Clear Communication: A Key to Unlock Improved Performance
by Laurie Breitner

Would you be surprised to learn that a common cause of poor employee performance is lack of clearly defined roles and expectations? Ambiguity can cause a multitude of workplace problems - employee frustration, duplication of effort or omission of critical functions. Many times, simply gaining agreement on roles and responsibilities enables organizations to work more effectively. When expectations are clear, everyone feels better and works more harmoniously and productively.

Effective communication begins with an organization chart

A thoughtfully composed chart that accurately reflects how duties are organized can clarify reporting relationships, establish high-level roles and responsibilities and better inform employees, customers, colleagues and vendors about who does what.

If there’s any volatility (growing/shrinking/ changing), especially if you have more than a few employees or more than one site, you should have an organization chart. A sole proprietor in training session I recently lead relayed that she has an organization chart to help her focus on critical tasks. She lists all her company’s essential functions, even those she outsources. An org chart for a company of one? If it helps her to pay attention to the crucial functions of her business, it’s well worth her effort.

Job descriptions clarify responsibilities, priorities and expectations

Next come job descriptions. If you have more than one employee, you should have written job descriptions. What do you do with them?

• Establish specific roles, responsibilities and the soft-skill competencies necessary to succeed
• Write copy for employment ads
• Hire and train employees
• Form the basis for formal evaluations

To be valuable, update them whenever jobs or roles change. Here a list of things to get you started:

• Describe the position, not the person.
• Get buy in from incumbents if formal job descriptions are new to your organization.
• Include a position overview, main challenges, major accountabilities, and specific duties, as well as technical, educational and soft skill competencies.
• Plan ahead! Think about your long-term needs.
  

It’s critical to think carefully about culture and soft skills and include them in job descriptions. For example, does your company rely on teamwork, occasionally need employees to work extra hours or value employee participation in decision making? Then make sure that this is clearly stated.

Sometimes growing companies are so eager to find someone immediately, they overlook the long-term. For example, a technology company may be much better off hiring someone with strong analytical skills and solid knowledge of how automated systems work than a person who’s a wizard in one particular language.

Formal performance evaluation is an opportunity to share and receive employee feedback

What’s the last step? A formal evaluation process. This is a two-way street; ideally, this process should offer an opportunity to examine the behavior of both the employee and the employer - to make sure expectations are met on both sides. Every organization with more than one employee needs performance evaluations. How can they help your organization? Evaluations provide:

• Unambiguous feedback on performance
• A great opportunity to "officially" praise and thank employees for their contributions
  
• A chance to reflect on whether expectations are being met and what more could be done
• The basis for both positive and adverse actions

Here are some ideas to contemplate:

• The evaluation process should be done within a trusting relationship.
• Employees should know well in advance of the evaluation, ideally a full year, what criteria will be used. Use job descriptions to help develop appropriate criteria.
• Both the employee and the evaluator should prepare thoroughly for the evaluation and schedule their face-to-face meeting in a quiet, private place.
• Avoid "false precision" of assigning numerical grades, if that can be avoided in your organization.
• Discuss observable behavior.
• If emotions rise, take a break and, if necessary, involve a third party.

Time spent ensuring clear communication of expectations and results will pay long-term dividends in employee and employer satisfaction.

Laurie Breitner helps businesses on the road to success through strategic planning, organizational development, project management, operational improvement and technical and process documentation. http://www.breitnerandassociates.com/

Hire by Design. Not by Chemistry!
by Gail Finger

In the end, every new hire will either contribute to moving your business forward, or to holding it back. In an era when there are metrics for almost everything related to business success, why wouldn’t you assess and measure a job applicant’s potential to succeed?

Pre-employment assessment is objective, cost-effective, legal, and it works! It is actually much less expensive to use pre-employment assessment tools than it is to replace a bad hire. Costs of poor hiring decisions can include:

• Outprocessing of employees
• Management down-time dealing with a termination/lay-off
• Severance costs
• Recruiting the replacement
• Training the new employee
• Lost productivity due to learning curves of new hires
• Lowered morale
• Disruption of relationships with customers and suppliers
• Exposure to litigation
• Loss of knowledge capital (often to your competitor!)

To reduce the risk of incurring those costs, develop a competency model for the position and assess the "goodness-of-fit" of job applicants.

What is a Competency Model? A competency model describes a set of behaviors that are necessary for success in a particular role. These behaviors are "soft skills" and are separate from the technical expertise and education required for the job.

For example, a person may need to have an engineering degree and project management skills to be a project manager in your company. A soft skill competency might be the ability to communicate diplomatically with customers.

When developing a competency model, consider the qualities that an individual must possess to fit into your company’s culture as well as those necessary for the particular role. If a new hire doesn’t fit into your culture, they won’t be happy, and neither will you! For example, consider whether your organization:

• Has a fast or slow paced working environment.
• Has a team or hierarchical structure.
• Needs employees to have the stamina to work long hours at times.

Be sure to include these "cultural competencies" in your want ads and develop interview questions that probe these areas.

There are scientific tools available that make it easy to develop a competency model and assess whether a candidate for hire is a good fit for you. Two very good tools for this purpose are:

The Predictive Index – for further information go to http://www.loperworks.com/pi/index.html

Target Training International (makers of the DISC family of products) - you can view sample reports at http://www.targettraininginternational.com/mfsreports.htm.

Once you have created your competency model, each potential candidate for hire can take a survey that will compare their natural behavioral work style to the competency model you have created.

These tools not only help you see who would be a natural best fit for the position, but they also help you formulate the questions you will want to ask during the interviews to ensure that the person really has what it takes to succeed.

The positive results you will achieve by the simple act of developing a competency model and doing pre-employment testing are too good to pass up! You will have:

• The right people in the right roles at the right time.
• Engaged employees
• Low turnover
• High morale
• Fewer internal conflicts
• Improved customer loyalty

If you are not taking advantage of the science that is available for selecting and retaining top employees, you can bet that your competitors are!

So, what is it costing your company not to do this?

Gail Finger, MS assists client companies in becoming more competitive and profitable by focusing on the most important asset of any business: its people. Finger Consulting helps the executives, teams and leaders to realize and then to apply their full potential in the workplace using state-of-the-art motivational and assessment tools. www.fingerconsulting.com.

Crisis Communications Planning Protects Your Biggest Asset
by Jeanne Yocum

Great people want to work for companies with great reputations. To ensure your ability to hire and retain the very best people, you need to protect your firm’s good name, especially during times of crisis. Bad news can hit even the best of companies. Natural disasters, for example, can happen to any organization. Good communication with both internal and external audiences in times of crisis is crucial to maintaining your company’s most hard-earned asset - its good name.

Steps to Plan for the Unpredictable

• Be prepared. Having a crisis communication plan before it’s needed promotes proactive communication with positive results. In the time it takes you to pull together a last-minute plan, erroneous information can filter into the workplace and into the media. Perception quickly becomes established as reality before you can even respond.
• Develop accurate messages and communicate them effectively to all audiences. Remember that during a crisis, employees must be updated regularly to prevent the spread of inaccurate information. Externally, the media and those assisting in mitigating the crisis (e.g., fire, police and emergency personnel) must be informed of relevant facts. In the case of corporate error, own up immediately to the facts, as you know them. It’s better to be perceived as having made a mistake for which you’re taking responsibility than as untrustworthy and dishonest.
• Keep written records. Keeping records is useful as events unfold and after the crisis has concluded so you can evaluate how your crisis communications plan worked and revise any parts that were ineffective. An accurate, factual written record can be especially helpful if later on litigation arises.

The Team Approach

The cornerstone of a good crisis communication plan is the crisis communication team (CCT). This group serves as the central clearinghouse for all information for all audiences. Internal staff must know that during a crisis, all inquiries from key constituencies must be directed to the CCT. The CCT should have representatives from the key disciplines that might be affected, but must be small enough to make decisions rapidly and respond quickly to inquiries. The CCT chairperson should be empowered to make some emergency decisions unilaterally, but most decisions should be made by a simple majority vote of the CCT.

The CCT should develop a list of possible crises that might affect your business and the concerns each would raise. Based on this, the team can develop internal and external crisis communication tools in advance. While these will vary from business to business, certain elements are fundamental:

• Phone trees for each type of crisis. The appropriate emergency numbers for various types of crises should be included, along with the members of the CCT, who should have beepers to allow for 24-hour access.
• Crisis fact sheets and crisis casualty sheets. These internal tools are fast ways to keep track of the "what, where, who, when and why" of a crisis and to quantify the magnitude of a crisis in standard terms.
• Media kits. Collecting background material in advance of a crisis can greatly speed your response to the media and help ameliorate the "bad news" focus by including pre-prepared positive information about your company. Kits should include a basic fact sheet that briefly reviews the company’s history and products and/or services and a skeleton draft of a press release that can be quickly tailored for any crisis. Copies of these materials should be kept off-site so they’re available under all circumstances.
• Media contacts. Prepare a list of phone and fax numbers for the major media, along with information on deadlines.

With your CCT formed and these tools in hand, your company will be well prepared to protect its hard-earned reputation in a crisis. Moreover, your employees will appreciate your advance planning to safeguard the good name of the organization to which they dedicate themselves each day.

Jeanne Yocum, president of Tuscarora Communications, Ltd., has over 20 years' experience in planning and implementing corporate communications and public relations programs. She has worked with clients in a wide variety of fields, including commercial and residential real estate, retailing, health care, financial and legal services, manufacturing, IT analysis, management consulting, architecture, and banking. She also writes book proposals and ghostwrites business books. http://www.yourghostwriter.com/

Small Business Recruiting: Beating the Big Guys to Top Talent
by Roberta Chinsky Matuson

Are you a smaller business looking for top-notch talent? Concerned you can’t compete with the "big guys?" Why try to win at their game? Follow these tips and you will soon have the big guys asking you for advice on how to successfully recruit the best players.

Develop Your Niche

Successful small businesses have figured out that the way to make their mark is to develop a niche. The same holds true when it comes to hiring talent.

What does your company have that the bigger companies don’t? Identify and build on this distinction. Can your employees make decisions without going through layers of management? Do you have what real estate agents call the top three draws – location, location, location? Do you give employees time off to work on their degrees? Make sure everyone – potential candidates and current employees - knows what differentiates you.

Consider the Culture

The big guys might have the money to throw at people, but you’d be surprised at how many employees would turn down the money for an opportunity to work in a smaller, more personal environment.

One big advantage of working in a smaller company is that a single employee is able to have a major impact. Take advantage of this. Ask your employees for feedback on your work environment; wherever possible make changes to improve it. Word will get out quickly that your company is an "employer of choice" and you’ll have candidates knocking on your door.

Market Yourself

Often a product sells because of the way it’s packaged - it’s all in the marketing. The same holds true in recruiting. Make sure your organization makes a good first impression.

Look at the way your jobs and company are packaged. Start with your web site. If you were cruising and you happened on your site, would you linger for an in-depth look? Many are too "cookie cutter;" to be noticed, be different. Try the following:

• Personalize your web site; include pictures of you and your staff.
• Include employees’ testimonials and descriptions of their most interesting projects.
• Make it easy for people to apply online even if they don’t have resumes. Many top candidates are not actively looking and may not have updated resumes.

A well-maintained site that reflects your environment can be a persuasive tool.

Be Flexible

Sometimes it seems like we are all trying to attract the same people. Did you know that there are capable, educated people who are often overlooked? Part-time employees who dedicate time to raising a family, doing philanthropic work or pursuing a dream understand commitment. They’re dedicated to their cause and will be very loyal to you if you give them a chance to use their abilities in a non-traditional way.

Set up programs like job sharing, flextime and telecommuting; make them a part of your culture. You will find that people are eager to exchange higher salaries for flexibility. You will also find that your work force will be loyal to you because they know how hard it is to find an employer who actually walks the "work-life balance" talk.

Let Go

Especially if you’re the founder, it’s hard to let go of control. Employees need to have a direct impact on the day-to-day operations to feel it’s their company. Encourage your employees to step up to the plate. There may be a few swings and misses, but in no time, they’ll be hitting balls out of the park.

Competing for talent takes more than money. The smart player will be the one who comes up with the winning strategy. Yes, some people will go for the biggest paycheck, but are they really the ones you want on your team?

Roberta Chinsky Matuson is president and founder of Massachusetts-based Human Resource Solutions and serves as the HR Careers Expert for Monster.com. Her firm works closely with its clients to identify, design and implement human resource programs to position them as employers of choice. The result: personalized human resource programs that support their business goals and objectives without sacrificing the human element. http://www.yourhrexperts.com/