Wellbeing Pledges are a new and important tool for achieving workplace excellence. Culture Ambassadors would love to help you to create your first Wellbeing Pledge for no obligation of any kind.
ourchoices.biz
A Software Tool for Everyone That Makes Choices
This website for Our Choices is developed and presented by the Academy of Culture Ambassadors a non-profit 501(c)3 corporation. The Academy was formed to address the need for a network focusing on workplace culture excellence––functioning from the innate and documented knowledge that healthy company culture drives employee engagement, focuses purpose and pride, promotes productivity and loyalty, and enhances performance and fulfillment.
You are invited to join our Facebook group to
IN A NUTSHELL
In a nutshell (the main point of this website):
Every choice involves thinking and every choice has consequences. The Our Choices software aids thinking regardless of how simple or complex the situation is. The greatest value to be gained from using the software is the satisfaction that you have thought through the problem and feel that a good choice was made.
OUR SPEAKERS ARE THE BEST TEACHERS
Jay Wilkinson
CEO, Firespring
The Do More Good Movement
Jamar Dorsey
Director, Avenue Scholars Foundation
How to Build Bridges
Jaime Taets
Chief Vision Officer and Founder,
Keystone Group International
Designing a Culture for Today, and
Tomorrow
Candias Jones
Vice President – Human Resources/DEI
Community Health Development Partners
A conversation about race, grace and
how to create a culture that matters.
Ryan Picarella
Executive Vice President, Growth
and Partnerships, LifeGuides
The Great Wellbeing Reset
Jocelyn Davis
Author
Reimagining Leadership with the
Amazon, Empress, Witch, and Other
Women’s Archetypes
Nathan Knisley
Agile Coach, WP Engine
Scrum, Culture with A Voice
Doug Kirkpatrick
D’Artagnan Advisors
Futurework: Managing Complexity
with Simplicity
Be watching for 16 more terrific teachers. Later you will be able to click a photo for a speaker’s bio and presentation content detail.
MEETING PLACE AND LODGING
We’ll be at the trendy high tech Aksarben Village in Omaha, Nebraska. Aksarben is Nebraska spelled backwards. Starting in 1895 the area was the place to be for horse races, rodeos, sporting events and county fairs. Then, only about 15 years ago that all changed with an all-new high-tech village next to the University of Nebraska at Omaha. It quickly became Omaha’s premier entertainment and shopping community, a walk-able place of unique shops, restaurants, bars, bike trails, concerts, and green spaces.
The Hilton Garden Inn at the Aksarben is where we’ll be for sleeping rooms and meeting space. The sleeping room rate is a low at $109.
REGISTRATION
There are no refunds but paid registrations can be transferred to a friend. If the retreat is postponed, those who have paid will have paid for the new date.
Check back in January, 2022
THE UNIVERSAL THINKING PROCESS
Most choice-making follows the same universal thinking process that Charles Darwin used in 1838 when he was deciding whether or not to marry his cousin Emma Wedgewood. Millions before and since have used the same Process (See section below on STEPS).
Emma and Charles Darwin. Click for photo source.
It is fun to see Darwin’s plus and minus thoughts in his handwritten notes for “Marry “and “Don’t Marry”.
Click for image source,
His choice was to marry Emma in 1839 and they had 10 children. His “for marry” and “not marry” are just like the Plus and Minus tool in the Or Choices software.
THE STEPS – Universal Thinking Process
Here are the steps in what we call the Universal Decision Process. It is plain common sense.
- State the possible solutions.
- Offer pluses and minuses.
- Prioritize the solution alternatives.
- Select preferred solutions.
- Offer action items.
- Select preferred action items.
- Follow-up.
The Our Choices software as shown in the next section follows the same step-wise process.
These are example issues that caused Wellbeing Pledges to be conceived:
- Improvement in social and community Wellbeing is essential for humans to thrive.
- Only thirty-six percent of U.S. employees are engaged in their work and workplace.
- Forty-six percent of job seekers cite company culture as very important when choosing to apply to a company.
- Nine out of ten career professionals would sacrifice 23 percent of their future earnings for work that is more meaningful.
- Eighty percent of survey respondents identified wellbeing as an important priority for their organization’s success, but only 12% said that they were very ready to address the issue.
- Twenty seven percent of employees strongly believe in their company’s values, and less than half strongly agree that they know what makes their organization stands for and what makes it different.
- Twenty-five to thirty-five year-olds said they’d be willing to give up an average of $7,600 in pay for a better career development and a healthier work/life balance.
- Every dollar invested in the employee wellness program yielded $6 in health care savings.
- The cost of replacing an individual employee can range from one-half to two times the employee’s annual salary.
- Nearly half of U.S. workers are watching or hunting for job opportunities.
- A disengaged employee costs an organization approximately $3,400 for every $10,000 in annual salary.
TERMINOLOGY
Wellbeing: An indicator of how well things are going.
Wellbeing Pillars: These are categories of Wellbeing including but not limited to social, community, physical health, mental health, career, financial, behaviors, and purpose.
Wellbeing Pledges: These are projects within Wellbeing Pillars that describe measurable actions and activities that result in employee experiences for the betterment of Wellbeing. A Wellbeing Pledge might be for the Financial Pillar. The Pledge would describe a project(s) with actions and activities for employees to live and experience greater financial Wellbeing.
Wellbeing Culture: A culture where Wellbeing Pillars are at targeted levels of planned achievement and Wellbeing Pledges are at targeted levels of planned participation.
WELLBEING PLEDGE CRITERIA
Following are the conditions to be considered as a Wellbeing Pledge.
- Pledges are for the betterment of Wellbeing, i.e., how well things are going in life.
- Pledges are explicitly linked to one or more Pillars such as core values or Gallup’s essential elements.
- Pledges are actionable and have movement.
- Pledges have a clear structure and process.
- Pledges have details for implementation.
- Pledges are implementable – the know-how and resources exist to put them into effect.
- Pledges are distinctive and not usual perk or benefits.
- Pledges are measurable – the effects can be directly and clearly measured.
WELLBEING PLEDGE EXAMPLE
A terrific example of a Wellbeing Pledge is from Parivida Solutions in Dallas, Texas. The Pillar is Continuous Learning.
Pariveda has an annual conference where company employees are the speakers. In a TED Talk-style program they present topics that emphasize continuous learning.
Employees across all levels submit abstracts on what they’d like to present as forward-thinking ideas. Then a team of employees review and refine the abstracts (if needed) and a set of topics are selected by an employee-led committee to be included in that year’s event. The employee’s selected to present get support and coaching by senior Pariveda leaders and an outside communications coach.
The result is an all-day conference showcasing thought leadership from Pariveda employees as a way of learning together, coaching one another and giving back to the Pariveda community.
WELLBEING PLEDGES AS VIDEOS
A fun and valuable step is to create branding videos to visually tell the story of each Wellbeing Pledge. These are appealing and compelling tools for a company to attract the best prospects for new employees and keep the best that are already in place.
GET STARTED
First form an employee team and use these rough guidelines.
Wellbeing Pledges
- Select a word(s) or term(s) from your core values or vision statement that is especially important for your company brand.
- Decide what Pillar is the best fit.
- Brainstorm employee activities that would turn those words into actions.
- Select one activity and draft a description in detail for how it could be implemented.
- Check the draft with the Wellbeing Pledge criteria.
- Face-to-face, present the Pledge to management for their endorsement.
- Decide final steps to market and implement the Pledge within the company.
- Announce the Wellbeing Pledge to all employees.
- Launch the Pledge project with its activity and recruit employee participation.
Video
- Prepare a 30 second script that describes the Pledge.
- Have others read aloud the script and continue to refine it.
- Brainstorm for images and “power” words that “fit” the script.
- Do a draft story board of the images and words.
- Engage a professional to finalize the script, images, words and narration and program the video.
EXPERTISE PARTNERS
Are you a part-time or full-time freelance consultant, or a member of a consulting team? Do you think it would be fun to work with companies to create Wellbeing Pledges? Do you think it would be fun to suggest images and scripts for Wellbeing Pledge videos? If you said yes to the three, let’s talk. There is total privacy and no obligation.
Do you have a marketing agency? Would you like to explore if Wellbeing Pledges might be an additional service for you? If you said maybe, let’s talk.
ALMOST NO COST AND LOTS OF VALUE
There is practically no cost to use the Our Choices tool. The value is from less time, better planning, and better decisions.
Our Choices software is not totally free but it reminds us of this famous image.
TAKE A LOOK AT THE SOFTWARE
Our demo example is for the Clark family who is deciding where to move following Dad’s work promotion. The company has given him several options for locations. The Dad is Dan, Mom is Brenda, and the kids are Ashley who is 16, and Billy who is 13.
The following screen is a “map” of the family’s decision process using Our Choices. Click here for the live software for the completed session. Remember to scroll down to see the complete screen. There is no registration and we have no way of knowing who you are.
Each step is labeled and readable. At first glance, it might seem complex. But in fact, it is ultra-simple. With a couple of minutes of intro to the concept, everyone can use the software.
The grayed-out tabs mean those activities have been completed and are closed. All green tabs are live software and can be clicked to see their contents. To move around the session, click the Landing Page button and click another green tab. It is that simple. You can’t get in trouble. Just click the Landing Page button at any time and return to home base.
Let us know if you have questions or suggestions for changes. We would love to hear from you.
PRICE
The price is ONLY $39 per decision session and you can cancel at any time. There is no limit on the number of employees in each session.
The software has many uses and every employee can use it. Every company should have it.
Send a note to Jerry at cultureambassadorsinc@gmail.com to let him know you want to register and start using the software. He’ll get back to you with a link and also an invoice for one month that you can pay with a credit card. We will also set up a time to get you and your colleagues started.
DEVELOPMENT PARTNERS
Culture Ambassadors has development partners. These are companies that provide a modest amount of money to apply towards our software development and offer advice on product features. In return, they have lifetime rights to use the company’s software for no fee. If interested click I’m Inquiring and we can chat about possibilities. These are examples of development partners.
President
Gerald R. Wagner, PhD., is the Founder and President of the company. He was a co-founder of the fields Decision Support System (DSS) and Group Decision Support System (GDSS) and started four entrepreneurial ventures in these areas. Jerry has been on the faculty at the University of Texas, Austin, Texas A&M, the University of Nebraska, Omaha, and Bellevue University. During a period of his time at the University of Nebraska, he was a Gallup Senior Scientist. While at UNO, he was named the Nebraska Technology Professor of the year. Also, while at UNO he started the BSc. degree in IT Innovation in the College of Information Science and Technology.
In 2011, Jerry left his career in Information Technology to join Bellevue University and startup the Employee Wellbeing Institute.He formed Culture Ambassadors LLC to be the leading influence for companies to organize and sustain Wellbeing Cultures. He also founded the Academy of Culture Ambassadors a 501(c)3 non-profit corporation.