The Water Cooler Podcast

The Water Cooler

Archive
The Water Cooler is dedicated to supporting the American worker by developing and distributing information that will enhance their ability to 'become all they can be'. In addition to a show topic facilitated by the host, listeners will have the opportunity to call-in anonymously to vent, ask a work related HR question, comment on the topic or share their own experiences. Instead of relying on management, human resources departments, unions or ombudspersons to empower workers to manage their work-life experience, our show promotes employee empowerment by providing them the knowledge, skills, abilities and motivational environment to improve job satisfaction, performance and career opportunities. By doing so, they will operate in their best interest and the best long-term interest of their organization.Call-In Number: 646-721-9515
Improve Your Decision-Making
Being personally empowered is supported by effective decision-making. Some of us thoroughly understand our decision-making process and are happy with our approach, others don't have a clue how we choose to make decisions or how we can improve our decision-making. This episode will help us analyze our decision-making process to understand how we choose to make decisions and how we can reduce or eliminate elements of our decision-making process that work against us when making important decisions. We will discuss: 1)Decision-making styles and approaches, 2)How critical thinking contributes to better decisions, 3)Risk management and decision-making, 4) How are decisions influenced by ethics and values, 5) How our personality traits and characteristics influence our decision-making style and effectiveness.Personally empowered employees are more confident when they trust their decisions. This episode will provide many of the tools that will help us become a more confident decision-maker.
Oct 14, 2010
51 min
Thriving in A Changing Environment (Make Up)
A wise person once said, the only constant is change itself. In these times of constant change an important skill of the personally empowered is learning to thrive in changing environments. This episode provides tips on: 1) How to face your fears, reservations, and negative feelings when change is inevitable 2) Steps to help change really work for you 3) How to support your boss and organization during change, versus being a ‘hidden rebel’ 4) Ways to become a sponsor for positive change Learn to thrive in changing environments and to shape the change you seek!
Oct 7, 2010
53 min
Thriving in Changing Environments
A wise person once said, the only constant is change itself. In these times of constant change an important skill of the personally empowered is learning to thrive in changing environments. This episode provides tips on:1) How to face your fears, reservations, and negative feelings when change is inevitable2) Steps to help change really work for you3) How to support your boss and organization during change, versus being a ‘hidden rebel’4) Ways to become a sponsor for positive changeLearn to thrive in changing environments and to shape the change you seek!
Sep 30, 2010
1 min
Managing Upward, Learn to Boss Your Boss
In an ideal world we would all like to work for the perfect boss. Someone that gives us everything we need to be happy and successful in our work. Instead, we live in the real world, where bosses come in all shapes and sizes; effective and ineffective, skilled and unskilled, experienced and inexperienced and all points in between. We have a limited amount of control over who we work for but, what we can control is how we chose to respond and interact with the person for which we work. Furthermore, often we can control how the person we work for responds to us! This episode is about learning to help your boss help you. To help them give you what you need to be happy and successful in your work.
Sep 23, 2010
52 min
How Conflict Resolution Skills Increase our Personal Empowerment
Increasing our personal empowerment includes managing our emotions and effectively resolving the inevitable conflict that comes from expressing our ideas and putting ourselves out there.To be effective at resolving conflict, we must be able to recognize and use the five conflict resolution styles appropriately. The five styles are:1. Accommodation2. Avoidance3. Competition4. Compromise 5. CollaborationEach style is very effective in certain situations; however, the problem most of us have is we tend to have a preferred style that we use in almost all situations. Consequently, we often don’t get the desired result because our preferred style is not right for the situation that is the source of the conflict.This episode will explain the five conflict resolution styles, assist you in identifying your preferred style and help you learn to use the right style for the right situation!
Sep 16, 2010
52 min
Personal Empowerment Supports Your Career Development
The door to self-development opens from the inside. This episode provides a structure and methodology to enhance your self-development efforts. We will discuss: 1) Focusing on your knowledge, skills and abilities and competencies. 2) Identifying ways to capitalize on your knowledge, skills, abilities and competencies. 3) Aligning your individual goals and purpose with the needs of your organization. 4) Assessing your knowledge, skills, abilities and competencies, and identify gaps. 5) Identifying potential career paths. 6) Creating and individual development plan7) Identify a variety of employee development activities and opportunities.Remember you can also call-in to the show to discuss any human resources issue you may face. 646 721 9515
Sep 9, 2010
47 min
Improve Your Leadership Skills to Improve Your Personal Empowerment
Leadership skills are an important part of personal empowerment behavior. Many of the behaviors that cause others to see us as leaders are the same behaviors that increase our personal empowerment. Leaders exist at all levels in organizations and those that are not natural leaders can learn to become more effective leaders. That is the subject of this episode.We will discuss;• Which behaviors cause others to see us as leaders. • How management behaviors differ from leadership behaviors• How we can be viewed as leaders even when we are not in leadership roles• How supervisors can become more effective by adopting leadership behaviors• The importance of adapting your leadership style to fit your followers• The four different leadership styles and when to use each• How leadership skills support improved personal empowermentAs always, you can also call into the show to ask questions about the topic or any other human resources issue that may be troubling you.
Sep 2, 2010
56 min
How to Help Ensure Your Performance Evaluations are Fair
Performance evaluations can be terrific tools for empowering and developing employees; however, they are often the source of conflict, resentment hurt feelings and misunderstanding. The reason for these unfortunate occurrences is often poor execution by the supervisor AND employee. Ineffective goal setting, communication, feedback and review meetings typically result in inaccurate and ineffective performance review outcomes. Of course, your supervisors should be trained to prevent these mistakes and bad outcomes, but often they are not. Consequently, it is the empowered employee's responsibility to ensure these bases are covered effectively to promote their accurate and constructive performance reviews. This episode will teach employees how to do just that! Don't be a victim of your bosses poor performance evaluation skills. Listen and learn how to manage upward in this important area and get the performance rating you deserve.
Aug 26, 2010
1 hr 40 min
How to Benefit from Mentoring
Most successful individuals will tell you that they had one or more mentors in their life that helped them achieve their level of success. As discussed in an earlier episode, individual development and personal empowerment relies on the kind of feedback and coaching that comes from mentors. Mentoring is a development process achieved through collaboration between individuals committed to the same goal. If done right, it can prepare protégés to assume greater responsibility earlier in their careers and help them address personal developmental goals. This episode will explain how to source, recruit and successfully collaborate with a mentor as part of your personal empowerment strategy. We will also discuss the benefits derived from mentoring and the potential pitfalls that can ruin a mentoring relationship. As always, you can call into the show to ask questions about the topic or any other human resources issue.
Aug 19, 2010
1 hr 50 min
Employment Contracts, Sexual Harassment and Discrimination
This segment provides insider information on some of the most frequent HR issues facing employees today! More and more employers are attempting to get their employees to sign employment contracts. Do you have to sign them to keep your job? It seems a sexual harassment charge is in the news every day. What really constitutes sexual harassment? When does an employee have a potential claim? Workplace discrimination continues to be a problem in U.S. organizations. What are your rights, what does it look like and what can you do if you are targeted?
Aug 12, 2010
1 hr 57 min
Load more