Winnie Linker, Author at Kooy Communications

Learn about the top 4 areas of changing HR Law

September 18, 2017 By Winnie Linker

Look at the beautiful boats and gorgeous water – I could watch this view for hours. No, I’m not on holiday in the Caribbean; this is the view from the Waterfront Banquet and Conference Centre on the Hamilton Waterfront!

Being at this venue is always a treat for me, and today I had the opportunity to join an HRPA Hamilton Chapter update seminar expertly given by Natasha Savoline, a lawyer with Bernardi Human Resources Law Firm.

There is a lot happening in the world of Human Resources. Although my practice focuses on organizational development and culture, I take every opportunity to remain current with all of the legal changes that help me do my work well. Check out this link for my other blogs and areas where I can help you with your HR challenges! http://kooycommunications.com/

Today’s agenda was very ambitious, and Natasha made her presentation very relevant and interesting through the use of case studies. These will be the 4 key areas for HR practitioners to pay attention to in the coming year, and below I have summarized the main points from each of her key areas.

High-Risk Terminations

Always a hot topic, and helpful to understand changes in case law. When dealing with a high-risk termination the Employment Standards Act does provide minimum guidelines. However, employers need to ensure that they take enough time to assess the situation, not act impulsively and provide employees with enough notice time. Employers should consider providing generous termination packages and having standards aligned with common law. This will be helpful for employees at their most difficult time. This can also help eliminate costly and time-consuming legal cases such as wrongful termination and punitive damages, which will be lessened with a good package. In the end, employers need to take the time to evaluate the situation from both perspectives, and assess what may be gained by terminating the employee and whether the benefits outweigh the associated risks.

Mental Stress Claims & WSIB: The Law is Changing

Beginning in 2018, WSIB will introduce benefits related to chronic or traumatic mental stress, which may be from bullying or harassment. Entitlement will be based on evidence and also a diagnosis, but certainly, this is a welcomed change which will recognize mental health issues as well as physical health issues.

Employer’s Duty to Accommodate medicinal marijuana

With changing legislation and societal views, it is anticipated that there will be an increased use of medicinal marijuana in the workplace. Employees will be looking for accommodation, and employers need to be prepared.

This has received a lot of attention because many people have preconceived ideas around the word “marijuana”, but the accommodation of medicinal marijuana in the workplace needs to be accommodated and managed like any other medical prescription in the workplace.

There are still a lot of issues to be worked out, such as how to determine whether an employee’s judgment is impaired through the use of marijuana. Currently, there is no way to measure the level of influence and employers can’t assume impairment just because it is marijuana. Bottom line is, employers need to update their policies to accommodate use as the law evolves, and ensure that it is managed like any other prescription in the workplace.

Managing Social Media in the Workplace

This is not a new issue, but it is a growing fact of work life. It’s estimated that the vast percentage of employees use social media throughout the day during work hours. Employers need to recognize this as a growing trend. If employers find misuse of social media, they will need to investigate this similar to any other abuse of the workplace agreements. Again, it is important that employers have a social media policy which outlines terms of usage and ensures that employees know that if they use social media during work hours that there can be no expectation of privacy. Employers can advise employees to keep personal and work accounts totally separate to ensure privacy. In regards to off-duty conduct, employees can be found guilty of a number of infractions, particularly if they conduct activities which cause detriment to their employer’s business. However, again, employers need to ensure that they have clear policies in place regarding social media use both in the workplace and around off-duty conduct.

How to master politics at work

August 10, 2017 By Winnie Linker

Politics at work can be stressful, and it can be a source of conflict among staff. Changing how you think about politics and your approach at work can help you be more successful. This article will highlight the 5 key questions to help you assess your work culture, and how you can best jump in to contribute and develop work your community.

Politics is frustrating because we might feel manipulated, or we don’t want to manipulate others. People at work seem to use it to get the upper hand, seemingly at the expense of others or the organization. It’s true that politics ‘out of control’ can create a negative environment and ruin our work and working relationships. At its worst, politics can take over entire workplaces in situations – think of major change or mergers that have gone wrong, where worried and stressed employees can spend all of their time planning, sharing information, and just trying to survive.

Politics is about gaining information and power at any level to make decisions for things or people. I suggest that another way to look at politics is a form of ‘stakeholder analysis’ – be aware of the people that we work with and how they might respond to other ideas or people. To master politics, it is first important that we are aware of people, assess the situation, and then plan our approach, and level of effort. Think about their interests, issues that they care about, and their goals. The good news is that we already know how to do this, in many different situations both at work and outside of work.

For example, would you plan a wedding or dinner seating arrangement without assessing who is coming? And when purchasing a home, your negotiation is probably based on who the sellers are, and their motivation. You typically want information to know why they want to sell, are they desperate, or whether there are multiple offers, which will all affect your offer strategy.

Work is a huge part of our lives, and it makes sense that politics is an essential component of all aspects of work. This includes competing for raises and promotions with other colleagues and making proposals for limited resources for projects, technology, and improvements. And, many times it is how ideas and proposals are presented, and how the support of colleagues is positioned that determines whether that idea will be recognized.

We need to be aware of ‘politics’ to succeed in our careers, and no one will be exempt from managing in this area, although for some it may come more naturally than others. How we look at politics is key to how we manage and our ultimate success. Building a mini cultural map of the organizational decision-making can help you in your plans to assess the organizational politics, and how you may fit into that.

Some questions to help build your map include:

Who are the decision-makers in the organization?
Who are the informal leaders and influencers, both formal and informal, to the key decision-makers?
How does real information flow, i.e. is it transparent through specific processes or is it through specific individuals, or other means
What behavior is rewarded? This may be aligned with the stated values, or it may be outside of the stated values
Where are the conflict situations between individuals and groups and why

Having this information is a very important part of understanding how the organization really operates, beneath the published strategic plans, vision statements, and organizational structures. Use this information to plan how you will fit into the organization, and how you will build your networks and communities which you will need to build your reputation, and gain the confidence of peers and superiors.

However, when it is all said and done, and you have completed your map, developed a range of relationships, and still don’t feel that there is a fit between you and the organization, sometimes even managing the politics won’t work. This could be for a number of reasons, and most fit issues are related to culture fit. The benefits of a stakeholder analysis or mini cultural map are that they will help you identify very quickly, how to plan and approach your impact at work.

Contact me at Winnie@kooycommunications.com to set up a complimentary call to discuss how we might work together.

Use these 3 questions to get top talent

July 11, 2017 By Winnie Linker

Recruiting, interviewing and hiring – THE key steps in business success-read these tips on how to get it right the first time, with 3 questions to get your top talent!

Recruiting takes a huge amount of energy – no matter what size organization you are, small, large or in between. There are lots of people involved, and it takes tons of time. And, it can be frustrating to be on interview panels, the questions are rigid, and there may be very little room to voice concerns, or even ask candidates to expand on answers.

What is the answer, and why is it so hard to get the right candidates? Research has shown that for most potential hires, past success does not always predict future success. As much as organizations have tried to nail down processes, this is another area in business which just can’t be definitively categorized.

A potential candidate’s past success is based on so many connected variables. Some of the key areas that impact success include culture – how we behave in organizations, the timing of projects, colleagues we work with, communications style, personal life, health, strategy, management mix, and organizational structure. There are many more areas both internal and external to companies that together, impact results a single individual’s results.

Among candidates, the top variables that really make a difference are attitude and potential. You may assume that the behavioral questions typically used at interviews try to get at these two key areas, but they usually miss their mark. Most questions focus on how a person has reacted in the past or might react in the future to certain situations. But again, because of the complex areas that impact success, performance in one organization may not transfer to another organization. And, situations may not be directly comparable.

If you are an interviewer, it may seem easier and quicker to go along with the questions prepared for you. But to really provide value, make a difference, and save time by getting the right hire, spend some time to review the questions ahead of time, and absolutely push to include some questions about attitude and potential. This will definitely need some persuasion and influence to change, and the key questions below can help make these changes happen quickly. Check out my article on change for some great tips on making change happen. change http://kooycommunications.com/transformational-change-succeeds/

To get to attitude, it is important to understand some of the applicant values and how are they aligned with the organization.

To get to potential, find out what drives the candidate, what are some of their struggles, and how were they resolved. What are some goals and how are they aligned with the company?

Here are the top 3 strategic questions for potential hires.

How do you deal with conflict – explore a real life situation? This is a great topic for follow-up questions to highlight personal style and compatibility with the company.
How do you communicate – explore the applicant’s relationship with colleagues and boss – how is information shared? What did you like best about your boss? How did you receive feedback and how did you respond?
In what culture do you thrive best – explore key situations about past jobs that describe how the applicant fits into the culture. Some areas include leading projects, managing change, and innovation.

Contact me at winnie@kooycommunications.com to set up a complimentary call to discuss how we might work together.

How to succeed at Transformational Change

April 6, 2017 By Winnie Linker

Constant change is common and we adjust almost without thinking about the change. It happens in everything we do and experience, every single day. It happens in our homes, in our communities, in our shopping experience, and in our work environments. Think of traffic patterns, new products, contacts, and you can think of hundreds more that happen daily. We are experts at adapting to small, incremental change.

But, transformational change is different – it is the holy grail of change. It’s a 180 shift that changes our thinking, behaviors, the way we see ourselves and others. We are so comfortable adapting to change in all aspects of our lives, but what is it about transformational change that is so hard? In an organization, transformational change is generally a broad change that affects the services, structure, and culture. For example, a move to deliver services online as opposed to in a specific location is a big transformational change which can improve services and cut costs. Sounds great in theory, but on the ground, transformational change is scary because it can affect our job, we may feel threatened with new technology, or new colleagues who may be threatening. Change affects our deeply held beliefs about how work should flow, how we structure our information, how we interact with each other, and how we communicate. As a result, transformational change can make us fearful, affect our self-confidence, sense of worth, and ability to operate and function effectively.

I learned so much from managing change, and over time, started to see patterns of what really worked to help the change stick. The key is to focus, and never lose sight of the people impact of change. It is not enough to show the great cost benefits, time savings, and happy customers. And sure, all the other tools to help manage the change including project management, timelines, new processes, and new technology need to be appropriately managed. But the key is in the ‘how’ the change is planned and managed with the people impacted. Leaders of change always need to position the change by considering the impact to the people who are most directly impacted. There are 5 key components that need to be in place and managed for transformational change to succeed, and I have described these below with the focus on the people impact. I am not advocating that complex transformational change can or should be condensed to a 5 step checklist. These 5 pieces though, are absolutely key to help you start to involve and think about the people involved, and this will give you a greater chance for project success!

But the key is in the ‘how’ the change is planned and managed with the people impacted. Leaders of change always need to position the change by considering the impact to the people who are most directly impacted. There are 5 key components that need to be in place and managed for transformational change to succeed, and I have described these below with the focus on the people impact. I am not advocating that complex transformational change can or should be condensed to a 5 step checklist. These 5 pieces though, are absolutely key to help you start to involve and think about the people involved, and this will give you a greater chance for project success!

Reason. Change needs a reason and needs to be aligned with the organization’s vision and values. People need to understand, and ‘buy in’ and see themselves in the bigger vision before the full impacts of the change will be absorbed and championed. Leaders need to take the time to understand the change before taking any action – ask questions, read, meet with decision makers. You need to really know what is happening and why before you can lead the change or effectively explain it to staff, partners and others with whom you work. People will want to know how it impacts them before they can even consider contributing to the organizational and process changes needed for success.
Together. People from all across the organization and sometimes outside of the organization need to be involved in the planning and co-creating of the new structure and details of the roadmap of how to get there – the ‘change plan’. A huge part of the change is the change process itself and impact of that process on people. This critical start, can either build a negative momentum or a positive momentum of change. A ‘fake’ change, or change that is not seen to address the real issues that have been identified and solutions planned collaboratively, or that does not reflect the organizational vision or culture is quickly and easily recognized by staff.
Change Strategy. Change can create chaos, fear, and paralysis. A change strategy that is developed in a collaborative environment, and involves employees and key stakeholders well planned and communicated change strategy clarifies the roadmap, ensures key actions are planned and completed, and establishes a governance structure. Organizations often have consultants lead major change projects, where outside expertise can help with change momentum. Makes sense – a roadmap showing a plan, with dates, results, who will be involved, and what information will be available helps put the change into perspective.
Environment. Leaders start the discussion and create space for change by communicating their support for the change process often and at different levels of the organization. Leaders need to be clear on the level of risk and parameters for the change so people are comfortable in how they can participate. They need to clarify to what extent the change is open for input, what is expected of them, and what they can expect to see happening. Creating an open environment where people know how to contribute, and know where to get clear information helps organizations develop a continuous change mindset.
Leadership. Consistent and visible support by leaders for the change is critical. People want to hear from leaders, to see how they are dealing with the change, and take cues from leader behaviors and communications. Leaders need to ensure that front line staff are involved and engaged, that they have opportunities to contribute to the assessment of the issues, and planning for the change. At a personal level, leaders need to understand that transformational change is not linear and will probably not be accepted at stage 1. They need to prepare to persevere and gain momentum with champions already moving forward. Leaders also need to be personally prepared for the change, specifically the time and emotional commitment, as leader capacity for change is a key component for transformational change.

Contact me at winnie@kooycommunications.com to set up a complimentary call about how we might work together.