Entries Tagged 'Human Resources' ↓

We have a manager who is struggling to get a new employee up to speed. We’re afraid we might fail this new employee by letting the manager make training mistakes at the employee’s expense, but we don’t want to step in and undercut the manager’s authority. What should we do? P.S. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen new employees under this manager fail.

Thoughts of the day: Turnover can be costly. Many managers lack training on how to make the transition to management. Identify the kinds of mistakes your manager is making. Set up structure to work with the manager on what she has to learn.

Make sure both you and the manager recognize the cost of turnover. Training eats up profits as the manager is diverted from making her full contribution while the employee  learns the job, does things inefficiently and makes mistakes which have to be corrected. Repeating training basics with another employee, because the last one didn’t cut it, just prolongs the agony.

One set of mistakes that early stage managers make is to set the bar too high – expecting too much too soon, and not delegating enough. These mistakes go hand in hand. The employee is asked to do something, makes a mistake, and the manager, who wasn’t comfortable delegating, pulls back and stops delegating.

Teach your manager that something less than perfection is okay! Focus on making progress.

• mistakes are okay – it’s how people learn.
• stay out of the problem and let the employee fix the mess that he or she just created – so that more learning takes place.
• teach each employee it’s not okay to keep repeating mistakes – progress has to be made.

Discuss with the manager that there’s a difference between being someone’s friend and being their manager. It can be a tricky balance for inexperienced managers. They need to know about what motivates the people working for them, without getting caught up in personal drama.

Check on the manager’s basic communication skills. Managers need to be able to provide corrective feedback in a way that the employee can hear it and act upon it.

Set up structure for the manager:

• training plan for the employee to follow: expectations for the new employee, what the employee should be asked to do, and how fast should he/she should learn to do new things.
• weekly reviews between manager and new employee: what went right, what went wrong, what to try next.
• weekly meeting between you and the manager: what the employee did well, where improvement is needed. Ask for facts and specific examples. Agree on what to do next.

Hearing what is happening in the manager-employee meeting can be crucial to evaluating where training problems may be coming from. Periodically sit in on meetings the manager is having with her new employee. Just be careful not to get in the way, or appear to take over from the manager. If you have things to add, make notes and share them afterwards with the manager – don’t interrupt during the meeting with the employee.

Talk with your manager about her responsibility for insuring the employee succeeds. She can have one hiring failure, maybe a second one. But if employees are failing time after time, that’s probably the manager’s problem, not the employees’. That’s something the manager has to fix if she wants to continue to grow in your company.

Suggest classes and books. Lay out a training plan for the manager. Make it clear she has as much to learn as the new employee does, in order for both of them to succeed.

Looking for a good book? Ten Mistakes a Manager Should Avoid, by Aditi Chopra.

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I’m concerned that employees don’t get enough feedback. And I fear that doing reviews could open an ugly door. Some people might not like what we have to say, others might want a raise – which I’m not willing to give.

Thoughts of the Day: Feedback should be given continuously. Reviews are recaps of feedback, and do not have to be tied to compensation. But compensation should be tied to performance. Use feedback to help employees grow and improve.

Teach managers how to give feedback. Read a book. Discuss feedback at weekly meetings. Ask for examples: who met with whom, what worked, what didn’t, what did / didn’t get said. Be careful not to shoot the messenger if anyone brings up problems they encountered. Identify “success examples” to emulate.

Encourage managers to speak with employees honestly and empathetically. According to BusinessPerform.com, employees need to get from internal communication “a sense of belonging and self-worth – being listened to, respected, trusted, valued “. PattyInglishms.hubpages.com says that Lack of . . . Respect and Lack of Recognition are 2 of the 10 reasons employees quit their jobs.

Review with your managers the concept that success is celebrated in public, while negatives are discussed in private. Make sure managers take time to recognize employees who do well. And when things go wrong verify that managers pull aside the person involved to discuss what happened. Remind everyone that performance can only be sustained and improved if people are given accurate feedback.

Many of us are uncomfortable delivering bad news. We don’t like looking someone in the eye and telling them they just screwed up. Sometimes we get busy or just plain overlook opportunities to recognize good performance, saying things like, “Well, they should know they did a good job.” Unfortunately, lack of feedback only leads to repeat mistakes and lack of respect as employees assume that no one cares. And who needs that.

Talk with managers about the dangers of not giving feedback: decreases in customer satisfaction as problems go uncorrected, declining profits as errors mount up, higher turnover as good employees get frustrated and quit.

Now let’s talk about reviews. They don’t have to be complicated or time consuming. Ask managers to keep a file folder in their desk for each employee. Each month, have managers put performance notes in each file. If you’re concerned that managers won’t take time to complete this assignment, set aside a monthly meeting for managers to get together, bring their files, write up their notes.

At review time, have managers meet with each employee for an hour. Encourage a 2-way discussion: How are things going from the employee’s point of view, from the manager’s? Conclude the discussion with a written list of development activities for the employee to pursue, initialed by both manager and employee. Drop the development list into the employee’s folder. Check on progress regularly.

One final note: reviews should not be a surprise to the employee. If feedback has been honest all along, the review will simply be a restatement of what’s already been discussed.

Tie compensation to performance by linking measurable outcomes to how a person is rewarded. Want to boost output? Pay a bonus if output exceeds a set minimum. This approach doesn’t require a review to measure and reward performance. But it does reinforce the importance of performing to a standard in order to earn a higher level of compensation.

Finally, remind managers that a written record is essential to good management. Our memories can be faulty, and subject to “squeaky wheels” or “recent impacts”. Setting aside to reflect on performance over time, with monthly notes and agreement on where to focus next, is an opportunity for the company, manager and employee to develop skills and build rapport.

Looking for a good book? Where’s the Gift? Using Feedback to Work Smarter, Learn Faster and Avoid Disaster, by Nigel J. A. Bristow and Michael-John Bristow.

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One of the people who works for me keeps missing deadlines. He’s a smart contributor otherwise, so I don’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. On the other hand, I know I can’t count on him to deliver when I need him to, and that adds a lot of stress to both our lives.

Thoughts of the day: Meeting deadlines is a crucial business skill. Check on the underlying contributing factors. Make sure there’s support systems in place, and that he’s using them. Work on building skills and habits that will correct this fault.

Learning how to deliver on time is essential in business. It builds trust and confidence. People who deliver on time often get praised, even if their work is less than top notch. People who deliver late are often chastised and overlooked, no matter the quality of their work.

Start with a check in – is your employee even aware there’s a problem with missed deadlines? Whatever you need done may have a different priority for someone else.

There’s a big difference between saying, “Finish up and get it over to me” and “Have it in my hands by 2pm today”. If you’re not specific about when something is due, you’ve left it open for interpretation. That means there’s no grounds for complaint when it comes in at a different time than you expected.

End every conversation with 2 things: a request that the other party repeat back to you what is their understanding about the task due, and agreement as to “by when”. Here’s how that part of the conversation goes.

“What, specifically, do you have to do, to meet this deadline?” Listen carefully to be sure you and the employee are agreeing to the same task to be completed, and the same timeline. Finish up with, “And when will you have it done and on my desk?”

Discuss what to do if there are any problems along the way. Who should the employee check in with for instructions. Emphasize the importance of early notification if there is a problem. In the beginning, you may want to have a mid-way check in, to make sure that the employee is watching the clock. “Get back to me by noon, to let me know where you are, what still has to be done, to hit your time.”

Make sure there’s a calendar in use, preferably on the computer. Is everything in it, including projects, to-do’s, phone calls? Are things checked off when they’re complete?

Some employees get into trouble because they wait until the last minute to tell someone that a deadline will be missed. Explain that other people are depending on them to come through, and early notice on missed deadlines will help others plan work-arounds.

Most of us get overwhelmed with too many things on our plates. Take a look at what’s on your employee’s list. Take a few items off and see if they do better at delivering on time what’s left.

Some employees, with the best of intentions and the worst of outcomes, want to be helpful. They keep saying, “yes, I can do that, too”, even when there’s no way they can get to everything they’ve agreed to do. Before adding another project, ask the employee to review what they already have to do. Teach the employee to say, “I’d love to help you, but there’s no way I can do that, unless something else comes off the list.”

Check if it’s only one employee with a problem delivering on time, or many. There may be too much to do and not enough people. In that case, you’ll have to prioritize what truly needs to get done, and what gets delayed. Consider bringing in another employee to chip away at the delay list.

Looking for a good book? Tell Your Time: How To Manage Your Schedule So You Can Live Free, by Amy Lynn Andrews.

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Sometimes I wonder if the people who work for me understand what I expect. I know what I want to get done, and I think I explain it, or point people in the right direction, and then nothing happens. Or they do something entirely different from what I wanted to have happen. What can I do?

Thoughts of the day: Is it message not received, or message not acted upon? Once you know the message is received, make sure people are engaged. Provide the right kinds of rewards or incentives. Give people a higher purpose.

Solving communication and execution problems includes checking on a range of issues. Basics include, did they hear me correctly? There are simple ways to verify if your message was received as intended, which involves the simple rule: check on it now, or fix it later.

Often in the busy rush of the day, we toss out orders and suggestions, expecting that people heard us as we intended. Think of it as stuff being tossed in the wake of a fast moving ship. Some of the stuff bobs on the surface and remains visible and actionable, some sinks immediately to the bottom of the ocean never to be seen again, and some drifts around in the chop appearing and disappearing.

Make sure that the people who need to hear what you have to say, actually have time to listen, and perceive your message as you intended. Make time for both of you to stop what you’re doing and discuss it. If it’s important enough for you to say, then it’s worth taking an extra few minutes to get it across right the first time.

Try this scenario: “Bob, could I speak with you for a couple minutes. I have something I want to go over with you.” Describe what it is that you want to convey. Then say, “Okay, now play it back for me. Tell me what you’re going to do.”

It’s a simple process. Intent-fully interrupt someone. Make sure you have their attention. And, take the time to listen to how they received the message. Think of it as similar to when children play telephone with 2 cans and a string in-between. Often the message doesn’t get through very clearly, and has to be repeated or expanded upon. Better to clarify and make corrections before someone starts to take action, rather than having to clean up mistakes after the fact.

Sometimes the people around you can see things more clearly than you can. They may perceive that what you’re asking for isn’t all that important in the grand scheme of things. And without agreement on time deadlines and priority, what you’re asking for may fall to the bottom of their list of to-do’s.

Check on when your assignments will be attended to. Ask if the person has time to get to it, and what else might get bumped. Engage with others in the process of prioritizing. Understand how getting something off your plate is going to impact someone else’s load. Give them a chance to buy in.

When things don’t get done as requested, I sometimes hear business owners ask things such as, “Maybe I’m not paying them enough?” Maybe your are, maybe you aren’t, but money is an indirect motivator, at best. Human beings are wired for competing, learning and accomplishing.

Help people understand how what you’re asking is important – to them, and to the success of the business. You could trying saying something such as, “Without your help on this, we won’t be able to complete on time, and the customer won’t get what they need. They’re counting on us to come through for them, and I’m counting on you.”

Focus on intrinsic motivation – it matters to the individual you’re talking to. Play to individual desire for autonomy – individual urge to direct one’s own life. Encourage mastery – desire to get better and better at something that matters. Provide purpose – yearning to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves.

Looking for a good book? Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, by Daniel Pink.

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My partner’s caught up in details. She won’t let go. We don’t have time to work on where the business is going. She ends up working really long hours, and expecting me to do the same. I don’t see this ending up well, and I’m running out of patience.

Thoughts of the Day: It’s important to periodically step back and look at what’s going on. Often it seems easier to “do it myself” versus training someone else. Delegation can be scary. Change will take time to implement.

Draw a map of the company’s functions: sales, finance, marketing, operations, human resources, leadership. Put down on paper the tasks required in each area. Match people to the tasks – as things stand today. Identify several areas where the owners are currently assigned to tasks, and others could be trained to take over.

Start with a list of people inside the company who could pull extra duty. Identify tasks that could be grouped together and turned into a job for someone yet to be hired. Consider which tasks could be handled by professionals who come in to work part time.

Tasks such as bookkeeping, personnel, marketing campaigns, shipping, receiving and inventory management, are all ripe for vending out. Break out big subjects, such as sales and operations, into smaller parts and look for opportunity to hire  part timers. Lead generation, customer service and production assistance are three common areas where part time help can make a big impact.

Many people hesitate to delegate in the mistaken belief that no one can do the task as well. They think it would be faster to just do the task, than it would be to train someone else. That’s usually only true the first time. The second time the task needs to be done, and the third, and the fourth, valuable time is wasted doing a repetitive task that someone else could have learned to handle.

Some people won’t delegate because they fear the person they’re training will make mistakes. That’s true, the person learning the task will make mistakes. And they’ll have to learn how to recover – just like the owner did when he or she first learned how to do the task. It’s okay to make mistakes – that’s how companies learn to innovate.

Helping someone else step in will take time, practice, and oversight. But eventually the partner is freed up to work on higher level tasks. So build a list of activities that the partner could / should get to, but lacks time to do so. Have a vision of where this delegation / training process is headed, that benefits both the partner and the business.

Sometimes partners don’t make time to work on the business because they’re afraid of what they might discover – the business isn’t growing enough, isn’t profitable enough. Other times, the owner sees himself or herself as too essential to the tasks at hand – no one else could do it as well. In some cases, the owners simply lack the skills to pull back and make time to work on the business.

Start out with incremental changes. Insist on a twice weekly 1 hour meeting to discuss the business, where it is, where it’s going. Spend time planning the future of the business, what it will look like, what it will need. Discuss challenges that have come up during the past week / month, and what to do about them. End the meeting at the 1 hour mark, and get back to day-to-day work.

Set goals and build a budget to pay for the additional help you need. Figure out how many more customers it will take  to pay for the help. Keep notes about each meeting, to use the next time you get together. Practice lifting your partners’ sights to a higher point on the horizon – where you both end up out of the day to day, enjoying the business more.

Looking for a good book? The Partnership Charter: How To Start Out Right With Your New Business Partnership (or Fix The One You’re In).

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The Future Foundation found that managers spend 13% of their time managing poor performers and 14% of their time correcting poor performers mistakes.

It may be time to make some personnel changes. I’m seeing a huge lack of respect, and sensing some divided loyalties. Unfortunately this comes from a couple of my top producers, so I’m really conflicted about what to do. I know that if employees don’t have qualities of allegiance and honesty – they’re not the right fit. But can I afford to put revenue at risk by dealing with this right now?

Top thoughts: A company is only as strong as its weakest links. Addressing the problems may pose some risk, but leaving problems to fester may result in a blow up at an even more inconvenient time. Work on a solution, that strengthens your position. Create opportunity for something better to come along.

I’ve repeatedly seen owners overlook behavior that causes them concern, for fear of making a change. The owner goes through a period of frustration, feeling out of control and lost as to what to do. Eventually the problems come to a head, and usually at a really inconvenient time.

Building a team means everyone has to be pulling in the same direction. As an owner, you build trust with your employees by having an even-handed approach. No special rules.

Underperforming or badmouthing the company, a team member, or supervisor, are behaviors that cannot be tolerated. As a manager, ignoring the situation is worse than the issues caused by the original behavior. Tolerance encourages more of the same, and indicates to team members that kind of behavior is acceptable.

Lack of respect for the company and its employees concerns more than you, the owner. If someone on the team isn’t pulling their weight, or is pulling in a different direction, that can negatively impact the company’s overall performance. Over time it can wear out even the most loyal and committed team members, who may eventually decide to move on out of frustration.

Keep in mind that criticism can cut both ways. One employee chooses to critique another, or complains to a supervisor. Maybe the criticism is justified, maybe not. It is the manager’s responsibility to take note. The complaining employee is not owed an explanation. But the manager would be wise to look into the complaints, to see if there is a problem brewing.

Perhaps both employees need feedback and direction. The complaining employee may need counseling on how to work more cooperatively with peers, taking up issues in a productive manner, and working to get team members to follow their lead. The employee about whom the complaints have been lodged, deserves to be talked to in private, made aware there are concerns, and given a chance to correct them.

Own any feedback, by saying to the employee, “I have some concerns that I want you to be aware of.” and “Here’s what I’ve observed . . . ” Or, “There’s something that’s bothering me about how things have been going lately.”

Always be honest. ” I’m not satisfied with how things are going. If things continue this way, I’ll have no option but to rate your performance sub-par. That could affect your opportunity for advancement, raises, and ultimately jeopardize your continued employment. That’s not where I want this to go, but things cannot continue as is.”

Looking for alternate solutions will help you figure out the potential outside the company. Start to consider your options. Place an ad. Give yourself time to think through who else might step up to do the job. Line up 2 or 3 qualified candidates to fill the job. Keep their names in your rolodex in case of need.

If the employee doesn’t want to deal with the problem, maybe this isn’t the right job, or the right company for them. No matter how valuable this employee has been in the past, if their behavior is unacceptable for any reason, and the employee can’t, or won’t, step up, it’s your responsibility to make changes.

Looking for a good book? 101 Tough Conversations to Have with Employees: A Manager’s Guide to Addressing Performance, Conduct, and Discipline Challenges, by Paul Falcone.

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