Blog Posts

Learning To Have Fun With Change

"Every day the clock resets. Your wins don't matter. Your failures don't matter. Don't stress on what was, fight for what could be."  -Sean Higgins I turned 61-years-old on October 4th. I fielded and appreciated myriad “Happy Birthday” phone messages, emails, Facebook posts, etc. throughout the day. At 5 p.m., I suddenly realized that I had not yet heard from someone who was largely responsible for bringing me into this world, my Mom. So I sent her a message: “Hi Mom. Does 10/4 ring any bells with you?” She immediately recognized she had forgotten it ...

Invariably, Mistakes Will Be Made: The Three Key Tips For Great Customer Service Recovery.

I recently moved from Illinois to Florida.  No one likes a move.  As such, you want to make sure you hire the right Moving/Van Line company.  If you don’t, your move will quickly go from bad to unbearable.  Unfortunately, I did not and had an absolutely horrific experience with Bekins/Boyer-Rosene Moving & Storage, Inc. and will never hire them again. Here is what went wrong and an outline of my terrible experience with Bekins: The representative who sold me their services (Dean) was very prompt in returning my messages during the sales process, and all ...

7 Ways To Manage A Talent Shortage

Are you ready to handle the current job surge?  Nearly half of the 22 million jobs that were eliminated in the early months of the pandemic have been recovered.1 A combination of the financial stimulus, the quick roll-out of vaccines, and increasingly positive jobs reports have caused hiring to be on the rise.  Thus, competition for talent has grown extremely intense.  In fact, 42% of companies report that they have job openings that they cannot fill.1 In addition, a 2021 Federal Census Survey reported that 6 million people did not seek work because of childcare ...

Leveraging Your LinkedIn Contacts Through LinkedIn Recommendations.

I have always appreciated the power of LinkedIn.  As “luck” would have it, I knew one of the Founders of LinkedIn when they were first formed.  As such, I was their 7,000th member and this is how I quickly reached the 30,000 maximum LinkedIn connections; there are now over 740 million members. I am now ready to take a big step in leveraging and helping these contacts, offering to write recommendations for them, if they would do so for me. So, what do you say?  Please let me know if you are up for doing this to help each other.  Email me at kevin@kevinsheridanllc.com ...

Want Employees To Return To The Office? Then You Better Let Them Bring Their Pets.

It Turns Out That Man’s Best Friend Has More Leverage Than You Might Have Thought.  Many Employees Say Their Pet Is The Main Reason They Are Unwilling To Return To The Office. As a result, many employers are preparing for a surge of furry new coworkers. Roughly 1.6 million pets were adopted in 2020.1  Pets are loving family members for about 85 million Americans.1 Underscoring these animals’ importance is the reality that they provided solace and peace to employees who were battling anxiety, depression, and loneliness during the Covid-19 Pandemic.  Furthermore, the sheer uncertainty ...

Remote Onboarding Really Needs Improvement

9 Tips For Awesome Onboarding Fully 64% of employees will leave a job within a year due to bad onboarding.1  In addition, 35% of HR Managers report that remote recruiting and onboarding has become more difficult during Covid, due to a lack of relationship-building opportunities and the increasing challenge for new hires to understand and accept company culture.2 With recruiting and hiring set to accelerate in the upcoming months, as well as the reality that many employees will continue to work from home, there will and should be a new emphasis on great remote onboarding. 9 Tips ...

What A Wonderful Emergence! Our Collective Post-Pandemic Recovery!

Hoorah! It is what we have all been waiting for – the resurgence of the world economy. I am sure many of you were adversely impacted, emotionally and financially, by the Covid-19 pandemic, as was my business as a Keynote Speaker and Management Consultant. I went from traveling two times a week to deliver Keynote Speeches and Consulting Services, to nearly all my live events being cancelled. Thankfully, the second book I wrote, The Virtual Manager, allowed me to muddle through the year offering training on its core topics, that being Remote Work, Virtual Managers, and Remote Workers.   ...

Why Would Anyone Choose To Do A Job About Which They Aren’t Passionate?

When I published my Six-time Best-Seller, Building A Magnetic Culture back in 2011, the statistical breakdown of Employee Engagement was as follows: The statistics have not changed much since then, with the middle category of Not Engaged/Not Disengaged remaining the largest of the three categories.  When people see the size of that middle category, they tend to be surprised.  After working as a Management Consultant in the field of Employee Engagement for over 35 years, I discovered that one of the main reasons so many workers are not engaged is that they are simply in the wrong job....

A Gift From A Decorated World War I Veteran

Sadly, my 87-year-old Mother’s health is failing, both mentally and physically.   Two months ago, she called me to tell me how much pain she was in, confessing “Kevin, I am ready to die.  Will you please come out here to say goodbye?”  Of course, I said “yes,” and quickly booked my flight to Orange County, California. Ironically, the “Goodbye Trip” re-energized Mom.  She began assembling all of the possessions she would give her children before her death, including the American flag given to her at her father’s honorary military funeral.  Her Father was a ...

Why Event Planners Think Kevin Sheridan Should Be Your Next Keynote Speaker

Kevin has been described as “the speaker of the year,” “intellectually and emotionally engaging with relevant, actionable, best practice ideas,” and “the most exceptional motivational speaker we’ve ever heard.” Below are just a few of the reasons why Kevin has become a favorite among meeting/event planners and a trusted partner for speaker bureaus and corporate executives: 1. Kevin brings sheer energy to the event. Every time he takes the stage or leads a Podcast, he is passionate about his delivery.   2. Kevin is first and foremost, a teacher. Every participant will leave the event with previously undiscovered ideas and the best ...

What Is Trending Now On kevinsheridanllc.com?

Employee Retention A quarter of employees worldwide plan to quit their jobs post-COVID1. Employee burnout and anxiety have been major reasons for employee turnover.  Millennials and working parents are the populations most likely to leave their jobs post-COVID.   Employee Engagement The Four Most Effective Ways To Increase Employee Engagement: Offer consistent and ongoing recognition and praise. Ensure that your Managers are having regular and frequent dialogues with the direct reports about career development. Teach your managers to treat their employees as Human Beings, as opposed to cogs on the wheel of productivity. Offer new and improved health ...

Why The Return To The Offices Stresses Out Many Workers

The good news and the bad news, for the indecisive about returning to the office, is that we are in an incredibly unique moment in time. After many months of being asked to work remotely, your organization is now asking you to come back to the office. Should you go? “The decision is really stressing me out,” says Tom Miller, a Sales Representative for a Manufacturing firm in Chicago.  He reports that this decision is all his coworkers are talking about. “What is it going to be like?” “What are we going to do?” The decision ...

Interested In Becoming An Author? I can help you.

When I first became an author “accidentally”, I never anticipated how it could change my life forever.  I never dreamed that I would be the Author of two successful Management Books, one of which would make SIX of the Top Ten Best-Seller Lists, including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today. So if you have aspirations of successfully writing and publishing a book and/or a desire to have your book become a Best Seller, let me help. Where to begin. What you will find is that there are tens of thousands of would-be authors who say they ...

Doing Nothing Can Actually Make You More Productive. What?!

Yes, that is right: One secret to boost your productivity is finding time to do nothing. We’ve all spent over a year now trying to squeeze out effort in every second of our workday. Thus, it seems simply counter-intuitive that peering out the window, daydreaming, or closing your eyes, would actually boost one’s productivity. But according to recent neuroscience research, it does. The scientific reason for this is that the brain uses those free moments for important “clean up” work. However, during the pandemic, the lines between home and work have become blurred, making it much more difficult to ...

Junior Staff Of Professional Service Firms Are Resigning In Great Numbers*

Employee burnout has never been worse. As I have highlighted in the many Podcasts I have led this year, both the Covid-19 Pandemic and increased workloads have triggered a significant rise in mental health problems for all employees, especially with the shift to solitary remote working.  But the rise in mental health problems has been the most dramatic for junior professional service workers. Junior lawyers and consultants are warning that they are suffering burnout after working longer hours in isolation, highlighting fears of an exodus from some of the biggest global management consulting, financial, and law firms. This ...

How To Interpret The Nonverbal Cues Of Your Boss And Coworkers While Working from Home

We were once adept at reading the nonverbal cues of our boss and coworkers in a physical office space.  Upon receiving an email which was confusing, we could simply swivel our chairs or walk down the hall and ask the sender for clarification.  When seeing a downcast look or slumped shoulders, we immediately and accurately concluded that our boss was disappointed, or a coworker stressed out.  Moreover, we had all day to figure it out and got hints as we walked to the office watercooler. Now our work interactions are confined to a screen, via Zoom, ...

Reconnecting With Your Work BFF

Eight Useful Tips For Staying Close And Connected With Your BFF At Work For six years, Ron Smith and Julianne Reynolds saw each other every workday.  They consistently high-fived each other in the hallways.  They regularly shouted to one another from their offices at the bank where they worked in Chicago, Illinois.  They shared lunch, exercise routines, and even shared books they had read. Then suddenly, when the Pandemic hit in March of last year, they went home. Ron even said “Getting to see Julianne was a special part of my workday.  Now that we ...

How The COVID-19 Shutdown Is Overwhelming The World’s Workers With Stress/Anxiety

Quite simply, since the beginning of the pandemic, the workplace has become incredibly intense, forcing many workers to “be close to a nervous breakdown,” in the words of one employee I recently interviewed: Limited sleep. A loss of appetite. Unable to take time off. Increased workloads and strict deadlines. Being told to “do more with less.” Threatened that they are “replaceable.” Limited or no performance feedback. Social distancing. Masking. No face-to-face interaction, other than Zoom calls. Unshakable stress. Tears. Increased consumption of alcohol and drugs. Utter exhaustion. Burnout Since its beginning, the pandemic has devastated workers’ emotions, ...

The Virtual Manager

Cutting-Edge Solutions to Hiring, Managing, Motivating, and Engaging Remote Employees 95.3% of participants would recommend this keynote to a colleague. (Statistics provided by SHRM.) The Covid-19 pandemic has left a lasting impact on the way, and where, employees work.  Long gone are the days where office life and the workplace were synonymous.  The resulting shutdown has forced millions of employees to work remotely, thereby affording them with some new advantages, not the least of which are:  no commutes, flexible scheduling, more family time, etc.  Many employees will grow accustomed to this new work world.  Others will find ...

Bad Advice Still Being Given To New Job Seekers

Whether you are a 55-year-old Marketing Professional looking for a job for the first time in years, or a 21-year-old college senior searching for their first full-time job, you might suspect that some of the advice you are getting from others is not good.  The truth is your realization of this suspicion is probably correct. Even before the Covid-19 Pandemic, the job market landscape had changed considerably.  Advice that was once relevant as recently as 7 years ago, no longer applies to the current job-search world. Here are the 6 core job search tips one should be wary ...

How To Hire For Leadership.

Leadership has been and will always be a desirable trait.  Companies with great leadership on all levels consistently outperform competitors.  Companies that take the initiative to hire and develop these leaders see1: – 114% Higher Sales – 71% Higher Customer Satisfaction – 42% Better Operational Efficiency – 48% More Product/Work Quality – 300% Additional Business Referrals – 233% Extra Cross-Selling – 36% Higher Productivity – 90% Lower Absenteeism – 49% Reduced Overtime Work/Pay – 105% Less Grievances – 11% Lower Downtime – 90% Less Rework – 60% Fewer Workplace Accidents – 77% Lower Turnover   These statistics show that hiring ...

The Importance of Adaptability In Your Next Hire. 

A recent LinkedIn study focusing on key hiring traits found that 74% of talent professionals agree adaptability is a crucial trait in a hire and “very important to the future of recruiting”1.  This makes sense as adaptability allows employees to adapt to new technology, assume multiple roles in a startup/small business, and overcome unforeseen challenges. Technology continues to develop at an ever-increasing rate, and many believe we are on the cusp of the next great leap: AI2.  To correctly implement new technology a company must adapt, and to do this they need adaptable employees. Small businesses and startups not ...

Tens Of Millions Of People Are Feeling The Strain Of Remote Work And The 7 Proven Best Practices Of How To Manage It

At this time, countless employees worldwide are simply exhausted, and unfortunately many employers refuse to reduce the workload and/or offer more support. A close friend of mine Jim is a perfect example.  On the one hand, Jim feels thankful that he is in good health and allowed to work from home.  On the other hand, almost 10 months into the pandemic, Jim is physically exhausted, stressed, and mentally depressed.  This whole new virtual work world has completely changed the consistency of his pre-pandemic office work at Corporate. For him, work seems non-stop. His children can’t go ...

How Did Your Thanksgiving Turkey Get To Your Plate?

Thanksgiving is a very American holiday.  You sit with your family, watch football, and eat turkey.  When you were digging in on your plate of poultry this year, you might have wondered “how did my turkey get here?”  This question is more complicated than meets the eye. First, the bird obviously lived on a farm.  The US has a turkey population of 100 million birds, and surprisingly, seventy-seven million of these come from Minnesota and North Carolina.  In preparation for Thanksgiving sales, your turkey was taken to be processed and packaged.  The North Carolina company Butterball ...

Working From Home: The Feelings Vary From Best To Worst

  Since working from home (WFH) has become more permanent for many employees, we thought we would share the results of a Wall Street Journal survey asking people for the best and worst parts of working from home.     THE BEST                                                                                       THE WORST Not having to commute to/from an office:  100%              ...