The Secret Sauce

By: Natasha Hawker & Caroline Ross

Why do some people want to desperately work for some businesses and avoid others like the plague? Mostly it can be put down to culture or the managers’ reputation. But how do you make or create a culture? Why would you bother? My thinking is that if more businesses focused on their cultural strategy, many of the other metrics such as performance, productivity, attrition & engagement would increase as a result.

Recent research shows categorically that employees want to work for authentic leaders. So what does this mean? Is it as simple as being a decent human being? No, I am afraid not - as the authentic leader also needs to be coupled with an authentic organisation. The good news is that as an entrepreneur or small business owner, you can determine the culture of your organisation.

 So how can you do this?  You can break it down into these six key cultural factors:

1. Vision: A great culture starts with a vision or mission statement. These phrases guide a company’s values and provide it with purpose. That purpose in turn, orientates every decision employees make. When they are deeply authentic and prominently displayed, good vision statements can even help orient customers, suppliers and other stakeholders.  A vision statement is a simple but fundamental element of culture.

2. Values: A company’s values are the core of its culture. While a vision articulates a company’s purpose, values offer a set of guidelines on the behaviours and mindsets needed to achieve that vision.

3. Practices: Values are of little importance unless they are enshrined in a company’s practices. If a business professes, 'people are our greatest asset', it should also be ready to invest in people in visible ways. Whatever the company’s values, they must be reinforced in review criteria and promotion policies, and fully lived and incorporated into the operating principles of daily life in the business.

4. People: No company can build a coherent culture without people who either share its core values or possess the willingness and ability to embrace those values. That’s why the greatest firms in the world also have some of the most stringent recruiting policies.  One study found applicants who were a cultural fit would accept a 7% lower salary and departments with cultural alignment had 30% less turnover. People stick with cultures they like and bringing on the right culture carriers reinforces the culture a business already has.

5. Narrative: Any company has a unique history — a unique story. And the ability to unearth that history and craft it into a narrative is a core element of culture creation. The elements of that narrative can be formal — like Coca-Cola, which dedicated an enormous resource to celebrating its heritage and even has a World of Coke museum in Atlanta — or informal, like those stories about how Steve Jobs’ early fascination with calligraphy shaped the aesthetically oriented culture at Apple. But they are more powerful when identified, shaped, and retold as a part of a firm’s ongoing culture.

6. Place: Why does Pixar have a huge open atrium engineering an environment where business members run into each other throughout the day and interact in informal, unplanned ways? And why do tech firms cluster in Silicon Valley and financial firms cluster in London and New York? There are obviously numerous answers to each of these questions, but one clear one is that place shapes culture. Open architecture is more conducive to certain office behaviours, like collaboration. Place — whether geography, architecture, or aesthetic design, impacts the values and behaviours of people in a workplace.

There are other factors that influence culture. But these six components can provide a firm foundation for shaping a new organisation’s culture. Identifying and understanding them more fully in an existing organisation can be the first step to revitalising or reshaping the inherent culture in a company looking for change.

Natasha Hawker owns Employee Matters Pty Ltd; an HR Consultancy that assists small to medium businesses with their HR functions to make them more efficient and profitable. Their offering includes HR Management, Recruitment, Training, Coaching, and Exit Management – find them at www.employeematters.com.au

Biased ? Not me

By: Natasha Hawker

I was visiting McDonalds yesterday on the behalf a client and, as I was leaving with my host, the lift opened and a women entered - average height probably in her late thirties - my host exchanged the usual type of pleasantries with her, as you do in a lift, so I assumed that she was a colleague and mentally pitched her at middle-management level. When we exited the lift and were out of earshot, my host said proudly 'that is our CEO, Catriona Noble. '

Well, my Unconscious Bias was working overtime as always - you see, as much as I pride myself on the 'women can do anything' mantra and the need - no, the criticality of getting more women to the boardroom - I envision, unconsciously, a CEO as male, in their 50s and over 6ft tall!

So my apologies and my admiration, Catriona - I only hope that you mentor and encourage more women to the top, during your time at the top of the Golden Arches.

Natasha Hawker owns Employee Matters Pty Ltd; an HR Consultancy that assists small to medium businesses with their HR functions to make them more efficient and profitable. Their offering includes HR Management, Recruitment, Training, Coaching, and Exit Management – find them at www.employeematters.com.au

HR data....Yawn!! - but wait - you do need to know this

By: Natasha Hawker

HR has long had a 'touchy feely' reputation but this is fast changing and in my view will continue to do so. At the big end of town, bit by bit the data is changing or improving the decisions made around what is often one of the most expensive costs to a business - your people.

I believe that SMEs need to watch, learn and take best practice from the corporate world, but use it if, and only if, it works for your business. That said, I believe that you can learn from their mistakes but also apply it in a way that makes sense for you.

For example - what is the current employee turnover of your business as a percentage of your total headcount? As a guide, a healthy turnover is about 10-20%, depending on your industry. Why does this matter? - because it is damn expensive and time-consuming to replace people, but it also means you are not focused on what you should be! Not only that, there will be a dip in productivity as a result.

How would tracking the trends help? Well, for a start you might see the following:

• cost management opportunities
• identification of roles that are particularly difficult to retain and so develop strategies to address this
•  identify management issues
• determine whether you are struggling to identify what you really need
• improve your company's attractiveness to the market- why would someone want to work for you?

 There are a number of beneficial pieces of data that are worth capturing as this will enhance your decision making ability - some other metrics you might want to consider are: 

• workforce mix - permanent full / part time, temps, casuals & independent contractors
• annual leave liability vs. scheduled annual leave
• managed attrition vs. unmanaged attrition
• absenteeism trends / issues

 All the above are costs to your business but also they are levers that you can pull to reduce costs.

What metrics are you measuring and how has this impacted your business?

Natasha Hawker owns Employee Matters Pty Ltd; an HR Consultancy that assists small to medium businesses with their HR functions to make them more efficient and profitable. Their offering includes HR Management, Recruitment, Training, Coaching, and Exit Management – find them at www.employeematters.com.au

Merger anyone?

By: Natasha Hawker

Now things seem to be looking up are you thinking about a merger or acquisition? Many SMEs decide one of the quickest ways to grow your business is to buy another one.

There is a lot of due diligence required around the financials, compliance and other legalities - but there are also the legal requirements if you want to take on the seller's employees - if you are considering this I would recommend that you complete the following checks:

• review all employment contracts - it's likely you will find a wide variety of them - which,  as the new owner, you will need to meet the BOOT test (more on this later)
• personnel file audit - what are the performance levels of the current employees
• what are the absenteeism rates like? - if high, there may be an underlying problem
• what is the current percentage rate of attrition? - is this managed or unmanaged
• what type of training is recorded? What's the frequency of this
• what are the accident or near miss rates like?

 Collecting and analysing this information will provide you with a wealth of knowledge about the employee footprint and will also provide the value proposition of the employees, (or alternatively the problems you are about to inherit).

Example - I knew of a company that had casual employees on permanent contracts - not great but not the biggest problem - these employees had upwards of twenty years service. The buyer did not check the personnel files, so has just inherited a massive liability in terms of long service leave and redundancy payouts. Now obviously the seller did not share this piece of information and had they, the sale may have proceeded but it would have likely affected the price.

If you are looking at transferring employees across to your company and a warning up front - this is a complex area of employment law, you must pass the ‘BOOT’ or the Better Off Overall Test. This effectively means the employees transferring across cannot be made to settle for employment conditions less or lower than their current situation. This is beyond compensation and could cover conditions such as additional annual leave or guaranteed training budgets. A further consideration is - how will this impact your current team when they find out the new guys are on a better deal?

Have you had any experience positive or negative experiences in this area?

 Natasha Hawker owns Employee Matters Pty Ltd; an HR Consultancy that assists small to medium businesses with their HR functions to make them more efficient and profitable. Their offering includes HR Management, Recruitment, Training, Coaching, and Exit Management – find them at www.employeematters.com.au

Are you ready to go back to Work Choices?

By: Natasha Hawker

Good morning to a new Coalition run Australia. After quite possibly the longest ever campaign in Australia’s history we're done – but are we? After a massive swing to the Coalition across the country does this mean that SMEs need to brace themselves for further changes to the already complex world of Employment Relations? I hear you say - 'But hey I was only just getting my head around Fair Work – arrrgghhhh!' So what is the likelihood of large scale change in this area? Let’s look at this in more detail.

Previously, I attended a luncheon with Joe Hockey and Executive Women he was quite adamant that there was unlikely to be much change to the current employment relations landscape. I do tend to believe him, as I think that with their other major agenda items such as the Carbon Tax their focus there will leave little time for much else in the short term. I would only anticipate a couple of minor tweaks, for example, reducing the Unions ready access to the workplace this area. Presently, I don’t see that there is much appetite within the government to revert to Work Choices. It is a very low priority for them at the moment. They are much more likely to try and increase productivity using other levers, such as company tax and the Carbon tax. This is despite an increased appetite amongst businesses for greater relaxing of Employment Relations legislation however, I would not pin too much hope on this coming off in the near future.

Even if I was wrong, it would take another 18 to 24 months to implement, so no urgent changes are required. However, I am always surprised at the low levels of compliance with even the basic Employment Relations requirements. Please take our HR Survey to get an instant assessment of your gaps.

My overall assessment is that it will be minimal & delayed change but my advice is if you work to achieve engaged and well managed teams then productivity and profitability will follow.

Natasha Hawker owns Employee Matters Pty Ltd; an HR Consultancy that assists small to medium businesses with their HR functions to make them more efficient and profitable. Their offering includes HR Management, Recruitment, Training, Coaching, and Exit Management – find them at www.employeematters.com.au

Why Exit?

By: Natasha Hawker

Why would you ever want to do an exit interview?

Just recently, a client of ours had a senior member of the team resign and we are assisting them with the replacement of this role. We have just conducted an independent exit interview with the employee leaving the role - you might ask 'why?'

You might also say good 'riddance!' Or 'what would be the benefit of that?' Well, I'm glad you asked:

1. Recruitment - in the case above, the employee had faced some challenges in the role and before recruiting for this role again, we were able to obtain detailed information that will help us recruit the best possible candidate for our client
2. Information - employees are generally more forthcoming when they have resigned. You often find out ‘gems’ of information that would otherwise be withheld. Is this perhaps an opportunity to restructure the team or reduce headcount at a low cost point?
3. Rehire - ever lost an employee that you wished that you hadn't and wished you could get them back? An exit interview is an opportunity to reiterate the fact that should they ever wish to return they are welcome to approach the business to see whether there is a suitable role available. People need reassurance after resigning to ensure that there are no hard feelings or misunderstandings 
4. Stats - why are your team leaving you? Is there one team or area that has particularly high turnover? Is this telling you that there is another, bigger problem that you need to deal with to stop the drain of skills & talent? Healthy unmanaged attrition should be between 10-20% 
5. Alumni - ex-employees can become future clients, advocates for your business, rehires or just great sources of information. Take a longer term view of the resignation and the opportunity that it might bring rather than the gap it creates

 You should have someone other than their direct manager complete the interview - either HR or a manager from another team or division. You should have set questions, so that you can develop data over time for analysis.

Do you conduct exit interviews in your business and, if so, what have you learnt from them?

Natasha Hawker owns Employee Matters Pty Ltd; an HR Consultancy that assists small to medium businesses with their HR functions to make them more efficient and profitable. Their offering includes HR Management, Recruitment, Training, Coaching, and Exit Management – find them at www.employeematters.com.au

Want to save about $8,000 on your recruitment spend?

Now - let me start by saying that we are not a Recruitment Agency - far from it! We recruit for our clients for an hourly rate and there is no success fee. This typically saves businesses up to 70% off their recruitment costs. To you and your candidates, we look and feel like your very own internal recruitment team.

We made one of our clients very happy today. Over the years he has become used to paying recruitment agencies on average $8,500 + GST per placement - but then he started using Employee Matters for recruitment and he gets great service including:

• the same experienced corporate Recruitment Partner each time
• the ads are written for his approval, based on his criteria
• the candidates are carefully screened all candidates are treated with respect 
• and every application is responded to, whether ultimately successful or not

 One time he came to us with a role, we found two candidates that he really liked and he had to make a tough decision - but this was handled with care and sensitivity.

Two months later, with his business expanding, he needs another employee. We rang the candidate that had placed 2^nd the first time around; he was still interested, was interviewed again and offered the role. He is thrilled and so is the client, because instead of paying over $8k - he paid $500.

When I asked the candidate why he would reconsider a role that he was originally the 2nd choice for, he said "Tiffany was incredibly sensitive and caring but diplomatic and professional. She gave me detailed feedback and it made sense. She handled it in such a way that I was happy to hear this news from her. It was only the second time in my life that I have dealt with someone in recruitment that was supportive rather than just doing her job.” (Otis)

More of our clients are enjoying working with their Employee Matters Recruitment Partner, reaping the benefits both financially and through the ease of the process. They enjoy having an expert helping them make the right recruitment decisions.

Do you think that this model of recruitment might work for you?

Natasha Hawker owns Employee Matters Pty Ltd; an HR Consultancy that assists small to medium businesses with their HR functions to make them more efficient and profitable. Their offering includes HR Management, Recruitment, Training, Coaching, and Exit Management – find them at www.employeematters.com.au

Hiring IT Specialists and Measuring Their Success

Guest Post by Mike Smith, Director at Greenlight ITC

As a business owner, you’re likely to have found yourself in the position of hiring staff without a clear idea of what their responsibilities or KPIs should be. Hey, I’ve done it.

Maybe you did a few Google searches and looked at the sort of responsibilities and experience other companies typically look for. While it’s a clever workaround what you don’t know is that a lot of those companies are doing the exact same thing.

Why re-invent the wheel, right? Well, when it comes to people, it’s a little more complicated than that. Simply because the system isn’t ‘broken’, it doesn’t mean it is any good. When it comes to hiring, I’m sure you want a better guarantee than that.

The recruitment process can be tedious, and the time and money involved are not insignificant. For this reason, many companies choose recruitment process outsourcing, or RPO, to companies over having a dedicated resource manage the process.

With close to ten years’ experience in hiring IT support staff—and with many mistakes along the way—I feel like sharing some of that experience so that you can avoid some of the pain that comes with getting it wrong.

Here are my 4 favourite tips on setting IT Support responsibilities that will help you hire and assess your next IT Support staff member, contractor, or managed IT Support provider.

1. Attracting the right talent

Just like in sales, there is a level of psychology required in attracting and engaging the right employees. Great IT Support specialists generally have a certain personality type which can be a great success indicator, which I will touch on in a minute.

When I first set out hiring IT Support specialists, I thought their key motivator would be money. I mean, who doesn’t like money?

As it turns out, I was actually turning the wrong lever. What technical specialists value most is learning and training above all else. There is a reason why so much software is free, and why there are so many communities with hundreds and thousands of people sharing information for free, and working together to develop open source projects. IT people work in this space because it is their PASSION, and your ad should speak to that.

 If you hope to attract and retain great talent— and maximise the value they bring to your company— you must be willing to support and invest in their education. At Greenlight we have specifically had the most success in supporting technical training and certifications, customer support training and time management.

On that note, you should never be afraid of improving the skills and qualifications of your employees because you are scared they will leave. I’m not saying nobody will leave, but the benefits bring immense value to your company, both financially and in terms of employee retention and loyalty.

2. Screening applicants

Imagine you’ve now had an influx of eager applications for your IT Support role. You feel happy that so many technical specialists are clamouring to work for YOUR company. You obviously said something right in your ad, and now you’re faced with a fairly big challenge.

That challenge is separating the wheat from the chaff—you’re not an IT specialist yourself, so how can you determine who has the right skills, and who is just saying what you want to hear?

This is perhaps the biggest obstacle for a small business to surmount, but it isn’t a deal breaker. You may have some friends or past co-workers who understand IT, and who could be brought in to help screen talent and ask the right technical questions.

Our company sometimes offer these services to clients—from screening to an in-person interview—in order to help determine whether the candidates can ‘walk the walk’. We do this through a standardised technical skills test, followed up by an interview with one of our senior technicians.

The effort involved in doing this pales in comparison to the direct and indirect costs—usually thousands of dollars—that hiring the wrong candidate can have on a business.

3. Personality tests

You and I know we like to think that we are great at reading people—and in nearly all cases, we are—it is just incredibly difficult to gauge somebody’s personality traits in the matter of a few hours.
 

There are many different personality types, and about as many different tests that can be taken to better identify the traits in an individual. We want to hire somebody who will get along with both ourselves and our employees, partners and clients.

Is there a ‘personality’ that best performs as a technical specialist? In a way, there is. The traits that we find deliver the most value in this space are individuals who are patient and methodical, and who are able to deliver great customer service.

Personality tests can help you identify whether those traits exist in your top candidates. You will hire people who will deliver consistent results, and who will make life easier for your clients and employees.

4. IT Support Responsibilities

If you’ve ever worked for anybody else in your life, you probably know about KPIs, or Key Performance Indicators. These are the metrics by which you assess the performance of yourself, your staff, and your business.

 KPIs for IT Support employees or managed IT Support providers can range broadly depending on the type of business you operate. If you’re hiring an internal technical specialist to look after your people and systems, the KPIs are much less formal than if you’re using an external team.

Internal IT Support

Consider the metrics that matter to your business. Why are you hiring an internal technical specialist? It could be to:

•   Guarantee the uptime of your network

 

•   Resolve any hardware and software issues quickly

 

•   Manage your website

 

•   Develop and resolve bugs in software

 

Whatever the metric, you should be setting minimum acceptable NUMBERS to objectively assess performance. It is then critical to track and improve those numbers by creating systems for each task. 

If you are not tracking metrics, how can you possibly tell if you are improving on them?

Creating systems can be as simple as a Word document that details:

•   What is the task?
•   Why are we doing it?
•   Who is doing it?
•   How do we do it?

Managed IT Support

When working with a managed services provider, KPIs take on the term SLA—or Service Level Agreements. The most common metrics are:

Abandonment Rate – percentage of calls abandoned before being answered

Average Speed to Answer – when something goes wrong, we want fast access to make sure the problem is going to get fixed as soon as possible.

Time Service Factor – the percentage of calls answered within a specific agreed timeframe. For instance: 80% of calls being answered within 20 seconds.

First-Call Resolution – having to contact technical support departments to ‘follow up’ on the state can be frustrating. This metric calculates, percentage-wise, how many issues are dealt with during that first call.

Turn-Around Time – from when you lodge an issue, what is the average time it takes for it to be completely resolved and considered ‘closed’?

Mean Time To Recover – if there is an outage—whether it is a network, software or hardware failure—how long does it take on average to recover? This could include finding a temporary workaround while the major issue is resolved.

Conclusion

I’ll admit it—there was some measure of pain in learning these things first-hand. But getting it wrong and understanding the best way to do things is always worth it. I hope that sharing them with you brings some value to your business.
 

Looking for a technology partner for your business? Mike Smith is the Director of Greenlight ITC, a Managed Services Provider specialising in delivering IT Support and technology solutions to small businesses in Sydney and Melbourne since 2006.

 

 

Hit me with your best shot!

Are you giving your business the best shot? Maybe, but maybe not - I had a client the other day 'interview' a candidate and it went a bit like this:

Candidate arrived - Owner seemed flustered and distracted - the interview was on the couch in front of the rest of the team...

Question one (and pretty much the only one) - 'what do you know about my business?'

Next thing said - with a point of the finger - 'that's where you would be sitting'

Rapport was good but no questions were asked about background or skills and the interview lasted just 20 minutes.

Now you might be thinking that the candidate must have been horrendous - well I can categorically say that she wasn't and that this was a missed opportunity. The candidate is hard working, has a great personality, can turn her hand to a wide variety of roles, has small business experience, can pick up new skills and struggles with having nothing to do.

So what did the candidate think of the interview process?

Nice guy - but wasn't focused on the interview. I didn't get to sell myself. I wasn't told anything about the role. I'm not sure I would take the role, even if it was offered.

The problem was that the owner did not sell the role, his business or vision and the first impression created was not a good one. I believe that one of the major success factors for any business is to not just get employees and fill a gap, but to attract and retain the best ones possible.

So was this a missed opportunity? I think so. As SME owners, it is critical to surround yourself with people that are flexible, willing to roll up their sleeves and get stuff done. Typically, people are not taught how to attract talent to their business and select the best people. I believe that this is a key skill for business owners to acquire, to survive and thrive.

Do you have any interview horror stories - either as an employer or as a candidate?

Download and read our free eBook on our Employee Matters Facebook page today to see how it can be done.

Natasha Hawker owns Employee Matters Pty Ltd; an HR Consultancy that assists small to medium businesses with their HR functions to make them more efficient and profitable. Their offering includes HR Management, Recruitment, Training, Coaching, and Exit Management – find them at www.employeematters.com.au

Are you sick of sick employees?

By: Natasha Hawker

As an SME, when you get the dreaded call that one of your team is sick - what do you do? Did they actually call or was it received by text? Most small businesses run a very lean team, so having a team member off for a day - or worse still a week - can make for a challenging time. If employees see or perceive a relaxed approach to the management of leave, you are likely to have everyone taking their full entitlements and then some. This is an extremely expensive outcome for the business.

Just to remind you sick leave is now called Personal Leave and this can be used for the individual or for them to care for members of their family such as a child or parent, amongst others.

Here are nine things SMEs need to do to actively manage absenteeism:

1. Keep a record of all Personal Leave accrued and taken - this is one of the greatest financial leakages to a business, where leave records are not accurate and you think an employee has taken eight days when they have actually taken twelve days 

2. Analyse leave trends - if it is increasing there is likely to be a reason for this - is morale low? Alternatively, if personal leave is reducing that's good and will have a very positive impact on your bottom line

3. Implement and adhere to a Personal Leave policy - stating leave entitlements, the process for a leave request and the potential requirement to produce a medical certificate

4. Be supportive of genuine leave requests - where employees require personal leave be supportive. It is a reality that people will be ill - some more so than others and some years will be worse than this one

5. Discourage a 'presenteeism culture' - the last thing you want is for sick people to come to work to spread their germs, it will increase the recovery time for the individual put others at risk and potentially reduce the quality of work produced over this period

6. Consider instigating an Annual Leave Purchase Program - this enables people to purchase additional leave - say they want 6 weeks away in Europe. Rather than risk a resignation make this cost effective and a 'win win' for both parties

7. Actively manage long term personal leave cases - keep in touch with the employee, keep them in the loop of what is happening in the office and actively work with their medical team to return the employee to the office in a way that compliments the medical advice. Remember you are liable from a 'duty of care' perspective, if you don't manage this carefully

8. Look to develop contingency plans - cross train employees so that leave can be easily covered. When completing resourcing planning allow for 8 weeks per employee to cover off annual leave (4wks), personal leave (2wks) and Public Holidays (11 days for NSW). Consider developing a temp pool of people that know the business and are cost effective and readily available

9. Illegitimate leave - if you have an individual that you suspect is taking illegitimate personal leave - take action, your other employees will thank you for it. No-one likes to be carrying an individual unfairly

Remember personal leave is there for a reason - however if it is not managed carefully it can be very detrimental to your business. How do you manage personal leave? Do you recognise any of the issues above?

Natasha Hawker owns Employee Matters Pty Ltd; an HR Consultancy that assists small to medium businesses with their HR functions to make them more efficient and profitable. Their offering includes HR Management, Recruitment, Training, Coaching, and Exit Management – find them at www.employeematters.com.au

Watch out if you get caught - you are going to be in a whole world of trouble!

By: Natasha Hawker

You may remember that a couple of weeks ago we released a blog on the required increase to superannuation contributions, due from 1st July 2013. Well, in the interim, I have heard more and more stories of employers reducing their employees' base salaries to compensate for the increase in contributions. Can employers do this? No, no, no!

For starters it is a breach of contract to reduce employees' salaries and if you are paying close to the minimum Award salary anyway, you may risk a breach here as well. The other potential internal risk you might face is resignations which, should you want to replace people, would cost you far more than the super, not to mention the adverse impact on morale and productivity.

Employers need to consider, as hard as it is sometimes, that this is a cost to doing business in Australia. There is a reason why it is a phased increase and also why we have had a long lead time to introduction. It was to enable businesses to factor it in to their budget forecasting and to make a decision to either absorb the cost or increase prices.

An alternative option is to consider, as part of your employee value proposition, paying above the minimum super - say 13%, as there are tax benefits for you and your employees.

So what is your business doing? Have you heard of any instances of salary reductions happening in your industry?

Natasha Hawker owns Employee Matters Pty Ltd; an HR Consultancy that assists small to medium businesses with their HR functions to make them more efficient and profitable. Their offering includes HR Management, Recruitment, Training, Coaching, and Exit Management – find them at www.employeematters.com.au