We’re told that employees in mission-driven organizations are more engaged. But surely this applies only if the employees, themselves, feel they have a role to play in achieving that mission—which can’t happen if they are routinely kept in the dark. A robust, mission-driven organization requires robust employee communications. Today, when Google, smart phones, social media […]
corporate-speak
The Secret to Organizational Excellence
Last week, the Alliance for Workplace Excellence held its 15th annual Workplace Excellence Awards celebration and lunch. I was delighted to be asked to be asked to contribute an article to the program for the day, and thought I’d share what I wrote with my blog readers, as well: Want to create an excellent workplace? Take a […]
Benefits Communications: The Basics Still Apply
Just about now, as fall tiptoes ever closer, benefits administrators everywhere are dreaming not of crisp new back-to-school outfits or a bountiful harvest, but of benefits open enrollment. Those dreams are not likely to be the happiest during the best of circumstances, but with regulatory changes big and small brought on by the Affordable Care […]
Some Tasty Links for Thanksgiving
This Thanksgiving, I’m grateful for all the smart folks out there writing about writing. Back in a much earlier life I briefly studied photography, and one of my favorite practitioners was a guy named Duane Michals. If your idea of great photography is precision of structure, perfect lighting and gorgeous darkroom technique, a la Ansel […]
Just Call Me The Woman With the Hammer
You know the saying, “To the man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail?” It came to mind last week when I was at the Working Mother Work Life Congress, an annual conference built around the release of the magazine’s famous “100 Best Companies” list. Sure, people were there to talk about work-life, but […]
Killing the Monsters
On the whole, I don’t believe in synonyms. Such is the magnificent complexity of the English language that only rarely do two words mean exactly the same thing. Even if the dictionary gives two words the same definition, they almost never carry the same connotation, which is what makes using the thesaurus such a treacherous […]
