Preboarding is yet another buzzword that made its way into the business world, human resources, and management. It stands for the period just after signing the work contract with the employee, but still before the official beginning of the employment itself. What could or sometimes even should happen in this period? How can a new hire and your company alike benefit from it?

To tell customer centricity is a must would be an understatement. And a cliché. The problem is that companies begin and end with that in the sales department. Meanwhile the modern market requires a new approach. The one with multiple brand touchpoints and a holistic strategy to back it up. Today customer value should be generated by the entire company – from HR department, through delivery, ending (not beginning) with marketing and sales.

Treating performance metrics as an equivalent of business strategy or at least an important factor in shaping it has become normal in the last 30-40 years. Strategy has a reputation of being elusive while numbers bring it down to earth. Spreadsheet can be understood and everything, including people’s value, can be measured. The problem with that approach is simple. If done right, it can tell you what to do, but never how and most importantly – why.

The problem with recruitment processes is that both sides don’t have enough time to discover each other. This leads to ineffective actions that distort decisions. Good candidates are not hired or they lose interest. HR specialists use outdated tools to estimate candidates’ value. How can we make things better?

McKinsey has published recently an article entitled “How companies can help midlevel managers navigate agile transformations?”, where the authors have created a very pessimistic vision of four major requirements that organizations put on modern leaders. They need to be incredibly agile and have multiple competencies. What are they and is it realistic to expect so much from one man?

At least according to servant leadership and my take on it. He’s supposed to be humble. It’s all about listening to employees. Ideas, needs, challenges. A leader is a person who listens and talks as the last person in the room. It’s about serving the crowd. The tip: profits, efficiency, external company’s image, is worth it.

Istnieje wiele metodyk, sposobów i filozofii na zarządzanie projektami, ale tylko jedna droga, która spaja je wszystkie. Ta droga to sposób na zatrudnianie odpowiednich managerów i członków projektu. To także pierwszy krok na drodze do skutecznego zarządzania i „dowożenia” rezultatów. Mowa rzecz jasna o kulturze firmowej. O ile definicja kultury firmowej powinna zostać stworzona przez lidera organizacji, o tyle jej praktyczne wdrożenie powinno być kompetencją ogółu pracowników. Lider organizacji powinien dostarczać sadzonki, glebę, wodę, itp. Wszystko co potrzebne do stworzenia wspaniałego ogrodu. Pracownicy to natomiast gleba, która jest regularnie spulchniana i podlewana tak, aby kultura mogła zakwitnąć. Jedno bez drugiego się nie uda – potrzebna jest współpraca między liderem, menedżerami i ogółem pracowników.

Bill Gates once said: “If I have a difficult problem to solve, I hire a lazy person be­cause he will find an easy way to do it”. If so, why so many projects are sentenced to weeks and months of email discussions, meetings, and internal struggles? Wouldn’t be just easier to give the task to someone not giving a damn about protocol?