Keeping Your Valuable Talent From Leaving

With low unemployment and a growing economy, how do you keep the talent in your office from leaving your organization and finding greener pastures elsewhere?

Employees are an investment, plain and simple! Here are some of the ways an employee cost an organization money:

·         Recruiting the employee

·         Hiring the employee

·         On-boarding the employee

·         Paid time off (vacation, sick, etc.)

·         Compensation (wage, benefits, bonuses, etc.)

·         Turnover

When the country was going through a tough economy, the above list would be enough to keep most employees. However, things have changed. With low unemployment, the competition for talented and skilled employees is heating up! Employers are beginning to feel the pain in the quality and quantity of productivity as their talented and skilled employees are lured away by another organization who is offering some enticements are that too hard to pass up.

What can your organization do to keep from losing your valuable talent? Here is a list of the four main ways to keep your talent from leaving:

1. Increase Wage – Employees are not volunteers! This is important to keep in mind when considering a wage increase for an employee. This is one of the main ways your competition is able to lure amazing talent to their organization. Stay ahead of your competition and pay an employee based on the worth they are to your organization. In addition, increasing an employee’s wage demonstrates your commitment to them and an appreciation for the work they do.
2. Improved Management – This is the number one reason an employee leaves their current employer. Poor management will de-motivate an employee and make their work environment terrible to be a part of. Improve the skill level of your current managers or replace them with leaders who know how to build and strengthen a working relationship with your employees.
3. Better Benefits – Investing in a better healthcare plan, offering a more flexible schedule option, and other such ideas are ways to entice employees to stay with your organization.
4. Employee Development – One of the determining factors for employees to look for employment at another organization is the lack of professional development at their current job. Good employees want to learn new skills and develop weaker ones so that they can be more effective in their job. They also feel that developing their skills gives them an increased chance at a future promotion. When organizations do not take time to develop their employees, they are at great risk of losing their hard working employees who care about their job and the organization while only keeping the employees who are mediocre and don’t really care about much anyway.

Hiring a good employee is only the first step. In order to keep that good employee a part of your organization, it is important to invest time and resources . . . continuously. Having lesser talent within your organization will save money, but you will notice a drop in productivity, morale, and cohesiveness. As this occurs, more and more of your valuable talent will leave. You will eventually notice a big difference within your organization . . . and your customers will as well.

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Employee Breaks and Your Business

Breaks are important to your employees, but those breaks have an effect on your business.

Alice has been helping customers for nearly four hours straight. She gets into an argument with a customer. That argument escalates quickly and a supervisor then gets involved. Things are deescalated, the customer leaves angry, and Alice gets a tongue lashing from her supervisor.

The situation described above has been played out many times in many businesses. Ask yourself this question:

Who's at fault for the above situation?

Everyone will have his or her answer based on their own personal experiences and practices. My answer is simple; it is the supervisor's fault. People are human and they need to be recognized as such. Alice should have not been helping customers for nearly four hours without a break. Despise all of the training provided, it was the fault of the supervisor for not treating Alice as a human that lead to this situation.

Let's take a moment and see how employee breaks effect the business and the employees:

Effects of Breaks on Business

Employees are only productive when they are working. When employees are productive, business is able to get done. When an employee is on break, they are not being productive, but they are still getting paid (outside of a unpaid lunch break).

Effects of Breaks on Employees

When an employee goes on break, they are able to "wind down" and decompress. They take a few minutes to relax and socialize, read, get some refreshment, or step away. This helps employees feel rejuvenated and refreshed. Breaks are just as much mental as they are physical.

State laws vary with this issue. For example, one State says that an employer must give its employee a 10 minute break every four hours and a 30 minute lunch break if working more than six hours. Typical employment law does not take into account the various industries, the type of work being done, and the mental/physical stress on employees.

Perplexing Facts

• Businesses want employees to be highly productive for the maximum time possible.
• Most employees want to be highly productive and do quality work. If a business has employees that don't meet this criteria, then they should find ones who do.
• Employees are humans and humans need time to re-energize, refocus, regroup, and refresh.
• Employees who are given shorter periods of time to work between breaks are typically more productive, effective, energized, and focused. They tend to be highly productive.
• Giving employees the opportunity to be highly productive and appreciating them as humans, will improve morale and decrease turnover. This saves the business money.

In order for businesses to achieve a high level of productivity from its employees and for employees to produce at a high level with high quality work, here is my recommendation:

• Employees get a 10 minute break every 2 hours
• Employees who work 8 hours should get a 30 minute unpaid lunch break every four hours
• Employees who work six hours get one 10 minute break after two hours worked and another 20 minute food break after their next two hours

You should always check with local state laws before creating a break policy. In addition, some flexibility should be considered based on industry and type of work.

If a business treats their employees well, then it is more likely that those employees will treat the customers well!

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5 Characteristics of A Winning Culture

What difference does culture make in an organization?

Organizational culture is defined as: the values and behaviors that contribute to the unique social and psychological environment of an organization.

The effects of culture on an organization's success or failure cannot be over stated. Here are two examples:

In 1958, the Green Bay Packers had 1 victory, 10 losses, and 1 tie. Needless to say, the season was a complete failure. At the end of that season, Green Bay fired their coach and hired somebody who had never been a Pro Football Head Coach, Vince Lombardi. When Vince Lombardi came to Green Bay, he was determined to make the organization into a winning organization. This transformation started with and ended with changing the culture of the Green Bay Packers. Here are the things Coach Lombardi did:

• He got rid of poor performing players and brought in better performing players.
• He instilled in his players a winning attitude.
• He encouraged the players to work hard and showed them the amazing results that come from hard work.
• He helped his players have better focus in accomplishing their goals.
• He found within the team natural leaders and put them in place where they could have the most influence.

Over the next 9 years, the Green Bay Packers won 5 NFL Championships and 2 Super Bowls. It is clear, that the turnaround of the Green Bay Packer culture was a complete success. The Green Bay Packer organization now had a winning culture.

In a more recent example, the Denver Broncos recently won the Super Bowl. How did this happen? Only five years earlier, the Denver Broncos had a record of 4 wins and 12 losses. They had a loosing culture within their organization. After that terrible season ended, John Elway was hired as the Vice President of Operations. During Elway's earlier days as the Bronco's Quarterback and leader, he was part of a winning culture. Elway and the Broncos went to five Super Bowls and won two of those five. He was part of a winning organization. His task now was to bring back the winning culture to the Denver Broncos. Here are the things John Elway did:

• He got rid of poor performing players and brought in better performing players.
• He instilled in his organization an aggressive and physical style of play and thus improving the teams attitude.
• He encouraged the players to work hard and showed them the amazing results that come from hard work.
• He helped his team have better focus in accomplishing their goals.
• He found natural leaders and put them in place where they could have the most influence.

The similarities between Green Bay's cultural turnaround and Denver's is consistent with the methods an organization can use in instilling a winning culture within itself. Here are the five characteristics of a winning culture:

1. High Quality Employees - Low performing employees who are not dedicated to the success of an organization, should not be a part of it. In order to improve the quality of employees, it is important to find the ones that have the right skill set, talent, knowledge, work ethic, and attitude. This type of employee will have a positive effect on others around them.
2. Attitude -  It is important for employees to have a winning attitude. When employees are positive and truly believe in what they are doing, it will show in their quality of work and interactions.
3. Work Ethic - Employers need to encourage and reward hard work through promotions and other incentives. If an organization wants its employees to work hard, then it needs to demonstrate the results of hard work and the great results that come from it.
4. Focus - Having employees coming to work truly focused on the goals of the organization and what they need to do in order to accomplish those goals is a wonderful and unique thing to have. Look for and promote those employees. Employees that only come to work to "punch-in and punch-out" have no place in a winning culture.
5. Leadership - The employees that are put into leadership positions, should embody the qualities that the organization is looking to develop within its culture. This is a critical component of developing a winning culture. It is the leaders within the organization that help drive and mold the desired culture.

Does the culture of an organization make a difference? Yes, it is the biggest determining factor between success and failure. Does the culture of your organization embody the characteristics of a winning culture? If not, start making the necessary changes to help your organization have a winning culture!

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5 Steps to an Effective Performance Management Program

Annual appraisals are only one aspect of effective performance management

Jackie walked apprehensively into her supervisors office. They were meeting to discuss her annual appraisal. She was nervous about what her supervisor would discuss with her. During their meeting, Jackie and her supervisor discussed things that occurred during the past year that had effected Jackie's' overall performance. Often, Jackie would try to recall the various instances, but so much time had passed that she could not remember the exact details the same way her supervisor did. As the meeting went on, Jackie began to feel defensive and irritated. Finally, the meeting was drawing to a close and Jackie had already checked-out mentally. She was done with this meeting and just wanted to get back to work. Here supervisor handed her a list of areas Jackie was to work on improving in her assigned position at the company. Jackie took the list, shook her supervisors hand, and walked back to her desk feeling a bit flustered by the whole experience. She put the list of areas to improve in her drawer and never looked at it again. She went back to work, relived that she would not have to go through that again for another year.

What is performance management?
Performance management is about establishing a shared understanding, between the employee and employer, about what is to be achieved at an organizational level. It is about aligning the organizations objectives and expectations with the employees skills, competency requirements, and resources in order to achieve a desired result. With performance management, the emphasis is on improvement, learning, development, and reaching set goals in order to create a highly productive workforce.

Annual appraisals
It is important to understand that annual appraisals are only a part of a overall performance management strategy. However, far too often, many organizations hold these annual meetings as their entire performance management process. Annual appraisals are often perceived as a painful process, by both participants, that result in no real change or improvement in employee performance. By only having annual appraisals, results in unintentional outcomes:

• Too painful, emotionally charged
• Poor understanding of expectations
• Misdirected bonuses (favorable review, but organizational goals not met)
• Poorly timed
• Subjective supervisor opinion
• Missed development opportunities

Effective performance management

Performance management, when done correctly, effectively links the organizations plans and goals with the employees individual performance. When an employees individual performance helps an organization achieve its goals, that employee would then be rewarded with favorable reviews and possible bonuses that are in-line with the employees performance and contribution. Here is a basic outline of a performance management program:

1. Initial Meeting - Face-to-face planning meeting between the supervisor and the employee. During this meeting, the supervisor and the employee will work together to establish objectives, development plan, and a competency review for the next 365 days.
2. Continuous focus - During the next six months, both the supervisor and the employee should be taking notes independently documenting performance milestones, progression, and set-backs.
3. Interim review - An abbreviated meeting should be held between the supervisor and the employee to measure progression toward the objectives as discussed in the initial meeting. This is also an opportunity to discuss any updates or changes to the objectives based on any change of the overall organizational goal. In addition, this is the time to discuss any additional resources or training the employee might need in order to reach the objective within the next six months.
4. Continuous focus - During the next six months, both the supervisor and the employee should be taking notes independently documenting performance milestones, progression, and set-backs.
5. Final review - At the end of the 365 day period, the supervisor and the employee will meet to determine if the objectives set during the initial meeting were met. If the objectives were met, then the supervisor would have some form of recognition for the employee upon meeting their objective. If the objectives were not met, then the supervisor and the employee would discuss the nature of the objective and if it was obtainable. In addition, a discussion about available resources and training would also take place at this time. This is not a meeting where only the supervisor does the talking. The determination of meeting the objective should be discussed and decided upon by both the supervisor and the employee. If the supervisor does not feel that the objective was met, but the employee does, then their was a communication gap during the initial meeting and the interim review.

Outcomes of an effective performance management program

There are clear signs of an effective performance management program within an organization:

• Communication improves
• Everyone knows the objectives and expectations
• Improved documentation
• Reduction of stress
• Final review (appraisal) becomes relevant and effective
• Learning and development becomes part of the organizational culture

The difference between a standalone annual appraisal and a performance management program is striking. Improving employee morale, reduced turnover, promoting the right people into the right positions, earned job performance recognition, and growing employee skill sets are but a few of the results that will occur when an organization has an effective performance management program in place.

For more information, please feel free to email support@hcsiinc.com

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Economic Growth Fuels High Employee Turnover

With the economy on the upturn, talent retention is coming to the forefront for employers

A New York Times article cites the 2015 Deloitte survey of more than 3,300 business and HR leaders in 106 countries that found retaining talent was seen as the most important challenge, edging out developing leadership, which has been a long-time top concern.

Also, a study from Spherion of 225 HR managers mentioned in the Times article said far fewer employers were concerned about employee costs in 2015 compared to 2014. One-third of managers, however, said that after finding skilled workers, which is the #1 concern, came turnover and retention. Last year, only 25% had the same concern.

“It’s the No. 1 issue for H.R. professionals,” Chason Hecht, president of Retensa, an employee retention consulting firm, told the Times. Hecht said the problem was “pervasive across industries, but some are hit harder than others”, like healthcare. For healthcare, the main challenge is sourcing and keeping workers to serve an increasingly aging population, who have more health-related issues.

“In my experience, doing this for 15 years, this is the first time it has scored this high,” Josh Bersin, founder of the research firm Bersin by Deloitte and one of the report’s authors, told the Times.

Hayes MacArthur, an HR executive from EisnerAmper, an accounting firm with a workforce of more than 1,300, told the Times that apart from strategies such as reinventing performance reviews and doing exit interviews, one effective strategy is following up with departed talent months later to try to see if they will return to the fold. “When someone returns, it sends a great message to the rest of the firm,” he told the Times.

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