What 2017 will bring to Compensation Insider

2017 goals

Here comes the time of the year where I share my accomplishments and disappointments for the previous year, but most importantly, the plan I’ve put in place for 2017.

Like every year since 2005, I followed my trusted “Your Best Year Yet” plan and spent a day or two in order to devise a programme which I have a realistic chance of achieving.

2016 was like most previous years, I achieved a lot more thanks to my plan than if I hadn’t set any intention (and followed it by action). But no, I never reach all my goals… I’m quite happy with about 70% to be honest !

The one year where I failed to do my Best Year Yet, I felt like I hadn’t had any control over my life and what I’d achieved (or rather, the very little I achieved that time). This is my best motivation to go back through the programme every year, follow the steps by answering all questions as honestly as I can, and start the new year with a plan – not resolutions, but an actionable plan. My friends all know I just love my Best Year Yet !

So, what are the highlights for 2016 ?

  1. First of all, a big thank you to all my readers : I passed the 1,000 subscribers threshold of email subscribers to my blog Compensation Insider ! Yiipppeee ! When I started blogging back in 2011, I never even imagined I would one day reach that amount of people. One hundred seemed like an impossible dream at the time  🙂
  1. You may have noticed I shared more great articles on LinkedIn, my LinkedIn Company page, Twitter or my company Facebook page this year. Feel free to follow any of them for updates on relevant articles in C&B, performance management, employee engagement and GCC updates by the way ! I guess I must have selected interesting articles :-), as this strategy generated a lot of engagement from my readers and followers, especially on LinkedIn. It also gave me the opportunity to re-share some of my older blog posts – after all, many of my near 300 articles are still valid today, but they were written at a time when not so many people were aware of Compensation Insider !
  1. Finally, 2016 was a great year for giving me the opportunity to meet more of you through my speaking and training. I had the chance to make presentations to new groups, not just in the UAE but also in Egypt, Oman, Kuwait, Lebanon and even France. Following some advice from Micheline El Housseini Timbrell, I updated my 2 flagship trainings Essentials of Compensation and Expert Compensation & Benefits to better reflect the progress between the 2 sesssions. I also designed a series of new one-day workshops, and some new speeches on managing End of Service Benefits in the GCC, entering the Iran labour market, and more.

These 3 things helped me share my ideas and advice on good practice in Total Rewards with more people than ever before. So that was really nice.

But, of course, I also had my share of disappointments.

Besides some very difficult times in my family (losing both my grandparents within the year, which had its own repercussions on my father’s health), I encountered some work-related difficulties :

  1. Even though I was contacted by more companies than ever since I started my business in 2013, and I produced a staggering 50+ proposals in 2016, the economic context in the region proved very hard to beat. Yes, I did get more recognition than before just from being asked to submit a proposal, but it was very difficult to get big contracts signed as many companies simply did not go ahead with the projects they were planning. I also feel that I failed to follow up properly with some potential partners or clients, which may have cost me some training or consulting opportunities.
  1. I had planned to blog more, both on Compensation Insider and on LinkedIn, but somehow time passed and I wasn’t nearly as productive on that front than I had anticipated. This is a wasted opportunity to serve you my readers, as well as to increase my visibility to new people. So, a negative double-whammy.
  1. I also realized how much work social media requires, and that I need to use my postings not just as a broadcasting tool, but also to find a way to engage more with my most active followers.

Let me take this opportunity to give a big thank you to Anne Esgain, Amaya Solis, Alessandro Renna, Samir Dawoodani, Corinne Rombeau, Simin Ghadrdani, Wajeeha Ali, Leema Mary and many more. I may not have thanked you or responded when you kept liking, commenting and sharing my posts, but I did notice and I was very touched by your implied endorsement of the ideas I found interesting. Thanks for helping me spread the word further !

So, what did I learn and plan for 2017 ?

  1. I’m going to publish more articles in 2017. I’m preparing an editorial calendar, which is a fancy way of saying that I’m planning my topics in advance, so that I don’t have an excuse not to write. And, by write, I might also mean… video. I’ve had feedback that many people may prefer to watch videos rather than read, and that makes even more sense to me given that in the GCC, English is often the second or even third language that most people speak, so reading it may feel a bit “unnatural” or too time-consuming for some. I’m not sure yet if I will do live video, webinars, or pre-recorded topics on the blog, but for sure, by end 2017, you will see my face and hear my French accent as well as read my words 🙂
  1. Given the high interest I have received in my trainings, I have decided :
    1. To organize my own training sessions in Dubai. After all, why would the only choice be to pay a super high amount to an intermediate, the training company, when I could organize sessions myself and pass the savings on to you ?
    2. To look for more training partners so that I can deliver my live trainings in more countries. If you know of reliable training institutes who would like to add Total Rewards to their panel of trainings, don’t hesitate to share my name 🙂 !
    3. To finally start to design online trainings. By end of the year I would like to have a number of classes put up on training platforms, whether they are open to individual learners, or are part of a corporate LMS.
    4. And last but not least, to continue to develop new topics for my courses. I have so many ideas that one of my main challenges may be to chose which ones to design first !

Please let me know if you are interested in hearing more about these initiatives by subscribing to receive my specific updates on upcoming trainings here : http://compensationinsider.com/compensation-and-benefits-training/receive-updates-upcoming-cb-trainings/

  1. On a work organisation side, I will try to focus more by trying some productivity techniques I discovered recently, and by planning for better follow-up of the consulting opportunities that come my way. Finally, I will maintain my social media activity while trying to engage more with the people who appreciate what I share. It won’t be easy because social takes a lot of time, but I think it is worth it.

So that’s it for me.

2017 mapped out for consulting, training, speaking, social media, blogging and more, and my spirit is high for this new year.

Research shows that public commitment to goals increases the chance of reaching your goals, which is one of the reasons I’ve written this article. So do yourself a favour 🙂 and do share with me your own objectives for 2017, whether in the comments or by replying to me privately.

Thanks for reading me. I look forward to hearing about you and encouraging you on your own path to success, and hope you will all have a great 2017 !

 

 

 

 

Photo by Brigitte Tohm

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