Why Your Annual Engagement Survey Isn’t Telling the Whole Story
If you’re relying on a yearly engagement survey to understand your workplace culture, you’re not alone – but you may be missing what really matters. Many HR and operational leaders use engagement surveys as their default diagnostic tool. They're easy to implement, offer clean metrics, and come with trendable year-over-year data. But here’s the challenge: these surveys are designed to measure how engaged employees feel, not why they feel that way – and certainly not whether your systems and processes are driving [...]
Modernizing HR Processes with AI: Why Change Management is the Missing Link
In today’s rapidly evolving workplace, HR professionals are increasingly called upon to be strategic partners in driving efficiency, improving talent management, and leading digital transformation. The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into HR processes holds enormous potential—from predictive analytics and workforce planning to automating routine tasks. But many organizations are missing a critical piece of the puzzle: change management. HR change management plays a critical role in integrating AI into HR systems, helping organizations avoid common pitfall and fully leverage AI-driven transformation. [...]
The Data-Driven Approach to HR Analytics: How to Make Engagement Assessments Actionable
Organizations invest heavily in engagement and culture assessments, yet many HR leaders find themselves stuck with a report that is either overwhelming or lacks clear direction. A list of action items with no prioritization or a generic engagement score—such as “84% engaged”—often leaves leaders asking, What does this actually mean for our organization? and Where do we start? At Orange Grove Consulting, we take a fundamentally different approach. By integrating HR analytics, data science, and change management principles, we provide tailored, research-backed insights [...]
The Top Leadership Skills Most Programs Overlook – And How to Build Them
In today’s fast-changing workplace, leadership development is more critical than ever. Yet, many organizations struggle with ensuring their leaders are equipped with the right competencies to guide their teams effectively. At Orange Grove Consulting, we’ve spent years developing leadership programs based on adult learning theory and research-driven insights from our Managing Partners. Our approach emphasizes the leadership competencies that are often overlooked—but that make the difference between good leaders and great ones. The Leadership Mindset Shift One of the most common challenges we [...]
From Leadership to Culture – How Orange Grove Consulting is Tackling Today’s HR Needs
This year, organizations are navigating rapid changes in the workplace, from leveraging HR technology to addressing organizational culture shifts. Gartner’s predictions for top HR trends highlight areas such as leadership development, organizational culture, and change management as critical for success. At Orange Grove Consulting, we’re uniquely positioned to help organizations address these challenges with tailored solutions grounded in real-world application and measurable results. Leadership Development: Building 21st Century Competencies for High-Performing Teams Leadership development has never been more critical. Organizations need leaders [...]
Effective Performance Management: Driving Effective Decision-Making Through Coaching and Leadership
Many organizations believe they're hiring and promoting employees based on performance only. However, both academic research and employee perception indicate that talent decisions are not always made objectively. To ensure you are rewarding effective performance, it’s essential to be proactive and analytical by looking at outcomes, rather than falling prey to often unconscious emotional judgements made by managers. It is common for favoritism to creep into performance management in the pipeline. Managers may make emotionally-driven reviews of employees based on recency effects [...]
4 Essential Steps to Building Trust in Leadership
Trust in leadership is an integral part of a successful organization – employees need to feel like they can depend on their leaders. Not only does trust offer team members support as they do their work and guidance that they feel like they can follow, but it also contributes to employee engagement. That's because employees are more motivated to put in more effort and go the extra mile when they're in a workplace that's transparent. So how can you develop trust? Books [...]
Elevating Your Approach to Generational Challenges at Work
Recently, we spoke about the current generational conflict in the workplace that’s presenting a unique challenge for leaders. Gen Z and Gen Alpha, who have grown up with constant connectivity, have distinct communication styles and workplace expectations due to their technology use and cultural environments. We had identified a couple of areas where organizations could work to narrow the gap: responsibilities at work and conflict management. Since then, we've had more conversations and further insights about the topic, especially thanks to a [...]
Rethinking Return-to-Office: Hybrid Models are the Future of Productivity
Companies across the country have been pushing full-time return-to-office policies, marking an shift away from the work-from-home era of the past few years. Though CEOs may assume that having employees in-office five days a week will lead to bottom-line business benefits, the research actually shows that working remotely increases employee productivity. It’s a simple fact: the extra time employees save from skipping the commute allows them to get more work done – which in turn gives the team a morale boost. If [...]
Today’s Generational Conflict in the Workplace
There’s been plenty of talk about the current generational gap at work, and the truth is, this is nothing new and not likely to go away anytime soon. After all, each generation has historically faced challenges adapting to the attitudes and work styles of those before them. Compared to previous generations, however, the current generational conflict in the workplace certainly presents a unique challenge for leaders. Gen Z and Gen Alpha, who have grown up with smartphones and constant connectivity, are used to [...]
How to Assess Pay Equity and Create More Transparency
Recently, the spotlight has once again intensified on pay inequities and the importance of pay transparency. There’s been buzz for years about the discrepancy between what women and men are paid, and in fact we have written on this topic in past. The recent surge in lawsuits around the country certainly shows that it’s still a critical and relevant issue in the workplace, and new legislation in different cities and states adds to the importance of understanding this subject. Currently, women earn [...]
How Hidden Bias in Your Talent Acquisition Pipeline is an Indicator of Bigger Issues
In April 2024, the National Bureau of Economic Research published a revealing paper titled "A Discrimination Report Card," highlighting the prevalence of bias in hiring practices across the United States. Researchers sent 80,000 fake resumes between 2019 and 2021 to about a hundred companies in the United States, featuring candidates that had equal qualifications but different names that would imply a different race or gender. They found significant variations in the levels of discrimination among these organizations depending on factors like industry – [...]
Effective Facilitation of Leadership Development and Manager Training Programs
Effective and impactful leadership development and manager training programs can offer long-term benefits for organizations. At Orange Grove Consulting, we formulate our programs to offer a collaborative learning environment, where participants grow and challenge themselves in a highly engaging and adaptable format. Whether you are looking to implement a leadership development program and manager training for the first time, or updating your current approach, we suggest you include these three key principles that we use when we are creating programs for our [...]
The Three Types Of Employee Engagement For Organizational Success
When measuring an organization’s performance, it’s essential to look at engagement across all types of employees, since engaged employees are more likely to contribute to bottom-line business benefits and refer the company to others. Employee engagement isn’t just about how employees work, but also how they feel while doing their tasks, such as how enthusiastic and involved they are in their work environment. There are three types of employee engagement – behavioral engagement, cognitive engagement, and emotional engagement – that all play [...]
The Case For Women In Leadership Programs
Over the many years that we’ve been running women in leadership programs for several clients and multiple cohorts, results have been consistently positive with participants reporting continued career successes through applying program skills. They also benefit from access to a strong alumnae network of prior program participants. Since we’ve expanded our leadership development offerings to feature a wide offering of mixed gender programs – we often get the question: Why still run women-only programs? OGC is a research-based consultancy, and the research [...]
Psychological Safety in the Workplace: What It Is and The Results You Can Expect
Psychological safety may sound like just a buzzword in the human resources world, but we’ve found that the value of creating a supportive and transparent environment at work is actually one of the key drivers of organizational success. A great environment created by leaders can have great bottom-line effects, and bad leadership decisions can be even more damaging to organizations. Building a psychologically safe environment starts at the top – which means you’ll need to train leaders with the right skillsets. After [...]
Good Leadership: Talent Management Decisions Are Business Decisions
The past year has witnessed waves of layoffs, with the tech industry being hit especially hard. The layoffs not only highlight recent economic challenges, but also the bad leadership plaguing many of today’s organizations – and many employees are pushing back publicly. A recent viral TikTok video showcases one example of a poor management decision. Former Cloudfare employee, Brittany Pietsch, filmed a video call where she was fired by two HR representatives. In the 9-minute video, Pietsch repeatedly asks for details on [...]
Build A Less Divisive and More Effective Workplace in 2024
Though 2024 may have just kicked off, there’s already plenty of division brewing across the nation. From culture wars to heated elections, Americans are confronted with a cauldron of conflict that has led to a polarization of political persuasions more than ever. And the one place where people of all backgrounds and beliefs are forced to come together in today’s society? The workplace. Since work has become the most common place where socialization of people from diverse backgrounds occurs, the workplace has [...]
Team Collaboration Program: Building Cohesion for Optimal Team Results
When pursuing your organization’s goals, team functionality is key for employee engagement and effectiveness. Yet many teams struggle with dysfunction due to unresolved conflict, poor communication, and a lack of sustained collaboration. It’s clear that traditional one-off trainings haven’t been effective. That’s why we’re excited to share more about our Team Collaboration Program, which was born out of the need for a more comprehensive approach to fostering belonging in the workplace. The aim of the solution is to help teams work more [...]
Employee Engagement: Why and How to Measure for Increased Engagement & Cultural Impact
When measuring an organization’s performance, it’s essential to look at engagement across all types of employees, since engaged employees are more likely to positively contribute to bottom-line business benefits and refer the company to others. We’ve found that engagement surveys are a valuable tool to get a holistic view into your organization's efforts to support employees. Once you’ve got objective insights into what’s going on in your organization, you can help identify areas for growth and tailor your strategies to meet the [...]
5 Steps to Effectively Prepare for Strategy Creation
Laying a strong foundation of strategy work is an essential part of the roadmap to achieve any organizational goals, including talent management, and engagement goals. Solid strategy preparation helps you set the stage for successful execution so that your organization can reap the long-term benefits of investing in your talent. To build an effective strategy plan, our team at Orange Grove recommends using the following roadmap: Understanding Organizational Objectives and Goals Before beginning strategy work, you’ll want to first understand your organization’s [...]
Fostering Fairness In The Workplace
As educators, we’ve noticed a polarity between two distinct groups in the classroom: those advocating for social justice and those resistant to change. Proponents of social justice want people to own their labels and demand for immediate change. On the other hand, resistance to social justice rejects challenges to the current (perceived) meritocracy and doesn’t want any mention of bias at all, as they believe that the entire movement has gone too far. Some even fear that they will be unfairly marginalized [...]
Unleashing the Power of Data Analytics To Build Strong Talent Pipelines
In today's evolving business landscape, strong talent management systems have become urgent priorities for organizations worldwide. Recognizing the need to address talent pipeline challenges, companies are increasingly leveraging data analytics and reporting to gain valuable insights into their workforce and drive meaningful change. Here’s a brief description of how we use data analytics and reporting to address these challenges and build workplaces. The reason we utilize HR analytics is with the aim of shedding light on critical touchpoints in the talent decision-making [...]
