, and convenience that current marketplaces cannot.”
Only time wil tell, of course, whether Inspire will draw a crowd of teachers to an already crowded technology in the classroom field. But with Amazon’s in-place mechanisms for instant recommendations, reviews, and ratings, the playing field could already be tipped in the company’s direction.
We’ll see how popular Inspire becomes after its official launch later this fall. But with educators everywhere strapped for resources, time, and ideas, we’re betting Amazon’s Inspire could be a whopping success. Or not, haha. We’re still encouraging teachers to give it a shot, however.
Does Amazon’s Inspire sound like something you would use? Give it a try, and let our TeachHUB.com community know what you think!
Differentiated instruction has become the hot way for educators to reach the diverse learning needs of all their students. In fact, even if you haven’t head of differentiated instruction, you might already be using it. For instance, do you employ cooperative learning groups? Then you are using differentiated instruction!
Today on TeachHUB.com, frequent contributing writer Janelle Cox, herself a seasoned elementary educator based in Upstate New York, spells out for us how to plan a tiered lesson.
What’s a tiered lesson? Janelle spells it out: “When you tier an assignment, you are essentially just making an adjustment within the same lesson in order to meet the needs of all students. Assignments can be adjusted in many ways: By complexity, pace, number of steps to complete the task, time allotted, or even the level of independence that is required to complete the task.”
Janelle’s three-step plan is great for beginners looking to dip their toes in the differentiated learning pool, and it’s excellent for veterans looking to brush up on the technique.
Janelle sums up her article like this: “High-quality differentiation occurs when all students’ needs are being met. Many teachers tend to think that that differentiation is giving their higher-level students more work, and their lower level, struggling students less work. However, this is not the case. Effective, high-quality differentiation hinges upon focusing on what students need to know, understand, and do. Once you have figured that out, then students will be able to recall and retrieve the information they are given.”
Do you tier assignments for differentiation in your classroom? If so, what strategies and techniques do you use? Please leave your thoughts and ideas, we would love to hear what you have to say.
to changing the culture of assessment in the school district. It’s vital that everyone in the learning community recognizes the importance of being able to “tell the story” of a child’s success from grades PreK-12. It’s easy to stay in the September to June “comfort zone” and follow a child’s progress from one end of a school year to the other. Can we step back and be willing to follow a child’s progress from Age 5 to Age 18?
The most effective way to energize teachers around the power of long-range longitudinal data analysis is to send teams to other schools already doing good work in this area. These teams would, hopefully, come back to the district and help build a positive energy mass that would, in turn, permeate the rest of the faculty.
I found a wonderful interview with John Wooden (UCLA basketball coach from 1948-1975) in which he talks about children’s success. Coach Wooden speaks to the power of longitudinal data analysis in his opening dialogue when he points out the importance of growth as a measure of success. Watch Coach Wooden talk about success:
One thing I was told by some high powered executive school people (a former chancellor of schools from Seattle and a superintendent of San Francisco Schools) was the need for the educational leader to take of him/herself. Our positions can be very stressful ones (a lot of this stress is self-induced). It’s important for us to take at least one day during the weekend to be with our family and with ourselves! This is very hard thing to do in the B-Berry/iPhone age! Make Saturday or Sunday YOUR (and your family) day!
My daughter got married this week. She and her husband had originally intended to have their wedding May 2, but the virus crisis clearly was going to prevent that gathering. Instead of delaying the wedding until the crisis passes, they chose to be married one month early in an essentially empty church. Their guests watched the wedding on YouTube.
My new son-in-law is in his last year of seminary. In a few days, he will be told where he will begin serving as pastor. The May 2 wedding was to have taken place in the seminary chapel. When the two of them first realized that the wedding would have to be rescheduled, their families considered the possibility they would just get the license and be married at the courthouse. In other words, they nearly eloped. (A future pastor and his bride, the daughter of a pastor, eloping—that would be humorous.) They were able, however, to arrange for a church wedding at a place that was already equipped to livestream its services on YouTube.
The groom and the best man were attired in formal Scottish garb—yes, including kilts. The bride wore a traditional white wedding dress. (She nearly had to improvise: the woman doing alterations on the dress had basically closed down her business because of the virus and could not be reached by phone. I don’t know the details of how my daughter finally got hold of the dress.) The bride’s sister was maid of honor. Because she works at a hospital, she was not able to take a day off for the wedding, so it was held at 8 p.m. In his homily, the pastor who married them commented on the unusual timing of the wedding—during the season of Lent, in the darkness of night, and during a pandemic.
So there were bride and groom, best man and maid of honor, pastor, musician, and one other woman who helped the bride and took part in the singing. They began with a traditional evening liturgy, then sang a hymn. We rushed around the house gathering hymnals and got to join in singing the fourth and fifth verses of the hymn. The pastor read from Genesis 2, delivered his homily, and then conducted the wedding ceremony. During the exchange of vows, the bride and groom had their hands bound together with a strip of cloth—another Scottish tradition.
As the father of the bride, I watched from the den. I was sitting in the same chair where I sat to watch the Chicago Cubs win the World Series. (We are never getting rid of that chair.) I was wearing a t-shirt, sweat shirt, blue jeans, and slippers. Other family members were present, as was the family cat. Popcorn was served.
This is not an April Fools prank. This is not First Friday Fiction. This is part of how the pandemic is rewriting life’s scripts for us all. I hope that you and those you love are well. J.
As academician, I had the opportunity and still get opportunity to visit many places of our country (although I am senior citizen and retired on superannuation) and whenever I get an opportunity, I inspire to visit Temple, Church, Mosque or Gurudwara. On 7 March 2020, I had the scope to visit Sri Hazur Sahib Gurudwara at Nanded, Maharashtra, India, a wonderful and holy place where I was enthused for doing meditation, in addition to prayer as in this place (Nanded) Sri Guru Gobind ji left for heavenly abode on 7 October, 1708. Also, I am pleased to mention that I could visit Sri Patna Sahib also known as Harmandir Sahib, Gurudwara, the birthplace of Guru Gobind Singh ji, (born in 1666). The Patna Sahib Gurudwara is considered to be one of the holiest of the five ‘Takths’ or ‘Seats’ of the Sikhs, located in old city of Patna, Bihar. Thus, his Birth place and ‘Paralok Prapti’ place (heavenly abode) i.e. both the divine places I could visit for which I am feeling lucky.
Holy Sri Hazur Sahib Gurudwara at Nanded, Maharashtra
Before penning down few lines about my experience in Sri Hazur Sahib Gurudwara, Nanded, I extend my Pronam to Sri Guru Gobind Singh Ji, the 10th Sikh Guru, Poet, Philosopher and Spiritual Master also as he was the pioneer to establish this Gurudwara. This holy place has greatly attracted me because of its pristine beauty including its surroundings. The campus is neat and clean and is difficult to find a piece of paper anywhere.
Guru Gobind Singh, while conferring Guruship of the Holy Book, Guru Granth Sahib, had named Nanded region as Abchalnagar (steadfast city), located on the bank of the River Godavari. In addition, other major Gurudwaras in Nanded and its vicinity are Nagina Ghat, Banda Ghat, Sangat Sahib, Baoli Sahib, Mal Tekdi, Shikar Ghat, Hira Ghat and Mata Sahib, etc. As already mentioned, Sri Guru Gobind ji left for heavenly abode on 7 October, 1708 at Nanded and before return to his heavenly abode (Paralok Prapti’) he uttered, “The Eternal Father willed and I raised the Panth. All my Sikhs are hereby ordered to accept the Granth (Holy Book of the Sikhs) as their Preceptor. Have faith in the Holy Granth, as your master and consider it the visible manifestation of the Gurus. He who had a pure heart will seek guidance from its holy words”. His sole mission was to restore mankind to brotherhood. He institutionalized the Khalsa by baptizing five persons in Sikhism (literally, Pure Ones), who played the key role in protecting the Sikhs after his death. He fully realized human beings are perishable, but noble ideas sustain forever – they are eternal. The five persons who were baptized in Sikhism, on the day of ‘Vaishakhi’ by Guru Gobind ji in 1699 were Daya Ram (Bhai Daya Singh), Dharam Das (Bhai Dharam Singh), Himmat Rai (Bhai Himmat Singh), Mohkam Chand (Bhai Mohkam Singh), and Sahib Chand (Bhai Sahib Singh). According to Guru Gobind ji, “He who keeps alight the unquenchable torch of truth, and never swerves from the thought of One God; he who has full love and confidence in God and does not put his faith, even by mistake, in fasting or the graves of Muslim saints, Hindu crematoriums, or Jogis places of sepulchre; he who recognises the One God and no pilgrimages, alms-giving, non-destruction of life, penances, or austerities; and in whose heart the light of the Perfect One shines, – he is to be recognised as a pure member of the Khalsa” (Guru Gobind Singh, 33 Swaiyyas)
Holy Sri Hazur Sahib Gurudwara at Nanded, Maharashtra
The 300 Gurudomship ceremony of Guru Granth Sahib and 300 Joti Jot anniversary of Guru Gobind Singh were celebrated in a massive way at Hazur Sahib, Nanded in 2008. The then Prime Minister of India, Dr. Manmohan Singh ji addressed to the Sath-Sangat on the main function. For creating awareness among common people, ‘Jagriti Yatra’ was arranged which journeyed through different places across the country and also many places in abroad.
However, in the context of Hazur Sahib Gurudwara, it is pertinent to mention that, the most important aspect is that there are two number of sanctum sanctorum. While all the functions are carried out by the priests in the outer room, the inner room is a vault which houses priceless objects, weapons and other personal belongings of the Guru. No one except the head priest can enter this holy vault.
Before winding up, seven teachings of Guru Gobind Singh ji that can guide us throughout life are presented below:
Do not gossip, nor slander, or be spiteful to anyone.
Do not be proud of riches, youthfulness or lineage. (Regardless of maternal and paternal caste or heritage, all of the Guru’s Sikhs are siblings of one family.)
When dealing with enemies, practice diplomacy, employ a variety of tactics, and exhaust all techniques before engaging in warfare.
Do as much possible to serve and aid foreigners, those in need, or in trouble.
Realise that considering a daughter as property is poison.
Donate a tenth of your earnings.
Do not ruin anyone’s work by gossiping.
(The relevant information and particulars have been collected from
There are big changes coming to American companies. While many business leaders look to the economy for trends and forecasts — closely following any promising signs as we recover from the 2008 crisis — there’s another change brewing right under their noses. And it doesn’t take knowledge of the stock market to understand.
The change is a massive shift in workplace demographics. Four shifts, in fact: Women are leaving the corporate world; nearly half of Americans will be retiring from the workforce in the next decade; minorities are now the majority; and freelancing is the new 9-to-5.
Is your organization prepared for the shifts to come? Developing successful organizational strategies is hard enough, but if you develop a strategy without understanding workforce demographics, you’re shooting in the dark. This is the first post in a series exploring each demographic trend. Here, a closer look into the first of four: How will the changing gender dynamics of corporate America impact the workforce, and what can you do to prepare?
Women Are Becoming Your Competition
After years of bumping their heads on glass ceilings, women have had enough of the corporate world. In fact, studies show that more than half of women who start out in Fortune 500s leave before they reach the executive level.
Women who leave large companies often join upstart competitors or become new competitors by launching their own businesses. As of 2010, there were more than 8 million women-owned businesses in the U.S, and women-owned firms were growing at twice the rate of all other groups.
Why are women leaving? In 2012, women held 14.3 percent of executive positions at Fortune 500 companies, yet were paid only three-quarters of what their male colleagues earned. The wage gap does not reflect a skills or needs gap: Today, young women are just as likely as men to hold a bachelor’s degree, 50 percent more likely to have a graduate degree and more than 40 percent are their families’ main breadwinners.
So, why does this matter?
Gender Diversity Improves Performance
One reason your organization should pay attention to gender demographics at work is purely economical. Two recent high-profile studies have found that having even just one woman on a company’s board correlates with significantly better performance.
Credit Suisse evaluated more than 2,400 global corporations over eight years and found that large-cap companies with at least one woman on their boards outperformed comparable companies with all-male boards by 26 percent. Catalyst found that Fortune 500 companies with women on their boards had significantly higher returns on equity (53 percent), better sales (42 percent), and a two-thirds greater ROI than companies with all-male boards.
Female leadership is not a “nice-to-have.” It’s a must-have for companies to survive and thrive.
Organizations that understand the value of diversity need to step up to the plate if they want to attract and retain women. Here, three tips for creating a structure for gender parity success at your company:
How to Retain Female Talent
1. Start a formal mentoring program. People tend to network and develop mentorships with people of their own gender. If men have more opportunity for leadership roles and they network with other men, men will continue to dominate leadership roles. Women, who have mentors with less clout and are sponsored significantly less than men, need access to mentors and sponsors of both genders.
2. Institute flexible work arrangements. Fear of negative career consequences, manager skepticism, excessive workload and a “face time” culture are among the barriers that prevent employees from adopting flexible work arrangements.
Set standards for both genders and give managers the training they need to be comfortable managing flextime workers. This removes the barrier for women who are the primary caretakers in their family of children or elderly relatives, which is a significant amount, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It reports women do 54 percent more of childcare than men, and 50 percent of elder-care.
3. Function as a results-only work environment (ROWE), and create formal compensation policies with clear criteria. ROWE-type policies can help with turnover caused by work-life conflict, one of which is family burdens. The traditional solution to work-life challenges is the decision to have women stay home. This reinforces gender inequality, and subtly disadvantages women, particularly mothers. Judging women by the quality of their work rather than whether or not they are physically present can increase retention.
When it comes to attracting and retaining women, good intentions aren’t enough. You need an action plan to prepare for the future of work, and you need one now.
Stay tuned for the next post in this series about how to thrive amid shifting workplace demographics.
The United States workforce is being shaken up. Within the next decade, as key office demographics change, corporate America will look and function very differently than it does today.
Last month, I explored how women are leaving the corporate world and starting their own businesses — finding more career opportunity and fulfillment in the process. Today, I’ll explore a topic leaders have been hearing for a while, but not yet heeded: Baby boomers are reaching retirement age. And just like women, retirees are primed to become competition for the very organizations they decide to leave.
Companies need to do some major prep work to get ready for the huge demographic shifts headed their way. At the same time, there’s a lot of uncertainty around when — and how quickly — boomers will leave the workforce.
The Silver Tsunami — or a Light Drizzle
Baby boomer retirement means over 40 percent of the 9-to-5 corporate workforce will be gone in the next decade.
However, the “Silver Tsunami” many economists predicted has not come to total fruition — boomers may or may not retire on time, due to the economy and their pension funds. If they do retire, organizations will lose a lot of talent. Retiring baby boomers are going to be hard to replace, because Generation X is relatively small and millennials have a different concept of how they want to work.
If the baby boomers don’t retire? Organizations are still not in the clear. Healthcare and pension costs are going to skyrocket and organizations will have personnel challenges that range from keeping an older workforce up-to-date to figuring out protocol when a boomer reports to someone who’s young enough to be his granddaughter.
Goodbye — or See You Later
Some retirees will say sayonara to the workforce for good. One of my manufacturing clients is facing the traditional retirement challenge: The company has plants where more than half of its workers are at least 58 years old. If it doesn’t replace the work pool very soon, it risks having to shut down the plants.
But other clients are facing a more modern challenge of the retirement boom: For white-collar companies, the likely risk is that “retiring” boomers will walk out, start their own companies or consulting projects and come back as competition. Recent studies show nearly two-thirds of workers ages 16 to 64 prefer a gradual transition to retirement, and a report from the Kauffman Foundation found that baby boomers are twice as likely to launch a new business this year as millennials.
Whether boomers retire full-time or continue their career as their own boss, companies need to prepare for how departing talent will impact their workforce
So, how can a company prepare for the loss of baby boomers? Start with these three tips.
How to Prepare for the Retirement Boom
1) Start an intergenerational mentoring program, often called reverse mentoring. Match a baby boomer employee to a millennial or Generation X employee, and set aside time for the pair to teach one another new skills. Baby boomers are extremely skilled at in-person relationships and office politics. They’ve learned how to navigate a huge number of personalities in school, on teams and at work.
Gen X can teach something that both the boomers and millennials often lack: focus. This comes from their ability to look at things unsentimentally. Additionally, Generation X’s perceived cynicism makes them great Devil’s Advocates — a skill that can be very helpful for the other generations to master.
So what can millennials teach boomers and Gen X? You guessed it: technology. They are the digital natives. If you’re Gen X, you’re a digital immigrant. If you’re a boomer, you’re the parent of the digital immigrant, still living in the old country. But that’s not all millennials have to offer — they can also teach how to improve innovation, and give a global perspective to solving problems.
2) To bridge the knowledge gap, institute flexible work options for baby boomers, making it possible for them to continue to work part-time or part-year on their own schedule. An AARP study found that what baby boomers wanted most at age 65 was financial security, better health, travel, and time with family and friends.
A flexible work arrangement can help baby boomer employees reach their goals, while also helping your organization with efficient and progressive knowledge transferring. For instance, you can institute a job-sharing program where a baby boomer shares his or her job with a member of a different generation to mentor throughout the process.
3) Invest in education and training programs for younger employees or prospective talent. From internships to shadow days for local high school students, you can initiate training programs to prepare younger people with the skills they need to enter the workforce, potentially in your industry and organization.
The mass departure of the baby boomer generation is certainly a shake-up that requires strategic preparation, but the changes won’t end there. Preparing for the loss of the boomers also means preparing for the entrance of their replacements — younger generations and minorities — including their skills, their workstyles and their career expectations.
The U.S. freelance workforce is currently 53 million strong and growing fast, according to a recent report from the Freelancers Union and Elance-oDesk. In fact, freelancers make up 34 percent of our national workforce. As Sara Horowitz, executive director of the Freelancers Union, writes, “This is an economic shift on par with the industrial revolution.”
Some managers will groan at the thought of the increasing freelance population. They may think of freelance employees as difficult employees. But in fact, the growth of freelancing opens up just as many new opportunities for employers as it does for workers: The so-called “gig economy” can expand your talent pool, empower a mobile workforce and allow your company to finish projects faster.
That’s not to say managing freelancers is the same as managing full-time employees. Yet, effective HR teams and managers already have the skills to integrate freelance employees effectively; they just need to understand the common problems that occur when working with freelancers. Then your organization can put helpful protocols in place before things get tricky (and know how to handle the situation if things do go awry).
Here, three common challenges companies face when working with freelancers and how to address them effectively.
Challenge 1: Communication
When it comes to freelancers, you are managing people who could be working at a desk, poolside or on an airplane. Clear and consistent communication between the freelancer and his or her manager is needed for this arrangement to work. If not, both parties will become frustrated and tasks that can be done quickly will end up being delayed.
Follow the four tips below to avoid communication mishaps.
Set email protocol in advance
Schedule all checks-ins in advance
Establish a system to recap meetings
Track projects in an easy way for both you and your freelancer
Challenge 2: Collaboration
When bringing a freelancer onto a collaborative project with full-time employees, it’s important to identify everyone’s role on the team. If no one knows who is in charge, or who is handling the operational aspects, you’ll not only have work fall through the cracks, but work being done twice — a waste of everyone’s time. In addition, the entire team dynamic will crumble and the project will suffer.
One of the most effective ways to ensure positive collaborative environments between freelance and full-time employees is by using a “GRPI” model, an approach to team development created by the Systemic Excellence Group:
Goals: Managers need to make sure that all members of the team, whether working in-house or freelance, know the end goal for their work.
Roles: All workers need to know the role they play on the team, as well as the role their team members play.
Processes: Managers should be open to shifting the plan when needed — an effective process for completing all projects takes time and flexibility.
Interactions: Managers should maintain organizational culture when interacting with employees who do not work in-house. We’ll take a closer look at how to do this below.
Challenge 3: Culture
Organizational culture is dynamic. With a team that is split between the office and elsewhere, culture can easily begin to take its own form, whether you like it or not. As the centerpiece of culture among your organization’s workforce, managers and HR can make a tremendous impact. These three tips will help maintain organizational culture with freelance workers:
Keep culture in mind during the hiring process. Don’t just hire freelancers for their skills or portfolio, but make sure to ask questions that measure their cultural fit as well.
Model the desired culture through your own actions, behavior and communication style with freelancers.
Integrate freelancers into the organization: virtually pair them with a seasoned employee, add them to company-wide meetings or newsletters and, if possible, invite them to work at the office during the project.
The freelance workforce isn’t going anywhere. It’s one of the four major workplace trends organizations are currently facing, in addition to Baby Boomers retiring, women leaving the workforce in droves and minorities becoming the majority of the workforce. Managers and HR teams that take time to work with freelancers will benefit from collaborating with diverse employees, and help the organization as a whole as it enters the future of work.
Stay tuned for another post in this series on changing workplace demographics next month!
When looking at the statistics presented by some of the most innovative companies in the world, the picture is painfully clear. Google reports that 3 percent of its employees are Hispanic and just 2 percent are black (compared to 17.4 percent Hispanic and 13.2 percent black in the general population). Apple’s employees are 55 percent white and only 2 percent black, not to mention 70 percent male. LinkedIn’s employee base is only 3 percent Hispanic and 1 percent black.
That’s all in spite of the fact that the U.S. population will soon be more diverse than ever: Census data suggests there will be no ethnic majority in the next 10 to 30 years.
So, how can HR leaders address this problem? As Joan C. Williams writes, “When an organization lacks diversity, it’s not the employees who need fixing. It’s the business systems.”
There are many emerging strategies to increase diversity and eliminate bias in organizations — including several focused on using big data to tackle the problem. Let’s take a look at one such data-based method: the “Interruption Strategy.”
The Interruption Strategy
In her Harvard Business Review article, “Hacking Tech’s Diversity Problem,” Williams introduces a new metric-based approach to increasing and retaining diverse employees in organizations. “The Interruption Strategy” aims to break what she calls the “diversity industrial complex” — the common approach of making a few token hires, implementing sensitivity training, creating mentoring programs and other similar vague changes. Rather than relying on conversations and extensive training, the Interruption Strategy is based on implementing “bias interrupters.”
Bias interrupters are things that change basic business systems in a way that stops a pattern of bias where it begins. Here, three steps your organization can take to implement the Interruption Strategy:
Step 1: Determine Whether There’s a Problem
Using a focus group, determine if minorities in your organization are facing common discrimination and biases. Are minorities hired at the same rate? Do they have equal pay to their majority counterparts? You should also run a data report on the state of diversity in your workforce: If, like LinkedIn, you run a data report showing that only 1 percent of your global workforce is black, then you have a diversity problem.
Step 2: Identify Key Metrics
Once you’ve identified a problem, you must identify your metrics. If you’re not sure where to start, take a look at these four things: how people are hired, how work is assigned, what happens during performance evaluations and how compensation is determined.
For example, you may look at your hiring practices and find that your minority applicant pool is significantly smaller than your competitor’s. Your key metric is now your minority applicant pool, and your next step is to experiment with different ways to interrupt the process leading to such a small applicant pool: How can you expand your recruiting reach? Is something preventing minorities from considering your organization a desired place to work?
Step 3: Experiment, Measure Success and Keep Trying
Once you have determined a point of bias and related key metrics, it’s time to experiment. Come up with a bias interrupter, try it out and measure the results. If it wasn’t successful, try something else. If it was moderately successful, look at what led to its success and optimize your strategy.
To continue with the applicant pool example above, what basic business system can you change in an attempt to attract more minority applicants? Look at how job postings are written. Is it possible that changing the tone or language could remove a barrier for minority applicants? For example, when giving an overview of the organizational culture, do you mention a commitment to creating a work environment that reflects the community in which it is located? Is your organization committed to celebrating the uniqueness of each employee?
Long term, the Interruption Strategy can be used on a continuous basis to ferret out instances of bias that are preventing organizations from reflecting the diverse U.S. population. With a creative and focused team, various metrics can be tested, and the blockades of bias that minorities face in the workplace will begin to crumble
Organizational culture can be seen as a “personality” created by the organization’s values, attitudes and behaviors. This “personality” attracts and keeps great talent, creates a positive public image and helps build long-lasting relationships with stakeholders, vendors and customers.
But a good organizational culture doesn’t spring up out of serendipity. It requires intentional and thoughtful identification of the core values the organization is built upon. Last month, I discussed how strong personal values can direct your organization in a positive direction, but it’s also important to identify values for the whole team .
Here, six steps to identifying those organizational values and building a strong company culture:
1) Assess Your Current Organizational Culture
First, take a benchmark of your current culture. To do this, you need to truly assess where your company stands—not what you think it represents or what you want it to represent, but what impression the current brand truly gives off. What do people say about your organization, both externally and internally?
To figure out your organizational identity, interview vendors, clients, employees and your leadership team—either in focus groups or via an online survey. Ask them what words they would use to describe what’s important to the organization and how effective the organization is at putting those values into action.
2) Review Your Strategic Business Plan
Next, think about your company’s future. Where does your organization want to be in one, three or five years?
Since your corporate culture is closely tied to your business strategy, it’s important to define where you’re headed early on the values process . Meet with your executive team to figure out a plan for revenue, growth, staff, productions and expansion.
3) Determine the Culture Needed to Achieve Your Plan
Now that you have a clear picture of what your organizational culture is today, and where you want your organization to be in the next one to five years, it’s time to look at your organizational values in this context.
Review your strategic plan and answer this question: “In order for us to get from point A to point B, what organizational culture do we need to achieve?” Consider the variety of personalities, backgrounds, skills and education you want to have on your team.
For example, some of Starbucks’ core values are diversity, customer service and quality products. When you walk into a Starbucks store, you know you can expect a diverse staff, happy clientele and delicious drinks.
4) Decide If Your Values Need to Shift
Now that you know the culture and the talent you need, you can start to finalize your new—or revised—set of values. Take a look at your initial survey or focus group results, and decide if those are the values needed to reach your strategic goals. One tool that can be tremendously helpful is a pack of Values Cards.
You can put them on a conference table, and let the executive team start picking the ones they identify with the company. Or you can pick a few values, and explain why you think they are the most relevant to your organization’s mission.
5) Define What Your Chosen Values Really Mean
An organizational value is not just a word painted on the wall. It must be clear what specific behaviors and processes the employee is supposed to do at work to honor this value.
For example, if your organization values loyalty, who does this loyalty refer to? Does “loyalty” mean the client comes first? Does it mean your team comes first? What about loyalty to your boss? Members of the organization should have a clear understanding of how to put each value into action.
6) Incorporate These Values into Organizational Processes
Finally, your newly defined values will need to be integrated in all operational areas, including the talent lifecycle. During recruiting and hiring, ask candidates about their own values and reiterate values in employee contracts. Within on-boarding and employee development, align your values with performance reviews and compensation.
A solid foundation of values for your organization will not only help you hire the right people, but also build an organization culture that’s engaging, genuine and most of all, impactful.
Employee engagement may be the latest HR buzzword, but that doesn’t mean you should ignore it as a fad. With only 13 percent of employees engaged at work around the world, the majority of employers have a lot of room to improve — and positively impact the bottom line while they’re at it.
A recent report from Dale Carnegie found that companies in the United States with engaged employees outperform those without by up to 202 percent. Similarly, according to Gallup, organizations with high engagement levels also report 22 percent higher productivity.
Of course, there’s no lack of advice on how to join this club of highly engaged and high performing organizations, but I think any engagement effort comes down to a crucial foundation: your values.
As a company leader, in HR or at the executive level, strong personal values allow you to guide the organization in a positive and genuine direction. And when your organization demonstrates strong values, then you will begin to naturally attract and hire employees who share and aspire to the same values. Building a culture of purpose and engaging employees still takes significant time and strategy, but finding the right kind of people to work at your organization is a crucial part of starting this journey.
How to Define Your Values
If “values” seem like a vague concept to you, let me put it this way: What defines you at your core? It’s not an easy question to answer — and it shouldn’t be. Over the years, I’ve found that this five-step exercise can provide an inspirational start:
1) Identify a peak moment in your life
Can you recall a moment where your life couldn’t get any better? When everything felt aligned? It may have even felt like the best day of your life. Now, describe this peak moment in detail. If you are working on this exercise alone, write the description. If you are doing this with someone, talk about this moment for 2-3 minutes while the other person takes notes.
For example, one of my peak moments was taking leaders on Safaris for the Soul in Africa. I loved watching the leaders grow during the two-week program and hearing the wildlife sounds.
2) Discuss the values exemplified in this moment
Why do you remember this moment so clearly and fondly? Think about why it stands out to you as a defining experience in your life: Was it the place? People? Activity?
There were three things that contributed most profoundly to my peak moment: being outdoors, working with people to develop their potential and being adventurous.
3) Pick the most important value out of your list
Remember that your values apply to both your personal and professional worlds — pick one value from your list that you think is particularly important to you in any context.
For example, I would choose “adventurous.”
4) Define what the chosen value or values mean to you
Why did you choose this value out of all of the ones you listed? In what other ways have you displayed or followed this value in your life? This should be a personal description — so don’t worry about creating a “dictionary” definition that could work for everyone.
In my mind, for example, “adventurous” means choosing an unconventional path, trying lots of new things, going to new places, exploring options and tinkering with ideas to find solutions.
5) Choose a value name that resonates with YOU
Your value doesn’t necessarily have to be one word — it could be two words, or a short phrase. Think of what name exemplifies your value. It could be the original word you wrote on the list, or a brand new one.
Most people would simply call the value I identified “adventurous.” However, the word adventurous doesn’t resonate with me — instead, the name “wind in your face” is much more memorable.
After walking through these five steps and coming to a clear value, go back to step one using the same or different peak moments until you’ve identified five or so core values.
Putting Your Values to Practice
As a leader, it’s especially important that you exemplify these values in the workplace and use them to guide your business decisions. You need to walk the talk.
Before you make an important decision, review your list of values and consider how your potential courses of action align with each of your values on a scale of 1-10 (1 being not aligned at all). When you’re done, you want at least an average of 7 — less than that likely means the course you’re considering will not only lead you astray, but your company as well.
By integrating your personal values into all aspects of business, you will begin to direct the company in a more thoughtful manner and encourage your colleagues to do the same. I also highly recommend working through the values exercise with your leadership team, even if you’ve already done it alone. By helping each member of the team find his or her individual values, you will move toward remedying the colossal lack of engagement in today’s workforce.
It started with persistent fevers. Then there was night after night of insomnia. On top of that, I was completely unable to focus on my work. I went to see my doctor expecting to walk out of the office with some antibiotics, or at the least, a reassurance that I’d feel better soon.
Instead, my doctor said matter-of-factly, “It’s menopause.”
I was confused, as it was the last thing I expected to hear. But I was also angry. Why? My symptoms made it extremely difficult to work—and, according to my doctor, I was experiencing light symptoms. I wondered, how are millions of women in the workforce dealing with symptoms worse than these on a daily basis? Why isn’t this issue addressed in HR policy? Why aren’t leaders talking about this regularly?
The Facts
First, let’s take a quick look at the sheer magnitude of the workforce impacted by menopause. More than 27 million women between the ages of 45 and 64—which comprises 20 percent of the American workforce—experience menopause each year. By 2018, this number is predicted to rise to 31 million. Symptoms can last between two and ten years, and it’s possible for symptoms to start as early as 35 years of age, before officially reaching menopause.
When going through menopause, women experience hot flashes, headaches, insomnia, loss of energy, anxiety attacks, brain fog, aches and pains, and dry skin and eyes. This translates to 20 percent of the workforce potentially coming to work with little sleep, intermittent headaches, and an achy body.
Yet, somehow, discussing policies around menopause—or even mentioning it—is taboo in the workplace. The British Occupational Health Research Foundation found that 20 percent of women believe menopause has had a negative impact on their managers’ and colleagues’ perceptions of their competence. The University of Nottingham found that many women don’t even want to disclose the issue to their manager, particularly if the manager is younger (male or female).
It’s time to bring menopause to the table, in order to benefit both those experiencing menopause and the organizations that employ them.
Five Menopause Policies Every Employer Should Have
1. Educate Management
This is a no-brainer that often goes overlooked. Managers should know the symptoms and challenges women face during menopause, so employees feel comfortable disclosing their experiences and managers can approach the situation knowledgeably.
2. Offer Support
Appoint a person (or a few) to act as advocates for women in the workplace going through menopause. This person should know about any special absence allowances, related wellness programs and flex policies. They should also speak to leadership or management on behalf of women if needed/requested.
Alternatively or in conjunction with an internal advocate, you can offer a wellness hotline which provides access to coaches, dietitians, and other advisors for women experiencing menopause.
3. Expand Benefit Programs
Many women are looking to alternative therapies for managing menopausal symptoms such as acupuncture, Chinese medicine and bio-identical hormone replacement. Though women often see significant improvements from these treatments, paying out of pocket for integrative health treatments can be cost prohibitive. Including these options as part of a benefits package would enable more women to seek treatments.
Organizations can also add sick day policies that cater to menopause-related sickness or absence. Women should experience no disadvantage if they need time off during this time.
4. Include Menopause Activities or Speakers in Wellness Weeks
When organization host a “wellness week”, they often bring in yoga instructors, massage therapists, nutritionists, chefs specializing in healthy meals and more. Why not add a component to the wellness week that addresses menopause? Some possibilities are a yoga instructor who can offer poses and breathing exercises particularly for women in this group, a dietician to recommend the best diet for symptoms or a funny speaker to “break the ice” on the topic while educating the team.
5. Allow Flexible Schedules When Needed
If a woman is struggling to sleep or feels nauseous at work, a flexible schedule or work from home policies can help tremendously by letting her work and manage her symptoms. As long as she is still being productive and delivering results, it shouldn’t matter if she’s not in the office at 8am or needs to take a work from home day once in a while.
I hope leaders will take a serious look at the reality women face in the workplace when experiencing menopausal symptoms, and truly consider how they can mitigate the inherent challenges. By implementing these tips, leaders have a real opportunity to make a positive impact on how we provide for women’s health and productivity.
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