by thepeopleplan | Sep 30, 2013 | Uncategorized
As a small business manager, you might think that large employers have it “easier” to keep great employees. After all, the big guys can pay more, provide more job security and career advancement, and off better benefits.
Actually, I often see that despite the resources at large companies, the direct managers are not using those resources wisely and have the same issues with retaining their best and brightest.
Here is a list of what they might do, and you can too, to build your fabulous team.
What can your small organization offer that will help you keep your talented employees?
- Challenging work— many employers hire a new employee, train them, and then leave them doing a job that becomes routine and frankly, boring. Check in with employees regularly to find out what new assignments you can give to keep them challenged.
- Less hassles— a primary reason employees look for another job is a lack of resources to do the job and unreliable co-workers. Encourage your team members to identify hassles and road blocks and then work to eliminate as many as possible.
- Work and results tied to something meaningful—the term “second paycheck” was coined to indicate that meaningful work is also rewarding. I have a client that makes concrete products and their employees take pride in the fact that they are part of American manufacturing and their products are used to keep roads and bridges safer.
- Involvement in company decisions— employees want to be part of something bigger and feel good about their employer and its direction. Get input on major strategic goals and keep communicating about the why and where your organization is going.
- Everyone gets development opportunities— if an employee feels that she has a “dead end job” you definitely won’t get above and beyond work. We recommend that everyone has an annual development plan to work on 3-4 key training goals, such as improving a competency, technical skill or contributing to a major project.
As you can see from this list, the direct manager plays an important role in understanding each employee’s talents and needs, communicating how everyone contributes to the organization’s goals, and involving each person finding how they can match up their interests and goals with what the employer needs.
It’s hard to get your team on board and on the same page if you are hiding in your office— so get out there and talk more with your team.
Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
by thepeopleplan | Jul 24, 2012 | Uncategorized
In my informal poll of employees and human resource professionals, most are not satisfied with the performance review process at their organization. The “annual review” is often the most dreaded event for employees and managers alike (hundreds of studies back up my personal polling results) go to this web-site. Don’t blame HR people—they have the best of intentions.
You see, employees crave performance feedback — really! (next week our blog post will focus on the value of feedback). The problem is that they are not getting enough between the “annual reviews” and that managers are not doing a very good job with the conversation during the annual review (or worse, the reviews are less frequent than annual or not at all).
Performance management is not just an annual event with a sit down conversation and simplifying an entire year of an employee’s conversation to a single number. The term performance management refers to all the efforts of peers, managers, measurement and systems that literally “manage” or guide an employee’s performance to do work that accomplishes an organization’s goals.
A terrific Aberdeen Group report found out what differentiated the “Best in Class” employers from the “Laggards” in the area of performance management. At Best in Class companies, 88% of managers reached agreement on performance goals between a manager and a worker (compared with 77% of others). Simple stuff that they should be doing, but how they did this was remarkable —83% of Best managers provided ongoing, informal feedback compared to 43% of the lowest performing companies.
Wait until you here the impact of having great managers that align and focus employee productivity—at Best in Class employers, these managers rated 71% of employees as exceeding expectations, compared to 20% of those employers with average performance to their industry and 13% of lower performing companies. (Also, 62% of employees at Best employers were engaged compared to 28% at laggards).
So this means that Best companies had 6 times are many Top Performers– no wonder they hit the ball out of the park compared to their competitors!
The study also found that there were reasons Best employers had more effective manager- employee conversations, as they provided tools and training for managers on how to engage workers and deliver effective performance reviews.
Compare this to an organization I recently worked with. The organization had no performance review process, so a new manager took the initiative to copy the one used by his wife’s employer. He then completed the reviews by himself, handed them to employees with the comment “let me know if you have any questions.” And yes, each employee was given a number, but no, the reviews never left his office (I do not believe the general manager or HR even knew about this). I definitely give him an “A” for effort—but put yourself in the mind of the employee—what must they be thinking?
Read the Aberdeen report, the Engagement Performance Equation
Image courtesy of David Castillo Dominici at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
by thepeopleplan | Jul 19, 2012 | Uncategorized
“Where do you work?” is a question often posed when we first meet someone, directly after they learn your name and occupation. You might not think about this but we do judge someone by the “company they keep”- literally.
Are you proud to be associated with your employer? Does their reputation and values align with yours?
When someone works for a prestigious organization (say Wegmans, our local best place to work) they have a sense of pride with this affiliation (and we are impressed or perhaps envious).
A friend of mine recently took a job at a company that had been censored by the Environmental Protection Agency for flagrant polluting of the neighborhood—he was not particularly excited about working for this company (“it’s a job”) and did not broadcast the news to all his friends.
I had a similar experience in college working for a national exercise chain – it was clear to me after a short time that they used what I felt were predatory sales practices. While I kept my cushy front desk job for the remainder of the semester, I did not continue to encourage prospects to schedule a tour (prior to this I was the most successful appointment maker on staff). So you see, my values were not in alignment with theirs, I was not willing to compromise them and I lost engagement and my performance plummeted.
One factor related to employer reputation is that most of us would prefer a stable job (until at least we decide to leave). The Aon Hewitt Total Rewards survey found that perceptions of job security, as well as agreement with organization decisions and direction (that will ultimately impact our job security if the organization is not successful) were all key factors in employee engagement. Engagement has been found dramatically lower at organizations that are failing or laying off workers. How can you expect employees to go that “extra mile” if they expect to out of work soon?
Another factor related to our employer brand is our need for pride and affiliation. Our career choices reflect on us and we have a natural desire to affiliate with those who are similar to us. Research suggests that an employer’s reputation is becoming more important to recruiting, turnover and employee engagement.
Employers are also starting to leverage their reputation for socially and economically conscious choices, such as “green” statements and touting philanthropy.
Forbes has an interesting article about social responsibility for employee attraction, and references a study that found:
- 53 percent of workers said that “a job where I can make an impact” was important to their happiness
- 72 percent of students about to enter the workforce agreed (wanted to “make an impact”)
- most would even take a pay cut to achieve that goal
Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
by thepeopleplan | Jul 13, 2012 | Uncategorized
Last month our blog discussed what is Culture and why does it matter.
Essentially Culture is the attitudes, belief sets, values, written ground rules, and unwritten ground rules that set the tone of the organization and the guidelines by which employees make decisions.
If you want to use the powerful force of Culture as a motivational tool, you have to identify the culture you want and that will support the organizational goals. The Alexander Group has identified what they call the “management compass” based on what an organization focuses on (see list below- basic types of cultures).
Steps to align Culture with Goals
- Decide what type of culture you have now and want — see short list below (basic types of cultures) to find yours
- Is there a gap between current and desired Culture? Do you need Culture change?
- Identify the organizational strategy and short-term goals
- Communicate Values and performance that will support the Culture and achieve the goals/ results
- Train and coach immediate supervisors to recognize behaviors that demonstrate desired performance, and to give corrective feedback when behaviors show a lack of commitment to the values or goals
- Reward those employees (financial and non-financial) that show a commitment to the values or goals
- Council employees who are not demonstrating the expected Values and/or Actions and explain consequences, then act on those consequences if there is not adequate improvement
- Continue steps 4-7 as long as the strategy and goals are similar (if the strategy changes dramatically and requires a new Culture (think Kodak) then go back to #1 to identify new desired Culture)
Basic types of cultures (what is valued):
- Results oriented
- Focus on shareholders
- Employee oriented
- Individualistic
- Customer focused
- The organization as an Institution
- Great at execution (achieving goals)
Image courtesy of David Castillo Dominici at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
by thepeopleplan | Jul 12, 2012 | Uncategorized
Organizational effectiveness scholar Edward Lawler identified four “high involvement” principles that have a positive impact on employee engagement– power, information, knowledge and rewards.
What Lawler called “Power” (also referred to as autonomy or independence) means that employees have the power to make decisions that are important to their performance and to the quality of their working lives. Power can mean a relatively low level of influence, as in providing input into decisions made by others or it can mean having final authority and accountability for decisions and their outcomes. Involvement is maximized when the highest possible level of power is pushed down to the employees that have to carry out the decisions
Read more about Lawler’s principles for a high involvement workplace
Image courtesy of KROMKRATHOG at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
by thepeopleplan | Jul 10, 2012 | Uncategorized
I have yet to meet a supervisor, manager, executive or business owner who tells me that their organization has it “easy “in the current economic climate.
What I do hear is that they have to:
- Adapt to a changing competitive environment
- Do more with less
- Consider how to keep profits with rising costs and lowering prices
- Respond faster to customer requests and orders
All of these business requirements trickle down to employees.
Surveys show that employees feel they are:
- expected to do the impossible
- overwhelmed with too much work
- 40% are stressed to the point of feeling “burned out”
- 64% are physically exhausted when they get home from work
This is not a recipe for creative products or world-class customer service.
If employees do not have the resources to do their jobs (time, information, approval, authority, the rest of the organization delivering on promises) they will become frustrated, lose engagement and then individual and company performance will decline.
A key element to improving your working conditions and employee work load is to collect employee suggestions and issues and then systematically address with process improvement.
Read more in Verne Harnish/ Gazelle article Dehassling your company
Image courtesy of David Castillo Dominici at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
