by thepeopleplan | Mar 4, 2012 | performance
Most managers have had this happen… a good employee seems to lose her enthusiasm. She tends to do just enough to “get by” – work is completely adequately and basically on time, but not to level she used to do.
Perhaps you consider there might be a personal reason causing this change, you hope this is just temporary, or you are just too busy to address right now. But then the employee’s performance starts to drop even more. You ask when a late task will be completed and get a curt response.
The employee starts to avoid you and you begin to treat her with impatience and frustration. You “walk on eggshells” around the employee and don’t know what you can say or do to make a change in this worsening dynamic.
Without addressing this issue directly with the employee – you have been there— it is unlikely things will get better. Often the relationship between you two deteriorates even more.
But how should you approach this now delicate situation? The solution—you know this, too—is that you must have a personal meeting with this employee.
We just had a client that had a very similar situation.
His manager careful considered the key performance issues and made a short list of clear desired behavior changes. After a one hour meeting, this employee is back on track. His response to the manager was “just tell me what I need to do and I will do it.”
Did it work? YES! For the two months since this meeting, he has improved his attitude, focused on results, and reached the agreed upon targets every week!
Here are a few tips to have this meeting to clear the air and re-engage the employee, if this is possible:
- Prepare what you want to say and write it down (and keep it brief)
- Don’t blame, make judgments or assume motivation
- Focus on a few key incidents (one or two issues)
- Explain the impact of the employee’s behavior on job performance and others
- Wait for employee’s explanation and response– spend 75% of the meeting listening and ask open ended questions
- Empathize with their situation
- Describe the changes required by the employee
- Get agreement from the employee to make the expected changes (with a time)
- End on a positive message, express confidence in the employee’s ability to make the changes
- Remember the military leadership guideline (4p’s)- Praise in public, pound in private
- Follow up with employee at agreed upon time—praise efforts to improve and/or reinforce need for required changes (if employee has not corrected performance issues)
Image courtesy of Danilo Rizzuti at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
by thepeopleplan | Oct 27, 2011 | culture, job fit
The top person of an organization has a range of possible roles and background, such as a seasoned executive, a third generation business owner, a manager who started at “the bottom” and worked her way up, a new entrepreneur, or the managing partner in a partnership. (Titles might be CEO, President, Owner, Executive Director, Managing Partner, or General Manager)
I am often asked from business owners or top managers “what should I spend my time doing?”
Many have heard how they should work “on the business” not “in the business.”
This means that the top manager does not spend very much time (less than 20% is ideal) on direct or administrative work that should be delegated to staff.
Here is a list of typical functions and essential duties for the Top Manager of an organization.
[If you are not very knowledgeable in these areas or do not have strong competencies in strategic thinking, planning and project management, I urge you to hire these skills sets in your management team and / or find advisors who can provide the expertise and direction your organization will require to survive and thrive.]
Top Manager Duties
1. Set Direction
Provide strategic direction for organization, provide leadership and oversight of management team to implementation of short and long-term goals to achieve strategic objectives.
2. Administration
- Establish and implement departmental policies, goals, objectives, and procedures, conferring with managers, staff, board members
- Appoint department heads or managers and assign or delegate responsibilities to them
- Direct, plan, and implement policies, objectives, and activities of organization to ensure continuing operations, to maximize returns on investments, and increase productivity
3. Evaluate and Re-direct
- Analyze operations to evaluate organization performance and staff in meeting objectives, and to determine areas of potential cost reduction, program improvement, or policy change
- Confer with staff members, managers, consultants, board members to discuss issues, coordinate activities, and resolve problems
- Direct and coordinate an organization’s financial and budget activities to fund operations, maximize investments, and increase efficiency, prepare budgets for approval, including those for funding and implementation of programs
- Monitor industry and market conditions and trends, product innovations, and competitors’ products, prices, and sales
4. Oversee Departments and Functions
- Delivery and distribution of products/ services
- Sales and marketing
- Finance and accounting
- Human resources
- Information technology
Image courtesy of Nongkran_ch at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
by thepeopleplan | Aug 29, 2011 | job fit, performance
A 2010 survey by the Corporate Leadership Council of the Corporate Executive Board asked 880 high-potential employees if they were planning to leave their jobs in the next 12 months.
More than 25 percent said they had plans to leave! (This was 2.5 times more than a survey five years prior).
Many indicated current experiences are not providing development opportunities (64 percent). The survey assessed levels of “passion” and discretionary effort to measure engagement, which declined 30 percent in just one year from the 2009 survey.
What are you doing to provide mastery opportunities for your best employees? When the economy is in full swing (and perhaps before) these highly valuable and highly employable key people will have no problem finding another job that better meets their professional and personal needs.
Read full article:
The Care and Feeding of High-Potential Employees
Image courtesy of amenic181 at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
by thepeopleplan | Jun 16, 2011 | culture, performance
When an employee does not do what you expect… what could be the reason?
Here are twelve, listed by the main sources- employee motivation, ability, values, and the organization’s performance management.
Performance management:
- They don’t know what they are supposed to do
- They think they are doing it
Ability:
- They don’t know how to do it
Values (Beliefs):
- They believe your way will not work
- They believe their way is better
- They believe something else is (or was) more important
Motivation:
- They don’t know WHY they need to do it
- There is no positive consequence when they do
- There is no negative consequence when they do NOT do it
- They are rewarded when they do NOT do it
- They are punished when they do it
- They expect a negative consequence when they do it
Image courtesy of pakorn at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
by thepeopleplan | May 19, 2011 | culture, performance
The answer is maybe… Employee compensation is complex (part art and part science according to my mentor, national expert Dr Jerry Newman). I have taught a full semester college course on the subject so this cannot be condensed into one blog post.
Compensation is not right or wrong, it is relative—one employee’s pay compared to another at the same company (internal), and one organization compared to another one (the market).
For example, an employee compares her pay to others doing the same job and also different jobs. If I feel that I work harder than Sue (in my same job) but Sue is paid more than me, I feel I am “underpaid.” I also compare my pay to higher and lower level jobs (in my mind, anyway) – I expect to be paid more than an entry-level job if I am experienced. I also do not expect someone with a similar job in a different area to be paid 50% more than I am (this is the concept of comparable worth). If your organization does not have or share information about salary grades (to explain what jobs really are considered low and high level) then this can be an area of confusion or dissatisfaction about pay.
An employee also compares his pay to what other employers pay for this job. With the internet, employees have a wealth of compensation information they did not have 10 years ago. Every HR manager in America has had an employee come to the office and mention what Salary.com says the job is worth! And what is your response?
The typical compensation strategy is to pay market competitive wages—this means for the related industry and especially for the geographic area. To monitor this, your organization should be conducting an annual market compensation analysis, for both your industry and your region.
How do you find these surveys, how do you participate (many require your participation to receive the report), and then what do you do with the data?
To learn the answer to these questions, and more information about benchmarking compensation, attend our July 20/27 seminar with the Buffalo Niagara Partnership:
“How to Use Compensation Surveys for Competitive Pay and Benefits”
To learn more about the Buffalo Niagara Compensation & Benefits Survey (open July 2011), visit our website link.
Image courtesy of xe-pOr-ex at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
