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

Succession Planning, Why Bother?

by Richard Hohmann
Since I don’t have a enough time to plan on a daily basis, how would you ever expect me to plan my succession? With the economy going south and the real estate market at its lowest ebb in years, how can I ever retire and make sure the business continues demonstrating sustained growth? These questions may be going through your mind but it is certainly the time and the climate to make sure a succession plan is in place and is viable.

Most people wait too long before developing a succession plan, but most agree late is better than never. Many business owners feel that succession planning ends with an estate plan and enough life insurance in place to handle most situations. It is true that they need to be addressed but there is more to succession planning than insurance and estate taxes. There is no question that the tax liability placed on the business following the owner’s death may put the business in the ground with the owner. There may be the need to use the monies from the insurance policy to sustain the company during this transition period. It is best to work out the financial concerns before they happen. It is important that the methods to pay taxes, buy-out the deceased partner’s share, etc. are finalized before the event actually happens.

Let’s look at the intangibles. Things like good will, trust, and respect for the new management team must be established over time. Even if it is a family member or key employee that takes over the company, trust development takes time…and time is money. Clients will have concerns about receiving the same quality of service and attention. The best way to eliminate these concerns is to develop customer loyalty to the new regime before the person retires or becomes deceased. It is imperative that you transition in the new management team prior to the old guard riding off into the sunset. Take the time to introduce your clients to the next generation of ownership while exceeding their service expectations. A Win-Win combination!

It is imperative that the new management team or generation of ownership is ready to assume the role. Many newly anointed family members have no real business experience or have never experienced any other work environment and tend to be rather poor in “street smarts”. Many times we revert back to the “let’em sink or swim, no one taught me how to do it!” or “let them gain the experience through failure”. I guess we now know why most businesses don’t last past two generations.

Here are a few steps to help Succession Planning work for you:

1. Evaluate the stage that your business is currently in.
2. Evaluate the stage where the business needs to be to sustain the opportunity for the next generation
3. Evaluate the people in place to ensure sustained growth and development
4. Recruit and train the next generation in ownership
5. Select the leader for the company; don’t divide equally.
6. Prepare the company for the transition; communicate the plan
7. Design an implementation plan for succession and stick to the timeline

Succession planning is not an easy task. It is time consuming and needs the input from your most trusted advisors; your spouse, other family members, your lawyer, your accountant, your financial planner and your business consultant and maybe some others. It takes time and money to create an effective plan of succession but I guarantee you one thing, if you don’t, it will cost you and your loved ones a lot more.

Call me at 609.390.2830 for a complimentary consultation on the development of Your Succession Plan or click here to get started now!

7 Steps in Handling Conflicts for Successful Team Collaboration

Many teams who were perceived as underdogs have won championships because they focused on the team goal rather than their own individual goals. The key to collaboration is the ability of team members to work interdependently. Of course, all team members are different from one another. In fact, some teams are purposely designed to maximize the differences among team members. These differences can often lead to friction, tension, and conflict. Conflicts are forks in the road to high performance. How conflicts are handled determine whether a team stagnates or moves to an even higher level of results. When conflict happens, use the following steps to help team members overcome the conflict:

1. Identify the real conflict and the specific team members involved.
2. Communicate with each other. This means each team member has a chance to talk about his or her thoughts and feelings and is also willing to listen to other team members.

Blended Learning - For Employees and Managers

What are the advantages of Blended Learning?

One of the most obvious advantages of blended learning is the ability to maximize effectiveness by matching the best medium for each learning objective or course segment. What’s the hard
evid­ence that a blen­ded learn­ing approach can deliver benefits? When Amer­ican Express
con­duc­ted a study of the ROI on dif­fer­ent types of train­ing for 2000 of their man­agers, they found that blen­ded learn­ing delivered a 12% increase in pro­ductiv­ity.

"The term blended learning is used to describe a solution that combines several different delivery methods, such as collaboration software, web-based courses, EPSS and knowledge management practices. Blended learning also is used to describe learning that mixes various event-based activities, including face-to-face classroom, live e-learning, and self-paced instruction." - Purnima Valiathan

Here are some of the ways learning can be blended:

1. Classroom - Good for workshops, coaching, exercises on activites and paper-based tests.
2. Self-Paced E-Learning - Good for simulations, online case studies, interactive learning modules, email
3. Live E-Learning -  Good for application exercises, online coaching, interaction between students, online feedback, assessment, chats and instant messaging (source: Blended Learning by Ron Kurtus)

The coupling of an effective Learning Management System with an application and action delivery system plus experience facilitation can really make a difference in almost every sized company.

Innovative is pleased to offer on of the most comprehensive Online Learning Training and E-Learning Programs for employees. Our partnership with leading producers of online training courses allow us to offer a low-cost e-learning solutions to small and mid-sized organizations. We’ll help you select the courses your employees need from our catalog of more than 7,000 high-quality courses. Click here to learn more.

Do employees really leave because of bad managers?

The reasons that employers score poorly are varied and many:

• 39% of workers said their supervisor failed to keep promises
  
  
• 37% indicated their supervisor failed to give credit when due
  
  
• 31% said their supervisor gave them the "silent treatment" during the past year
  
  
• 27% report their supervisor made negative comments about them to other employees or managers
  
  
• 24% indicated their boss invaded their privacy
  
  
• 23% said their supervisor blamed other to cover up personal mistakes or minimize embarrassment

Read Full Florida State University Study Here

So, now what? Innovative Leadership of the Delaware Valley helps build stronger businesses, one employee at a time. With our Making of an Effective Manager, we teach managers with real life situations, blended learning built for adults and classroom interaction with peers and facilitators with over 30 years experience. Click here for more info

How to Solve Problems as a Team in 8 Steps

Like decision making, problem solving may involve a relatively insignificant item, or it may concern a serious issue with the possibility of a major impact on the entire organization. The larger and more important the problem, the more time and detail
that go into each step of the problem-solving process. For minor problems, several of the steps may be accomplished mentally in only a few seconds. But the process always includes these steps:

1. Crystallize the goal. Many problems are caused simply because the goal is not clearly understood by all team members. Take time to review the purpose of the team and its primary goals.

Who Benefits from Coaching?

I answer a question I get most often, "Who benefits from Coaching?", by stating that I feel anyone in a leadership role or anyone who wants to be in a leadership role is a candidate for Coaching. The criteria I use is the individual must be willing to learn, try new things, try old things that have failed, and is committed to improving their business behavior. It is well documented that an integral component to a leader’s success is how well you relate to other people in your organization, at all levels. It goes back to the fact that first, you need to manage yourself, and then you must manage the relationships you have with others.

In my ten years of coaching, I have been called in mostly by HR Professionals when someone is not living up to company’s expectations of them. In most Talent Management articles, development of future leaders is at the top of the HR list of “To Do’s”. The issue is the majority of HR Professionals are now reporting to Chief Financial Officers. Cost-reduction usually hits the people development first with marketing expenses a close second. This contradicts the real need of developing future leaders. We have to dig deeper than the senior level.

Today a positive trend is emerging, the majority of Coaching is designed for leadership development (Sherpa 2012 Survey). We have to look at each employee as a leader and teach them leadership skills that makes them more productive for the benefit of the company.