Even HR executives have to reinvent themselves to survive
New trends, technology, and modern changes are creating concerns for the trained level of HR professionals. With different changes continuously entering companies, HR professionals are having to go through different pieces of training. Read this blog post to learn about HR professionals having to learn about new and modernized paces.
HR chief executives by and large are ill-equipped to meet the needs of the modern workplace, according to a new report of 500 top executives.
The irony is the HR profession is perhaps entering a golden age for HR leaders, as the role shifts beyond administrative and process-related functions to work that is at the very core of a company’s business strategy to keep top talent.
And yet because the workplace is changing so fast to adapt to technological and demographic shifts, the study by SHRM and another insurance company found that the role of HR hasn’t been able to keep pace to train the latest generation of HR leaders.
Because work functions are constantly in flux, training and development can no longer be considered episodic events but instead will require perpetual reskilling to stay relevant. The study noted that between 2003 and 2013, more than 70% of the Fortune 1000 companies changed and were replaced by nimbler firms.
Most HR executives or chief people officers, or CPOs, will need to reskill to stay relevant — and do so quickly, according to HR People + Strategy, the group’s network of business and thought leaders in human resources.
“As the pace of innovation and technology in the workplace accelerates, CPOs will need to reinvent themselves,” says the study’s co-author Suzanne McAndrew, the global head of talent of another insurance company. “With disruption on the horizon, organizations will require strong, visionary people leaders who can think through the people and talent strategy, and work with management on the business strategy.”
Most executives “are not prepared,” McAndrew says.
“We’re only going to get things done if we have the right people, the right talent in the right functions with the right goals,” Upwork CEO Stephanie Kasriel says in the study. “That to me is the role of HR, to ensure that we have the right people strategy in order to inform the business strategy.”
The study reviewed key changes shaping HR functions for human resources leaders and also found:
•Virtually all respondents (99%) believe HR executives must have the agility and courage to change, yet only 35% said today’s leaders are prepared to respond.
•More than nine in 10 respondents (94%) say it’s important to explore the development of future HR leaders, but only about a third (35%) agree that future staff are receiving the training they’ll need to succeed.
•Only one-third of respondents (36%) are prepared to think about how technology can be used to execute work in the future; only a quarter (26%) say they have the technical acumen to evaluate new technologies.
HR leaders can do five things to help drive change, including acting as an advocate for change and agility, developing digital technology to improve HR functions, using automation to foster new skills and reinvention for staff, focusing on workplace culture and leadership and elevating HR decision-making to include more analytics, the study found.
Alexander Alonso, chief knowledge officer at SHRM, noted that HR executives have the greatest potential to foster the evolution of enterprises by building up their own expertise to meet future workforce demands.
Respondents also recognize much progress is still needed with digital enablement and understanding how to apply digital technology and automation in the workplace. Only 42% had a favorable opinion of their organization’s progress when it comes to embracing technology that builds a consumer experience for employees.
“While CPOs don’t need to be technology experts, they must understand how changing technology can impact work and the workforce,” says Ravin Jesuthasan, a managing director at another insurance company and co-author of the study.
SOURCE: Siew, W. (08 January 2020) "Even HR executives have to reinvent themselves to survive" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.employeebenefitadviser.com/news/even-hr-executives-have-to-reinvent-themselves-to-survive
Implementing AI Technology for HR
Artificial intelligence (AI) has taken the tasks of collecting, copying, entering and checking data off of HR professional's hands. With advancements in technology, AI has become a way to open a variety of opportunities to influence a company's workflow. Read this blog post to learn about artificial intelligence and how it's developing HR managers and leaders.
When HR managers embark on implementing artificial intelligence (AI) into their company's workflow, they'll be grappling with a disruptive technology that changes the way people from HR leaders to recruiters to front-line employees work.
That may be why PwC's latest Human Resource Technology Survey of 599 HR and information technology (IT) leaders worldwide shows that those leaders are cautious about leveraging the technology to drive HR functions.
In fact, 63 percent of those surveyed have not yet implemented artificial intelligence for HR, and many cite various reasons that influenced their decision not to do so, including:
•Cost of implementation.
•Complexity of integration into the existing IT infrastructure.
•Lack of skilled staff.
•Lack of compelling use cases that can be tied to business outcomes.
But while they are hesitant to jump into using AI, 42 percent of respondents said they plan to implement AI for HR over the next one to three years. The technology opens significant possibilities.
"Human resource executives want their teams to focus on meaningful tasks, such as interpreting data, decision-making, storytelling and strategies that enrich the worker experience, which is what AI solutions can offer. Without AI, HR professionals are relegated to collecting, copying, entering, re-entering and checking data," said Mike Brennan, president of Leapgen, a Manhattan Beach, Calif.-based HR consulting firm.
HR leaders will have to find the right tools, team with the right partners, and find the best opportunities to apply AI to HR functions without causing employee anxiety.
Schneider Electric's Story
Andrew Saidy, vice president of talent digitization, talent acquisition and mobility at Schneider Electric, a multinational company based in Paris, oversaw the implementation of an AI-driven platform that revolutionized the talent mobility and career development processes at his company.
Three important factors pushed Schneider Electric, which employs approximately 144,000 employees across 100 countries, to make the change. First, more than half of Schneider's employees are Millennials, a generational group whose members change jobs more frequently than workers in other age groups. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average job tenure of Millennials is 2.8 years.
Second, 47 percent of Schneider employees surveyed in exit interviews said they were leaving because they couldn't find their next opportunity within the organization.
Third, the process of matching employees to job opportunities within the company was laborious, cumbersome and lengthy.
"Recruiters were spending weeks waiting for responses, making phone calls, sifting through CVs and selecting which candidates would be chosen for interviews," Saidy said.
With a clearly defined use case for its AI strategy, the company chose to develop a cloud-based, AI-driven talent market. The HR team had to decide whether to build or buy a solution.
"This is an idea we toyed with at the start because we are a technology company, we are a digital company, and we are leaders in digital energy management," Saidy said. "We have a strong team of enterprise IT developers, and we could have had the ability to build a talent platform internally as opposed to buying something outside of the market."
What surprised Schneider's HR team was that there are many vendors offering AI solutions for HR tasks, but having so many AI solution providers to choose from presents other issues.
"You have to be careful when you select a company for your AI project," he said. The vendors "need to be financially stable" and need to have "a clear product road map and customers with proven success. You can't just go for whoever is claiming to provide a solution."
After a three-month search, which included testing vendors' algorithms, Schneider's HR and digital teams decided to buy an internal talent product from Gloat, an Israeli technology company. The platform, called Open Talent Market, leverages AI to match employee resumes with open positions, including long-term jobs and short-term projects.
Part of the software evaluation involved letting employees register on the site and upload their education and experience to get a sense of whether they thought the tool was intuitive, easy to use and engaging. Schneider used a Net Promoter Score to assess employees' experience and enthusiasm for the tool.
The company monitored the number of employee registrations, short-term and long-term jobs that appeared on the site, and successful matches of qualified employees to job posts.
Schneider's HR team also tested the algorithm's ability to adequately address bias and evaluated its security features. Schneider chose software that doesn't require candidates to enter information related to gender or race, or place or date of birth.
Keeping in mind the difficulties Amazon experienced when it built an AI-driven recruiting system that perpetuated gender bias, Schneider is mindful that many of its jobs such as engineer, field technician or electrical engineer have typically been filled by male candidates, Saidy said.
Schneider's technical team also carefully considered the software's security capabilities, measures to protect from data breaches and secure integrations. This was particularly important when considering that Open Talent Market is connected to the company's applicant tracking system, learning management system and human resource information system, as well as LinkedIn.
Recruiter Adjustment
Since its launch in September 2018, Open Talent Market has put Schneider's managers in the driver's seat and has changed the role of some of the company's 200 recruiters—an adjustment that hasn't always been smooth, Saidy said.
"Initially, some recruiters had reservations on the Open Talent Market because of the way it changed their jobs [by giving more control to hiring managers] and took away from recruiters the tasks of sourcing and shortlisting internal candidates, now done by the platform."
Making sure recruiters continue to be motivated, engaged and enthusiastic about their job as their tasks change was a key consideration, Saidy said.
"To address this, we focused on why we put the Open Talent Market in place, what is in it for the recruiters, and how they reinvest their time consulting and supporting managers as well as employees' internal mobility. Keeping the lines of communication open with the teams is an especially important pillar of a successful change adoption."
SOURCE: Lewis, N. (09 January 2020) "Implementing AI Technology for HR" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from shrm.org/ResourcesAndTools/hr-topics/technology/Pages/Implementing-AI-Technology-HR.aspxA
Tech tools underused for workplace engagement: survey
Did you know: Only 45 percent of employers use technology to improve employee engagement, according to a survey of HR professionals. Read the following blog post to learn more about using technology to enhance workplace engagement.
Just 45% of employers are using technology to improve employee engagement, according to a new survey of thousands of HR professionals in organizations of varying sizes.
The research finding comes from the Next Concept Human Resource Association (NCHRA) and Waggl, a real-time engagement platform. HR tech industry professionals weighed in on the topic at the HR TechXpo 2019 and others as part of the latest “Voice of the Workplace” pulse survey.
Of those respondents, 92% said they would like to create a strong internal culture that affects results. In addition, 81% believed that investing in people-focused programs and skills such as onboarding, performance and employee engagement would help increase revenues and profit margins.
Lisa Hickey, VP of professional development at NCHRA, was “a bit surprised” that only 45% of her group’s members reported that their organizations are using technology to improve employee engagement in the face of business volatility and a tight labor market.
NCHRA and Waggl, both based in the San Francisco Bay Area, also distilled into a ranked list crowdsourced responses to a survey question about social media and gamification platforms as tools to increase employee engagement.
Several caveats were expressed. One HR leader, for example, cautioned that they need to be tied to the type of company and demographics, as well as the extent to which employees are willing to embrace change. Another respondent said it’s important that gamification not be “viewed as a nuisance and a distraction from accomplishing job tasks.”
The bottom line is that giving employees an opportunity to help shape their organization’s culture, experience, vision and execution enables them to “feel more connected to the workplace and empowered to drive change,” according to Alex Kinnebrew, chief marketing officer and head of growth strategy for Waggl.
Benefit brokers and advisers can play a critical role in helping their employer clients bridge the technology gap when it comes to improving employee engagement, Hickey believes. “From designing an offering that represents company goals to securing the best technology to administer the program, brokers are guiding you every step of the way and also helping utilize technology beyond benefits administration that delivers more services and solutions for the company,” she says.
Founded in 1960, NCHRA is the nation’s second-largest HR association — serving more than 30,000 professionals in 23 states and several countries and showcasing more than 100 annual educational events.
Waggl’s Employee Voice platform examines critical business topics that include culture, experience, vision and execution. The company’s management team includes executives from Glassdoor, SuccessFactors and Coupa. Customers include Paychex, eBay, City Electric Supply, UCHealth, American Public Media and Freddie Mac.
SOURCE: Shutan, B. (4 December 2019) "Tech tools underused for workplace engagement: survey" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.benefitnews.com/news/tech-tools-underused-for-workplace-engagement-survey
How employers can prevent a new parent penalty in the workplace
The new parent penalty, a bias against new parents, often occurs when employees return from parental leave. The penalty presents itself in managers and colleagues who assume individuals are no longer interested in the upward growth of the company. Read this blog post from Employee Benefit News for ways employers can prevent a new parent penalty in the workplace.
Returning to work after parental leave is a rigorous experience for many employees. It can be a difficult time filled with adjustment pain points and career growth setbacks, all stemming from a surprising cause: the new parent penalty.
This penalty — or bias against new parents — presents itself by way of managers and colleagues assuming these individuals are no longer interested in or dedicated to upward growth in the company in the same way they were prior to taking time off. Unfortunately, this is an all-too-common hurdle. This bias often has a negative impact on the morale and career potential of employees who experience it.
Yet there are several actionable steps that HR leaders and employers, in general, should keep in mind to help new parents get back into the swing of things at work.
Evaluate your current leave options. The first step to ensuring a smooth re-entry to the workplace is implementing a leave policy that allows employees enough time to adjust to their new roles as parents. Only 14% of Americans have access to any paid family leave for the birth of a child, according to Pew Research Center. Even more, 23% of mothers are back on the job within 10 days of giving birth whether they're physically ready or not, according to the Department of Labor. This often results in mothers leaving the workforce, even if though they want to stay. Paid family leave is critical — it improves health outcomes for recovering mothers and new babies and improves retention of new parents.
Set the entire team up to succeed. One thing I often hear from clients at Maven who struggle with returning to work is that there is pressure from managers to resume a business as usual mindset, ignoring the significant shift in their lives. Managers should be trained to help mitigate this by providing better re-entry support. Employers can no longer expect parents to work at all hours or travel at the drop of the hat without some flexibility. Providing a transition or ramp time can be extremely successful in helping parents juggle their often competing work priorities and the needs of their children. Transition time also helps set expectations for other team members who may feel frustrated and overworked when parents come back to work unable to operate in the same capacity that they once did — enter parental bias.
Support career advancement with individualized plans. A client who recently returned to work after maternity leave was surprised to learn during a progress meeting that her manager had placed her on a so-called mommy track. She had requested a flexible work schedule upon her return from leave. Her manager assumed that meant she was no longer interested in opportunities for growth at the company.
This mother is not alone, many new parents face similar roadblocks in career advancement as a result of employers scaling back on assigning them responsibilities that would keep them on the leadership track. Instead of assuming what the new parents are looking for, employers should offer individualized paths for success. This ensures that new parents can continue to grow their careers even if they choose more flexible schedules.
Create a support system. Implementing employee resource groups can be an invaluable tool for new parents looking to connect and receive advice from their colleagues, who have been in their positions. Connecting employees with peers who can speak first hand about the pain points of new working parenthood, and how to make the transition easier can go a long way. Having easy access to a network like this lets employees feel like their concerns are heard and their needs are being met. These employees are in turn more likely to confidently stay in their careers rather than dropping out.
Employers are understanding that there are significant benefits to supporting their employees’ transition back to the workforce, including an increase in retention, culture improvements, and positive impact on their bottom lines. In short: paid family leave is a good thing, and when combined with individualized support from managers and team members, a parent’s return to work is smoother. By understanding the needs of their employees, employers are better equipped and more prepared to anticipate and prevent parental bias that hinders employee and company growth.
SOURCE: Ferrante, M. (5 November 2019) "How employers can prevent a new parent penalty in the workplace" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.benefitnews.com/opinion/how-employers-can-prevent-a-new-parent-penalty-in-the-workplace
Know your people, know your data: Keys to measuring employee engagement
According to research, over half of employees believe that health insurance is important in terms of their job satisfaction. Read the following blog post for ways employers can measure employee engagement.
Offering a total compensation and benefits package that fits employee needs drives morale, motivation and performance in the workplace.
Simply put, people who are happy and healthy are more productive. When an organization offers benefits that appeal to employees (and workers know how to use these benefits) employers should see an increase in total productivity.
On the other hand, if a company is off the mark with the total compensation package, or simply hasn’t communicated the benefits to people correctly, it will either see unchanged productivity or a decline. Organizations struggling to find improvement in productivity should look at their employee benefits offerings for answers.
Providing effective group health insurance and well-being programs is a good way to reduce the amount of sick leave worker's take. If employees promptly get healthcare when they’re ill, they’re more likely to be healthier overall. If an organization doesn’t offer appropriate health benefits, the result can be presenteeism.
Additionally, the cost of presenteeism multiplies when sick staff are contagious. One sick person refusing to take a day off can snowball into multiple people arriving ill to work on subsequent days. When illnesses reach critical mass and it’s harder for people to recover from things like the flu or a cold, organizations may find themselves short-staffed when employees finally pay to see a doctor.
Job satisfaction and morale are also linked to employee benefits. Research shows more than half of employees believe that health insurance is important in terms of their job satisfaction — even more crucial if staff live in an area where medical services are expensive.
Strategies to measure benefits engagement. HR staff have multiple ways of measuring how certain workplace functions are performing. Here are some effective methods organizations can use to measure benefits engagement.
Staff surveys. Questionnaires that seek to understand what benefits your staff know they have, and how they’ll use them.
Pulse surveys. Asking staff short, frequent questions about a benefits platform.
Focus groups. Gathering cross-functional groups of staff members together to have a facilitated discussion about benefits.
Exit surveys. Include questions about benefits and satisfaction levels during exit surveys, and then investigate what their next employer might be offering to have lured them away.
If organizations are not regularly questioning how well their benefits plan is performing, they may be missing an opportunity to get key insights into how employees feel about their packages.
Offering employee benefits isn’t just to support an organization’s staff, it should also support an organization’s long-term sustainability. Employee engagement is one key measure. The challenge for organizations is ensuring not only that they include benefits that will be relevant to staff, but also that they properly educate them in what those benefits are.
The less staff are educated on what benefits exist and how they can use them, the less likely they are to engage with them. Not having an appropriate communication strategy can often set benefits plan performance behind.
Working with analytics and claims data can indicate when specific benefits aren’t being used. Knowing what causes the lack of engagement requires a bit of discussion and investigation, but finding sustainable solutions is completely dependent on understanding whether the issue is the benefits themselves, or the communication to staff.
SOURCE: Rider, S. (1 November 2019) "Know your people, know your data: Keys to measuring employee engagement" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.benefitnews.com/opinion/using-data-to-measure-employee-engagement
Company Gifts That Workers Hate
Gift cards, water bottles and coffee mugs are just a few examples of workplace gift ideas that employees do not want or make them feel unappreciated. According to a new survey, more than 8 in 10 employees have received a workplace gift that they didn't want. Continue reading this blog post from SHRM to learn more.
Coffee mugs and water bottles emblazoned with the company's logo. Gift cards to stores that employees rarely visit.
These are among the gifts that companies give to workers—and that workers hate, that make them feel unappreciated, and that leave the impression that their employers are thoughtless.
So says a new survey by Snappy, the New York City-based employee engagement company, which found that more than 8 in 10 U.S. employees have received a workplace gift—mostly from managers—that they didn't want.
As the winter holidays approach, and as companies bestow gifts to show they appreciate their employees, the survey of more than 1,000 U.S. workers demonstrates that leaders may want to give more thought to workplace gift-giving.
No Logos, Please
Almost 3 in 4 workers would prefer to get a gift without their company logo on it, according to the survey, which Snappy conducted in September.
"Some employees have reported to me that they don't mind some gifts with logos, but they resent feeling like a 'walking billboard' for the company," said Paul White, who has a Ph.D. in psychology and is co-author of The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace (Northfield Publishing, 2019). "Others state that when they are given gifts that have the company's logo, the item immediately is disqualified as a gift—because the focus of the item is the company, not the recipient."
White's research into how more than 100,000 employees feel about the workplace found that only 6 percent identified gifts as the primary way they want a company to show appreciation—far below getting words of affirmation (46 percent), quality time with a supervisor or co-workers (26 percent) and getting help from supervisors or colleagues on a project (22 percent).
"Employees are not saying they do not want tangible rewards … for doing good work," White wrote. "But what the data show is that when choosing comparatively between words of affirmation, quality time or an act of service—receiving a gift is far less meaningful than appreciation communicated through these actions. For example, employees often comment, 'If I receive some gift but I never hear any praise, no one stops to see how I'm doing, or I never get any help—the gift feels superficial.' "
Are Companies Catching On?
One would think, given research and books like White's that demonstrate how people feel about workplace gifts, that companies would adjust their gift-giving practices. Often, they don't because no one asks employees what they thought about the present. Workers are in a tight spot: If they complain or don't seem enthused, they may be seen as ungrateful or demanding, White said.
In fact, the Snappy survey found that of those workers who got a gift they didn't like, 9 in 10 pretended they liked the gift anyway.
"The leader needs to be interested in what the meaning or message of the gift is, [but] most often, it is a rather thoughtless process," White said. "In work relationships, it is the thought that counts. For employees who value gifts, either giving everyone the same item or giving them a generic gift with no thought or personal meaning is actually offensive."
Cord Himelstein is vice president of marketing and communications for HALO Recognition, an employee rewards and incentives company based in Long Island City, N.Y. He said he thinks companies are paying attention to their gift-giving practices. He noted recent data from WorldatWork showed that about 44 percent of recognition programs get updated or changed every year.
"If management isn't actively listening and applying feedback in a systematic way, then there's no point in offering gifts at all," he said. "Nailing down the right balance of rewards that employees really love takes time and effort."
Best and Worst Gifts
Respondents said that some of the "worst" gifts employers ever gave them included a pin, a plaque, and a gift card to a store they'd never visited.
In fact, more than 3 in 4 said a gift card is less meaningful than an actual gift, and almost 9 in 10 admitted that they'd lost the gift card or forgotten that it had a balance on it.
"Gift cards feel transactional and impersonal," said Hani Goldstein, co-founder and CEO of Snappy. "Employers fail to realize that gift cards put a price tag on the recipient's value and make them feel like they're worth $25. Our research points to one key insight: The most appreciated gifts aren't impactful because of their actual monetary value. What matters most is what the gifts are and how they are given."
Employers should remember that things like pins and plaques, Himelstein said, "are commemorative add-ons, not whole gifts, and should always be supplemented with more substantial and appropriate rewards."
Employees also described some of the "best" gifts employers gave them, which included an espresso machine, a trip to Paris, an iPad and a television.
White noted that such expensive gifts can be impractical for a company. They may be appropriate in rare situations, White said, such as rewarding a worker who reached an exceptional goal or recognizing someone who's served long and well.
"Generally, meaningful gifts between employees and supervisors are more impactful when they are personal and thoughtful rather than pricey," he said.
Himelstein said more expensive gifts—at least those more expensive than mugs or pins—"aren't only practical, it's a best practice."
"Nobody wants a cheap gift for their hard work, and employees can always tell when the company isn't trying," he said. "Also, don't lose sight of the fact that you don't need to constantly shower employees with expensive gifts to make them feel appreciated."
SOURCE: Wilkie, D. (14 November 2019) "Company Gifts That Workers Hate" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.shrm.org/ResourcesAndTools/hr-topics/employee-relations/Pages/gifts-workers-hate-.aspx
7 Tips for Coaching Employees to Improve Performance
How do you align coaching with individual employees’ needs? Employee coaching is central to improving the performance of employees, as well as helping with employee onboarding and retention. Read this blog post for seven tips to effectively coach employees to improve performance.
Managers and leaders are critical to the success of a business, and so are effective coaching skills. Consistent coaching helps with employee onboarding and retention, performance improvement, skill improvement, and knowledge transfer. On top of these benefits, coaching others is an effective method for reinforcing and transferring learning.
While there are many important leadership skills and competencies, coaching is central to improving the performance of entire teams.
A coaching leadership style is proving to be much more effective with today’s employees than the more authoritarian styles that many business leaders operate under. Leaders who coach employees instead of commanding them are able to build a much more talented and agile workforce, which leads to a healthy and growing business.
Think back to your peewee soccer days (or any team sport, really). I bet you can think of three kinds of teams:
- The directionless group of kids running around aimlessly, taking frequent breaks for cookies and juice.
- The organized group who focused, but still had fun.
- The hyper-focused, aggressive group.
And how do you think these teams got the way they did? The coach, of course! The first group had a coddling coach, the second had a balanced coach, and the third had an intense coach living out his failed soccer dreams vicariously through a group of 6-year-olds.
Which seems like the healthiest group? Hopefully, you said the second one. But how do you coach in such a way that produces a healthy team?
Good coaching can be easy to spot, but hard to emulate.
First, you need to meet your team members where they’re at. Coaching isn’t a one-size-fits-all endeavor. Some people will need a lot more handholding than others, depending on where they’re at in their job role and overall career.
So before we get to our seven coaching tips, here’s a quick look at how you can align coaching conversations with individual employees’ needs.
How to Coach Employees at Different Levels
The best coaches don’t use the same coaching style for each individual team member. They’re flexible enough to adapt to the situation at hand.
There are five levels of employee performance, and you’ll have to adapt your style for each one to coach them effectively:
- Novices
- Doers
- Performers
- Masters
- Experts
Level 1: Novice
Novices are in the “telling” stage of learning. They need to receive a lot of instruction and constructive correction. If you’re confident in the people you’ve hired, then they probably won’t need to stay in this stage very long. Also, watch out for your own micromanaging tendencies – you don’t want to hold an employee back from moving to the next level!
Level 2: Doer
Once Novices begin to understand the task and start to perform, they transition to the Doer stage. They haven’t yet mastered the job, so there’s still a heavy amount of “tell” coaching going on. But they’re doing some productive work and contributing to the team. So, there are now opportunities to encourage new behaviors, and praise Doers for good results.
Level 3: Performer
As Doers start accomplishing a task to standards, they become Performers. Now they’re doing real work and carrying their full share of the load. And they’re doing the task the way it should be done. With Performers, there’s much less “tell” coaching, if any at all. But there’s still feedback, mostly focused on recognizing good results and improving the results that don’t meet expectations.
Level 4: Master
Some Performers may continue to grow on the job and reach the Master stage. At this point, they can not only accomplish tasks to standards, they can do so efficiently and effectively. Plus, they have a deep enough understanding of what should be done that they can teach and coach others on the task. And they know enough to actually help improve standard processes.
Level 5: Expert
Experts are valuable members of the team and may become front-line team leads. Experts don’t need a lot of direction – they’re highly self-sufficient. If anything, they can provide direction to others. Experts don’t necessarily require a lot of recognition and praise to stay motivated, but that doesn’t mean they don’t want any.
7 Coaching Tips for Managers and Leaders
So, now that we’ve gone over the different performance levels your employees can be at, let’s get to what you came for – the tips!
These coaching tips will work with any of those five levels and can help you have more mutually beneficial coaching conversations that will improve overall team performance!
1. Ask guiding questions
Open-ended, guiding questions lead to more detailed and thoughtful answers, which lead to more productive coaching conversations. As a manager or leader, it is critical that you develop strong relationships with your employees. This will help you determine if your employees are curious, have the capacity to perform and improve, and what kind of attitude they have towards their work.
This is where communication skills and emotional intelligence really come into play. Managers must guide conversations both by asking questions and listening, not by giving directives. Employees learn and grow the most when they uncover the answers themselves.
2. Recognize what’s going well
Coaching well requires a balance of criticism and praise. If your coaching conversations are completely focused on what’s not working and what the employee has to do to change, that’s not motivating, it’s demoralizing.
Your recognition of the things your employee is doing well can be a springboard into how they can build from that to improve. We’re not talking about the compliment sandwich here, though, because that coaching technique often devolves into shallow praise that comes off as insincere.
Giving compliments that you don’t actually mean can have a worse effect than not giving any at all, so take the time to think about specific things that are going well, and let your employees know that you see and appreciate them!
Another aspect of this is how the employee likes to be recognized. This is a good question to ask them from the start of your relationship – does frequent recognition help them stay motivated, or is every once in awhile sufficient? Do they prefer recognition to be given publicly or privately? The last thing you want to do is embarrass someone when you’re trying to be a good coach!
3. Listen and empower
Coaching requires both encouragement and empowerment. As a manager and a leader, your job is to build one-on-one relationships with employees that result in improved performance.
Your employees are likely to have a lot of input, questions, and feedback. It’s important for them to know you care enough to listen to what they have to say, so encourage them to share their opinions.
Some employees will have no problem speaking their mind, while others will need a LOT of encouragement before they share an opinion with you openly. Once they do open up, be sure to respect those opinions by discussing them, rather than dismissing them.
4. Understand their perspective
When you’re coaching employees to improve performance and engagement, approaching things from their perspective, rather than your own, will help enormously with seeing the changes and results you want.
Everyone has different motivations, preferences, and personalities, so if you ask questions to help you understand where their “why” comes from and what their preferred “how” looks like, then you can tailor your coaching conversations to align the way they work best with the improvements you’re both aiming for.
For example, maybe you recently moved from an office plan that had lots of individual offices to a much more open-plan, and one of the reps on your sales team has shown a drastic decrease in successful calls. If you start asking questions and find out that this is someone who is excellent in one-on-one conversations, but rarely speaks up in a group setting, then you can see how they’d feel like everyone is listening in on their call, making them less confident than when they had their own space.
With that perspective in mind, you can work with them more effectively on how to get their numbers back up.
5. Talk about next steps
Coaching conversations are meant to yield changes and results, so be sure to clearly define and outline what needs to happen next. This will ensure you and your employees are on the same page with expectations, and provide them with a clear understanding of the practical steps they can take to make changes and improve.
Also, these next steps should be mutually agreed upon – talk about what is reasonable to expect given their workload and the complexity of the changes being made.
6. Coach in the moment
If an employee comes to you with a question about a process or protocol, use this opportunity to teach them something new. If you’re not able to stop what you’re doing right away, schedule time with them as soon as possible to go over it.
Better yet, keep a weekly one-on-one meeting scheduled with each employee so you can go over questions and issues regularly, while maintaining productivity. Coaching employees with a goal of improving performance means making them a priority each week!
7. Commit to continuous learning
Make a commitment to improving your own skills and competencies. If you’re not continuously learning, why should your employees? Lead by example and your team will follow.
Show that you are interested in their success (why wouldn’t you be?). Ask questions about where they see their career going, or how they see their role evolving in the company. Even if they don’t have a plan laid out yet, these questions will make them think about their career and what they want to accomplish within the organization.
Show your employees that you don’t just want them to do better so you look better, but that you’re actively interested in their career, accomplishments, and professional success.
Emotional intelligence (EQ) is a critical aspect of coaching employees in a way that builds relationships, boosts engagement, and improves performance. Managers and leaders can see greatly improved coaching skills by taking steps to improve their EQ – they go hand in hand!
SOURCE: Brubaker, K. (24 September 2019) "7 Tips for Coaching Employees to Improve Performance" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.humanresourcestoday.com/?open-article-id=11617247&article-title=7-tips-for-coaching-employees-to-improve-performance
It’s time to consider a wage and hour audit
A record $322 million of unpaid wages were recovered for the 2019 fiscal year, according to the Department of Labor (DOL). With the new salary threshold taking effect January 1, it may be a good time to consider conducting a wage and hour audit. Read the following blog post from Employee Benefit News to learn more.
Those who believed the Trump administration would scale back the Obama-era Department of Labor’s aggressive enforcement of wage and hour laws may be surprised to learn that the DOL recently announced that it recovered a record $322 million in unpaid wages for fiscal year 2019. This is $18 million more than that recovered in the last fiscal year, which was the previous record.
The agency has set records in back wages collected every year since 2015, according to data released by the DOL. This year, the average wages DOL recovered per employee were $1,025. The agency’s office of federal contractor compliance also announced that it had recovered a record $41 million in settlements over discrimination actions involving federal contractors, an increase of 150% over the last fiscal year.
Effective Jan. 1, the new salary threshold that most salaried employees must earn to be exempt from overtime pay will be $35,568, or $684 per week, under the final rule issued by the DOL in September.
With the new salary threshold taking effect soon, and the DOL continuing to aggressively enforce wage and hour laws, it is a good time to consider conducting a wage and hour audit to ensure that employees are properly classified as exempt or nonexempt and that other pay practices comply with the law.
Employers who did this in 2016, only to find out later that the Obama administration’s proposed hike in the salary threshold would not take effect, may have a strong feeling of déjà vu. But this time, there does not appear to be any viable legal challenge that would delay or block the salary threshold change, so employers must be prepared to either increase salaries of “white-collar” exempt employees (who earn less than $35,568) or reclassify them as hourly employees by January.
Among other things, a wage and hour audit should include the following:
- Review all individuals classified as independent contractors;
- Review all employees classified as exempt from overtime under one or more “white-collar” exemptions (administrative, executive, and professional), who must earn at least the $35,568 salary threshold beginning January 1, 2020;
- Review all other employees classified as exempt from overtime, including computer and sales employees; and
- Review all individuals classified as interns, trainees, volunteers, and the like.
In addition to ensuring whether employees are properly classified as exempt or nonexempt, a thorough wage and hour audit should look at a number of other issues, including timekeeping and rounding of hours worked, meal and rest breaks, whether bonuses and other special payments need to be included in employees’ regular rate of pay for calculating overtime, and payments besides regular wages, such as paid leave and reimbursement of expenses.
SOURCE: Allen, S. (8 November 2019) "It’s time to consider a wage and hour audit" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.benefitnews.com/opinion/employers-should-consider-a-wage-and-hour-audit
Putting Humanity into HR Compliance: 3 Steps to Active Listening
How is your HR department communicating with your employees? One of the most common complaints people hear about HR professionals is that they don't listen. Read this blog post from SHRM for three practices of active listening.
When I work with executives and managers, a common complaint I hear about HR professionals is "They don't listen. They just tell."
So when I work with HR professionals, I encourage them to adopt three practices of active listening:
- The period-to-question-mark ratio.
- The EAAR listening method.
- Confront, then question.
The Period-to-Question-Mark Ratio
When you're engaged in a conversation, what's the ratio of your sentences that end with periods to those that end with question marks? If you're like most people, the ratio is overwhelmingly tilted toward sentences that end with periods. This could show that you are telling people what to do more often than you are looking for consensus on how to solve a problem. When you engage in a discussion with an executive, manager or employee, keep the ratio in mind. Strive to correct the imbalance by making yourself ask questions. The fact that you ask matters more than what the question is.
People I've coached have found that keeping the ratio in mind acts as a self-regulating device to ask more questions.
The EAAR Listening Method
E: Explore
A: Acknowledge
A: Apply
R: Response
It's a sequence. Begin the discussion with an exploratory, open-ended question: "Ms. Manager, what are the reasons that led you to conclude Mr. Employee should be fired?" "Tell me more." "Please share some examples." "Help me understand."
Once you've explored the other person's position and reasons for it, move to acknowledgment. Get the person to acknowledge that you understand his or her point. "So, Ms. Manager, if I understand you correctly, you believe Mr. Employee should be terminated because of the following reasons… Is that correct?
Although critical, the acknowledge step is often overlooked. Instead of confirming the understanding, the listener makes an assumption, which often proves erroneous and leads to unnecessary conflict. The EAAR method eliminates this possibility. If the person says, "No, that's not my position," simply go back to the exploration step: "I'm sorry. Please explain what I missed."
In your response, apply portions of what the person said, even actual words the person used. Even if your response isn't substantively what the person originally sought, this approach creates optimal conditions for acceptance.
"Ms. Manager, I agree with you that Mr. Employee's behavior is unacceptable. What you described [list the employee's actions] makes a compelling case. However, because of the following reasons, I think termination now would be premature and present undue legal risk.
"Nevertheless, I'm happy to work with you on an intervention strategy. If Mr. Employee is willing and able to close the gap in your legitimate management expectations, he will do so. If not, we will be in a much stronger position to terminate his employment, and I will support you."
Many HR professionals have told me that when they've used the EAAR method, conversations they feared would turn ugly became positive. Instead of a clash of wills and arguments, the discussion became collaborative and solution-oriented.
Confront, Then Question
What if you are the bearer of bad news? You must deliver a message you know won't make the recipient happy.
The approach here is to confront, then question. Make a short opening statement. State your position succinctly and without elaboration. Next, switch to question mode.
You can think of this approach as beginning the EAAR method with a short opening response to frame the conversation.
"Mr. Executive, based on our investigation, we found that Mr. Employee in your department engaged in actions that violate our anti-harassment policy. Although we understand he has been with the company for a long time and is one of your best performers, given the seriousness of the misconduct, we believe the appropriate action is termination of his employment."
Next, go to question mode: "What do you think?" "What questions do you have?" "How do you see things at this point?"
Assuming the executive doesn't respond by saying "Great idea! Go for it!" and wants to argue his or her point, pivot to exploration and start the EAAR process at that point. "I want to make sure I understand you, so please tell me what you agree with, what you disagree with and your reasons."
After that comes your acknowledgment: "Let me make sure I understand you. You agree that Mr. Employee's behavior was unacceptable and violated policy. However, you disagree that the proper remedy is termination. Instead, you recommend a suspension and written warning for these reasons. [List the reasons.] Is that accurate?"
Now you're ready to apply. From what the executive said, extract what you can use in your response.
"I appreciate the fact that you support our investigation and finding of misconduct. Our only disagreement is the appropriate remedy. Your points about Mr. Employee's long service and stellar performance are valid. Yet for these reasons [list them], I still believe termination is called for. How do you suggest we resolve our differing views? For example, should we present them to the CEO and let her decide?"
These types of conversations can go in all sorts of directions, including ones you don't anticipate. That's OK, so long as you don't lose sight of the value of questions during a dispute.
Avoid cross-examination questions, such as "Isn't it true that … ?" Your questions should not state or imply your view. They should be curiosity-based, as you're genuinely trying to find out what the other person thinks.
The confront-then-question approach allows you to go directly to the heart of the matter. Even if you sense rising tension and hostility, the negative emotions will soon be arrested by your open-ended, exploratory questions.
When HR professionals make a commitment to active listening, executives, managers and employees become their biggest fans instead of being their biggest critics.
SOURCE: Janove, J. (9 October 2019) "Putting Humanity into HR Compliance: 3 Steps to Active Listening" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/employee-relations/pages/putting-humanity-into-hr-compliance-active-listening-.aspx
5 ways employers can make diabetes education programs more inclusive
Employees struggling with diabetes often have to make difficult decisions when it comes to their medications. Often, it can be difficult to manage blood sugar daily and feel healthy enough to function at work. Read the following blog post from Employee Benefit News for five ways employers can make diabetes education programs more inclusive.
Diabetes doesn’t quit. Employees struggling with the disease often have to make difficult decisions about their medications. It can be hard to keep control of blood sugar every day and feel healthy enough to function well at work.
Many workers don’t tell their employer they have diabetes. Some 81% of benefits decision-makers believe employees with diabetes at their companies keep it a secret.
Giving voice to an issue is the first step toward solving it. Diabetes in the workplace is in need of attention: rates are rising in the U.S., as are the associated costs — unplanned missed workdays, reduced productivity and the stress associated with uncontrolled diabetes add up to billions of dollars per year.
To help employers find solutions, Roche Diabetes Care commissioned a survey of more than 200 benefits decision-makers at self-funded companies to learn their perceptions of the human and financial burden of diabetes. What’s clear is that addressing the myriad of concerns related to this condition is a top priority for benefits decision-makers; indeed, 70% say it keeps them awake at night.
Benefits decision-makers say the impact of diabetes on their companies is significant:
- More than one in four report diabetes results in increased costs to replace workers (28%), increased administrative and other indirect costs of managing absenteeism (29%);
- One in three believe diabetes results in indirect costs resulting from fatigue and understaffing as well as reduced productivity;
- One in four feel diabetes is responsible for poor morale among employees who must perform work to cover absent co-workers.
The majority (87%) agree it is vital that employers offer continual support to employees with diabetes. Listening, education and help simplifying everyday diabetes management emerge as ways employers can improve the health of their employees with diabetes and the company bottom lines. The following are five approaches to consider.
Cultivate a collaborative, supportive environment to encourage employees with diabetes to feel comfortable and at ease about sharing concerns.
Four in five (81%) benefits decision-makers surveyed say they believe employees keep their condition a secret. Fear of discrimination is one reason those with diabetes keep quiet along with the general sense that their colleagues and superiors just don’t know or understand what it’s like to live with the condition.
Secrets are also stressful. Employers can address this by including diabetes more frequently in workplace wellness education programs and discussions, and creating safe forums for employees with diabetes to share concerns and express their needs. Listening and making employees with diabetes part of a two-way dialogue demonstrate the company values not only their opinions but also their important contributions to the company community.
Designate private places at the office where employees with diabetes can test their blood sugar during the workday.
Some 90% of benefits decision-makers surveyed think their employees would value company access and time to monitor blood sugar or take injections.
Simplify daily diabetes management so employees have what they need to be in control of their blood sugar levels at home and at work.
People with diabetes have different concerns and different needs at different times. A company-sponsored program to simplify the daily decision-making and management of diabetes needs to be personalized, easily accessible and help the user keep track of their blood sugar levels automatically. Benefits decision-makers believe employers supported in this way would be:
- Less distracted and less stressed at work (37%);
- More productive (45%) and have better morale;
- Take fewer sick days (39%);
- Feel their employer cared about them (41%).
We have created a program that offers the elements that enable personalized accessible support. Participants say they feel more positively engaged in their daily management and more confident at work.
Demonstrate the value of supported employees with diabetes by measuring impact productivity and absenteeism.
Most of those surveyed say they believe company-supported programs that help employees with diabetes simplify daily management of the condition would have myriad benefits:
- 89% say it would lead to a higher quality of life and reduced sick time and related expenses;
- More than four in five say a company-supported program would result in more company loyalty and less turnover (83%) and contribute to increased productivity (84%);
- 90% believe employees with diabetes would feel more empowered at work if they participated in a company-supported program that helped them keep their blood sugar levels in control.
Consider conducting brief surveys of employees about their perceptions of diabetes. These can be done before or after education or awareness efforts are in place. For companies with support programs in place, surveys can be conducted among participants. Qualitative and quantitative data help demonstrate the value of these investments. Just asking the questions among employees show the company cares.
Show your successes; don’t just tell.
Show the value of educating about diabetes and supporting your employees with the condition. There are a number of ways to accomplish this. Collect and tell their stories. Create testimonials in articles for internal newsletters and videos that can be shown on monitors around the office. Stories are powerful ways to educate, build empathy and understanding, and perhaps most importantly, get the secret of diabetes out in the open.
SOURCE: Berman, A. (30 September 2019) "5 ways employers can make diabetes education programs more inclusive" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.benefitnews.com/list/how-to-make-diabetes-education-programs-more-inclusive