[Originally published on LinkedIn] Capital One CEO Richard Fairback once said, “At most companies, people spend two per cent of their time recruiting and 75 per cent managing their recruiting mistakes.” Now, you may not be in a business where you need to build a team, but I believe this statement is relevant personally as well as in business. As an individual, have you noticed you attract the same sort of person in your life over and over and getting…
Tag Archives: Employer brand
Best Workplaces or Toxic Workplaces
I have a question that I keep asking myself – ‘Why is it that some workplaces are committed the being great – and others experience awful things – is it just a question of leadership? This week BRW has published the Great Places to Work of which RedBalloon is very proud to have made it for the 4th time (one of only 13 companies to achieve this.) In my quest to find out ‘why is it that some are great…
Trust takes Time
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…
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…
143 years to grow a brand – 1 day to destroy
Greg Smith’s open letter of resignation from Goldman Sachs that appeared in the New York Times last week has been devastating on many levels. Only with time will the real impact be revealed, however already billions of dollars have been wiped off its stock price, with clients deserting at a fast pace. It has been a public relations fiasco. The questions I ask are: what about the colleagues and co-workers who remain at Goldman Sachs, and what of its employer brand?…
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…
Some of our best ever experiences.
The wonderful RedBalloon product team never cease to amaze me with how they source such innovative, memory-making experiences. Today’s additions to our experience line-up are so exciting, especially the beer belly casting kit that I’ve already earmarked for some of my friends with a little too much taste for the amber nectar! For watersports lovers, if regular water skiing isn’t enough, why not try being towed behind an F-16 Fighter Jet for the ultimate water skiing experience? Or for the…
How to double your chances of an >80% engagement score
Often I get asked ‘what is your employee engagement secret?’. Megan (RedBalloon Employee Experience Manager) argues that we don’t have an engagement secret (maybe because we will tell anyone who is interested what we’ve learned – so by definition it’s not a secret). It does take focused commitment from every leader in a business – consistently. Employee engagement is a journey not an activity. Some organizations are further along their journey than others – but how do you know where…
10 Questions from Dream Employer Webinar
1. What effort is involved to transition non-attached employees back to attached, if it is at all possible. Re-establishing trust takes time – often years but is the essential ingredient to engagement. This must be achieved consistently. Leadership needs earn trust and a great way to do that is simply notice what people contribute. Often the hardest question to answer is: Is the effort it will take to re-establish, trust worth the reward for the organisation? Sometimes there are very…
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...
