Conferences | Talent Vanguard

Feb 3

Understanding Toxic Cultures

I had a whirlwind week, and a highlight was facilitating a fantastic panel discussion on toxic cultures at the Conference Board of Canada’s Corporate Culture Conference. This is a topic I’ve been asked to speak about a lot in the last year, and it always leads to interesting conversations after my session. It turns out that a lot of people have experienced a workplace they would describe as toxic at some point in their career.

Of course, “toxic” is a description of impact, not a diagnosis of an organization. I think it’s important to keep this distinction in mind, lest we assume that labeling it is the extent of analysis that’s required. Or, like the great philosopher Britney Spears, we decide that there’s no escape.

Jul 2

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Civility at Work: Should We Just Do It?

The costs of incivility in the workplace are easily felt, though perhaps harder to quantify. Calls for civility then, a common refrain lately in and out of the workplace, seem like common sense. But is that definitely the case?

Jun 24

Flexible Work and the Meritocracy Myth

I was at SHRM’s Annual Conference in Chicago last week, speaking about how HR can support effective remote work. I’ve given different versions of this talk in a few contexts, but one of my core messages is always that remote work (in any form, be it fully remote teams or roles, or a ‘work from home’ policy) cannot succeed if it is layered over a low-trust work environment.

When I speak about this topic, I share a few symptoms of low-trust as it relates to remote work, and one of them is an organization in which managers are free to treat ‘work from home’ as a reward, rather than understanding and applying a clearly defined business reason for committing to remote work/’work from home’ as an organization.

Jun 3

Bear-Spotting in BC

I leave for Whistler, British Columbia first thing tomorrow morning for Actionable’s annual Consulting Partner Summit, and while I generally pride myself on packing light, I had to level up this time since I’m bringing a bunch of print materials for the event, as well as planning for both warm days and cold nights.

Apr 22

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Context is Key

“He’s a rockstar” “She’s brilliant” “He’s a good guy”

Whether we’re dividing people into INTJs and ENFPs, High Ds or Cs, or placing them on a 9-box grid, we love our categories. I’ve been reflecting on this over the last week, sparked by a presentation delivered by Mathieu Baril of DDI at HR Leaders Summit West. Baril’s presentation challenged traditional thinking on High Potential programs, suggesting that we need to broaden our definition of potential and recognize the individual bias at work when we go about identifying so-called Hi-Pos:

“We tend to underestimate the role of context in performance. Performance is less portable then we think.”

Apr 15

Ice Storm Reading

Is it fiercely ice-storming here (yes, in mid-April), and it currently sounds like a very determined swarm of bees is hurling themselves at our windows. Our lights keep flickering. There’s nothing left to say about this except that I am so, so tired of wearing my winter coat that I may burn it whenever (or if) Spring finally gets here.

In the meantime, I’m preparing for a busy week: I’m speaking at InnovateWorkTO on Monday night about the need for different thinking about workplace sexual harassment in the wake of #MeToo, then I head straight to HR Leader’s Summit West in Vancouver on Tuesday to join an excellent panel about remote work, and finally head to Whistler for a site visit as we finish planning Actionable’s upcoming Consulting Partner Summit.

Hence, this week’s post is a round-up rather than a new blog, but it’s packed with great stuff:

Apr 8

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What I Learned at WorkHuman 2018

I attended my second WorkHuman conference this week, and my brain and heart are full. This year’s event addressed relevant and substantial topics in a bold manner atypical for an HR industry conference, and reflected its theme of a more human workplace in the interactions between attendees, organizers, and speakers. It was also set in Austin, a lovely city dedicated to huge servings of excellent food, and home to the sexiest public library I’ve ever seen, which is where this post was written.

Apr 1

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Prepping for WorkHuman 2018

Hi! I’m taking a break from my weekly publishing schedule to enjoy Easter with my family and get ready for the week ahead, which I’ll be spending at WorkHuman in Austin, Texas. I’m really looking forward to seeing friends from near and far, meeting lots of new people, learning a lot, and being reacquainted with those things called warmth and sunshine.

If you’ll be at WorkHuman, let’s make sure to connect in real life. Otherwise, follow the #workhuman hashtag for take-aways, commentary, and BBQ FOMO.

In lieu of a new post this week, here’s last year’s post about what I learned at WorkHuman 2017. Have a great week!

Jane

Jan 28

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Riding the Doom Loop

I am currently re-reading ‘Thinking in Systems: A Primer’ by Donella Meadows, a book that had a big impact on me the first time I read it. This time around, it reminded me of the Doom Loop.

A Doom Loop, aside from being an exceptionally good name for your next band, is the label attached to a reinforcing feedback loop in a system. A loop in which the selected solutions simply worsen the underlying problem. A vicious cycle, in other words.

Nov 26

A Season of Bright and Shiny Things

This week I finally made it to Social HR Camp (after scheduling conflicts in past years) and got to hear about all kinds of cutting-edge HR/People tech making its way onto the market. It was an exciting and interesting event. Also this week, I had dinner with a friend who shared that her 600 person organization still does payroll manually. She had the carbon paper pay slip to prove it. Reader, I nearly choked on my focaccia bread.