About Our Solutions

Our solutions are evidence-based for maximum impact.
We focus on what is real and important in valid models of organizational behaviour.
We focus on positive mindsets and positive workplaces as catalysts for organizational transformation.
Employees are full partners in what we do. Empowerment and experiential learning are vital for deep change.

Workshops

Our master workshop on the human-centered organization. What it is, how it out-performs, and what your people can do to cultivate it. Curated from research and case studies. Your team will be introduced to a new paradigm for successful organizations – one that goes back to the egg by seeing people not as employees or customers, but as humans with a very old set of fossil needs. Take-aways include micro-actions designed to ignite a powder train of effects and spur the transformation of your organization.

Your team will also discover:

  • How human-centered organizations embed human considerations into everything they do.
  • The fundamental needs of employees and customers, as a starting point.
  • The concepts of flourishing and generative dynamics for people and organizations.
  • Human-centered work factors that unlock potential, create maximum engagement, and achieve breakthrough performance.
  • The characteristics of positive people, and how to develop them.
  • The evidence base and business case for positive organizational psychology.
  • How human-centered organizations help humanity and fulfill corporate social responsibility objectives.
  • Both macro- and micro- actions for cultivating human-centered organizations.
A crash course on leadership. What it is, what it isn’t, and why it matters. Designed to cut through anecdotes and industry models of leadership, this workshop arms your team with only evidence-based takes on leadership that drive organizational performance. This includes emerging, integrative models informed by data science. Throughout the workshop, a focus is maintained on key behaviours, how they’re demonstrated, and how they can become habits through development. This workshop is intended as a starting point for leadership strategy as well as a knowledge activity to drop into your next leadership development program.

Your team will also discover:

  • How leadership is important at all levels of the organization.
  • Crucial distinctions among leadership, management, and power.
  • How leadership is changing in agile and autonomous workplaces.
  • How effective leaders use different styles in different situations.
  • The challenges of behavioural change in leadership development.
In the end, it’s all about performance. However, employee performance is complex, with well over 50 things known to impact it. How do you begin to hire, develop, and support people to be high performers? This workshop introduces your team to a comprehensive model of performance management. They will also learn 10 of the most evidence-based things that drive performance and 10 actions that they can take to achieve the greatest gains in performance and productivity. Your team’s responses on Heliosophy’s Performance Culture Survey™ may be used to drive the session. This workshop is the perfect complement to Creating a High-Commitment Workforce, our workshop on the other cornerstone of organizational behaviour.

You team will also discover:

  • The personal attributes to hire and develop in people for high performance.
  • Time-tested models for diagnosing performance problems.
  • The psychological factors that motivate people to perform well.
  • The best evidence on goal setting and performance feedback.
  • Classic problems and rigorous solutions around performance measurement.
  • How to improve and restore faith in performance appraisals.
If you’re looking for an employee engagement workshop, this is it. Then again, it isn’t. It’s a broader and more inclusive session about commitment. People’s psychological commitment to their employer is the sum of their employee experience, and one of the last links in a causal chain driving their motivation, effort, performance, and retention. This makes commitment a crucial relay point between employee ‘anything’ and organizational performance, and perhaps the single greatest rallying point for managing human resources. This workshop is the perfect complement to The Science & Practice of Performance Management, our workshop on the other cornerstone of organizational behaviour.

Your team will discover:

  • The different types of commitment and the things that drive them.
  • How to spot many kinds of employee withdrawal, and how they kill agility and innovation.
  • Macro- and micro-actions that promote deep, long-term commitment.
  • The secondary roles of science-based employee engagement and satisfaction in employee commitment.
A series of half-day workshops, co-run by Heliosophy and your employees and powered by the results of the Positive Work Inventory®. Together, we interpret your results and create a data-driven future to be implemented by your people, pending approval. The workshops can be delivered within departments or across departments for a cross-pollination of ideas based on principles of appreciative inquiry and positive deviance.

Employee voice and empowerment are key to this process, as front-line employees are closest to the deep workings of your organization. Change ownership is also crucial for commitment and readiness. Throughout the workshops, Heliosophy’s experts in industrial-organizational psychology guide the process towards the most evidence-based actions.

The Positive Work Inventory® is a quick, yet comprehensive and evidence-based employee survey of the most critical drivers of employee and organizational performance. Employee engagement, satisfaction, commitment, effort, health, and stay intentions are measured along with over 40 drivers.

Coaching

We offer several coaching programs to managers and executives, varying in purpose, length, and involvement of the client’s network. How we’re unique:

Holistic. Clients are understood as whole persons that extend beyond their work identity, in accordance with expansive models of personality.

Evidence-Based. Our coaching is centered on real psychological variables, sound measurement, and research on successful behaviour change. Our coaches have formal behavioural science training.

Assessment-Based. Testing is a critical input to coaching. We use only psychometrically validated tools. Sixty years of research show that testing outperforms subjective perceptions for understanding people – even those of coaches and psychologists.

Balanced. We leverage our clients’ strengths while addressing developmental needs that are too critical to merely manage or ignore.

Self-Directed. Clients are active agents in their development, on- and off-the-job. The act of doing, with all of its mistakes and frustration, is critical for lifelong learning.

Realistic. Expectations for development are realistic and honest. Research shows that people typically overestimate the speed, amount, and ease of successful self-change.

Results-Driven. When feasible, client changes will be measured using external, before and after measures of behaviour and performance.

Ethical. Our programs are conducted in accordance with the Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct.

Speaking

We offer speaking events on things that matter most to people and organizations. Things that create meaning for teams and success for their employers. We touch on topics like leadership, culture, meaningful work, engagement, and positive mindsets that create agility and resilience.

Our speaking events have been called thought-provoking, contrarian, humorous, and myth-busting. Paul Fairlie, Founder/CEO, is a regular speaker in large sessions for the Human Resources Professionals Association (HRPA).

More about our speaking events…

Evidence-Based. Our events focus only on ideas and actions that are evidence-based in having impacts on people and organizations.

Bespoke. Our events are customized. We talk about the kinds of workplaces that enable your organization to realize your vision and strategy. We spark conversations about mindsets and behaviours that are known to address your specific challenges and opportunities.

Experiential. Our events are interactive, with active learning for generating homegrown ideas and solutions.

Actionable. Takeaways include specific actions inspired by both research and cases studies to improve employee and organizational performance.

Speaking Testimonials

“…the best presentation I have seen in a long time and I go to a lot of them!”
“…I attended your session at…HRPA 2018…and enjoyed it very much.”
“Great presentation!”
“…an excellent presentation @ the recent HRPA event…Such a relevant topic…Your knowledge, insights & generous spirit are appreciated!”
“I enjoyed your talk at HRPA!”
“I very much enjoyed your talk at the conference.”
“I had the privilege of attending a 2018 HRPA conference session facilitated by Dr. Paul Fairlie. I was very impressed by his approach to organizational success, presenting analytics…to support concepts that some would say are anecdotal and immeasurable. A great presentation, with messaging all HR Professionals would benefit from hearing and applying.”
“An amazing and inspiring event! It was an honour to hear you speak so directly, succinctly and eloquently…Using our experiences, drawing on our strengths and incorporating these to pivot our dreams into action for success.”
“Your presentation had, by far, the most take away pieces of knowledge for me…

Sources available upon request.

Our pledge (and pet peeve) around speaking…

Foray™ Big Data Solution

Foray™ is a preliminary exploration of your organization’s big data. A structured, packaged prowl of your data’s variety, volume, velocity, veracity, and most importantly, value. Your data may derive from employees or customers, and from different departments and functions. The data could be human- or system-generated, and strewn across devices, apps, and platforms. Ultimately, your data could be integrated and analyzed to inform new strategies, products and services, and new ways of identifying and leveraging talent.

With Foray™, we cut through the complexity, appraise your big data feasibility, and convey what needs to happen in order for you to leverage your data with advanced analytics and artificial intelligence (AI).

There’s more. Big data can’t be fully leveraged without an understanding of human behaviour. Some people see only data. We see people’s thoughts, feelings, and actions. That’s why Foray™ involves behavioural scientists, in addition to experts in data science, database management, and high-performance computing to analyze and interpret your data with an eye to organizational and consumer psychology. The success of big data projects also depends not only on what and how, but also who (i.e., stakeholder management), which is why we artfully navigate culture, power, and politics.

Advisory Services

Sometimes you just have a question or a need to decide whether you should <em>zig</em> or <em>zag</em> on a workforce-related issue. That zig or zag, without the right information, could cost or benefit your organization big time.

With Heliosophy’s advisory services, you can ask an expert in industrial-organizational psychology for the best, current evidence on a topic in a brief, confidential phone or video consultation. We rely on only rigorous, highly replicated, peer-reviewed research on people issues in the workplace. We help leaders to cut through anecdotes and factoids in the business media. We transfer knowledge in plain, non-technical language.

Heliosophy’s experts are also scientist-practitioners. We’ve both consulted to organizations and published research, so we understand the real-world implications of our advice. We also strive to be accurate in what we share in accordance with the American Psychological Association’s Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct.

Do you have a question or decision to make about people in your workplace? Book a free, initial call or video HERE to see if we can help you in a follow-up consultation.

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People and organizations are complex

Not all opportunities and challenges can be met with boxed solutions.
We also offer customized consulting by proposal in the following areas.

Strategic Counsel

We bring a behavioural science approach to business strategy. Read more.

Strategic Counsel

We bring a behavioural science approach to business strategy. Achieving a strong competitive advantage begins with a deep understanding of markets as people. It involves meeting the fundamental needs of both customers and employees. We support your strategic efforts in a variety of ways, including deep values exploration, visioning and goal setting, SWOT and SOAR analysis, strategic alignment, and HR planning to identify the personal attributes needed to deliver on different kinds of strategies.

Talent Assessment

We provide assessment solutions for hiring and development... Read More.

Talent Assessment

We provide assessment solutions for hiring and development, using valid measures that drive key outcomes in your organization. We’re qualified to use many tests of personality, motives, abilities, and other attributes. Our Positive Personal Inventory® is used to assess positive mindsets. We offer competency-based assessment centres and behavioural event interviews (BEI’s), one of the most evidence-based hiring tools when properly designed. We also consult on positive hiring practices that are viewed as fair and accurate by applicants and are known to boost retention and corporate reputation.

Leadership & Talent Development

We assist with employee development strategies and develop programs... Read more.

Leadership & Talent Development

We assist with employee development strategies and develop programs that are backed by evidence-based models of human learning and development and proper needs analysis. We go beyond workshops and webinars to provoke deep and lasting change in people and organizations. We help to foster positive mindsets in people, and leverage people’s strengths while managing key developmental needs. Our approach to leadership coaching is holistic, assessment-based, and driven by research on leadership, individual differences, personal change, and organizational behaviour.

Organizational Assessment

Our core product is the Positive Work Inventory®... Read more.

Organizational Assessment

Our core product is the Positive Work Inventory®, a quick, yet comprehensive employee survey of the most critical drivers of employee and organizational performance. It includes meaningful work, the sleeping giant of employee motivation. Evidence-based surveys can address at least 30 different organizational concerns that go far beyond engagement. We also have 25 years of experience in gathering data from multiple sources, both internal and external, and analyzing them with data science to make sense of complex challenges and opportunities for organizations.

Workplace Transformation

We help to determine what people do, and how work gets done... Read more.

Workplace Transformation

We help to determine what people do, and how work gets done for high employee commitment and performance. Jobs are rigorously designed for efficiency, clear lines of sight to performance, and employee health. Jobs are re-crafted to promote meaningful work that dials into people’s motives, strengths, and passions, while still delivering on goals and objectives. We help to build positive and virtuous cultures that strengthen employee bonds and teamwork. With respect to change, we’re informed by many factors that make transformations successful, including positive attitudes, emotions, and readiness. Effective change begins and ends with the thoughts and feelings of people.

Performance Management

Many things drive human performance... Read more.

Performance Management

Many things drive human performance, stemming from both people and situations. It starts with sourcing and developing the right people and providing them with high-performance workplaces that are free of common performance barriers. It involves using the best evidence on goal setting, feedback, and reward strategies. We also design performance appraisal systems based on sound measurement principles, and restore faith in them. Overall, our approach to performance addresses people’s deep psychological needs for personal accomplishment and competence.
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ARE YOU READY TO TAKE YOUR TEAM TO THE NEXT LEVEL?

Let’s start a conversation…