Workplace Hero

How to Prepare For and Return From a Vacation. With the 24/7-ness of our culture, it is becoming more and more difficult for employees to ever feel they that have all their work done. Plus today’s work ethic of “more, bigger, faster, busier” creates a trap for all of us making us fearful of taking vacations or even days-off. Here …

When and How to ask for Feedback. After the recent podcast episode about How to Ask For and Get a Raise I got some feedback from people looking for more information on how they can really hone in on being the kind of employee who actually deserves and gets a raise. Some of the questions and comments I received reminded …

How to Ask For and Get a Raise. The four most common reasons that people don’t get a raise are: You Don’t Know the Going Rate, You Don’t Know Your Value, You Can’t Justify Your Value, and You Never Ask. The last one is the reason that I have seen the most often. So many great employees, busting their butt, …

Sick: Dealing with Illness in the Workplace. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says people with the flu can spread it to others up to about six feet away, mainly by droplets made when they cough, sneeze or talk. A person can also get the flu by touching a surface or object that has the virus on it …

How and When to Say No. I don’t know who actually said it first but I first heard it from Derek Sivers (the guy who started CD Baby and then later sold it for like a bazillion dollars). He wrote in Aug 2009: There is no “yes.” It’s either “HELL YEAH!” or “no.” Every event you get invited to. Every request to …

Announcing the Change Academy podcast. After a nearly two-year hiatus, I am back with an exciting announcement! I have a new podcast called Change Academy and in this short episode of Workplace Hero, I explain what the new show is all about and play you a snippet from Episode #1 of Change Academy. You can find Change Academy at changeacademypodcast.com and (of …

Telecommuting – The Art of Working At Home. Working from home is great on so many levels. Not having to commute saves money and time and can actually make you happier. A plethora of free tools make it super simple to check in with a decentralized office or teammates that may also be working in their homes, scattered around the …

Ergonomics w/ Elle Russ. Guest Hero: Elle Russ, writer, actor, life coach and host of The Primal Blueprint Podcast. Human-factors engineering, also called ergonomics or human engineering, is the science dealing with the application of information on physical and psychological characteristics to the design of devices and systems for human use. Over at WorkSafeBC.com (the Workers’ Compensation Board in the Canadian province of …

Talking, Acting & Thinking Positively w/ Dr. Alessandra Wall. Guest Hero: Dr. Alessandra Wall, Ph.D. – Licensed Clinical Psychologist at Life in Focus Therapy When negative events or mistakes happen, positive self-talk simply seeks to bring the positive out of the negative to help you do better, go further, or keep moving forward. The practice of positive self-talk is often the …

Out of Office – Work Life Balance. Hello, My Workplace Heros. Brock Armstrong here, in a totally stripped down (or maybe the “unplugged”) version of the podcast today because I am currently out of the office. Actually, you can think of this episode as my podcasting Out Of Office reply. I am spending the week at my mom’s house, visiting …

Shift Work. According to NSF’s 2005 Sleep in America poll, 14% of North Americans take part in what is called shift work. Shift work is an employment practice designed to make use of, or provide service across, all 24 hours of the clock each day of the week (often abbreviated as 24/7). The practice typically sees the day divided into …

Is it a Workout, Exercise or a Movement Snack w/ Ben Greenfield. Guest Hero: Ben Greenfield. Fitness, nutrition and human performance consultant at BenGreenfieldFitness.com While we all know that staying physically active is essential to a long, healthy, productive life, we don’t often make time for it in our days and I think that is because we really don’t understand exactly …

Unwanted Distractions. Let’s face it, everything demands our attention these days. It’s not just our family, friends and co-workers but also our phones, our email and our social media that all fight for our attention at any given moment. It can be downright overwhelming at times and makes it really challenging to get focussed and get a job done. Yeah, …

Low Energy w/ Hailey Rowe, Guest Hero: Hailey Rowe from Prime Time Health. As a Personal Trainer and Nutrition Specialist, Hailey serves clients by providing the tools necessary to end sugar addiction, find enjoyment in exercise, and manage stress. Your morning is going great… right up until around 9:30 or 10:00 am when you start feeling yourself losing energy and focus. Your eyes start …

The Perils of the Commute – Feat. Abi Carver. According to a report in USA Today, the average North American’s commute is 25.5 minutes each way. That’s about 51 minutes per day or about 204 hours a year spent commuting. Just to put that in perspective, researchers recently found that most adults only do 17 minutes of fitness activities per …