Creating a culture where Employees are given real-time feedback and recognition might just be the most underestimated strategy in business. And according to the Wall Street Journal, ‘awards, recognition and praise might just be the single most cost effective way to maintain a happy productive workforce.' It’s no secret that ‘Performance Management’ doesn’t achieve what its meant to, but how can you tap into the power of real-time feedback and recognition to improve and enhance managing performance in your business? 

Here at Subscribe-HR, we have long been advocates for building more human workplaces. Our focus is on building software that at its foundation enables and facilitates the end-goal of making such workplace environments possible. Ultimately, building a human workplace culture, and making work more 'human' is the best way to create more engaged, productive, and ultimately more happy employees. Right about now though, you might be wondering exactly what it means to make work 'more human.' Just as 'The Human Era' heralded the decline of the Institutional era and ushered in a search for trust; trustworthiness in others, in businesses and in brands, building a human workplace culture is shaping up to be an essential ingredient in positively impacting the employee experience, culture management, and leadership. At its core, it is about creating workplace environments where people can show up at work and be fully themselves, that is; be whole and imperfect, be real, and be accepted.

At first glance, you might not think that how you manage performance, or your performance appraisal process have anything to do with employee wellness. Yet enabling your employees to achieve a reasonable level of work-life balance as well as giving them the skills and tools needed to succeed at work, is an essential ingredient in creating great a workplace culture in which your employees thrive. Often, work-life balance issues have their roots in the level of expectations that management and leadership set for employees, and the subsequent way that employee performance in relation to those expectations is then managed.

A report from the CSIRO entitled 'Tomorrow's Digitally Enabled Workforce' outlined the workforce trends and workplaces of tomorrow. With Australia's shift away from the mining and resources sectors, the focus is now firmly set on generating an ideas boom through science and innovation. Jobs of the future are likely to be more flexible, agile, networked and connected, often remotely. Shared office spaces will double in number and the traditional office will become a thing of the past as workers become more mobile and independent. Companies may opt for staffing models which include a smaller number of core staff, with many other roles provided by the freelancer. In fact freelancing has already become a large (and growing) employment model in other countries, with Australia set to follow this growing trend. What do businesses need to consider when planning for the future of work?

Let's face it - having enough energy to get through the day is often an issue for many people. Most of us can't get the day started without a strong coffee (or two). A quick glance at the current diabetes epidemic also makes it obvious that a significant number of people are using sugar as their go to for an energy upswing during the day to keep going. At the other end of the daily equation, it's not unusual for many people to need a glass of wine to unwind before going to sleep. This cocktail of ups and downs wreaks havoc on your nervous system, as well as negatively impacting your immune system. However, there is another way to improve your energy and stamina levels, whilst at the same time reducing your stress levels.

Human beings are creatures of habit. Even when we know something doesn't really make a positive contribution to our lives, its hard to make a change. Ultimately, the only person you can change is yourself, and the best way to make positive changes is by implementing one small change at a time. Slowly but surely these small changes of habit will gather momentum and lead to an overall transformation that have the potential to completely rewrite your life. To that end, this year we're focusing on creating simple, one page 'Wellness Habit Sheets' that you can download and implement at work (and at home if you feel like it). We're inspired to help you create more wellness for yourself and your employees by offering these simple, yet powerful suggestions. Every month, a new Wellness Habit will be posted in the resources section of our site for you to download for free. Go ahead, make the change, feel better, be better, live better!

It's that time of year, when we peer into the crystal ball of the future of work, and assess what the experts believe will be the key HR trends and disruptions in the coming year. As technology continues to transform the way we do business at warp speed, HR Professionals are being called upon to keep up with an increasingly challenging rate of change. The saving grace of this seemingly exponential rate of change is that HR software providers are becoming more adept at creating intuitive, easy to implement solutions and upgrades, that make it simpler than ever for end users to reap the rewards.