Gavin de Mello

Crafting a standout resume as a senior professional involves several key elements. Quantifying achievements with specific metrics provides concrete evidence of one’s capabilities. Highlighting leadership skills goes beyond merely listing job titles and showcases their effective application. Using a professional format ensures readability and emphasizes important information. Integrating personal branding creates a cohesive narrative throughout the resume. Showcasing financial and business impact demonstrates the ability to drive success. Tailoring each section to align with targeted roles and industries enhances the chances of securing a prestigious position. By implementing these strategies, an executive resume convincingly demonstrates suitability for top-tier roles. #PersonalBranding #CareerDevelopment #LeadershipSkills #financialimpact #executiveresume

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📚**Strategic Planning for Next Year: Investing in Continuous Learning and Employee Development** As we prepare for the upcoming fiscal year, it's essential to align our budget with our commitment to continuous learning and employee development. These initiatives are critical for fostering a culture of adaptability and innovation within our organization. **1. Importance of Continuous Learning** Continuous learning is not just a trend; it's a necessity in today’s fast-paced business environment. It enables our workforce to: - **Adapt to Change:** Equip employees with skills to navigate new technologies and processes. - **Drive Innovation:** Encourage creative problem-solving and new ideas that enhance our competitive edge. - **Increase Engagement:** Foster a motivated workforce that feels valued and invested in. **2. Creating Effective Training Programs** To maximize our training investments, we will: - **Assess Training Needs:** Conduct thorough assessments to identify skill gaps and align training with organizational goals. - **Set Clear Objectives:** Establish specific, measurable objectives for each training initiative to track progress and effectiveness. - **Engage Employees:** Utilize interactive training methods, ensuring that learning is both effective and enjoyable. **3. Budget Allocation for Training and Development** As part of our budgeting process, we propose the following allocations to support our employee development initiatives: - **Training Programs:** Allocate funds for workshops, online courses, and certification programs that target identified skill gaps. - **Learning Resources:** Budget for access to e-learning platforms and materials that support continuous learning. - **Partnerships:** Set aside funds for potential partnerships with educational institutions to provide cost-effective training solutions. **4. Evaluating the Impact** We will implement a framework to evaluate the return on investment (ROI) for our training initiatives: - **Performance Metrics:** Track employee performance and retention rates post-training to gauge effectiveness. - **Feedback Mechanisms:** Collect feedback from participants to continuously refine and improve our training offerings. **Conclusion** By strategically linking our budget to continuous learning and employee development, we can ensure that our workforce is equipped to meet future challenges. Investing in these initiatives will not only enhance our team's skills but also drive overall organizational success. #ContinuousLearning #EmployeeDevelopment #TrainingPrograms #Workforce2025 #OrganizationalSuccess #Budgeting #TrainingInvestment #OrganizationalGrowth 📊💼

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One of the behaviors of a high performing team is healthy conflict. This is the ability to engage in unfiltered and productive debate. How well does your team engage in conflict? Join us at our upcoming webinar on May 15, Transforming Workplace Conflict, when we will talk about strategies to help you and your team build these skills. To learn more or register, DM me or go to https://lnkd.in/gR7uyMSQ

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🎙️ New Episode Alert! 🎙️ In episode 8, of the My Friend in HR podcast, we’re tackling a hot topic: Hourly or Salaried: Promotion or Prank? 🤔 💼 Soundbite Highlight: “Time is money, but it’s also a precious resource. Earning that overtime pay might seem like a great deal, but what are you sacrificing? For some, the extra hours are worth it. For others, especially those with family commitments, the tradeoff might not be so clear-cut.” In this episode, we explore: - The pros and cons of hourly vs. salaried positions. - How overtime pay can impact your work-life balance. - Real-life stories from employees who have faced this dilemma. - Tips on how to evaluate your own situation and make the best decision for your career and personal life. Whether you’re considering a promotion, thinking about switching to a salaried role, or just curious about the tradeoffs, this episode is packed with insights that can help you navigate your career path. 🎧✨ Tune in now and join the conversation! #HumanResources #Podcast #CareerAdvice #MyFriendInHR

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Great leaders, I don’t know how you’re feeling today. This is a historic day, one of significant change for the United States and the world—and as people leaders, your role is more important than ever. First, know that you are a human being and that it’s okay to feel exactly as you do. Building your personal resilience during times of change is essential, and that includes giving yourself grace during the coming days, weeks, months and years. Take some time to ground yourself and find activities that support your well-being. Second, as leaders, we have an important role to play as we navigate the changes ahead. How you show up—for yourself, your family, and your team—will make a difference. Third, a few things come to mind as I think about how leaders can show up for their teams today and into the future. They include the following: A. Acknowledge how you and your team are feeling and that there will differing opinions about the outcome of the election. Demonstrating empathy during a time like this is an important part of leading through change. B. Recognize and emphasize the importance of showing kindness and respect to everyone on the team (even if there are differing opinions/feelings). C. Keep the team focused on the purpose and mission of the organization (and the work the team is doing to contribute towards these). While there are distractions, your job as a leader is to keep the team focused on their job at hand. D. Provide support resources to the team. Think about what additional support you can provide to your team during this period of change. What are some other helpful tips that you can share about how to lead through a change as significant as this?

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Leaders often think they are approachable and when something goes wrong that could have been prevented are often surprised or perplexed about why someone didn’t say something. One answer is that there is a gap in perception that leaders often fail to recognize. Look at all of these examples below! They point to incorrect assumptions and a misalignment between leaders and the experience of their team members. There are so many different factors that impact how a person makes sense of what is happening around them and, in the workplace, it could be level, titles, expertise, previous experiences, to name a few. It doesn’t mean the different perceptions are either right or wrong. They’re just simply different. It also doesn’t mean that we all have to see things the same way (plus that would be so boring.) What it does mean is just because leaders intend to be approachable, doesn’t mean they actually are. It also means that effective leaders will actively seek out different opinions and make discussions comfortable for others to give their honest opinions. Doing this requires a lot less talking and a lot more listening from the leader. It requires being curious and asking good questions and it requires being aware of one’s own response (both verbal and non-verbal) when hearing opinions that are hard to hear. While a team member makes a choice to speak up, or not, that choice will be heavily influenced by a leader’s behavior. The onus to make it comfortable for others to speak up sits squarely with the leader. It’s the team member who is taking the risk and if leaders are sincere in their efforts to make this risk easier to take, it’ll benefit everyone! #leadershipdevelopment #effectiveteams #productivediscussions #effectiveleaders

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After providing fractional strategic people operations support to several businesses, including CurrentBody, NADINE MERABI, and Total Negotiation Group, I will soon be available to take on new assignments. If you need assistance with recruitment, HR, or navigating the upcoming employment legislation changes, which will come into force with our new government, feel free to reach out. I would be happy to discuss how I can help. #HR #Recruitment #WorkforcePlanning #EmploymentLegislation #PeopleOperations

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All too often, we praise and expect employees to pull all-nighters for some "urgent" report or analysis, or to respond to texts and emails within minutes. But at what cost to the employees' well-being? What aspects of life are they sacrificing for work? I reflect on a quote: "The only people who know how much overtime you do are your kids." What if it was different? What if you worked at a place that respected boundaries? What if you could say "not now"? Thanks to the Cleveland Clinic for sharing this article and providing useful tips on promoting a healthy relationship with work schedules.

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Most employees and leaders know there is no shortage of conflict in the workplace. It is estimated that 85% of employees at all levels experience conflict. One United States study reported that around $359 billion is paid per hour, or 2.8 hours per week is lost due to conflict. What may be most alarming is that over 50% of conflict is unresolved. Workplace conflict is expected. However, employees and leaders’ lack of knowledge and skills to confront it may not be fully understood. Not all conflict is bad; it has many positive benefits when dealt with effectively. https://lnkd.in/gymJQHwQ

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🚀 Job Seekers, This Episode is for You! 🚀   In the latest episode of "People in Transition," we welcome Al Lichtenstein, HR Consultant and Career Coach, an HR Consultant and Career Coach, who shares his strategic approach to the job search process. Al offers valuable insights to help you stand out in today's job market:   🔍 **Clarify Your Career Goals:** Use assessments to identify critical skills and find roles that are the best fit for you.   📝 **Craft an Impactful Resume:** Al advises focusing on your achievements rather than just listing job duties—think about how your efforts made a difference.   💡 Addressing Ageism:** Al suggests omitting jobs older than 15–20 years from your work history and capturing them in a separate section.   🤝 **Networking Done Right:** According to Al, networking is more effective than job applications, and he shares his top strategies for success.   🌈 **Stay Positive:** Al emphasizes the importance of resilience in making a difference in your job search journey.   📢 Tune in to this value-packed episode for actionable tips from Al that can transform your job search experience. 🎧    #CareerTransition #JobSearch #Podcast #PeopleInTransition #ProfessionalGrowth #Recruiting #Interviewing #AI https://lnkd.in/gat7FUw7

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'Hushed Hybrid' working brings up some critical liabilities. If you require employees to be in the office a certain number of days per week, but the policy is not applied evenly, that could favoritism at best and discrimination at worst. Also, if it's a part of policy, it needs to be applied evenly. The author makes a great example: if IT employees are required to be in the office 3 days a week and are punished for not doing so, but sales people come and go as they please, this not only contributes negatively to your culture, it can create legal problems later down the road. Be careful when implementing return to work policies, and make sure there's a good reason people need to be in the office, not just that there is an office. #hybridwork #humanresources #BackToTheOffice

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HR leaders typically don't miss much while interviewing with a new company. We note a LOT of red flags. If you don't have a ton of experience as an HR leader, you might find yourself ignoring them or thinking you can fix them. Listen. We all want to help. And if it's around the interview process or something else within HR's control, you've got a chance to do so. But you can't fix enterprise, C-suite/board dynamics, or strategy red flags, certainly not on your own. And ignoring them is likely to result in unhappiness and ineffectiveness all around. It's not fair to you, your family, or your potential employer. Instead, do a little light, diplomatic probing around those major issues during your interview process, and observe what happens. What's the level of awareness, ownership, and action around getting that red flag down off the pole? They might not like the questions, and reject your candidacy. And that might be the good news. They might lie. And you'll both know it, once you start the job. More likely though, their responses will give you a really strong signal around how deeply embedded obstacles to success are handled, and how you are expected to participate in pulling down those red flags and replacing them, over time, with flags that better suit the organization, the market, and the desired work culture. And asking might help the interviewer develop deeper trust in your observational skills, courage, and diplomacy. A few slightly uncomfortable conversations pre-hire can be pivotal for both you and the organization interviewing you. Don't waste that powerful opportunity to connect around the realities behind the flags. How have you asked about concerns you'd developed while being interviewed, and how did that go?

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Honesty and trust are the backbone of any successful culture. Politeness and avoiding difficult feedback may seem like the easy way out, but it won't lead to progress. To achieve success, the relationship between two parties must be based on a foundation of honesty and trust. Remember, it's a two-way street.

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This week, I was so fortunate to share my thoughts in discussion with Kira Vermond in the The Globe and Mail around AI and the on the pressing need for HR leaders to quickly advance their knowledge and skills to prepare themselves, their teams and companies for the future of work.   AI is transforming businesses in ways we couldn’t have imagined a few years ago. The feedback I am hearing from many CPOs and CHROs is that they are eager to learn about AI and its potential to fuel how their organizations work, not only for their own HR functions, but across their teams to improve productivity and impact while externally fuelling customer experiences, marketing and sales.   To support our community through this seismic shift, I am excited to announce that the HRPA - Human Resources Professionals Association is launching our first AI course HR Skill UP: Leveraging AI in the Workplace next month. For more information or to sign up click here: https://lnkd.in/gZN36p-Q This novel course is designed for People and Culture leaders and features real-world case studies and insights from leading industry experts. It’s a chance to learn and grow together, and to feel a more prepared for what’s coming, so you can understand the AI landscape, legal and ethical frameworks, Governance, HR use cases, how to help your teams build your AI strategies and policies so that you can innovate, and change how you work, responsibly.   If you’re feeling overwhelmed by all these changes, you’re not alone. This course is a great starting point to understand and harness the power of AI in HR. Let’s take this journey together. Sophisticated enough for leaders, accessible enough for anyone.   Thank you so much to for the feature Globe and Mail, and Kira I really appreciate that you called me for my point of view Read the full article here: https://lnkd.in/gb_tjcqz

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In my last post about the transformation of HR, I said we needed to change how we work by adopting a more agile, employee-centric approach. What I didn’t dig into, because I think it needs a separate discussion, is using technology to change how we work. Unfortunately, I don’t think this is a straightforward one. At least not yet. I say this because it doesn’t appear that we currently have a common understanding about what we want or need and how technology can solve the problems we have. 1 - In the conversations I’m seeing with HR folks, “AI” seemingly encompasses anything from automation to generative AI to simple data analysis to machine learning to ???. So, it’s unclear what HR folks collectively mean when we say we want to incorporate AI or that we need to better leverage technology to improve how we work. In some cases, it seems like what we want is simply automation and personalization, which doesn’t necessarily mean AI. 2- As I’ve said before, while AI tools are increasingly well-funded and everywhere, they often feel to me like a solution looking for a problem to solve instead of a solution custom built to solve the problem we have (particularly since the solution is so often not being designed by or in partnership with HR practitioners!). 3- On my initial post asking if HR had done enough to merit a rebrand, Viren Thakrar commented -> “Even when new tech gets implemented, it’s often retrofitted to an outdated process rather than taking an opportunity to redesign things in a more people-friendly way.”  This feels really true to me. What good is leveraging technology if that technology sits atop old ways of thinking and doing things? So, I think when it comes to AI and better leveraging technology for use in HR, we will get there and need to get there, but aren’t quite there yet. And luckily for us we have folks on LinkedIn who are leading the charge and post about this topic regularly: Theresa Fesinstine Amanda Halle Hernan Chiosso, CSPO, SPHR 💡 Matt Culturevist Enrique Rubio (he/him) And for folks to follow about AI and ethics more broadly check out -> Dr. Joy Buolamwini and Timnit Gebru (I’m sure I’ve inadvertently left some folks out, so please feel free to share any people/groups you follow on this topic!)

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Here at TLS, we integrate Deliberately Developmental principles into 21st Century HR. Have a look at this prototype for an "Employee Profile" reimagined. I hate to break it to HR folks, but we'll soon be moving to a strength and weaknesses based approach industry-wide. The strengths-based approach has run its course.

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Bringing diversity to a company is one of my favourite things to do. Companies inject innovation and creativity into their operations using diversity. We’re beginning to see change, but there’s so much more to be done. The whitepaper discussed below gives me hope for more diversity to come.

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