Category Archives: General

Leadership in Tough Times Can Save More Than Just Morale

When times are tough, job stress typically increases, from the top echelon of management to the workers on the front lines. Communication can suffer, too, as leaders hold back less-than-positive information to avoid adding to workers\’ worries. As a result, a culture of fear and lack of trust can pervade any business, with employees looking to the future with uncertainty and looking to leadership for answers they may not get.

Fear and lack of trust are the building blocks of conflict. While it\’s a normal aspect of business, human resources and management don\’t always handle conflict as well as they could. For example, in many firms, the first response is to bring in outside experts, to conduct mediation sessions or workshops, in an attempt to diffuse tension and improve morale. These costly consultants are usually unknown – and therefore not always trusted by the parties involved. And they often leave the company in the same situation in which they found it.

A better way to deal with conflict is to prevent it in the first place. When leaders build a culture of trust and work to improve their own conflict resolution styles, workplace wars can be a thing of the past. In this way, effective leadership can save company morale – and save money, too.

Can a Culture of Trust Lead to a Conflict-Free Workplace?

Eliminating workplace conflict may seem like an impossible task – and in some firms, it will likely never go away completely. But decreasing conflict, and diminishing its impact, is doable. A company culture built on trust can significantly improve employee morale, increase productivity and add to the bottom line. Here are three ways to move toward a conflict-free workplace through trust:

  • Encourage tolerance and respect for everyone. No matter what their age, gender, physical characteristics, or socio-economic or cultural background, all employees deserve to be respected as unique individuals, not mistreated because of their differences. Comments, jokes, gossip or any non-productive talk about co-workers cannot be tolerated in any forward-thinking company. Conduct cultural awareness training to foster inclusion and create a foundation of respect and trust for all.
  • Keep communication flowing. Over-communicating can be a plus in a fast-moving work environment. Set goals, outline expectations, clarify roles and explain procedures – and repeat often. Encourage feedback and questions – no matter how trivial – to help build clarity. And avoid hiding information or keeping bad news from staff to build trust and reduce stress.
  • Teach people how to listen and empathize. Anyone can learn how to be an active listener – especially when their leaders model the behavior. Here\’s how: in conversation, make every effort to be fully present; don\’t interrupt; and repeat back what you think the person said. Nothing does more to make a person feel valued than to know they\’ve been heard.
  • Promote passion. Let your staff know it\’s okay to take a stand on something they feel passionate about. It\’s also fine to disagree with someone\’s position. A positive way to handle disagreement is simply to acknowledge feelings and empathize with the person. Working through small difficulties can lead to increased confidence, respect and trust all around.

It\’s true that even a strong culture of trust won\’t prevent every workplace conflict. But that doesn\’t mean it\’s time to call in the mediation experts. When handled properly by skilled leaders, conflict can be harmless, and even lead to positive change.

Revamp Your Conflict Resolution Style

When people of various cultural and social backgrounds, or with different needs and goals, are put together in a confined space, anything can happen. But conflict is not always a bad thing. Becoming a great leader requires learning how to effectively resolve workplace conflicts to affect a positive outcome.

Here are some ways to boost your conflict resolution skills:

  • Let the facts be your guide. Eliminating speculation, assumptions and conjecture can go a long way toward avoiding conflict. Show employees how to take an analytical approach to their interactions. Ask clarifying questions and get to the bottom of a situation, to learn what people really think and understand about it. Focus on the problem at hand, not the people involved. And stay objective!
  • Always be courteous. Leaders must conduct themselves with high standards of behavior. When managing a conflict or stressful situation, treat everyone involved with courtesy – even if you disagree with him or her. Not only does it foster feelings of value, but courtesy also develops respect. And you cannot lead if your staff has no respect for you.
  • Crowdsource a solution. Ask for input from the parties involved, and be open to their ideas for solutions.
  • Learn to negotiate. When a conflict has reached an impasse, it\’s time for a strong leader to negotiate a solution. If your negotiation skills are rusty, find the training you need to develop them. Negotiation goes hand-in-hand with leadership success.

Solid Leadership is All You Need to Control Workplace Conflict

In today\’s economically challenged business environment, a company can deal with conflict by bringing in outsiders, or by making internal improvements that foster proactive conflict resolution. When workers learn to deal with conflict by observing their leaders and practicing their own conflict resolution skills, trust and mutual respect only increase. And as a result, morale and productivity rise along with them.

This guest post was provided by Jason Monaghan with University of Notre Dame Executive Online Education. Jason works with the faculty and staff at Notre Dame Online to develop skill sets for the leaders of tomorrow in Negotiations, Leadership and Management and Business Administration.

HR to Employee Ratio

HR to Employee Ratio-more than just a number

Sometimes you have to stop and wonder where common sense has gone. Companies are expecting more from their HR team than ever before, but according to data gathered by XpertHR, companies are increasing the number of employees relative to the number of HR professionals. This leads to a number of trickle-down effects, but the major one is forcing those human resources employees into a more administrative function. There’s no hands-on, friendly interaction. There’s no face-to-face discussion of what the company has to offer to you as an individual.

No, it’s just an ever-increasing spiral in an attempt to decrease costs and increase efficiency. While you’ll never meet someone who’s for increasing costs and lowering efficiency, that does come with its own baggage. Recent information from Gallup puts employee disengagement higher than 25%. I know that figure is determined by a number of factors, but if there’s one thing we can push for as HR professionals, it’s the desire for companies to treat their staff like people. They aren’t machines that run endlessly. They will lose motivation over time. They will resent being treated like just another number.

So do something about it.

If you work for a company with a ratio that stifles your ability to impact the organization, try to find out what it would take to get that lower. It may not be possible overnight, but maybe there are some more administrative tasks that can be handed off to an admin so you can focus on more strategic, high-impact HR practices.

I can still remember talking with a local HR pro at a SHRM chapter meeting about how they embed HR generalists into business units to keep the HR team close to the action. For more on this topic, check out Employee to HR Ratio (with a neat infographic!).

So, what’s the ratio in your organization? Is it too much, too little, or just right? 

Do Resumes Go Into a Black Hole? 3 Ways to Get Noticed

The Top 3 Ways to Get Your Resume Noticed in an Applicant Tracking System

In today\’s competitive marketplace, applying for a job can be an exercise in frustration.  The endless resume submission process can feel like a black hole when you don\’t receive a response. What can you do to get your resume past the gatekeeper and increase your chances of getting an interview?

As more and more recruiters are leveraging technology in their recruitment processes, here are 3 noteworthy tips to help get your resume reviewed faster!

  1. Tweak Your Resume

In the old days, that gatekeeper was often a secretary or maybe an HR hiring manager. However, many companies are now using applicant tracking systems (ATS) to find the best candidates and eliminate manual processes like sorting through a pile of resumes. Before your application reaches someone in HR, it will first be reviewed through this ATS software.

Luckily, once you understand a few key elements of applicant tracking software, it\’s not as daunting as it might sound. The truth is, if you include all of your accomplishments and relevant past experience in your resume, the applicant tracking system can pick up on your skills and show you as an excellent fit for the position.

  1. Show Your Results

Every resume is stronger when it is results based.  Showing that you raised your department’s sales by 12% over your tenure shows sales and marketing skill—important for a sales and marketing position, which the ATS software will likely notice.  If you are applying for an entry level position and may not have past results to include, perhaps mention results from a significant club event you organized.

  1. Make Sure You Fit the Requirements

If the position calls for someone with 5-7 years of experience and you have 3, the software will pass you over.  For that matter, so will the HR manager; therefore, make sure you fit the requirements as closely as possible and remain realistic in your job hunt.

The use of applicant tracking systems to help with the hiring process is continuing to grow in today’s corporate world. ATS software is designed to help both the recruiter/hiring manager and the candidate by streamlining the hiring process to allow for open positions to be filled more quickly. By applying a few of the key tactics outlined above to your resume before you hit the “submit” button, you\’ll help ensure that your application will make it past the initial screening process and onto the desk of a hiring manager.

This guest post comes from iCIMS, which offers web-based applicant tracking system (ATS) solutions  for business of all sizes. iCIMS provides employee onboarding software to help streamline the hiring process in order to save time and reduce cost-per-hire. iCIMS’ talent management system can be tailored to fit your HR or recruiting needs. To learn more, visit their website or follow iCIMS on Twitter @iCIMS.

Federal Service Contract Act for Government Contractors

As an HR pro working for a government contractor, I had my first run-in with the Federal Service Contract Act (SCA) last year. Let’s just say it was a memorable experience. But seriously, if you’re working in the private sector and don’t have interaction with the government, you might be wondering (as I was way back when): What is SCA? How does it affect our company? How do we comply with it?

Well, I’m not an expert by any stretch of the imagination, but I can get you started in the right direction.

Federal Service Contract Act wage determinations

A wage determination is a specific minimum wage set for employees of a certain category. For instance, a Senior Technician in Limestone county on an SCA contract would have to be paid a specific rate. On top of that minimum wage requirement comes a special stipend to cover benefits. For more information on wage determinations or to look one up, check out the WDOL website.

Federal Service Contract Act health and welfare stipend

In order to ensure that the workers are paid not only a minimum wage, but also a suitable amount for benefits, the employer is required to pay a set amount for “health and welfare” benefits. These benefits include, but are not limited to: health, dental, and vision insurance, life insurance, 401(k) savings match, education reimbursement, military leave, etc. The stipend amount varies by contract, but the important piece is to make sure you are providing at least the minimum amount per hour worked. If not, then you must pay the remaining stipend out in cash. Check out the resources below for more information on how this works.

Other Federal Service Contract Act requirements

There are so many twists and turns in the SCA regulations. Even numbered wage determinations are handled differently than odd numbered wage determinations. You can skip the stipend if you provide enough benefits, but you have to “true up” the numbers at year’s end to be sure you provided enough. Some employers separate their SCA employees into a separate “benefits pool,” allowing them to not pay them benefits and only pay the stipend, which is easier on the employer (though not necessarily on the SCA employees). It’s just one more administrative burden that HR pros working for federal contractors have to handle!

More SCA resources

Again, this is just a quick overview to get you started, but  I hope it was helpful. Any questions about the Federal Service Contract Act? Feel free to leave a comment below and I can try to help you find an answer!

Blogging lessons as I pass a milestone

Hey, everyone! Today we’re going super informal. Not that it’s much different from the norm, but I wanted to warn you. :-) I was gearing up to write a post for today and noticed that I missed it last week. I hit 400 posts (on this blog) and there was no fanfare. There was no celebration. Nobody cracked open a Diet Mountain Dew as a toast to this blog’s longevity.

No, just one more little milestone as we roll merrily along.

I never would have imagined coming this far the day I wrote my first post. When I saw and heard about others who had written hundreds of articles, I was in awe. The two biggest question that popped into my head at the time:

  • Where do you get the time to do that?
  • How do you have that many ideas?

Now I know the answers. The first one is time. It takes a little time invested over a long period to reach those kinds of numbers. When it comes to ideas, they are everywhere. You just have to be sensitive/aware and not let them slip by.

But those aren’t the only lessons I’ve learned and that I want to share. I try to keep away from writing posts like this that focus only on the tiny audience segment that actually blogs, but I write posts for other groups, so why not that one? Now, I’ve written about why HR people don’t blog before, but I still think there are some out there who are wondering, “Is my idea interesting? Would anyone else read it? Am I really a good writer?”

If’ you think you might be interested in writing even a single blog post, try it. Send me the post and we can get it published here. We can ask for some feedback from the audience (many of whom are much brainier than me). Whatever it takes to help you get over that first hurdle and start, I’d like to help if you are interested.

If you’re already out there blogging, and you are looking for some tips that I have picked up, here are a handful.

  • The more often you write quality posts, the more traffic you’ll get. When I slow down on my writing, traffic drops. Personally I don’t stick with other blogs that post 7+ times per week because it just gets to be too much to keep up with. I’ve gone back and forth and now try to do 2-3 per week.
  • SEO is worth the effort if you are interested in traffic. If you are just writing for fun, then it’s less important.
  • Connecting with other writers via comments, guest posts, Twitter, etc. is a great way to build your audience.

Any other questions you have about blogging that I can help with? Leave a comment below and we can discuss. Thanks again for the support! I appreciate you guys.

CEO to Worker Pay Ratio-Get Over It

Ratio of CEO pay to worker payAKA I’m putting on my capitalist hat

I have been reading so much lately on the CEO to worker pay ratio numbers, and frankly it’s making me sick. I’m channeling the devil-may-care attitude of Tim Sackett today, so I’ll probably make half of you mad at me. You’ll get over it and we can still be friends. Promise. :-)

There are several common threads to the stories about the ratio of CEO pay to worker pay, fairness and envy being the most often. I think the arguments are irrelevant at a minimum and an attempt to stir up class warfare at worst. Let’s look at each of the issues above and how they play into the CEO to worker pay disparity discussion.

Hint: life isn’t “fair”

Some calculations put the CEO to worker pay ratio at 300+ times the average wage earner. While that might on its surface seem unfair, consider the fact that the CEO of a company like Wal-Mart makes decisions on a daily basis that impact the future profitability of the company. The average worker does manual labor or customer service work. Not exactly an apples-to-apples comparison.

I don’t work there and never have, but I would much rather have someone running the organization who brings more value than they cost the company. Trying to use the executive pay ratio is just an easy way to stir up the masses at the low end of the pay scale.

Don’t hate ’em, join ’em!

The (easy) and popular thing to do is talk about how selfish and greedy corporate executives are.

So. What. 

The majority of the time it’s just some guy (or gal) trying to work and do their job well. Yes, they get paid a considerable amount of money for what they do, but in the end they are still people who have hopes and dreams when it comes to the work they do. Instead of trying to use envy as a wedge between “us” and “them,” why not seek out ways to become like them?

That brings to mind a  quote I’ve heard before: jealousy is wanting what someone else has–envy is wanting to take it away from the other person because you think it’s out of your reach.

Not everyone is motivated and driven to become a highly compensated executive. But you shouldn’t hate those who are. If you’re that jealous of what they have, learn how they became successful and follow in their footsteps.

That goes for nonprofits, too

I often read the work of Harvard Business Review author Dan Palotta. He recently wrote “An Executive Pay Witch Hunt,” detailing New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s attacks on nonprofits for paying their executives “high” salaries. I look at it this way: if a nonprofit can help a thousand homeless people in their current operating state, but they can hire a better (and more expensive) CEO whose leadership and guidance allows them to help ten thousand homeless people, then why ridicule them for making that choice? Again, this ignores the small percentage of organizations and people who defraud others and behave unethically, because that’s an entirely different discussion.

All said, I’m a fan of the government staying out of the way as long as a business is operating within the confines of the law, and that “staying out of the way” involves executive compensation and the CEO to worker pay ratio, too.

Let the comments begin! :-)

Why and How To Read a Book per Week

How to read a book a week

Someone reached out to me the other day to ask what books I might recommend for an HR Generalist. I’ve been doing a handful of book reviews lately, and I also saw that my good friend Trish wrote on the topic as well, so this seemed like a great time to bring up my philosophy on business books.

Get an MBA… From books?

One of the best resources I’ve come across with regard to organizing and explaining the need to read books is PersonalMBA.com. Josh Kaufman has put together a resource to help business leaders learn everything they need to know without adding in the time and monetary cost of going to school for an MBA. A few places to start:

My take on reading

I helped set up a corporate library. I am a firm believer in employee reading programs. Obviously I’m a fan of books. But why? Am I a nerdy bookworm? Well, yes, but there are other reasons for reading as well.

Books make you smarter in all areas of your life.

“The difference between where you are today and where you’ll be five years from now will be found in the quality of books you’ve read.” – Jim Rohn

I make mistakes. Sometimes too often. But I learn from them. I do what I can to figure out where things went wrong and make a course correction. Imagine if you could learn from the mistakes of others as well. What if you could hear their take on how they could have changed their actions or beliefs to avoid problems and costly errors.

You can.

Not every book has something valuable in it. I recently reviewed a book that was an interesting read, but I really didn’t get any value from reading  it. Other books on my shelf at work are highlighted, dog-eared, and tattered from reading and re-reading the lessons they contain. To sum that up:

“Smart people learn from their mistakes. But the real sharp ones learn from the mistakes of others.” - Brandon Mull

Don’t be crazy

I don’t sit around reading HR textbooks all day. I mix up my reading between contemporary/classic fantasy (Jim Butcher=favorite), science fiction (F. Paul Wilson’s Repairman Jack series), self improvement (marriage, parenting, etc.), and whatever else looks interesting. But while the some of those are purely for enjoyment and stress relief, I still make time to slip books in that I can learn something from to apply in my work or life.

How to read a book a week

I lamented earlier this week that I’ve spent my Books a Million gift cards from Christmas already. And I’ve finished the three books I purchased. How did that happen in less than 30 days? Well, I carry my books with me wherever I go. Sitting in the car waiting on the kids to get out of school? There is time to get a few pages in. Waiting at the doctor’s office? You can read whole chapters. ;-) Seriously, though, those little pieces add up. I spend a more concentrated 15-30 minutes each night if I can fit it in, but honestly having those little pieces here and there during the day can easily add up.

If you put your mind to it and take reading a book per week seriously, that would be over 50 books this year alone (with two weeks off as cushion). If you’re only halfway successful, that’s 25 books you may not have otherwise read. That knowledge can never be taken away from you. A large portion of adults never read another book after they graduate. Don’t be included in that statistic!

Hopefully I’ve imbued you with some of my own enthusiasm for reading. Now, I’d love to stay and chat, but my book is calling me…

I’m always looking for good recommendations, so if you have one, please feel free to share!