I have teenagers – their friends are beginning to get part time jobs… I am fascinated to watch them learn and discover the world of work. The experience that they have with these businesses my well determine what ‘work’ looks like for them. Trust is paramount in every employment relationship – without it, it is really difficult to achieve great things. So imagine a young person – his first work experience job – 5 days in total he has been…
Tag Archives: Employee Engagement
Advice to Gerry – you can’t take it with you
I was chatting with a friend yesterday and we were talking about how to teach our children the value of money. I remembered a presentation I attended years ago when the woman likened money to water… it has a need to flow – there is clean money and dirty money, sometimes it get’s damned up – but spread freely and evenly allows the world to prosper. My friend said that he has set aside some money to support community programs…
Coming up this week 16 April 2012
I have really appreciated the flexibility that I have in my life when it comes to school holidays over the last two weeks. My daughter came to the office for a few days to assist me transfer all the business cards I have collected to LinkedIn invitations. During the two weeks I was able to mix and match – working at odd times to ensure I had time to be with my fast growing teenagers. It did make me lament…
Coming Up this week 5 Dec 2011
Okay so it is half way through the week and I’m just getting to my blog. It is Christmas after all and I think I am still recovering from last week. My week did not go exactly as planned – but it did go to other peoples plan. My colleague had put a ‘speaking engagement at the airport’ in my diary. This was in fact a complete ‘set up’ – the team was playing a trick on me – they…
Coming up this week 14 November 2011
One of the highlights and most challenging things I did last week was the final round of judging on the RedBalloon 10th birthday photo competition. The winners have been announced but I was in awe at many of the entries. I would have liked to spend the whole week just looking at the entries over and over – but alas I had a few other obligations. On Tuesday I was part of the Dream Employer Webinar (thanks for those people…
Qantas Unions will determine this week
As I sit to write my regular ‘Coming up this week’ blog it is not as simple as looking in my calendar and preparing myself for what lies ahead. Last week was a complete whirlwind – three speaking engagements, two entrepreneurial workshops and one EY entrepreneur of the year judging… which were in addition to my usual meetings and appointments. I thrive on being this busy… however, I probably could not maintain last weeks frenetic speed for more than a…
Enough is enough; retailers won’t agree
I was fascinated to learn that there is a Buy Nothing New Month in Australia. I love this idea… though of course retailers will not… (I’m sure the liquor retailers don’t like Dry July either.) I was in the US last summer on holiday with my family and I was completely overwhelmed by the consumerism. (And quite frankly everything began to look the same). I heard that 10% of all women’s clothes sold in Australia are never worn. It is…
Culture Check
We are fast approaching RedBalloon’s tenth birthday, with that it mind I wanted to check in with the team ‘What does it mean to you to be a part of the RedBalloon story?’ The answers were delightful and insightful… but this particular answer from one of the newer RedBallooners is very worth reproducing in whole. If you were to ask the similar question in your organisation, you too could get a great insight into the ‘mood’ – think of it…
A simple story in recognition.
Over the past 10 years RedBalloon has had many members of the team leave the business often to run their own show, travel, take on study or leave to work elsewhere. RedBalloon has been part of their personal journey, part of their learning, development and education – we have impacted and supported them. And in return they have appreciated being part of RedBalloon. On a personal level we are often sad to say good-bye given that we experience so much…
Secret Sauce on Engagement
I had a great time debating with my colleague Megan (Employee Experience Manager – an HR professional) about what engagement means at RedBalloon – she has developed and documented all the things we do – and Matt in our corporate team is getting ready to share that with the world. Here are some points from a webinar that my colleague Emma sent me on the same topic I have added the RedBalloon view of the world in italics: Engagement is…
Imagine running a business based on fun - that's what I decided to try when I left a very serious corporate career in marketing to set up RedBalloon...
