retain good staff – Page 2 – HR Industry Interviews

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Tag: retain good staff (Page 2 of 4)

How To Motivate Staff [Excellent Video Presentation]

This excellent video presentation will help you answer the question:

How To Motivate Staff?

How To Motivate StaffDan Pink gave this insightful talk on TED on the topic of work motivation.

By the way, in case you don’t know, TED is an inspiring ongoing conference which allows the world’s top thinkers and doers of all stripes such as Bill Gates, Bill Clinton and Jamie Oliver to share their ideas and experiences with the rest of the world.

This one TED video clip has reached more than 5 million views. It provides a very refreshing perspective on how to understand the role of incentives in work motivation.

Have you accessed your free employer resources yet? Use the form over to the right-hand side now.

Here’s the official introduction to the talk:

Career analyst Dan Pink examines the puzzle of motivation, starting with a fact that social scientists know but most managers don’t: Traditional rewards aren’t always as effective as we think. Listen for illuminating stories – and maybe, a way forward. Bidding adieu to his last “real job” as Al Gore’s speechwriter, Dan Pink went freelance to spark a right-brain revolution in the career marketplace.’

How To Motivate Staff

Take a look at the presentation now.

If you think there are some interesting ideas raised in the talk, Like It or share it with friends and colleagues by using the social media sharing buttons below.

Feel free to Like or share this presentation with friends and colleagues (just use the social media sharing buttons below).

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Change In Organisational Culture – Here’s Where It’s Needed Most

Today, HRwisdom is sharing an interesting article on a place that is in desperate need of change in organisational culture.

This place has the ability to drive us all a little crazy at times.

The article is from one of the most influential business thinkers of this era, Seth Godin.

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Seth shares powerful observations of the modern airport which he suggests is an organisation we should try to avoid when it comes to developing our own company culture.

Change In Organisational Culture

Change In Organisational CultureHere are some of Seth Godin’s observations of an airport and how these blunders can positively help your organisation when you apply the lessons:

  • You never see the CEO or whoever is the person in charge of the airport. If the person at the top seems not to care, it will reflect down to the lowest level of the organization and it will definitely show on the service.
  • Problems persist because organizations defend their territories instead of finding ways to solve the problem. Someone blames someone and the blaming goes on and on. Things change only when the user’s problem is the driver of behavior.
  • Airports see customers as fleeting people. They are here today and gone tomorrow. New customers will come everyday.
  • An anxiety-filled system is what airports create. They assume customers care more of their money than their anxiety. They try to make as many flights as they can to increase profit thereby spares, downtime, or resilience are neglected.
  • There are mostly bad surprises, never heard of any good one yet.
  • There seems to be no connections whatever in airports. No one feels particularly welcome.
  • Airport system seems to be so industrialized that personal expression seems to be taboo.”

By carefully considering these observations, you will surely find a way to improve your company culture.

To read the full article by Seth Godin and see more of his interesting observations, go to: Eleven Things Organisations Can Learn From Airports

Remember, you can always share this article to your colleagues.

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Staff Turnover Strategy – Top 100 Employers Part 1

Staff Turnover Strategy – Top 100 Employers Part 1

Avoiding unnecessary staff turnover is a deliberate strategy used by the top companies in the world. They do this to keep their skills, knowledge and expertise in-house without having to constantly slow down to bring new people up to speed.

Staff Turnover StrategyThe Fortune Magazine’s list of the 100 Best Companies To Work For In America makes for very interesting reading.

NOTE: You’ll pick up many great ideas to help you become on of the Best Companies To Work For in the new HRwisdom Community Employee Attraction & Retention Guide. The Guide has sixteen employee management expert practitioners from all areas of the human resources field offering their best employee attraction & retention advice.

For instant download of the comprehensive free “HRwisdom Community Employee Attraction & Retention Guide,” click on Reduce Staff Turnover now.

 In this HRwisdom post we’re bringing you the rankings 91 – 100 of the Fortune Magazine 100 Best Companies to Work in America.

  • 91 DONNELLY Holland, Mich. The glass company, not the printing company. Celebrated for Scanlon Plan, which rewards employees for productivity gains. Also has unique equity structure, which has employees electing representatives to equity committees with the power to address issues of policy and practice–even pay.
  • 92 W.W. GRAINGER Lincolnshire, Ill. Sells hardware supplies through a network of 350 retail stores and a huge catalogue operation. Their 1.3 million business customers range from small building contractors to General Motors. Boasts of a “Cadillac profit-sharing plan,” in which company puts into your account the equivalent of 15% to 20% of your annual pay.
  • 93 ALAGASCO Birmingham, Ala. Only utility on our list–largest unit of publicly traded Energen Corp.– supplies natural gas to more than 400,000 homes and businesses in central and northern Alabama. Company recently offered $500 prize to employees for an idea to address a diversity problem in their area. Turnover less than 5%. No layoffs in 25 years.
  • 94 APOGEE Minneapolis They make windows, replace windshields, and put up curtain walls for buildings. It’s a company populated, as one employee put it, by “good, small-town, Midwestern people.” Employees get profit-sharing checks every quarter. Great feeling of camaraderie. Employees encouraged to think of new ways to do things.
  • 95 SHELL OIL Houston U.S. wing of world’s largest oil company initiated in the mid-1990s a process it called transformation. Goal: Move responsibility down to lower levels. Shell has rich benefits capped by company-paid pensions, plus a pretax savings plan under which company kicks in 10% of your pay annually no matter what you contribute.
  • 96 ALLIEDSIGNAL Morristown, N.J. Since taking helm in 1991, Lawrence A. Bossidy has infused a sense of purpose. Mandated 40 hours of training a year for every employee. Headquarters has on-site child care, fitness center, and other amenities. One of best 401(k) plans around: After five years company matches employee contributions 100% up to 8% of pay.
  • 97 TENNANT Minneapolis Biggest U.S. maker of industrial floor sweepers and scrubbers believes in the old-fashioned pat on the back. That-a-way stickers plastered on everybody’s work station. Strong support network for women managers has paid off: No. 2 in the company is a woman, a rarity in manufacturing.
  • 98 MERRILL LYNCH New York Wall Street’s biggest employer added 6,000 jobs in the past two years. Great training programs; tuition reimbursement up to $8,000 a year. Merrill is a Boy Scout company, scandal-free. One employee put it this way: “When times are good, Merrill Lynch is a great place to work; when times are bad, it is the only place to work.”
  • 99 ACIPCO Birmingham, Ala. Makes cast-iron pipe for water and sewer systems. Founder willed company to workers when he died in 1924, and it still operates as an employee trust with four of 12 members of board of directors elected by employees. Superb, fully accredited, on-site medical clinic with eight full-time doctors and five full-time dentists.
  • 100 GLAXO WELLCOME Research Triangle Park, N.C. British drug company–ranked No. 1 in world, based on sales–lures talent to its North Carolina facilities with glittering array of benefits: two on-site child-care centers plus support for five other centers, seven on-site fitness centers, six medical clinics, 13 paid holidays, 100% match up to 6% of pay in 401(k) plan.

Want More Ideas?

 

Remember, you’ll pick up many great ideas to help you become on of the Best Companies To Work For in the new HRwisdom Community Employee Attraction & Retention Guide. The Guide has sixteen employee management expert practitioners from all areas of the human resources field offering their best employee attraction & retention advice.

 

For instant download of the comprehensive free “HRwisdom Community Employee Attraction & Retention Guide,” click on Reduce Staff Turnover now.

 

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Controversial Presentation On A New Employment Model – Microworking

New Employment Model - Microworking

In today’s HRwisdom Blog, we are sharing a controversial video presentation which deals with a proposed new employment model – microworking.

Plenty of people need jobs with very flexible hours — but it’s difficult for those people to connect with the employers who need them. Wingham Rowan is working on that. He explains how the same technology that powers modern financial markets can help employers book workers for slivers of time.

Wingham Rowan is the founder of social business Slivers-of-Time, which runs online markets for microworking and micro-volunteering.

There has been heated discussion around this presentation.

New Employment Model – Microworking

Here is the original presentation.

Feel free to share this page via the social media icons below.

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Leading Thinkers Predict Demographic & HR Problems

Two books released in recent times trigger interesting questions for business owners and Human Resources professionals across Australia.

These questions can lead to major HR problems for employers.

HR problemsThe first, a book released by Australian entrepreneur and eco-billionaire, Dick Smith argues strongly for a sustainable population level for Australia. The book, called ‘Dick Smith’s Population Crisis,’ is described in its own summary as follows:

“In 2011 the world’s population exceeded 7 billion. Each year we add nearly 80 million people and by mid-century we will require twice as much food and double the energy we use today. Australia will be deeply affected by these trends – we have the fastest growing population of any developed nation.

These are the staggering facts that confronted Dick Smith. They set him on his crusade to alert us to the dangers of unsustainable growth. They are the facts that have convinced him that if we are to ensure the survival of our civilisation and the health of the planet then we must put a stop to population growth, now.

As our cities continue their unrestrained growth, as we battle daily on crowded public transport and clogged freeways, and as we confront the reality of water and power shortages, Dick challenges the long-held myth that growth is good for us. But more importantly he offers ways for us to re-invent our economy, to reassess the way we live and to at least slow down that ticking clock. This is a provocative, powerful and urgent call to arms.”

Smith’s call for a sustainable population is made all the more interesting for HR strategy when considered in the context of the other major book released in recent times by the eminent and very entertaining sociologist and KPMG partner, Bernard Salt.

Salt’s new book called ‘The Big Tilt’ outlines the challenges faced by Australia (and probably also by many other developed economies) due to the imminent mass exodus from the workforce of the Baby Boomer generation.

Salt scopes the big questions of where Australian society might be headed in the decade ahead.

One of the most pressing social and demographic issues will be the baby bust according to Salt.

In 2011 baby boomers born in 1946 turn 65 and are eligible for an age pension. This sets up an invisible faultline (or tilt point) where boomers exit the workforce at a faster rate than Gen Y enters the workforce.

This faultline or Big Tilt as Salt calls it will change consumer spending (greater emphasis on ‘value’ through, say, internet retailing), create new social behaviours (downshifting where boomers extract equity from big city property) and present challenges to the skills and tax base of the nation since there are not enough workers to replace the boomers and not enough tax to fund the retirement that boomers have come to expect.

These two fascinating characters within the Australian business environment have highlighted some major challenges for any organisation planning to operate within Australia over the coming decade.

Many questions will abound about the management of skills shortages, labour supply, the sources and logistics of recruitment and more.

Smart organisations are keeping abreast of these developments and noting the very real challenges as they apply to staff management.

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How To Really Freak Out Your Workforce

Employers everywhere are facing many different challenges and this makes staff motivation very difficult.

Some companies are struggling with the decline of the manufacturing sector and related job losses.

Organisations in the resources-rich states are facing rising labour costs and skills shortage issues.

Businesses in the retail sector are trying to protect tight profit margins and decreasing sales volumes against the flight to online shopping.

No matter what the economic environment or challenges, all organisations need to maximise the efficiency and effectiveness of their workforce.

Maximising this efficiency and effectiveness can be done in all sorts of ways such as:

  • Employee Value Propositions (EVP)
  • Process improvement programmes
  • Training and development
  • Employee engagement initiatives
  • Employee retention systems
  • Performance improvement plans

There are all sorts of ways to successfully manage your workforce and many of these good ideas are discussed in the free HRwisdom Employee Attraction & Retention Guide.

 

Not Our Recommended Approach To Staff Motivation

One method of staff motivation that is NOT RECOMMENDED is to give employees $10 if they can successfully guess which of their colleagues is the next to be fired.

In a post a couple of years ago on the US ABC News website, details were reported of a court case in the United States in which an employer found himself in hot water for trying to motivate his staff by running a “firing contest.”

Apparently the employer sent a company-wide memo telling staff they could win if they successfully guessed which of their colleagues would be fired next.

Once the winner had been chosen, the contest started all over again.

Unfortunately for the business, a number of staff resigned after they realised the whole thing was not actually a joke as they first thought.

Some might call this an “interesting” approach to employee engagement and employee retention.

Staff MotivationThe judge called it “egregious and deplorable.”

Either way, this employer won’t be winning any Employer of Choice awards anytime soon.

And in case you’re wondering, yes there were penalties involved.

The employer was required to pay large fines for issues relating to what we in Australia might refer to as constructive dismissal and harassment.

So, if you are thinking about implementing this novel method of employee motivation, perhaps you may be better serviced sticking with the good ol’ Employee Of The Month award until something better comes along . . .

You can download the HRwisdom Employee Attraction & Retention Guide now.  

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10 Simple Ideas To Improve Employee Morale

Thanks to Vlasta Eriksson for these quick and easy ideas to improve employee morale.

Ideas To Improve Employee Morale[dropcap]Y[/dropcap]our employees are the ones who help reach the collective goals of the organisation.

Hence it is very important to keep their morale up so they can work towards achieving better results.

Sometimes the plain and simple things in life are the most important ones.

It’s the same situation for the workplace.

Simple and well thought-out plans make all the difference to lightening-up staff morale.

Here are 10 steps that explain how any organisation can spend a few minutes and improve their staff morale at the workplace.

1. To reduce the stress level of employees, get rid of equipment that doesn’t work well such as computers, photocopier, fax machine etc and replace it. Make sure the supplies are always enough and the kitchen is stocked with provisions.

2. Allow them to work flexible hours. Employees also have personal commitments as well. Today, best practice workplaces are offering flexitime, part-time positions and work from home options more increasingly.

3. Give importance to the ideas and advice of your employees. Encourage them to speak up on different issues that relate to the organisation or themselves. Implement their ideas if practical and let people know of their contribution.

4. You can hold bake-offs and share morning tea or coffee because mornings are a great time to share ideas. Everybody can bring in some sort of baking confectionary. This can also raise some funds for charities that are widely supported by the employees.

5. A management expert believes that short messages should be delivered in person. Today, we live in an era where 40 percent of emails are not given any value. It means that rather than emailing the person who sits two floors down, just go and talk to him/her directly; it strengthens the relationship.

6. Offer your employees to sit with you for a day even if you are meeting someone. This will boost the morale of the employees up to a great extent and a give them lots of useful insight too.

7. Offer them advice on how they strive harder to make the best of their careers. Reimburse them for continuing education courses, professional seminars and lectures.

8. You can run contests and awards schemes. You can set a prize for something as simple as the best customer feedback received during the month.

9. Maintain a specific budget for entertainment. Arrange a team to decide the fair allocation of the budget for each quarter.

10. Celebrate the birthdays of your employees. It will not cost you to email your wishes. Every employee has a birthday so eventually no one is left out.


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

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

How To Train StaffMuch 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

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 TurnoverHow 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.

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.

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

What are the attributes of the best employees within organisations?

The attributes of the best employeesToday’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.

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