The Process for Employee Alignment and Achievement

Here are ten steps to take today and in the future to align your employees so they will positively effect your bottom line while achieving their goals.

1. Separate the strategic and tactical thinking processes

2. Define the business strategy in all areas of the business (Revenue, Operations, Personnel, and Financial)

3. Make everyone aware of the business strategy and plant the seed that will allow them to achieve those goals

4. Make sure clarity of the business strategy is established for all

5. Break the Strategic Business Plan down into goals by business unit, division and/or department (Eat the Elephant in small bites)

6. Develop a goal-orientation culture within the company

7. Formulate specific, time sensitive, prioritized goals that provide each employee with a clear sight to the strategy, department goals, and reflect upon their own roles and responsibilities.

8. Let the employee develop the metrics and reporting structure that will continue to provide clarity and measure achievement

9. Set process meetings to determine your success or failure with opportunity to recommend changes demonstrating their value in the process

10. Be satisfied that the overall business strategy must be changed to reflect the highly competitive and volatile marketplace.

Funding Cutbacks Curb Achievement

Some of the new barometers for Training and Development in 2010 are starting to show signs of improvement. It sounds like we can expect to see old times again for training and development shortly. But I still feel that businesses sense the pressure of the economy. In my travels, I have not heard that many companies have opened up their training budgets. The economy certainly plays a major part of the decision making process to fund employee training. Most companies have reduced their workforce while also reducing or eliminating resources that provide learning opportunities like meetings, courses, etc.

Funding these programs and realizing the fact that training and development can often makes the difference between companies who are the industry leaders and others who are on a lower tier of success.

What has all this reduction in training and learning opportunities done for your workforce? The 2009-2010 U.S. Strategic Rewards Survey reported that employee engagement levels for key personnel dropped almost 25% as a result of restructuring, and employee benefit cutbacks, including professional development and training, indicating a significant slump in employee morale and productivity!

In most of the companies, a reduction in the workforce usually elevates the workload of the remaining staff while adding stress and frustration to those having to put in the extra time. Companies are put in position where they must start focusing on their key employees and start developing a Talent Management process that will enable them to retain their top producers and hopefully develop their high potentials. It certainly is a vicious cycle that creates a revolving door to top talent when the economy comes back.

Are you prepared for the exodus?

Leadership in business today needs to focus on their current staff and analyze their talent needs for the future. Funding for training compared to losing a key employee to the competition is nominal. The same is true compared to losing a high potential staff member that will be needed in the future. It is important that companies realize that people are applying for a position that leads to a better future and they feel it is the company’s responsibility to provide the opportunity for a career. Talent management is key to the future of all businesses and the funding for people development should never take a backseat to anything else.


Richard Hohmann
Senior Consultant
Innovative Leadership Business Consultation
Phone: 609.390.2830
E-mail: rhohmann@innovativeleadershipdv.com
Website: www.ILDV.org

Mentoring Relationships - How to Foster Them

Assigning mentors is an important way to bring new hires up-to-speed or groom promising workers for better thing. But the strategy is only as good as the relationship between mentor and mentee.

Follow this advice:
- Choose Wisely - Of course, anyone would be thrille to work with a company or industry superstar. But you should select mentors based on what they can offer a particular worker rather than their glowing reputations. Talk to perspective mentors about their backgrounds and how they got from here to there, then pair them up with workers who have similar histories. Mentees should be able to look at their mentors and envision themselves having the same success.
- Offer Instruction - Ask mentors to make first contact to avoid putting the pressure on those in the subordinate role. Request mentors dedicate uninterrupted time to working with their mentees rather than allowing meetings to be disrupted by phone calls and other distractions. Mentees should be made to feel their advisors want to help them. And you may also suggest that inital meetings take place in neutral territory, such as a conference room, so worker won't be overwhelmed by ego walls and other trappings of success.
- Follow Up - Solicit regular updates from both parties - to ensure they are in fact meeting and to learn whether the relationship is having the desired effect. Street to mentees that they should be honest regarding how they feel about the process and not fear retaliation if they'd prefer to be assigned to another mentor. If they are not benefiting from the program, it's a waste of time for everyone involved.

Adapted from "Handle the Awe Factor" by Linda Phillips-Jones

Development of Your Employees

Tough Times – Better Leadership

Tough economic conditions usually demand the need for most human resource departments to change their strategies and focus on the immediate needs like layoffs, hiring and wage freezes, reduction in benefits, and more. These are the same quick fix measures that have been used every time we slip into a downsizing mode or economic recession.

Maybe it is time for Human Resources to try alternative measures to contribute to the business objectives of the company rather than just using a band-aid that doesn’t fit. If we really believe that our people are our most valuable resource, then why are we not more concerned with the development of our future leaders and retaining our good to great employees, particularly our middle managers? For any company to weather this storm, it must develop its high potential employees and improve the productivity of its already high-achieving workforce.

Let’s just focus on two premises. The first is that employee development is the ultimate responsibility for any manager working in any organization. Those that focus on stretching people toward their potential will be the most successful managers moving forward and always have been. Second, improving individual performance and development drives business performance and result in improved organizational effectiveness. Now is the time that all Human Resource professionals need focus on their people development, succession planning, and goal-orientation.

Most people realize that being effective is more important then being efficient. HR must demonstrate how people development can produce the desired results in good times and bad. Most employees, including the HR Department, spend the majority of their time working on tasks and events that mean very little to the business strategy of the company. All employees need to spend more time on their roles and responsibilities that make a difference in the company’s achievement.

There has never been a better time to demonstrate the return of investment to your executive management team by developing the potential and leadership abilities of your people. People are your most valuable resource. It is more important than ever that the employee is viewed as a “Total Leader” and their potential growth and development is what will enable us to weather this storm and be more successful in the future.

Small Business Desired Outcomes

It has always been my philosophy to focus on the desired outcome and then determine a plan of action that will ensure business success in relation to that goal or objective. It is apparent that most businesses do not focus on the desired outcome since the majority of employees are not focused on the strategy of the company.

It is imperative that employers focus on their talent management but which of the talent management areas do we focus on first, hiring and selection, retention, engagement, or development? Forget about all the talent management trends and recommended solutions. Create an employee engagement vehicle that will provide the opportunity for the employee to focus on the strategically developed outcomes.

So, what are the challenges facing your organization in the next year or so? Do the majority of your company or corporate challenges center around revenue generation, systematic cost reduction in operating expense, profitability, customer maintenance, etc.?

Now that we understand the company or corporate challenges and we have formulated a strategy to overcome those challenges to provide the desired outcome in terms of revenue, cost reduction, personnel succession, or profitability, isn’t that when we should provide a talent management assessment.

I find that most HR Professionals either are not asking themselves the following questions or they are not being asked by the executives of their company or corporation to provide answers for those questions.

- “Do our employees feel connected to this strategically developed plan of action?” I would review the process to determine if clearly defined goals were established and how far down the organizational chart have they been presented and understood.

- “Do we have the right people in the right places to allow us to accomplish our goals and objectives moving forward?”

- “Do we have turnover concerns at any or all levels within the organization, particularly the front line?”

- “Do we have any key employees leaving the organization over the next twelve months and what does our succession plan look like with those positions?”

There is a real disconnect. When are companies or corporations going to realize that the strength of their organization is based on the strengths of the individual employee? We have not only lost focus of the desired outcome, we have lost focus on what will allow us to grow and to sustain this growth moving forward. It is the strengths of our people from the latest hire to the most senior officer.

So HR Professionals, what does your executive summary and recommendations for implementation of action plans for the strategic development process look like in terms of providing solutions to turnover, engagement, lack of talent or skills, and providing the employee with the needed resources to do the job?

The People Development and Organizational Effectiveness should start with a plan and this plan should be evaluated periodically using an assessment process that tells the company or corporation how they are doing in terms of engagement, skill development, and encouragement using strengths as a basis for success, and sharing information among peers and management to improve communication and outcomes.

The real problem in my opinion is that HR must take a proactive role in the people development and organizational effectiveness and be willing to be measured for achievement in the areas of turnover, retention, engagement, and achievement. Human Resources must exhibit their leadership skills and take charge of maximizing the effectiveness of their employees to achieve the goals and objectives of the company or corporation. Make sure your talent management processes include middle management particularly if they are the hiring manager. Remember to “eat the elephant in small bites” because when we try to eat the whole elephant in one sitting, we tend to have difficulty swallowing”. Start small and look for significant and meaningful results. Focus on the challenges and the talent needed to meet those challenges.

That’s what business is all about.