Article from Greg Smith

Here is the latest article I wrote for your consideration.

"United We Stand . . .Divided We Fall"
Gregory P. Smith

This morning you arrived at work early to check on a special project. As
you enter the building you hear excited voices coming down the hall. As
you walk through the office door, Mary, your Sales Manager, notices the
surprised expression on your face. She says, "Hi boss! I took care of that
project you gave me yesterday and it is running great. We will exceed our
sales goals again this year!" You see your staff huddled around a table
working on the new proposal to improve customer service. They came in
ahead of time to work on the project. Ceiling lights illuminate the charts
and graphs showing progress made.

There are no walls or barriers separating your team from each other. The
room is full of energy, a charged, innovative environment of motivated team
members. They are proud of themselves and their accomplishments. Is this
a dream? Or is this for real?

The advantages of having people work together as teams still remain a
critical element in building a positive work environment and high job
satisfaction. In a rapidly changing world that values technology, speed,
and flexibility, teamwork unites individual efforts and is key for success,
innovation, and creativity.

Teamwork has improved morale, reduced costs, and dramatically enhanced
productivity in businesses. William J. O'Brian, the former CEO of Hanover
Insurance Company said many years ago, "The fundamental movement in
business in the next 25 years will be in dispersing of power, to give
meaning and fulfillment to employees in a way that avoids chaos and
disorder." Teamwork is still a major ingredient in high performing
organizations.

Teams can decrease the need for excessive layers of middle managers and
supervisors. Aetna Life & Casualty reduced the ratio between workers and
middle management from one supervisor to seven workers up to one supervisor
to thirty workers, while improving customer service. At a General Mills'
plant in Lodi, California, productivity escalated to 40 percent above
comparable plants because of teams.

However, many businesses do a poor job building teamwork. I have visited
organizations where open conflict existed between individuals and
departments. Imagine working for a company where individuals do their best
to sabotage each other's efforts. According to the website Mediate.com,
managers spend 30% of their time dealing with conflict. How long can a
business stay viable when people refuse to work together?

Jon Katzenbach and Douglas Smith, in their book, The Wisdom of Teams,
provide an excellent definition of a team. They say, "A team is a small
number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common
purpose, performance goals, and approach for which they hold themselves
mutually accountable."

In their book, the authors talk about the following successful criteria in
high performing teams.

Complementary Skills. Each person on a team possesses a particular skill or
talent. When blended, these talents and skills improve the capability of
the team. In a high performing team, members can perform each other's job.

Committed People. Teams reach maximum performance when they are committed
to each other and trust management. Personalities and human dynamics are
critical to team success. Until team members trust one other, and
understand each other's personalities and individual work styles,
commitment to the project is difficult.

Common Purpose. Most teams work on a particular project, task, or specific
type of work. Committees are not teams. The most effective teams are ones
that have a written charter outlining a clear goal, purpose, and mission.

Common Approach. You can't throw some people into a room and expect them to
become an effective and productive team. Not having a structured way of
doing work is one major reason teams fail. For example, project teams
should follow a standardized methodology for solving problems, designing a
new service, and/or improving a process. Initially, teams require
training, mentoring, and coaching.

Free by E-mail: If you would like a free subscription to our newsletter,
please fax us your letterhead to 770-760-0581 or E-mail us the word
"Navigator" to navigator@chartcourse.com.

Greg Smith is a nationally recognized speaker, author, and business
performance consultant. He has written numerous books and featured on
television programs such as Bloomberg News, PBS television, and in
publications including Business Week, Kiplingers, President and CEO, and
the Christian Science Monitor. He is the President and "Captain of the
Ship" of a management-consulting firm, Chart Your Course International,
located in Atlanta, Georgia. Phone him at 770-860-9464. More articles
available: http://www.chartcourse.com

You can also find photos and my ad if you can use them at this website.

http://www.chartcourse.com/contactus_articles.htm

Note from Greg Smith -- Please renew your article subscription

Hello

You have been receiving articles from us for a while now.  I am trying to update my list and see if you are still interested in receiving articles from us.

If you are still interested, please go to this form and let me know you are still interested.  I know you are super busy, but it should only take a minute.

http://www.chartcourse.com/contactus_articles.htm

Also, for those of you who have been publishing my articles, I would like to ask another favor.  If you have a trade magazine I would like to see if you can return the favor and use one of my ads from time to time. You can use the same link above to download the ad for your magazine.

Best regards,

Greg

==========================
Gregory P. Smith
President
Chart Your Course International

"We show managers how to create high performance
organizations that attract, keep, and motivate their workforce"

Author of:
Here Today Here Tomorrow: How to Transform Your
Organization from High Turnover to High Retention

Phone: (770) 860-9464
http://www.ChartCourse.com
http://www.HighRetention.com
http://www.BehaviorProfile.com

New article: Employee Retention and Turnover

Please consider this article for publication.

Best regards,

Greg

++++++

Transform Your Organization from High Turnover
to High Retention

Each year U.S. businesses spend billions of dollars recruiting and
replacing their employees. Individually, it costs between $2-11K to
replace an hourly employee, and upwards to $40,000 to replace a manager.
One Silicon Valley company estimates the cost of replacing an employee is
over $125,000.

As you know, it is getting difficult to attract and keep skilled
employees. Many businesses and industries are desperate for help and can't
find good people with the right skills and attitudes.

While many leading companies place more effort in employee retention, most
are clueless. They accept employee turnover as a normal part of doing
business. High turnover organizations spend disproportionate amounts of
resources on recruiting and replacing their workforce, while smart
organizations invest in employee retention. Yes, there is going to be
turnover no matter what you do, but blindly ignoring the reasons for
turnover is foolish and expensive.

Employees quit for many reasons but, in general, there are five important
areas that motivate people to leave their jobs.

Poor match between the person and the job
Poor fit with the organizational climate and culture
Poor alignment between pay and performance
Poor connections between the individual, their coworkers, and the supervisor
Poor opportunities for growth and advancement

These five P's can be addressed successfully. Employee retention begins by
paying attention to what causes low job satisfaction as well as what
attracts, retains, and motivates your workforce. Here are a few items to
consider:

Identify and weed out poor managers. The relationship with the employee's
front-line manager is the most common reason people leave. La Rosa's is a
large restaurant business with over 3000 employees. As part of their
employee retention strategy, all employees evaluate their bosses twice a
year using a special report card. It asks the employees to give their
managers a letter grade from A to D in four categories. Any score less than
a "B" requires a specific comment from the employee. After it's completed,
they tabulate the comments and design action plans for improvement.

Hold managers accountable for turnover. Set specific responsibilities for
Human Resources, supervisors, and executives on what their specific role is
in employee retention. Train managers so they understand what leads to
higher retention and greater job satisfaction. Hold managers responsible
for retention in their departments, set turnover goals for each manager,
and track accordingly. Promote managers whose behavior is consistent with
the organization's values and philosophies.

Create a positive work environment. Money and benefits may bring employees
through the front door, but poor work conditions drive them out the back.
In its National Study of the Changing Workforce, the Families and Work
Institute showed earnings and benefits have only a 3 percent impact on job
satisfaction. "Job quality" and "workplace support" have a combined 70
percent.

Develop an "Onboarding" program for the first 90 days on the job. Don't
hire and abandon your new employees. Insure they get the support, training,
and assistance they need. Quint Studer, CEO of the Studer Group, a
consulting firm in Gulf Breeze, Florida, finds companies that take steps to
"re-recruit" new employees can improve performance and reduce turnover in
their first three months by as much as 66 percent.

Enhance connections between co-workers, managers, and the organization. To
build stronger bonds between the top management and employees, one
corporate office practices something called Employee Scavenger Hunt. Once
or twice a year, they give every executive or manager five names of
employees. They find each person, meet them, and learn about them as
individuals. The process builds a better bond, improves communication, and
builds trust within the organization.

Hire the best and avoid the rest. Research shows those organizations that
spend more time recruiting high-caliber people earn 22% higher return to
shareholders than their industry peers. Cisco CEO John Chambers said, "A
world-class engineer with five peers can out produce 200 regular
engineers." Instead of waiting for people to apply for jobs, good
organizations are always on the lookout for high-caliber people.

Provide learning opportunities. For many people, learning new skills is as
important as the money they make. Identify career paths and provide
developmental opportunities for employees early in their jobs with the
organization. Promote on-going, two-way communication between employees and
their immediate managers regarding career progress. In a study by Linkage,
Inc. people said they would consider leaving their present employer for
another job with the same benefits if that job provided better career
development and greater challenges.

Make people feel appreciated. People want to be paid well, but also would
like to be treated with respect and appreciation. Find creative ways to
make people feel good about their job. We have helped organizations set up
something called, "peer recognition." Peer recognition allows people to
reward each other for doing a good job. It works because employees are in
the best position to catch people doing the right things. TD Industries in
Dallas, Texas, helps their employees feel valued by using one wall within
the company to place photographs of all employees who have been with the
them more than five years. They also try to make everyone feel equal and
have no reserved parking spaces for executives. That is one reason why TD
Industries was listed by Fortune magazine as one of the Top 100 Best Places
to Work.

Measure attitudes of your workforce. High-retention workplaces are using
employee climate assessments to measure the attitudes and feeling of their
workforce. Every organization should conduct some form of climate
assessment periodically during the year.

Focus on individuals. You must manage retention one employee at a time.
Focus on the key jobs that have the most impact on profitability and
productivity. Everyone has a different set of needs and expectations about
their jobs. By conducting an individual retention profile, managers can
quickly identify the employee's unique motivations, goals, level of job
satisfaction, as well as other expectations.

Focus on the family. One small company gives their employees' children a
$50 Savings Bond twice a year when they get straight A's on their report
cards. Another survey of 1,000 companies showed half of them let workers
stay home with mildly ill children without using vacation or sick days.
Two-thirds permit flextime defined as allowing employees to adjust work
hours on a daily basis.

Visit our website to download a free employee retention assessment and a
cost of turnover calculator to determine how much turnover is costing your
business. Please go to: http://www.highretention.com/cost-of-turnover.html

Gregory P. Smith shows executives and business owners how to reduce
employee turnover and build high retention workplaces. He is the author of
Here Today Here Tomorrow: Transforming Your Workforce from High Turnover to
High Retention. He speaks at conferences, conducts management training, and
is the President of a management consulting firm, Chart Your Course
International located in Atlanta, Georgia. Phone him at (770) 860-9464 or
send an email at greg@chartcourse.com. More information and articles are
available at www.ChartCourse.com and www.HighRetention.com.

Article: Make Your Customers Say Wow by Greg Smith

Here is my latest article for your consideration.

Make Your Customers Say "Wow!"

I want to tell you a story about a recent trip to Cedar Rapids, Iowa.  I travel a lot and sometimes for fun, my luggage and I have a competition to see which one of us makes it to the destination first. 

We had a quick connection in Chicago where I hoped and prayed my luggage would make it on the next plane.  The good thing about the Cedar Rapids airport is you don't have to wait long for luggage.  Our airplane was the only one at there. Well, guess what? No luggage.  I won the race again.

My next move was to rent a car and drive to Iowa City to conduct an executive retreat for a client, my final destination.  I presented myself at the Enterprise car rental counter.  Now, if you are like me, you have reached a point in your life where you just expect poor service. You expect to be treated like a robot, a sub-human, or a clod of dirt.  I soon found out this customer experience was going to be different.

The interaction started off as usual . . .some nameless guy asking for my credit card and drivers license.  Then something unusual happened. The young man stood up, reached over the counter, and shook my hand.  It wasn't one of those dead fish kind of handshakes, but a real strong, glad to meet you handshake.  I almost feel out of my shoes in shock.  Wow!

In my entire life, no car rental agency person has ever shaken my hand.  Most people in other car rental places could care less if I showed up or not.  Well, this young man was amazing.  He finished all the paperwork and asked me to sign those blank spaces on the contract; all the while I was trying to compose myself from the handshake experience.  For all I know, I could have agreed to rent the car for $2000 a day.  But at that point I didn't care.  I was beside myself.

Then he did it again.  He stood up, walked around the counter, and shook my hand one more time. Then he said, "Mr. Smith, we appreciate your business."  I was blown away. 

Here is an important fact to remember. A Gallup survey showed a customer who is �emotionally connected� to your place of business is likely to spend 46% more money than a customer who is merely "satisfied" but not emotionally bonded.

To get your customers to say "Wow," you need to follow these four steps of exceptional service.

Select the right people.  Most businesses do a poor job hiring people. They hire just anyone and then place them on the front-line with customers. This in turn runs them away to the competition.  So spend more time recruiting and hiring the "right" people with good personalities.

Set performance standards. Outline specific steps on how employees are to act, speak, and respond to customer needs and requests.  If you let your employees decide how to act, there is no telling what they will do.

Sustain on-going training and reinforcement. Good customer service skills do not come naturally. Successful businesses make good skills a habit. They reinforce and train their staff on a recurring basis.

Specify consequences for good behaviors.  You must hold people accountable. Reward those who exceed the standards and develop those who do not.

For a free fact sheet, "How to Hire Exceptional People Each and Every Time," please call (770) 860-9464 or (800) 821-2487 or visit our website at: http://www.chartcourse.com/greatservice.html

Greg Smith helps create high performance organizations that attract, keep, and motivate their workforce.  As President of Chart Your Course International he has designed and implemented professional development programs for hundreds of organizations globally. As a business growth consultant, he has helped business owners reduce turnover, increase sales, deliver better customer service, and reach long-term prosperity. He is also the author of Here Today, Here Tomorrow: Transforming Your Workforce from High Turnover to High Retention, the New Leader, and several other books. For more information, visit http://www.chartcourse.com or call (800) 821-2487 or (770) 860-9464. 
 
 
 

 

==========================
Gregory P. Smith
President
Chart Your Course International
Examiner, Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award

"We show managers how to create high performance
organizations that attract, keep, and motivate their workforce"

Author of:
Here Today Here Tomorrow: How to Transform Your
Organization from High Turnover to High Retention

Phone: (770) 860-9464
http://www.ChartCourse.com
http://www.HighRetention.com
http://www.BehaviorProfile.com

New Article

Please consider this new article for your publication.

Best,

Greg Smith


What Good Managers Must Do
 
Gregory P. Smith

One morning at the airport, I overheard an employee talking about her new boss. “He’s a nice guy,” she said. “He makes me feel good about working here.”

Like many employees, this young woman is more influenced by her boss’s “soft” skills than his technical skills. His interpersonal skills were what mattered most: including his ability to communicate, motivate and showing genuine concern. These interpersonal traits influence people to decide to quit or stay.  When a manager lacks these skills, or actively cultivates their hard-edged opposite, workers who have choices will jump ship or lower their productivity.

I experienced this myself when I went into the military service right after college.  My boss was a special person—a great boss. An experienced veteran and a former Special Forces medic, he was the type of person who always put the needs of others before his own.

One night I pulled duty that required me to stay up all night on New Year’s Eve. It was a night that seemed it would never end. I was tired and miserable.  Saturday morning, when I still had several more hours to go, the phone rang.  It was Joe, my boss. He asked if I had plans for lunch and that his wife had made something and wanted to bring it over to me. While I don’t remember what food they brought over, it was a meal I never forgot.

That one small act of kindness showed me he cared.  It taught me more about leadership than all the degrees and diplomas hanging on my wall.  It confirmed the truth of the old military saying, “If you take care of your troops, your troops will take care of you.” It’s still true today, no matter what kind of business you are in. 

The older I get and the more I see reinforces that leadership techniques and fads change with the times, but caring about individuals holds constant. Caring for people can’t be faked or replaced.

On the other hand, no manager should be a pushover. A caring manager must also be respected. He or she must be able to generate results.

Soon after my boss treated me to that special meal, he gave me the worst chewing out I’d ever had. I deserved it and did something to deserve it. It hurt more—and made a deeper impression on me—because of the respect I had for him. When you respect someone, you always value what he or she has to say.

Businesses that do a good job selecting, training, and developing their managers will enjoy higher productivity and lower turnover.  While it’s hard to measure the impact soft skills have on productivity, I strongly believe an employee who feels good about working for a company or a boss will want to contribute much more than the minimum acceptable level.

In the years I led people, I never met an “average” worker—only people I saw the potential to become much better.  I think it was General Omar Bradley who said, “There are no such thing as bad soldiers, only bad leaders.”  Sure--the workplace has its share of problematic and difficult to manage individuals.  There are many bad managers.  But what I notice is good managers are able to transform difficult people into better people.  Exceptional workers have exceptional managers as their leaders. The only difference between the two groups is the quality of the leader.

I imagine my first boss saw me as an “average” individual with a short attention span, high maintenance, inexperienced, and scattered brained.  Fortunately for me, he took the time to train and develop me, even though it often frustrated him. He was a true leader. He understood leadership of people is a transformation process, and with the right tools and a willing attitude, he could make the transformation happen.

Greg Smith helps organizations accelerate workplace performance. He is a nationally recognized speaker and author. He has written five books including his latest, Here Today, Here Tomorrow: Transforming Your Workforce from High Turnover to High Retention. Greg has been featured on Bloomberg News, PBS television, and in publications including Business Week, USA Today, Kiplinger's, President and CEO, and the Christian Science Monitor. He is the President of a management-consulting firm, Chart Your Course International, located in Atlanta, Georgia. Phone him at 770-860-9464. More articles available: http://www.chartcourse.com

==========================
Gregory P. Smith
President
Chart Your Course International
Examiner, Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award

"We show managers how to create high performance
organizations that attract, keep, and motivate their workforce"

Author of:
Here Today Here Tomorrow: How to Transform Your
Organization from High Turnover to High Retention

Phone: (770) 860-9464
http://www.ChartCourse.com
http://www.HighRetention.com
http://www.BehaviorProfile.com

Employee of the Month Programs Don't Work

Employee of the Month Programs Don't Work

Here is a question sent to me:

I attended your session in Philadelphia called, "The Care and Feeding of
Staff: Energize, Engage, and Motivate Your Work Force." It The timing
was just right. Our firm is beginning an 'Employee of the Month Award'.
We hope this will be a morale booster.

I wanted to know if you could give me any pointers. Can you suggest
some criteria for such an award? Also, should the employees decide what
criteria will be used?

Our law firm is relatively small. We have five attorneys with a support
staff of ten. Several employees have over fifteen years service with the
company. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thank You, Richard

My reply:

I applaud your efforts in wanting to create a reward and recognition
system, but being a small firm makes an EOM program that much more
challenging.

Most of the Employee of the Month programs I have seen rarely work as
intended. The results fall short, and in some cases the program can do
more harm than good. Why?

Fairness is the main problem. Any program that selects only one winner
is bound and determined to make others feel like losers. Also, employees
must be nominated to be considered. But what happens to people who
deserve recognition, but work for managers who do not take the time to
nominate anyone? What happens to people who maintain nontraditional work
schedules such as those who telecommute or work remotely? Honoring one
person a month also defeats teamwork. Instead of only recognizing one
employee, many of my clients recognize the "Team of the Month."

The goal of any reward and recognition program is to encourage,
recognize, and show appreciation to those who work in your office.
However, the most important reason is to align behaviors with the goals
making your organization successful. Most organizations miss this
important point.

Since you are a small firm, your candidate pool is very limited. You will
fall in to the trap of giving the EOM only to a few people--your top
performers. Or on the other hand, you may be forced to rotate the EOM
award from person to person, whether they deserve it or not, just to meet
the requirement each month. Is this your intention?

One organization we worked with was unhappy with the results of their EOM
program. Every month managers nominated one person for selection. Part
of the difficulty was that person had to compete against people working
in eight different locations. A committee of eight senior managers, one
from each building, selected only one winner. The winner was awarded a
savings bond.

There are several weaknesses with this program. First, the winners felt
uncomfortable winning the award. They realized there were coworkers just
as deserving as they. Second, there were others in the organization who
were never considered or nominated. They felt "ignored" and not
appreciated. Then there were those who felt the managers were playing
favorites--you had to "brown nose" your boss in order to win. The
program generated more negative feelings than good. Something had to
change.

The organization followed our recommendation to allow the employees
themselves the opportunity to redesign a better system. We convened a
problem-solving team consisting of one volunteer from each location. At
the first meeting, we outlined the options they could consider. Then we
let them go to work.

An hour or two later they came up with a brand new program. They decided
to create a peer selection process. They did not want management to make
the selection. Each building would run a separate Employee of the Month
program. Then they decided to collect money to buy a plaque for each
building to display winners' names. Finally, the staff would take the
winner out for breakfast each month and provide them a reserved parking
space near the front door of their office.

Greg Smith helps create high performance organizations that attract,
keep, and motivate their workforce. As President of Chart Your Course
International he has designed and implemented professional development
programs for hundreds of organizations globally. As a business growth
consultant, he has helped business owners reduce turnover, increase
sales, deliver better customer service, and reach long-term prosperity.
Greg is published in hundreds of trade publications. He is also the
author of Here Today, Here Tomorrow: Transforming Your Workforce from
High Turnover to High Retention, the New Leader, and several other books.
For more information, visit http://www.chartcourse.com or call (800)
821-2487 or (770) 860-9464.

Welcome to the Employee Retention Blog

Chart Your Course International is a management development and consulting firm located in the Atlanta area. We focus on employee retention and talent management. We show executives and business owners how to attract and keep customers and build organizations that retain and motivate their workforce.

Our company has been featured in Business Week, Kiplinger’s Personal Finance, USA Today, President and CEO, and other publications. He has appeared on television programs including Bloomberg Business News and PBS television.

Greg's background in organizational behavior has guided dozens of businesses with measurable improvements in reduced turnover, increased sales, better customer service, improved communication, and the morale of all concerned.

For more information please call us or visit http://www.highretention.com or call 770-860-9464