What are we going to do with Ed?

Every business has one ‘problem’ or non-performing employee and if you don’t, I would suspect that you are probably not being completely honest with yourself. It is a competitive world and if you are going to succeed, you not only need to ‘win the war for talent’, you need to retain it. If an individual is consistently not performing you need to move them on - they are in the wrong place if they are in your business!

We are regularly called in to help with a managed termination when everyone has had enough and the relationship is damaged beyond repair, but it doesn’t have to be this way. I often find that when I ask how long Ed has been under-performing, I hear ‘oh, about ten years’. These individuals are not only damaging to productivity but there is a detrimental impact on other employees when they see that nothing is being done about it. If you address non-performance issues early on you are, in 60 - 70% of the time, able to improve the situation.

Here are five ways you can ensure that you keep the best people and move on the employees that are not working out:
 

1.     Have current job descriptions – this allows there to be a clear understanding of what is required of employees for them to be successful

 

2.     Measure performance – annually or every six months whichever works for your business

3.     Have a conversation, even the difficult ones – when performance has dropped, act quickly and speak to the employee, telling them what you are seeing and asking them 'is there a reason for this change in performance?'

4.     Document the issue – there can never be too much documentation when non-performance is the issue

5.     Act – don’t be afraid - most business owners feel that they cannot legally manage out individuals but you can, you just need to follow a process

Your business is too precious to have the wrong people working in it. To be honest, in big businesses poor performing individuals can hide to a certain extent, it is diluted but in a small business this impact can be disastrous.  Don’t let it happen to 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

My Driver

I wanted to write this morning about my driver; my bus driver to be precise, who does one of the most stressful and undervalued jobs in the world! This bus driver has compelled me to ring his employer on at least two occasions to comment on his excellent customer service - then he disappeared and I was shocked and saddened. He was back today! So what made him so special?

1.  Exceptional customer service: He personally welcomed every single passenger with a cheery "good morning sir, madam, miss or mate" and seemed to tailor the address to whether the man might prefer or warrant a "sir" or "mate". After a busy day what a refreshing entry onto the bus

2. Thanked you for your patronage: when you got off the bus you were bid farewell. Acknowledgement in this day and age - how quaint! With most drivers you would be lucky to receive a grunt

3. Skill - he drove carefully and smoothly and seemed to enjoy a job that would drive me nuts (no pun intended). I knew I would get home safe and that he took my safety seriously

4. Memorable: I shared this story with my husband this morning and he knew exactly who I meant even though he had not caught a bus for three years. He even asked me to mention to my bus driver that he too was pleased he was back

5. Goodwill: if he did make a mistake, he has a massive goodwill bank to draw on

So yesterday, when I got on the bus after his absence of six months or more, before I knew it I had blurted out - "welcome back - where have you been?" And on leaving - "it is so good to have you back" - he looked shocked. I hope he doesn't think I am stalking him!

Seriously, I have no alternative way to commute to the city, but it brightens my day and encourages me to talk favourably about my bus driver and his company. There is a saying 'look after your customer and your customer will look after you' - I am a great believer in this because it really matters. How well do you and your team look after your customers?

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

'Tis the season to be working?

Hang on I think I have that wrong - isn't it meant to be the season to be jolly or to rest? One of the challenges of working for yourself is that your boss can be a real *****!

So why do we do it to ourselves? One of the challenges is the level of uncertainty - where is the next dollar coming from?  No one knows the business as well or cares about it as you do. You can save money if you do it yourself.  But what are the risks with this approach? Well believe it or not we are not experts in everything and often take longer or have a more emotional view when making tough decisions.

It is critical that you work out your strengths and maximise your time in these areas of your business and seek assistance in all other areas. That does not mean that you ignore these areas; you should have oversight of them and still make critical decisions that impact your decision. That said, it is much quicker to brief, review and approve than to research, draft, learn, redraft, get pulled into something else for a couple of days,  implement and  measure and still not being quite sure whether you fully understand the nuances of the subject matter!

I challenge you to write down everything that you do at the moment over a week, yes everything and allocate a time to it. Once you have completed this, leave it be for a day or two and then come back to it; you will have discovered even more tasks that you had forgotten. How do you ever sleep, eat or play?! The next step is to group similar tasks into categories such as social media, finance, technology build or business development.

Now what can you outsource to free you up to focus on either your areas of strength or the critical areas of your business which you should not outsource? Please let me know you what you decide so that you can focus on what really matters - 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

2013 bring it on!

So, as we have just recently said goodbye to 2012 and welcomed in 2013, I thought it was a good opportunity to reflect over the summer holiday on our first year and what we wanted from our second year of operation.

I suspect that many businesses do not take the time to reflect; they are so focused on the ‘doing’ that they miss the opportunity to change, redirect and enhance their businesses - thereby potentially missing opportunities to maximise productivity and profitability. Businesses are constantly evolving as a result of the economic environment, legal changes & the employee mix, to name just a few and I feel that those that lack the ability to evolve, to adapt and to change quickly, will struggle and many will fail. Some businesses may also develop a certain level of false comfort - think Kodak, Arthur Anderson and Goldman Sachs and this reticence can be lethal.

We started the New Year with a review of our business plan, originally finalised in Dec 2010. It was a fascinating and sometimes funny experience to review our original forecasts and assumptions. For example, we were 49% off our revenue forecast largely due to the delay in launching our website, although we have still been profitable just on a smaller scale. Let’s face it entrepreneurs are optimists by nature - otherwise we would never attempt a start up.

We reviewed and changed our Vision which was too long - so much so, that even I could not remember it. Imagine, if I can’t remember it, how can our team or our clients possibly do so? It was reaffirming to see that we had achieved a lot of our original goals but we needed to adjust our prices and focus on getting costs down.

We then set about developing our Business Plan for 2013; this was much easier with a year of experience under our belt. It was great for Mark and I to, in a sense, 'get on the same page’ - which assists with the day-to-day operations of the business when you are busy. So what are our three main goals in 2013?

1.       Systemisation

2.      Consolidation

3.      Growth

This will help us, in the flurry of activity, to stay focused on the bigger goals for Employee Matters this year. We wish you and your business every success in 2013! 
 

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

 

What a year it was!

So as 2012 draws to a close and Employee Matters celebrates its first year in business I thought that this is a great time to both reflect on the year and also thank our clients for their support.

We started our client-facing work in earnest in Feb 2012 with one client - TP3, but as the saying goes 'it only takes one'. Since then we have grown our client base to over 25 and they are in industries such as IT, medical, banking & finance, corporate travel, environmental & PR - but they all are SMEs who want to be confident that they are legally compliant and to get more out of their employees.

Our services have included recruitment, with one client saving $105k across four senior placements, using our recruitment service versus using a recruitment agency. We have helped our clients exit non-performing employees without being sued; we have worked on HR strategies to prepare a client's employee for exit; we have analysed employee cost impacts for a transfer of business. We have helped clients get the basics right such as position descriptions, employment contracts and visas, maximising productivity and engagement. We have mediated on employee conflicts and coached for performance improvement. We estimate we have saved our clients collectively over $250k in fines for breaches, legal fees and lost productivity.

So how have we managed to do this - well first and foremost we have a great team including a Recruitment Manager, 9 HR Partners and 2 Operations Assistants. Some of the team have worked for me before but many are new and they took a leap of faith in joining a start-up and sharing Mark's and my vision for Employee Matters and for our clients. This team are highly experienced practitioners, commercially savvy and practical when it comes to HR application for SMEs.

We have a great client base and many of them are coming back for more assistance. So, besides the offering we can provide, the great team and clients, why else are we growing? We believe that it is because of our values:

·        Authenticity in approach encouraging engagement and driving success internally and with our clients

·        Knowledgeable and client-focused. Experts in the field whose opinions are highly valued

·        Balancing Strategy and Commerciality for our clients and ourselves

·        Sustain the excitement through versatility and the variety and quality of work

·        Long term partnerships built upon trust, mutual respect and understanding

So to our clients - we thank you for being a very important part of getting Employee Matters started and wish you and your teams a very merry Christmas and a restful break with family and friends. We hope that you have a fantastic 2013, with an engaged team, growth and increased profitability. We look forward to helping you further in 2013 to achieve your business strategy.

Goodbye 2012 and bring on 2013!!!

 

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

School holidays - pleasure or pain?

For many of us, these times of the year are not relaxing - what on earth do we do with the children during the school holidays? The stress and expense of child care or organising activities to keep our young ones amused. We still have to work full-time and that deadline is still looming...

So what can employers do to support their employees during this stressful time? 'Nothing!' You may say but there are a number of possible answers; remember you are a small business you have the ability to be flexible and innovative:

·         Talk to your impacted employees to ask how they are managing and if you can be of help. Position this as a ‘win win’ situation with increased flexibility aimed at maximum productivity

·         Can they work shorter hours, to coincide with holiday care programs start and finish times? Another option might be allowing employees to work from home, where possible, work a shorter year with pro rata pay. Maybe you can utilise a time in lieu program to trade off hours during school holidays

·         Build consensus and agreement about what might be possible and look to document your agreement and implement a tracking system to record any hours owing. Check your Modern Award to confirm that your initiative is legal

The reality is that society and the workplace both need to recognise that enabling working parents to work successfully has huge mutual benefits at their place of work. What are these likely benefits?

Retention- retaining valued employees

Attracting talent - winning the war for talent, people will want to work for you and you can have a better choice of applicants.  This will improve your brand, becoming an employer of choice

Increasing engagement- the organisations with higher levels of engagement have higher levels of profit and productivity and reducing stress – your ‘duty of care’ as employer now covers managing the stress levels of your employees to a reasonable level

Reduction in absenteeism – this approach is likely to reduce unplanned absenteeism and enable you to plan for the ebb and flow of your workforce

It is worth noting that in businesses across Australia, other than those in hospitality and tourism, experience a reduction in productivity across the school holidays with large numbers of employees taking annual leave at this time. I have found that those employers who provide more flexible working conditions have very grateful, engaged and very hard working employees.

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

Ho, Ho, Ho! Five ways to protect against a Sexual Harassment complaint!

We have hit the ‘silly season’ and there is a very good reason that it is called just that. We typically eat, drink and party more enthusiastically than at any other time of the year. I had a friend, that you would describe as having ‘hollow legs’ when it came to alcohol consumption; he said it was his least favourite time to drink, as people who shouldn’t - do!  There is much to be said for this, as most of us have done or said something that they wished they hadn’t, after ‘one too many’. Remember too; it is often paid for by the company, so people see it as even more a reason to over indulge. 

Whilst I am well aware that times have changed drastically, still many people are not; I can clearly remember working for a stockbroker very early in my career, being asked at the interview “are you offended by rude jokes or foul language?” I answered “no” and got the job and after working there for a couple of years, saw it all and more!  It was like that then - it isn't now.

The main issue here is that the office Christmas party, regardless of being held out of the normal place of work, is still considered an extension of the workplace: - that’s right, this is work, real work and it needs to be treated that way.

Here are five actions to ensure that your employees behave at their office Christmas party and that everyone is happy to see each other the next day at work:

Communicate to employees prior to the Christmas party event - via email and in person, about your expectations around behaviour; specifically what is acceptable and what is unacceptable.

Develop & uphold a Sexual Harassment Policy that all employees are aware of. All organisations should have a Sexual Harassment Policy to be compliant with FWA legislation.  But beware: - if you have a policy you need to follow it consistently. There is no defence to having a policy and not adhering to it completely.

Undertake Sexual Harassment training annually and, most importantly, have your employees confirm and sign that they have attended and understood the content of that training. If your organisation is taken to court regarding a complaint and you can show that you had done your utmost to appropriately educate your employees, you will reduce your risk & the possible amount of compensation.

Encourage intervention – where appropriate at the Christmas party from fellow employees, if events are getting out of hand. Encourage your team members to look out for one another and not stand by ineffectively. If someone should be assisted into a cab a little early to avoid embarrassment or to avoid an escalation of inappropriate behaviour, so be it. 

Quickly conduct a proper investigation if there is an informal or formal complaint and resolve the situation as quickly as possible. If there has been an incident, it can often be dealt with quickly & quietly to the satisfaction of all parties internally. There are very specific rules around complaints and complaint handling you should be across.

I have seen, in my career, many examples of companies losing quality employees who chose to resign quietly, rather than raise a complaint because they felt that they would not be taken seriously or that the culture of the company actively condoned or acquiesced to inappropriate behaviour, innuendo, inappropriate jokes, and unwanted advances or touching.

These simple steps will help you ‘navigate’ the silly season and help to have all of your employees feel that they ‘matter’ to you.

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