Recruit, Inspire & Retain |
May 2006 |
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Ideas for "Marketing" and Providing "Customer Service" to Current and Potential Employees |
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TRAINING
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INC.
Great Training for Great Employees |
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Attract Them With Your Business Strategy
If you want those great employees to come work with you instead of the next guy — they need to know what your organization stands for. Of course, it has to be the right business strategy fit for them, but too many organizations haven’t even done the 1st step:
Determining what your business strategy is
Step 2 putting it into words
Step 3 communicating it to potential employees, current employees,
and customers
Bonus this also improves productivity, quality, & customer satisfaction
To get you started, here are the business strategies of some well known organizations:
Dell: Cut Out All of the Garbage and Eliminate the Bureaucracy. Their success is a result of focusing on improving delivery times, cutting operation costs and maintaining customer service levels. The shorthand version of their business strategy is that Dell cuts out all of the junk and bureaucracy from the business process. How can we eliminate the wasted process steps, quality impediments and the technology hurdles? Clearly defining the business processes is a great starting place, then working to streamline them to the highest degree possible. Perhaps we could set up a prize for suggesting the elimination of the stupidest thing we do that gets in the way of progress.
Dutch Boy: Design - Don't Be Better, Be Different. You’ve got to love the redesign of the paint bucket that Dutch Boy has done in the last few years. The traditional paint bucket has been around for a very long time, and no one ever questioned why. Why is the bucket so heavy, why is it so hard to open and close, why does the paint always drip on the floor? Finally someone did ask why, and they created a product that is both better and different. We need to be on a continuous improvement plan in order to develop value over the long term. As one Greek philosopher said, "Anyone can drive a ship in calm water." True innovation comes from applying metadata to new areas where value has yet to be defined.
Starbucks: Engage All of the Customers' Senses. When you enter into a Starbucks coffee shop, you immediately get hit with sights, sounds and smells. The store layout and color scheme are consistent from store to store. The counter is located just as you walk in and the sounds of the cappuccino machine can be deafening. How can you engage multiple senses in your work? If you get it right, then maybe you, too, can charge $3.50 for a product that you can get free at the office.
3M: Innovate or Die Trying. Innovation is a key to the long-term success of your product service. Innovation can be a bit of a paradox; customers want more functionality, more value, and many times lower price and faster delivery. Innovation is not easy and may not win you a popularity contest from controlling managers, but you only live once. Innovate or die trying. As Mark Twain commented, "The man with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds."
Excerpted from "Replicating the Business Strategy of Others", DM Review, 3/06
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* | Northwest Security Systems | |
| * | Express Printing Inc. | ||
| * | Collaborate ‘06 Conference bookstore customers |
What Does It Mean To Give MORE Than 100%?
Ever wonder about those people who say they are giving more than 100%? We have all been to those meetings where someone wants you to give over 100%. How about achieving 103%? What makes up 100% in life?
Here's a little mathematical formula that might help you answer these questions:
If:
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
is represented as:
12345678910 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26
Then:
H-A-R-D-W-O-R-K (8+1+18+4+23+15+18+11) = 98%
and
K-N-O-W-L-E-D-G-E (11+14+15+23+12+5+4+7+5) = 96%
But,
A-T-T-I-T-U-D-E (1+20+20+9+20+21+4+5) = 100%
And,
S-K-I-L-L-F-U-L-N-E-S-S (19+11+9+12+12+6+21+12+14+5+19+19) = 159%
So, one can conclude with mathematical certainty that while hard work and knowledge will get you close, and attitude will get you there, it's Skillfulness that puts you over the top!
**TOOL
BOX**
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Rod MacDonald, Northeast Security
Systems, after receiving his Fun Meter order: "Thanks for
your prompt and attentive service. I had no idea that you would turn
this around so quickly. The 'fun has already begun'...We’ll be sure
to keep you folks in mind for anything along the training and
motivational line that we can use in the future." |
| * |
Carol Moore, after receiving
replacement batteries for her scrolling nametag: "The nametag
works now! You made it so easy for me. Thanks!" |
| * | Tabitha Hoppman, Berkshire Systems Group, Inc., after receiving her 1st month’s MemCards subscription: "Thank you so very much for this subscription. These MemCards are terrific!" |
Do the Shoemaker’s Children Have Shoes?
At TRAINING SYSTEMS, INC. they do. Our staff regularly participate in learning that gives us content knowledge and improves our skills for determining needs, designing and developing training, facilitating training, measuring training ROI, and HR consulting.
| Here’s one example from last month: | ||
| WHAT: | Group training in person on making your company a great place to work. | |
| INTRO: | Facilitator Paul Krause asked the group, "What are the dimensions of a great work place? (print & verbal) | |
| In small groups (10 min.) we made lists and then as a whole group shouted out stories from our lists (10 min.) | ||
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sets goals I can understand and believe in – then lets me get there my way | |
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helps identify my skills & abilities | |
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flatter reporting structure | |
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getting things done | |
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team approach as opposed to very narrow job description | |
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trust, go forward and make mistakes and correct them (comes from management confidence in staff) | |
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co-workers who want to be there | |
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clean workspace | |
| Processing: | Facilitator told us what the Fortune Best Places to Work discovered: Trust the people they work for, have pride in what they do, and enjoy the people they work with. |
| REST OF LEARNING METHODS: | ||
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Facilitator told us (+ visual of graph) the performance levels of organizations on the Fortune Best Places to Work list vs. others |
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| ● | Receive more qualified job applications for open positions | |
| ● | Experience reductions in health care costs | |
| ● | Enjoy higher levels of customer satisfaction and customer loyalty | |
| ● | Foster greater innovation, creativity and risk taking | |
| ● | Benefit from higher productivity and profitability | |
| ● | Experience a lower level of turnover | |
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Facilitator reminded us about the Q12 (Gallup)
instrument and said that the one question on it that was
found to be the most reliable predictor of employee
retention was: "Do you have a best friend at work?" Facilitator told us (print & verbal) about each of the 6 Principles for achieving a best place to work from the Great Workplace Institute. After each one, he told stories about organizations that do that principle well and then had us grade ourselves as managers and our organization (10 min. each principle) |
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| Principle #1: Create Conditions for Trust | |||
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Condition 1 – Credibility Condition 2 – Respect Condition 3 – Fairness |
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| Principle #2: Establish "Sticky" Workplace | |||
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Factor 1 – Pride (in your work) Factor 2 – Camaraderie (w/colleagues) |
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| Principle #3: Make Heroes of Your Managers | |||
| • | Manager training so they are able to be heroes to employees by helping employees do job and grow | ||
| • | Take seriously the responsibility to get ROI on their staff’s salaries | ||
| • | Take seriously the responsibility to interpret organization’s mission, vision, values to staff | ||
| Principle #4: Get the Right People Onboard | |||
| • | Recruiting Tools | ||
| • | Succession Planning | ||
| • | Bill Hybels & George W. Bush’s formula for selection | ||
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Character Competence Chemistry |
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| Principle #5: Start Employees Fast! | |||
| training & systems for performance acceleration | |||
| Principle #6: The Nineveh Problem | |||
| • | results matter – establish the expected results | ||
| • | process matters – define the right behaviors | ||
| CLOSING: | Facilitator had group shout out things we’d do at our organization to make it the best place to work. |
Thanks, Paul, for a fantastic time learning at the monthly Christian Management Association of Chicago
Tell us what you learned this month and we’ll include it in this segment of future issues.
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An Ethical Workplace is an Inspiring Workplace
You may have the coolest employee recognition program, the best training, the highest salaries, and the most comprehensive benefits, but if you’re Enron, well, let’s just say, there’s not going to be a lot of inspirational feeling!
Learn to make your workplace more ethical with ideas from the National Business Ethics Survey (NBES), which asks employees about their perceptions of ethics and compliance at work:
• Trends in the implementation of formal ethics and compliance programs;
• Evidence of ethical culture in organizations;
• Analysis of risk for misconduct;
• Measures of outcomes expected from effective programs; and
• Analysis of the impact of formal program elements and ethical culture on outcomes.
Key Findings from the 2005 Survey
• On a national level, the number of formal ethics and compliance programs are on the rise, but positive outcomes expected of those programs are not. The prevalence of five of the six elements of a formal program increased during the years in which questions were asked about these measures:
• Written standards of conduct (up 19% since 1994);
• Training on ethics (up 32% since 1994);
• Mechanisms to seek ethics advice or information (up 15% since 2000);
• Means to report misconduct anonymously (up 7% since 2003);
• Discipline of employees who violate ethical standards (up 4% since 2003).
• Formal ethics and compliance programs do have an impact, but organizational culture, which has changed little over the years of the NBES study, is more influential in determining outcomes.
• Formal programs make a difference in weaker ethical cultures.
1. The more formal program elements the better;
2. Formal programs do have some impact on outcomes in weak cultures;
3. Once a strong culture is in place, formal programs do not have much of an impact on outcomes.
• NBES measured 18 dimensions of ethical culture, and the data show that the actions of leaders and peers significantly influence employees’ ethics. For example:
• Where top management displays certain ethics-related actions, employees are 50% less likely to observe misconduct.
• Ethics-related actions of coworkers can increase employee willingness to report misconduct, by as much as 10%.
• When employees perceive that others are held accountable for their actions, their overall satisfaction increases by 32%.
Furthermore, employees in organizations with strong ethical cultures and full formal programs are 36% less likely to observe misconduct than employees in organizations
with weak culture and full formal programs. Importantly, less than 1% employees in strong cultures did not have any elements of a formal program present, and NBES did reveal a relationship between formal programs and cultures. Therefore it is our initial conclusion, subject to further study, that where cultures are strong, it is in part because a formal program is in place. Even further, formal programs are likely to be an essential element in the maintenance of a
strong culture. While culture matters in making an impact, formal programs are still essential to creating a culture.
• Employees are at risk for misconduct, and where they encounter situations inviting wrongdoing, there is high likelihood that they will also observe at least 1 violation taking place.
• Little change has taken place since 1994 in the extent to which employees observe misconduct in the workplace. Remarkably, in 2005 52% of employees observed at least one type of misconduct taking place; 36% of those employees observed 2 or more violations.
• Of the employees who observed misconduct at work in 2005, just over one half (55%) reported it to management, a 10% decrease since 2003 and a backsliding to levels similar to those in 2000.
• Pressure to compromise standards has also remained unchanged. In 2005, 10% of employees feel such pressure always or fairly often, a level similar to 2003 and down 3% since 2000.
Growing attention to ethics and compliance must, therefore, be supplemented by attention to culture. In 2005, none of the elements of ethical culture (as measured in this study) increased substantially over past years. This may be one reason that outcomes have remained unchanged.
Excerpted from The National Business Ethics Survey: Executive Summary
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Self Directed Learning
Tell your employees (in performance appraisals, weekly meetings, or just walking down the hall) what they need to improve and that the organization will pay for their learning. They’ll run right out and learn! Wrong. Time after time, we heart frustration from organizations that provide the $ and don’t understand why their staff aren’t taking advantage.
2 REASONS:
Their performance (and compensation) isn’t measured on whether they learned these specific things, or put them into practice,
AND/OR
they have no idea where to go to get the learning, or it’ll be too time consuming to find it.
Yes, the 1st one can be solved easily, but we also need to provide them with lots of resources. These can be books, CD’s, web-based training, group training, videos that you design & implement, and they can also be simply lists of already existing learning they can access outside your organization.
A few examples of already existing learning:
● Foreign language training
— immersion learning in you name the country at www.transitionsabroad.com and www.giveusaweekend.com
— language study partner from another country at www.mylanguageexchange.com
— audio tapes at www.itunes.com
● University & junior college courses
— evening in person group sessions
— self study online synchronous classes
— self study online asynchronous with a facilitator and other students to interact with
— podcasts to download into IPOD
● Self study workbooks
— Crisp 50 Minute Book Series, email books@trainingsys.com for a complete list of titles
Email us materials & sites that have helped your employees and we’ll list them in Training Tips on our website.
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Creating a Mentoring Culture
When Robert L. Jeffrey Jr. decided to start his own magazine, he knew he would need advice from other entrepreneurs in publishing. So Jeffrey joined a Rotarian sponsored mentoring program through the University of Washington’s Business and Economic Development Center. The council of mentors studied Jeffrey’s business, offered him advice about publishing, and presented him with suggestions for growing his magazine’s distribution. Jeffrey took their advice, partnering with another local publication to build up circulation and increase advertising rates.
Today, 3 years later, the magazine was recently ranked as one of the 50 fastest-growing business in the Seattle area by the Puget Sound Business Journal. "We had done OK on our own, but without the help of these mentors, we wouldn’t have grown so fast," says Jeffrey. He was so impressed with the mentor program that he decided to get involved and give back to it by joining.
In Canada, Scott Drach takes a more one-on-one approach to mentorships. Drach is director of human resources for Boeing Canada Technology, where he oversees the company’s leadership development program. Mentorships are a key component of that program, and Drach currently mentors 2 employees.
2 to 4 times a year, he sits down with his proteges and talks with them about their current position in the company, how their careers are going, and what kind of future they see for themselves at Boeing. "This kind of relationship is helpful because it tells people inside the organization that other people care and are concerned about them." Drach says.
Tips for setting up a program that works for your organization:
Ask around — Managers who want to launch mentoring programs should gauge employee interest to make sure there are enough people willing to participate as mentors. Buy-in from senior management is also important because supervisors need to know if their employees will be participating in the program.
Choose wisely — Mentoring programs only work if the mentors are willing to devote themselves wholeheartedly. Be sure to pick mentors who are committed to the process from beginning to end. Conduct a formal orientation to describe exactly what will be expected.
Stay active — Once you pick your mentors, encourage them to stay involved with the people they advise. Good ways to keep them involved are monthly or quarterly lunch meetings. Another viable option: golf outings. The very best mentoring programs always have events planned.
Keep it real — Mentoring is about more than just periodic get-togethers. Mentors should ask good questions and get to the heart of a protege’s experience, finding out what’s happening on the job and learning about the employee’s goals. Then they can get to the important work of dishing out good advice.
Adapted from The Rotarian, 4/06
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FUN DAYS TO CELEBRATE/PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT CONFERENCES/WAYS TO VOLUNTEER & GIVE |
May is...
Peace of Mind Month
Better Sleep Month
May 1-7 – Get Happy Week
May 7-14 – Music Week
May 7-14 – Family Week & Pet Week
May 8-14 – Flower Week
May 14-20 – Reading is Fun Week
May 2 – Teacher Day, Brothers & Sisters Day, Be Kind to Smelly People Day
(Hopefully, your teachers & siblings aren’t smelly!)
May 3 – Raspberry Popover Day
May 4 – Orange Juice Day, National Day of Prayer, Relationship Renewal
Day (Have some OJ, then renew your relationship with God)
May 5 – Chocolate Custard Day, Hoagie Day
May 11 – Chair Day
May 12 – Kite Day & Limerick Day (Recite a limerick about kite-flying)
May 17 – Rubber Band Day
May 19 – Plant Something Day & Hug Your Cat Day
May 20 – Flower Day
May 23 – World Turtle Day
May 29 – Memorial Day
May 30 – Compact Disc Day
Email TRAINING SYSTEMS, INC. for ideas on how to celebrate any of these days.
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT CONFERENCES
May 7-10, 2006
American Society for Training and Development Conference, Dallas, TX,
May 18-21, 2006
National Multicultural Institute 21st Annual Conference,
Bethesday, MD, email:
May 28-31, 2006
International Personnel Management Association Canada 2006 National
Training Conference, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada,
June 11-14, 2006
Training Director’s Forum, Palm Springs, CA,
(TRAINING SYSTEMS, INC. is running the Conference Bookstore)
June 14-17, 2006
European Distance and E Learning Network 2006 Annual Conference,
Vienna, Austria,
June 22-23, 2006
Accelerated Learning Advanced Design Class, Lake Geneva, WI,
June 25-28, 2006
SHRM's 2006 Annual Conference & Exposition, Washington Convention
Center, Washington, DC,
July 7-9, 2006
National Career Development Association 2006 Conference, Chicago, IL,
1-866-FOR-NCDA
July 26-30, 2006
WorldFuture 2006: Creating Global Strategies for Humanity’s Future,
Sheraton Centre Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada,
July 28-30, 2006
Annual Conference of the World Future Society, Sheraton Centre
Toronto Hotel, Toronto, Ontario, Canada,
October 4-6, 2006
Strategic HR Conference, Phoenix,
WAYS TO VOLUNTEER & GIVE
Global Volunteers (
You can:
select by
type of work projectselect
by country and dateselect
by service program conditionsselect
by cost
Donate old Suits
Check with your local Dress Barn. Some have programs to help unfortunate women get jobs by supplying them with business suits people have donated. Plus, they offer the donator a 10% off coupon for any purchase. Give a little, get a little!
RECYCLING
Responsibly Dispose of Your Old Electronics
Recycle PCs, cell phones, printers, CDs
diskettes, etc. with GreenDisk. For $29.95, they send a 70-pound-capacity
box. When it’s full, you download postage from their website and ship it
back. Your "junk" then goes to workshops for the disabled and are
refurbished.
http://www.greendisk.com
Donate PCs to National Cristina Foundation,
Recycle PCs and other computer products at
Hewlett Packard and Dell. See their websites for details.
Find local Electronics recyclers at
http://www.earth911.org
and
http://www.ebay.com/rethink
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