MARCH 2012 
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Evolution Management, Inc. (EMI) is a WBENC certified woman-owned, small business offering solutions to: align people needs and business goals; integrate organizational goals with strategic plans; transform current skills to future competencies.

 

We welcome the opportunity to help manage the changes challenging your enterprise.   Together we can transform human behaviors through cultural evolution. We invite you to visit our website to learn more.

 

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Deborah A. King

President & CEO

IN THIS ISSUE
Latest News
Collaborative Work Environments
What Should Your Business be Focused On?
More HR/OD Resources
With a Smile
MORE ABOUT EMI

WHO IS EMI?

 

 

WHY CHOOSE EMI?

 

 

EMI SOLUTIONS

 

Organization Development

 

Human Resources

 

Training

 

Career Transitions

 

Virtual HR Assistance

 

Executive Development

 

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DEBBIE'S

DO's & DONT's

 

DO consider the expanded definition of "disability" as you update disability discrimination policies, procedures and training.

 

DO invest in creating a realistic Workforce Plan as a component of your strategy to build competitive advantage.

  

DON'Toverlook the importance of self-care, especially relaxation techniques.  

 

DON'T 

overlook the talents of our returning service men and women.  
 
Latest News

EMI recently participated in two GWBC PACE events that included meetings and several matchmaking sessions with procurement representatives from CHEP, Recall, Georgia Power, UPS, Coca-Cola and the Georgia Tech Procurement Technical Center.

 

Debbie King recently participated in mock interviews with high school students attending the kidz2leaders Leadership Training Program. It was a huge success and a lot of fun!

 

Debbie King recently volunteered at the SHRM-Atlanta HR Conference and is now looking forward to the SHRM conference in June. Click here for details.

 

EMI is excited to announce that we are expanding our consulting services to assist clients with global HR/OD and Training needs. We are grateful for your consideration of our services for international, as well as domestic assignments.

 

EMI is so excited to have two new client assignments starting up in this first quarter. One is a career transition project with a property management firm in GA, and the other is an Organization Development engagement with the Department of Interior.

COLLABORATIVE WORK ENVIRONMENTS

Underscoring Dr. Wilen-Daugenti's message for collaborative and virtual workplace competencies, was an on-site demonstration of a "new to me" collaborative and virtual meeting application called iMeet. This "next generation" of software allows you to have a virtual meeting space, where you can post files collaborators will need, see the people who are included in the meeting, recognize who is speaking, and provide opportunities for more personalize connections between participants, which can build team spirit as well as working relationships.

 

What I liked about this technology is it allowed you to structure you own meeting site with video, audio, and electronic files in a very non-cumbersome manner. Being able to "see" each other, either through video or a photograph that glows when you are speaking, provides a giant leap from staring at the speakerphone.

 

The future is all about global connectivity, collaborative work environments, and keeping pace with technologies. This personal video meeting room appears to be addressing those needs.

 
Ladybug
Spring is when life's alive in   everything.  
 
-Christina Rossetti

Greetings! 

 

There is no doubt about it: a commitment to continuous learning is a must for all of us, regardless of age, profession, or industry. Last week I had the pleasure of volunteering at and attending the SHRM-Atlanta HR Conference. It was fun to network, yes. But an even bigger pleasure was engaging with the knowledgeable speakers and vendors about how the HR profession is transitioning and how organizational leaders, as well as HR professionals, need to prepare for the future of work.

 

I've dedicated this month's newsletter to share some of my key takeaways. I hope they will inspire you to want to learn more. I greatly enjoyed this conference and look forward to the SHRM 2012 Annual Conference & Exposition being held in Atlanta June 24-27, 2012.

 

As always, I'm most appreciative of your business, support and referrals.

 

Happy Spring!

 
With a Smile,

Debbie
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What Should Your Business Be Focused On?

 

The following short articles are highlights from my SHRM-Atlanta conference experience.

 

Article1Future Work Skills

 

Article PhotoDo you ever get into a debate with yourself about whether or not to attend the last session of a conference, or give yourself permission to be "saturated" and call it at early day? Well, I'm so very glad that attending the session presented by Dr. Tracey Wilen-Daugenti of the Research Institute won out! Dr. Wilen-Daugenti was a last slot presenter and she made it worth your while to stay an hour longer. Tracey presented findings from her most recent research, Future Work Skills 2020, as an energized and fast-pace peek into the future. She conducted this work in partnership with the Institute for the Future.

 

According to their research, the most important drivers relevant to future work skills include:

 

Extreme longevity - "It is estimated that by 2025, the number of Americans over 60 will increase by 70%."

Rise of smart machines and systems - "We're on the cusp of a major transformation in our relationships with our tools - workplace automation will nudge human workers out of rote, repetitive tasks."

Computational world - "The diffusion of sensors, communications and processing power into everyday objects and environments will unleash an unprecedented torrent of data and the opportunity to see patterns and design systems on a scale never before possible."

New media ecology - "New communication tools require new media literacies beyond text."

Superstructed organizations - "A new generation of organizational concepts and work skills is coming not from traditional management/organizational theories, but from fields such as game design, neuroscience and happiness psychology."

Globally connected world - "Increased global interconnectivity puts diversity and adaptability at the center of organizational operations."

 

Studying these six disruptive forces, Dr. Wilen-Daugenti and her colleagues identified ten skills critical for the workforce of the future: 

  1. Sense-making - ability to determine the significance of what is being expressed
  2. Social intelligence - ability to connect to others in a deep and direct way, to sense and stimulate reactions and desired interactions
  3. Novel and adaptive thinking - proficiency at thinking and coming up with solutions beyond that which is rote or rule-based
  4. Cross-cultural competency - ability to operate in different cultural settings
  5. Computational thinking - ability to translate vast amounts of data into abstract concepts and to understand data-based reasoning
  6. New-media literacy - ability to critically assess and develop content that uses new media forms, and to leverage these media for persuasive communication
  7. Transdisciplinarity - literacy in and ability to understand concepts across multiple discipline
  8. Design mindset - ability to represent and develop tasks and work processes for a desired outcome
  9. Cognitive load management - ability to discriminate and filter information for importance, and to understand how to maximize cognitive functioning using a variety of tools and techniques
  10. Virtual collaboration - ability to work productively, drive engagement, and demonstrate presence as a member of a virtual team

The research findings are fascinating - what an exciting and different world we are rapidly moving into! The implications of her research for business, educational institutions and governmental policy makers stresses the flexibility and adaptability lifelong learners will need in preparing for the future. There's so much more I can share, but if I've tweaked your interest - read the full report.

  

The Impact of Employment Law

 

There were several terrific presentations by lawyers aimed at helping to educate participants on how to stay out of trouble. I'd like to highlight two important messages that were conveyed:

 

Be Aware and Take Appropriate Steps to Stay Out of Trouble

 

Chad Shultz and Sarah Pierce Wimberly, both partners with Ford and Harrison presented the 10 Rules for Preventing Lawsuits:

 

  1. "Hope" is Not a Strategy
  2. Earn Respect
  3. No Surprises
  4. Be Prepared
  5. No "BS" - Act rationally
  6. The Perception of Fairness
  7. Know When to Walk Away and Know When to Run
  8. Investigate Employee Concerns Properly
  9. Walk a Mile in Their Shoes
  10. Don't be Afraid to Ask For Help

Tighten Up Information Privacy and Security

 

As workplaces struggle to find the right fit for relatively new options such as teleworking, social media, smartphone technologies, and life/work balance, (just to name a few) employment lawyers are seeing a surge in information privacy cases. The lines are blurring when it comes to how work is completed. It used to be work was done on company equipment, at the company's location, and on company time. Now, it's a different story. Not only might your company's business be completed at a worker's kitchen table, with the worker texting or posting to Twitter between work tasks.

 

Navigating this fuzzy, changing environment is difficult. Here are a few suggestions made by David Long-Daniels, and Peter Hall of Greenberg Traurig.  As you review policies, procedures and practices with your counsel and executives, consider how situations like these could impact your organization:   

  • Non-exempt workers - be careful with:
    • the perception that accompanies giving remote access to company files
    • providing company cell phones, which further blurs the lines of personal vs. company time
    • allowing work to be done on personal equipment, as it makes it difficult to track who has what company information in their possession
  • Many state and federal laws prohibit the unauthorized access or use of private digital information - be careful with the information you may be accessing or having others access for you in your sourcing, recruiting and hiring processes.
  • Train employees about protecting company secrets and how their tweets and Facebook postings could jeopardize your competitive advantage.
  • Ensure classifications are correct and justifiable and in accordance with FSLA guidance.
  • Before monitoring employees - have full disclosure of what, how, when, who, etc.
  • Data privacy is viewed very differently by EU countries versus the United States. If you're working globally, ensure managers have the proper training.

Obviously with an exhibit hall of talented and innovative companies and two days of exceptional speakers, there was a lot to take in. I also attended terrific sessions by Tillman Coffey of Fisher & Phillips and Gavin Appleby and Angelo Spinola from Littler Mendelson. Their topics will be covered in future BizNext articles.

 

 

I hope these highlights of my SHRM-Atlanta conference experience will motivate you as much as they have inspired me. If you'd like to talk further about these and other human resource and organizational planning and development strategies, please don't hesitate to contact me at 770.587.9032. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More HR/OD Resources

 

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The March Career GPS forum contains valuable job search information on how your digital footprint can help you or hurt you in your efforts to advance your career.

 

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Our BizNext forum explores what's next for business and recently included helpful information on an organization planning and development methodology, Appreciative Inquiry that looks at potential for improvement from a perspective of "what do we do best".

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EVOLUTION MANAGEMENT, INC.
770.587.9032
4994 Lower Roswell Road, Suite 32, Marietta, GA 30068
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"The Bottom Line" is Copyrighted 2012 by Evolution Management, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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