“Working with HR Solutions, LLC has been an eye-opening experience. Renee and Carn have helped us to update our policies and procedures to ensure compliance and minimize liabilities. More importantly, I have been amazed at how these changes have affected our staff. Everyone seems to be more focused and energized, and I cannot help but think that this will have a positive effect on our bottomline. My only regret is that we did not start this process with HR Solutions years ago. My advice is to not make the same mistake, but call them today.”
Stephanie Novak Hau
President/CEO
Chesapeake Environmental Management, Inc.
Bel Air, MD
Employee Recognition and Communication – over the next few weeks I will be posting on Effective Communications in the workplace!
I hear it at least once a week, “Why should I do anything special for my employee for doing the job they are supposed to do to receive their paycheck?”
How well your employees perform is based mostly on how well you communicate your expectations. We all like to firmly believe we are great communicators, but the truth is that very few actually communicate effectively.
Despite the age old statement of “no news is good news” is exactly what you do not want to have happen in your organization. Employees want to be acknowledged verbally – at least- when they are meeting your expectations.
Is one of your employees doing an exceptional job of meeting your expectations? Acknowledge them publicly! You will be amazed at how many of your employees will start doing the same thing so they get recognized.
Note this does not need to be monetary awards….the power of words are priceless. Something as simple as “wow, great job on that Ramsey project” or “Bob, I really appreciate the extra hours on meeting the deadline and coming in under budgeted hours”
Remember, you are not rewarding them for doing their job….you are acknowledging your employees for doing their job well!
Do you feel like your organization could use some help with communication? Give us a call for an assessment.
Today, being the celebration of Valentine’s Day, it seemed appropriate to discuss relationships in the workplace. Let’s face it; we spend more working hours with our co-workers than we often do with our families. So let’s look at a couple of scenarios of relationships in the workplace that can impact your business.
Bob, a married Supervisor, seems to be giving more and more attention to Stephanie, a newly hired and fresh out of college Coordinator that works in another department. You notice at first Bob is spending an unusual amount of time at Stephanie’s desk; then they are sitting together, but separate from everyone else during lunch and ultimately notice that they start leaving for lunch together every day. This is one that you need to treat delicately! It is not your business that Bob is married and “appears” to be fooling around with Stephanie. Where it does need to be addresses is the time, Bob as a company Supervisor and role model, is spending away from productive work, the disruption to Stephanie’s work and the overall message being sent to the other employees. I would talk to Bob about this non-productive time and your expectations that it will cease
Diane, Supervisor of 4 Warehouse workers, one of which is Joe. Recently Joe and Diane announced they were seriously dating. Diane has assured you this relationship will have no impact on her role as a Supervisor. Do you think this will work? The short answer is “no”. The biggest problem you will have here is that all other employees under Diane will always feel that their co-worker has a bigger say in disputes because he has “the ear of the supervisor”. Additionally, there will always be the perception of favoritism even if it is not opening shown. The best result for this situation is to move one of the employees. Hopefully this is part of your handbook policies as it may have to lead to one of the employees leaving your employment if you do not have another available position.
Picture this: You have an employee who has been with you since the beginning of your business. He/she, has always been a solid employee; dependable, loyal, a good manager and a solid worker.
Now your business is growing. You are introducing different lines/type of work, new technology and larger staff to manage and this employee is starting to struggle. Struggling with all of these changes and is just not being successful. What to do now?
There are a couple of important steps to consider when re-evaluating employee performance:
Document and be specific? Document the specific needs and how they are and aren’t being met.
Set up structured and specific coaching so both you and the employee understand if this person has the potential for being successful.
Be sure to encourage conversations with the employee about what they think. It is not unusual in this situation to find out the employee is very unhappy in the position but has been loyal to you for so long they don’t want to “abandon” you and the business.
Schedule regular follow-up meetings to discuss progress or decisions by either you or the employee. It may (and I use that word cautiously) feasible to move the employee into a lower-level position. I say cautiously because this option is not always successful; the employee may struggle with not being “in charge” or the employees, previous subordinates, may not be accepting.
At least once a week we receive a call that goes like this “Moral is really bad – what should I do?”
Let me start my assuring you there is not one single answer to a moral issue. Typically, we like to start by coming in and casually talking to the employees. Slowly, we can start to piece together what is REALLY going on in the workplace. Often times it comes down to one or two employees who are unhappy and want to bring everyone down to their level but constantly complaining. Other things to consider and work on changing:
Have you changed the way you interact with your employees? Are you terser, short with your conversation or maybe just not interacting with them as much.
Communications consistently show up in HR surveys as the number one issue making employees unhappy. We consistently see both positive and negative information being passed to employees in a counter-productive manner. You may think you are putting a positive spin on an announcement but unfortunately, we typically see the opposite happens.
Have you recently terminated an employee with no explanation to the rest of the staff?
Has there been less work and they don’t know why?
There are so many reasons why moral could be down in your organization. Not sure where to begin on fixing the problem? Give us a call, we have many years of experience with this problem and can offer guidance.
What Can An Outside Human Resources Company Do For My Organization?
We receive so many calls and emails from small business owners tentatively questioning what we can do for them. HR Solutions LLC is a full-level service resource. Here are just a few examples of how we can assist your business with employee issues:
The above is a small sampling of what we can perform for your organization. We can perform any of these a full outsourcing or can be a simple phone call resource – you decide on the level of assistance you need. There is no level of assistance too small or too large for us to help.
Are you questioning your compliancy for Federal Laws? Are you hesitant to call for fear of what you don’t know? Don’t be! We make this process easy, friendly and on a personal level to benefit you and your organization.
Having the conversation with a Gossiping Employee.First and foremost, it is important to note:If you don’t address these workers, your best people will leave. Gossipers are poison to an environment and will scare other employees with their falsehoods.
Manager hate having these conversation themost, I’m not sure why, as these are the employees most likely have the worst impact on morale and productivity.
Gossipers – Be sure to have a policy that states this behavior will not be tolerated and treat it as a disciplinary issue.
Be sure to reinforce this policy in groups, so everyone hears the same message – give examples of how disruptive and hurtful gossip can be to co-workers.
Ensure you're giving solid, clear communications about the work place. Gossip starts because employees are not given enough information to make clear decisions. If your organization is going through a rough financial patch, have open group conversations; ask the employees what ideas they have to cut costs.
Today I thought we would talk about the Conversation of Performance Reviews!They come around every year and if you have a plan for the discussion, it should be a positive interaction.Here are some key points:
Make this conversation useful – it is an opportunity for your employee to grow
Be honest, but kind – remember, if you are not being honest with the employee you are not helping anyone. Remind them that the honesty is to help them grow.
Be specific!
Example:Don’t say “you are not meeting production goals”, instead say “our production goals are 130 units per day, you are doing 98 – What do you think you could do to improve that number?”
Make sure you discuss how you will help the employee improve and specifically how often you will meet to discuss progress.
Be sure to have the above specific conversations about the whole year, not just what they need to improve from the past few weeks or months.
Focus on behavior and results.
Give the employee time to absorb your comments and then to comment.
Don’t allow the employee to bring other employee’s into the conversation, remind them you are there to discuss their specific performance.
Be sure to end the conversation with positive re-enforcement on the things they are doing well.
Set up a specific time and date within 30 days to review the progress.
Things to avoid:
Hostile Questions “Why did you do that?” Ask behavioral type questions.
Doing all the talking.Allow the employee time to talk about specific points.
Over the next couple of weeks I want to focus on the “Employee Performance or Termination Conversations” for which every manager seems to struggle.
This week we start with the basics… Solid Employee Communcations!
Unless you are laying employees off, there is a way to put a positive spin on almost every employee conversation. This is a critical aspect of these meetings.
No matter if you are discussing performance, attendance, attitude, lateness complaints etc.,
Always bring the employee away from the work area to have the discussion privately.
Be sure your emotions are not running high! If so, come back to this later in the day or the next morning.
Speak calmly and with thought. Do not rant. Do not under any circumstances raise your voice. Remember, the minute you start yelling you have lost control of the meeting.
State the issue and give your employee the chance to speak.
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