Inspired Work Services Logo

Tag Archive from: employee engagement programs

surfing spectacular

Engagement. Mid-Management’s Final Frontier!

By David Harder on the July, 26, 2018

Success in management requires learning as fast as the world is changing.   Warren Bennis   In a recent Harvard Business School study, mid-managers emerged as the most disengaged of all workers. This isn’t a big surprise. Mid-managers are overworked, undervalued and are the most at-risk employees during lay-offs.   […]


surfing spectacular

Why is Your Employer Brand More Important Than Your Consumer Brand?

By David Harder on the July, 18, 2018

Who would you rather work for? United Airlines or Southwest Airlines? Google or Yahoo? Vons/Safeway or Trader Joe’s? Odds are high that you have identified the better employer with each example simply through word-of-mouth or direct customer experience. Or, you might be seriously interested in working for one of these organizations so […]


surfing spectacular

One Innovation That Will Change Entire Categories of Work

By David Harder on the July, 12, 2018

Picture this. You’ve wanted a new BMW convertible for quite some time. You get a promotion and a bonus. Your first thought is to order your brand new car.   So you go to BMW’s website and build the car online with all of the options, “Individual” paint and leather […]


surfing spectacular

How Do We End High Turnover in the Technology Industry?

By David Harder on the May, 24, 2018

The technology industry tends to be very good at hiring people, keeping them is an entirely different matter. Gourmet lunches, pool tables in the break room, gyms, and onsite daycare are certainly nice perks but the tech industry has the highest turnover within all industry categories. Average tenure hovers around […]


United Airlines CRJ

Another Shocking Back Story About United Airlines

By David Harder on the March, 7, 2018

If only 13% of the world’s workers are fully engaged, there is a high probability that a wide variety of senior executives are disengaged, going through the motions and making decisions without questioning overall impact on the business. In The Workplace Engagement Solution (Career Press), I highlighted United Airlines as an employer […]


surfing spectacular

The Five-Minute Engagement Booster

By David Harder on the February, 6, 2018

“Technology can be our best friend, and technology can also be the biggest party pooper of our lives. It interrupts our own story, interrupts our ability to have a thought or a daydream, to imagine something wonderful, because we’re too busy bridging the walk from the cafeteria back to the […]


Albert Einstein

Einstein Draws a Circle and I Don’t Know My Ass From a Hole in the Ground

By David Harder on the January, 13, 2018

This morning, someone close to me said the two most valuable phrases a person can say are, “I need help” and “I don’t know.”   When I started leading The Inspired Work Program in 1990, I was thrown into an existential crisis. Growing up with a white-male-pissed-off God had given […]


surfing spectacular

The Democratic Solution to Engagement

By David Harder on the January, 9, 2018

One of the fundamental reasons so many well-intentioned employee engagement initiatives fail is rooted in how we treat the organizational elite. The majority of learning and development dollars are directed towards executive leadership and high potentials, while everyone else gets little or nothing. Rinse & Repeat. True, measurable and sustainable […]


surfing spectacular

When Do Human Capital Executives Take a Fall for the CEO?

By David Harder on the December, 21, 2017

An effective partnership between a CEO and the Chief Human Resource Officer has become one of the key factors of an organization’s success. However, there is an all too common breakdown that very few business journalists discuss. When a chief human resource officer comes to me with a career opportunity. […]


surfing spectacular

The Single Most Important Trait in New Hires Might Surprise You

By David Harder on the December, 17, 2017

The wise holocaust survivor and philosopher Elie Wiesel said, “When a person doesn’t have gratitude, something is missing in his or her humanity. A person can almost be defined by his or her attitude toward gratitude.” The dynamic can exponentially grow in its impact on an organization. Over the years, I have […]


^