What I’m listening to – Kingsley and Frankie Simone. I saw them at #TEDxMtHood on Saturday and their performances were super high energy!
What I’m watching – Call the Midwife, I’m hooked after catching it during my last dental appointment. I’m also going to get started on Salt Fat Heat Acid soon.
What I’m reading – Updated chapters of the City of McMinnville’s Employee Handbook. Let me tell you, it’s riveting.
What I’m doing – Thinking how I’m simultaneously happy and sad that Ariana Grande and Pete Davidson didn’t last. I mean, it was kind of doomed from the start and it felt like a publicity stunt but what if it ended up working out?
Recapping a Week/Weekend of Learning
I spent Thursday morning at the Yamhill SHRM Chapter meeting learning about preparing for workplace violence, Thursday afternoon at the #ELGLPopUps IPMA-HR human resources session focused on equity and inclusion, all day Friday at the #ELGLPopUps in Portland, and all day Saturday at #TEDxMtHood. My head is swimming with ideas! So, here they are!
- If your community has a “Leadership XYZ” program consider partnering with them to shift the focus on young people to build the bench of leaders in your community.
- Don’t discount an external mailing list for recruitments. Go the extra step and contact the organization to follow up on your recruitment flier.
- Develop a marketing plan about why working for City XYZ is awesome. HR and communications/marketing go hand in hand. It’s easy to get silo-ed and stop working together.
- Learn about psychological safety. If your team doesn’t have it they won’t perform to their highest potential.
- If you’re recruiting from out of state or just out of the immediate area share information about nearby grocery stores, hair salons, and churches. Candidates will appreciate you went the extra mile to find that information for them.
- Add workplace violence, reputation damage, or other kinds of trauma to your “continuing operations plan.” Businesses and cities may not have the resiliency to withstand a major event. Properly preparing helps.
- Build business continuity in your contracts with vendors. If a vendor is impacted by a major event do they have the ability to continue their business operations? Can you rely on them?
- Racewalking is a fascinating sport. And it makes me giggle uncontrollably.
- Demonstrate kindness and recognition for your city recorders and clerks. These employees are often the workhorses of the organization.
- Building a nursing mother’s room into a conference isn’t that hard. Use a hotel room from one of your attendees and hand the key out as needed. Add a cooler and ice, and BOOM, your conference is easier for new moms to attend.
- Julie Underwood’s enthusiastic “Get Sh*t Done” mentality makes me want to do just that. If I could re-write our employee handbook that phrase would be on page 1.
- Criminal records due to marijuana are causing a deep divide in the marijuana business. There are organizations out there working to expunge records and fund marijuana businesses. Check out the Nu Leaf Project to learn what they’re doing in Portland!
- We should all move to Independence, OR because they’re the smartest rural community anyone has ever heard of. Also, the video is really inspiring.
- Conference babies are cool. Marissa Grass brought her youngest on Thursday and Friday and even though she said it was tough, it was worth it.
- Talk to your elders about painful things. David Walker shared his experience tracing his genealogy back to when his great great great grandparents were enslaved but not being able to go back further due to a lack of written records. He learned about his family tree by talking to the elders in his community to piece together history.
- It’s OK to be an activist in something where you lack total expertise. If you know enough to know there is a problem, you know enough to be an activist for positive change. Mary Peveto had no intention of becoming an environmental activist until she learned about the unhealthy environment around her children.
- Think of prison as an “interruption” instead of a solution. Sometimes the interruption helps people but most of the time it does not. What can our cities do to better interrupt disruptive and dangerous behavior? Find where Jessica Katz will speak next to learn her suggestions for improving the criminal justice system.
- Make training fun again by adding in a fun element. Seems simple! Lillian Karabaic teaches personal finance using cats and it makes a big difference in the learning outcomes of her students.
- Three days of solid training makes you feel really tired and like you want to get out of your head. Build in time during a conference to go for a walk and do something active!
And now, jam out to Frankie Simone. This has been on repeat in my world…