Horizon Management Group - Human Resources

23/02/2022

***Are you ready?*** ...For Work from Home and Flexible Work Requests
Read more on Horizon's Flexible Working Support Pack

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The Victorian Government has announced a number of changes to pandemic orders and public health recommendations from 11:59 on Friday 25 February 2022.

One of the key ones affecting most workplaces will be that the recommendation for Victorians to work from home will be removed.

This transition (or not, as the case may be) has concerned many of our clients over recent months and we have been supporting them to have meaningful conversations with their staff to come to agreed arrangements that suit the organisation, the nature of the position and each individual staff member. Not having these arrangements solidified is a risk that's been carried by businesses for quite some time now and it needs to be managed, along with the other challenges.

For many, the workplace may have significantly changed over the last 2 years - as will have expectations. Expectations of both managers and their team members.

For example:
- Who expects to continue working from home (WFH) sometimes or at all times?
- What about those who want to walk their dog at lunchtime or pick up the kids from school?
- Do your leaders expect all of their teams to be “back on deck”, pronto?
- Which leaders believe they must approve all flexible working arrangement requests – or only those from parents, or full-time employees?
- Do all parties have to stick with an agreed arrangement, or can it be reviewed and altered?
- As a business, what do you need to document - and how?

Check out our latest newsletter (link in comments) on this topic that also provides an outline of our Flexible Working Support Pack.

Please get in touch via our website (horizonmg.com.au), you can send us a message on FB, or follow the link in the article.

17/12/2021

An interesting article on recent trends in tracking employee activity.

Do you trust your employees? If not, we've got bigger problems than just how to track their activity.

Can you tell what outputs your employees have produced by the end week, month, year? If not, there's potentially better ways of doing it than jumping straight to monitoring technologies...

Calls for regulators to control employers' powers

02/12/2021

Are you ready? Work From Home and Flexible Work requests.

For many, the workplace may have significantly changed over the last 18 months - as will have expectations. Expectations of both managers and their team members. Do you know how to navigate the changes in your workplace?

Please get in touch if you'd like some support - we're currently providing Flexible Working Support Packs to guide managers and staff through this process.

Nearly one in five Australian workers will continue working from home for at least some of the week after COVID restrictions ease, new research shows.

22/11/2021

As we emerge from this disrupted period of working with C-19, for many, the workplace may have changed significantly – as will have expectations. Expectations of both managers and their staff.

Who expects to continue WFH, sometimes or at all times? Who expects to be able to walk the dog at lunch or pick up kids from school? Which leaders expect all of their teams “back on deck” pronto? Which leaders believe they have to allow all requests for Flexible Work Arrangements – or only those from parents or FT staff? Do all parties have to stick with an agreed arrangement or can it be reviewed and altered? What do we need to document and how?

How can we manage this? Do we know what are the respective “rights” of employees and leaders? Do we understand the implications on productivity, customer service, staff development, safety and more? What are we “allowed” to do? In addition to “soft skills”, now is the time to also be aware of the legal framework.

As clarity emerges in how we can plan to deal with changes in expectations, we have been responding to client needs for guidance and have developed a Support Pack to help them understand the various responsibilities and navigate the legal requirements whilst continuing to provide safe workplaces. It takes into account the threat of the Great Resignation and reminds leaders to consider what they can do within the legal constraints to develop environments where good people want to stay and continuously improve their performance & satisfaction.

To learn more please get in touch - [email protected] (0438 534 421)

13/11/2021

We recently ran this poll asking 'When you do development planning with your team, which one of the below options do you place the most emphasis on?'

Thanks to everyone who participated. The results are interesting and not unusual.

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What would we suggest is the split?
At Horizon we believe they're all important.

*Demonstrated Strengths
Marcus Buckingham said it best when he urged us all to “Go put your strengths to work”. As managers we should all be focussing on what makes our team members feel strong, and finding opportunities and tasks where they can put these demonstrated strengths to work.

*Hidden Strengths
If a member of your team is unaware of a strength you have observed, share examples of where and how you have seen it demonstrated and what the impact was.

*Gaps
Any gaps identified by you or your team members also present opportunities for individual development – sometimes by growing new skills, sometimes by filling the gap with others’ strengths, sometimes by moving the gap elsewhere and redesigning things.

Look out for one of our upcoming newsletters where we'll be providing steps to identify and discuss strengths and development needs with your team members.

To sign up you can visit this link: https://horizonmg.com.au/newsletter

15/10/2021

When are you going to create your next opportunity to put this into action?

17/09/2021

Time for a good news story:

As we drag through this disrupted health and economic period, and international tensions escalate, we are sadly reminded of so many people and businesses doing it tough. How wonderful to read about an Australian success story with far reaching impact, reminding us that we can change the world. At Horizon, we are particularly thrilled as we use Canva and love it.

For older established companies, typically run by male baby boomers, the concept of a social licence is relatively new. Unintentionally, the story of Canva amounts to generational shaming.

10/09/2021

We're hearing there's a lot of flat teams out there at the moment. These lockdowns are hard, for everyone, in one way or another.

A recent article we wrote explores Motivation of our employees with some tips from the motivation module of our Management Development Program. We focus on a few principles that busy managers can start to employ to create environments in which their team members can motivate themselves.

At a most basic level, the reality is that you can’t motivate people (at least not in an enduring sense): people motivate themselves. But a critical part of our job as managers is to create an environment where employees can find motivation. We get it, this is made significantly harder with lockdowns but it doesn't remove the responsibility - it emphasises it!

The most common question businesses asked us during early Covid-19 times was: “How do I motivate my team during this very strange time?” Now, as we move towards living with coronavirus, we are being asked a new variant of the same question: “How do I motivate my team now that we’re trying to...

04/09/2021

“Do we really need to do this? Surely the current situation renders performance reviews unnecessary?”

This is a question we’ve been asked a lot recently. And our answers are: “Yes, you do” and “No, it doesn’t.”

Managers have a critical responsibility to connect with their team members - and the performance review process presents an enormous opportunity to do this.

In this post, we consider the eight excuses we regularly hear, the risks associated with each - along with the risk of poorly managing employee performance reviews.

However, it’s not all excuses; we also give you tips on how to minimise these risks to your business.

As disruption continues in many Covid affected workplaces we see many managers ignoring performance reviews - yet they are more important than ever. We share with you why performance reviews matter, and the 8 mistakes managers cannot make when approaching this important business function.

28/07/2021

So Covid happened…then Easter and Christmas still came along, every birthday, every work anniversary, and other life milestones be they happy or sad… BAS returns, Monthly Accounts, P&L, Cash Flow reports, Debtor Days, Stock Takes, EOFY…The cycle of events and good business practice continues and so should your employee performance review cycle.

It is not a one-off thing, it is a critical business process and it is not fair on anyone – managers, employees, the business or its shareholders – to bypass it. Nor is it prudent.

Hats off to those of have made it happen. And for anyone else, stop waiting for the perfect time. Recognition matters. If they don't get it from you, then they might go elsewhere to find it.

23/07/2021

If there's one thing NOT to do in your performance reviews this year…

it's giving a salary review letter to employees in the same meeting.

If you want to know why - please call me and I'd be happy to discuss!

0438 534 421
[email protected]

09/07/2021

Giving feedback and showing gratitude - Do we do it enough?

In our experience working with businesses and managers on a daily basis - probably not.

If we need convincing of the benefits - here is some research from Stanford referencing one of Adam Grant's experiments (link in comments).

It is also consistent with some other management techniques we’re fond of to improve the performance and satisfaction of your staff - catch people doing things right, and tell them!