How Good Managers Can Be Great At Retaining Staff

Posted on May 29, 2012 by CEO Leadership Skills

There are two main areas of influence it is essential to get right to retain employees and keep them engaged and happy.

Employees will stay with you because of two major influences:

Policies of the organisation: learning and development, remuneration, performance management and reviews, promotions, and so on
What their manager does and doesn’t do, says and doesn’t say … every day

So while businesses will often focus on this first area – and it is essential to spend the time getting it right – policy is only half the story. It cannot work without its twin, which comes from real-life experience, what actually happens in reality with their manager.

And by manager, we’re not looking at hierarchy. We’re talking about people managers – anyone who manages someone else.

Without a doubt, the manager has the single greatest influence over the employee’s decision to perform, to stay, or in fact … to quit. In a nutshell, managers make people stay – and manager’s make people leave.

Good managers who want to be great managers and truly engage their team may feel they need to learn more and reach for a large ‘how-to’ book on being a great manager. They read up, they study. However, there is no article or book in the world which is going to tell you how to retain your specific team of individual people.

The solution is so much easier – you simply need to ask the people who work for you.

Spend time with your people and find out what they need more of, less of, what gets them up in the morning, what really motivates them, what they want from you as a manager. If you ask in the right way, they’ll tell you. Then it’s up to you to follow through. That is the way to be the best manager you can be – for each individual on your team.

As a starting point, here are eight manager secrets when aiming for greatness:

Be approachable – visible, friendly and helpful
Communicate effectively, regularly and use many channels. Remember sometimes we need to hear the message more than once to absorb it
Meet as a team regularly
Allow employees to make mistakes and learn
Look for opportunities to recognise effort and results
Be flexible about work/life demands
Give credit where credit is due
Be knowledgeable – and share your knowledge

If you have concerns about employee retention, getting the policy side of things right is essential. But don’t leave it at that. Spend as much time on your people managers and what they are saying and doing with their people as you can. Train them with staff retention skills. Encourage them to create engagement plans and have engagement discussions with their team. Give them support and systems to be the best manager they can be.

Creative ideas to practice

Managers can contribute to their teams in so many ways – mentoring, finding opportunities to introduce variety, instilling and encouraging passion, giving enough space, giving enough support … just to name a few.

Here are some practical ideas for managers to start doing today. These small things can make a big impact.

Five creative ideas for reward and recognition which helps managers

Look for opportunities to recognise effort and results.

Personalise your pay slips

If geography permits, consider asking managers to hand out/email a personal note with the pay slips, so managers can say ‘thank you’ or recognise a contribution in that time period.
Wall of fame

If you are in a service environment and an email or letter of thanks comes in from a client, frame it and put it on the wall. This often means a lot to the person or team more so than anything else. Plus, visitors love to read the letters too.
Get out of the chair

Every day remember to give thanks and recognition to your team. Get up out of your chair and spend time with someone on your team, even just for a few minutes. Phone them if they are in a different location. Ask them about their day, if they need additional help, what they are working on.
Encourage bright ideas

Try giving out a lightbulb filled with candy to anyone who comes up with a bright idea. It generates excitement and encourages ideas to keep coming in. You could also do something like Karma currency instead – where the organisation makes a donation but the person chooses which charity to support.
Treasure box

Have a small treasure chest of goodies, such as movie tickets, gift vouchers, book vouchers, etc. Choose someone to recognise every fortnight or so and let them choose something out of the treasure box. May seem a little contrived, but you’d be surprised how well it works.

Four creative ideas for work/life balance

Help managers ‘be flexible about work/life demands’

Set the example

Model balance and share with your team what you do to achieve balance in your life. Do not support workaholism.
Put it on the agenda

Hold a ‘balance’ discussion at a team meeting, or one-to-one with each team member. Don’t discuss anything else except balance, so they know it is important to you.
Ask them

Ask your team members what else they have going on in their lives and what matters most to them. Get to know their non-work interests.
Show your support

Support your employees in achieving balance. Some examples: encourage them to go to their child’s school plays or for a golf lesson or encourage the organisation to support a charity drive for their cause.

Guest Author:

Lisa Halloran is the Director of Retention Partners. Lisa’s background includes 4 years in political market research and 14 years experience in HR management and consulting roles in television, maritime, retail, manufacturing and insurance.

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Substance Abuse And The Bottom Line

Posted on May 17, 2012 by CEO Leadership Skills

Uncovering any substance abuse problems in your workplace and dealing with them effectively will have a positive effect on staff productivity.

There are three main ways of uncovering a drug problem in the workplace. The first is to keep an eye on performance and output. Second, look out for absenteeism: not just a higher incidence, but for patterns such as frequent absences on Mondays, regularly coming to work late, seeming drowsy in the afternoons, or frequent visits to the bathroom. Third, look for changes in relationship patterns in a workgroup. Is there less co-operation, more arguments or a general air of friction?

If you discover a problem, the first thing is not to rush in and dismiss the person involved. Abuse problems in the workplace are often capable of being readily corrected. You can often achieve a boost in the individual’s productivity for a relatively small effort. You will also benefit from greater commitment from fellow workers (who generally are too well aware of the problem) when they see that you are tackling the issue in a supportive way.

The main point to keep in mind is that the issue needs to be tackled as a work performance issue and not as a substance abuse problem. You are not qualified to make medical or psychological assessments and, in some cases, what might seem obvious turns out not to be the case. Sometimes abuse problems are hiding other physical or emotional issues. Keeping the focus on work performance, maintaining privacy and confidentiality, and respecting the dignity of the individual are far more likely to lead to a positive outcome.

The following tips will help you when dealing with an employee whom you believe is suffering from substance abuse.

Keep an open mind. The employee’s problems may not be drug related. Don’t accuse the employee of using drugs or having a substance abuse problem. Focus on behaviour in the workplace that is of concern, not on your suspicions.
Be specific. Document all absenteeism and have specific examples of poor job performance in writing. State the problem behaviour in concrete terms and show how the behaviour affects co-workers and the company. Do not be put off by initial denials or get into arguments.
Define expectations. Describe specifically the expected changes in behaviour/job performance. Set out milestones and timeframes. Put it all in writing.
Emphasise the consequences. The consequences of expectations not being met should be made clear to the employee, again in writing.
Follow through. Monitor progress against the milestones and time frames you have set. This will allow the individual and other employees to see that you are serious and determined.
Remember the employer’s role. It is the employee’s responsibility to resolve the problem. Diagnosis and treatment is a job for a qualified professional, and referral to a counsellor may be advisable. The employer needs to focus on correcting poor performance on the job.

Dealing with substance abuse problems in these ways will generally lead to a win-win outcome – for your employee, your company and its bottom line.

Guest Author:

Denzil Griffiths is an experienced CEO, company director, consultant, speaker and author.

Recruitment – Getting It Right More Often

Posted on April 30, 2012 by CEO Leadership Skills

The Accounts Clerk had resigned and the Administration Manager leapt into action and placed an advertisement in the local paper for a replacement. Two weeks of frenzied résumé reading and interviews followed and a suitable replacement was found.

The Administration Manager was feeling very pleased with himself until the General Manager decided she was not getting the information she required and said they really needed an accountant. She was very surprised they had recruited another bookkeeper level person as she always intended to upgrade the accounts area when the opportunity arose. No problem, said the Administration Manager, she is on probation. I’ll just terminate her. They now have a claim made against them for unfair dismissal. This may succeed or they may get away with it. What effect does this have on other employees? How professional does management look? How much has this cost? How unfair was this on the new employee?

When the question is asked of managers “what is the next action after a resignation?” the response is invariably to advertise. This response is indicative of organisations that do not have a proper human resource management process for recruiting – probably one of the most expensive exercises undertaken by most managers. The cost of losing and replacing an employee ranges from three months pay to up to three times annual salary. This is an involved and important exercise, yet it is quite often carried out in an ad hoc way with often very serious and expensive consequences.

A human resource management process is necessary and people need to be trained in it.

The process needs to cover such issues as:

Who will be involved in the recruitment process? – This may include the supervisor, internal customers and peers.
Is the job necessary? – The job may be able to be combined with another job or be outsourced.
Does the job need redefining? – An up to date job description should be prepared.
Is it full time, part-time or can it be combined with another job? – The amount of work carried out by the job should be assessed to see if it can be restructured. New systems often change the size of some jobs. Recruitment is a good time to review this.
What type of person do we need? – The person needs to be described in terms of knowledge, experience, skills and attributes.
What do they have to do to be successful? – Specifically define what must they have done in the past to show they can do the job.
What type of competencies do they need? – Define the behaviours they must exhibit when they are doing the job. This is how they do the job.
Where can we best find such a person? – Decide on what you are going to ask for in an advertisement as “must haves”.
What is the best way of reaching them? – Do we use consultants or an employment agency? Is external advertising the best way? Print media, the Internet? Are these people already in the organisation? Would existing employees know anyone?
How will we know if they have what we want? – Define what you want to see in a résumé. This should show they have had the opportunity to acquire the “must haves”.
How do we screen the applicants? – Can we screen by reading résumés and over the telephone before face to face interviews?
How do we plan the interview? – The key pieces of information required should be defined with the key questions written out.
How will we make the final selection? – If this process is followed, the final decision making is easier. Only those that have demonstrated the “must haves” are on then short list. Some testing may be required for specific issues. Reference checking is a must. Who are the right people to ask and what shall we ask them?
What conditions will the person be recruited on? – If you have policies and systems in place for these this will also be a relatively easy decision.
How will we know we have made the right decision? – Having key measures of success in place before the appointment will make reviewing the new employee an easy task during the probation period.

While some people are good at recruitment, it needs a human resource management process that is known by all recruiters to obtain consistent results in an organisation. It is unlikely you would let an employee operate expensive equipment without training. Not having training for recruitment is expensive, time consuming and sends the wrong message to current and potential employees.

Guest Author:

Paul Phillips, Horizon Management Group.

Six Ways To Preserve Your Most Valuable Asset – Your People

Posted on April 16, 2012 by CEO Leadership Skills

Staff retention is no longer just on the radar screen, it is now a top priority for corporate executives. And for good reasons. Companies that do not address their retention issues now will likely find themselves in a critical staffing shortage down the road as the war for talent heats up. Those that do will be able to preserve and develop their most valuable asset: their people.

Companies are seeing the number of voluntary resignations increase from year to year. According to a recent Monster-sponsored study, 40 percent of the 600 HR managers surveyed have seen turnover within their organisations increase in the past 12 months and 55 percent expect employee retention will continue to be a high to very high priority over the next five years.

The financial impact of such employee attrition is what really grabs the attention of management. Forty percent of companies report direct costs of $5,000 to $20,000 to replace a single employee, according to a recent talent retention survey. Indirect costs resulting from the impact of the turnover were reported to exceed $10,000 per employee.

Other research supports the retention concerns of HR and top management. A survey of 5,300 adults by Yahoo! HotJobs revealed that two-thirds of respondents are open to switching jobs, while a Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) poll of about 420 middle-management and non-management employees indicated that as many as 76 percent of respondents are currently looking.

Interestingly, that percentage was comprised of 41 percent who were actively searching for a new job (i.e., those who were going on interviews and potentially ready to leave the organisation) and 35 percent who were passively job searching (i.e., those who had posted resumes online or were browsing job postings, but were not yet certain they wanted to leave).

The results of these surveys indicate that the majority of employees are certainly open to switching jobs; however, only a smaller portion has actually made the decision to leave.

Companies that can quickly implement changes that successfully address employees’ reasons for leaving may be able to increase staff retention while attracting employees from competitors. In the current environment where employee turnover rates can range from 10 percent to 40 percent, improving retention alone can create a competitive advantage for an organisation.

Why people are leaving

Before an organisation can take the necessary steps to reduce turnover, it first needs to know the reasons why people are leaving – or thinking about leaving. Surprisingly, only 69 percent of companies use employee surveys on an ad-hoc basis and only 32 percent implement personnel and workplace changes as a result of the findings, according to the Monster study.

The actual reasons why employees leave will vary depending upon the company, but recent surveys can shed some light on what people are thinking:

The SHRM poll cited the top three reasons as better compensation elsewhere, better career opportunity elsewhere, and being ready for a new experience.
Employees rate good relationships with managers as one of the top factors that keep them in their current jobs, according to the Employee Satisfaction and Retention Survey by Salary.com. People tend to join companies for factors such as pay, benefits, and the job itself, but once they are settled into their positions (about 90 days) a lack of trust in their managers is one of the biggest reasons why they leave.
A new study discovered that feeling underappreciated and the perception of being treated unfairly were two reasons for turnover that resonated significantly higher with employees than with business owners.
This study also revealed that business owners may grossly overrate external factors, such as returning to school or a spouse being transferred, as the most important reasons for employee turnover. According to the survey, approximately 52 percent of staffing directors and hiring managers believe external factors are the cause for leaving, while only a mere 10 percent of employees reported that was their most important reason.

Understanding employee attitudes is increasingly critical to managing retention. And while the majority of companies use monitoring tools such as onboarding interviews and exit interviews to gauge satisfaction, most organisations do not place much emphasis on assessing satisfaction in between these employment stages. Monitoring attitudes throughout the employee lifecycle will allow organisations to implement feedback into the working environment on an ongoing basis.

Six ways to ensure employees stay

Given the financial, organisational and market impact turnover can have, companies must view the problem as a business problem, not simply an HR issue, in order to successfully address it. So what can companies do to boost staff retention? Here are some suggestions:

Educate employees on the fair market value for their position
In the Employee Satisfaction and Retention Survey by Salary.com, nearly 50 percent of employees believed they were underpaid, yet after analysing the data, Salary.com found that less than 22 percent were actually paid below the fair market value for their job.

Since many employees do not know what a competitive salary is for their position, they assume the grass is greener elsewhere and start a job search. Employers should provide information demonstrating that their compensation is indeed competitive or make adjustments if it’s not.
Make sure job titles truly reflect the roles and responsibilities of employees
The Salary.com survey also found that inflated job titles may have contributed to some 30 percent of respondents feeling underpaid. These results seem to indicate that granting a higher title without a commensurate increase in salary will soon leave employees feeling undervalued even if their current salary is truly competitive given their responsibilities.
Promote a real sense of work/life balance
Many organisations say they want their employees to attain a proper balance between their jobs and personal lives, but how many really live up to it?

According to a recent Yahoo! HotJobs survey, more than half of the people surveyed said they have to work on their days off at least once per month, and more than 33 percent said they do some aspect of work every single day.

While a high salary is important for many employees, the survey found that 90 percent of respondents believe they need to have work/life balance along with a feeling of fulfillment in order to feel successful in their positions.
Build an employment brand that motivates employees
A successful employment brand will position your organisation as a well-managed company and good place to work, which will in turn reduce turnover while increasing both the number and quality of applicants. Employees who take pride in their company, its practices, and its leadership tend to be more engaged and more productive as a whole.
Hold managers more accountable for the retention of their staff
Since the relationship employees have with their bosses can be a significant factor in their decision to stay, managers should be empowered to create an environment of trust and engagement. Coaching, training and feedback can all help managers build the necessary skills to positively affect turnover rates.
Make recognition a part of your company’s DNA
Recognition and rewards should be personal, establishing a positive and tighter bond between employee and manager and employee and the company. To attain such a bond, recognition should be given on a routine basis, not just at the annual employee appreciation event.

Managers aren’t the only ones who should be praising employees. Co-workers should also praise their peers for a job well done and executives should recognise employees who have gone above and beyond their duties. Creating an environment where people feel valued will make it that much harder for employees to leave if opportunity knocks at another company.

Seven Suggestions For Sensational Staff

Posted on April 2, 2012 by CEO Leadership Skills

Apply these seven simple suggestions to nurture your team and you’ll end up with the best team in town!

Quite often when I’m out stumping the speaking circuit a boss with a problem corners me. The problem – “How can I keep my good staff?” and they want an instant solution.

The story is always much the same. They have a terrific team, but they keep losing team members.

In working with teams from many types of businesses, I’ve found that if there are some common elements in place it makes it much easier to retain top performing people. They are:

Communication
High on the list of complaints of team members in virtually every company I’ve worked with has always been “lack of communication”. Most bosses think they communicate well with their staff but that’s not the way the team sees it. Sometimes the only information they get is what they find out on the notorious “grapevine”. Sit down with them on a regular basis and ensure that they know what you know and that they have the opportunity to get answers to their questions.
Training
A perennial complaint is that there’s no point in training people and losing them. Sure, but there’s one thing worse…not training people and keeping them! Frankly, I’m amazed at how few bosses ensure their people are provided with the skills training that they need to perform their job better. This is especially true in areas where team members have acquired their skills “on-the-job” by watching what other team members do. When they get to the level of proficiency of their colleagues, they see the only course open to them that will change their results is to change their employer. It is far better for you to skills train existing staff. By training them you will retain staff.
Team meetings
Great team meetings are one of the most important contributors to a stable, contented and productive team. They need be of no more than one hour’s duration and should always start on time. The objective is to motivate, educate, inform and recognise and to do it in such a way that team members want to be there.
Recognition
A good team leader will look for opportunities to acknowledge the achievements of all performers publicly amongst their peers. The team meeting affords a great opportunity to do this. Private recognition is also very powerful! This can be as simple as sending a personal letter home to a team member just to let them know that they’ve done a great job.
Authority and responsibility
One of the gripes I constantly hear from bosses is that their team members left to take a job with higher responsibility but “if they’d only just waited they would have had the same opportunity here.” Don’t make your team members leave to get authority and responsibility: give it to them soon rather than later.
Reward
Your team members want to feel that their efforts are valued and that they are earning rewards in line with the market. If you’re going to have your team perform, pay them the income they reckon they’re worth and then manage them so they earn it. Over pay your people and establish an environment in which they can over perform.
Interesting job
In the poll of what people look for in their work this was their most important demand. People want a job that has variety and interest. Maybe they see that they are just doing the same old thing day after day with no relief from the relentless grind. Give them an occasional challenge, a nutty problem or an interesting project to get their teeth into that will add variety, flavor and spice to their routine activities. A little bit of curry in a bland diet works miracles.

Guest Author:

Winston Marsh. Ideas are just one of the weapons in Winston Marsh’s incredible business building holsters. You can harness the power of his fantastic ideas at your next conference to fire up your business, people and your profits.

Make Staff Retention Your Intention

Posted on March 19, 2012 by CEO Leadership Skills

Staff retention is one of the single biggest factors affecting future business success in today’s environment. In particular, the success of an organisation is very much dependent on their “critical employees” – those employees in whom the intellectual capital and corporate memory resides.

Not withstanding, not all turnover is necessarily bad. Paradoxically, a low turnover (i.e., high retention) rate in some organisations may pose just as serious a problem. A high retention rate may indicate a workforce which is “stuck” (i.e. the “walking wounded”) and who are too afraid to leave. These people consider their employment prospects elsewhere, under the equivalent terms and conditions of their current employment, to be bleak.

Such a workforce is hardly the foundation for an organisation to move forward and respond to today’s dynamic business environment and challenges. What is therefore important is selective staff retention or retaining the “right” people. However, retention is a complex issue – there is no “magic wand” solution.

Ultimately, staff retention is about how an organisation manages its workforce, or more specifically, its relationship with its workforce. Apart from the obvious cost savings in retaining the right people, there are other significant, lasting benefits to an organisation which are often unappreciated. These include:

Higher levels of job satisfaction and performance
Reduced workplace stress
Enhanced employee well being, and
More satisfied customers

However if retention is relegated to the status of an HR issue, it often falls to the bottom of a manager’s priority list. When retention becomes one of the business goals, it takes on a new perspective. Holding managers accountable in this fashion ensures the motivation to examine and enhance their personal retention practices is ever present.

The solution lies in tying retention to critical business activities, so managers do not think about retention after the fact when it is too late, but rather see it as an ongoing priority integral to business success and survival.

An organisation’s ability to put in place philosophies, systems, strategies and action plans to meet these challenges will determine their future success.

Recent influences on employee retention

The unprecedented workplace changes that have occurred in the past 10 to 15 years have contributed to turnover. These changes include:

Increased competition as a result of globalisation and technology
An emphasis on economic rationalism
Changing employment practices (e.g. fixed term contracts, casuals, contractors etc.)
Changing needs and values of employees (e.g. career advancement as opposed to job security etc.)

The costs of turnover

Estimates of turnover cost range between 1 to 2 times an employee’s annual salary. Cost fall in to the direct and indirect categories:

Direct Costs

Cost of termination (including payout arrangements)
Cost of hiring (advertising, recruitment fees)
Cost of new hire (only 60% as effective in first three months)

Indirect Costs

Lost or damaged customers
Additional marketing and sales expenditure to win replacement customers
Loss of intellectual capital
Lost opportunities
Decrease in “bench strength” for succession planning
Transfer of knowledge to competition
Decreased morale and increased stress
Negative effect on reputation

So what do employees want?

The kudos of working for a respected and successful organisation
Opportunities for personal development and growth
Enjoyment and meaning in their work – feeling they can count for something
Commitment to quality
To know they make a difference – not just to the corporate bottom line but to the community in general
The knowledge that their opinion counts for something
A shared sense of purpose and belief in company values

The importance of values to retention

Organisational performance is largely dependent on the quality of the people – attracting and retaining the right people for the right job. Top performance is distinguished not by knowledge or skills but by behaviour and values.

Values are not an intellectual issue, they are a cultural issue. It is about building a positive dynamic within your organisation. Identifying your core values is critical to underpinning the future success of your organisation.

If you have your values established you can use them as a basis for all strategic planning and decision-making. This will then help you and your employees align personal values with company values. If these two do not relate you will then run into problems.

Without values, it is difficult for a common direction to be established within your organisation. Values driven from above create organisational practice. Values, supported by training and reward systems, emphasise the importance of people management.

Values lead to long-term growth. By letting employees explore their own values and where they fit into the organisation fosters retention of staff.

If you establish your own organisational values, you can use them to guide your strategy and business direction and create a compelling place to work which in turn helps you select and retain the right people in your business. Then, when you identify the ‘right people,’ they can bring their raw physical energy, values, thoughts, ideas, talents and competencies to your organisation and you can all enjoy the benefits of a highly motivated and productive workplace.

Effective retention starts with effective selection

Things to consider:

Translate your strategy into action by knowing the core functions you need to recruit in and train for
Plan a structured selection process
Assess the applicants objectively and fairly
Develop a privacy policy and practices
Evaluate your selection processes regularly
Speak to your people regularly to check their alignment with you and your organisation

Selection for a changing workplace

Leading American Quantitative Psychologist J.F. Kehoe defines the worker attributes needed for a changing workplace: Of nine worker attribute groupings, seven are related to behaviour:

Learning, knowledge and skill acquisition
Problem solving
Effective team performance and collaboration with people of heterogeneous cultural, educational & experience backgrounds (diversity)
Effective contextual performance
Ability to handle uncertainty, ambiguity and stress
Ability and willingness to work outside traditional boundaries
Employee retention
Ability to act quickly and capitalise on opportunities for business growth or process improvements
The prediction for counterproductive behaviour

Discipline, motivation and success

The most successful companies globally are all staffed by disciplined and motivated people. They are disciplined in thought and action, understand why they are there and are motivated to succeed. Leading edge organisations understand that the right people are important and they know what they want. Motivational strategies for retention There are broadly six strategies for motivation:

Establish performance goals
Remove obstacles
Recognise and correct appropriately
Individualise the recognition
Reward equitably
Provide effective feedback

These are the basic staff retention strategies, though the final mix will vary from workplace to workplace. Essentially, there is a gap between an individual’s actual state and some desired state of which the manager tries to reduce this gap.

So what does a leading edge organisation look like?

Offering a workplace that supports the organisation’s business goals
A shift in value creation – revolving around knowledge, reputation and brand
A coherent system of human performance practices
More commitment to achieving business success than others
High performance work practices (i.e. self directed teams, access to business information, full/part time, etc.)
Innovative compensation practices (i.e. profit sharing, group based pay, paid maternity leave, child care, etc.)
Innovative training practices (i.e. mentoring or coaching programs, training information systems, etc.)
Support structures to help people learn

How to become a leading edge employer

Excel in people leadership
Create compelling employment offers
Accelerate development of your people
Culture and values are critically important
Communication
Respect – work / life balance, differences, etc.
Responsibility for employees
Diverse work culture
Flexible work practices
Comprehensive and holistic work environment
Implementation of meaningful strategy / goals

Guest Author:

Sue Barrett is Managing Director of Barrett Pty Ltd. Barrett is a performance consulting firm specialising in challenging paradigms to unlock elite sales performance.

Hanging On To High Potentials In 6 Steps

Posted on March 5, 2012 by CEO Leadership Skills

Here is a six-step plan to retain employees that have the best talent for longer.

Every organisation faces the same question with despair. At even greater risk are those organisations facing uncertainty or significant change. Talent will flee from uncertainty – and why not? It’s a sellers’ market.

Outline their future – Ensure your best people know that they’re your best people and that their future with you looks strong.

If you are going through a period of change, have the most senior (respected) leader personally take them aside to sketch out the organisation’s future and their role in it. These messages of security must be repeated three or more times in different ways so that employees really understand they have a future and what it looks like.
Ask them what they want – If there are sufficient high value employees (at least 20), undertake a stay survey with them to identify what encourages them to stay, what would make them think about resigning, what would keep them there longer, and what messages they need to hear about their future.

This will give you practical recommendations straight from the ‘horse’s mouth’ so to speak, which you can immediately implement. If budgets are tight – don’t forget that even a very detailed stay survey costs a fraction of replacing just one high value employee.
Give it to them – After step 2, you’ll be able to make the right organisational changes. Separate from those big picture items the littler things managers need to do every week. They need to have a plan about how to manage each unique individual on their team. An engagement plan, if you will.

The quickest and best way of doing this is where the manager has a view of their team on one chart in terms of risk and value. They can then create an employee engagement plan for each person, customise it and start using the plan. It takes only minutes to create a plan but it gives managers a truly unfair advantage compared to those headhunters sitting on hold.
Something to brag about – If there are insufficient numbers of high value employees to conduct an aggregated survey, or you want to go a step even further, provide each high value employee with a Personal Employee Engagement Plan, where each employee is interviewed and a plan created for their learning, their preferred manager practices, knowledge transfer, the changes they’d like to see to increase their performance and how to retain their knowledge in low cost/no cost ways.

You can do this internally or, for a bigger ‘brag factor’ and more frank and open responses, engage an external party. High potentials are the people who warrant being given external coaches, internal mentors and other signals of value.
Get creative – With high value employees, the key is not to rely on financial rewards alone – every employer has the same colour money, and real talent can easily choose to walk. At this point, you’ll know who your high value employees are and you should have an inkling of what motivates them.
Show them – We all respond to a belief that what we’re doing is important and valued. If these really are your best people, make sure they know it, show how much you appreciate their contribution, and make it harder for them to decide to leave.

Guest Author:

Paying Incentives – Do You Need To?

Posted on February 20, 2012 by CEO Leadership Skills

If an incentive plan is designed correctly and implemented properly it can reinforce the key objectives of the business, support the culture you want and have a significant affect on the performance and profitability.

Let’s start off with some definitions.

Firstly, any base salary review should have a significant focus on performance. If this is done properly the need for further incentives or “performance pay” is often removed.
Secondly, part of the definition of bonus in the English Oxford Dictionary is “over and above that which is normally expected”. We see this as a discretionary payment which a business may give to employees. There is no real contractual obligation to do this. Employees may see this as “cream on the top”, but often are not sure what to do to make sure they get it again.

We see incentives differently. This is a payment that will be made if certain actions are taken or targets achieved. It is a contractual obligation.

While bonuses in some businesses, usually small, private companies, can work, there are some downsides. They are usually provided without clear targets being set and they often lead to expectations that they will continue regardless of performance. Sometimes they can make the “giver” feel good but have little impact on employee performance.

On the other hand, they can build a strong culture within a business when the boss is seen to share some of the gains without any prior agreement to do so. Incentives are far more focused and for this article we will discuss a few guidelines to assist in implementing a plan that works.

The first step is to decide what you are trying to achieve. If it is something employees aren’t doing, but should be, will a financial incentive change their behaviour? Is there some other reason why they are not doing what they should be? If you are clear on what you want them to do and think an incentive will help, try asking employees what they think about the idea.
If you have decided that an incentive is the way forward – to either maintain good staff performance or encourage even further effort – then you need to make sure the measures you have in place align with your business objectives. Don’t set targets based on volume if your focus is on quality.
Participants in an incentive program should have some control over what is being measured. It is not much good providing an incentive for sales if someone has no influence on sales at all. The targets must be challenging, otherwise there is not much point in having a plan, but achievable. Where the targets are never achieved people will lose interest. Where they happen too easily it will be expected each time without any extra effort being expended.
The amount paid must be meaningful – too little won’t make the difference you want. A percentage of salary is usually best to have a similar affect on each participant. Non-financial incentives such as trips may have a different appeal for individual employees.
It should encourage high performers to stay with the company. It should be rewarding, with the chance of it being even more rewarding in the future. Long-term incentive plans can be designed to achieve this more easily than short-term plans. Often a combination of these plans can achieve the desired result, as just a focus on short term profit can deter investment in longer term plans that will bring future benefits.
Participants must be able to understand the measures and what they have to do to earn an incentive. It is no good having a complicated formula that no one understands. It should be clearly communicated in writing so there are no disagreements as to when it will be paid, how much and under what circumstances.

There should be a review process at regular intervals to determine if the plan is delivering the results you need.

If these guidelines are followed you stand a greater chance of success than if you approach setting targets and offering incentives in an ad-hoc way. You will also be able to avoid much of the friction that badly planned programs often cause.

Guest Author:

Paul Phillips, Horizon Management Group.

Giving Engaging Feedback

Posted on February 6, 2012 by CEO Leadership Skills

People are reluctant to give each other feedback in the workplace. On the one hand, some people hold back on giving constructive feedback as they worry about how the other person will respond. But on the other hand, inaction leaves staff performance problems going unaddressed and building over time.

Even when constructive feedback is given, it is not always done well. People are not giving enough positive feedback either – due to either not appreciating the importance of recognition or getting stuck in unnecessary paperwork.

Here are five keys you can use to get a better result from any staff feedback you give.

Feedback is always better received from those with whom we have a good relationship. So get to really know your co-workers and manager and let them get to know you. Chat with them, tease them, laugh with them, and be human. You are effectively placing deposits in the emotional bank account of that relationship which increases the likelihood of your feedback being well-received.
Feedback also needs to be occurring regularly, not just out-of-the blue. A yearly performance review is nowhere near good enough. Touch base with your workmates at least on a weekly basis, letting them know what you are happy about. Some staff with a strong need for connection or recognition need feedback even more frequently. When you are giving positive feedback, you have to mean what you say, of course. If people sense you are not being genuine they will simply feel patronized. Positive feedback also has to be specific and targeted towards those things the individual values about themselves. Positive feedback that is specific and meaningful to the person is always better received.
Constructive feedback is always easier to give when it is asked for. But you will find constructive comments are better received when they are outweighed by five times more positive feedback. This does not mean that when you give feedback there needs to be five compliments followed by one criticism.
Of course, constructive feedback needs to be given in ways seen as respectfulby the person receiving it. So although your intentions may be respectful, it is important to monitor how your feedback is being received and to adjust yourself for the individual. For most people, simply sounding respectful and speaking to them privately will be sufficient. For the sensitive types, you can allow them to save face by criticising yourself first – perhaps you weren’t clear in what you were expecting from them. If you are going to criticise, keep this to their behaviour and not them as a person. You can soften the blow by using the ‘kiss, kick, kiss’ approach, where you start and finish on a positive note.You can also say what you would prefer to see rather than what you dislike. There is a difference between saying, ‘You’re a self-centred, control-freak!’ and saying, ‘I really would like to have more say in how I do things.’ But you are allowed to think the former.
Feedback is also better received if you are open to feedback yourself. Sometimes feedback will be uninvited, given poorly, and you may be feeling defensive. But remind yourself that it is only feedback. You won’t die from it and it is good that any frustrations are coming out. Apologise and agree where you can before offering something for the future. For example, ‘I’m sorry if I came across that way. And I agree you do need to have some say in how you do your work. How would you like to do your work differently?’

If you are in management, make it easy for others to give you feedback. Staff surveys are one option, but you can also do so by routinely asking, ‘What can I do to better support you in your role?’ You can also let them know you know you are not perfect and will be OK if they give you constructive comments. You could say,‘I know I have been caught up in my paperwork and haven’t touched base with you much of late. What do you need from me so you can feel better about your work?’

So, that’s it. You can give engaging feedback by:

Having a good relationship with that person
Being frequent, genuine, and specific with your feedback
Giving five times more positive feedback than constructive feedback overall
Monitoring how the other person is responding and adjusting your approach
Being open to feedback yourself

Guest Author:

Ken Warren is Australia’s leading speaker on Dealing with Demanding, Aggressive and Unmotivated People. With his engaging, interactive and positive approach, Ken has shown thousands how to turn difficult people around and bring out their best.

How To Bridge The Skills Gap

Posted on January 30, 2012 by CEO Leadership Skills

The best way to combat the skills gap is through skills development. By carefully researching your options, you can make the choices that will result in higher satisfaction for individuals, increased effectiveness for teams and, most importantly, significant productivity gains for your organisation.

In the not-too-distant past, jobs could be neatly compartmentalised – each worker fit into a defined, if static, position. Those positions have been washed away in a tsunami of change that characterises the new global economy.

Employees are becoming less dependent on the company; the company and its employees are now interdependent. The situation has been compared to that of a sports team. The company is creating a new team and offering employees a try-out. How the team performs and its future depends now on the players as much as the leaders. The only real security employees have is the chance to work together to achieve their goals and create a future.

To “make the cut” on this team, individuals need the right skills. The elimination of so many middle management jobs means that senior management must surrender responsibility and independence to non-supervisory staff.

Tremendous demands are being placed upon workers who previously just had to concentrate on following the direction of a supervisor. Not everyone is equipped with the skills to take on the new responsibilities. The result is a skills gap that threatens the future of many companies.

The key to tackling the skills gap is to develop your company’s most valuable resources – its people.

Focus training on the areas that require skill development You must be able to identify a job-relevant skill deficiency for the individual or team. This often means measuring current skill levels, determining where skill gaps exist and prescribing the training solution.
Focus training on individuals and teams Teamwork is here to stay in today’s interdependent workplace. There’s no point in developing the skills of individuals if they are unable to apply these skills in a team situation.
Clearly state the objectives of training and relate it to competent job performance Research shows that learning improves when there are objectives stating what the employees will be able to do as a result of the training. Learners must know how their performance will be evaluated and what success will look like.
Measure the results of the training If you can’t see evidence of the effectiveness of the training, can you justify the investment? As the saying goes, if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it. Make sure you can evaluate the effectiveness of training and the ongoing development of individuals and teams.

Guest Author:

Priority Management is an international training organisation which provides techniques, tools and training to enhance productivity. There are more than 100 offices worldwide, with branches in all capital cities in Australia.

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