Have you ever clicked on 'Send' and wished you hadn't?  Or sent a seemingly straightforward email, only to receive a different reaction to what you anticipated?  Have you ever sent an email and forgot the attachment?  Or sent an important email, only to find that it stagnated in the recipient's inbox for days, or was overlooked as spam and deleted without being read?

If so, you are not alone.  Despite the popularity of email as a communication medium, particularly in the workplace, many users are not proficient in its use.

Consultrain has developed the following quick and easy acronym to help you avoid these common email pitfalls and ensure that your emails PASS with an A+ every time!

So check that your email does PASS with an A+ before clicking 'Send'.  The minute it will take you will save you much more time in the long run by reducing unnecessary delays and misunderstandings.  It will also help you to improve the professionalism, quality, efficiency and effectiveness of your email communication at work.

To discuss how training in effective email communication might benefit your workplace, call Adele on 0412 683 759, or send her an email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Consciously, most of us do not condone discriminatory behaviour.  Yet, all of us have bias of some sort toward something, someone, or some group – even if we think we don’t!  More often than not, we make decisions that discriminate against one individual or group in favour of another, without even realising that we are doing it, and ironically, often against our own conscious belief that our decision-making is unbiased. 

This unconscious bias can dramatically impact our business decision making in areas including mentoring, promotion, performance review, policy, marketing and customer service.  But perhaps nowhere is unconscious bias more evident at work than in recruitment and selection processes.  An unconscious bias can discriminate against applicants of a certain race, age or gender.  But unconscious bias can also be more subtle, screening out candidates who may mistakenly be perceived to have passive personalities (e.g. due to a weak handshake or lack of direct eye contact) or to be non-conformists (e.g. because they have visible tattoos or piercings), who have attended a lesser-known university, or whose address is deemed to be on the wrong side of town.  This is highly problematic because companies are screening out large numbers of diverse candidates that could bring innovation, creativity, and new and beneficial ways of thinking into the business.  Further, research indicates that having staff diversity that reflects a company’s customer base has an extremely positive business impact.

Here are some strategies to help you and your business mitigate the risk of your recruitment and selection processes being negatively affected by unconscious bias:

• Promote an Employee Value Proposition (EVP) that includes benefits that will attract a wide and diverse pool of applicants to apply (e.g. include flexible work arrangements).
• Use gender and age neutral language in job descriptions, job ads and interview questions.  Avoid heavily masculine and feminine coded language.  For example, ”leader”, “ambitious”, “strong”  and “competitive” are masculine and can dissuade women from applying for jobs.  They are more often used more in male-dominated professions when compared to words such as “support”, “nurture”, “collaborate” and “connect” which are coded as feminine.  Software exists that can comb through language to alert employers if language is too gendered.
• “Blind shortlist”, i.e. remove personal details such as names, ages, educational institutions, etc. from job applications.
• Ensure diversity on selection panels.  Ideally, the diversity of the panel should reflect the diversity of the candidate group as much as possible.
• Recognise that you have biases, prejudices and stereotypes, and increase your self-awareness of them by:
  • Asking for feedback
  • Testing your unconscious bias by taking Harvard University’s free Implicit Association Test (IAT) at www.implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/.
• Question your first impressions of candidates.
• Treat all candidates with the same level of fairness and respect, regardless of the level of affinity or connection you feel with them.
• Focus on the knowledge and skills required for the job, i.e. the key selection criteria.
• Encourage selection panel members to suspend judgments until the end of the interview, in order to minimise biases associated with first impressions.
• Deliberately slow down decision making.  This helps to avoid making decisions on the basis of rapid, intuitive, and at times unconscious, judgments.
• Selection panel members should make shortlisting and selection decisions collectively.
• Justify your decisions, and make others involved in the selection process justify their decisions.
• Reconsider reasons for decisions.
• Selection panel members should monitor each other for unconscious bias.
• Hold everyone accountable by creating a culture of discussing and calling out unconscious bias.  This reduces its stigma and helps people become more conscious of the decisions they’re making.
• Question cultural stereotypes.
• Challenge negative terminology about ‘groups’.
• Reinforce and promote positive images of diverse groups of people in recruitment and selection materials, the company website and career sites. 
• Track the number and ratio of diverse applicants and adjust your attraction campaign accordingly in order to increase representation of diverse groups.  For example, if 40% of applicants were female, but only 12% of those interviewed were female, then the shortlisting process requires review and adjustment.
• Provide diversity training to selection panel members.

Understanding, accepting and mitigating against our unconscious bias is neither an easy or comfortable process, but it is a necessary one if we want to reap the benefits of a truly diverse workplace.  It requires those involved in recruitment and selection, and other business decision making processes, to have a high level of self-awareness and introspection, as well as a willingness to call out and act on unconscious bias when they detect it in themselves or others.

“A goal properly set is halfway reached.” – Zig Ziglar

For more than three decades, the SMART acronym has provided a clear and supposedly simple framework for setting goals ‘properly’.  It is the most popular method of goal setting in the world today, largely because it attempts to simplify what can be a difficult task – developing effective performance or achievement objectives.  SMART goal setting criteria can supposedly be used by anyone, anywhere, without the need for any training or tools.  But is this actually the case? 

In my experience over a decade of training individual employees and work groups to write their annual performance and development goals, SMART goal setting is not as easy or straightforward as it might seem.  Let’s take a look at some of the most common difficulties people encounter in trying to apply each of the SMART criteria.

Specific

It appears that “the devil is in the detail.”  Some people have trouble visualising the end result of a project or objective in detail at the outset, particularly in today’s fast-paced, global, 24/7 business environments where change is a constant.   Others may be uncomfortable with the accountability that a prescriptive outcome brings.  Whatever the reason, many people have trouble being specific when it comes to personal goal setting.

This is particularly true when it comes to specifying the outcome of goals.  I have observed that it is easier for people to be specific about what they need to do to accomplish a goal, than it is for them to be specific about the desired outcome of their actions.  By very definition, a goal must have an end result or outcome that one must strive to achieve.  Therefore, it should reflect that end, not just the means to the end.  For example, “complete the monthly budget report” is a task that a finance employee presumably should already have the skills and ability to complete.  It is an activity, not a goal.  However, in thinking about why the monthly budget report must be completed, it becomes possible to reformulate the goal to “provide accurate, timely financial information to support management decision making and resource allocation” – which is a specific outcome towards which completing the monthly budget report contributes, presumably among other tasks.  All too often, people confuse the outcome of a goal with the tasks or activities required to achieve it, producing a performance plan that consists more of a specific list of tasks and activities than a coherent set of specific, outcome orientated goals.  Perhaps the ‘R’ in SMART should also stand for ‘Results Orientated.’

Finally, a goal is supposed to be more likely to be achieved when it is written in specific terms, because the outcome can more readily be visualised.  However, even when someone is able to develop a specific results-orientated goal, that doesn’t necessarily mean that goal is vivid or meaningful for them, or captures their heart and mind in a way that makes its achievement more likely.  Perhaps the ‘M’ in SMART should also stand for ‘Meaningful.’

Measurable

Ensuring goals are measurable makes it possible to track progress against the goal, and to know when it has been achieved.  However, not everything worth achieving is easily measurable.  This can result in measures being set that are not well suited to the outcome being assessed, or in work teams and organisations spending disproportionately large amounts of time, money and effort creating new measurement tools and systems , instead of directing these resources into the work itself. 

Further, performance measures and objectives can sometimes conflict.  For example, in a call centre, a productivity measure of how many calls are made within a specified time period could result in an unwanted drop in customer service standards.

Finally, in my experience, qualitative measures of performance are too often overlooked.  People seem to be more comfortable with quantitative measures (countable amounts such as dollar values, percentages, completion dates), perhaps because they provide very straightforward and objective assessments of performance – either the numerical performance standard was achieved or it wasn’t.  The problem is that not all aspects of work can be easily measured in number based terms.  Therefore, it is important for people to understand how to set performance targets that are based on qualitative measures of their work, such as feedback from key stakeholders, which although more subjective, is still extremely valuable.  Facilitating this requires strong workplace feedback cultures where giving, receiving and seeking performance related feedback is the norm and something that is comfortable for people, rather than something uncomfortable and to be avoided.

Achievable

A goal is generally considered achievable for someone if they have the capability (required knowledge, skills and abilities), access to the resources needed, a realistic time frame and achievement of the goal is not influenced by external factors over which they have no control.  These are all factors worthy of consideration.  However, in my experience, this SMART criterion can cause people to set goals that are well within their comfort zone and fail to provide sufficient challenge to motivate or engage them.  This can stifle creativity and innovation and result in mediocre performance.  Research consistently demonstrates that setting specific but difficult goals is a more effective way of driving performance.  Yes, goals should be achievable, but they should also challenge and stretch people out of their comfort zones.  This is how people learn and develop, and achieve the best results.  With conviction, passion, perseverance and a willingness to develop and learn new skills, it is possible for even seemingly unrealistic goals to be achieved!  Perhaps the ‘S’ in SMART should also stand for ‘Stretch’.

Relevant

 In some versions of the SMART acronym, the ‘R’ stands for ‘Realistic’.  However, because this is so similar to ‘Achievable’, another version has evolved which uses ‘Relevant’ instead to highlight that employees must align their individual performance goals with (1) the key result areas in their position description, and (2) the broader business unit and organisational strategic and operational objectives.  Without this alignment, employees will struggle to get the support and resources they require for achievement of their goals, and organisations will fail to harness the efforts of their people to achieve their strategic business objectives. 

Unfortunately, in my experience, employees’ position descriptions are often outdated and/or employees are unfamiliar with the higher level strategic and operational plans that are relevant to their work.  Even when higher level strategic objectives are known, employees often struggle to draw connections between these lofty statements and what they do on a daily, weekly or monthly basis.  Without training, assistance, or considerable goal setting experience, most people find it very difficult to translate strategic objectives, or even their own key results areas, down to the level of their own individual goals.  Perhaps the ‘A’ in SMART should also stand for ‘Aligned.’

Time-bound

Setting a time frame for goal completion helps people to focus and organise their time, energy and resources to increase the likelihood of goal accomplishment.  But sometimes, it is not possible to set a realistic time frame for the completion of an objective until after you start, figure out what the objective involves, and see how things unfold.  So applying this SMART criterion can force people to set ‘guesstimated’ artificial deadlines which, if inaccurate, can damage their reputations and work-life balance, and reduce the quality of their deliverables and business outcomes.  Some other goals may be ‘timeless’ in that they are ongoing.  For example, “maintain high levels of customer satisfaction.”   Either way, just because you can’t definitively pin down a time frame for a goal doesn’t mean you can’t start working on it.  

Further, because time frames are probably the easiest type of performance measure to set, many employees assign them to their goals and think that this alone makes them measurable.  While adherence to time frames can indicate that a task or activity required to achieve a goal has been completed, it usually doesn’t measure whether or not that task or activity achieved what it was intended to.  For example, consider the goal statement “Improve staffing strategies by conducting a review of recruitment and selection policy by 3rd July.”  Just because the policy review is completed by the 3^rd July doesn’t mean that any resulting recommendations actually improved staffing strategies.  In other words, a time frame is often not a good measure of goal outcome.  Other measures are required in addition to time frames, but these are sometimes overlooked.

Finally, I have observed a tendency for employees to set timeframes only in relation to each single goal, and not in the context of their entire performance plan.  While a goal of mid-September might be realistic for a single goal, if you have other goals due around a similar time, then that timeframe might not be so realistic after all.

Conclusion

As a starting point and a guide to goal setting, SMART remains a useful framework, but it does not necessarily simplify the process of goal setting.  It is not always straightforward to write SMART goals, and in fact, the SMART criteria may be too onerous for setting simple goals because it is not always practicable for every goal to reflect all 5 criteria.  For example, not everything worth achieving is measurable, and it is not always possible to set a realistic time frame for a goal upfront. 

Conversely, the cookie cutter approach of SMART is somewhat prescriptive and limiting for more complex objectives, which may need to reflect more than these 5 criteria in order to be effective.  After all, the world of work has evolved significantly over the past three decades since SMART goal setting was introduced.  These days, in addition to being specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound, performance goals also need to be aligned, meaningful, results orientated, challenging, developmental, flexible, and owned by the employee.   This adds further complexity to SMART goal setting, which perhaps should look more like this:

Many employees require guidance and training to be able to effectively apply the SMART criteria to their own individual and team goal setting endeavours.  It is also time to expand the meaning of the SMART acronym, and apply it more flexibly to setting goals, if it is to continue to serve us well in an increasingly competitive, fast-paced, global and complex business world.  

Do any of these challenges with SMART goal setting resonate with you? Are they reflected in your employees’ performance goals?  Consultrain provides practical training workshops that cover the SMART criteria but also move beyond it towards a more flexible and comprehensive approach to goal setting.  Participants receive assistance from the facilitator and each other to write their own stretch goals and measures for their work and professional development, that align with the broader strategic and operational objectives of their work team and organisation.  Consultrain can also facilitate strategic planning events for work groups.  If these services could benefit your business, contact Adele on 0412 683 759 or at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..  

Many feedback skills training courses focus primarily on teaching people how to give feedback effectively, and there is no doubt that this is beneficial.  After all, poorly given feedback can lower motivation and morale, create conflict and misunderstanding, and have a detrimental effect on performance and the workplace.

However, the receiver's response to feedback is often more dependent on how they interpret what is said than on the skill of the giver.  If the receiver isn't willing or able to process the feedback, then skillful delivery can only go so far.

Having recently read "Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well" by Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen, I highly recommend it for the alternative and interesting perspective it offers on the conundrum of feedback.  These authors argue that the key player in any feedback transaction is actually not the feedback giver, but the receiver.  Therefore, the focus should be on training people to receive feedback effectively so that they can become more skillful learners.

Many people report that they don't receive enough feedback at work, yet ironically, they make no effort to elicit it, preferring instead to sit around and wait for it and/or complain about the lack of it!  Therefore, being able to proactively seek feedback, in ways that provide good quantity and quality of developmental information, is another critical skill for people to exercise in the workplace.  Seeking feedback can create a positive impression, build credibility and contribute to job success.  In fact, employees who proactively seek feedback are often considered as performing better than those who don't.

Consultrain provides holistic and comprehensive skills training in all aspects of feedback - giving, receiving and seeking - to assist people to develop the skills necessary to build strong feedback cultures and engage effectively in feedback conversations, both in and outside of the workplace.  For a course overview or further information, drop me a line or call 0412 683 759.

When utilised well, performance management can be a powerful tool to drive your professional development while making a valuable contribution to the goals of your team and those of your organisation.  Commitment from both employees and managers, together with ongoing meaningful feedback conversations, are essential to successful performance management.

As an employee, you can get the most out of your participation in your organisation’s performance management process by doing the following:

• Familiarise yourself with the strategic and operational planning objectives that are relevant to your work, e.g. plans for your team, work unit, and the broader organisation’s strategic planning documents.
• Ensure you understand your position description, job competencies, responsibilities, priorities and performance expectations.  How you can contribute to these objectives?
• Consider what it is that you are expected to produce or achieve in each of your key responsibility areas over the coming performance review period.  This will help you to formulate your work goals.
• Meet with your manager for performance planning purposes - to collaboratively agree on goals for your work, professional and career development for the coming review period, that are appropriate for your position and contribute in some way to the goals of your work unit and the broader organisation.
• Ensure you have role clarity – an understanding, agreed with your manager, of what’s expected of you, by when and to what standard.
• Regularly monitor and track your progress against your goals, communicating their status to your manager, especially when there are obstacles or challenges threatening your goal achievement.
• Work to establish and maintain a positive relationship with your manager.
• Proactively seek feedback on your performance from your manager and others you work with, such as colleagues, direct reports, customers and suppliers.
• Regularly exchange constructive, informal 2-way performance feedback with others at work. 
• Be receptive to feedback, accepting constructive feedback and taking the initiative to improve.
• Seek support as required.
• Take responsibility for your own professional and career development by proactively seeking learning opportunities both at work and through external learning resources.
• Keep your performance plan ‘alive’ and meaningful through regular maintenance activities such as reviewing it, discussing it with your manager and team, monitoring and tracking your progress against it, and updating it when required.
• Keep a portfolio of quantitative and qualitative evidence to substantiate your performance achievements, outcomes, successes and challenges.  This could consist of feedback received, work outputs, survey results, reports, awards and training certificates.
• Self-assess your own performance prior to meeting formally with your manager to review your performance.  Be honest and objective about your performance but don’t underestimate your abilities.
• Meet formally with your manager as required to discuss and review your performance over the past review period.

Consultrain provides training for employees in how to participate effectively in performance development processes, including how to set effective goals for their work and professional development, and how to exchange performance related feedback. 

For more information, contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or call 0412 683 759

Are you a manager returning to work in the New Year to commence a fresh cycle of annual performance management and development with your staff?  The A-Z guide below will give you some tips to help you provide your staff with a best practice performance management experience in 2017:

A

• Align employees’ activities and goals with operational and strategic business objectives
• Appraise performance fairly, objectively and consistently against agreed performance standards
• Attend performance management, goal setting and feedback skills training 

B

• Begin with performance planning – setting actionable plans for the successful achievement of agreed goals, performance standards and measures
• Break down large projects and objectives into manageable chunks
• Be balanced in giving feedback (give constructive positive and negative feedback)

C

• Champion the performance development process enthusiastically by communicating its value and engaging others to participate
• Communicate and clarify clear performance expectations
• Coach your staff for improved performance, when appropriate 

D

• Develop your staff through identifying and providing relevant learning and development opportunities
• Document individual performance for legal purposes and to support performance decisions relating to compensation and career development

E

• Evaluate performance in a fair, objective and consistent manner
• Exchange regular, informal 2-way feedback about performance at work 

F

• Focus on positive reinforcement, goals, skill development, recognition and autonomy
• Follow through on any agreed action plans and commitments you have made to staff

G

• Gather performance information from a number of sources (360 degree feedback) to increase objectivity and ensure all factors impacting performance are considered
• Give employees transparency to business objectives
• Give regular, relevant, specific, timely and constructive performance feedback
• Give examples of how staff have or have not demonstrated the behaviours, competencies and performance you are evaluating them against

H

• Help employees attain the information, resources and technology they need to achieve their goals
• Honestly and genuinely conduct performance conversations

I

• Intrinsically incentivise staff with challenging, meaningful, satisfying work and recognition
• Identify and remove unnecessary barriers to performance
• Identify organisational career paths for employees
• Invest in your own development by learning how to be a better manager and coach

J

• Jointly set goals and find solutions to performance obstacles and problems at work

K

• KISS – Keep it simple by ensuring an easy, efficient, effective and user-friendly process
• Keep position descriptions up to date
• Keep performance plans ‘alive’, i.e. flexible, meaningful and on the agenda, through regular review, discussion, monitoring, updates and follow up.
• Know and understand your staff members’ jobs

L

• Lead by example
• Listen carefully to staff members’ views and opinions and incorporate them into problem solving and future planning
• Look for development opportunities for people
• Link performance to rewards, recognition, and other talent management processes

M

• Motivate staff with intrinsic and extrinsic rewards and recognition
• Monitor staff performance and progress against goals regularly
• Measure performance and results using relevant, fair, consistent, quantitative and qualitative measures
• Manage unsatisfactory performance 

N

• New staff are given clear probationary performance expectations and support
• Never avoid addressing performance issues

O

• Observe staff members’ behaviour and performance
• Objectively, fairly and consistently assess performance against agreed outcomes and standards

P

• Provide appropriate learning and development opportunities
• Plan and prepare for performance conversations
• Problem solve obstacles to performance and goal achievement
• Praise and positively reinforce good performance 

Q

• Question staff in an open, non-threatening and thought provoking way, to challenge them, stimulate their thinking, and encourage them to find their own solutions

R

• Recognise, reward and reinforce good performance and achievements
• Revisit, review and refresh performance expectations as required
• Resource staff appropriately to progress and achieve their goals and targets
• Review performance regularly
• Record your observations and comments on staff members’ progress and performance 

S

• Sell the benefits of staff participation in the performance management process
• Set goals effectively
• Seek input from staff and ask them to self-assess their own performance
• Support employees’ professional and career development
• Schedule regular informal catch-ups with staff as well as formal performance planning and review meetings, ensuring plenty of notice

T

• Train staff to participate effectively in your organisation’s performance management process (e.g. provide training in how to write a performance plan and how to give, seek and receive performance feedback effectively)
• Track progress against performance goals and objectives
• Thank staff often

U

• Update performance plans regularly to reflect changes to business direction, goals, priorities, timeframes and resources 

V

• Volunteer informal feedback regularly
• Value good performers and their contributions

W

• Work with staff to develop performance plans, identify opportunities and overcome obstacles to performance
• Workloads are allocated and monitored to ensure they are fair, consistent and manageable 

X

• Xers (Generation X), Baby Boomers and Millenials have different workplace needs, motivations, learning styles, preferences for management style and frequency of feedback  – understand this and adapt your management style accordingly

Y

• Year round performance dialogue to ensure staff are never surprised by their performance evaluation or feedback received in their formal performance review

Z

• Zoom in on performance gaps early, addressing them before they become bigger issues
• Zestfully and zealously implement best practice performance development with your staff!

Consultrain can provide training in the following areas to support both managers and staff to participate effectively in performance management and development activities:

1. Training for managers in how to implement best practice performance development
2. Training for staff in how to participate effectively in performance management processes so they can maximise their benefits from it
3. Setting effective work goals and performance measures
4. Giving, receiving and seeking performance related feedback
   
   

For more information, contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or call 0412 683 659

The skills and knowledge that students need for work and life beyond school extend far beyond proficiency in reading, writing, numeracy and technology.  In an increasingly complex and demanding modern world, a broader range of competencies are essential for students to make an effective transition from school or university into the workforce.  These include employability skills such as communication, teamwork, problem solving, decision making, time and self-management, planning and organising, flexibility and the ability to work under pressure.  In order to obtain a job in the first place, students must also develop the ability to write a resume and cover letter and sit an interview effectively.  

These skills and abilities will help students to differentiate themselves from other qualified candidates when looking for a job. Yet, whilst students, school leavers and graduates usually have the technical or knowledge-based ability to do a job well, they often lack many of the employability skills that are critical to getting and keeping a job.  Schools and graduate programs that provide their students with employability skill development are to be commended for their insightful and holistic investment into their students’ futures.

Recently, Consultrain worked with one such school, Emmaus Secondary College, to provide their Year 9 cohort with the interview skills required to assist them to obtain their first casual and part-time jobs.  Consultrain delivered information sessions to over 200 students covering how to prepare for an interview and how to answer a variety of different types of interview questions.  These information sessions were specifically tailored to engage young people by utilising a variety of age appropriate and participative delivery methods and learning activities including breakout discussion groups, brainstorming, games, quizzes, and the critiquing of short DVD snippets. The sessions were also followed up by mock interview practice whereby each student wrote a resume and cover letter in application for a ‘mock’ part-time position, and then sat a short 10-15 minute interview for that position with one of several volunteer interviewers from the local parent and professional community.

Evaluations received from approximately 40% of these students indicated that 90% of them rated the information sessions as either ‘Good’ or ‘Excellent’, with 80% reporting that the content was either ‘Extremely Helpful’ or ‘Very Helpful’.  An impressive 91% of responding students said that they would recommend the Interview Skills sessions to other students.

When asked what they learnt from the Interview Skills sessions, students’ responses cited learning how to research and prepare for an interview, how to dress and present themselves appropriately, how to ask and answer different types of interview questions, how to display appropriate body language in an interview, and how to write a resume and cover letter.  Students reported that this learning would help them to look more professional, feel more confident and make a positive impression in interview situations.  Feedback from Emmaus College corroborates this, with many students having subsequently gone on to secure interviews and consequently casual employment.  

Consultrain can enhance the work readiness of school students and graduates by customising and delivering information sessions in resume writing and interview skills, as well as highly engaging skills development workshops in many other critical areas of employability, to suit timetable restrictions and student groups from 8 to over 100.  

Imagine sending your students on to their university or career goals knowing that you’ve given them the very best preparation to help them stand out and be successful in whatever field they’ve chosen?

For more information, contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or  call 0412 683 659