Talent resolutions for the New Year

Human resources processes, human capital management and workforce productivity all sound so complex and demanding, with so many moving parts to manage. There are employee handbooks and policies to worry about. There are rules and regulations. How is the management to know what to do with the employee base? Although there are certainly some things that are required by the law, here are three guiding principles that will get you far. Make them your New Year’s resolutions, if you are not already following them.

1. Don’t compromise on talent

Decide what kind of talent will get you where you want to be. Understand what drives performance in your business. Be as specific as you can. Don’t add any unnecessary criteria to narrow your talent pool to choose from. Then go after it. When you hire, don’t bring in anyone else except those who meet your standards. When you promote internally, be just as selective.

2. Hold people accountable

If you want a high-performance culture, accountability is a basic cornerstone of it. The building blocks are so simple, yet seem to be so hard to put into practice. Set clear goals. Set clear expectations for behaviors. Create an environment for open feedback and teach everyone to give feedback to each other. Give both positive and constructive feedback. Track results on an on-going basis. Correct performance as soon as it starts veering off track. Celebrate successes.

3. Invest in your people

Investment in people has significantly higher ROI than investment in capital equipment. People learn, grow and develop. Make the investment purposeful and intentional. Invest time in your people by having weekly meetings with managers, communication meetings by the leaders and also by having career dialogues annually. Invest in mentoring, coaching and training. Plan career ladders and growth opportunities. Most importantly, pay attention to your people. Treat them as individuals, all with a valuable contribution to make.

With these three resolutions, you can’t go wrong.

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Who’s in charge of employee development?

When it comes to bad guys in employee development, it is easy to point fingers. There is an employee who is only physically present when it’s time to train, and when discussing career goals, he just shrugs and says ”Dunno…” To counter that, what about that manager who never gives feedback and thinks that training is just waste of time. And to top that, how about those companies whose training budgets are cut to $0, whose departments hoard talent and hold back their top performers. So, where should the big finger point?

Employees?

Learning agility is one of the key ingredients of top performers and leaders of the future. As the amount of information and change increases, it is not enough that we get a degree and then decide we have learned all we need to know. Organizations are looking for lifelong learners; employees who adapt to new situations and know how to find information that doesn’t exist in neatly stacked binders. The concept of the job contract is also changing. A cozy career in one organization is a thing from the past. Forward looking companies manage their talent pipelines aggressively. Employees should manage their own career pipelines with equal vigor. Career development is not a one-way dialogue. Both parties benefit, when their best interests align and are actively managed.

Managers?

Managers are catalysts for growth. They can motivate their team by providing meaningful assignments, gradually increasing in challenge, or they can be boring task masters trying to drum up obedience with strict rules. Good managers provide opportunities to try out new skills while providing feedback and coaching on the way. They know how to conduct a purposeful dialogue around career and development. They celebrate successes and nudge their employees when they veer away from the right track.

Organizations?

Organizations are responsible for the environment and the infrastructure for learning. They provide the process for individual and organizational development plans. They come up with the resources for training, wisely investing more in high performers and strength building. They push for the big picture with workforce planning and for the long view with succession planning. Organizations also ensure the quality of managers who play a critical role in employee development.

So who’s in charge? Without the employee’s initiative, the manager can’t push a noodle. Without the manager’s insight and support, it’s hard to develop on the job. And without the organizational learning environment, it just wouldn’t be a priority for anyone.  To reap the full results, we need the full contribution of all three.

If you need help with gearing up your managers for better career and development discussions, or improving your organizational development processes, contact me at liisa@forteconsulting.biz or 512-484 8263.

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Coaching: Make it a daily habit

Coaching is a gift

Coaching – what is it really? We have sports coaches, all the way from the little league to the ones who make millions. We have career coaches, business coaches and life coaches. Managers are expected to coach their employees, but a recent study by Leadership IQ shows that two thirds of employees feel they are not even receiving enough attention, let alone coaching. Perhaps if we didn’t make coaching sound like something so formidable, managers would take up on doing it on a regular basis.

There are two main types of coaching: formal and informal. Good coaches use both. Formal coaching is a goal and process oriented approach, while informal coaching is an on-going effort to turn every opportunity into learning, looking for teachable moments.

Formal coaching is a good choice, when there is a specific goal and a specific timeframe to be met. Sometimes, the employee has an aggressive vision of leapfrogging to the next level of skill and expertise. Other times, a performance improvement plan is required to address a productivity or behavioral issue. Professional coaches often use formal coaching plans to help their clients stay focused on their goals, and integrate other resources to provide informal coaching. The formal coaching process typically includes an analysis phase, goal setting, an action plan for improvement, identification of resources and support, setting of milestones, and agreement on the review schedule for monitoring progress.

Informal coaching happens daily. It should happen daily. If you think of sports, formal coaching would be the practices, informal coaching would be the coach’s feedback during the game and the debriefing after the game. Learn as you go. Perhaps you show a handy shortcut key as you walk by. You prep together for an important presentation. You may walk through a complex project plan with your team and give them tips based on your experience. Or, you sit down with your employee after they messed up and discuss together how to prevent it from happening again.

Feedback is an important element of both coaching approaches. Objective and specific feedback, followed by a gentle dialogue of a better way to approach the situation, has the greatest value for the receiver.  When the objective is to learn and not to evaluate, coaching becomes a daily gift, and not an administrative task.

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Feedback is a gift

Nothing is as bittersweet as receiving honest feedback on a weakness – unknown, or all too familiar. It hurts, yet at the same time it is like a gate opening to an unexplored path. You can give it a shot. This could be that once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to expand your capabilities, and someone just gave the tip for free. If you could just stop shuddering from seeing that ugly picture of yourself, courtesy of a friend holding up a mirror. So embarrassing, yet so liberating. Is there any way we can get comfortable with feedback?

Our first instinct is to protect ourselves from constructive feedback. We naturally love the praise and shun the critique. People who don’t know us very well or who don’t care enough tend to give us what we want instead of what we need. The only way to ensure that we get it all is to assure others that we can handle it. Talk about feedback and how important it is for you. Ask for feedback. The more specific things you ask, the more specific answers you will get. Isn’t it funny that sometimes the most burning issue on your mind is the hardest to ask? Find people you trust who will answer with kindness and honesty.

Your reaction to feedback determines whether the person will continue giving you feedback in the future. This should be your utmost concern when you receive feedback. If this is a person you would like to hear from again, focus all your energy to genuinely thank for the feedback, no matter what the message is. Keep in mind that even if you disagree with the feedback, this is true perception, important enough to be shared with you. Your decision now is whether you want to change this person’s perception about you. If someone thinks you are not a team player, what are you going to do about it? You can only change perception by actions; you can rarely talk people out of a perception.

The best quality of feedback is a dialogue. Two or more people share their perceptions in the spirit of learning and cooperation. It requires high self esteem and respect for others to go on the journey to share how you see others around you. In the spirit of curiosity instead of seeing everything in black and white, it is possible to start seeing two sides of many stories. Entering the dialogue with the assumption that everyone operates with the best intentions but sometimes things go wrong opens new avenues for understanding everyone’s perspective. Learning from mistakes is also a gift.

Winning organizations weave into their cultural fabric the habit of open feedback and learning from mistakes. They create continuous opportunities for sharing feedback, and coach their employees in basic feedback skills. This way, feedback stops being a scary thing of evaluations and becomes a bridge to self awareness and growth.

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Do we need performance reviews?

If you believe research, we don’t need performance reviews to improve performance. Reviews seem to have no impact on individual performance. But hold off, before you jump and hit the delete button, read a bit further. Performance reviews serve another purpose. When they are done well, they improve retention. Performance reviews are a great opportunity to rerecruit your good performers and spend some quality time together talking about their future aspirations. So don’t stop doing reviews, just do them differently.

Performance reviews usually cause apprehension in employees and create hectic scurrying around for managers. For evaluation purposes, the review should be just a summary of the feedback the employee has already heard throughout the year. It should never include any surprises. It’s a good chance to look back and recognize the best accomplishments. It pays to focus on the positive. In a study on performance management approach, a strengths-based approach to management resulted in a 36% increase in performance, as contrasted with a 27% decrease associated with a weakness focus.

But hey, what do you do with low performers? You certainly shouldn’t wait until the review time to address their performance issues. If you use annual reviews to force your managers to deal with low performance once a year, you have a bigger problem than mind-numbing performance reviews.

As many companies use performance rating system that feeds into many other processes, such as rewards planning and succession planning, the performance review is a natural opportunity to be transparent about the implications of the performance rating and the employee’s standing in the talent pool. The manager’s job is easier if the rating process and its link to the other processes are objective and logical. Contact Forte Consulting if you need help with this.

The performance review should be forward looking. As you discuss the goals and results of the past year, probe for what the employee learned and wished they had known. When you give behavioral feedback, turn it into concrete development goals.

Many companies combine the performance review and the goal setting dialogue, as they easily flow together. As you plan next year’s goals together, look at them from a development perspective as well. What will your employee learn from each goal? Could there be an assignment that would be especially beneficial on their career path? What skill development and coaching will the employee need to be truly successful in accomplishing the goals?

Don’t miss the opportunity to ask questions about what keeps your employee engaged in your company. Ask about what makes them stay. Ask about obstacles. Talk about their long term career aspirations. Performance reviews just might turn into valuable dialogues that provide insight to both you and your employee.

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Copyright 2010 Liisa Pursiheimo-Marcks, all rights reserved. SVPGMGDX8TEC

Training and development that actually work

I can venture a guess that it can be frustrating to pay big bucks to send your employees to training, see them return from the seminar, put their binders neatly on the shelf and return back to their old habits. Here are a few tips on how to make training and development bring results.

First off, training programs are not always the solution. As a rule of thumb, 70% of your employee development should come from learning through experience, 20% from feedback and coaching, and 10% from formal training. When you want to develop your employees’ competence and confidence, the best way is to gradually increase the challenges in their job assignments while providing the necessary guidance. If you are dealing with troublesome behavior, your best bet is feedback and behavioral coaching. Training is not going to be enough to create the necessary change. It will take more dedicated attention by the manager.  So when DO you use training?

Training works the best when you need to teach new skills or methods to your employees. Perhaps you want to introduce a new sales methodology to your sales force. Or you are installing a new computer system at the company. Perhaps your employee is starting to work on large contracts and needs more advanced negotiation skills. These are all good examples when training is certainly a good idea.

Adults learn on a need-to-know basis. Do not train them until they need to use the new skill. Provide them just the right amount of information to be proficient. For example, when you introduce a new system, some people may just need a one-page job aid, while some need a more in-depth classroom introduction. Don’t force everyone to sit through 4 hours, if they just need that one-pager. Promote informal learning via social media, Google searches, intranet, from peers and via company “experts”.

To really learn a new skill, there must be some practice. Good skill training includes hands-on portions. If your employee goes to a “talking head” seminar or webinar, don’t expect too much change in skill level. What you can do as a manager to improve the learning impact is to ask them to apply the new knowledge on the job right away.

E-learning has come a long way since its early conception. There are some excellent e-learning programs that are cost and time efficient. Good e-learning includes interaction and simulations that allow employees to practice the skills and take shortcuts in areas they already know. Set your expectations right about e-learning programs that teach interpersonal skills. They can only go so far without including skill practice with other people.

To truly know if a training program is effective, it must be evaluated. Most companies evaluate their training by asking if the participants liked it. Also check if they actually learned the key content. Perhaps the most important metric to follow is what happens after the training: did the employees start applying the new skills and methods and how did it impact the job results?

Up to 85% of the training impact is determined by what happens before and after the training. Most of it is under the manager’s control. Select the right participants, set high expectations, and make sure they have the opportunity to apply what they learned. You’ll be happy with the results.

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Copyright 2010 Liisa Pursiheimo-Marcks, all rights reserved. SVPGMGDX8TEC

Managing the performance of your contingent workforce?

Labor law firm Littler Mendelson predicts that contingent labor could rise to account almost half of the entire U.S. workforce. Companies are attracted to the flexibility this option provides them. There are some caveats to consider. Independent contractors are not employees. How do you manage the performance of a resource that does not report to you?

The line between an employee and an independent contractor can get quite blurry. This got Microsoft in trouble in 1989/1990. The IRS determined that Microsoft had treated their independent contractors just like their employees and ordered them to pay back payroll taxes and overtime.

The employer does not need to pay overtime, payroll taxes or benefits for an independent contractor. Contractors are a temporary resource that doesn’t show in the corporate headcount. For all these attractive qualities, there is a sacrifice: the relationship is to be considered temporary. If the company starts showing too much investment in the relationship, it most likely is viewing the contractor more as an employee. In that situation, it might be in your best interest to consider a conversion. The three IRS touchstones for the employee vs. contractor relationship are:

1. Behavioral: Does the company control or have the right to control what the worker does and how the worker does his or her job?
2. Financial: Are the business aspects of the worker’s job controlled by the payer?
3. Type of Relationship: Are there written contracts or employee type benefits? Will the relationship continue and is the work performed a key aspect of the business?

So can you do anything about your contractor’s performance? The key is to avoid behavioral control. As with any supplier – in this case a supplier of services – you focus on results and deliverables. Be clear about your performance expectation as you would with a vendor. Focus on business results such as budget, timeline, quality or end user satisfaction.

Agree on a feedback mechanism. If you get the contractors through a staffing agency, they may have policies that all feedback goes through their managers. With some other contractors, you may agree on a schedule to review the milestones of the project. Make sure to avoid the appearance of regular staff reports. If the deliverable is lacking from your earlier established criteria, hold the contractor accountable to the results, as a supplier of a service.

A contractor relationship is not a developmental relationship. Any coaching, behavioral correction, training or mentoring by the company’s managers could be a sign of an employee relationship. Contractors are free agents who take care of their own professional development as they see fit. Their work with the hiring company is a business partnership. Good managers get good results from these relationships. They treat them respectfully, negotiate assignments effectively and portray a positive brand of your company so that they will be a preferred contract next time around. They also keep track of the performance levels of contractors and contract the best ones back on repeat assignments.

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Copyright 2010 Liisa Pursiheimo-Marcks, all rights reserved. SVPGMGDX8TEC

Raise your hand if you hate performance management

Performance management has got such a bad rep among both employees and managers. For employees, the performance review is the annual dooms day, and for managers, it is a month filled with endless bureaucracy. The sad thing is that performance reviews don’t really drive performance. They are necessary for other talent management processes, and should be done well, but any manager who thinks that the annual review is enough to check the box for performance management completed for the year is WRONG.

According to CLC (Corporate Leadership Council) research, the top three performance drivers are risk taking, informal feedback and clear performance standards. Managers who cut some slack for their team members to try out new things will find process improvements and increased productivity. If some of the new ideas don’t work out, they don’t slam the explorers. You need lots of new ideas to find one good idea. At the same time, these managers don’t allow risky and unsafe behaviors.

When it comes to performance management, the most effective way to drive performance is to be clear about expectations and give frequent feedback. No complex computer systems needed! The key is a skilled manager. Employees must know what the expectations are in the form of job descriptions, company behavior standards, and specific goals to accomplish what is important for the company. When the expectations are clear to everyone, employees are more likely to feel that they are treated fairly.

Once the manager has set clear expectations, it is equally important to let the employees know how they are doing against the standards. Most everyone comes to work to do their best. If they are doing their job right, or great, it doesn’t take a lot of effort to let them know that. If they are off track, the manager needs to alert them to the deviation. The earlier the correction is made, the easier it will be. The worst annual reviews take place when the employee hears from the manager that they have not met the expectations but didn’t know about it. Feedback is so simple and it is just about the most powerful weapon to boost your team’s performance.

So why do we even have annual reviews if they don’t really drive performance? CLC research reveals that annual reviews drive retention. It is a chance to discuss career development and how much the employee is appreciated. Annual reviews trigger a chain of events in a company that values its talent. The performance ratings from annual reviews are used to differentiate rewards and development. When the reviews are more forward looking, they become less dreaded and more valuable. Let’s not forget that bulk of performance management happens every day.

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Copyright 2010 Liisa Pursiheimo-Marcks, all rights reserved.
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Why is nothing changing after training?

According to Robert Brinkerhoff research, only about 15% of learning impact is determined by the actual training event. Up to 85% of the learning impact is influenced by external factors: what happens before and after. As so much scrutiny is put on the actual training event, and not much attention is paid to what really matters, it’s no wonder that most training sessions become a nice, although high quality, break from the daily grind but not much more.

Typical pitfalls of training with low impact are:

• Wrong people sent to the training
• Lack of purpose / expectations
• No opportunity to apply new skills and knowledge
• Lack or reinforcement after training
• Work environment makes it difficult to apply new skills and knowledge
• Wrong learning attitude

1. Send the right people to the training

The reason to train a person is to improve or learn a new skill, behavior or knowledge. This can be achieved through many methods. Sometimes just handing a simple job aid or a book could do the trick. If a fundamental behavior change is expected, one-on-one coaching over a long period time is often more appropriate. In some cases, the whole team needs to adopt a new methodology, approach or tool, and training everyone at the same time is the most efficient. If your employee is having a behavior problem, training is not the silver bullet. I have seen whole teams sent to a behavior improvement class so that the manager could avoid having a frank discussion with just a couple of employees. Sit down with your low performers and communicate your expectations. If it truly is a skill gap, you may consider training. In most cases, it is matter of close monitoring and getting back on track. Send your high performers to state-of-the-art workshops and conferences where they really get to expand their expertise.

2. Set the expectation for learning

Whether it’s your whole team or one or two individuals, plan ahead to make the most of the learning experience. If you are not concerned with the ROI of the learning, why bother sending them at all? Be clear why they are going to this particular training and why they were picked. Make the new skill part of their performance plan, and expect them to share the key learning points with you and the team.

3. Ready to apply

Prepare for their return so that learners will immediately be able to apply what they learned. If it is new software, the tool should be installed on their computer, ready to use. If they are going to learn negotiation skills, agree with them in which deal will they be testing the new skills. If there won’t be any chance to apply upon return, delay the training.

4. Reinforce and enforce

Inspect what you expect. Ask for a briefing on the key learning points. Work together to create a simple action plan to ensure that the skills are applied immediately after the training. Monitor progress and celebrate success together. Give feedback and coaching as much as you are familiar with the topic.

5. Create a supportive work environment

Cynical coworkers can certainly kill any budding new skill. Set rules of engagement for the whole team to expect support. If the whole team is learning new methods, share war stories, wins and best practices as they emerge. Remove obstacles such as bureaucratic processes or old systems that can be counterproductive to the excitement of gaining new skills.

6. Select people with a positive learning attitude

To create an innovative organization, you need people who are curious, open to change and who want to continuously improve and learn new things. Make this a performance evaluation and promotion criteria and, more importantly, a  selection criteria for new hires. Nothing stops progress more than an employee who thinks he or she knows everything there is to know and poisons the learning environment for everyone else on the team.

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Copyright 2010 Liisa Pursiheimo-Marcks, all rights reserved.
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How to get a raise

2009 was a year we want to forget. Adjusted for inflation, total compensation in the USA fell by almost 1.3 percent. 2010 looks a bit better, but not much: a salary increase forecast conducted by The Conference Board projects modest budgets of 2.8%, barely enough to match the inflation rate. In this environment, what can you do to get that coveted raise? There are no silver bullets, but the answer lies in knowing the process, studying the criteria and applying self awareness.

There are different approaches to compensation strategies in organizations, such as flat inflation adjustments, seniority systems, competency based increases, but performance based pay is the king. It makes sense; the best performers get the best compensation. In this year’s case, the performance based companies will take their 2.8% increase budget and try to divide it so that low performers will get nothing, solid performers will get a little bit, so that there is some extra money accumulated to give a more handsome reward for the star performers. It sounds straightforward, but many complain that they are not being evaluated fairly. Herein lies the challenge: 90% of employees feel that their performance is above average. So, how do you know if you REALLY are above average and deserve the key to the treasure chest?

If your company is in a mature stage, it has clearly defined standards for different performance levels. These would describe how a top performer behaves versus a solid performer, and what constitutes performance below expectations. Sometimes, you can dig in further and find the listed company leadership values. If you can’t find any published criteria, here are some generic tips how to distinguish whether you are a true top performer vs. a solid performer:

• Top performers are part of a solution. It’s not that they don’t see problems or are yes-men. When they see a problem, instead of just identifying the issue, they think of possible solutions and volunteer to be involved in implementing them.
• Top performers are proactive. Instead of just doing a good job at fulfilling requests and completing goals, top performers clearly see the overall strategy and purpose of the company, and jump at opportunities to do things beyond their current tasks, as long as they are aligned with the current priorities.
• Top performers are change agents. In new initiatives, top performers not only go to training and follow the new rules, they embrace the change vision and evangelize the cause. If there are issues, they find workarounds instead of just pointing them out.
• Top performers are continuous learners. They ask for feedback and act on it. When they go to training, they are engaged. When they get back to work, they share what they learned with the team and apply the new skills on the job.

Just as a word of caution, here’s a tell-tale sign how to recognize if you might be a low performer: you consume a lot of your supervisor’s or HR’s time. Unless your time with your manager is proposing ideas that you are volunteering to implement, you are taking time away from productivity. The only other exception may be if you are reporting illegal or unethical activities; that is your right.

Get savvy about your company’s performance management and compensation processes. Know the criteria for decisions. Find out about the schedule and decision points. For example, once the merit increases have been approved by senior management, your chances of changing your manager’s decision are slim. Your manager and HR are your best sources of information. Use the processes to your advantage and don’t be afraid of them. Document your performance throughout the year and make sure that your manager, the next level management and HR are aware of your accomplishments. Network internally so that the decision makers can connect a name to a face.

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If you are a manager, don’t let the rewards planning time to go to waste. With the little budget that you have, make it count:

• Make sure there are no surprises. Your performers should know where they stand based on the informal feedback you give throughout the year.
• Be as transparent as you can be about the guidelines and how the compensation decisions are made. Clear expectations upfront set the stage for frank discussions.
• Make sure to celebrate the successes with your top performers and show how much you value them. The reward dialogue with them is a great opportunity to do so.
• Don’t forget to share how much you value your solid performers. Show them what it takes to be a top performer.
• Don’t cop out with your low performers. They should not be surprised with what’s in store for them.
• Don’t forget that compensation can only be a dissatisfier. Leading with purpose, giving feedback and developing your employees ultimately drive their engagement.

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Copyright 2010 Liisa Pursiheimo-Marcks, all rights reserved.
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