A few weeks ago, I got a phone call from Dana. I know Dana for several years. She works as a sales manager in Albania for a French multi-national. In 2015, she took the brave step to dismiss and to help her sister with her at that time small business. The sister of Dana owned a small shoe-factory in Tirana, the capital of Albania. After a few months Dana took over the business and became the sole owner. Reason was that Dana’s sister wasn’t happy with a leading position, she preferred more to be in the background taking care of all technical aspects.
This article was published in the BIZ Magazine, on the 27th September 2017.

During my work as coach and consultant, I meet a lot of people. And they tell me a lot of stories regarding their work and personal life. And all those stories taught me an important thing: People are very agile. Even when life is not so ‘sweet’ for them. I never met a person who had a perfect life. Always there were ups and downs and sometimes those downs were heavy. And most of them, when they look back, they say: ‘But you have to do something, life is going on’.

When we are talking about bonuses, we immediately think of money. In a lot of companies, the bonus is used as a motivation tool. And, actually, we know for more than 40 years that the carrot (= bonus) and the stick method is not working as motivation, and, even more important, not in the benefit of the company. Actually, it works against when the bonus is not related to a good key performance indicator. We also know more than 40 years that motivation is not coming from bonuses.

John was 55 years old and, within the last 10 years, he was leading the maintenance department. At that time, I was the HR-director. John was visiting me every week, asking when he could be pre-retired. He wanted to enjoy life and especially spending time with his grand-children. Unfortunately, I had to disappoint him every time. The pre-retirement was only for those employees whose job would disappear. A few months later, we needed a big restructuring because of bad financial results. I was able to cancel the job of John. And he was on the top of the list of the people who could go with the pre-retirement procedure.
This article was published on the webste www.cariereonline.ro, on the 21st July 2017.

Often, we don’t realize how important our work is in our life. People in Romania make long working hours. Ten hours a day is no exception. In these cases, people spend 30% of their time on work, an equal 30% for family and friends and 40% is spend on sleeping and travelling. And this all includes the weekend. So, I think it is very relevant to think about those life questions.

Bonuses, in this article, I mean bonus in money, is meant to increase the motivation. And an increased motivation increases the performance. But is that really the case? When people receive a bonus, two variables are important: When you receive it and how much you receive.  And these variables are also connected with each other. Let’s have a closer look to these two variables.

During one of my workshops, I was drinking a beer in the evening with Dragoș, one of the managers.  It was clear for me that Dragos liked his job. He talked enthusiastic about the company and the way they worked together. His face changed when he started talking about his team. He was leading a team of 12 people, nice people and hard-working, he told me, only Liviu was a drama.

Dear Mr. General Manager, in your agenda, some time ago, you were involved in the process of merging two companies. From here, emerged new itineriaries, changes, new technologies and innovation. You set up a new board committee, with people specialized in technology, systems, market access issues. But you haven’t consulted any HR representative in order to guide this merging process. Because you didn’t believe, maybe, that it might be needed. And then came the internal crisis period: people less involved within the team, weak results, although you were convinced that the new system can be perfectly functional. But what about the people? Well, people didn’t adapt because they weren’t prepared, their merits weren’t recognized or simply they didn’t want to be involved in this process. And then you start wondering what can you do?

Do we consider people in our company as costs or investments ? And what does that mean for our decisions ?

Are we the richest people in this world ?