How Workplace Traditions can Positively Impact Engagement and Retention

by Mary Kaylor, SHRM-CPOn October 17, 2016 0 comments

If you've never met Rita Barreto Craig, then you're missing out on knowing a truly amazing HR leader and her excellent workplace content.

I met Rita Barreto Craig a year ago through an e-mail introduction. The e-mail included a link to her TEDx talk, "Lessons About Tradition from a Little Brown Bag," and I was so impressed that I asked her to write a series about Traditions in the Workplace for the SHRM blog. You can find all the posts here.

The series was popular with our audience—as I knew it would be—after hearing from so many HR professionals that engagement, retention and workplace culture were high on their list of priorities.

I was excited to finally meet Rita in real life at the HR Technology Conference & Expo in Chicago this year. We talked more about traditions and why it's so important for leaders to understand and promote traditions in their workplaces.

Your workplace is like an employee’s home away from home. Much like in your own family, the workforce needs traditions to create a sense of belonging, an identity and an anchor.

I asked Rita if she would share more with our audience about the importance of traditions, their impact on the workplace and how employers can start their own.

Rita Barreto Craig talks about why traditions are important in the workplace:

Rita Barreto Craig explains how traditions can positively impact engagement and retention:

Rita Barreto Craig shares advice on how employers can create traditions in their workplaces:

HR consultant and executive coach Rita Barreto Craig is award-winning human resources consultant, keynote and TEDx speaker. This is no surprise when you look at her professional profile; with over 40 years of professional human resources experience, including 23 years as an HR professional for an electric utility company, Rita’s first-hand insights engage, instruct and motivate professionals throughout the U.S. and abroad. Her career experiences, coupled with her upbringing in a household of 14, supply enough anecdotal ammunition to keep audiences and clients entertained and engaged in a way that is all at once disarming and inspirational.

Along with an MBA with a Specialty in Human Resources, Rita’s achievements include being the first ever recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the HR Association of Palm Beach County, numerous recognitions from various HR and civic organizations and two governor’s appointments to serve on Florida state commissions.

Her great love of developing the next generation of leaders inspired her to write Foresight: Finding Your Footing in a Fast-Forward World, and her unique point-of-view is sure to resonate with any person who has ever asked the question, “What’s next?”

Rita is on Twitter at @RitaBCraig and on Linkedin.

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Traditions