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The Power of the Stay Interview

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that 4.4 million people quit their jobs in February 2022 – another near-record high. The Great Resignation continues to spotlight the people risks that today’s leaders face as valuable employees continue to submit their resignations in this exceptionally tight labor market.

Sure, there is value in conducting exit interviews to gather insights and data to understand the reasons why talented employees are leaving. But why wait for the resignation to take place?

A powerful, yet vastly underutilized tool to get ahead of the resignation email, is the “stay” interview. A recently published article by Harvard Business Review (HBR) argues that managers should spend just as much time understanding why employees choose to remain in their jobs as they expend learning why they are departing.

We like the practical and easy-to-implement advice that HBR shared to implement stay interviews. HBR recommends that you fold stay interviews into existing one-on-one meetings with your employees or minimally consider conducting them monthly. HBR further suggests that you ask the following four questions that address common retention issues:

What’s your frame of mind today?
Who do you feel connected to at work?
What barriers can I remove for you?
What new thing to you want to learn that will excite you and help you grow?

Read the HBR article here.

Most USA Workers are Open to Leaving

The Great Resignation is a powerful force to be reckoned with, and it shows no signs of easing up.

Case in point…Willis Towers Watson, the insurance broking and HR advisory firm, polled nearly 10,000 USA workers during December 2021 and January 2022 to gather insights for its Global Benefits Attitudes Survey.

The Croixstone team read the survey results last week, and the insights are truly stunning.

Most USA workers (53%) are open to leaving their employers.
44% of USA workers said they are actively looking for a new job and plan to seek new employment in the first quarter of 2022.
4.3 million Americans left their jobs in January 2022, and a whopping 48 million workers left their jobs in the calendar year 2021.
25% of workers feel stuck in their jobs and would leave if they could. The discontent is even higher as you move up the ladder, and it increases to 30% of managers and 55% of senior managers.

Learn more here.

We’re Celebrating our Nomination for 2022

The Croixstone team is in a celebratory mood! The firm and our CEO, Patti Weber, have been nominated for the 11th annual 2022 Charlotte-Mecklenburg Crowns of Enterprise Awards.

The Crowns of Enterprise Awards recognize and honor small businesses that demonstrate exemplary leadership and sound business strategies. Charlotte-Mecklenburg strives to acknowledge and display the hard work and resilient efforts of the community’s local small businesses, illustrating the positive footprint and economic impact they have on Croixstone’s home town.

Winners will be announced during the annual Charlotte-Mecklenburg Crowns of Enterprise Awards Ceremony taking place on Thursday, May 12, 2022.

Learn more here.

LinkedIn is Rightfully Tackling an Archaic Stigma

With the demand for labor at historically high levels and workers continuing to quit their jobs at historic rates to take advantage of that demand, there has never been a better time for employers to break free of archaic rules of hiring.

For a reason that has never made sense to us, employers have traditionally scoffed at job candidates with breaks in their employment. In fact, two of our senior female leaders, Patti Weber (CEO) and Grace Lynch (Senior Manager, Business Operations), have taken breaks during their impressive careers to raise children.

We applaud LinkedIn’s news this week that it is rolling out a new feature called “Career Breaks” to all LinkedIn users allowing professionals to provide more context around breaks in employment.

Learn more about the LinkedIn Career Breaks feature here.

Management Consulting and 5 Trends Shaping Its Future

The first management consulting firm was launched in 1886 by Arthur Dehon Little in Boston, MA. More than 135 years later, there are megatrends (like any other industry) disrupting and shaping the future of the industry where Croixstone practices as a a boutique firm.

Rick Eager, Partner Emeritus at Arthur D. Little, recently shared five trends that he believes are key for consulting firms to embrace in order to successfully navigate the rapidly changing landscape.

These five trends include:

Success demands great senior-level involvement
Open consulting is key
More skin in the game
Connectors and navigators
Embracing new technology is vital

Learn more here via Consultancy.uk.

Get to Know LinkedIn’s New Podcast Network

Podcasts here. Podcasts there. Podcasts podcasts everywhere!

Podcast popularity is at an all-time high, with Edison Research reporting last year that some eighty million Americans are now weekly podcast listeners, while 116 million tune in to podcasts monthly.

This week, LinkedIn announced that it is piloting the “LinkedIn Podcast Network” where the networking site will host a range of shows created by both internal staff and external experts. The content will target professionals and will focus on areas including understanding tech, managing mental health, and explaining the hiring process.

Explore the LinkedIn Podcast Network here.

Portfolio Careers are Booming

Highly regarded business journals and magazines have been writing about the rise in portfolio careers for the past couple of years. Now others are picking up on this booming career trend. We were intrigued to read a newly published article in Harper’s Bazaar that makes a case for why professionals may want to consider a portfolio career.

A portfolio career comprises a variety of roles rather than one job at a single organization. It is a career strategy that is crafted with care and intentionality where professionals combine multiple streams of income to create a mix of either full or part-time employment. A large percentage of Croixstone’s consultants have successfully constructed portfolio careers that deliver variety, challenge, great income, and the professional satisfaction that so many highly experienced professionals are seeking.

The Harper’s Bazaar article spotlights recent research from the Department of Education in the UK that found that 63% of adults in England have multiple roles, or plan to, in the future. The study, conducted in November of 2021, also found that 37% more people have a portfolio career than before the global pandemic.

Read the Harper’s Bazaar article here.

What’s the Future of Consulting?

As we count down the final days of 2021 and look forward to the shiny new year ahead, Croixstone is celebrating a record year of revenues and client growth.

Croixstone sees a very bright future ahead for both the consulting industry and our firm. That said, the pathway to the future must be navigated amidst the powerful forces of disruption that are igniting rapid transformation in the consulting industry.

We were curious to learn how other thought leaders in our industry are seeing the future of consulting. We came across an interesting online article published by Future of Everything that features fascinating insights into the future from 14 consulting industry experts. Click here to learn their thoughts.

The Fast Five: Croixstone CEO Patti Weber and the NAWBO Accelerated Growth Program

In January of 2021, Croixstone Consulting announced that our CEO, Patti Weber, was one of 25 women across the USA accepted into the National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO) Accelerated Growth Program. Sponsored by Wells Fargo, the program featured a premier suite of learning modules, high-level education and mentorship to help participants increase their market competitiveness and to position them to achieve the next stage of growth and expansion. Patti completed her participation in the program in October 2021. We caught up with her to ask five fast questions pertaining to her experience.

For people who aren’t familiar with it, what is the NAWBO Accelerated Growth Program?

An opportunity to collaborate and share best practices with other women-owned businesses.

Why did you participate in the program?

At Croixstone Consulting, we are always seeking to operate with excellence and part of that is to always continuously learn. How can we do things in a different way as we seek the path to excellence?

Tell us about the other women who participated in the program.

The women who participated were from across the USA and ranged from an Alaska-based owner of a touring company (Seward Tours LLC dba Sunny Cove Kayaking) to a former broadcaster with a production company based in California (WorldWise Productions LLC) to an attorney based in Pennsylvania (ND Galli Law LLC).

What was the most unique company who participated in the program?

There was a wine club based in Portland, Oregon named Upstream Wine Club that was launched during the global pandemic. The company makes it easy to discover great Oregon wines.

What’s the best piece of advice that you received?

Trust your gut…those feelings of intuition. Following your instinct can direct you toward the best path for you and your company.

International Fraud Awareness Week

International Fraud Awareness Week is November 14-20, 2021, and Croixstone Consulting is once again joining the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE), businesses, government entities, and agencies from across the world as a supporting organization to promote anti-fraud awareness and eduction.

Companies lose an estimated 5% of their revenue annually due to fraud, according to the 2020 ACFE Report to the Nations. Fraud takes many shapes and forms, among them corporate fraud, consumer fraud, tax fraud, identity theft and many others.

Read the 2020 ACFE Report to the Nations to learn more.

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