When bad storms occur, your business should be prepared and adapt accordingly. Below are a few tips to help you get ready: 1. Have a plan. What’s your evacuation procedure? How will your employees be informed of office closings? Who’s in charge of shutting everything down? Make sure that everyone receives clear and concise communication regarding your company’s policies so that they know what to do. Ensure that you have all of your employees’ contact information in easy to get to place so you ca...

According to a recent study by The Economist, 89% of people in business say that formulating strategies appropriate for changing market conditions is very important or essential for competitiveness. But to practice effective strategy alignment, you’ll want to remember these three things: Don’t treat your mission, vision, and values as a strategy unto itself. When we look at strategic alignment, it is important to look beyond simply what the company stands for and look towards the future and what...

Back to school is around the corner, if it isn't here for you already! We wanted to put a smile on your face by sharing our back to school photos. Do these sweet faces look familiar?[caption id="attachment_1533" align="aligncenter" width="150"] Olivia Williams[caption id="attachment_1534" align="aligncenter" width="150"] Shaina Schwartz[caption id="attachment_1532" align="aligncenter" width="150"] Monica Scott[caption id="attachment_1531" align="aligncenter" width="150"] Kristin Arroyo[caption i...

While rapid business growth is always an exciting prospect, it’s not without its challenges. In the case of South Hampton Resources, they were a smaller company with a family-style business whose growth quickly exceeded their management capacity. They had many tenured employees, so as the management personnel transformed it took some getting used to.However, Achilles Group was happy to step in and facilitate a smoother transition. If the management style of your business isn’t adequately adaptin...

USCIS released the latest I-9 form (Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification) today, July 17, 2017. The changes are summarized below: Name update: “Office of Special Counsel for Immigration-Related Unfair Employment Practices” changed to “Immigrant and Employee Rights Section”. Deleted “the end of” from the phrase “the first day of employment.” List C addition of “Consular Report of Birth Abroad (Form FS-240)” Selection C#2 in List C now contains all certifications of report of birth issued...

Have you ever heard someone refer to their job as “just a support role”, or “an administrative position”?  Our focus as Leaders is often fixated on the sales, technical and production roles and we unintentionally overlook the needs and potential of those we assign to “support roles”.  The reality is that administrative and supportive jobs are just as critical to success as is a key component to the operation of an engine.Accordingly, Leaders need to assign focus to the development of these suppo...

People Performance:Growing from a family-style business to a larger company with a more remote management style was challenging, so we were referred to Achilles Group for their expertise. They put us at ease right from the start by being so personable, and their flexible approach worked perfectly for us. They also have great ideas and clearly know their stuff! Not only do they understand the technical processes, but they also emphasize the people aspect of our business. They’re just really nice ...

At its core Leadership is all about communication and the ability to encourage growth and accountability through clear expectations, feedback, goals and incentives.At Achilles Group, we believe that People Performance is the engine that drives any enterprise and that effective Leadership practices provide the tool kit to keep that engine running at peak efficiency.One of the most important communication competencies is the ability to set expectations.  Leaders must learn and apply the principles...

An Employee Reflection on the Crest Management Success StoryEarlier this month we shared a Success Story from Crest Management, one of our recent clients. Specifically, we focused on the work that we did to help improve their HR Infrastructure by updating their employee handbook. Now that you’ve heard the client’s perspective, we’d like to share an Employee’s Reflection on why this improvement was key to allowing them to grow more efficiently.Olivia Williams, an HR Coordinator here at Achilles G...

This month’s focus has been on HR Infrastructure, which is the very foundation of an HR program. One of the first things that comes to mind when people think of HR Infrastructure is policy: the mutually agreed-upon playbook and the guidelines that shape the employer/employee relationship. However, at Achilles Group this goes beyond mere policies and guidelines to create a stable platform for employees to contribute, grow, and interact with people in a profitable, respectful, and productive envir...

At Crest Management, we were so busy growing our business that we didn’t take time to stop and figure out what we needed in regards to investing in our people. We came to a point where we’d quickly grown to fifty people, and at that point we knew we needed to put some structure in place and make a variety of improvements to our Human Resources capabilities. After interviewing two different firms we decided to go with Achilles Group, and they were able to dive right in and get a good feel for our...

At Achilles Group, we focus on delivering Human Resource expertise in a cost-effective way for our clients. Using our highly-personalized Fractional HR model, we focus on protecting and growing our clients in four major areas: HR Infrastructure, Recruiting Effectiveness, People Performance, and Strategy Alignment. This model is tailored specifically to each of our clients’ needs and HR skill-levels, and at a fraction of the cost of hiring multiple HR professionals.What is it?Think about HR Infra...

As you may have noticed, we’ve been talking a whole lot about Recruiting Effectiveness this month. When working with business leaders, their company’s ability to discover, employ and retain good people is always at the top of their list.However, in reality, we often find that many organizations are not equipped to proactively find the best and brightest.So, how is your organization doing? At Achilles Group, we have developed a short 5 minute survey to help you assess the Recruiting Effectiveness...

At Achilles Group, we encourage and even insist on Recruiting Effectiveness becoming a vital component of your business strategy.Our MotivationWe bring the expertise and resources to install Recruiting Effectiveness as a competitive advantage. We partner with your leaders to build a solid recruiting game plan and then help you make the plays that win.Our ApproachWe begin with a series of discussions to understand your capabilities. Then we partner with you to upgrade your processes, tools and te...

TalentConnection, the Achilles way…Find, hire and keep good people. Sounds like a great set of priorities… So you outline a clear recruiting profile, place ads and get a big response.  Now all you need is the time and technique to quickly work through a hundred resumes and find the 2 or 3 that make good prospects. That sounds simple enough, right? In reality, not so much.Intentions are good, it’s just that your managers are juggling daily operational needs and multiple business responsibilities ...

Recruiting Effectiveness is everybody’s business and no one’s job…Over many years of working with business owners and leaders, we always ask about the three most critical issues that directly impact their profitability.  One of the answers is always a version of the phrase, “Our people are our greatest asset and in order to grow we have to find, hire and keep good people”.  We then ask whose job it is to ensure that this happens and what that plan looks like.  We often get a lot of vagueness, he...

An Employee Reflection on the Crest Management Strategy Alignment Success StoryThis month, we shared a Strategy Alignment Success Story from one of our clients – Crest Management. They found themselves in the familiar predicament of companies experiencing fast growth… everyone was working in the business and no one was working on the business. As a result, Crest needed to identify key people to focus on the business through an organizational redesign.Read here as our VP of HR Services, Kristen M...

A lot of folks throw around the words business strategy or organizational alignment or strategic planning. The reality is that the ability to draft a simple, direct set of plans or objectives based on a few core disciplines, can move your business forward in a positive directionDon’t make it too complex! Keep your team on track with three simple steps – focus, tools and technique. Read more about how this framework can bring you Strategy Alignment. First of all, begin with the end in mind and fo...

We don’t just want you to take our word on the importance of Strategy Alignment at your organization, but read below a Success Story from our client, Crest Management.Achilles Group really facilitated our understanding of the need to align all of our people with key company initiatives.  Due to our fast growth, everyone was working in the business and no one was focused working on the business. Thankfully, Achilles led us through an organizational redesign, complete with a new organizational cha...

Leveraging the Right PrioritiesFundamentally, leadership is about getting others to go in the direction you set with full competency and commitment. The challenge is that you’re often too busy to sit down to agree upon that direction or to take the time to really lay out the strategies that truly focus on your business goals.It’s not that you don’t know your priorities, how to attack the market or solve other business challenges.  However, you probably don’t often collectively gather to collabor...