Banish Employee Burnout

November 4, 2010

Has the recession got your organization doing more with less?  Are you relying on fewer resources and smaller teams who are taxed to keep your organization afloat, competitive and profitable?

 Banish employee burnout and keep your organization running smoothly with happy employees performing at optimum levels.

Be aware of the signs of burnout:

  • Even stars crash and burn. Your star performers are most susceptible to burnout. Their champion attitudes will push them further and farther to do more and they can push themselves right over the edge.
  • Mistakes. Little ones and big ones become more frequent. These mistakes can become costly against your bottom line.
  • Burnout goes home. The toll on your employees goes beyond the work environment: illness, auto accidents, home problems and abusive behavior, to name a few.

Quell the flames of burnout:

  • Provide training for managers and supervisors to help them avoid overloading staff. Be sure that they recognize the symptoms and the risks of employee burnout.
  • Offer relaxation options like yoga or meditation or even just a quiet room to sit and think.  A focus on wellness and being centered can calm a stressed environment and refresh your employees.
  • Try to minimize the cause of burnout: an imbalance in work/life time. Discourage working late and coming in early, as well as taking work home. Insist that vacation days are used, even if it’s just for staycations. Make it a company policy if you need to.
  • Use teambuilding activities. Or, take it a step further and combine teamwork with philanthropy through a group volunteer project. When people feel like part of a team, a greater cause, and community, they know they’re not “in it” alone.

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Social Media Policies:Developing Your Policy (Part II)

September 23, 2010

If you are crafting a social media policy from scratch, it doesn’t need to be long.

Some companies have no more than 10 clear, easy-to-understand bullet points in their social media policy.

You may want to include some of the following:

• Whether participating in social media at work or at home, and no matter what the “privacy level” setting, employees are expected to conduct themselves professionally. (Some companies physically ensure that employees have privacy settings set properly on their personal Facebook and Twitter accounts.)

• When posting about the workplace in any medium, employees must make clear that they are not speaking on behalf of the company, and they may not post a company logo, graphic, trademark, slogan or similar.

• Employees must not post material that is embarrassing or damaging to the company, may be confidential or proprietary, is critical of the company, or which may, in any way, expose the company to liability.

• Whether the employee is at work or home, all company policies on company loyalty, ethics and anti-harassment apply to social networking.

• The employer reserves the right to monitor employees’ use of social media, whether the employee participates from work or home.

• Any violations of this policy, whether intentional or unintentional, may lead to disciplinary action, up to and including dismissal.

State clearly who at your company is responsible for overseeing online activity, and let employees know they can and should go to that person if they are unsure about whether something is permissible to post.

Some employers advise employees to keep photos and other more personal content away from social media sites where work friends and professional contacts would see them. This type of a decision should be aligned with your company’s culture.

Once you’ve created your social use policy, don’t merely hand employees a revised copy of their employee handbook. Train your employees so they fully understand the new rules, as well as the risks, they take by not complying and the consequences. You may want to include interactive training or tests to ensure that employees demonstrate understanding of your new policies.

Post your policies where they can easily be seen. Many companies remind their employees of their social media policy from time to time (annually, quarterly, in pay envelopes or elsewhere). Best practice is to have employees to sign an acknowledgement that they have read and understand the material (as you would with any other important policy).

As technology changes, your social media policy may need to change, too. Be sure to communicate changes to your employees accordingly. You may want to consult with an experienced labor and employment attorney to discuss legal aspects of creating a social networking policy.

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Social Media Policies:The Need for Documented Policies (Part I)

September 16, 2010

We live in a world where one mismanaged business-related incident can go “viral” on the Internet and/or become a source of litigation. So, should your company have a social media policy? The experts say yes, although the form and content of such policies can vary widely.

Social media use policies can vary significantly, even within an industry, and each company’s policy is a reflection of its corporate culture. For instance, Zappos, the Las Vegas-based online shoe company known for its customer service (and for having been purchased for $847 million in 2009 by Amazon.com), is an often-quoted example of a business with a very liberal social media policy.

The company puts all new hires for its corporate office through an extensive, four-week “customer loyalty training course” at full salary. After the first week of induction into the company’s culture, these new employees are offered $2,000 to leave the company—no strings attached, no hard feelings. (This, the CEO explains, weeds out anyone who is just there for the money.) More than 97 percent turn down the money and stay on.

Here’s where the social media policy comes in: After their training, employees are expected to use their own judgment to represent the company online in a way they feel fits the Zappos culture.

At the other extreme, some companies entirely prohibit the use of social media in the workplace. While this draconian approach may appear to be a simple way of addressing the issue, the organization may be missing out on the benefits of social media and risking having dissatisfied employees vent their frustrations on social networks while away from work.

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Cutting edge benefits trends

September 9, 2010

For the eighth consecutive year, MetLife has surveyed employers and employees on pressing issues facing the U.S. benefits industry. Despite the challenging economic times,  the survey results show that most employers did not reduce the level of benefits offered.

Key findings from this year’s Study of Employee Benefits Trends include:

  • The majority of employees say benefits help them feel more loyal to their employers.
  • A  link between benefits and productivity.
  • Health and wellness programs continue to gain popularity with employers.
  • New insights that can help you identify opportunities to realize the full potential of your benefits programs while maximizing the return on your benefits investments.

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Top three reasons for wellness in a down economy

August 12, 2010

In a recession, cash-strapped employees could be exercising less, eating more fast food and stress levels could be increased.

Employers who choose to maintain or even expand funding for employee wellness programs will maximize the benefits of a healthy happy workforce. Here are a few ways your wellness dollars translate to ROI for your organization by implementing wellness as a business solution.

1. Wellness = priority = more productivity . Employment services firm Manpower found that workers are eight times more likely to be engaged in their work when employers regularly beat the wellness drum. Employees said working for a company that promotes wellness encourages them to be more creative and innovative.

According to the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Productivity losses related to personal and family health problems cost U.S. employers $1,685 per employee per year, or $225.8 billion annually.

2. Attract and maintain the best talent with wellness. The latest Principal Financial Well-Being Index reveals that 45% of employees working for small and midsize companies consider wellness benefits a reason to stay in their jobs. Their favorite wellness perks: on-site fitness rooms, discounts on gym memberships and at-work weight-loss programs.

3. Maintain wellness. Even during the recession, a Towers Watson and National Business Group on Health study shows that more than half of companies are maintaining or increasing spending on wellness.

A separate survey by Fidelity Investments shows that, on average, employers spend nearly 2% of their total health care claim dollars on wellness programs. Half plan to add at least one more health improvement plan in 2010, and 89% will maintain their current programs.

According to experts, employers that start wellness programs can see a positive return on investment “within the first few years of adoption.”

Harvard researchers found that for every dollar a company spends on wellness it can save $3.27 on medical costs, and $2.73 in absenteeism costs.

Coca-Cola’s fitness program recouped $500 per year per employee, despite the fact that only 60% of their staff was enrolled.

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IRS Releases Health Care Reform Guidance

July 22, 2010

IRS Releases First Round of Health Care Reform Guidance
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has issued the first installment of what is expected to be an avalanche of guidance on the new health care reform law. The guidance confirms that an employer-sponsored health plan may provide coverage free from federal income tax to an employee’s children up to age 27.

If you’re a SHRM member, you can receive additional resources on this topic. Visit SHRM’s Express Request web site and select key term ADULT CHILDREN: COVERAGE VS TAX EXCLUSION in the Health Care Reform section.

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Employees don’t leave companies, they leave managers

July 15, 2010

Ultimately, the challenge of attracting, hiring and retaining employees is all about relationship building. The main reason most employees leave a job is not the pay or the line of business, it’s their manager. This conclusion has been reached by many on-the-job HR professionals and is clearly supported by extensive research.

For more than a decade, The Gallup Organization has been assessing employee engagement at tens of thousands of worksites worldwide. The Gallup Q12 process, which has been completed by nearly two million employees, is based on a survey that asks respondents to rate 12 statements on a scale from one to five:

1. I know what is expected of me at work.
2. I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right.
3. At work, I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day.
4. In the last seven days, I have received recognition or praise for doing good work.
5. My supervisor, or someone at work, seems to care about me as a person.

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Employee turnover costs more than you think

July 1, 2010

A certain amount of employee turnover is normal (and healthy) in most organizations. Yet, high turnover rates can severely reduce a company’s productivity or even put a small business out of business. Although you probably worry more about payroll, supplies and equipment, understanding the true cost of turnover is essential—and it’s probably higher than you think.

Turnover costs vary according to position and industry.* Estimates range from 25 percent of an employee’s annual salary, for a minimum-wage worker, to 400 percent for a top executive. Even if we assume a conservative, average turnover cost to be equal to 100 percent of someone’s salary, can you afford to give away 12 months’ worth of pay just to replace an employee? Most small to mid-sized businesses and nonprofits can’t—they struggle to make payroll as it is.

The average turnover rate in Hawai‘i is 21 percent. So, let’s take a typical local business with 25 employees and an average salary of $40,000. If the company’s annual turnover rate is 20 percent, or five employees per year, the estimated effective cost of that turnover is five times $40,000 for a total cost of $200,000. That’s a hefty price tag for most small businesses.

However, you can do something about turnover—starting with the first three secrets presented in this blog. Keeping turnover low helps increase your business’s chances of success. Also, reducing turnover has been shown to improve both team productivity and the customer experience.

*Studies have been conducted nationally and globally by organizations such as Watson Wyatt, the Saratoga Institute and the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM).

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Secret #3 Hire slow, fire fast

June 24, 2010

If you’re striving to get the right people on the bus and hiring them based more on fit than skills, then it only makes sense to exercise patience during the recruiting and hiring process. Yes, it can be painful to leave a position unfilled for longer than you’d like, but the cost of a bad hire is usually not worth the misstep. Similarly, the longer you wait to let a bad hire go, the harder and more costly it becomes.

When in doubt, keep recruiting and interviewing. The true cost of a bad hire and its impact on an organization can be excessive. For instance, the overall cost of replacing a knowledge-worker after only 90 days on the job is typically estimated to be equal to 150% that employee’s annual salary.

Download the ALTRES white paper “HR Secrets for Hawaii Employers” for strategies on successfully hiring the right person.

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HR Secrets for Hawaii Employers (Part I of II)

June 10, 2010

 

HR Secret #1: Get the right people on the right seats on the bus

 

In his influential book, Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…and Others Don’t, Kim Collins used the analogy of riding a bus. Business leaders are the bus drivers, the bus is their organization, and the passengers on the bus are their team members.

It may seem counter-intuitive, but according to Collins, the first thing a leader needs to decide is not where the bus is going, but rather, who will be riding on the bus. Making sure that every rider on the bus is dedicated to the other riders on the bus and to doing their best to reach the destination is of utmost importance. Sometimes that means people will opt to get off the bus. That’s not necessarily a bad thing.

The right people on the bus will be nimble and able to adapt to changing circumstances—even a change in direction. They are also self-motivated. Keeping disengaged people on the bus, however, will prevent a good company from ever becoming great.

Download the ALTRES white paper “HR Secrets for Hawaii Employers” for strategies on successfully hiring the right person.

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