Right Attitudes

Ideas for Impact

Human Resources

Treat Employees Like Volunteers

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Treat your employees as volunteers—as if they’re free to leave at any time. Volunteers want to connect to a mission. They want to make an impact by investing their time and energy because they want to, not because they need to. Moreover, unlike employees, volunteers aren’t constrained by the command-and-control structure.

You’ll pay greater attention to the non-monetary needs of your employees, and you’ll better align your goals and their goals. You’ll be more intentional, preferring transformational motivation, not transactional motivation.

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  4. People Work Best When They Feel Good About Themselves: The Southwest Airlines Doctrine
  5. Seven Easy Ways to Motivate Employees and Increase Productivity

These are the Two Best Employee Engagement Questions

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Engaged employees are more likely to be effective, stay with your company, and nurture a favorable corporate culture. To gauge employee engagement levels regularly, run a pulse survey and ask these two questions:

  1. To what degree are you proactively engaged in improving the tasks you’re responsible for? Does your workplace actively seek your ideas to make those improvements?
  2. To what degree do the processes that you are working with enable you to be highly successful in your job?

Seek ideas meaningful for improvements from people on the job. Demonstrate commitment to taking significant action and follow through.

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  3. Treat Employees Like Volunteers
  4. The Hot-Desking Lie: How It Killed Focus and Gutted Collaboration
  5. Job Crafting: Let Your Employees Shape Their Roles

Can You Be Terminated for Out-of-Work Conduct?

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An employee’s off-duty conduct is generally off-limits as far as employers are concerned, and an employer can’t terminate an employee for conduct outside work if that termination would amount to unlawful discrimination.

However, exceptions exist if the misconduct outside the workplace poses a serious risk to the employer’s business.

  • In employment-at-will states, employers can terminate an employee for a good reason, a bad reason, or no reason at all.
  • If an employment contract is in place, it likely outlines the specific types of conduct for which an employee can be terminated. So the rights and obligations of the employer and the employee are set contractually.

In many cases, though, no clear-cut guidelines can help determine the course of the action, especially for off-duty, private deeds with moral or political overtones that aren’t rightfully the company’s concern. However, the employer can terminate if the employer can establish a logical, if not obvious, connection between an egregious off-duty behavior having some bearing on their job (e.g., substance abuse that impairs the ability to perform work,) posing a reputational risk, damaging the employer’s interests, portrays the employer in a poor light (e.g., the employee was wearing a uniform or sporting the employer’s logo ) or is incompatible with the employee’s duty (e.g., a poorly worded social media post painting the employer or the industry in a poor light, or inciting hatred and hostility.) The devil is always in the detail.

Idea for Impact: Any out-of-hours misconduct with some sufficient or necessary association with the employment is grounds for termination. Best to know the employer’s policy on what makes up a breach of the company’s values, public position, and policies.

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  4. How to Handle Employees who Moonlight
  5. Teams That Thrive make it Safe to Speak & Safe to Fail

What Every Manager Should Know Why Generation Y Quits

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Millennials, or the Generation Y or Gen Y cohort, are much better educated. They’re tech-savvy, more achievement-oriented, and better problem-solvers than preceding generations.

Millennials also tend to be restless with their career progression, demanding salary and job flexibility. They’re quick to move on if something better beckons. Millennials aren’t interested in the financial success that inspired the Boomers or the independence that characterizes the Gen Xers, but in personalized career paths.

Employers often gripe that millennials seem entitled and overly ambitious. And even if they’re high-maintenance, they’re hungry and willing to do what it takes to prove themselves.

To prevent Gen Y retention problems, create an environment where they have room to make an impact and give them the autonomy, support, and training to get there.

Idea for Impact: Millennials become disengaged quickly in the workplace—they’re impatient with things that do not lead to learning or advancement. They never stop questioning the status quo; they don’t want to be told they must do their time and wait in line. Give them a way to move up promptly, with fun and challenges along the way.

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  5. Don’t Use Personality Assessments to Sort the Talented from the Less Talented

Are Layoffs Your Best Strategy Now?

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We’re in a demand slump; if you think downsizing will cut costs and shore up the bottom line, consider the unexpected consequences of layoffs.

Hefty severance pay, outplacement services, and other direct costs can add up quickly, and indirect costs can be substantial. E.g., losing experienced employees can precipitate lasting damage to your business. The direct costs can wipe out any short-term financial benefit if new hard-to-find employees are to be hired and trained within six to twelve months when the downtrend stops.

Then there’s the trap of believing that things will get better soon and downsizing the smallest number of people in anticipation of a quick turnaround. And when that expected miracle doesn’t materialize, you’ll wind up making successive cuts. That’s awful for the morale of the employees spared. The best employees won’t feel indebted to soldier on and may start casting around for new offers, terrified that they will be among the next to be cut.

Idea for Impact: Layoffs may not be the best strategy for grappling with hard times. Examine not just the cost of labor but also the value created by labor. Consider the trade-offs and try furloughs, pay cuts, job sharing, and scaled-down hours instead, depending on when you foresee business rebounding. You’ll spread the pain of the downturn more broadly, keep talented employees, earn loyalty, and better position your company for recovery.

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  5. People Work Best When They Feel Good About Themselves: The Southwest Airlines Doctrine

When Your Team is Shorthanded

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When your team is understaffed and/or overwhelmed, remind your supervisors about the pressures you’re dealing with. Ask for more resources without being perceived as a whiny opportunist.

  • Prioritize and focus. Decide what goals are truly significant—to you, your team, your company, and your customers. Comb out anything that doesn’t have a justifiable economic impact or isn’t aligned with the company strategy. Meet with your boss and team to ensure everyone’s aligned with your tailored priorities.
  • Align expectations and manage up. Engage your team on what you could collectively do differently to provide better results with greater efficiency. Have daily and weekly priorities. Use short, frequent meetings to increase your team’s work momentum. Let small successes be a motivational tool.
  • Get credit for your good work. Make the most of the understaffing by recasting yourself as an asset to your company amidst this apparent upheaval. With the buoyant jobs market and a heavier workload for those left behind, you may never be in a better-negotiating position.

Idea for Impact: If your team is understaffed and overworked, you don’t need to suck it up and try to do it all. Don’t keep your head down, and don’t let the burden of responsibilities stymie your personal and team goals.

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  4. Why Hiring Self-Leaders is the Best Strategy
  5. Teams That Thrive make it Safe to Speak & Safe to Fail

Don’t Manage with Fear

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The ability to rouse fear has forever been an essential tool of management. Fear can be an effective mobilization tool in the short term. But fear breeds complicity, not commitment.

Instead of fear-based tactics, try soft power. Build trust and gain influence using these methods.

  1. Develop an inspiring vision. Work hard to follow through on implementing that vision and celebrate even little accomplishments along the way.
  2. Communicate expectations. Ask, “How can I help you do your job better?” Follow up. No need to keep everything too close to the vest. You needn’t tell everything you know, but what you say and do has to be true.
  3. Solve problems quickly. Push for results. Set aside some time for review and create options or actions that are apt for your team’s situation. Be tough where you must be, kind where you can be.

Idea for Impact: Don’t take the fear approach with employees. With motivation, fear works—up to a point. Understand how your people view your leadership style and ensure your behavior doesn’t cross the line between pushing them hard and pushing them away.

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  3. Why Your Employees Don’t Trust You—and What to Do About it
  4. Listen and Involve
  5. To Micromanage or Not?

Employee Surveys: Asking for Feedback is Not Enough

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Nothing undermines employee trust faster than inviting employees to provide feedback about their work experience and then not following up.

Don’t take the employee satisfaction survey results at face value. Don’t discount the importance of the findings by brushing them off, “the data were what we expected” or “there were no real surprises here.”

Show that you’ve listened to what employees are saying. Initiate strategic conversations with selected employees and explore critical issues in more depth. Establish cross-functional teams to react to the survey’s findings. Let the team consist primarily of non-senior employees. A senior manager could sponsor and support—not manage—the team and see an action plan through.

Idea for Impact: Employee surveys, focus groups, and discussions that don’t change how an organization functions ultimately undermine employees’ faith that their leaders really care what the employees think. Close the communication loop.

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  4. Giving Feedback and Depersonalizing It: Summary of Kim Scott’s ‘Radical Candor’
  5. Can You Be Terminated for Out-of-Work Conduct?

What To Do If Your New Hire Is Underperforming

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If a recent hire, particularly one brought into the team with high expectations, isn’t delivering, start by asking the following two questions:

  1. Is the employee in an environment that allows her to perform at her best?
  2. Are you clear on what her personal objectives are?

Only after answering both these questions with a ‘yes’ can you move to consider coaching, reassess the employee’s suitability, and examine if you need to terminate the bad hire quickly and cut your losses.

Idea for Impact: Nothing puts wind beneath a manager’s wings more quickly than asking these two questions when dealing with employee underperformance. Ask, don’t guess, how you can accommodate each employee’s strengths and needs and create an environment that works best for each individual.

There’s no one-size-fits-all answer to creating a positive culture, empowering employees, and tackling performance problems. Each employee faces individual challenges and has her own goals and preferences.

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  2. General Electric’s Jack Welch Identifies Four Types of Managers
  3. Why Hiring Self-Leaders is the Best Strategy
  4. Seven Real Reasons Employees Disengage and Leave
  5. Bringing out the Best in People through Positive Reinforcement

How You Can Make the Most of the Great Resignation

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The imminent return-to-work stage of the pandemic will spark yet another surge in people reexamining what their careers look like and reprioritizing their work values. My suggestion: Only quit if you have a better work- and life-choice; don’t resign out of empowerment. It’s better to be going toward something instead of going away from something.

Now, then, if you choose not to join the trend, you’ll have to cope with the void left by your coworkers and confront the extra demands. But this situation is a great chance for you to endure the tumult and even flourish. Here’s how.

If you’re swamped with the demands of your job, do a scope creep audit. Examine your original responsibilities and how you’ve picked up more work during the pandemic. Then meet with your boss and politely address the problem you’re facing, “Here’s what I was doing, and here’s how I’ve been allotting my time now. How could we reprioritize? What could we drop or delegate? What additional resources can you give me?” If you think you deserve a salary increase or better conditions, leverage your added value and ask for it. Give your manager a chance to address your issues. Don’t over-negotiate; it’s seldom worth the ill feelings.

Idea for Impact: The Great Resignation is an excellent time to stay at your job and make the most of the void. Recast yourself as an asset to your company amidst this apparent upheaval. With the buoyant jobs market and a heavier workload for those left behind, you may never be in a better negotiating position.

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