Are Performance Reviews Really That Important?

The answer is simple, YES! People value feedback more than you realize.

Only 15% of companies do performance reviews.  There is a major correlation with companies that do and employee retention. You should be doing performance reviews at least once a year, if not more.

Performance reviews help us with the following:

1. Inform employees

2. Increase productivity

3. Retain staff

4. Retain millennials, in particular

5. Allows you to fire with less risk

A performance review should be 40% encouragement, 20% development needs, 20% improvement points, 10% self-reflection and 10% ideas on company change. Salary change would also be discussed during this time. Examples are key during performance reviews, and you should always tell the truth.

Informing your employees of how you view their performance and what you’d like to see change is important to keeping morale and positivity up. Millennials in particular really need this feedback from their leadership. You can’t expect your employees to improve if you don’t inform them and let them know what you are looking for. This also allows you to fire someone with less risk.

Performance reviews are also a great time to receive feedback from your employees. Providing feedback is essential, but receiving feedback is equally important. Allow your employees the time to review their supervisor and the company as a whole. A CEO will never know unless he/she asks if the employees are truly satisfied and aren’t looking to leave. Ask what they might do differently if they were the supervisor. See what they need from leadership and if there has been a recent positive or negative experience that they would like to share.

Keep a hard copy of every performance review and have everyone present sign the document. You may want to consider multiple HR personnel in the room during the review.

If you have further questions about performance reviews, contact us!

Win At Interviewing

Congrats! You scored the interview of your dreams. Are you prepared? It’s time to get serious about landing the job, and there can be a lot of things to think about. Use our 5 tips to not just win at interviewing, but to make this experience positive and successful!

5 Ways to Win at Interviewing:

1. Research the organization. Look on their website, google them, and find their social media accounts. Find out as much as you can about the organization, what they do and who they serve. Understand the job qualifications, and if you have a list of names of the people you will be interviewing with, learn about them and their role.

2. Prepare responses to questions they may ask. Anticipate what a potential employer may ask you based on the job description. You should also think about the statement you’ll use if you need some time to think before giving an answer. If you don’t understand a question, it’s ok to ask the interviewer to rephrase it or provide clarity. This may mean the difference between providing a great answer or a mediocre one.

3. Plan ahead and make sure you are on time. Make sure you know where you’re going and give yourself plenty of time to get there. Consider the time of day and what traffic may look like. You may even want to drive by the spot of the interview the day before to ensure you know where it is. As far as an “ideal” time to arrive, we usually suggest seven minutes prior to your scheduled time.

4. Plan what to wear and bring with you. As you think about your outfit for the interview, always air on the side of dressing up more (even in a casual interview). It shows you are taking this meeting seriously and want to present your best self. Make sure to print off at least five copies of your resume, and if you have a portfolio, make sure it’s assembled and ready to present.

5. Brush up on body language. Do a mock interview in the mirror or with a friend. Pay close attention to your body language and what it might be saying to the interviewer. Some key things to consider include eye contact, a firm handshake and your posture. You want to look comfortable and engaged in the conversation.

Make sure you are fully prepared for the interview before you walk into their office. Try to relax and most importantly, be yourself.

View more of our interview tips here. We also offer full support for any of our candidates currently job searching.

Apply to be a candidate here.

Good luck!

How to Keep Your Best Employees

It’s obvious that everyone wants to keep their best employees around, but how do you do it? Look at yourself as a leader. Have you built a great team? Have you cast a great vision for them? Do they understand this vision and your key performance indicators (KPIs)? Communicate with your employees often.

Keep your organization happy and healthy. Here are eight key ways to retain your talent:

1. Salary - It is essential to know market rate for your staff positions.  These days, paying below market will make you lose your best employees. Consider consulting a staffing company to find this value.
2. Non-Cash Benefits - Reward your employees for great work with non-cash benefits. Non-cash compensation like movie tickets, gym memberships, or an extra day off is extremely effective with retention.
3. Encouragement and Feedback - Consider handwritten notes and verbal communication with your employees often. Celebrate their success and achievements. Weekly, monthly and annual reviews with feedback are important. People value feedback more than you realize and need to be informed. Let them know what they are doing well and what they need to work on, and allow them the opportunity to do the same.
4. Time - Don’t overwork your employees. Most CEOs overwork their best performers because they are so capable but end up losing them. If it’s been a hard week, consider letting them take off early.
5. Growth and Training - Great employees want to be developed. Great employers figure out how to train and develop their best, even at low cost. Find out where your employees want to be, what their goals are, and how you can help. Webinars and training are both great ways to invest in your employees.
6. Fun - Keep things fun around the office. Employee outings allow your staff to get to know one another better, and create a relaxed environment that might be needed after a busy day of work. Celebrate employee birthdays, company anniversary, important company milestones or achievements. There are so many ways to keep things exciting and make your employees want to show up for work every day.
7. Blind Surveying - Find out how your employees are feeling about their job and your organization. One-on-one meetings each year with your staff allows you to find out this information. Consider a third party to survey your employees to allow for zero bias.
8. Individual Retention Plans - Have individual retention plans for your top performers. What does your employee need to be satisfied with their current position? Ask them what the organization can do to keep them around, and provide tangible incentives. This will ensure your employee is indeed happy and sticks around, and gives the organization and leadership a good idea of what they need to do to keep their best employees. It will probably be different for each employee. Make sure HR monitors this (or CEO if you don’t have HR).

Want to learn even more about company retention?

Have Cindi speak to your company, leadership team or any CEO roundtable group you might be a part of for free!

Two Tips to Avoid the Looming Staff-Shift

As the economy improves, is your business ready?  Maybe you are increasing production, building inventory, drooling cautiously over an improving ledger, but little do you know that a potential problem could be sneaking in unnoticed!

At Innovative Outsourcing, our goal is to keep you on top of the latest trends in human resources, so we want you to be aware of a recent MetLife study revealing that employers are going to be caught flat-footed as one in three employees are ready to leave for greener pastures.  Through the down economy, employees have felt oppressed by stripped benefits, increased work hours, and added responsibilities.  As the job market improves, these employees are looking for a change, and of course the most employable ones who may be your most valuable employees, will be the first to find a new job elsewhere.

Cindi Filer, President and CEO of Innovative Outsourcing, has seen this trend beginning already.  “I often speak to CEO groups about human resources trends, and over the past two weeks, I have had three of those CEOs call me in horror as their “key” employee turned in a resignation notice.”  Cindi goes on to explain that through her presentation to CEOs, she talks about making sure that all key people are cross-trained so that in the event of an unforeseen resignation, staff is in place to step in until a replacement is found.

“We recommend that all employers are proactive, even if they think that this would never happen to their business,” Cindi warns. She suggests these two important tips:

• Protect key employees by using positive human resources tactics.  These key employees need to know that they will prosper as the economy improves.
• Make sure that your key positions have trained back-up personnel in place.  If you don’t have employees that can do this, consider alternate staffing measures.

Cindi explains how using part-time staff can aid in this process. “One of my clients just chose to hire a part-time bookkeeper to have in addition to the full-time bookkeeper.  This part-time bookkeeper will be a backup who knows all the accounting systems, and will help with workflow during times of higher volumes.

Consider the benefits:

• The key employee has help for the increased workload that new business demands.  Having a part-time helper can give that key employee an opportunity to manage and delegate, so that they will feel even better about staying in their current job.
• This will assure that two sets of eyes oversee the accounting process.
• Cross training provides the backup necessary in case the key employee leaves.

This approach is a perfect fit for accounting, but is a great model for all business functions.  And Cindi reminds that part-time staffing is the perfect solution to balancing workload, providing cross training without the investment and long-term commitment associated with hiring full-time employees.

Most employees are not disclosing their job search to their employers.  Picture the employee you rely upon most.  Now picture their resignation letter and two weeks notice!  Don’t get caught in this Staff-Shift! Be proactive and follow these two tips now.

If you are interested in learning more about how Innovative Outsourcing can be a partner with you in this strategy, or if you belong to a CEO group and would like Cindi to speak about this and other important human resourses issues, please contact her at
moc.gnicruostuo-evitavonni@relifc.

Book Buzz: The Advantage by Patrick Lencioni

Your day starts like an empty pitcher into which you pour your time and talent.  At the end of the day, do you really feel like you have found that perfect blend for your business?  How does your day “taste?”

Do you feel like you spend too much time and money on your employees?

Do you feel like you spend a disproportionate amount of time handling employee issues, and this frustrates you?

• Most business owners feel the same way.  The statistics are alarming:
• 50% of CEOs say they spend too much time handling employee issues
• 65% of performance problems are the result of strained employee relationships
• 80% of employees say they will leave their company when the economy improves
• 42% of employees say that they will leave when they find another company with a better management structure
• The cost of losing and replacing an employee is up to 150% of the departing employee’s annual salary
• Because Innovative Outsourcing is committed to keeping you informed, I’m sending you this edition of Book Buzz to share three great takeaways from a book I found fascinating:

The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else in Business

By Patrick Lencioni

Mr. Lencioni makes a premise that there are two sides of an organization: the SMART side and the HEALTH side.  Imagine as you pour hours into your “business pitcher” each day, how much of each of these “sides” you pour into your company.

The SMART side of an organization revolves around the following:

• Strategy
• Marketing
• Finance
• Technology

CEOs spend almost 100% of their time focusing on these important business components.

The HEALTH side of the organization revolves around how employees relate to each other and to the organization.  CEOs often negate the importance of the HEALTH side:

• Minimal Politics
• Minimal Confusion
• High Morale
• High Productivity
• Low Turnover

The book purports that “being SMART is only half the equation.” Being HEALTHY organizationally isequally important to the overall blend of how emphasis should be placed.

Most companies focus on SMART organizational strength, putting their resources and money into improving these tangible business areas.  Lencioni believes that a business with good organization HEALTH will naturally get smarter, as the focus can shift away from company politics, low morale, employees working against each other, and replacement of key employees.  Lencioni’s advice helps you determine your company’s organizational health.  Through his compelling advice, you will understand why putting together a great leadership team is key, and you will gain tips to effectively create and communicate vision clarity.  I love how this author spends time explaining how to achieve alignment within a leadership team by removing any impediments to that alignment. Putting these tips into practice has helped my own business as well as some of my client’s organizational lead teams.

 

KNOW EACH OTHER
If your leadership team is going to work together effectively, you need to be transparent and really know each other.  How do you emphasize this? Share life stories and using personality testing.

PROMOTE GOOD CONFLICT 
Good conflict can be a benefit in the workplace, carving a path upon which great ideas can be debated and decisions can be made.  A lack of conflict or bad conflict results in a less productive workplace.  A strong leader needs to foster good conflict in meetings and seek to extinguish the root of bad workplace conflict, (evidenced by symptoms such as yelling, no sharing, hurt feelings, bad relationships, etc.)

GET EVERYONE ON THE SAME PAGE
To grow effectively, all the employees must achieve goal alignment directed through two very important questions: “Why do we exist?” and “How do we behave?”   Much work should be done on these questions, and consensus must be achieved to ensure that the leadership team and all employees are guiding the ship in the same direction.

So think about your day, and how you are pouring your time into your business.  Are you happy with the blend of SMART-time and HEALTH-time?  Start down the path to organizational health by reading this book.

I will call this book worthwhile for any CEO who has the VISION to improve his company and who has more than 5 employees.  It is more important for CEOs to read this book than HR people, because the CEOs create the culture.  If you don’t think culture and organizational health are critical in your company, then these next 5 years could be difficult for you.

This book will take 5 hours or longer to read, and I recommend it be read over several weeks.   Strategies need to be implemented over time.  This would be an excellent book for you to do as a group in staff meetings over 2 months.

I recommend you take notes as you read or highlight the book because you will want to do some exercises, and it will help to outline this as you go.

Remember that Innovative Outsourcing wants to be your staffing resource. Consider calling us for a free consultation. It would be our pleasure to have conversations with you about this information, or any staffing issues you may have.  We even can come in and do fact-finding “interviews” with your employees to see how “healthy” your organization is, and what needs to be addressed. Call on us for a fresh perspective. With over 20 years of HR experience, we love to help our clients with their employee issues. If you are interested in learning about our services at Innovative Outsourcing, please contact us at 404-906-9497, or email us at moc.gnicruostuo-evitavonni@syehs.