The Four Universal Accountabilities

Accountability – what a great word. I think that Accountability just might be the dream word for management. The World English Dictionary defines Accountability as “responsible to someone for some action.” Much different than duty, assignment or task; a well written accountability does not simply say what someone should do but it also that there is someone else that expects them to do it. By implication, one is expected to do whatever this is correctly and there are consequences for not doing it. What a great concept.

At OMNI, we believe in four universal accountabilities. We feel that these four accountabilities should form the basis of every employment relationship. They should be explicit in every job description and every performance review. They are fundamental, and if every employee and manager understood these four, and then truly was responsible for successful performance, the organization would be successful. Have I whetted your appetite enough? Here they are:

Number 1 – Achieve Results. Sounds simple doesn’t it? Everyone should be expected to do something that benefits the organization. Whether the person sells something, makes something or provides a service, you should be able to quantify your expectations of their results.

Number 2 – Meet or Exceed Standards. Not only does each person need to get things done (see Accountability Number 1) but they need to do them correctly. There are quality and timeliness standards that must be met.

Number 3 – Relationship Management. Regardless of your position, you must be able to work and play well with others. Every member of your team is accountable for their interpersonal relationships with their coworkers, employees, customers, suppliers, guests, etc. This is often the area that is the least defined, but causes the greatest amount of employment angst.

Number 4 – Stewardship/Leadership. Maybe you could call this one citizenship. Each person in your organization needs to support the goals of the organization and look out for the overall good of the organization. Being a good steward means not using the company’s supply room to outfit your child’s desk at school. It means not padding your time card or your expense account. It means reporting violations of policy and participating in investigations of wrong doing. It means being willing to chair a committee or help with a special project. Companies are made up of people, and only function well when everyone accepts the responsibility to be a good corporate citizen.

Too often we see job descriptions that focus on results and standards and ignore relationships and stewardship. Then, we see managers wanting to terminate an employee for having a bad attitude or not getting along with coworkers. The employee is then confused and says things like “you never told me that!” Sometimes we think (or act like) the latter two accountabilities should simply be understood – grown-ups should just know that stuff. But the reality is they sometimes don’t. It’s your job – as a manager – to make these “simple” things clear.

Take the time to define these four universal accountabilities for each employee – and for the organization as a whole. Then revisit the real meaning of accountability – not task, not duty, but being responsible to others. You’ll see that Accountability can have a significant impact on your organization.

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Corporate Loyalty – A Two-Way Street

Trust and Loyalty – two words we’ve talked and written about for decades. In 1990, Bill Morin (CEO of the outplacement company Drake Beam Morin) wrote a book titled “Trust Me”. His premise was that companies can’t expect employees to place trust in the company unless the company places trust in them. The issue at the time, as it is today, was that companies were downsizing. What just yesterday were “good people” and “our most valuable assets” are today standing in the unemployment office wondering what they’re going to do. (Just to show you how old I am, I have an autographed copy of that book.)

In 1997 Blaine Lee, one of the founding leaders of Franklin Covey wrote a book titled “The Power Principle”. This book talks about “influence with honor” – how one can build relationships (aka trust and loyalty) not through position or status, but through how they treat other people. (While my copy of this book isn’t signed, it was handed to me by Blaine Lee – impressed?)

Last in this literary review is “The Speed of Trust” by Stephen M. R. Covey (son of the “original” Stephen Covey). This book (which I had to buy) does a great job of describing how trust can be built over time, but lost in an instant. It then provides sound advice on how to build trust, and how trust improves corporate performance.

So, for decades we’ve been talking about trust and loyalty and from my observation point we’re about where we were 20 years ago. Does that discourage anybody else?

Somewhere in the Humankind operator’s manual it says “Do the right thing.”  It also says “Do what you say you’re going to do.”  If you work in “Treat people as you would like to be treated” then pretty soon you get a strong sense of how to build trust and thereby loyalty.

That doesn’t mean that bad things won’t happen to good people. Your organization might have to downsize and terminate some folks that are doing a great job – you simply can’t afford to have the work done right now. But it does mean that should that event occur, you do so with empathy. You do what you can to help that former employee build a bridge to their next job. Maybe that is financial support (severance), maybe it’s job search support (outplacement and references) or maybe it’s simply emotional support (kindness and empathy).

The reason that you want to make sure you make these transitions as smooth as possible, however, isn’t just for the people you’ve lost. It’s for the people who are left behind. If they see that you are as generous and humane as possible with people you have to fire, then they know that if their time comes, you’ll be the same with them. That means a little less worry – a little less “I better leave before they fire me” – and hopefully a little more loyalty and trust.

Be a person of trust and build relationships with your team. You’ll find that they will in turn trust you and show you the loyalty that could be your competitive advantage. You’ll find that trust and loyalty are two-way streets that are paved with gold.

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PTO Explained

Paid Time Off (PTO) is the broad brush for all ways employees get paid for not working – vacation, sick leave, bereavement, holiday pay, jury duty and sometimes disability pay. “Back in the day” each of these benefits would have been treated separately with different rules, accruals, reporting requirements etc., but there is a growing trend to combine some, if not all of these policies into a single PTO bucket.

Most companies recognize that there are times when employees cannot or should not work (sick time, disability or bereavement time).  They know that employees need a break from work in order to recreate and rejuvenate (vacation).  There are days that the company chooses to not do business as a matter of custom, tradition or simple business sense (holidays).  Finally, employees have a legal obligation to be good citizens (jury duty).  All of these may be occasions for the company to save some money and allow the employee to take the time off without pay.  But the vast majority of companies provide employees some amount of paid time off.  According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics 90% of full time employees working for private industry have access to paid vacations, 68% have access to paid sick time, 78% have access to paid jury time and 88% receive paid holidays.

The reasons for having some form of paid time off seem obvious, but why merge some of them together into a single PTO plan?  The simple answer is simplicity.  One plan means one bucket, one accrual, one request and approval process and one policy to explain to employees and to administer.  One plan means not having to worry if the employee is truly “sick” or if they are faking an illness in order to go shopping or fishing.  One plan means that employee don’t get to choose which bucket to draw from in order to “save” the other bucket to use later.

Combining vacation and sick/personal time into one PTO bucket is a common trend.  Less common, but not unheard of is to also include holidays in that same bucket.  My view is that if the company is going to close 8-10 days during the year and in essence require employees not to work, I’m not sure I see the advantage of including holidays in PTO, but some do. 

The oft cited advantages of PTO include simplicity, a feeling that employees will take less time (saving some in case of illness), and not forcing employees to lie to use a “sick” day when they just need some time off.  On the flips side, some claim PTO is more likely to be abused and people are less likely to use PTO when they are sick – instead saving it to use for a longer vacation.  I  did not find any real research to support either side.

One clear issue is that several states require the payment of unused vacation upon termination, but no state (yet) requires the payment of unused sick time.  When both are combined into PTO, the unused PTO must be paid – so that may cost some employers more.  You need to be sure what your state laws are before you implement PTO.

A quick side-note – for most white collar workers, PTO is a non-incremental cost benefit.  That means if you plan on paying Bob $30,000 to do his job this year, if he takes 2 weeks of vacation, you still only spend $30,000.  Bob will probably work harder before he leaves for vacation to get ahead and work harder when he gets back to catch up. So, if 2 weeks vacation is increased to 3 weeks of PTO, there is no additional cost to the company.  Only when you must hire an additional worker to cover the position of the vacationing employee does PTO really “cost” the company.

Clearly the jury is out (maybe using PTO) on PTO.  There are some clear benefits and areas of concern, but if you want to simplify your time off practices, look closely at PTO.

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Premature Firing – A Lesson Learned?

By now you’ve heard the story many times.  Last week Shirley Sherrod was forced to resign her position with the US Dept. of Agriculture after Blogger Andrew Breibart posted a video of her delivering a speech to an NAACP group stating that she did not help a white farmer as much as she could have.  Later, when the rest of the story was brought to the surface, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and President Obama apologized and Ms. Sherrod was offered a different position within the Department.  This was a perfect example of how not to fire someone.

The best news I heard about this situation was when Secretary Vilsack said “I’ve learned a lot of lessons from this experience in the last couple of days.  And one of the lessons I’ve learned is that these types of decisions require time.  I didn’t take the time – I should have.”  Do you think he really learned this lesson?  Were any managers or executives listening?   Even President Obama said “He jumped the gun …”  Here’s the lesson:  never fire someone on the spot.  I’m not usually one for absolutes, but here’s one.  NEVER fire someone on the spot.

I hear you thinking, “But what if I catch him red-handed selling crack cocaine from his cubicle during work hours?”  Maybe you’re thinking, “What if I see him at alocal casino trying to cash stolen accounts receivable checks?”  Or maybe, “What if I overhear her tell a customer not to buy our product from us, but rather buy one from her direct so she can cut out the middle man – US?!?”

These are (or appear to be) great reasons for you to fire that employee.  No severance, no notice, no unemployment, just get out and don’t let the door hit you on the way out.  Buy the way (for several of these), we’ve called the police and they are waiting in the lobby.  But, and this is a big but, NEVER fire them on the spot.

If you find someone selling crack from their cubicle, call the police.  Then, suspend the employee – without pay – until you can finish your investigation.  Call them back into the office the next day (or when they make bail) and then fire them.  Make sure you’ve had the chance to get all the facts and to get the emotion out of the process.

Here’s a true story.  An executive and sales rep were at a trade show, having dinner and drinks with other employees and a few clients.  Both had a bit too much to drink.  The sales rep gets belligerent and the executive says “You know what?  I’ve had enough.  You’re fired!”  Later that evening they meet again. The Sales Rep is crying and apologizing and the exec says “Okay, let’s forget the whole thing. You’re not fired.”  Shortly after that the two start arguing again and lo and behold the exec says again “You’re fired!”  The next day the Sales Rep is “rehired” and all this eventually comes out when she sues the company for wrongful termination and discrimination.  Fired and rehired twice in 18 hours.  I can’t make this stuff up.

You don’t want to fire someone because you’re mad at them.  You don’t want to fire someone because they embarrassed you (see the Sherrod story above).  You want to fire someone because they have violated your policies or have behaved in a manner that is inconsistent with your company values and operations.  Employment is a business relationship and the termination of that relationship needs to be handled in a business-like fashion.

So the next time an employee pushes you to the edge and your just want to scream “YOU’RE FIRED” don’t.  Instead, send the employee home, calm down, make sure you have all the facts, meet with the employee, and then – if it’s warranted – fire them.  You’ll be glad you did.

Resume Magic – What Makes a Great Resume – Part I

There are lots of resources on the Internet about making a good resume with tips and templates galore.  Out of all that, what is the most important?  We’ll I’ve talked with some of the search pro’s at OMNI and we’ve put together these suggestions for creating resume magic.  Unfortunately I couldn’t get all of these tips in one post, here is part I – tune in Thursday for the remainder.

 Let’s start with why you’re doing this at all.  What is the purpose of your resume?  Is it simply a written version of your career history?  Is it your opportunity to tell others your goals and aspirations?  Is it a chance to detail everything you know and highlight your incredible mastery and technical expertise?  Well, yes … and no.

 The purpose of your resume is to be your personal brochure and sales pitch indicating why someone should hire you.  With a resume you’re not trying to meet your needs, you’re trying to meet the needs of the recruiter and hiring manager.  You are attempting to show them that you are the perfect candidate for the job they are trying to fill.

 Your resume is a paper representation of you.  It should be a personal statement that reflects your technical skills, competencies, expertise, involvement, awards and accomplishments.   While templates and sample resumes are great for giving you ideas, your resume needs to be distinctly you, not a template.  As you expand your brand, make sure that your cover letter, reference page, thank you letters etc. all have the same look and feel.  They need to consistently support your brand.

 Here are some guidelines to remember:

 Choose the format that is best for you – Chronological vs. Functional (we absolutely prefer chronological).  Use your career progression to support that you know what you know.

 Lead with your strengths. Start with a summary of why you are the best candidate. Add your accomplishments to support those statements. Show your career history as proof of your success and list your education as the foundation of it all.

 Be concise and keep it to no more than two pages – and one page is better.  Remember, if you are lucky a recruiter will read the first half of the first page.  If you haven’t caught their attention by then you are not going to get that job.  If they have to wade through 4 pages of jobs, references and citations you have no hope.

Customize each resume based on the position and/or company you are applying to.  Research the company and tailor the resume to fit what they are looking for.

Be industry specific, but here’s where some balance is needed.  You should include industry buzz words so that companies who use computers to scan and evaluate resumes will find the keywords they are looking for.  But, don’t include so much jargon that others can’t understand what you are talking about.

Be truthful – enough said.

Make it look good.  Use a bright white paper and clean, simple font.  Make sure you have sufficient white space so it doesn’t look cluttered.  Use formatting to make it easy to read and to highlight the most important parts.

Make it perfect.  Use multiple proofreaders.  Your spelling, grammar, and punctuation need to be perfect.  Your formatting (bold, underline, italics, centering, line spacing, etc.) needs to be consistent. Your margins should match.  Take the time to do it right.

A great resume won’t get you the job, but a bad resume will keep you from it.  Come back on Thursday for some more tips and a focus on accomplishments, the real key to success.

How SMART Are Your Goals?

One of the biggest challenges in managing performance is how you set the expectations that you are going to measure performance against.  Poor goals lead to poor feedback and poor performance.  According to Wikipedia, George Doran first used the now popular acronym SMART in the November 1981 issue of Management Review.  I’ve used SMART for years and find it to be a great way to help managers begin to structure better goals for managing performance.

SMART stands for:

Specific – write goals with enough specificity that anyone who reads them can understand what you are trying to accomplish. “I should probably lose some weight” is not as good of a goal as “I plan to lose 20 pounds (averaging 5 pounds per month) by the end of the year using the Weight Watchers plan along with regular exercise.”  (BTW – this is just an illustration.)

Measureable – make sure the achievement of your goals is an objective measure.  Both the manager and employee need to be able to track the progress against the goal.  Quantify everything possible.  While “getting organized” is a laudable goal, how will you know if you achieve it?  Instead, look for the outcomes of better organization, and see if you can quantify those. 

Attainable – a goal that cannot be achieved in the given time frame is a bad goal.  It is frustrating and demoralizing to the employee.  Yes, goals should have some “stretch” in them, but not so much as to be impossible.  I once had a CEO who made up his annual revenue goal by remembering the best quarter ever for each of 9 regions.  He then added them together, added 15% growth and proclaimed his “highly achievable goal”.  Needless to say the sales team did not agree with his perception and the goal was not obtained.

Relevant – make sure the goal matches the position description.  Don’t ask an employee to work too far above or below their pay grade or outside of their area of responsibility.  While the CFO clearly needs to support the overall revenue target, typically he/she does not directly influence the success of the sales team.

Time Bound – every good goal needs a deadline.  Let the employee know when you want this task accomplished.  Interim milestones and dates are even better.  “Continue to consistently meet customer expectations” will not result in changes in performance.  Tell them what you want done and when you want it done if you really want me to help improve the business.

A SMART goal is just the beginning.  None of us can see too far into the future. Make sure to revisit the goals periodically and make adjustments as warranted.

If you want to improve performance, make sure you set SMART goals for your employees.

Practice Makes Perfect

I just finished reading a very interesting book by Matthew Syed called “Bounce: Mozart, Federer, Picasso, Beckham, and the Science of Success” (click here to read a review).  I highly recommend the book to those of you interested in improving performance in just about any discipline.

While there were many interesting and challenging discussions in the book, one really stuck with me.  Syed contends that for most activities some form of genetic advantage (aka Talent) is not required for complete mastery. He uses lots of sports analogies, including himself – an Olympic class ping pong player – to prove that is isn’t talent that makes a superstar, its hard work.  Virtually anyone, with a minimum of 10,000 hours of concerted practice, can be a master of virtually anything.  His contention is that that Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Roger Federer, and David Beckham aren’t the stars of their respective sports because they were born with some unique gifts – but because they worked at it – very hard and for a very long time. 

I’ll leave it to you to read the book and decide if you agree with Syed and all of his other experts.  I’ll simply say that the argument is exceedingly compelling and got me thinking of how that might apply to my world.  So I asked myself, when was the last time I witnessed a leader or a manager practicing being a leader or manager?  My answer was almost never.

It’s not hard to imagine that if Michael Jordan had a bad game and missed several free throws, the next day he’d spend quite a bit of time standing on the free throw line practicing that shot.  But can you imagine a manager who just hired an unqualified candidate lining up a dozen more interviews just to practice his technique?  Or how about a leader who just wrapped up a disastrous marketing campaign calling everyone together to execute the same campaign three or four more times just for the practice and learning how to execute the next campaign better.

Why do you think you’d never see something like that?  Syed gives another interesting example. He says that “concerted practice” (which is required for improvement) is not the same as simple activity.  Many of us have driven a car for more than 10,000 hours, but few of us would be considered the best drivers around.  Why?  Because when we are driving we are not practicing driving, we’re doing other things.  We’re listening to the radio, thinking about what we’ll be doing when we arrive at our destination, cursing the car that just cut in front of us, etc.  We are driving on autopilot and not really concerned about driving at all.

That is how I believe most managers manage – on autopilot.  We are simply going through the motions and thinking about what comes next – not living in the moment and trying to do our “management” job in the best way that we can.  We don’t hold ourselves, or our fellow managers, accountable to be good managers.  We treat management as a means to an end – an unfortunate component of the job – and not the most important role we play.  There is a reason that most sports coaches are not player-coaches (and it’s not because they aren’t good enough to play).  It’s because the most significant benefit they can be to the organization is to coach, train and guide their players.  In essence, they “practice” coaching every day.

Think about what percentage of your day you are actively working to be a better manager or leader – not simply being a manager, but intentionally practicing to improve.  If that number is pretty small (and I expect that it is) maybe that’s an area you need to focus on.  While practice may not make perfect, it is guaranteed to make better.

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Mark to Market? It didn’t work for Enron

Recently I met with a client and asked how they establish salary ranges in their organization.  His response was “We don’t need ranges or a job evaluation system – we just pay people the market rate.”  Using simply the external market to value your positions is similar to the financial technique called Mark to Market – where you value an asset based on the current market value and not what you paid for it.  While that sounds simple, Mark to Market was one of the critical mistakes made by the managers of Enron – and we all know how well that worked out.

There are two critical components to any job valuation system – internal equity and external competitiveness.  Internal equity addresses how we value different capabilities, knowledge, and accountabilities within our organization.  For example, it helps us compare the value of an accountant, a manufacturing supervisor and a marketing professional – three very different jobs that may require similar levels of education and experience.

External competiveness helps us to compare what we pay for a position to what others in similar industries and locations pay for that same skill set.  External competitiveness is important.  If we are dramatically above market we’re probably wasting money.  If we are dramatically below market we may find it hard to attract and retain the right talent.

The deal is, a company can choose how competitive it wants to be, but it can’t choose not to have internal equity – at least not for long.  Paying individuals radically different amounts for the same level of work is illegal (ask Lilly Ledbetter). Not only does the government frown on it, so do the workers.  Actual or perceived internal inequities will result in low morale, high turnover and potential litigation – all bad things.  So, a good compensation system must be internally equitable.

But, you don’t always have to pay competitive wages.  You may have an organization that has better than market benefits, extra holidays, and a fairly low risk of termination for poor performance (some might say many government organizations fall into this category).  If so, you can pay below market wages.  Other companies have extremely difficult environments with high pressure to perform.  These companies must have both benefits and compensation well above market simply to entice anyone to work there.

Therefore, the company that chooses simply to Mark to Market, is ignoring both internal equity and the specifics of their work environment – both of which should affect their salary levels.

Bottom line – don’t let someone else set your wage rates.  You don’t need a complicated and expensive compensation system – you just need to make sure you look at the whole picture and make your own decisions.

Milestones

It seems we are creatures that love tradition.  We like to celebrate who we are and where we came from.  For reasons I can’t explain, we also like regular milestones, especially those that are in increments of 5 and 10.  Today is my 20^th post.  While that’s not much for those of you who’ve been in the blogosphere for a long time, it’s a lot for me.  20 posts at around 500 words per post, that’s 10,000 words.  Whew.

Some years ago I attended a seminar where there were several hundred people in the audience.  The presenter (I’m sorry I don’t remember who he was or what he was talking about) asked everyone in the audience to raise their hand if they remembered the date of their wedding anniversary.  There was embarrassed laughter and some hands went up.  He then asked who remembered what they had for lunch the day before and a few more hands went up.  Finally he asked who remembered their anniversary date with their current employer.  The vast majority of hands went up – I estimate as many as 80%.  When he asked who remembered their anniversary date with their prior employer at least 70% raised them up.

His message was simple.  People remember their work anniversary date, and you, as their manager or HR person, should too.  No one is suggesting that you mark each anniversary with a big party and lavish gifts, but I contend that failing to acknowledge your employees’ work anniversary is just one step below failing to remember your wedding anniversary.  Both will get you in the doghouse.

So, back to the milestones.  Let’s say I’m doing pretty good. I put all of my employee’s anniversary dates into my calendar system and I remember to pop in and say “happy anniversary” on the appropriate days.  If I’m better I send an e-card or make mention of it in a group meeting.  But do I need to do more on “the biggies” 5, 10, 20, 25, etc.?  My opinion is yes.

I’m not a big fan of formal service award programs that give fancy jewelry and mantle clocks as recognition gifts. I’m also not much of a plaque guy.  But those are just my tastes.  I’m much more practically minded.  The most recent program I was associated with gave employees the chance to select from a catalog that included items like cordless drills, barbeque grills and vacuum cleaners – clearly not your father’s service award program.  You may have heard this before, but it’s true – it is not the gift that counts but the thought.

So – the bottom line.  It’s your job, as a leader, to pay attention to your employees – to make sure they know that you value them.  One simple way to do that is to make sure you say “happy anniversary” (with sincerity) every year and that you mark those milestones in some way – ideally a way that is meaningful to that employee.

To everyone – Happy Anniversary!

Nobody’s Perfect, But This Isn’t Even Close

On a blog earlier this week (rehaul.com) I read an amazing story.  Here’s a brief excerpt:

“It is the story of a guy who was “double fired” (comments are not safe for work). The image of the offending letter and his response (which is safe for work) confirmed what I had feared when I read the headline: HR screwed up.”

The basic story is that an employee was fired because he wasn’t a fit for the organization – simple enough.  But, in his termination meeting he pulls out a pocket knife to open an envelope.  (He then puts it way – this isn’t a workplace violence issue).  Several days later he receives a letter from the HR Director saying if we hadn’t fired you the first time we would have fired you for violating our no weapons policy.

While we all do foolish thing some times (me included) I have yet to figure out why this HR Director would do this?  I’m almost at a loss for words (almost, I said).

The previous blogger speculates that maybe she was trying to beat the Unemployment system and have a reason for termination that would deny the employee any benefits. As the blogger concludes, that’s not going to happen – the reason for termination was poor fit.  The but-we-could-have reason might have disqualified him, but it wasn’t the reason.

What this letter does, beyond embarrassing the HR Director, is to rub salt in an open wound and that simply is not necessary.  It’s like when a girl broke up with me in High School.  She said “I’m just not that in to you – and you’re not very attractive either.”  She didn’t need to add that last part, it was insult on top of injury.

Previously I blogged that the best way to increase the likelihood of a discrimination charge is to make the person mad.  This letter had “make him mad” written all over it. So the moral here is when you fire someone, try to do everything to protect the employee’s dignity and self-respect.  Sometimes people are not successful in a job.  While that’s unfortunate it does not make them bad people.  (Granted, there are some bad people, but those aren’t the subject of today’s blog).  There are too many idioms to use – don’t pile on – don’t bead a dead horse – etc.

Fans of The New Yankee Workshop will know that one of Norm Abram’s favorite sayings is “measure twice – cut once.”  Maybe the parallel here is “think twice – act once.”