Salary.com released its annual poll regarding time wasted by employees. It appears that after 3 years of polling, 1.7 to 2.0 hours seems to be the steady average for an 8.5 hour day. The poll seems somewhat silly to me, but I did enjoy these closing graphs: Companies should look on wasted time as comparable to a recess for adults, which can make them more productive in the long run, he said. €œThere is always room for wasting time during the day,€ he said. €œAt some point, you have to step off the treadmill and recharge the batteries. €¦ Not all wasted time is a net loss.€
Continue ReadingA Simple Reward For All
Every company can offer a reward similar to what is offered in this Pioneer Press story – Time off is a great summer motivator at small businesses. Simple. Valued. This is a good approach for any business in developing reward programs especially for Gen Y workers (emphasis mine): Owners do have other ways of motivating staffers in the summer, by catering breakfasts or lunches or sponsoring picnics, trips to museums and other social events. The point is to help make working during the summer more palatable, and, more important, to boost morale in a way that will result in increased productivity all year long. … Besides improving morale and motivating… Read More
Continue ReadingLeadership Development
BusinessWeek.com offers a comprehensive article regarding executive development especially in regards to leadership. Sales executives/managers are underserved in this area. The author provides a handful of suggestions for development engagement, but I want to highlight two of them: €¢ Targeted assessment and development planning as part of succession planning or career path planning; €¢ Peer networking roundtables. Those two topics are right in our wheelhouse. We provide sales executive assessments today that help managers understand their natural strengths and potential blind spots. The reports are important in providing the basis for the sales manager to properly onramp a new salesperson and to retain them over time. To the second bullet… Read More
Continue ReadingAttract The Best And The Brightest
Here’s a good read from BusinessWeek.com titled Engaging Employees. Retaining top employees has always been a business priority, but the Millenials/Gen Y will take this management skill to a new level. That generation is looking for a strong bond with their manager and will gravitate towards managers who possess this ability. And here is a clear description of why attracting and retaining top talent is mission critical: Today’s business world is characterized by globalization, increasing competition, an ever-accelerating pace of change, an overabundance of information, a never-ending technology revolution, a growing number of mergers and acquisitions, layoffs, and a declining talent pool. In this chaotic world, a business can only survive… Read More
Continue ReadingUnderappreciated
These surveys come out on a fairly regular basis. There is a part of me that believes 20 years down the road we will still be seeing similar results to the findings in Inc.com’s Employees Feeling Underappreciated. Of more than 500 full- and part-time employees surveyed nationwide, 35 percent said the company they worked for was ineffective at rewarding strong performance, according to OfficeTeam, a Menlo Park, Calif.-based staffing services firm. At the same time, 30 percent of 150 senior executives surveyed admitted that employee recognition wasn’t a high enough priority. The reason I mention this survey is that that Gen Y/Millenials have a different take on employment. They value… Read More
Continue ReadingChallenge Your Employees
Inc.com reports on a Korn/Ferry survey in Most Employees Believe They Can Outperform Their Bosses. I don’t think the results are all that surprising: Seventy-three percent of executive-level employees believe they would do a better job than their current boss, according to a new survey. … While a majority of executives admitted they would like to be at the top of the ladder, few indicated that they were actually dissatisfied with their boss. In fact, 42 percent of respondents rated their boss’s performance as either “excellent” or “above average,” while an additional 23 percent rated their boss as “average.” Only 11 percent of respondents rated their boss’s performance as “poor.”… Read More
Continue ReadingDisproving Gen Y Myths
Steven Rothberg at CollegeRecruiter.com knows about Gen Y hiring and managing so it is worth listening to him when he expounds on this topic. His post – Three Myths About Gen Y Employees – debunks 3 common myths about Gen Y. I have to admit, I believed all 3 of the myths . . . I don’t any more. Just to give you a taste: Gen Y’ers are disloyal. Myth. They’re loyal but not blindly loyal as were their Baby Boomer parents when their parents were in the twenties. Gen Y’ers are loyal but expect to be fairly compensated for the work they put in. If employers aren’t willing to… Read More
Continue ReadingExcuses NOT To Use When Late!
I have been catching up on some reading while on this business trip and enjoyed an article that gave some outlandish excuses for being tardy to work. The SHRM article, titled Sorry I€™m Late; a Raccoon Stole My Shoe, will prepare you for the next time one of your employees is running late: Someone was following me and I drove all around town trying to lose them. My dog dialed 911 and the police wanted to question me about what really happened. My girlfriend got mad and destroyed all of my undergarments. I woke up and thought I was temporarily deaf. I just wasn€™t €œfeelin€™ it€ this morning. I was… Read More
Continue ReadingMental-Health Day
I love that turn of phrase. And here from Inc.com is another good example of how we have far too many surveys taking place in this country. From When Warm Weather Arrives, More Employees Call in “Sick”: Of 1,077 full-time employees polled, 39 percent said they’ve called in sick to take a day off in the past, and 30 percent said they planned to do so again this summer, according to the “Summer Absenteeism” survey conducted by Harris Interactive. Among employees who faked sick days, most said they used their time off to go to the beach or go shopping. Not surprisingly, the most popular days to skip work were… Read More
Continue ReadingDealing With The High D
Much of the emotional writing around Bob Nardelli (former CEO of Home Depot) involves his pay package and the implication that he was incompetent. But what is the actual transgression he committed? You’ll notice that many of the articles attack his severance package without listing the reason why he was ousted by the board. Home Depot’s profits doubled in his 6 years as CEO. The new housing market was quite strong during this period, but he still deserves credit as being the leader during this time. Today I found a Pioneer Planet article titled Home Depot looks to move past missteps under ex-CEO that finally discusses Nardelli’s “missteps.” The new chief… Read More
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