Our team provides you with a collection of our best content with easy to understand and actionable employee engagement tips and tricks. Our goal is to share content that helps you and your team be more effective with your time, energy and money to achieve your true potential.
Are you motivating your team or just pointing out their mistakes? Feedback is one of the most powerful tools a manager has, but the way it’s delivered can either drive growth or hinder progress. Striking the perfect balance between recognizing achi...
What makes a leader truly effective? Is it their ability to command authority or their willingness to listen and empathize? Through our collaborations with various organizations, we have come to understand that striking a balance between confidence a...
In today’s fast-paced business environment, organizations face a tough challenge: How can they nurture future leaders while still achieving immediate goals? Striking the right balance between leadership development and business priorities is critic...
Can a virtual meeting ever match the engagement of an in-person discussion? What habits ensure that every participant—whether at home or in the office—feels equally heard and productive?Our work with diverse organizations has revealed that establ...
Can your leadership inspire balance and productivity? Work-life balance is often seen as a personal goal, but for leaders, it’s a critical part of effective management. Your ability to set boundaries and prioritize well-being doesn’t just impact ...
Building a strong foundation for any business begins with defining its mission, vision, and values. These guiding principles provide clarity, align teams, and communicate a company’s identity both internally and externally. Without them, organizati...
Creating a culture of recognition is more than just giving praise—it's about making employees feel genuinely valued for their contributions in ways that align with the organization's core identity. When recognition is tied to meaningful actions and...
"Can focusing too much on growth lead to losing sight of a company’s core values?" This is a question we hear often while working with different companies. Growth and sustainability are both essential, but finding a balance between the two can...
Every leader faces the age-old question: When do I act decisively, and when do I take the time to listen? It’s a delicate balancing act between moving quickly to meet deadlines and ensuring every voice is heard. But leaning too far to one side coul...
Do you feel trapped juggling daily tasks while your big-picture goals gather dust?Through our work with diverse companies, we've observed a common challenge leaders face: balancing long-term strategy with immediate operational demands. Neglecting one...
How can you speak up for your team while meeting the expectations of your organization? As a leader, it can be challenging to balance the goals of the organization with the needs of your team. How can you manage expectations from above while ensuring...
How can managers effectively balance the team's needs with each individual's unique needs without compromising organizational success? Through our extensive collaboration with a diverse range of companies, we’ve learned that this balancing act is a...
What makes a manager truly effective? Many would say it’s the perfect balance between empathy and accountability. Through our extensive work with various companies and clients, we've consistently found that the most impactful leaders know how to ba...
Effective delegation is a cornerstone of strong leadership, yet many managers find it challenging to confidently entrust tasks to their teams. When a company approached us with this very issue, it was clear that their struggle to delegate was not jus...
In today’s rapidly evolving world, leaders face the challenge of maintaining team morale and upholding core organizational values amid constant change, particularly during downsizing and restructuring. Organizational shifts often lead to employee a...
Every day, companies make countless decisions to drive growth and profitability. However, based on our experience of working with over 500 companies, when organizations prioritize financial gains at the expense of their employees or focus solely on e...
Navigating and receiving feedback constructively is a powerful skill that fuels both professional and personal growth. This case study illustrates how we worked with an employee to transform her approach to feedback, empowering her to engage more ope...
After working with over 500 small and midsize business leaders and founders, we have noticed a common pattern and received consistent feedback: “I don’t want to deal with the people side of my business and be involved in working ‘in’ the busi...
At Jalapeno, we've facilitated over 1,000 training and coaching sessions for businesses. The most common challenge we address with them is time management. In today’s demanding and ever-changing workforce, managing time effectively has become ...
Have you ever heard expressions like "the quality of a business hinges on the quality of its communication," or "science is rooted in conversations," or even "in my team, the best ideas win"? Do we really know what these statements look like in their...
People are less prone to listen to understand and prefer to listen to react, respond, or judge. In fact, during the conversation, people may tend to navigate in their own minds and interpret the message based on their personal perspective, which is m...
All employees may experience chronic fatigue for a long time, which leads to working with minimum energy and productivity. You may not even know what the reason is or what this tiredness tells you! By relying on our rich psychological background in o...
What is Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy (ISTDP), and How can it be applied in organizational settings?How does Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy (ISTDP) help CEOs or business partners achieve their desired results?How do businesse...
Why Is It Necessary to Apply Psychological Approaches in the Workplace?Why Can Providing All Processes and Tasks Not Help Businesses Achieve Their Desired Outcomes?Why are Businesses Still Wasting Too Much Time, Money and Energy Tackling Relational D...
Introduction to Organizational Health PsychologyOrganizational or Occupational Health Psychology (OHP) explores how work characteristics influence employees' performance. OHP aims to recognize workplace stressors by applying health psychology, organi...
IntroductionWe specialize in collaborating with small and midsize businesses to leverage the science of psychology and technology, aiming to establish a robust infrastructure and foster a sustainable culture. The case study highlighted features ...
If you find yourself, as a leader or owner of a small business, concluding the year with feelings of disappointment, despair, doubt, and fear, know that you are not alone. Through my experience coaching and consulting numerous leaders, I have had the...
In our previous article, I emphasized the importance of focusing on your own contributions rather than dwelling on others' actions. This mindset shift can empower you and lead to better results. Today, I want to dive deeper into one of our software's...
In today's dynamic business landscape, organizations understand the significance of nurturing an engaged but also diverse, equitable, and inclusive workforce. To achieve this, it's crucial to clearly understand the Employee Life Cycle Scan and how ea...
I was curious about the team lead's decision to seek assistance from Jalapeno and began the conversation with a straightforward question.Me: "What triggered you to reach out to Jalapeno?"With a palpable sense of exhaustion and frustration, the team l...
Sometimes, you might notice that some team members are working a lot while others don't seem to have much to do. This can create problems and make people disengaged. There are several reasons why this could happen:Some team members may not take respo...
In today's diverse and interconnected world, fostering diversity, equity, inclusion and (DEI) is essential for creating a fair and thriving society. Many organizations and individuals have taken up the cause of addressing DEI issues, working towards ...
In recent years, there has been a significant focus on prioritizing the well-being of employees and taking their perspectives into account by sharing concepts such as 4 Day work week, Quiet Quitting. Listen to Employees and Employees...
“I’ve looked at life from both sides now, from win and lose, from up and down; it’s life’s illusions, I recall, I really don’t know life at all….” “I can’t believe this is happening again!” Josh wailed, “how is it pos...
Sharing Growth Pains In a rapidly expanding and highly competitive consulting firm, a major challenge emerged: structuring a fair salary system and creating a clear framework for job skills and competencies.After eight years in the industry, ...
An association within a specific industry partnered with Jalapeño Employee Engagement to develop an overview of employee compensation (compensation and benefits) for key roles in the industry and to analyze the exis...
Jalapeño Employee Engagement is proud to collaborate with Canadian Craft Brewers Association (CCBA) for their DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) mission: to understand the current state of DEI in the Canadian craft brewi...
This Cutter Consortium Executive Update seeks to illuminate two concepts that are extremely important but are at risk of becoming mere buzzwords: “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) and “Agile teams.” Most teams do not have an accu...
RCC, In the previous blog I asked, “How are you?” and we explored the benefit of self-awareness and how one of the ways that can be enhanced is by talking to a mental health professional. So…now, another question...
To learn about The Cost of Avoidance, click here... Have you ever met a disarming person who handles a potentially volatile situation by bringing calm, rationality, and resolves? These people are a rarity who appear to exud...
I have been in many intense conversations at work. As a HR professional, I help managers with their people issues every day. Sometimes emotions run high and can lead to conflict. However, it is possible to diffuse the intensity, redirect the e...
If you live in Canada, regardless of your legal status, you have a big responsibility. You have a responsibility to ensure that the tragic history and ongoing legacy of residential schools are not forgotten and will never be repeated. ...
How are you? No, really, how are you? You probably can’t count on one hand how many times per day you are asked that question. It’s polite, it’s social banter, it’s benign. And your reply? Usually, “I’m fine, thanks, you?” o...
In the previous blog, I shared organization level mistakes in implementing Agile. In the following paragraphs, I will focus on tips that help Agile teams prevent common mistakes in following the Scrum methodology, one of the most popular methodolog...
Lack of Alignment in the Organization on Embracing Agile In some cases, part of an organization may be an advocate of Agile, while other parts may have skepticism, if not resistance toward this change. In such cases, as the adoption of Ag...
In the past few years, we as a society have had seen experiences of numerous tragic sexual, racial, and other unusual events like harassment and discrimination among the workforce in almost all industries. Moreover, if we particularly indicate the br...
When was the last time you remember being “in the zone”? What were you doing when you had this thought? Do you remember what you were listening to, where you were, or who you were with? Your Starting State of Mind Preserve Your...
It’s a well-known fact that if you want an honest opinion, you ask a child. Children have yet to develop the societal filters of politeness that allow cocktail parties to continue being hosted. Soaking up much of life for the first time, they have ...
Identifying an aspect of your life you’d like to change can feel exciting, intimidating, or even isolating.The feeling of doing something great? Exhilarating.The feeling of not knowing what that “something great” is? Distressing.This article en...
In the first part of our series, we discussed what self-control is and why it is so critical to in achieving high performance and well-being. In our second article, we discussed why self-control is so difficult and how we overcome obstacles to improv...
Ever since the COVID-19 crisis hit us, the demand for leadership and people management has been growing rapidly. Now more than ever, companies need additional support to manage their team, whether that support is for restructuring, downsizing, or inc...
We discussed in our previous article what self-control is and why it is critical in high performance and higher well being. We also left you with an interesting dilemma about having limited resources for self-control. On one hand, we have limited cap...
In this article, we provide you with a guideline on:How to communicate the change and the uncertainty effectively in order to expect high accountabilityHow to prepare for a remote team and manage your team effectivelyHow to manage your finances and r...
“I am at work, sitting down, and working on a report. While I am analyzing data, I get a Slack message from our marketing team: “Hey your article is up on LinkedIn, check it out”. I open up my slack to see the message when I notice that I also ...
One of the hot topics in the field of project management is Agile methodology. There are many discussions about Waterfall vs Agile and which one is the better framework. The reality is that there is no better methodology. Project’s needs as well as...
Picture this, the Chief Marketing Officer of your company sets up a meeting with you to strategize a new marketing campaign for the organization. In an effort to alleviate some of the losses from the previous online marketing campaign, you are appoin...
Do reminders help to increase our self-control?A couple of years ago, I worked at a company that had your typical office environment — the office layout was specific. Each employee had their own desk space, and managers had their own offices. This ...
At Jalapeño, we don’t like to be trendy. That’s why this won’t be a top-10 list clickbait article. You are about to read a series of real accounts of anonymized clients showing the advantages and disadvantages of working with a small company, ...
As managers and change makers, we want to be generating solutions. We want to be as efficient as possible. We want to find a problem, fix it, and keep going. We don’t want to be wasting time or resources so we feel that the sooner we get to a solut...
What Prize Do You Have Your Eyes On?If you’ve ever taken a psychology class, you may have done the passing the ball challenge. This study was an excellent way to show that we can have selective attention that too often we only see what are looking...
When thinking about my career journey, one image always pops into my mind: a white, vanilla sheet cake.I think about cutting into that cake with my coworkers surrounding me and congratulating me either on my next career opportunity or even my retirem...
Everything related to employee retention; onboarding, continued training, mentorship, feedback, rewards, challenges, job crafting, time management, benefits, degree of independence, promotions, motivation, raises, budget allocation, the direction of...
What Do Techies Need To Join And Stay At Your Tech Company?by Afshin DoustThree techies in their wild habitat. One techie is showing his code to the others.Companies are constantly fighting to attract and retain intelligent tech talent.The simplest a...
Workforce problems are becoming more complex, and managing this complexity is becoming more important than ever. Companies work hard to stay competitive by investing a lot of money and resources on employee training and engagement programs, but they ...
During my first year at the University of British Columbia, I was intrigued by the concept of the parenting license. This is the idea that people should only become parents if they go through a series of basic training, for example, physical educatio...
What is REALLY challenging about employee engagement? Why is it so difficult?Your organization is investing so much time and money to stay competitive and to take care of their employees at this fast paced world. As HR professionals and managers, you...
