culture - Portfolio Creative

Workplace Culture: It’s a Reflection of Who You Are

July 31, 2018

By Kristen Harris “Culture eats strategy for breakfast” (or lunch). This relatively common quote is often attributed to management guru, Peter Drucker, although it’s not really clear who actually said it. Really, it doesn’t matter who said it first, now people say it all the time. But what does it really mean?What IS culture? And why is it so important? While there are plenty, here is my definition of workplace culture: the set of norms your company and employees live by, otherwise known as “what happens when no one is looking”.

Maslow’s New Model? Career, Community and Cause

April 12, 2018

By Kristen Harris I’ve always been interested in psychology and human nature–in another life I might have been a shrink. So a Harvard Business Review article about a recent Facebook study caught my eye. Remember Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs? It lays out five levels of human needs, making the case that each level must be met before you’ll care about the next level. The folks at Facebook didn’t feel the model fit today’s information age workforce, and wondered what a modern version might look like. Facebook has data…a LOT of

The 3 Things Employees Really Want: Career, Community, Cause

April 10, 2018

By: Lori Goler, Janelle Gale, Brynn Harrington, and Adam Grant for the Harvard Business Review Strike up a conversation about work values, and it won’t be long before someone brings up a pyramid — a famous psychologist’s best-known theory. Abraham Maslow’s big idea was that we all have a hierarchy of needs: once our basic physiological and safety needs are fulfilled, we seek love and belongingness, then self-esteem and prestige, and finally self-actualization. But that pyramid was built more than half a century ago, and psychologists have recently concluded that it’s in

Recruiting is For Lovers: Life as a Professional Cupid

February 13, 2018

By Kristen Harris My reality television weakness is The Millionaire Matchmaker or the newer version Million Dollar Matchmaker. In case you haven’t seen it, Patti Stanger (The Matchmaker) runs a high-end dating service (Millionaire’s Club). Every week she and her team select two high-net-worth individuals, preview potential dates for them, set up a social mixer, orchestrate a “master date,” get feedback from both parties, then decide how to move forward. She’s from a long line of matchmakers and focuses on helping her clients find true love, not just a hot

Why You Should Tell Your Team to Take a Break and Go Outside

January 18, 2018

By Emma Seppala and Johann Berlin for the Harvard Business Review Wellness programs are becoming an integral priority for most human resource managers. After all, research shows that a happier workplace is more productive. To this end, workplaces are adding health-related perks from exercise rooms to yoga classes. Leaders participate in mindfulness and compassion trainings and are coached to learn emotional intelligence. However, there is one important wellness factor that many are forgetting even though it may be the most potent of all: access to green spaces. Greenery isn’t just an air-freshener

Health Matters: Why We Focus on Wellness in the Workplace

January 17, 2018

By Kristen Harris When Catherine and I started Portfolio Creative we set out to create the kind of company we’d want to work for. Because, well, we do work here, and so do other people. We both came from demanding environments and knew how important it would be to take care of ourselves in order to do our best work for clients and talent. In the beginning, this just meant taking time to exercise and eat a healthy lunch. Over the years tactics have changed but the goal remains the

Hiring: Plan Ahead, Ideal Fit Takes Time

August 22, 2017

By Kristen Harris “Never make a decision until you have to.” – Randy Pausch As hiring managers and job candidates, we’re all looking for an Ideal Fit. Whatever term you use to describe it, we all want to find someone who is a good fit for our team, or a work opportunity that feels “just right”. If you’re not sure how to assess an Ideal Fit, check out our article Hiring: What’s an “Ideal Fit”? Finding the Ideal Fit takes time. It’s not something you can rush through, yet we’re

Hire People That Believe In What You Do

June 30, 2016

By Catherine Lang-Cline If you have ever had to hire anyone in the past, you know that there are many people that will apply. You need to find the right fit. The easy way to find a good candidate is to find someone that matches the skill set that you want. Look at the resume and check off each skill from the list. But that rarely results in a great candidate. Humans are an intelligent species and typically a person can be taught a skill. It may vary as to

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