This is a guest post by Katerina Mery, a marketing specialist at Fond. Fond is a rewards and recognition company dedicated to building places where employees love to work. Mery authors articles about how to leverage recognition programs to drive company success.

Think back to the last time a colleague acknowledged you for a job well done.

How did you feel?

Did the experience have an impact on your behavior moving forward? Did the exchange affect your relationship with the person thanking you? What about your relationship with the company in general?

63% of employees who are acknowledged for the work they do are unlikely to look for a new job. Expressing gratitude at work takes relatively little effort, but it can create an incredibly memorable professional experience. Knowing that you did a good job is one thing, having a colleague call out your great work takes the experience to another level.

Business objectives can sometimes feel at odds with an enjoyable employee experience. Employee acknowledgment, however, is a practice that effortlessly supports both.

From this Process Street article, you’ll learn how employee acknowledgment simultaneously caters to your organization’s business objectives. You’ll also learn how to meet the emotional needs of your employees using fantastic positive feedback loops that generate continual improvements across the board.

We say employee acknowledgment is a smart initiative a company can adopt – but before you take our word for it, allow us to explain why.

Click on the relevant subheader below to jump to your section of choice, alternatively scroll down to read all we have to say.

• What is employee acknowledgment?
• Employee acknowledgment and its effects on workplace psychology
• How employee acknowledgment benefits employee wellbeing
• The organizational benefits of employee acknowledgment
• Use Process Street for your employee acknowledgment strategy

Let’s jump to it!
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There are plenty of great quotes from inspirational leaders that perfectly sum up the importance of workforce planning, but in my mind, none of them quite capture it like this one:

“Making a plan without the right tools is like making spaghetti without a pot.” – Kris Hughes, Content Strategy Consultant

You are absolutely not going to be making any spaghetti without a pot, or at least a pot-like vessel that will hold boiling water in a way so as not to burn the crap out of your hands in the process. When it comes to workforce planning, the spaghetti is your business and the pot…

Okay. I took the simile too far. You get the picture: if your business doesn’t have the right people in the right place, you got nothing.

Think beyond that: if the right people don’t stay or aren’t being utilized properly, you still don’t have a pot to… make spaghetti in.

There is a lot out there about workforce planning, and by a lot I mean, a frickin lot. It’s my job to do research and even I got a little dizzy trying to sort through all the different takes on what is or isn’t or could be/might be the best way to manage your workforce.

This post aims to simplify all that. I’ll cover the foundations of workforce planning, specific considerations for remote work, and examine some common methods for finding the right approach for your organization.

This Process Street post is designed so you can jump straight to the info you need to know, so feel free to skip ahead.

• Workforce planning foundations
• Challenges for remote workforce planning
• Future-back planning process
• Recruit, retain, reinforce
• Workforce management tools

Let’s get planning!
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Netflix doesn’t do bonuses. They don’t do formal reviews and they don’t do staff training.

Instead, their HR practices involve heavily scrutinizing employees’ skills and capabilities, and ruthlessly firing them for being good, not great.

“Netflix and chill” it is not.

But, despite these seemingly harsh HR practices, 71% of Netflix employees would encourage their friends to become co-workers. They’re officially the best place in the world to work (even beating the likes of Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple). Their employee turnover is only 11% a year, which is below the 13% annual average for tech companies. They’ve maintained a voluntary attrition rate of 3-4% over the last two years, and they make around $2 million per employee.

“Netflix has not only captivated the attention of its customers around the world, but also continues to grow its reputation as an attractive, sought-after employer.” – Forbes, Incubating Culture: How Netflix Is Winning The War For Talent

So, why is Netflix the best place to work, how do they maintain such a productive workforce, and what lessons can we take from them?

Grab some popcorn and let’s find as we go through the following in this Process Street post:

• HR practices: How Netflix does things
• 4 HR practices that changed HR forever
• How Process Street embraces Netflix’s HR practices & why they work for us
• Are Netflix’s HR practices right for you?

Settle in for the story of the year (that you can’t stream)…

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Once upon a time, the word “canceled” was only applicable to objects and things. Like the meeting you didn’t want to attend. The subscription to Netflix or any other subscription-based product. Your favorite TV series (Firefly, anyone?).

But since the mid-2010s, the word has evolved. It’s no longer objects and things that get canceled, but people and companies too.

Kanye? Canceled.

Scarlett Johansson? She’s canceled.

Bon Apetit? Canceled.

Pepsi? Completely, utterly canceled.

The specific reasons why these people and companies were canceled in the first place vary. But it’s ultimately their actions, statements, or sentiments that led them to be canceled by the internet-at-large.

To learn about their missteps — and ensure you don’t go down the same route — here’s this informative, insightful Process Street post where I’ll be covering:

• The definition of canceled and what it means to be canceled
• Cancel culture examples: Ellen, Kanye, and Pepsi
• How to stop cancelation from happening in the first place

Let’s get right into what is cancel culture and canceling.

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According to a report given by Queens University, 75% of employers rate teamwork and collaboration to be very important.

Despite this, reports by Globe and Mail and the Harvard Business Review indicate that 20-44% of employees experience workplace communication and collaboration challenges. And if you’re operating remotely, well, these challenges just became harder to overcome. There is a gap between want and reality.

In this Process Street article, we consider how using office hours can close this gap by supporting the effective implementation of an open door policy for your remote team.

Office hours are times in the week managers set aside to answer questions, address issues, and discuss topics with employees. This effectively implements an open door policy, to establish aspirational communication and collaboration goals. An open door policy is a culture that supports complete workplace transparency, communication, and productivity by establishing strong communication channels between employees and their managers.

Today you’ll find out exactly how office hours and an open door policy complement each other – plus top tips on managing your remote open door policy.

Click on the relevant subheader below, or scroll down to find out all.

• What do we mean by office hours?
• The top challenges with a remote open door policy
• Remote open door policy challenges (and how to solve them)
• The benefits of office hours and supporting an open door policy

Let’s get straight to it!
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Following a pre-planned meeting agenda can decrease meeting time by 80%.

Despite this, less than half (37%) of U.S. meetings follow a set agenda.

Why, when the time savings of doing so are substantial? When time = money, it doesn’t take a genius to visualize the knock-on effects this has to an organization’s bottom-line.

Using a Meeting Minutes Template will establish processes to clearly define and set the meeting agenda before the meeting has begun, saving you both time and money.

In addition, a Meeting Minutes Template offers legal protection, provides meeting structure, documents state ownership, drives action, serves as a reference point, helps avoid repetition, and offers a platform for open communication.

Sounds good right?

So good that the content creation team here at Process Street give you this comprehensive guide, so you can effectively record meeting minutes in your business and line of work. You are provided with our free Meeting Minutes Template, to be used in conjunction with 3 more top meeting process templates.

Click on the relevant subheader below to hop to that section. Alternatively, read all to discover our secrets for how you can become a pro meetings note taker .

• Meeting Minutes Template
• What meeting minutes are, how to take them, and why they’re important
• How to take effective meeting minutes (using Process Street)
• Use Process Street to perfect your meeting processes

Let’s get stuck in!
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Lunch was over.

I was walking back to our senior common room with my friends. When we reached Foundation House, we found all of the students and teachers standing outside while the fire brigade trailed in.

There was no smoke or visible flames but I saw three friends that we’d left in the common room off to one side of the car park looking sheepish.

Turns out that they’d managed to make a pseudo-napalm launcher out of a tube of Pringles, a rubber band, spray deodorant, a lighter, and a supply of biro casings.

My friends were smart but, as you might’ve guessed, had no common sense.

Whether you have students setting off fire alarms with molten flaming plastic or have a much larger accident, it’s important to know that your safety measures are up to standard.

$25 billion in damages were caused by fire in 2018 in the US alone, which should tell you how vital it is to catch fires and deal with them early before they need additional help to contain.

That’s why fire extinguisher inspections are so important.

In this post I’ll cover:

• What is a fire extinguisher inspection?
• How often do fire extinguishers need inspecting?
• Who can inspect fire extinguishers?
• Perform free monthly inspections with Process Street

You’ll also get access to Process Street’s free Fire Extinguisher Inspection Checklist in the very next section of this article!

Let’s get started.
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This is a guest post by Derek Jones from Deputy, a global workforce management platform for employee scheduling, timesheets, and communication. With a focus on Emerging Retail, Derek helps business owners and workforce leaders simplify employment law compliance, keep labor costs in line, and build award-winning workplaces. Derek has over 16 years’ experience in delivering data-driven sales and marketing strategies to SaaS companies like MarketSource and Griswold Home Care.

One of the many factors that can help guarantee the success and growth of a business today is employee performance.

Most organizations know this. Therefore, they want employees that are as efficient as possible. However, that is easier said than done, especially in industries where activities often run at odd hours or even 24/7.

For such industries (like healthcare, hospitality, and retail in particular), one of the most important things they’ll need to manage is shift work scheduling.

Through optimization, the task of scheduling shift work will have a structure to minimizes employee burnout and improve overall performance.

Employees that work in an enabling environment have a higher chance to properly complete all important tasks – on schedule.

In view of that, in this Process Street article, we will:

• Discuss some of the issues and challenges that surround shift work.
• Take a look at up-to-date research regarding employee performance.
• Summarize 3 shift-work goals you can incorporate to optimize your shift work schedule.
• Give top tips on shift work scheduling to maximize employee productivity and retention.

Click on the relevant subheaders below to jump to that section, alternatively scroll down to read all, and find out how you can optimize your shift work schedules today!

• Schedule optimization: Using BPM in shift work
• Shift work scheduling: The top 3 shift work issues
• How do common shift work issues impact employee performance?
• Schedule optimization: 3 goals to optimize your shift schedule
• Shift work scheduling: Scheduling tips and tricks for shift work

Let’s jump right to it!
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The global economic cost of anxiety and depression is $1 trillion per year.

That is a substantial cost to an issue that is predominantly ignored.

1 in 5 adults in the U.S. will experience a mental health issue each year, with 1 in 6.8 people experiencing mental health problems in the workplace on a weekly timescale.

Work anxiety is one such mental health condition which evokes a sizable economic cost from lowered employee wellbeing and sick leave.

In this Process Street article we explain what work anxiety is – and in that sense, anxiety in general. We then provide information on how you can take action on anxiety from a personal level and at a company-wide level.

Click on the relevant subheaders below to jump to that section. Alternatively, scroll down and read all we have to say.

• Work anxiety: Mental Health Risk Assessment
• Work Anxiety: Anxious meaning
• Anxiety explained: Understanding anxiety and the biological causes
• Work anxiety: Take action on anxiety, what you can do as an individual
• Work anxiety: Take action on anxiety, what you can do as a company
• Work anxiety: Take action with Process Street

Capes at the ready, let’s conquer workplace anxiety!
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Can you prove your team’s performance?

How do you know for certain that nothing is being missed?

The answer is simple; you perform an internal audit.

We here at Process Street know how difficult it can be to keep track of your internal workings. Short of documenting and tracking everything (which can be a hassle) it’s easy to lose track of the risks posed to your organization.

That’s ignoring how hard it can be to track whether your teams are performing their duties correctly.

That’s why this post will dive into everything you need to know about internal audits. These are practices that let you get an objective assessment of various elements of your company, such as this ISO 9001 process.

We’ll cover:

• What is an internal audit?
• Types of audits
• Benefits of internal audits
• Internal auditing examples
• Use Process Street to run your internal audits

Let’s dive in.
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