Shift Management | Blog
What You Might Not Know About Change Management

What You Might Not Know About Change Management

"We need change management!" is the cry I hear most frequently these days from both HR and C-Suite decision makers looking for training. When I ask about the context, they typically want their tired and emotionally spent employees to accept more changes, work harder,...

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Being Heard And Acknowledged Even If You Are Shy

Being Heard And Acknowledged Even If You Are Shy

A lot of professionals tell me they lack voice in their organizations. They are either hampered by their own insecurity and lack of confidence, or by the hierarchy in the organization which seems to stymie their efforts at sharing ideas or even finding a space or...

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Why Your Employees Aren’t Excited To Meet Your Goals

Why Your Employees Aren’t Excited To Meet Your Goals

Business owners often tell me that their employees don't show motivation, ask for too much, or just don't get on board with their ideas for how to help the company make more money. Knowing how human beings function at work can be helpful in understanding this. In the...

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Meeting Kindred Spirits and Fighting Toxicity with Love

Meeting Kindred Spirits and Fighting Toxicity with Love

A keynote speech delivered by Dr. Julie Pham at "The Spirit of Work" book launch You never know when, where, or how you will meet a kindred spirit. That is how I feel about Dr. Marie Gervais. We met three months ago, when she interviewed me for her podcast, after I...

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Reversing Incivility With Intent To Be And Do Good

Reversing Incivility With Intent To Be And Do Good

Do a search on incivility and rudeness in the workplace and you will come up with hundred shifts of posts. It's a hot topic for a reason... As you’re looking for answers on how to improve your workplace climate, you’ll find a ton of great courses, resources and tips....

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Imagining a Workplace Culture With No Prejudice!

Imagining a Workplace Culture With No Prejudice!

When my friend from Cameroon walked down the hallway of the accounting firm where she worked, nobody smiled at her. Every person she greeted appeared to have not heard her and sometimes even bumped into her as if she were invisible. Although they said good morning to...

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I Was Writing A Book But Didn’t Know It

I Was Writing A Book But Didn’t Know It

It was my first date on my first job as a teacher and nobody greeted me. I had to ask at the office where my classroom was and request a key - no tour offered. The class had a storage room that had never been cleaned and no supplies had been ordered for the year....

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Why You Need Your Heart To Work

Why You Need Your Heart To Work

Why you need your heart to work Since this month features Valentine’s Day, it seems timely to talk about the link between emotions and decision making at work. There is a strong link between emotional self-awareness and ability to solve problems at work. Increasingly,...

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How Leaders Can Be More Compassionate to Employees

How Leaders Can Be More Compassionate to Employees

How Leaders Can Be More Compassionate to Employees (a guest blog) by Rose Julian When asked where acts of compassion regularly occur, the office would probably be last on your mind! Professional environments are focused on advancement and economic outcomes to achieve...

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10 Ways to Survive the New Supervisor Nightmare

10 Ways to Survive the New Supervisor Nightmare

So your time has come and you're officially the new supervisor! Of course you are feeling both excited and perhaps a bit scared at the same time. You want to make a good impression and you want people to like you, but you recognize a need for discipline and want to...

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Leadership and Management Plus COVID-19

Leadership and Management Plus COVID-19

What has changed for leadership and management since COVID-19? You may be wondering what has changed for managers since the experience of a global pandemic and widespread economic upheaval. From my perspective, the basics of management continue to be the foundation...

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What is the Difference Between Training and Coaching?

What is the Difference Between Training and Coaching?

There can be confusion between the terms training and coaching. When an organization approaches me for training or coaching, there can be confusion between the terms training and coaching and what to expect for each. I thought it might be helpful to clarify how I see...

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Moving Effectively from Operations to Supervision

Moving Effectively from Operations to Supervision

Often people who are great employees are promoted to supervisory positions. After all who doesn’t want to promote a loyal, capable and dedicated employee who is well-liked by the team? Being a part of a team and knowing how to do your job well are important...

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How to Make Your Site an Online Leader

How to Make Your Site an Online Leader

You can be an excellent leader of your team, and a leader of your field or industry. If you manage a business that conducts activity online, being a leader involves consistently ranking at the top of the search engine results pages, as well as being viewed as a...

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Why Time Management is a Myth and What to Do Differently

Why Time Management is a Myth and What to Do Differently

"You will never 'find' time for anything. If you want time, you must make it." ~ Charles Buxton By the age of 50, Barbilee Hemmings, B.A., B.Ed. Quality of Life Specialist and owner of QualityOfLifeAssurance.com has earned enough ‘time accomplishments’ to call herself...

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A 2020 Vision for the Future of Work

A 2020 Vision for the Future of Work

Overview of the future of work trends Let’s recap on the future of work using the most recent OECD statistics. We already know that automation is on the rise, but that on a high skill level, it will only affect between 13-14% of new jobs in the labour force....

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Workplace Politics and Me: Do I have to play this game?

Workplace Politics and Me: Do I have to play this game?

You may have encountered politics at your workplace in some way or form. If you are like most people, you probably associate a negative connotation to workplace politics, and would like to stay as far away from it as you can. However, workplace politics need not be a...

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Workplace Politics: The Good, the Bad and the In-between

Workplace Politics: The Good, the Bad and the In-between

Workplace politics takes on different meanings in different situations, and may be positive in some situations, and negative in others. People understand workplace politics to be the 'dark side' of workplace culture. The Link Between Workplace Culture and Politics...

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Workplace Politics: The Basics

Workplace Politics: The Basics

Workplace politics is a part of life, and the more informed you are, the better prepared you will be to navigate the ocean of politics at your workplace. Especially as a newcomer to Canada, knowledge can prove to be powerful, helping you make informed decisions. Read...

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Lipstick and Beer. Business in tough times

Lipstick and Beer. Business in tough times

In times of economic duress businesses close, people lose their jobs and there is a climate of fear. The three most common reactions to a downturn in the economy are freeze, flee and fight. During the freeze period, spending is down. Then there is massive exit for...

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Self-Awareness Can Make You A Better Leader

Self-Awareness Can Make You A Better Leader

3 ways you can use self-awareness to develop ethical decision-making I. Two stories of leadership – which one would you rather be known for? I was at a construction manager’s meeting not so long ago when I heard these two presentations. The vice president of one of...

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Removing Obstacles To Team Success

Removing Obstacles To Team Success

You may be an inspiring leader who can motivate anyone to do anything. But if you can’t identify and remove the obstacles to individual and team success, it is all empty words that don’t build authority or credibility. [bctt tweet="A great leader knows the...

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Pre-influencing your team for great attitude

Pre-influencing your team for great attitude

I have been reading Robert Cialdini’s most recent book Pre-Suasion. It's about how people are triggered to behave in certain ways under certain conditions. The short version is that people are influenced by reciprocity, social proof, likeability, consistency, scarcity...

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Are Limiting Beliefs About Managers Holding You Back?

Are Limiting Beliefs About Managers Holding You Back?

Feeling stuck? This post is for you! Read on... I work with a lot of supervisors in my supervisory leadership program. Some of them surge ahead and embrace the course, others struggle but start to move forward in their supervisor jobs as they see the power of setting...

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Why people don’t follow procedures and what to do about it

Why people don’t follow procedures and what to do about it

You have been through this before. An employee seems to know what to do. You have communicated the procedure, and probably explained the steps. And…it isn’t done. Or it isn’t done right. You could tear your hair out! Ranting and raving, getting mad and frustrated or...

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Your transferable skills: Finding and using them for work

Your transferable skills: Finding and using them for work

Are you confused about this talk of “soft skills” for getting a job? Do you wonder what it means to have “transferable” skills? Do you want to have a fast way to find out what your soft, transferable - or whatever employers want skills - are and then use them to get a...

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Diversifying your workforce…Who has time?

Diversifying your workforce…Who has time?

Have you ever been in a conversation with a group.. when one person was way behind what everyone else seems to know? I witnessed exactly that at a business dinner event just recently. Everyone at the table was talking about ways they were strategizing to find...

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Supervisory survival basics: Giving direction

Supervisory survival basics: Giving direction

Being good at your job has its downside. People usually come into their first managerial positions because they are good at what they are already doing. Decision makers identify them as responsible, committed and technically competent. With those company-friendly...

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4 ways to motivate others using your experience

4 ways to motivate others using your experience

What motivates people? The first response of almost everyone you ask this question is “money”. Yet in study after study, money has only proven to be a motivator when someone is in grinding poverty or in a situation of narcissistic hoarding. Even then, as soon as the...

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How not belonging teaches inclusion

How not belonging teaches inclusion

I’m what they call a 3rd culture kid. I belong to the 17.7% of Canadians who had one or two parents born outside of Canada and grew up learning to bridge different cultures, languages, and worldviews. Let me share with you a few stats about immigrants in Canada and a...

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Increase your leadership attraction: Your backstory

Increase your leadership attraction: Your backstory

Did you know that leadership attraction and marketing are related? You couldn’t control how your story started, but you can write a few good pages in there ― Mustafa Saifuddin As I was reading Russell’s most recent book called Dotcom Secrets, something really jumped...

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Channeling Your Inner “Scary Leader”

Channeling Your Inner “Scary Leader”

Lots of people come to me with their workplace issues and management dilemmas. I listen patiently and help them come to a few conclusions about their next steps. Upon reflection, I would say that 99% of the managers seeking my advice have problems because they have an...

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Keeping your diverse employees

Keeping your diverse employees

It is tough to find quality workers these days. You probably have invested quite a bit in recruiting, hiring and setting up for skilled employees from diverse backgrounds for your company. But how do you keep them? Many skilled workers from other countries will take...

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Andrew’s story: Finding work in chemical manufacturing

Andrew’s story: Finding work in chemical manufacturing

Let me tell you about how I first met Andrew Zheng... I was a speaker at the Chinese Students and Scholars Association gala (CSSA) and met Andrew during the networking portion of the evening. He impressed me by explaining how he landed a job in his industry right...

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How Sandra cracked the code on “Canadian Experience”

How Sandra cracked the code on “Canadian Experience”

    "A career is a journey with stops along the way, not a destination." It’s a classic line that newcomers hear when trying to find work in Canada: “We are looking for someone with ‘Canadian experience.’” And while this isn’t necessarily an invalid point,...

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Your accent: Shrinking the elephant in the room

Your accent: Shrinking the elephant in the room

Accent. Everyone pretends it doesn’t matter. But after interviewing both employers and internationally trained professionals, it was the one topic that was consistent on both sides of the equation. Immigrants say accent stops them from getting hired. Employers say...

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Stop spending 80% of your time on one bad egg

Stop spending 80% of your time on one bad egg

Ever notice how there are those "bad eggs" on your team who, like vacuums, seem to suck not only your energy, but everyone's energy? Learning to deal with the "bad eggs" on our teams can feel like a trap. [bctt tweet="It's easy to think that with just a little more...

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Live your work life as if you could die tomorrow

Live your work life as if you could die tomorrow

Recently I have been reminded of the importance of death... When we think about our own death and what might be our legacy after we have left this world, it can have a big impact on how we live daily. It has a lot of weight on how we treat people at work, in our...

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Turning Twitter into a giant job board

Turning Twitter into a giant job board

Not one who needs to use a lot of words in a day? You probably find that Twitter is a favourite social media space and it turns out that many employers feel the same way. Hundreds of thousands of jobs are posted by employers using a mere 140 characters everyday, and...

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Integrating international employees to your workplace

Integrating international employees to your workplace

Imagine you have just landed in a country where you will be working and living for the first time... Everything is new and strange. People don’t respond the way you expect them to and the environment, food and even the smells around you are completely unfamiliar. When...

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Gerard Keledjian: An immigrant success story

Gerard Keledjian: An immigrant success story

About four years ago I migrated to Canada from Dubai, UAE, bringing with me over 15 years of experience and the dream of starting an exciting, new chapter in my life. However, like most new immigrants, I struggled to find my footing. In my search for solutions, I made...

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Courageous conversations you wish you’d had

Courageous conversations you wish you’d had

Have you ever found yourself wishing you would have had a conversation that could have made a difference for you and for the other person? Maybe you wish you had told that wonderful colleague you appreciated her but were afraid it might be taken the wrong way or “go...

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To stop the talent drain, develop your own leadership

To stop the talent drain, develop your own leadership

Your leadership actions are predictors of your organization’s success. If you are in any kind of a management position right now, sit down with a pen and paper and take five minutes to write down your answer to this question: Why would anyone want to follow me? If you...

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On fasting, culture and family

On fasting, culture and family

You may or may not know that I am a Baha’i. One thing that Baha’is do as part of their spiritual practice is to participate in a month of fasting every March from the 1st to the 19th, then celebrate the Baha’i New Year on the first day of the spring equinox. So what...

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Is it true that some people can’t be motivated?

Is it true that some people can’t be motivated?

Unpacking Motivation Ever found yourself asking this question? It's one that I am often asked, usually by someone who is frustrated with an employee who seems to have a lot of motivation issues, and usually when the asker has already decided that the answer to the...

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Build Powerful Engaged Teams

Build Powerful Engaged Teams

Outstanding teamwork doesn’t just happen. The core competency of management is to truly appreciate your staff and make the team more powerful than individual workers to produce business goals. Training is not enough. You can develop the individual until the cows come...

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Is online learning for you? Let’s find out

Is online learning for you? Let’s find out

Online learning isn’t for every professional. It might work for you, let's find out. For me, I have been taking and creating online courses for several years now, and it occurred to me that I should look at the characteristics of successful online learners to see if...

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Getting through to your boss

Getting through to your boss

Have you experienced any of these issues with your boss? Your boss tells you to do something that is completely the opposite, or in contradiction to what he/she told you to do earlier Your boss forgets what he/she asks, and repeats things you already know, or doesn’t...

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The need to be right versus the need to know

The need to be right versus the need to know

In his book How to win friends and influence people, Dale Carnegie writes that one of the biggest obstacles to living a happy life is allowing the need to be right to take over the need to know. Most of us will defend our beliefs to the death, even when all evidence...

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Want more confidence? Try these steps!

Want more confidence? Try these steps!

Have you ever found yourself watching someone else participate easily in a conversation with a stranger and wondered, “How did he/she do that?” Or perhaps you watched a presenter put forth a series of ideas with brilliant logic, a great sense of humour, or...

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7 Barriers to communication and a lesson from YouTube

7 Barriers to communication and a lesson from YouTube

Barriers to communication can be removed!   Ask employees in any workplace what the company’s biggest internal problem is and the majority will say without hesitation, “communication,” (insert eye rolling and groans here). Why is it that although we are social...

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Reflections on high school reunions and cultural awareness

Reflections on high school reunions and cultural awareness

I had a crazy moment of cultural awareness/flashback/shock at my 40th high school reunion event a couple of weekends ago. Like many people I know, if you are still in touch with even a couple of people from your high school days 10 years afterwards, you are in the...

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