Recently I wrote a post about what happens to employees’ brains when they cross the threshold of their workplace door. In a happy coincidence, at about the same time, I was connected to Kyle Lagunas, who wrote an excellent post on his blog about doors and workplaces: how to maintain an “open door policy” when increasingly, a leader’s door is located miles (or countries) away from their direct reports. What follows are highlights from that post, reprinted with his permission.   

By Guest Author Kyle Lagunas

The modern organization has changed – it is decentralized and increasingly, virtual. And yet, the need to remain connected to your organization continues to grow. Your employee handbook says you have an open door policy, but an open door policy is more metaphorical than factual. Employees are not seeking to enter a physical office to connect with you. They want to reach you via some communications channels you may be less than familiar with. Fortunately, even the busiest leaders can breathe some life into their open door policies by following a few rules of thumb.

Three Tips for Tweeting, Chatting, and Connecting

The rules are a bit different when you’re connecting with employees online. However, you may be surprised to find these new channels are a great (and oftentimes convenient) way to strengthen your employee relations. Novice and adepts users alike should keep these things in mind when reaching out:

Don’t be so serious. Informal check-ins are more comfortable for employees, and casual hello-how-are-you’s offer a great opportunity for leaders to engage employees. A lot of companies use chat clients for quick communications. Though some of us are more familiar with this media, others struggle to communicate effectively via instant messengers. Not to fear. If you’re not comfortable with the LOLs, OMGs, and TTYLs, don’t use them. Just keep things short and respond quickly. The point here is that you’re making yourself both available and approachable.

Choose your words carefully. Regardless of how you intend a message, interpretation can vary – especially with emails and memos. It can be difficult to find words to convey exactly what you mean, and communication is all the more challenging when you are not sitting across the table from the other person. And when it comes to electronic communications, choosing the right medium is often just as important as what you’re trying to say. If you find yourself burning bridges via email, tools likeToneCheck can be really useful. 

Get your people on board. The more people you have using the same tool to communicate, the easier it is to connect with them – and the greater potential to connect with others. So it is critical that you rally your team to a common communications and collaboration platform, and make sure they use it. Over time, the value of everyone working together on one system will make it a critical part of their routine.

Interaction with a good boss is critical to realizing your full potential as an employee. With the right tools, keeping tabs on your people and your organization can become a part of your regular workflow. At the end of the day, though, you know what works best for you – and for your organization. Feel free to dabble in a few different products until you find the right one, keeping in mind that many tools are free at their most basic level.

About the Author: Kyle Lagunas is the HR Analyst at Software Advice – a company that helps people find the best HR software for their organization. He blogs about technology, trends, and best practices in human resources and recruiting, and enjoys cooking for friends and family in his spare time.

For further reading, this article can be found in full on Kyle’s HR blog at: http://blog.softwareadvice.com/articles/hr/5-tips-for-keeping-an-open-door-in-a-virtual-workplace-1120111/

A while back, Erik Samdahl, Director of Marketing for the Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp), asked if I’d like to contribute an article to their blog HRM Today, which of course, I was happy to do.  The article is called Flight of the Employee Network and it’s about how the loss of well-connected employees might mean the loss of “social capital” for an organization. Check it out here.

The following post is written by one of my mentors Sarah Gutek, a former Human Resources Executive. It’s a delight to have her contribute to The People Equation.

Does this scenario sound somewhat familiar?  You’re getting ready to go into a staff meeting when Esther from accounting reminds you to make a big point to your sales team about getting their expense reports to her by the third Friday of the month.  This is the fourth time you’ve had to remind your team of the expense reporting standard.  Apparently many are ignoring the standard. You wonder….aren’t they listening?

As anyone who has ever been a supervisor or manager knows, there are lots of nuances to the art of managing people.  Theory would say that if a standard is set out very clearly and it’s reasonable, you should expect employees to follow it. However, employees are very quick to pick up on discrepancies between the “official” standard and the actual standard.  No matter how often you verbalize it or how often you put it in writing, the standard is not what you say it is, the standard is what you accept.  If Esther in accounting accepts late reports, and expenses are still paid on time, well, then that’s the standard.  

As VP of Human Resources, I found the “Waterloo” of all standards had to be trying to establish and enforce a dress code policy. I sent out dress code memos with seemingly fail-proof examples: pictures of appropriate and inappropriate outfits, and exact guidelines of acceptable skirt and pant lengths.  As you can imagine, it was difficult to be all-inclusive — especially when it came to women’s fashions.   It even got to the point that I found myself crafting a memo stating that, if one’s underwear was showing when seated, one was not dressed appropriately for work. “Good grief!” I thought. “How can anyone reasonably think that visible undergarments in the office is part of the standard?” Clearly this is one instance where no matter what the dress standard states, the real standard is what the supervisor will accept.

It’s important to have standards. The lesson for supervisors  is: be sure that you’re willing and able to enforce the standard in an appropriate and effective way — because your employees ARE listening …. just not with their ears.

Guest post bio:

Sarah Gutek, EdD., is a former Vice President of Human Resources for a national financial services firm. Sarah currently consults to executives on strategies for developing high-potential employees. She is thankful that she no longer has to enforce employee dress codes— written or otherwise.

photo credit: istockphoto.com © Alex Slobodkin

Leaders, when’s the last time you saw your employees go the extra mile? 

Today? Last week?  Last month?

The photo at right was taken by Terry P., the Library Media Supervisor at my kids’ elementary school. (Back in the day, we called them “librarians”.) Shortly before this picture was taken, Terry had been doing an activity with the kids using pennies and reference hand outs.  At the end of the activity she instructed the kids to “stack everything on the tables before you leave”.

It would appear that an enterprising student took Mrs. P.  at her word.

Imagine the patience and precision required to stack all of those pennies.  Was it worth the trouble?  Was it even necessary?

Seems to me that your employees might be wondering that very thing— is what I’m doing even worth the trouble?  Does anybody even notice?

Leaders, stop for a moment and think of your team members.  What are they doing that would be noteworthy enough to document with a photograph?

Drawing a blank?  Then it’s to time start paying closer attention. Maybe they are going the extra mile, but you’ve somehow missed it. Your people are doing good work*.  Chances are you’ve just been too busy to see it. So go out and start finding the stacked pennies. Oh, and if you do find a noteworthy achievement— would you do me a favor and thank them for it?  Remember, it took a lot to get those pennies to stand up in that stack. If they don’t get any feedback, they might be tempted next time to let them sit in a big, messy pile.

*OK, so maybe some of them aren’t doing such great work.  That’s an entirely different blog post.

Photo credit: ©Terry P.

Kristina Evey, owner of Centric Strategies

A few weeks ago, Kristina Evey of Centric Strategies asked me to provide a guest post on her blog, which I happily supplied. You can see that post, The Customer-Centric Leader, here. In follow up conversations, Kristina and I wondered, “What would front-line customer service employees say to their leaders if they had a sort of  “open mike night”? Kristina’s guest blog post below is a result of that rumination, which takes the form of an open letter to customer service leaders.

Top Ten Wish List to Improve Customer Relationships and Service

By Kristina Evey

www.KristinaEvey.com

Dear Customer Service Leader:

It’s us, your staff.  You’ve been talking to us lately about how we should focus on improving customer service with our company.  So, in order to do that, we’ve compiled a list of things that we need from you to help us deliver excellent customer service. 

OUR TOP 10 WISH LIST TO IMPROVE CUSTOMER SATISFACTION

1. Tell us what is expected of us. We have no way of knowing what it is you want us to do or how to act if you don’t tell us what you expect.
2. Communicate with us.  By opening the lines of communication as to how we are doing, what you like or what you don’t, we can tailor what we do to the expecations.
3. Empower us.  The more power you relinquish to us, the better able we are to serve our customers needs.
4. Recognize and reward me. We don’t need a party thrown for us every time we do something well, but it is certainly nice to know that you notice when we do things right.  “I noticed how you took the extra time to really help that customer.  I like the way you handled that.”  Those words will carry me for a long time.
5. Treat us the way you want us to treat the customer.  When you give us the service you’d like us to deliver to our customers, we’ll know exactly what to do.
6. Hold me accountable. When I know that my compensation will reflect my efforts to develop positive customer relationships, I’ll do everything I can to deliver quality customer service. 
7. Help me manage customer expectations.  Please work with us to let customers know when they can reasonably expect products to be delivered, to see results, or know what to expect.  When we say, “You should receive this soon.” Soon can mean tomorrow or next week, depending upon the customer’s perception.
8. Support my decisions that we make using good judgement. Know that we make the best decisions we can at the time with the information available to us.  It increases our confidence when you support us.  Yes, we will make mistakes sometimes. We promise we will learn from those and not repeat them if at all possible.
9. Walk a Day In Our Shoes.  Could you take an hour a week and do our jobs?  If you answered the phones once in a while, made the deliveries, scheduled shipments, prepped the procedure, you would know the challenges and needs that we have.  We would also know that you truly appreciate the work that we are doing.
10. Set Customer Service Minimums.  Help us set some Customer Service Minimum standards that we all know are the very least we will do for our customers. This will encourage us to revisit our service and continually increase the level of service that we provide.

These requests are really customer retention strategies that will help us to develop profitable customer relationships.  We know that without our customers, there is no business.  Without the business, we don’t have jobs.  In today’s economy, good jobs are hard to come by and we sincerely appreciate having our jobs.  We would love to work with you to build customer loyalty and improve the customer’s experience when they do business with us.

Sincerely,

Your staff

Kristina Evey helps companies improve the way they connect with their customers. She is the owner of Centric Strategies, a firm oriented toward developing a cultural mindset focused on the customer. Her strategy is to ensure that everyone within a company or group is of the same “Customer Centric” mindset.  You can also find many customer retention strategies by visiting www.KristinaEvey.com and signing up for her free newsletter focused on helping your company become more customer centric.

Are you as amazed as I am by the incredible online presence of the HR community?  Another fantastic example of a regional online presence of a national HR organization is NASHRM, the North Alabama Society for Human Resource Management. I was fortunate enough to have a blog post submission accepted by NASHRM for their RocketHR blog.  It’s a piece on how HR professionals can make inroads at “getting a seat at the table”. Check it out here.

If you’re interested in posting a guest submission to RocketHR about relevant Human Resource issues, check out the NASHRM guidelines here.  One of the editors is the fantastic Ben Eubanks, HR practitioner and author of the popular blog UpstartHR. Thanks for encouraging a fledgling writer, Ben!

How to prepare for the coming recovery by turning caution into action

Dave Schrader, Leading Work

By Guest Blogger Dave Schrader

As the recession wears on, I’ve begun seeing a pattern in some clients that may cost them dearly in the near future: fear and caution are silently working their way deep into the organization’s psyche.  And those feelings are quietly draining key people of needed energy, commitment, and the ability to prepare for the eventual recovery.

Sure, it can be blamed on the economy, but that’s too easy, and leaves everyone feeling helpless to do anything about it.  My work with people at all levels tells me there’s another cause: leader and manager thinking based in insecurity.  It goes like this:

“We just need to hunker down, cut costs everywhere we can, and wait out the storm.”
“If we can simply keep our heads above water, we’ll live through this.”
“Above all, don’t screw up or make mistakes right now.  Stick to what we know.”

It’s ironic and irrational
Just at the very time when creativity and courage are needed to bring out the best in everyone, caution and anxiety are driving it underground.  What is needed are new ideas for increasing revenue and market share, a higher level of engagement and ownership, and more cross-functional collaboration.  Instead, people are ducking under their desks, holding on to the status quo.

The message that’s getting through from leadership, whether intended or not, is, “We’re scared and not sure what to do.  But don’t worry, we (meaning “us in the executive suite”) will figure it out.  Just keep your head down, sharpen your budget scissors, and don’t get in the way.  We’ll let you know when it’s safe to go back outside.” Can you hear the message for non-C-Suite managers and their teams?

It’s hugely seductive for leaders to operate from these assumptions because it’s possible that the strategy just might work.  They might make it through the tough times and live to fight another day.  But it’s even more likely that whatever comes through the storm won’t be in a very competitive position. Morale, engagement, and commitment will be shot and the organization will be flat-footed.  And everyone will have learned that, “When the going gets tough, we wait to see what will happen.”

Your competitive advantage: turning caution into action

Right now, those companies that are working to redirect the energy behind the caution and fear are going to be best positioned to profit from the coming recovery.

We know from physics that energy never disappears; it just changes forms.  There’s tremendous potential energy locked up in people’s nervous worries about the future. At this moment, your leadership work has to be to help shift everyone’s thinking from reactive to proactive, from caution into actions that lead to long-term strategic success. 

Here’s how you do it:

First, take an honest look at your leadership team and the messages your behavior may be sending.  Collect data on your (individual and collective) impact and face it without flinching.

Next, teach all your managers how to positively influence the thinking and conversations around the organization, because that’s where the leverage is.  As Peter Block said: if we change the conversations, we change the organization.

Finally, begin having different kinds of meetings.  Move away from the meetings in which an audience watches senior executives behind podiums giving updates and focusing attention on all the problems we’re worrying about.  Rather, signal that everyone’s input and commitment are needed by designing meetings that engage all participants in determining how to proactively prepare for the coming recovery.

The hopeful news is that by shifting perspectives and investing in building capacity for the recovery, people will regain a sense of reality-based optimism.  And they will begin to bring what they have to the table, instead of hiding it under their desk.