8 Things Your Employees Need Most

by Jeff Hayden, feb, 2, 2012 www.inc.com

Forget about raises and better benefits. Those are important -- but this is what your staff really wants

Pay is important. But pay only goes so far.

Getting a raise is like buying a bigger house; soon, more becomes the new normal.
Higher wages won’t cause employees to automatically perform at a higher level. Commitment, work ethic, and motivation are not based on pay.
To truly care about your business, your employees need these eight things—and they need them from you:
1. Freedom. Best practices can create excellence, but every task doesn't deserve a best practice or a micro-managed approach. (Yes, even you, fast food industry.)
Autonomy and latitude breed engagement and satisfaction. Latitude also breeds innovation. Even manufacturing and heavily process-oriented positions have room for different approaches.
Whenever possible, give your employees the freedom to work they way they work best.
2. Targets. Goals are fun. Everyone—yes, even you—is at least a little competitive, if only with themselves. Targets create a sense of purpose and add a little meaning to even the most repetitive tasks.
Without a goal to shoot for, work is just work. And work sucks.
3. Mission. We all like to feel a part of something bigger. Striving to be worthy of words like "best" or "largest" or "fastest" or "highest quality" provides a sense of purpose.
Let employees know what you want to achieve, for your business, for customers, and even your community. And if you can, let them create a few missions of their own.
Caring starts with knowing what to care about—and why.
4. Expectations. While every job should include some degree of latitude, every job needs basic expectations regarding the way specific situations should be handled. Criticize an employee for expediting shipping today, even though last week that was the standard procedure if on-time delivery was in jeopardy, and you lose that employee.
Few things are more stressful than not knowing what your boss expects from one minute to the next.
When standards change make sure you communicate those changes first. When you can't, explain why this particular situation is different, and why you made the decision you made.
5. Input. Everyone wants to offer suggestions and ideas. Deny employees the opportunity to make suggestions, or shoot their ideas down without consideration, and you create robots.
Robots don't care.
Make it easy for employees to offer suggestions. When an idea doesn't have merit, take the time to explain why. You can't implement every idea, but you can always make employees feel valued for their ideas.
6. Connection. Employees don’t want to work for a paycheck; they want to work with and for people.
A kind word, a short discussion about family, a brief check-in to see if they need anything... those individual moments are much more important than meetings or formal evaluations.
7. Consistency. Most people can deal with a boss who is demanding and quick to criticize... as long as he or she treats every employee the same. (Think of it as the Tom Coughlin effect.)
While you should treat each employee differently, you must treat each employee fairly. (There's a big difference.)
The key to maintaining consistency is to communicate. The more employees understand why a decision was made the less likely they are to assume favoritism or unfair treatment.
8. Future. Every job should have the potential to lead to something more, either within or outside your company.
For example, I worked at a manufacturing plant while I was in college. I had no real future with the company. Everyone understood I would only be there until I graduated.
One day my boss said, "Let me show you how we set up our production board."
I raised an eyebrow; why show me? He said, "Even though it won’t be here, some day, somewhere, you'll be in charge of production. You might as well start learning now."
Take the time to develop employees for jobs they someday hope to fill—even if those positions are outside your company. (How will you know what they hope to do? Try asking.)
Employees will care about your business when you care about them first.

Jeff Haden learned much of what he knows about business and technology as he worked his way up in the manufacturing industry. Everything else he picks up from ghostwriting books for some of the smartest leaders he knows in business. @jeff_haden

Illegal job interview questions

by Dave Johnson Feb. 27, 2012 www.cbsnews.com

If you are a manager at a large corporation with a well-staffed HR and legal department, you've probably gotten a wealth of training on how to conduct a job interview. But if you own your own company or are a manager in a small business, it might be up to you to keep yourself out of trouble when you start the hiring process. Do you know what kinds of questions you're legally allowed to ask? Knowing the limits will help you avoid lawsuits and make smarter hiring decisions.

First of all, there are a limited set of topics that are protected -- in other words, you may not make hiring decisions based on these considerations. The good news is that the list is quite short and is mostly obvious stuff that common sense would dictate is off limits:
Race
Color
Sex
Religion
National origin
Birthplace
Age
Disability status
Marital status

Sometimes, though, applying this list in real-world situations can be confusing, and it's easy to ask something out-of-bounds when it's possible to get the information you really want with a slightly reworded query. Networking site Excelle put together a list of illegal questions and their re-worked legal alternatives.
Illegal question: How old are you?
Legal version: Are you over 18?

Remember that while you can't ask someone's age, it's perfectly legal to ensure they're legally old enough to work for you.
Illegal question: Do you have kids?
Legal version: Are you willing to travel for this position?

You can't ask if someone is married, divorced or has kids. But if you are trying to determine if they can manage travel or flexible hours, go ahead and ask that directly.
Illegal question: Are you a U.S. citizen?
Legal version: Are you legally authorized to work in the U.S.?

Where your candidate is from is immaterial; the real question is if they can legally work here. Just don't directly ask if they have a work visa -- it's HR's job to ensure all the paperwork is complete before the start date.
Illegal question: Have you ever been arrested?
Legal version: Have you ever been convicted of [fill in the blank]?

Perhaps surprisingly, you can't ask someone about their general criminal background. But it's appropriate to ask about criminal behavior that's directly related to the specific field or career in which the person is applying.

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Each time you run a report you have the opportunity to create, compare and utilize results to create accurate benchmarks to match your current employees. By using various existing and custom benchmarks to see how close the scores and personality types are, you will see in seconds if the applicant you are looking at "fits" the position and department.

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Why We Don't Always Tell the Truth

Ron Ashkenas Feb. 21, 2012 www.blogs.hbr.org

When I was growing up, one of the principles in our house was that we had to tell the truth, no matter how painful it might be. Lying, we were taught, wasn't something you could get away with. Like Pinocchio's nose, it would be apparent to others.
Children of course need clear rules to learn the difference between right and wrong. However as we get older, the truth becomes more nuanced — and there are times when a little white lie or the absence of some key facts might be appropriate. The problem is that all of us have different standards for when, why, and how we shade the truth. These divergent 'shades of gray' then cause miscommunication, breakdowns of trust, and other dysfunctional behaviors. That's why, despite the inclusion of "integrity" in almost every value statement, some form of lying is common in most companies.
From my experience, there are three fundamental concerns that cause people to shade the truth, either consciously or not. Being aware of these "lying triggers" can sometimes help to improve communication and reduce the feelings of mistrust.
Impact of the truth on yourself: It's human nature to want people to think well of us, particularly those who have influence over our lives and careers. At the same time we all make mistakes, so we create justifications and excuses — many of which are at best half-truths. I recall a manager whose key project was behind schedule, largely due to his lack of discipline and follow-up. Yet when asked why the project was lagging, he blamed a snowstorm (from six months previously) for slowing down the work.
Impact of the truth on others: One way to gain others' approval is to avoid pointing out things that may damage their self-image. As a result, many people withhold some or all of their true thoughts about others. For example, a senior executive complained to me recently that one of his managers never gave her people negative criticism during performance reviews. To justify that behavior, she said that it was better to reinforce positive behaviors rather than point out weaknesses — a strategy that also happened to make her popular with her team. The senior executive however was convinced that her drive to be well liked was doing the team a disservice, because they didn't know what they could do to improve.
Impact of the truth on business success: To be successful almost every organization needs to sell — be it a product, a service, a story, or a promise. But much of that selling is done without truthful disclosure of what it will take to fulfill the sale. That's why product salespeople will often take an order without revealing to the customer that there may be supply problems, or why a CEO will tout the benefits of an acquisition without mentioning the challenges of integration. Showing customers or partners what's truly behind the curtain could undermine credibility and threaten the deal. The wiser course in many cases is to limit the truth and figure out how to "deliver" later.
It's easy to be judgmental about all these situations and to insist on absolute truth at all times. But people don't work that way, and neither do organizations. As managers, the best we can do is to be more aware of why we avoid or shade the truth — and make sure that it's an appropriate time to do so.

How truthful is your organization? What's your experience with shades of gray?

Ron Ashkenas is a managing partner of Schaffer Consulting and a co-author of The GE Work-Out and The Boundaryless Organization. His latest book is Simply Effective.

Is the company's management incompetent?

Margaret Heffernan February 21, 1012 www.cbsnews.com

(MoneyWatch)
Three years ago, I joined the board of a company. At my first meeting, I knew the management was incompetent -- but it was three years before the rest of the board agreed with me, by which time, the company teetered on the edge of bankruptcy. At that point one of my colleagues asked me: "How could you tell we were in trouble when the rest of us didn't spot it?" The truth was I'd seen incompetence often enough to know it when I met it. Here are some of the telltale signs:
Bias against action. There are always plenty of reasons not to take a decision, reasons to wait for more information, more options, more opinions. But real leaders display a consistent bias for action. People who don't make mistakes generally don't make anything. Beware of prevaricators.
A love of secrets. The CEO was always having confidential discussions that his staff feared sharing. You couldn't escape the impression that everyone got a slightly different version of the strategy, of the business, of the people. People who love secrets have trouble being honest and are afraid of letting peers have the information they need to challenge them. Secrets make companies political, anxious and full of distrust.
Over-sensitivity. "I know she's always late, but if I raise the subject, she'll be hurt," is an example of something you don't want to hear from a manager. The inability to be open, direct and honest with staff is a critical warning sign. Can your manager see a problem, address it headlong and move on? If not, problems won't get resolved, they'll grow. When managers say staff is too sensitive, they are usually describing themselves. Wilting violets don't make great leaders. Weed them out.
Love of procedure. Managers who cleave to the rulebook, to points of order and who refer to colleagues by their titles have forgotten that rules and processes exist to expedite business, not ritualize it. Love of procedure often masks a fatal inability to prioritize -- a tendency to polish the silver while the house burns down.
Preference for weak candidates. We interviewed three job candidates for a new position. One was clearly too junior, the other rubbed everyone up the wrong way and the third stood head and shoulders above the rest. Who did our manager want to hire? The junior. She felt threatened by the super-competent manager and hadn't the confidence to know that you must always hire people smarter than yourself.
Focus on small tasks. Another senior salesperson I hired always produced the most perfect charts, forecasts and spreadsheets. She was always on time, her data completely up-to-date. She would always volunteer for projects in which she had no core expertise -- marketing plans, financial forecasts, meetings with bank managers, the office move. It was all displacement activity to hide the fact that she could not do her real job.
Allergy to deadlines. A deadline is a commitment. The manager who cannot set and stick to deadlines cannot honor commitments. A failure to set and meet deadlines also means that no one can ever feel a true sense of achievement. You can't celebrate milestones when there aren't any.
Inability to hire former employees. Outstanding performers attract one another. But if you find you've hired someone who doesn't want to bring along past colleagues, something's wrong. Every good manager has alumni, eager to join the team again. If they don't, you should smell a rat.
Addiction to consultants. A common -- but expensive -- way to put off making decisions is to hire consultants who can recommend several alternatives. While they're figuring these out, managers don't have to do anything. And when the consultant's choices are presented, the ensuing debates can often absorb hours, days and months. Meanwhile, your organization is poorer, but it isn't any smarter. When the consultant leaves, he takes your money and his increased expertise out the door with him.
Long hours. In my experience, bad managers work very long hours. They think this is a brand of heroism, but it is probably the single biggest hallmark of incompetence. To work effectively, you must prioritize and you must pace yourself. The manager who boasts of late nights, early mornings and no time off cannot manage himself -- so you'd better not let him manage anyone else.

Any one of these behaviors should sound a warning bell. More than two -- sound the alarm!

There Is No Career Ladder

Priscilla Claman Feb 14, 2012 www.blogs.hbr.org

Reaching the apex of the career ladder by gradually getting promoted to the top is a thing of the past.   From my experience as a career coach, career ladders in most organizations have not existed for at least fifteen years.
Career ladders are an artifact of the Mad Men era, when you signed onto an organization at age 21, followed the rules, were incrementally promoted, and retired with a gold watch.
But those days are long gone. Career ladders died out during the late 1980s and early 1990s, when over 85% of Fortune 1000 American companies downsized their white-collar workforce.* Downsizing has only escalated from there, however in the 80s and 90s the lost jobs were not in manufacturing but white-collar jobs, including management jobs. As companies thinned out, those leadership positions disappeared — and most haven't come back since.
In that period at General Electric, for example, engineers hired right out of school went through a career development process which included managerial training. Over time, the company began to bulge with managers. Jack Welch laid off thousands, "de-layering," as some people called it. With those managers gone, most "next steps" in the career ladder moved two or three rungs out of reach.
So despite their near extinction, why do we still believe in career ladders? Truthfully, intentionally or not, we are still promising traditional careers. There may not be an easy next step for every person in want of promotion. I know of a company that went through an extensive talent management process, which notified, feted, and gave "stretch assignments" to top talent. Four months later, a third of them were laid off in a reorganization.
It doesn't help that managers are predisposed to keep the best employees in their current positions, which promotes stability in an organization. That's one reason so many companies don't allow people to transfer easily to other jobs without their managers' permission.
There are better ways to think about career moves. Try these tips for diverting your attention from the next step up.
Look laterally for career moves. Don't think of job descriptions as much as job families, or groups of jobs that have something in common. For example if you are a financial analyst, consider other analyst positions in your company, perhaps in market research or sales. It's easier to move within a company where you are a known factor. Horizontal experience can also broaden your skills, which improves your chances of moving up.
Prove you can handle a promotion. Volunteer to help your manager with components of her job and learn to do them well. For example, offer to help interview job candidates, train and coach new people, and give them performance feedback. Your progress should automatically make you a candidate for the next manager job.
Grow your skills to grow your job. Seek out and take advantage of opportunities when they appear, and actively exceed expectations. For example, I once worked with Heidi, a medical assistant, who was charged with scheduling training for a new technology at a major hospital. The doctors were impossible to schedule, so she learned the new systems cold and trained the doctors one-on-one. It wasn't long before she was promoted and given the opportunity of a career in information technology.
It's a different world. But if a world without career ladders allows you to take charge of your own career, then it is a far better one.

*Wayne F. Casco. "Downsizing: what do we know? What have we learned?", The Academy of Management Executive, Vol.7 No.1 (Feb., 1991), p.95

Priscilla Claman is president of Career Strategies, Inc., a Boston-based firm offering career coaching to individuals and career management services to organizations.