Today’s Strategic HR – Supporting the achievement of financial goals

Posted on August 31, 2012 by Suzi

Sound Human Resource management is as essential as financial management in today’s business environment. If employees are distracting each other, unmotivated, ill-trained or worse, ignorant of how their efforts either facilitate or detract from company goals, what’s the point of reporting financials and talking about fiscal responsibility?

Every company job must contribute to the bottom line. For HR this means certain competencies are essential:

Extensive knowledge of the company’s main lines of business;
Knowledge of finance, sales and marketing, efficiency strategies and operations;
Knowledge of organizational strategic planning and setting strategic goals;
Keen understanding of how division/department action plans support strategic goal achievement;
Understanding the variety of talent activities that could support the achievement of company goals; and
Development of HR strategic plans

HR’s mission has evolved

Over the last 50 years HR’s mission has changed. Gone are the days of “recruiting qualified candidates” or “training and staff development.”

1960s to 80s – Recruitment, training and record keeping
1980s to 2000 – Uninterrupted supply of qualified, well-trained employees
Today – Align comprehensive talent management with the company’s strategic plan to facilitate the achievement of company goals

For more HR mission statements www.missionstatements.com.

All company strategic goals including purely technical goals such as finance or IT have numerous and related human resource implications. If a strategic goal is to increase company profitability, consider these human resource-related questions:

Do you have the right competencies in the Finance office?
Does the CFO have performance problems?
What drives revenue? Can people make a difference? Which jobs have key influence in financial success?
Are senior leaders held accountable (perf. eval.) for their share of revenue activities?
Does the senior leadership team work collaboratively together toward financial ends?
Do financial reports provide data that accurately reflect progress toward goals so that management can make sound decisions?
Does every employee understand the importance of key financial indicators?
Do senior leaders, supervisors, and front line job descriptions include financial end results?
Does the compensation program reward good performance in finance?
What employee-oriented barriers might interfere with revenue increases?

Are the barriers attitude-based (uncooperative, disgruntled or toxic employees)?
Are they competency-based? Performance-based?
Employee relations-based? Poor engagement, poor management?
Employee poor health or stress-related? Absenteeism, presenteeism?
Tools and materials-based?

And finally,

11. Does the corporate culture and values reinforce financial stewardship?

Think strategically and good luck!!

Ten Things Employees Want from Work

Posted on January 3, 2012 by Suzi

What do employees want most?

Employee satisfaction is something most companies say they want. Few actually set a specific goal to measure or increase satisfaction. The ironic thing is that the more satisfied your employee group is the better they will perform. Good performance means goals are met, productivity is higher and employees are happier. All good things.

If you want your workplace to appeal to quality employees and perhaps be less hospitable to those with destructive tendencies, pay attention to this list. Studies over time have identified some variation of the following 10 employee satisfaction themes which appeal most to good performers.

1. Interesting work content

This means interesting to employees, not what you think is interesting. Companies must pay attention to job design and assemble jobs in a meaningful way. It’s obvious that repetitive, boring tasks are less interesting though they might lead technically, to high productivity. Modern job design principles can strike a balance between employee needs and productivity. Finally, negotiating interesting projects and goals each year adds variety to the normal job duties. Recruitment plays an important role in job interest. Not everyone loves what they do. It’s certainly lucky when you fit the perfect candidate to every job. A good fit is when the skills and approach of the candidate matches the skills and approach required by the position. The better the fit, the more likely the employee will find value and interest in the assignment.

2. Advancement opportunities

This is pretty straightforward. Promotions needn’t be a huge leap to the next level of management. It can be advancing to the position of trainer – perhaps someone who orients new department staff. There are many ways to carve out additional or more complicated duties for those who show capacity. But when opportunity presents itself, those with the qualifications should be considered for supervisory posts or movement to the next management level. The better you can outline what employees have to do to advance, the happier they will be.

3. Fair compensation

Compensation fairness in the eyes of employees is primarily external competitiveness – what employees think or know other companies are paying. During tough economic times, however, a living wage at the lower levels is also needed for employees to feel their wages are fair. Appropriate salary levels are driven by balancing four factors: the market, what the company can afford to pay, job duties and internal equity. Finally, reasonable employees want to see that the best performers get opportunities for additional pay and that folks doing the same work get relatively similar pay. Just fair, not perfect.

4. Opportunities for enriched assignments

Enriched assignments involve a seat on a company-wide committee, planning a company outing or working on a project that exposes employees to people and processes in other departments. Good performers enjoy making a broader contribution and being a part of a new venture or project. They also enjoy meeting new people and learning about things outside their own department. While employees enjoy this, it also develops them and makes them more valuable employees.

5. Strong leadership

This is where owners and senior leadership staff often fail. Employees appreciate when management decisions are clear, decisive and based upon a set of principles like:company goals, ethics, fairness and respect. When one employee intimidates management into giving them something they don’t deserve, coworkers will take notice. I’ve listened to employees explain that even though something didn’t go their way they can respect a decision based upon a worthy goal of program sustainability or long-term company survival. In addition, they trust that management won’t get drawn into unfair decisions that serve the unreasonable requests of one particular employee. They see that management has courage and clear thinking that will sustain the organization over time. When leaders adhere to principles and apply them consistently the best employees will be satisfied. Selfish or egocentric employees will fail attempts to skew decisions toward their personal needs.

6. To be heard by management

High performers want to feel that their ideas and concerns are taken seriously. They have good ideas and observations. They’ve performed well for the company so the company should take a minute to hear them out. It’s okay if you can’t resolve a problem for business reasons. They’ll understand that. Employees want to know that you understand and value what they’ve said. This includes less stellar performers as well. No matter how annoying a particular employee may be, it really pays to listen respectfully to their concerns, investigate issues and change things when warranted. Every employee, including poor performers have thoughts and perspectives that can be valuable and deserve to feel heard. Human respect has no exceptions.

When you treat someone disrespectfully, even someone other employees find annoying, employees will notice. You are running the business and they expect you to have more patience.Two common mistakes vex both managers and employees. One is that management listens, makes a decision and then the complaining employee refuses to move on. They then bug the heck out of everyone by staying stuck on the issue. One good hearing is enough and then they should be told respectfully and firmly that the matter is closed. Management needs to prevent these folks from harassing coworkers about their ongoing issue. The other mistake is from the opposite angle – writing difficult employees off and failing to listen to anything they have to say. They can go on and on about irrelevant information and then, there it is, a disclosure of significant wrong-doing or a brilliant idea for saving money. As a consultant brought in to deal with difficult employees I am often amazed at how an employee has been completely marginalized within a company. You’d be surprised how often these employees are treated disrespectfully but yet they are still at work. It is more cruel to leave these employees on the job while all around them see them has having no credibility, than it is to respectfully help them find another assignment.

7. High, consistent work standards

Studies have shown that quality employees prefer to work in an organization that lays out performance and conduct standards and consistently reinforces them – through performance evaluations, coaching, supervision and structure. Employees think it’s fair when those whose work approach is successful and helpful to others get promoted and those who repeatedly demonstrate poor work approach are encouraged to move on. Leaders afraid to apply discipline end up creating significant damage to an otherwise productive workplace – as one employee’s approach disrupts others without consequence. Some owners have no idea how destructive this is and how much respect for them is lost when they apply performance consequences equitably.

8. An employer with integrity/character

Studies have repeatedly shown that employees working for companies with a code of integrity and a sense of social responsibility to the community, employees and vulnerable populations are more satisfied and higher performing. Emphasizing lawfulness, ethics and fairness is very appealing to the most talented employees. When a company puts secular/profit goals ahead of ethics you’ll fill jobs but these candidates will be individuals comfortable with that sort of atmosphere. Think: News of the World. The most capable and high character employees will move on.

10. Freedom to make decisions that will help reach company goals

This is a very successful and important strategy. When done well, employees become more satisfied overnight. Decision-making begins at the top (owner) and trickles down. Every position, including clerical staff have a body of problems and issues they can decide when and how to resolve. Organizations with a decentralized decision-making style promote more meaningful decisions at lower levels. Companies with centralized control have a more difficult time defining meaningful decisions for those at the lower levels. In any event, it pays to clarify and point out what decisions each position can make and which ones you wish for them to analyze and recommend to the next level up. Employees care more about knowing what issues you want them to exercise discretion over as much or more than they want to make big decisions. Uncertainty is one of the greatest sources of employee stress.

No one company or organization does all ten things perfectly. Pick out which of these areas you can easily fix and prioritize the others for improvement over time.

How Workplace Culture Effects Business Success

Posted on November 4, 2011 by Suzi

How workplace culture affects business success

Companies succeed in the short run just by having good products, even with unethical practices and abusive employee behavior. The problem is, things change. A competitor comes into the market offering your products but has better workplace conditions. Now your employees want to work there. Or, one of your employees becomes disgruntled over how they are treated by an abusive employee or supervisor and decides to hire an attorney. You settle with them to avoid having your poor management practices publicized $10,000 to 50,000 from the bottom line. Another change scenario is that you begin to hire generation X and Y employees. They will quickly tire of your poor practices. When word gets around that you pay little attention to this Gen X and Gen Y will not apply. Finally, if you operate without a code of ethics or values your workplace is driven by supervisor and employee personal values. Add aggressive goals and tactics and you have News of the World and ENRON.

Best workplace culture example

Well known examples where a sustained company culture has clearly served financial success are Google, Zappos and Netflix. Zappos CEO, Tony Hsieh tells of both the company hiring practices aimed at finding candidates who fit with the company values and a new employee orientation process that quickly identifies workers who are a poor fit. In a key-note at this year’s SHRM annual conference that Company culture is the “number one priority.” His most recent blog post says it all Your Culture Is Your Brand.

Zappos has cultivated standards for workplace atmosphere that support staff efforts towards company goals, encouraged the atmosphere with company mechanisms (meetings, communication, compensation and performance evaluation), controlled that new employees coming in fit well with the desired culture and then, when employees demonstrate that they don’t fit well, they are moved out of the organization. The theory is that employees working there thrive in the culture. They are happy, satisfied and fulfilled. As HR folks say, less bad turnover, only good turnover.

It’s in the literature

There are a number of excellent books on the subject of Culture – discussing what it is; how to get it; and why it supports success. Here’s just what I have on my own bookshelf:

1964 (Blake & Mouton) The Managerial Grid that urged managers to focus on both people and results – used to acculturate me at UNUM in the mid 70s;

1982 (Peters & Waterman) In Search of Excellence in which the principles of “Back to the Basics” reinforces the simultaneous priorities that must be balanced;

2001 (Collins) Good to Great describing the “culture of discipline” in order to avoid creativity-killing bureaucracy;

2001 (Ashby & Pell) Embracing Excellence chapter two: The “qualities and characteristics of a great corporate culture;”

2002 Hesselbein & Johnston) On High Performance Organizations in which the authors discuss the power of mindfulness, a passion for the business and strategic generosity;

2011 (Rhoades) Built on Values: success stories of three companies who had purposeful workplace culture and values;

It’s what employees want and need to be healthy and productive at work

Happy, satisfied employees are less distracted and more focused on company goals. It happens that the characteristics employees find supportive, collectively represent the kind of environment in which company financial goals are more likely to be met. This would be where employees are treated with respect; given clear direction about their work; compensated fairly, etc. Finally, why in the world would anyone choose to create or work in a company where everyone is burned out, unhappy and disrespectful to each other? It stands to reason that employees who feel a passion for their work; who are rewarded for both results and demonstrating company values; and treated respectfully by supervisors and co-workers would reach a higher level of functioning.

Good employees want goals to meet and welcome being held accountable. Further, they want others to be held to an equitable standard. Nothing irritates employees more than watching poor performers hanging around, making mistakes, failing to plan and generally making more work for others with no apparent consequences. Thoughtful, respectful feedback to employees by capable supervisors greatly increase the chances that most employees are performing at their highest functioning level.

Unrealized, disorganized or person-centered culture

When the company’s culture is not unified/strong or it’s tied too closely to one leader’s own style the workplace can be buffeted by CEO or COO turnover. Companies who don’t pay attention to defining a desired culture end up depending too much upon the personal style and philosophy of a particular person. When this leader leaves and a new leader comes on board, the values and philosophies of the new leader challenges long-standing company assumptions. A period of confusion commences. Employees are distracted trying to understand the new landscape. And again, employees are not necessarily focused on the bottom line. A strong, positive and institutionalized workplace culture can help an organization weather many storms, including the loss of a beloved leader or changes in the external environment because strong positive culture takes on a power and force of its own.

One of today’s growing employee relations issues is stress. Workplace characteristics of lean staffing, financial pressure and high demands result in employee fatigue and stress. These in turn cause absenteeism (missing work) and presenteeism (workers present but not mentally at work). Rates of depression (or rates of its diagnosis) among employees are on the rise. Interestingly, employees report inattentive and poor quality management at work as a key reason for both stress and eventually leaving their position. These problems develop over time and the only way to reverse this is to assess your culture and decide to do things differently – culture improvement project.

Honesty, Ethics and Integrity

A discussion of ethics and integrity is important enough to mention it more than once. Most superb, financially successful companies who are well-respected in their community, the U.S. or the world promote honesty, integrity or lawfulness as one of their core values. Without a stated value which is reinforced by company structures, it is difficult to get large numbers of employees to approach their work consistently with these values. Most experts feel that it was the absence of this particular set of values that sunk ENRON and pulled its accounting firm, employees and the local economy down with it. It also sent a few folks to jail.

Next steps

After realizing that you have no stated culture or workplace brand attention turns to articulating a desired brand. This starts with understanding what your good performers want and need. Recruitment, Workplace Branding and Employee Satisfaction

Why Public and Private Nonprofits Tolerate Toxic Behavior

Posted on August 11, 2011 by Suzi

Even though I’ve been immersed in the topic of Toxic Employees since the book came out in June, “Toxic Employees: great companies resolve this problem, you can too”, I was actually shocked at the serious nature of negative stories from a group of public sector employees, recently. It has been my impression that private nonprofits struggled with toxic employee behavior more than the private sector but these stories were extreme. In one, a bully actually laid hands on a supervisee. This reminded me of the horrendous boss my daughter reported to for three years as a teenager. This guy called her a “dumb ass” and shoved her once. I so wanted to fly down the street and have a word with this fellow. But years of Al-anon recovery helped me to stay put; give her strategies to speak up; and assure her that eventually he would be fired. It took a lot longer than we thought (I sometimes wondered if he had something on the owners) but he was eventually terminated and things did improve as I had promised, thankfully.

How is it that employers tolerate this ridiculous and destructive behavior?

Environment in which toxic employees/bullies thrive

1. No clear set of employee behavioral values articulated

For-profits are more likely to know about the quantitative business case for positive work culture – how it is associated with greater business success. If your organization hasn’t thought about what kind of workplace culture is desired, your standards are probably not high enough. Nonprofits tend to place the focus on treating clients with respect but don’t get quite as specific with employee relations. In this situation, employee personal values are not tested during the recruitment process for consistency with corporate values like honesty and ethics. The result is a group of employees with significantly different values, work styles, and not necessarily folks with any particular loyalty to their employer. Loyalty, professionalism, respect and ethics have to be selected; cultivated; and rewarded because sometimes they go a bit against human nature. There’s a good chance that a couple of workers with bullying tendencies have gotten through the less-than-rigorous screening process.

2. Supervisors without formal leadership training

Some of the first lessons in objective trainings for new leaders is the concept that you can’t be everyone’s friend. You are the staff’s role model for professionalism and you’re paid to evaluate supervisee performance. It’s your job. So when employees play the victim or push back you’re prepared to refute these arguments. For-profits encourage supervisors to have a somewhat more arm’s-length stance relative to supervisees. Public and private nonprofit supervisors and program directors tend to come up through the ranks. As nonprofits grow, supervisory professionalism levels do rise. But most managers have had little formal training. In addition, they are learning by watching their boss who likely hasn’t been trained, either. Nonprofits are so stretched, especially today that there isn’t time or money for training that can’t be tied directly to service delivery.

3. Employee population that tends toward nurturing and nonconfrontational

Schools, colleges, and private nonprofits tend (not a rule! I know it’s a bad stereotype but it is sometimes true) to employ staff that are more creative ”right-brained” and less black and white certainly than private commercial business. I was a school social worker for three years and one of the reasons I loved that job was the wonderful way staff treated me. Ninety percent of my co-workers were compassionate, loved children and wanted to take care of my needs – need a pillow, tissue, whatever. Of course, their classroom management skills might have needed a little support. When a bully realizes that those around him/her are not going to respond in kind to their aggressive style, they gain power and become more difficult to stop. There are times when you have to put your hand up to people and say: “Stop,” or “enough.” Compassionate people often feel this is rude or outside their comfort zone. If you aren’t willing to be a little rude back, you may not be able to stop the behavior. When everything is going well, I want to be surrounded by lovely, nurturing co-workers. When there’s a bully among us, I want a tough supervisor to rein him/her in, period.

4. Less focus on the bottom line

No good company focused on financial metrics is going to put up with a worker who is not only rude and toxic but interferes with the productivity of the whole department. Tight margins, tight management and lean staffing all lead commercial companies to get onto issues when they’re small to prevent explosive employee relations problems. In addition, for-profits manage risks. Toxic employees bring risk of potential lawsuits by employees who are mistreated.

I know that my fellow consultants will say their very small commercial clients share some of the management short-comings I attribute to nonprofits. Again, the point is not that nonprofits are bad, just that they tend to be more tolerant. Bullies can thrive in that kind of setting. More nonprofits are seeing these risks and adopting comprehensive culture sustainability plans. Excellent!

What is 360 Degree Workplace Culture?

Posted on August 3, 2011 by Suzi

The purpose of my work is to use human resource and business operations expertise to create positive and quality workplace cultures. In these ideal cultures, not only are company business goals more likely to be achieved but employees are happier and treated respectfully in all interactions.

360⁰Workplace culture excellence

A 360⁰Workplace Culture is when:

The culture and organizational values are purposeful, promoted throughout the organization and truly inform employee behavior across all programs and departments;
The culture and organizational values support employees operating at their highest level of functioning toward the achievement of company business goals;
Talent management structures and policies reflect the “on purpose” culture and values at all points along the employment life-cycle: at recruitment; at new employee orientation; through the performance management program; in promotion decisions and very importantly; when it’s time to go, an employee must be moved out of the organization if they cannot or will not follow the rules of respect and integrity. The desired culture and values apply as much to employee relations as to customer relations.
Work values include and promote honesty, integrity and lawfulness in all company activities.

Example of unrealized workplace culture opportunity

Poor or disorganized workplace culture results when an organization has articulated values but does not follow them. I’ve worked with many companies who have a wonderful list of values and might even ask employees to sign a code of conduct. Meanwhile there is a long service toxic employee talking about people behind their back and targeting employees that don’t agree with them. Another example would be a company with no stated set of values. In this case, employees’ personal values will be quite varied, will not help focus employee efforts on company goals and at worse, lead employees to work against the company’s and co-worker best interests.

Years ago, I worked for a wonderful nonprofit that serves mentally ill clients. Client needs were at the center of service development. Company policies and program standards were very high. The problem was that one employee in a key, one-of-a-kind position, used her power to move fellow employees around like chess pieces on a board. I once caught her red-handed starting a false rumor about a new employee and yet couldn’t get the CEO to conduct performance counseling with any real consequence. She’s probably still there. The same would apply in a company that says client/customer needs are important but where the company fails to redirect the behavior of employees who mistreat clients.

Sorry to bring up poor ENRON, but this was a company with two separate cultural groups. In high level leaders, the culture was success and ambitious goal achievement regardless of their consistency with legal and accounting standards. In addition, this group feared the financial collapse but kept it secret from others. The second culture included rank and file employees and a few leaders who did not know or understand the conspiracy to keep the secret of impending financial disaster. Clearly, honesty, integrity and lawfulness were not even articulated in this company.

News of the World appears to have suffered from a similar lack of intentionally positive work culture and values. In the absence of a positive culture standard and with the context of very aggressive reporting goals, it appears that some employees did not balance their activities with that which is allowed by law or what most would consider basic morals.

The ideal cultural quality and excellence

In the ideal company, leadership will have spent time crafting a statement of desired culture and values. These values describe the organization’s concept of sustainability; how the company sees success and quality; how the company sees the importance and value of client/customer relationships; and finally, how the company sees employee relations. Everyone working in the company would know, understand and agree with this desired standard.

The closest ideal company I’ve personally experienced was my family’s clothing business, A. H. Benoit and Company. Though the company folded in the 1980s as a result of shifting retail centers (away from down towns), leadership changes and economic conditions, but in it’s day, the historical culture and standards were excellent. I didn’t realize it at the time (I was barely in high school), but my years there would represent one of my best workplace experiences. A couple of years ago, we uncovered a company employee handbook from the early 1900s that articulated the connection between happy employees and happy customers! They were known for very high quality men’s clothing, excellent customer service and being a place that employees loved to work. Many employees worked their entire career in this business. Thirty years later people still ask me if I am related to this business and then tell me of some fond memory about either working or shopping there.

Zappos is a modern example of cultural excellence we know about because CEO, Tony Hsieh has spoken publicly about the intentional culture he built there. He has implemented his 360 degree culture in a way that has facilitated tremendous, sustained success despite tough economic times. One example as I understand it is that Zappos monitors employee performance in the first few months and moves employees out of the organization with a generous severance package if it becomes clear that their values are not consistent with stated corporate values. They are wished well and treated with respect but not everyone fits with a given culture/values.

360 degree culture means determining what you want the workplace atmosphere be, how it can help you achieve your business goals and then implementing it in a comprehensive way so it becomes a part of the institutional personality.

Benoit Consulting

Strategies to promote a positive workplace culture

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