ReImagine Work

DECEMBER 8, 2016

I was sitting in the waiting room at my doctor’s office. A twenty-something woman was at the desk making her next appointment for a checkup. She said it had to be at the beginning or end of the day because of her job. She must have been acquainted with the person behind the desk because they asked what she was working at. She responded that she was (I didn’t hear it), even though she double-majored in journalism and communications, minoring in business.

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ReImagine Work

DECEMBER 7, 2016

Forbes, Jan. 13, 2017 : “ Empathy is the ability to understand another person’s perspective, even when that perspective is quite different from your own. More than just a buzz word, empathy may be key to helping businesses grow — allowing leaders to relate to people and ideas around them. How might leaders work on developing empathy either on their own or with the support of their company?

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ReImagine Work

DECEMBER 5, 2016

It can be frustrating when you’re waiting for a response from someone, and they’re not meeting your self-selected timeline. You may need an answer, but don’t make things worse in the process. A friend of mine has started dating again. She had a first date. She and her date exchanged a few texts the week afterward. She’s comfortable with digital communication and the unspoken protocol.

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ReImagine Work

NOVEMBER 15, 2016

Forbes, Oct. 24, 2016 : “In a recent survey of thousands of workers across the U.S., 70% reported working more than 40 hours a week and feeling burned out. While everyone experiences daily stress in some form, when it is severe enough and doesn’t let up, burnout is the result. Some learn to live with the feeling of burnout, but the implications of this on your physical and mental health are pressing and real.

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ReImagine Work

NOVEMBER 10, 2016

It doesn’t really matter what phase of your career you are in. There are any number of reasons you can feel like things aren’t quite bad enough to make a change. But you’re tired of dreading work. There’s an annoying discomfort setting in. What should you do? Short of taking a bigger step than you’re ready for, here are some approaches that can bring you some relief. 1.

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ReImagine Work

OCTOBER 4, 2016

Forbes, Sept. 28, 2016: “Many people end up with jobs and lives they didn’t expect. If you’re unhappy with the direction your career has taken, however, not all is lost — changing your circumstances can start with a simple mindset shift. We asked Forbes Coaches Council to provide one tip for achieving greater alignment between your passion and your daily work, especially considering that competition is often fierce and you may be forced to take a job you didn’t plan for… [ Their be

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ReImagine Work

SEPTEMBER 27, 2016

Forbes, Sept. 19, 2016. “In light of more saturated markets and higher competition, the job application process is changing. If you’re a job seeker using traditional methods of finding a job, you may be left wondering why hiring managers aren’t calling you back. Are you using E-notes? Are you using social media? Are you seeking out informational interviews?

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ReImagine Work

SEPTEMBER 21, 2016

Forbes, Sept. 14, 2016 : “Understanding the unique strengths of your team is the surest way to both help your company achieve its larger goals and help employees feel engaged and motivated. But understanding each individual’s strength is a practice in psychology that involves empowering and aligning talent with work opportunities. We asked 13 professional coaches of Forbes Coaches Council how leaders can incorporate a strength-based approach to their management style.

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ReImagine Work

SEPTEMBER 15, 2016

Thanks Dana Theus for featuring my post, How to Give Feedback by Asking Questions , on your EQ at work channel. The post Featured at InPower Coaching: Giving feedback by asking questions appeared first on Mary Schaefer, empowerment authority, coach & trainer for those in engineering, scientific & IT-related positions.

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ReImagine Work

SEPTEMBER 14, 2016

This week I’m making a big ask of a long-time friend. When I talked my plan over with another friend, she asked, “What if he says no? Will it damage your relationship?”. My answer is no. I’m prepared for any answer from him. And I’m going to tell him that. The times I’ve been at peace asking for a favor have been the times when I was not attached to the outcome.

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ReImagine Work

SEPTEMBER 8, 2016

Have you seen headlines like these? “5 ways to boost employee engagement with video.” “Want increased employee engagement? Incentives and recognition are the way to go.” “Struggling to find the time for employee engagement? Our e-learning technology preserves your time as a leader and increases employee engagement by 50%.” There’s a place for videos, recognition programs and incentives.

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ReImagine Work

SEPTEMBER 7, 2016

Forbes, Aug. 29, 2016 : “Many people stay in professions they are unhappy in because making a change feels too difficult; there simply isn’t time to muster up the energy required. “Not having time” then becomes an excuse for when making a change simply feels riskier than staying in a known situation. However, a change doesn’t have to be something that happens all at once.

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ReImagine Work

SEPTEMBER 6, 2016

September 5, 2016 : “At a time when our nation is gearing up for major elections, many people claim to have what it takes to lead. It can be challenging to sort out what they mean versus what they will actually do. We appreciate this set of posts ; each one carries a nugget of something a leader can actually do in order to lead well. The Lead Change Group would like to thank Coaches Training Institute (CTI) for sponsoring the Lead Change Group (including this carnival) for September 2016.

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ReImagine Work

AUGUST 24, 2016

Forbes, July 22, 2016 : “E-learning serves a purpose. Live training has its place. Yet there is one key factor in your employees’ development for which there is no substitute — you. . As more and more companies move toward more frequent coaching and feedback versus annual performance reviews, your role is more important than ever.” Click here to learn more about the important role you play as a manager of people, without making your job harder.

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ReImagine Work

AUGUST 22, 2016

Forbes, August 10, 2016: “Values-based decision making means understanding what is most important to you and then incorporating this into your life on a daily basis. Knowing exactly what you believe also helps you make the decisions that naturally lead to a more fulfilling career. But how can you adjust your priorities in order to shift to this approach?

Career 100

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ReImagine Work

AUGUST 14, 2016

Mary Schaefer at InPower Coaching blog, August 10, 2016 : “Do the words “fresh start” come to mind as a new school term approaches? What would a fresh start mean for you at work? At the start of the school term, students often get a list of what to pull together and how to prepare. We as adults at work need to take a look at that for ourselves.

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ReImagine Work

AUGUST 10, 2016

You have a lot on your plate. It seems like everyone wants everything at once. Others don’t communicate at all. You need someone to help you prioritize and to support your decisions, but your manager is nowhere to be found. If you’ve tried to reach out to your manager, but he or she seems to be unavailable — indefinitely — you might have a “pretend manager.” Click here to read the rest of my post at my column at CIO Online.

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ReImagine Work

AUGUST 3, 2016

Forbes, Aug. 3, 2016: “Culture has a significant influence on the decision-making process in any organization. When ethical responsibility becomes part of the culture, companies see huge benefits — a stronger reputation, higher employee retention, more interest from investors, and general trustworthiness. But what can a company do to excel ethically, to best communicate its corporate values to employees so that they act in accordance with its values?

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ReImagine Work

JULY 19, 2016

[link]. (First 24 minutes). “No one wants to feel dispensable or replaceable at work. Sometimes it feels like you are treated as an interchangeable part versus a human being. What would it be like to work in an organization that remembers you are human and in fact supports it? A number of organizations have created cultures that serve both the needs of human beings who happen to be employees and serve the bottom line.

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ReImagine Work

JULY 13, 2016

Assertiveness and empowerment can cause real problems when overused or applied out of context. They become maladaptive responses — just like anything taken to its extreme. Does this influence the effectiveness and maturity of your leadership? An epidemic of entitlement, irresponsibility and self-absorption. Can you relate? Coworkers can’t make decisions.

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ReImagine Work

JULY 11, 2016

Forbes, July 6, 2016: Performance feedback is something everyone gets nervous about —leaders and team members alike. Often, this is because leaders don’t communicate well enough or put enough time or energy into making the review useful to everyone. However, the process doesn’t have to be uncomfortable. Providing feedback to others is a skill that requires tact and finesse.

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ReImagine Work

JULY 7, 2016

Old habits die hard. Sometimes they over-complicate our days because we don’t take the time to look at them. Real professionals look at the little things and how they can leverage them for big results. Do you start the day turning off the alarm on your smartphone and immediately looking at your email or texts? Do you have a hard time enjoying time-off because of the pile of work you will face when you return?

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ReImagine Work

JULY 3, 2016

Forbes, June 30, 2016: No one likes meetings for the sake of meetings. They disrupt workflow and leave you with the feeling that the organizer doesn’t appreciate your time. This begs the question, what can leaders do to run more engaging, effective meetings? When you take the time to make meetings useful to those attending, engagement happens naturally.

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ReImagine Work

JUNE 15, 2016

Forbes, May 26, 2016 : “Time pressure may cause professionals to work more to accomplish their daily responsibilities. Oftentimes, this means rushing too quickly from task to task. This can make it especially challenging to be fully present with what we are doing, especially if the previous task was stressful. How do we fully “show up,” then, when the last task is still fresh in our minds?

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ReImagine Work

JUNE 14, 2016

“You may interpret the phrase “pro-employee” any number of ways. It could be about being on the list of top companies to work for. Maybe it’s about working effectively with unions or being union-free. It could be about benefits, vacation time, flexible work hours, or on-site day care. All of these things can affect your employees positively and improve your return to investors, as can other approaches.

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ReImagine Work

JUNE 13, 2016

Do your job candidates and new hires feel welcome? What are you communicating to them with your brand? From Jobjet, May 31, 2016: Recruiting with Glassdoor is a recruitment strategy topic we’ve explored at length for the last few weeks here at the Runway. After finding some great recruiting best practices and HR insights , it’s been a really educational experience… Before wrapping up our Glassdoor series next week, we wanted to condense some of the “floating” pieces of information that has

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ReImagine Work

JUNE 12, 2016

Forbes, June 8, 2016: Gone are the days of the “untouchable” CEO. Today, in order to be most effective, CEOs must make communication a top priority. Keeping management in the loop, whether you’re involved in an acquisition, a restructure or a crisis of sorts, is the key to getting through any challenge. Unfortunately, it’s easy for leaders to default to poor communication, especially when there’s a problem… 10 coaches [including Mary] from Forbes Coaches Council share their insights i

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ReImagine Work

JUNE 9, 2016

An employee walked into my office. He said, “Don’t you think we’re going to have another restructuring, if you read between the lines?” He then asked me to read an email from our CEO he had printed out. I had not seen it yet so I read through it. The tone of the note was a little perplexing. The last paragraph in particular grabbed my attention. It was 1997 and I remember this line word for word.

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ReImagine Work

JUNE 7, 2016

As an IT professional, Mary loved figuring out when things went wrong; it was like figuring out a puzzle. But her favorite thing was helping others learn new things and flourish at work. She went into HR so people could have at least one person in HR they could expect to be “human.”. After experiencing her 8th downsizing, she left DuPont in her 20th year there, concluding her corporate career as an HR manager.

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ReImagine Work

MAY 22, 2016

Do Your Motivations Undermine Your Ability to Lead? Quoted from my post: “The CEO’s comments described what motivated him, or other executives. He didn’t have a clue about what motivated the majority of employees. What’s the problem with that? The problem is this person and his compatriots made decisions that affected my life and the lives of tens of thousands of other people.

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ReImagine Work

MAY 9, 2016

Forbes, May 5, 2016 : “ It’s not always easy to ask for employee feedback , especially if you don’t have an effective method for doing so. If your voice says one thing, but your body language says the opposite, for instance, employees may not be inclined to be honest with you. Most employees want to be heard. In fact, giving them the opportunity to contribute will help them invest personal stake in the company.

Management 100

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ReImagine Work

MAY 4, 2016

Forbes online, May 4, 2016: “It’s easy to misinterpret what other people say and do, but this can lead to internal conflicts. A team that spends a lot of time dealing with misunderstandings loses valuable time devoted to being productive. Correcting a misunderstanding is much harder than learning to think before acting. When in control of your reactions, you can better evaluate current situations, see better solutions, and establish rapport with other employees.” Click here to see wh

Engineering 100

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ReImagine Work

APRIL 27, 2016

21 Brilliant Training Resources to Turbo Charge Your HR Career – Justin Dennis, Jobjet. Thanks to Justin Dennis for including my TEDx talk (Putting the Human Back into Human Resources ) among resources like Daniel Pink’s books, in his article over at Jobjet. Over the past few years, online learning has skyrocketed. With it, hundreds of training websites and learning resources have sprung up for just about every topic imaginable, human resources included.

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ReImagine Work

APRIL 25, 2016

“But if we just give her a chance…” In his article, “The Seduction of Potential,” (HR Magazine May 2009) Keith Rosen talks about talks about why we are seduced by underperformers. We think that if we just give underperformers a little more time, they will realize their potential. We think this even when we have little evidence of improvement.

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ReImagine Work

APRIL 22, 2016

What IS a “pro-employee” organization. How about a “pro-human” workplace? Learn about this and more as Dana Theus, myself and others talk about this on Dana’s Coffee Break show. In our discussion, we covered topics like the bottom line impact of employee engagement and disengagement, when business IS personal, what being human at work means, bullying and character-based leadership among other things in our 31 short minutes.

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ReImagine Work

APRIL 20, 2016

So fun being interviewed by Kathryn Kemp-Guylay, host of the Workplace Wellness Hour for KDPI FM on putting the human back into human resources. We covered topics like employee engagement, employee disengagement, work culture, employee satisfaction surveys, character-based leadership and examples of grassroots efforts to improve work culture. All in 30 minutes!

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ReImagine Work

APRIL 19, 2016

“As an HR manager, it’s amazing what people will tell you. Sometimes when a promotion notice was posted, employees would seek me out and ask, “How did that happen???”. It was particularly perplexing when the person in question was observed to be more talk than action. Or… I often thought to myself, “Because he or she is willing to do it when no one else is.

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