Tag: employee retention (Page 3 of 4)

How To Train Staff (with a funny HR video thrown in)

January 17, 2013 / HRwisdom

How To Train Staff (with a funny HR video thrown in)

The issue of how to train staff is one of the key issues addressed in the free HR guide available for instant download at HRwisdom now.

In the HRwisdom Community Employee Attraction & Retention Guide, sixteen expert employee management practitioners from all areas of the human resources field offer their best employee attraction & retention advice.

How To Train Staff

Much of the information in the comprehensive free guide goes towards addressing staff development and motivation issues.

In the wider context, the free guide has been developed to help business owners and Human Resources professionals who want to fast-track their staff management success.

One such expert contributor is Anthony Sork.

Anthony Sork is the creator of the Employment Attachment Inventory. The world first, internationally patented business instrument used by leading organisations to increase employee attachment, reduce attrition and increase performance of new employees.

Anthony describes how it is easy to preach about the importance of induction in an employee’s level of attachment. However the challenges of managing that induction in a way that works for the employee, the business and the HR team can be confronting. He then shares excellent advice on effective inductions and how to train staff.

For instant download of the comprehensive free “HRwisdom Community Employee Attraction & Retention Guide,” click on Employee Attraction & Retention Guide or visit www.hrwisdom.com.au/HR-Advice now.

Funny HR Video On Teamwork

To balance out the high powered ideas you’ll gain from reading the employee attraction & retention guide, we thought you’d might enjoy this short but funny HR video . . .

Remember, for instant download of the comprehensive free “HRwisdom Community Employee Attraction & Retention Guide,” click on Employee Attraction & Retention Guide or visit www.hrwisdom.com.au/HR-Advice now.

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How To Calculate Employee Turnover

January 17, 2013 / HRwisdom

The impact of understanding how to calculate employee turnover is one of the key issues addressed in a free guide available for instant download at HRwisdom.com.au now.

In the new “The HRwisdom Community Employee Attraction & Retention Guide,” sixteen expert employee management practitioners from all areas of the human resources field offer their best employee attraction & retention advice.

How to calculate employee turnover rate is a question sometimes asked by members of the HRwisdom community.

How to calculate employee turnover?

The employee turnover rate or staff turnover rate is simply a percentage of employee leavers versus the standard headcount over a given period of time.

How to calculate employee turnover: take the number of employees leaving, divide that by the average total number of employees, and then multiply the outcome by 100 (to give you a percentage).

The number of employees leaving and the total number of employees are usually measured over a year or sometimes month by month.

So, if on average your business or department had 190 employees last month and 43 employees left last month, you’re left trying to sort out an employee turnover rate of around 23%.

This is one of the issues addressed in the new free guide available for instant download on the HRwisdom free employee retention guide page now.

For instant download of the comprehensive free “HRwisdom Community Employee Attraction & Retention Guide,” click here now: Free HR Guide.

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The Attributes of the Best Employees

January 16, 2013 / HRwisdom

What are the attributes of the best employees within organisations?

Today’s HRwisdom posting comes from HRwisdom expert contributor, Drew Davies.

For over sixteen years Drew has been involved in business training, coaching and mentoring programs to leaders at all levels across all industry sectors.

HRwisdom asked Drew about his thoughts on what attributes should be considered when promoting employees within the organisation.

Over to Drew to explain the attributes of the best employees . . .

[dropcap]A[/dropcap] number of years ago I was working with a large timber company on a Quality Assurance project. I found myself having a meal with the Human Resources Manager and the Production Manager and over a fine bottle of red wine we had a discussion about what criteria we use when looking to promote people within an organisation.

Management over the years have looked to the old tried (but not necessarily true) indicators when promoting people from within and organisation, ie:

Length of service
Can they do the job
Level of expertise.

While these may be important, I would like to argue that they are not necessarily particularly accurate indicators of a person’s suitability to take on a supervisory, team leader or management role.

This article is the first in a series that will explore the myths and realities of this exercise which can at times be both frustrating and rewarding…

I believe that the first attribute that should be considered when looking at promoting a person in any organisation is their ATTITUDE.

It was Tom Blandi a French literary theorist and author who in 1907 wrote “Our attitudes control our lives. Attitudes are a secret power working twenty-four hours a day, for good or bad. It is of paramount importance that we know how to harness and control this great force”.

A person’s attitude to work, life, family, friends, the world and others gives those around them an insight into why they do the things they do, and ultimately their character. How they treat their workmates, how they treat you (if you are their boss), and how they respond to their customers and clients. What do they say about your organisation? What sort of words do they use when describing the business?…is it “I”, “they” and “them” or “we” and “us”.

I am not saying that what we should look for is the “Yes” woman or man… someone who agrees out of fear, or some misguided “warm and fuzzy” response. Rather there is a respect and genuineness that sets them apart from their colleagues. They think through the issues and offer balanced and well thought out responses. What I am saying is that by watching a persons attitude will give you a rare insight into what is really important to this individual…and as we all know…attitude rubs off. If this person is going to lead a team, then they need to be someone whose attitude is not changed and blown around by the circumstances they find themselves in. Rather they exhibit one that in spite of what is going on around them they continue moving forward. Their attitude acts as a stabilizer in the “cut and thrust” of modern business practice.

Zig Ziglar well known author and motivational speaker writes “Of all the attitudes we can acquire, surely the attitude of gratitude is the most important and by far the most life-changing.” Interesting and thought provoking words.

If the candidate has the right attitude, then a lot of the other qualities we will be talking about over the next issues will fall into place. The wrong attitude will block them.

Words like humility, self control, gratitude, stickability come to mind. Perhaps a useful exercise for you would be to write down what sort of attitudes would you look for in person who will take a supervisory, team leader or management role… Once you have done that think about what that person would look like if they did not exhibit those qualities. What does the opposite behaviour look like? Could you work with someone who exhibited that opposite behaviour?

To close let me leave with you this quote from Harry F Banks (I cannot find anything about him, but the quote makes sense) “For success, attitude is equally as important as ability.”

Drew Davies

Drew’s passion is to encourage and challenge people to discover and reach for their potential, not just in business but in their whole lives.

For over sixteen years Drew has been involved in business training, coaching and mentoring programs to leaders at all levels across all industry sectors.

You can contact Drew via HRwisdom or by visiting: www.drewdavies.com.au.

HRwisdom

Managing Generation Y In The Workplace

January 15, 2013 / HRwisdom

Managing Generation Y In The Workplace

Today’s HRwisdom Blog looks at managing Gen Y staff and comes thanks to HRwisdom expert contributor, Robert Watson.

Over to Robert . . .

Weekend papers regularly feature stories about “Generation Y” – the group of people born between about 1979 and 1999.

Once a group attains a label, it follows that writers compile the quirkiest features of that group and turn it into literary entertainment.

However, being a business manager you have probably seen some of these people applying for jobs and perhaps you have even employed some and noticed that they are somehow “different” to your regular workers.

So, it will help employers if they can have an understanding of the characteristics of Gen Y.

Gen Y are commonly described as:

Very confident of themselves
Impatient
Quick to learn
Positive about the future, and
Spending significant amounts of time socialising using computers and mobile phones (and you thought they were wasting time!).

What if you are recruiting Gen Y people?

Unlike their parents, Gen Y don’t look in the newspaper waiting for job vacancies to appear each Saturday. No, they actively use search engines on the internet to spot advertisements and have them automatically sent by RSS feed to their mobile phones. Gen Y can literally send in their CV one minute after the job ad has been posted.

As an employer, you should be using the internet as your primary method of advertising vacancies.

Having said that, it can be smart to use a two-pronged approach.

First, place a small newspaper ad which shows your company name (brand), the job title, a reference to the more comprehensive internet ad and just enough words to excite Mum and Dad into telling their son or daughter.

Second, your internet ad (or website) should contain details to excite the potential Gen Y applicant:

Use fresh and bright colour so that your vacancy looks different from the bland text-only ads
Show photos or a video of your existing employees smiling at work (an informal but free method of recognising your best employees!)
Talk about growth and exciting future developments because Gen Ys want to see that your business is not stagnant
Mention technology where appropriate, and
You still need a basic description of what the work entails, remembering, however, Gen Y will be wanting to see if your workplace looks like an interesting and fun place to be. As an example, do school kids join fast food outlets because they want to cook 1000 burger patties in a shift? No! They join because they want to be part of a fun-loving team of young people.

What if your business already has Gen Ys?

With Gen Y, be aware that their loyalty to anything is often fragile. If they don’t like your workplace, they will leave and then start looking for other work (although we’ll wait and see what impact the global financial downturn has upon this characteristic). In contrast, the older generations would hang on in a lousy job until they had secured another job.

To a large extent, you need to entertain the Gen Ys, and there is a way to do this which will tap into their impatience and their need for fast-paced learning.

Consider setting up a Learning Log which is a plan of all the topics needed to be mastered before a person can be considered for the next position. Although the topics might be broad, the individual sub-topics will be small and very quick to learn. Training policies help plan for such learning.

An Example: A Supermarket Business

Level 1 Check-Out Operation

Opening the register
Greeting the customer
Operating the conveyor, scanning and packing bags
Transactions – Cash, Credit cards, EFT, Cheque
Failed scans and Sale items
Shutdown and Balancing the till

Level 2 Front End Supervision

All aspects of Check-Out Operation, plus
Accessing the safe
Handling returns
Responsible sale of cigarettes
Dealing with abusive customers
Confronting suspected shoplifters
Emergency evacuation drill coordination
Rostering of staff.

In the past, a business might train all of these things in a single four hour session of mostly theory.

However, with Gen Y you would use a staged approach, with separate lessons over a period of time. Each mini-lesson would have a small amount of theory, then a walk-through of the appropriate Standard Operating Procedure and, finally, an appropriate number of hours doing the activity under the watchful eye of your most experienced supervisor.

Short, sharp lessons building up towards the end point makes for a program which engages the Gen Y employee.

The Bottom Line:

Rather than shaking your head in frustration at Gen Ys, your challenge is to tap into their many strengths so that your business can ride the fast wave into the future.

HRwisdom

Just For Fun – How To Welcome New Staff From Overseas

January 14, 2013 / HRwisdom

At HRwisdom, we talk a lot about being proactive and taking positive steps to ensure a motivated and high-performing workforce.

Today, just for fun, we’re sharing one option you may wish to consider.

No doubt about it – this method is guaranteed to ensure you have sky high employee engagement levels – it just might take a little more planning (and rehearsing) than usual.

If you do any international recruitment and you’re worried about employee turnover and the associated costs . . .

This is one fun example of how to welcome new staff from overseas.

Remember to share it with friends and colleagues.

Video On How To Welcome New Staff From Overseas

Feel free to share this.

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Watch This Powerful HR Video Presentation On How Great Leaders Inspire Others To Take Action

January 13, 2013 / HRwisdom

Today the HRwisdom Blog is sharing with you a powerful HR video that should serve to inspire you and any person leading people in any type of organisation.

When describing how great leaders inspire others to take action, the speaker shares such legendary examples as Apple, Martin Luther King, and the Wright brothers.

By the way, we have a lot more excellent management information to share with you.

Make sure you are part of the HRwisdom Community (it’s free).

Just use the form over on the right below to get started.

Then watch the video presentation.

Remember to share this on Twitter and Facebook.

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The Main Workforce Management Mistake Made During A Slowdown

January 7, 2013 / HRwisdom

When times get tough, there’s one big workforce management mistake that tends to get made by many businesses . . .

Employee engagement falls off the radar.

The Forgotten Case For Employee Engagement

It depends on who you talk to, of course, but most HR-minded folk would agree that there is a fairly strong business case in favour of increasing employee engagement.

After all, here’s what the hugely influential Gallup organisation had to say about employee engagement as part of their ongoing assessment in which they interviewed more than 3 million employees since 1997:

“Engaged employees are clearly more valuable to your company than disenchanted ones. Great managers and leaders know this instinctively, and The Gallup Organization’s latest research into employee engagement levels among the U.S. workforce confirms it. In fact, according to Gallup’s calculations, actively disengaged employees – the least productive – cost the American economy up to $350 billion per year in lost productivity.”

At an individual employee level, Gallup calculated that each disengaged employee costs businesses approximately $3,400 for every $10,000 paid in salary. Click to tweet

In contrast, Gallup suggested that engaged employees were far more productive and profitable due to their very strong customer focus and heightened sense of self-accountability. These types of employees were also noted as being stayers – their average tenure within organisations is longer and so they continue to contribute to economic grow over the long term.

In an economic downturn, this sort of real data and positive reviews would reasonably be expected to lead all organisations to eke out maximum business performance by further encouraging employee engagement efforts.

However, we continue to see industry surveys and reports that show that many employees are either dissatisfied or actively disengaged in their work.

In Australia, a recent large-scale workforce survey conduct by Insync found that just over half of all people voluntarily leaving their employers were doing so due to disengagement. Click to tweet

A Focus On Survival

The most likely reason for a company’s loss of focus in this vital area is the simple need for survival.

In tough economic times, many organisations will focus all their energy on purely operational matters.

Some short-sighted companies have seen the economic downturn as an opportunity to get rid of the ‘dead wood’ but such an approach is rarely done with longer term consequences in mind.

Jack Welch became known for his tough approach to performance management and firing but he was careful to combine this with a very strong focus on employee engagement for those who remained.

Organisations that lose sight of the needs and expectations of their workforce at any time place the future in jeopardy.

This is especially true in hard times.

Indeed, our friends over in the UK recognised this fact with a report commissioned by the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills arguing that: “wider delivery of employee engagement could have a positive impact on UK competitiveness and performance both during the downturn and in powering through to recovery.”

How To Benefit From A Recession

A time of recession or low growth is exactly the right time to be maximising the performance and discretionary efforts of the workforce.

Any person who thinks that an economic downturn is no time for achieving businesses management excellence should keep in mind the findings from the well-known Kauffman Foundation study of a few years ago. The study revealed that just under half of Inc. Magazine’s Fastest Growing Companies and 57% of the Fortune 500 companies had been founded during a recession or bear market. Click to tweet This included many companies that value and encourage discretionary effort and staff motivation such as Sears, General Electric, 3M, Ford, Boeing, State Farm Insurance, and Delta Air Lines.

Tough trading conditions are no excuse to drop the ball by not seeking maximum levels of staff motivation. In fact, they offer proactive businesses a competitive advantage.

HRwisdom

HR Video On The Benefits Of Building A Diverse Workforce

January 4, 2013 / HRwisdom

Today HRwisdom is sharing an HR video on the benefits of building a diverse workforce.

With an ageing population, skills shortages of the past will return but with greater intensity.

Many business managers and human resources professionals will recall the great difficulties involved in recruiting during the last economic boom.

Small business owners regularly complained about being squeezed out of the labour market by a shortage of suitable staff that they could reasonably afford to hire.

One of the ways that the Federal Government is trying to address this issue is to encourage employers to become more open in their recruitment search and to take on a more varied work group.

One particular video highlights the fact that there are significant productivity and cost benefits involved with hiring a more diverse workforce. Tweet this fact

The video is a case study which looks at the advantages that hiring a diverse labour force can bring for Australian businesses. David Miao from Woolworths and Dominic Calabro from Catholic Homes discuss the topc and share their experiences.

Some of the discussion you’ll hear includes:

“Some employers think that people with disability and older workers will be less productive than co-workers but in fact, they take less sick days and have been rated higher in productivity, flexibility and attendance.”

“Some employers think that diversity won’t fit into their workplace with their customers, but in fact, diverse workforces have a positive influence on workplace culture and can increase customer loyalty.”

“Some employers think that people with disability and mature age workers will be more prone to accidents. In fact, the opposite is true.”

“In effect, the numbers don’t stack up. We’ve got an ageing workforce. We’re employing a more diverse workforce, yet our incidents WorkCover claims have continued to decrease.”

“Employers can be concerned that they don’t have the time or money to diversify their workforce, but in fact, employers may be eligible for a range of support from the Australian Government.”

Let’s hear some of the thoughts shared on the video . . .

HR Video on Building A Diverse Workforce

As always, feel free to share this with your colleagues.

HRwisdom

Regional New South Wales Useful Labour Market Information

December 19, 2012 / HRwisdom

The Australian Labour Market Report provides Labour Market Information for Regional New South Wales employers and introduces you to a handy range of information about the labour market, employment and training.

The area to download the report is below.

The report includes detailed workforce information about specific industries and all labour markets around Australia, including Regional New South Wales.

[box type=”note”]Click here to get: More HR Advice [/box]

In national terms, there are 19 broad industries in Australia. In employment terms, the largest are Health Care and Social Assistance, Retail Trade and Construction which each employ more than 1 million workers. Manufacturing is also a large employer, with almost 950 000. These four industries combined, employ two in every five Australian workers.

It is interesting that, although the Mining industry experienced the largest percentage rise in employment (75.5%), it had only the fourth largest number of new jobs and accounts for 2% of national employment.

Over a five year period, employment fell in Manufacturing, but there are still more people employed in Manufacturing than there are in the Arts and Recreation Services; Information Media and Telecommunications; Rental, Hiring and Real Estate Services; and Electricity, Gas, Water and Waste Services industries combined. The decline in Manufacturing is part of a long-term trend reflecting structural adjustment in the Australian economy.

Useful Labour Market Information of Regional New South Wales

Many sectors, such as Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing; Mining; and Manufacturing create thousands of jobs in other industries, such as Transport, Postal and Warehousing; Professional, Scientific and Technical Services; and Construction.

Where are the new jobs?

Over the five year period, around 1.1 million jobs were created.
The largest growth was in:

Health Care and Social Assistance (up by 276,000)
Professional, Scientific and Technical Services (122,300)
Education and Training (114,700)
Mining (102,900)
Construction (100,700)

Which industries had declining employment?

Employment declined in four industries over the five year period:

Manufacturing (down by 72,100)
Information Media and Telecommunications (46,800)
Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing (25,400)
Rental, Hiring and Real Estate Services (2600).

Which industries have the most jobs in regional locations?

Although Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing has the highest proportion of its employment in regional areas (87%), followed by Mining (61%), the largest numbers of jobs in regional Australia are in:

Health Care and Social Assistance (almost half a million)
Retail Trade (more than 470 000)
Construction (around 407 000).

Download The Australian Labour Market Report

Useful Labour Market Information in Regional New South Wales

Here is the link to download the Labour Market Report produced by the Australian Government, all you need to do is:

Click on the link below.
Come back to this page and use the orange form on the right to download over 40 free quality HR templates and reports.

[sociallocker id=”4427″] Labour Market Report [/sociallocker]

Useful Labour Market Information in Regional New South Wales Related Video

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQtKrzUg50U&w=480&h=385]

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Leading People Without Saying A Word

December 14, 2012 / HRwisdom

With some big name companies like BHP Billiton and Leighton Contractors being singled out in the media recently for their overly prescriptive practices relating to micro-management, we thought we’d share a more positive approach to leading people.

Today’s HRwisdom Blog post comes from Carlo Pandian – a keen observer all things related organisational behaviour, leadership and human resources.

Over to Carlo . . .

Leading without Saying a Word – Why Non-Verbal Cues are Important

A leader doesn’t always have to use words to communicate meaning. In fact, more of what he or she really means comes across in gestures, facial expressions and other non-verbal cues than any of the words that they could say. Research has suggested that between 60 and 70 percent of all communication between humans is derived from non-verbal cues. We pick up on every smile, every sigh, every eyebrow raise, every glance at the watch, whether we want to or not.

Sometimes your non-verbal communication can even betray what your words are saying. You can be trying to be polite in your speech, but your words will give away your distrust, disregard or distraction. As a leader, you must be careful not only with what you say but with how your body language comes across.

Don’t Forget to Smile

Are you one of those bosses who walks around all day with a frown on? Perhaps you are deep in concentration over a specific problem that you are trying to solve, or perhaps you just haven’t had your coffee yet. Either way, having an unsmiling expression on your face can actually have a detrimental impact on your business.

Why? Because you are giving out non-verbal signals to your employees telling them not to approach you! Your lack of a smile makes people assume that you are in a bad mood or that you would react badly if they were to bring you their problems, feedback or ideas.

This is a bad thing, because you want and desperately need your employees to find you approachable. Their ideas and suggestions can be incredibly valuable for you as they will help you to realise how the company can improve. Practice giving your employees a friendly nod and a smile whenever you see them and keeping your facial expression positive so that they will feel comfortable when approaching you.

Be Aware of Your Meeting Habits

It can be incredibly boring to sit in meetings for hours, but if you are not careful your body language will be telling everyone just how bored you actually are. This can be insulting to prospective clients, discouraging to employees and can make you look unprofessional.

Ask yourself if you have a habit of slumping in your seat during meetings and conferences, or staring out the window. Do you take out your phone and fiddle with it, or work on other documents? Do you tap your feet, jiggle your leg or play with your hair? Become more aware of all of these habits, because whether you want to or not you are sending everyone else in the meeting the message that you don’t want to be there.

Instead, turn of all distractions and face forward with your feet on the floor. Make eye contact with the person who is speaking and make sure that you are actively listening. Not only will you get a lot more out of the meeting, people will know that you care what they have to say.

Acknowledge People on a Personal Level

Employee recognition is somewhat about the words that you say, but it is also about the non-verbal cues that you give to your staff every day. People want to be acknowledged, encouraged and appreciated. You can do this by giving them positive feedback on the things that they do right, but also make sure that your non-verbal communication with them is positive.

One thing that you can do is to greet every member of staff, from the vice president to the cleaning staff, with a friendly smile, a nod and maybe a little wave (whatever suits your style) whenever you see them. When you walk through the office, make eye contact with people and give them a look that shows them that you are happy to see them and that they are doing well. You’ll be amazed by how much you can convey with these encouraging looks.

Leaders need not only pay attention to their words, but also instead to the fact that they can convey so much more without saying a thing.

About Carlo

Carlo Pandian is a management graduate at the University of London specialised in organisational behaviour, leadership and human resources. He writes tutorials on Intuit Payroll software and is interested in how employees collaborate and interact in corporations to pursue organisational goals and ensure growth.

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