How Do You Reward Your Employees?

Published on November 23, 2011 in Human Resource Training and Leadership & Management. 0 Comments

How Do You Reward Your Employees? Managers sometimes fail to realise that gimmickry and incentives do not reward employees. Incentives like a free company pen, company coffee cup or mandatory celebratory dinners do not pay due recognition for Employee effort. One of the most simple and cost-effective ways of providing your Employees’ with a reward is: verbal or written praise. Privately taking a staff member aside and telling them “I really like what you did with the project” is due recognition. You could also show your appreciation publicly in a staff meeting or via a team e-mail. An increase in salary and time off also proves an effective reward. Do you really reward your employees?

Check out our short course Awaken Your Staff To Excellence

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Phone Efficiency

Published on November 7, 2011 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

Do you schedule phone calls and meetings efficiently?

As we all know these days the office is very busy environment with many demands on time. While responding to e-mails or being on the phone are necessary tasks, they can eat away your time and before you know it you don’t have time to do more important things. They can also test your time management skills and your resolve. Here are four ways of being more efficient on the phone:

  1. Protect your time for when you need to be focused:  try to identify when you work best e.g. 8 AM and then block out two hours, where you don’t take calls. Of course, this may not be possible as this may be the only time other people can call you. After having spent focusing on more important matters it might be a nice change of pace to take some phone calls.
  2. Don’t schedule long calls: Calendars are usually in 30 to 60 minutes blocks but it doesn’t mean phone calls need to be that long. Try to keep phone calls to 15 to 20 minutes in length. This requires discipline to know what you want to say or ask your phone correspondent. If you impart or get all information necessary, it is possible to politely end the conversation. It is far easier and manageable to schedule 20 minutes of phone calls rather than an hour.
  3. Suggest limited time Windows: Don’t schedule phone calls two weeks in advance as that can be overwhelming. Give people two options for when the phone call can take place. The longer the timeframe before the phone calls take place, the less likely they are to happen because something will inevitably crop up for one of the parties.                Shorter time frames will ensure that phone calls happen
  4. Always aim to be the one dialling: This could be easy for a punctual person. Why waste time waiting to call someone at 1:05 when you can phone them at 1 PM? By being the person who initiates the call, it is possible to avoid this dead time and as a consequence make better use of your time.

Do you schedule phone calls and meetings efficiently? Sharpen your time management skills here

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10 Ways of Ruining Employee Evaluations

Published on November 7, 2011 in Human Resource Training and Leadership & Management. 0 Comments

Evaluations can be daunting for employee and employer alike they are generally not enjoyable but a necessary evil. If not delivered in the right way they can adversely affect an employee’s motivation, confidence and performance.

Here are 10 ways of ruining employee evaluations:

  1. Ask your employees to do a self-evaluation: Some employees will wonder why you are asking them to evaluate themselves instead of doing it yourself. They may believe that you are being apathetic toward them. Employees are unlikely to evaluate their performance critically, and are unlikely to give themselves a bad appraisal. This could be the difference between having a constructive discussion and an argument. An employee evaluating themselves may seem inclusive but ultimately may not be if the employee does not take responsibility for their performance.
  2. Never raise issues you cannot substantiate with facts and figures: If you make a general statement about the poor performance of an employee and they may well ask you to cite specific examples of when their performance has been poor. Without the specific examples on hand, your points regarding their performance will fall on deaf ears. Always give specific examples of poor performance together with how they can improve. Facts and evidence is the key to providing good performance feedback.
  3. Discussing Personality Traits Especially the Negative Ones: Everyone likes a complement i.e. you have a great attitude. If you tell someone that their attitude is poor, they will think you are attacking them personally, it’s better to concentrate on someone’s behaviour rather than their personality. If a persons’ attitude is adversely affecting their performance, list their behaviour that formed your conclusion. Always concentrate on a person’s behaviour rather than focusing on the personal.
  4. Focus primarily on the near-term: The longer the evaluation period, it’s more likely to focus on the recent past. Employees may get annoyed if the evaluation only takes into account the three months preceding the evaluation rather than focusing on their work throughout the year. Keep records, take notes and make sure the evaluation reflects the entire period since the last evaluation.
  5. Overate to Motivate: It is tempting for managers to over inflate an employee’s performance in the hope that it will motivate them to do a better job. Evaluation should accurately reflect a person’s performance. An employee evaluation is not the right method to motivate an underperforming employee.
  6. Compare to other employees: Comparisons to other employees only serve to create unhealthy competition and division amongst employees. Comparison should only be made between employee performance and standards. Even if the person is the lowest performing employee in your team, focus on how they can improve instead of belittling them against other employees.
  7. Ask throwaway questions: Naturally we ask questions to engage people and make people feel comfortable. During an evaluation this could result in questions about the economy, your industry, the market, or how the business can improve. Avoid these questions because the employee evaluation is specifically for the employee, and for managers to provide feedback on their performance. Questions should specifically concentrate on how to get the best out of the employee and make them succeed. Try to ask questions such as: do they need assistance? Do they have the resources and tools needed to do the job well? How can we help you do your job better? Etc After All, your role as a manager is to try to ensure your employees are doing their job to their capability.
  8. Never answer questions you can’t or shouldn’t answer: When having an open and honest conversation with an employee, you can inadvertently share sensitive and confidential information. Be prepared to have an honest conversation about your employee’s performance but don’t let your guard down and share information you shouldn’t share.
  9.  Make promises you can’t keep: A decent performance appraisal will consider employees performance by looking at past and will have an eye toward future performance.

    Feel free to share developmental and improvement plans but bear in mind when you say "possibly" employees will hear "definitely". It is always important to manage expectations, if you’re not sure whether you’ll be able to deliver on something, or if a potential opportunity exists: don’t mention or talk it up. If a potential opportunity doesn’t work out, let the employee know and explain why (10 ways to ruin an employee evaluation, BNET, Jeff Haden, September 12 2011) 

  10. Ignore the previous Review: You may have forgotten what you put in your employees last evaluation, but your employee hasn’t. If you cite the same examples in the previous evaluation, your employee feels that you going through the motions. If you cite the same opportunities as in the previous evaluation, they will assume you think that their career development is limited. After the meeting, take some notes and review these and the previous evaluation before the next evaluation. A performance evaluation not just a one-off event, it is part of the process of improvement and development while you may forget what you’ve said in an employee’s evaluation, they will remember what was said.

If this blog has whetted your appetite to learn more about employee evaluations, why not consider doing a Human Resources Diploma or Certificate IV of Human Resource Management with the College for Adult Learning.

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I really don’t think Australian companies are innovative enough when it comes to remuneration and rewards for employees.

Published on September 6, 2011 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

In my last post I spoke about how nervous I was about the brain drain from Australia to almost everywhere else – and despite the skills shortages already biting here in Australia!

Today I want to focus a little more on those ‘real incentives’ that attract our workers to take off and work elsewhere in the world. It used to be the UK, USA and Europe now it is China, India & South America……

I really don’t think Australian companies are innovative enough when it comes to remuneration and rewards for employees.

The USA has been using incentive payments for all levels of workers for years and it is very common for workers to own a bit of the company. It’s also common for employees to have other rewards in their remuneration packages such as easy, subsidised access to childcare or health care and so on.

I have come across employees who have the option to access subsidised legal services so, if they have an accident or a divorce or need a lawyer for any reason they can get it through their company. The company (quite cleverly) uses it buying power to purchase reduced rates and then, through a contribution scheme has invited employees to opt into it so that when they need legal services they can access them for no further costs. Clever hey!

A few years ago Australia Post, as part of its employer of choice program, launched a personal financial service for employees. The service provided some support for employees who struggled to develop personal budgets and manage their money.  It all become a bit too hard in the end but the concept was good!

So, why then don’t Australian companies do more of it?

I fear they just don’t see the need.

Yet we know our gen Y’s especially are looking for more than just a pay packet and we know that Australia has a skills shortage – about to be further exacerbated by the demand for talent coming from  our near (and far) neighbours – China, India, Brazil, even Russia to name a few!

Surely it makes good business sense to address the issue now and start to put in place attractive remuneration and reward or benefits that will attract and keep the talent we need?

A great way to start would be with the issues arising out of the climate change debate. Why not consider options for working from home or perhaps providing transport from key public transport depots to the work location. Perhaps you could look at a longer term strategy for decentralising your work locations into smaller hubs or making sure any fleet cars are hybrids. The lists are endless.

On a more immediate front why not think about inviting the local cafe to bring a lunch cart through the office or perhaps you could subsidise lunches 1 day per week. Whatever the option this encourages staff to stay in the office and cuts down on extra time spent travelling to purchase lunch elsewhere.

Subsidised childcare, flexi-time options all allow employees to care for children, or perhaps care for elderly parents and so on are all relatively simple options.  Other incentives to consider include gym memberships, season tickets or club memberships, options to purchase from your suppliers at a discounted rate, theatre or movie tickets and so on.  

Benefits such as those I’ve mentioned make your company a more attractive place to work and that’s without even considering incentive payments.

In my next post I’ll explore the pros and cons of incentive payments and why I think they are important for Australian business.

Helen Sabell
CEO

The College For Adult Learning

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Are You Wasting Time?

Published on August 22, 2011 in Time Management. 0 Comments

Or, is time wasting you? It’s common to feel time poor and want more hours in the day. If this sounds like you, try creating a spreadsheet with 168 hours on it; that’s all the hours in a week. On the spreadsheet write-down your work and life schedule for a week or the week ahead. By doing this, you can get an accurate idea of how you spend your time, and realise how you spend time is your choice. Hopefully, you’ll know what tasks you need to concentrate on and what tasks need more of your time. This will bridge the gap between how you spend your time and time you spent. To further improve your productivity, see our project management course, or our time management course.

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7 Tips to Great Customer Service

Published on August 8, 2011 in Sales and Customer Service. 0 Comments

Everyone has a story about customer service, whether it is good or bad. We all know what makes good customer service as a customer. Have you thought about it customer service for an organisation? Here are seven customer service tips

  1. Invest in soft skills training: customer service is fundamental to all areas of your organisation. There is a need to teach customer service representatives how to solve customer problems and anticipate problems with customer service. They should also be trying to exploit sales opportunities and build brand loyalty. They also must be trained in  conflict resolution, communication effectiveness, building rapport, phone etiquette etc.

Management is not only responsible for being visionary and developing strategy. They must give their customer service representatives every opportunity to succeed.

  1. Realise Customer Reality: Bad customer service can just about always be attributed to a failure to understand what customers want. Customers want to be treated like they matter to you. Perhaps this may be blindingly obvious to some: How do you make customers feel like they matter to you? :
    • Do you have an automated message telling customers they are important to you? Apparently the importance of these customers cannot be overstated because customers hear that message repeated every 20 seconds, while they wait to speak with your business.
    • Do you have customer service representatives that can listen and diagnose customer problems, find possible solutions, and solve the problem to the satisfaction of the customer?
    • Do you have a checklist of customer service issues that you personally detest? Make sure your business does not demonstrate any misdemeanours from your list.

 "While you may be quite brilliant when it comes to the front-end of business — making sales, increasing market and mindshare — you’re really undermining your success on the back-end." (Adrian Miller, Seven Steps to Exceptional Customer Service, Business Know-How Newsletter, June 28, 2011)

  1. Making Customer Service Ordinary: Training your staff about the products and services your business offers is commonplace and is seen as a fundamental function of business. Customer service training is often seen as something only that customer service representatives do when required. However, it is better to foster a culture where customer service training is ongoing and valued. This will of course lead to improvements in customer service, and by doing this; create a “buy in” from the Customer Service Representatives. Try to create the ethos "Of Course we are doing training this week, we are always doing customer service training, it is part of what we do this company”.
  2. Make it real: Suspension of belief is not something you want your customer service representatives to get from the training. Don’t get the Customer Service Representatives fixing problems or coming up with solutions that do not exist, or cannot be solved.

Check in with your Customer Service Representatives, daily. Find out what annoys them and when this occurs. Encourage a strong culture of feedback. Make sure this is an opportunity for them to provide honest blame free feedback, without punishment. It’s cheaper to find out what’s working and what isn’t for customers from staff rather than Ex-Customers.

  1. Broaden Your View of Customer Service: Traditionally, customer service is viewed as the interaction between the customer making an enquiry, and the Customer Service Rep responding to that enquiry. This definition must be extended to include everyone and everything that interacts with customers. Customers’ interaction with your business can change affecting their perception of your customer service.  Today a customer interacts with your delivery person; tomorrow it’s the telephone menu, next week it’s the sales staff. If any of these interaction channels are untrained and ineffective, customers will make swift and harsh assessments of your customer service.
  2. You can’t fool your staff all the time: if you treat customer service representatives and everyone else performing customer service duties badly, they will in turn have difficulty treating customers well. Businesses that have the double standards: one for employees and another or customers: in this will have trouble remaining internally credible.
  3. Everyone smiles when they’re winning: If you have a high demand product or service, and customers are constantly knocking at your door, it is natural to assume customer service is perfect. However, your business can easily decline, if competitors learn to do what you do, except faster and cheaper. When your business is struggling due to these and other factors, customer service can either flourish or collapse.

Good customer service can save your business. Make sure you train your staff regardless of sales and how much market share you have in the future.

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Successful Organisational Change

Published on August 4, 2011 in Leadership & Management and Project Management. 0 Comments

Successful Organisational Change

Organisational change will be difficult to bring about even though it sounds easy to do. All you need to do is communicate effectively with your employees by telling them about the effectiveness of implementing a new change, right? This maybe good in theory but in reality change may be difficult to implement. Here are the two impediments to successful organisational change: lack of management example and follow through:

  • Lack of Management Example: The change won’t happen unless management leads by example in staff meetings or at every possible opportunity. If management to lead by example the change may happen initially but it won’t be long-term or last. Employees, will mirror the lead of the managers rather than what they say. Employees know by following the examples of middle management and management, they will get ahead. That’s not just to suggest Managers words are not profound and have an impact. However, the words have to be backed up by management action to bring about change.

If management says one thing and does another, its sending employees mixed messages. For example, if management wishes all employees to sign a code of conduct, plaster it all over the walls and then no one follows the code, it’s a mixed message and will not change the culture of the organisation.
If Management are to bring about a change, they must be prepared to live by the same example that they want to set their employees wherever possible

  • Lack of Management Follow-Through

If management fails to follow-through on the change, all the way through its implementation, change is unlikely to occur or be sustainable.
Making organisational change will occur if management verbally back the change, continually push for change and give it time to work. Many clever initiatives fail because they’re not given time to become embedded within organisational culture. Any major change will take a year to embed itself within the culture. During that time, you should:

  • continually reinforce the message of change.
  • constantly explain the reason for the change.
  • provide the necessary resources to do the project (training, money etc).
  • if you have to have instigate a new initiative while breaking in the change, don’t abandon the message of this change, for the sake a new one.
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How serious are we I wonder about keeping our most talented workers here in Australian workplaces?

Published on July 26, 2011 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

I have just been looking at some of the recent employment and job related figures from countries like China, India, Brazil and others and some of them are quite mind blowing.

I guess we are all aware of the China syndrome – after all it is the Chinese economy that is keeping all of us here in Australia in jobs and prosperity but, what concerns me just as much is the enormous growth potential not just in India which I guess in a country of 1.21 billion is not surprising but in the aggregate of countries like India in the Asian region and countries like Brazil in South America – even Russia is experiencing an explosion in wealth, jobs and skilled job growth. And these countries are not planning to follow the developed world’s pattern of economic growth no way – they are leapfrogging their economies from low tech. jobs straight into the 21st century knowledge economy. They are meeting us head on and their demand for talent is exploding.

These countries are serious about growth and so sourcing the best talent, where ever it is in the world is a top priority.  With their rapidly growing middle class and prosperity, these countries can offer the world’s best an enviable lifestyle to go with their remuneration package.

So, where does this leave us? Well, what worries me is our complacency.  Sure there maybe boardrooms and government focus groups contemplating the issue but, for the most part I don’t see a lot of action.

We just don’t seem to have computed that the skills shortage that we have now is all set to get a hell of a lot worse and in very short time frames!

Linked to this, I don’t see a lot of innovation in the way we compensate our staff.  Mercer, Hays, PWC and others have been reporting for years now of the many different ways companies are using to attract and retain those (clichéd) ‘best of breed’ employees but, despite their reports and their consultants drawing our attention to innovative remuneration practices, their statistics show that, in the main, Australian employers remain very traditional (or perhaps conservative) in their approaches to remuneration and benefits for employees.

This is not new of course. When I was a (much younger) professional just starting out in my career it was a given that, if you wanted to really get somewhere you had to leave Australia and get a job offshore.  Many of my peers are still working outside of Australia. It’s not that they get more money per say it’s more about the ‘total’ package and reward they get.

How serious are we I wonder about keeping our most talented workers here in Australian workplaces?

How many companies do you know that offer real  incentives to their employees?? – and I don’t just mean money here!

In my next post I’ll tease out what I mean by real incentives.

Stay tuned

Helen Sabell

CEO

The College For Adult Learning

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Eight things Managers and Project Managers should say to your employees

Published on July 12, 2011 in Leadership & Management and Project Management. 0 Comments
  • During performance reviews. Your feedback is more important than mine: You need to give specific actionable feedback to employees. More importantly, you want to hear how the employee perceives themselves. Emphasise that they can talk as well as listen.
  • Remind Me Later: Employees understand if you cannot answer a question or respond immediately. Try saying “that sounds great, don’t forget to tell me about this, I really want it know what you think about…”
  • Raising Problems Is Good but Solutions Are Better: As Managers, you naturally want employees to raise problems and issues. However, don’t be afraid of Employees using their own initiative. If they make mistakes provide feedback, don’t discourage them from taking initiative
  • Superstars are Important but equally so are great attitudes: Employees can provide great contributions as individuals, but some have poor interpersonal skills. Try to emphasise the importance of working as a team to every employee
  • Tell Me Bad News First: Everyone likes to hear good news but in business, it is equally important to hear bad news. Don’t chastise employees if they deliver bad news. Try saying “thanks for telling me quickly, I’m glad I know, and that we can… ” This approach makes a potential negative into a positive by encouraging proactive responses. If you take this approach, you’ll discover problems sooner.
  • Hey, That’s Great, Tell Me How You Do That: Employees who blow their own trumpet, aren’t necessarily egotistical, it’s likely that they are just insecure. Don’t just feign interest with an employee’s accomplishments, ask for details. When told of an employee accomplishment, don’t just say “Good Job, well done.” Take an interest in your Employees accomplishment by asking “how did you do that?” By doing this you will boost their self-esteem and confidence of your employees.
  • Please tell me when I muck up: Great Leaders will encourage constructive criticism between their employees and themselves. Develop an open environment, where employees feel free to give their boss feedback. Establishing this level of Rapport   between employees and management takes time to build up, so you may have the constantly ask for feedback at least initially.
  • I’m sorry: Don’t be afraid to admit your mistakes. Don’t dwell on it, just apologise as quickly with as few words as possible. Act swiftly to correct your mistake so you can move on as soon as possible. Do not blame other people or make excuses for your mistakes.

Are you serious about improving your skills in management? See our Project Management Course and Diploma of Management Course.

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Email Etiquette

Published on July 7, 2011 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

Here Are Seven Tips When Considering Reducing Your Inbox and Using Email Etiquette:

How many e-mails to do you receive? If you answered a-lot, you’re not alone. Of course, this poses more pertinent questions: how do we reduce the volume of e-mails we receive? What is correct email etiquette? Here are seven tips when considering reducing your inbox and on using e-mail etiquette:

  1. If I’m sending this e-mail to one person, have I corresponded with them before?
  2. If my e-mail is going to a group, do I know each individual and whether they will be offended, or would they be unhappy to receive e-mail for any other reason?
  3. If sending out a bulk e-mail, can you e-mail just anyone for the sake of it? It’s no good sending something to a group of engineers, if there is nothing in it for them
  4. If doing a cold call e-mail, make sure it’s welcome and not spam. If you are nervous about sending an e-mail but think it will be welcomed by the recipient, there is no need to apologise. If you think you need to apologise for the e-mail or for sending it, it is spam.
  5. Are you angry when writing the e-mail?, save it as a draft and come back to it later
  6. Could I deliver my message better with a phone call instead of an e-mail
  7. Is there anything in this e-mail that would make me uncomfortable if it went public, either in the workplace or externally?
  8. Are there any emoticons anywhere within the e-mail you have received? Consider deleting it
  9. Are there any creatures or animals of any kind in the footer of the e-mail? If so, consider deleting it
  10. Are there any pithy slogans or causes in the subject line of the e-mail subjects like “please join someone you’ve never heard off raising funds for cause X , please don’t delete!!! Earn extra $$$.” Just delete them straight away

For more tips visit our short courses page for free tip sheets!

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