Using courageous career conversations to shift engagement

While we can all agree that engagement is key to business success, its easy for employers and business owners to fall into the trap of keeping their employees in the "roles they are great at" instead of assisting these employees to map their potential career path.

To boost engagement employers should always make potential career pathways clearly visible and ensure managers regularly discuss transfer options to maximise engagement levels. According to recent research, one in five workers are in the wrong job, and when they move, the shift in engagement levels is "absolutely huge".

It's really down to managers and leaders taking the time to have meaningful discussions with their employees in order to really understand what they want, what motivates them, what drives them.

They need to be able to have courageous conversations where they are able to say '"just because there may not be an opportunity right now, does not mean that this will always be the case.  If I know what direction you are wanting to go, let's see how we can move you'."

Managers must also be willing to release staff who may be high performers in their organisations but whose personal aspirations are not aligned with what that specific business unit needs or wants, and let them go somewhere else within the organisation, so the talent is retained internally rather than lost to an external competitor.

Recent survey results conducted by Hilton hotel chain show a shift in the number one reason people remain employed with the organisation.

In 2010, 33% of employees said they remained employed because they had the opportunity to grow their career, while 27% said it was because they wanted to be associated with the brand. Now, association with brand has taken over career growth opportunities (25% and 23% respectively). From further internal research and feedback, they deduced that the shift in this statistic is based on the visibility that your career will be taken care of at Hilton, so working and being loyal to the brand is actually now the key driver of retention

Presenteeism costing employers

This is a great article from HR Daily which highlights the hidden costs of unproductive workers...

Presenteeism costing employers 11 weeks per worker

Employees are unproductive for a "staggering" 57.5 days per year, but employers can slash this amount by addressing the underlying causes, global research has found.

Based on a survey of nearly 2,000 employees, and validated against the World Health Organisation's workplace health and productivity questionnaire, the Global Corporate Challenge (GCC) study shows the cost of presenteeism is more than 10-times higher than the cost of absenteeism.

GCC data scientist Dr Olivia Sackett says the study clearly shows the "major culprit" of lost productivity is not, as many assume, absenteeism.

"On average, employees in our sample group took about four sick days off each year but when they reported on how many days they lost while on the job, that number shot up to a staggering 57.5 days per year per employee," she says.

GCC chief medical officer Dr David Batman says there are many reasons employees at all levels of an organisation might not be fully productive, including stress and fatigue caused by personal problems.

"Everyone will face tough challenges at some stage in their lives," Batman says.
"Some of us will lose a loved one or suffer the breakdown of a relationship. We may experience a financial disaster or be bullied at work. We may be victims of crime, have a car accident [or] contract a serious illness."

Employers should expect these struggles, and work to "create a supportive culture and build a resilient team" that can effectively deal with them, he says.

A key to this is ensuring managers are attentive to their people.

"I want managers to recognise that if something has changed – whether it's at work or at home – there could be a problem," Batman says.

"They should quietly take that person aside and say, 'Are you okay? Something has changed and I'm concerned about you. Can I do something to help?'"

Specifically, managers should notice if employees start to:
• lack attention and become easily distracted;
• seem uninterested in what they're doing and unconcerned about outcomes;
• let their performance deteriorate;
• come in late and leave early; or
• have more accidents or altercations with colleagues.

The good news is that while studies show there's no quick fix for absenteeism, which needs long-term solutions, "presenteeism responds well to short-term action", enabling employers to quickly achieve dramatic positive change.

The key is to realise presenteeism is only a symptom, and to focus on the cause. The critical element is balance, Batman says.

"Balance is about how you manage your life – at work and at home – and it's just a series of simple steps.

"It's how you exercise, eat, drink, whether or not you smoke, how well-rested you are and whether you find time for yourself, family and colleagues."
Batman says these principles can be simplified and delivered in a workplace setting with surprising ease and effectiveness.

GCC's 12-month health and performance program, for example, helps employees improve their relationship with exercise, nutrition, sleep and psychological wellbeing to instil renewed personal responsibility, self-belief and resilience.

Sackett says participants from the 2015 program reported substantial improvements in sleep, stress levels and overall happiness, and on average gained the equivalent of 10 days in lost time.
"Employees were spending more of the time they were at work actually working – and they were enjoying it more," she says.

Batman adds that by investing in their people, and shifting the needle on the key metrics of sleep, stress and happiness, employers can make measurable improvements in productivity, and reduce the phenomenon of lost time.

Source HR Daily Tuesday, 15 March
https://www.hrdaily.com.au/nl06_news_selected.php?act=2&nav=1&selkey=3893&utm_source=daily+email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily+Email+Article+Link

Do you need to fix your culture so leaders can thrive?

If you have invested a lot of time and money into developing your leaders but are still not seeing the results you had hoped for then maybe you are focusing your attention on the wrong area. It does not matter how talented a leader is if they are working in a place where the culture towards them is negative. This may mean that you have to work on your culture in order to get the most out of your leaders.

How do you know if there is a culture in your workplace that is negative towards leaders?

Here are a few common signs:

• Staff have an “us against them” attitude with leaders and clearly view them as the enemy.
• Team members have not actually ever met their senior leaders and do not recognise them or know their names.
• Staff are often trying to catch out their leaders and belittle them
• There is often negative talk amongst team members about leaders
• Team members deliberately creating problems or testing their leaders to see how they will cope.

If you have noticed this kind of behaviour within your organisation then it might be time to work with your senior leaders to form better relationships with team members before investing any more time, money or effort into developing new leaders.

Here are a few ways to strengthen relationships between team members and leaders:

• Encourage understanding of shared goals and task. For employees to work together effectively, they must understand group and individual goals. When this understanding is poor, work inefficiencies, lower work quality and low employee morale often are the result. Lack of understanding over goals is often misdiagnosed as an individual performance management problem, when actually the team member is unsure of what the organisation expects from them.
• Provide team members with sufficient Knowledge and Resources. Managers can’t have a high performing organisation without capable and knowledgeable employees who are provided with the right resources and tools required to do their jobs. If staff are made to do work they are not qualified for, they will not be happy and their performance and the quality of their work will suffer because of it. Without proper knowledge and training, employees are likely to use resources inefficiently and become disheartened which leads to frustration and higher staff turnover.
• Communication. Ineffective employee communications lead to inefficient coordination efforts. Miscommunication causes poor information sharing and makes it difficult to get the right people involved at the right time to make the best decisions.  Effective interaction can encourage opportunities for combined learning for both manager and employee and greatly enhance employee job satisfaction. Effective interaction creates a culture of collaboration and encourages sharing of ideas and information.

How to be a Good Manager

There is no definitive technique for being a great manager, you have to walk a fine line between constructive criticism and praise. While there are no one size fits all approaches to management, there are a few strategies to help you get the best from your employees.

• Listen more. Try to avoid talking at your employees at review time. You can often gain all the information you need by saying something open ended and listening to what your employee has to say.
• Learn your team’s strengths and weaknesses and work with them. This way you are getting the best of your employees and not wasting time having one employee fulfil a task that would take a different person half the time.
• Try to manage your team as a whole and not just as separate individuals. As a manager you are responsible for the output of the entire team as a whole. Try to team staff members with complementary skills to provide learning opportunities.
• Be Inspiring. Try and distinguish your employee’s exceptional talents and develop them further. Find work opportunities that will challenge them. Make sure that your employees talents are recognised and celebrated. This reinforces performance and makes your employees strive to perform well in the future.
• Give regular feedback. Tell your staff how they are doing at the time and not just at their scheduled 6 monthly performance review. Help your staff to realise that their efforts help the overall success of the company. This will help them to feel connected to the organisation and encourage engagement. 
• Don’t let work friendships alter your managing abilities. As a manager you are assuming responsibility for a group of people and naturally you want them to like you. It is all well and good to be friendly with your team ,  just make sure that you are still able deliver criticism or discipline when it is needed
• Be present. Being in management can keep you very busy. You are often rushing from one place to another. Be wary to not let being busy take over from the day to day management of your staff. As a manager you need to make yourself available to your staff to offer them guidance and give them the opportunity to ask questions when they need to.
• Make an effort to know the basic roles and responsibilities of all your team members. It is very hard to provide guidance and leadership if you are not exactly sure of what your staff are meant to be doing in the first place. If you have to ask your team about their basic functions it is very like that they will second guess the decisions you make.

What Motivates Employees?

Other than the obvious, money, what motivates your employees to do their best work?

Here are a few non-monetary ideas to motivate your workforce.

• Praise. If someone does a job well, let them know, give praise where it is due. This costs you nothing but it means a lot to your employees. Giving regular praise where it is warranted helps to validate your staff’s hard work and encourage them to do their best all the time.
• Communicate with employees. It may sound very basic but employee communication can often be overlooked in many organisations. If an employee has a concern or some other issue that may prevent them from working productively, they need to know that communication channels are open. Taking the time to converse with employees can make them feel more comfortable in their jobs, more settled and better-motivated to work hard for the organisation
• Ask your staff for their input. Ask for their opinion, it makes staff feel as though their opinion matters. Instead of making a demand, ask them “what do you think about doing it this way?”
• Never point fingers. Being called out for making mistakes destroys your staff’s self-esteem. Instead of blaming or criticizing your employees, have a conversation with them. Discuss the problem with them and work out how it could have been handled differently. This will help them to learn from their mistakes.
• Establish a good work environment. A clean, aesthetically pleasing workplace can go a long way to motivating staff. Make the effort to make your workplace look nice. 
• Award Leadership roles. By rewarding good performance with leadership opportunities you inspire your employees to work hard and aim high.
• Take your team out for a meal every once in a while.  This brings everyone together outside of the office and encourages them to get to know each other and bond. Having a tight knit workforce makes work a more enjoyable place to be.
• Plan some fun activities. Planning something fun for your employees to do together helps them to blow off some steam and see their workplace in a more positive light.
• Organise a friendly competition. It’s astounding what a little competition can do for your employees. Hold a weekly or monthly competition with a small prize for the winner, it can be as simple as some movie tickets. Keep track of the results and display them somewhere in the office where everyone can see them. This is a great way to motivate people to work harder.

The Importance of Staff Retention

Many companies are now beginning to view employee retention as a critical issue. High Employee turnover increases expenses and can also have negative effects on company morale.

Implementing strategies devised to retain good workers can help counterbalance replacement costs and reduce the indirect costs associated with high staff turnover such as lost clients and loss of morale.

Employee retention has become an important topic for many reasons.

These include:

• Social media networking tools such as LinkedIn make it easy to observe new job opportunities or get poached by another company
• Costs associated with hiring new staff, advertising, interviewing and hiring etc.
• Training new staff
• Loss of productivity. It can take up to 2 years for a new staff member to reach the same productivity levels as existing staff members
• Loss of engagement. Retained employees who see a high turnover often get disheartened and lose engagement

The longer staff stay with an organisation, the more productive they get .They get to know the systems, products and learn how to work together as a team.

Many high performing companies have loyal employees and each company has its own strategies for retaining their employees.

Some of the interesting things to consider:

• Compensation is a factor but does not play as big a role as you would think. Over-compensation will not offset a poor work environment
• Job fit is significantly important. Hiring the right people for the right positions by realistically advertising job positions will save you a lot of trouble in the long run. If you oversell a job you can suffer from high staff turnover. Effective retention strategies often begin during the employee recruitment process. Employees are more inclined to remain with a company that fulfils the promises made when their employment offer was extended. Companies that provide a realistic view of their corporate environment, advancement opportunities and job expectations to new hires can positively influence employee retention
• The work environment and culture matter. Staff want to feel appreciated, comfortable and included in their place of work. Employees that enjoy what they do and the atmosphere in which they work are more likely to remain employed with their company

Implementing an employee retention program is an effective way of making sure key workers remain employed while maintaining job performance and productivity.


In the end the most prosperous organisations are those that respect their employees and invest in building an engaged work place environment.

Tips for boosting staff engagement/happiness

A good way to boost your staff’s engagement or happiness at work is to get an understanding of how your staff feel about their jobs by asking some simple questions, for example, “would you recommend working here to your friends and family? Why or why not? Do you feel valued as an employee?” The responses will give you an indication of the area’s that may need improvement.

Listen to your employees, talk about their issues and make adjustments to address them. Ask them about ideas and suggestions to improve the company.

Be creative when trying to engage your staff. Team building activities promote closeness with employees and can be fun and drive results at the same time. By encouraging employees to work together and help each other you get a closer, more cohesive team.

Recognize the signs of low morale, these include:

• A rise in absenteeism
• Customer service complaints
• Increased conflict between staff members

It can be beneficial to do an exit interview with people leaving the company, they tend to be more honest than those who are still on the job.

To be happy at work most employees benefit from feeling as if they have a meaningful role within the company.

Give staff a clear explanation as to why their job responsibilities are important to the team.
It is also not productive to have your employees stressed from having to large a workload.

Reward staff who work hard and behave ethically at work. These do not need to be financial or material rewards, simple acknowledgement of a job well done can go a long way towards job satisfaction. One of the most neglected acts done by bosses or business owners is the failure to acknowledge the job well done by employees. Positive feedback can motivate staff and make them feel like a valuable member of the company.

Do not tolerate any gossiping, bullying or politics within the workplace .Encourage everyone to support each other and by doing that support the team.

Provide a space where people want to work. Staff will feel more eager to come to work if their work environment is clean and comfortable and provides all the tools they need to do their job efficiently.

Happy workers make a happy workplace. By boosting your workers morale and keeping them loyal to the company you will enjoy increased productivity and profits for years to come.

December Case Study: The Right Fit

It is amazing how one individual can so greatly impact a business, particularly if they are not the 'right fit'. One distributor of personal products I have been working with recently experienced this first hand, as they employed someone who didn't fuse well into the culture of the business.

Whilst  teamwork was such a strong part of this business' culture, the new employee seemed to cross the boundaries, treating other team members like their own personal assistants, including the business owners. Working cooperatively with the owners, I developed a time management strategy to review, improve and boost the new employee's performance. Unfortunately, only two weeks into the implementation of these strategies, the employee resigned, after causing havoc within the business for nine months. 

When recruiting new employees, always identify the prospect's characteristics and skills, and consider how they may fit within and enhance the business. Note that a transition from a major corporation into a small business may be difficult; but whilst it is certainly possible, it may require some assistance and investment on the employer's part. It is crucial you ask questions to the new employee, and make your expectations of them clear. 

My client was amazed at the effect the employee had on the business, and how the energy returned following their departure. As an owner or employer, always aim for prevention rather than management and, address issues at their immediate appearance. Be patient enough to wait for the right fit, rather than settling for the first in. 

End2End Business Solutions can help you find the right employees that fit your business! Contact Annette on 8977-4002 for assistance.

What Gets You Out Of Bed In The Morning?

Who is really responsible for the development of my career?
With statistics reporting more than 35% of people waking up wondering how on earth they ‘got here’, it seems that we live in a world, of which a large proportion of people tend to fall into their careers based on circumstances rather than a passion or dream.

According to research from Right Management; over 90% of HR managers feel their organisations are under performing and that almost half of all employees are wrongly fitted in their careers. It’s no wonder employees are left uninspired to perform at their optimum capacity in their career of, well, chance.

Career management practice leader of Right Management, Tim Roche, recently stated that half of the 146 000 participants in his survey, aiming to challenge and bring awareness to their true career motivators, effectively made some career change.

 No longer in the age where an employee would spend their lives in one occupation and/or in one company, there are a few grey areas regarding who’s responsibility it is to motivate and develop an employee’s career.

 It is unfortunately not yet typical of a business to integrate both career development and business strategies, although doing so might increase the company’s performance, productivity and overall focus from employees, whilst decreasing turnover.

There is a need for managers to be bold and courageous enough to tackle career management, so that employees are not only strategically motivated and empowered in the present, but also for the years to come. Managers must learn to seek and embrace friendly, personal conversations with employees about the direction of their careers.

 Common misconceptions prohibiting managers from stepping up in this area, rather than avoiding completely or redirecting matters to the company board, are that such conversations will be an expense or that employees may be unrealistic in their expectations or capabilities. In order to engage employees in a positive way, managers must be secure in their own understanding of what drives and motivates both themselves and their fellow employees, and how to implement principles and strategies to encourage this.

 Lizzy Allen of Right Management, adds that career management should involve tripartite commitment, in which the individual, the leader and the organisation equally commit to enable, discuss and promote career development. It is the tripartite commitment that allows active and personal relationships to ensure the success of all parties.

December Case Study: The Right Fit

It is amazing how one individual can so greatly impact a business, particularly if they are not the 'right fit'. One distributor of personal products I have been working with recently experienced this first hand, as they employed someone who didn't fuse well into the culture of the business. 

Whilst  teamwork was such a strong part of this business' culture, the new employee seemed to cross the boundaries, treating other team members like their own personal assistants, including the business owners. 

Working cooperatively with the owners, I developed a time management strategy to review, improve and boost the new employee's performance. Unfortunately, only two weeks into the implementation of these strategies, the employee resigned, after causing havoc within the business for nine months.

When recruiting new employees, always identify the prospect's characteristics and skills, and consider how they may fit within and enhance the business. Note that a transition from a major corporation into a small business may be difficult; but whilst it is certainly possible, it may require some assistance and investment on the employer's part. It is crucial you ask questions to the new employee, and make your expectations of them clear.

My client was amazed at the effect the employee had on the business, and how the energy returned following their departure. As an owner or employer, always aim for prevention rather than management and, address issues at their immediate appearance. Be patient enough to wait for the right fit, rather than settling for the first in. End2End Business Solutions can help you find the right employees that fit your business! Contact Annette on 8977-4002 for assistance.

Only one in 10 have innate management talent

From HR Daily:

Good managers are born, not made, but when people without this ability are promoted into management roles they use manipulation and politics to get by, often with devastating effects on employee engagement, says the CEO of global research company Gallup Consulting.

Gallup's ongoing workplace studies in more than 140 countries have found that just 13 per cent of employees globally are engaged with their jobs. In Australia and New Zealand, the proportion of engaged employees is higher, at 24 per cent, however 60 per cent are still not engaged and 16 per cent are actively disengaged, which some estimate is costing Australian employers $54.8 billion each year.

One of the keys to building an engaged workforce is hiring the right managers, because how employees feel about their job begins and ends with their direct supervisor. If employees feel, among other things, that their supervisor takes a real interest in their development, or offers frequent praise and recognition, they are very likely to be engaged.

Research has found, however, that just one in 10 people have the innate ability to lead and manage others, which assists them to become good managers with the right development.

A small number of employees without an inborn ability can manage people if they have the right support, but seven in 10 people should not be placed in leadership or management roles - regardless of the development they've received.  Employers should create alternative career paths for these "individual achievers" to avoid progressing them into management roles.

To ensure engagement across all levels, organisations need to reach a point where individual achievers are as highly esteemed as managers. One obvious mistake that many organisations continue to make is promoting employees to management based on their performance in their current role. The classic example of this is  the great sales person who is promoted to sales manager and flounders.

How else can we create engagement?

Gallup Australia senior client service manager Allan Watkinson outlined three other areas HR professionals can focus on to improve engagement:

-Don't leave selection to chance - Employee selection at all levels is the most important element to get right in order to improve engagement, you can never invest too much in that recruitment process.

-Lead with clarity - One of the biggest demotivators is a lack of clarity about expectations. Every employee should be able to answer two important questions: what do I get paid to do and what does success look like.  If you can get every employee in your company to answer those two questions, people will be much clearer and much more motivated

- Focus on what's strong, not what's wrong - Gallup's research shows that employees are happier, more engaged, develop faster and perform better when managers focus on their strengths.


from the article  "Only one in 10 have innate management talent" at HR Daily