Keeping the ‘Human’ in Human Resources

Downsizing an organization’s workforce is an increasingly common occurrence in the United States, typically in reaction to shifting market conditions or changing technology. While such moves are painful for all involved, they are usually a necessary step to ensure the long-term health of the company. Unfortunately, many leaders lose sight of the fact that how they approach the discussion is critically important to the wellbeing of those affected, and to the future success of the company.

Don’t Leave the Human at the Door of Human Resources

 Layoffs are not something that any leader wakes up in the morning thirsting to do. In fact, research shows that a reactive downsizing may actually backfire if the costs associated with productivity losses and eventual retraining outweigh the short-term savings.  But once it is determined that there is no other alternative, you need to make sure the conversation is had in the right way.  Often HR professionals and leaders work together to develop talking points and scripts so that the employees delivering the news can stay on message and mitigate risk. But so often the most important element is left out: emotion. No matter how matter-of-fact you may try and make the discussion, you can’t escape the raw emotion that both the employee delivering the message and the employee receiving the message are bound to feel – this is a lifechanging event.   Leading with your head and your heart is essential during something as difficult as a headcount reduction.  

Unintended Consequences – Your Employer Brand

Finding the necessary balance WILL directly impact your employer brand, company, and personal leadership reputation. In turn, your ability to attract and retain the best employees will be directly impacted. And don’t forget about those employees you have retained – how you treat their peers will shape how they feel about you as an employer. You will either create loyal employees or encourage them to look elsewhere. People are highly aware that when there are changes, it could just as easily have been them who were laid off and dealing with the guilt of skirting a layoff is not an easy emotion for people to confront head-on.

In addition, consumers have taken a heightened interest in how companies treat their employees during downsizing. Data from a new Morning Consult report shows that 84% of respondents said they are more likely to buy from companies that treat their workers with flexibility and empathy. In that same study, they found that 62% said a statement about support being given to laid-off employees would make them more likely to continue purchasing from a brand they already buy from. Consumers are paying attention.

Compassion, Empathy, and Dignity Matter

Remembering that those who are affected by a downsizing event are human beings is both the simplest and most difficult thing to do. 

When reducing your organization’s workforce, showing compassion for the human experience will plant the seeds for your organization’s long-term success. Transparency in providing answers can help to reduce anxiety, while showing humility and vulnerability demonstrate it’s more than just business to you as a company.  Notify people privately, answer their questions, clearly communicate their important contributions to the organization, and give them time to say goodbye to their friends and colleagues.

The Final Word

Compassion for the human experience matters.  Making tough changes correctly will help plant seeds for your organization’s future success.  It’s never easy confronting the realities that face our organizations. Just don’t forget to SEE that person you’re talking to, be truly present in the conversation and, by all means, provide them with the services necessary to begin moving forward. 

At the LAK Group, we help people who have been through a workforce reduction identify and secure outcomes aligned with their passion. Providing outplacement defines corporate culture, elevates employer brand, and provides a lifeline to help people find their next opportunity. Contact us to find out more. Outplacement.  On purpose.

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What’s Culture Got to Do With It?

The purpose of creating a defined workplace culture is to express an organization’s values, goals, and beliefs and to guide daily activities toward achieving these goals effectively in a way that benefits both the workers and the organization as a whole. Where strategies are designed to create goals and define the necessary steps to get there, culture informs the execution of the strategy, making it one of the most essential components of a successful organization. Organizational nirvana is where strategy and culture come together.

How Culture Impacts Business Outcomes

Organizational culture is driven by top leadership, sustained by middle leadership, and engaged in by the ranks. It includes everything from the company’s core beliefs, alignment of business processes, talent practices, leadership behaviors, people process and reward systems for every employee. It is a key driver of engagement as it defines how people will feel about coming to work every day and carrying out their daily tasks. Efforts to improve engagement, retention and employment brand require transformations in culture as no feel-good pizza party or ping-pong table can ever replace meaningful changes.

Transformations of culture are not easy to execute, but the efforts are worth it. Organizations that get it right perform better than their competitors and enjoy a healthier bottom line, too. Forbes compiled a list of business outcomes that are directly impacted by strong workplace cultures. A few of the more pressing results include:

  • Reduced Absenteeism. Aside from planned vacations to get a break from the grind, people who are happy at work and engaged in their position take fewer sick days that aren’t tied to illness. 
  • Lower Turnover Rates. The more specialized the position or narrow the industry, the more costly it is to replace the departed. Even easy-to-fill vacancies can be expensive as unskilled positions already experience high turnover rates. 
  • Fewer Managers. When people are trusted to do their jobs and empowered with the skills they need to excel, they tend to require less supervision as they become more self-driven.
  • Openness to Productive Criticism. In a supportive workplace culture that’s focused on the growth and success of the individual along with the organization, people look forward to constructive criticism and guidance, especially when it’s a regular part of the workday rather than part of a dreaded annual review process. 

All of these points can be summarized under the umbrella of productivity, and boosting productivity is a direct avenue to happier customers and stronger profits. When individuals are engaged and challenged, supported and guided, and feel like they are genuinely contributing to the team, they show up more, work independently, and embrace opportunities to learn and grow so they can deliver better outcomes for the organization. 

Middle Managers: The Secret Weapon

While the c-suite may be the group that defines the company’s culture in words, it’s the middle managers who are the most responsible for bringing this vision to fruition. They are the ones in direct and daily contact with the bulk of the workforce, and the ones who have the knowledge and experience of day-to-day operations to transform intangible cultural ideas into cultural norms that define what is encouraged or rejected in the workplace. 

Yet, many managers are struggling to execute these cultural initiatives. Part of the struggle lies with the fact that they are not equipped with any sort of actionable plan or tangible behaviors to use. Managers are focused on delivering results, and cultural changes are difficult to measure on a weekly spreadsheet or add to a task list. Instead, senior leaders need to not only be the drivers of such change, but also demonstrate what it looks like while providing training and mentoring for middle managers. That way, they can become the link between abstract thoughts, ideas, and visions of executives and the behaviors, words, and actions that create a thriving culture.

Culture Transformation Mistakes to Avoid

The first mistake right out of the gate is to avoid the idea of “transformation.” Culture is necessarily pervasive throughout all aspects of an organization and attempting to make a handful of small changes isn’t going to get the results that a complete overhaul will have. Of course, that doesn’t mean that the transformation has to happen in one fell swoop; instead, a metamorphosis over time should be the expectation.

Another common mistake is not having clear written values, a well-defined purpose and associated behavior expectations from which to start building a culture around. For people to be able to change, they need to have an emotional connection behind both the reasons for change and the desired outcome. It’s also helpful for purpose and values to be meaningful to the people who are expected to carry them out. We’ve all heard about the workplace with a foosball table and a beer cooler that act mainly as decoys to tempt new hires, but don’t get much use otherwise. Kent Thiry, Chairman and CEO of DaVita Inc., has provided a great deal of insight into the cultural transformation that occurred due to a merger of two major companies, and this is what he had to say about what makes his company’s culture so successful:

What’s different about us is that we’re more intense about adding fulfillment and a higher level of engagement than in some other places where it’s more about making work more fun. We’re about helping people’s lives be more meaningful because they feel they’re part of a team where people take care of each other.

In other words, less foosball and more substance. Another reason for Thiry’s success in transforming his company has a lot to do with his leadership style, and this points to another common mistake: exempting leadership. Change always starts from the top, and the most influential and visible members of the company must be ready to demonstrate the change they seek in others. Lastly, as the culture is shifting, it’s critical for new hires to be assessed for cultural fit. It’s much easier to train a good fit who is missing a few skills than it is to change the personal behaviors of a poor fit who is a technical whiz.

Making Work More Meaningful

The end goal of any cultural transformation of the workplace should be to make work more meaningful for the people who have to do it every day. A successful overhaul starts with assessing the current culture, identifying what needs to be changed, and then creating an executable plan. The completion of a multi-year revamp shouldn’t be the end, either, as a positive environment needs tending and nurturing if it is to survive for long.

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3 Distinct Ways a Coaching Culture Delivers Business Success

Well-known author and Professor of Leadership, Peter Hawkins, in his book Creating a Coaching Culture, provides an aspirational definition of coaching culture. “A coaching culture exists in an organization when a coaching approach is a key aspect of how the leaders, managers, and staff engage and develop all their people and engage their stakeholders, in ways that create increased individual, team and organizational performance and shared value for all stakeholders.” To us, that definition feels like capturing the full potential value of coaching at an organizational level.

A coaching culture works on an individual level by recognizing people as complex humans with a variety of hopes, dreams, struggles, and successes. As employees, people bring their talents, energy, ideas and passion to our organizations. Our job as leaders is to create a work environment that can fully draw out the best in every person to create maximum satisfaction and engagement for the employee while creating exceptional value for the organization and its customers.

1. Employee Engagement

Gallup’s State of the American Workplace report found that engaged employees are more likely to stay with their organization and feel a stronger bond to their organization’s mission and purpose. Another report found that about 70 percent of companies are reporting talent shortages and 81 percent of businesses said turnover is a costly problem. With the struggle to acquire and keep talent so high, the cost of failing to engage workers becomes clear. Employee engagement also affects a host of business goals, including:

  • Productivity. Companies with high levels of engagement are 21 percent more profitable. What’s more, engaged employees are up to 17 percent more productive than their disengaged peers. 
  • Absenteeism. A Gallup study found that workforces comprised of highly engaged workers enjoyed 41 percent lower rates of absenteeism. 
  • Safety. Workplaces with highly engaged employees experience 70 percent fewer safety incidents. 
  • Quality. People who are engaged tend to make fewer mistakes and are more likely to deliver high-quality products and services. One study found that highly engaged workforces saw 40 percent fewer quality defects. 

So, how can organizations get these amazing benefits of an engaged workforce? According to recent research from the International Coaching Federation, 60 percent of employees working in an organization where they experience a coaching culture rated themselves as highly engaged. As stated above in Hawkins’ definition, a culture of coaching is one where workers engage with one another using a coaching approach in discussions, problem solving, conflict and more. By embracing this approach, employees find lots of opportunities to develop new skills and even use this new way of thinking to solve future challenges. In addition to improving self-awareness and openness to feedback, they learn how to succeed in different roles, produce results that are valued by their managers and the organization and have the chance to pursue personal career goals, not just organizational objectives. In other words, people tend to work harder, pay closer attention to the details and genuinely care about bringing positive results for their employers when they feel like those efforts are appreciated and respected. A coaching culture becomes the way work gets done in an organization.  Executed well, a true coaching culture is never even discussed as a coaching culture; it is merely THE culture of the organization.

2. Stronger Relationships

The idea of bad managers who micromanage projects, aren’t responsive to requests and questions, enjoy special privileges and take credit for all the good work while avoiding responsibility for missteps might be ripe for comedians, but they are misery for workers and for the bottom line of any organization. Implementing a culture of coaching can radically improve critical relationships within the organization to bolster the strength of your teams while creating more positive results across the board. Failure to develop these relationships can have drastic consequences:

  • According to one survey, 75 percent of workers said their boss was the worst and most stressful aspect of their job.
  • In another survey, 65 percent of employees said they’d prefer a new boss rather than a raise in pay.
  • Gallup found that half of all employees have left a job because of a bad manager and that 70 percent of the variance in employee engagement across teams in the workplace was directly tied to the managers of the teams. 

When managers are given the tools to interact with their people as coaches rather than harsh taskmasters, their direct reports will begin to feel as if their ideas and efforts matter and that their individual well-being is prioritized along with that of the company and its customers. Workers will be encouraged and empowered to use their strengths, talents, and skills daily, and Gallup found that workers in these conditions are six times more likely to be engaged. And we already know the benefits of an engaged workforce.

Transforming management styles to embrace the concepts of coaching isn’t always going to be easy, and only 36 percent of companies are offering coaching-specific training to new leaders. However, becoming part of that percentile has clear benefits, along with an opportunity to edge out the 64 percent of companies that are not teaching their managers to utilize a coaching approach.

3. Increased Business Performance

There are a few straight lines that can be drawn directly to an organization’s bottom line. Implementing a coaching culture improves working conditions for employees in all the categories that matter to them. By doing so, companies can enjoy the benefits that come with a happy, satisfied, engaged, energized and empowered crew, including:

  • Higher Sales. One result of a productive workforce delivering high-quality products and services is better sales. In fact, organizations with strong levels of engagement enjoy a sales increase of 20 percent. 
  • More Profits. Highly engaged workers produce 21 percent greater profits than those that are not. 
  • Higher Shareholder Returns. One expert defines the link between engaged employees and higher stock prices as the Engagement-Profit Chain, and this model shows that investing in an engaged workforce can deliver stock prices that are up to five times higher. 

Plus, when employees are given ample opportunity for growth and development, and when they are empowered to make decisions and solve problems on their own, the natural result is a robust leadership pipeline, something that 77 percent of organizations are struggling to create. 

Human Resources

People are the most valuable resource in any company. Without people, very few business goals could be achieved. Employees have the power to make or break the success of a business. When they are treated like the talented, complex human resources that they are, their employers will enjoy everything from a more positive and inclusive workplace to stronger profits year over year.

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Becoming a Destination Employer: A Success Story for Everyone

A destination employer is one that is viewed by past, current and potential employees as a place to establish and grow a career, one that may be difficult to get hired into, well-known in the community or industry as a desirable place to work, and a place where current employees feel almost as comfortable as they do at home. Becoming hired by a destination employer is an accomplishment and a source of pride in one’s career, and a major goal for the top talent in the industry. So, how can your company become a destination employer so you can attract and retain the best of the best?

The Competition for Talent

In most businesses, the competition is seen as a potential roadblock for sales or other financial successes for the company. However, your competitors can also stand in your way when trying to attract and retain talented individuals to work for your company. Destination employers are able to overcome such hurdles by establishing themselves as a leading place of job satisfaction and career growth.

All involved stand to gain when companies achieve destination status as the business is more successful, and employees are happy. Customers and clients are also more satisfied as they enjoy the continuity of service rather than continual turnover. The icing on top happens when employees are so excited in their positions that they recruit their friends and colleagues – an important event considering more than half of all organizations cite referrals as one of the top three recruitment channels.

Where to Begin?

The transformation into a destination employer begins with a close look at employee engagement. When your workforce is engaged, your team feels as if they are personally connected to your company’s mission; they are driven to bring the company success and find satisfaction not only in a job well done, but also in the accomplishments of everyone on the team.

Employee engagement must be more than just a metric that’s measured periodically; instead, engagement is a goal that must be pursued with tenacity. It must become part of the everyday fabric of operations and woven into the culture of your workplace. Leaders in your company from the corner offices to team leads must be invested in boosting engagement across the organization.

Boosting engagement starts with finding managers who understand that success relies on the achievement of every employee and genuinely care about not only their team’s success, but also their individual needs. Managers should be given the right tools and training to create an environment where employees can grow, where they feel heard and valued, and where everyone feels supported in their professional roles along with their personal development goals.

Create a Sense of Purpose

Organizations must have a purpose worth committing to. One of the key values held by younger generations in the workforce is having a strong sense of pride in the organization they work for. Multiple research studies have found that cultivating that pride through a higher organizational purpose is a motivator. Companies need to anchor a purpose that people will commit to one that is socially responsible, inspiring and drives meaningful work. Organizations should consider how to humanize everyday work by bringing employees closer to the people their work directly and indirectly impacts.

Be Distinctive

If you aspire to be a destination employer, then take inspiring steps to become one. Differentiate yourself, do your due diligence to understand what is in your market that current and future employees really value. Don’t simply be a trend follower, be a trend setter! Be different, yet stay true to your brand, culture and values. Take the lead! Simply doing things the way others have always done them is a recipe for disaster, be more unique and take risks. In other words, be inspiring, not boring!

Develop the Right Culture

People want to work for companies whose values match their own. In fact, one survey found that 79 percent of people prefer to work for a socially responsible company. What socially responsible means specifically will differ from person to person and between industries. It’s up to each business to define for themselves what it means to be socially responsible, and then engage in activities that support such responsibilities.

Today’s workforce is also more concerned with their own health and well-being, and expect their employers to prioritize this as well. This goes beyond offering reimbursements for gym memberships and offering healthy snacks in the vending machines. Instead, employees want a healthy work-life balance; they need flexibility when it’s necessary and expect to be able to use their vacation and personal days in spite of the fact that more than half of all Americans report having unused vacation days every year.

Branding Matters

Sales and marketing departments are fluent in the ways branding contributes to growing and maintaining a client base, but Human Resources and the entire management team should also be aware of how branding impacts recruiting, engagement, and overall job satisfaction, too.

The hiring process can often be seen as searching for and choosing the best candidate for a position, but it’s also critical to include branding activities in the recruitment process so that top talent is inspired to apply in the first place. Almost 80 percent of workers rated job satisfaction as more important than salary as a primary motivator. When searching for talent, businesses must also be prepared to demonstrate that there’s more than just money on the table.

By developing a culture that prioritizes employee engagement and job satisfaction, and then forming an internal and external branding effort that’s meant for current employees and prospective candidates not just clients businesses can begin developing a reputation of being a destination employer.

Everybody Wins

Shifting the workplace culture to one of engagement, support and satisfaction may be a significant change for some businesses, or just a matter of fine-tuning the details for others. In every case, however, everyone involved stands to benefit from making such changes. From higher rates of production, sales, and overall income for the employer, overall happiness from employees, and increased satisfaction from customers and clients, there are no losers in this proposition. With the right internal changes and a solid branding strategy, becoming a destination employer that naturally attracts the best talent in your industry is within reach.

To find out if your company already has what it takes to be considered a destination employer, or if you’re not sure which steps you should take to realize success, please contact Michael Grubich at 262-786-9200 or via email at mgrubich@lak-group.com.

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Achieve Higher Satisfaction & Retention with a Better Onboarding Experience

Improving the onboarding experience is more than just making new employees feel welcomed and supported; it can also contribute to better overall retention rates, too. In fact, according to one source, workers are almost 70 percent more likely to stay with a company for three years following an excellent onboarding experience. To create an onboarding process that’s better for you and your new hires, follow these tips.

1. Designing an Onboarding Program

Creating an onboarding program for new hires should be a holistic process. From the initial contact with recruiters and hiring managers until the annual review, each employee should feel important and connected to the company as a whole. As you design your program, remember to keep it as simple as possible. Starting a new job can be stressful and filled with anxiety, and too much information at once is quickly forgotten. Don’t put your new hires in the embarrassing position of having forgotten half of what they’ve learned on the first day. Instead, develop a process that’s meant to deliver the most important information in an organized manner over the course of several weeks, even months.

The process should also be structured to set the stage for long-term success and satisfaction with your company. This may include providing additional training to managers who are unfamiliar with supporting new hires during their onboarding phase and should always include input from various teams to discover what they feel the most important aspects of the job and the company are. Keep in mind that most people learn using different styles. Try to have information available in a variety of mediums including videos, printed materials, and, of course, specific people to contact for different types of questions.

2. Onboarding Begins at First Sight

The official onboarding process should begin with the interview process, not on the employee’s first day. The first meeting is your opportunity to give an overview of the organization, talk about the company culture and its mission, and discuss a few general details about the area such as where to park or public transportation options. During this time, prospective employees are trying to get a feel for what work life would be like if they accepted a position with your company. Waiting until the first day to get started is a missed opportunity to connect with potential hires and may lead them to be less enthusiastic about your company.

The weeks leading up to the first day are also critical. Once an offer has been accepted, new hires should be provided with basic information such as company policies, pay schedules, and other information that’s common to all employees. For large organizations, including an employee directory with photos can help people navigate during the first few weeks. If your company has an online portal for employees with this information, now is the time to provide access so new hires can browse at their leisure.

If there is an opportunity to send a welcome letter or invite a new team member to meet the team, take advantage of it. Engage new employees early and often. Demonstrate to them how important they are and how excited you are to have them as part of the team. Help them start to write themselves into the story of your company. Engagement start early!

The period prior to the first day is also a good time to deliver training videos, forms to be completed, and other parts of the onboarding process that might be time-consuming and tedious if done all at once in the office. It may be helpful to create an agenda for the first day that includes when and where to arrive, who will be greeting upon arrival, and what to expect for the day.

3. Personalize the Experience

On the employee’s first day, follow the Golden Rule: treat others as you want to be treated. The goal should be to provide an organized, welcoming, and warm experience especially during the first several hours as these can be particularly nerve-wracking for someone new on the job.

Start by having someone waiting for the new employee to arrive and make them feel welcome. It’s also important to have all the basics ready: a workstation, logins and passwords, supplies, and other items needed for the job. Having this set up and ready to go ahead of time will help your new employee feel that you’ve been anticipating their arrival. Disorganization and a lack of readiness is an easy way to make someone wonder if they may have made a mistake by accepting your offer.

Next, personally introduce the employee to everyone on the team, and give a quick tour of the essential parts of the office such as the break room or cafeteria and restrooms. Resist the urge for a full office tour right away, especially if yours is a large campus, as these can be unnecessarily overwhelming on an already busy day. A friendly lunch in the area with the team will also help him or her feel appreciated as well as provide an opportunity to identify where to grab a bite or a cup of coffee.

Most people want to know right away what they’ll need to be successful at your company. Be sure to share the team’s goals and performance metrics, discuss their manager’s style and expectations, go over any bonus schedules, and review who key decision-makers within the company are. Set clear expectations and milestones for the first 30, 60 and 100 days.

4. The First 100 Days

So, let’s continue with the importance of the first 100 days. It is critical not to overload on the first day! Keep in mind that every detail is new for the employee and too many introductions, demonstrations, and other information can be exhausting and unproductive. Instead, customize the process for each employee and create a plan to have that person fully up-to-speed in the first few months.

Involve the hiring managers in the process as these individuals were the ones who built the initial relationship and the hand-off should be gentle, not abrupt. It’s also important to involve the entire team for the duration of an employee onboarding, not just the first day. This provides not only an opportunity to start creating new office friendships, but also gives new hires several familiar points of contact for help and information as they get settled.

Slow and Steady Wins the Onboarding Process

A smooth onboarding process should be a collaboration between HR and hiring managers, IT support staff, the manager, and all members of the team. When you prepare ahead of time to deliver an organized, personalized experience that’s focused on the first few months, not hours, you’ll enjoy happier employees who are more likely to stay with the company longer.

If you’re wondering whether your onboarding program positions your company and employees for success, or you would like to review and fine-tune your current process, please contact Michael Grubich at 262-786-9200 or via email at mgrubich@lak-group.com

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