Building On The Strengths Of Your Team

Outstanding managers spend more time developing the strengths of individual team members than they do in correcting weaknesses. They encourage team members to continue to learn and grow rather than just settle for mediocrity. So how can you build on the strengths in your team?

Firstly, consider how you can give them variety in their work. The longer people keep doing the same thing, the less satisfied and engaged they become at work. But here it is important to give them new experiences that they want to experience.

Most people will respond well to new experiences that are consistent with their strengths and interests. Look out for strengths in your team members and ask them about what parts of their work they most enjoy or would like to develop. Sure, with some problem staff, you may need to look very hard to find their strengths, but I assure you they are there. It is just that their strengths are being used in an evil way.

Some people also respond well to challenge, where they are stretching themselves. The research says that about 40% of people generally would like more challenge in their work, but it needs to be challenges they want to take on. How do you find out? You simply ask them. Great managers regularly have discussions with their staff about how they are going at work, strengths and interests they would like to develop, and challenges they would like.

Mentoring is also a great way to help team members to develop. In every team, there are star performers and experienced staff who would be more than happy to mentor others. This not only gives them the feel-goods in helping others but also variety in their work. There are also some advantages to using mentors outside your workplace.

Training programs can also help to build on the strengths in your team. Team members will always benefit more from training in areas they themselves have identified as a need. So consider asking your team what they would like to learn or what challenges they are having that could be addressed in a training program.

So that’s it. Start talking with your team members – offer them variety, encourage their strengths and interests, give them a challenge, and offer mentoring and training opportunities.

Ultimately, your team is only as good as the time and investment you put into them.

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.

 

Republished from CEO Online – your online business resource – www.ceoonline.com. Get valuable business tips and easy-to-read articles delivered direct to your inbox. Register NOW for your copy of CEO Online’s FREE e-newsletter: http://www.ceoonline.com.au/subscribe/

Finders Keepers – Losers Weepers

How to attract, retain and develop your talent. A must read for all leaders and managers – if you want to keep your best people away from the head-hunters and weekend papers!

Finding talented people isn’t all that hard. Throw a ‘Start Up’ bonus on top of the attractive salary package and they probably won’t say no. Keeping them… now there’s the challenge. And if you thought the ‘War on Talent’ has already occurred, think again. The job market is hot, and the battle lines have been re-drawn. And as far as your organisation is concerned, the fight is on to retain staff who make up those talented individuals who conservatively add at least 20% to the bottom line.

What makes the difference between employee engagement and disengagement?

Make sure your leaders are serving up ample quantities of ‘The Seven Universal Life Requirements©’. They are a recipe for creating employee fulfillment. These seven requirements underpin our ‘value’ system, and leaders are notoriously bad at making sure their talented people’s ‘emotional bank accounts’ are topped up regularly in these areas. Let me explain.

Success leaves clues, and there are patterns in people’s behaviour. Whilst we are all unique and individual, we are all human beings and therefore instinctively similar. You can basically take all the things people value, desire, need, are motivated by, or driven to achieve, and distill them down into seven universal requirements we need satisfied in order to feel fulfilled as a human being.

The seven universal requirements

1. Belonging
   A sense of belonging is a primal urge and requirement. We all long to feel connected to a family, work group, or to belong to a cause. And, of course, we all require love and affection. As one senior leader of a client organisation put it: “The team needs a bit of a cuddle occasionally!”
2. Importance
   As human beings, we all have a need to feel special and significant to someone. To know that we make a difference and we are ‘worth’ something. This is one of the deepest needs humans experience, and the absence of it causes significant issues for many.
3. Absolutes
   We require some absolutes in our life. We need to be certain we can feed ourselves, pay the mortgage or the rent each month, or know with absolute certainty that our partner loves us. Children love us unconditionally – we absolutely know we make a difference in someone’s life.
4. Diversity
   In an apparently cruel paradox, our creator has decided that whilst we need some things to be absolutes, we will also want some variety. We all have experienced the feeling of boredom if life does not serve up some variety and diversity. Variety is, after all, the spice of life.
5. Personal development
   We all have a fundamental requirement to grow. Some people lose sight of this and then wonder why they don’t feel fulfilled. We were designed to expand, grow, and evolve in terms of our capabilities, knowledge and skills.
   Let’s look at people who have started a new career or job. They will tell you they left the old job because they were not growing anymore, and now they feel excited and outside their comfort zone. In essence, their need for diversity is now being fulfilled again and they are growing personally or professionally.
6. Altruism
   This is about making a contribution. We feel more satisfied and fulfilled when we are contributing to someone or something else. We are giving back – a deep instinctive response overlooked by many. A true leader is always contributing to the growth and well-being of their team and therefore making sure that this requirement is met.
7. Faith
   Faith is defined as confidence or trust in something or someone, a belief which is not based on proof. We are not necessarily referring to religion here. For some, this is simply a belief and faith in something bigger. Read any article about why people leave companies and change jobs, and you will frequently hear the feedback “I lost faith in my one-up leader, or the direction the company was moving”.

Note:

• The first four are Fundamental requirements: We will do anything to have them satisfied. We will compromise a value in order to get a ‘Universal Requirement’ met.
• The last three are deeper Spiritual requirements: They are often missing. People can have the first four met, but without the last three they feel a sense of un-fulfillment, and yet often can’t put their finger on why they feel what they feel.

Rules of thumb in any relationship:

• If 2 are met  – Connection occurs
• If 3 are met – Rapport occurs. They like you.
• If 4 are met – They become addicted/they care.
• If 6 are met – They forgive mistakes.
• If all 7 are met – LOYALTY; The chances of leaving are slim.

Some initiatives to keep your talented people engaged – and saying ‘no’ to the recruitment head-hunters:

1. Create a career map or pathway – Document a clear career pathway for your people. Include the skills and competencies they will need to develop along the journey. Design some positive consequences in respect to managing the overinflated expectations of Gen Y.
2. Structured induction training program – Too many companies inadvertently make ‘new starts’ feel like a nuisance. In this time-poor world, many outwardly positive staff send the wrong sub-conscious message: “I have better things to be doing than training you!”. A well structured induction training process is a fast track way to ensure potential talent feels a sense of belonging, connectedness, and of value.
3. Coaching and mentoring program – Implement a structured ‘coaching and mentoring’ program for your emerging talent. This strategy will build a nice retaining wall around your talented people – despite market offers from your competitors.
4. Training and development – Implement a targeted training and development program to up-skill the workforce. It will make your staff think: “Thank you for investing in me. I feel like this company values me. I’m growing personally and professionally.”
5. “Open door” return policy: Promote an ‘open door’ return policy to the valued talent who has succumbed and left the company for greener pastures. Drive from senior levels and have the CEO personally thank them for their contribution to the organisation and inform them of the ‘open door’ return policy.
   Based on the ‘Don’t burn your bridges’ motto, the aim here is to make it easy to re-enter the company, if indeed the grass was tougher to chew! Surprise, surprise. Some good people were welcomed home.

Remember the rules of thumb above – serve up all seven requirements and people get addicted and staff loyalty increases to the extent that it will take something rather significant to move them. If all seven needs are being met, why would you ever leave?

In summary, it seems the ‘War on Talent’ will not be won in the trenches, but driven by a well thought out action plan to retain and engage your talent.

Re-examine how well your organisation scores!

Guest Author:

Ian Stephens. Ian is a sales specialist and peak performance coach. He has a passion for the practical, coupled with an ability to inspire and equip people with simple everyday tools they can apply immediately to make more sales and profit.

Republished from CEO Online – your online business resource – www.ceoonline.com. Get valuable business tips and easy-to-read articles delivered direct to your inbox. Register NOW for your copy of CEO Online’s FREE e-newsletter: http://www.ceoonline.com.au/subscribe/

How Good Managers Can Be Great At Retaining Staff

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:

1. Policies of the organisation: learning and development, remuneration, performance management and reviews, promotions, and so on
2. 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:

1. Be approachable – visible, friendly and helpful
2. Communicate effectively, regularly and use many channels. Remember sometimes we need to hear the message more than once to absorb it
3. Meet as a team regularly
4. Allow employees to make mistakes and learn
5. Look for opportunities to recognise effort and results
6. Be flexible about work/life demands
7. Give credit where credit is due
8. 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.

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. 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’

1. Set the example

   Model balance and share with your team what you do to achieve balance in your life. Do not support workaholism.

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. 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.

 

Republished from CEO Online – your online business resource – www.ceoonline.com. Get valuable business tips and easy-to-read articles delivered direct to your inbox every week. Register NOW for your copy of CEO Online’s FREE e-newsletter: http://www.ceoonline.com.au/subscribe/

Six Ways To Preserve Your Most Valuable Asset – Your People

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:

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. 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

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:

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. 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.

Republished from CEO Online – your online business resource – www.ceoonline.com. Get valuable business tips and easy-to-read articles delivered direct to your inbox every week. Register NOW for your copy of CEO Online’s FREE e-newsletter: http://www.ceoonline.com.au/subscribe/

 

Make Staff Retention Your Intention

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:

1. Learning, knowledge and skill acquisition
2. Problem solving
3. Effective team performance and collaboration with people of heterogeneous cultural, educational & experience backgrounds (diversity)
4. Effective contextual performance
5. Ability to handle uncertainty, ambiguity and stress
6. Ability and willingness to work outside traditional boundaries
7. Employee retention
8. Ability to act quickly and capitalise on opportunities for business growth or process improvements
9. 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.

Republished from CEO Online – your online business resource – www.ceoonline.com. Get valuable business tips and easy-to-read articles delivered direct to your inbox every week. Register NOW for your copy of CEO Online’s FREE e-newsletter: http://www.ceoonline.com.au/subscribe/

How To Engage Disengaged Employees

The more employee engagement in your people, the better your workplace. And the better your workplace, the better your business. So go out there and “engage” everyone you can.

You work hard. You care about your company, your products, and services. You care about your coworkers and your customers. And you’re constantly trying to do your very best. But you wonder why everybody else in your organisation doesn’t feel the same way?

The reason is simple. They’ve lost their PASSION. They’re no longer excited about their careers and their jobs … if indeed, they ever were. And without that passion, those coworkers will never give you and your customers the results you’d like to see. You’ll get sporadic, mediocre performance instead of consistent, soaring excellence.

Of course, in today’s world, the word “passion” might sound a bit soft or outdated. But it’s not. It’s simply another way of saying that too many workers are “disengaged”. As author Terri Kabachnick says in her book, “I Quit, But Forgot to Tell You”, disengagement is a common, fast-spreading, and dangerous disease that must be dealt with. I couldn’t agree more.

1. The cost of disengagement 

   If you’re a business owner, leader, or manager, disengagement may be killing your business. A recent Gallup poll said disengagement costs businesses more than $250 billion a year! And in many cases, that $250 billion loss is the difference between your profitability and your bankruptcy.Plainly put, you cannot afford to keep a disengaged workforce or even a disengaged employee on the payroll.

   The human costs of disengagement may be even greater than the financial costs. After all, if your staff are just putting in their time, waiting for the day to end, and getting little or no satisfaction out of their job, their whole life is going to suffer. Their outlook on life will begin to sour; self-esteem will go down the tubes; health will be challenged, and relationships will suffer. No one can feel good about themselves when they do just enough to get by, and no one likes to work or live with someone who is a slacker.

   That being the case, you need to know how to spot the lack of employee engagement in those around you.

2. The look of disengagementWhen you’re disengaged, you stop caring about what you do. You stop caring about your work, your job, your team, your boss, and your customers. You do what you know you have to do, but you’ve lost the love of doing it. You’ve lost heart. It’s what I call “Stage One” of the disengagement disease. It’s a somewhat passive stage.

   Stage 2 of the disengagement disease is more active and possibly more dangerous. You become negative and discontent, and you don’t mind letting other people know about it. If the disease is not stopped and cured at this stage, the negativity begins to spread like a virus throughout the workplace, even infecting some of the good, engaged employees.

   Obviously, you can’t allow that to happen. More importantly, you’ve got to prevent it from happening in the first place.

3. Spend more time “engaging” your people in conversationDon’t fool yourself into thinking you’re too busy for this. As author Michael Kardo says, “There is nothing small about small talk”. When you carry on an interesting and meaningful discussion with someone, you’re validating that person. And there isn’t a person in the world that doesn’t want more validation.

   Unfortunately, some of the most disengaged departments are led by some of the most disengaged leaders. They’re unskilled or unwilling to engage in non work-related discussions. No problem. You can learn the art of “engaging” conversation.

   Follow communication expert Marjorie Brody’s advice. Stay informed about current events and professional happenings. Read newspapers and magazines. Learn about the person with whom you plan to speak, especially those things you may have in common.

   Learn what topics are safe and what topics to avoid. For example, the weather and the traffic are tried and true topics for starting conversations. Whether you’ve known someone for two minutes or 20 years, chances are one of the first things you’ll talk about is the weather or traffic. They may not be creative topics, but they break the ice and usually lead to more interesting discussions.

   Generally speaking, you can then move on to other “safe” topics, such as current events, travel, hobbies, sports, cultural events, movies, children, food, restaurants, and possibly work. Avoid such topics as politics, religion, gossip, off-color jokes, your health, your personal misfortunes, and bad mouthing the competition or anyone else.

   To make your conversation even more engaging, use Brody’s 3-part communication system: observe, reveal, and question. With the “observe” method, you can make a positive comment about an event the two of you are attending, the venue, the cause, the food, or the view. For example, “This is a wonderful event. It looks like everyone is having a good time”. You can “reveal” a positive opinion you might have, such as, “That’s a unique tie. I really like it”. And you can get the other person involved with a “question,” such as “What brought you to this meeting?”.

   They’re simple techniques, but they work. They start to engage other people.

4. Keep on teaching your peopleIt will make them feel better about themselves, and it will make them more valuable to your organisation. According to the research, almost everyone craves some reward and recognition. And one of the best, most desired reward, is EXCELLENT training that not only educates but motivates the attendees.

   You see, if you invest in HIGH QUALITY training, you’re telling your people they’re worth the investment you are making. You are affirming their worth. And that always increases their engagement at work.

   Of course, I know there are some skeptics out there who will ask me, “What if I invest all this money in training my people and they leave?”. I answer them by asking, “What if you don’t train your people and they stay?”.

   And then, with their newly gained information and skills, if you want to elicit even more engagement…

5. Give them a chance to make a differenceYou simply cannot have an engaged workforce or an engaged employee if they don’t think their work makes any difference. Indeed, if that’s what they think, you’ll soon notice that they do just enough work to get by.

   You’ve got to give them a chance to make a difference somehow, somewhere. It’s one of the basic laws of motivation.

   When you give people a chance to make a difference they keep on giving their best. So ask yourself, “What are you doing today that helps other people make a meaningful and noticeable difference?”.

Guest Author:

 

Dr. Alan Zimmerman As a best-selling author and Hall of Fame professional speaker, Dr. Zimmerman has worked with more than a million people, helping them become more effective communicators on and off the job.

 

Republished from CEO Online – your online business resource – www.ceoonline.com. Get valuable business tips and easy-to-read articles delivered FREE to your email inbox every week. REGISTER NOW for your copy of CEO Online’s FREE e-newsletter: http://www.ceoonline.com.au/subscribe/

Five Factors That Disconnect Your Team

Dealing with these will improve synergy and stability within your company, freeing up your staff’s energy to move the business ahead.

“What’s wrong with my team? Why don’t they co-operate more? Where’s their team spirit? Why do they seem surly so much of the time? Why don’t they speak up at staff meetings? Why do we have such a high turnover of staff? Why do people seem to operate in their own little world and not care about the ‘Big Picture’?”

Often we fail to get the best from our staff simply because we haven’t yet made ways for each member of the team to actually live in a healthy relational connection with the rest of the team. In fact the word team is a misnomer for many workplaces which are staffing a bunch of individuals doing their own thing in ways that merely keep them employed.

Is your workplace a place where people compete for resources rather than collaborating toward outcomes? Where self-protective behaviour prevents innovation and synergy?

While your staff can quote the mission statement, do their daily activities actually seem to work against it?

If you’ve answered YES to any of these questions, perhaps some of the following disconnecting factors are affecting your team.

1. Napoleonic wars 

   There are some individuals who – while occupying “small” positions in context with the wider organisation – pursue their own grandiose dreams with a super-sized passion. Effectively they wage a war of attrition on your resources, your time, the morale of the team, even your relationship with your customers. At the very least, they annoy and distract some of your most talented and loyal people.At the same time, there is an upside to this Napoleonic lust for conquest and expansion. You may have in your midst some true mover and shakers, pioneering go-getters. If treated correctly, these people can be an asset rather than a pain in the assets – a force for the up-turn rather than the stagnation of your business.Rather than blocking and crushing them, negotiate with them to find the way in which their “vision” can serve your vision. Debrief and rebrief them regularly. Make them go through management to access resources so that they don’t play people off against each other. Keep them on a tight (not necessarily short) leash through clear direction and consistent accountability. Empower them fully to the limit that you set. Remind them constantly of their place in the team.

2. No relational space
   
   When there are no rhythms that place us across the lunch-table or pool-table from each other, then misunderstandings and offences can take root and fester far more easily. When there are no shared spaces where team-mates can laugh, debate and commiserate, workplace relations can be colourless and superficial. You don’t need to program relationships; it’s our default setting. We just need the opportunity.Make a physical space which invites your team to chat, to spend time together without a productivity-focus. Create traditions where your team can “break bread”. Give your staff the chance to do life together, to ask “What’s up?” or “Have I done something to offend you?”, to dig through their differences and find common ground.
3. Faddish cycles of change
   
   Personality profiling tells us that up to 70% of the general population actually dislike and resist change. If that’s true, then when you are initiating change in the workplace, you better make sure it’s worth the hard work of helping these people adopt it.If your workplace has a proven track-record of adopting the latest business or marketing idea, it’s possible it also has a track-record of alienating over half its staffers in the process. While this might contribute to those staffers banding together to form passive-aggressive resistance movements, I think you’d agree that’s not the kind of teamworkyou’re looking for. You now have a disconnect between management and staff.Long-term team-members watch the fashionable initiatives come and go, slowly losing their passion and commitment, finding their own ruts to stay in, regardless of what the latest memo says. Change for change’s sake can be easily justified with flashy charts and jingoistic phrases, but its nature is unhealthy and unhelpful.When considering any major change to the organisation’s environment, methodology or other systems, think long and hard about old adages like “If it ain’t broke…” and “reinventing the wheel”!
4. Fear
   
   Nothing causes people to hunker down and keep to themselves like this “f”-word!Where staffers seem reticent to share their thoughts, where they avoid contact with management, where they lash out in completely irrational ways – these may be indications that these people are scared.Spend some time discerning what could be causing the fear. Is there an air of uncertainty in the air? Are disciplinary issues dealt with harshly?I love the story I heard about an Australian CEO and one of his new admin staff. When it turned out the young lady had made an enormous error in regards to printing promotional material – an error which would cost the organisation over $16000 – she reported it to the senior manager.

   She ended her confession with: “I suppose that’s the end for me?” The CEO replied “Why would I sack you? I’ve just spent $16000 training you.” While she was left in no doubt as to the seriousness of her mistake, the grace that was shown this young woman resulted in her fast-paced professional development and deep loyalty toward her employer.

   It also worked wonders for the morale of other team members.

   What can you do about anxiety and uncertainty in your company?

5. The Talk Monopoly
   
   Who holds the floor in the staff meeting? Can you pick the small group of individuals who do most of the talking, who freeze out others’ contributions opinions and ideas?Try finding ways to acknowledge the monopolisers while giving other team members equal time. (“Ralph, thanks for that perspective. I’m really interested in what Betty sees as the issue here.”)Remember that some people won’t speak without being asked, yet they could hold the very idea your group needs. Others need help focussing their thoughts so you will have to ask them a specific question to elicit a response (“Graham, what would you do in my position?” rather than “Graham, what do you think?”).

Guest Author:

Peter Aldin is founder of Great Circle Life Coaching. In a complex world, instinct and habit often drive us off course rather than steering us toward success and satisfaction. Great Circle is about re-learning and re-thinking our approach to family and business dynamics and relationships.

Republished from CEO Online – your online business resource – www.ceoonline.com. Get valuable business tips and easy-to-read articles delivered FREE to your email inbox every week. REGISTER NOW for your copy of CEO Online’s FREE e-newsletter: http://www.ceoonline.com.au/subscribe/

6 Steps To Effective Incentive Compensation

The elements of a successful incentive plan – whether for a manufacturer, a credit union, a general contractor, or a restaurant franchise – are all the same. Here are 6 steps to making your incentive compensation a success and motivating employees to better performance.

1. Determine what the plan intends to accomplish
    Identify, in detail, the improvable conditions desired, and the likely, attainable behaviours necessary to achieve them. Analyse for appropriateness in your environment.And really determine what you want when motivating employees. Be specific, because in compensation, it’s not what you wish for, hope for, or even plan for … it’s what you pay for that you get.For example: A client wanted to reduce worker’s compensation claims and their subsequent costs in two of their facilities. They simply created a “safety bonus” of 10% of the manager’s pay, reduced by 3% for the first accident, and 7% for the second.So what happened? You guessed it: fewer reported accidents, though they put no other safe-work or prevention efforts in place. Needless to say, this one got ugly before better, to be sure.
2. Determine participants
    Realise that missing a key employee or position can put a wrench in the viability and success of the entire plan. Consider more inclusion than exclusion.The key to success in incentives – the basis of which behaviour is changed – is that the right people must be motivated to do the right things. If you exclude a group of people, specifically, from an applicable incentive, don’t be shocked when they don’t put that particular goal achievement at the very top of their daily “must-do” list.Human nature kicks in here, and employees will, first and foremost, do the things that most benefit their self-interest. This doesn’t mean they’re mercenaries, it simply means they’re human.
3. Develop clear performance goals 
   These should be simple, supported by historic, valid information, and clearly quantifiable. Think 2-3 total goals – the fewer the better. If you exceed 4 or 5, you’ve gone too far, and are trying to do too much with the plan. Model the potential payouts to ensure affordability.Be realistic. Be prepared to pay for incremental improvement, not just home runs. I was working with a metal smelter once; we were implementing a gain-sharing plan whereby line employees would share in all financial improvements from a predetermined threshold. Where we argued, of course, was where to initially put that threshold. I wanted it at or near the three-year historical performance levels; the client wanted it several percentage points below that. Bad juju. Employees can sniff out one-sided deals.
4. Determine logistics This includes dates of incentive consideration, payout dates, what is and isn’t considered, plan revision procedures, termination payouts, and effective dates of the plan.All plans should have a starting date and ending date.Two reasons: you’re giving yourself an automatic review cycle, and it lessens the likelihood that the incentive plan will morph into an entitlement with participants. We want incentives to always remain something extra, don’t we? Don’t even get me started on how many incentive plans I’ve encountered that evolved into a bonafide employee entitlement.
5. COMMUNICATE
   Effective and thorough communications cannot be over-emphasised. Participants must realise the attention given to the incentive plan, clearly understand its parameters and intent, and have ample knowledge to successfully achieve those behaviours necessary to reach various incentive levels.Tell participants, in plain, easy-to-understand English, what the plan is designed to do, and what your expectations are for their performance within the plan. Sort of like the “whereas” parts of the recitals at the beginning of a contract. Further, the communication should be brief, and again, easy to understand.If you need four pages for an incentive plan, I’ll tell you what you have: One page, maybe a page and a half, for the actual “who does what, and who gets paid” part; the rest to tell participants how they can lose out under myriad conditions. Don’t do it. Be direct, and realise there will be judgement calls along the way.
6. Rinse and repeat
   Evaluate the success and/or failures of the plan. Determine what worked, what didn’t, and what can easily be modified or improved for better results. Check payouts against modeling done earlier for accuracy and variations. Don’t rely solely on a consultant’s expertise. Make sure it passes your own sniff test, and that real dollars are appropriately in play, on both the incentive target side, and the payout side.Reward levels are determined by the triangulation of desired results, employee efforts, and financial impact (savings versus costs).

Dig deeper than most, and look to share something closer to 30-40% of savings/additional revenue; if employees believe you are simply enjoying a windfall for their efforts, while providing them just a few extra peanuts in their box, they’ll eventually rebel, and employee motivation will reverse. After all, if incentives are accurately implemented, you’re paying them from money you wouldn’t have had anyway… Think about that.

Guest Author:

Kevin Berchelmann, Triangle Performance. Described as a Human Capital Expert by The Harvard Business Press, Kevin Berchelmann helps new managers at private equity, Fortune 500 and small to medium sized businesses become top leaders that deliver results.

Republished from CEO Online – your online business resource – www.ceoonline.com. Get valuable business tips and easy-to-read articles delivered FREE to your email inbox every week. REGISTER NOW for your copy of CEO Online’s FREE e-newsletter: http://www.ceoonline.com.au/subscribe/

Managing Remote Employees

Remote working is undoubtedly the way of the future. But just because they’re out of sight doesn’t mean they should be out of mind. Don’t leave them stranded.

Remote employees are those who work from home, or on a different floor, a different site, or even from a car.

Managing employees who work remotely is just like having them stranded on a desert island. Instead of being separated from civilisation, they’re separated from head office. So what people do to survive on a desert island are the same things remote employees need to perform and be engaged.

• Review resources

  Top of the list for desert islanders is to take stock of what they’ve got, such as radios and maps. Resources are top of the list for your remote employees, too. Make sure they’ve got easy access to manuals, stationery, and people.

• Start a fire

  Desert islanders use fire to cook food and stay warm. The equivalent of fire for remote employees is technology. Having fast and reliable computer systems, email servers, and phone services are paramount for remote working to be successful.

• Build shelter

  Desert islanders need to build a safe place to sleep. Your remote employees need a similar safe place to work. Make sure that their workspaces are ergonomic, conducive to high productivity, and have safety protocols in place.

• Find food and water

  A primary goal for a desert islander is to find food and water – the basic necessities for survival. The basic necessity for remote employees is feedback. Hold coaching sessions which focus on results. You’re not there to monitor how and when they work, so your expectations need to be explicit, objective, and clearly understood.

• Make contact

  People stranded on a desert island use mirrors, radios, and flares to desperately make contact with rescuers. Communication really needs to be ramped up when you’ve got remote employees. Make the most of tools like the telephone, instant online messaging, and video conferencing to stay in touch.

• Become acquainted

  Eventually if no help arrives, desert islanders need to become friends with their fellow animals – as must your remote employees with their peers. Hold frequent team meetings, maximise interaction between your remote employees and their colleagues, and encourage them to visit the office occasionally. Nothing beats face-to-face.

Guest Author:

James Adonis is Australia’s leading expert on employee engagement. He shows companies how to reduce staff turnover, engage Gen Y, and win the war for talent. For more information and free e-books, visit http://www.jamesadonis.com, phone +61 2 9331 2465, or email james@jamesadonis.com.

 

Republished from CEO Online – your online business resource – www.ceoonline.com.  Get valuable business tips and easy-to-read articles delivered FREE to your email inbox every week. REGISTER NOW for your copy of CEO Online’s FREE e-newsletter: http://www.ceoonline.com.au/subscribe/