Follow up to the concerns about an older employee coping with new systems

Follow up
Hi Elizabeth. It wasn’t easy finding the right moment to ask a few casual questions but I have the information now ….It’s love of everything about the work and fear of retirement. PL

 

Hi PL,
I’m pleased you didn’t rush in to get the information you needed. The right moment usually presents itself if time constraints allow you to be patient. Managers don’t always have that degree of flexibility though in determining when they choose to act.

Here’s what I think:
You could give them a specific new role with a firm end date and they could retire at that end date. That would provide a
wind-down period and yet a feeling of having made a valuable contribution. You may even be surprised at how well the person adapts.

The person could work part time and a decreasing time over a year e.g. work full time for 3 months after the change, then 3 days per week for a month, then 2 days etc down to a few hours a week after a few months. A win/win situation for everyone. It’s often found that after such a wind-down, the person actually suggests termination themselves as they become comfortable with leisure time and also realize that the changes are profound and the company situation vastly changed.

Ask HR or someone in payroll have a look at the persons retirement situation. Sometimes people think they have to keep going till e.g 65 to get a certain pension. Maybe the difference in retiring in 6 months time as opposed to 3 years time is only a small monetary difference. Is it possible to convince the person the difference isn’t worth loss of 2 years of leisure? Could you give them a “Loyalty” bonus if they retire which would bridge the monetary difference.

Those are just a few ideas off the top of my head. If none of those work for you, give me more detail and I’ll think again.

Elizabeth

Planning and Assessing Staff Training

Hi everyone,
At the weekend we had a question about staff training. The question just said ” can you give some pointers about staff training please”. I’m not too sure what focus the questioner had in mind so today I wrote a 5 Minute Guide. I hope it helps the person who asked the question and maybe it will help the rest of you too. If the person who asked the question wants to give me some further detail, I’ll address the topic more specifically.

Elizabeth

Congratulations C !!

Drum roll …….
C has achieved her goal !!
One of our managers has started her own business. We’ve know C for 8 years and she’s already had a successful career in her chosen industry, rising from trainee manager to manager of a sales team of twelve. Eight months ago, C saw an opportunity to strike out on her own.
In the main, it was Jack who helped with advice on assessment of the market, practical suggestions and of course appropriate encouragement and cautions along the way.
C e-mailed us. She was thrilled to say that she is now earning as much as she was before she took the plunge into self employment AND all the profit from her hard work is hers to keep.

Case Studies – learn from other manager’s experiences

Hi everyone,

We’ve just launched a new section “Case Studies”.

Take a look when you have a moment.

The first study describes the problems encountered by a woman who was promoted from team worker to team manager.

Elizabeth

An older employee concerns

I have on my team a person who has been with the company 30 years. This person is still a great worker and the company has no criticisms to make of the person’s work or the way they relate to younger workers. In fact, I feel quite embarassed to say that we want the person to retire. The reason is, we are about to introduce a totally new system into the company and we feel this employee may not adapt well to the new system. Any ideas? PL

 

Hi PL,

The company certainly owes this person some consideration for the years of loyal service.

I’m having to make a few assumptions here – I’m going to assume that the employee is 50+, maybe nearer to 60.

Let me ask you a few questions…

Do you know what the employee enjoys about working for your company which has kept them there so long?

Is it the actual work? Is it social interaction with co-workers? Is it need for income? Is it lack of anything else in their lives? Is it fear of retirement.

Your answers to those questions would point the way for you.

Your worse situation is if the person is in financial need – you have a problem because they won’t voluntarily give up vital income. I’ll leave that scenario hanging.

Talk to your bosses and one or two people who have a long service with your company and try to get some background and get back to me.

Elizabeth

Why do managers avoid confrontation with employees?

Most people dislike confrontation in their lives – in their personal lives or in their workplace – although we’ve all met people who seem to thrive on it.

Most people are not skilled in handling confrontation and conflict. However, the development of these skills is essential for all managers. Any manager who works with people will, at some time, feel they need training in resolving conflict and dealing with conformation, whether it’s a short training class, a seminars or a program of practical workshops.

In any event, turning a blind eye to conflict isn’t an option.

There is potential for confrontations in every situation where people interact – at work, at home and with family. Generally, people have limited experience of resolving conflict. Strategies you use in your personal life may not be strategies which are directly transferable to a work situation.

A manager needs a variety of styles and options to draw upon which suit the problem of the day and the people involved in the issues.

Turning a blind eye is never an option when there is confrontation and conflict in the workplace. There are no exceptions. Conflict can be ruinous to a team if it goes unresolved and will influence the productivity of a team. There are well documented examples of a team being directly influenced, becoming de-motivated which results in a project being sabotaged by conflict.

It’s a manager’s job to sort it out and team members rightly expect a manager to show leadership in doing that. Many managers have lost the respect of their team because they shirk their management responsibilities in this area. Unresolved conflict can become toxic.

Even if the situation is one where everyone knows that a conflict between two people is entirely personal, the manager cannot turn a blind eye. The manager must tell the people involved to work out their differences – outside of work hours – and that if they don’t resolve their difficulties; action will have to be taken by the manager.

Conflict can be good. I know that’s likely to come as a surprising statement but if conflict leads to improvement and change and is well managed, the people involved can, ultimately, be glad the conflict happened.

Most people and most managers have limited experience in how to manage conflict in teams and what experience they do have is usually based on experience from their personal lives – as children and as adults. At home people may be used to arguments involving some shouting and then perhaps the combatants spend time on their own to calm down, maybe one person goes out to the garage while the other stomps around the house or plays computer games for an hour or so. This is completely inappropriate and unhelpful in the workplace and to be avoided.

In a busy work life, it may be hard to search out and schedule program of training. Training programs are often at inconvenient times and seem never to be scheduled when the need for training is most needed.

At home, family understand you and maybe you know they’ll take no notice of your grumpiness today because they know you’re in a bad mood already because of something else – they’re willing to cut you some slack. In the workplace only adult behavior in dealing with confrontation and conflict is acceptable and appropriate.

There are very few problems which can’t be improved and resolved completely by the parties involved coming around a table for a calm discussion (with a mug of tea is best in my experience ha ha).

What is an essential requirement is: willingness on both sides.

At risk of singling out a particular group, enquiries to us seem to suggest there are often confrontation events in nursing. Many reasons come to mind. Nurses are often under great pressure and on occasion a nurse may come into conflict with coworkers and managers as a result of tiredness and stress. Training in communication skills and

Don’t attempt to bring the co-worker to their knees. Instead, bring them to the table.

What should management expect when changes occur?

There are basically 2 types of change.

Firstly, there is normal change. That is the regular, ongoing, routine change which is common in life.

Secondly, there is the type of change which is out of the ordinary, unexpected and usually needs urgent action.

Normal, on-going, routine change and the management of it is a part of everyday life. We experience it all the time – a vacation, a new commute route to work, a local store changing management etc.

The seasons change and we automatically make changes in our clothes to suit the weather. Usually, a vacation is a welcome change – we look forward to it, plan for it, buy new clothes for it and get excited about it.

Those sorts of changes we take for granted and we don’t become anxious about them.

However, there are some changes which aren’t like that and they belong to the second type of change. We perceive them as a threat, particularly if:

• We don’t expect them
• We are not involved in the planning of them
• We are not involved in the planning for them
• We don’t have a strategy for dealing with them

..…and that is the heart of the problem of dealing with change and of change management.

What we expect, what is normal and what we feel we have control over – doesn’t make us afraid.
The corollary is that the unexpected, the unusual, things over which we feel we have no control, cause us anxiety and fear.

When people are anxious and fearful they exhibit:

• Indecision
• Suggestibility
• Loss of Confidence
• Difficulty concentrating
• A feeling of falling apart)
• Short term memory loss
• What’s the point? What’s the use?
• The struggle is becoming or has already become too much
• Feeling alone
• Being a perfectionist
• Little or no motivation
• Fear and fear of the unknown
• Feelings of unreality (such as detached from surroundings)
• Mentally Detached
• Compulsive actions
• Overreacting mentally / Emotionally / Verbally
• Becoming short tempered

Every human being has a desire to be involved in events which affect their lives.

Part of the project in the management of change must be providing people with the information they need and providing it regularly and at every stage of the processes.
It’s important to develop practices which support people and to give staff access to all possible resources and information they need to manage their own change strategies.

HR departments could organize personal development workshops to provide training for employees in dealing with change. Providing people with appropriate tools and resources to work with organisational change, can bring about a transformation in how people see change. It’s possible to see change as personal development and as beneficial continuous improvement.

Managers need to add coaching to the ever-growing list of skills they need to have in order to be a skilled manager of change.

Managing the change process successfully is an essential skill which all managers in any business have to master at some point.

If they do it badly, the result can be anxiety, uncertainty and de-motivation. To do it well, managers would benefit from learning from best practice in other areas of human resource management.

If a management team understands what to expect when changes occur, they can be good leaders, meet organizational targets and design a strategy to deliver the results which will benefit the company.

Managing change successfully is an essential skill which all managers have to master at some point. If it’s done badly, the result can be anxiety, uncertainty and de-motivation for everyone.

There are three articles on change management which will be delivered to you in your Manager Toolbox

Tips on communication with people in the workplace

Effective interpersonal communication isn’t just speaking – it’s listening, writing, demonstrating, observing AND remember that communication isn’t a one way street. An essential management skill is in ensuring two way organizational communication – employees to management and management to employees.

Your effective performance as a manager requires communication styles and techniques appropriate for different people and appropriate styles for different occasions. Only by employing a range of communication skills will workplace communication and workplace relations be optimized.

You’ll communicate very differently with the manager who only started on the job yesterday compared to a manager who started with the organization last year.

You’ll certainly communicate very differently with the guy on the team who always needs convincing, compared with the guy who’s an enthusiast and always ready to try a new idea.

In today’s diverse workplace, effective business communication in a key skill for supervisors and managers and particularly if conflict resolution is involved.

You almost need (and probably actually do need) a different style of communication for every person with whom you interact. I guess we all have many more styles than all the people we know because we communicate in a variety of ways with each person, depending on what the communication is about.

Human interaction is subtle, intricate and very complex. We all know that there is a huge range of styles of interpersonal communication with a spouse or close friend.

In the workplace effective communication is essentail all the time and by all methods -verbal and non-verbal, formal reports, letters and e-mail .

Plan ahead is a good rule for interpersonal communication at work. We plan ahead without conscious effort most of the time. “When I get to work, I must go see Joe about xxx and I’d better pick my moment if he’s busy so maybe I’ll take that diagram with me when I go to see him”.

Wherever you want to communicate an idea or give information successfully, the idea or information is best communicated in a logical sequence with an introductory sentence, a beginning, a middle, an end and a summary

An introductory clue at the outset about where you’re leading is very helpful so an employee can tune in. People find it much harder to actively listen when they have no idea where a conversation is going because our minds hunt around, trying to compute the words and signals in order to tune in and settle to what’s being said.

Use clear and concise vocabulary, particularly at the beginning of a conversation or training session. Don’t begin with similes or parables or anecdotes or any confusing vocabulary which may have a couple of meanings.

With co-workers, use an appropriate level of jargon. It’s not clever to show you’re an “old hand” by talking to new employees in incomprehensible acronyms. If you’re inducting staff and you’re going to use jargon and acronyms, say the names or words in full first and then add the acronym. Be sure you have the understanding of your listeners.

Writing reports is an essential skill in effective communication. Short sentences are recommended and also bullet points. An image or graphics can be very useful. They say a picture is worth a thousand words but too many images make it difficult to sustain a flow and are a distraction.

Test understanding and be sure a group with whom you’re communicating really get what you’ve said. Ask for feedback – don’t ask “Do you understand?” …..people will simply say “yes” and you have no idea whether or not they have understood.

Instead, ask appropriate questions… “So where shall we begin?” or “What do you think our first action should be?” etc to test understanding.

Email is a communication method which has become vexing. It’s a great tool which can improve the speed of organizational communication but it must be efficient and effective rather than a burden.

Appropriate is the key in communication – be sure it’s appropriate.

• Don’t be casual when you should be formal.
• Don’t be formal when you should be casual.
• Don’t be verbose when you should be brief.
• Don’t be brief when a lecture is what is needed.
• Don’t use jargon at an induction session.
• Use jargon in a meeting of old hands.
• Don’t use anecdotes in a finance meeting.
• Use anecdotes at a team member’s pre-wedding party.

Plan, be clear and concise and use images and diagrams appropriately. Use short sentences, short paragraphs and bullet points appropriately.

Appropriate, appropriate, appropriate

• 1:1 with People
• Meetings & Presentations
• Motivation

How Do Leaders Develop Employees?

The development of individual employees to bring out the best in them doesn’t happen overnight, by magic or by just hoping employees will develop.

The leaders in a business – the CEO and all the managers – must first let their employees know that management want to develop employees and that management would be pleased if employees show themselves as wanting to develop. Many companies don’t do this. They assume that all employees know… but they don’t.

The management’s desire for employee development needs to be plainly stated and clearly demonstrated as incontrovertible fact so that staff don’t perceive it as just an unsubstantiated statement.

Staff will then be aware of their true worth to the company.

Without a plan for developing people, nothing will happen so CEOs and managers must do the essential groundwork.

The groundwork involves CEOs and managers getting together to discuss the benefits to the company of having an effective employee and leadership development program. Managers need also to consider the costs to the company in turnover if productivity and morale are lowered because there isn’t an employee development program in existence.

How to motivate employees is a constant and key concern of all managers. Unmotivated employees can be a burden to a company and can necessitate executives investing a great deal of time and energy into improving morale and productivity. It’s far better to invest valuable manager time and energy and the business’ money into an employee development program.

Management need to identify the characteristics of employees who are already successful or have been most successful in the company and identify:

• The training experiences they had
• Their educational background
• Their years of experience
• How they fit the company culture
• Their personality style
• What motivates them

A newsletter or a weekly e-mail to all employees, publishing the business’ intention to develop employees would be a method of marketing a company’s intentions. Whatever form it takes, it would be a document that states the company’s intention to actively develop employees.

An in-house class, seminar or half day course would be a good way to begin to inform employees of a new development program.

Before making further plans it’s important to consider what would go into a successful program.

See also this article – “Successful Leadership Programs”

What is the importance of appearance on a job interview?

Often people do all the appropriate work to land an interview which will further their career. They work on a perfect resume and a great attention-grabbing cover letter. They research interviewing techniques, ask someone to coach them and pre-plan great questions and answers but then they risk failure by not doing the practical preparation work which can mean success or failure.

Here are some tips and some practical information to ensure your preparation is complete.

First, consider your appearance – it really matters. On the interview day, it’s the initial impression a candidate for a job gives the interviewer.

Think about the clothes you’ll wear. What colors suit you? Do you know? Many people – men and women – don’t know what colors suit their skin tone. If you have to wear a navy suit and navy isn’t your color, you can choose a shirt or blouse which is your color to make the outfit more flattering. How do you tell? With your face bare and natural – no additions – hold a range colors up to the side of your head – one at a time. Do some colors drain the natural color from your face? Do others make you look healthy and well? Go with what makes you look your best. Ask advice from your friends “which color makes me look good?”

What style of clothes is appropriate? Mostly it will be formal, professional clothes that you wear for an interview but there are exceptions. I know one young guy, R, who went for an interview for the job of a manager in the music industry. When he arrived in his business suit and tie, everyone thought he had come to repair the photocopier! His prospective boss who interviewed him looked like a tramp compared to R but it’s always better to be over-dressed that under-dressed. It shows you have the right attitude – respect for the interviewer and the interview process. If you normally wear a stud in your nose or eyebrow, take it out… unless you know for sure that the person who will be interviewing you has face piercing.

Once you’ve decided what to wear, be sure everything is clean and pressed and ready to be put on.

Here are some other pointers for preparation for interviews you’ll want to consider.

The technology and language at your disposal can help or hinder you in finding your dream employment. Before you contact any recruitment consultants, consider your voice mail message. What does it say about you?

Sometimes interviewers are put off and don’t contact an applicant because of the voice mail message or the voice they hear when they call to ask a candidate to attend an interview. If it’s a cute or fun voice mail message or in Mickey Mouse’s voice – beware. One time I heard.

“Hi, we’re either having a party and can’t hear the phone or we can’t be bothered answering right now so just leave us a message”.

I didn’t leave a message and I crossed the person off the list.

For more great tips on interviews and to avoid more pitfalls, take a look at “Preparing for Your Interview“

You’ll find “Careless words can lose you the job” and other “must have” information on the importance of appearance on a job interview.

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