Feedback - The Key to Employee Engagement

The real key to engagement, emotional intelligence, is understanding how to communicate according to the behavioral style of the person you are talking to. It is important that feedback becomes the mainstay of any communication within an organization. It is a two-way dialog that is the responsibility of both the manager and the employee to provide feedback in a timely manner that can support the company in this highly competitive world. Proper feedback can provide enhancements in policy and procedure, quality assurance, rapid responses to customer needs, and much more.

Here are a few guidelines for proper feedback:

How to Motivate Employees in an Average Busy Day of a Manager

An average manager's day consists of meetings and conference calls with senior members and handling employee concerns on top of everyday responsibilities. Days running long and lunches quickly eaten, one of the most important tasks that a manager needs to focus on is motivating their team.

How do you accomplish this with so many other tasks to focus on? Two "simple" words. Employee Engagement. Stop telling employees what they have to do, and instead tell them why the company's success is dependent on them performing at their highest level. The following are a few steps to implement today for higher employee engagement:

• Ask for Employee Input - Use surveys, or simply ask if they see something that they could do differently and more effectively in their every day tasks.
• Recognize Employees - Do this on a normal basis, monthly or quarterly. This engages and encourages employees, even if their not the one recognized because it shows that there is a level of engagement from the company.
• Promote and Plan for Individual Goals - Personal goals, with follow up, gives the company an overall productivity boost.

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Our "Making of an Effective Manager Course", Voted the #1 Management Development Program by Entrepreneur Magazine, is just a vehicle that shows Managers how to engage employees and become more productive. (See Below for More Details) Your middle management delivers your desired outcome by implementing the business strategy and engaging the workforce by demonstrating their value to the designed outcome. Our Course provides a better understanding of the problem with the methods for providing solutions, and the need for demonstrating the appropriate behaviors to elevate the productivity and performance of your people and company

Learn More or Enroll Your Middle Management Team Now and see the difference.

Do you have trust in your company?

96% of engaged employees trust their leaders vs
46% of the disengaged employees trust their leaders

I was reading an article this past weekend where it refers to a Gallup poll that estimates that 71 percent of employees are not “engaged” on the job. This result tells me that employees have lost their motivation to give 100%. Disengaged employees believe that their time and energy is being wasted on others and they're working to fulfill the goals and dreams of others and not theirs.

It is no longer about the shareholder ROI but it is all about me, the employee. It is time for the employee to get motivated. Motivation is internal and we have to create a work environment that allows the employee to be motivated to take an action that will demonstrate his or her “all” and insure that the employer gets the ROI.

Employers and employees both have expectations, yet rarely are they on the same page.

Management reSOLUTIONS for 2012

Managers - Have you set your reSOLUTIONS for 2012 yet? It's not too late. Here are 15 suggestions for a more productive workplace and higher employee engagement!

1. Be a More Effective Listener and a Better Story Teller
2. Provide Feedback in a Timely Manner
3. Get to Know Your People as More Than Employees
4. Learn to Delegate and Begin to Cross Train
5. Focus on Diversity and Inclusion for Productivity
6. Be More Goal-Oriented
7. Tie Your Corporate Business Strategy in with People's Values
8. Be Consistent with Your Performance Management Process
9. Realize Your Primary Role is to Develop People
10. Prioritize Your Roles and Responsibilities Daily
11. Manage Your Email and Turn Off Message Alerts
12. Be Positive - Learn to have a "Positude"
13. Find Opportunities to "Stretch" Your Skill Set
14. Schedule Time with Yourself, Don't Multi-Task
15. Establish Trust as the Foundation for All You Do!
    

HR reSOLUTIONS for 2012

It's not too late to start implementing reSOLUTIONS into your daily activities as a Human Resources professional. Here are 15 suggestions to get you started on a new and exciting path:

1. Increase Employee Engagement
2. Reduce Stress in the Workplace
3. Get a Grasp on Social Networking
4. Increase the Use of Temporary and Part-Time Employees
5. Be the Point Person for Succession Planning (Be prepared for Those in Retirement Age)
6. Integrate Strategy with People Value
7. Make HR a Strategic Partner
8. Manage Change in Culture and Growth
9. Focus on Employee Relations
10. Provide Legal Updates to Managers and CEO's
    
11. Develop a Performance Management Process
12. Establish Coaching and Mentoring Programs for Employee Retention
13. Develop a Leadership Program
14. Create an Onboarding Process vs. Orientation
15. Tie in Your Recruitment Practices with Strategy, Culture, Mission and Vision
    

How to Show Gratitude in the Workplace

Originally Found on GreatWorkplace.Wordpress.com

Does your organization have a culture of gratitude? Each day there are countless opportunities to show gratitude to others in the workplace. Supervisors, leaders, and coworkers can all help build a culture of gratitude by acknowledging the contributions of those around them in specific and genuine ways. Here are some ways to foster gratitude in the workplace:

1. Formal recognition programs are a common way employers build a culture of gratitude in the workplace. Formal annual, quarterly, monthly, or even weekly awards can help build a culture of recognizing the behaviors and results your organization seeks.
2. Having a method of peer recognition is important in developing appreciation among coworkers. Create a program or initiative that encourages peers to recognize and thank one another for their help.
3. On-the-spot rewards and recognition allow employees to be recognized at any time by supervisors, management, or even peers through some small reward, such as a gift card, ticket to local event, or other valued recognition. Spontaneous rewards and recognition can be welcome surprises for employees.

Beyond Performance - Leaders Get Results!

I really encourage everyone in a leadership role to read, "Beyond Performance: How Great Organizations Build Ultimate Competitive Advantage" by Colin Price, Scott Keller. Their book focuses on organizational health, which they define as the ability of any organization to align, execute, and renew itself faster than your competitors can. According to the authors, as we work more and socialize less, our sense of meaning and identity is increasingly derived from the workplace. More and more people are looking for that sense of “belonging, which was originally defined by Maslow’s Hierarchy of Need.

Job satisfaction in the US has dropped from 61% in 1987 to less than 45% in 2009. Productivity during the same period has increased more slowly than in any fifteen year period since 1950.

As our economies emerge from the recession, the ability to lead and manage organizations in a way that motivates employees to be more productive than ever is extremely important. In other words, the health of any organization must encompass all the human elements required to achieve sustainable success.

The process for organizational health is defined by the authors as the Five A’s;

Talk Tough to a Poor Performer

Delivering negative feedback is one of the toughest jobs managers face. So they avoid the issue, hoping that performance problems will evaporate on their own. They won't. Here are some tips that will make delivering feedback a bit easier:

• Stay away from ancient history - Some managers allow a subordinate to mess up a few times without saying anything. Then, they explode with a list of offenses a mile long. It's better to address each incident as it happens or let it go. Read "Good Boss Bad Boss" by Robert Sutton
  
• Be clear, but not combative - Don't dance around the problem. When you discipline a subordinate, both of you should walk away with a clear understanding of the issue and an action plan for a solution.
  
• Don't act overly optimistic - or the employee will come away with the feeling that everything is ok. You need to convey the seriousness of the feedback you're delivering and the ramifications if the person doesn't improve.

Adapted from "Delivering Bad News with Grace and Effectiveness" Emory Mulling - Atlanta Business Chronicle

Every great athlete has a coach, so should every top business performer. Coaching can help get you to a higher level of performance or it can help you achieve your goal in a more timely fashion. Contact Innovative Leadership for Business Coaching for CEO's, Management, and Teams. More info

Seven Questions that Demonstrate Engagement

After reading the “The Why of Work: How Great Leaders Build Abundant Organizations that Win, Susan R. Meisinger, former CEO of the Society for Human Resource Management, comments in an article that the difficulty that organizations face when trying to engage people who are all motivated by different things, is to shift your view of engagement from not simply “being present” but look at engagement as “being emotionally and socially present”. She feels if HR wants to help their leadership team and employees find greater meaning in their roles within the company, they need to do more than ensure that everyone has a best friend at work or has been coached about their future career with the last 60 days.

I agree with Susan that HR professionals who are charged with elevating employee engagement need to read this book to better understanding of the why’s of the seven questions. The book will offer them new insights into ways to increase their own engagement – or to increase the abundance in their lives – and increasing the value they bring to their own organization. As Susan states, it’s engagement with a different view.

So when are you going out on into the workplace to ask these questions?

1. Who am I?

2. Where am I going?

3. Whom do I travel with?

4. How do I build a positive work environment?

5. What challenges interest me?

6. How do I change, learn and grow?

7. What delights me?

It’s time to learn if we do have an engaged workforce or not…..Get moving.

The questions listed above were presented in a recent book by Dave and Cindy Ulrich, The why of Work: How Great Leaders Build Abundant Organizations that Win; their book focuses on how leaders engage their workforce but also their customers, vendors, community and investors.

What is the biggest Leadership Obstacle to Middle Management?

I am starting to realize that the biggest obstacle to middle management is without question, senior management. Most managers today show a greater loyalty to their department while the loyalty and respect for senior management is waning. The result becomes a real disconnect between upper and middle management. This disconnect is directly related to employee engagement.

Upper management is responsible for providing the direction of the company. This strategic responsibility is quite a task but senior management expects total commitment to the vision, mission, and strategic business objectives from their middle management and all employees and it is unreal. This lack of commitment is demonstrated in most employee surveys or employee engagement data. It is well documented that the American worker tends to trust their immediate supervisor as opposed to the company’s senior leaders.

How to Provide Direction to Middle Management:

1. Senior officers, you need get out of your office and be with your day to day decision makers - In a previous article, I noted that observation and open discussion with managers and staff are competencies or skills that senior managers tend to avoid. Senior management must eliminate the lack of trust and to do that they must inspire their management team and staff to believe in the direction, etc. Getting buy in from your middle management team is imperative for sustained growth.
2. Mentor middle management - The middle managers must feel appreciated and the best way to do that is to be mentored by a senior manager, which moves the mid-level manger toward the strategy side of the equation. The middle management of any organization must comprehend the business strategy for them to be able translate the direction that is easily understood by the entire work force. If this cascading flow of communication gets interrupted, then it becomes impossible for anyone within any organization to connect the dots resulting in employee disengagement.
3. Develop middle management - It is well documented what skills and competencies are needed for managers to be high achievers; but when I talk to most middle managers, they tell me that they have had little or no formal training. We are entrusting the success of our companies to people who do not know what it takes to provide positive feedback, cascading communication channels, an engaging work environment and everything else it takes to make a successful company. We assume that exemplary performance at a lower level or specific role will automatically make them highly productive managers.

I hate to tell you but leaders and great managers are made not born. In most employee surveys and/or engagement data, we find that most concerns of employees focus on their immediate supervisor not doing what they should be doing….communicating the business strategy while translating it to define the full value of everyone’s role, responsibility, and actions needed to create a successful company.

With the rapid departing of the baby boomers and disengagement still hovering around 30 percent, isn’t it time to focus on developing your future leaders. This leadership must be developed in the middle of the company and mentored upward so that the strategy and implantation will always do exactly what it is intended to do……bring the desired results.

Now is the time for senior management to act and gain success in their company through developing their management and then the middle management’s individual productivity results in organizational effectiveness. It’s not magic but it is a necessity.

Article written by Richard J. Hohmann Jr., Lead Coach for Innovative Leadership, a strategic partner with Fitzpatrick, Bongiovanni, & Kelly, PC, and also a member of the Collaboration Team for Leadership Management International. Richard can also speak at your next organization’s meeting, to invite him to speak call 609-390-2830. For Management Training Solutions click here: http://www.innovativeleadershipdv.com/training_overview.asp

Managers: Ask for Bad News

Don't allow bad news to blindside you. If you do, you'll have to shift priorities ina hurry to handle any promlems that arise unexpectedly.

Here are some tips to ensure you get the bad news in time to do something about it:

• Develop Independent sources of information. Cultivate informal contacts elsewhere in your organization. Take customer calls at the call center. Talk to your front-line staff.
  
• Push for depth. Does one element of a report seem a little off? Search for the reason why. That "off" fact or figure could alert you to a major problem.
  
• Create a "truth-telling" culture. Assign a "worse-case scenario" team to every analysis. Get everyone used to "facing the truth." Caution: Truth telling doesn't mean shooting down less than perfect ideas.
  
• Take action. If what your staff tell you just languishes, they won't come forward. Mobilize your resources and tackle the problem immediately.

Adapted from "How to Get Bad News to the Top" by Scott Kirsner

Talent Management Means Competent Leadership

Talent Management is an entity that has been slowly evolving within many corporations. Most corporations list the following practices as part of their overall program:

• High potential employee development
• Leadership Development
• Professional Development
• Succession Planning
• Career Planning
• Learning and Training
• Performance Management
• Competency Management
• Retention
• Employee Engagement

Talent Management should concern itself with competencies. Companies should focus on the competencies that make a difference today and will continue to make a difference tomorrow. It means fitting the “right person” to the “right job” and then measuring their impact on the company’s strategy or goals.

In simplest of terms, Talent Management is people development associated with organizational effectiveness. Your middle management controls what employees stay and what employees leave. Your good employees will leave if you don't have a competent manager.

Most companies do not have a clue about what Talent Management means to them and what competencies will provide sustained growth and success. It is important that they focus on their Strategic Development plan now and don’t wait until it is too late. Too late that they do not have the people who are able to learn and perform the roles and responsibilities needed for sustained growth. Do we have the people that can respond to the rapidly changing, highly competitive marketplace?

Most companies have not yet assessed the talent within their organization. How can the learning and training components be applied when you don’t know what is needed to develop the people? People are starting to talk about succession planning only because a lot of key people are leaving the workforce for retirement or alternative careers. I joined a pharmaceutical company in the late sixties and within three weeks, the company has decided that I was a “High Potential”….an HP as we called it back then. A fast track of combined learning and training programs were laid out before me while at the same time, my performance was monitored as if I was under the microscope. It appears that many companies have strayed away from labeling “high potentials” and providing a program to accelerate their careers within the company. Now, I know many companies have accelerated programs and call these designated potential leaders something, like top producers, achievers, or whatever.

It just seems like the same old story. We have been concerned about this problem for many, many years but we have done nothing to provide a fully integrated set of human resource functions that can be called a people development process. We hesitate to assess anyone or anything because it will cause conflict and we can’t have conflict when we need to retain good talent.

Is Talent Management really meeting the needs of most companies? What are we waiting for? The leadership of our companies must step up and focus on a Strategic Development Plan that includes people, processes, and performance. The integration of those three entities often results in employee engagement, motivation, and success.

Human Resources in many companies is defined as the human capital experts. So, when are these so-called experts going to jump up and down and give their leadership team a real assessment of the culture, the people, and the potential to more forward while sustaining growth and reaching goals? It will probably be when all the talent has left.

Nine Tactics to Boost Employee Morale

One of a manager's most important jobs is to keep spirits up in the workplace. With stress levels at an all time high, this isn't always easy to do. However, there are some strategies you can use that will get the job done - - without hurting your budget!

1. Sponsor a "Noon Movie". Once a week, depending on employee schedules, set up a DVD in the lunchroom and show a funny movie during lunch. If time is limited, show reruns of Seinfield, Frazier, or other situation comedies.
   
2. Set up a "Humor Corner". Designate one section of the office as the place for humor and encourage employees to post cartoons, jokes, or other funny material.
   
3. Get out of the Office! Whenever possible, hold meetings outside the office - at the coffee show down the street or at a local restaurant. If weather premits, don't be afraid to hold meetings outside from time to time.
   
4. Liven up your memos. Buy a book of one liners, and include a joke at the bottom of your memos.
   
5. Run a "Guess the Baby" contest. Ask the staff to bring in baby photos and post them on the wall. Award a free lunch to the employee who can guess who's who.
   
6. Have "Late Day Mondays". If possible, once a month allow your employees to arrive an hour late on Monday morning - or leave an hour early on a Friday.
   
7. Take pictures! Every office has an aspiring photographer. Ask that person to take candid shots of employees, and add them to the "Humor Corner".
   
8. Play with the dress code. If your culture allows it, hold an "Ugly Sweater", "Ugly Tie", or "Ugly Pants" day. Award prizes for the winners.
   
9. Bring your smile to work. You'll be surprised at the difference it makes. If the manager consistenly has an upbeat attitude, that staff will as well.

** from The Manager's Intelligence Report

Achieve Greatness - Each Employee has a Major Impact on the Bottom Line

Today I visited several companies of various sizes in a variety of industries and I would like to tell you that it is not a very bright picture for Strategically-Oriented Human Resource Professionals. The majority of executives continue to have an “accountant” attitude toward business. . .cut costs. . .cut expenses. . .cut people. . .more cuts.

I even heard of one CFO that feels people development is a waste of time and doesn’t have any understanding of the ramifications of almost 65% of his management team is retiring in less than 24 months! Forget succession planning; let’s just go with massive hiring and selection without talent development. Other HR Professionals that I visited today are now back to only performing a variety of administrative duties and no longer have a budget for people development or anything else for that matter. On my next to my last call, I visited with an HR professional whose executive management team anointed her the saver of the company. She was told that they wanted her to be part of the executive leadership team in the development of a new management team that would take the company to the next level. I cannot tell you how much fun it was to sit and listen to her plans and ideas for accomplishing her goal.

Upon arriving home, I became I read on an article titled, "Alignment Drives Employee Engagement and Productivity" available from Taleo Research. It points out that the HR role is key in driving the process and selecting the tools needed to achieve alignment. It also demonstrates that statistically most managers do not see HR as being up to the task. In the majority of companies I visited today, their managers felt that way as well.

The fact of the matter is HR cannot execute the strategy without the commitment of the front line managers. Most HR professionals would also agree that aligning talent to business, providing current job roles and responsibilities, and measuring performance creates an environment where the employee’s passion for the business can grow and drive the overall performance of their company.

Isn’t it time for the executives and cave dwellers to wake up? Numerous studies have proven that goal alignment and engagement improve productivity and company performance. When your employee is engaged, and aligned, each employee can have a major impact on the bottom line of a business.

Engagement improves productivity, creates top performers, and improves employee retention while alignment ties the business strategy to personal goals, improves engagement and promotes achievement. But we must be forward thinkers and align the two; it provides focus and a clear line of sight for all involved while decreasing lost productivity and increases revenue per employee. The impact of all of this lies in productivity and process improvement, risk reduction and organizational impacts.

So what’s left for us to do; train the management and employees to be better goal setters? It is believed that only 15% of all employees really think that their goals will help them achieve great things. An employee achieving great things will impact the bottom line and insure that the company is achieving great things. Your front line managers define the culture for achievement and the employee demonstrates that a results-oriented company will achieve greatness.

Engage and Align Your Employees with Your Business Strategy

How do you engage and align employees and how do you go about it? Employee engagement is achieved by strengthening and developing the competencies and skill sets of your people coupled with a communication plan to clarify both the business strategy and workplace expectations.

That’s a tall order, you say? Here are 10 steps that can help you improve your employee engagement:

1. Focus on Development of a Communication Plan – this plan of action enables everyone to understand the overall business objectives and how their role and responsibilities relate to the strategy of your business.

2. Focus on Responsibility, Accountability and Self-Empowerment – encourage individual ownership of a project or task, and have each of your employees design a plan of action that will create the willingness by all to be held accountable.

3. Create a Goal and Results-Oriented Culture.

4. Use Appropriate Metrics to Measure Progress – Use a tiered system of goal-orientation both upward and downward toward your businesses goals.

5. Ensure Consistency by Thinking in 3’s – Three goals relative to the company, each department, and each person.

6. Monitor – Review compliance of the goal-oriented process and the results at all levels helps maintain your culture of goals.

7. Identify performance gaps – When a gap is spotted, determining which learning and training initiatives to focus on makes decisions easier.

8. Review Your Performance Management Process – Ensure your process maximizes the use of individual development plans to reinforce the overall goal-orientation plans.

9. Create an Internal Employee Action Marketing Plan – This compliments the achievement of your business strategy.

10. Revisit the Vision, Mission, and Purpose of Your Company - Upgrade if necessary.


It is important that HR Professionals focus on the Five C’s of Engagement to gain alignment. If you focus on the Five C's , you will certainly give your company the “Slight Edge”. In other words, a competitive advantage in this highly competitive global marketplace. It is time to realize that people can make the difference but only if they are totally engaged.


Richard Hohmann
Senior Vice President
Innovative Leadership
Phone: 609.390.2830
Cell: 609.980.0086
rohmann@innovativeleadershipdv.com

Five C's of Employoee Engagement

It is important that HR Professionals focus on the Five C’s of Engagement to gain alignment:

1. Connection - An organization must demonstrate employee focused initiatives by their management team.

2. Communication - Management must communicate more effectively with their staff to both clarify the position of the company in relation to the business strategy but also clarify the workplace expectations of each and every employee

3. Career - Management must encourage personal and career development in each and every employee centered around both advancement and reaching potential

4. Compliance - Management must provide feedback to all employees in a timely manner and be consistent with their adherence to processes, policies and procedures.

5. Celebration - Management must not only allow for individual contribution and self-empowerment but celebrate success with appropriate recognition and praise.

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

Real People Challenges, What are They?

I have walked away after listening to people talk about our region with a “doom and gloom” attitude. According to the Center for Regional & Business Research located at Atlantic Cape Community College, the “Baby Boomers” will be changing the market and not necessarily for the better. Boomers are buying second homes that they are not renting. In some towns like Sea Isle City, over 79% of the homes are for vacation or second homes and it estimated that 85% of these homes will not be rented. Starting in three years, “Boomers” will be retiring at a 10 million clip per year for the next ten years. Many will continue to work but will work only where and when they want to work. This will leave us with a lot of part-time employees that require flex-time as a benefit. We will be at their scheduling mercy. The Department of Labor has been forecasting a major labor shortage of young people to fill our ranks with a $10M deficit around the year 2010. So let’s get going. Where? I do not know.

In an interview The Conference Board of Canada conducted with leading management guru, Dave Ulrich, he emphasized that the 21^st century will belong to human resources and to organizational capabilities. I agree with him as did the Conference Board of Canada. For the first time in the history of management, it is the human mind that is the primary creator of value. The quality of people and their engagement will be critical factors in both corporate and small business vitality and survival.

Companies must start building their leadership pipeline by formulating a developmental plan for its people. Leadership must be considered a role rather than a function, and individuals within a company must be called upon to exercise leadership within their spheres of influence internally. Succession planning by position and defining the importance of that position to the overall success of the company is a must. What is your succession plan for the future development of your company? What does it look like?

No market is more competitive than ours for employees. No market is more competitive than ours for management talent. In a tight labor market, like the one in which we are about to enter, a strong employment brand identity must be present. You will have to capture a larger portion of the employee mindshare by setting your company apart from the competition by branding your attractiveness to engagement. You will have to make sure that your employees are engaged and that they understand the real purpose of the organization. In our management development courses, we talk about “connecting the dots” for all employees within the company. Managers must exhibit the ways and means to motivate employees to become engaged and make sure at the same time they are connected to the mission and vision of the company. It is even more important that they understand the purpose. We need to provide an environment where the rate of learning exceeds the rate of change. Not an easy task even for the high achieving manager.

This culture of engagement and purpose can be achieved if we hire the “right person” for this culture. As business owners, we need to develop a Hiring and Selection Process that both demonstrates the flavor of our company in terms of a “brand” that attracts the candidate that is the “right person” for the position. What does your Hiring and Selection Process look like? You better get ready soon because us “Boomers” are coming!

Author: Richard J. Hohmann Jr.
P:(609) 390-2830
E-mail: rhohmann@innovativeleadershipdv. com

Do you have the right focus?

It seems like the HR professional must continue the fight for training and development since it does not appear that the CEO has realized the value of training to the company or organization.

Companies focus on profits, stock prices, and performance, but not on employees. How do we forget to see the value in our people, particularly our key employees, when it comes to celebrating our business outcomes? Studies have shown that companies that invest more heavily in training and development have been more successful in achieving their defined outcomes.

Many of the recent studies have concluded that a more engaged workforce provides enhanced performance and improved productivity. Companies with a more engaged workforce seldom have morale issues. “In the 21st century, our natural resource is our people – and their potential is untapped and vast. Skills will unlock that potential.” (Leitch Review, December 2006) Even with the economic climate of the past year or two, it has been demonstrated that training expenditures were a strong predictor of stock prices.

So where is the hidden agenda? Is any CEO really interested in the productivity and developing the potential of their people or is the real objective of only reducing cost associated with people including the people themselves. I have seen a decrease in revenue of less than 10%, yet the company has reduced its labor forces by almost 30%.

Training the management of any organization will certainly prove to make the organization more effective. People are looking for advancement and an opportunity to develop skills to assist with their upward mobility. They want feedback immediately from their supervisor and they want to work in an environment that supports their development. The social culture that is presented today by companies is very important to the millennial generation. Many believe that a budget for employee development indicates whether a company is in it for the long haul or not.

If we expect to retain our top producers in the management positions, we better make sure that they have the skills and competencies to work with four generations of workers. This ensures that knowledge is shared, cross-training is completed and the work is getting done in a timely fashion. We need to teach our management team that communication is the key to people success and that success can only be achieved if we develop people’s potential and focus on productivity and performance, and not just trying to reduce costs. Reducing training budgets can be detrimental.

We are fortunate that the economy has kept the Baby Boomers in the workforce but how long will that last? It looks like we will be left with an untrained workforce that doesn’t like to communicate with others. It sure sounds like it might not be the best time to be in a management position.

Come on Mr. CEO; listen to your People Developer. Investing in your management team will produce an improved bottom line. If you don’t believe that training and development can affect the bottom line, just look at how the reduction in their training budget prepared Wachovia for the merger with Wells Fargo. Their training budget was reduced by over 50% and their stock fell as much as 95% before the bank finally agreed to the merge. Helping people reach their potential, coupled with effective processes and procedures can certainly affect the effectiveness of the organization.

The time to train is now and please pass this on to the decision makers in your company!

When will we understand?

I conducted an informal survey and found that most managers do not understand what their most important function is at work. Most managers feel that their most important function is to provide revenue, reduce costs or maintain margins. They do not realize that those things come from the results being produced by the organization through its people and processes not through anything else. Those metrics usually reflect the effectiveness of the organization.

So what makes an organization effective? Plain and simple; when a company focuses on it’s people and there is enhanced performance and improved productivity. In an article that I recently read, it was noted that in the software development industry, turnover rates approached 20%. Yet one company is that industry exhibited less than a 5% turnover! Imagine the savings to the company in terms of time saved in recruiting, training, and just plain managing.

We continue to find that middle management is most important ingredient to preserve good to great employees. First, an employee’s boss is the company to them and they will leave if they don’t receive positive feedback from the boss. Secondly, positive feedback must be timely. Most managers don’t realize that their role must be focused on their people and their performance is a direct reflection of their people’s success. People need to be engaged and if they aren’t engaged, they move on to another job. People will not stay in a job where engagement is not fulfilled, period. So what are you doing about it?

Your primary role as a manager is the development of your people. The CEO, President, HR Professional, and any decision maker in the company must realize that management training is the most important ingredient they can provide because the managers’ tasks revolve around making sure their people are well served and they understand the value of their work. If you don’t have an engaged workforce, then you have a workforce with their eyes on the door. Most managers do not exhibit good interpersonal skills with their staff but companies still are not responding to their training needs.

Please forward this article to back up the need for training.