Jason Lauritsen

The future of work arrived ahead of schedule in 2020. Amidst the disruption of a global pandemic, it was revealed that the old way of working is no longer relevant. Our imperative was to quickly reinvent when, where, and how work happens. We are never going back to the old way. This new landscape of work requires managers and leaders to be more engaged  with their people than ever before.

Today and in the future, the managers who can best support employee well-being will be those who thrive. At the heart of well-being is ensuring your people feel cared about as a person–not just for their work output. This can feel uncomfortable and isn’t a natural skill for most of us. Plus, it’s not something found in most management training programs. But it can be learned, and it starts with developing compassion. When managers bring compassion to their jobs, they develop a deeper understanding of what their people truly need to offer their full potential at work.

In this session you will learn:

Why leading for well-being requires compassion

An understanding of the four components of compassion

How managers can use compassion to foster employee well-being and performance

Work has been defined in many ways over the years: a contract, a transaction, a value exchange between a worker and their employer. Many organizations even refer to employees as “Human Capital” and treat them like assets to be managed and optimized. Is it any
wonder that employee engagement continues to drop as employees dream of finding a better place to work? It turns out that we don’t like to be treated like an investment to be maximized.

If we hope to get the best of our people, it starts with understanding what work is foremployees–a relationship. Research has shown that employees crave the same things from work that they do from any important relationships in their lives: appreciation, acceptance, communication, commitment, and support. In this session, we will explore how managers and leaders can invite employees to be their best at work by making work feel more like a healthy relationship.

What you will learn:

Discover why many common management practices are failing to engage employees

Learn that for employees, work is one of the most important relationships in their lives (and it needs to be treated that way)

Gain a deeper understanding of the elements that create a healthy relationship and how to use this insight to create a more engaging and fulfilling experience for your people at work

Can you engage employees and maximize performance at the same time? Isn’t having fun at work counter-productive? Why do I need to recognize employees for simply doing their job? If you wrestle with these questions, you aren’t alone. You’re struggling with the disconnect between an outdated model of management and a new world of work. The time for top down, compliance-based management is over. To attract, retain and unleash great talent for your organization, a new approach is required.

In this powerful keynote, you will learn how successful organizations are unleashing the full potential of their employees by creating a more “human-friendly” work experience. Jason will reveal how you can more effectively manage performance by making work feel more like a healthy relationship than an unpleasant obligation. You’ll leave the experience inspired, informed and equipped with a new approach for unlocking higher performance that employees will love.

What You’ll Learn:

Why traditional management practices have failed us

How work as a contract is being replaced by work as a relationship

Managing performance is really about creating the right kind of employee experience

To manage human performance through experience requires planning, cultivation and accountability

Case studies and examples for how to transform the performance of your team or organization

Becoming a “Best Place to Work” is at the top of many organization’s priority lists. To attract and keep the best talent requires fostering an engaging culture where people want to work. But, building an extraordinary workplace is easier said than done. In fact, it’s hard to even know where to start.

This dynamic session will reveal research-based insights into the what, why and how of building and sustaining a “Best Place to Work” for your employees. And (spoiler alert) it’s not about installing ping pong tables or sleep pods.

Learning Objectives:

Understand what organizations with exceptional workplaces do differently than others to engage and retain their best talent

Discover the common elements found within “Best Places to Work” and what they tell us about how to create the most engaging workplaces

Gain practical advice for how to take action within your organization to implement the lessons from “Best Places to Work” in order to increase employee engagement and performance within your own organization

Driving innovation can feel overwhelming. Just the idea of innovation is intimidating—as if the big breakthrough is somehow always just beyond our reach. This is fueled by some common misunderstandings about how innovation works. The truth: innovation isn’t about big changes. And it doesn’t even require a big budget, a big title, or any permission. The changes that matter don’t happen overnight, they are the result of a lot of small, meaningful changes over time. Computer programmers and hackers have known this for years and we’ve reaped the technological rewards.

Applying insights from the computer hacking culture, Jason will teach you a simple but incredibly powerful process for hacking your management and work processes to fuel greater engagement and performance. This will help you and your team to innovate and make progress in your work, one small change at a time. Regardless of your title or experience, you can make big things happen through a series of smart, small changes (or hacks).

Learning Objectives:

Gain a deeper understanding for how change and innovation occurs

Learn to use a simple process derived from computer hacking to drive change and progress in their work, regardless of their level or expertise

Practice hacking an actual aspect of your work (for example: team meetings, performance conversations, reports, etc.) and will leave with actionable ideas that can be implemented immediately