How do you appreciate your employees?

We have heard it so many times – that people are the core of the business, and human capital is important but how often do the middle management and top management really show their appreciation to employees?

If you are reading this, and you are one of the management or in the Human Resource team, then maybe it is time for you to initiate! Employee Appreciation Day falls on the 3rd March annually but it is still not too late!

Here are some ways you can show your extra appreciation to your employees!

Provide Welfare

You can do this by providing massage services to employees who badly need to relax – whether is it for your blue collars who are doing your manual work or your white collars who are constantly hunched trying to coordinate your work for you.

Provide Food

You can’t really go wrong with food, as food commonly bonds colleagues and friends! Good food is awesome, but it will be even better when it is fully sponsored by the Company!

During this period, there should also not be any restrictions on lunch break! Lunch break should be if your employees wishes. It is ultimately a form of reward for all the hard work done.

You can also provide new coffee machines in the pantry, as an extra surprise to your employees! This give them the extra perk to perform better in their work anyway!

Hand written notes

This do not have to be presentable, and expensive cards to show your appreciation. Simple one or two sentences to show your appreciation will do. You can be surprised of what a few words can do!

Reorganize your office

If you have the luxury of time, you can request for your employees to give the walls a different shade of colour, and understand the request of a reorganization of office furniture.

You can even provide them a small budget to redecorate their office spaces, to feel energized!

Purchase a new computer!

This applies if you have huge budget or when your computer is old. Imagine your employee’s delight if you’re able to give them something new to allow them to be more productive at work!

You can also introduce systems to help encourage productivity and efficiency as well – to make work more meaningful and less administrative.

Be Interested

Employees would really feel appreciated if you are interested in their personal lives, apart from how they are like in the company. If bosses show interest in their families, instead of how much work have they performed – this would also reflect as an appreciation of employees.

This would be even better if you allow your employees a more flexible schedule if they are able to perform in their work. It would be one thing to share that you want them to have a work-life balance, and another if you really make it one of the priorities that has been stressed by the management.

How to handle termination at workplace?

It could be the company’s decision to terminate a person, but everyone would shun when they are aware that they might have to communicate this termination to the affected employee. There will be fears of how the affected employee would take it once they are confronted with the decision, and it might seem as a very distasteful way to execute this decision. 

THE THOUGHT PROCESS

It is important to ensure the company have sufficiently thought through this process before handling the termination letter. A good company policy would be sufficient to handle any reasons why a supervisor might be reluctant to hand the termination letter. These reasons can then be used to justify to the affected employee on their reasons for termination.

Before termination is decided, employees should have been aware of the reasons of their performance issues and have given opportunities to improve. It is only justifiable if they have been aware of their issues and proper remediation steps have been advised and executed.

Fundamentally, the affected employee is affecting the team synergy and his outcome of his work is dis-satisfactory to the team’s work performance. This is the exact case of “It’s better to have no one at all, than to have the affected employee on board”. If the affected employee performance is not up to par, it is also to justify to his co-workers and then the entire misconception of the person executing the termination is cruel and inconsiderate would also be misplaced. People prefer to work for managers who enforce exacting standards and who give continuous feedback on their work.

It is also important to understand to consider this affected employee a re-designation before termination. The affected employee could be kept due to good attitude and willing to learn but a non-performance in the role that was assigned

HANDLE THE PERSON EXECUTING IT

The person handling the termination should be trained and be advised prior to executing the termination to the affected employee. The person executing the termination should never retaliate to anger or violence during the termination process as both parties could have been displeased with each other for a period.

It is important also to let managers listen to their perspective of the affected employee before finalizing the discussion by saying the discussion is over, but the decision still stands. It would not be very professional for an employee to have been kept interrupted with “Our decision still stands”.

During the execution of termination, it would be a fatal mistake to go through the empathetic stand and shower compliments to a candidate when the decision has been made for him to be terminated. You might also confuse your employee on the decision and might result in the employee challenging the manager on why the decision was made.

How do you retain good employees?

There is a higher turnover rate in the market now. Employees are becoming less engaged and are constantly looking out for something better – Be it better prospects or because of poor management.

There is an increasing need to retain good employees and to understand what the employees are looking for. These are some tips to improve your retention rate.

COMMUNICATION

The more communication there is, the better. It is one of the simplest form of engagement and employees would feel that they are valued and matter to the Company when the management takes some time off their busy schedule to have the meet up with them. When there is frequent feedback, employees are clearer on their roles and accountability, and can understand how they are performing.

Communication can also be in the form of outside work, when a manager care about their personal matters as well. The personal touch is what employees really value. 

FOCUS ON STRENGTHS

Generally, people want to feel good at what they do. They want to feel that they are being valued. Mangers who emphasize on employee strength instead of their improvements help employees build confidence and this enhances productivity at the work place.

Creating a learning culture

As the Chinese proverb states, "Learn till old, live till old", no matter how old one is, there is always more learning or studying left to do.

Corporate Executives are empathizing on the ability an employee is to adapt in the rapid development in the current workforce. Employees on the other hand, are continuously trying to learn and grow while being on a job. The opportunity for training and development has become one of the most popular benefits that candidates are looking at when looking for a job.

Research shows that as technology advances, approximately half of the jobs available in the market will be automated, thus emphasizing the importance of employee's learning to keep up with the advancement. 

Even though organizations understand the concept of encouraging constant learning, but it's often the execution part that is tedious. In order for companies to create an effective learning environment, one can consider taking these few steps below.

Skills VS Conduct

Skill is usually teachable to individuals be it online or offline and could be assessed later. This can be done by conducting lessons or workshops to teach employees with the skill required and conducting a test after to measure their level of understanding.

Whereas conduct which means how one should react when faced a situation, which is difficult to be taught as it everyone already have different approach when dealing with different situations. Instead of commanding your employees to behave in a certain manner, one can emphasis on the importance of why the behavior should be implemented.

It's about the Knowledge, Skills & Abilities (KSAs)

In order for learning to positively influence the culture, organizations should encourage employees to improve on their Knowledge, Skills and Abilities.

Different individuals take different duration to adapt to absorb the new skill that they are impart with, it will definitely take some time to put the skill to action. After employees managed to incorporate the skills they learnt, it will eventually become their habit to act in the way that was being taught.

Be encouraging

Managers should take lead and show others that they understand how the learning culture operates and why it is being implemented. Top executive should make sure that the objectives of learning are synced with the business goals and encourage employees not to be afraid when faced with failure as it would just be a part of learning and growing with the company.

Communicate

Each individual in the company should be reassured that the value of learning is not only beneficial to the organization but also to themselves as well.

By putting up posters or sending notices to employees might not be the best way to convey the message to them, HR department should actively engage employees to share about the philosophy about learning and encourage more opportunities to grow.

Customize your platforms

Currently there are many learning materials available that can be bought off-the-shelf to be used for in-house training. They might be good enough for a basic training but there is no such thing as one size fits all, in order to make sure that it is suitable for your organization, they can be customized to meet your company's needs.

Take time for feedback

Feedback might be deemed as tedious, but it not only determines the effect of training held, it also provides information of how you can keep the management up-to-date. In the long run, such feedback would allow you to be able to measure the amount of impact of different aspects of the business on top of just the knowledge and performance.

Experiment with what you have

If the turn up rate of a certain workshop is not what you expected, review to check if the topics are relevant or take a different approach.

If the approach of doing the workshop offsite is not showing results, try doing an in-house workshop. Let your employees choose a way that fits them best.

Organizations need to deduce on the most effective way to convey the new knowledge. There must always be a balance to learning as well, do not flood all the workshops at once, take your time and enjoy the journey while trying to change the culture.

It’s A Sign – For A New Job!

It is never easy or know to if it’s the right time to move on from your current job. What more if you’re already comfortable in the environment. There are many reasons why people want to stay in their job and probably just for one reason that might trigger the move.

No matter how atrocious the environment is, if your boss values your effort and results, you know you’re putting effort for the right reason. During hard time, human like us, always hope for recognitions and your boss telling you, good job!

What tells you to move on, read on:

Work has no happy moment but dominated by complaints

Every other moment of gathering and dinners (or suppers) if you work late, you just rant and pouring out negative comments about your work. The last thing you want is to complain on and on but to share and highlight about your professional’s lessons learnt and discussions, so that you know you’re gaining new experiences every day.

Bad health symptoms start showing

Your physical health is a good indicator of your mental health too. Bad health symptoms do not show up immediately. It is accumulative, and you do not want to continuous affect you. Keep the balance yourself. Your boss will never tell you to take a break because he might not know your health conditions as well as you do.

You feel you can do more

You have more than what your boss sees and give your stakeholders good advices and offers to contribute more, yet you have been passed over for a promotion. You want to attempt to take up more challenging tasks to prove your You try to find out why, but in turn got shot down by your boss. This might also show that no matter how you contribute, you’ll get null.

No good work-life balance

I’m sure you have bosses who will tell you that work is part of your life. But c’mon, we have our own personal life at home or even out with friends. Spending lesser time with your family and friends due to work is a no-no. Always remember that any organisation can get your replaced if you fall apart, but your family will always be there for you.

Getting abuses

If you are experiencing any sort of abuses, be it verbal, sexual or any illegal behaviour. Do not fall into any sort of such victims. You’re not out there to work to suffer such abuses or insults. Never try to do any preventive measures or corrections, you will eventually be worrying day in and out with any abuses coming along and it will have built on to your mental stress.

The Customized Employee Solution

It has been a well-known fact that many factors affect employee retention. Generally, what an employee experience could be the deciding factor if he should or should not stay. The optimal way to improve employee experience is to provide the customized employee solution, based on the different needs and preferences of the individual employee.

Create a career planning for each individual employee

What is that that employees have chosen to work in your organization and what are they looking for, going forward upon joining? It is common for one to think that career advancements are one of the more prominent reasons, and this should be accounted for by having a career planning for each individual employee. Career planning need not be a vertical climb, but sometimes lateral growth is deemed to be more important to employees, who are seeking for more exposure.

The career planning should be properly documented, where the plan aims to motivate and employee employees. Companies, with a clear and proper documentation with regards to their career planning and have a proper communication with regards to their goals are more likely to stay in the company.

Employee Recognition and Feedback

I am sure you have come across companies who allow you to just work tirelessly and when you realize that what you do becomes very routine and mundane. This is important for employers to recognize that people wants to understand how well or how poorly they are doing. If your employees are not performing as expected, you should also have an aligned action plan to allow them to understand what they can do to improve themselves. Employee feedback should also not be done on an annual basis, but a very regular one so to ensure employees are aware that they have an impact in the organization.

The reward system implemented should also be fair in giving out to those who have earned their rewards. Companies should also be offering different rewards to meet different needs of individual employees. Rewards given should also be properly communicated so other employees are able to give the recognition as well. The company’s culture would also be to celebrate employee’s success.

Getting to know your employees on a personal level

Knowing your employees on a private level, would make them have a sense of belonging. It gives them on a deeper impression than their employers care about how the feel or what is going on in their personal lives. The friendship developed, would also cause any long-standing employee to reconsider when thinking of moving on to greener pastures.

What exactly is the Company Culture?

What exactly is the Company Culture?

We all compare among ourselves, whether is it salary package or how established the companies you are working for. If I know of a friend working at Google, I would immediately be impressed and exclaim “Wow! I bet it must have been amazing there!”. I associate Google with the excellent culture – on the basis that they must have been giving a lot of perks since they are so established and cash rich.

This article is going to change all of that.

Culture is not about perks

Just because a company keep organizing retreats for its employees, throw birthday parties regularly, keep feeding employees with snacks, encourage work life balance and even allow their employees to bring their families and pets to work does not equate a great culture.

Introducing perks is easy, but changing culture is difficult.

Culture is all about conversations

The best way to understand the company’s culture is through interaction with existing employees inside. Not interaction in the form of corporate video, but genuine one to one conversations for people to reveal their deepest thoughts.

Alternatively, you can understand culture through understanding how is the training and development conducted and to understand how often are feedback consolidated by the management.

Culture depends on the management

The Middle management are probably the person who most influences culture in the organization through the decisions that he makes, as well as the environment he is supposed to encourage.

If you get a middle management who always questions, and always ask for revision of proposals – you will likely get an environment where people are not keen to contribute ideas because they feel insufficient. In comparison, imagine if you get a middle management who encourages mistakes so employees are about to learn, and a middle management who always encourages bottom up feedback to further improve himself or to make strategic decisions.

On the contrary, you have the middle management who always encourage meeting to facilitate discussions among the different team members and yet you have idle management who discourages meeting as it feels it affect the team in achieving their deliverables.

It is possible to have different subcultures within the organization

Because the middle management is the one who have the strongest influence in the culture, it is possible to have different subcultures within the organization. You still need your sales people to be in a very performance orientated culture, while you need the marketing team to celebrate innovation and creativity. You also need the Human Resource Department to be precise, and not encourage a culture of allowing mistakes, especially in the payroll department. 

Ultimately, the culture will drive the changes in recruitment, employment branding and most definitely, the attrition rates. This means, that established organizations do not guarantee an awesome culture.

Why a mentorship program is necessary?

It has been a long time established program, but not many companies have executed the mentorship program. Businesses are always keen on capturing more market share, and to find the cutting-edge factors to enhance revenue. If you believe your people are your greatest asset to your company, then you should consider the mentorship program

These are the following benefits:

Foster a stronger team work

There is a common misunderstanding that only managers or high performing individuals can become mentors. This is not the case. Giving a colleague who have more experience, the opportunity to mentor will allow them to establish, connect and deepen their relationship with their peers.

This further enhance the teamwork between the existing teams, where collaboration can be found readily available.

Helps in recruitment & retention

With a strong mentorship program, incumbents into companies can easily have access to advice from the high performing individuals, whom they may identify as role models. This allows the opportunity for new entrants into the company toquickly understand the company’s culture – which are crucial in retaining the right employees.

Through a strong mentorship program, you are attracting the growing population – which is the millennials. This group of people often require themselves to feel empowered, and are looking for people who can guide them in their career paths. If your employees are performing, your organization is performing as well.

If you can provide the constant need for career development and empowerment for this group, you will also lead to the increased retention of this group of employees as well.

Increased morals

Empowered employees who become mentors would feel that they can contribute back to the organization, which increases their self-worth and job satisfaction.

Mentees would feel that knowledge and advice is readily available, which allows  them to execute their duties more confidently, while allowing them the opportunity to develop their interpersonal skills.