Check out Heartland Community College’s Annual Service Day! It’s a meaningful event where employees, students, alumni, and other community members volunteer with local nonprofits. This year, more than 300 volunteers contributed over 720 hours of service and supported 24 nonprofits through projects such as trash cleanup, landscaping, painting, and more.
Chad Dowell is the third-generation owner of this well-established business based in Port Lavaca, Texas. The company services a wide range of areas from Port Arthur to Padre Island and handles projects as small as a backyard to as large as a college campus. The business is also veteran owned and was voted a Best Business in Calhoun County in 2023. Check out their website here!
Fleig Financials Provides a wide variety of accounting and accounting-related services for the Coastal Bend from basic accounting and bookkeeping to tax preparation, business set-up, audit services, and even notary services and educational classes. Laura Payne, the principal, is also an Elite level member of the Quickbooks ProAdvisor Program. Check out their website here!
I sat down with with Joe Citro, Chief Of Development & Marketing Officer at Ronald McDonald House Charities Tampa Bay. In this interview, Joe discusses his upbringing and following his fathers’ footsteps in nonprofit work, and how it led him back home to found the Tampa Bay chapter of the Ronald McDonald House.
Ronald McDonald House Tampa Bay’s mission is to provide essential services that remove barriers, strengthen families, and promote healing when children need healthcare. With 5 houses across Tampa and St. Petersburg offering 91 bedrooms, they strive to provide every family with what they need to ensure the best health outcomes for their children.
I recently had the pleasure of being interviewed for a podcast episode of Grow to Go where I talk in depth on being a founder of a company and what that looked like for me. I also wrote a blog post on best business practices you can read here.
Click here to listen to my podcast episode in full!
When it comes to work, managers can really make it or break it for their employees. A bad manager can cause their employees to feel unsupported by leadership, unsatisfied in their current role, and ultimately, burnout. A good manager leaves their employees feeling supported by leadership, empowered to complete their work independently and inspired to strive for more.
In this issue of the Pulse, we discuss what qualities make for a good manager and the impact they can have on their employees.
They’re accessible to their team.
A good manager is accessible to their employees, whether they need their time off approved, have questions, or need their work reviewed. Now, this doesn’t have to mean being constantly available to your employees, as you likely have your own work that you need focus time to complete, but setting dedicated one-on-one time with each of your employees and getting back to them within a reasonable timeframe can go a long way.
They recognize when their employees do a good job.
Praising your employees for their hard work makes them feel seen and like what they do matters, but many employees aren’t receiving the recognition or praise they feel they deserve. In fact, according to a report by Gallup, only 22% of employees strongly agree that they get the right amount of recognition for the work they do. Meanwhile, the same report shows that employees who believe they are getting the recognition they deserve are more likely to be engaged and less likely to leave their job.
They genuinely care about the well-being of their employees.
As nice as it would be if employees could keep their personal life separate from work, that’s not always possible. Throughout the span of their working career, your employees are likely to go through obstacles in their life that will, understandably, bleed into their professional life—the death of a loved one, unplanned home renovations, a sick child, etc. A good manager recognizes this and does their best to support their employees through these times, whether that’s allowing them to have extended time off, working from home, or simply lending an ear.
They try to uplift their team members.
A good manager cares about the career growth and advancement of their team members, not just their own. This looks like giving them opportunities to learn new skills, bringing them onto bigger projects with senior leadership, and promoting employees into new roles as they see fit.
In conclusion …
Having a good manager is crucial to the well-being of your employees and the company overall. Whether promoting internally or hiring externally, choosing who to make a manager is a decision that should not be taken lightly.
