Home Wealth Project

Given the extra work that many employees have been shouldering for the past few years, combined with the lack of raises, perhaps the results of a recent Accenture survey shouldn’t be surprising: More than half of employees responding were dissatisfied with their jobs.

What is surprising? Even as the economy picks up, just 30 percent of respondents said they plan to look for jobs elsewhere. Instead, 70 percent of women and 69 percent of men said they plan to stay at their current company. (Though I just wrote about another survey conducted by MarketTools that indicates nearly half of all Americans are thinking about leaving their jobs.)

Why are employees dissatisfied? Top reasons were:

Low pay (47 percent of women, 44 percent of men);
Lack of opportunity (36 percent of women, 32 percent of men);
No chance for career advancement (33 percent of women, 34 percent of men).

Given these factors, why are they staying? Fifty-nine percent of women and 57 percent of men say they plan to gain additional experience and seek career advancement in-house, rather than looking elsewhere.

“We’re seeing an unanticipated workplace dynamic,” says Adrian Lajtha, chief leadership officer at Accenture. “Today’s professionals are not job hunting, despite expressing dissatisfaction. Instead, they are focused on their skill sets and on seeking the training, the resources and the people that can help them achieve their goals.”

How can your company be a leader? Aside from better pay—which you may not yet be in a position to provide—the top things employees are seeking at their current workplace were:

New, challenging assignments (44 percent of women, 48 percent of men);
Flexible work arrangements (39 percent of women, 34 percent of men); and
Leadership positions within their companies (22 percent of women, 28 percent of men).

Lajtha suggest companies should support employees by listening to their needs and “providing them with innovative training, leadership development and clearly-defined career paths.”

Hearing that employees are dissatisfied can get a small business owner’s ire up. But there’s definitely a silver lining here. “There’s still a sense of commitment to take action with their current employer,” notes LaMae Allen deJongh, the author of the study and Accenture’s managing director for human capital and diversity. “We interpret that as an opportunity.”

How will you take advantage of that opportunity to keep talented people with your team?

How Can You Help Your Unhappy Employees – and Should You?

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Do You Need to Hire This Year? Where Will You Find New Employees?

Jan 26th

Are you planning to hire new staff in 2011? After two years of slashing staffs to the bone, many small businesses may feel it’s finally time to staff up so they can take advantage of the recovery.

But do you know where to find those workers?

The world of hiring has changed, and the Wall Street Journal recently took a look at how companies are planning to hire in the coming months. Here’s some of what they found:

Companies are planning to rely less on general online job boards (such as Monster.com)
Businesses will rely more on social networking sites like LinkedIn.
Companies are focusing on headhunting, networking and even (gasp) poaching qualified candidates from their competition.

The Journal cites a December survey by consultancy The Corporate Executive Board Co. that found 24 percent of companies expect to decrease the use of third-party employment websites and job boards in the next 12 months. At the same time, the survey found, almost 80 percent of companies surveyed will rely more heavily on alternative methods such as Facebook, LinkedIn and referrals from employees.

Even if you aren’t already hiring, other companies are. Labor Department figures show job openings increased by 32 percent between November 2009 and November 2010. And the Corporate Executive Board survey reports that between December 2009 and December 2010, the number of applications for each job opening increased by 17 percent.

With more job openings out there, your small business will face increased competition from big companies when you do take steps to hire. So what to do? The Corporate Executive Board survey was focused on larger companies, but there are still some valuable takeaways for small businesses.

First, get back to basics. I think it’s ironic that big companies are turning to some of the time-honored tactics small companies have always used to find employees. Getting referrals from current workers, using your network of contacts to seek candidates, and even looking to your competitors as sources of job applicants are all strategies that work well for small businesses.

Second, take advantage of the ability that social networking and the Web have given us to supercharge our employee-search tactics. In the past, you would have had to actually get on the phone with 50 or 100 contacts to put the word out that you’re looking for a new marketing director, now you can let people know about it with the click of a mouse.

Third, focus on quality, not quantity. Putting the word out to a few select people you truly trust gives you better results than posting a job opening on Facebook (although the latter still beats a general job board listing for delivering relevant candidates). You’ll save time by not wading through piles of applications—and find the perfect employee far faster.

Do You Need to Hire This Year? Where Will You Find New Employees?

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Want to Keep Key Employees? Learn From the Talent Masters

Jan 19th

As the economy gets better, holding on to your peak-performing employees is going to get harder and harder. You obviously can’t (or may not want to) hold on to all of your workers, but if one of your key players heads out the door, your small business could be in a tough spot.

So how do you keep top-notch employees? One way to learn is from the “talent masters.” The Talent Masters is the title of a recent book by Bill Conaty (formerly head of HR at General Electric) and Ram Charan, a business advisor, speaker and author who has coached some of the world’s most successful CEOs. The Economist recently took a look at some of the lessons from the book, which studied companies known to be “talent factories,” including GE and Procter & Gamble.

What can you learn from how these leading companies groom their stars?

1. Don’t be afraid to single out stars. It may be politically incorrect, but measuring and labeling employees is regularly practiced at all “talent factories.” Top companies do regular reviews and assessments of all employees. At GE, employees get divided into three groups based on their potential. At Hindustan Unilever, people who show leadership potential are put on a list (and referred to as “listers”).

2. Get involved. Even at big corporations, personal involvement between the CEO and high-potential employees is key. According to The Talent Masters, GE CEO Jeff Immelt knows intimate details about his company’s top 600 employees, including their business goals and their family situations. At Hindustan Unilever, managers keep dossiers on “listers.” Of course, getting to know employees is a lot easier at a small company, so there’s no excuse not to. Talk to your key performers and find out their goals and ambitions, but also be aware of what might hold them back—whether those are personal characteristics or gaps in training—and devise plans to get over those humps.

3. Provide feedback. Top executives at talent factories don’t just gather data on their high-potential employees; they give them ongoing feedback about performance. Again, this is simple to do in a small company, so get out there and make sure you’re giving feedback—both good and bad—to employees you want to groom. Don’t think you have time? Think again: Jack Welch and A.G. Lafley, former heads of GE and P&G, claim to have spent 40 percent of their time on personnel issues. That’s how important it is.

4. Invest in offsite training. GE spends $1 billion a year on employee training; Novartis sends top employees to regular off-site training sessions. This may be beyond your budget, obviously, but there are still plenty of ways to provide high-potential employees with additional learning opportunities. Pay for them to join industry associations and have them take advantage of training opportunities, conferences and seminars. If they’re interested in additional education such as professional certification or an MBA, maybe you can’t contribute to their tuition—but you can give them flexible hours, time off when needed to study or otherwise make it easier for them to achieve.

5. Offer in-house training. Match high-potential employees with senior mentors (or take them under your own wing). Hold brown-bag lunches where top performers read the same business book and discuss it, or share books they’ve read that are relevant to the company’s goals. You can also offer cross-training so high-potential employees can learn more about each others’ jobs.

6. Create generalists. It’s easy for top performers to become experts in a certain niche, but “talent factories” focus on creating generalists, not specialists. To get the most from talented employees, they should know how to handle a wide range of functions. (That’s another reason for cross-training, mentioned above.)

7. Set stretch goals. In addition to all the training, development and encouragement, don’t forget real-life learning. Top companies often give high performers “stretch” assignments—also known as “baptisms by fire,” “accelerator experiences” or “crucible roles.” Sound painful? It can be, but throwing a talented employee into the deep end and letting him or her figure it out can be a great learning experience—and it’s a sure way to build management skills.

Want to Keep Key Employees? Learn From the Talent Masters

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5 Green Gifts for Your Employees

Dec 12th

JOEmo Leak-Proof Coffee Mug

You want to show your employees appreciation with a gift this holiday season. But you don’t necessarily want to hand out trinkets that will inevitably create more waste by getting tossed in the closet or the trash can. Rather, think seriously about giving employees an eco-friendlier holiday gift this year.

Here are five green gift ideas for employees to get your mind rolling:

1. Reusable travel mug –

Eco Cup

2. Memorable experience –

Cloud9Living.com

XperienceDays.com

Solar-powered battery chargers –

Amp Solar Charger by Voltaic

Gaiam Solar Power Charger

Local foods

LocalHarvest.org

Eco-friendly tote bags

eco-friendly bags

Many environmental organizations also solicit donations around the holidays, if you’re so inclined. The Nature Conservancy’s Nature.org offers an array of gift donation options, or you can choose a local cause.

5 Green Gifts for Your Employees

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Innovate IT, Management, Employees and Social Media With Empowered

Nov 27th

Now that everyone has received the memo – or tweet – on social media, a new memo has arrived on your office table: How does an organization manage employees who daily use social media to get things done?

That’s the question Forrester execs Josh Bernoff and Ted Schadler answer in their fine book, Empowered: Unleash Your Employees, Energize Your Customers, and Transform Your Business (Bernoff co-authored the bestselling book Groundswell with Charlotte Li). I met both authors at a New York mixer, and had also listened to Bernoff on a Harvard Business Review podcast.

Just as it has empowered customer choice online, social media has also empowered employee productivity. Empowered encourages businesses to make the most of that power shift. A quote on page 16 sums up the authors’ mission:

“The tools to change your business, to become more responsive to these empowered consumers, aren’t the problem. It’s the way your business runs that needs to change.”

Explaining the nuances of social media’s impact on customers

Empowered is a great read for the informed business owner. It’s grounded in Forrester research, naturally, and studies from various sources, but not excessively academic. The insights are splendidly clear. Take the following quote on the traditional customer acquisition funnel, for example:

“In the funnel people became aware of your company, consider its products and then a few of them buy. But now the mass influencers among your customers are broadcasting information about your products … This suggests a different view of the funnel, one in which sales is no longer the endpoint. Once you have sold a customer, good service will create happiness.”

The first chapters elaborate on mass online influences, differentiated by social media personae called Mass Connectors and Mass Mavens. Mass Connectors are people who share links in social networks, while Mass Mavens share opinions through blogs and discussion forums. Examples demonstrate how success connecting to personae can come in unexpected ways. For example, read how Ford’s well-regarded Fiesta Movement campaign had to create Fiesta enthusiasts first:

“Ford’s challenge is this: The people who talk about cars are well-off and influential, but rarely own Fords … Ford had to create customers by letting them drive the cars for a while to prime the pump and get the discussion going.”

The examinations have the right depth and scope to explain why certain social media contain nuanced opportunity. Mobile and text message topics are a welcome delight, advancing the social media discussion to territory where other books have failed.

How HEROes can save your business

Here come the HEROes, employees who take initiative to solve customers’ problems through the same social media tools customers casually use. As a result HEROes are in the best position to engage customers, increasing brand value, improving customer service and elevating awareness that leads to sales. Anyone can be a HERO, such as Leonard Bonacci who developed GuestAssist, a text messaging system to manage disruptive Philadelphia Eagles fans. Fans with a problem send a text to a short code that matches their seat so that a rep can arrive to discreetly resolve the issue.

“Despite the ease of the system, only a few hundred messages get sent each season, few enough that they’re far more likely to help with satisfaction than to overwhelm the staff … Two years later the NFL made what the Eagles were doing a leaguewide practice.”

Although the case studies involve corporations, the ease of implementation implies that small businesses can use similar techniques. Read the segment “If you sell to small businesses, marketing and customer service need to connect” to gain some ideas.

Create accord between IT and management to best serve your customers

Later chapters examine the implementation of HERO activity organization-wide, as Empowered offers solutions to help innovate and collaborate on HEROes ideas to create effective strategic advantage.

“The problem in a HERO-powered business isn’t coming up with ideas. The problem is figuring out which of those ideas should be nurtured and which should not.”

One definitive step is to not block social media usage among HEROes. You’ll hurt your business more in terms of productivity and costs by trying to block a genie that is already out of the bottle, according to Bernoff and Schadler’s interviews with employees. Instead, the authors advocate “speed and collaboration” to systematically:

Build collaboration systems that extend existing tools
Make sure anyone participating gets value instantly
Dedicate people to the rollout
Solve 80 percent of the problem, then stop and listen
Build adoption slowly and virally

The authors also suggest aligning HERO social media usage to business objectives through management’s assessment of project risk and IT’s re-imagined role as educator and risk mitigator. Here’s a quote about the role of the IT department in a HERO environment:

“IT has two new jobs:

Train and educate information workers about how to keep themselves safe

Help HEROes assess, manage and mitigate risks associated with their projects.

Note what is included here: IT is not responsible for risk. Instead, people in IT must advise workers to keep them safe, and help them to improve the security of what they do.”

Savvy insights on IT and management roles abound, particularly useful in a world now acclimated to cloud computing and SaaS. Cross-organizational councils are also suggested, as well as a HERO “compact” to best promote roles and responsibilities.

If you want to grow your business, read this book

I love the potential Empowered has to teach small businesses the nuances in social media, marketing and customer service to profitable result. The book complements other social media and marketing books, as well as service books like Service Innovation, but it truly stands alone as a resource for how an organization can be revitalized from within and in the eyes of its customers.

Innovate IT, Management, Employees and Social Media With Empowered

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Older Employees: Debunking the Myths

Oct 20th

When the financial meltdown hit a few years ago, there was lots of talk about how retirees whose retirement funds had been decimated would have to go back to work. Well, a new study by the Families and Work Institute and the Sloan Center on Aging & Work shows that retirees are returning to the workforce—but not for the reasons you might expect.
The study, which analyzed data from the FWI’s National Study of the Changing Workforce (2008), uncovered some surprising statistics about “working retirees”:

Myth: Retirees work only for the money.

Reality: That’s part of the reason, but not the whole story. Although 53 percent of retirees say having a comfortable lifestyle is part of their reason for working, 31 percent say they returned to work because not working is boring. Eighteen percent want to be productive and contribute to society. And fewer than one in five are working because of insufficient retirement income.

Myth: Retirees who go back to work are “coasting” and can’t handle a full workload.

Reality: Most “working retirees” work full time and want to continue working the same or even more hours. Working retirees are passionate about their work: More than half say they don’t plan to leave their current jobs for at least five years, and nearly 10 percent hope to never retire from their current employment.

Myth: Older workers don’t get along with younger co-workers and, especially, younger bosses.

Reality: Although 45 percent of workers age 50 and up have younger bosses, just 10 percent say their bosses aren’t supportive. This isn’t significantly different from the percentage for workers over 50 with older bosses, or workers under 50 with older bosses. In other words, only about 10 percent of all workers, no matter the age, say their bosses are unsupportive.

Myth: Working retirees have to take second-rate jobs.

Reality: In many ways, working retirees are happier with their jobs than people who had never retired. They are more likely to rate their workplace positively for work-life balance, respect and trust, and supportive supervisors.

If you’re considering hiring, you may want to consider retirees as part of your work force. “Traditionally, we have conceived of the life cycle as a ladder where we move from education to employment to retirement. That is not reality today,” says Ellen Galinsky, president of Families and Work Institute. “The employees of today and tomorrow will cycle in and out of education, employment, and retirement.”

Download the full report at the Families and Work Institute website, and check out the Huffington Post website, where Galinsky goes into some of the findings in more detail.

Older Employees: Debunking the Myths

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Social Media Savvy Companies and Their Employees

Oct 12th

Posted by Home Wealth Project in General

NetProspex, a Mass.-based company that manages a B2B focused sales and marketing database platform, has released its Fall 2010 Social Business Report, which it touts as “a comprehensive look at the use of social media by business people across the U.S.” (I have some serious issues with the report, but more about that later.)

This new report reveals the state of social media use by business people across all industries, geographic regions and job functions. The 25-pager follows on the heels of a report released in May that included NetProspex’s snapshot of social media activity among employees of the nation’s top corporations. Both reports include a listing of the 50 most social corporations in America.

Using what it calls the NetProspex Social Index, corporations were ranked on how often their employees used social networking tools such as Twitter, Linkedin and Facebook. An NPSI score is a composite of three numbers:

Social connectiveness: The number of employees with at least one social media profile.
Social friendliness and reach: The average number of connections per employee across these networks.
Social activity: The average number of tweets, followers and users the employee is following.

NetProspex grouped employees into industry categories and then took the average “NPSI” of the overall industry. More than two million contacts were analyzed from within NetProspex’s business contact database.

Predictably, the search engines and online portals industry topped the list, ranking as the most social media savvy industry in the country with a NPSI rating of 98.74 — nearly a third higher than the second-place entry. Second was the advertising and marketing industry with a 63.93 rating, followed by banking, which outpaced the traditional media industry this time around with a 63.44 compared with media (TV, radio, newspapers and magazines), which scored a 55.11.

Other industries ranking in the 50 percent range were toys and games — named the most media savvy in the consumer products sector — followed by HR and recruiting and IT industries. Software and consumer electronics scored in the 40s, and retail apparel, credit cards and transaction processing, flowers, telecommunications, travel and tourism, cleaning products, department stores and superstores and gambling and gaming industries all scored in the 30th percentile.

Trucking, moving and storage had the distinction of being the only blue-collar industry to make the Top 50 list, while mining, automotive repair and collision service, as well as wood production, were low-social ranking industries that didn’t even make the list.

The colorful NetProspex PDF is also peppered with “fun facts,” including the factoid that employees of the funeral home industry don’t tweet and also suffered the lowest average social rating overall. This despite the fact that their employees have more Facebook friends than people who work for zoos and national parks. Other tidbits in the report include the breaking news that those in the travel industry have twice the Facebook friends as those in the restaurant business. And hospitals and clinics had an average social rating of 6.97 — nearly half that of the lowest ranked industry on the Top 50 list.

The report also features the industries with employees who utilize Twitter the most, with search engine and online portal companies scoring the highest, followed by media, banking and then advertising and marketing. One section in the report reveals the most social job. It shows that marketing, advertising and communications professionals rank highest among social savvy employees with an NPSI ranking of 68.29, following by HR and recruiting officials, communications and public relations employees, IT workers and sales people.

And if you’re trying to interact with a company through its CEO, forget about it. CEOs ranked 11th on the list with a score of 17.36. Office managers and customer service reps outpace CEOs, so the report suggests taking your social media skills in that direction.

The Social 50 company ranking is perhaps the highlight of the NetProspex report, ranking companies based on those with the largest number of social employees. The most socially savvy company this time around is Google (98.74), which rose from fifth place to top Microsoft (63.93) as top banana. Also in the top 10 were Amazon (63.44), eBay (551.71), Dell (47.07) and Best Buy (46.14). Apple scored twelfth, Oracle at 18th, Disney at 23rd and Office Max at 24th. The complete listing is available online at https://www.netprospex.com/np/social/report/fall2010/industry.

As interesting and as attractively packaged this report is, its usefulness is dubious. As a business communication strategist and social media communications practitioner, I found the NetProspex report to be significantly short on depth and methodology.

When a report starts off with an outlandish statement like, “A Twitter username is becoming just as important as a phone number to reach and engage with customers and prospects,” you’ve got my attention. The notion that a Twitter account is as important as a telephone number is pretty much nonsense. Being able to communicate about real issues via the spoken word will always trump messages limited to 140 characters.

But even more disturbing to me is the methodology of evaluating employee activity as opposed to company activity. I just don’t see how Susie Smith — an Amazon records clerk who religiously checks out Hollywood actor Ashton Kutcher’s tweets — has anything to do with how social-related marketing is helping Amazon. How exactly does an Amazon employee who wants to go online to see how Ashton and Demi are getting along in their fifth year of marriage help the book company’s bottom line? Negatively, if this is what Amazon’s employees are spending their time doing.

And then there’s the statement claiming that NetProspex’s Social 50 “is determined by a company’s employees social connectedness, social activity, friendliness, and reach across top social networks, including Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.” What value is this to the average entrepreneur or startup? What tips, tricks, strategies or warnings can be possibly be gleaned from these 50 firms?

And while I’m on a rant here, why on earth are Zappos and Starbucks missing from the Top 50 list? Zappos has 499 employees who are very actively tweeting from a business-related standpoint (see http://zappos.com/employees), and Starbucks’ social media strategy and impact are legendary (See my earlier story, How Starbucks Builds Meaningful Customer Engagement via Social Media.)

On the flip side, Apple checks in at 12 on the list, yet it doesn’t even have a Facebook or Twitter account. To be fair, Apple’s vice president of iPhone software does have a verified Twitter account with more than 33,000 followers, but he’s posted exactly zero tweets to date. I’m just saying.

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5 Ways to Incentivize Your Employees – Without Breaking the Bank

Oct 6th

While bonuses, paid holidays and other formal employee benefits are good for business, they are not a guarantee of employee or team performance. In fact, studies have proved that “soft” benefits, such as employee incentive programs, are directly responsible for driving increased efficiencies and productivity among employees.

And while “employee-friendly” business practices have traditionally been perceived as frivolous or a distraction, when structured and managed effectively they not only boost morale, but produce motivated teams dedicated to the success of your business.

A formal employee incentive program, or even elements of it, needn’t break the bank. Here are five ways you can incentivize your employees.

1. Introduce flextime.

Allowing your employees to enjoy more flexible schedules is a great incentive for attracting and keeping high-performing employees. It doesn’t mean that they work less time; it just means they have the benefit of working the hours that you mutually agree on outside the traditional confines of a 9-to-5 work day. Flextime won’t work for all businesses or all employees. Here are some tips for balancing your business needs with those of your employees:

Determine who is eligible for flextime: If you want to offer this benefit but are concerned about rolling it out to all employees, consider establishing eligibility based on performance or tenure.
Set acceptable and universal guidelines: Start by consulting employees on their needs; then develop and communicate a set of guidelines that is realistic for all. For example, you might choose to offer your employees the option of starting or leaving work one or two hours early on certain weekdays. If you do so, make sure your employees can make up those hours during the rest of the week.
Establish procedures: Ensure that your flextime policy includes a process for reviewing requests, scheduling and ensuring coverage.
Monitor the program: Once your flextime program is under way, take time to adjust it and iron out any kinks. Assess whether performance has been affected or the program been abused.

2. Offer employees corporate memberships.

Whether it’s a discounted gym membership or access to an executive suite at your local sports arena, corporate membership programs can help promote employee well-being as well as help to facilitate business relationships when used as vehicles for client entertainment.

Before you rush into buying the membership that appeals to you, consult your managers or employees and try to gain consensus on their preferences. Again, you may want to offer these perks based on performance or tenure. Don’t forget, if you do use corporate memberships for any form of client entertainment, you can claim customer entertainment expenses (including meals) as a business tax deduction, as long as there is a clear business purpose and substantial business discussions are held before, during or after the entertainment. The tax deduction is generally limited to 50 percent of the expenses incurred. Read more about business tax deductions at Business.gov. Also talk to your accountant about other deductions you can gain by implementing employee incentives.

3. Look after those that matter to your employees.

Show your appreciation for your employees by involving their families in their work life and work-related social activities. From family movie nights to “bring your child (or pet) to work days,” these activities can go a long way to making good on your commitment to, and appreciation of, your employees and those who support them.

4. Spiff your team.

Just as sales teams get “spiffed” or compensated for closing a major deal, why not incentivize employees across all your business functions for completing critical projects or reaching certain goals? Incentives aligned with individual achievements or team-based success can go a long way to aligning and motivating your employees around your business objectives.

5. Show you take your employees’ wellness seriously.

For a small business, losing just one employee to frequent sick days or a prolonged illness can be frustrating and a drain on resources. Consider implementing a workplace wellness program. Not only will it help educate your team about all aspects of wellness (physical, mental and even fiscal), it will go a long way to showing you’re investing in them for the long term, and make for a more empowered and happier work force.

Workplace wellness programs don’t have to be all about posters, flyers and doctrine about how and how not to live your life. If you tie them to other incentives and perks – for example, extending the lunch hour once a week to allow employees to take a “30-minute power walk,” or offering prizes for quitting smoking – they can be inclusive and something to get excited about. You might even come up with a calendar that emphasizes a weekly wellness initiative, such as “greening” your work space one week or changing your snacking habits the next!

This article from Dawn Rivers Baker offers more ideas: “10 Steps to a Microbusiness Wellness Program.” The CDC’s Healthier Worksite Initiative offers more information, resources and step-by-step toolkits to help you improve the health and morale of your employees through workplace wellness programs.