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I can not thank you enough for the awesome presentation you gave to the Human Resource Management Association of Southwest Florida at our March meeting. Never before have we had such a vibrant, moving and motivational speaker. You set a record for the most attendees at one of our meetings. Everyone continues to rave about your emotional, yet educational presentation. Our members are looking forward to seeing you again at the SHRM conference in New Orleans this June. Your enthusiasm is contagious! Thank you again.

Bonnie Etheridge, President Elect, Human Resource Management Association of Southwest Florida

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A couple of weeks have passed since you delivered your motivational talk in Cancun. I want to take one last opportunity to thank you again for the outstanding job you did in making those two hours the best two we had spent in quite some time. With the news of the merger being announced only days before, it truly seemed to be the message everyone needed to hear to really lift their spirits. , Barbara, as they say, "You put the icing on the cake." You are truly inspiring, and we are glad you shared some of your inspiration with us.

Kim Prevette , Wachovia Bank

More of Barbara in action.

Idea of the Month from Barbara Glanz

ENCOURAGE PERSONAL GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT

This idea is excerpted from Barbara's book " Balancing Acts – More Than 250 Guiltfree, Creative Ideas to Blend your Work and your Life” (Dearborn 2003).  To order this book, go to the PRODUCT section of Barbara’s website.

• Provide various kinds of workshops for employees that will impact their personal lives. Some suggestions would be to schedule workshops to improve home-time management, communication, dealing with guilt, marriage seminars, and financial planning.  As you help employees feel better about themselves and their lives outside of work, they will have more positive energy to spend on the job.

• EPCOR, a large Canadian utilities company, believes in career development and pays for courses, including getting a university degree.  They have a turnover rate of 5% and are such a popular company to work for that it won’t take unsolicited resumes.

• In 1999 the United Auto Workers focused primarily on work/life issues when negotiating a new collective bargaining agreement with Ford Motor Company and Visteon Corporation, an independent auto parts manufacturer.  UAW officials chose “Bargaining for Families” as the theme of the negotiations.  The final contract agreement created a program called the Family Service and Learning Centers which will offer programs in more than 30 U.S. locations in three categories:  Family education and services; Early childhood education services; and Community service education and outreach.  Their intention is to provide cutting edge opportunities for personal growth and development for their members.

• A banker recently invited his department to a career management seminar.  In doing so, he told them, “You’ve given us a significant investment of your time.  Now it’s time to invest in yourself.  Take this day to think about your work and your life and how you can be as satisfied and meaningfully engaged as possible.”

• Start book clubs in your office.  Invite coworkers to read the same book and then get together once a month to discuss what you read. Citizen’s Trust has a monthly reading group to discuss works of fiction.  Citizens covers half the cost of the books, buys pizza, and provides a “relaxation room” for the group to meet after work hours.

• Begin a mentoring program.  One of the best ways to create a unified spirit in your workplace is to provide coaches and guides for newer employees.

Focus on working fathers.  James Levine, the director of the Father hood Project at the Families and Work Institute, says, “We’ve focused for the last two decades on working mothers, but we haven’t even developed a concept of the working father.”  Marriott International has launched two initiatives to teach fathers from different parts of the company how to lead richer lives with their families.  One is “Effective Fathering,” a course aimed at frontline employees.  The other is “Daddy Stress / Daddy Success,” a seminar that targets executives. Both raise questions that every working father should ask himself:

Do you pass the Fatherhood test?  This is a test to measure just how  connected you are:

1. Who are your child’s three closet friends?
2. What does your child like to do with each of those friends?  Have you met them? What are the names of their parents?
3. Do you know who your child’s doctor is?  Does your child’s doctor know who you are?
4. Do you know who your child’s principal is?  Does the principal know you?
5. Can you honestly say, “I know that encourages my child the most,” or “I know when my child is disappointed.”?

Do you know what your kids want?  Levine’s group conducted in-depth research on what children want from working parents.  “We suspected that what kids wanted was more time, but what they actually wanted was for their parents to be less stressed”—even if that meant the parents spent less time with them.  “You can’t help your kids unless you help yourself,” Levine argues.

Do you have the tools of the trade?Little things count for a lot!

Marriott’s program is wildly popular.  They have had a greater demand for these courses than they have had for any other.

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