Sheralyn's Blog

Sustainable Christmas

Mon, 20 Dec 2010 12:16:00 GMT

Last year at Christmas time I distinctly remember the guilty pang I felt as all the big pile of wrapping paper, discarded from our presents, went out to the rubbish and what a shame it was for the environment. This year hubby has come up with the brilliant idea of having an environmentally sustainable Christmas and the family together has brainstormed ways we can make this happen. The kids have been really excited about the concept, coming up with great ideas and even some guidelines for Santa too!

Below are our suggestions:

No new wrapping paper – reused paper, gift bags, newspaper and pillow cases are ok
Think carefully about the presents, only buy things for people they truly need or value & consider giving experiences rather than consumables
For overseas gifts – arrange to buy local to save transport costs and pollution
Make presents from recyclable materials
Re-gifting is totally acceptable
Christmas food – limited packaging, only buy what we need, buy local produce – next year our resolution is to try and grow most of it in our garden.
Have a stay-cation – this year instead of travelling on cars and planes we have decided to have a holiday at home supporting our local community
Car free days – our stay-cation will involve the car being locked in the garage with walking & bike riding the primary mode of transport

I would love to hear your ideas too.

Seize the opportunity

Mon, 13 Dec 2010 20:27:00 GMT

Anne Geddes is an Australian photographer, famous the world over for her amazing photographs of babies. She recently released another masterpiece book called New Beginnings – and I have the good fortune of my little girl being on the cover!

Many people ask me how this came to be, and as I retell the story it dawns on me that the lesson from this experience has been to be open myself to new opportunities and to seize them when they present themselves, without delay.

One day, at about 38 weeks pregnant with my fourth child, I was walking to the beach holding the hand of our third. A woman approached me and asked if the baby on board had the same father as the gorgeous one holding my hand? Now how many times would we brush off a stranger approaching us in the street? For some reason I stopped and talked to the women, curious to hear her explanation for asking me such an odd question! She said she was a nurse working for Anne Geddes and that Anne was looking for darker skinned babies to be photographed for a new book. I did say “I can’t guarantee what this one will come out like”, as we previously had twins, one dark and one fair. Nonetheless she said to give her a call and she would organise the details.

Being a mother of almost four and a business owner I already had a million things on my “to do” list. Taking action on this task could have easily been ignored. But something in my gut was telling me to “just do it” and so I made the call and now we have the best baby photos in the world of our youngest. And when she grows up and realises she was a naked cover girl, on a book that has been promoted the world over, she will have a great story to tell!

I often wonder how many other great opportunities in life I may have missed because I hesitated or shied away? Now I vow to myself that when opportunity presents itself and it feels right – I’ll go for it!

Branson on leadership style

Mon, 27 Sep 2010 01:43:00 GMT

Richard Branson is renowned for his successful approach to empowering and leading great teams so it was a real privilege for me to be able to listen to him in the flesh about a week ago. Ever since I read “Losing My Virginity” I have been inspired by Branson’s leadership style and believe the way HRhelp encourages its clients to manage their people is very similar to the Branson style. Here are the key take outs for me from what Branson had to say:

Right person, right role – when people don’t work out in a role it’s often not because they are a bad person but more likely that the role doesn’t suit their strengths. If people aren’t working out in a role Branson will try them out in other roles to find the right fit.

You’ve got to have passion – when looking for new team members he looks for people with passion. Being passionate
about what you do is important and the Virgin brand has been so successful because they have often been more passionate about delivering superior service to their customers than their competitors.

Delegate and give them a stake in the business – Once you get the right person in the role give them the breathing space to run the business like it is their own and with key roles give them a share of the profits so they are motivated to be successful.

Party with them, listen to them, take notes and take action – If Richard Branson is in town then at the end of the day you’ll almost surely find him partying with his team members. He believes that when people are out relaxing and enjoying themselves it’s often when the best ideas are born. He carries a note book with him to make sure he captures those ideas. Equally important, Branson says is taking action, so that people know you are listening to them.

New PM

Thu, 24 Jun 2010 02:33:00 GMT

Australia goes girl power with female PM, premier, deputy premier, governer, governer general and lord mayor. Is it true power though or are the females the scape goats in the big boys power games?

Paid parental leave

Thu, 24 Jun 2010 00:15:00 GMT

How fabulous to see the government finally make a decision to grant paid parental leave but did they have to taint it by putting the burden back on businesses to administer the payment for their employees. Small businesses have enough to comply with already, without the added pressure of administering parental payments. It may even create a disincentive to hire people that are likely to take parental leave. I hope the government comes to its senses before it launches the scheme in Jan 2011.

Headspace

Mon, 21 Jun 2010 11:49:00 GMT

As a small business owner and a mother of 4 I find it a daily struggle to find the head space I need to work on my business. After a day helping clients I come home to a constant stream of “mum” “mum” “mum” and “mmm” (that’s the baby).. The answer for me to create some headspace is letting the ocean air invigorate me as stride barefoot through the sands of my local beach. With each step I take solutions to my business problems become clearer. Here I am, last weekend running the Manly 2010 Soft Sand Classic while working on my latest marketing strategy.

If you too, want to succeed in business while balancing a busy home life you have to create your own headspace. Love to hear from others on what has worked for them.

Clubs NSW excellence awards 2010

Tue, 15 Jun 2010 03:08:00 GMT

As one of the HR judges for the Clubs NSW excellence awards, I had the privilege of attending their very glamorous awards presentation evening last week. As I sat through the evening and put up with MC Vince Sorrenti's jokes, I reflected on how well these awards contributed to these Clubs developing effective human resource practices. Firstly to apply for these awards, including the Outstanding HR Award category the Clubs need to complete an self evaluation and demonstrate how they have achieved the criteria set out in the awards. The application process itself, regardless of winning, provides the Club with a gap analysis of where they should be directing their future efforts to improve working conditions for their employees. For those Clubs selected as finalists, they get to bring along to the presentation evening, a table of representatives from their Club and this alone is a great recognition opportunity. Finally those Clubs that do win awards can use these awards to help market themselves to future employees helping them be able to attract the best talent in town. The other insight for me as an HR professional was that all the Clubs that won the Outstanding HR award categories also won their corresponding Best Club of the Year category too. So it just goes to show, if you invest in your people your organisation is bound to be successful too!