HOW CAN WE MEASURE THE RETURN ON INVESTMENT OF KEEPING OUR

Most companies today recognize the value of attracting and retaining a strong, competent workforce.  But most also don’t fully appreciate how they can improve retention rates.

When surveyed, employees indicate their top reasons for leaving a position are:

·         Not getting along with their direct supervisor

• Desire for more money
• Need for better work/life balance.
• Lack of career growth, challenging assignments.

It’s noteworthy that three of the four top reasons are non-financial. Employers can do much to address these issues, but frequently only pay lip service to significantly enhancing the employee experience. If employers paid this little attention to their customers’ experience, they would likely be out of business.

So, what’s an enlightened employer to do?

• Actively demonstrate that you value the unique needs of each employee
• Tailor your HR and benefit programs to your workforce (flexible work schedules, choices in health plan options, PTO banks, etc.)
• Publicly recognize outstanding performance and employee achievements.
• Teach supervisors how to be good coaches and managers.
• Provide ongoing training on issues such as handling conflict, delivering difficult messages and conducting effective performance discussions.
• Ensure alignment between business goals and employee rewards.

• Appropriately mix base and variable pay.
• Unambiguously link performance to rewards.
• Clearly delineate between rewards for top and bottom performers.
• Nurture the employee ecosystem.
• Make sure employees understand what it is the organization values.
• Practice what you preach—hold managers accountable for their actions and for tolerating or ignoring unacceptable behavior.
• Focus attention on high performers; deal effectively with marginal performers (Is an “up or out” philosophy right for you? Or, is a culture of mediocrity acceptable?).
• Ask top performers what makes them successful at your organization and why they stay.
• Ask employees what is and what is not working and act on their input.

Commonly used solutions today include pre-hire assessments, variable compensation programs, and links between the performance management and compensation systems (both strategic linkages and automated, processing-type linkages). Planned enhancements over the next year typically include the implementation of learning management systems and online skills/competency tracking systems.

Forward-thinking companies do a reasonable job of tracking the key performance indicators of retention, which have historically covered employee satisfaction levels, turnover rates and benchmarks for similar organizations, and worker productivity metrics. However, these measures do little to illuminate why retention issues occur. These basic measures should be expanded to track items such as employee satisfaction with specific areas of their job (their work, their supervisor, their pay, their commute, their co-workers); turnover rates should be evaluated by employee level, tenure, speed of advancement, performance rating, sex, age and other factors.

The key is to progress from simply tracking data to understanding information to determining cause and effect. Then you can affect your bottom line.  Client Growth Consultants is here to help.  Call or write and we will respond immediately!

Regards,
George F. Mancuso, CPC, CEO
Client Growth Consultants, Inc.

How Strong Is YOUR Creative Process?

A great deal can be accomplished if you are defined and methodical in your approach to dealing effectively with people.  But a great deal more can be achieved if you add creativity into the mix.

 Several years ago I was consulting for a regional sales organization and as part of the process I would ride with each sales person for one or more days.  This of course gave me tremendous insight into the company, their process and methodologies and gave me numerous clues how to help them individually as well as a company as a whole.

 While riding with Tony, one of their top salesmen, we passed a warehouse that was over 1,000,000 square feet.  Tony pointed at the facility and said, “I know this company buys from my competitor who has a national footprint, but I wished there was a way I could get a shot at their business.”

That evening I had Tony put himself in the Presidents shoes and requested he write down 10 questions he would ask a potential new vendor.  It took some thinking but the task was achieved. 

 Then I helped him draft a letter to the President, stating only who he was, who he represented and then said, “I have put myself in YOUR shoes Mr. President and have defined 10 critical questions I would ask me, a potential new vendor, who could be a benefit to our organization.  I plan to call you on Friday to set up a 15 minute appointment to share with you those questions.”

 He made the call, got the appointment and when he sat down several days later, the President said to him, “so you thought of 10 questions, eh?  Well so did I.  What do you say we exchange papers to see just how close we are?”  They did and amazingly 8 out of the 10 were almost identical to each other. 

 Tony got the account, small at first but grew into a tremendous and profitable customer.  How did he do that?  He put himself in the prospects shoes.  Thought like him and methodically designed a plan, executed the plan and closed the sale.  He demonstrated he cared, was capable and had a can do attitude filled with creativity.

 Why this wouldn’t work when managing people or projects or active customers?  People are impressed and take notice of creativity, especially if it demonstrates that you care.  Creativity is part of you demonstrating your desire to serve and make any given situation a win/win and not your way or the highway.

 You should think of solving a problem for a prospect, your employees or a project instead of just trying to get your point across or only sell your products.  When your creativity aura shines because you care and that you are truly concerned, all will take notice.

 This is the second week of the month of July.  Have you reached your sales and management goals to date?  Go out and make this a tremendous week for you and all around you.

 Regards,

George F. Mancuso, CPC - CEO
Client Growth Consultants, Inc.

What’s wrong with hiring managers?

June 16, 2013

QUESTION FROM A READER:  What’s wrong with hiring managers?  I am an executive recruiter for a major recruiting firm based in the Midwest.  And it is my humble opinion, that of late, hiring managers have lost their moral core.  They play with candidates emotions, they use me to bring qualified candidates to the table then quietly search for “knock offs” of my candidate so they won’t have to pay my agreed upon fee.  Besides the recruiters in my office, are we the only ones experiencing this?
(Marissa L., Professional Recruiter, Omaha, NE)

ANSWER:  The answer is not only no, but HELL NO!!!  As most of you know Client Growth Consultants is an executive search firm, so believe me when I tell you that I do have firsthand current knowledge of this subject. 

I have well over 200 recruiter “friends” across the U.S. with whom I stay in touch in one form or another. And they are all talking about this subject.  And maybe you are correct in your assessment that their moral cores have been damaged and overcome with greed.
So from two standpoints, please allow me to make these comments:

1.    IF YOU ARE A RECRUITER:  You must get your client committed to your services.  It’s okay to ask if you are going to be competing with them in the search.  It’s okay to ask who else is involved in the search.  Its okay for you to set the mutually agreed upon ground rules. And I firmly believe it is critically important for your client to understand that this is how YOU make an honest living. 

a.    The work we do is very labor intense and many times we go through 10 x 10 candidates to find them 2 or 3 qualified. 

b.    Be a professional and get all of this out front and verbally spoken. 

c.    And if your client “burns” you, then wash them from your client list forever unless you just like working for free.

2.    IF YOU ARE A HIRING MANAGER; Please understand that treating a recruiter like Marisa as described above, is poor business, unethical and morally wrong.

a.     How would you feel if your professional employees were treated in this manner?

b.     Be honest and upfront.  If you plan to be involved in the search then make it known. 

c.    If the recruiter continues then it’s a risk he/she takes. 

d.    And don’t lie to candidates.  If you don’t think it’s a match, tell them.  Candidates are capable of hearing the good news and the bad.  And if you’re not honest it gives false hope. 

e.    Treat candidates exactly the way you’d like to be treated if it was YOU seeking employment. 

f.     The old saying that what goes around, comes around is more true in today’s market than ever.

 No doubt this newsletter will come across one sided and those most guilty we become those most offended.  Not really sorry, it’s just one of those honesty issues that needs to be addressed.  Never let it be said that I sugar coat the truth.  Your comments are always welcome and I would happy to give hiring managers equal time next week.

Regards,

George F. Mancuso, CPC, CEO
Client Growth Consultants.com

 

: ARE YOU A CONTROL FREAK?

 Time to face facts; you won’t be good at everything!  In fact, at some things you will be downright terrible.  However the bottom line is……”that’s okay.”

When I got out of the military, (well over 45+ years ago) I managed a fast food restaurant in Rochester, NY and it was staffed with mostly high school boys.  When they acted in a manner that I didn’t like, I had a certain pose and standard verbiage ready and waiting.  I used to put my hand on my hip and state in a loud voice for all to hear, “SCREW IT, YOU’RE FIRED!”  (And you thought Donald Trump coined that phrase.)

The difficulty was that every time I did this, I ended up working that person’s shift.  And one day I realized I was the one working 18 hour days because that decent employee was no longer there and probably not deserving of being terminated.  In one of my many long and on my feet 18 hour days I did a self inventory trying to find answers to my control freak attitude.

Why did I do that?  One word described it nicely.  FEAR!

Fear of losing control, fear of trusting others, fear of failure, fear that I wasn’t doing well enough and fear that I wouldn’t make a difference.  Needless to say, these ill-fated inner feelings didn’t last long and I learned quickly from my mistakes.

A long time business associate and dear friend, who recently passed away, said to me a few years back, “I wished someone would have told me all this before I accepted the reins as the CEO.  In looking back, I was truly a star performer, but I burned myself out in the process.  And what’s worse is that I burned out or burned off many good people in the run for excellence.”  For my friend his time was up.  But for you, there is still time to right the wrongs, fix the broken, and grow you and the people around you.

So I suggest to you today, take an HONEST INVENTORY of YOU;

Are you a leader or a follower?
Are you conservative or downright cheap?
Are you a team player or just on the team?
Are you a sales professional or a bean counter?
Are you a marketer of ideas or developer of concepts?
Do you make a difference or happy to just get through the day?
Do you give people their just acclimates or are you a glory hound?
Do you relate to others because you care or what they can do for you?
Do you help the people around you grow or do you walk on people to help you grow?
Are you a “know it all one stop decision maker” or do you take the advice of people around you?

As you can see the list could go on and on.  Where do you fall short?  How can you fill in those gaps?  Put your thoughts in writing as they will become more meaningful to you and then act on them.  Fix you and you’ll help fix the scene around you.   Nobody and I do mean NOBODY is capable of being all perfect to all people.  With that said please remember that the “smart” ones empower, get acceptance and accountability and give all the glory to those around them.

May the sun shine brightly on you this week.  If the staff at Client Growth Consultants can be of assistance to you, please call or write and we will respond immediately!

Regards,

George F. Mancuso
George F. Mancuso, CPC 

Time Waster's

Q:  About 2 years ago you sent us a newsletter about Time Wasting.  Although I have shared that with my staff over the last “many” months, I have somehow been able to locate the piece in my computer.  Would you kind enough to run it again for the edification of all?  (Rebecca D. EVP, Business Consulting)

A:  My pleasure:

Time management is one of the greatest challenges of any business professional.  With that in mind, I offer you the following;

 

1.        Time Waster:  Personal Issues brought to work.

a.       Solution:  Leave your baggage outside the door of your office.  When you are at work, you need to focus on work.

2.       Time Waster:  Discussing every HIGH and LOW with the ENTIRE office.

a.       Solution:  Don’t cost your co-workers and the company time and money that will be taken away when they stop to listen.  Learn to keep things to yourself.

3.       Time Waster:  Arriving at work with a NEGATIVE ATTITUDE.

a.       Solution:  You have to arrive at work expecting to WIN and SUCCEED.  You don’t want to be responsible for sucking the oxygen out or your office.  Remember, if you think you can succeed or you think you can’t – You’re Right!

4.       Time Waster: Asking Endless Questions.

a.       Solution:  Write down your questions and ask your manager at 11:30 AM or 4:30 PM.  During prime time, stay focused on your work.

5.       Time Waster:  Arriving at work with no plan.

a.       Solution:  You should always arrive at work planning to accomplish all of your “A” priority goals of the day.  Without a defined plan you have chaos. 

6.       Time Waster:  Deserving more, settling for less and blaming others.

a.       Solution:  Always focus on what YOU could have done differently.  If you are affected by the actions of someone else, realize that you have 100% control over how you react and you can choose NOT to react at all!

If I can be of assistance to you or your management team with regards to hiring, growth consulting and/or training, please call or write and I will respond immediately!

Regards,
George F. Mancuso, CPC, CEO