The Employee Job Life Cycle describes the evolving quality, productivity and job retention of typical employees throughout the process of hiring, employment and then termination. An employee life cycle is the steps the employees go through from the time they enter a company until they leave. Often Human Resources professionals focus their attention on the steps in this process in hopes of making an impact on the company’s bottom line. That is a good thing for them to do. Their goal is to reduce the company’s cost per employee hired.

Unfortunately, they aren’t the ones who really make a difference – managers are. People don’t really work for companies; they work for their boss. To the extent that you can be a good boss, you can keep employees, keep them happy, and reduce the costs associated with employee turnover. In the process, you will make your own job easier and increase your value to the company.

An employee joins a new Organisation; therefore he is always into the torment to set up him on the job. A brief introduction of the company and its entire rules & regulations book is given to the employee during the induction process. Thereafter, employee is placed on the job for live exposure of the job, where he interacts with the existing employees and tries to be friendly with them. Upon his work he faces various obstacles such as rude behavior of seniors & juniors, negative comments from dissatisfied colleagues, weak support from management and many other problems. Sometimes employees’ leave in frustration in such situations, but those who pass through the tough times, they might have a better future in the Organisation.

Upon the job, the job responsibilities are changed so that employee learns about the various skills required to work. Also, so that employee does not feel monotones on the job.

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This may not be the first time that your CEO has sliced your training budget and I am sure it will not be the last. If you already run a lean and mean training function, then congratulations on your efforts. You may find, though, that your previous good management will not slow the CEO from asking you to shed some more expenses. Whether you have already optimized your training function in the past or you realize that you have a long way to go, here are ten practical steps that you can take to weather any financial storm.

1. Provide more self-help workbooks and on-the-job aids.
Replace some of the high cost training sessions with materials and aids placed where people do the work. Laminated procedures, checklists, tips’n’tricks, lists of shortcut keys, ready reckoners, and so on, may be effective replacements for full-blown training sessions. If somebody is having difficulty handling angry customers or using Microsoft Excel, check out your local training publishers for self-paced workbooks.

2. Conscript local experts or coaches to take the place of some training sessions.
If people have some knowledge and skills about the subject, identify one or two local experts in each area to act as a central point for all questions. Make sure that the experts and coaches you nominate have the required communication and interpersonal skills.

3. Cut training sessions that do not add value to the organization.
Does your organization really need that assertiveness skills training course? What tangible benefit did your organization achieve from it? Drop courses that do not show a demonstrable advantage to your organization. I’m not saying that these kinds of courses are never worthwhile. During difficult periods is the time to review whether they are of real benefit to your organization now.

4.

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Many organizations muddle through change. How is your organization progressing at implementing that new accounting system or moving to a new employee performance management process? Are your managers nodding approval in public but sabotaging the initiative in private? Are your employees shell-shocked and just giving up? Do you have no money left over for post-implementation support?

Whatever change your organization is trying to implement, knowing about and working through the necessary steps will go a long way to making your change initiative a success. I have distilled these crucial steps into a process model for change. The model is called the CHANGE Approach, with each letter signifying a step in the process. I have summarized below the key features of each step leading to a successful change transition.

Create tension
With this first step, articulate why change needs to happen and why it needs to happen within the planned timeframe. Many change programs start with a big bang, but then peter out ending in a whimper. Other programs struggle to develop the initial momentum. Think about the immediate force that will get your people moving in the right direction. This could be impending legislative changes, new entrants to the market, high levels of customer dissatisfaction, etcetera. Think also about the impacts of not changing, such as loss of market share or fines from regulators. To prepare your company for the impending objections, collect as much data as you can to back your assertions.

Harness support
Next, get on board the key decision makers, resource holders and those with the potential to subvert your change process. Start by identifying the key stakeholder groups; the people with something to lose or gain from your change proposal. Include in your analysis the end receivers of the new products or services, such as suppliers, customers and end users of software.

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Hiring the wrong person for the job can be detrimental to the productivity of the company, and may cause avoidable expenses.

The cost of hiring the wrong person is higher than taking the time to find someone with the right personality fit for your business. Think about the time and monetary costs of having to go through the recruitment and training process again. It is better to find the right person in the first place.

The key to finding that candidate – is to concentrate on their personality & culture fit within an organization. Here are some tips to help make your recruitment job easier.

Effective interview techniques
It is not just the jobseeker who needs to be prepared for the interview – you need to do some homework too. A recruiter will need a good understanding of what type of individual will fit into the business which including their personality, skills base, attitude and manner. Use these techniques to ensure you always have effective interviews:

•    Be clear on the competencies required for the job, including your required output and key performance indicators.
•    Determine characteristics and traits of the person you think will succeed in the role. Look at employees who are doing well in the same job and list what they bring to the position.
•    Prepare a job description for candidates.
•    Read each person’s resume and cover letter before meeting them so you know their experience. It will also give you a springboard for questions.
•    Prepare interview questions beforehand covering the skills base you need, but also questions that will help you assess the candidate’s behaviour.

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Legend has it that Theodore Roosevelt and one of his cowhands found an unbranded steer on land controlled by Gregor Lang, a neighboring rancher.

In accord with the usual custom, they prepared to brand it, but as the cowboy applied the brand, Roosevelt said, “Wait, it should be Lang’s brand.”

“That’s all right, boss,” said the cowboy.

“But you’re putting on my brand,” Roosevelt said.

“That’s right,” the cowboy said, “I always put on the boss’s brand.”

“Drop that iron,” Roosevelt commanded, “and get back to the ranch and get out. I don’t need you anymore. A man who will steal for me will steal from me.”

Roosevelt understood that a person’s moral conviction must rest on something firmer than the presence or absence of particular people. Do what is right, no matter who might benefit or who might be watching.

— H. Hagedorn, Roosevelt in the Badlands, Theodore Roosevelt Nature & History Association (August, 2000), cited on CharacterFirst.

Why do we hire for skills, but fire for character1? Why do some people succeed and others fail?

The difference that makes a lasting difference is character. It is not heredity, not circumstances, not ability or disability, not favoritism or discrimination, not environment, not luck or chance. It’s none of these. Rather, those who overcome obstacles are the people who succeed.

Are people born with the drive to overcome? Or can it be taught? Yes. And yes. Anyone who has children knows that babies are born with certain tendencies or character traits. Yet, it is also true that people learn to be who they become. Most of this learning takes place in the family.

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When you became a manager, there’s a good chance that you didn’t realize that providing employee training would become a major portion of your job. However, it’s a fact that teaching is an essential function of every managerial job. When you’re in charge of managing and motivating other workers – no matter how small or large your team may be – training is something that you’re going to have to do on a regular basis.

Providing training to employees is a very specific skill, and it’s one that many managers don’t realize they need to have. Sharing information and teaching people how to perform tasks are two very different things. When you are providing training to team members, you have to focus on conveying information to them in a manner that is motivating and that will enable them to truly understand what you are saying so they will be able to transfer that knowledge to on-the-job performance.

3 Keys to Effective Employee Training

1. Recognize Your Training Responsibilities
Too many mangers think that employee training is “someone else’s job”. Even if your company has someone in charge of training, those who hold supervisory roles bear responsibility when it comes to employee training and development. If you want to lead a peak performing team, you must be prepared to coach and train your team members to excel.

Managers at every organizational level are responsible for making sure that the employees on their teams have the skills needed to perform the work required. Accomplishing this managerial duty involves providing effective training to team members about company polices and procedures and industry standards, as well as recognizing the need for skill-based training and making sure that it is available to employees who need it.

2.

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Many managers and supervisors struggle to get the best out of their employees. Do you have difficulty understanding why your workers behave the way they do? Sometimes this is because managers mistakenly assume that everyone is like them: “I like a lot of detail, so everyone else must as well”. And when an employee turns in a report that looks like an executive summary, this type of manager stresses to find out what went “wrong” with the employee.

In other cases, the manager works on the assumption that their employees’ preferences are the opposite of their own. This type of manager, for example, believes that employees are motivated primarily by their paycheck whilst they themselves are motivated by a stiff challenge.

What both these types of managers share is that they are both one-dimensional; seeking to explain all or most of their employees’ behaviors by a single cause. People are much more complex than this. Being able to appreciate some of this complexity will help make otherwise unintelligible behaviors understandable. Using this knowledge to then shape employee behavior will not only take some of the stress out of managing people, it will lead to greater rewards as employees begin to work with you and not against you.

Without wading through a lot of theory, let me illustrate the power of psychology with a real-life example. In one computer production facility, the production manager wanted to lift production levels. To do this, she implemented a new incentive scheme in which production workers would receive a 5% increase in their take home wage if they increased the number of units produced by 30%. This did require some effort on the part of the employees as the productivity gains could only eventuate if each of them learned how to use the new microprocessor-controlled cutting machine.

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Do you find yourself struggling with how to deal with people problems at work? If so, Manager’s Desktop Consultant: Just-in-Time Solutions to the Top People Problems that Keep You Up at Night is a worthy addition to your library of business books. Written by organizational development experts Louellen N. Essex, Ph.D. and Mitchell E. Kusy, Ph.D., this book provides practical advice for helping managers effectively deal with people problems at work.

This book is designed to provide leaders at all levels within modern organizations with practical tips and suggestions for effectively handle people related issues. It touches on techniques for managing all types of people problems that arise in the business world, including tips for improving one’s ability to communicate effectively with peers and subordinates alike.

One of the biggest challenges faced by managers relates to effectively managing change within their organizations. Coping with employees who are resistant to change can be particularly challenging and difficult. This book provides guidance for creating a systematic process and plan for leading organizations through change in a manner that will include and engage employees in the process. Encouraging employee teamwork and collaboration is another important people issue of concern to managers. The authors do an excellent job of providing substantive tips for cultivating a culture of teamwork that go beyond the often “touchy-feely” suggestions. Their emphasis is on how to improve productivity and efficiency via team work.

In any environment where people have to work together, conflict is inevitable. Managing conflict in a constructive manner isn’t always easy, but it is something that today’s managers have to face.

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When a relationship between an employee and employer breaks down irretrievably a compromise agreement can be the only way to deal with the situation and prevent a possible complaint to an Employment Tribunal.     

A ‘compromise agreement’ is a legally binding agreement following the termination of employment. It usually provides for a severance payment by the employer, in return for the employee agreeing not to pursue any claim they believe they may have to an employment tribunal. Quite often, the compromise agreement will also deal with the notice element in the contract of employment and may provide for a “payment in lieu of notice”.  Employers are now increasingly using compromise agreements as a mechanism for preventing possible future complaints to a tribunal, especially in redundancy situations.  Compromise agreements are recognised by statute and are the only way a claim can be legally binding without tribunal proceedings having been initiated.  The employee must seek the advice of an independent solicitor before the agreement becomes binding.  The solicitor giving the advice must also sign the agreement and certify that the appropriate advice has been given.

Why is a Compromise Agreement Necessary?
The use of compromise agreements in redundancy situations is used mainly if an employer has not complied with the law in making redundancies (perhaps through failing to consult properly, failing to use fair selection criteria etc) where an employee can complain to a tribunal that the redundancy was unfair. This can be done after the redundancy and could result in an award of compensation or even reinstatement.  The only way an employer can be sure that an employee will not complain to a tribunal after redundancy is to persuade them to sign away their right to do so.

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The glitz and glamour of all the Christmas and New Year festivities are now over and summer is a long way away – have you counted the cost of the festive cheer?

For many employers, January is a hard month to get through and absenteeism has a direct impact on your bottom line. 

Have you reviewed who didn’t turn up on Christmas Eve or any of the due days over the Christmas period or on when you re-opened on 5 January and why they didn’t and also what impact this unreliability had on your business?

Current research by the CIPD (Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development) showed that on average an employee takes off 8 days a year and absence costs £666 per employee.   

The cost of absence can be felt in different ways.  For example, it can affect everything from quality of customer service to the speed of product development – issues that may have a negative impact on your sales figures.  If also affects employee morale as those in work shoulder the burden of their colleagues days off.

A CBI/AXA Absence Survey in 2008 showed that 1 in 10 absences are not genuine and 60% of employees have said that they fake sickness to extend a holiday.        
Everyone agrees that sick people need time off work, but as an employer you need to deal with two serious and expensive challenges – bogus sick days and helping employees on long-term illness return to work when they are fit to do so.

1 day sickies are the most common and if left unmanaged this can lead to an increase across your business and employees are more inclined to try it for themselves as they see their colleagues ‘getting away with it’.

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As a small business owner, it’s important to take proactive steps toward making sure that your employees are ready and able to handle the technological and environmental changes that are likely to impact your business. It’s important to remember that employee training doesn’t stop with your new hire orientation procedures. Organizational training needs are ongoing, particularly in the rapidly changing 21st century workforce.

Needs Assessment for Strategic Planning
The best way to make sure that you are providing employees with the training needed to position your business for long term success is to engage in an ongoing needs assessment process at both the organizational and individual levels. The process of needs assessment involves developing an understanding of where your organization is now, in terms of employee skills, and where it needs to be in the future.

Individual needs assessment involves looking at your employees’ current skill levels and identifying any gaps that exist between their current abilities and what they need to be able to do, now and in the future. At the organizational level, strategic needs assessment involves identifying gaps between the skills that exist across the organization and the skills that need to be in place to accomplish the company’s long term strategic plans.

Targeted Training
Once you have conducted a thorough assessment of your organization’s training needs, you can identify which gaps are actually training issues.

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Have you taken the appropriate steps to make sure that your workplace complies with all necessary OSHA regulations? As an employer, you have a duty to make sure that you are providing a save working environment for your employees. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has very specific regulations and standards, and it’s your responsibility to make sure that your organization is compliant.

One of the most important things any small business owner or manager can do is educate him or herself about OSHA regulations. It’s easy and affordable to participate in OSHA safety training. When you complete formal safety training, you’ll have a much better understanding of how you can take steps to prevent accidents and injuries in the workplace, which can have an overall positive impact on your organization’s bottom line.

It’s also a good idea to encourage your employees to participate in OSHA safety training. Depending on the type of industry you work in, your staff members may be required to earn OSHA 10 hour or 30 hour cards, that provide evidence they’ve been properly trained. Even in industries where these specific courses aren’t required, sending your employees to relevant safety training can keep them safe, reduce downtime, and keep your productivity levels where they need to be.

In addition to completing OSHA safety training, you should also download your free copy of the OSHA Small Business Handbook, which provides guidelines for keeping your operation compliant with the standards and regulations established by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

When it comes to safety, you can’t know too much.

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Employee development training is critical to the long term success of any organization. Making plans to help employees keep up with and fully utilize technology is part of any sound strategic plan. It’s also necessary for business leaders to identify employees who have the potential to grow with the organization and develop them to fill critical roles that are likely to become available in the future.

Practicalities of Employee Training

However, it’s one thing to know that employee training is important and quite another to find the time to incorporate a comprehensive training program into already busy scheduled. The day-to-day challenges of running a successful business often take precedence over implementation of cross training, succession planning, and other things necessary to fulfill long term strategic goals. 

Finding a way to balance the need for employee development and current work demands is a real challenge for many businesses. It’s becoming more and more common for companies to look toward non-traditional options for providing training to employees. Providing blended learning opportunities for employees is one way that companies are rising to the challenge of finding time to fit needed training into the busy work day. 

What is Blended Learning?

As companies are finding it more difficult to schedule groups of employees to attend training sessions during the day, many are turning to solutions that provide a more flexible means of delivery. Blended learning is often described as hybrid learning. This increasingly popular approach to employee training combines online learning and face-to-face instructor led training.

Utilizing a blended approach to employee training involves making both traditional employee training classes and opportunities for online learning available to employees.

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People often mistake by relating the term ‘Management’ with HR. Which I feel is not absolutely true. Management means managing, like how a HR Manager manages its employees, a Sales Manager manages its Sales, a finance manager manages flow of funds and an account manager manages its firm’s accounts. Management teaches the ways to manage things well, sometimes one thing at one time and sometimes requires multi-tasking, take an example. An employee is very disturbed due to some reasons and misbehaved with many of his seniors, its HR manager’s job to handle him. The better he handles the man, the better he has learnt the term ‘management’.

The other terms, management means the most senior staff of an organization i.e. Chairman, Director, C.E.O. or Board of Directors etc. In such a case, the managerial staff is treated as representative of the senior management.

In terms of HR, management study teaches how to know different human beings, how to recognize their needs, how to persuade them to perform better and also to understand what make them feel good and happy. Almost every company is turning its side to HR department, and expecting their HR professionals to prepare its employees to perform best and give the positive results. But, this is not possible unless the problems and issues of an employee are resolved. To understand what’s going in the employee’s mind, what he wants, and what is troubling him, HR Department should try its best skills. I feel if an employee has had a bad start of the day, his whole day will be ruined and in the same manner, if he is having a bad evening, his rest of the day will be not good. Thus, HR Department should help the employee to make balance in his personal and professional lives.

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You may have been selected by your executive to initiate and see through some change program in your organization. Or you may have decided that the time has come to make your mark by dusting off the cobwebs in your workplace. However your change role came about, you have a challenging task ahead of you.

Consider this sobering thought. In spite of the importance of successfully implementing workplace change for maintaining your business’s competitiveness, most change initiatives fail to deliver the expected organizational benefits. This failure occurs for a number of reasons:

• absence of a change champion or one who is too junior in the organization
• poor executive sponsorship or senior management support
• poor project management skills
• hope rested on a one-dimensional solution
• political infighting and turf wars
• poorly defined organizational objectives
• change team diverted to other projects

Do you recognize one or more of these in your organization from previous initiatives? You have probably experienced already one major cost of such failure. The cynical and burned out employees left behind only make the next change objective even more difficult to accomplish. It should come as no surprise that the fear of managing change and its impacts is a leading cause of anxiety in managers.

Your first step in becoming a successful change leader is fully understanding your organization and matching the initiative to your organization’s real needs. This means not just adopting the latest management fad. Recognize that bringing about useful and meaningful change is fundamentally about changing people’s behavior in certain desired ways. It is not primarily about installing a new system or rearranging the organizational structure. If people in the end do not behave and work differently, then the money and time spent in “doing stuff” is wasted.

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A major problem for business owners and employers today is getting the best employees and then keeping them. Sounds easy, but any employer will tell you that these activities take up the most time and have the biggest impact on business results. So how do you go about retaining the good people once you’ve found them?

Understanding what your employees want from a workplace sounds like a logical place to start. After all, if you know what your employees are after, you simply need to provide it and all will be well. This is a great theory, but research shows that employers are not that successful at identifying what their employees actually want. In fact there is a significant disconnect between the things that employees say are important to them, and how highly employers rank those same things.

This survey first came out in 1946 in Foreman Facts, from the Labor Relations Institute of NY and was produced again by Lawrence Lindahl in Personnel magazine, in 1949. This study has since been replicated with similar results by Ken Kovach (1980); Valerie Wilson, Achievers International (1988); Bob Nelson, Blanchard Training & Development (1991); and Sheryl & Don Grimme, GHR Training Solutions (1997-2001).

When asked to rank a list of ten criteria, the employees and managers/owners ranked them very differently: 

What Employees Want

1
Full appreciation for work done

2
Feeling “part” of things

3
Sympathetic help on personal issues

4
Job Security

5
Good wages

6
Interesting work

7
Promotion/growth opportunities

8
Personal loyalty to workers

9
Good working conditions

10
Tactful discipline

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Have you ever wondered why the people in your team don’t seem as motivated as you do? Or why some people do their jobs with enthusiasm and vigor, and others barely get through the day without taking the frown off their faces?

You are not alone. The topic of human motivation has been studied for hundreds of years. So it’s a topic we know a lot about. Unfortunately it’s not often taught to managers as part of their training.

There are things you can do to influence how much energy people are willing to put into their jobs. Below are 5 critical things to know about motivation.

1. We can’t motivate other people

Motivation is not something we ‘do’ to others. It has to come from within. All we can do is create an environment which encourages motivation. So to some extent we are let off the hook. Our responsibility as managers only goes so far –after that, it’s up to the individual to get on board.

2. Some people just won’t ever be motivated

I think we all know the truth of this. Some people are just in the wrong space, and have no interest in being part of a team, or working any harder than they absolutely have to. It can be very difficult to manage the performance of these individuals, particularly if they are doing just enough to get by. Usually the solution is to include behaviors and attitudes as part of required performance. Then their attitude becomes a tangible performance issue which can be coached and managed through the performance review system.

3. One size definitely does not fit all

The fun thing about motivation is that we are all different, so you need to employ multiple strategies and approaches. Different generations, different stages of life, different needs from a career – these are all things that will influence what people desire as a motivator during their lives.

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You may not realize, but when you bring a new employee into your business you only have one chance to make a good first impression. Research confirms that a poor (or lack of) induction is a major contributor to how engaged that person is. The more engaged they are, the harder they will try and the more effort they will put in.

The best companies have standardized induction processes that can span several weeks, involving building tours, meetings with key individuals, training programs on company history, introduction to systems and so on.

Starting a new job can be an anxious time. Not only are you unsure of yourself, you also have yet to truly evaluate the company now employing you. Day 1 is an employers’ best opportunity to make a new employee feel confident that they have made the right decision.

So what happens in your business? It’s not necessary to go have a program that extensive if your business is smaller, but there are some basics.

Before they Start

• Make sure there is a desk and chair for them before they start. Arranging it on their first day makes it seem like you forgot they were coming (and maybe you did….)
• Arrange any computer equipment and telephones before they get there. Don’t forget to issue any passwords or logon’s they might need.
• Let the team know what day they will be starting, and what their responsibilities will be.

On their First Day

• Be there to welcome them
• Finish off any outstanding paperwork
• Give them a tour of the office
• Introduce them to the team and discuss relevant team processes (eg – weekly meetings etc)
• Take time to explain other significant company processes and how they work.

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The success of your business is directly related to the commitment and productivity of the people who work in your business. And yet it is generally recognized that 60% of employees, or more, are underutilized in their roles at work.

So what are the factors that contribute to low performance standards and expectations?

Communication, or mis-communication, is one of the major sources of low productivity. The messages that move between the owner, employees, managers and even customers are not understood in the same way. One classic example is that business owners tend to assume that employees and managers see things the same way they do.

Managers tend to lower their expectations (unconsciously) so that they will not have to confront employees. Most people dislike discussing declining performance with their employees, and so actively avoid having to do so by reducing heir expectations of what’s required.

Employees have a tendency to protect themselves from possible failure by pushing back on what is expected. They will often negotiate/bargain the job down to a more comfortable level.

Business owners often have difficulty separating what they want done from how they want it done. Telling employees exactly how to achieve a certain goal leaves no room for the employee to think or use their own initiative. Consequently they often stop trying to contribute and become ‘sheep” – just doing what they are told. In this catch-22 situation, the owner is forced into a position where they must constantly be telling everyone exactly what to do.

Some owners may not understand the concept of person/job matching, and so have the wrong people in the wrong positions. This situation can be extremely demotivating for the employee.

So how do you go about setting performance standards and expectations?

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When you ask employees about their impressions of Performance Management processes, the answer is invariably negative or neutral. It’s not often that the process is positively endorsed by those who use it. So where are we going wrong?

As managers, we know we need a management system of some kind for all the components of performance:

•  getting people to work on things that will help the business achieve it’s goals
•  identifying and overcoming obstacles that might prevent success
•  understand and checking our progress regularly
•  giving people a forum for talking about what they are doing and how it’s going
•  providing the appropriate checks and balances
•  recognising and rewarding performance

I believe there are 5 fundamental reasons why Performance Management is not viewed positively.

1. Reviewers don’t have the skills or confidence to give feedback appropriately

Giving feedback constructively is a learned skill. Unfortunately for their team members, many managers haven’t had any training or support in learning this critical skill. So when it comes to review time, feedback is either:

•  blunt and delivered with no thought for the impact or consequence,
•  not provided at all because the manager wants to avoid disagreement or conflict, or
•   is given in such a wishy washy way that the reviewee actually misses the fact they are being given feedback!

This is one of the most critical capabilities a manager can have, with far-reaching positive or negative consequences. Providing ongoing coaching and support should be part of the approach to managing performance.

2. Employees don’t see Performance Management (PM) as a 2 way street

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