Author: Michael Timms, Leaderhsip Consultant and Speaker

Reimagine Employee Feedback: How to End Performance Reviews

“I love performance reviews!”—said nobody, ever. Despite their unpopularity, most companies still conduct annual performance reviews even though 98% of CHROs admit their performance management processes are broken. Why cling to something that doesn’t work? Because many executives simply can’t imagine a better way to enhance employee performance. What if there’s a way to ditch […]

Want to Stand Out at Work? Craft Your Professional Self

The mantra of “be yourself” is often at the forefront of career advice, but how crucial is it to workplace success? While appealing on the surface, the pursuit of total authenticity at work is often misguided and potentially detrimental to your career advancement. Hogan Assessments research shows that what people perceive as “authenticity” in the […]

Faces of HR: How Kim Strignile Drives Organizational Success Through Talent

Kim Strignile is a Senior Vice President and HR Business Partner Director, a seasoned Human Resources (HR) leader with over 24 years of experience. Her expertise spans talent strategy, organizational design, and leadership development. At Provident Bank, she leads both the HR Business Partner and Talent Acquisition teams, which are crucial in cultivating a high-performing culture […]

Millennial

Millennials Continue to Lean Heavily on Side Hustles

Millennials aren’t afraid of hard work. In fact, many are putting in far more than forty hours a week. But a new survey from Academized.com shows that extra time isn’t necessarily going into career development and chasing corporate promotions—it’s going into building side hustles. Side Hustles on the Rise Out of 2,500 millennials surveyed, more […]

Career Development for Rockstar Employees

When companies bring in a senior-level hire with 20 or 30 years of experience, it’s easy to assume they don’t need career development anymore. After all, these are people who’ve built reputations, mastered their fields, and led teams across industries. What more could they possibly need? The answer: plenty—just not the same kind of development […]

Where Everybody Knows Your Name: Applying the “Cheers” Principle to Employee Engagement 

The iconic theme song from the sitcom Cheers captures a fundamental human desire: to be recognized, valued, and part of a close-knit community. The lyrics, “Where everybody knows your name, and they’re always glad you came,” encapsulate a culture of belonging and camaraderie. While Cheers was a fictional Boston bar, its underlying principle can be […]

Why HR Should Embrace Skill Loss to Gen AI as a Strategic Advantage

In today’s workplace, evolution isn’t driven by biology — it’s driven by technology. As generative AI rapidly transforms how work gets done, HR leaders face an uncomfortable question: What happens when employees start losing certain skills to AI? Rather than resisting this shift, the most forward-thinking HR professionals are realizing that letting go of some […]

How to Scale Culture Without Losing What Makes It Work

It’s one thing to build a strong culture—it’s another to scale it. As organizations grow—whether through rapid hiring, geographic expansion, or acquisitions—company culture can get diluted or distorted.  New people come in, processes shift, and what used to feel natural now requires intention. The risk? Losing the very culture that made workplace growth possible in […]

Faces of HR: How MasterClass’s CPO Turned Missteps into HR Masterstrokes

Melanie Steinbach is a driving force in Human Resources (HR), currently serving as CPO of MasterClass and CBO of MasterClass at Work. In this role, she shapes HR strategy and operations, spearheads recruitment, and champions culture initiatives. Her career is marked by a consistent thread: the strategic alignment of talent and business. A Career Forged in […]

Company Culture Is What You Tolerate: Why Consistency Matters More Than Slogans

Most organizations can describe their company culture, but fewer can prove it. Culture isn’t what’s written on a careers page or stated in a company all-hands, but what gets rewarded, ignored, corrected—or tolerated. Culture Lives in the Gray Areas The biggest threat to a healthy culture is inconsistency. When some behaviors are addressed and others […]