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Twelve Things You Can (and Must) Do to Create a Better Place to Work (Part I) (This article may be combined with “Twelve Things You Can (and Must) Do to Create a Better Place to Work (Part II))
By Richard Hadden and Bill Catlette
Couch potatoes take heart. Dave Smith, PhD, a sports psychologist in England has discovered that simply *thinking about* a rigorous workout can help you lose weight. That's right! In Dr. Smith's study at Manchester Metropolitan University, people who thought about exercise twenty times a day for a month gained enough muscle mass to lose 22 pounds a year without dieting! In other words, if you buy Smith's claim, pondering iron is nearly as effective as pumping it!
Well, guess what. It doesn't work that way when it comes to creating a work environment that gets the most out of your employees. No, in this case, you actually have to DO something to get results.
The number one complaint we hear from your folks out there in the trenches is that, in some places, management does a pretty good job of talking about the need for good leadership, but far too seldom do they move from inspiration to execution.
Here are six ideas you can turn into actions now, soon, or when the opportunity presents itself. Next month, we'll share six more.
1) Figure out your cost of employee turnover. (Make sure you're current on your blood pressure meds before you do.) Any CFO worthy of a Steelcase chair knows his or her company's cost of capital. And yet I'm amazed at the number of business leaders I talk to who can tell you Tiger Woods's scoring average and total winnings, but haven't a clue about what their company spends every time an employee walks.
For some professions, replacement cost is said to be as much as 150% of a person's annual salary. We don't know what it is in your industry, but that doesn't matter. What matters is that you know. The problem is that reliable data of this sort is hard to get your hands on. The government doesn't help us much in figuring this stuff out. But your industry's trade association might. Go to them and see what they can tell you.
Whatever you do, consider the costs of the following, at the very least: recruitment, unemployment taxes, exit interviews, entrance interviews, training investment in the departing employee, opportunity costs while the position sits idle, and additional work and stress on employees who have to take up the slack. And don't forget the unrecoverable costs of lost knowledge, skill, and expertise.
Next, learn what the average turnover rate is in your industry, and establish a goal that's less than that, but right for you. (No, zero turnover is not the desired state). Calculate what turnover is costing you now, and how much less it would cost you if you were at your goal.
Broadcast this information throughout your organization, and hold managers accountable for meeting reasonable turnover goals. One company we know had a group of irascible managers known for running roughshod over their employees. When their annual bonuses began being calculated in part on employee retention, lots of those managers changed their leadership style. Remember, what gets measured, and rewarded, gets done.
2) Identify an exemplary competitor. It makes sense that employers in your industry face challenges similar to yours. Scour Fortune's list of 100 Best Companies to Work For (www.fortune.com) or Computerworld's Best Places to Work in IS (www.computerworld.com) and learn from the competition. Filter for things like compensation and frilly-fad perks, and focus on leadership and other workplace practices that withstand the test of time.
3) The next time an employee attends any kind of training, ask them ahead of time to be prepared to tell you three new concepts or skills they learned from it, and one thing they will begin doing differently as a result. Don't approach it like a grilling, but emphasize the need to transform learning into performance, and your desire to support them in their development.
4) Identify a major business challenge or opportunity in your company (declining sales, changing customer demands, new government regulation, emerging markets, or hey, even employee turnover), and invite people to form a task force to help you tackle the issue. Make sure the task force takes ownership for finding solutions. Then reward them (with real money) for results that make it to the bottom line.
5) Go do someone else's job for a day. On a recent Southwest Airlines flight, I noticed a "flight attendant", slightly older than the rest, and out of uniform. Turns out he was a pilot. That day, from coast to coast, he cheerfully went up and down the aisle dispensing peanuts, smiles, and a great attitude about the lessons learned from those he called "the people who really keep this plane in the air".
6) Sit on the footlocker. Major General Melvin Zais, Commander of the 101st Airborne Division in Viet Nam, circa 1968, once said in a speech to future officers, "If you'll get out of your warm house and go down to the barracks...and just sit on the footlocker...you don't have to tell 'em they're doing a great job. Just sit on the footlocker and talk to one or two soldiers and leave. They'll know that you know that they're working hard to make you look good."
My wife, a career IT Manager, has heard me refer to this lesson often. A few months ago, I called home one evening while out of town. Our daughter told me Mom had gone back to the office after dinner. Apparently a crisis had erupted after hours, and her team was trying to fulfill a commitment to a customer. There wasn't much my wife could do to help, except be there for moral support. I called her on her cellphone, and there she was, at work. When I said, "Hi honey, what are you doing?", she replied, "Sitting on the footlocker."
So there, don't tell me there's nothing you can do to show your employees they're important to you. Here are six ideas. Do just a couple of them, and you'll have lots to show for it. We have a friend who often berates himself for spending too much time "getting ready to get ready". We'd suggest you're already ready. Just get out of your cool office and go do it!
Gotta go. Time to contemplate the treadmill.
Please print the following attribution for this article: Bill Catlette and Richard Hadden, co-authors of Contented Cows Give Better Milk, help clients clobber the competition by having a focused, fired up, and capably led workforce. They deliver powerful conference keynotes and leadership training. They can be reached at 800-940-7006 (+1-904-720-0870 from outside North America) or www.ContentedCows.com.