Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Enabling Change: Re-energizing Your Organization

It has been shown that change management is a carefully planned and systematic way of formulating, communicating, and implementing change in an organization.

A key element of the change management process is the enabler, or a professional who creates a constructive environment in which change can happen effectively and efficiently.

So what are the skills and qualifications of a change enabler?

  • An in-depth understanding of how people go through the change process.
  • Familiarity and knowledge of change management concepts, principles and methodologies.
  • Understanding of project management theories, principles, methods and practices.
  • Outstanding written and oral communication skills.
  • Ability to work effectively at all levels of an organization.
  • Strong, active listening skills.
  • Keenly-developed problem solving and root cause identification skills.
  • Acute analytic skills and decision-making abilities.
  • Commitment as a team player and the capacity to work with, and through, others.
  • Facility in influencing others and moving toward a shared vision and goals.
  • Involvement with other change efforts — both large and small — and previous change management experience.

It's natural that most individuals react with caution and with concerns when changes are being planned or occurring in an organization since they may have an impact on their future, security and organizational fit.

But change occurs and it affects people, often in stressful ways. The real challenge for the enabler is how to get over the resistance of those who don't want to change.

At Y2CP we are the professional and experienced change enablers which your organization may need right now.

Leaman Long, B.A., B.Ed.
Y2 Consulting Psychologists

Monday, November 22, 2010

Teamwork – Is it Underrated or Overrated?

It depends...

If it means working collegially and listening to — and understanding — other members of the team, in order to determine best approaches, then it is.

If it means "toeing the corporate line", "not upsetting the apple cart", or "maintaining a civil workplace", then it isn't.

How do team leaders build dynamic teams?

Sound leadership is a key element in building sound teams. Through example, team leaders should be able to establish and maintain positive working environments, and to motivate and invigorate team members.

Open communication is a vital factor in the interpersonal interactions of teams. Team members must be able to articulate their thoughts and feelings, contribute ideas, resolve professional differences, and assess the viewpoints of the other team members.

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Décompressons! Dix conseils gagnants pour les leaders

Leaders : Voici 10 trucs efficaces sur comment mieux gérer votre stress au travail rédigé par le Centre de Creative Leadership.

La main-d’oeuvre au Canada : Chiffres intéressants publiés par Statistiques Canada !

Cela nous permet d'ouvrir les yeux face à la réalité canadienne et de pouvoir comparer notre milieu de travail avec les autres au Canada.

Thursday, September 9, 2010

Knowing Yourself Well Leads to Greater Success

The end of high school and the transition to post-secondary education represent a significant turning point in the lives of young adults. Choosing the right and appropriate college or university program is the first hurdle towards a well-paying and interesting job. In today's world, post-secondary education is the key to success.

Unfortunately, too many young people choose their post-secondary program without really taking the time to seriously think about it. A haphazard choice is the main cause for dropping out of a college or university program. Dropping out has numerous negative impacts: loss of self-esteem; fear of making another mistake; limiting oneself to small jobs that do not pay well; difficulties in motivating oneself to go back to school.

How many young people manage to know themselves well enough to choose an appropriate post-secondary education program? Very few: in fact, according to certain studies, not even 30 % of those who are finishing high school. This means that up to 70 % of young adults make a more or less realistic choice.

Bien se connaître pour mieux réussir

La fin des études secondaires et la transition aux études postsecondaires constitue une période charnière dans la vie des jeunes adultes. Un choix réaliste et ajusté d'un programme à l'université ou au collège est la première condition à remplir pour accéder à un emploi bien payé et intéressant. Car pour réussir aujourd'hui, les études postsecondaires sont la clef du succès.

Malheureusement, beaucoup trop de jeunes font un choix d'études postsecondaires sans réellement prendre le temps d'y réfléchir sérieusement. Un choix irréfléchi est la principale cause d'abandon d'un programme à l'université ou au collège. Un abandon cause beaucoup d'effets négatifs : perte de l'estime de soi, crainte de se tromper à nouveau, limitation à des petits emplois mal payés, difficultés à se motiver pour retourner aux études.

Combien de jeunes parviennent à développer une connaissance de soi suffisante pour faire un bon choix de programme d'études postsecondaires? Très peu, en fait, selon certaines études même pas 30% des finissants et des finissantes du secondaire. Cela veut dire que jusqu'à 70% des jeunes font un choix plus ou moins réaliste.

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Investing in Employee Development in Order to Stay Competitive and Meet Organisational Needs in the GOC

The federal government's Policy on Learning, Training and Development (2006) specifies that all employees must have learning plans aligned with departmental business priorities. The learning plans are intended to enable employees to acquire and maintain the knowledge, skills and competencies needed for their level and functions, and prepare them to do the next job. Accordingly, all public service employees are to be developed.

You've heard it many times: public service leaders are accountable for leading and managing people to achieve results aligned with strategic directions. This is a tall order at any time in a dynamic political environment marked by evolving priorities, shifting resources, changing employee expectations, and ongoing public scrutiny. However, people remain at the heart of it all – people who take on the challenges of leadership, and the people they lead.

Leaders need to strategically manage the flow of talent through their organizations so that the right people are in the right place at the right time. In the hurly burly of daily activity, however, leaders often focus less on developing people after they are on board.

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Managing Work Overload

In many organizations, one of the most frequently reported workplace stressors is related to workload.

Y2 Consulting Psychologists, an HRM firm specialising in Government organisations, have led several workplace assessments in GOC departments and agencies. In many of the GOC organisations that were assessed, indicate struggling with the volume of work, the tight deadlines, constantly changing priorities, priority setting/urgencies, lack of resources, significant workload fluctuations and uneven distribution of work.

The issues of workload management and productivity are tightly intertwined. How can you achieve greater productivity with your existing resources?

Monday, July 5, 2010

Creating Positive and Healthy GOC Organisations

To be truly successful, an organisation must have a work climate of trust and openness, that is a positive atmosphere. A positive atmosphere indicates that members of the organisation are motivated, committed, involved and satisfied. It means that people are comfortable enough with one another to be creative, take risks, and make mistakes. It also means that people are satisfied with their jobs and with their work environment. You are also likely to hear plenty of laughter, and research shows that people who are enjoying themselves are more productive than those who dislike what they are doing.

Trust is by far the most important ingredient of a positive atmosphere. Some of the characteristics and behaviours that build trust are: honesty, dependability, sincerity and open-mindedness. It’s also important to keep in mind that what one person sees as trustworthy is not necessarily what another sees. We each have different values. Trust is not built overnight. In fact, building trust is often one the greatest challenges of most organisations. If a team you work with has done a good job of building trust, the other aspects of a positive atmosphere will come more easily.

Saturday, July 3, 2010

Making New Hires Count

Rather than being another management burden, welcoming new hires and retention of employees should be viewed as best practices for managers. 

We know that the approach by which an organization’s employees and resources are coherently managed is fundamental to its effectiveness and well-being.

And managers who engage their employees are more likely to retain them. 
It has been shown that retention efforts are bolstered in any organization when managers:

  • care about each individual employee
  • listen and understand what motivates employees
  • provide clear direction, roles, responsibilities and expectations
  • reward and recognize contributions
  • help employees develop, and
  • remove barriers to success

Monday, June 21, 2010

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Measuring the Mind: Psychometrics

To succeed and be happy in any job or assignment, it’s important to align your abilities, values and personality with those that are essential in your chosen career or field of endeavour -- and with those of the organization for whom you work or for whom you hope to work.

Today, many organizations use psychometric testing  often referred to as occupational, psychological or psychometric testing -- to assist with recruitment and candidate selection, employee training and development, team building, workplace assessments and counselling -- especially career counselling. In fact, many organisations report that their best HRM decisions are the ones that are based on formal performance appraisals and on the use of psychometric testing.

So what are psychometric tools?

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Looking for a psychologist in the Gatineau & Ottawa region?

With over 750 psychologists in the Gatineau & Ottawa area, it is not so simple to choose the "right" psychologist.

We know that there are many different types of psychologists. Some are clinical and counselling psychologists, practitioners who provide psychotherapy and/or administer and interpret psychometric tools and tests. These professionals work primarily in private practices and in institutions such as hospitals, schools, clinics, and correctional facilities; their work can involve individuals, groups, and families, as well as public and private sector organizations, in whole or in part. There are also psychological professionals who work as researchers, in academic institutions, and in governmental and non-governmental organizations. Still others are active in both research and practice.

So how do I find the psychological services I'm looking for?

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Organizational Commitment and Performance Management: Employees Performing at their Best

The way employees perceive their jobs is affected significantly by organizational culture and the climate in the workplace. The work environment also has a bearing on employee performance and the way that performance is seen by others.

Organizational culture is created by management's priorities, policies, practices, values and attitudes. In turn, this culture helps fashion employee attitudes and influences their behaviour.

Monday, March 8, 2010

Employee Engagement and Public Service Excellence

"Develop your employees for their career and for the future of the organization; have trust in them and make them trust you as well."

- Sunil Budhiraja quoted in The Employee Engagement Network

Most individuals want to do more than go through the motions. People aspire to do work that is meaningful. When they have the opportunity to be working with a leader who challenges, inspires, and appreciates them, they can perform far above their expectations.

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Team Building: Energizing your Organization

Most leaders encourage and/or require their staff to work as a team but give their staff little guidance as to how they should do so.
A team is usually defined as a "group of people who are mutually dependent on one another to achieve a common goal". Little emphasis is placed, however, on how well the team is functioning.
In assessing team performance, consulting psychologists go beyond its' productivity and also pay attention to the team's wellness. The well-being of each team member is taken into consideration while trying to improve a team's performance. In fact, a highly performing team is considered to be one that is able to surpass its organizational goals, in addition to helping its members maintain both job satisfaction and healthy work-life balance.

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Les défis que posent la prévention et la résolution des situations de harcèlement

S'il existe un consensus à propos du harcèlement, c'est que la prévention et la résolution des situations de harcèlement représentent un défi important pour les organisations. En effet, plusieurs éléments contribuent à rendre le harcèlement difficile à gérer.

Premièrement, le harcèlement est subjectif et est souvent basé sur des perceptions. Un même comportement peut être perçu différemment par différentes personnes. Il interpelle davantage les émotions que la raison notamment parce qu'il constitue une menace pour l'intégrité psychologique et l'identité de la personne. Pour ces raisons, le harcèlement est difficile à saisir et à définir. Comment peut-on en effet s'entendre sur une définition commune du harcèlement si un même comportement est perçu différemment par différentes personnes ? Parce qu'il est difficile à définir, le harcèlement est aussi difficile à prouver juridiquement.

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

The "Active" Leader: Using Willpower to Move from Knowing to Doing

With our constant stream of emails, voicemails, meetings, conference calls, pages, faxes and so on, it is a minor miracle that any of us can accomplish anything. With our Blackberrys surgically implanted into our hands, our time is sliced so thinly that we never have the focused time to develop the big-picture perspective required for an action plan, let alone the time to execute it.

"Daily routines, superficial behaviors, poorly prioritized or unfocused tasks leech managers' capacities—making unproductive busyness perhaps the most critical behavioral problem" in business today, contend Heike Bruch and Sumantra Ghoshal in their book A Bias for Action.

For so many of us—whether CEOs for major corporations, small business owners or soloentrepreneurs – there is a fundamental disconnection between knowing what should be done and actually doing it. Calling this disconnection the "knowing-doing gap," Stanford University researchers Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton pose the question: "Why does knowledge of what needs to be done frequently fail to result in action or behavior consistent with that knowledge?"

Don't Miss a Step: Take Time to Celebrate!

The path of a goal, whether a goal set for your personal life or in the course of business, is generally seen as having four steps:
  1. Assess the situation
  2. Set goals for how you want it to be
  3. Take steps to achieve the goals, and
  4. Achieve the goals (completion).

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Tele-work and the Fridge Factor? It Doesn't Have to be That Way

Tele-work is becoming more in demand both in the private and public sector.
We know that one of the greatest challenges for employers is the hiring and retention of talented employees and managers.

What can organizations do to attract the right people for the right jobs, and keep them?

There are a number of solutions, some workable and some not so workable. However, because tele-work is so attractive, it is heading to the top of the current list of recruitment tools.

As we know, tele-work can take many forms but it mostly allows selected employees to work from home, or a location closer to home, one or more days a week.

Friday, January 8, 2010

Ten tips on how to succeed on your next interview with the GOC

The coaches of Y2 Consulting Psychologists have conducted hundreds of interview simulations to help GOC employees and managers move up the corporate ladder. Using the services of specialised coaches who can lead you through a selection board simulation and provide you with developmental feedback is often regarded as the most efficient strategy in helping individuals get a promotion. Below are some tips from Y2CP's coaches on how to better perform on your next interview with the GOC:
  1. Carefully read the work description and the statement of merit criteria (SOMC) for the position you are considering, paying particular attention to the essential and asset qualifications (e.g. experience, knowledge, abilities and personal suitability) required.
  2. Inquire about how the board interviews will proceed (e.g. will you be getting the interview questions in advance to prepare? If so, how much prep time will you have? How long will the interview be? How many board members will be present?).
[...] Read more on y2cp.com

Dr. Yaniv Benzimra, Consulting Psychologist
L.Long, HRM Consultant
Y2 Consulting Psychologists

Merci ! / Thank you!

Y2CP aimerait remercier ses clients !

L'équipe de Y2CP aimerait remercier tous ses clients pour leur confiance et engagement envers nos services en psychologie clinique et organisationnelle au cours des dernières années.

C'est avec plaisir que notre groupe accueillera des nouveaux clients, ainsi que nos clients actuels, au cours de l'année qui suit. Notre mission continue d'être : « Offrir à nos clients des services professionnels de qualité afin de favoriser leur épanouissement personnel, professionnel et organisationnel. »

Meilleurs vœux pour l'année 2010 de la part des Psychologues consultants Y2 – Santé et bien-être !

Y2CP's team wants to thank its clients!

The Y2CP team wishes to thank its clients for the trust they have placed in its services – both HRM and psychological – over the past several years.

It will be our pleasure in the coming year to welcome new clients and to continue serving returning ones. Our Mission continues to be: "to support the personal, professional and organizational development of our clients through quality professional services."

Best wishes for a healthy and happy New Year from Y2 Consulting Psychologists!
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