If you know anything about Helios, you might be aware of the Helios Apollo Awards. We started this program to recognize and reward employers who promote employee development within their organization to stay focused on the future. One category judged in the application is the opportunities available for mentoring. Many attendees after the awards program ask us how they can begin developing these programs after realizing it can be a real value to the organization. We understand that the implementation, funding, or simply finding the time to focus on employee development does not always come easy, but we are here to help get you started. Here’s some general information to consider as you begin thinking about starting your own internal mentoring program.

No matter how exciting that new job is, without the proper welcome on the new hire’s first day, it may resemble the first day of freshman year of high school – awkward! Those age old questions resurface and new hires begin to think: Where will I sit? Where will my workstation or office be? Will I fit in? Will my co-workers like me? We all have experienced those uncomfortable feelings at some point in our lives and I think I can speak for us all when I say, let that be history!

At Helios, we often talk about 'building a culture of intention'. We coach our clients on being more intentional, we honor and award organizations who do (i.e. The Helios Apollo Awards), and we even wrote a book compiled of interviews we had with local leaders on how they build these 'cultures of intention'. We were delighted to read a blog post by our friends at Inspirion today that shed light on giving feedback intentionally. Here's CEO Misti Burmeister's advice: “If your intention in giving someone feedback is to judge or criticize, you’ll fail to inspire a shift in their behavior.” — Misti Burmeister

The Washington, DC market has been particularly focused on the impact of pending sequestration outcomes. In October, I participated on a panel addressing preparations for sequestration and our conversation then included topics like triggers of the WARN Act (Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification), ensuring you have a budget prepared that takes into account program losses, determining the impact on employee compensation and benefits, and conducting scenario based planning to mitigate your risk.

Providing employees with a sense of involvement in decision making and an ability to drive results for final outcomes has been proven to increase employee satisfaction. The concept of "employee empowerment" is often defined simply as allowing employees at all levels of the organization to have a part in making business decisions. For instance, share information and give employees the opportunity to make decisions that solve problems, improve service and performance. Empowerment is based on the idea that giving employees skills, resources, authority, opportunity, motivation, as well as holding them responsible and accountable, will contribute to their competence and satisfaction, ultimately leading to achievement of organizational goals.