Ten Employee Training Tips

02/15/2017 |

Ten Employee Training Tips

By AllBusiness.com

Well-trained employees are the key to your small business success. Studies have shown that the most successful, productive employees are those who have received extensive training. They’re the cream of the crop, and often have the strongest stake in the company’s future.

In an ideal world, you would be able to hire people who already possess the exact skills your business needs. But in today’s competitive labor market, demand for skilled workers far exceeds supply.

That’s where training comes in. Not only does instruction arm your employees with needed professional or technical skills, but it also shows that you are invested in them and interested in bringing them with you into the company’s future. This helps keep workers motivated and involved.

To successfully launch an employee-training program in your own company, follow these 10 helpful tips:

Stress training as investment. The reason training is often considered optional at many companies is because it is thought of as an expense rather than an investment. While it’s true that training can be costly up front, it’s a long-term investment in the growth and development of your human resources.
Determine your needs. As you probably don’t have unlimited time or funds to execute an employee training program, you should decide early on what the focus of your training program should be. Determine what skills are most pertinent to address current or future company needs or ones that will provide the biggest payback. Ask yourself, “How will this training eventually prove beneficial to the company?” Repeat this process as your business needs change.
Promote a culture of learning. In today’s fast-paced economy, if a business isn’t learning, it’s going to fall behind. A business learns as its people learn. Communicate your expectations that all employees should take the necessary steps to hone their skills and stay on top of their professions or fields of work. Make sure you support those efforts by providing the resources needed to accomplish this goal.
Get management on board. Once you have developed a prioritized list of training topics that address key needs within your company, you need to convince management to rally behind the initiative.
Start out small. Before rolling out your training program to the masses, rehearse with a small group of users and gather their feedback. This sort of informal benchmarking exposes weaknesses in your training plans and helps you fine-tune the training process.
Choose quality instructors and materials. Who you select to conduct the training will make a major difference in the success of your efforts, whether it’s a professional educator or simply a knowledgeable staff member. Having the right training materials is also important — after the training is over, these materials become valuable resources for trainees.
Find the right space. Select a training location that’s conducive to learning. Choose an environment that’s quiet and roomy enough to spread out materials. Make sure the space is equipped with a computer and projector, so you can present a visually stimulating training session.
Clarify connections. Some employees may feel that the training they’re receiving isn’t relevant to their job. It’s important to help them understand the connection early on, so they don’t view the training sessions as a waste of valuable time. Employees should see the training as an important addition to their professional portfolios. Award people with completion certificates at the end of the program.
Make it ongoing. Don’t limit training solely to new employees. Organized, ongoing training programs will maintain all employees’ skill levels, and continually motivate them to grow and improve professionally.
Measure results. Without measurable results, it’s almost impossible to view training as anything but an expense. Decide how you’re going to obtain an acceptable rate of return on your investment. Determine what kind of growth or other measure is a reasonable result of the training you provide. You’ll have an easier time budgeting funds for future training if you can demonstrate concrete results.

AllBusiness.com provides resources to help small and growing businesses start, manage, finance, and expand their business. The site contains forms & agreements, business guides, business directories, thousands of articles, expert advice, and business blogs. Material copyrighted by AllBusiness.com.

How To Create Your Own Opportunities At Work

02/02/2017 |

How To Create Your Own Opportunities At Work

When your job isn’t giving you room to grow, make some.

You’re a hard worker, just like you said at your job interview. In all your time at your company, you’ve done consistently good work. You’re reliable. But for some reason, you just aren’t shining as much as you’d like. Maybe there’s a sexy new project at work that you were hoping to be assigned, but it went to someone else. Perhaps you’re holding out for a promotion but haven’t seen it yet.

You’re starting to wonder if your hard work doesn’t cut it. You’re doing some great things, but your boss doesn’t seem to notice. You aren’t getting bigger or better projects, which means you aren’t really growing in your position. Is there something else you should be doing?

Executing Isn’t Enough

The solution here isn’t necessarily to approach your boss and ask point-blank what gives. Before you charge into your boss’s office demanding a change, stop for a minute and ask yourself: How proactive am I in my career? Do I take on more than is required of me? Do I go out of my way to take on projects that benefit teams other than my own? Do I regularly help my teammates? And do I do these things without permission, or only when I’m asked to? In other words, am I fearless?

If the answers here are mostly “no,” it’s time to be more proactive. Don’t wait for your boss to create opportunities for you—create them yourself.No matter what stage of your career you’re at, simply “doing” the work is never enough. In order to take charge of your own career, you often have to take the initiative.

The most successful people are proactive. They provide value beyond what’s asked of them, and in the process, they showcase their talents and show everybody else how much they can contribute. Over time, teams learn to come to them with bigger and better projects. It’s a virtuous circle that benefits both the company and their careers.

Depending on your personality, this might not feel so natural. It may also come more easily to people at senior levels who typically don’t have to wait for a supervisor to approve every decision they make. People earlier in their careers might hesitate to be so proactive, fearing that if they do, they’ll be scolded for overstepping.

In reality, this fear is typically unfounded. What it really boils down to is your confidence and how much you know about the company and industry you’re in, not the current stage of your career. Here are a few tips for being more proactive at every level.

Take An Inventory Of Your Strengths And Weaknesses

Just as you would while preparing for a job interview, sit down and log your strengths and weaknesses. Has your team actually seen the full breadth of your skills? Do they know what you’re capable of? Are you actively utilizing your strongest skills, or are they being underleveraged?

Sometimes assets are hidden inside what appear to be disadvantages. Maybe you’ve been harping on the fact that you’re the youngest on your team—does that also make you the most social-media-savvy? Consider your strengths and weaknesses from all angles. You need to understand them better before stepping up to show your team more of what you’ve got.

Pick The Right Project

Being proactive isn’t about picking any extra project and adding it to your to-do list. It’s about identifying strategic opportunities for the good of the company—not just for yourself.

Which opportunities are those? Ask yourself these questions to pinpoint where you can help your company or team—and your career in the process:

What do you know about the business, company, or industry that only you can see?
What are some possibilities your company or team haven’t explored yet, and why not?
What gaps do you see?
What business objectives are you most passionate about at your company, and which of those are you uniquely qualified to help with?

Note that the answers to these questions may mean working with your current team, or not! Embrace the opportunity to meet teams other than your own if that’s where you can best contribute. Going out on a limb to forge those relationships is another sign that you’re interested in growing beyond what you already do.

Once You Seize It, Sell It

Now it’s time to sell your boss on the value of you taking on this project. Boil it down to a one-liner summarizing what you hope to achieve, and why it’s important to the company or team. Practice explaining that in the mirror if it helps.

While it can be scary to work on a project with no obvious stakeholders, if it’s a truly valuable undertaking, it’ll prove itself. Other people will see its value as it develops, and you yourself will become more certain of it.

Keep in mind, however, that it’s essential that you believe in the value of the undertaking. If you’re not sure it’s worth pursuing, get a second opinion from someone you trust (a close colleague, a mentor), or table it until you find another opportunity that makes your heart beat faster with conviction.

Keep Up Your Existing Responsibilities

The only way you can get away with working on something only you see the value in (at first) is if you’re keeping on top of all your current duties. As you start to stretch into self-initiated projects, it can be tempting to focus on those alone, but that’s a mistake.

Being proactive only to drop the basics isn’t a sign of leadership potential—it’s a sign of poor time management, a reason why you might not be progressing in your career as quickly as you thought yourself capable. That can be tough to recognize, but it’s useful intel.

Don’t Wait For Permission To Do More

This is crucial, whether you’re an intern for the season or a seasoned manager. If you find yourself waiting for someone else to signal or approve the next step, check yourself: It’s up to you to keep the ball rolling. Rather than waiting for a new assignment or task, ask yourself what else could be done, and do it.

Of course, be sure to use your best judgment here. There’s a category of things that you may in fact need approval for; sending a mass email to the whole company or expensing some unapproved dinners might create some challenges. But for a more run-of-the-mill project, it may not be necessary. Default toward asking for forgiveness, not permission.

Manage Up

You’re ultimately the best (and only) person to represent your own interests to your boss. Tell her what you want out of your career, and ask her to keep an eye out for opportunities for you. A good manager will keep you top of mind for upcoming projects that match your interest and skill set—or they’ll tell you why they think you’re not ready for those opportunities just yet. (If it’s the latter, don’t despair; this kind of feedback can be helpful, as now you have something tangible to work toward.)

But asking for your manager’s support isn’t the same as sitting on your hands and waiting for it. After all, it’s easy to wait for approval. It’s a lot harder to take initiative. But when you’re proactive, it often pays off—for you as well as your employer.

| Create opportunities at work Job Advancement Manage Up Opportunities at work Promotion

If Your Boss Could Do Your Job, You’re More Likely to Be Happy at Work

01/25/2017 |

Managing people

If Your Boss Could Do Your Job, You’re More Likely to Be Happy at Work

December 29, 2016

“People don’t quit bad jobs, they quit bad bosses,” according to an old saw. Our research suggests there’s truth behind this saying: bosses matter far more for employee job satisfaction than any other factor we measured. But what makes someone a great boss?

Studies of leaders often focus on their style or charisma, but we wanted to look at how workers are affected by their boss’s technical competence. That is, is the boss is a real expert in the core business of the organization? How much expertise does he or she have? Boss competence is, admittedly, a multifaceted concept. Hence we measured it in three different ways:

Whether the supervisor could, if necessary, do the employee’s job.
Whether the supervisor worked his or her way up inside the company.
The supervisor’s level of technical competence as assessed by a worker.

Using these three measures of supervisor competence, we found that employees are far happier when they are led by people with deep expertise in the core activity of the business. This suggests that received wisdom about what makes a good boss may need some rethinking. It’s not uncommon to hear people assert that it’s a bad idea to promote an engineer to lead other engineers, or an editor to lead other editors. A good manager doesn’t need technical expertise, this argument goes, but rather, a mix of qualities like charisma, organizational skills, and emotional intelligence. Those qualities do matter, but what our research suggests is that the oft-overlooked quality of having technical expertise also matters enormously.

Research into the topic of expert leadership is recent but burgeoning. Modern evidence demonstrates, for example, that hospitals may do better if led by doctors rather than by general managers, that U.S. basketball teams do better when led by a former All Star basketball player, that Formula One racing teams do better if led by successful former racing drivers, and that universities do better when led by top researchers rather than talented administrators.

In our project, we studied 35,000 randomly selected employees and workplaces. The samples are from both the U.S. and Britain. We use traditional ways of measuring the job satisfaction of employees, like the survey question we asked in the U.S.: “How do you feel about the job you have now?” 1 = “dislike very much”, 2 = “dislike somewhat”, 3 = “like fairly well”, 4 = “like very much”. People’s answer on average was 3.2. In Britain, we asked: “Please answer on a 7-point scale from “I am completely satisfied with my job,….I am completely dissatisfied with my job.” We found the answer in Britain was, on average, approximately 5.3. Overall, these ratings seem to us to be good, but perhaps not great, news. Workers are fairly happy.

When we look closely at the data, a striking pattern emerges. The benefit of having a highly competent boss is easily the largest positive influence on a typical worker’s level of job satisfaction. Even we were surprised by the size of the measured effect. For instance, among American workers, having a technically competent boss is considerably more important for employee job satisfaction than their salary (even when pay is really high).

Although we found that many factors can matter for happiness at work – type of occupation, level of education, tenure, and industry are also significant, for instance – they don’t even come close to mattering as much as the boss’s technical competence. Moreover, we saw that when employees stayed in the same job but got a new boss, if the new boss was technically competent, the employees’ job satisfaction subsequently rose.

The bottom line is that employees are happiest when the boss knows what she or he is talking about, and that drives performance: there is growing evidence, from randomized trials done under laboratory conditions, that when you make workers happier they become more productive. One study found that quite small boosts in happiness went on to produce a reliable 12% extra in labor productivity. Moreover, employees who are happy at work are less prone to quit, and it is well known that a high level of quits is expensive for a company. Lastly, it has recently been demonstrated that firms with happy employees go on to have better stock-price growth in the future.

The boss casts a very long shadow. Your job satisfaction is profoundly molded by your boss’s competence; and your own team’s job satisfaction levels depend on your competence.

Management Wisdom

| Bad Bosses Competent Boss Drive Performance Happy at Work Job Satisfaction Managing People Positive Influence

Minimum Wage Increases In Store For Many In 2017

01/03/2017 |

Minimum Wage Increases In Store For Many In 2017

12.19.16 Fisher Phillips Legal Alert

While the federal minimum wage has remained steady at $7.25 for the past seven years, many state and local jurisdictions have set their own minimum rates higher than the federal level. And, of course, when a local jurisdiction mandates a rate higher than the federal rate, you must pay your employees the higher rate.

Here is a listing of all the planned increases currently on tap for 2017. If your state or local jurisdiction is not listed, there is presently no increase in store for you in the new year. Obviously, though, these laws may change at any time, and you should consult with your local employment counsel before acting upon the information contained in this summary.

NOTE: These rates are for non-tipped employees. Check with your Fisher Phillips attorney, or with any attorney in the Fisher Phillips Hospitality Practice Group, for information about minimum wage rates for tipped employees.

The Alaska minimum wage will increase from $9.75 to $9.80 on January 1, 2017.

Arizona will see a minimum wage increase from $8.05 to $10.00 on January 1, 2017. Also, the city of Flagstaff will see an increase from $8.05 to $10.00 on January 1, 2017, and an additional increase to $12.00 on July 1, 2017.

The minimum wage for Arkansas will increase from $8.00 to $8.50 on January 1, 2017.

There will be plenty of activity in California. The statewide minimum wage will increase from $10.00 to $10.50 as of January 1, 2017 (although employers with 25 or fewer employees will receive a one-year reprieve and will not face the statewide increase in 2017), but 18 local jurisdictions in the state will also see minimum wage increases this coming year:

Berkeley will see an increase from $12.53 to $13.75 on October 1, 2017.
There will be an increase in the minimum wage in Cupertino from $10.00 to $12.00 on January 1, 2017.
Smaller employers in Emeryville (55 or fewer workers) will see an increase from $13.00 to $14.00 on July 1, 2017, while the increase for larger employers will be announced in 2017 and go into effect on July 1, 2017.
The minimum wage in Los Altos will increase from $10.00 to $12.00 on January 1, 2017.
Los Angeles will see an increase from $10.50 to $12.00 on July 1, 2017.
Those employers in Los Angeles County will also see an increase from $10.50 to $12.00 on July 1, 2017.
Mountain View employers will face a minimum increase from $11.00 to $13.00 on January 1, 2017.
In Oakland, the minimum wage will increase from $12.55 to $12.86 on January 1, 2017.
There will be a minimum wage increase in Palo Alto from $11.00 to $12.00 as of January 1, 2017.
In Pasadena, employers with 25 or fewer employees will face a minimum wage increase to $10.50 as of July 1, 2017, while larger employers will face an increase from $10.50 to $12.00 as of the same date.
Richmond will see an increase in the minimum wage from $11.52 to $12.30 on January 1, 2017.
In San Diego, the minimum wage will increase from $10.50 to $11.50 as of January 1, 2017.
San Francisco’s minimum wage will increase from $13.00 to $14.00 as of July 1, 2017.
The San Jose minimum wage will increase from $10.30 to $10.50 as of January 1, 2017.
There will be a minimum wage increase for employers in San Mateo, with rates increasing from $10.00 to $12.00 on January 1, 2017.
Santa Clara will see a minimum wage increase from $11.00 to $11.10 as of January 1, 2017.
In Santa Monica, the minimum wage will increase from $10.50 to $12.00 on July 1, 2017.
Employers in Sunnyvale will face a minimum wage increase from $11.00 to $13.00 on January 1, 2017.

The Colorado minimum wage will increase from $8.31 to $9.30 on January 1, 2017.

Connecticut will see an increase to the state minimum wage increase from $9.60 to $10.10 as of January 1, 2017.

In the District of Columbia, the minimum wage will increase from $11.50 to $12.50 as of July 1, 2017.

The Florida minimum wage will increase from $8.05 to $8.10 as of January 1, 2017.

The minimum wage in Hawaii will increase from $8.50 to $9.25 on January 1, 2017.

In Illinois, the statewide minimum wage will remain steady in 2017, but employers in Chicago will see an increase from $10.50 to $11.00 on July 1, 2017, and those in Cook County will face an increase from $8.25 to $10.00 on the same date.

While the minimum wage in Iowa is not scheduled to increase in 2017, three local jurisdictions will see increases:

Johnson County employers will face a minimum wage increase from $9.15 to $10.10 on January 1, 2017.
For employers in Polk County, the minimum wage will increase from $7.25 to $8.75 on April 1, 2017.
In Wapello County, the minimum wage will increase from $7.25 to $8.20 on January 1, 2017.

In Maine, the minimum wage will increase from $7.50 to $9.00 as of January 7, 2017. In Portland, the increase to the minimum wage will be from $10.10 to $10.68.

Maryland’s minimum wage will increase from $8.75 to $9.25 on July 1, 2017. Also:

Montgomery County employers will face a minimum wage increase from $10.75 to $11.50 on July 1, 2017.
For employers in Prince George’s County the minimum wage increase will be from $10.75 to $11.50 on October 1, 2017.

In Massachusetts, the minimum wage will increase from $10.00 to $11.00 on January 1, 2017.

The minimum wage in Michigan will increase from $8.50 to $8.90 as of January 1, 2017.

In Missouri, the minimum wage will increase from $7.65 to $7.70 as of January 1, 2017. Further:

The Kansas City minimum wage, which was slated to increase to $9.82 on January 1 2017, is stalled due to pending court challenges. The Missouri Supreme Court is expected to soon rule on the issue.
The same holds true for the St. Louis minimum wage, which was scheduled to increase to $10.00 as of January 1, 2017.

Montana’s minimum wage will increase from $8.05 to $8.15 on January 1, 2017.

New Jersey’s minimum wage will increase from $8.38 to $8.44 on January 1, 2017.

While the minimum wage in New Mexico is not scheduled to increase in 2017, various local jurisdictions will see increases:

In Albuquerque, the minimum wage will increase from $8.75 to $8.80 on January 1, 2017. However, if the employer provides healthcare and/or childcare benefits to the employee during any pay period and pays an amount for these benefits equal to or in excess of an annualized cost of $2,500, the minimum wage will increase from $7.75 to $7.80.
In Bernalillo County, the minimum wage will increase from $8.65 to $8.70 as of January 1, 2017.
The minimum wage in Las Cruces will increase from $8.40 to $9.20 on January 1, 2017.

In New York, the minimum wage will increase from $9.00 to $9.70 on December 31, 2016. For fast-food employers outside of New York City, the minimum wage will increase from $9.75 to $10.75 on the same date.

The New York City minimum wage increase will see rates rise for businesses with 11 or more employees from $9.00 to $11.00 on December 31, 2016. For smaller employers, the minimum wage will increase from $9.00 to $10.50. For fast-food establishments in New York City, the minimum wage will increase from $10.50 to $12.00 on the same date.
In Nassau, Suffolk, and Westchester Counties, the minimum wage will increase from $9.00 to $10.00 on December 31, 2016.

The minimum wage in Ohio will increase from $8.10 to $8.15 as of January 1, 2017.

Oregon’s minimum wage will increase from $9.75 to $10.25 as of July 1, 2017, unless otherwise described below:

For employers within the state’s Urban Growth Boundary, the minimum wage increase on July 1, 2017 will be from $9.75 to $11.25.
For employers in frontier counties, the minimum wage increase on July 1, 2017 will be from $9.50 to $10.00 per hour.
For more information on this system, please read this summary.

In South Dakota, the minimum wage will increase from $8.55 to $8.65 as of January 1, 2017.

The minimum wage in Vermont will increase from $9.60 to $10.00 on January 1, 2017.

Washington’s minimum wage will increase from $9.47 to $11.00 on January 1, 2017. Meanwhile:

Seattle employers with 500 or more employees will see an increase in their minimum wage from $13.00 to $15.00 on January 1, 2017; those with 500 or fewer employees will see an increase from $12.00 to $13.00.
The SeaTac minimum wage applicable for hospitality and transportation workers will increase from $15.24 to $15.35 as of January 1, 2017.
In Tacoma, the minimum wage will increase from $10.35 to $11.15.

The minimum wage for federal contractors covered by those regulations and Executive Order 13658 (primarily those with Davis-Bacon Act and Service Contract Act contracts) will increase from $10.15 to $10.20 effective January 1, 2017.

For more information, visit our website at www.fisherphillips.com, or contact your regular Fisher Phillips attorney.

This Legal Alert provides an overview of state and local minimum wage increases. It is not intended to be, and should not be construed as, legal advice for any particular fact situation.

| Minimum Wage

Top 10 OSHA Citations of 2016

11/07/2016 |

Top 10 OSHA Citations of 2016: A Starting Point for Workplace Safety

Filed in Español, Safety By Thomas Galassi on October 18, 2016

a worker climbs a piece of scaffolding wearing proper fall protection

Every October, the Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration releases a preliminary list of the 10 most frequently cited safety and health violations for the fiscal year, compiled from nearly 32,000 inspections of workplaces by federal OSHA staff.

One remarkable thing about the list is that it rarely changes. Year after year, our inspectors see thousands of the same on-the-job hazards, any one of which could result in a fatality or severe injury.

More than 4,500 workers are killed on the job every year, and approximately 3 million are injured, despite the fact that by law, employers are responsible for providing safe and healthful workplaces for their workers. If all employers simply corrected the top 10 hazards, we are confident the number of deaths, amputations and hospitalizations would drastically decline.

Consider this list a starting point for workplace safety:

Fall protection
Hazard communication
Scaffolds
Respiratory protection
Lockout/tagout
Powered industrial trucks
Ladders
Machine guarding
Electrical wiring
Electrical, general requirements

It’s no coincidence that falls are among the leading causes of worker deaths, particularly in construction, and our top 10 list features lack of fall protection as well as ladder and scaffold safety issues. We know how to protect workers from falls, and have an ongoing campaign to inform employers and workers about these measures. Employers must take these issues seriously.

We also see far too many workers killed or gruesomely injured when machinery starts up suddenly while being repaired, or hands and fingers are exposed to moving parts. Lockout/tagout and machine guarding violations are often the culprit here. Proper lockout/tagout procedures ensure that machines are powered off and can’t be turned on while someone is working on them. And installing guards to keep hands, feet and other appendages away from moving machinery prevents amputations and worse.

Respiratory protection is essential for preventing long term and sometimes fatal health problems associated with breathing in asbestos, silica or a host of other toxic substances. But we can see from our list of violations that not nearly enough employers are providing this needed protection and training.

The high number of fatalities associated with forklifts, and high number of violations for powered industrial truck safety, tell us that many workers are not being properly trained to safely drive these kinds of potentially hazardous equipment.

Rounding out the top 10 list are violations related to electrical safety, an area where the dangers are well-known.

Our list of top violations is far from comprehensive. OSHA regulations cover a wide range of hazards, all of which imperil worker health and safety. And we urge employers to go beyond the minimal requirements to create a culture of safety at work, which has been shown to reduce costs, raise productivity and improve morale. To help them, we have released new recommendations for creating a safety and health program at their workplaces.

We have many additional resources, including a wealth of information on our website and our free and confidential On-site Consultation Program. But tackling the most common hazards is a good place to start saving workers’ lives and limbs.

Thomas Galassi is the director of enforcement programs for OSHA.

| OSHA OSHA Citations Workplace Safety

12 Signs You Desperately Need a Vacation from Work

10/24/2016 |

12 signs you desperately need a vacation from work

Business Insider

Jacquelyn Smith 6/16/2016

Despite a seemingly endless stream of articles warning of the perils associated with overworking, many people still choose to forgo vacations. In fact, a 2015 survey from Glassdoor found that US employees only use half (51%) of their eligible paid vacation time.

“Some people are simply workaholics. Many employees feel they are already too behind in their work and they fear falling even further behind if they take their vacation,”explains Michael Kerr, an international business speaker and author of “The Humor Advantage. “Some are worried about their boss’s perception, especially when no one else is taking their vacation. And some employees in a highly competitive industry are even fearful it can cost them their job either because it will reflect poorly on their work ethic or it will leave an opening for a colleague to prove themselves while they’re away.”

But no matter how worried you are, or how much you love your work, not taking regular vacations is a proven recipe for burnout that can lead to major health issues and end up requiring an even longer break away from work, he says. “The list of stress-related health issues caused by an endless work schedule is enormous, including sleepless nights, stomach issues, irritability, backaches, and tension headaches.”

A 2015 study from University College in London found that overworking can lead to a 33% higher risk of having a stroke, and a 13% increased risk of a heart attack.

And beyond the numerous documented impacts on your health, forgoing vacations can lead to reduced productivity, dampened creativity, and more careless mistakes at work.

Taking vacations, however, can help you return to work refreshed and re-energized and thus better able to cope with challenges and day-to-day stressors.

“Unplugging from work, even just for a day or two, can help you maintain a better overall perspective on life, help strengthen your personal relationships, and boost your happiness levels which will all support a healthier, happier person showing up at work,” says Kerr.

“Since creativity is fed by new experiences and serendipitous encounters, taking regular vacations can lead to powerful insights and new ideas that you can bring back to the workplace. And although some people worry about their job security when they go away, the reverse can also be true: If you’re a valuable commodity at work, then going away can serve as a great reminder to your boss and colleagues of just how sorely you’re missed when you’re not around to handle things.”

Here are 12 signs you desperately need a vacation from work.

| Unplugging Vacation Workaholics

Missing the (Recruiting) Mark? Myths about Millennials

10/07/2016 |

Missing the (Recruiting) Mark? Myths about Millennials

A few years ago, TIME Magazine ran a cover story that made headlines of its own. In “Millennials: The Me Me Me Generation,” the magazine outlined in black and white all of the stereotypical horrors of Generation Y. The author used studies to back up the notion that millennials are the laziest, most self-absorbed generation in history.

There’s only one problem: Every generation gets labeled as the laziest and most self-absorbed of any in history.

Generation X was the “Slacker Generation.” Baby boomers were the “Me Generation.” It’s only natural for older folks to look down at young people and write them off based on the wisdom they have accrued since they too were new to the world of work.

The Millennial Myth

A quick Google search about millennials in the workplace kicks back results laden with adjectives like selfish, impulsive, careless, unenthusiastic and inattentive. However, when you dig deeper, you see that underlying these supposed traits are things like a drive for personal and career development, the desire to find meaningful work, the desire to lead, the ability to multitask and more.

Stereotyping is never a good thing, especially when it comes to recruiting. Misconceptions about millennials — or any generation — can lead to bias and even discrimination. Just as an individual should not be defined by race, religion, ethnicity, gender or socioeconomic background, they also should not be defined by their generation.

Consider this: Generation Y spans in age from college students to parents in their mid-30s. Painting millennials with a broad brush isn’t just unfair; it simply doesn’t work.

Just How Different Are the Generations?

You might be saying to yourself, “There have to be differences in generations. I see it all day long at my organization!” If so, you’ll be interested to learn that a recent IBM study looked at the differences between generations in the workplace and concluded that millennials really aren’t that different from their older colleagues. In fact, the only significant difference found was a higher technical aptitude among Generation Y.

IBM reports that people from every generation are equally likely to seek out meaningful work, want to make a positive impact on their employer, and value diversity. They also learned that older people are equally as willing to leave a job for money or incompatibility as their younger cohorts.

So why do millennials get labeled differently?

Researchers from the University of Wisconsin wanted to know and discovered that the differences between generations are a product of perception, rather than actual differences in values. In other words, we see what we want to see when we group a generation of people together. And while some differences in motivators exist, different generations really aren’t so different at all.

How to Break Through the Stereotypes

So, if millennials are stereotyped and misunderstood, how can you make sound judgments throughout the recruiting process? Behavioral interviews are one important tool that hiring teams can use to evaluate whether or not an individual is a good fit.

Another useful tool is a personality test. Psychologists have found little evidence to show that our personalities change significantly over time, so an individual’s personality at age 14 will look very similar when they are 24, 34, 44, etc., which lends accuracy to the testing.

When used together, personality tests and behavioral interviews can paint a detailed picture of how someone is likely to behave on the job. When you understand the behaviors that drive success in a role, you will be better equipped to match candidates with the behavior patterns you are looking for.

One of the keys to success when attempting to evaluate potential behavior is to focus on how someone behaves over the long term. Why? Because behavior can easily be altered for short periods of time, but inherently, we all revert back to our natural tendencies. This means that behavioral interviews must be thorough and robust, to help identify patterns that show themselves over time.

The Secret Weapon You Need

Gather a group of millennials together who all applied for the same position, and you’ll find that most of them have equal skills and knowledge. But if you spend time talking to individuals for even just a few minutes, you’ll discover that each is quite unique and brings specific strengths and weaknesses to the table.

No matter what generation a person can be classified into, a strong recruiting process looks beyond the superficial and effectively evaluates the likelihood that a candidate will thrive on the job. Even with personality and behavioral testing, this is no easy task. To complicate things even more, many internal HR teams are not equipped with the money, the manpower, the resources or the time it takes to make such strong matches.

When you partner with a strategic recruiting firm, you instantly access the tools necessary to make strong matches. Professional recruiters have the time, resources and experience to thoroughly vet all potential candidates and evaluate them for a strong fit. This frees up your internal staff to focus on business-critical initiatives while your staffing partner focuses on hiring.

Stop focusing on generational labels and start looking at your candidates as individuals with unique experiences, perspectives, talents and goals. This is the only way you can attract and retain the top talent you need to help your business thrive.

| Gallman Consulting Generational Labels Hiring Millennials Millennials Stereotypes Top Talent

Listen to Your Employees, Not Just Your Customers

08/24/2016 |

Listen to Your Employees, Not Just Your Customers

by Beth Benjamin
Harvard Business Review https://hbr.org/2016/08/listen-to-your-employees-not-just-your-customers
August 15, 2016

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In 2014, Michael Callahan, then head of customer experience at Hulu, had a mystery on his hands. When the big video streaming service surveyed customers who renewed subscriptions, it discovered, paradoxically, that some customers stayed with Hulu even when they didn’t necessarily have a positive perception of the brand overall.

It turned out that some customer service representatives of the third-largest player in the streaming video space were pushing fence-sitting customers too hard, said Callahan in a recent interview. Paid digital TV companies, which also include Netflix and Amazon Prime, face high churn. Like Hulu, they need to ensure positive perceptions among customers routinely up for grabs between the big players.

“We had a gut-check conversation to discover what it meant to truly serve customers,” Callahan remembers. “We wanted employees to act more authentically to achieve a better, more positive experience of the brand overall. We didn’t want them only thinking about retention.”

That’s when Callahan’s team took an unusual step: The team created and linked an employee feedback system to its customer feedback system, in order to flag interactions where customers and employees had different perceptions. The linked system consisted of two short surveys — one sent to employees and the other to customers — right after a transaction. The linked system allowed for more insight into customers, and managers could use the information to coach employees, to assess whether they had the right tools and resources, and to identify people with innovative ideas and leadership potential.

Many companies love customer feedback, but only a handful have devoted as much energy to employee feedback systems. “For every dollar spent on employee feedback, companies spend hundreds of dollars on customer feedback,” said Troy Stevenson, former vice president of customer loyalty at eBay, in a recent interview.

Companies rarely connect the two systems. But, connecting them can create powerful feedback loops that engage employees and help companies adapt to fast-changing customer expectations, according to new research I conducted with my colleagues Carolyn Egelman, Julia Markish, Emma Sopadjieva, and Dorian Stone at the Medallia Institute. The research included interviews with more than 25 customer experience and HR executives and a survey of 1,000 frontline employees working at large companies in the U.S. automotive, financial services, retail, telecomm, and hospitality sectors.

Linking feedback systems allows companies to enlist frontline employees as agents of change. In our Medallia Institute survey, 56% of frontline employees said they have suggestions for improving company practices, and 43% said their insights could reduce company costs. Yet, a third said they were surveyed once a year or less, and more than half said employers weren’t asking the right questions.

In the case Callahan described, two screen pop-up surveys were sent to customers and employees immediately following a customer service transaction.

Customers were asked:
•Was your problem solved?
•Are we easy to work with?
•Did you enjoy the experience you just had?

Employees were asked:

•Did you solve the problem?
•Was it easy to access the tools and resources you needed to solve the problem?
•Did you feel proud to represent our brand in the conversation?

The linked feedback system prompted executives to adjust the compensation plan: customer service representatives received a retention bonus only if a subscriber remained on the rolls 30 days after an interaction.

Reducing customer churn by even a small amount can add up to a lot in a subscription-based business. For example, if linked feedback loops helped to improve retention by even one percentage point, the savings on a subscriber base of 12 million (Hulu’s current base) with a typical monthly subscription price of $7.99, would generate an extra $11 million in annual revenue.

Why don’t more companies do this? Organizational barriers are often the culprit. At one 170,000-employee big box retailer, linking the feedback systems would require approvals from three different senior executives, the CMO, the chief human resources officer, and the president of retail. The only person who could drive a linked system was the CEO.

Companies that want the insights from linked systems can navigate the organizational complexities with these six steps:

Align feedback systems around high-level business objectives. Which needle do you want to move? Hulu wanted to build more authentic relationships with customers. This drove everything from its questions to how it used the data.

Design your feedback system to aggregate data at key touchpoints. Most companies build separate, often expensive systems within existing reporting hierarchies. Instead, work backwards from the customer experiences you want to understand. For example, if your customer feedback is organized around touchpoints within lines of business, survey employees who interact with customers at those same touchpoints, such as a call center conversation or an account signup. Companies often make the mistake of organizing customer feedback systems around one structure — say lines of business or channel — and employee feedback systems around another — say geography or function.

Establish the right frequency and pacing for employee and customer surveys. Many companies, including Nordstrom, Four Seasons and Vanguard, collect customer feedback on a continuous basis and distribute it in real time (Disclosure: Nordstrom, Four Seasons, and Vanguard are all clients of Medallia). Most executives I interviewed said employees should be surveyed more than once a year but not more than once a month. Match the timing of your surveys to the pace at which you can act, so that you can demonstrate results. Surveying employees on a rolling basis, and using quarantine rules (designated times when you won’t ask for feedback) for customer surveys can minimize survey fatigue.

Encourage honest feedback and protect employees who answer candidly. Employees may worry their feedback will get them into trouble. Counter this perception by rewarding and honoring employees for raising difficult issues. After successes become clear, give even more recognition to employees whose feedback helped move the company forward.

Let people speak in their own words and capture emotional cues. As companies rely more on technology, relating to customers emotionally and pinpointing what troubles them gets trickier. Open-ended questions, text analytics and sentiment analysis capture interactions more vividly and compel leaders to act. “To hear an employee who’s deeply empathetic to the customer trying to explain a complex policy … to feel them struggle is painful,” says Callahan, who is now at Seattle-based Blueprint Consulting Services.

Act on the most important feedback, and communicate what you’re doing and why. In our interviews, we learned that a handful of companies are using feedback to create specific action plans tied to companies’ broader goals. At one company, executives use an internal website to post plans that grew out of employee feedback. Employees can see who’s leading an effort, view timelines, and track progress. They can also share additional feedback or volunteer for projects.

In a world where big data algorithms and technology increasingly dictate the customer experience, linked feedback systems give companies at least two great advantages. The connections help senior managers get a more complete picture of customer-employee interactions, including the behaviors — and emotions — they generate. And, asking employees for their input, not through a pro forma annual survey but as part of the company’s routine operations, sends a signal that employees have useful insights and that they are valued.

Ultimately, well-designed feedback loops enable employees to be more empowered and companies to be more responsive, creating the competitive edge companies need to adapt and thrive.

Beth Benjamin is senior director of research at Medallia, a global provider of customer experience management software. She applies organizational science to real-world problems, helping companies to adapt to the challenges of growth and market change.

| Communication Harvard Business Review Listen Listen to Your Employees

Take Control of Your Day — Before It Takes Control of You!

08/10/2016 |

Take Control of Your Day–Before it Takes Control of You!
What’s Out? Multitasking. What’s In? Mindfulness!
By Mel Kleiman

It’s a given: Nobody gets more than 24 hours in a day. How you spend your waking hours, and how well you fill the number of hours you work, will determine how successful and accomplished you feel at the end of the day. If your to-do list never seems to get done, if you feel like your day is a constant string of interruptions and redirections, it’s time to get down to business. How can you take back your time and use it to its best advantage?

Figure out your peak operating times.
Everyone has a time (or two) of the day when they are most productive. When are yours? If you know them, optimize your work schedule by planning to do your “heaviest” work during those times.
Prioritize.
Look at your to-do list. What do you have to do, as opposed to what you’d like to be doing? Take your must-do tasks and organize them by deadline.
Block out interruptions by blocking out time. If you work in an office, you may feel strange telling colleagues when to avoid stopping by, but you may be able to set “office hours” and let them know that in order to be productive, you need to limit interruptions. Let them know when they can and can’t stop by your desk with non-urgent questions or requests.
Just say no to email.
You don’t need to respond to emails the minute they arrive. Set aside time several times throughout the day to answer emails and respond to social media updates. Turn off your Outlook, Twitter and Facebook notifications while you’re working so you’re not constantly being barraged with outside messages.
Separate work time and personal time.
Once your office hours are over, don’t answer business phone calls or emails.
Prepare yourself.
Before you leave the office, write out your to-do list for the following day. Being organized before you even set foot in the office will make you more productive from the get-go. Don’t forget to check off whatever you accomplish!

| Interruptions Preparation Prioritize Take Control To-Do List

How to Beat Procrastination?

08/03/2016 |

How to Beat Procrastination? Procrastination comes in many disguises. We might resolve to tackle a task, but find endless reasons to defer it. We might prioritize things we can readily tick off our to-do list—answering emails, say—while leaving the big, complex stuff untouched for another day. We can look and feel busy, while artfully avoiding the tasks that really matter. And when we look at those rolling, long-untouched items at the bottom of our to-do list, we can’t help but feel a little disappointed in ourselves.

The problem is our brains are programmed to procrastinate. In general, we all tend to struggle with tasks that promise future upside in return for efforts we take now. That’s because it’s easier for our brains to process concrete rather than abstract things, and the immediate hassle is very tangible compared with those unknowable, uncertain future benefits. So the short-term effort easily dominates the long-term upside in our minds—an example of something that behavioral scientists call present bias.

How can you become less myopic about your elusive tasks? It’s all about rebalancing the cost-benefit analysis: make the benefits of action feel bigger, and the costs of action feel smaller. The reward for doing a pestering task needs to feel larger than the immediate pain of tackling it.

To make the benefits of action feel bigger and more real:

Visualize how great it will be to get it done. Researchers have discovered that people are more likely to save for their future retirement if they’re shown digitally aged photographs of themselves. Why? Because it makes their future self feel more real—making the future benefits of saving also feel more weighty. When we apply a lo-fi version of this technique to any task we’ve been avoiding, by taking a moment to paint ourselves a vivid mental picture of the benefits of getting it done, it can sometimes be just enough to get us unstuck. So if there’s a call you’re avoiding or an email you’re putting off, give your brain a helping hand by imagining the virtuous sense of satisfaction you’ll have once it’s done—and perhaps also the look of relief on someone’s face as they get from you what they needed.

Pre-commit, publicly. Telling people that we’re going to get something done can powerfully amplify the appeal of actually taking action, because our brain’s reward system is so highly responsive to our social standing. Research has found that it matters greatly to us whether we’re respected by others—even by strangers. Most of us don’t want to look foolish or lazy to other people. So by daring to say “I’ll send you the report by the end of the day” we add social benefits to following through on our promise—which can be just enough to nudge us to bite the bullet.

Confront the downside of inaction. Research has found that we’re strangely averse to properly evaluating the status quo. While we might weigh the pros and cons of doing something new, we far less often consider the pros and cons of not doing that thing. Known as omission bias, this often leads us to ignore some obvious benefits of getting stuff done. Suppose you’re repeatedly putting off the preparation you need to do for an upcoming meeting. You’re tempted by more exciting tasks, so you tell yourself you can do it tomorrow (or the day after). But force yourself to think about the downside of putting it off, and you realize that tomorrow will be too late to get hold of the input you really need from colleagues. If you get moving now, you have half a chance of reaching them in time—so finally, your gears creak into action.

To make the costs of action feel smaller:

Identify the first step. Sometimes we’re just daunted by the task we’re avoiding. We might have “learn French” on our to-do list, but who can slot that into the average afternoon? The trick here is to break down big, amorphous tasks into baby steps that don’t feel as effortful. Even better: identify the very smallest first step, something that’s so easy that even your present-biased brain can see that the benefits outweigh the costs of effort. So instead of “learn French” you might decide to “email Nicole to ask advice on learning French.” Achieve that small goal, and you’ll feel more motivated to take the next small step than if you’d continued to beat yourself up about your lack of language skills.

Tie the first step to a treat. We can make the cost of effort feel even smaller if we link that small step to something we’re actually looking forward to doing. In other words, tie the task that we’re avoiding to something that we’re not avoiding. For example, you might allow yourself to read lowbrow magazines or books when you’re at the gym, because the guilty pleasure helps dilute your brain’s perception of the short-term “cost” of exercising. Likewise, you might muster the self-discipline to complete a slippery task if you promise yourself you’ll do it in a nice café with a favorite drink in hand.

Remove the hidden blockage. Sometimes we find ourselves returning to a task repeatedly, still unwilling to take the first step. We hear a little voice in our head saying, “Yeah, good idea, but . . . no.” At this point, we need to ask that voice some questions, to figure out what’s really making it unappealing to take action. This doesn’t necessarily require psychotherapy. Patiently ask yourself a few “why” questions—“why does it feel tough to do this?” and “why’s that?”—and the blockage can surface quite quickly. Often, the issue is that a perfectly noble competing commitment is undermining your motivation. For example, suppose you were finding it hard to stick to an early morning goal-setting routine. A few “whys” might highlight that the challenge stems from your equally strong desire to eat breakfast with your family. Once you’ve made that conflict more explicit, it’s far more likely you’ll find a way to overcome it—perhaps by setting your daily goals the night before, or on your commute into work.

So the next time you find yourself mystified by your inability to get important tasks done, be kind to yourself. Recognize that your brain needs help if it’s going to be less short-sighted. Try taking at least one step to make the benefits of action loom larger, and one to make the costs of action feel smaller. Your languishing to-do list will thank you.

Caroline Webb is the author of How to Have a Good Day: Harness the Power of Behavioral Science to Transform Your Working Life. She is also CEO of coaching firm Sevenshift, and a Senior Adviser to McKinsey & Company. Follow her on Twitter @caroline_webb_, Facebook, or Google +.

| Omission Bias Present Bias Procrastination

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