6 Tips for Managers on Employee Relations

1.     Establish a Framework of Trust – it is imperative that the leadership exhibit behaviors and actions in the workplace that are consistent and fair.  It is important that you address their needs in a candid, reliable and consistent manner. 

2.     Clarify your Expectations – Define your expectations in a manner in which people can understand and be willing to compromise if found to be overzealous with your projections.  People know that they are being asked to do more with less but be reasonable in your expectations of them and they will be fair in their evaluation of you.

3.     Focus on your People’s Strengths – contrary to popular belief, the most valuable asset of your organization is not your people; it is the strengths of your people.  Making sure that the talents of your people are maximized to reach their potential in an integral component of a high achieving organization.

4.     Communication Channels must be Open – focus on all aspects of your communication including your non-verbal skills and make sure all your vehicles for communicating with the workforce reflect a positive yet realistic design for success.

5.     Use Delegation as a learning Experience – delegate the workload to the people that want to learn and develop.  Provide the instructions and demonstrate the skill-sets that will make them successful with the assignment and monitor their progress while being in a supportive role from start to finish.

6.     Invest in Development – People development should be the primary responsibility of anyone in a leadership role.  Managers must make sure that the work environment is conducive for growth and development.  An employee relation is helping people reach their potential enabling them to be satisfied with their career pathway.

At Innovative Leadership, we believe that the growth and development of people can make a difference with the success of your organization.  Click Here or Call 609.390.2830 for more information on our Training and Development Courses

There's No "ME" in Training, But There is "ROI"

Many people believe that our economic vitality depends on having a skilled and experienced workforce. It is being reported that too many young people are unprepared to succeed in a knowledge-driven global economy. A broad skills gap that already exists in our nation is contributing in one new report calls the “great divide” between what a worker has to offer and what employers expect and demand. The substandard consequences are real and are growing worse.

The real problem is that many of us are asking, “How do we improve the skills of future workers while developing our own talent pipelines?”

Time Management Tip

Peak performance in the work environment is usually pre-determined.

Last month, an employee survey revealed that the majority of employees (over 70%) performed best between the hours of 8 AM and noon. I have always felt and promoted that the peak performance period for most of us was approximately 2 to 2.5 hours after you got to your work environment.

Less than 18% of those surveyed stated that they performed at their best after 2 PM. It is important that you perform your high payoff activities when you are in your peak performance period and hold your least important projects for the afternoon.

Maybe we should ask Nike to change their slogan to: “Just Do It! – before lunch.

Are we Crazy or is it a Craze?

I have to admit that the terminology being used with the organizational development challenges is starting to get sensational in nature. When I read the highlights of an article that appeared in the 2nd Quarter of 2008 issue of the Organizational Development Journal, the title of article was: “The Human Craze: Human Performance Improvement and Employee Engagement”. “Craze” to me is certainly an unusual word to use in relationship of OD and productivity and/or engagement.

The “craze” refers to the need for Human Resources Professionals and Departments to focus on human productivity improvement and engagement as a way to create a competitive advantage for their companies or organizations. What have the Human Resources professionals or departments been doing before this? If they were interested in performance, productivity or engagement, where have they been hiding?

I do not find that most HR Professionals have been given the opportunity to demonstrate their business acumen to the rest of the executive team in terms of metrically contributing to the success of the organization. I am frustrated with the fact that unless the challenge becomes a problem, there is no focus toward the people. It is focused externally toward the market conditions and internally toward the reduction in operating expenses. This may of course include layoffs to reduce payroll and benefit expenses. Today we find ourselves in a very reactive marketplace and most HR professionals need to step up and be more proactive. They are sitting back awaiting the direction to move forward in a reactive position with things like hiring freezes, elimination of training programs and incentive programs, and eliminating unnecessary benefits or lowering healthcare costs.

I would like to see the title of the article read, “The New Craze: Corporate Leadership Turns to HR” to provide the process for developing the strengths of their people to better react to the current economic climate and market conditions. I really feel that the strengths of the people within an organization can make the difference and to maximize people’s strengths we have to focus on their talent and contribution to the overall success of the organization. Personal productivity and individual performance adds up to corporate success and has done so for centuries. So, why isn’t the HR community focused on human development and performance improvement? Maybe they just don’t know how. If the HR professional doesn’t get more involved, the talented people will find a company that provides the engagement and development and move on.

If you’re in HR and are reading this, tell me how you have been proactive in this reactive business world! I’d like to hear success stories.

Engagement is not Enough

I have to give credit for the title to a book, Engagement is not Enough, I most recently read by Keith E. Ayres published by Advantage. He writes that the current strategies being used to increase employee engagement are not working. Even with all the effort, a nominal increase in employee engagement has occurred and based on continued research by the Gallup Organization, less than 1/3 of the workforce is engaged.

In this book, Keith attempts to lay our a step by step process for developing the leadership skills needed to turn an average group of employees into that passionate, spirited high performance team. He points out that there are three primary reasons leadership training fails to achieve results: 1) Most leadership training is an event and to become an exceptional leader, you will have to develop the skills with consistent application over a period of time, 2) Most leadership training does not develop emotional intelligence and to become an exceptional leader, you will have to manage your emotions and behave in a way that brings out the best in everyone, and 3) there is no accountability for the training in terms of holding the leader accountable for applying the learned material and demonstrating that they present changed behaviors.

When I read something like the above, I immediately think of the Kirkpatrick Model of Training Evaluation which includes four levels of outcome evaluation; 1) Reaction, 2) Learning, 3) Behavior, and 4) results. How many companies focus on the results of training?

I had the opportunity to meet with an organization that has over 4000 employees and they prefer to do all of their training with internal staff. They have recently undertaken a Leadership Development focus and have scheduled one day per quarter for the Leadership Training. This is another example of a Leadership event that will not provide the desired results.

I just find it hard to believe that the champions of people development, whether it be the Human Resources Department, Organizational Development or Effectiveness Departments, or the Training and Development Departments, do not focus on results.

What do the results of your training look like? Do you realize that training events don’t necessarily provide the desired outcome? Development of a learning process that includes repetition, application exercises, case studies and more can make a major difference in the bottom-line.

Our expectations of training are now tainted because of this lack of development. We now expect to get no results, changing of behavior is impossible, employee engagement cannot be enhanced, productivity is not related to performance, and to create processes isn’t feasible. It’s time to change that outlook on training!

Isn’t it time the champions of learning stand up and state that the reason nothing is changed is that we haven’t done anything differently? We are still training the employee as if they were children and we are still getting the same results.

So are you going to change the development process or are you going to stay the same and receive zero results from the lack of development?

Gloom in the Workplace

Generational diversity is a not subject in the HR community and we all realize that in not the too distant future, we will have five generations in the workplace. Leadership IQ, a Washington DC based training company polled over 11,000 employees in the United States and found that all generations expressed some dissatisfaction. Furthermore, they note that the rate of disconnect was almost directly related to age. The older worker was the most satisfied and the younger generations expressed the lowest satisfaction rate.

The survey asked a variety of questions relative to the workplace and the management style being presented today. The title of the article was “Workplace Gloom is Universal” and appeared in the February issues of Training and Development by staff writer, Michael Laff.

We have focused our training and development course, programs, and processes on mid-level management and we also believe that many managers are not learning the intangible skills necessary to manage a staff. Most employees want feedback in a timely fashion and they want to know exactly where they stand if relation to their peers in terms of performance and productivity. Keeping the workforce content is not a priority in most organizations today. Competition, economic conditions, cost of materials and supplies, healthcare benefits and more are keeping us all very “short-sighted” with our employees. It appears that the younger generation craves praise and become frustrated easily. Don’t we all?

People skills have been lost in history. They obviously haven’t been passed down through the generations. It must be because the older generation has accommodated to the “lack of praise” in the workplace and is no longer offering that commodity. When will we realize that we must continue to motivate our employees and keep them engaged in the strategy and development of our company? If we don’t, they will continue to move on until another company does just that. How many jobs do we expect them to have by the time they are thirty five?

We need to start training our managers or that figure will be in double digits.

Leadership and Dysfunctional Behaviors

Leadership.

I have always related leadership to being influential in the workplace. Being able to influence the culture of an organization or being able to compliment the core competencies of an organization have always been integral components of a successful leader. I was intrigued by an article in the February issue of Training and Development that reported that 90% of leaders say dysfunctional behaviors have become acceptable in the workplace and the consequences that have resulted from this bad behavior are lower employee satisfaction, lower productivity, and decreased quality. Our organization focuses on the healthcare marketplace and we find that dysfunctional behaviors play a major role in decreased quality and lower productivity. Both patience and employee satisfaction is determined by those factors.

Is it because we don’t consider dysfunctional behavior poor performance? Inappropriate behavior in the workplace is destructive and must be considered a performance issue.
We should focus on the behavioral issues within an organization and make sure that they are addressed by our performance management system. According to a most recent survey completed by Joseph Glenny, A Provo-Utah based author and management consultant, “finger pointing” or shifting blame, gossiping, and creating territorial borders and boundaries are three of the most destructive behaviors in the workplace today. It also noted that 64% of leaders do very little or nothing to change these behaviors.

It appears that the leaders today are fearful toward addressing the issues because of the consequences…whatever they may be. Many leaders turn to HR or Training and ask them to sprinkle “magical dust” over the situation and expect instantaneous results from the training department or vendors.

Changing behavior is a process and it requires implementation of more than just “dust”. It requires expectations in the workplace from the top down. The leadership team and their management team must define what behaviors they would like to see while stating emphatically those behaviors that will no longer be tolerated. The Performance Management system must focus on the interpersonal side of managing and believe it or not, these behavioral changes can be measured. It appears that the influential leaders of today aren’t willing to view behavior in the same light as they do performance. Maybe we should redefine leadership and not associate it with influence. It obviously is not working!

Hiring Blamed for Poor Performance

A consulting firm in California confirmed that nearly one third of CEO’s say that as many as half of their new employees haven’t been meeting expectations. A principle of the firm noted that most CEO’s have no faith in their hiring processes.

That is the first problem for the CEO. Don’t call it a process. Most companies don’t have a process. I work with small companies and companies with over 5000 employees and none exhibit a real “Hiring and Selection” Process. All expect their hiring or recruitment personnel to just find the right people. Those people are the ones with the skills and training combined with the right attitude and excellent work ethic just waiting to be interviewed. Wrong!

The difference in processes can vary from using a simple HRIS system for only resume retrieval to a type written job description that includes suggested behavioral interviewing questions. I just can’t believe that it’s taking a rocket-scientist to realize that people are failing in the workplace because employers don’t have the proper “hiring and selection” process. Most companies today have yet to realize that finding the “right” person for the right job or just hiring the right person with the right attitude, skill, training, and work ethic takes more than just leaving the front door open.

We have now found the culprit for poor performance. The process that must determine whether someone has or is lacking the skill, training, attitude, and ethics is failing not because of lack of process, but a lack of commitment within that CEO’s company. The tools, methodology, technology, format, and human components are all available but no one appears to have the energy or commitment to put it all together.

Since we can’t find the people to integrate the tools, technology, format, and people to provide a well-rounded “hiring and selection” process, we must take three steps back and again blame it on the process….or is it the people?

If companies don’t take their hiring practices seriously, they will eliminating any opportunity of finding the person with the right attitude, skill, training and ethics that can make a difference!

Be Careful What You Ask For...

It was noted in a study conducted by International Association of Business Communicators that the top three non-financial reasons why workers leave their jobs are 1) opportunities for advancement, 2) work-life balance, and 3) more interesting work.
Why as a society, do we never get it right until we are hit over the head with a sledge hammer? We just don’t get the fact that the American worker no longer wants to do what management wants them to do. We are trying to teach them that as individuals it is the degree of which you understand self-leadership and your own growth potential predicts how you will foster your own success, as well as the success of others.

We are asking people to continue to search for things that are meaningful to them and things that help them manage themselves. People are trying to find the “right” work environment that compliments their beliefs, values and competencies. Isn’t this what EQ is all about? We basically tell people that if they want to play a vital role in the transformation of others or in the transformation of an organization as a whole, they must lead their own development. We tell them that they need to invest in themselves and to find joy in the journey.

We get them going and yet we are not always sure where they are headed. Human Resources, Management or whoever must be there to help them grow plus make sure their growth develops in conjunction with the growth of the organization. We ask them to find a purpose without giving them a purpose. Succession planning and career development are hot subjects in most HR publications, yet it appears that we have no clue on how to and why we should provide a developmental path of our future leaders. We don’t even communicate well yet alone provide leadership for them as demonstrated by their three non-financial reasons for leaving a job.

The management of companies today has to learn to communicate the real message to the employee. We have to share our business strategies with the employee and make sure we have some inkling of their career desires and if they feel our organization can provide them with the opportunities for success. Did you hear me….communicate the expectation or determine the underlying expectation of the employee? Do we ever ask the employee to tell us what “work-life” balance means to them? I honestly believe that work–life balance is a personal choice and should be left up to the employee not to the manager. It is the role of the manager to make sure if possible that we can satisfy that expectation or at least try to provide some measures that will help the employee reach their goals. How do you define “interesting work”? Did we ask in the interview if they were only interested in doing “interesting work”? We could have eliminated the third reason for leaving by just not hiring them.

Why is the management team of so many companies afraid to ask about the employee’s work expectations? Management certainly wants the employee to know what their expectations are……..it’s called performance management. I really think it is a misnomer….shouldn’t it be management performance? Let’s get with it….let’s try meeting on a one on one basis and defining “real” expectations. Interpersonal responsiveness by management should be the number one non-financial reason for leaving a company. It’s time for management to get out from behind their computers and met the people.

Don't Show Bias in Employee Reviews

I was reading a lead article titled, “Bias Found in Employee Appraisals” found online at www, hreonline.com. It was an article that elaborated on the fact that new research shows vast discrepancies in employee appraisals by workers who report to two bosses.

I am not being critical of the author, but in what work environment would that not present itself? Performance Appraisals have always shown bias from one manager to another. Many consulting firms recommend that companies not spend money on the training and development of their managers regarding the delivery of an employee appraisal by a manager. If we don’t train to develop consistency in delivery, then how can we ever have a Performance Appraisal System without bias?

I am a firm supporter of Performance Management and the availability of a sound Performance Appraisal Process that is conducted quarterly in terms of reviewing the progress of the individual’s development plan. It is time that managers realize that the Performance Appraisal Process is the best means to communicate workplace expectations with the employee and that employee engagement is the key to retention moving forward. Managers must utilize a system for monitoring performance on a day to day, month to month basis and not just wait for the annual performance appraisal process for the data to appear. A Performance Log or file must be maintained throughout the year to note successes, learning opportunities, behavioral tendencies, etc. The Performance Appraisal Process must be more objective than subjective and certainly results-oriented. It must be based on the job description or role assigned to the employee as the role is defined today, not five years ago. It must reflect technical skills as well as performance skills that demonstrate an above average performance in that position. Above average performance should be the workplace expectation of most managers. Clear expectations must be defined. Clarity and good communication are key management skills for this to succeed. We must communicate workplace expectations in a clear, decisive, and definitive manner with the creation of a development plan for the employee. All managers must be willing to coach and mentor the employee to high performance through the use of a solid Developmental Plan of Action. I have always believed that the formulation of a developmental plan for a high achiever is one of the most difficult tasks a manager can undertake. And it certainly shouldn't be….it should be the opposite.

Both bias and the dreaded “Performance Appraisal” mentality must be eliminated from the equation….discuss expectations, monitor performance daily, and make employee engagement a priority. If you do that, the bias and subjectivity will be removed.