Category: Culture

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Culture Leadership

Key Ingredients of a High Performance Culture

High performance culture must haves

Welcome to the official YouTube channel launch of Caras Consulting where we talk about the key ingredients of a high performance culture!

In today’s video, I’ll be talking about:

  • Details about the channel
  • The key ingredients for a high performance culture

AND

  • I’ll be dropping little snippets about me and Caras Consulting
  • Stick around to the end when I’ll open it up for some Q&A

If you don’t know me, my name is Sadaf Shaikh and I’m the owner of Caras Consulting.

I’ve been working alongside CEOs and senior execs for pretty much my entire 20+ year career, first as their trusted EA and then as their trusted HR business partner.

I’ve learned a thing or two about what the really great leaders do to create a high performance culture and engaged employees.

This channel is ALL about the things I’ve picked up over the years around building and leading high performance teams.

I’ll share my research and personal experience on this subject AND I’ll bring on other leaders on the channel from time to time to hear directly from them on what’s working today.

Key ingredient #1 of a high performance culture – have a shared set of goals

The goals of the organization are clearly articulated and shared with everyone

This will be a recurring theme of this channel. Shared goals are crucial to a high performance culture and company

If you went out there and asked any of your employees, they should be able to articulate exactly what those shared goals are and what their role is in the achieving those goals

Every successful company that boasts a high performance culture has shared goals. One, two or three things that everyone works towards

It doesn’t matter so much WHAT those shared goals are, as long as everyone knows what they are

As we head into 2021, it’s time to start thinking about what your goals are going to be for next year.

I have a free guide that helps you set your top 3 goals in 30 minutes. You can download a copy here.

Key ingredient #2 of a high performance culture – get the right talent in the door

In order to get the right talent, you first have to be clear on WHO you need to invite into your organization

You need people who will not only have the skills and experience to help you achieve your top goals, but also fit in with your culture

So, you need to know what goals you’re working towards, and the skills and competencies you need to achieve those goals

Then you need to define your culture. And culture is all about HOW you do things in your company. Forget about the fluffy descriptive adjectives. All you need to do to define your culture is look at how work gets done in your company. 

Here are a few things to examine

Another way to really understand your culture is to speak with employees on the front line.

Book time with them, either in a group or 1:1, though I prefer 1:1, and just chat with them about how they perceive work gets done at the company

This does 2 things:

  • Allows you to really connect with your employees, especially those you wouldn’t normally interact with
  • Boosts employee engagement through the roof.

People just want to be heard and when their top leader takes time out of their busy day to speak with them, listen to them, they feel like they’re being heard. 

Try it and then come back here and comment below to let me know how it went and what feedback you got.

Key Ingredient #3 – nurture the talent you already have

You start with having a stellar onboarding program to welcome any new talent. I’ve worked with a lot of companies both as an employee and as a consultant and I can tell you that very few companies get this one right

So, what does a good onboarding program look like?

In a nutshell, it’s where the new employee begins performing at a high level as quickly as possible. 

When employees are equipped with the RIGHT tools and information, performing is the easy part. The key is knowing what the right tools and information is. One way to find out is to ask your existing employees on how their onboarding was and what information and tools would have been useful to get them up to speed faster

The next component of talent nurturing is developing employees. There are many aspects to this, but the easiest way to get started is to create development plans for your employees. 

Now I’ve been in many organizations and I see too many leaders and employees do this as a check mark exercise. If you’re committed to building a high performance culture and company, then approach development plans with a view to getting you there.

It starts with asking the employee where their career aspirations are. Then go back to your business objectives and see where the two intersect. That’s where your development plan comes alive

Finally, it’s about building leadership capabilities and constantly pushing your leaders to be better for themselves and the employees. To constantly strive for better.

I run a program to help leaders take their teams to the next level by maximizing the performance and potential of their people. If you’re ready to do that in 2021, then book a call with me to enroll into our program that helps you do just this.

Those are my key ingredients of a high performance culture. If you like this video, be sure to share it with others who might find it useful.

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Culture

How to define your aspirational culture

How to define an aspirational culture

In today’s video, I’m talking about how to define an aspirational culture for your small or medium sized business. This video is for CEOs and business owners, but if you’re in HR, you’ll find it useful.

There’s a misconception that culture is something that just happens in your company.

Culture isn’t something that just HAPPENS. You, as the leader of your organization, create the culture in your company.

It’s easy to get complacent about culture. 

At times like these, you’re forced to take a long hard look at the culture you’ve created.

  • Covid-19 and remote work
  • Racism and race discrimination
  • Gender discrimination – #metoo movement

So, the question then begs, is HOW do you create the culture you want. 

What is your aspirational culture for your company? What do you want to see in your organization?

The first step is defining your aspirational culture and that’s what today’s session is all about. 

You need to know what YOU want to see in your company over the next 5 years, 10 years, 20 years. 

  1. What is your current culture

    • How do people work
    • How do they interact with each other
    • How to things get done
    • What kind of approvals are there
    • How do people make decision
    • How do they react when something goes wrong
    • How do the leaders behave in the company
    • Do they promote risk taking and making mistakes or do they 

  2. Personal values 

    • There’s a misconception that the only way to get success is to be cut-throat and drive and ambitious. The whole notion of nice guys finish last. The image that we have of high-powered, crisp-suited men and women who have a singular focus on the prize. You know the kind.
    • Ultimately of course all leaders want results in their business. But there’s more than one way to get results. 
    • Your company’s culture starts with YOU. What do you believe in? What are your values? What do you need to see in order to know that you’ve “arrived” at the culture you decided to create.
    • This is a crucial step and I’ll tell you why. 
    • Your personal values will act as your north star as you start building your team’s culture. When you’re wondering what to do with a situation involving your employees, you only have to look at your personal values to know what to do.
    • Now, I don’t want you to spend hours defining your personal values. If the words don’t come to you, then describe scenarios. 
    • For example, I don’t have a list of words describing my personal values, but here is what I believe in:
      • Always doing the fair thing
      • Continuous improvement – I don’t have all the answers today; I’m always looking to improve every aspect of the business and myself
      • It’s ok to break the rules
    • So, you see, it’s not a list of words like integrity, trust, teamwork, etc. that we see so often on company websites. No, your personal values are a list of guiding principles that support everything that happens in your company and what you expect of yourself and others around you.
    • And when you know what your values are, it’s easier to build a team of people who have those same values. 
    • One question I get often is whether this would create a team of similar people and no diversity of thought. This is why I talk about values as opposed to personality traits. Because you could be an introvert or an extrovert and want to do the fair thing. You could be a fast learner or a slow learner and still want to continuously improve. You could love or hate change and still be ok with breaking rules.
    • Values that match mine are important. I wouldn’t be able to work with someone who didn’t do the fair thing every time. I wouldn’t be able to work with someone who rested on her laurels and didn’t constantly look to improve things around her. I wouldn’t be able to work with someone who would judge me for veering off the proven path or breaking the rules.
    • So take some time and write down the 3-4 things that you stand for. Your north star

  3. Your vision for the company

    • Your vision is where you see the company once it arrives
    • Your vision is critical to define your culture because if your values help you navigate business life, then your vision is the final destination.
    • When you have a vision in place, you know how to talk about your company in a way that makes it relatable to others like your employees, partner and vendors.
    • Your vision doesn’t have to be this earth-shattering, deep vision statement. It simply needs to be what you want in the world. 
    • For example, my vision statement or mission statement is “Creating Awesome Workplaces”. Because I believe that all workers should love what they do and when leaders create and identify their workplace culture, the people they hire fit naturally and excel.
    • So, after you’ve described your personal values, it’s time to write out what your vision for your business is. 

By now, you should be getting an idea of what your aspirational culture is going to be. Next it’s time to describe a set of behaviours that you’d like to see. Once again, I would suggest you start with your own behaviour.

  1. Your own behaviour
    • When you’re the leader of a company, it’s not about what you say, but about what you do. People will be looking at:
      • your treatment of others, 
      • at your characteristics, 
      • at how you respond to situations and 
      • how you react to setbacks. 
      • How you celebrate successes
    • I had a client once who was a really good guy. He had the right ideas about what he wanted to see in his business, the type of success he wanted to see, and the type of culture he wanted to have. He knew exactly how he wanted people to behave and work. The only problem was that HE didn’t embody those characteristics. He said he wanted people to take risks, but when people made mistakes, he would ream them out. He said he wanted people to take initiative but he wanted to approve everything and if something didn’t meet the mark, he would… you guessed it, ream them out. 
    • So, when I tell you to examine your own behaviours, you have to totally 100% honest with yourself and look within. 
    • For my company, the behaviours I expect to see follow from my personal values. 
      • Take action – mistakes are rarely irrevocable; experiment
      • Everyone’s opinion is considered – my 15 year old inten gave me a suggestion on how to do something better on google drive
      • Invest in personal development
      • Share ideas
      • The team always comes first

Now it’s your turn. Those are the 4 steps to creating an aspirational culture. Once you have your desired culture defined and you know where you’re going, you can put a plan in place for how to get there.

The road to culture change is long and hard. It’s not something that happens overnight or immediately. 

Most new leaders come into companies and immediately start by putting a new strategy in place. Maybe they’ll understand the importance of culture and decide things need to change. Then 2 years later when things haven’t changed, they give up.

That’s why it’s important to start your journey in a thoughtful way.

If you found this helpful, please share with your peers and come back next week for another discussion on culture, strategy and leadership. In the meantime if you’re ready to embark on this journey, contact us for a free strategy call so we can get you started on the right path.

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Culture

Why new leaders need an aspirational culture

Why new leaders need an aspirational culture

New leaders have big mandates. The expectations are sky high. All eyes are on you. One wrong move could spell the end of your career. Or, at the very least, seriously hinder your progress. This is why defining an aspirational culture is a crucial first step for any leader.

Typically, the more senior you are, the more change people expect to see especially if you’ve inherited a problem business. High turnover, decreased sales and dismal profits are all indicators of serious problems in a business.

Before you start defining your aspirational culture, you first need to define the current culture in your organization. In my blog post a few weeks ago, I talked about the need to really get to know the new company’s culture before considering changes and the exact process to do so. 

Once you know where the organization’s culture is at, you can then start thinking about where you’d like the culture to be. Defining your aspirational culture is the prerequisite to creating a roadmap to get to your desired destination.

Most leaders jump straight to putting a new strategy in place. Many don’t even attempt to get to know the organization before designing a new strategy. The problem with this approach is that the culture of the company may not support the new initiatives. Leaders then wonder why the new strategy isn’t working. Or why it’s taking so long to see results.

In today’s blog post, I’m going to talk about why it’s important to define an aspirational culture in order to make transformational changes to your business. Having an aspirational culture is crucial for new leaders, whether you’re a small business owner or the CEO of a larger company.

 

The difference between culture and strategy

Before we go too far into why to define an aspirational culture, it’s important to tackle the distinction between culture and strategy. It’s sometimes difficult to differentiate between the two, so definitions are helpful here.

Strategy is a plan of action or policy designed to achieve a major or overall aim.

Culture is the attitudes and behavior characteristic of a particular social group. 

In other words, strategy is what you do in business to achieve goals and culture is how people work in the business. 

You need both to achieve your goals. You can have a strong strategy but if you don’t have the culture to back it up, the strategy won’t work. In other words, if the people at the organization don’t work in a way that’s in line with the work required for the strategy, the strategy will fail. 

 

Why do you need an aspirational culture?

Now that we’ve got the definitions out of the way and we know that culture beats strategy every single time, we need to talk about why an aspirational culture is important.

An aspirational culture is important to consider before you start thinking about strategy for a number of reasons. This list of reasons is not exhaustive, but it will give you something to think about in your new role. 

 

Know where you are going

When you inherit a team or organization riddled with issues, your first instinct is to immediately implement ideas to make changes. You talk to a few people, call the team meetings, communicate your vision, roll out the new strategy and assign work to each team. Unfortunately, if you don’t tackle the internal processes and the talent you have on the team, you’ll end up watching your team flounder and sputter even under your expert leadership. An aspirational culture will help you define the behaviours you need to change before you take action. 

 

Know how long it will take

When you’ve examined the current culture and have defined your aspirational culture, you can gauge how long it’s going to take to get you to your desired destination. For example, if you’ve got 50% employee turnover year over year, poor leadership behaviours, rampant nepotism and favouritism, those things need to be tackled before aiming to double your revenue.

When you know exactly what behaviours and processes you want to see, and how far you are from there today, you know how long it will take you. This helps you set realistic expectations with your board and your leaders.

 

Know what steps you need to take to transform

When you have an aspirational culture, outlining the path and the steps needed to get there becomes easier. The thing that most leaders don’t realize is that cultural transformation takes time – a lot more time than most people imagine. That doesn’t mean you need to wait to transform the culture before you start implementing a strategy. However, you do need to consider the implications culture change activities have on how well you can achieve your strategy.

 

Know what success looks like

In any goal setting exercise, whether that’s a new strategy, new business goals, or new aspirational culture, knowing what success looks like makes the journey that much easier. Once you know what the prize is, what the desired outcome is, keeping on the straight and narrow path towards it becomes easier. 

Plus when you have an aspirational culture, you know exactly what behaviours and processes are in line with that culture. It makes it a lot easier to say “no” when you’re presented with stuff that just doesn’t fit.

 

Know how to communicate

Did you ever have a boss who never took the time to explain their thought process? A boss who declared edicts that people had to blindly follow as opposed to helping people understand where they were coming from and what they were trying to achieve. 

When you have an aspirational culture before you start executing or trying to change things, it’s much easier to explain your vision to people. You’re able to show people a picture of what “great” looks like. You’re able to communicate your roadmap much more effectively. 

When people are able to envision a future, it makes it a lot easier to digest the magnitude of change.

 

Know how to identify change agents

Which brings me to the next point. When you present your team with your aspirational culture and the path to get there, it’s easy to spot the people who get onboard quickly and with excitement. Those are your change agents. These are the people who fully believe in your vision, who are all in, and who’ll do whatever it takes to get there. 

Change is never a one-person show. You need advocates, change agents and friends in the field in order for change to truly take hold from the grassroots. 

 

Know what talent to attract and retain 

Once you have an aspirational culture, you know exactly the type of people you want in your organization. You can pinpoint the exact skills and expertise you need on your team. You know exactly what type of leaders you need in the organization. 

Without an aspirational culture, you have a general idea of what you’d like to see, but not specifics. For example, glaring poor leadership is obvious, but what about disengaged middle managers? They’re undesirable in a high performing culture and need to be lifted or exited. However, without an aspirational culture, middle managers may not even be on your radar. 

 

Why aspirational culture must come before strategy

We know the difference between culture and strategy now. To reiterate, culture is how you do business while strategy is what you do to achieve goals. 

Let’s put all this into an easy example to illustrate the point. 

Say, you decide you want to lose weight. Conventional wisdom tells you to set a specific, measurable goal, so you say you want to lose 20 lbs. You know that the strategy to achieve this goal is to eat healthy and exercise daily. It’s a simple strategy and you believe you can do it. 

The problem is you’re so busy at your new job that when you get home at night, you’re too tired to cook healthy meals. You end up ordering takeout 4 nights a week complete with sugary drinks and dessert. The lethargy-induced meal has you vegging in front of the TV with chips from your pantry and a cold beer. Weekends are spent entertaining with chips, sweets and more alcohol.

You started this goal with a strategy in place but the culture of your household was takeout, pop, cookies and chips. It doesn’t take long for you to give up on your strategy or go months without seeing results because you’re pushing against a system that’s designed to set you up for failure.

Imagine now instead of jumping to a strategy, you first take stock of where your family is at. You recognize, with full objectivity, that your pantry is full of unhealthy snacks and your meal process (ordering takeout 4 nights a week) adds to the problem. Not to mention, your version of exercise involves trips from the TV to the refrigerator. 

You realize that this is not a good way to live and the extra 20 lbs that you’ve packed on is a direct result of the processes and culture you have in place.

Your new reframed goal is to live a healthy, active lifestyle which you’re confident will lead to shedding the 20 lbs. Now you’re less focused on a tangible number and are instead focusing on core changes you need to make. You’re focusing on behavioural changes you need to make. Now the plan looks different. 

You call a family meeting and explain to everyone where you want to go – living a healthy lifestyle. You show statistics of how people who live a healthy lifestyle have better health with less aches and pains, look better, have more confidence, and live longer. You tell your family that with the increased confidence, you’ll all perform better at work and at school, resulting in increasing your income potential and living a better, more prosperous life.

You start introducing healthy snacks for your TV time, swapping cookies for carrot sticks and hummus. You subscribe to a meal delivery site so you have fresh ingredients and recipes that take less than 20 minutes to prepare instead of takeout. You identify change agents (your partner perhaps) to back you up and reiterate the benefits of a healthy lifestyle to everyone else.

Once you have healthy eating in place, you tackle exercise. You decide to have a picnic with a hike on Saturdays. You go on bike rides together on Sundays. You sign up for a family gym membership near your house and make it a daily thing before dinner.

You slowly see the change taking place in your home. Within a year, not only will you have achieved your goal of being 20 lbs lighter, your family has also benefited from weight loss and increased strength and endurance. You are now a family that lives a healthy lifestyle because you tackled the core culture in your home instead of focusing strictly on the original goal.

This example can easily be translated into the workplace. Focusing less on doubling your revenue and focusing instead on changing the culture will set your company up for long term success in every aspect.

 

To sum it up

The benefits of defining an aspirational culture are far and wide. Your culture facilitates your strategy execution. Without a culture that’s designed to help you achieve your goals, your strategy holds no water. That way is designed to set you up for a prolonged fight at best and outright failure at worst.

Once you have your aspirational culture in place, you won’t need to change your strategy every three years, because your company will be poised to achieve success year over year beyond your wildest expectations. You’ll be able to attract and retain the best talent further accelerating your success and amplifying brand in the marketplace.

As you think about designing your aspirational culture, we’re here to help. Reach out to us to get started today!

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Culture

What to Consider When Deciding on a Work From Home Policy

Work From Home

February 1st is Work Naked Day. Don’t worry, this is an HR blog so it’s not actually as salacious as it sounds. Work Naked Day was created by author and home office expert, Lisa Kanare, to “allow” employees one day a year when they could officially work from the comfort of their home.

Of course, that got me thinking. Why do some employers embrace working from home, while others don’t? I’ve worked with hundreds of clients over my career, and there’s likely nothing more divisive than the working from home debate – should we or shouldn’t we have an official “working from home policy”? Some companies deliberately choose not to have an official policy. Rather, their managers make the call as and when situations arise. If an employee abuses the perk, it gets taken away. Other employers prefer to have a policy in place so that everyone can be treated equitably.

The truth is, the world of work is changing. This isn’t some catch phrase. Anyone who’s been working for more than 20 years has seen the shift. When I started my first job back in 1999, the only people who could even think about “working from home” were the IT folks. And that too only when it was a middle-of-the-night emergency. Regular office folk needed to come into work to access their files, connect to the company email, and get work done. Meetings were part of your daily grind, and conference calls were only used with people who weren’t in the city.

Fast forward to 2018, and now you can access your work email on your personal phone, over the internet anywhere, and the expectation is that you are “on” and “available” all the time, night or day. While some employers are now promoting a “no emails beyond business hours”, the reality is that many of us work with companies and colleagues outside of our time zone, and that’s just not possible. When I was supporting the BC office of my company, it was completely normal to receive emails at 9pm, and while they probably didn’t expect a response from me, I replied anyway because I was in a customer-focused role (yes, HR is considered customer-focused!).

I’m hearing of more and more companies that are promoting time away from the office as a chance to recharge. Other companies are making workplaces resemble home. The lines between home and work are definitely blurring. It’s not uncommon these days for companies to allow their employees to take a couple of hours off during the day to run errands, attend doctor’s appointments during the 9-5 day, because they know that those same employees will be logged on later that night, from home, answering emails and attending to work matters. It’s also not uncommon for managers who work late to schedule their emails to go out the next morning instead of at midnight.

These days almost every job can be performed remotely by quickly accessing remote files on cloud storage or on phones and laptops. There are some exceptions, like the manufacturing industry where presence on the production line is crucial to the operation. My view is that if the work can be done, and done well, whether the employee is at the office in person or at home, then let there be flexibility. If you’re in a sales job that requires you to be on the phone 90% of the time, then it probably shouldn’t make a difference whether you’re at home or in the office. Conversely, if you’re spending 90% of your day on the road, it doesn’t make any difference whether you make an appearance in the office or not.

There are many business owners who say that they like having their employees around them, that it’s part of their culture. They don’t believe that communicating over instant messenger, or email, or skype, or other virtual method is the same as face-to-face interaction. And, to be frank, I have never been a fan of working from home myself. I am much more productive and fulfilled when I’m surrounded by people. I feel energized when I’m in the office. Most people I know say the complete opposite. They are more productive when they work from home, particularly those in the creative field, or a job that requires deep concentration. In the HR profession, where the effectiveness of your job is directly correlated to knowing what’s going on in the company, and the ability to read people’s body language and facial micro expressions, working remotely is difficult to justify. Yes, there are plenty of very successful HR people who work remotely and are very good at what they do, but it’s you’re fighting an uphill battle.

There is no right or wrong answer. My view, if you’re asking me, is to look at whether your business allows people to work effectively from home. Does working from home help your business, or does it still growth, innovation and degrade your culture. Here are some things to consider when designing a work from home policy:

1. Can the work be performed out of the office?

Manufacturing jobs would be hard pressed to be performed outside of the plant

2. Can the work be performed well out of the office?

If most of your work is done in a group setting by brainstorming, it would be difficult to replicate that when people are at home. On the other hand, you can enforce presence onsite for the brainstorming, then let people go off and work from wherever.

3. Does your technology support it?

If not, and you’re keen on starting a work from home policy, make sure you invest in the right technology first. There’s nothing more frustrating than to have connectivity issues when you’re ready to work at home, and no IT support to fix the issue.

4. Do your customers support it?

If you own a retail store, it’s unlikely that your customers are going to be ok with shopping with no one to help them. You could set up an online store (if you haven’t already), but you must first make sure your customers are onboard.

5. Does it save you space?

A big factor is to consider whether you can downsize your office space if you have half your workforce working remotely. Instead of having an office space for 40 people, could you move to a space for only 20 people? That could save you a ton of money.

6. Do your employees support it?

If you have a mature workforce, the risk of working remotely is relatively low. New grads and junior employees will benefit from the support of more experienced colleagues around them and leaving them to work alone will actually hurt your business.

Bottom line, once you’ve answered the 6 questions above, you can make the decision. I’ll write another blog post soon on what you should include in a policy, and what sort of training your managers will need to make the initiative a success.

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Culture

Why You Need to Rewrite All Your Policies

Why you need to rewrite all your policies

Any company with more than 20 people most likely has something akin to an Employee Handbook or Manual. An Employee Handbook usually contains information about the company, benefits, pay cycles, contact lists, and a long list of policies. These policies include things that an employee can (but usually things an employee cannot) do. It covers topics like the maximum number of sick days, or maximum number of vacation days. It could include benefits and perks like education allowances or extra paid holidays, but there are usually accompanied with limits.

Now, there are plenty of policies that need to be written. In Ontario, for example, employers are legally required to have well-documented and publicly available harassment investigation procedures. That’s good practice, and it’s not a “limiting” policy. It outlines exactly what happens when an employee experiences harassment of any kind. These types of policies are for the benefit of employees and they need to be written.

However, there are plenty of other “company policies” that are completely voluntary and they suck the life out of a company’s high performing culture. Here’s an example:

“ABC Company values its employees and promotes learning and development. Each employee at ABC company is entitled to receive up to $2,000 towards courses and seminars that directly relate to his or her job.”

At first glance, most people think, wow, we’re getting $2,000 from the company every single year and the company wants me to learn. Well, yes, that is true. But the company is also saying that it values its employees to a limit. $2,000 worth, to be exact.

Adding to that, the course has to relate to their job. So, if it happens to be a course that just interests a person, or perhaps is for a different job that they aspire to at the same company, that won’t be allowed. Now, don’t get me wrong, there are lots of companies that include an additional clause that says, with senior manager approval, they can get anything approved. I’ve even seen whole MBA degrees being sponsored by companies.

My point here is not that companies aren’t offering their employees great things. My point is that policies are written in a way where it places limits to an employee’s ability to even ask. The average employee reading the education policy above would believe that the company won’t cover the course they want to take because it is over $2,000 or it is outside their direct job. Dealing with senior management is daunting, so most employees won’t even ask.

Policies written in that manner lead to disengagement. They lead to employees believing that they are pigeon-holed in their current job or career path. Looking even further down the line, the employee stops offering solutions, stops offering new ideas because, well, they’re just in finance and not on the investment team. Or they’re in HR, and not in sales. And when new ideas stop coming forward, with different perspectives, that is what kills morale and productivity at a company.

Here’s how I would write the company “policy” on education.

“ABC company has a long history of promoting from within and we encourage all employees to focus on continuous improvement and development. If you’re thinking about a course or seminar you would like to attend to, talk to your manager about it. We have sponsored courses and programs of all kinds, in all disciplines, and your manager will be able to explore options with you.”

This reworded policy invites an employee to talk about what’s on their mind, instead of making conclusions for them. It promotes free thought, it allows employees to bring forward ideas, even if they’re outrageous, especially if they’re outrageous. It’s those outrageous ideas that propel a company out of the middle-of-the-line mode in which most companies get stuck. Imagine the possibilities if you allowed your investment analyst to tell you exactly how the lessons from a travel course would benefit the investment team selling investments to high net worth individuals. Or how a negotiation course could help the accounting team in getting your receivables paid faster.

Don’t ask employees to complete a form to explain why they want to take the course. Give them free reign on how they present information to their manager. Allow them to exercise their minds, get them excited about taking the course. And whether they put together a great case or not, it will be a learning experience.

Managers need to be retrained on how to manage free-thinking employees. There needs to be a non-judgemental culture where managers know how to handle employees who think so far out of the box. It takes practice and it takes time. The one thing I can guarantee is that changing your policy’s language to be worded this way is never a losing proposition.

Policies should not be a list of things that employees can’t do. They should outline to everyone exactly what they can do and what they should be allowed to do. Policies should not be something that people fear HR wields around to “catch” them doing something wrong. They should be there be to show people the possibilities, to allow people to grow in their organizations.

Let’s change the way your policies are written. Let’s change the way your employees think at work. Let’s give them a chance to really shine and then see where your business goes. If you would like help rewriting your policies, we’d be happy to help.

Categories
Culture

What exactly is HR and why do I need it?

Why small businesses need HR

My husband and I socialize a fair bit. Inevitably, at every gathering the topic of our respective professions comes up. My husband is a karate sensei and that pretty much dominates the conversation for most of the evening. It’s a cool job, he gets to teach children a life skill, and he gets to break boards at work. Who wouldn’t want that life!

And then the question comes around to what I do for a living. Last weekend, we were at a barbecue and one of the guests asked me what I did. I work in Human Resources, I told him. Now, 10 times out of 10, the person across from me smiles hesitantly and says, “Oh, that’s nice. Do you like it?”. As if on cue, Jack asked me the same question. Apparently, no one can fathom someone in HR actually liking what they do. And let’s face it. When we look at the perception of a typical HR job, it involves HR people making rules in the workplace and making sure everyone follows those rules. HR people are possibly the most hated people in any company. Even our place on the social committee is secured solely so we advise people on the “should dos” and “cant’ dos”.
Of course, that’s not what good HR actually is.

You know when you go to a store and successfully negotiate a really expensive item down to a price that makes your heart sing? You feel such a sense of accomplishment, such pride. You go home happy and satisfied. Then you savour that story and tell everyone you know about how you got a 6-burner stove that was originally listed at six thousand dollars down to thirty-nine hundred dollars. And everyone is in awe and claps you on the back to congratulate you on your major accomplishment.

Well, what if I told you that I feel like that every single day? And, that I can make you and your employees feel like that every single day no matter what their job?

Imagine walking into work and seeing your employees putting forward their best, making you money, keeping your customers satisfied. Where your employees are not griping about pay. Where they have a best friend at work. Where they feel a sense of ownership, and where they are loyal to you and the company.

That’s what HR can do.

Yes, HR is about policies and procedures and ensuring that your company meets the Employment Standards Act and other labour laws. It’s about making sure that everyone at the company is respectable and treats each other respectfully. That is the foundation of any good company, but it’s also the narrowest view of HR’s role.

I know it’s a huge cliché, but a small business relies on its people. Without a top performing team of employees, a small business will not survive. Owners and Founders cannot do everything so they need a team of trustworthy people around them. But it’s not enough to have high performing individuals. You can have any number of super achieving, A-types, but if they don’t all share the same values, the team will fail.

HR looks at the company’s values, recruits people who share those values. HR looks at the people in the organization, identifies their strengths and weaknesses, helps them hone their strengths, helps them improve their weaknesses, helps them work together. A good HR partner will coach leaders to listen to their employees, make recommendations for changes to operational processes, and make recommendations on how to organize work. Yes, you read that right! A good HR partner will take the time to understand how you operate and point out blind spots, ask questions, and push the status quo.

The result: a high functioning team, with an outstanding product or service, a full roster of repeat customers, and a steady flow of referrals.

To answer the question, small businesses don’t need HR. Certainly, many companies manage without it. But imagine, for one second, the possibilities with a really good HR partner by your side.

 

Categories
Culture Delegation Performance Management

How do I Get My Employees to Go Above and Beyond

Small business owners have it tough. They don’t have a lot of employees to spread the workaround. Quite often, a single person manages the work that four people do at a large company. So, when one employee doesn’t pull their weight, the effect on the bottom line is glaring. Not just that, getting all employees to excel is critical to the ongoing growth of a small business.

One of my clients in the technology space recently shared that his business had plateaued. He had good employees, and they did what they were supposed to do, but they rarely did more than they were asked. This meant it was up to him to not only come up with ideas for growth, but also manage execution of those projects.

I thought it would be helpful to share the key areas I explored with him to solve the problem.

Treatment of new ideas

How you respond to ideas plays a huge role in how often your employees come up with new ideas. I’ve worked with many clients who lament the fact that their employees don’t innovate, but when I observe these leaders in meetings, they shoot down every new idea that employees bring up. The worst part is that they don’t even realize they’re doing it. The truth is some leaders are fearful of the unknown and want an airtight plan before even considering an idea. The thing is, when we’re going into unchartered territory, there’s always an element of risk involved, and there will be more wrinkles than you’re comfortable with. You need to be open to new ideas, and even if they’re outrageous, don’t dismiss them. Have your employees bring a plan together and explore the contingencies. When employees have a chance to implement their own ideas, they’re more likely to take ownership and do whatever needs to be done to prove their idea works.

Compensation Plans

Look at the way your compensation plans are structured. Do you only pay your employees a base salary and a Holiday bonus at the end of the year? If so, there’s no incentive for people to do more. Motivation is an intriguing concept. While we’d all like our employees to be self-motivated, the truth of the matter is, human beings’ behavior is dependent on outcomes. Generally, rewards for good behavior produce continued good behavior. So, if you want your employees to go beyond their job description, give them a portion of the company profits. Or, if you already give them an annual performance-based bonus, make sure a portion of that comes from some business metric such as profit, revenue, or growth rate. Going back to the previous point, perhaps consider an award for the most innovative idea of the year.

Treatment of failure

The manner in which leaders deal with failure is a huge indicator of how likely employees are to bring new ideas forward. Almost every leader I’ve spoken to says that they are accepting of mistakes. They go on to tell me how they continue to support employees even when they make mistakes because mistakes are learning opportunities. In reality, these same leaders make a huge deal when things go wrong. They don’t let mistakes go as easily as they think they do. Employees are generally called into a large meeting, the problem (and the mistake) are dissected along with what happened and exactly when and by whom. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with retracing your steps to see where things went wrong so that you don’t repeat those mistakes. It’s an altogether whole other thing to isolate the people who messed up and rake them over the coals. What’s worse, when an employee makes a mistake, that mistake is held against them for the rest of their working career at the company, especially if it’s a high-profile mistake. You might think this is an exaggeration, but I have seen this with every single one of my clients.

When an employee or a team makes a mistake, ask them to tell you how they would handle it differently next time. Don’t ask them to give you a play by play of what happened and how. When you focus on moving forward, rather than reliving the past, employees know that you’re really forgiving their mistakes and are trusting that they’ve learned from the behavior. And, they’re more likely to take risks and bring forward innovative ideas in the future.

Involvement in setting strategy

Including employees in your journey to take the company to new levels is crucial in getting them to over-contribute. When employees have had a say in the direction of the company, they are more likely to work harder to get to the destination. Most companies will have their senior leadership team at the strategy table. The senior-most people decide where the company is going and how it will get there. Then they cascade that message to the rest of the employees. The reason, they say, is that they have the experience and are best equipped to make those decisions. But, think for a moment. Who in your company is actually dealing with your customers, doing the research, and handling sales and customer service? Who is actually meeting your customers face to face on a daily basis? Shouldn’t those people, then, at least have a say in where the company should go. Shouldn’t they be given an opportunity to tell you what customers tell them every day?

If you’re a small company, it’s easy enough to have everyone invited to the meeting to have a broad discussion. If you’re on the larger side of a small company (more than 15 employees), it might be easier to have people submit their suggestions and ideas beforehand. Whichever way you decide to do this, when employees are involved in strategy setting, they’re more likely to feel a sense of ownership in the direction of the company and excel.

Every small business is different, and this isn’t an exhaustive list, but exploring each of these factors will move you toward the “above and beyond” culture you want. Implementing all 4 ideas will guarantee results.

I’d love to hear of things you’ve done to move your employees from good to great.

Categories
Culture Leadership

How to Stop Your Star Employees From Leaving

Picture this scenario. Your star employee, the one with the best customer reviews, the one that makes your company look amazing, and has the best stats out of all your other employees, avoids eye contact during your weekly update meeting. You know something is up, and ask her, totally expecting her to talk about a troubled client, or an employee issue she’s dealing with. Instead, she raises her eyes to yours and says in a quiet voice, “I’m resigning.”

While you would all like to be that boss who would be genuinely happy for her, happy that she found something worth moving for, your world still comes crumbling down. For the first few seconds, you’re in shock. Then the reality starts to sink in and you panic.

“How much?” you ask, hating yourself for thinking that your star employee could be bought. But you know everyone’s got a price and you’re willing to pay it for her.

Then she says that she’s not getting that much of a raise, and even if you counter offered, she would still leave. Flabbergasted and jaw hanging only slightly open, you ask her why. What could she possibly have found at another company?

She then goes on to say all the things that you should have known before she signed on the dotted line with the other guys. Things that were completely within your control. Things you could have given her very easily. The freedom to make decisions, broader responsibilities, more accounts.

So, how exactly do you make sure this never happens to you?

Look at your compensation plan

Most often, employees don’t leave for money. However, there are times when they the salary they are making at a company is so low for the work they do and the revenue they bring in, that it’s not feasible (or fair) for them to stay. You need to look at the market at least every other year (more often for high-growth industries) and pay accordingly. Compensation data will usually provide salary information in quartiles. The median (or 50th percentile), is the middle of the road salary. That means that 50% of people get paid less than that and 50% get paid more. If you follow a pay-for-performance philosophy, you need to think about where in that spectrum you want to be.

Communicate

This is something that comes up repeatedly on this blog and I can’t say it too much. Talk to your employees. All the time. There’s a misconception that good employees need less attention. Sure, they don’t need you to monitor everything they do. You never need to follow-up with them on outstanding items, because they’re never behind. Your clients and their colleagues only have the nicest things to say about them. But you still need to talk to them. Talk about their careers, where they see themselves in three years, five years, ten years. Then do your hardest to make it happen for them.

 

Showcase them

It’s great that you know your employee is great. And it’s great that clients tell you how great he is. But if you don’t share that intel, it’s as good as not there. Having a star employee is cause for celebration, so celebrate his successes. Take his best practices and share them across your organization. Give him credit for his ideas. Ask him to mentor and coach people who might benefit from his help. Have him represent your organization at industry or alumni events. I know many high performers who stay at companies for years because they like the fact that they are the face of the organization at places that matter to them.

Give them responsibility

I’ve heard many small business owners lament the fact that their good people leave because of lack of opportunity. While smaller companies don’t have the same hierarchy that larger companies have, many employees prefer smaller companies because of the breadth of work they are exposed to. It’s not uncommon for a sales person to also manage customer service at a small company. Or for the receptionist to also manage accounts payable. So, if you have a small company, take advantage of that, and give your high performers the breadth of work that will keep them engaged. I’ve seen so many small businesses operate like an enterprise operation, and it just doesn’t work. So, look at your org structure and leverage your small company to ensure your high performers stay (and continue to make your business profitable).

Respect their knowledge

This should be obvious, but it’s amazing how many leaders undermine the experience their employees have accumulated over the years. If an employee has been with you for three years, five years, ten years, then seek their opinion on all matters, both routine and important. The time you take to get their input, and the importance you place on it, will directly influence their job satisfaction. Ask them how a process is working, gather feedback on your own leadership style, or whether the structure of the company makes sense. Then, when you implement those ideas, give them credit. Not only will this make your star employees feel like their ideas are welcome, it will encourage other employees to also voice their opinions on matters.

 

Manage your low performers

This one surprises many leaders. While taking care of your star performers will ensure that they stay put and continue to contribute to the success of your business, it’s equally important to manage your low performers in a timely manner. Managing performance thoughtfully is important, but it’s equally important for you to take action quickly. Many times, high performers feel like they are “penalized” for being a high performer because they get the high-profile projects that require them to work extra-hard, while low performers cruise through and continue to stay employed. This is just good leadership in general, but the way you manage your low performers has an impact on the morale of your high performers.

This is not an exhaustive list, but I guarantee that if you keep your star employees happy and spend as much time with them as you would a lower performer, the chances that they’ll stay with you longer and take your business to new heights.

Categories
Culture Values

What makes us different

There are a hundred HR consulting practices out there. All are led by extremely competent, personable and experienced HR professionals. Choosing which one to work with is a fine balance between a personal and business decision. You have to:

  1. “like” the person you’re working with,
  2. they have to share your philosophy with respect to employee treatment, and
  3. they need to be good at what they do.

Assuming you can find all three qualities in the HR consultants you choose for your business, here are three things that set us apart from the rest.

  1. The Truth – I promise that you will always get the truth from us.  We believe that you retain us because you trust us to provide solutions to your problems.  We take that trust very seriously and promise to give you straight answers, truthful answers, on what needs to be done in order for you to achieve your objectives. I’ll be the first to say that the truth often hurts. My clients aren’t always happy with what they hear. At first. Then once they see the opportunity that the truth presents, they get over it. They see that hearing the truth allows them to make changes to see the results they want in their business.
  2. Quality – We have worked with high performing companies and know what good quality looks like.  We hereby dispel the myth that “you get what you pay for”, because no matter what you fee pay us, we will always deliver high quality services to you and your team.  No exceptions.  And, what’s more, we will continuously check in with you and your team to ensure we’re giving you what you need. If, on the off chance, we do deliver a product that doesn’t quite meet your expectations, I ask you to please talk to us about it. If we discuss the issues, we can fix them together and come to an agreement on what quality means to you.
  3. Our Guarantee – Because our services come with no obligations, you’re free to cancel at any time (though we’re sure you won’t!). We ask for 10 days’ notice, and that’s only so we can work together to rectify the issues, or come up with a plan to make things work between us. Still, if you’re completely dissatisfied with our services, and we’ve done all we can together without coming to an agreement, we will gladly give your money back. I personally stand behind the work that we do, and I would never want you to pay for something from which you did not derive value.

I love hearing from our clients (or prospective clients), so if you have any additional ideas on how we can keep you coming back for more, drop a comment below.