Maria C Forbes

Call Me When… You need to assist owners and key decision makers in defining roles and engaging talent as part of business growth and transition planning. Convert people strengths into business performance.

FIREPOWER, with Maria C. Forbes, is a hands-on strategic workforce partner, helping leaders of privately held companies to attract, engage, and keep their best talent. Small business leaders don’t know how to explain what their best talent looks like, and since they can’t define it, they can’t plan for more of it! This is crucial information…

Entrepreneurial leaders do a lot of things well, but hiring the right people, aligning talent for top performance and optimizing collaboration is not where they want to spend their time.  It’s not why they went into business and they are unfamiliar with the impact of talent on their growth and succession goals. They don’t understand…

All professionals deal with some form of personal adversity at work. Change is constant as you grow and scale your company and today, we are considering the impact of a slowing economy. Recent data in an HBR article, shows layoffs up 39% in the second quarter of 2022, (bringing the year’s total to more than…

Do you provide an employee orientation? That is great news, now what about onboarding?  If you are leaving this one out you are missing part of a winning team performance structure.  What is the difference and why utilize both?  One is informative and one is integrative, both are intended to get your new employees off…

Has the pandemic prompted your leadership team to reconsider employee purpose? We have prioritized compensation, well-being, resilience and more, but you mustn’t forget purpose or your employees may be reconsidering YOU. In a recent McKinsey & Company survey, two-thirds of US-based employees said they expect their jobs to bring a significant sense of purpose to…

We have all heard the idioms, “Taking responsibility is an essential element of strong leadership”, “The buck stops here”, and “Leadership is taking responsibility while others are making excuses.”  Creating your work ethic as a leader around these phrases may have unconsciously made you over-responsible. Over-responsibility can be a hard habit to break. Do you…

A Small Business Onboarding Process A recent HBR article stated that poor onboarding can leave your employees with lower confidence in their new roles, worsened levels of engagement, and an increased risk of jumping ship when they see a new, more exciting position elsewhere. On the other hand, companies that implement a formal onboarding program…

Employees have adopted a consumer mindset about who they work for, and the value a company provides to their personal and professional life.  They are focused holistically on the ability to share in cultural matters as part of a broad community effort. Small business leaders must adapt to employee mindfulness about their career experience. With…

When a valuable employee tells you that they’ve received a job offer from another company, making a counteroffer may seem like a no-brainer.  But before you do, consider these potential downsides. If you are throwing money at jobs, think twice. Owners that have not paid attention to employee compensation on an annual basis will now…

What is a Unique Contributor?  Employers that are committed to engaging the reliable strengths of their teams cultivate what we call a Unique Contributor business model. These employers have a direct line of sight to their best competitive advantage, their secret weapon to ongoing growth, their talent base. What about you? Knowledge of your true…

One of today’s biggest business challenges is based around talent. Leaders are attempting to overcome employee turnover and a finicky talent pool. The hiring process can be tedious and owners have a tendency to short-cut the effort by talking with colleagues and networking to get a great referral. This is not a good option for…

How a successful women-owned company gets its teams into positive gear every day. On multiple occasions, I have experienced something noteworthy, something different and real, a true and authentic sense of purpose about this owner and her partner. Their method of forming relationships has created business strength that withstands economic, social, and business shifts with amazing…

Get your people to stay, a growth strategy. According to a recent report by McKinsey, employers are misunderstanding the reason for the Great Resignation. While we learn much from big company trends, small businesses are similarly affected by the same patterns, especially relative to people. McKinsey reports that “over 25 million people quit their jobs in…

When formulating incentive plans for your teams, it’s important to look beyond the numbers. Are the job responsibilities and expectations clear and defined? Are your employees being analyzed as unique contributors or simply lumped in with company growth targets? Incentive plans need to be individually aligned with your team members’ overall engagement and goals. Read…