What does it mean to be important in 2021?  According to Merriam Webster, it is “having serious meaning or worth.”  For all the human resources professionals out there, being important has never meant more or come with bigger expectations.  That realization hit me about three weeks…

Many organizations believe that AI drives value through its impact on the number of employees needed for the supply chain. Of the organizations surveyed by APQC, 46 percent consider a reduction in headcount to be a top driver for deploying AI. A slightly smaller percentage, 44 percent, consider…

Process work is ultimately people work. Whether it’s redesigning a process, adopting a new system, or even automating or outsourcing a process—process work changes what they do and how people interact with their processes. Not only is change difficult, it’s often emotional. Resistance can come when…

Many of us who were lucky enough to remain employed over the last two years received a crash course in working from home. Remote work offers obvious benefits, especially for those with long commutes or disruptive cubemates. But some activities are more complicated when virtual. For instance, it can…

These days my news feed is full of stories about employee burnout, job dissatisfaction, and rising quit rates.   Some of the articles offer solutions. They advise employers to accommodate workplace and work schedule flexibility, bolster pay and benefits, and make sure that employees have…

Processes require structured audits to evaluate their relative health and to identify critical gaps in understanding, factors that impact the performance, and pinpoint substantive areas for improvement. A well-designed process audit uses a clear process maturity model (PMM) with core criteria and…

A value path is a process which links process performance, business outputs, and organizational goals to focus on value creation.  A common question we get is, “how do I pick the best fit measures”?  While organizations usually have several—often too many—measures for tracking…

A job handoff document is exactly what it sounds like: It’s a record you create for someone who is taking over your job, either temporarily or permanently, to help them get up to speed. A handoff document cannot transfer in-depth expertise from years in a position, but it is a quick-and-dirty way…

To survive—and thrive—amidst disruptions and unpredictable change, organizations need to foster environments that are conducive to learning. In such environments, employees come together to share knowledge, problem solve, and innovate. Building this kind of learning culture takes intentional and…

In 2021, the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report identified climate action failure as second greatest threat to global prosperity in both likelihood and potential impact—following infectious disease. Many of the factors in the high impact and high likelihood quadrant were other…