Tag archive for "engagement"

by Bill, Leadership, Management

How You Treat Dinged Up Workers is a Big, Dot Deal

No Comments 28 November 2012

Once again, the sports world is abuzz over the treatment of an injured player who, at least so far, has been kept on the bench despite being cleared to play. The player in this case is Alex Smith, quarterback of the San Francisco 49’ers. Since being cleared to return to play following a concussion injury, Smith has been kept on the bench by 49’ers coach, Jim Harbaugh, in favor of Colin Kaepernick, a rising star who has performed well in game situations. Nevertheless, tensions are rising.

Over the years, the default position of most coaches has been that injured players ought not lose their position due to injury. When medically cleared to return to play, they are returned to the lineup, and then it is up to their level of play to keep them on the field. If a better player emerges, all bets are off.

Good managers, like good coaches take this view also, because they know that one of the chief reasons their team-members suffer corporate “injuries” (i.e., failed projects, missed deadlines, etc.) is because they have extended themselves a bit too far for the team. They get going a little too fast, take on a bit too much (or both), and hit the proverbial wall.

Good leaders realize that the absolute last thing they want to do is to suggest that those who go all out for the team are taking that risk all on their own. They also know that it’s not just a personal decision, because as with the Alex Smith case, everybody else is watching. If people see a teammate treated in an inconsiderate manner after giving it up for the team or the coach, they will think long and hard before putting themselves in that position. They throttle back because they are afraid of what might happen to them.

Not unlike the job of a parent whose kid falls off their bike, our job as leaders is to help our teammates get up, keep them from getting run over, dust them off, and get them back in the game. Hut, hut.

*****

A pathfinder in the arena of leadership and employee engagement, Bill Catlette is a seminar leader, keynote speaker, and executive coach. He helps individuals and organizations improve business outcomes by having a focused, engaged, capably led workforce. He is co-author of the Contented Cows leadership book series, and Rebooting Leadership. For more information about Bill, his partner Richard Hadden, and their work, please visit their website, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ContentedCows

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by Bill, Management

Talent Acquisition is More Than Putting Butts in Seats

No Comments 21 May 2012

For some time I’ve resisted the urge to excoriate a term that has been taking more prominent space in the lexicon of HR professionals. I’ve done so largely on the basis that there didn’t seem to be much harm in the emergence of new-agey alternative vocabulary among knowing professionals. I’ve resisted until now, that is. The term – “talent acquisition.”

Oh, I understand perfectly why some might prefer putting some distance between what they do for a living and the functional title that has long been associated with it… recruiting. Recruiting, after all is about as sexy as dirt, or maybe something that is done with dirt, like farming, or agribusiness as it’s now known. Have you ever noticed that the replacement titles never get shorter?

Like farming and selling, recruiting is hard work, because whereas you can exercise some control over the process, the outcome is much less controllable. In this respect, it matters not whether you are operating from a grimy, dog-eared Rolodex or an iPad. As with farming and selling, recruiting is vital work, and still today is a profession where you do a lot of groundwork, unearth a few leads, experience regular headwinds (e.g., withdrawn reqs, failed drug screens), and at the end of the day are glad if you can hit a bunch of singles, a few doubles, an occasional home run, and bat 300 over the long haul. Yet, one can make a compelling argument that the decision whether or not to put someone on an organization’s payroll is one of the most important decisions that can be made. So, if we want to sex up the title a bit to give ourselves some psychic income (or perhaps a higher pay grade), I’m down with that, but let’s use a little caution.

In fairness, cautious branding doesn’t sound like something that would be advocated by someone who for fourteen years has serially referred to workers, in writing no less, as “contented cows.” Thankfully for us, the cow metaphor is simple and very tight; so much so that on July 3, John Wiley & Sons will release our third book in the Contented Cows leadership series (more on that later). But that doesn’t mean that we haven’t taken some serious guff over it. I will never forget an afternoon spent on Clark Howard’s WSB Radio Show when an otherwise wonderful experience was chilled by a caller who got pretty irate over my “comparing people to animals.”

My concern with the expression, talent acquisition is this: Both words miss the mark. Although talent is important, it is secondary to finding people who, by virtue of pace, preference, temperament, and values happen to fit your particular organization. In the vast majority of cases, there are more available people with the talent to perform a given job than those who “fit” the organization. Marriott International, one of our newly minted Contented Cows, learned long ago that mixing grumpy, self-absorbed employees (no matter how talented) with travel-weary guests is not a combination that yields good business outcomes. In similar fashion, talented or not, most people (repeat, most people) would not be happy, productive, or successful working at your place. So, if we myopically get too hung up on the talent side of the equation, we run a very real risk of overlooking some extremely important factors.

Second, I’m more than a little bothered by the term, “acquisition” when it comes to the employment process. You might be able to borrow talent for a while, but you certainly don’t acquire it. Indeed, acquisition is entirely the wrong term if our aim is to do more than merely complete a transaction. I don’t know about you, but when I ran the organization that was responsible for much of the initial high growth staffing of FedEx, starting a relationship with people who would be today’s couriers and tomorrow’s managers was a hell of a lot more than merely putting butts in seats. No, we were trying to capture hearts, minds, and yes, talents, in large numbers, but still one at a time, because eagles don’t flock. Our aim then, and now is to productively engage with people who want to join our team and do important work.

Our hope is that however you choose to brand your organization’s people functions, you will do so thoughtfully.

*****

A pathfinder in the arena of leadership and employee engagement, Bill Catlette is a seminar leader, keynote speaker, and executive coach. He helps individuals and organizations improve business outcomes by having a focused, engaged, capably led workforce. He is co-author of the Contented Cows leadership book series, the next edition of which will be released in July 2012 by John Wiley & Sons. For more information about Bill, his partner Richard Hadden, and their work, please visit their website, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ContentedCows

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by Bill, Leadership

On Baseball, Hot Dogs, Apple and… High Standards

No Comments 06 October 2011

For decades, it has been suggested that three things are emblematic of America – baseball, hot dogs, and apple pie. Though it’s hard to argue with this list, I’ll suggest that it could use some updating.

Thinking back on the things that have impacted my life significantly, one of them indeed involves apples, but it is not apple pie. Rather, it is apple (make that Apple) products.

For better than two decades, nearly every word that I’ve “written”, including three and one-half books, has been created or archived on an Apple computer or device. Ditto for every business plan, tax return, letter, photograph, and email. If we’ve met or come into the same sphere at any time during that period, your contact information, ‘er “stuff” is recorded on one (likely all) of those devices. Many of my executive coaching sessions are conducted via videoconference on Facetime. Every morning, I awaken to a claxon-like sound blaring from an iPhone that, contrary to manufacturer’s recommendations, never gets turned off. During time in the gym and aboard airplanes for thousands of hours, music, other entertainment, and sometimes just peace and quiet has been piped into my body via an Apple product and those iconic white earbuds. Speeches are delivered with the assistance of visual aids created and stored on a MacBook Air. My daily schedule and nearly all electronic voice comm. is similarly enabled.

I bought my father Apple computers to add functionality to his life, and enable me to keep tabs on him from 600 miles away during his later years. When I called to wish him a happy 80th birthday, he proudly informed me that he had given himself a PC (as in WINTEL) computer. When I inquired as to why, he said, “The Mac isn’t enough of a challenge”, a comment that I passed along to Apple founder, Steve Jobs, suggesting that it might be the basis for his firm’s next ad slogan.

Though his products will remain deeply imbedded in my life, like millions of others around the world, I will miss Steve Jobs, a lot. No, I never met him personally, but due to a single leadership characteristic that he had in abundance, my life has been profoundly impacted. That characteristic? High Standards. Apple’s stuff isn’t “insanely great” as Mr. Jobs described it because they have the smartest people on the planet working for them.

No, lots of companies have smart people. Rather, it’s because Steve Jobs had standards that were higher, far higher than others, most particularly when it came to design and execution. Those standards were imposed on the people, ideas, and products that Jobs came into contact with via the company he co-founded. I’m sure the imposing was more welcome some times than others, but it clearly paid off, for Apple customers, employees, and yes, shareholders.

So, while we continue to enjoy the products that he helped introduce, Mr. Jobs may have left us an even bigger gift in the form of his example and an unrelenting insistence on setting a high bar that enabled, indeed compelled people to do something that is entirely too rare… their very best work.

*****

A pathfinder in the arena of leadership and employee engagement, Bill Catlette is a seminar leader, keynote speaker, and executive coach. He helps individuals and organizations improve business outcomes by having a focused, engaged, capably led workforce. He is co-author of the newly released book,Rebooting Leadership. For more information about Bill, his partner Richard Hadden, and their work, please visit theirwebsite, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ContentedCows

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by Bill, Leadership, Management, Motivation

Discretionary Effort: Why Wisconsin’s Governor (and Yours) May be Playing a Losing Game

No Comments 27 February 2011

Having already wrung needed and significant concessions from them, the newly elected Governor of Wisconsin has been making a rather poorly disguised effort to nullify the collective bargaining agreements and rights of various groups of state workers, principally teachers. As with nearly every other issue of import these days, the whole world is suddenly watching, including like-minded governors in several other states who are licking their chops at the prospect of following the lead penguin into the drink. Whoa… Full Flaps, Brakes, Stop!

In the interest of full disclosure, I am no fan of labor unions. Indeed, a significant portion of my professional effort over the course of 3 decades has focused on helping organizations obviate unions by maintaining a positive employee relations culture, a culture in which both the individual and the organization can do their best work and gain the most from it.

That said, I respect every worker’s right to make a choice as to whether or not they are willing to enter into a direct, cooperative, mutually beneficial relationship with their management. That choice is most often based on whether or not management has earned the benefit of the doubt. If the answer is yes, workers feel no need to reach out and seek (let alone pay for) the protection of organized labor. Are you with me so far? Alright, hang on.

Demonstrations notwithstanding, I believe there is an even chance that Governor Scott Walker will pull off some kind of flash bang, middle of the night vote and get his way, even if it means reinventing the law right before our eyes. Even if that comes to pass, while winning the hand, he will lose the game. Correction, the people of Wisconsin will lose. How? Because there will still be a need for thousands of teachers, and every one of them will STILL make a quiet daily decision as to whether they want to give their full measure of effort that day, or mail it in. Given the backdrop, which choice do you think they will make?

For the last twelve years we have worked almost entirely within the field of Discretionary Effort, studying, writing, speaking, and teaching leaders about that extra layer of effort that every one of us can give to a situation if, but only if we want to. Eerily consistent with similar work by Towers Watson and Gallup, our own engagement surveys suggest that barely 50% of workers are, by their own admission doing their very best work, and that most of us routinely expend no more than 60 to 70% of our maximum effort in the workspace. In other words, a lot of unspent capacity goes home with us at day’s end.

So, if just half of the 50,000 or so teachers in a state, any state choose to ratchet the ‘ole effort meter back another 10-20%, what is that going to cost to compensate for the lost productivity? Perhaps more importantly, what will it do to the level of educational performance in the state? If you’re getting a mental image of a post office being superimposed over your local school district, you’re getting the picture.

Since the publication of our first book, Contented Cows Give Better Milk in 1998, we have maintained that giving workers (be they on an assembly line at GM, or a school in Racine) benefits they haven’t earned, the market doesn’t require, and you can’t afford is the antithesis of good employee relations, because some day you have to take all that stuff back. As the folks at GM did, and now a lot of teachers and other municipal workers face that same music, the last thing in the world we, through our elected representatives ought to be doing is rubbing their faces in it, just because we can. It’s not good business or good politics, and it’s certainly not good employee relations. Motivated people move faster.

As always, your thoughts and ideas are welcome

*****

A thought leader in the arena of leadership and employee engagement, Bill Catlette is a seminar leader, keynote speaker, and executive coach. He helps individuals and organizations improve business outcomes by having a focused, engaged, capably led workforce. He is co-author of the newly released book,Rebooting Leadership. For more information about Bill, his partner Richard Hadden, and their work, please visit their  website, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ContentedCows

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by Bill, Leadership, Management

Make Employee “Stay Interviews” a Part of Your Engagement Strategy

2 Comments 17 February 2011

From time to time we are asked by the editors of Workforce Online to respond to reader questions. Recently, we were asked to respond to a question about using “stay interviews” as part of an employee engagement strategy. I thought the answer might be of interest to you.

Dear Workforce:
I’d like to start implementing “Stay Interviews”.  What kinds of questions should we be asking and how do I convince managers that this is important?

As opposed to exit interviews which are triggered by a staff member’s departure and yield nominal benefit, or “no interviews” which is akin to playing Russian roulette, “stay interviews” are conducted for the express purpose of strengthening the bond with your best people, and discovering what causes them to remain with the organization.

They can be one of the lowest cost, highest yielding activities by a management that is striving for greater levels of engagement and productivity. That’s exactly how it should be presented to your management team. (i.e., If we won’t make time to have a 40 minute chat with our best people, how and when will we make time to replace them?)

Our research, and others’ has consistently demonstrated that the top things which create stickiness between the individual and the organization, and the attendant discretionary effort include:

  • Having meaningful work and the freedom to pursue it
  • Working in a positive, challenging, high performance (read, elite) culture
  • Getting lots of opportunities to learn and grow (preparing to leave, if necessary)

Aside from not getting enough of one of the above, the chief cause of hitting the exit ramp is working for an unskilled, immature, or self-absorbed leader.

Conducted by a trained interviewer with position authority, stay interviews should focus on the above factors. Though some organizations find it convenient to conduct them coincident with the regular performance review cycle, we don’t recommend it, as performance reviews often carry too much baggage. Often times stay interviews are conducted on a skip-level basis as a means of adding credibility and objectivity to the process.

It is as important to realize what a stay interview is not as what it is. They are not a negotiating session, or a platform from which to rationalize or defend the status quo. Be plain about this from the start. Rather, the interview is an opportunity to listen (really listen) to the very people your annual report likely credits as being your most valuable asset. The interview should deal with questions like:

  • Why do you stay (with this organization, team, leader)?
  • What do you like best/least about you job?
  • If something has caused you to consider leaving in the last 6 months, what was it? Has it been resolved?
  • What would you like more/less of? What one thing would you like to see changed?
  • What’s your dream job, and are you making satisfactory progress to achieve it?
  • What can I/we do to support that effort?
  • Do you have any similarly talented friends or acquaintances who should be working here alongside you?
  • Is there one person in the organization who has really been helpful to you of late (so we can thank them appropriately)?

Not unlike the financial audits that every company does periodically, a combination of stay interviews with your best people, and engagement surveys of the entire workforce will inexpensively provide the organizational equivalent of color Doppler radar, with measures of actionable intelligence and goodwill. Good luck!

*****

A thought leader in the arena of leadership and employee engagement, Bill Catlette is a seminar leader, keynote speaker, and executive coach. He helps individuals and organizations improve business outcomes by having a focused, engaged, capably led workforce. He is co-author of the newly released book, Rebooting Leadership. For more information about Bill, his partner Richard Hadden, and their work, please visit their  website, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ContentedCows

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We Need More Like Daniel Hernandez

by Bill, Exemplars, Extra Milers, Leadership

We Need More Like Daniel Hernandez

1 Comment 13 January 2011

Daniel Hernandez

Were I still a corporate recruiter, I would have been on the phone this morning with University of Arizona junior, Daniel Hernandez talking about his future. With both words and deeds, Mr. Hernandez has, since last Saturday’s Tucson massacre, demonstrated many of the essential requirements of being a leader, at any level. Here are four that quickly come to mind:

Courage – Leaders are those we can count on to do the right thing, even when it is difficult, dangerous, or unpopular. Wading unarmed into a free fire zone to administer aid and comfort to one’s teammates certainly qualifies. While thankfully leaders don’t often have to get shot at to prove their mettle, our people do expect to see us personally absorbing some of the risk and punishment that is headed their way.

Decisive – Leaders must have the willingness and ability to act in the face of adversity, uncertainty, and the absence of guidelines. Mr. Hernandez had no clue what lay ahead when he jumped in to assist U.S. Rep., Gabrielle Giffords. It is doubtful that in his young life he had taken courses or read anything that told him to act, but act he did. Especially in today’s risk averse corporate environment, recruiters should screen and probe diligently to ensure that all candidates destined for a management position can demonstrate this quality.

Able to Focus and Communicate – As one who makes a significant portion of his living speaking to large audiences, I can vouch for the fact that efficiently and persuasively articulating a cogent message before a sea of faces (let alone the President of the United States and a world-wide tv audience) can be daunting. Doing it the for the first time on short notice, with short rest, no teleprompter or notes (even on the palm of your hand) is remarkable.

Humility – One of the greatest challenges I find leaders struggling with is the realization that leading is not about “them”, but about others. Given a perfect opportunity to grandstand or take a victory lap, Mr. Hernandez chose instead to deflect hero status to others he deemed more deserving, and focus instead on a powerful message. His behavior stands in stark contrast to a population that at times seems entirely too self-absorbed.

In a nutshell, I don’t know what young Mr. Hernandez wants to do with his life, but I do know this… We could do worse than look for “Hernandez-like” qualities as we go about searching for tomorrow’s leaders.

*****

A thought leader in the arena of leadership and employee engagement, Bill Catlette is a seminar leader, keynote speaker, and executive coach. He helps individuals and organizations improve business outcomes by having a focused, engaged, capably led workforce. He is co-author of the new released book, Rebooting Leadership. For more information about Bill, his partner Richard Hadden, and their work, please visit their website, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ContentedCows

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by Bill, Management

Jet Blue Nation

1 Comment 13 August 2010

For the better part of three days America has been fixated on the case of the Jet Blue flight attendant who took leave of his job (if not his senses) and delivered a profanity-laced rant at passengers before exiting the aircraft via the emergency escape slide, cold beer in hand. It seems fair to say that this guy has become something of a folk hero for executing his “KMA Moment” with style, if not a lot of class. Though this fellow remains charged with one or more criminal counts, his act is admired by legions of people whose own job frustrations make them  wish they could follow suit.

Ironically, exactly 24 hours after the incident, I recounted it in a speech to a group of 150 HR professionals in Ohio. Most laughed and applauded as if they could well understand and perhaps associate with the desperate act. Hmm.

There is something else going on here, though that’s not as funny. With employment relationships devolving to the point of being totally transactional, trust and loyalty at their nadir, and a jobless economic recovery handcuffing people to jobs they stopped loving a long time ago, we can be virtually assured of decreasing worker engagement and productivity. That doesn’t bode well for an economy that’s still trying to climb out of a ditch.

Here’s a thought… Let’s enjoy the Steven Slater moment and get a few good laughs from it. We need them. Then, for the sake of the health (survival?) of our own businesses, let’s go to work seeking to identify those things in our operating environments that keep our people from doing their best work and make them just as crazy.

*****
A thought leader in the arena of leadership and employee engagement, Bill Catlette is a seminar leader, keynote speaker, and executive coach. He helps individuals and organizations improve business outcomes by having a focused, engaged, capably led workforce. For more information about Bill, his partner Richard Hadden, and their work, please visit their website at www.contentedcows.com, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ContentedCows

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by Bill, Leadership

Rent-a-Dummies vs. Fully Engaged, Responsible Team Players

No Comments 12 December 2009

In a prior life as a corporate HR executive, I was known on occasion to use the term “rent-a-dummies” in reference to temporary agency help. My use of the term had a lot more to do with the no strings, obligations, or loyalties nature of the relationship than any IQ disparagement. Still, it was cold and unkind, even though in so many cases it just seemed to fit.

I was reminded of the term, and the extent to which any semblance of loyalty between employees and the organization has faded when reading yesterday that University of Cincinnati football coach, Brian Kelly had accepted the Notre Dame job.

Ironically, it wasn’t six months ago that Kelly signed a contract extension through 2013, saying at the time that, “this agreement allows me and my family to call Cincinnati our home, not just a place where we live,” Oh, I know, this situation is different, because it’s not just any university. It’s Notre Dame for gosh sakes. Kelly probably had to undergo an extra interview with a ah-hem Higher Authority to get the job.

Despite apparent statements to his Cincinnati players that he was staying, and that they would be the first to know if he decided otherwise (they weren’t), Kelly opted not to coach those same players in what, for many, will be the biggest, if not the last football game of their lives, the 2010 Sugar Bowl. As Notre Dame had already announced that it would not accept a bowl game invitation this year, it’s not like he had a competing professional interest. No, Kelly had gotten all he was going to get out of the University of Cincinnati and he was leaving, now! Never mind the interests of the young men who have played their hearts out for him and enabled him to get this job!

A few thoughts for the senior leaders and recruiters in our readership:

  1. If you truly want to get beyond the “grab mine and go” mentality in your organization, and you’ve really got to want to do it because it is an uphill slog, the effort must start with you. Are you setting the example by demonstrably placing the organization’s good at least on a par, if not a step ahead of your own? Are you earning the loyalty of the folks on your team day in and day out, or merely demanding and hoping for it?
  2. We suggest you revisit your use of employment contracts and seriously consider whether they are adding beneficial clarity to the terms of the arrangement, or simply tightening the screws of self-interest and creating more rent-a-dummies.
  3. In your recruiting and selection process, place as great an emphasis on how people finish their obligations and projects as how they start them. If a new recruit is willing to void an employment agreement and dump their current gig like a hot potato, why would you want them on your team?

Our interest is not in resurrecting the workplace of a bygone era. Anything but. Rather, it is in recognizing the fact that speed, the competitive advantage of choice, is compromised when people, either by choice or necessity, go through the day always keeping one eye focused on their own welfare rather than the job they are getting paid to do. We’ve made our choice. What’s yours?

*****

A thought leader in the arena of leadership and employee engagement, Bill Catlette is a seminar leader, keynote speaker, and executive coach. He helps individuals and organizations improve business outcomes by having a focused, engaged, capably led workforce. For more information about Bill, his partner Richard Hadden, and their work, please visit their website at www.contentedcows.com, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ContentedCows

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by Bill, Leadership

Accountability

No Comments 18 April 2009

Thursday evening, I attended a presentation given at the Harding Academy of Memphis by Commander Scott Waddle, US Navy, ret. In town for a paid speaking engagement with a group of business leaders, Mr. Waddle was kind enough to share his message with about 100 high schoolers and assorted other guests.

Mr. Waddle is the former commander of the USS Greeneville, a Los Angeles class fast-attack submarine. On 9 February 2001, while demonstrating an “emergency main ballast tank blow” exercise off the coast of Hawaii, the Greeneville, upon popping to the surface, struck the Japanese fishing vessel, Ehime Maru, sunk it, and killed 9 people, including 4 high school students who were aboard the craft.

Though not at the controls at the time of the accident, Commander Waddle unflinchingly took full responsibility for the accident (“It was my boat”) and, against the advice of his own lawyer and the Navy, apologized personally to the survivors and family members of the deceased.

Now retired from the Navy, “fired”, as he put it to the kids, Waddle now spends his time speaking and consulting. Re-telling and re-living this saga can’t be fun for him. Nor is it fun to listen to. It isn’t meant to be. But in an age when everything, EVERYTHING is cast in the most favorable light and spun for all its worth, Scott Waddle’s plain-spoken message about accountability, offered with heartfelt good intent is vital. I emailed him shortly after his presentation, and told him that I was quite sure that several of those kids will operate on the lessons he planted in them for the rest of their lives.

But the message isn’t just for kids. How much better would our businesses, our communities, our world be if each of us, when we made a mistake would voluntarily step into the light, admit it, apologize for it (with meaning), then take real steps to remedy it? As Commander Waddle suggested, each of us has that choice to make, and the opportunities to make it.

A thought leader in the arena of leadership and employee engagement, Bill Catlette is a seminar leader, keynote speaker, and executive coach. He helps individuals and organizations improve business outcomes by having a focused, engaged, capably led workforce. For more information about Bill, his partner Richard Hadden, and their work, please visit their website at www.contentedcows.com

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by Bill, Management

Renaissance of the Part-Time Worker

No Comments 08 April 2009

Recent job reports suggest that, in addition to an 8.5% unemployment rate, nearly twice that number of people are at present “under employed”, as in working in jobs that are well beneath their skill level, or on an involuntary part-time basis.

In the latter case, organizations can, and should take steps for the benefit of all concerned to ensure that part-timers are challenged, used sensibly, and not abused. At a minimum, make darned sure that part-timers are not inadvertently relegated to “sub-human” status.

In the early days of FedEx, we made extensive use of part-time workers, owing to the fact that package count growth was uneven, difficult to predict, and a thinly stretched checkbook kept us from making full-time commitments to people until we were certain that we could afford to do so. In fact, they still rely extensively on part-time workers as a means of building workforce flexibility while avoiding over-staffing.

I’ll never forget a manager asking (whining) one day, “Do we really have to train all these part-timers?” “No, I replied – not all of them, just the ones who might have an accident, hurt somebody, break a piece of equipment, get lost on their route, disenfranchise a customer,”… and the list went on. In other words, of course you do. In fact, given that by virtue of their schedule they have less time to “practice” on a daily basis, we probably needed to train them even more than their full-time counterparts.

Tamara Schweitzer recently wrote a good piece, 7 Tips for Managing Part-Time Workers for Inc Magazine. Given that part-timers are more in vogue now than ever, you may want to check it out.

A thought leader in the arena of leadership and employee engagement, Bill Catlette is a seminar leader, keynote speaker, and executive coach. He helps individuals and organizations improve business outcomes by having a focused, engaged, capably led workforce. For more information about Bill, his partner Richard Hadden, and their work, please visit their website at www.contentedcows.com

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Considered thought leaders in the arena of leadership and employee engagement, Bill Catlette and Richard Hadden speak to, train, and coach managers on leadership practices for better business outcomes.

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