Exploring healthy time-off policies & 4 goal-setting mistakes to stop right now

Summer is just around the corner! I hope you're feeling the good vibes and enjoying the sunshine.?

As we dive into Q2, it's time to make the most out of these sunny days while keeping maintaining your work-life balance. So, grab your iced coffee, and let's dive into some hot topics to help us do that.

1. How to use your paid time off policy to encourage a better work-life balance?

2. Four goal-setting blunders to avoid to help your team perform their best

3. What’s new in AI for HR & employee management? Trust me; it's not all robots and lasers! There's some seriously cool stuff happening that will make your job easier and more fun.

4. Book of the Month recommendation. Each month, I'll be sharing one of my all-time favorite books.

?? ? What about vacations?

May is #mentalhealthawarenessmonth. With this in mind, we’ll be discussing important topics such as Paid Time Off (#PTO), how policies can support employees’ wellness, and creating a psychologically safe workplace.?

When it comes to vacations, you may notice the following behaviors:

• people don’t use their vacations. But, they then ask to be paid for any accrued but untaken holiday at the end of the year
• people use vacation time so they don’t lose them, but still login to work
• people experience guilt when taking time off.

Benefits of a healthy PTO policy

A study by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) found that companies with robust #PTOpolicies experience less turnover and higher employee morale.

#Employeemorale can increase by 25% when employees are supported by generous PTO

Additionally, companies with such policies saw an increase in overall productivity of up to 13%.

According to SHRM, "strong PTO policies" refer to policies that include generous vacation allowance, flexible scheduling, and robust sick leave policies. For example, some organizations provide bonus vacation days for each year of service, offer a certain number of days off for employees to use as they choose, and provide generous sick leave allowances. Other organizations may allow their employees to work from home or adjust their work hours to accommodate their personal needs.

Tips to make the most of your PTO policy

1. Encourage employees to fully unplug during their vacations. Laptops and work emails should be off-limits. This allows them to recharge and come back refreshed.
2. Offer flexibility in scheduling time off. This allows employees to use their time in a way that suits them best while not disrupting team productivity.
3. Implement regular check-ins with employees. This will ensure employees are not overworked and makes it easy to monitor their mental well-being.
4. Create a #culture where taking time off is encouraged and celebrated. This will remove the guilt sometimes associated with taking PTO.
5. Prepare for employee absences by having temporary coverage in place. You could also cross-train other team members to fill business needs. This will upskill employees and reduce stress on the team.
6. Add mental health days as part of your PTO policy; Acknowledging that sometimes employees need a break for reasons other than physical sickness or #vacation creates a positive and supportive workplace culture.?

And some interesting ideas from Forbes Human Resources Council:

• Add vacation leave as a goal in performance reviews > This approach involves including vacation leave as a part of annual performance reviews, tying part of the performance bonus to vacation leave to encourage work-life balance. - David Swanagon, Ericsson
• Send Monthly Vacation Balance Reminders > This method recommends sending monthly vacation balance reminders to managers to prompt discussions with employees about taking time off. It includes sending weekly HR emails emphasizing the importance of taking time off. - Erin ImHof, Circadence
• Consider A 'No-Policy' Vacation Approach > This tip suggests transitioning to a "no-policy" vacation approach, promoting a self-directed culture where colleagues plan their vacations and ensure coverage at work. - Megan Leasher, Talent Plus

?? But don’t confuse it with ‘unlimited’ vacation policies, which are rarely actually unlimited and often make people use fewer vacation days - Dariia Voiedilova-Lisovyk , People & Culture Lead at Uptech

• Do One-On-One Check-Ins > This involves having personal discussions with employees about the importance of taking breaks to avoid burnout and boost creativity, showing support, and recognizing the value of their time off. - Amy Odeneal, Business Enablement
• Be Intentional With PTO Rollover Policies > This tip advises a blend of saving and utilizing paid time off within a year under rollover policies to encourage employees to use their vacation time. - Nakisha Griffin, Ripple Effect

Remember to consistently build #worklifebalance practices among your team, discussing this on regular check-ins, balancing workload with clear, specific goals without multitasking, and making time-offs celebrated and encouraged in your org.

?? ? 4 Outdated goal-setting practices. Stop making these mistakes

Measurable, specific #goals are essential to boost #employeemotivation, #engagement, and #productivity.

Unfortunately, this is not always enough - even the most productive teams can stumble when certain details are overlooked.

1) Too many Objectives and multitasking.

This approach is well-described in “The Essentialism” book by McKeown. Research involving 500 participants in McKeown's book revealed that the team and the #people in it overwhelmingly thrive when there is a high level of clarity and purpose. Without clear direction, confusion, stress, and, ultimately, failure ensued. Success is often predicated on clear, specific goals. The ”Everything to everyone” approach can lead to the straddled strategy where everything is a priority. As a result, such a leader will have a fractured team that makes a millimeter of progress in a million directions.

Applying the principle of "less but better" and getting clear about one thing that is required, a leader can make follow-up easy and frictionless so that progress actually happens.

For example, PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel asked his team to only have 1 priority in their role and focus on it exclusively. "He’d refuse to discuss virtually anything else with you except what was currently assigned as your No.1 initiative", as Keith Rabois recalls.

2) Goals are too big or not ambitious enough. Moonshots vs. Roofshots

A common goal-setting mistake is setting overly ambitious 'Moonshot' goals that are too difficult to achieve. However, the alternative is 'Roofshot' objectives that are not ambitious enough. The best approach is to balance these two philosophies and create realistic and ambitious objectives. Moonshot goals should be high-stretch targets that test new ideas and push the envelope, while Roofshot objectives should provide attainable results that yield tangible results. This balance can help organizations focus on reaching short-term and long-term ambitions.

Studies have found that the most successful organizations often have a roughly 8:1 or 10:1 ratio of Roofshot to Moonshot objectives. This means that a majority of their goals should be Roofshots with a few Moonshots sprinkled in. This approach ensures that the organization stays agile and focused on short-term #objectives while still allowing for experimentation with new ideas.

Here’s how you can evaluate the progress of Moonshot vs. Roofshot goals:

3) Not tracking the progress

Goals are often forgotten. Weekly or bi-weekly check-ins are a great way to stay on track. Another way is to use some goal-management software like Plai.

It helps our team at Uptech track company, team, and individual goals (we use OKRs), collaborate on action items, set reminders, and integrate with Slack & Teams. Other features we find useful are real-time feedback and praise, 1-on-1s, and dashboards to access progress. It also contains templates and tips for better feedback, check-in agendas, talking points, and goals templates, which makes it an especially great option for first-time #managers or small companies creating these practices from scratch.

4) Not checking in often.

By checking out frequently to reward small wins and help people remove obstacles, the leader boosts the team's motivation and focus and enables them to make more meaningful progress. I shared more about #checkin tips in my previous newsletter edition.

You can explore more mistakes and solutions in my article here.

I highly recommend making regular and effective #goalsetting your main priority to keep your team productive and engaged. Ensure that your goals are clear and measurable, you balance “big” and “small” goals, every team member has 1 priority to work on at a given period of time, and you check in often and celebrate small wins.

?? Pro tip: Use ChatGPT for goal creation. Here’s an article about that.

?? ?? The impact of AI on HR and people management

Some #AInews and resources to keep us all up to date and prepare for the time when robots will replace all of us ;)

Can ChatGPT be a good manager?

An interesting experiment with #ChatGPT found that ChatGPT was most effective in handling discussions about diversity. It was also highly effective in dealing with situations such as an employee under investigation for sexual harassment or a company changing healthcare providers to save money. However, it had difficulties addressing issues like an employee's worries about pay fairness, a company expecting employees to work harder, and a company halting salary increases while the CEO received a record payout. Explore the full read here.

Free AI Tools for HR & Team Leaders for better team productivity

I extended the list from my previous newsletter with a few more interesting tools like YouLearn to learn any Youtube video in minutes, Dost for inclusive messaging for Slack & Teams, and SoWork for better collaboration and organizing the game-like digital workplace.

Check my latest article with more interesting AI cases for HR and team leadership and the list with 12 free AI tools here.

???? Book of the month: Tribal Leadership

This month I want to share the book recommendation that impressed me greatly: "Tribal Leadership" by Dave Logan, John King, and Halee Fischer-Wright.

It’s based on research that reveals five stages of tribal culture that teams will move through as they go from average to #highperformance. One of the most eye-opening facts is that 58% of teams remain in the mediocre "Stage 3" regardless of the leadership team's efforts to move them further. According to the authors, a key to unlocking the team's potential for higher performance lies in understanding the current stage and identifying and addressing the root causes of the team's stagnation.?

For example, the authors explore the many dynamics that cause Stage 3 teams to remain in stagnancy, including issues such as fear of failure, lack of trust, or conflicting agendas. The authors offer practical, real-world advice on how leaders can make the greatest impact on their team's #performance. This includes addressing team dynamics and leveraging change management strategies to help take teams to the next level of performance.

Overall, Tribal Leadership is a great source for the #HRteam or #leaders who want to understand how a team interacts and develops within an organizational context and maximize their performance.

Happy reading, and stay tuned for more exciting updates in the next newsletter!

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#employeewellbeing #peopleandculture #HRprofessionals #teamdevelopment #peoplemanagement