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Discretionary Effort

By Madison Hanscom, Ph.D. Feedback is one of the most important resources at work. It can be used to energize people, fuel their growth, guide them in the right direction, inform future behavior, clarify expectations, and help them to attain goals. Thus, it is central to motivation, performance, and even workplace safety (1,2). As the world is embracing remote work more than ever, many fear this will be associated with a lack of feedback when compared to the typical face-to-face workplace. This is a reasonable concern! A great deal of informal feedback is exchanged within an office environment. For instance, you might

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By Madison Hanscom, PhD What does the proverb “give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime” have to do with being a great leader? In short, it allows followers to be more self-reliant. As a result, employees will enjoy more autonomy in their job, potentially experience more meaning in their work, and it allows the leader to find better balance in their own time. When employees run into obstacles, you don’t want them coming to you at every single bump in the road — but you

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By Madison Hanscom, PhD Covid-19 has contributed to a larger number of individuals working from home than ever before. Researchers at the Technical University of Denmark were interested in the experiences of individuals working from home across several European countries. They surveyed over 4,640 employees (mainly knowledge workers and managers) between March and May of 2020. The authors are still analyzing the large amounts of data that were collected, but initial findings were shared. Interesting results included: • 71% of the respondents said they get enough information from their organization to feel well prepared to work at home during the crisis. This

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By Madison Hanscom, PhD The extent to which individuals can “bounce back” to how things were pre-crisis describes their resiliency. It is beneficial to have a workforce of resilient employees who can recover quickly from difficult times. Not only is this better for the company (e.g., financially), it is better for the people (e.g., psychologically). We often place onus on the individual to be resilient. We might think, “they just need to get over it”. But researchers have shown that others in our environment can have an impact on our resiliency, and this includes leadership. After or during a hard event, employees

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By Madison Hanscom, PhD Virtual training is becoming more and more common, which begs the question: does it work? Does virtual training work? Researchers have looked into this question and the answer is yes, but it depends. Classroom instruction (traditional training) and web-based instruction (virtual training) can be equally as effective on trainee learning if both programs are developed and implemented using best practices. This conclusion makes sense: good training is good training, and bad training is bad training. The delivery medium is not as important as the content and the instructional method (1). At Propulo Consulting, we partner with you to improve the

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By Madison Hanscom, PhD Whether it is wrapping up a deliverable, venting about a hard day, or preparing for the next day ahead, many of us bring work home. But has research been conducted to examine the effects of leadership characteristics spilling over into the home domain of their followers? A recent study was conducted to examine the impact that empowering leaders have on their employees’ home lives. Empowering leaders were defined as those that give employees autonomy, meaning to their work, opportunities for self-leadership, participation in decision-making, and support for employee development through coaching and modeling. The result of the study showed

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