Sterling Performance

The crisis we are going through at the moment is not economic, it’s moral, according to Paul Bennett,  chief creative officer at the European office of design organisation IDEO.

We need a reboot of our values and choices, in order to make the businesses on which our economy depends durable enough to withstand the next crisis.

Speaking at the Economist and Design Council’s Redesigning Business summit, Bennett broke this moral reboot down into a number of specific areas:

• Have a higher purpose and meaning. Those companies which transcend the profit imperative and take on a real basic need felt by their customers. “It’s about having the passion burning behind the eyes,” according to Bennett. (more…)

You do not need books or psycho babble to work out how to motivate people. Start by thinking about the best boss you have ever worked for. What did the boss do to motivate you so well? Do you do the same things with your team?

In practice, most of us respond to some simple motivational measures. Here are my top ten:

1. Show you care for each member of the team, and for their career. Invest time to understand their hopes, their fears and dreams. Casual time by the coffee machine, not a formal meeting in an office, is the best way to get to know your team members.
2. Say thank you. We all crave recognition: we want to know that we are doing something worthwhile and we are doing it well. Make your praise real, for real achieverment. And make it specific.  Avoid the synthetic one minute manager praise (”gee, you typed that email really well…”). (more…)
   Jo Owen is a serial entrepreneur, author and business speaker. Got a leadership idea for Jo to tackle?

The recruitment freeze isn’t lifting any time soon, but companies are focusing more on keeping their existing key staff happy, so that their elite workers aren’t tempted to stray, according to a panel of HR bosses.

NSG Group (formerly Pilkington) human resources VP Luis Henrique Souza, Axa head of global resourcing Samantha Rich and De Beers Goup HR director Phil Volkovski aired their views on talent retention at the launch of a report by the Economist Intelligence Unit called Companies at a Crossroads. The report was sponsored by workforce management software company Stepstone, of which all three panellists are customers.

Issues arising from the report included:

• Organisations need to focus on talent retention at all levels of the business
• Talent drift is a becoming an increasing danger to company’s talent pools as key workers become disaffected. (more…)

Did you mark Work Your Proper Hours Day last week? Last Friday was the day that, if the average employee did all their unpaid overtime at the beginning of the year, they actually started to get paid for the work they do.

The initiative launched by the TUC is designed to highlight research from the organisation that found the number of people working over ten hours a week (or extreme) unpaid overtime has increased over six-fold from 14,000 to nearly 900,000 over the last year.

The union calculates over five million employees clocked up over seven hours unpaid work, which is worth £27.4 billion to the UK economy and for those people who work the extreme, ten plus hours, it means effectively, they don’t start getting paid until 26 April.

It’s a chunk of productivity that probably doesn’t figure in many economists calculations, but one that might unexpectedly impact the government’s calculations on how many jobs the public sector should shed, as it’s these workers who are much more apt to work extra hours for no extra pay.

Over a quarter of public sector workers indulge in extreme overtime, compared to one in six private sector staff, according to the TUC’s research.

Teachers and lawyers are the professions most likely to work over ten hours of unpaid overtime and single women are more likely to do so than single men, or couples co-habiting, with or without children.

The figures highlight how much rank-and-file staff are taking on to share the pain of the recession and begs the question how much more will they take?

It also should humble some of the pundits in the private sector who have been baying for massive cuts in the public sector, if those cutbacks mean laying off people who actually provide some of their services for free.

Are you an extreme overtimer? Write in below and tell us.

(Pic: cell 105 cc2.0)

Freezing top directors’ pay plays to the public gallery but it creates problems in remuneration structures rather than solves them. Who wants to run Barclays or Shell if it means forfeiting the reward?

If a high pay culture runs right through an organisation, tackling it only at the top leaves a rich cake, covered in a fat layer of marzipan, but spread with only a thin coating of icing.

Management at every level must have an incentive to improve and people will not seek promotion unless there is sufficient extra pay. 

It is top salaries that receive publicity, not least because directors’ rewards are revealed publicly and voted on. And last year, Royal Dutch Shell’s shareholders voted against the remuneration report. The oil company has thus written to investors pledging to freeze and cut pay. (more…)

The business is in trouble. The finance director has bought some time from the creditors, and now you need to deliver a turnaround in the trading performance. Here are the five basic steps you need to follow.

1. Identity Check that everyone around the table is absolutely clear on what the business is about; “what you do” and, more importantly “what you don’t do”. A diversified or multi-segment business needs fast decisions on which parts have a future, and which would be better owned by someone else. The decision needs to be logical and simply explainable, to everyone in the business, so the ones that are staying know what the future holds. Move fast, move once, and move on. (more…)

The Equality and Human Rights Commission call for employees to be allowed to continue working after official retirement age is a vital aid to our ability to compete in international markets. Employers who remove more “expensive” older workers and get in cheaper, younger workers and think this gives them an advantage are wrong.

Even if older workers cost more, the evidence shows they often produce a greater return on investment than younger staff. Most current world leaders are over 50, a substantial proportion of CEOs of major organisations are over 50 and many are over retirement age. Why is that acceptable for them but not for others?

Research shows older workers – anyone over 50 – are often more flexible than younger ones, better with customers and capable of developing the skills of others, thus increasing the performance of all. Their valuable organisational experience also keeps the organisation running well from day to day.

 Many have been through difficult experiences, which increases their determination to succeed and survive the present difficult economic conditions. So if older workers are also less likely to give up on their organisation why should some organisations give up on them? (more…)

Like most of us, I’ve worked in my fair share of under-performing teams. I’ve also worked in some that felt like they were really going places — trying to set the world on fire. There are lots of different ways to build team performance; I’ve tried enough of them myself. Here’s one approach that, so far, has never let me down.

Whenever I’ve used this technique, it has never failed to amaze me how creative and dedicated a group of people can quickly become. There are six basic steps and two basic principles: trust and collaboration.

Step 1: Choose one goal: This might be something you introduce, or build with the team, seeding ideas to the group. It’s not essential that it’s group-driven. It is essential that it’s ambitious, exciting, and singular. Setting a goal around incrementally improving at the day job just isn’t going to cut it. (more…)

BNET blogger Jo Owen once identified disloyalty as one of four sins the boss wouldn’t forgive. But maybe we should ask the question the other way around: what are the four sins an employee won’t forgive?

Because, as Richard Leyland proves, it’s the employer’s commitment to employees that determines how long loyalty lives. And it looks as if the UK record for sustaining loyalty is a bit patchy.

The recession’s partly to blame, making the UK an ‘employers’ market’– a recent INGRADA survey found the average number of applicants per job in Britain is 49, even though, at £25,000, a British starting salary comes in comparatively low.

But the same survey found UK company retention rates after five years to be the worst of five nations, suggesting the problem is more ingrained. (Hong Kong and the US keep graduate hires the longest.)

“It may be that graduate retention among 2004 joiners just wasn’t that high a priority,” suggest Gary Argent, business operations manager at the Association of Graduate Recruiters. Pre-recession, in a buoyant job market, companies that lost a good grad simply shelled out the cash to find a replacement.

Post-recession, it’s likely that the ‘talent war’ will heat up again. HR professionals are already predicting higher attrition rates this year than in 2009, according to Stockholm-based employer branding company Universum.

Companies that showed little loyalty to their employees during the downturn may face a goodwill deficit within the business, let alone among potential hires.  In the good times, recruiters may’ve created a ‘promise gap’ between how they ’sold’ a company to new hires and what those grads actually experienced once on board. Strangely, this matters more now that jobs are scarcer — unless you’re willing to risk eroding wider loyalty by reneging on your promises. If an employer fails to reciprocate loyalty, according to David Pardey of the Institute of Leadership and Management, it’s “a slap in the face” that can resound around the business if resentment spreads. If they don’t already, recruiters and line managers should get together to agree on what they can promise new hires.

Talent recruitment has been the focus so far, but development will sustain loyalty.

Up to a point. Believe it or not, you can generate too much loyalty — ‘brandwashing’ employees so that they lose their own sense of self and take on the corporation’s values wholesale. (Andersen Consulting’s employees, for example, were nicknamed “Androids”.)

Recruits to “build-from-within” cultures are particularly vulnerable, says Stuart Woollard, director of the HRM Learning Board at King’s College, London, who says: “You need a healthy sense of separation from your employer, or a layoff can feel like personal rejection.”

In other words, practise what Pardey at the ILM calls ’safe’ loyalty — “emotionally-driven but justified rationally”. Sensible — but is it as easy as it sounds?

(Photo:neys,CC2.0)

January is traditionally a time of reckoning, when people consider whether they are really happy in their current position or if they should start looking around for something new.

I’ve noticed that many of my clients are quite reluctant to talk about their qualifications and significant achievements or even to admit them, let alone put them into a CV.

The main reason for this seems to be that they don’t know how to talk about themselves authentically without seeming to appear arrogant or simply big-headed.

Below are 10 tips for broadcasting your talents and your personal brand values on a regular basis without feeling uncomfortable or pushy.

1. Make it clear how what you do adds value for others. Have a short but memorable sentence rehearsed that expresses clearly what you can do so that if someone has a particular problem they know you can solve, they immediately think of you. You will be the ‘go-to’ person for that particular issue. Make it short, interesting and impactful.
2. Make it hard to be forgotten once you’ve been introduced at any event. Networking can be one of the hardest and most tedious requirements of raising personal awareness. Once you have done all the hard work and managed to attract attention from your target market, make sure you give enough interesting information so that the listener will want to hear more from you — to set up another meeting, or to pitch an idea. There is no need to sell on the spot — that’s anathema to most people — but arouse curiosity and interest in your expertise. Don’t waste any opportunities.
3. Walk the talk. Meet your potential client’s expectations and demonstrate your abilities. If, say, your expertise is in personal branding, you can’t look scruffy and behave erratically. If you’re in finance make sure your own accounts are in order. If you’re an IT whiz then demonstrate it in your actions and express it through a brilliant website.
4. Show them what you’re good at. Have stories to tell about successes in your business. People don’t think in bullet points, so interest people with tales of projects won and their outcomes. Grow your reputation in the media and through your own blogs for what you’re good at.
5. Be proud of what you do. If you aren’t passionate about your work and are in any way embarrassed about it then, when you are asked about your job you will risk coming across as negative and draining. Even if you aren’t in the ideal job, stay positive when talking about it and keep your eyes open for opportunities. People are drawn to confident and happy people.
6. There will always be doubters. You will always come across people at any level who will have a ‘Doubting Thomas’ attitude. Stay positive, believe in what you are trying to achieve and allow yourself to be delighted when they are proved wrong.
7. People don’t buy because you are selling — help them find what they want. If a man needs a 5mm hole in a piece of wood, he needs to find a 5mm drill-bit, but what he wants is just the hole. Become an expert on what it is your market needs and then demonstrate how you will be useful to them and meet their needs. Once they have seen the relevance, your position is secure.
   
8. People make buying decisions emotionally. Let people feel your emotion. Sure, explain the  rational part of your business, but they people will be far more involved with you if you are more emotive in describing examples of where you have been involved. “Challenge, action, result” stories leave the listener far more connected to you. They’ll be more likely to remember you and pass on your stories to others they meet who may be experiencing similar problems.
9. Tell them everything. Because we do our jobs on a regular basis, we sometimes take our unique talents for granted. Most people who are experts in their fields will feel this way, and the talent seems to come naturally, so isn’t it the same for everyone? No, it’s not. Make sure that those who can use your abilities are fully aware of all the added value you are bringing.
10. Build your brand through 2010 and going forward. Broadcast your personal brand in every possible way. Make it clear and consistent, so that your unique skills and strengths are recognisable. Become known as an expert ‘talking head’ by the press, write a regular blog, offer to speak at events, always look well dressed and appropriate for your business and deliver a warm, confident, professional and likeable profile. Alongside practising the other hints in this column, 2010 should be a memorable year.

(Photo: See-ming Lee, CC2.0)