SigmaU Blog

My mentor Bob told me, “Hire slowly and fire quickly Nikki”. While I’d love to stand here and tell you that I took his advice and acted accordingly every single time, I didn’t! There were times that I waited WAY too long to pull the trigger. Perhaps you can relate.  Few leaders have ever thought to themselves after firing someone, “Man, I wish I kept him/her around longer.” When we know, we know.

The role of values in your hiring process

What brings an extra level of clarity to the decision is when you base the decision on culture and core values.  They become your compass and North Star and there’s total clarity which happens very quickly when you’re basing decisions on this type of alignment.

We recently did a “Core Values in Action” workshop for a small team. They have never sprinkled core value questions into their interview process. We mapped out exactly how core values would show up in how people would respond in the interview process and she emailed me to let me know that the...

According to Wikipedia, “Work engagement is the ‘harnessing of organization member's selves to their work roles: in engagement, people employ and express themselves physically, cognitively, emotionally and mentally during role performances.’"^[1]:694 Three aspects of work motivation are cognitive, emotional and physical engagement.^[2]

When I read this definition, a few things come up for me. I’m reminded of the importance of seeing the “whole” person not just the worker bee on my team. I love that this definition includes the emotional and mental expressiveness of importance. Better yet, it seems that equal value is given to each area of the employee’s self. As leaders, we can often forget that optimal performance can only be met when team members are actively engaged in all areas.

Sadly, for many organizations, engagement to them means recognizing a birthday with a digital card, or a work anniversary with a letter from the president. Or worse, they may feel that a team member is enga...