Categories
Leadership

“Peoplekind” is the Future – How to Make Sure Leaders are Ready

How to make sure your leaders are ready for diversity

I generally don’t like to discuss politics; it’s not considered an HR-friendly topic. The reality, however, is that our current world leaders give us too much fodder to ignore, and so much of it is linked to HR and the treatment of people.

Last week, our prime minister, Justin Trudeau, who as been touring Canada doing town halls, told a woman that she should use “peoplekind” instead of mankind because it’s more inclusive (I’m paraphrasing). I watched the video. It sounded like a joke, the people in the room took it as a joke, but the internet went mental. They lashed out at him for calling out a woman for not being feminist enough. A self-proclaimed feminist, Justin Trudeau had, it seemed, finally reached the limit on what is considered politically correct, and feminist. What might be worse, is that he dismissed it as a dumb joke today.

How many times have you sat in a meeting while a boss, colleague or executive has said something politically incorrect? I was at a meeting a few months ago when the CEO was recounting a story and referred to the subject of his story as Oriental. In case you’ve been living under a rock (or you are that CEO in question), you don’t call people Oriental anymore than you call Natives “Indians”. Besides, unless the person’s ethnicity is relevant to the story, leave it out!

Then there are other leaders who, like Trudeau, go a little overboard, if that’s a thing. There was nothing inherently wrong with Justin’s comment, except for the fact that the word peoplekind doesn’t exist (yet). And the fact that he interrupted the woman in question. In the political arena, as in the workplace, the reality is that we do all need to be careful about what we say. I remember I was chastised once for using the term “manhours” when referring to the time a project was going to take. So, how is that any different than peoplekind?

I promised this wasn’t going to be a political ramble, though, so I’ll get to the point. Political correctness is here to stay. Canada is on the verge of changing their national anthem lyrics to be more gender-neutral. The Prime Minister is touting peoplekind instead of mankind. Ladies and Gentlemen is being replaced by… something, I’m sure.

You can’t even address a group of women as “Ladies” anymore for fear that someone in the audience may not identify as a female. Under the Charter of Rights, there are certain protected grounds and gender expression is now one of them. Which means that you can no longer assume that just because a person looks like a woman, that they identify as a woman. And people who are exercising access to this protection are sure to call people out on any misuse or representation. Rightfully so. Anyone protected under the charter should be respected and terms we use, that were acceptable in the past, are no longer admissible at work.

It would be extremely difficult to list out all the terms that could be considered offensive, so I won’t do that. My advice to leaders and managers in this highly politically correct world is as follows:

1. Lead by example

Think before you speak (and write). It is difficult to watch each and every word when you’re busy running a company, but you have to be conscious of them. There’s no need to curtail your speech, or your style, but educate yourself on politically correct terms. Ask for feedback from your direct reports and co-workers. Political correctness and inclusivity are here to stay, so you might as well get on board now. You don’t need to invent words like our prime minister, but certainly you need to be well-versed on the bare minimum.

2. Call it out

When you hear someone on your team say something that could be said in a different way, using different terms, please do everyone a favour and call them out on it. If you want to truly create an inclusive workplace, you need to stop the offenders. Pull them aside in private to explain how their comment was perceived. For the really offensive, you have to insist that they apologize either verbally or in writing, depending on the severity of the comment.

3. Hire for diversity

I remember an incident where an employee was teasing another employee about a dietary restriction related to her religion. He had never heard of that specific dietary restriction, and was asking endless questions about it, saying it was stupid and he didn’t understand. When the teased employee complained to her General Manager, the General Manager dismissed it as a joke. This type of dismissal is quite common, particularly in places where there is not much diversity in the workplace. While there’s nothing wrong with being curious (part of what makes Canada an enlightened society is the tolerance most of us have for things we don’t understand), it’s important to talk to employees about respectfully asking clarifying questions, and teasing. The latter is not to be tolerated at work, particularly as it relates to protected grounds.

Peoplekind hit a nerve with the public, but it’s not too far from where we’re headed. Canada has an ever-changing social landscape. The national anthem is changing, the term manhours is no longer acceptable, so why shouldn’t we replace mankind with peoplekind? As leaders, we just have to make sure we’re ready for the next wave of political correctness!

Categories
Benefits

How to Implement a Food and Pantry Program at Work

Food and Pantry program

February 2nd is Jour de Crêpe in France, or Day of the Crêpe. An odd holiday, but because of my dual link to France, I thought it was worth mentioning. For those who don’t know, I am a dual French and Canadian citizen. I’m no longer as fluent in French as I’d like to be, but I still adore all things French and am partial to the culture. Mostly particularly the food.

As an introvert, I’m not given to much small talk. When I do have to engage with people, the topic that gets me warmed up the most is food. Then I think about the workplace and how food, no matter the size of the organization, plays a pretty central role in bringing people together. Whether it’s that monthly birthday cake, which most people have a love-hate relationship with, or the holiday potluck which seems to be a standard among the over 30 crowd, food brings people together like nothing else does.

Today, more and more workplaces are stocking up their kitchens with snack and food items. Gone are the days of basic coffee or tea. Now it’s not unusual to have Nespresso machines, specialty teas, and flavour syrups lining the kitchen counters. Fruit baskets, healthy yogurt, nuts and berries, even cereal are staples of many downtown Toronto kitchens. During the recruitment process, HR professionals and executives tout the wonders of the office kitchen and the wonderfully stocked pantry. The food bill for some of these pantries is not low, but leaders and owners gladly shell out the money because it keeps the workforce engaged, in the office, and happily stuffed with (mostly) healthy fare. Employees love that they don’t have to spend their hard-earned dollars on generic snacks from overpriced food courts and convenience stores. Go to the kitchen to stretch your legs, grab a snack and resume the grind. Everyone is happy.

So, how exactly do go about setting up a food and pantry program at work. Here are 6 things to keep in mind as you take your workplace perks to the next level.

1. Survey your employees

This doesn’t have to be a formal survey. Simply keep your eyes and ears open for what people are saying. Would they appreciate a food program? What type of food would they like to see. The key isn’t to get everything on everyone’s list. The key is to see whether most of your employees would appreciate such a program.

2. Survey your industry

I’m not saying that you need to copy whatever is going on with your competitors, but if every other company has a stocked pantry and a food program, then it would be in your best interest to have such a program too. It’s a candidate attraction and retention tool.

3. Assess the costs

If you’re a bootstrapping start-up, investing in a food program might not be on the top of your priority list, however, those are the exact companies that need all the help they can get to attract people over. More and more employees stay with employers who offer the best perks over the highest salary. Assessing costs also involves looking at the vendors and doing a comparative study of who would be able to deliver food and snacks you want at the best price.

4. Assign a person or pool of people to manage the pantry

I can’t stress this enough. You need to have at least one person in place whose job description includes managing the office kitchen and pantry stock. This person needs to know that people will complain to them about the quality or selection of food, and they need to have a thick skin and the maturity to know which suggestions are legitimately worthy of entertaining and which ones are meaningless.

5. Have a “Clean up after yourselves” policy

There’s a dark side to having a food program in place. I’m not sure if people leave their home kitchens a mess, or whether people treat the office kitchen as a public place that doesn’t deserve their attention and care, but if I had a dollar for every dirty kitchen I came across, I wouldn’t need a side hustle. It’s important to let people know that the food program is a perk, and everyone needs to respect the eating area by cleaning up after themselves.

6. Be willing to splurge on healthy items

While it’s cheaper to have snacks like chips and cookies, it’s worthwhile having healthy snacks in the food program. Nuts, berries, fruits, cereal, granola bars, low calorie snack items, and yogurt cups are tasty and nutritious and shows employees that you care about their health and well being.

Having a food and pantry program doesn’t have to be expensive, particularly for small businesses. Start small and work your way up. Finally, the most important piece of advice I have for owners and leaders is to use the food program themselves. You need to know what is in that pantry, how fast it “moves” and whether the selection is one that represents your and your company’s values.

Above all, have fun with food in the workplace. It’s an amazing way to bring your people together!

Categories
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.

Categories
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
Leadership Performance Management

How to Deal With a High Performing Jerk

6 ways to deal with a high performing jerk

You know and the type. They’re the ones who solve the biggest problems or have the best sales records, but everyone inside your company hates them. They’re quite simply high performing jerks.
Here’s an example I encountered recently. A customer called saying the order they received was faulty. They said the salesperson misrepresented what they were going to get, and they wanted to return everything and get their money back. The company’s COO swooped in, spoke to the customer, empathized with them, and told them that the company was committed to full customer satisfaction or money back. He ended up replacing the product to the customer’s specification, somehow brought them back from the brink of losing them, and they ended up being a repeat customer.
Then the CEO heard the other side of the story. The COO went to the “misrepresenting” salesperson and gave him crap in front of his colleagues. He then went to the purchasing department and berated the manager there, telling her that he had to deal with her poor buying abilities and warned her that she had twenty-four hours to rectify the issue. He didn’t care how she did it, she needed to find replacement products, quality check them herself and get back to him. Then he left to go play a round of golf with a big customer he was courting.
This left the CEO with a dilemma. Should he praise him for his superior ability to do whatever it took to keep the customer? Or reprimand him for his methods?

This happens more often than you can imagine. Probably one of the most public scandals in recent years was the Uber disaster. Uber did a number of things wrong, which the CEO supposedly condoned. In one example, A former employee wrote a blog post about her experience at the company. HR said they couldn’t fire the manager who was allegedly harassing employees because he was a top performer. After the story became public, I can’t tell you how many people scoffed at Uber HR’s response and inability to act. But I can tell you that the Uber story is not the first and neither will it be the last. It was more shocking than others, but I can tell you that it happens all the time.

Take a hard look at your employees. Do any of them demonstrate poor behaviour? Here are 6 things you can do to ensure your company is safe from the potential reputational damage of a high performing jerk.

Look at Your Values

Do your values support only performance or do they also support team work and collaboration? I can’t tell you how many times leaders complain to me about their high performers’ bad behaviour. Then when I ask them what their bonus is based on, they tell me it’s 100% on the sales numbers, or on budget numbers.

If you want your employees to behave in a manner that exemplifies a sharing and collaborative environment, make sure your values reflect that. And, please, if you have good values, make sure your company follows them.

Evaluate on Results and Methods

One of the easiest ways to ensure your employees are not just driven towards the targets, but also towards team work, is to evaluate them on that. I’m a big proponent of measuring results and competencies. So, measure the what and the how. What did they achieve over the period, and how did they achieve those results?

Reward performance, but not at the expense of good behaviour.

Conduct 360 Evaluations

Most high performing employees manage upward very well. In other words, they make you and the rest of the management team look good. But the high performing jerks will make only the management team feel good. They will treat their staff horribly. I knew of one top c-suite executive who consistently berated people in large meetings. He got results and the board members and shareholders loved him for it, but he treated people very badly.

At least once a quarter (more often for shorter sales cycles), make sure you ask everyone the employee deals with to evaluate their performance. This includes their managers, their peers, their employees, and that their customers. Don’t assume that just because a manager loves her high performer, that the employee is not a jerk.

Talk to Them About Their Jerk Behaviour

I always find it amazing how many leaders will ignore the “talk” about a top performer’s behaviour for fear of losing them. “I can’t talk to him about his behaviour because he might leave, and I’ll lose my best employee.” Well, I ask you this: Is that person really your best employee if he makes everyone else feel like crap? And is that the type of culture you want for your company? Have you looked at how many other people have left because of him, or how many other people have lost their enthusiasm for the company because of him?

Don’t be afraid to talk to your high performer about behaviour. Praise their performance, but talk about the behaviour issues. Yes, there’s a risk of them getting upset and leaving, but that means they are not open to feedback. A high performer who is not open to feedback has stopped learning and has capped her abilities. Basically, that’s the best you will ever get out of them. On the other hand, if she takes the feedback in stride and improves her interactions with the team, think of the stellar employee you’ll have then!

When Talking Doesn’t Work

This happens quite often. A lot of high performers are high performers because they have immense amounts of confidence. When their boss points out that they need improvement in an area, they may choose to dismiss it, especially if the feedback was given in a casual, cursory manner. The performance continues, and so does the behaviour. It’s very easy at this point for managers and business owners to say, “She’s just like that and she’ll never change.”

Be persistent. Keep having those conversations and keep pressing the issues. Going back to my second point about evaluating on methods, if the behaviour continues, make sure it’s reflected in her bonus or salary increase. Sorry, but there is never a good enough excuse to be a jerk!

Lead by Example

Lastly, but most importantly, but make sure you’re leading by example. Are you, as the business owner or CEO, getting the 360 feedback? Are you demonstrating the right behaviours? Are you watching how you treat your employees? Sometimes jerk behaviour is learned behaviour and the top most leaders are setting a bad example. It’s not always intentional, so you need to take a close look at how you come across to your employees and model the behaviour you want to see from them.

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.

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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.

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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.

Categories
Delegation Leadership

5 Steps to Maintaining Control Without Micromanaging

Female hand holding a pen and writing a plan in a planner

Bob is the CEO of a small IT consulting firm. Bob built the business from scratch by himself in the spare room of his 1700 square foot townhouse in East Toronto. Over the past 5 years, Bob’s company has grown to a six-figure business and employs about 50 people. Bob’s business model is unique and has attracted customers from around the world. He now has clients in Hong Kong, Sydney, Texas, LA, New York, Vancouver, Montreal and, of course, Toronto.

About a year ago, Bob realised that his company was getting too big to keep track of everything. Sometimes he didn’t even know they had secured a client and done work for them until he got his monthly budget from his CFO showing they had received money. Further, he didn’t like some of the smaller projects his team had worked on. They didn’t fit with his vision of the company’s direction. They should be working on larger projects, not smaller ones. He felt like he was being pushed out of the company’s operation, and his entire company was going rogue.

One morning, he called an all-staff meeting and told everyone that moving forward, any action related to a client needed his final sign off. That meant people had to discuss when they wanted to court a new client, send him proposals in advance so he could vet them, send him project plans so he knew what everyone was working on and show him invoices before they were sent to clients. He felt this way he would know exactly what was going on, and he would be able to move the company in the direction he wanted.

As the months went on, Bob’s days got longer. His senior team members weren’t pulling their weight. His calendar was jam packed from 7am to 8pm every day, and he was frequently on calls over the weekend. His team was constantly asking him questions and waiting for him to give them direction. He was no better off than he was before and, to add to things, revenue was lower than it was before. Still, he felt he had made the right decision because his team needed his help.

Then, about 6 months after he implemented this “final sign off” rule, his VP of Sales resigned. He was one of Bob’s first hires and Bob was extremely upset that the VP was leaving him. During his exit interview, the VP shared with Bob that he felt his responsibilities were being taken away and he wanted more responsibility, not less. Over the following six months, another 2 senior team members resigned, citing similar reasons.

Let’s look at this case study in detail. As Bob’s company grew, he was not able to be involved in every project and client interaction. He wanted his business to grow, but he didn’t want to lose control. The fact that his team was signing on projects that didn’t align with his vision was problematic. And the fact that he didn’t know all his clients was also problematic.

Unfortunately, Bob’s solution to the problem, the “final sign off” rule resulted in half of his senior team leaving within a year. That was certainly not part of Bob’s plan, nor did it benefit his business.

So, what could Bob have done differently to ensure that he still had his finger on the pulse of his business, without being completely buried in the details.

Clearly Define the Vision and Plan

Bob clearly had a vision of where he wanted the company to go. However, like most small business owners, he never set it down on paper. Writing out a vision means thinking it through and putting a plan in place to achieve that vision. A vision without a plan is not real. The only way to realize a vision is to put a plan in place for it. Bob can consult with their senior team, or a mentor or coach, or just do it themselves, but a vision and plan need to be defined.

Communicate the Vision and Plan

Once the vision and plan are defined, Bob needs to communicate this vision to his team. He should call an all-staff meeting and tell everyone what he sees for the company and the plan he has put in place. He should ask employees to ask questions about his plan. After all, they’re the ones who are going to execute it. Bob should tell them exactly what types of projects he wants them to work on, what types of clients he wants them to work with.

Request Regular Updates Without Getting Involved

It’s completely reasonable for Bob to want to know what’s going on. However, he can do this without having “final sign off” on all items. Once he has communicated his vision and execution plan, he needs to leave it up to his team to execute on the plan. He can monitor their activities without needing to approve everything. He will know exactly what is going on, and offer advice and coaching, but does not need to take over the responsibility of making the decisions.

Course Correct and Communicate Again

When Bob receives regular updates, he can decide whether his employees are moving along in the right direction. If he still feels they’re taking on projects or clients that don’t fit with the vision, Bob should go back out to his employees and tell them again about his vision and what he wants. There’s no such thing as too much communication, and when that communication comes from the CEO, and the message is consistent, it does work. There’s an old marketing adage that says a prospect needs to hear from you seven times before they act. The same can be said for your employees. Don’t be afraid of reiterating the same message if you feel things aren’t moving in the direction you want them to.

Appreciate Good Work and Provide Feedback

I can’t say this enough, leaders need to appreciate and commend their high performing employees. CEOs should also go out of their way to praise employees who are trying to do better. All employees need to be appreciated. They need to know that they are on the right track and that their jobs are valued at the company. They also need to know when they’re not performing.

 

Following these steps will allow Bob to focus on finding new business opportunities and ways to expand his business. Over the next few months, we’ll expand on the topics that I’ve touched on here: rust, delegation, empowerment, appreciation. Stay tuned!