For nonprofits, employees’ collaborative efforts are often the key element to mission advancement. But clashing personalities working toward the same goal can lead to resentment and impatience in the work place.
Learning to recognize and understand others’ personality strengths and weaknesses can help you appreciate the diverse environment you work in. Specifically, nonprofits can take advantage of their diversity when it comes to improving their employment procedures and ensuring ongoing structural soundness.
Basic working styles can often be separated into 4 general categories:
Whichever working style team members possess doesn’t really matter by itself. What most affects a nonprofit’s success is the compilation of strengths your team brings to the table and your team’s ability to successfully work together as a cohesive unit. As long as you understand and utilize everyone’s unique abilities, pertinent to your team’s progress, your nonprofit will continue to flourish.
Podcast Description: This podcast discusses how nonprofit organizations might be missing a crucial opportunity for growth and relevance by underutilizing their boards. Jeff De Cagna is an author, speaker and advisor for associations and non-profit organizations across North America and around the world with decades of experience under his belt.
Foresight First LLC is a governing orientation that provides actionable insights on plausible futures by challenging association and non-profit boards to deal productively with the past so they can focus their attention on the future and pursue the generative work of transformation. To learn more about Foresight First LLC, visit their website at www.foresightfirst.io.
To stay up-to-date on the latest best practice tips and cost-saving ideas just for nonprofits, sign up for UST’s monthly eNews: http://www.chooseust.org/
Do all your employees want to be on the safety team? Are you turning people away from your slips, trips, and falls training? Yea, we didn’t think so.
Workplace safety is important and ongoing, yet it’s tough to get employees excited and to stay on top of safety plans, regardless of the industry you’re in. Presented by ThinkHR’s workplace trends expert Don Phin, this on-demand webinar provides insight on the many ways to revamp or create a new safety plan.
In this webinar, Don discusses:
Watch the webinar recording today: http://links.thinkhr.com/A20b09KT10W9fSn00R0C0oW
This webinar offers 1 HRCI and 1 SHRM-approved credit. Want access to more HR-certified webinar opportunities and a live HR hotline? Visit www.chooseust.org/thinkhr/ to sign up for a FREE 30-day trial of the UST HR Workplace, powered by ThinkHR.
Answer: Although employers may see the “always on” employee as highly productive, the constant state of being readily available can leave employees feeling overwhelmed and exhausted. To combat this struggle, employers may:
Note: The application of any new or existing workplace policy must be applied consistently and without discrimination throughout the workforce.
Q&A provided by ThinkHR, powering the UST HR Workplace for nonprofit HR teams. Have HR questions? Sign your nonprofit up for a free 30-day trial here.
1. Give them room to grow. Employees need to know their duties and their responsibilities are recognized, and that there is a clear path to growth. Recognizing those employees that are eager to take on more can help you craft an upward moving path for them. And remember it’s okay to ask! What do they see themselves doing? What can they offer? Letting them feel involved in their own future gives them confidence in themselves and their leaders.
2. Have mentors. The next leaders are already in our midst. Giving them the tools they need – direct from the experts – is pertinent to maintaining a strong nonprofit sector. Who’s better than leaders within your own organization to provide this? Sometimes assigning a formal mentor to an employee is necessary to build this type of relationship. Consulting with your executives and even executives at other organizations as to who they can stand by and provide career direction, might just open some doors to some true talent development.
3. Ensure a fair workplace. Limited HR staff often means nonprofits are “winging it” when it comes to applying workplace rules. But are the rules fair, and more importantly, do they follow the law? You might think closing the office for a week during Christmas is okay if you require employees to work Saturdays leading up to the holiday (this is a true story), but that would be classified as overtime and not paying them appropriately could cause a damaging lawsuit for your organization. Wrongful terminations are another big source of costly legal exposure.
4. Train your managers to be the best. Employee satisfaction often starts with having the right guidance. Training your managers to be great managers helps provide the framework for the entire organization. People often leave managers, not companies… and because good leaders aren’t born (they’re created), providing leadership education and management-skill training is vital to helping build the leadership an organization needs to retain employees. UST offers 200+ free online training courses for managers and employees when you join the UST Program, which is exclusive to nonprofit organizations.
5. Acknowledge they have lives outside of work. As an employer you might think your role starts and stops during the 9-5 job. But recognizing that life-work balance is important, and giving employees options like flexible hours, working from home occasionally, discounted gym memberships or sponsorship of activities like registration in a race or creating a softball team, can help foster more happiness and productivity at work. With many for-profit companies making these types of moves, it’s important to recognize how the nonprofit sector can provide equally satisfactory jobs for workers. There are all kinds of ways nonprofits make a difference for their employees. Tell us some of your ways on facebook!
Presented by ThinkHR, this webinar will explore the practical impacts employers need to know now in the following areas:
When: Two dates available (Thursday, January 5th or Tuesday, January 10th at 8:30 am PDT)
Register: http://pages.thinkhr.com/HR-in-2017-Webinar.html
This webinar offers 1 HRCI and 1 SHRM professional development credit. Want access to more HR-certified webinar opportunities and a live HR hotline? Visit www.chooseust.org/thinkhr/ and sign up for a FREE 30-day trial of the UST HR Workplace, powered by ThinkHR.
Often equipped with fewer resources and a smaller staff size, nonprofit employees tend to feel overworked and stressed out. Because high stress levels can lead to a domino effect of general workplace unhappiness and high turnover rates, it’s imperative that employers take the time to encourage a balance between their work and personal life.
Here are 7 best practices that will help your employees maintain a proper work/life balance:
As a supervisor, your responsibility is to make sure that your employees have the tools and positive work environment they need to efficiently work through their day-to-day tasks. Taking the time to check in with your staff and encourage a balanced lifestyle will not only help your employees stay sane, but also improve general organizational productivity and growth.
Answer: Handling this type of discussion on such a sensitive subject can be difficult, but it is also an excellent opening for a frank conversation with that employee about his professional needs while you get direct feedback about his view of his job and the company. We recommend this approach:
During the course of these types of conversations, although compensation may be mentioned as the presenting problem, often the issue is really not that: You could find that the issues are more about the job itself, development opportunities, career goals, or other considerations. Consider the complete picture and be prepared to have a career development discussion with the employee about where he currently fits in the organization, what additional skills he may need to move his career in the direction he wants it to go, or other considerations.
The keys to these types of conversations are to treat the employee with respect and not dismiss his concerns without a good discussion of all of the relevant factors. Assure the employee that you value and respect his contributions to the business and want to do all you can as his manager to help him be productive and feel good about his contributions to the business.
This Q & A was provided by ThinkHR, powering the UST HR Workplace—a cloud-based HR platform provided to UST members at no additional cost. If you’re a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, get your toughest HR questions answered by signing up for a free 30-day trial
Organizations can spend several months and significant resources searching for and interviewing a new executive leader. Yet, after the position is filled, the onboarding process often does not receive the same level of effort and energy as the hiring process which leaves new leaders vulnerable – a costly risk for any organization but more so for a nonprofit whose funds are already limited.
Onboarding programs should be systematic and essential, not organic. Having a transition timeline and Welcome Guide with checklists, sample documents, FAQs and phased transition plans provides a roadmap for the onboarding experience. Core topics should include unique aspects of the organization, company culture, team building and legal matters. Preparing easy-to-digest information that is packaged into short segments allows new leaders to personally identify the areas in which they desire additional, more in depth training.
We can’t say enough how critical planning is in equipping new leaders to successfully fulfill all expectations of them in their new roles. You can make your onboarding curriculum indispensable by leveraging the experience and wisdom of past leaders who can provide real guidance to incoming staff. Taking them on a personal tour of your organization, allows them to acquire a holistic perspective on your nonprofit and an introduction to board members as well as key partners is pivotal early on so a personal connection to the organization starts to manifest well before any first official meetings.
Don’t wait to see if a new leader can succeed with little to no preparation or support and don’t ask them to attend generic onboarding sessions such as Leadership 101. They have to view the process as an essential element and not a throwaway task. Instead, zero in on your particular culture and the processes driving your organization and be sure to offer ongoing opportunities for learning and engagement during the executive’s first year.
Onboarding can often times be overwhelming and intense regardless of the size of your organization. Taking the time to develop a structured onboarding plan helps to ease the stress associated with transition and helps to ensure that your next nonprofit leader will have the tools necessary to succeed and continue the legacy you’ve already built.
UST maintains a secure site. This means that information we obtain from you in the process of enrolling is protected and cannot be viewed by others. Information about your agency is provided to our various service providers once you enroll in UST for the purpose of providing you with the best possible service. Your information will never be sold or rented to other entities that are not affiliated with UST. Agencies that are actively enrolled in UST are listed for review by other agencies, UST’s sponsors and potential participants, but no information specific to your agency can be reviewed by anyone not affiliated with UST and not otherwise engaged in providing services to you except as required by law or valid legal process.
Your use of this site and the provision of basic information constitute your consent for UST to use the information supplied.
UST may collect generic information about overall website traffic, and use other analytical information and tools to help us improve our website and provide the best possible information and service. As you browse UST’s website, cookies may also be placed on your computer so that we can better understand what information our visitors are most interested in, and to help direct you to other relevant information. These cookies do not collect personal information such as your name, email, postal address or phone number. To opt out of some of these cookies, click here. If you are a Twitter user, and prefer not to have Twitter ad content tailored to you, learn more here.
Further, our website may contain links to other sites. Anytime you connect to another website, their respective privacy policy will apply and UST is not responsible for the privacy practices of others.
This Privacy Policy and the Terms of Use for our site is subject to change.
UST maintains a secure site. This means that information we obtain from you in the process of enrolling is protected and cannot be viewed by others. Information about your agency is provided to our various service providers once you enroll in UST for the purpose of providing you with the best possible service. Your information will never be sold or rented to other entities that are not affiliated with UST. Agencies that are actively enrolled in UST are listed for review by other agencies, UST’s sponsors and potential participants, but no information specific to your agency can be reviewed by anyone not affiliated with UST and not otherwise engaged in providing services to you except as required by law or valid legal process.
Your use of this site and the provision of basic information constitute your consent for UST to use the information supplied.
UST may collect generic information about overall website traffic, and use other analytical information and tools to help us improve our website and provide the best possible information and service. As you browse UST’s website, cookies may also be placed on your computer so that we can better understand what information our visitors are most interested in, and to help direct you to other relevant information. These cookies do not collect personal information such as your name, email, postal address or phone number. To opt out of some of these cookies, click here. If you are a Twitter user, and prefer not to have Twitter ad content tailored to you, learn more here.
Further, our website may contain links to other sites. Anytime you connect to another website, their respective privacy policy will apply and UST is not responsible for the privacy practices of others.
This Privacy Policy and the Terms of Use for our site is subject to change.
The unemployment rate dipped slightly to 4.7% in February, down from 4.9 percent a year earlier and the number of persons employed part time for economic reasons was little changed at 5.7 million.Both the labor force participation rate (63%) and the employment-population ratio (60%) also showed little change for the month. The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) was essentially unchanged at 1.8 million in February and accounted for 23.8 percent of the unemployed. Over the year, the number of long-term unemployed was down by 358,000.
Job gains occurred in construction (+58,000), professional and business services (+37,000), private educational services (+29,000), manufacturing (+28,000), health care (+27,000), and mining (+8,000) while retail trade employment edged down in February (-26,000), following a gain of 40,000 in the month prior. Employment in other major industries, including wholesale trade, transportation and warehousing, information, financial activities, leisure and hospitality, and government, showed little to no change over the month.
In February, average hourly earnings for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls increased by 6 cents to $26.09, following a 5-cent increase in January. After years of stagnant wage growth, average hourly earnings have risen by 71 cents over the year.
With the unemployment rate at levels the Federal Reserve considers to be full employment and the blockbuster report on job gains, the path is clear for the Fed to raise its benchmark interest rates next week when they meet again.