An Untapped Retention Benefit

I do a fair amount of executive coaching and naturally a good portion of it focuses on leadership. It is in this area that I have been able to help my clients make the greatest changes – reap the biggest benefits. Then I thought why don’t businesses offer coaching as a benefit to non-executives? Oftentimes it is due to cost constraints. However, a group coaching program could even be a-ford-able to businesses that traditionally do not use coaching, e.g. healthcare. I have clients, friends and relatives in the healthcare industry, nurses, nursing aides, etc. and they have never been offered coaching as a benefit.

Great athletes, actors and business professionals have all benefited from coaching. The side benefit is that the organization benefits from it as well with improved relationships, productivity and efficiency. Coaching can be done in person, telephonically, via email, or some combination of all three.

Reaching your full potential often requires having a coach.  What potential could be brought out in you or one of your employees with coaching? What would be the end result for your organization? This is often an untapped retention benefit because coaching focuses on the individual, building their personal skill set that makes them more valuable, marketable and successful – it’s a great win-win option.

The Total Package

It’s been a while since I’ve discussed my leadership philosophy. In light of the current political and economic situation in our Nation, I thought I would revisit it as a refresher.

The Value of Philosophy:

1.       Give to get – what you give greatly determines what you get as a leader.

2.       Learn for return – it’s about your ROI; Return on Influence.

3.       Meet and greet – because where you stand in life is greatly determined by who you stand with.

4.       Train to gain – demonstrates the vital role and impact each individual has on the overall performance.

5.       Convey an array – the way you communicate with yourself and others helps determine the quality of your life

6.       Weigh to stay – you get inspiration from making sound and timely decisions.

7.       Walk the walk – you must demonstrate your tactical and technical proficiency.

These seven ideas have shaped my leadership philosophy for years. Granted, there’s more to them than I wrote here. There are associated character traits, behaviors and values for each one. The bottom line is that many of our leaders today don’t understand the leadership equation; Character plus Conduct equals a consequence. You need to have both a positive character and positive behavior to equal a positive consequence. It’s called the total package.

My questions for you today is this: What is your leadership philosophy? What consequences is your character and conduct producing for you? Are you the total package?

Remember, if you don’t like your current leadership style, change one thing and everything else will change as well.

Who or what will be first to go?

Now’s the time to see what an organization’s leadership will do in tight economic conditions. What do we (leaders) cut first? Typically the first thing to go is training. This typically leads to employee disengagement as training is but the first line item cut in an effort to trim financials. If this is your organization, the next question you should ask yourself is who will be first to go?

I saw this first hand in 2000. As a similar situation occurred, tough economic times, a company started to struggle and started slashing everything. Employees began to put their feelers out for positions in other companies who were lead by stronger leaders and things began to unravel quickly.

Keeping employees engaged during tough times is a great leadership challenge. The American workforce is up to a challenge if rallied around a common purpose and treated appropriately. Challenge your employees to come up with ideas where there are holes in the current market that your company can fill or brainstorm how you can improve any of your processes.

Furthermore, now is a great time to spur innovation, creativity and training. Training doesn’t need to cost a lot. As a matter of fact, you can implement hip pocket training. This is what we called it in the Army. Soldier’s have a Soldier’s Manual of basic tasks and core competencies. Whenever soldiers had down time or things were slow, they take the opportunity to train. They would literally pull this small manual from their hip cargo pocket and begin to train.

What core competency, basic task, or other training topic can you or one of your staff provide? You won’t have any travel expenses  and you’ll get the opportunity to build trust, rapport and cohesion with your organization. If you feel completely challenged by this, call me and I will conduct a teleseminar train-the-trainer training session for your staff for one hour.  Your staff could then take this program and train your entire organization. This is an extremely cost-effective method of implementing training in a tight economic market.

People Matter

Every individual matters, every individual has a role, and every individual makes a difference. – Jane Goodall

An important literature review was recently conducted that looked at studies linking leadership and employee well-being. It was published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine.  The study reviewed men and women from many countries. The studies looked at leadership style and employee well-being.

The dimensions of leadership style that were focused on were consideration and support. Guess what they found? Not all leaders are considerate, treating employees kindly and fairly. They also found that not all leaders are supportive, treating employees with concern and encouragement. Wow, there’ s a shocker!

The dimensions of employee well-being were job satisfaction, amount of sick leave taken, and job well-being (anxiety, depression, burnout, lower engagement).

One aspect though was not considered. The impact of leadership style on productivity. However, there is sufficient evidence to support that leadership style does in fact affect employee productivity. Well, back on topic. Leadership style affecting employee well-being. Let’s see, as an employee when your boss is considerate and supportive, do you feel better?

I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles, but today it means getting along with people.—Gandhi

How are you getting along with your people? And what impact is it making on your organization?

 

Work / Life or Life / Work Balance?

I’ve been going Mach 5 with my hair on fire. Well, at least that’s the excuse I use for my receding hair line. Ok, I’ve been busy. Haven’t we all? I’ve noticed over the past few years that I’ve been unbalanced…okay, no jokes. I have close friends who have thought that for years. I’ve found myself putting my work before my life and then I thought…is this priority right for me?

Well let me tell you that there is a distinct difference between work/life and life/work balance. Since changing my focus, I’m happy in my own personal life and my business life. There is a connection but it is not a two-way street. If you are happy at work, it doesn’t mean you are happy at home. However, when you are happy with your home life, you are typically happy at work. The problem that most people have is they get consumed in or by work. As a nation, we are for the most part work-o-holics.

The trick…balance. For me, it is setting aside specific time each day (when I’m not on the road speaking or working with clients) to take time with my wife or just take time for me. Look at your workforce. Are they balanced? Maybe a better question is are their priorities work/life or life/work? Tell someone to take an afternoon off and go spend with their spouse or loved one, maybe pick a child up from school to go to the zoo. Let them know that life is important and you want to help them enjoy it.

What's Your Strategy?

Many businesses I have worked with do not have formal retention programs. They do have a recruitment program. However the recruitment program does not always fit with the organization's culture or values.

There are a few things to consider when you look at establishing your strategy. These include and are not limited to the following:

• Hiring right. You need to know your organization's culture and values well enough to know who will fit and who won't.
• Clear expectations. New hires must know explicitly what they are getting into when they join your company. Also, you need to have a system of regular two-way feedback in place to ensure success.
• Flexibility. Work, schedules, and teams are some areas you should consider having a flexible aspect to your strategy.
• Share the business. You have to give to get and your business is part of the deal. Have a mechanism where employees can take some sort of ownership and feel a vested interest in your company's success.
• Listen. Employees have great ideas. Schedule regular listening sessions with a cross section of your organization for things you should start doing, stop doing or keep doing.

These are just some of the things you should consider when establishing your recruiting, attrition and retention strategy for your company.

Cynical View or History Relived or Just More of the Same?

“Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.” Cicero, 106-43 B.C.

It’s ironic that this was said thousands of years ago. Is this a cynical point of view, or is history reliving itself? Some would argue that it never changed. However, I think you can look back at certain periods of American history to find leaders of great integrity, courage and moral fiber. Leadership has been a challenge throughout man’s history. It’s the people throughout history that make the difference. What difference will you make today?