by thepeopleplan | Apr 19, 2012 | Uncategorized
Let us take a moment to describe what Human Resources Management really is.
Most people think of the administrative side of “HR,” that department that handles payroll and benefits and record keeping. While important, HR administrative does not make you any money (actually costs you money to maintain) and does not help you improve your business or profits.
The strategic side of Human Resources Management is defining and using processes to make sure you have the Right employees, doing the Right things, and that they do them Right. Then we need to keep these Right People engaged and reward them! This concept is really what Performance Management is all about (so much more than an “annual review”)- managing employee performance for organization goal achievement.
What your managers should be doing:
- Explain performance expectations to each employee (and how they can support organizational goals)
- Get employee commitment to meet expectations
- Measure performance and share with employees
- Give feedback and coach employees to improve performance
- Recognize and reward good performance
- Build a culture and a team that works together to achieve organizational goals
What your organization needs to define and communicate:
- Overall organizational strategy, values, culture
- Specific goals by department and job
- Performance expectations for each job (tied to organizational goals)
- Measurements of performance by individual, team, department, entire organization
- HR systems to assist with recruiting, selection, training, management for employee success
- Total Rewards strategy that attracts, retains and engages top performers
- Manager coaching and resources to do all of the above
The above elements are what all large organizations have – but small organizations can have these as well with the People Plan™ . This is a four-phase process to identify your custom People strategy and then implement People systems to allow your organization achieve its goals. Contact us to receive our free white paper on the 9 steps to build a People Plan.
Image courtesy of basketman at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
by thepeopleplan | Apr 11, 2012 | Uncategorized
“It’s poorly designed and executed processes that suck up large amounts of money, time, and energy – and ultimately lead to a frustrating employee and customer experience.”- Verne Harnish (MIT professor and founder of Gazelles and Entrepreneurs’ Organization).
The challenge: A small global distribution company experienced growth pains in their operations department—an increase in sales caused customer service representative to be overloaded, resulting in slow rate quotes and declining percent of shipments booked.
Many companies could easily solve the problem by hiring a few more customer reps. But the unique processes of this organization made it difficult for new employees to succeed in a fast paced and complex position. In fact, they often remark that an employee with “only two years here is relatively inexperienced.”
The Solution– How we re-designed the People process:
- Analyze duties: Conduct job analysis by interviewing employees and supervisors
- Process map: Review overall department workflow and document with process map
- 3 jobs into 1: Re-organize three distinct “job descriptions” into cross functional teams with 3-4 members doing the same “job” with complimentary skill sets
- Team Leaders: Identify and train new team leader position – to assign work, cross train, coordinate workflow across 3 teams that service different regions
- Next steps: train team leaders to create formal development plan for each member of team to further improve skills levels and customer support levels
The Result: After one month of implementing this People Plan™ solution—the percent of rate quotes booked rose 40%!
What results could your team reap from a similar People process improvement?
Read Verne Harnish’s full article: Process Vs Function
Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
by thepeopleplan | Apr 3, 2012 | Uncategorized
Do employees like their jobs? Why should owners and managers care?
Quote: “More than 100 top-level executives at Sears, Roebuck and Co. spent three years rebuilding the company around its customers. In this excerpt from their article in the Harvard Business Review, three members of the Sears team discuss the new business model based on new measurement techniques and the realization that “there is a chain of cause and effect running from employee behavior to customer behavior to profits.” –Harvard Business Review “The Employee-Customer Profit Chain” October 1998
The work by Sears over a decade ago clearly shows that when employees are “engaged” in their jobs it makes a BIG financial impact on the business. Sears built a “compelling place to work” to then create a “compelling place to shop” and turned around Sears to become a “compelling place to invest.” (Ten years ago the stock was trading under $15 a share, April 2012 stock price is $68 a share).
How do you get Engaged employees?
Engagement comes from multiple sources but the key three elements are:
- Aligning employee activity and results with organizational goals
- Regularly communicating core values and mission to employees
- Providing development and advancement opportunities
Quick engagement survey
Ask yourself these three questions:
- Does every employee show up on Monday morning knowing how she can help achieve the quarterly and annual business plan?
- Can every employee state the organization’s values and mission (and as a bonus, do they demonstrate these values and believe in the mission)?
- Does every employee have a personalized development plan?
If you cannot emphatically answer “YES” to each of these three questions, you need a People Plan™
Read the Harvard Business Review article here: “The Employee-Customer Profit Chain”
Diana Southall is a fifth generation entrepreneur, and creator of the People Plan toolkit.™ Her firm specializes in coaching small business owners and managers to build, engage and reward a fabulous team!
You can start working with Diana with free members-only access to People coaching resources, including informative video training, articles, time saving documents and templates. Join the FREE membership club here.
Image courtesy of stockimages at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
by thepeopleplan | Mar 26, 2012 | Uncategorized
Do you want to have greater happiness, fulfillment and success in your personal life?
The Happiness Advantage by Shawn Anchor is a new book in the burgeoning field of positive psychology that argues this is the appropriate order of events. The book has seven positive principles that each person can use to increase positive feelings, which are shown to then create personal and career success.
The book weaves current research with personal (and often humorous examples) to assist the most optimistic person to the most pessimistic to increase levels of happy.
To increase your personal happiness level he recommends eight ways you can re-wire your brain to be happy:
- Meditate for 5 minutes a day
- Spend money on experiences (not things)
- Schedule and do more things you enjoy (or find something to look forward to)
- Commit 5 acts of “conscious kindness” a week
- Exercise Signature Strengths: Figure out what you are good at and do these every day
- Exercise
- Fill your life with positivity (one way is to journal—here is a link to Anchor’s ipad application
In a future blog, I will focus on how these principles can be used by managers and co-workers to increase the happiness of their peers for mutual success (and dare I say, a more fun work environment?)
Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
by thepeopleplan | Mar 20, 2012 | Uncategorized
“If you hire people just because they can do a job, they’ll work for your money. But if you hire people who believe what you believe, they’ll work for you with blood and sweat and tears.” -Simon Sinek (Start with Why?)
Is the best employee the one that has great technical skills, and can do their job duties perfectly? Maybe, but what if that person is not great with customers or co-workers? Or you have to stay on him to get the job done? Or he is moody or difficult– one day pleasant, the next day watch out!
Yes, we need employees who have the skills to “get the job done” but we also deserve employees who:
- Love what they do
- Believe in and “lives” the common values and purpose of the organization
- Know clearly what is expected, how they are doing
- Work to continually improve and contribute more
- Take ownership and is accountable
- Is supported and encouraged to develop their skills and abilities
- Works together to achieve the goals of the organization
Sounds great- right? But how do you get all your employees to feel this way? You have to build a Culture that engages employees to be excited about their jobs, work together as a team to achieve results, and positively hold each other accountable.
If the area of human resource is a “soft” management process, than Culture change is positively fluffy. All highly successful organizations have mastered the art of defining and living the Culture that supports what they believe in, what they do, and why they do it.
Simon Sinek says that great leaders share the “Why” so that everyone knows the direction and are inspired to change. Watch his TED talk here
How can your organization benefit from a high performance Culture?
Contact us for a complimentary one-hour session to uncover the elements that are keeping your organization from achieving the purpose and results you desire.
Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
