Phil Knight started his career not unlike the way most college graduates do – with no money and no clear direction of what his future would entail. What later transpired is one of the greatest stories of relentless entrepreneurship, and a sports giant worth over $100 billion.

In his recent memoir titled ‘Shoe Dog’, Knight walks us through Nike’s inception, describes countless personal and professional trials and tribulations, and brings the story to a close at the company’s IPO in 1980. The book is extremely well written and full of valuable lessons for a leader in any capacity.

Here are 7 key leadership lessons from Nike Founder Phil Knight’s recent novel:

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According to the HR Council of Canada’s Report “The ‘New Collar’ Workforce”, Millennials make up over 30% of the population, and will make up a predominant portion of the labour force within the next decade. Evidently, your human resources department should begin to adopt strategies that are geared towards engaging millennials.

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Motivated, productive, and engaged employees make business happen. Oftentimes a consumer will choose to purchase your product or service based on the employee who represents that product or service.

Employee engagement is one the secrets to a productive workforce, and as a result, a successful business as well. What is employee engagement? It usually refers to how engaged your employees are in their jobs. Are your employees engaged? That can directly affect your bottom line.

The next question to consider is: “what contributes to engagement in the workplace?”

It’s a myth that great employees are only motivated by money. Monetary compensation is important, but there is a litany of items that contribute to an employee’s engagement. Interestingly, some are so fundamental that we miss them completely. For instance, do your employees feel:

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Recently, Deloitte released a report on talent trends and readiness around the world. More than 3,000 companies from 106 countries participated, and the results showed that the #1 issue facing companies now is employee engagement, retention, and culture. Most importantly, the report highlighted the realization that HR’s readiness to address these issues has slipped. According to the survey, 87% of companies rate culture, engagement, and retention as a high priority problem (with 50% rating it as urgent).

Today, there is a demand for meaningful work with opportunities to grow and develop, and the expectation of a flexible work environment – one full of fun and purpose. According to Deloitte, many organizations have not yet adjusted to meet the requirements of this new labor culture.

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With the imperative role that people play in organizations and the strikingly high cost of turnover, employers across industries understand that attracting and retaining top talent is a major priority. From finding skilled and qualified candidates, to ensuring cultural fit and longevity of a new employee, there are many steps involved in making a successful hire.

The following are 9 critical steps for making a successful hire:

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In previous posts, we have discussed how employees are selected and trained. We can now examine how to measure and manage performance through a performance management system, as well as some of the pitfalls you can encounter during the process.

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The challenge:

When TPD started working with a Vancouver tech startup, the CFO recognized the company had two issues – the first was a gap in recruiting capabilities, and the second was an inherently negative company culture.

The organization had been in the e-commerce software business for over a decade. As an opportunity to switch gears presented itself, they changed the direction of business – more than once. 

As a result, employees were not confident in the company’s strategy, direction, or leadership. 

From a Recruiting perspective, several big-name tech companies (Microsoft, Amazon) were also moving into Vancouver at the same time, making the demand for top-tier tech talent incredibly high.

The startup was struggling to make traction in the market in terms of Recruitment, and had roles that remained vacant for 7-8 months.

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Companies tend to invest a lot of resources in hiring employees. Too often, though, the onboarding process for new hires doesn’t reflect that investment – and poor onboarding can lead to the time and money that was spent on recruiting being squandered. For instance, respondents in one survey said that they had quit a job within six months of starting. Of those, many cited as reasons for leaving things like not having clear guidelines, ineffective training and lack of connection with coworkers – all things that could have been addressed with a robust onboarding program.

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