Tag: Management

  • Transitioning Back to Work: Recognizing the Signs of Stress, Anxiety, and Fatigue

    It is hard to look around without acknowledging our common experience. From the empty streets and shuttered cafes in response to the pandemic to the crowded and passionate streets in support of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests, we can easily apply the term social disruption or witness the spark of cultural change to mark the time we find ourselves in.

    Your Most Valuable Resource: Your People

    An internet search on June 10, 2020, using the phrase “returning to work after coronavirus” brought up more than 8 billion hits in less than a second. Most links apply checklists and guidelines, roadmaps and schedules, legal spreadsheet to protect against risk, and resources to call upon to reconfigure workspaces. For those interested in what to do, there are a multitude of sources to reference.

    However, few pages address how employees are personally affected, let alone how organizations can offer support after prolonged periods of the stress, fatigue, and emotional strain. Now that employees are beginning to return to the workplace, paying attention to clues and warning signs will reinforce how organizations are living into their value proposition and remaining an employer-of-choice through these significant events. Leading with empathy and concern will go far in helping engage and retain your most valuable resource—your people.

    Recognize the Typical Change Process

    This experience is more closely aligned with the transitional change model associated with William Bridges and the stages of grief model established by Elisabeth Kübler Ross. These models highlight the time and performance continuum that moves from shock and denial, through anger and depression, and finally to acceptance and ultimate integration of the experience.

    Considering that each of us is experiencing the same cultural disruption, recognizing where employees are in this continuum will also allow us to engage others where they are. Successful managers who recognize that people move first through negative emotions before rebounding into a more productive and positive state will leverage empathy before getting down to the tasks at hand.

    Stay Alert to Different Experiences

    Remaining alert to signs and having candid conversations without crossing boundaries is critically important. Remember, each employee experiences our current environment differently. Some live in early COVID-19 hotspots or areas where activism is more visible, while others are just beginning to confront these issues. Organizations vary with their level of comfort discussing issues like PPE access or health in general, let alone race, politics, class, and the multitude of social concerns coming to the forefront of conversations today.

    Look for Signs

    Pay close attention to how employees were before in relation to how they are today. Where they seem to show up differently, take the time to engage in conversation. When needed, refer them to your employee assistance program services or other outlets for support.

    How people react. When major organizational change occurs, people may become depressed or passive or show disengagement from colleagues. They may:

    • Exhibit unexpected or inappropriate behavior or be slow to respond to requests
    • Stop taking initiative or stop being a good team player
    • Abandon loyalty to their manager or company
    • Become physically ill or increase their absenteeism
    • Demonstrate poor performance, sloppiness, or disinclination to prepare

    What people express. Listen carefully as some may express intense sadness and resentment or articulate uncertainty or fear of the future. Remember, the work-from-home environment has tested boundaries with work-life balance, childcare issues, and people being “let in” to their home environments through sometime incessant videocalls.

    Necessary Meetings

    One-on-one or skip-level meetings between manager and direct report are fundamental to effective performance management. These are now more compelling and may require greater frequency. Acknowledge people’s feelings and call on your greatest active listening skills as you encourage open and active communication. Reassure them of their value and help them to confirm their workplace goals. And give them the time they need to adjust but be sure to walk the fine line between counseling and showing appropriate empathy and concern. Offer appropriate professional referral sources if their needs indicate deep emotional distress or signs of hopelessness. A manager also needs to coach and motivate as well as track performance, behaviors, and responses, and look for resilience and bounce back.

    Support is more important now than ever.

    Content Originally Posted on td.org

    Author: Adena Johnston

  • How To Persuade People to Change Their Behavior

    Our innate anti-persuasion radar raises our defenses, so we avoid or ignore the message or, even worse, counter-argue, conjuring up all the reasons why what someone else suggested is a bad idea. Sure, the governor said to stay home but they’re overreacting.  Maybe the virus is bad in some part of the country, but I don’t know a single person whose gotten it.  And besides, many people who get it are fine anyway, so what’s the big deal?  Like an overzealous high school debater, they poke and prod and raise objections until the persuasive power of the message crumbles.

    So if telling people to do doesn’t work, what does? Rather than trying to persuade people, getting them to persuade themselves is often more effective.  Here are three ways to do that.

    1. Highlight a gap. 

    You can increase people’s sense of freedom and control by pointing out a disconnect between their thoughts and actions, or between what they might recommend for others versus do themselves.

    Take staying at home. For young people who might resist, ask what they would suggest an elderly grandparent or a younger brother or sister do. Would they want them out, interacting with possibly infected people?  If not, why do they think it’s safe for them to do so?

    People strive for internal consistency. They want their attitudes and actions to line up.  Highlighting misalignment encourages them to resolve the disconnect.

    Health officials in Thailand used this approach in anti-smoking campaign.  Rather than telling smokers their habit was bad, they had little kids come up to smokers on the street and ask them for a light.  Not surprisingly, the smokers told the kids no. Many even lectured the little boys and girls about the dangers of smoking. But before turning to walk away, the kids handed the smokers a note that said, “You worry about me … But why not about yourself?” At the bottom was a toll-free number smokers could call to get help.  Calls to that line jumped more than 60% during the campaign.

    2. Pose questions.

    Another way to allow for agency is to ask questions rather than make statements.  Public health messaging tries to be direct: “Junk food makes you fat.” “Drunk driving is murder.” “Keep sheltering in place.” But being so forceful can make people feel threatened. The same content can be phrased in terms of a question: “Do you think junk food is good for you?” If someone’s answer is no, they’re now in a tough spot. By encouraging them to articulate their opinion, they’ve had to put a stake in the ground — to admit that those things aren’t good for them. And once they’ve done that, it becomes harder to keep justify the bad behaviors.

    Questions shift the listener’s role. Rather than counter-arguing or thinking about all the reasons they disagree, they’re sorting through their answer to your query and their feelings or opinions on the matter.  And this shift increases buy-in. It encourages people to commit to the conclusion, because while people might not want to follow someone else’s lead, they’re more than happy to follow their own.  The answer to the question isn’t just any answer; it’s theiranswer, reflecting their own personal thoughts, beliefs, and preferences. That makes it more likely to drive action.

    In the case of this crisis, questions like “How bad would it be if your loved ones got sick?” could prove more effective than directives in driving commitment to long-term or intermittent social distancing and vigilant hygiene practices.

    3. Ask for less. 

    The third approach is to reduce the size of the ask.

    A doctor was dealing with an obese trucker who was drinking three liters of Mountain Dew a day.  She wanted to ask him to quit cold turkey, but knew that would probably fail, so she tried something else. She asked him to go from three liters a day to two.  He grumbled, but after a few weeks, was able to make the switch.  Then, on the next visit, she asked him to cut down to one liter a day. Finally, after he was able to do that, only then did she suggest cutting the soda out entirely. The trucker still drinks a can of Mountain Dew once in a while, but he’s lost more than 25 pounds.

    Especially in times of crisis, health organizations want big change right away. Everyone should continue to stay at home, by themselves, for two more months.  But asks this big often get rejected.  They’re so different from what people are doing currently that they fall into what scientists call “the region of rejection” and get ignored.

    A better approach is to dial down the initial request. Ask for less initially, and then ask for more. Take a big ask and break it down into smaller, more manageable chunks. Government officials responding to the pandemic are already doing this to some extent by setting initial end dates for social distancing measures, then extending them. But there might be more opportunities, for example when experts allow for some restrictions to be lifted — say, on small gatherings — but insist that others, such as concerts or sporting events, continue to be banned.

    Whether we’re encouraging people to socially distance, shop only once a week, thoroughly wash hands and wear face masks, or change behavior more broadly, too often we default to a particular approach: Pushing.  We assume that if we just remind people again or give them more facts, figures, or reasons, they’ll come around.  But, as recent backlash against the Covid-19 -related restrictions suggests, this doesn’t always work over the long term, especially when your demands have no fixed end date.

    If we instead understand the key barriers preventing change, such as reactance, and employ tactics designed to overcome them, we can change anything.


    Author:

    Jonah Berger is a professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and the author, most recently, of The Catalyst: How to Change Anyone’s Mind (Simon & Schuster, 2020).

  • The coaching space: A production of power relationships in organizational settings

  • The Power Of Resiliency — And How To Prepare For The Coming Storms

    Post written by Liz Guthridge, MCEC: A Member of the Association of Corporate Executive Coaches

    Helps leaders in new roles make a bigger impact faster. Neuroscience, behavior design and communication. www.connectconsultinggroup.com

    During her 2017 book tour, Facebook COO and best-selling author Sheryl Sandberg taught me to appreciate the power of resiliency, and I continue to be indebted to her, especially during the June through November hurricane season. Along with a friend who joined me for Sandberg’s talk, I marveled at what we had heard. We agreed that Sandberg seemed to exhibit superpowers.

    Shortly after Sandberg’s husband, Dave Goldberg, died unexpectedly and suddenly in May 2015, she teamed up with another best-selling author, the Wharton professor Adam Grant, to co-author Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy. Writing the book helped her deal with her grief as well as recover. Less than two years after the loss of her husband, she had completed another bestselling book to go along with her well-known Lean In. Plus, she was raising two kids on her own while working as the chief operating officer at Facebook and serving on the board of directors for Disney.

    While my friend and I were tempted to wallow in our feelings of inadequacy over dessert following the talk, I realized Sandberg was teaching me valuable lessons about resiliency that can be applied in a variety of circumstances.

    According to psychologists, individuals with good resilience are able to bounce back from hardships, often life-shattering ones, more quickly and with less stress than someone whose resilience is less developed. Some individuals who face trauma even experience positive changes. They bounce forward from their trauma with renewed strength. And even those who may have been shaken to their core by a traumatic event can over time discover a sense of personal growth. The psychologists call this post-traumatic growth.

    Until Sandberg’s talk, I had started to take for granted the resilience skills I had learned many years ago during a man-made disaster in New York City. Almost 30 years ago, in August 1989, weeks before Hurricane Hugo destroyed much of Charleston, South Carolina, and the 6.9 magnitude Loma Prieta earthquake rocked the San Francisco Bay area, we experienced the Gramercy Park steam pipe explosion where I lived.

    Three days after the deadly explosion, authorities discovered that the underground pipe had been wrapped in asbestos. Since airborne asbestos is a major health hazard, the 200 residents of my 18-story apartment building were forced to evacuate for the cleanup, which lasted about four-and-a-half months. As victims, we were fine from a financial perspective, since the utility Con Edison was responsible for the accident and paid for our living expenses, including providing us with a clothing allowance. But, from a quality of life perspective, it was a very strange experience.

    Sandberg’s Option B made me recognize that my life experiences to date, as well as the book I co-authored with a client back in 2006, Leading People Through Disasters, had helped me build up strong resiliency skills that are transferable.

    Having dealt with tornadoes in my home state of Oklahoma and earthquakes when I lived in California, I now face hurricanes in Charleston, where my family and I moved in early 2014. Every fall since 2015, we’ve dealt with one major hurricane or flood each season. After staying home the first time, we now prefer to evacuate, saving our strength for the cleanup that saps our energy, time and other resources.

    While resilience is so often built in the aftermath of a disaster, much of our stress occurs when we see the inevitable trauma coming toward us. Here are my five tips for dealing with the stress of preparing for a disaster, which I most recently used this September for Hurricane Florence. (We lucked out when the storm turned inland rather than moving south and spared Charleston this time.)

    1. Adjust your view of time.

    Suspend your desire to be as productive as usual. Everything takes more time than you think it will. You’ve also got to rearrange your schedule for the next few weeks, including canceling appointments and meetings, rescheduling what you can and focusing on important actions you need to take now. For example, you probably want to pack up important documents, photographs and other irreplaceable or important items to keep with you.

    2. Practice self-care.

    As much as possible, try to get enough sleep and exercise. Try to eat well-balanced meals. You’ll feel better physically and mentally. And, generally, you’ll able to react faster if conditions change quickly and you need to alter your plans.

    3. Toggle between keeping to a routine and taking advantage of opportunities that present themselves.

    For example, when Hurricane Florence was approaching this September, I was concerned about getting to Washington, D.C., for a conference I was facilitating. So, I left two days ahead of my planned departure date. Once in D.C., I enjoyed the extra time by having lunch with a college friend and exploring a couple of museums. One morning I even conducted a webinar workshop from my hotel room for one of my clients.

    4. Advocate for yourself.

    Speak up for yourself when talking to customer service representatives. Unless you tell them, they probably won’t realize the severity of your situation. Many also are clueless about how much latitude they have with their company’s rules and deadlines until they ask a supervisor. When I explain my situation, airlines, hotels and even insurance companies generally accommodate my requests.

    5. Be social.

    Stay in touch with friends, family and colleagues to allay their concerns as well as get an opportunity to talk and think about something other than your situation.

    You never know what disaster you’re going to face, but if you prepare and you’re resilient, you’ll power through and be stronger for it.

    I help leaders improve and shape their organization’s culture by building better habits. For more info, https://connectconsultinggroup.com

  • Skim Reading Is The New Normal

  • There’s only one way to truly understand another person’s mind

    It’s often said that we should put ourselves in another person’s shoes in order to better understand their point of view. But psychological research suggests this directive leaves something to be desired: When we imagine the inner lives of others, we don’t necessarily gain real insight into other people’s minds.

    Instead of imagining ourselves in another person’s position, we need to actually get their perspective, according to a recent study (pdf) in the Journal of Personality and Psychology. Researchers from the University of Chicago and Northeastern University in the US and Ben Gurion University in Israel conducted 25 different experiments with strangers, friends, couples, and spouses to assess the accuracy of insights onto other’s thoughts, feelings, attitudes, and mental states.

    Their conclusion, as psychologist Tal Eyal tells Quartz: “We assume that another person thinks or feels about things as we do, when in fact they often do not. So we often use our own perspective to understand other people, but our perspective is often very different from the other person’s perspective.” This “egocentric bias” leads to inaccurate predictions about other people’s feelings and preferences. When we imagine how a friend feels after getting fired, or how they’ll react to an off-color joke or political position, we’re really just thinking of how we would feel in their situation, according to the study.

    In 15 computer-based experiments, each with a minimum of 30 participants, the psychologists asked subjects to guess people’s emotions based on an image, their posture, or a facial expression, for example. Some subjects were instructed to “consult their own feelings,” while others were given no instructions, and some were told to “think hard” or mimic the expressions to better understand. People told to rely on their own feelings as a guide most often provided inaccurate responses. They were unable to guess the correct emotion being displayed.

    The second set of experiments asked subjects to make predictions about the feelings of strangers, friends, and partners. (Strangers interacted briefly to get to know one another before hazarding guesses about the preferences of they had just person they met.) The researchers wanted to see if people who had some meaningful information about each other—like spouses—could make accurate judgments about the other’s reactions to jokes, opinions, videos, and more. It turned out that neither spouses nor strangers nor friends tended to make accurate judgments when “taking another’s perspective.”

     Imagining another person’s perspective doesn’t actually improve our ability to judge how another person thinks or feels. “Our experiments found no evidence that the cognitive effort of imagining oneself in another person’s shoes, studied so widely in the psychological literature, increases a person’s ability to accurately understand another’s mind,” the researchers write. “If anything, perspective taking decreased accuracy overall while occasionally increasing confidence in judgment.” Basically, imagining another person’s perspective may give us the impression that we’re making more accurate judgments. But it doesn’t actually improve our ability to judge how another person thinks or feels.

    There were no gender differences in the results. Across the board, men and women tended not to guess another’s perspective very accurately when putting themselves in the other’s position. But this did increase self-confidence in the accuracy of their predictions—even when their insights were off.

    The good news, however, is that researchers found a simple, concrete way we can all confidently and correctly improve the accuracy of our insights into others’ lives. When people are given a chance to talk to the other person about their opinions before making predictions about them—Eyal calls this “perspective getting” as opposed to perspective taking—they are much more accurate in predicting how others might feel than those instructed to take another’s perspective or given no instructions.

    In the final test, researchers asked subjects both to try putting themselves in another’s shoes, on the one hand, and to talk directly with test partners about their positions on a given topic. The final experiment confirmed that getting another person’s perspective directly, through conversation, increased the accuracy of subjects’ predictions, while simply “taking” another’s perspective did not. This was true for partners, friends, and strangers alike.

    “Increasing interpersonal accuracy seems to require gaining new information rather than utilizing existing knowledge about another person,” the study concludes. “Understanding the mind of another person,” as the researchers put it, is only possible when we actually probe them about what they think, rather than assuming we already know.

    The psychologists believe their study has applications in legal mediation, diplomacy, psychology, and our everyday lives. Whether we’re negotiating at a conference table, fighting with a spouse, or debating the political motivations of voters, we simply can’t rely on intuition for insight, according to Eyal. Only listening will do the trick.

    “Perspective getting allows gaining new information rather than utilizing existing, sometimes biased, information about another person,” Eyal explains to Quartz. “In order to understand what your spouse prefers—don’t try to guess, ask.”

     

    https://qz.com/1319441

  • High-Performing Teams Need Psychological Safety. Here’s How to Create It

    “There’s no team without trust,” (….”and no tribe without trust and direct feedback” cb) says Paul Santagata, Head of Industry at Google. He knows the results of the tech giant’s massive two-year study on team performance, which revealed that the highest-performing teams have one thing in common: psychological safety, the belief that you won’t be punished when you make a mistake ...”or speak your truth”…cb). Studies show that psychological safety allows for moderate risk-taking, speaking your mind, creativity, and sticking your neck out without fear of having it cut off — just the types of behavior that lead to market breakthroughs.

    Ancient evolutionary adaptations explain why psychological safety is both fragile and vital to success in uncertain, interdependent environments. The brain processes a provocation by a boss, competitive coworker, or dismissive subordinate as a life-or-death threat. The amygdala, the alarm bell in the brain, ignites the fight-or-flight response, hijacking higher brain centers. This “act first, think later” brain structure shuts down perspective and analytical reasoning. Quite literally, just when we need it most, we lose our minds. While that fight-or-flight reaction may save us in life-or-death situations, it handicaps the strategic thinking needed in today’s workplace.

    Twenty-first-century success depends on another system — the broaden-and-build mode of positive emotion, which allows us to solve complex problems and foster cooperative relationships. Barbara Fredrickson at the University of North Carolina has found that positive emotions like trust, curiosity, confidence, and inspiration broaden the mind and help us build psychological, social, and physical resources. We become more open-minded, resilient, motivated, and persistent when we feel safe. Humor increases, as does solution-finding and divergent thinking — the cognitive process underlying creativity.

    When the workplace feels challenging but not threatening, teams can sustain the broaden-and-build mode. Oxytocin levels in our brains rise, eliciting trust and trust-making behavior. This is a huge factor in team success, as Santagata attests: “In Google’s fast-paced, highly demanding environment, our success hinges on the ability to take risks and be vulnerable in front of peers.”

    So how can you increase psychological safety on your own team? Try replicating the steps that Santagata took with his:

    1. Approach conflict as a collaborator, not an adversary. We humans hate losing even more than we love winning. A perceived loss triggers attempts to reestablish fairness through competition, criticism, or disengagement, which is a form of workplace-learned helplessness. Santagata knows that true success is a win-win outcome, so when conflicts come up, he avoids triggering a fight-or-flight reaction by asking, “How could we achieve a mutually desirable outcome?”

    2. Speak human to human. Underlying every team’s who-did-what confrontation are universal needs such as respect, competence, social status, and autonomy. Recognizing these deeper needs naturally elicits trust and promotes positive language and behaviors. Santagata reminded his team that even in the most contentious negotiations, the other party is just like them and aims to walk away happy. He led them through a reflection called “Just Like Me,” which asks you to consider:

    • This person has beliefs, perspectives, and opinions, just like me.
    • This person has hopes, anxieties, and vulnerabilities, just like me.
    • This person has friends, family, and perhaps children who love them, just like me.
    • This person wants to feel respected, appreciated, and competent, just like me.
    • This person wishes for peace, joy, and happiness, just like me.

    3. Anticipate reactions and plan countermoves. “Thinking through in advance how your audience will react to your messaging helps ensure your content will be heard, versus your audience hearing an attack on their identity or ego,” explains Santagata.

    Skillfully confront difficult conversations head-on by preparing for likely reactions. For example, you may need to gather concrete evidence to counter defensiveness when discussing hot-button issues. Santagata asks himself, “If I position my point in this manner, what are the possible objections, and how would I respond to those counterarguments?” He says, “Looking at the discussion from this third-party perspective exposes weaknesses in my positions and encourages me to rethink my argument.”

    Specifically, he asks:

    • What are my main points?
    • What are three ways my listeners are likely to respond?
    • How will I respond to each of those scenarios?

    4. Replace blame with curiosity. If team members sense that you’re trying to blame them for something, you become their saber-toothed tiger. John Gottman’s research at the University of Washington shows that blame and criticism reliably escalate conflict, leading to defensiveness and — eventually — to disengagement. The alternative to blame is curiosity. If you believe you already know what the other person is thinking, then you’re not ready to have a conversation. Instead, adopt a learning mindset, knowing you don’t have all the facts. Here’s how:

    • State the problematic behavior or outcome as an observation, and use factual, neutral language. For example, “In the past two months there’s been a noticeable drop in your participation during meetings and progress appears to be slowing on your project.”
    • Engage them in an exploration. For example, “I imagine there are multiple factors at play. Perhaps we could uncover what they are together?”
    • Ask for solutions. The people who are responsible for creating a problem often hold the keys to solving it. That’s why a positive outcome typically depends on their input and buy-in. Ask directly, “What do you think needs to happen here?” Or, “What would be your ideal scenario?” Another question leading to solutions is: “How could I support you?”

    5. Ask for feedback on delivery. Asking for feedback on how you delivered your message disarms your opponent, illuminates blind spots in communication skills, and models fallibility, which increases trust in leaders. Santagata closes difficult conversations with these questions:

    • What worked and what didn’t work in my delivery?
    • How did it feel to hear this message?
    • How could I have presented it more effectively?

    For example, Santagata asked about his delivery after giving his senior manager tough feedback. His manager replied, “This could have felt like a punch in the stomach, but you presented reasonable evidence and that made me want to hear more. You were also eager to discuss the challenges I had, which led to solutions.”

    6. Measure psychological safety. Santagata periodically asks his team how safe they feel and what could enhance their feeling of safety. In addition, his team routinely takes surveys on psychological safety and other team dynamics. Some teams at Google include questions such as, “How confident are you that you won’t receive retaliation or criticism if you admit an error or make a mistake?”

    If you create this sense of psychological safety on your own team starting now, you can expect to see higher levels of engagement, increased motivation to tackle difficult problems, more learning and development opportunities, and better performance.

  • Superpowers for Leaders

  • How to Build an Onboarding Plan for a New Hire

    Managers are often so driven to recruit talented workers that they neglect to think about what will happen once the new hire arrives ready to work. Big mistake.

    By Peter Vanden Bos

    View original publication on Inc.

    With the economy on the upswing, many growing companies are starting to go after talented new employees. That means a lot of first days on the jobs, and lot of time and money to spend while new staffers get up to speed. What if you could shrink the time it takes for an employee to reach his or her full potential?

    That’s the promise of a growing trend in human-resources management called onboarding; its advocates describe it as a comprehensive approach to bringing on new hires that goes beyond simple orientation. Onboarding plans are intended to make new employees familiar with the overall goals of a company and support them as they embark on early projects all in an effort to achieve the perception of success (and productivity) quickly. The ultimate payoff is to reduce turnover and encourage workers to stay with an organization for a longer tenure.

    ‘It’s really about calculating the cost of hiring new workers to the business,’ says John Sullivan, former chief talent officer for Agilent Technologies and a professor of management at San Francisco State University. ‘Companies need new hires to be productive and, at a small company especially, every employee counts.’

    Here’s a look at how your company can set up an onboarding process to shorten the learning curve for new hires.

    Onboarding a New Hire: Plan Ahead

    Think onboarding begins on an employee’s first day? Wrong. A successful onboarding program actually begins during the recruitment and hiring process, says Erin Perry, director of client solutions at Pinstripe, a recruiting company based in Brookfield, Wisconsin. An onboarding process is linked to and in some ways starts with the employer brand that you create to attract people who are the right fit for your company’s overall goals. ‘If you’re a high tech organization that has a cool brand and that uses social media and talks about innovation when you’re advertising to attract new associates, that’s great,” Perry says. “But if on a new hire’s first day you hand them 15 different forms to fill out, your employment brand message has just died.”

    Experts suggest you begin the orientation process before a candidate is formally hired by including ample information about your workplace and your culture in the Careers section on your website. ‘The orientation should begin at the first click of the mouse when someone first goes on the company’s website, so by the time the person comes in for the interview, they already know quite a lot about the organization,’ says Richard Jordan, a business coach who has been responsible for reshaping the recruiting and orientation process at a number of technology firms. That way, you are more likely to attract candidates who are more engaged with your company’s goals and culture and are more likely to become highly productive employees.

    A new hire will surely be required to fill out a lot of new paperwork, so why not get a head start? Many companies choose to send necessary legal forms along with a formal offer letter. You can also send an employee handbook ahead of time, so that new staff members aren’t overwhelmed with information on the first day.

    HR software and other related applications can also be deployed ahead of time. Automated systems are especially useful because onboarding requires the involvement of multiple departments within a company, all working together to welcome and engage a new employee, to make him or her feel as comfortable as possible from Day One. The right technology can help coordinate various individuals and tasks by taking care of paperwork electronically, or sending notifications alerting IT support staff to configure a new hire’s laptop and BlackBerry.

    Technology can also be an effective way to socialize your new hire into your company’s organizational culture, Perry says. On a company Intranet, you can make available to a new hire multimedia such as video and podcasts that state your company’s overall strategic goals, talk about your company’s values, and provide employee testimonials. As a bonus, these videos can feature company leaders, which will help introduce key players, cutting down on the endless name game that typically happens on an employee’s first day.

    Dig Deeper: How to Improve Your Hiring Practices

    Onboarding a New Hire: On the First Day, Nail the Details

    The prospect of the first day on the job is nerve-wracking. New hires are eager to impress their new bosses. So, if they don’t know where the photocopier is or how to use it, chances are they aren’t going to ask, and will waste time trying to figure the little things out for themselves. And if you throw a bunch of information at them, chances are they’re not going to remember most of it. With an effective onboarding program, you should aim to present basic information in an easy-to-digest fashion, so that a rookie can turn to the more demanding aspects of his or her job.

    The way to do that is to consider the small, logistical details that add up to a sense of comfort and familiarity one has in a workplace. This is good not just for a new hire’s peace of mind, but also for the overall health and well-being of your business. ‘If a person is new and doesn’t know how to use the phone system and accidentally hangs up on a potential client, that client is not going to care that they were new,’ says John Sullivan. ‘They’re just going to be angry.’

    Here’s a list of things you should have ready by the time your new hires walk in the door:

    • Send out an e-mail to everyone in the office so they’re prepared to welcome a new employee.
    • Get the new worker a security badge if he or she needs one.
    • Provide a name plate on his or her desk or office door as a tangible sign that you’ve prepared the space.
    • Set up the computer.
    • Configure the new employee’s e-mail accounts.
    • Provide guides for any necessary software he or she will be using.
    • Set up his or her phone system, and provide instructions for using voicemail.
    • Have a stack of business cards waiting.

    And here’s a list of questions you should answer for the new employee voluntarily:

    • What should he or she bring? (Telling them to bring two forms of ID to verify paperwork is a good idea.)
    • Where should he or she park?
    • Who should he or she ask for in the lobby?
    • Where are the restrooms?
    • Where is the copy machine? (And how does it work?)
    • Where is the cafeteria?
    • Who should the employee talk to if he or she has additional questions? (It’s a good idea to assign a co-worker or a hiring manager as a mentor to check-in with the new hire throughout at least the first week.)

    A new employee’s immediate supervisor should also be present on the first day. ‘The worst thing you can do is have new hires show up when their immediate supervisor isn’t there for three or four days,’ Sullivan says. ‘It’s like getting married and not having your spouse on your honeymoon.’

    Dig Deeper: Mastering a New Employee’s First Day

    Onboarding a New Hire:  Individualizing the Process

    Unlike a traditional first-day orientation, where an employee generally spends a good chunk of time signing forms for Human Resources and reviewing the policies of the organization, onboarding is intended to be a multi-faceted approach. And while the list of things to consider for a new hire’s first day applies to pretty much any employee, that doesn’t mean you should forget about the unique needs of each individual. Quite the opposite, in fact.

    For example, different people prefer different management styles, so why not ask a new employee from the start how he or she wants to be managed? ‘Onboarding is a performance-based, customized approach,’ Sullivan says. ‘Why don’t ask you upfront what is the best way to manage you?’

    A more personal element to the process can engage new employees, giving them the ability to identify their personal goals with the overall success of the organization. Ari Weinzweig, CEO of the Zingerman’s Community of Businesses, a group of food specialty businesses in Ann Arbor, Michigan, still personally teaches an orientation class to new staffers. ‘By taking the time to teach the orientation, the clear message that comes across is that we value them and their work so highly that the head of the company is willing to sit with them to go over things,’ he says.

    Make sure a new staff member understands how he or she can individually contribute to the company. Explain to the employee how your performance appraisal system works, so he or she won’t waste time on things that don’t matter, and can quickly begin to work on key objectives. If you make a custom onboarding plan, ‘you’re leaving the individual with the impression that employees are very important assets to the organization, chosen from among many candidates, and that their talent and potential is recognized,’ Jordan says. ‘You want to make sure you develop their career path within the organization.’

    How vested an employee feels to a company also has to do with the social relationships he or she makes with co-workers. An onboarding process should consider those relationships and facilitate them from the very beginning. Organize a lunch on the first day with the new employee’s team or department the new employee. Or try giving your new employee a week’s worth of gift certificates for lunch, so he or she can take a colleague to lunch each day.

    Dig Deeper: How Hiring Rituals Build Company Culture

    Onboarding a New Hire: Following Through on Your Plan

    On-boarding doesn’t end on the Friday of a new employee’s first week on the job. The process should continue over the span of several months and, during that time, it is essential to solicit feedback from all constituents. A good way to do that is to assign a recruiting manager to keep track of the new hire’s first few months on the job, Jordan says, because that individual will already have developed a relationship with the employee.

    ‘I’m a big believer of surveying at every step of the process,’ Perry says. She suggests surveying at the end of the first week and at the close of each of the employee’s first three months, asking different questions at each stage. Begin with questions about the recruiting process, how the first day met the employee’s expectations, and whether they are struggling with any issues related to technology. Then, start asking whether the employee has the necessary tools to complete his or her job and, finally, begin asking about an employee’s strategic goals. You want to learn how engaged or connected the new hire feels to the organization.

    You also want to make sure someone is accountable, preferably a line manager who realizes the cost savings to the business if a new employee gets up to speed quicker. You want managers to be very aware that you are measuring productivity through metrics. Make sure employees actually are becoming productive and, if they are not, figure out what is going wrong. Continually fine-tune how you onboard employees to make sure you can maximize the benefits of the process.

    Once you’ve done that, you can begin to establish a general checklist of what you want to cover when you’re onboarding. Even within that structured plan or process, make sure you leave room for those personal touches. ‘Your employees are going to get orientated whether you plan for it or not,” Perry observes. “But if you do plan it, it’s a lot more likely to be successful.”

     

  • On the Lighter side: Fantastic Job Titles for Your Business Card

    On the Lighter side: Fantastic Job Titles for Your Business Card

    Photo credit: getty images

    inc.com
    Please Steal One of These Fantastic Job Titles for Your Business Card. Your job title says a lot about you.

    Sadly, many of us use titles that sound like we’re boring or not that creative. HR manager? Really? There must be a better way. Here are a few creative options.

    1. Chief people officer

    What does this job entail? Who cares? It sounds awesome. It’s the name for the HR officer at Opportunity Network, a company that links CEOs to financial institutions.

    2. Culture operations manager

    Here’s another HR-related title, this one from When I Work. The scheduling app helps managers know when employees are at work.

    3. Chief robot whisperer

    This is a title from the startup Savioke, a company that provides robots to the service industry. It’s an apt description because it relays a sense of wonder and excitement.

    4. Director of bean-counting

    The creative agency Bidlack in Ann Arbor, Michigan, uses this title for the main accountant. It’s a nod to the fact that the role tends to be meticulous (in a good way).

    5. Software ninjaneer

    At a startup called TSheets, they don’t mess around with boring titles. This one nails it because, in many ways, software development is a mysterious and ancient art form.

    6. Director of first impressions

    At publishing house Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, the receptionist has this title. It’s perfect because it is exactly this person’s role at the company.

    7. Digital overlord

    If you have ever worked on a website, you know this term is fitting for the role. They use it at Composites Media, a company that works in the engineering field.

    8. Director of storytelling

    This role creates social media campaigns and strategies for companies. They use it at Eyespeak, a website development company.

    9. Money maestro

    At Delivering Happiness, this is the title for the accounting manager. It is definitely a role of orchestration, especially with pay scales, budgets, and expenses.

    10. Wizard of light bulb moments

    This title, popular on LinkedIn, describes the role of a marketing director. It works because, in a pure sense, marketing is the act of inspiring people to action.