Talent management ideas from the top 100 companies of 2008

Fortune magazine has an article in their February 4 issue titled, The 100 Best Companies To Work For. Our teaching is designed to provide you with a foundation for talent management. One of the benefits of being systematic in talent management is that leaders can incorporate good ideas into our system.

Here are some ideas to more fully engage your people based on this article:

#5 Genentech: You get doggie day care, and onsite farmers market, and 100% matching up to 5% of your pay into your 401(k).

#6 Cisco Systems: CEO John Chambers won praise for his leadership and new blog, On My Mind, which solicits employee ideas.

#12 Nugget Markets: Last year they took the entire company whitewater rafting = throw a year and bash.

#13 Umpqua Bank: Pay employees to give 40 hours of volunteer time annually.

#17 David Weekley Homes: Because the home building industry slowed they canceled their annual reward trip and tripled severance pay for laid-off employees.

#22 American Century Investments: New hires get a copy of the founders book, and many teams put up deskside banners or buying new recruits for lunch.

#32 Rackspace Managed Hosting: Every other month they hold a Open Book meeting were all financial issues are shared.

#35 TDIndustries: One way they demonstrate their “Servant Leadership” philosophy is to not pay anyone more than 10 times anyone else’s compensation.

#37 Johnson Financial Group: Six weeks paid paternity leave, graduate tuition reimbursement up to $10,000 a year, and child care reimbursement when you travel.

#45 Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta: Employee referrals account for 46% of new hires.

#51 Paychex: Average amount of training per employee is 107 hours.

#57 Ernst & Young: In just three months during 2007 E&Y built the fastest growing recruitment group on Facebook and now has more than 12,200 members.

#60 Alcon Laboratories: They match employee retirement contributions 2.2 to 1.

#64 EOG Resources: They match charity contributions up to $60,000 per employee per year.

#66 Nixon Peabody: It targets 3% of billable hours annually for pro bono work.

#68 eBay: Maybe this is too much - golf lessons, bike repair and on-site dentist, prayer and meditation rooms, plus a four week paid sabbatical after only five years.

#83 AstraZeneca: If you like eBay then you’ll like this company’s on-site haircuts, video rentals, massages, tennis and basketball courts, plus a Bright Horizons childcare center.

#86 Microsoft: In just 3% of their budget in employee training.

Drop It a Notch

In my book I recommend that you rate performance on a 1-5 scale on performance evaluations. This recommendation was based on lots of research, personal experience and conversations with experts. The second most popular rating scale was 1-3. And then there were a variety of alternatives.

I have come to the conclusion after additional experience with Clients and a lot of thought that it is time to change my recommendation. Here is why. I find too many companies struggling with the 1-5 scale because employees want to be rated a 5, yet in that 1-5 scale the 5 rating should only be given out very rarely.

For instance I worked with a client awhile back. He shared a story about a company he worked at previously. When he was hired the average performance review rating was something like a 4.8 or 4.9 on a five-point scale. However, the company was losing money! How could the scores be so high when the company is losing money!

Too often people instinctively compare a five-point scale to grades they received when they went to school. They think an A is a 5; a B is a 4; a C is a 3 and so forth. No one who is a performer wants to be rated a 3 even if in reality that means they’re doing a good job.

I’m still seeing this happen today. Even though the overwhelming response that I got from experts and recommendations in my research says the 5-point scale works best, my experience is this is not true.

Therefore I am recommending you use a different rating scale for performance evaluations. My suggestion is you use a four-point scale. When you rate someone a 1, this still means Not Acceptable. When you rate someone a 2, this still means Needs Improvement. When you rate someone a 3, this still means that they are meeting the requirements of the job. However, I want you to use the descriptor Solid Performer rather than Meets Job Requirements.

My experience with clients has now led me to overwhelmingly conclude that very few employees want to be told that their performance “meets job requirements.” How boring! How average! Think about it: The guy goes home at the end of the day and his wife says, “Well, how did you get rated in your performance review?” He replies, “Well, I’m told I meet job requirements so I guess I’m doing okay. How about a beer and let’s watch some TV?” It is almost totally UNmotivating!

This is why I think it’s so important to change a the #3 rating descriptor to confirm the employee is a Solid Performer. Everyone wants to be a solid performer and to be recognized as a contributor. Telling someone that they “meet job requirements” is about as motivating as telling someone they’re lucky to have a job in the first place.

So rating someone a 1 means their performance is Not Acceptable. You need this rating. There are times when you need to communicate very clearly that the person is not performing up to your standards. In the Comments section of the performance review make certain you explain specifically what the standards are for good performance and the steps you feel the person needs to take to improve.

Rating an employee a 2 means their work Needs Improvement. This rating is very valuable to confirm to an employee that you appreciate their putting forth the effort, but that they need to improve. In the Comments section of their performance review make certain you explain specifically the type of improvement you desire.

The 3 rating on your performance review communicates to the employee that day are a Solid Performer and a valuable member of your team. I really believe reinforcing the fact that your people are regular contributors by changing this descriptor is an important piece of the puzzle to improve retention rates. Remember your people want to be evaluated even though you may dread taking the time to write the performance review. They want to know how they’re doing. And they want to be recognized for what they’re accomplishing.

The last rating level, #4, means Outstanding performance. By limiting the rating scale to only four levels this significantly increases your ability to limit the number of high ratings you give to your employees. The 4 basically communicates to them that in a particular behavior or goal they were awesome. Give out 4 ratings rarely to increase the desire of your results oriented employees to achieve them.

King’s Legacy For Leaders

Yesterday it was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday. If you have never read a biography on Dr. King, I recommend that you do. Particularly if you’re Caucasian like me. It’s quite an eye opener.

He was an extraordinary man with incredible intelligence. He inspired our nation to accept something that is logically simple yet emotionally complex - respect and equal opportunity for all people no matter what their heritage.

Tim Hebert, CEO of Atrion Networking Corporation in Warwick, Rhode Island gave a talk last week at Cisco’s HR Forum on the importance of a company vision. As part of his presentation he showed a clip from Dr. King’s “I have a dream” speech in Washington, DC. It is interesting to note that in this six minute clip Dr. King repeated the words “I have a dream” many times and reinforced those words with strong verbal illustrations.

Just as when Jesus said to his disciples, “A new command I give you, love one another. As I have loved you, love one another. By this man will know you are my disciples, if you love one another.” He was talking to his top students and he still had to repeat himself three times! Dr. King, Jesus Christ, and many great leaders throughout history have realized that even when you have a great vision it still must be communicated over and over again for people to grasp it.

As you continue to move forward this week I encourage you to look at your company’s vision statement. Is it a common vision that appeals to the shared aspirations of your employees? Is it simple in its message, like Dr. King’s “I have a dream” vision? Is it something that inspires passion so your employees become fully engaged in what they do in your business?

How is your vision? That’s my thought for today. If your company has a great vision statement then proclaim it everywhere you go and reinforce it with powerful, passionate stories of how your company is positively impacting lives of others. If your vision statement needs to be more clear, then there is no better time than this week - NOW - to improve it.

Remember, our goal is to make 2008 our best year ever. Without great vision, how can you see your way to success? Have an awesome day!

Are You Ready?

Are you ready for the talent challenges of 2008? Last week I participated in a fantastic event, the Cisco HR Forum in Vail, Colorado. The focus was retention. Everything I heard reinforces that effective leaders are practicing Success With People system - including my closing comments!

You may ask, “Why focus on retention and it looks like we’re going into a recession?” The reason is because whether economic uncertainty is on the horizon or not, every one of Success With People’s active Clients is still very busy serving other successful businesses. Retaining your key employees during possible down times enables you to have the strongest possibility of profitable growth and quickly respond to client needs as their business firms up and accelerates once again.

I was inspired by a friend of mine recently, Joe Everly. I’d like to leverage his perspective to give you three quick areas to focus on to improve your retention rates and fully engage your people.

1. Belong: Whether you are hiring or just working to fully engage your people make certain they feel like they are incredibly valuable assets to your organization.
2. Believe: Never assume your people fully believe in your company. Take the time every week one-on-one and in groups of employees and/or clients to passionately share real-life stories of how your company is changing people’s lives for the better. The only way to fully engage your employees is to make certain they believe they are doing meaningful work.
3. Become: Every one of your employees wants to become someone better. It’s not about doing something. It’s about being someone. Their identity should not be totally wrapped-up in what they do for your company, however, how you reinforce their value as an individual and how meaningful they find their work greatly contributes to their fulfillment in life.

Let’s make 2008 our best year ever. Have an awesome day!

Cisco HR Forum

Yesterday I was the final speaker at the Cisco HR Forum in Vail, Colorado. The event was very professional and first-class. There were about 50 Cisco partners in attendance representing companies of various sizes. The event opened Tuesday night with dinner and a great presentation. Yesterday was nonstop action. It was like trying to drink water from a fire hose.

I bring this event up to encourage you to be innovative in the way you engage your clients. Cisco understands that when they make their partners better managers of top talent then they can really grow their business. Many of our clients are experts in business processes involving technology. Is there a way you can reach out to your best clients and serve them through producing an event that gives them a broader perspective of how other people in similar companies are using technology to improve their business processes? Or maybe you can produce an event that is focused on another topic that has value to your clients.

Yes, the event will cost you money. It will have no guarantee of higher revenues in return. Nevertheless my experience has been that when you help your clients understand how to become more successful then they will share that success with you.

An event like this reinforces your unique brand. Effective leaders find ways to make their companies stand out in a crowd. I suggest you give it some thought today and over the weekend. Maybe you’re missing out opportunity that can fuel your company’s growth to the next level.

Obese Follow-up

Last week I wrote about how standards had changed for obesity. I mentioned there is plenty of data demonstrating obese workers are not as productive as other employees. CCH reported on one of those surveys this week.

Employees who are moderately to extremely obese are less productive on the job. This is the conclusion of a study in the January Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. This occurs even when you compare these folks compared to overweight or mildly obese workers. (I never realized you could have so many classifications of obese. It sounds like an overweight government standard.)

PLEASE NOTE: In this study researchers measured various aspects of productivity in a random sample of 341 manufacturing employees. Maybe the productivity loss is less for desk jockeys…

The quick facts:

• Most of the workers were overweight or obese, including a 23 percent rate of mild obesity and a 13 percent rate of moderate to extreme obesity.
• Another 43 percent of workers were classified as overweight but not obese.
• Workers with moderate to extreme obesity had the greatest health-related limitations at work. Specifically, moderately to extremely obese workers had limitations in time needed to complete work tasks and ability to meet physical work demands. These limitations were significantly greater than in the overweight or mildly obese groups.
• Health-related losses in productivity averaged 4.2 percent for workers with moderate to severe obesity, 1.8 percent higher than for all other employees.
• Employees with moderate to extreme obesity also had increased health-related absenteeism compared with other workers.

It's up to you. Workplace programs targeting obesity, especially among the most obese workers, can help to reduce costs due to lost productivity; even modest weight loss could result in hundreds of dollars of improved productivity costs per worker each year, the study’s authors conclude.

And I don’t know about you, but I’ve had enough on the topic of obesity for 2008. At least now you have the facts. I’m gonna go exercise…

Time Saving Tips

Readers Digest has an article in their January 2008 issue titled, How to keep from being overwhelmed - Get A Grip by Ron Geraci. I like the article because it not only reinforces several of the time-saving tips that I teach it provided a couple of new ones.

The time-saving tips that I regularly recommend that Readers Digest reinforced:

1. Seek Sanctuary time each day or at a minimum each week where you turn off all forms of communication - email, phone, PDA, instant messaging… and close your door to totally focus on an important piece of work. I thought it was interesting that one college freshman mentioned in the article goes gadget free every Sunday.
2. Set more realistic expectations of your availability. You do not have to be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Not even for customers.
3. Stick to a schedule. Set times when you will do personal web surfing as well as when you will get key work done. Trying to look at every email that pops up is a productivity draining distraction.

Here are some tips from Readers Digest that possibly we all should consider. My favorite is by far #1:

1. Add a statement below your email signature that says: “I answer email at 10 a.m., 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. If you need a quicker response, please call.”
2. If you catch yourself doing some unscheduled web surfing, ask yourself, “should I really be doing this now?”
3. If you feel alone even though you are communicating with people all day, could it be a signal that technology is dominating your life? Talking to someone face-to-face is often much more of a boost than sending a text message, email

Effective executives are experts at managing their time so key priorities get done. In a great week!

Class of ‘08 in High Demand

According to the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), the college Class of 2008 will have a great opportunity to find a job of their dreams as employers have indicated they plan to hire 16% more new college graduates than they hired last year.

“The job market for new college graduates has been gathering strength over the last several years, and this year we’re seeing that trend continue,” commented Marilyn Mackes, NACE executive director. The fact is this is the fifth year in a row that college hiring has projected double-digit increases.

Apparently almost 58% of employers responding to the NACE survey say they plan to increase their college hiring while 36% say they will maintain college hiring at 2006-07 levels.

The challenge for small companies is how to train these college hires. In 2008 watch for a new book and services from Success With People so you can learn how to systematically transform recent college graduates into your next star performers and/or hire us to help.

Hiring Woes

Our Clients are still hiring and today I was reminded of one reason why: Unemployment for IT workers has fallen to an all-time low according to CIO Insight analysis of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

My friend, J. R., forwarded me an article titled, Damn the Economy! IT Employment Rises to New Heights by Eric Chabrow in CIO Insight magazine. While overall unemployment creeps forward, joblessness among business-tech pros reaches a record low. When the government started tracking IT unemployment in 2000 the rate was 2.2%. Last year joblessness among American IT workers averaged 2.1 percent last year down from 2.5 percent in 2006.

Overall U.S. job growth in 2007 inched forward 1.1 percent, compared with the 8.5 percent gain within the IT ranks.

What does this mean for leaders? I think you know the answer.

1. Hire carefully rather than desperately. Make sure you get the right people on board in the first place.
2. Manage systematically so you are consistently fully in gauging your people based on their natural strengths behaviorally and most passionate values.
3. Reward and recognize people based on achieving results regularly.
4. Meet with people one-on-one on a regular basis to confirm they are enjoying their work and plan to continue with your firm. Listen carefully to concerns and respond promptly and comprehensively.
5. Make certain your people understand they’re doing meaningful work.

The article further reports: “Of the eight IT occupations classified by the government—managers, computer scientists/systems analysts, computer programmers, computer software engineers, computer support specialists, database administrators, network/computer systems administrators and network systems/data communications analysts—only one saw a decline in the number of employed. That occupation, computer programmers, employed 526,000 people last year, a loss of 6.4 percent.

“As fewer companies develop custom systems combined with the increased use of offshoring for coding applications, the ranks of employed programmers in the U.S. has plunged by nearly 30 percent since the beginning of the decade. Yet, the need to fill the coding jobs that remain in U.S. offices continues to be strong, as reflected the relatively low 2.2 percent unemployment rate among computer programmers.“

Obesity Concerns

The Pacific Research Institute reports that 17% of children today are obese and that number climbs to 66% by the time they reach adulthood. For employers the question is does obesity affect productivity?

The answer is yes. I can give you lots of quotes from studies that indicate when people are overweight they miss more workdays due to sickness and struggle with other ailments. Excessive weight due to poor diet and lack of exercise can affect productivity in other ways too. However what I want to touch on today is a warning: Be careful what you conclude based on the headlines you read. Do not be quick to categorize any employee as obese.

Not everyone will agree with the Pacific Research Institute. I certainly do not all of the time. They are very conservative group that believes government should be a fraction of its current size (that much I like!). However their perspective is worthy of consideration. Sally C. Pipes, the president and chief executive of the Pacific Research Institute and the author of “Miracle Cure: How to Solve America’s Health Care Crisis and Why Canada Isn’t the Answer,” wrote an article for Washington Post titled, Brave New Diet, which appeared on December 26, 2007.

According to PRI the standard government metric for ”…a person’s body-mass index, or BMI – the ratio of one’s height to one’s weight. But at best, BMI is a rough tool that does not take into account an individual’s body type. A six-foot-two athlete who weighs 210 pounds would be classified as ‘obese’ according to BMI charts – despite his 32-inch waistline, 17-inch biceps and his less than 6 percent actual body fat.

“If you believe the BMI tables, most of the best players in the NBA and NFL are “overweight,” including superstar athletes Kobe Bryant and Tom Brady. Many Hollywood heartthrobs also qualify as fatties – Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Tom Cruise and George Clooney, to name a few.” To read the entire article, click Brave New Diet.

My point is there is a benefit to your company and employees to encourage everyone to eat healthy foods and exercise on a daily or at least 3x a week basis. The best place to start is with you as an effective leader. You set the example and then encourage others. If you cannot find the time to exercise, then do not be a hypocrite telling others they should do what you refuse to make a priority in your own life.

One great example of making a significant life change in this area is presidential candidate Mike Huckabee. He has lost over 100 pounds through improving his diet and exercising.

Let’s all improve our diet and be more consistent in our exercise so we have more energy than the competition to do the best job possible.

Employers Own Email

It may be time to review your policy regarding email.

Recently the National Labor Relations Board ruled employers may lawfully maintain a company policy that prohibits employees from using the employer’s email system for any “non-job-related solicitations.” Even if an employer has allowed a number of nonwork-related employee emails it may ban emails urging support for groups or organizations such as unions.

The key issue is the employer owns and maintains the equipment. This ruling does not stop employees from soliciting one another in-person, however, the Board held that, absent discrimination, employees have no statutory right to use an employer’s equipment or media for union communications.

The Board also significantly changed its standard regarding email usage. Personal nonwork-related postings such as for-sale notices and wedding announcements can be allowed while simultaneously ”group” or “organizational” postings such as union materials are not acceptable. For a complete view of the NLRB Amicus brief, click here.

This topic may sound rather mundane, but if your organization is growing is better to take a moment and update your policy regarding email than to have a problem in the future they could have been avoided by simple policy change. If you want to enjoy Success With People yet don’t have the time to deal with this right now, and possibly you can delegate this to someone else.

Jack Welch on Celebrating

Jack Welch recently spoke at a major ScanSource Impact Now event in Orlando, Florida late last year. VARBusiness magazine and their web counterpart, ChannelWeb, reported on his comments.

As we enter 2008 with the intention to fully engaging our employees in achieving our objectives, I thought one area of Welch’s comments were a particularly important strong reminder.

He asked the audience to raise their hands if they felt they celebrated their success is enough. Few hands were raised and many of them tentatively. “You better be thinking hard about why you’re not celebrating more,” he responded. “The whole game is to excite that talent out of the people around you and see them be rewarded — that’s the joy of managing.”

The 2008 economy looks like it’s going to be a roller coaster, yet most of our clients are anticipating strong growth after coming off a strong 2007. We are too. I encourage you to recognize people for results and celebrate success throughout the year. Do this monthly if not weekly and or spontaneously. Have fun with it!

Employee recognition and celebration are two of the most important things to do as an effective leader. It is a key to success. Enjoy the week!

Comp Reviews

I was with a new TMT client of ours yesterday. Are you wondering what our TMT program is? I’ll talk more about that on Monday. It’s very popular!

When we got to the point of talking about their performance reviews and compensation reviews, we discussed the value of having these as separate events. However this particular business is very virtual. Most of the employees are consultants and there is not one large office where people congregate on a regular basis. Scheduling people for separate compensation reviews is a challenge.

The problem with combining a compensation review with a performance review is the employee doesn’t really focus as much attention to the performance review because they just want to learn how much more money they can make. The pending compensation review is kind of like having an elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about. Although you’re reviewing the employee’s performance, they’re mainly thinking about the “elephant” and wondering how long it will be until you talk about it.

He has a great solution: He talks about the compensation review first and then provides the detail that validates the compensation decision (the performance review) second. He he talks about what’s most interesting to the employee first, which is their compensation, and then they review the individual’s performance.

If you have to combine your compensation and performance reviews, then I recommend you take this approach. However, you should be prepared that if the compensation increase you propose is less than the employee expects, then it may make for a more tenuous performance discussion. Brooding, complaining, shuffling of feet…

7 Annoying Office Habits

There was an article in the San Francisco Chronicle last October 31 titled, “Did you hear? The office gossip is disliked by most of the staff.” The article was written by Ilana DeBare to report on a survey by the staffing firm Randstad USA where they asked people to identify which of seven workplace behaviors they found most annoying.

Guess what won?

The big winner was office gossip, which bothers 60% of the people surveyed. Close behind came poor time-management skills, cited by 54 percent.

In third place but trying harder, was the issue of being a pig in the office. Messiness in common areas was mentioned by 45 percent.

And then closing up the list were the following:

42% - Strong odors from a co-worker’s overpowering perfume, cigarettes, or food.
41% - Loud noises from those around you from speaker phones, music and cell phones.
28% - Overuse of personal communication devices during meetings, such as cell phones and BlackBerries.
22% - Misuse of email, such as hitting “reply to all” and sending what should have been a private comment to an entire company.

This month is a good time as a leader to remind your people of your company standards and proper behaviors for optimum productivity in your office. Possibly sharing this list gives you a nice entrée into this type of discussion.

Recommendation: Kuleto’s

On Friday, December 21, 2007 my family (7 of us) participated in the Chef for a Day program at Kuleto’s Italian Restaurant at 221 Powell St. in San Francisco. The restaurant has been doing this program for over 10 years and as a result has donated over $30,000 to the San Francisco Food Bank.

Head Chef Robert Helstrohm was our gracious host as we got a full tour of the facilities and then participated in and closely observed his star professionals deliver some of the best food on the West Coast. Thanks to Bob, Kuleto’s clearly practices Success With People. We got to choose where we wanted to work in the restaurant based on our interests. Some of us carved meet, others decorated cookies, I made breadsticks - you can see I have limited capabilities in the kitchen - some made salads, and my daughter Jenny stood with the cooks as they skillfully made many meals simultaneously without error. She had a blast!

We did this for about 3 1/2 hours and then got to eat an incredible meal and receive copies of the Kuleto’s cookbook. Our objective was to not spend a lot of money on presents for our kids this year, who are older (16-24 years old), but find something we could do together as a family to create a memory and support a good cause. It’s estimated they served about 300 lunches while we were there and the excitement of the activityhelped us achieve both of our objectives.

I highly recommend if you are ever in San Francisco that you make a reservation to eat at Kuleto’s. They have something for everyone and all of it is superb. It’s one half block off of Union Square so you are at the heart of the City shopping experience and a short distance from many other popular San Francisco attractions.

If you are staying in the City and want a place that is reasonably priced and near downtown, then stay at the Villa Florence Hotel which is connected to Kuleto’s. It’s a fantastic value and a beautiful place to stay. If you come to San Francisco to attend a trade show at the Moscone Convention Center, this hotel and restaurant are about 5-6 blocks away.

Effective leaders need great food and accommodations. We had a great time. Hope you do too!

Job Killing You?

Readers Digest in their January 2008 issue has an article titled "Is Your Job Killing You?"  The article focuses on how high stress can bring about a heart attack.  People who are returning from the holidays to super-stressful jobs are at serious risk, particularly if they have already had one heart attack.  Canadian researchers tracked 972 people for six years after their first attack.  When those people returned to a high-stress job they experienced a second heart attack twice as often during the following two years as less-stressed workers.

Their advice is to try to avoid or prevent stress before it intensifies.  As I recommend in Sanctuary, they suggest some exercise or even seriously considering entering a cardiac rehab program.

Some of the quick tips Dr. Mehmet C. Oz in the article recommends include taking your stress out on a small ball such as a squeeze ball.  Throw it, bounce it, squeeze it and play with it until you feel better.  Give yourself a mini massage by taking your shoes off and rubbing your feet, bending your toes, ankles and arches to ease tension.  Or you can massage her hands.  Leave the office for some time or reflection.  And lastly, maybe get some flowers for your desk.

I won’t be writing another blog entry until January 2.  Have a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year!

5 Tips To Grow Your Biz In Any Economy

Depending on the publication you read the economy into 2008 is either growing or contracting.  USA Today had an article on Tuesday, December 11 of this year from The Associated Press about hiring.

The article was titled, Firms plan about the same level of hiring - 22% plan to add jobs in January – March period.  It was written but Emily Fredrix.  The bottom line of the article is about 22% of employers who participated in the survey by Manpower plan to add jobs during the first quarter next year.  About 60% expect no change in hiring and only 11% expected decrease.

The economy is certainly facing some challenges, but with tribulation comes opportunity.  The most important thing you have to do is focus your time.  Here are five areas to focus on to grow your business during 2008 no matter what happens with the overall economy.  Of ccourse the first two heavily involve having Success With People in your organization.

1.  Employee productivity - the more efficient and effective your employees do their jobs the happier your customers will be, the faster your profits will grow, and the more fulfilled your employees will be in their work.

2. Employee retention - communicate job security to your employees through development plans and career paths so they understand not only where they’re going to be with your organization in 2008, but during the next three to five years.

3. Company strengths - confirm what you do best profitably as an organization and protect the resources that find that work.  These areas that differentiate yourself from competitors are the ones you need to protect, nurture and develop.

4. Careful marketing - promoting your business can waste more money more quickly than almost anything else you can do.  Identify the marketing you do that provides the highest return and focus your dollars in those areas to limit your exposure.

5. Customer retention - listen more carefully to your customers than ever before.  Should your competitors get squeezed they may approach your clients with unrealistic offers that will only serve to put themselves out of business.  Leverage your employee productivity and enthusiasm to make certain your clients clearly understand the high value you bring to their organization.

Validation of a Web Search

For some time now I have recommended that you do a Web search of any job candidate prior to your first interview.  The primary reason to do this at that time is to save you time.

Kathryn M. Tyranski reports and Readers Digest for January 2008 (page 21) that social networks like MySpace and Facebook are fun for sharing personal information, but jobcandidates often do not realize that potential employers are searching online for information about them.

A 2006 CareerBuilder.com survey of hiring managers found that about two-thirds rejected someone after a Web search.  So keep on searching and make certain you do it at the beginning of the process so you protect your most valuable asset: your time.  As an effective leader you can’t afford to waste time on a risky candidate.  To learn more read about the seventh Desired Result in my Success With People system - Right Person Right Job.

Contagious Attitude

In the January 2008 edition of Readers Digest (page 51) there is an article titled, King of Vacations - Butch Stewart figured he’d work harder and smarter than anyone else.  It paid off big.  (Not online yet.)

Mr. Stewart worked hard at making money and a few years back was fortunate enough to start the Sandals resorts empire, which extends throughout the Caribbean.  There are 18 Sandals resorts total. There are a few things he says in the article that I’d like to share about how to be an effective leader.

“Keep your feet on the ground.  Think smart.  Pay attention.  Make sure that the customer is never disappointed.  And do the same for your staff.  Nothing happens by itself.  Listen to people, and don’t be afraid to roll the dice.  I do that every day.  If you don’t believe me, come to Sandals and look for me.”

He said his there is no tough part to his job.  It’s because he loves what he does.  Do your employees feel the same way?

When asked what he would do differently, he says, “I don’t think there’s anything different to do because everything is a learning curve.  Yes, we made mistakes in the past, but we pay the price and we fixed it.”

His attitude about his failures creates the opportunity for his success.  If we are honest with ourselves we all make mistakes every day.  Yet if correct the mistakes and learn from the experience then we can still have a great time in life while being financially successful.

Have a great day!

Lots of Money - Poor Results

American universities are investing millions and in some cases billions of dollars in their infrastructure.  The result is the rich campuses get richer.  But what about the results?  Too many universities are not doing an adequate job of preparing students with marketable skills to perform well upon graduation.

Think what this type of money could do to reform an overburdened theory emphasis with real-life business skills training…

From the article, Just Add Cash - The great expanding American university, The Economist 12/01/2007:
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has a $1 billion expansion programme, including its curvy, $300m Stata Centre.

Over the next 50 years Harvard University is going to construct a brand new campus on a 200-acre swathe of Boston it conveniently owns.