Dr. Steve Albrecht in Focus Today: He Does Coaching | His New HR Book | New Bog Posts

Here's some fun and valuable news on the Dr. Steve Albrecht front!

First, Steve is offering hourly consulting services for library leaders needing help with work performance improvements, corrective coaching, particular staff behavior changes, conflict resolution, creating performance evaluations, and much more. See the special site for this at https://www.librarycoach.com.

As a library leader, perhaps you’ve heard some version of, “No one is a prophet in their own land.” This means that despite your best efforts to get changes in work performance or workplace behavior with some of your employees, it has not worked or the changes are not holding consistently.

Dr. Steve Albrecht can provide one-on-one or small-group coaching services to library employees at all levels in the organization. As a board-certified coach and an experienced and longtime HR professional, Steve can help you get back the work culture you and your colleagues and staff need to succeed in these new and interesting times.

Second, Steve has a new book coming out! The Library Leader's Guide to Human Resources: Keeping it Real, Legal, and Ethical. More information here.

The human resources (HR) function for libraries can range in size and scope, depending on the size of the library. The complexities of HR today call for a guiding manual to help keep the multitude of processes fair, legal, and accurate. This book provides the level of detail for new and seasoned HR leaders to use to staff and operate their libraries with the best employees they can find. It offers legal advice from labor law attorneys, and operational steps, policies, and processes from Dr. Steve Albrecht, a longtime HR consultant for municipal government.

Even with the support of an HR Department (however large or small), all library leaders who have supervisory responsibility over their staff (hiring, firing, performance evaluation, assigning job duties) must have a working, updated knowledge of HR issues related to employing people in their branches. (And don’t forget that even student interns, unpaid volunteers, and part-time employees have similar employment rights as full-time, paid employees.) This means that besides the myriad of other duties required to run a safe, efficient, useful library for the community, library leaders - from the Director, to the department heads, to the managers, to the frontline supervisors, to the PIC (Person in Charge on each work shift) - each must know what they can and cannot do when it comes to HR laws, policies, guidelines, and best practices.

Third, Steve is blogging again! See his latest posts:

• Approaches to Library Panic Alarms: Using tech to keep staff safe

Getting emergency help at the press of a button is an issue that some libraries are still discussing, others have a system in place that sort of works, and still others have a process, policy, and response that really works. The level of sophistication of both the panic buttons and more importantly, what happens when the button is pushed, needs a careful review and often, the need for improvements...

• The Power of Rewards and Recognitions: Library staffers work for more than just money

Consider working in an environment where you only hear from your bosses when you screw up and never when you do well.

It seems we have had to become a nation of self-rewarders, patting ourselves on the backs for our accomplishments at work, instead of waiting for our bosses, co-workers, or patrons to do it. The list of employees who say, “My boss constantly praises me for my efforts,” is often painfully short.

In reality, some library directors, managers, or supervisors say they are just too busy and/or distracted to see the value of formally recognizing and rewarding their people. “They know I appreciate their efforts. Do I have to tell them every single day?” The short answer is yes, with sincerity, with timeliness, and with impact...

Enjoy!