Being promoted is exciting. Promotions bring celebration and an opportunity for new growth. Anticipating and preparing for the transition can help professionals feel more at ease in the new post. Preparation can help ease potential awkwardness that may come as the “honeymoon stage” of the new job wears off.

The most important thing to remember is to optimize the initial phase of your new position. This first stage of the promotion is an opportunity to get to know the roles and responsibilities of everyone you will oversee, or work alongside. Talk to your team to learn about the different jobs and how they fit together. Make notes of people’s names, general duties and ask questions including who fills in for them when they are out of the office. Do not make immediate changes. It is important to get a clear idea of where things stand before you start making adjustments. When you are beginning the new position, colleagues may feel more comfortable being candid about what is working and where they would like to see change. Not only will you better understand the role of the individuals in your organization, but you will also gain knowledge about how to create the best teams for projects.

Take the time to listen to your new team. If employees feel that you will listen to them, then they will be more likely to support you. Listening can also help you figure out whom to delegate which tasks to as your responsibilities increase. Communicating well with your team may uncover new possibilities within the present staff. Assessing which employees may be willing to take on more responsibilities in can save you time and money.

In the beginning of a promotion, you will also want to learn all you can about the HR policies, procedures and guidelines that you would not have been privy to in your previous roles. You might have to deal with additional HR procedures, such as hiring and payroll. Make an appointment with HR when you first get promoted. This will give you time to learn any new information before potentially making a mistake.

During the transition period of your new promotion you might need to re-assess the time and ways you socialize with peers who are also friends. Going from peer to boss might require a change in your interactions. For example, if you have previously engaged in casual banter about other team members, you will now have to refrain from such comments. It is vital that everyone on your team feel equally valued. You should handle these situations honestly and directly. Making sure employees feel that you are operating on a level playing field will encourage involvement as you begin to create goals and plans.

As you move into your new position, you can begin making plans. Be sure to include future goals, your expectations and who will take over tasks if an emergency occurs. Leading into your promotion with a detailed understanding of the key facets in your organization will help you build camaraderie and set you up for success in your short term and long term goals for years to come.

This article was submitted by University Alliance on behalf of the online programs at Villanova University. If you’re interested in HR certification, Villanova offers 8-week HR courses in addition to an HR masters degree. For more information please visit http://www.VillanovaU.com

photo by  Horasis

A few years ago, my neighbors introduced their new baby, Lily, to me. Even as I congratulated them on the birth of their beautiful new daughter, I felt distracted, thinking, “Won’t they feel a little silly when they find out the correct spelling is Lilly?”

You can figure out the rest of the story. Of course, to my chagrin, I learned my neighbors were in fact correct; flying in the face of typical rules of English spelling and pronunciation, the flower is indeed spelled L-I-L-Y.

If it’s not already abundantly clear, let me come out and say that I make many mistakes in my writing. My grammar is not perfect. I overuse the passive voice and I sometimes conclude sentences with prepositions. Often, I use too many commas; other times not enough. And when I text from my phone’s virtual keyboard, I inflict a prodigious amount of typos upon my unfortunate readers.

With all my mistakes, I don’t intend to judge anyone with this post. That said, I see educated, professional (HR) people repeatedly making sloppy, elementary  mistakes that I believe detract from our collective credibility, errors that make us appear less educated and professional than we actually are. Some of the most frequent and basic errors concern contractions vs. possessives.

So this is my public service announcement. Please refer to my handy-dandy grid to help determine when to use you’re or your, who’s or whose, it’s or its.

As the astute reader will undoubtedly notice, I’ve made a number of grammatical errors in this post. Two points for each error you bring to light in the comments.

I grew up in the tropics where we had two seasons: Rainy and Dry.

Now I live in Washington, DC, which purportedly experiences four seasons, not two.

Yeah, right.

The reality? Half the year it’s too hot and the other half it’s too cold, with precious buffer between the two. Okay, to be fair, I’ll concede we do enjoy about three weeks of Autumn (breathtaking) and nine days of Spring. If we’re lucky.

Though I haven’t experienced the Spring and Fall of DC tourist lore,  I still love our summer; hot, long and humid though it is. Who doesn’t love summer? Summer is golden. Seemingly endless.  Full of promise.

When I think about the seasons, I can’t help but think about the organizational life cycle, which mimics the seasons of our own lives.

Spring: Expectancy, exuberant  ideas, exploration, entrepreneurial spirit, creativity.

Summer: Phenomenal growth; energy, excitement and passion as ideas take root and bear fruit.

Fall: Maturity. Autumn color. Bureaucracy.  Noticeable decline; the need to take stock and change course or suffer irreparable  loss.

Winter: Spiraling down to an inevitable end, unless the organization aggressively reinvents itself.

For me, the organizational life cycle hits home in a personal way because I often interact with colleagues from competing organizations that are obviously aging. I observe employees at these mature [Fall/Winter] companies struggling on a daily basis for their very survival. I watch them fighting by relentlessly pruning, cutting back, saving costs, contracting, playing it safe, minimizing risk.

I watch their sailors on the bridge desperately cranking the ship’s wheel, fighting for every degree of change–and often losing–seemingly oblivious to the water pouring in over the sides, threatening to swamp them at any moment.

And I  wonder: in response to threat, is contraction a sufficient response to prevent imminent demise?

Are ‘cutting back’ and  ‘playing it safe’ valid strategies to ensure not just survival but robust recovery?

Or should we throw out all that antiquated caution and act more like we did in our organization’s youth, when we impetuously threw all caution to the wind and cast ourselves into the innocent passion of  Spring and Summer?

photo by Krista Francis

April Fool’s Day has me thinking about snafus and shenanigans at work. One of my first jobs was a case manager at a nonprofit I’ll call Habilitative Support Services (HSS). We rented space in an old elementary school building and served adults with mental disabilities, such as autism, schizophrenia, Down syndrome, etc.

We worked hard and also had a lot of fun. For example, staff often jumped out the side windows for quick access to the parking lot rather than walking *ALLLLLL* the way around to the front or back exit. After the clients left in the late afternoon, we were known to have water balloon fights in the corridors, which was not a big deal given the concrete block walls and tile floors. Often on Fridays, we’d pool our money and a co-worker J.T. would do a beer run. We’d spend the last hour of the workweek chatting and laughing outside the back door over beers and wine coolers. To their credit, our bosses encouraged the down-time and camaraderie. Yep, I have lots of fond memories of HSS!

A couple of other stories stand out in my mind:

1. Housed in an old school building, we had no air conditioning. Summers in the DC metro area can be brutally hot and swampy, so two guys asked if the dress code could be amended to include shorts. The Director declined their request. The guys said, wait a minute, that’s not fair; the women can wear skirts which are not as hot as dress pants. The Director shrugged and answered: sorry guys; no can do.

In a stroke of genius, on the next sweltering day, the guys came to work wearing–you guessed it–skirts.

It was amazing how quickly that dress code changed.

All these years later, I still think that’s one of the more creative problem-solving approaches I’ve heard of in the workplace.

2. The second story is about my co-worker J.T.*  We appreciated his Friday beer runs and he actually was a nice guy in so many ways, but he was over-the-top flirtatious with leering eyes, wandering hands and suggestive comments. This was in the early nineties not long after the Clarence Thomas hearings, some years before sexual harassment complaints really became mainstream. At any rate, we had no HR department to report to, and honestly,  the predominately female staff  didn’t even understand that we had the right to complain. Each of the women  ignored or rebuffed his advances in her own way, to no avail.

Finally, another case manager and I had a brainwave. We wrote him a behavior plan. What is a behavior plan? Well, it was a written program we’d typically create using behavior modification principles to influence unacceptable or dangerous conduct on the part of our clients. Tongue-in-cheek, we wrote up a short social history, we theorized the function of J.T.’S  behavior, we captured the antecedent (“any time a female is in the immediate vicinity”), we defined the unacceptable behavior; and most importantly, we outlined the consequence: a mallet applied swiftly and with precision directly between his legs.

With good spirits and an attitude of humor, we intrepidly offered him a copy of his program.

And the incidents went way down.

That’s not how I would advocate my employees handling sexual harassment issues in 2011, but I’ll have to say it worked pretty well way back in the day!

I’m still  thankful for the fun we had at HSS, and I’m still in awe of the creativity we exercised to solve problems of every day work life.

photo by Sanne van der Beek

*not his real name or initials

From the recent Oprah show on happiness, what would you say is the happiest job in the U.S.?

1. Travel Agent
2. Clergy
3. Special Education Teacher
4. Firefighter

What do you think?

Drum roll please….

As it turns out, it’s a trick question. According to happiness expert and author Dan Buettner who appeared on the show,  these professions are ALL among the happiest jobs–an interesting finding since they all generally pay less than $50K/year.

What gives these jobs high potential for happiness? One reason is the amount of interpersonal interaction inherent in these roles. According to extensive Gallup and Healthways research, the happiest people experience eight or more hours of social interaction every day. The jobs listed above help deliver that, apparently.

We all have  about sixteen waking hours available each day. But when you subtract  breakfast, getting ready for work, commuting to work, commuting home, having dinner in whatever form that might take, housework, not to mention any familial responsibilities such as children’s homework/bathtime/bedtime, and any other To-Do items, there’s not much time left. As quickly as our “leisure” hours disappear, we may want to make the very best of any interpersonal connections at work.

Coincidentally, in the last month I’ve been making an effort to have more personal conversations and less e-mail at the office. Although I made this decision for unrelated reasons–to reduce in-box clutter and to get quick answers–I’ve also noticed a side benefit: my relationships at work seem to be improving.

And yes, I think I do feel the ‘happiness benefits’ resulting from increased connection. Since watching this little Oprah clip, I’ll definitely be looking for more ways to expand the conversation.Who doesn’t want to be happier at work and throughout life?

If you’re interested, you can take Oprah’s quiz about happy habits here.

photo by nayrb7

Because I am an HR nerd, in my daily travels, I often ask people about their jobs. I ask: what’s it like to work here? Do you like what you do? Is it hard to get a job here?

Sorry if this is too much information for the male readers, but today I went for my annual mammogram. Although it felt awkward to be having a conversation given what was transpiring with my bodily parts, I asked the technician about her job. “Do you do mammograms all day long?” I inquired.

She said she usually does, and I followed up  by asking how she enjoys her work.

With a huge smile, she quickly answered, “I love it. I’m in the business of saving lives. You can’t ask for a better job than that.”

Wow. Great answer. She could have responded, “Well, it pays the bills” or  “Oh, it gets really monotonous and tedious doing X Rays all day long,” or “I feel bad causing women physical discomfort.”

But no, she loves her job and she interprets it in a way that allows her the greatest sense of meaning and gratification.

How do you interpret and explain what you do?

photo by strangelibrarian

The office dishwasher has been broken for two weeks. People seem to have a hard enough time picking up after themselves in regular circumstances, much less now. Despite supplies for hand-washing dishes and even though we have a second dishwasher one flight down, dirty cups, plates, glasses and cutlery pile up in the sink for days.  A couple times a week, I carefully stack the dishes in a salad bowl, schlep them downstairs,  empty the other dishwasher and load it again. It’s not my responsibility, but I can’t stand it anymore. I am not a punitive person, but I joked on Twitter that a kitchen webcam might make a difference.

It reminds me of when my hubby and I moved in together. Of course we talked about how our household would run and of course we disagreed. He said we needed rules, structured routines, chore lists, which I thought silly. We’re adults, I argued; if we see something needs to be done, we should just pitch in and do it.

With the dishwasher fiasco, I am tempted to think my husband is right. Maybe you can’t count on people to do the right thing. Maybe we do need rules and chore rotations.

But then I remember our office vehicles. No matter how structured the expectations, some people consistently ignore them, leaving cars trashed or on “E,” taking vehicles they haven’t reserved, etc.

Between the dishes and the cars, I guess my husband and I are both wrong. Or maybe these issues are just universal. Does your office struggle with people not cleaning up after themselves or failing to do their part? If so, what’s worked? Anything?

There was a lot of buzz last year that women still make significantly less in many professions, on average, than men; here’s just one post by CNNMoney.com. Somehow in all the discussion, I missed this particular aspect: according to author and Carnegie Mellon professor Linda Babcock, far fewer women than men ask for raises, and far fewer female candidates attempt to negotiate a pay offer.  According to this article and others, the differences between the genders in this regard are dramatic. We’re not talking 60%/40%, it’s more like 80%/10% [men ask/women don't]. Women would rather settle for a smaller salary than face the discomfort of negotiation, apparently.

And then here’s yet another wrinkle, a damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don’t dilemma: a Harvard IdeaCast suggests women pay a financial cost when they fail to ask for more money, yet they pay a significant social cost when they try to negotiate.   Guest Whitney Johnson, partner and co-founder of the investment firm Rose Park Advisors, suggests women are often socially shunned for making the ask; whereas, while men’s requests are not always honored, they are not made at risk of social capital.

We haven’t touched the issue of many women voluntarily stepping out of the paid workforce for long periods to care for children or ailing relatives. How does that figure in?

I don’t have any magic wands to wave to solve the gender pay issue, but Linda Babcock’s study sure grabbed my attention today. If you have any thoughts, chime in on the comments section.

There is much I admire about my boss, Tim Wiens, the CEO of our organization.  His vision, integrity, discipline and commitment, for example.  Or that he is consistently even-tempered, optimistic and persistent despite the relentless and sometimes punishing challenges of nonprofit life.  Not to mention his commitments around teamwork, inclusion and collaboration; or his ability to build masterful partnerships that are the envy of other organizations.

Those are all important leadership qualities, but today I find myself appreciating something else, something which at first glance might seem insignificant and small:

First he empties the dishwasher. Then he makes coffee. (Does your boss do this?)

Many other staff have successfully dodged putting dishes away for years. Or they intentionally leave a splash of coffee in the pot so someone else has to make the next batch.  But not Tim. He doesn’t complain and he doesn’t have an ego about these things. He just jumps in and does what needs to be done. When you think about it, Tim’s early morning routine is not insignificant or small at all; rather, it is an example of servant leadership and humility, important (yet often underestimated) leadership traits according to many experts.

So tell me: What does your boss do well? What have you learned from her/him? Can you brag on your boss? Or if not your current boss, someone you knew in the past?

My son has been sick for three weeks and my husband for four.  Both had bad sinus infections and missed a bunch of school/work. This week, just when he should have been getting better, my husband took a turn for the worse and was diagnosed with pneumonia.

His morning appointment turned into an all day affair while the doctor ordered lab work, IV fluids, a chest X Ray, more labs, and finally an IV course of antibiotics. (Fortunately I brought my HRCP study materials and spent the day reading up on Strategic Management in preparation for my SPHR exam!) Since then, I’ve been playing a combination of Florence Nightingale and Giant Peapod (grocery delivery). My son is still home sick, my husband is still weak, has little energy and is not yet driving.

I love them and I’m glad to help, but I’m also very ready for them both to get back on their feet and out of my hair! My routine is just not the same. I’ve had very little time for myself, my work or my own priorities.

I was telling Chris Ponder there could be a silver lining in all this. Temporarily experiencing the disruption and fatigue of caregiving gives me new-found appreciation and respect for people who provide care long-term. In our workplaces, employees are caring for partners with Alzheimer’s or cancer, parents are caring for children with disabilities, adult children are taking care of aging parents.  The AARP estimates that 43.5 million Americans, or 19% of all adults, are caring for an older relative. The average family caregiver is female, middle-aged and working outside the home, according to AARP and the other literature I’ve read. Often they still have children at home, making them the sandwich generation.

If you’re a caregiver, my hat’s off to you for your continued service and sacrifice. What tips and suggestions do you have for others in your situation? How do you take care of yourself, have enough time to renew and still have time for all your obligations?

If you’re a business owner or HR person, what has your organization done to help employees who are caregivers?

photo by rosieobeirne