Senior leaders often want to save themselves time and energy by hiring in people for their leadership team who are already skilled and experienced, believing this is the most efficient and effective way to go. I disagree. I believe that growing your own leadership talent pool is far more effective and efficient than bringing in [...]

Tags: emerging leaders, employee engagement, engagement, Karen Schmidt, Leadership and gardening, Leadership and management, Leadership skills, Leading is like gardening, New leaders, Outsourcing, www.letsgrow.com.au

The greenhouse is an important feature in any serious garden. It provides the right environment for young, delicate plants to grow from seeds into seedlings. Without it there would be many plants that just wouldn’t survive or would never reach their full flowering or fruiting potential. Gardeners know that if you give a plant a [...]

Tags: emerging leaders, employee engagement, Gen Y, New employees, Support for leaders, www.letsgrow.com.au

I noticed this interesting little piece in a recent edition of my “Gardening Australia Magazine” and it immediately brought to mind a situation I have witnessed in many workplaces . . . “Think of the poor insects that step onto the rim of the Nepenthes pitcher plan, then slip to their death into the chamber [...]

Tags: Gen Y, negative influence at work, New employees, Role models, slippery characters at work

According to a Canadian paper in the science publication “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA” trees have a molecular memory of how they were raised in a nursery which they carry with them even when transplanted hundreds of kilometres away. Researchers say this “nursery effect” might explain a tree’s response to [...]

Tags: Employee retention, Gen Y, induction, Karen Schmidt, Recruitment, www.letsgrow.com.au

For a long time in the history of gardening in Australia we were far more interested in the exotic, introduced species than we were in our own home grown native plants. As a result of this obsession we have created issues in not only our private gardens but also our public gardens and general bush [...]

Tags: Career path, employee engagement, induction, Leadership skills, New employees, Outsourcing