April 2021 Newsletter

Staff Performance Evaluations

Performance EvaluationsThe current staff annual evaluation period is fast approaching. The current performance period ends on May 1, 2021. Human Resources recommends that all Appropriate Administrators with direct reports begin reviewing each employee's performance for the current period in preparation for timely completion. As a reminder, all staff evaluations are due to Human Resources by May 31, 2021.

These are some tips to writing effective performance reviews:

  1. Provide regular, informal feedback. Feedback should not be limited to that short period of time. You should be offering consistent assessments throughout the year so there aren't any surprises.
  2. Be honest. There is always  room for improvement. Decide what is worth addressing and don't hesitate in doing so.
  3. Do it face-to-face. The written review should be a brief but direct overview of discussion points, making for a more nuanced face-to-face conversation.
  4. Use tangible, pertinent examples. When discussing areas for improvement or things an employee has done well, make sure you have clear examples to reference.
  5. End on a positive note. Don't leave the review without mutual understanding and respect, and don't let any employee feel like they're in the dark going forward.

Please note that the employee evaluation procedures have changed and the previous forms are deprecated. Read the instructions for the new procedures in the HR Staff & Management Evaluations page.

Scott Kasper, PsyD will be conducting at several sessions of training for Performance Evaluations in April and May. 

For questions regarding the performance evaluation process, collective bargaining agreement provisions, and more, please contact Scott Kasper, PsyD in Human Resources at 826-5174 or scott.kasper@humboldt.edu.

Featured Tech Skills Course

Tech Skills

Google Sheets: Formatting Data

You can improve the appearance of your data using the formatting tools in Google Sheets. Discover how to work with data types, apply color, align text, resize columns and rows, and use conditional formatting formulas.

Course time: 46 minutes

 

HSU Sending Employee Evaluations with Adobe Sign

 

The Reassignment Process

reassignment
Understand the reassignment process at HSU, and related implications of Union contracts on the reassignement process. Recommended audience: managers and supervisors.

Register Here

 

Change Management – Prosci ADKAR basics

Change Management
Change at an institutional, department or even individual level is more than the business side of planning. Every bit as important is the people side of change. Prosci's ADKAR Model is designed to guide change based, fundamentally, on how we as human beings experience change. 

Register Here

Morning Monday Meditation

Resilience

Start your week grounded and refreshed with this 15 minute guided meditation session. Each Monday at 8am.

Register Here

 Connect and Center

meditation

Wind down from the work week and prepare to enter the weekend grounded and with ease. This 30 minute opportunity to connect with others and experience guided meditation is offered weekly on Fridays at noon.

Register Here

Featured Soft Skills Course

Soft Skills

Keeping Top Performers Challenged

Top performers expect a lot from themselves. Managing performance in these highly driven people is essential because top performers are such valuable assets to a company. Managers and leaders must keep them engaged and challenged or else lose them to new challenges elsewhere. In this course, you'll learn how to identify your top performers. You'll also learn how to keep engaging and challenging them by providing the right environment, leadership, and communication.

Course time:  19 minutes

 

When Employees Leave

Out of Office

Learn the basics of retaining institutional knowledge, transfering key partnerships, appropriately acknowledging exiting employees and more.

Register Here

 On the Bookshelf

Bookstore

The Personal Business Plan: a Blueprint for Running Your Life

by Stephen Bruyant-Langer

No one would embark on a business venture without a thorough and coherent plan. So why are so many of us happy to stagger through life with no real plan - just going with the flow, seeing what happens? It's time we gave our lives the same importance we give to our business exploits. The PersonalBusiness Plan offers a practical, field-tested method for effectively planning out what you want from life and exactly how to achieve it. It will change the way you look at yourself, your job and your career.

Find the Book in the Library

The One Thing Every Successful Person Has In Common: Consistency

Concistency

Your brain is built to help you survive. To do so, it has to find ways to reduce uncertainty. Uncertainty carries the risk of danger, sending your body into “fight or flight” mode at the first sign of a threat.

Because of this, your brain finds comfort in consistency, which reduces uncertainty by making things predictable.

Just how much does your brain love predictability? One study found that workers were less stressed and more satisfied when their boss was consistently a jerk than when their boss was sometimes fair and sometimes unfair. 

From an article by Amy Rigby in Trello Blog.

Read the Full Article Here

CSU's Got Talent

Transforming Tech Stress into Tech Health

"Transforming Tech Stress into Tech Health" April 29 from 10:00 - 11:00 AM PT

Do you experience screen fatigue, eyestrain, back pain, neck and shoulder discomfort, exhaustion, stress, anxiety, depression, and/or insomnia? Are you distracted by notifications and addicted to digital devices? Dr. Erik Peper describes an evolutionary approach to re-envisioning our relationship with technology.

Register the Day of the Webinar

Upcoming Classes

Mar 28 2024 - 2:00pm to 3:00pm

 

Onboarding New and Reassigned Employees

Employee Onboarding

Employees who move into a new position on campus benefit greatly when their onboarding experience is well-managed and meaningful. Research shows employees who are onboarded with intention and thoroughness are 70% more productive and 82% more likely to stay with their employer. This course will equip anyone with employee onboarding responsibilities with clear guidelines and best practices for onboarding reassigned employees.

Register Here

Are You In Need of Help Creating Courses for Your Staff?

Remote Learning

The Learning Technology area of the Human Resources department can help you create custom elearning and microlearning courses or videos.  For your staff, they can help as a training tool and always available reference. For your clients, they can help understand processes and instructions.  For more information, please contact Alfredo Corral at alfredo.corral@humboldt.edu

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Tech Tips

ClickUp, One Place for All Your Work

If you are looking for a tool that integrates to-do lists, project management, events, reminders, goal tracking, time tracking and more, then ClickUp is that tool.  It inegrates with Google Calendar and Drive.  The most amazing thing, is that it is free.  Free! 

ClickUp website

Skillshops @ the Library