From the Front Management™

Employees Have Thoughts About the Company Often

First we will get the pay out of the way. Though employees should be paid market value because this is simply fair, pay is not a long term motivator but it certainly can be demotivating. The pay scale should be understood by employees along with market values with the ability to ask for a raise should a job change occur. It should be noted that employees are concerned with pay compression as part of this. Though it is normally not allowed to discuss pay in the work place, it does occur and the companies need to be aware of long term and new hires getting close in pay. The employee impression that new hires are paid more, make more quicker, or are close in pay after years of service of longer term employees  often has some truth if compression is not watched.

A lot of management is a perception. This often comes about when employees feel that they cannot make decisions but instead just follow orders from the boss. This has also been talked about how managers micro-manage. The employee feels like they are watched at all times. Though there are times to watch and keep employees accountable, it is also beneficial to have employees make decisions and given freedom to do their jobs.

Availability of managers is talked about when employees feel they can never seem to find a manger when needed or that the manager does not listen or have time. Employees want to be able to speak face to face at least some of the time. The employee can also feel that though a manager is available, or has time, the manager is unapproachable. There is a feeling that the manager is bothered by the interruption. The message here is that the employee is not important.

Employees like to work in an organized and clean facility. Whether you hear this or not the employees will notice if the facility is clean. The customers will too. But the employees will take this as a sign that the company does not care how it looks.

Employees want to be treated fairly. They want to know the manager looks at each employee the same in regards to work. Even when employees make mistakes, and maybe especially, the employees want to know that the correction will be the same for all.

So all of this is saying that employees want to be treated with respect and feel that it is recognized by management that they have importance and value.  Not having time, not listening, not being available can easily give the impression that employees don’t matter.  Once employees have the perception that managers don’t care the employees will start to disengage and not care.   It is their reaction to a situation they don’t like.

It Goes BY – In Business

What do you want to accomplish? This is something that should be thoughtabout and decided. Working at a company can advance careers, heighten reputations, assist in getting new jobs, and develop a person. Without knowing what is being worked towards and having a plan, making goals and especially taking action – nothing will happen. Yes the days will be worked and the job will get done but that is where it will stay. But there is another thing that will happen, time will go by quickly.

Most, if not all businesses are aware that goals are needed to keep things on track. There are meetings, planning, plans written and communication given on what to work towards. Often however this is completely about the company and what the employees need to accomplish. Even with plans companies or employees may get into ruts. The days are the same, the work is getting done, and there doesn’t seem too much out of the ordinary. People seem to relax in these situations and time passes. It seems like a pattern isformed that everyone kind of falls into.

We often recognize when sports teams and athletes get in a rut. No one can figure out why or pinpoint the reason and usually we are content to wait, at least for a while, for the person or team to come out of it. Sometimes a leader will mix things up to light the fire back up. Developing new and innovative ideas is important to keeping things moving.

Though people like to feel comfortable in a workplace, too much comfort has drawbacks. There is little to look forward to as people go to work.

Team members want to matter. Soliciting ideas and trying new things helps to keep the thinking alive and vibrant. A workplace that is too routine makes employees dull. They want to know they are working towards the future.

A manager also wants to know this. So having and mentoring a team towards success helps that manager reach personal goals. Each individualshould be working towards the goals that will make work and life better. It is having the plan that will accomplish this as other members are also helped in achieving their goals. Individual goals and team goals all headed for the success each wants.

It Goes By — Happens in Business

What do you want to accomplish? This is something that should be thought about and decided. Working at a company can advance careers, heighten reputations, assist in getting new jobs, and develop a person. Without knowing what is being worked towards and having a plan, making goals and especially taking action – nothing will happen. Yes the days will be worked and the job will get done but that is where it will stay. But there is another thing that will happen, time will go by quickly.

Most, if not all businesses are aware that goals are needed to keep things on track. There are meetings, planning, plans written and communication given on what to work towards. Often however this is completely about the company and what the employees need to accomplish. Even with plans companies or employees may get into ruts. The days are the same, the work is getting done, and there doesn’t seem too much out of the ordinary. People seem to relax in these situations and time passes. It seems like a pattern is formed that everyone kind of falls into. We often recognize when sports teams and athletes get in a rut.

No one can figure out why or pinpoint the reason and usually we are content to wait, at least for a while, for the person or team to come out of it. Sometimes a leader will mix things up to light the fire back up. Developing new and innovative ideas is important to keeping things moving. Though people like to feel comfortable in a workplace, too much comfort has drawbacks. There is little to look forward to as people go to work. Team members want to matter. Soliciting ideas and trying new things helps to keep the thinking alive and vibrant.

A workplace that is too routine makes employees dull. They want to know they are working towards the future. A manager also wants to know this. So having and mentoring a team towards success helps that manager reach personal goals. Each individual should be working towards the goals that will make work and life better. It is having the plan that will accomplish this as other members are also helped in achieving their goals. Individual goals and team goals all headed for the success each wants.

Bad Bosses Do Exist

Types of bosses that leave something to be desired:

Vain    There is a problem when a person cannot see another’s perspective.   Its bad enough is someone thinks he or she looks better than everyone else.  When that person, especially in a boss situation, makes the employees feel like they are inferior to the boss, there will be problems.  Most of the time it will be reverse disregarding.  The boss disregards the employees and the employees do the same.

Chaotic. Not good when a boss is hysterically disorganized. Examples, yes it really happened, calling meetings and forgetting to come.  When attending a meeting, and meandering around some idea of an agenda. A manager that is not interested in the dialogue and it became apparent that the boss wasted everyone’s time with not much if anything getting accomplished.

Exhibitionist. Boss that is loud. He either had no sense of just how loud he was — or he wanted us all to hear every phone call he made. Of course, while he was talking it was impossible for anyone else to get any work done. That many of these calls were personal didn’t help.

Indecisive. A boss that was always certain he was right — until he changed his mind, when he became right again. Every day was a different scenario. The fact that we all had to act on his decisions — and often undo yesterday’s work to fit in with today’s agenda — never seemed to bother him. What drove these changes of mind was never explicit or convincing.

Dishonest.  This is a big one.  A boss that avoids answering questions.  A boss that tells actual lies thinking the employees won’t find out.  A boss that talks about other employees when none of that information should be shared with other employees.  A manager that states things that are not true because the boss does not know the rules and procedures.

So what do you do when around a bad boss?

Wherever you are you have to remember that what you do is about your reputation.  People will notice your reactions and way of being along with the work you do.

1. Deliver the best project and work you can. Make sure you can be proud of what you do.

2. Identify areas for personal development. Extend your contacts, develop some area of expertise.  This has to do about you and has nothing to do with the boss.

3. Don’t attack. It’s tempting, when working for bad bosses, to attack them or to demonstrate in public how useless they are. Don’t wreck your reputation trying to wreck his.

4. Move on.   Working for a bad boss can be and probably is demoralizing, frustrating, and maddening. Get away as soon as you can.

Take care of you.  Do a great job.  People will notice the work you do other than your boss.  Go home being proud.  Keep a check on what you can tolerate and if necessary get a new more rewarding job.  People leave bosses at times.  It’s ok to transfer, find a new job, or to simply decide that a bad boss won’t stop your great work.

Reason Teams Fracture

There are symptoms that teams are beginning to not function well even if they have in the past. These manifest in different ways. The most obvious are that more absences begin to happen along with people being late. But more will occur that has to do with attitude. Employees will seem to lose energy with everything taking longer or worse a feeling that employees don’t care as much. I personally don’t think that employees don’t care but instead are upset with a situation.

This sometimes comes from changes in the company that were not communicated well that make the employees nervous. It can come from cut backs or budget cuts. It can however come from a feeling of not being listened to and ideas from the employees never being used. It can occur when employees to not feel like management is involved in the daily operation. If employees are never praised and only hear from management when something goes wrong it will take little time to have moral go down.

What about the goals of the team and company? Do the employees know what these are? What are the goals the team is working towards? Just like any human being if people are doing the same things over and over without being challenged boredom has a way of creeping in. This can also cause a slower attitude or a feeling that nothing ever changes.

Teams can fracture quickly if there is not respect for each and every member of the team. This is extremely important and should be emphasized. Each person should be expected to help one another, cheer each other on, and be a part of the solutions that make the team even better.

Any time a team fractures even a little the customer is the one that pays. Attitudes affect the way that employees deal with customers. The team takes care of the customers and needs to be sharp and up in thinking because the customer just wants the product or service. A team will fracture as soon as the people on it think they are not being considered or cared about.

Rewarding Mediocrity – The Disconnect

Have you ever experienced poor customer service?  I’ll bet that at least 99.9 % of the people reading this article will answer yes.  Now I suppose most of the time many of us will pass that off as just a bad day or one bad employee.  Perhaps it is and yet if most people have experienced poor customer service then it becomes an occurrence that is happening all too often.

Any incident of poor customer service that is not corrected immediately is giving a message that there is an acceptance of a lower standard.  When an employee makes a mistake that is understandable and it simply needs correction.

Anytime employees are not kept accountable for the understood standards of service it sends the message that sub-standard work is acceptable.  In other words it sends the message that it is fine to be mediocre or work at an average level.  Anytime a supervisor or manager lets something “slide”, the message is the same.   Letting things slide tells employees it’s OK not to finish the job. The message is that management does not have high expectations so the employees don’t need to have these either. It’s rewarding a part of the job not completed.

Keeping people accountable does not always mean there is discipline that is necessary.    There are many ways to keep people accountable.  Simple reminders whether spoken or written, checking in on how things are going, asking customers, asking other departments, checking paperwork, and many more.  It is letting the employees know that you as the manager are involved and are keeping track of the team.  It tells people that the job they do is important.

If this is not occurring the employees will know almost immediately.  If there is a perception that the manger does not care enough to keep people accountable then the employees don’t need to care.  This spills over to the customers.  Now there is a disconnect between the employees and the manager and a disconnect between the employees and the customers.  Once this disconnect occurs it will almost always result in poor customer service.

The disconnect has occurred when the other party (person) is not considered.  This happens in different ways and not all the time but usually repeats.  As some examples, it may be that an employee acts like a customer is a bother, or a manager never seems to have time for the employees.  It could be an assignment didn’t get done without a reasonable explanation or even that a manager micro-manages at all times.  There is a non-caring or non- trusting attitude going on.

Accepting mediocrity hurts everyone.  Mediocre means that nothing stands out, or it’s neither good nor bad, or it’s just status quo.  It is just being average. Wouldn’t that be great to be known for? One of the causes of mediocrity is the disconnect.

Dysfunctional Company

To really solve a problem it needs to be identified first, here are seven signs of a dysfunctional company leadership:

I am better than you effect. When executives make decisions in without input or communication always separating themselves in their expansive offices, it creates a divide between management and employees. Though I have seen executives have lunch with employees, stop and talk in the hallway, hand out candy at Halloween, have frontline employee meetings, and allow employees to visit their offices for a few minutes unannounced.  Very impressive.

When executives overreact.  They overreact to some point and start yelling where employees or customers can hear as a show of power, or something, it does nothing but takes reputation down. Often the result of hallway meetings is a bad taste in everyone’s mouth and a loss of respect for the executive.

Never ending discussion. Committees are great and meetings are useful when there is direction.  When there is not it is a waste to continue to meet and get nothing done but talking.  If 3 months have passed and nothing has moved it is simply costing money, wasting time, and rather boring.

Independent department syndrome.  This is when teams, departments or entire divisions act as if they’re independent from the rest of the company and have to fight for everything they get at the expense of everyone else.  This causes a climate where working together is not prevalent.

Degrading anyone in public by the executive.   Usually happening when in a meeting.  The executive picks a director and makes sure everyone knows that a mistake was made and further demeans that it was unbelievable the director missed or made the mistake.  Especially harsh when done in front of these directors employees.   However the executive usually looks like the fool.

When employees are quiet.  Well they talk to each other but not to Human Resources or to management.  There is a fear of their jobs or they believe nothing will get corrected.  This is an immense sign that disengagement has occurred and people are getting through the day.  There also will probably be a retention issue soon if it has not already occurred.  This often comes from an aloof and unreachable executive.

Hopefully there is no company that has all of these.  But it is always great to take a look and make sure that any of the above events are not happening or getting corrected.

About From the Front Management

7 Management Tips

1. Smaller Teams Within Teams – Especially of you have a large team to begin with; make up teams of 3 or 4 to take care of an aspect of the department.  It gets them involved and gives them responsibility that is important but not overwhelming.

2. Show Your Enthusiasm – be proud and tell them.  Have an up mood.  Get excited about your team doing a great job. Employees follow the lead of the manager.

3. Be Specific Clear concise.  A question is asked — answer it until the employee is satisfied and understands.  Don’t make it too short like you don’t have time but also don’t make it so long winded that the employee gets bored.  Employees want to know the answer but don’t want to be talked to for long periods of time.  Human attention really is about 20 minutes of listening only.

4. Assign Projects In Parts – If there are a lot of things to get done, and there usually is, give it out a little at a time. There will be better understanding and they won’t get overwhelmed or frustrated.  They also will see progress and have accomplishments along the way.  It’s also easier to keep track of the progress.

5. Act quickly – It should be about correcting problems right away.  It should be about resolving issues. Instead of putting them aside and having time pass get rid of the issues.  The employees will appreciate it and this will also lessen frustrations.  It shows the manager cares and responds to issues.

6. Smile  Often –  Take a minute in the morning to stand at the entrance of your place of work and greet employees and staff as they enter the building or department. Thank them for being there. Smile. Look for the good.  It’s easy to see problems.  Look for what is going right.

7. Back to Basics  – The biggest thing is to never forget all if this is about humans. A hand-written and thoughtful thank you note goes a long way in rewarding employees.  Shake hands when congratulating someone.  At times order pizza for the team just to say thanks and for no other reason.  Know that humans have emotions and these will fluctuate but remind employees that customers have emotions too and the point of the work is to give amazing service to these customers.

The point of the tips is a reminder that people respond to positive feedback.  It is also the manager’s job to find ways to uplift the team and keep the team on track.  It is important that the employees get feedback but also see a regular person in the manager.  A person that cares, responds, and supports the employees.  They are very aware of who the boss is.  It’s having the human factor in conducting business for the simple reason that employees, managers, and customers are humans.  Employees take their cues from their managers.

Employee Engagement: What’s in a Word?

The words “employee engagement” are being used (or possibly over-used) in recent discussions in the business community regarding employee attitudes and performance in the workplace.  A word or phrase repeated often enough becomes the “ buzz word” of the moment.  What happens next is that the word or phrase loses value and we feel justified in ignoring it.  In fact, we may even feel that we should ignore it on principal.  This phenomenon interests me because if there is something that is being constantly repeated there just may be a problem or concern that needs our attention.

In business we have discussions on topics like productivity, efficiency, workflow, and incentives.  Are these now going to be called buzz words that no longer need attention?  Of course not, because we all recognize that these elements are an important part of doing business and need to be talked about.  Exactly.  We need to give our attention to correcting problems along the way and keeping things on track.

So we get to the words” employee engagement” that are being used to describe a very real and current business concern and incredibly it’s labeled as a buzz word enabling us all to just move on by.  Nothing needs to be addressed here.  I say call it anything you want,  decreased employee involvement, or decreased discretionary effort, maybe lack of motivation, employees acting like they don’t care, dissatisfied employees, employees wanting to leave for a new job, feeling like they don’t matter to the company, employees tolerating their circumstances, or whatever you want to think up. Did the underlying concept change? No. We still have a problem.

It is clear that when a situation, term, concern, or problem is talked about repeatedly in different industries and countries, there is an issue that needs attention.  There are many that have discussed this subject both positively and negatively.  Business forums like Gallop, Forbes, and others have brought attention to employee engagement. Why? Because we are losing millions. Many, but not enough, realize that the front line is the key to change but haven’t yet figured out what to do. And then there are those who still think we don’t need to do anything. After all, if the front line employees are disengaged they need to fix themselves, right?

Something just doesn’t make sense, as in BIG PROBLEM, no ready solution; it’s a buzz word anyway so let’s ignore it.

When an issue is getting so much attention the logical response in my mind is to go after solutions immediately. But if we keep doing the same things we have been doing to address this we all know the outcome we can expect. Perhaps it’s time to get back to basics, to the critical but unquantifiable elements in the relationship between management and employees. Graphs, statistics, metrics and all that stuff are not going to get it done this time. We need to look at the human factor. This is the area that can cause upper management to tremble, but the company that has the courage and foresight to understand that we can’t create exceptional human performance by deleting the humanity from the workforce is a company that will overcome this problem and reap the rewards.

How can this get done? Recognize and acknowledge that the frontline employees are the prime movers. Unless they feel (human factor) energized (engaged) the business can expect to be, at best, mediocre. The frontline manager gets this done, but not any frontline manager. It takes a frontline manager trained in the coaching aspects that empower this manager. Only the empowered frontline manager will get exceptional results. Empowered to do what? Empowered to give attention to the frontline employees in meaningful ways (human) that energize and engage them. It takes a manager that is supported while supporting the employees. And a manager empowered to put emphasis on the relationship between manager and employee. This starts the critical energy exchange that some are referring to as “employee engagement”. Another word for this is “success”.

Keeping Employee Involvement

There has been a lot of talk about employee interaction or employee engagement.  HUman resources is talking about it because this is so costly not to have.  The McKinsey report, Forbes, Harvard Business all know that this costs billions of dollars a year to have employees disengaged.  The numbers are staggering when seeing that the gallup poll estimates it to be about 71% of employees disengaged in the United States alone, let alone the world.

It seems though that what is not being talked about is how to fix it.  This is the area that is given by humans.  Some all it “discretionary effort”, “conscious giving”, “going the extra mile”, giving 100%, and of course engagement.  It is not something that can be bought or forced by intimidation and can be subtle as it slips away.  When employees feel that they have little worth, are treated poorly, or feel the company or manager does not care (to name a few), the human reaction will be to retreat.  Of course this will happen because of preservation.  Thus the productivity will slip alond with less involvement.  Sure the minimum will get done to keep the job but normally the extras will begin to fade.

This will not be a quick fix by putting in an adjustment here and an adjustment there.  Instead it must become a way of being having the frontline manager become the advocate and foundation for the frontline teams.  The frontline manager needs to be trained to become the coach of these employees.  This is a mindset change by companies hputting the emphasis on the frontline managers that directly influence the frontline employees.  This is the biggest cost to companies and the face of companies to the customers.

It is hard to imagine why this is not getting attention right away with the immense loss in revenue that occurs.  Plus the loss of employee engagement and involvement in company and customer interactions.