Bite-Sized Briefs On Western Canada's World of Work

As he relayed the details of the problem, he could see his supervisor's face shift from vague interest to irritated concern, and then full-blown anger. He was just beginning to wonder if the "hair on fire" myth could be true when he heard an almost imperceptible poof. There it was. Hair on fire. In an instant she was out of her chair and had made her way through the entire office, disrupting the workflow of everyone present by registering her displeasure on high volume.

What a learning opportunity for this supervisor's team. She taught them to hide bad news. She showed that nothing good will come from discovering problems. And worst of all, she demonstrated a lack of leadership by missing the chance to identify a gap and work with her team to close it.

7 Additional Unfortunate Reactions to Problems
Hair on fire is just one of many unhelpful responses. Can you think of others to add to this collection?

• Blaming
• Avoiding conflict
• Whining or displaying victim behaviour
• Betraying a confidence
• Unnecessary escalation
• Publicizing mistakes
• Attempting a deliberate cover up

The Recruitment Connection
Good people are your best source of other good people. You want your employees to recommend their place of work to those they know. You definitely don't want them to tell their friends and acquaintances not to apply. Any steps you can take to eliminate unhelpful behaviours will improve the work environment and encourage referrals.

And then there's the cost of turnover. If this supervisor doesn't get her act together, her department is going to experience excessive resignations as people will jump at the chance to work somewhere else. That's an expensive proposition. If you're curious about the cost, take a look at Bottom Line Impact where we provide a formula to calculate the hidden cost of turnover.

Here's a real life example of social listening that illustrates how powerful it can be.

Pop up ads were driving me mad. I tried everything to get rid of them. I set and reset my browser's pop up blocker, launched questions on every Windows forum I could find, and ran virus scans every hour. The worst part of this problem is that the pop ups were from Norton, the very people who promised to help me stay productive by protecting me from malware. In desperation I decided to tweet about it. I sent out just one single, half-hearted plea for help:

To my great surprise, someone from Norton  responded! So I launched a challenge...

After just a few more messages back and forth, they diagnosed and fixed the software malfunction that had me tearing out my hair.

Do you think Norton gained anything from this interaction? You bet they did. And it goes way beyond winning me over as a raving fan. Their big win came from learning about a flaw in their software that was probably aggravating a host of less communicative customers - many of whom might find it easier to turn to a competitor's product rather than search for a solution.

The recruitment connection
Your company's hiring and employment experience has probably been the subject of some type of online commentary at some point in time. Indulging in social listening tells you what's being said. Just like Norton, you'll have the opportunity to either congratulate yourselves on a job well done, or you may find yourself the fortunate owner of a problem in need of a solution.

No time? No problem.
Google Alerts are your best friend when it comes to social listening. Simply type in a few relevant words, tell Google how often you want to see the results, add your email address and click "create alert". Done. Google does all the heavy lifting. All you have to do is open the email and decide which links to read. You can go back in and edit the search terms and delivery schedule anytime you like.

People have become pretty savvy when it comes to selecting their next employer. This ten minute daily investment could be just what you need to fine tune challenge areas and leverage advantages.

Is employee retention a key strategy for your company? If you answered yes, try this simple test. Open your annual business plan or corporate objectives document and find the tactics designed to keep your talent happy and engaged. Now take a stroll through your website or intranet and look for reporting mechanisms that capture retention activities and results. You should be able to see who is responsible, how they are held accountable, and there should be some degree of transparency around goals and actual results. 

The average annual turnover range for most companies is 18% - 34%. Best in class is anything in the single digits. Some employers, notably outbound call centres, may experience upwards of 50%.  Let's say your company is average. In fact, let's give you credit for being a good employer with annual turnover at 18% - which is on the low side of average. How much is turnover costing you? According to "Finders & Keepers - Recruitment and Retention Strategies" published by Alberta Human Resources and Employment, the costs are way too high to ignore.

Research demonstrates that the total cost of replacing an employee, counting direct and indirect costs, is within the range of 70 to 200 per cent of their salary. If we go with 100 per cent as a conservative cost estimate, you would calculate:

# of employees who left x average annual salary and benefits = annual cost of turnover

Example:

How would it feel to lose over a quarter of a million dollars from your bottom line? That's exactly what happened in the above snapshot.

If the cost of turnover didn't grab you, how about the cost of lost opportunities? Most of us in business today are interested in growth. How do you grow your business if you're forever recruiting and training new employees? And what about client frustration associated with turnover? Jim Collins said it best in Good to Great:

"The ultimate throttle on growth for any company is the ability to get and keep enough of the right people."

There are as many ways to impact employee retention as there are companies in existence. Your own methods should mirror your organization's values, mission, and employee demographics. However, there are a few best practices with wide application:

• Promote a management style that cares about it workers.
• Show a willingness to invest in your people by providing customized training and development
• Give them your time. There is no more valuable investment than giving your undivided attention to your employees.

To end on a strong note, here's the best employee retention strategy I've ever seen.  It comes from Evernote, the productivity software company. They provide housekeeping services twice monthly to their staff. The reason will blow you away with its simplicity and beauty of strategy. Phil Libin explains... 

We thought that we needed to get spouses and significant others on our side. I want the pressure from them to be, "You better not be thinking about leaving Evernote." I don't want the pressure to be, "Maybe you should think about going somewhere else?"

Feel free to forward this post to the people you work with - or for. You just might be the catalyst for a more effective employee retention strategy in your company.

Does performance ranking make you want to run screaming from the room? You're not alone. 

Most of us would agree that measuring performance is vital to any organization's health. It reveals strengths, quantifies improvement and can provide early warning signs when we're in danger of drifting off course. However something different happens when we discuss performance ranking.

Reactions vary from the minor involuntary cringe to the immediate emptying of the room. How did performance ranking become so controversial and distasteful?

Enter Jack Welch.

Jack is famous for popularizing a type of ranking that is responsible for the negative reputation it has. Admitting it's not a perfect system, he still attributes much of his 20-year success at GE to this method. His vitality model is described by some as forced ranking. It's built on the premise that the top 20% of workers produce most of your results and deserve the biggest time investment; these are your A players. 70% are adequate or steady B players; and 10%, the C players, should be ignored or removed. Hence the infamous term "rank and yank".

Performance ranking is so much more than that.

A good ranking system doesn't start and end with peer comparisons. It should track an employee's movement from newbie to solid performer, and should facilitate some type of future development projection. You know you have a good system on board when it holds employees accountable for results - thereby removing favoritism or a leader's ability to advocate for his team as a means of skewing results. The right model will provide a forum for management teams to create stretch assignments for those performers who are ready for more responsibility - forming an essential element of your employee retention plan. And most importantly, the system should include a ranking chart that forms the foundation of your succession plan. 

You do have a succession plan, don't you?

For your reading pleasure, we have gathered several resources to provide differing points of view as well as tools should you decide to investigate performance ranking for your organization.

• The Canadian Management Centre has an interesting piece entitled "Why Don't Most Companies Manage Performance Well?" (registration required - no fee)
• Try this piece for a balanced view of forced ranking from the Wall Street Journal.
• Read about one manager's experience with forced ranking in this white paper from Development Dimensions International. It also provides an alternate methodology.

The Vancouver Placement Group team made us proud by participating in the 2012 Vancouver Sun Run.

Sponsored by the Vancouver Sun every year since 1985, it has become one of the largest road races in North America attracting more than 50,000 runners. It originated as a way to promote health, fitness and community spirit and has expanded to include fund raising for local charities. The race has generated more than $1M in donations since it began.

The Placement Group Team began preparing for the event several months ago when Annemarie Chapman invited her entire team to suffer with her join the fun. With promises of streets lined with cherry blossoms and the camaraderie of thousands of runners, they accepted the challenge. Together they would cruise the downtown, take a jaunt through Stanley Park, cross two bridges, and end the day with one of the city's largest parties at the Rogers Centre. Some chose to walk, the more hardy among the group ran, while a few mysteriously disappeared.

Braving the chilly weather (L to R): Nicole Bradfield, Sam Birkenhead, Megan Simm, Nicole (Rikki) Russ, Joan Kalacis, Davin Gislason, Annemarie Chapman, and Robin Creamore. Rumour has it that some of the team traded the fitness circuit for the culinary circuit. We don't want to give away any secrets but we did find some rogue text messages and photos depicting three happy diners having just recently conquered Denny's Moon Over My Hammy right around the time our team would have been crossing Burrard Bridge.

The next Sun Run will be held on April 21, 2013. Will you be there?