Attracting and Retaining Top Talent

A critical factor to the success of any company is its ability to attract top talent while retaining those already working within the company. Losing employees can have a significant impact on a company’s morale, productivity and overall profit.

Whether it be evidenced through expenditures in agency or search firms, lowered productivity or morale, high turnover costs your company. In fact, each time one of your employees walks out your door for the last time, it can cost your company anywhere from $25,000 for entry level positions, up to $250,000 for a senior level positions.

Understanding the reasons people leave is the first real step in addressing the issues of retention and attraction. Once you have a clear understanding of these reasons, you are ready to move to the next stage of developing an attraction and retention strategy to get and hold talented people.

The formula for attracting and especially retaining top talent lies in creating a high level of job satisfaction which includes not only the work itself but factors relating to the climate or work environment. One of the most over-estimated reasons companies think they attract and retain top talent is through financial compensation. However, financial compensation is ranked very low by many employees when compared to achieving job satisfaction.

Excellent companies know intuitively the importance of providing challenging work, opportunities to apply skills and the importance that prospective employees place on company reputation. They work hard to improve the climate of work because they know that this will cause people to want to work for them based on their reputation in the marketplace.

The following formula will help ensure that your company attracts and retains top talent:

• Show your key employees that you care – take personal interest in developing your staff. Mentor and coach high performers.

• Maintain your credibility by ensuring consistently that there is no gap between what you say and what you do. Its called the “Keep Your Promises” law!

• Measure and manage the “soft” skills as well as the hard skills. In addition to rewarding output, profit, and sales etc., provide recognition and reward for ‘how’ the work gets done, the people skills that contribute to a better climate and greater satisfaction.

• Fight turnover with good training, targeted to specific issues and individual needs. Beware of off-the-shelf training programs that promise the world and deliver little.

• Weed out poor managers. Dissatisfied workers dislike poor management. Act quickly to preserve your credibility in the workforce. Remember the law of procrastination. “No matter how long you ignore a problem employee, his or her behaviour will not improve-act now!”

• Address issues of poor performance. Other workers resent having to carry someone who cannot or will not pull their own weight.

In addition, be sure to provide inspirational vision and strong values, meaningful and challenging work, offer career opportunities, create an environment that enables people to do their best work, offer tangible rewards in both monetary and non-monetary ways and ensure work/life balance and support its importance.

Finally, remember that attracting and keeping the right people happens not as a result of strategy – but implementation. Attracting and keeping the right people translates into real dollars on the bottom line. Pursue your goal of success for your company by creating a great work climate. You’ll be pleasantly surprised how much this approach will pay off for you.

 Article by David A. Bratton

Beyond Training
 
 
Achieving Results by focusing on the Human Factor

Training is generally defined as "change in behavior" - yet, how many trainers and managers forget that, using the term training only as applicable to "skills training"? What about the human element? What about those very same people we want to "train"? What about their individual beliefs, backgrounds, ideas, needs and aspirations? In order to achieve long-term results through training, we must broaden our vision to include people development as part of our strategic planning. Although training covers a broad range of subjects under the three main categories (skills, attitude, knowledge), using the term "training" without linking it to "development" narrows our concept of the training function and leads us to failure.

When we limit our thinking, we fall into the trap of:

A.Classifying people into lots and categories
B.Thinking of "trainees" as robots expected to perform a job function
C.Dismissing the individual characteristics of people and the roles they play
D.Focusing only on "what needs to be done" without adequately preparing the trainees involved to accept and internalize what is being taught.

We are dealing with human thoughts, feelings and reactions which must be given equal (if not more) attention than to the skill itself. We thus create a double-focus: people development and skills training. These two simultaneous objectives will give us the right balance and guide our actions to reach our goal. To clarify our training and development objectives, and identify our criteria for success, we must ask ourselves a few questions:

Do we expect an automatic, faultless job performance?
Does attitude count?
Does goodwill count?
Do loyalty and dedication count?
Does goal-sharing count?
Does motivation count?
Do general knowledge and know-how count?
Do people-skills count?
Does an inquisitive mind count?
Does initiative count?
Does a learning attitude count?
Does a sense of responsibility count?
Do team efforts count?
Do good work relations count?
Does creative input count?
Do we want employees to feel proud of their role and contribution?

How can we expect such qualities and behaviour if we consider and treat our personnel as "skills performers"? However, we could achieve the desired results if we address the personal development needs of the employees involved. When we plan for both "training" and "development", we achieve a proper balance between the needs of the company and those of the trainees. The synergy created takes us to new levels, to a continuing trend of company growth.

Our consideration of the people involved results in work motivation, goal-sharing, and a sense of partnership. Not only do the employee-trainees perform at the desired levels, but they offer to the company and its customers their hidden individual gifts and talents, and this reflects itself in the quality of service. Customers feel and recognize efficient performance, motivation and team-work. They become loyal customers. We can learn from the case of a small restaurant operator who had become desperate at the negligent attitude of his servers, resulting in customer complaints. He decided to seek professional expertise to help him replace his employees with "motivated, trained" people fresh out of a waiter's training school.

Following some probing questions it came to light that, besides hourly pay, he did not offer much to attract and retain loyal and dedicated employees. Through professional consultation, he came to realize that even if he paid higher wages to new "trained" employees, the problem would persist because employees want more than wages from their work place. They want:
Organization and professional management
Information regarding the business and its customers
Recognition for their role in the company's success
Acknowledgement of their individual capacities and contributions
Positive discipline / fairness
A say in the way the business is run.
The restaurant operator realized that until then he had treated his employees as "plate carriers" and this is exactly how they had behaved and performed. He was ready to change his mode of operation: he diverted his focus to the needs of his employees, re-structured his organisation, planned new operational strategies, a human resources strategy, training and development guidelines, disciplinary rules and regulations. He communicated and shared these in a meeting with his employees and handed out the employee handbook prepared for that purpose. He also reminded them of their responsibilities towards the business, the customers, and themselves (taking charge of their own training, development, and work performance). They were more than pleased when he asked them to express their opinions, make comments and suggestions.
He was surprised at the immediate transformation that took place. He began receiving excellent reviews from his customers, the employees worked as a team, their motivation sky-rocketed and he never had to replace them! All this was accomplished by extending the previous concept of training to that of training and people development.

Training and Development represents a complete whole that triggers the mind, emotions and employees' best work performance. It is not only business managers and owners who must do this shift in thinking, but Human Resources Directors and Training Managers (whose title should be "Training and Development" Managers). By their actions, they should offer a personal example, coaching and guiding all the people in an organisation to think "beyond training" and invest efforts in people's:

Professional development
Personal development.

Contrary to what some manager’s think, people do not quit a place of work as soon as they have grown personally and professionally through training and development programs - at least they do not do so for a long while. They become loyal to their employer and help him/her grow business-wise, which offers them more opportunities. They chart their own course for career advancement within the broader framework of organizational growth.

Do we not call employees our "human resources asset"? Whatever their positions, each expect to be treated as such; when they are, they give more than their physical presence at work.

By Claire Belilos

Camp-Fire Approach a for HR Manager

Some activities in organizations are highly prescribed and codified — drawn out to infinitesimal detail. And others, well, they’re left to a quite imprecise oral tradition. Often that looser standard is the case with professional services and managerial procedures.

Many managers and professionals like it that way. They don’t want to be constrained — boxed in — by routine; to have their value-added reduced to Insert Tab A into Slot B.
The Camp Fire approach to work is where the processes are passed along verbally from person to person over time.

The Camp Fire approach to work is where the processes are passed along verbally from person to person over time.

When you have competent people and a relatively stable environment this might work all right for a while. But some recent client experiences underscore the danger of what I call the Camp Fire approach to work. That’s where the processes are passed along verbally from person to person over time. Minor deviations and aberrations are caught and managed by caring colleagues before any attention is drawn to the wayward action or any harm is done.

People who work together, side by side, for years, decades, develop an almost psychic connection and unspoken understanding of how things work. Who needs cumbersome documentation and unnecessary process diagrams.
But then… But then somebody leaves. Maybe a few people. Promising replacements are hired, but for some reason, they all fail to live up to their apparent potential. Somehow, through a streak of uncanny bad luck, a whole string of very clever people managed to mislead everyone in the hiring process (which, naturally, evolved on its own over time).

Suddenly, the well-oiled machine is creaking, sputtering and lurching. Balls are dropped. Deadlines missed. Quality is in a nose-dive.

The remaining long-timers cannot believe how poor the available talent is in today’s job market. “You just can’t find good help today!” They’re quite sure of it. Heck, they can prove it. In fact, they’ve turned over two or three people in a perfectly good job that old Charlie had no trouble filling perfectly well for 30 years until he happily retired not even a year and a half ago.

[SCREECH OF NEEDLE DRAGGING ACROSS RECORD]

Stop!
There brings to mind one important saying by the late great Peter Drucker who said that if you hire two qualified people for a post and they both wash out, it’s probably not the people, but the job — or, I’d add, the support they are not receiving.

Documenting your processes gives you a chance to revise, even reinvent, them.

Injecting even highly competent professionals into a work culture that is fueled and governed by the oral tradition of the Camp Fire school of self-management sets them up for failure. They can’t possibly know what they don’t know. And worse, they don’t have any way to find out other than to fail, and find out after the fact. And then, only after their peers and superiors have jumped all over them for their “incompetence” or “carelessness” or “stupidity.”

It’s not fair to anyone. And the situation will not, can not, get magically better by itself. An oral tradition takes a long time to take root. The more complex the environment, the longer it takes. And if the environment is changing (and what environment isn’t) the greater the danger of relying on a Camp Fire approach to managing work anyway.

All these factors are exacerbated by the fact that in many operations a huge exodus of talent and latent knowledge — legions of older workers who literally have forgotten more than has ever been formally codified — are about to walk out the door for good. Because they can.

Now, right now, is the time to start documenting how things work around here. The process of documenting your processes doesn’t have to be an onerous or complex process either.

Injecting even highly competent professionals into a work culture that is fueled and governed by the oral tradition of the Camp Fire school of self-management sets them up for failure.

Start by gathering your colleagues, maybe at the end of a routine staff meeting to draw some simple diagrams — arrows & boxes — of how a particular work process actually works. Don’t be surprised if there is confusion or disagreement about the specifics of the process. Such effects send a clear signal: You’re getting to the heart of the matter!

To get clarity about what really happens during a set of tasks try actually walking thru the process yourself, in real time. Be the piece of paper, or customer, or part, or whatever. Take every step. Take note: What’s not necessary, or redundant, or just silly? (And avoid the temptation to coach anyone through the process. You are the form or part, not you, in this exercise. If someone stumbles or is stymied, so be it.)

Documenting your processes gives you a chance to revise, even reinvent, them.

By the way, camp fires do have their place in an organization. Use them for what all good camp fires are for — warming the heart with good stories and good cheer shared by people who are enjoying themselves in a successful common effort.

Evaluating Your Team Building Activities

Team building has become one of the newest buzz words in the corporate lexicon. In fact, for at least the last decade surveys of business leaders in every industry have shown that the prime characteristic they look for in new hires is the ability to work with a team. And why not? Research has shown that when people work in teams, they can accomplish far more than a group of individuals working together. But not all team building activities are created equal. Over the last few years, some industry experts have leveled criticism at the 'quick-fix' attitude that has been adopted by many companies who attempt to create or sponsor their own team building activities.

In order to be effective, say experts in corporate teams, a team building event must:

- Be integrated with real work goals.

o It's not enough to plan a fun day of activities for your team. The team building event that you plan should help focus the members of the team on what's not working and what needs to happen for the team to work together.

- Be part of an overall company goal.

o Plan team building activities and events as part of the company's overall plan for success. That means more than just a one off event to go buggy riding. Team building events should be an ongoing, annual or semi-annual event.

- Be planned by a team.

o After all, the goal is to promote teamwork. The planning team should model the behavior that you expect it to promote.

- Be followed up with real work integration.

o A one off event that has no follow up in the work world will be seen as a holiday at best - and a cynical attempt at manipulation at worst. To be meaningful, team building efforts must continue beyond the event day.

- Be reinforced by rewarding teamwork and team behavior.

o Once you have a team that's working as a team, you need to reinforce that behavior by rewarding it. Recognition of teams that are working exceptionally well, special corporate events to mark team accomplishments and notice in the company newsletter are all ways to reinforce and reward teamwork within your company.

If planning an event that will do all that seems daunting, keep in mind that there are companies who make this their business. A company like that specialises in building team activities can offer your company custom team building activities that are designed to help your employees and coworkers focus on the importance of working together as a team.

By: Brett Danielson

 Leading  Your Staff through Difficult Times

Challenges are a normal part of business—that’s a fact. And every company, whether it’s a start-up, a business in a high-growth phase, or even a long-standing established organization, will face both small and large hurdles every year. But no matter what your company faces—a slow economy, industry shifts, a merger, or even the death of a key executive—if you move through the challenge in a specific way, you will find opportunity in the adversity and come out stronger.

Think of a challenge as any type of “difference” in the way you do business or in your company structure that has an impact on your organization. Unfortunately, when some sort of “difference” occurs, typically company leaders and their staff grind to a halt and refuse to move forward. Why? Because they fear making a wrong move and further worsening the problem. And while most company leaders do eventually see the challenge through, they waste time in the process and make the journey harder than it needs to be.

Before your next company challenge becomes apparent (or if you are in the midst of a challenge right now), take note of the following four guidelines. Following them during any crisis will shave precious moments off your reaction period and will enable your company to move forward in record speed.

1. Recognize and allow for the natural reaction of the staff.
Regardless of the challenge, you need to allow your staff to share their feelings. During this process, realize that everyone has different feelings and has a unique process for dealing with the situation at hand. For example, some people may be sad at the sudden adversity, some angry, and some will feel more driven than ever before. All of these feelings are normal, and no one right way to feel exists.

As a leader, you need to listen to all these different feelings and acknowledge each person. Also, this is a time for “no pressure.” Therefore, embrace the fact that productivity will drop, at least for the immediate moment. Take the time to talk to people individually or in groups and create a space where people can be open. If you don’t create this space, people will feel unimportant and won’t want to move past this initial phase. Once you allow people to get their feelings out about the current challenge, they’ll start to move forward.

And don’t forget about yourself during this time. Even leaders need an outlet to vent and express their feelings. So make sure you have some sort of support system where you can air your concerns, such as family, friends, or peers. For a leader to be strong during these times, he or she needs to be emotionally fit.

2. Have open lines of communication.
Communication is the key to making a difficult process more effective. During a challenge, you’ll have a lot of important information you need to relay to people. Look at the culture of your company and determine what the best medium to disperse news is. For some companies, town-hall-style meetings work well; others do better with smaller group meetings. Depending on your company, written communication may be in order, too, such as relaying news via a company newsletter or intranet.

The communication from the leader needs to be positive, proactive and motivating, and it needs to be authentic. Your staff will know when you’re merely giving lip service. Also, reiterate the company’s vision and mission and get everyone on board with the necessary course of action.
Whatever you do, do not deny what is happening, and do not downplay the severity of the situation. People will be more willing to go the extra mile and do whatever it takes when they know the leader is being honest and straightforward.

3. Allow yourself to receive support from you staff.
The hardest thing for most leaders to do is to receive support from their employees. Realize, though, that you’ll often see your staff at their best during a challenge. They’ll step up to the plate and take on more responsibility. So rather than think you need to do everything yourself and keep your feelings bottled up, delegate tasks and share your feelings with employees. As long as you’ve been honest with them, they’ll willingly and enthusiastically want to help any way they can. In fact, the more you allow them to “step up to the plate,” the more empowered they’ll be and the faster your company will move through the challenge.

4. Lead your organization beyond the challenge.
If you’ve allowed people to express their feelings, communicated authentically, and relied on your staff for support, then you have no choice but to move forward quickly. In fact, stagnating in the challenge is virtually impossible now, because everyone, from the mail room clerks to the most senior executives, will feel that they’re important and that they have the power to make some serious change.

So at this point you need to identify the opportunities that are apparent. If you’ve listened to your staff, chances are they will have pointed out new ideas you may never have thought of. Use the company’s vision to guide your intended new path or plan, and continue to share the next steps with your entire team. No matter how limited you may feel your options are at this point, stay positive and proactive. You will push through to better times.

A New Path to Success
Unfortunately, many companies neglect these four steps. But when people don’t get a chance to air their feelings and don’t feel a strong sense of communication, they shut down and become paralyzed by fear. When this happens, everyone is in denial of the problem, and water cooler gossip takes center stage.
 
Yes, there’s a lot of vulnerability when it comes to leading during difficult times; but in that vulnerability there is also a lot of growth. Your company can come out the other side of the challenge stronger and smarter than ever before.  

By Anne Houlihan

I Believe In Man

I have a deep and abiding belief that there lies within every person the capacity for greatness. I don't mean the old adage that you can become anything you want to be -- I'm more receptive to Peter F. Drucker's admonition to not "waste time trying to put in what the creator left out." But the potential of almost every person is far above his or her level of achievement. That so few rise to their potential does not in any way diminish the validity of this belief. We often see some obscure person rise apparently from nowhere to leadership of a cause or a movement, giving proof to the idea that this capacity lies dormant within each and every one of us.

We've been conditioned by life and by the authority figures we grew up with to recognize and accept ourselves as we are, with severe restrictions on our abilities. We were taught to accept our role and station in life without whining, that the ability to accept and endure our lot shows strength and character. So long as we are prepared to go through life accepting that which fate has thrust upon us as our ordained destiny, so too are we condemned, by our own resignation, our own self depreciation, to the ranks of mediocrity. Others may put me down but the choice to stay down is mine alone.

If we can find within ourselves the courage to challenge fate, to say to her and to the entire world, "I am not ordinary. I will not accept that it is my destiny to live out my life in a humdrum existence, doing things of little consequence, never dreaming, never daring to reach for more.", then we have forced open the door to, at least the possibility of greatness. Leadership writer Paul J. Meyers said, " there is in our world a vast storehouse of plenty which is approached by some with a steam shovel, by others with a tea spoon."

"What", you ask, "if I spend my entire life in pursuit of this fantastic dream yet never achieve it? I will feel robbed, cheated, let down, betrayed."

Who suffers the worse fate, the man who fights to no avail with every fibre of his being for that in which he truly believes or the man who spends his life whining, "I could have been a contender"? "Man's goals should exceed his grasp, else what's a heaven for." (Robert Browning )

Of all the peoples in the world we, who live in Canada and The United States -- countries built on and by the impossible dreams of men and women of vision and courage, determined to soldier on in the face of horrendous odds -- have the least excuse for believing in our limitations, for accepting our fate. With the hundreds of larger than life legends in our heritage, how can we dare to not believe in our own incredible potential?

All of us in North America, indeed throughout the world, must relearn this ability to "dream the impossible dream" and to bring to bear the necessary resources, belief, determination and courage to make our dreams come true.

I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul.

by Len McNally

Is every company ready for Six Sigma?

Six Sigma is not for the feint of heart. It takes courage to attack chronic problems no one has been able to solve. It takes true grit to define and collect the data needed for new insights. And, it takes staying power to see solutions become the new way of working.

Is every company ready for Six Sigma?
To answer that question, one must know the full meaning of Six Sigma? The GE definition is "completely satisfying customer needs profitably." Doing that requires a company-wide improvement initiative aimed at dramatically improving process performance. And it requires that every employee learns a structured approach to managing improvement projects, solving problems using facts and taking the customer's perspective. Six Sigma is about changing the way an organization works – the approach and tools it uses to solve problems, as well as the behavior of people from the boardroom to the mailroom.

Six Sigma Readiness Test
Here is a test which can help business leaders decide if their organization is ready for Six Sigma. Please answer each question using a scale of 0-10, with 10 meaning "absolutely yes," 5 meaning "maybe" and 0 meaning "absolutely no."

 1. Is the organization structure relatively stable, not about to change dramatically?
 2. Will the business leader make Six Sigma one of his or her top priorities?
 3. Does leadership have credibility and a history of successfully implementing company-wide improvement initiatives, demonstrating that they can sustain their attention?
4. Will the business devote 10 percent of its resources to Six Sigma?
5. Can the best project and change leaders in the business at manager or junior manager level be assigned to Six Sigma projects?
6. To launch the effort, will members of the leadership team invest two days of their time?
7. Will members of the leadership team mandate that their direct reports invest in a two-day Six Sigma orientation?
8. Is the business leadership team open to actively sponsoring pilot projects?
9. Is it common practice to work in teams – project teams, management teams or natural working teams?
10. Are decisions based upon analysis of relevant data at all levels in the organization?
11. Is work defined in terms of processes? Are key processes documented and accountabilities clear?
______  Total

Scoring:
75-110 = Time to get started!50-75 = Risky, unless all leadership items are strong! Below 50 = Wait until conditions have improved! 
 
Obviously not every company is ready for Six Sigma.
If a business is going through restructuring that requires significant layoffs or a merger that creates uncertainty, it is not the right time to start a company-wide improvement effort. Let the dust settle. If there is too much uncertainty and too little executive attention, Six Sigma cannot be started successfully. When is the right time? When a leader of a business can say, "I will make Six Sigma one of my top three priorities for the next three to four years."  

"Why is it we spend so much time firefighting but don't have the time to do things right the first time?"
"We don't think enough about the customers when we develop new products and processes."
"The way we work is too person-dependent; we don't have enough standardized processes."
"How can I get a common language across the business so it is easier to transfer best practices from one area to another?"
"What we are missing is the next generation of leaders who will help drive business growth."
For that person, Six Sigma is a systematic way of addressing items already on his or her "to do" list. Six Sigma will help that person get where they already want to go faster and with greater sustainability than they would have otherwise.

The question of whether a company is ready for Six Sigma requires more questions to be answered. One of the most important is: Does the business have the resources to devote to Six Sigma? If 10 percent of the company's resources are already being spent on process and product improvement, then the answer is yes. Think about the average information technology (IT) spending in a business and ask what benefit would the company get if it could define customer requirements, functionality and process flows before automating them?      

Involving the Entire Leadership Team
Business leaders must ask themselves if they are ready to involve the entire leadership team and the next level of managers in the launch of Six Sigma. If business leaders and their teams cannot invest two days of their own time and of their managers' time in learning more about Six Sigma and their role, then they are not ready to start. Avoid at all costs the "wash-me-but don't-get-me-wet syndrome." To succeed, Six Sigma has to be the initiative of the leadership. It is an approach and set of tools, not an end in itself. Business leaders have to articulate why Six Sigma makes sense for the business at a given time.

Six Sigma is about measuring, rewarding and holding people accountable. It takes business leaders who are willing to fairly, but firmly, set expectations and deal with the consequences if they are or are not being met. That is what it takes to drive the cultural change that makes Six Sigma sustainable.

About the Author: Steve Crom

Key Aspects Of Presentation Skills Training

In any business, impression matters much. Having the frontline members of your staff take part in a presentation skills training can go a long way in helping your company build a good impression. Deals may not depend solely on how a presentation was made. However, you can be sure that a poor presentation will not communicate well to clients and stakeholders of the business. Thus, presentation skills training are essential learning components for any enterprise.

There are many companies today offering presentation skills training, both online and in real-life settings. While online training may provide some convenience, it may not serve the purpose of the training in full. Training to enhance presentation skills are best participated in live situations, along with other participants or as part of a one-on-one coaching setup. Either way, having a palpable audience is important in improving ones presentation skills, something that online tutelage cannot fully provide.

Who needs to have presentation skills training? For purposes of adhering to business best practices, everyone in the business organization should take up presentation skills training. Each person at one point or another needs to present a report, an idea or would need to impart some other information that may be required or desired by the company.

Giving each member of your staff even just rudimentary skills training for presentations empowers them to be prepared for such instances. This kind of training will surely overcome any shyness or stage fright notions they may have and helps them impart the message with clarity and a sense of importance. You may not know it, but some of the best ideas and information comes from the least likely sources.

Essential Presentation Skills

There are more to impressive presentations than just delivering scripted lines to a listening audience. Voice quality and projection are very important aspects of presentation skills development. The objective here is to help the presenter speak with impact without sacrificing clarity. Communication skills cover matters concerning proper language use and diction. Non-verbal cues and body language are also important facets of presentation and public speaking as it adds impact and variety to the speech. Also, the appropriate use of presentation media is a definite must for this training regimen.

Training Components

Apart from the focus on actual presentation skills as stated above, other training components must be tackled during the training sessions. Presentation design is an integral and vital component. This involves not just the visual aspect of the presentation design; it also discusses the structure and organization of the presentation content itself.

Other parts of the training touches on techniques for handling questions and overcoming fear or nervousness. This really builds confidence among your workers.

By giving your office staff the proper presentation skills training, you are helping them become part of the discourse of the company. At the very least, you have a manpower pool which has more self-confidence as well as gratitude for the company. At best, you unlock a gold mine of ideas and talent when appropriate presentation skills training are applied to your entire staff.

By: Sheila Mulrennan

Obtaining Commitment from your associates

Obtaining commitment — or getting buy in — from your associates on new goals, procedures or methods remains one of the greatest day-to-day challenges for most managers.

Miller writes that, “Your employees will have one of four responses toward their goals: buy-in, commitment, acceptance, or rejection.” He advises that you not settle for “mere acceptance of the goal without commitment” because that doesn’t allow you to hold your employees accountable.

To move your colleagues to commitment, Brian Cole Miller suggests you follow this four-step process.

Ask your employees to buy in to the goals:
"Can you make these goals your own?"
"Which of these goals do you already feel are personal for you?"
"Which goals get you most excited?"

If your employees don't buy in, ask them to commit to the goals:
"Will you commit to achieving all of these goals?" "Will you work to accomplish each and every goal?" "Can I count on you to achieve all of this?"
Do not allow your employees to reject or merely accept the goals. Neither of these responses will permit you to hold them accountable.
Once your employees buy in or commit, discuss briefly how they might go about attaining the goals. This discussion will help you determine if they really understand what they are getting into.
Miller’s book takes a very practical approach to obtaining commitment from employees; its many short, readable chapters are organized into a framework of six basic processes for obtaining commitment and holding employees to account:

Setting expectations

Inviting commitment

Measuring results

Providing feedback

Linking results to consequences

Evaluating your own effectiveness

A mentoring diagnostic activity - which are true of you?

Read these statements carefully, and select with a ‘yes’ those that you need to work hardest upon.

  1.  I listen to the whole issue before commenting.

  2.  I give advice but still expect the mentee to make their own decisions.

  3.  I always find time to help.

  4.  I always question thoroughly to find the real issues.

  5.  I always give honest opinions.

  6.  I have a good range of networks and contacts that can be utilised appropriately.

  7.  I am not intimidating - I’m easy to approach at any time.

  8.  I know  what I am talking about - I am good at my own job.

  9.  I look for the reality within which a mentee works.

10.  I always focus on mentee needs during a mentoring session.

11.  I don’t get irritated by a mentee who doesn’t get the point quickly.

12.  I am an optimist.

13.  I am encouraging.

14.  I am always well prepared in advance.

15.  I am a positive role model in terms of my own achievements.

16.  I can help a mentee believe in their potential.

17.  I am open to new ideas.

18.  I know when to introduce options which may not have been considered.

19.  I can challenge assumptions skilfully.
 
20.  I am a positive person.

21.  I possess great patience.

22.  I am interested in people.

23.  I am an active listener.

24.  I am non-judgmental.

25.  I feel comfortable about having my views challenged.

26.  I am enthusiastic about mentoring.

27.  I am very knowledgeable about developmental issues.

28.  I am tolerant.

29.  I don’t expect a mentee to be like me.
30.  I am prepared to learn with the mentee.

31.  I can give feedback skilfully.

32.  I can allow a mentee the freedom and confidence to make mistakes.

33.  I see my mentees as equals.

34.  I have sound judgement.

35.  I am able to distance myself, and maintain objectivity.
 
36.  I am keen to allow mentees to make their own decisions.

37.  I keep in regular contact with those I mentor.

39.  I take an interest in the individual mentee - I value their views and what they say.

40.  I am able to probe beyond the superficial.

41.  I can provide the space for a mentee to express their feelings.
 
42.  I can draw out a mentees’ ideas and I’m willing to use them.
 
43.  I have a true passion for developing others, and really believe in the value of development.

44.  I can avoid the  temptation to direct conversation back to myself and my issues and experiences.

45.  I can challenge constructively and directly to get to the heart of the matter.
    
46.  I won’t just tell a mentee what they want to hear.
 
47.  I never appear keen to get a mentoring meeting over with and move on to the next thing.

48.  I don’t talk about my own achievements too much.

49.  I have a genuine desire to empower.

50.  I am responsive to my mentee.

Sucessful Team Building Techniques

In business, it does not matter whether you work in a typical office a shop or a factory. You are built up of a group individuals with specific goals towards producing the goods that the company sells. This is what defines a team. From the most mundane task like answering a phone call, to the most complicated job like designing products, every individual making up the team plays an important role. As a whole, every employee is working towards a common goal which is to earn profit for the company and for themselves. This is what team building is all about. It is the process of enabling a group of people to reach that common goal. That is why it is a good practice for companies to come up with regular team building activities to enhance the oneness of the group and to build a feeling of solidarity and pride of work. A company is made up of different departments which sometimes causes conflicts of interests and individual differences. Team building aims to eliminate these issues.

1. What Is The Main Goal Of The Company?

- You all know that you need the job to make a living and earn profits for the company. Still, not everyone is clear about what the company's core all about

- Your main focus for team building should be a review the of the employee's orientation of the company's goal and objectives

- If you produce goods, what is the product really all about? What message do you want to impart to people as a company?

- If you deal with services, what is your main goal and what service do you actually provide?

- By reviewing these goals, a team member would have a fresh outlook about the company, making them strive harder to reach that common goal

2. What Factors Caused Poor Team Performance In The Past?

Look into your company's successes and failures. Determine which area is in need of improvement and look for ways to do so. By looking into the strengths and weaknesses that each member exhibits, you would know which areas to improve on. Also, this would give you an idea of how to optimize the team's strengths to reach that common goal and contribute to the company's success.

3. How Can You Improve The Way Team Members Interact?

Even siblings of the same genes make up different personalities. As a team, you are made up of individuals from different cultures, and would have various ideas on how to improve the way your company operates. There is bound to be friction of some kind since your team is made up of different individuals. Team building aims to avoid this and bridge the gap by coming up with activities which bond the group. Thinking of fun activities to break the ice and personalize the interaction between members is a great way to start.

4. How Can You Improve The Team's Ability To Solve Problems?

Every company is faced with challenges every now and then. One way to forge team solidarity is to look into past problems and see how they were solved. Ask each team member how they would have handled that particular problem. This would let a leader know which team member has good problem solving, analytical and critical thinking skills. The team members may be asked to share ideas and decide together which solution would suit the problem best. This is another way to build team solidarity.

4. How Can You Forge The Support And Trust Level Between Team Members?

A team leader should have people and management skills. However, it is still important for the leader to earn the trust of his team members. Supporting each other is a vital quality that a team should have. Even a simple problem like an employee who disobeys out of sheer contrariness should be looked into. What is causing this team member to contradict his superior? What can be done to improve his attitude? By team building, you can some up with ways to build trust and increase the support level between colleagues.

5. How Can You Apply The Team Building Activities In The Day-To-Day Operation Of The Company?

In the end, after all the activities that the team has performed together, there should be a sharing of experiences and thoughts on what each member has learned about their peers and about the company's goal. These should make them aware of how they can further contribute to the company's success in the future. All in all, team building activities enhance team solidarity. It is good to remember that the whole organization is team working towards the company's main goal. After a set of fun and team building activities which inspire team spirit, each member would have a clear idea of how to improve their attitude towards their peers, their superiors, and especially towards their work.

- By: Trevor Marshall

Talent management...

“If I could change one thing about the industry, it would be to change the focus from 'managing' talent to leading and developing talent.

There is a strong emphasis in the talent management industry on attracting and recruiting talent, yet still too little emphasis on long-term talent development. The key to successful long-term talent development is great leadership. Talent development also needs to be closely aligned with the organisation's overall strategic aims.

Leaders need to develop talent by supporting individuals to meet their true potential. It is also essential to implement effective succession planning and to develop a pipeline of leadership talent to meet the future needs of the organisation.

Earlier this year, Academee designed a leadership development programme, 'Take the Lead,' for UniChem, one of the UK's leading distributors and wholesalers of pharmaceutical, medical and healthcare products. The company was keen to discover and nurture future leaders within UniChem, rather than relying entirely on external recruitment to fulfil key leadership roles. Although UniChem is a very people-centred organisation, there was limited formal succession planning or leadership development in place. UniChem's aim was to identify high potential managers within the organisation, and then provide challenging learning opportunities for them. This learning needed to equip these individuals with the capability to deliver the core requirements of the organisation and, in the words of UniChem, 'bridge strategies to outcomes.'

'Take the Lead' has succeeded in achieving its core aim of developing future leaders from within the organisation. The first cohort completed the programme in April 2007 and 80% of the participants have already been promoted to new roles within UniChem.

Another area that the industry needs to focus more on is 'talent enablers' - tools that support talent management and enable individuals to take control of their own talent development. For example, Fujitsu Services is meeting the challenge of talent management with a unique, innovative, user-friendly online career development solution, developed in partnership with Academee. The Career Mapping Tool is an interactive online application that presents career planning information in a clear, visual format. It guides employees through the various stages of planning their next career move by allowing them to see potential career paths and map possible routes from one job role to another.

For Fujitsu Services, this is a significant development in allowing its people to plan and steer their own careers. It represents a major contribution to overall talent management, taking the innovative approach of empowering individuals to take control. Fujitsu Services now feels confident that it is providing career development approaches to enable people to fulfil their potential and ambition - while at the same time supporting its talent development strategy and overall organisational aims.

Both UniChem and Fujitsu Services are taking a strategic, long term approach to developing and leading talent - an approach which brings lasting benefits as well as immediate results.”

 Article by Simon Hayward

The First Step towards Motivation at Work

However large or small a company or business is, it is employees at all levels that can make or break it. This holds true not only for the people we hire on a regular basis, but also for temporary and contracted workers. It is as important to research and study the needs, drives, and expectations of people we hire or employ, and aim at responding to and satisfying those, as it is with regard to customers. In actual fact, considering the role each "employee" plays in a company's success, analyzing and planning an adequate response to employees' motivations deserves first place in the order of business.

Before going any further, let us shift our approach from grouping people under the generic category of "employee" to individual human beings and term them as "hired workers" or "workers", acknowledging them as human beings with individual needs, drives, characteristics, and personalities.

Though each person has specific needs, drives, aspirations, and capabilities, at varying degrees of intensity, people's basic needs are the same, as illustrated by Abraham Maslow in the following model:

MASLOW'S HIERARCHY OF NEEDS

Maslow explains the Hierarchy of Needs as applied to workers roughly as follows:

Physiological Needs
basic physical needs:  the ability to acquire food, shelter, clothing and other basics to survive
Safety Needs
a safe and non-threatening work environment, job security, safe equipment and installations
Social Needs
contact and friendship with fellow-workers, social activities and opportunities
Ego
recognition, acknowledgment, rewards
Self-Actualization
realizing one's dreams and potential, reaching the heights of one's gifts and talents.

It is only when these needs are met that workers are morally, emotionally, and even physically ready to satisfy the needs of the employer and the customers.

Worker motivation must also be viewed from two perspectives:
1. Inner drives
2. Outer (external) motivators.
A person's inner drives push and propel him/her towards an employer, a particular job, career, line of study, or other activity (such as travel or recreation). It is these drives that Maslow delineates in his hierarchy of needs, and which we must understand and internalize, use as guidlines in our efforts to help employees feel motivated.The outer (external) motivators are the mirror image the employer or outside world offers in response to the inner drives. In order to attract the "cream of the crop" of available workers, same as in his/her dealings with customers, the employer not only tries to satisfy these basic needs, but to exceed them - taking into consideration additional extra-ordinary needs individual workers have.

Most workers need to:
1. earn wages that will enable them to pay for basic necessities and additional luxuries such
as the purchase of a home, or travel
2. save for and enjoy old age security benefits
3. have medical and other insurance coverage
4. acquire friends at work
5. win recognition
6. be acknowledged and rewarded for special efforts and contributions
7. be able to advance in life and career-wise
8. have opportunities for self-development
9. improve their skills, knowledge, and know-how
10. demonstrate and use special gifts and abilities
11. realize their ideal(s).

The employer responds to those needs by offering and providing:
1. employment
2. adequate pay
3. assistance to workers for their special needs (such as child care arrangements, transportation, flexible work schedules)
4. job security (to the degree possible)
5. clear company policies
6. clear and organized work procedures
7. a stable, just and fair work environment
8. a safe work environment
9. medical coverage and other benefits
10. an atmosphere of team-work and cooperation
11. social activities
12. reward and recognition programs
13. incentive programs
14. open lines of communication (formal and informal)
15. systematic feedback
16. training and development programs
17. opportunities for promotion
18. company/ business information
19. information on customer feedback
20. sharing of company goals and objectives
21. information on the market situation and industry
22. future expectations
23. plans for the future
24. guidance and mentoring.

It is important that the employer discover other extra-ordinary needs applicants have before hiring them and know beforehand whether he/she can satisfy those needs or not. An employee may have:
family responsibilities and be unable to work shifts, overtime, or weekends
heavy financial responsibilities which he/she can meet only by working at two jobs, which will lead to exhaustion, "sick leave", and deficient work performance
a desperate financial need for additional overtime and weekend renumeration
premature expectations of swift promotions.

Some other needs the employer can expect, for which company policies should be planned accordingly: if the company is in a remote location, all employees will have a need for more social activities many single people look for dates and spouses at worksome women may not be ready to work late shifts unless the employer provides transportation back home some workers may have a problem with drug or alcohol abuse.
In addition to needs and drives, adult workers have expectations from their employer - they expect:
a knowledgeable, experienced, expert employer
clear and fair policies, procedures, and employment practices
business integrity
clear job descriptions
two-way communications
effective management and supervision
positive discipline
good company repute
good customer relations
company survival
opportunities for personal growth
company growth
a share in the company's success.

Business owners and managers are under constant scrutiny by the people they hire. Adult workers care beyond the salary - they care to know to whom they entrust their fate, reputation, and security. They consider their work as a major factor that shapes their lives and the lives of those dear to them. Hence the scrutiny. Once they feel confident that the employer and their place of work is what they wished for and expected, they are ready to contribute above and beyond "the call of duty".

Most of these needs, expectations and aspirations are unexpressed - it is up to the employer to develop a good system of company communications, employee relations, training and development that will lead to an environment of openness, cooperation, team-work, and motivation that will benefit all the parties involved.

by Claire Belilos