Have you been asked to write a letter of recommendation?  Was it…
- to recommend a colleague or someone you supervised?
- as ghost writer for your supervisor to recommend a coworker?
- for yourself when you asked for a letter of recommendation?
 
When I receive an uptick in queries about letters of recommendation, it means more people are closing in on positions, which is great.  What can be tough is navigating the delicate world of letters of recommendation.

Two articles nicely address important issues for drafting letters for yourself or others:

When Someone Asks You for a Reference by Rebecca Knight in HBR at https://hbr.org/2015/10/when-someone-asks-you-for-a-reference
And
How to write a letter of recommendation – for yourself by Dr. Adaira Landry & Dr. Resa E. Lewiss in Fast Company at https://www.fastcompany.com/90757084/how-to-write-a-letter-of-recommendation-for-yourself
 
 Key takeaways are:

1.   Give Context

Establish how the letter signatory knows the person being recommended

2.  Give Data

Save superlative conclusions about character for your close.  For the body of your letter, provide objective accomplishments that show someone’s capabilities.

3.  Be Honest

Preserve your reputation and only write a letter if you can truly recommend the person.  Conversing with the requester about strengths and job requirements will help you decide if you want to put your name on the line.  Politely refuse if you would not hire the person for that role.

If someone writes a letter of recommendation for you, be sure to follow up with a thank you and an update on the position.  If they care enough to write the letter, they surely are interested in the outcome. 

What are your experiences requesting or writing letters of recommendation?

​Highly Stressed and Highly Depressed
Onboarding Today’s New Hires Requires New Approaches.

An increasing number of young adults struggle when adjusting to new work environments. These 4 steps will help your new hires succeed.

The United Nations and the World Health Organization warn that emerging adults will suffer increasing mental health issues for the next 10 years. Adjusting HR practices will improve the onboarding of new hires.

Four important steps will help these new hires succeed in your organization: know your audience, reset expectations, deliver bite-sized instructions, and repeat often.

1. Know your audience

Employers have complained that over the last 20 years, new hires have worsened at adjusting to professional workplaces, showing difficulty engaging with colleagues, clients, and supervisors. The Coronavirus pandemic grossly accelerated this trend by increasing the percentage of youth and young adults experiencing mental health issues.

• In 2021, the US Surgeon General warned that youth were experiencing devastating mental health effects from challenges of their generation. In 2022, the World Health Organization and United Nations reiterated these concerns, noting that emerging adults were suffering at a global level, especially among vulnerable subgroups.

 

• Emerging adults experience tragedies more concretely and immediately than older adults. Mass shootings (often at schools), fires and floods, food and water shortages, and political crises all stress this demographic more severely than older adults.

 

• A new population of high school and middle school students has arisen since the pandemic: those who performed well before the pandemic but now cannot get out of bed to attend school. Many can’t even attend online classes.

If you hire young adults, know that an increasing percentage of your candidates experience stress and depression, and that this trend will continue for a decade.

2. Reset expectations

Rather than seeking candidates with high achievements and accolades, we will do better to focus on those who have developed skills for adapting and learning.

• On a resume or cover letter, candidates who describe how they achieved a goal rather than simply listing their accomplishments are more likely to succeed in a new organization.

 

• In an interview, candidates who share with pride how they accomplished a goal, how they adjusted to adversity, or how they resolved conflict are more likely to succeed in a new work environment.

Unlike achievements, skills are transferable, repeatable, and directly applicable to your organization. Skills reflect adaptability and the ability to learn, increasing a candidate’s likelihood of success. Skills indicate the ability to recreate success in a new environment.

3. Deliver bite-sized instructions

Clarify those basic assumptions you think needn’t be said; spell them out in small, simple steps.

• Instead of, “I want you to meet these people,”

 

• Be more specific. “I want you to join our client meeting. Be sure to introduce yourself to each person in the room and make them feel special. Take good notes because you will join this team. Do you need to grab something to take notes?”

Clearly stating expected behavior before its execution helps new hires focus their behavior. You are giving them two jobs: to make good introductions and to learn about the client. You did so by breaking those two jobs down into three simple actions:

• introduce yourself
• make the clients feel special
• take good notes

For those already performing well, your primary objectives are clear. For those who need help executing this expected behavior, they have opportunity to perform. For new hires who simply cannot perform, they will still not perform. Thus, you are not propping up those who should not be in the role, you are simply helping those who can perform do so smoothly and quickly.

4. Repeat these instructions often

After the meeting, provide feedback on their efforts. Affirming what you liked always helps. Avoid negative feedback unless something must be addressed.

• “It looked like their Marketing Manager enjoyed speaking with you – well done connecting with her.”
• “I saw you taking notes; great job.”

For future meetings, provide quick reminders and then shift to having the new hire present to you their meeting goals. These repetitions will train them to self-manage their preparation.

*****
Health experts warn us that for several years coming, emerging adults will struggle adjusting to new environments. Modifying onboarding will increase success:

• Know your demographic
• Reset expectations
• Give instructions in bite-sized pieces
• Repeat often

When executed well, onboarding will bring out the best in our emerging adults, helping them contribute in unique and masterful ways.

Strong leaders use celebrations to reinforce teams learning and strengthen team bonding. Calendaring celebrations during and at the close of projects will help team morale, commitment, and performance. They are opportunities to express gratitude, which improves employee productivity and talent retention.

Calendaring celebrations is essential for long term success because celebrations recognize accomplishments, create bonding, and create necessary pause points for your team.

1. Celebrations Recognize Accomplishments

Recognizing accomplishments ensures your team knows you appreciate their win and their hard work achieving it. When recognizing a goal reached, be sure you recognize the effort it took to get there. Mention when the journey began, how far you came, what changed along the way, and what obstacles you overcame. If the goal itself changed or your process had to be rehauled, be sure to recognize that shift as a significant point in the journey. Take this opportunity to express gratitude for each team member’s unique contribution to the whole. When they realize you truly appreciate their value, you not only improve their performance, but also develop loyalty and improve long term retention.

Ask your team leaders what the hurdles were, and of what they are most proud. Elevating the story of these victories reminds them that you support them along every journey, even if you are not visibly in the weeds with them. This helps to motivate your team in the future, and helps them to see that adversities arising mid-stream will make for great stories when all is behind you. 

Group self-evaluation also trains team members that evaluating performance with a focus on what was learned is highly valued in your organization. Developing a culture and habit of self-evaluation will increase learning and performance over time. And as long as team members keep learning, they are more likely to stay on.

2. Celebrations Create Bonding Among Teams

Gathering to celebrate progress helps team members value everyone’s contributions to the greater effort, and increases their desire to perform successfully for the team. When teams are getting along well, celebrating helps to cement that good will, improving retention rates and productivity.

Yet every team is sure to find friction among its members during a project. Remembering those friction points and recognizing how team members resolved to work together highlights the strength of your team – their resilience and fortitude. These reminders help them focus on solutions rather than problems, which of course helps the next time friction arises. When you demonstrate gratitude for your team members, you model healthy interpersonal skills and set a positive, constructive tone for your team culture. It also demonstrates that you know team friction happens and that you value solutions most of all.

Whether the team worked well together or struggled to find harmony, celebrating togetherness at the completion of your project affirms teamwork going forward. Recognizing any subtle or behind-the-scene contributions also helps everyone see that you are, in fact, a team, and that everyone contributes as best they can. Affirming this bond increases productivity and, of course, talent retention.

3. Celebrations Create Pause Points

"Congratulations on our Q4 results. You all went the extra mile to make our company a real success. Our next goals is..." How many of us have experienced the recognition for a job well done that is followed in the same breath with a focus on the new goal? Moving directly from recognition of an accomplishment straight into the next goal is a great way to fatigue and alienate your team. If this is how you celebrate, you will soon see your best people depart.

Creating a Pause Point, a team-wide deep breath, after completing a big project is important, and the best way to initiate the pause is with a celebration. Take time to celebrate all of the effort, all of the learning, all of the bonding, and then give your team a breather. Granting a breather shows you truly do appreciate everything you just recognized. It validates the importance of the accomplishment you have just celebrated, and gives your team opportunity to recharge before launching on the next task. Even if it is just letting them leave an hour or two early for smaller projects, granting space to recuperate shows that you value your team’s time and effort. Pauses also let deeper experiences bubble up to conscious awareness, which creates opportunity for greater individual and group learning.

A group pause after an accomplishment lets the bonding from the project set in permanently. It reinforces that the accomplishment was a team accomplishment – accomplished together and celebrated together. Pause Points are essential for long term talent retention, too. Your team surely gave you an extra effort during the project; giving back a little afterward is a concrete way to show gratitude.

*****
​
Leading your team means accomplishing goals large and small. Leaders know that celebrations are important for milestones, and help most when coinciding with pause points before moving forward again. Calendaring moments for your team to reflect on accomplishments reinforces the positive aspects of the relationships on your team. Recognizing accomplishments, bonding teams, and creating healthy pause points will help your team achieve long term success.
​

Contact Network for Impact to learn more about making essential celebrations for your teams at [email protected].