Sharon M Weinstein

  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Meet Sharon
  • What to Expect
  • Book Sharon!
  • Media
  • Products
  • Blog

January 8, 2017 By Sharon Weinstein

Are You Managing Human Resources or Human Lives?

 

Do you want to be valued as a product or as a human being?  Chances are that you have thought about this concept during an especially frustrating day at work, or after a long sequence of stressful experiences. Why does it matter?  It matters because today, more than ever before, employees are feeling undervalued, less recognized, and overwhelmed. Employees are stressed, and at the core of much of this stress is the work environment.  Within many industries, we have mastered the importance of a healing environment. How much attention do we give to lighting, lack of clutter, better views, privacy, HVAC, healthy plants, and art?  Can the work environment be supportive and human-centered?  Can it be less overwhelming?

Overwhelmed Employees

The concepts of work-life balance have been lost, thanks to a proliferation of technology and the breakdown in barriers between work and life. When your work life and personal life blend together under the guise of “multi-tasking,” both suffer. When you are at work, focus on the job to be done. When you are finished with work, don’t bring it home with you. Make time for your personal life. If your work materials are dispersed throughout nearly every room of your house, you have no place for a real retreat. You’re not spending high-quality time with friends or family members if you’re talking on your cell phone or checking your e-mail when you’re with family.  The sheer complexity of our lives creates internal distress and can wreak havoc on our bodies. And, we do it in the name of being the ‘loyal employee’ also known as ‘human capital.’  It has become so intense that the focus on human capital management (HCM) has intensified.

Human Capital Management: the new HR

HCM is an approach to employee staffing that perceives people as assets whose current value can be measured and whose future value can be enhanced through investment.  Have you given much thought to investing in your people, because according to master people manager, Sam Walton, “The way management treats associates is exactly how the associates will treat the customers.”

Think about HCM as a responsibility for attracting, developing and managing the firm’s biggest asset:  people. Are you managing human capital/resources or human lives in your organization?  An organization that supports HCM provides employees with clearly defined and consistently communicated performance expectations. Managers are responsible for rating, rewarding, and holding employees accountable for achieving specific business goals, creating innovation and supporting improvement.  An organization that supports and manages human lives puts its people first and creates an experience for them.  Let’s talk about your own expectations!

Expectation or Experience

Chances are that at one time you were an ‘employee.’  As an employee, did you want a job or an experience? And, if it was the job you were after, which by the way is often referred to as ‘just over broke,’ did it meet your expectations?  Did you feel recognized, valued, appreciated, and were you a part of the team? 

If it was the experience you were after, perhaps you joined an organization like Apple, where every day is just that – an experience!  Steve Jobs, Apple’s founder, was famous for this statement, “For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself, “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?  And whenever the answer had been ‘No’ for too many days in a row, I knew I need to change something.”

Today’s human resources departments are so much more than a single representative, handling claims and pushing papers.  Today’s human resources departments may be known as ‘Capital Management, or ‘Talent Management.’  And while much of today’s workforce is highly talented, is that talented pool taking up space or actually engaged in the work process?  Nearly 40% of the US workforce now works part time. Baby boomers who lost their jobs are often out of work for 18-24 months. Millennials want more creative jobs and they want to work for startups (or for themselves). And everyone wants work to be easier, less punishing, and more meaningful.  Yes, everyone, including you, wants something, and often that ‘something’ is to be valued as a person, and treated with respect.

 Managing Lives

How do we define the relationship between employers and employees?  How do we view the dedicated employee?  If we follow the Sam Walton model, we know that how we treat the employee is how the employee will treat the customer or client.  For years, in marketing programs across the country, we studied our internal and external customers.  We knew that we had to add value to our internal customers if we wanted to succeed.

Filed Under: C-Suite, Celebrations, CEO, CFO, CIO, Clout, Consulting, Environment, Hospitals, Human Resources, Success, Talent Management, Work-Life Balance, Workplace Stress Tagged With: balance, empower, enrich, goal-setting, Human lives, Human Resources, organization, SharonMWeinstein, SMWGroup, speaker, Stress, success, time management, Wellness

December 28, 2016 By Sharon Weinstein

Focus…why it matters!

“The biggest adventure you can ever take is to live the life of your dreams.” –Oprah Winfrey

Our chaotic lives can easily distract us from our focus. How many times in a day do you find yourself in a room, knowing you were there for a reason, but unable to remember the reason you went there? Or, at the end of the day with a heavy sigh, looking over your to-do list from that morning, realizing you barely made a dent in your list? We joke and attribute it to old age—even the young do this—but more likely it is a difficulty in maintaining focus.

Focus: What it is and why that’s important

Focus is the thing that keeps us on track. It’s what we do when we have a goal to achieve. We keep focused on doing what we need to do to accomplish the tasks that cumulatively make up the goal. Focus is also an ability to remain undistracted. It is what we use to intently pursue a goal like running the Boston Marathon, studying for exams, writing a paper, or creating artwork. It is this kind of focus that is the source of the “Aha” moment we hope for when seeking solutions and setting goals. Getting to it, to that Aha moment of achievement or recognition, includes the knowledge of how to define your path and work your plan. Forbes Magazine published an informal study on Aha Moments; this is my favorite: “No one – not your mother, your clients or the vendors you’re working with – wants to tell you ‘No’ when you ask for something; most people want to find a way to tell you ‘Yes’. My “aha” moment was when I realized this and started asking for what I wanted in life.” I truly believe in asking for what you want in life. That became reality when I proposed to my husband on our 5th date, and we were married on the 10th day since we had met. What closed the deal for me? The very first phone call, which lasted 3 hours, in which he described his amazing family. Although he was an only child, and his dad had passed when he (my husband was just 14), he depicted a family of which I wanted to be a part. And, so, I asked by simply focusing, and stating, “I’m not working on Wednesday, would you like to get married?” The rest is history!

Are you focused on what the New Year may bring?

Filed Under: C-Suite, CEO, CFO, CIO, Coaching, Consulting, GPS, Mentoring, Resilience, Success Tagged With: balance, commitment, decision-making, Encouragement, Focus, goal-setting, Inspiration, Motivation, Motivational speaker, personal development, Public Speaker, self-development, SharonMWeinstein, speaking professional

December 11, 2016 By Sharon Weinstein

How many times have you failed?

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” – Thomas A. Edison

Think about it! Long before Walt Disney built Disneyland, he was told he lacked creativity. Before Arianna Huffington launched Huffington Post, 36 publishers rejected her second book. Consider Bill Gates, whose first company was a disaster, with a product that barely worked.

Nobody wants to fail, but even the brightest and most successful people have faced this challenge at some point in their careers. Life is a constant seesaw. Most of us teeter between our achievements and our mistakes.

Some mistakes are greater than others. Have you ever made a mistake?  Have you missed your sales target, blown a presentation, or lost an opportunity?

How does failure affect us?  What is one career or life failure that has taught you something about yourself? – Failure happens – whether we want to admit it or not.  But we can turn our failures into learning experiences that enable us to do better next time.

What about your job history? Did you ever accept a position that was a huge mistake – and you just knew that you were not in the right place at the right time?  I certainly did – I did not vet the future employer; I did not do my homework.  I did not realize that there were 5 people in my position in the previous 3 years and that the fact that I needed to fire my predecessor was a message not to be missed. Mistake – yes? Failure – no! 

Take action and move on. How do you get things back on track? Deal with your mistake head on, and then advance to the next thing. Start your next project, look at new ventures or consider a new task at hand. Remember your hard-learned lessons as you keep moving forward, and you’ll emerge stronger and more resilient than before. Join the ranks of Huffington, Disney, and Gates…who overcame failure and achieved success! 

Filed Under: C-Suite, Failure, Resilience, Success, Work-Life Balance, Workplace Stress Tagged With: balance, commitment, empower, Encouragement, Failure, goal-setting, SharonMWeinstein, success, work

  • « Previous Page
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4

To start the process:

  • Please complete the contact form or email Sharon directly at info@sharonmweinstein.com.
  • Visit Sharon’s Consulting site for information about work/life balance programs and services, as well as an extensive client list by category.
  • You may also reach Sharon by phone at 202.798.0092.
  •  

    Contact Form

Sharon Weinstein 3 book sale

© 2022 by Sharon M. Weinstein. All Rights Reserved. | Privacy Policy