Pay Pros

Aesop's Fabled Winning Strategy

2010-07-07T11:24:00.001-07:00

You have heard the tale since childhood, and if you heeded it, you learned one of the greatest business strategies while you were still in the nursery. The Tortoise and the Hare have a race, and even though the hare is a much faster animal, the steadiness of the tortoise prevails and he crosses the finish line first.

This principle was exemplified in the life of NCAA basketball coach and lecturer John Wooden, winner of ten national championships, who counted among his favorite maxims, "Be quick, but don't hurry." He was known for putting his most consistent players into the game.

Consistency is a trait that is easy to find among the success stories of all varieties. Michelangelo painted the ceiling and altar wall of the Sistine chapel with it. The Pilgrims survived where other settlements had failed because of it. Edison found an improved light bulb filament with it. Lincoln ended the Civil War with it. Walt Disney built an entertainment empire with it.

Since consistency and dependability are essential for building a base of repeat customers, keeping an even-keeled workplace is important for your bottom line. For that reason alone there is a need to train your employees to be consistent. But perhaps an even better reason is that maintaining a steady workplace environment will eliminate a lot of employee drama. In Aesop's fable, the Hare boasted of never having lost a race and the Tortoise was ridiculed for being slow-moving. The verbal hype may not have directly affected the outcome, but it did create an unpleasant atmosphere at the starting line.

The Character Training Institute, Inc., in their book, Achieving True Success, offers a list of "I will's" that promote consistency.
I will...
• make the most of my spare time
• keep trying until I succeed
• keep my work area neat
• complete all that I am expected to do
• keep my word
• be careful what I promise
• pull my share of the load

Putting these into practice will greatly reduce the gyration of workplace highs and lows. When everyone is keeping their word and pulling their share of the load, then you begin to see that the race is not between your employees; they are all running on the same relay team. The race is against your business competitors, and you will consistently emerge as the victorious tortoise.

A Dozen Axioms to Ease the Daily Grind

2010-06-24T14:54:00.001-07:00

The word axiom comes from a Greek word that encompasses the ideas of deeming worthy, being in balance, and having value. These may sound cliché, but why reinvent the wheel when they are tried and true?

1. Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it. – Colin Powell

2. Success is going from failure to failure without a loss of enthusiasm. – Winston Churchill

3. I would not waste my life in friction when it could be turned into momentum. – Frances Willard

4. The three great essentials to achieve anything worth while are, first, hard work; second, stick-to-itiveness; third, common sense. – Thomas Edison

5. The world of achievement has always belonged to the optimist. – Harold Wilkins

6. Every business is built on friendship. – J. C. Penney

7. See everything; overlook a great deal; correct a little. – Pope John XXIII

8. Where you find quality, you will find a craftsman, not a quality-control expert. – Robert Brault

9. Drive thy business or it will drive thee. – Benjamin Franklin

10. Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare. – Japanese proverb

11. Judge not according to appearances, but judge according to equity. – Jewish Proverb

12. When you own your own business, you only have to work half a day. You can do anything you want with the other twelve hours. – Anonymous

Don't Get Locked to the Lectern!

2010-06-21T13:56:00.000-07:00

Did you know that in most western countries, the public education system of the last century was modeled on the Prussian education system that was originally intended to create a servile labor force that rewarded conformity among the masses and empowered only a handful of elite? The boring lecture-style of teaching dulled critical thinking skills and produced a compliant worker-class of mediocre intellect, smart enough to perform the task, but not challenged enough to rise above it.

America's deep roots of rugged individualism and Yankee ingenuity ameliorated some of the effects, but such a factory system of education has still left its mark. Many believe the compulsory Prussian system of education has weakened competition and restricted the ability to innovate. You may not be able to resolve the entrenched woes of the education system, but you don't have to repeat some of its more grievous errors in your business. Does your training make engaged employees, or servile laborers?

Employee training ought to do more than impart knowledge, it ought to motivate as well. Learning ought to be a stimulating adventure, not boring or seemingly pointless to the student. It your current system for employee training isn't working, then scrap it. If your employees think a workshop is a 'been-there done-that' time waster, it probably will be.

If it is time to take another look at employee training, consider some of these approaches:

Timely Instruction – Business trends are fluid, sometimes volatile, and they don't wait for the annual training day on your calendar. In so far as possible, stay flexible and train as the need arises. People are more engaged in learning when they see a need for it.

Substance over Style – Your employees won't be happily hoodwinked by snazzy gimmickry if the nuts and bolts are not there to back it up. For example, if a lecture is ineffective to begin with, adding PowerPoint color and graphics won't improve it. That can actually be even less intellectually effective because you don't even have to think to make your own notes!

Hands-On Opportunities – Used car salesmen know the motivational value of a test drive. Likewise, 3D learning experiences are more motivational than having a concept explained to you by a spokesperson who dresses better than you do. Let your employees experience hands-on mentoring.

Delight-led Learning – some of your employees may have natural talents and proclivities that are better suited for a different department. Perhaps a mediocre employee who is stuck in a cubicle all day would flourish as your delivery driver when they are out and about meeting customers.

Don't make your employees endure boring, mind-numbing training sessions when they can be inspired with liberating learning experiences.

Why Do You Care?

2010-06-11T15:08:00.000-07:00

Why do you care? Seriously, do you have an ulterior motive? Is it because of what is in it for you?

One of the bedrock philosophies of capitalism is that humans are essentially selfish and self-serving creatures, and that the 'trick' to good business is to manipulate a situation so that it is in someone's best interest to pay you for a good or service. For all the glorious rhetoric of having a "fulfilling" career, at the end of the day, most of your employees are there only because it is in your best interest to pay them,

If you want your business to be run on nobler principles, then you will have to sow something greater than just a paycheck into the lives of your employees. You will have to sow the seeds for a relationship if you want to reap loyalty, enthusiasm, and commitment. You may run a high tech service-based business, but you cannot escape one aspect of the old agrarian economy: The prerequisite for a harvest is the sowing of the seed.

On the surface, it seems counter intuitive that if you want more corn, you must first go stick what little corn you do have in the ground and leave it there a while, but that is how it works. It can seem equally counter intuitive that if you want your employees to buy into your vision for the company, you must first listen to them, but that is fundamentally how building relationships work.

It is a leadership thing. In deed, President Kennedy tapped into this very concept in his Inaugural Address. Just change his word "country" to "company" and see how it flies. "Ask not what your company can do for you - ask what you can do for your company." The next paragraph is not quoted as often, but it goes, "ask of us the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you." This was a speech designed to build a relationship with the citizenry, and it illustrates motivational leadership in getting people "on board" with the vision.

Taking the time to build mutually beneficial relationships with your employees means that you work for them as much as they work for you. And yes, caring is a little bit selfish in both directions; they will come to see that buying in to your company vision will help them too.

Using Variable Incentives

2010-06-07T09:10:00.000-07:00

When you hear "Variable Incentive," do you think "Sales Department?" In the past, variable incentives have often been reserved for commissioned salespeople. Employers used them because it reduced the risk of having to pay for little or no results. At the same time, well structured incentives would motivate the salesman to make a little extra effort.

For the past couple years, most employees placed more importance on financial stability and preferred the predictability of a steady base pay. But as the economy moves ahead in the early stages of recovery, employers may find a win-win situation by adding a new twist to the old concept of offering variable incentives.

The big differences this time around are that variable incentives certainly don't have to be limited to sales departments, and they don't always have to be paid in the form of dollars. Every department has departmental goals. Providing incentives to reach those goals can improve retention rates and heighten employee motivation.

Offering variable incentives has been used effectively since ancient times. It may have had a different label then, but the idea behind rewarding each person according to what he has done capitalizes on human nature: Incentives become their own motivators. Variable incentives harness this trait in a way that allows an employer to use his payroll dollars more effectively.

How is that done in practical terms? You begin by identifying goals that you want to encourage. A PEO can often help with this. Some examples might be company-wide bonuses for profitability, on-time attendance awards, completion of extra training, meeting personal goals determined during evaluations, client satisfaction, on-schedule meeting of deadlines, or any other goal that is important to your business. Because many of these goals overlap, an employee can benefit from multiple incentives. The end result is expectant, motivated employees.

Is it Time to Fire Your Performance Appraisal System?

2010-06-03T11:06:00.000-07:00

You probably have heard of the Law of Unintended Consequences. A classic example is seen in the early days of forestry management. When the US Forest Service was created in 1905, so much emphasis was put on the suppression of forest fires that biodiversity began to decrease due to fewer young forest habitats, species like lodgepole pine in the Rockies and long leaf pine in the South, both of which require intense heat for germination, became at risk, competition increased the stress on existing trees, and a build-up of debris in the forest's understory made fires more ferocious when they did break out. For three-quarters of a century, the "fix" was actually causing more problems than it solved.

Using old-style employee Performance Appraisal Systems can sometimes be like that. In an attempt to manage personnel more effectively, some workers lose their motivation, while the employees who believe they can do better elsewhere start to leave. If employees view performance appraisals as more office politics, then the unintended consequences of increased dissatisfaction and dropping retention rates are sure to follow.

It is in situations like this that using a PEO can be especially effective. When they act as your Human Resources department, they can conduct appropriate evaluations that minimize the politicking and will not disenfranchise your staff.

If your employee evaluation system still has all the inbred dread of a high school report card, then it is time to update and innovate. Your company's true benefit of an annual performance evaluation is not so much about knowing if an employee is doing what he is supposed to be doing—it should not take an annual evaluation to know that, as it is about learning if you are meeting the leadership and training needs of your employees.

An evaluation ought to be able to identify what management needs to do to improve, not inflict another round of regulation, as happened in the Forest Service. For years, scientific research that recognized fire as essential to ecosystems was ignored because of an ill-fitting congressional policy. Using a PEO can help your company avoid that kind of management mistake.

An annual Performance Appraisal is a check-up to see if the consequences of your management policies are the consequences that you intended. Are you realizing better retention rates and higher levels of employee motivation? Are you managing your office ecosystem to produce a thriving community of employees?

Are You Blaming the Problem or the Symptom?

2010-06-01T09:22:00.000-07:00

Have you ever thought that it would be wonderful if you could just pay to make all your stress go away? Getting rid of all your stress may be too good to be true, but achieving a drastic reduction in the stress of managing employee problems can be a reality.

A professional employer organization (PEO) can serve as a Human Resources department for small to mid-size companies. Consider this example:

You've just seen the numbers and first-quarter sales are down. You'd been inching along an upward recovery curve for the past two quarters and were looking for a 3% increase. You got your 3%, but it was in the wrong direction. It had a minus sign in front! Do you blame it on sales? Or do you have an HR department that can get involved with the solution?

The HR response:
What is the weak link in the sales chain, the lead, the pitch, or the close? Look at process.
Was there a shift in customer needs? Look at communication.
Has the sales team changed? Look at training.
Is our product falling short? Look at product development.
What feedback is the sales team getting from customers? Look at communication.
Is the sales team keeping up with business evolution and changes in competition? Look at retraining.

HR determines that the chief reason for the drop in sales is that you are taking longer to fill and ship orders than your competition. But HR isn't done yet.

The step-two HR response:
What are the weak points and snags in the current shipping process?
Can we find a better freight company or strike a better deal with our current one?
Can we streamline the paperwork and still keep our accuracy?

In this case, the gut reaction to blame sales would have been wrong. It was an administrative problem with a complex cause involving both communication and process. By having a PEO take the Human Resources approach to analyzing business problems, corrections could be made sooner and another business quarter wasn't wasted trying to fix sales when a time lag in shipping was the main problem.

Does your Relocation Policy Need a Transfer of Ideas?

2010-05-28T13:35:00.000-07:00

In these economic times, it is pretty common for the regular guy on the street to know someone who has had to relocate to keep or find a job—it might even be himself. But most people don't think very often about the other side of the coin, the side that business owners and company managers cannot avoid: needing to relocate employees.

There have always been business cycles, and relocation plans have been around for millennia, just ask a nomadic tribesman. The nomads, however, could pack up their yurts and take their houses with them. Today's businesses have their problems complicated by a reeling housing market.

Weichert Relocation Resources Inc., a company that specializes in relocation and assignment management, has seen some early signs for optimism in 2010. For one thing, there has been a drop in the rate at which companies have had to add or increase their loss-on-sale assistance. A year ago, 40% of companies surveyed were having to ante up or improve their existing relocation packages, but fewer businesses find that necessary now.

The number of companies that had given their employees added incentives to sell their existing homes quickly have dropped, as have the number that increased coverage for temporary living assistance. At the same time, companies are weighing more closely which employees will be transferred and are instituting tiered benefit packages for those who are relocated. In a nutshell, 90% of the companies in the Weichert survey had changed their policies in response to the recessionary business environment.

The most frequent changes were made as a response to the real-estate market, and not about internal company affairs. These changes put more restrictions on employees who wanted to take advantage of relocation assistance, such as requiring that transferees work with a qualified real-estate broker and make list-price reductions when advised.

Ellie Sullivan, director of consulting at Weichert, says that one of the most effective changes made by companies comes in their improvement of the pre-decision process. Many companies had no pre-decision rubrics at all before the most recent recession. Now, 65% of the companies surveyed are offering pre-decision counseling. Potential transferees receive counseling on the new location and home sale issues. Giving an employee more information before a transfer is a "done deal" saves costs for a company by reducing the number of transfers that don't work out after the fact. Lina Paskevicius, consulting manager at Cartus Global Consulting, believes that putting more time into the pre-decision assessments is becoming "the new normal."

It can be hard for a company to persuade employees to move during a volatile economy, but new and updated approaches and policies can result in better all-round results.

Employment Law - When it Pays to Outsource

2010-05-24T12:18:00.000-07:00

Employment law takes account of nearly every area of the employer/employee relationship. The only exceptions are related to collective bargaining. That leaves many areas like workers’ compensation, minimum wage regulations, employment discrimination, workplace safety, whistleblower protections, and unemployment compensation in the list of topics covered by employment law. For the small businessman, that is a lot to deal with. Unfortunately, this is one of those times when the old adage, "what you don't know can't hurt you" will probably let you down sooner or later.

To complicate things further, it's not just one set of laws the business owner has to deal with, there are regulations at both the federal and the state levels and many localities add on a few more of their own. Instead of ignorance being bliss, it is a snare for lawsuits, fines, and penalties.

Some examples:
• The Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) To quote the US Department of Labor, "FMLA provides certain employees with up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave per year. It also requires that their group health benefits be maintained during the leave." Having an employee take family medical leave involves record keeping and paperwork, some of which is supposed to remain confidential.
• The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) This law regulates the standards for the basic minimum wage and overtime pay, and regulates the hours that a minor is allowed to work. That's more recordkeeping and more paperwork tracking the hours worked and the wages paid.
• The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) Quoting the US Department of Labor again, "INA sets forth the conditions for the temporary and permanent employment of aliens in the United States and includes provisions that address employment eligibility and employment verification." You might need forms for application for H-1B and H-1B1 Non-immigrants (form ETA-9035), the Application for Permanent Employment Certification (form ETA-9089), the Application for Alien Employment Certification (form ETA-750A), and Part B of this application: Statement of Qualifications of the Alien (form ETA-750B), and the Application for Alien Employment Certification for Agricultural services (form ETA-790). Employers certified for H-2A contracts must keep records of a worker's hours.

Small business owners who find it more profitable to work on their company than to fill out forms will like the services of a PEO. Helping employers stay in compliance with employment law is only one of the services a PEO can give.

Listening is Not a Multi-tasking Activity

2010-05-17T11:03:00.000-07:00

Listening is not a multi-tasking activity—unless you're an auctioneer. Multi-tasking works then because the auctioneer stays alert for short specific signals. Attentive listening requires a considerable amount of focus, and attentive listeners will excel in making the other person feel heard. Bidders at an auction always know when they have been heard because the price goes up, but auction house tactics can hurt a business.

Hopefully you learned the first key to being an attentive listener when you were in kindergarten. Don't interrupt. What you may not have learned then is that interrupting entails more than speaking out of turn. Eye rolling, yawning, and staring out the window are interruptions that show you are not actively listening.

The second key to know is that people rarely cut to the chase. Most people like to set the stage before they begin to make their point. Let them talk; you will learn quite a bit of the subtext from listening to how they frame their story.

A third and crucial key is that responding with platitudes or grinding criticism will make you look like a jerk. When someone has just shared a concern, don't brush them off. They want the respect of being understood. It's human nature to not be so forthcoming in the future when you weren't heard in the past. You need your employees to have confidence in you, and attentive listening builds trust.

How to Hear What a Ditz is Really Saying—or trying to

It can be tough to have to listen to scatterbrained and eccentric persons. It can be tougher to know what they mean. Here are some tips for checking to see if what you heard is the same as what they think they said.

• Recap by stating a question. If Mary just spent three minutes talking about toner, dry cleaning her sweater, missed deadlines, and a broken doohickey, recap with, "You'd like me to call someone to run maintenance on the copy machine, right?

• Say it back. Summarize your understanding of the situation and see if they agree.

• Say it another way. If possible, find a simile or metaphor that fits the situation. If the complaint was about too much work and too little help, say, "So, am I to understand that you feel like the Little Red Hen?"

These responses help you to generate useful feedback and to avoid potentially costly misunderstandings.

Bullying - It's not just a playground thing

2010-05-12T11:11:00.000-07:00

The Workplace Bullying Institute—yes, it really exists, and despite its name, it is actually anti-bullying—commissioned a study that found that 37 percent of the U.S. workforce have experienced bullying at work at least once in their life. With numbers that high, bullying is far more widespread an issue in the workplace than sexual harassment. While most organizations have policies to deal with sexual harassment, only a scant minority have policies in place to deal with bullying.

Momentum is building to pass laws and regulations to deal with bullying if employers won't police themselves. Unchecked workplace bullying creates so much discontent and stress with its accompanying feelings of disengagement by the victim that it would be in an employer's best economic interest to develop a policy without waiting to be forced into it by a law. With statistics available that show bullying eventually results in economic losses, it at first seems surprising that more companies have not come out with anti-bullying policies.

At least part of the problem is that there are different kinds of bullies. A law might help a worker have legal recourse with aggressive bullies, but what about the backstabbing and manipulative bullies? The bottom line is that onsite employers and managers need to be nipping bullying tendencies in the bud and not waiting until problems spiral so far out of control that the legislature attempts to do their job for them.

Here are some suggestions on how to get started:

Since manipulative behaviors are accompanied by a lack of respect for others, make "Respect" one of your company's core values. Train managers in the character of respect and take a few minutes to teach about respect at all employee meetings.

Management needs to be aware of bullies. That means realizing that manipulative behaviors don't have to display anger or overt threats; passive aggressive bullies exist. It means taking every report seriously and not excusing it without first investigating.

When bullying behaviors are reported, investigate and look for patterns. Take a friendly face-to-face approach with the accused bully. Do they seem real and transparent or not? Do comments from other co-workers tend to fall along the same lines?

Train the entire staff in conflict resolution. It's a skill all employees can benefit from, not just upper management.

Conduct exit interviews when employees leave. You'll get some of your most candid appraisals from exit interviews.

Creating Fully Engaged Employees

2010-05-04T14:25:00.000-07:00

In the Gallup Management Journal, Curt Coffman uses a clever acronym for disengaged employees; he calls them "cave dwellers." CAVE stands for "Consistently Against Virtually Everything." Whimsical as that may be, disengaged employees are a troubling reality that can be costly for a small business.

Recent slippage in the economy has exacerbated the problem. Fears of job loss or unwanted transfer, postponed or lower-than-expected raises, and reductions in hours or assignments are all linked to the economy, and are all likely to have negative effects on commitment to the job. For many small businesses, employee disengagement is like being hit with a double whammy; in an economy where efficiency and productivity are needed the most, businesses are experiencing higher turnover rates and insecure leadership.

The good news is that there are simple, inexpensive ways to turn the tide and help get employees more actively engaged in their work. The keys are clearer communications and stronger relationships.

• Ask for Input
The employee who is working "in the trenches" often knows the lowdown on ways to improve or streamline operating procedures, but if they have disengaged with a "nobody hears me" attitude, the business is poorer because of it. Asking for input and allowing employees to be heard takes only a few minutes a week, but it boosts morale, and when an employee does have a good idea, it can boost the bottom line as well.

• Have a Purpose on Purpose
You probably told new hires about the purpose of the company during the interview process—when they had a hundred other thoughts swirling in their minds, but do your employees still remember that purpose in the here and now? Employees need reminders. Something as simple as a pep talk to refocus on your company's purpose will help people feel like they belong as part of the team. Slogans and banners posted in employee break areas also help to keep your business goals spotlighted.

• Communicate
Remember Show and Tell times from grade school? Those were designed to practice and build good communication skills. Keeping your employees invested in their work calls for a grownup business version of clear communication. Show them with action and tell them with words that you are a trustworthy leader. Managers who build sturdy, confident relationships with the people they manage will build a sturdy business. A good manager can answer an employee's questions with assurance.

• Recognize Efforts
Good workers often feel unappreciated. Big successes usually get recognition, but it's recognition of the effort, not the success, that boosts employee engagement. Very few people are able to be like Thomas Edison who, after repeated failures, was able to optimistically say, "I found 586 ways that won't work!" There are several variations of that quote and Edison probably said it more than once. A good boss will repeatedly encourage optimism in his employees too.

It's primarily the boss's responsibility to come out of his cave, build relationships, establish communication, and keep his employees engaged and ready-to-work.

Five Fertilizers for Talent Management

2010-04-30T13:52:00.000-07:00

Now that you have hired the best seeds and seedlings in the form of talented personnel, reaping bumper-crop results will depend on many factors. Although you cannot control the storms, or even fully predict the weather in a changing economy, you do have power over the ways you cultivate and fertilize your talent.

Apples + Oranges = Fruit Salad
Many companies regard Development Planning as oranges and Performance Management as apples. Development planning occurs during executive sessions, but employees are graded on their performance in a lonely office. As a consequence, employees often don't have a clear picture of a company's true needs, while the planners have only a fuzzy image of the training activities they need to address. The first round of fertilizer is applied to making the commitment to connect these two areas. They need to grow alongside each other.

The Wisdom of "Know Thyself"
This ancient Greek philosophy can be put to good use in employee self-assessments. Employees are often tougher on themselves than they are on others. Implementing regular self-assessments has three immediate benefits: 1. It gives your employee a voice, 2. It gives managers a fresh perspective, and, 3. It lays the groundwork for useful communication to proceed. They make a good starter fertilizer for growing your talent.

Wisdom in Counsel of Others
Sometimes this goes by the trendy name of "360° Reviews," but whether you call it that or fall back on the old maxim that "Two heads are better than one," there is much to be gained by seeking the counsel of others. Collecting feedback from a variety of sources—customers, peers, subordinates and others, will allow a balanced picture to emerge for your talent management. Establishing a climate of evenhandedness leads to more fruitful talent management results.

Life Beyond the Carrot
Letting your employee see the "beyond" part is crucial in good talent management. Employees are usually given short-term and short-focused goals—the carrot. Giving them a view of the larger-context, higher level, goals lets them see how their work contributes to overall company success. That boosts morale and can become a self-perpetuating stimulus. It also allows creative employees to "bend to the sun" and produce some great ideas; a company's most creative talent often has difficulty with the team-player attitude because they view the world a little differently.

Reward
The old "Wanted" posters offered rewards dead or alive. In business, alive is better, but the lure of reward still stimulates achievement. Most often, rewards come in the form of pay-for-performance bonuses. Being entrusted with a perk like flex-time, having the prestige of a personal parking space, or receiving a simple "lunch is on me" invitation can also be incentives. The important quality that makes rewards work is that your employees perceive them as fair, consistent, and attainable with a little extra effort, lest you inadvertently generate fertilizer burn-out.

Effective talent management must go beyond writing reports and stuffing them into dusty personnel files; it must encourage people and stimulate growth.

Employee Happiness

2010-04-26T16:17:00.000-07:00

A wise employer will grow happiness under his employees' feet, and it will bear fruit in productivity, loyalty, and possibly health care savings. Investing in happiness has the potential for a huge pay-off, and the up-front costs are usually small.

One of the best ways to give your office a sunnier disposition is to literally let the sun shine in. Natural lighting offers a spectrum of benefits ranging from reducing stress, to increasing alertness, to relieving eyestrain and headaches. If this isn't possible, the next best solution might be as simple as changing the old light bulb to one that copies nature more closely than standard fluorescent tube lighting.

Once you have sufficient lighting, adding live plants will help grow a happier environment. As a bonus, they clear the air too. A NASA study produced a list of the top fifteen houseplants for improving air quality. The top two are heartleaf and elephant leaf philodendrons, and all are easily available in flower shops and nurseries.

Dirt and grime are depressing, but there is a cleaning solution for that. A clean office is a happier office. That philosophy extends to the bathroom areas as well. It is also important to keep up with small maintenance jobs so drawers pull easily, hinges swing freely, and knobs don't come off in your hand.

People are happier when they know that they are being heard. Listening to your employees and then responding with thoughtful feedback can do wonders to boost morale. Being heard makes employees feel more secure, and good communication reduces tensions in the workplace. You can get your best answers for what makes an employee happy from your employees themselves.

Time Management

2010-04-19T13:59:00.000-07:00

It seems to be a universal truth that people are always running short on time. During the French Revolution, their government tried to fix this by making a calendar of ten-day weeks. How much more work could you get done if you had only three weekends per month? Their new clock also divided days into ten hours of a hundred minutes each. Working a four-hour shift then would be like working for more than 9½ of our standard hours. Unsurprisingly, their revolutionary calendar was abandoned within 13 years.

If today's businessmen and women need extra time, the only way to get more is by recovering what is currently being wasted. The Communication Briefings Newsletter has identified the five biggest time wasters in business. Do any of these pertain to you?

1. Poor prioritizing. If this is a tough area for you, make daily lists of what needs to be done and by when. Don't forget to schedule some cushion time to allow for unforeseeable accidents and opportunities.

2. Fear of delegating. Thinking that it is easier to do a routine task yourself is being short-sighted. Taking the time to properly train an employee now will pay off in big time savings in the future.

3. Not saying "No." You can't do it all. If you have trouble knowing when to say no, revisit your lists of priorities. If a request will take time away from achieving your priority list, you should probably say, "Sorry, I can't."

4. Being tethered to the phone. Clients like the personal touch of reaching a real person. Can some calls be delegated to others? Record a nice intro for your voicemail and use it when you need to work without interruptions.

5. Procrastination. If you procrastinate, you are human, but it's also human to focus on what we don't like. Focusing on the end result instead helps considerably in overcoming procrastination. If the task seems overwhelming, do it one step at a time.

If you have done all this and are still coming up short, consider buying extra administrative time by contracting with a PEO.

Starting a Business in the Right Frame of Mind

2010-04-15T16:04:00.000-07:00

What is the difference between an entrepreneur and a business owner?

That is not a riddle that will regale your friends. If you were looking for a snappy answer like, 'A business owner is a slave to his business and an entrepreneur is in the business of turning his employees into slaves,' then keep looking. The joke was only half-right. A few business owners might be a slave to their business, but the true distinction is a person's mindset.

Some people try to set up a business by the book. They educate themselves about the service or product. They find the financing. They doggedly dot their i's and cross their t's. They hustle for clients. But without the entrepreneurial mindset, they struggle.

Let's look at a hypothetical illustration:

Sam likes his work, he even excels at it. He has a knack for doing what he does and gets paid a respectable $69K a year for doing it. What Sam doesn't like so much is his boss. When a big project comes through, his boss expects Sam to work extra hours without extra compensation and then takes all the glory for himself. Sam's mindset becomes, "I don't need this; I can start my own company and pay myself for my work." So he does. He snags a few clients from his current accounts, finds several more though his connections, hires a couple of professionals to join him and trains them the way he wants. Things start off fine enough, but after awhile a few cracks develop. Some of the customers are late in making payments and Sam is now having to handle those collections himself. He is also having to do the bulk of new sales because he doesn't trust his employees to close a deal. He hires new employees to get some relief, but is so busy trying to stop new cracks that he never seems to find time to train them thoroughly. In short, he is being spread too thin. Swamped beneath all the income, outgo, ordering, shipping, receiving, filing, reporting and processing, Sam is one unhappy business owner. He never latched on to an entrepreneurial mindset.

How would an entrepreneurial frame-of-mind have managed things differently?

Sam may own the business now, but he never stopped working for his company; he still works for a company, just a different one. An entrepreneur will work on his company, building it with structured systems the way a mason would build with bricks. Instead of doing the essential but assignable tasks himself, he'd have spent more time training his employees how to do those tasks. Instead of micromanaging his employees, he'd trust them to be responsible tor handling the routine aspects of the business. Instead of working harder for more hours, the entrepreneurial approach is to look for ways to work more efficiently. The entrepreneurial mindset is open to seeking help, whereas Sam's attitude was to do it "all by myself."

Ownership is having a set of legal documents on file. Entrepreneurship is a lifestyle. The entrepreneurial lifestyle orders the day such that time is the treasured commodity and money is a tool. The entrepreneur understands that the old saying Time is money is often a fallacy. Sometimes money can be used to buy more time.

One means that many entrepreneurs have used to buy more time is by selecting a professional employer organization (PEO) company to handle some of the administrative burdens. A start-up business may find it's better to contract with a PEO to handle the preparation of the payroll, to administer benefits plans, and to reduce other legal liabilities.

Avoiding Gullibility

2010-04-12T14:36:00.000-07:00

Gullibility is a fact of life. As a baby you heard about gullibility in your nursery tales. Remember the wolf that was masquerading as Little Red Riding Hood's grandmother? Gullibility pervades our heroic epics. Remember how the citizens of Troy thought that the big wooden horse was a magnificent present? Gullibility is infused in our holiday traditions—or did you never believe in Santa? PT Barnum, who coined the phrase, "There's a sucker born every minute," entertained millions with his circus. Even academic institutions that ought to know better were conned for years by the Piltdown man, a paleontological "missing link" in evolution that turned out to be, not a mistake, but an intentional hoax.

Gullibility may offer you a secret satisfaction when you see it in an enemy—they call that schadenfreude, if you believe me—but otherwise, being gullible is a trait to be avoided. It is to be especially avoided in business decisions where money changes hands and deals are built on trust.

You know that con men and back-stabbing schemers are out there. Many are very good at duping chumps. How do you avoid becoming their next victim?

At the top of the list is "Don't make impulsive decisions." Give yourself a little time to think things through. The old sleep-on-it advice is good because it gives you the opportunity to view a situation from a fresh perspective.

Next, do some fact checking. The Internet and modern business tools make this easier than ever. Entire websites like snopes.com, factcheck.org, and TruthOrFiction.com, and the popular TV show Myth Busters have all emphasized the importance of doing a little research.

Know Thyself. Socrates said it and it stands as some of the best advice ever given. The best hedges against gullibility grow atop the realization of your own weaknesses.

Paired with knowing your limitations is planning the defensive strategies to deal with and counteract them. In Stephen Greenspan's book, Annals of Gullibility, he calls this working up a "repertoire of disengagement tactics."

Practice social intelligence. A few people are naturally gifted, for others, social intelligence can be learned. A series of books is available that helps teach social cues even to autistic children; if a kid with a learning challenge can do it, you really have no excuse.

Be cautious in your networking. Build a special network of people who have proven themselves trustworthy and who will look out for your best interests.

Character: The Key to Making Your Business Stand Out

2010-04-05T10:44:00.000-07:00

In the classrooms across America, we call it character education. In the business world, it is more likely to be labeled ethics. Either way, one of the hallmarks of a civilized society is its values system.

Stories from the dawn of civilization are almost always morality tales. Ancient Greece, a pinnacle of culture, produced Aesop's Fables where every story had a moral teaching. Beowulf, the earliest tome of Anglo-Saxon culture, emphasizes loyalty and honor. Stories of the Incas taught that those who obeyed their moral codes—do not steal, do not lie, do not be lazy—would earn reward.

An old tale from Asia tells of a man whose one good deed was to spare a spider's life. Later, after the man died and was being tortured in hell, the spider spun a silver thread to return the favor and help him escape. As the man was climbing the thread to safety, he noticed that others were climbing up after him. Fearful that this added weight might break the thread, he began kicking them off, but as he did this, he lost his balance and fell back into the pit of hell.

The point is that on every continent, across different cultures and spans of time, ethics count. Good and evil have just rewards. Having identified such a universal truth, it just makes sense that applying the concept to business would be a way to lead your company to success as well.

Indeed, beyond the folklore, hard modern statistics bear that out. Trickery and chicanery are a flash-in-the pan sensation and the key to longevity in business is to steadily work on improving ethical customer relations and good service.

Character Traits and Values that will build trust and make your business stand out from the rest:

• Loyalty. Using the difficult times to demonstrate commitment to the customers you serve will build trust.

• Reliability. Being reliable in providing the good or service your customers are paying for will gain their trust.

• Truthfulness. A good definition of truthfulness is earning future trust by accurately reporting past facts. This foundation of integrity creates trust.

• Sincerity. Sincerity starts with telling the truth and takes it the next step by showing an eagerness to do the right thing. Trust is built when clients and customers see your transparent motive and your sincere desire to do the right thing.

• Courtesy. Courtesy is more than simply being polite. It's also being attentive to your customers and gaining their respect by respecting them.

• Diligence. Seeing each task through all the way to the end is that way to accomplish goals.

• Accessibility. Knowing that you will "be there" builds trust.

• Persuasiveness with Truth. Being able to guide your clients and customers with truth and wisdom will build relationships.

• Enthusiasm. In a world of woes and criticism, customers will seek out the hope they see in your enthusiasm.

There is an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness. – George Washington

Could You Benefit by Using a PEO?

2010-04-02T10:46:00.000-07:00

To fully answer that question, you'll first need to know exactly what a PEO is and what it does. The PEO acronym stands for Professional Employer Organization. It serves as a Human Resources department for small and mid-size businesses, but it won't do your staffing for you. It goes beyond being a payroll service by assuming many of the liabilities for government compliance. PEOs can make it possible for small and mid-size businesses to offer retirement and medical benefits similar to the big corporations.

Many growing businesses start considering the benefits of a PEO when they realize that they need relief from all the administrative details of keeping the company going. Using a PEO to help with administrative functions is a lot like being able to purchase efficiency for the nuts and bolts of your company because the HR functions are outsourced.

One benefit of using a PEO is that you don't have to worry about keeping up with changing government rules. You pay the PEO to do that, and because they serve other businesses as well, it is more efficient than having to reinvent your own wheel. This can extend to work-related laws, unemployment claims, safety procedures, and even anti-drug use policies.

Another benefit of using a PEO is that they offer comprehensive payroll services. Beyond the basic bookkeeping and issuing of checks, they can also cover such things as payroll taxes and paperwork, garnishments, W2 and 1099 filing, and verification of an employee's work status.

A full-service PEO can offer your business additional services as needed. They can assist with pre-employment background checks, drug testing, applicant reviews, termination assistance, help in preparing job descriptions and employee performance appraisals, and needs analysis. An all-inclusive contract with a PEO will include access to training and other business resources and support.

The benefits offered by a PEO are clear. It frees that average company to become more productive in the use of time and resources. The companiy's primary focus can be centered on producing goods, delivering services and generating income. For a small business owner or the management team of a mid-size business, this means that the HR paperwork and compliance issues are far less of a distraction and you can get down to work.

Choosing the Most Painless Method for Filing W2 and 1099 Forms

2010-03-29T13:59:00.000-07:00

One of the biggest headaches that anyone is likely to suffer is the headache that's generated by government required paperwork. For a small businessman, this can be the filing of the W2 forms for employees and 1099 forms for the work that was contracted out.

The relief for these kinds of headaches won't come from the aspirin bottle. It comes from being organized, planning for the deadlines, and choosing the filing options that are right for your business. These options are filing by paper yourself, filing electronically, purchasing software to assist your filing, paying your bookkeeper to do it for you, subscribing to an online filing service, or contracting with a professional employer organization (PEO) with the experience to handle it.

Filing paper forms might be a good option if you are a hands-on owner and your business is very small in the personnel department. Schedule ample time for working on them and be sure the form that you use meets the specifications required. Filing electronically has the additional benefit of a later due date, no federal form requirements to worry about, and confirmation of your submission status, e.g. Received, Not Yet Processed, Complete.

Purchasing software to assist your filing can help contain costs; some formats are available for less than $50. Choose a program that is designed especially for your size of business, that is easy to install and use, and that is capable of generating 2-sided forms that meet the current specifications.

Paying your own in-house clerk may not be an alternative that is available to every small business, but if you already have a bookkeeper skilled in papyrocracy, ruling by paperwork, that is a good option.

Subscribing to an online filing service may cost a little more than DIY filing, but they will also have a help desk, off-site back-up of your filing for up to three years, and they will be up-to-date on changes and current regulations.

If none of these seem right for you, you probably need a PEO company that can relieve the headache by filing all your W-2 and 1099 forms for you.

Physical Exercise Is Good for Business

2010-03-26T08:50:00.001-07:00

Reading stories of high achievers can be inspiring. Motivation can be contagious and you begin thinking, "Yeah, I can do that too!" At other times, the high achievers set the bar so high that it has the opposite effect. It's demoralizing.

The demoralizing effect nearly happened to me. I had watched the Olympics. I'd had my vicarious bobsled run. Now it was time to focus on work. I really wasn't in the mood to hear someone tell me that the way to get my business out of the doldrums was by training for a triathlon. It would be hard enough to train for one sport, and now I was being told that entrepreneurial success would come if I trained for three!

I'd have thrown in the towel then and there, but he was making good points about setting goals, strategic planning, measuring performance, planning for contingencies, and sizing up the competition. It was easy to see the parallels between being a triathlete and managing a company. His big selling points were stress reduction and enhanced concentration. What businessman couldn't benefit from a form of stress reduction that leaves him alert? Most pharmaceutical approaches can dull that winning edge, if not leave one downright comatose. I figured it was worth investigating further.

It turns out that exercise is a great stress reducer, and fortunately it doesn't necessitate mountain biking after an already vigorous swim. The basic principles for stress management can be adapted to nearly every personality type, work situation, and variety of exercise. For instance, if your job keeps you at a computer screen, strength building exercises will help reduce stress, but if you are on your feet and lifting all day long, you'll find greater benefits from stretching exercises. The brain starts releasing stress reducing endorphins after only 20 minutes of exercise, so even multitasking by taking Fido on a brisk dog walk can go a long way, literally and figuratively.

Other Advantages of De-stressing with Exercise

• Stress usually makes the heart speed up and the digestive system slow down. Exercise helps bring these back into balance.

• Repetitive movements and controlled breathing techniques have physiological effects that produce a sense of calm.

• Regular times of physical activity allow your muscles to work. Exercise releases built-up muscle tension and results in less muscle pain, fewer tension headaches, and reduction in joint pain.

• If you choose a performance-based sport as your exercise of choice, as the triathlete mentioned earlier did, then as your performance improves, your body adjusts to better handle higher levels of stress.

• Best of all, stress management through exercise has highly favorable side effects like improving sleep patterns and increasing general awareness.

Six Advantages of Hiring Now

2010-03-23T15:27:00.000-07:00

In an economy that's so unpredictable that even Nostradamus might consider scuttling into retirement, there are still several indications that now is the time for a small business owner to hire new employees.

Rhonda Abrams, small business columnist for USA Today, takes the point of view that to experience meaningful growth, you'll have to hire. Surprisingly, at least at first thought, she writes, "more than half of the Fortune 500 companies actually started in a recession or depression." When that statement is analyzed more closely, some of the logic becomes more apparent.

• Competition is weaker. As other struggling businesses start dropping out and cutting back, their loss can be your advantage if you can seize the opportunities that open up in the wake of less competition.

• Customers are looking for less expensive alternatives. Many folks who were locked in to buying brand names from the big guys a few years ago are looking for cost-effective substitutes. If small businesses can supply that, they have a built-in edge that was spawned as a direct result of the recession.

• Labor costs are lower. In some cases, they are substantially lower. Potential hires that might have turned up their nose at a lowered pay rate a couple of years ago are often happy to accept that wage in today's business climate.

• A recession produces a growing talent pool. With more people are looking for work, you have a wider selection of candidates for the job and this fact leads to two reasons to hire now.
1. With more talent available, you can select an employee that more precisely meets your current need instead of settling for hiring someone that is 'close, but trainable.' You will be able to realize some savings in training costs almost immediately.
2. You can afford to be pickier and choose an employee that best meets your own business philosophy. This will render greater benefits over time because better compatibility results in a less stressful and more efficient workplace.

• You will be better prepared to take advantage of a future growth spurt. Even if you can't justify hiring a full-time employee now, hiring part-time or contracting out some of your work will position you in a good place when the recovery cycle does come.

One final thought from Ms. Abrams: "Creating a good job is one of the most rewarding things you’ll ever do."

A Social Media Bill of Rights—and Wrongs

2010-03-15T12:02:00.000-07:00

"Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press," so says our Bill of Rights. But what about employers? Should a boss be able to regulate an employee's blog or his posts on a social networking site? How can a company balance the importance of sharing ideas through open exchange with the dangers of having an employee saying something stupid? Maybe it is time for your company to have a Social Media Bill of Rights and Wrongs.

A survey of how several companies have chosen to handle their employees' use of social media indicated that the policies that are most effective are the ones that combine having trust in and putting responsibly on the employees. This strategy works because no good employee is going to want to see their company tank and leave them without a job. Good employees are discerning enough to not intentionally bad-mouth their employer, so a social media strategy needs to focus on things that can help prevent inadvertent harmful posts.

Here is a compendium of ideas your company may wish to consider when outlining a social media policy:

• Employees ought to follow existing laws. This would include respect for copyrights, no plagiarized posts, no obscene language, slander, or libelous statements.

• Employees should put a disclaimer in their profiles that clearly states that the opinions expressed are their own views and not necessarily those of the company.

• Time spent on social media should not interfere with other job-related tasks and commitments.

• Employees should post as if their boss will read it—and bosses ought to be encouraged to spot check their employees' posts. This will cut two ways—obviously it will reduce insulting and disparaging statements, but it should also help keep excessive flattery and sycophantic remarks in check.

• Employees should respect the privacy of clients and customers. Do not discuss them in posts without their permission.

• The employer needs clear communication with the employees about what constitutes confidential and proprietary information. Employees who have not been privy to managerial meetings may not have the big picture or know where the boundaries lie unless their bosses have taken the time to teach this.

• Encourage the Golden Rule of treating others the way you want to be treated.

Is your Résumé Action-Ready?

2010-03-10T14:43:00.000-08:00

A résumé ought to be a living document, not a dusty one. If you have done something noteworthy in your job in the past three months, it is time to update your résumé—and if you haven't done something noteworthy in your job in the past three months, it is time to look for more challenging work, in which case it is also time to update your résumé.

According to research done for Robert Half International, 45% of workers haven't updated in the past year and 20% haven't updated in more than two years. If a new job opportunity did pop up, they would not be able to respond quickly.

Résumé Tune-Up

Spell-Check!
A revved up résumé ought to hold an employer spellbound, not leave him dumbfounded by the spelling. Poor spelling makes an employer skiddish skittish about how conscious conscientious you really are.

Use Bullet Points to Hit the Target.
• key words geared to profession
• action verbs, active voice
• quantify accomplishments, show numbers
• skills and strengths

Customization Specials
Now that most résumés are stored as word processor documents or portable document files rather than professionally printed on vellum, your main résumé file can be easily customized and framed so that it emphasizes the skills and training that apply to the job at hand. Keep master lists of things that you have done, and then pick out the four or five that best suit the specific job that you are applying for.

Go Social
Social networking is probably the oldest job-hunting skill around, but incorporating it in a résumé is relatively new. Use it, but with discretion. John Hill, Michigan State University’s director of alumni career services says, "LinkedIn is like the corporate office. Twitter is like the water cooler, and Facebook is like the bar."

Hiring Commissioned Salespeople? Don’t Use a Scientific Selection Process

2010-03-03T13:43:00.000-08:00

I ran across an interesting post from a fellow blogger the other day. He plaintively described the dreadful failure rate of newly-hired commissioned salespeople. Over three-quarters of his new hires were tanking in the first three months. Obviously, he felt the need to reassess his interview technique.

He concluded that he'd been interviewing as if his company had the greater risk, and therefore he hedged his bets to reduce risk to the company—it had not worked. Trying a new paradigm, he structured the interview as though all the risk was on the candidate. It makes sense. When a commissioned salesperson flunks at his job, he doesn't get paid.

To put his revelation into practice, he began talking to the sales candidates like he would talk to a partner. His newly formatted interview included discussion of the company's development, industry trends, success and failure rates, and similar matters. He then evaluated the candidates' strengths and pitfalls as if looking for a partner.

What was the outcome? He called it "significantly more effective" than the scientific process they'd been using.

Equally interesting were the views in the comment section that followed. The consensus agreed that commissioned salesperson interviews are some of the toughest, and they added other insights as well.

The business partner approach works because most good salesmen don't like bosses. They want to be their own boss, so interviewing in a manner that brings out traits of self-sufficiency helps in the selection process. One commentator went so far as to suggest that the real sales manager of any good salesperson is their "significant other." He likes to have a portion of the hiring process include an interview with the family unit to get them on board.

Several posters lamented that all the great salesmen seem to already be out selling, but that excuse seems like the whine of the dateless college coed complaining that all the great guys are already married. Several comments said having clearly defined expectations helps, and that reality holds in continuing this analogy—the girl doesn't know what kind of man she wants, all she knows is that she wants a date. Is it little wonder that hiring commissioned salespeople with that attitude has results similar to dating services?

The original blogger was struggling to find his balance of art and science in the hiring process. It is a battle we all face.

The Importance of Intrinsic Motivation

2010-02-26T11:03:00.000-08:00

Intrinsic methods of motivation, those that arise from the task itself, are finally getting some of the attention they deserve. In the past, business has relied heavily on external motivators such as a pay bonus, an extra pin on the uniform, or a parking place near the door to help motivate employees. There comes a point, especially in jobs that entail creativity, that an employee will start identifying with that great line from the musical Hello, Dolly! when Dolly Levi tells her would-be beau, "And on those cold winter nights, Horace, you can snuggle up to your cash register. It's a little lumpy, but it rings!" His wooing technique had failed to motivate her.

Dolly stated what every employee learns—that there is more to life, and to a job, than simply a paycheck. Distilled down, the wisdom of recognizing "more to life" has found three new motivational buzz words: autonomy, mastery, and purpose.

Autonomy
Simply stated, this means that people want to have control over their work. Giving people a goal and then giving them the freedom to have some say-so over how they meet the goal can be a terrific motivator.

Mastery
Every normal person wants to be good at what they do. There is more enjoyment in doing something when you can do it well. By using this fundamental human trait as a basis for motivation, work becomes more interesting and productivity increases.

Purpose
Studies in behavioral sciences have shown that people don't mind being a little cog in a bigger machine as long as they know that their cog has significance. A good boss knows how to capitalize on the natural desire to be part of something that is larger than one's self by helping employees know that their work is meaningful.

How to Make People Feel Like a Million Bucks Without Spending Any

2010-02-23T10:41:00.000-08:00

Last year Rosabeth Moss Kanter, a professor at Harvard Business School, wrote a column on gift giving ideas for cash-short, recession-weary workplaces. It was both innovative and practical, making the point that "gifts that don't require a commercial transaction can strengthen human bonds." It was refreshing to see someone from a high profile business school actually suggesting alternatives to the commercialization of the holidays.

But if low- or no-cost gifts can add energy to the workplace and lift morale one week out of the year, what's to say that it won't work the other fifty-one as well?

Building on Professor Kanter's premise that gifts that create a "connection of caring" will reinforce motivation, and by adding a few ideas of out own, we offer our list of "How to make people feel like a million bucks without spending any."

• Hold a Management Slave Day. The bosses can cook, serve and clean up after a meal or do other chores for their staff.

• Give a mini-vacation. Can you close up an hour early one day? Or start an hour later after a weekend?

• Be an Affirmation Elf. This is a take on the Secret Santa idea, except that instead of giving a gift, you give a compliment.

• Try a Time Share Chore Exchange. Almost every job comes with at least one yucky, routine chore, right? Let your employees switch a ten-minute chore of their choice with someone else. It breaks the routine and builds sympathetic camaraderie.

• Rule suspension. Remove the most frustrating and least necessary rules. Okay, that last sentence is a verbatim copy job from Professor Kanter's list, but it was just too cool to overlook.

• Post a note. Except that this time when we say "post," we mean post office, as in use snail mail and send a note home to the employee's family telling them how their parent/sibling/child makes a difference.

• Name Recognition. This is another idea borrowed from Professor Kanter—actually, she suggested a graffiti wall—but we think smart folks like our readers may want to spin that a little and add some audio recognition as well.

• Do kid stuff. Remember elementary school assemblies when they'd bring in a magician or sketch artist or a Punch 'n Judy puppet show? This idea may not be no-cost, but it can be cost-effective to take an hour break for a bit of entertainment.

Why Small Business Won't Be Hiring

2010-02-19T13:29:00.000-08:00

At the end of last year, business economists and government prognosticators alike had a growing list of reasons that small businesses weren't hiring. Chief among the causes were the continuing credit crunch and bleak prospects for future sales.

Even the improving numbers for new orders that looked optimistic at the surface had shadows of pessimism showing around the edges—many of the new sales were not so much "new" as they were restocking of inventories that had been purposely lowered for end-of-year tax reasons.

The results of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 have been either disappointing or abysmal, depending upon who you talk to. By in large, small businesses, which are the creators of half of all non-government jobs, haven't experienced the rising numbers depicted on the colorful bar graphs at Recovery.gov.

As the new year opened, the State of the Union Address promised a $5,000 tax credit for every net new employee in 2010. The goal, according to federal officials, was "to encourage businesses that are on the fence about hiring to take the plunge." The problem is that there aren't that many small businessmen who are on the fence. Most are standing firmly behind it and only peeking through the knotholes, waiting to see how the Senate will vote on part of that promise later this month.

More recently, reports of trillion dollar deficits and chatter of coming tax increases have made small entrepreneurs even more cautious. Those who are familiar with history and are wary of its repeating itself know that government spending has never brought private sector recovery.

Additionally, many employers are already operating with employees who have accepted fewer hours just to keep their jobs. Should the economy begin a recovery, the first new hires will be in line behind the part-timers who are waiting to get their full time status back.

In the end, the varied reasons that small businesses are not hiring—the lack of credit, the sluggish sales, the threats of future tax increases, and the surplus of hours for existing employees—are all attached to the same root: uncertainty in the economy. For most small businessmen, the risks of expanding are still too great.

Can Bonuses Do More Harm Than Good?

2010-02-16T16:01:00.000-08:00

The terms 'greed' and 'Wall Street' have been linked since 18th century traders and speculators met to make deals and bargains under a buttonwood growing along the street. In the 21st century, the term 'Wall Street' has expanded to include the self-indulgence of big business interests and investment banking. When these indulgences dip into the little guy's already shrinking pockets, it is time to cry "Foul!"

With recent government bailouts, that is exactly what is happening. Americans still have a strong sense of fair play. We first learned about fair play from mom when it was time to share the candy, we reinforced our sense of fairness on the Little League fields of our youth, and we demand to see it in business as adults. When Wall Street executives were being handed bonuses—big bonuses—for driving their companies into bankruptcy, the hue and cry could be heard on Main Street. This is anathema to the American conscience: Make good choices, get rewarded; take stupid risks, get rewarded big time!

"But isn't that how capitalism is supposed to work?" you may ask. "Aren't risk-takers deserving of the payoff?" Except that once again, government bailouts have siphoned money from other sources to manage a crisis that need not have happened. When those 'other sources' are you and me, we have a rightful responsibility to speak up. It is a problem that has yet to be resolved.

Jack Hough, associate editor at SmartMoney.com, writes, "for risking everything and failing spectacularly, the bosses lost plenty but gained more." He bases his conclusion on research reports from Harvard Law School and The Yale Journal on Regulation that uncovered some mind-boggling numbers. The top executives at Lehman Brothers received $1 billion in cash; those at Bear Stearns totaled $1.4 billion. Even though the executives had personal on-paper loses of millions as their stocks fell during 2007 and into the crisis of 2008, the studies found that the cash payments "substantially exceeded the value of the executives’ initial holdings in the beginning of the period.”

The period for the study stretched back to 2000. The researchers went back that far because the real question that they wanted to answer was not how much cash did the CEOs get, but whether or not the executives had some incentive to make decisions that we can now, in hindsight, label as crazy risk-taking. By looking at this broader time span, the researchers were able to compare cash rewards of the earlier decisions to become heavily involved with mortgage securities against the penalties that occurred later and then determine the overall gain or loss. The conclusion was yes, they had incentive to take wild risks.

The real tragedy is that not much has changed. For those of us who must live on Main Street, it is time to add a new refrain to the protests of "Unfair!" It is time to add, "Use your brain and don't let this happen again!"

Social Media: The New Word of Mouth

2010-02-10T14:44:00.000-08:00

I recently came across another blog that spoofed a Human Resources robot, claiming that the HRbot would 'spider' all your tweets and social networking info each time you apply for a job. It may have been meant as satire, but there was a kernel of truth in it.

Major—and minor—businesses are posting their company profiles on social media and using them for recruiting new employees. During the hiring process, it is likely that any personal profiles that an applicant may have on the web will be searched. It is not so much that a potential employer is interested in the size of your mob in Mobsters, or how many potatoes you've harvested in Farmtown. It is more that these social networking sites can offer a window into the kind of community that you choose to belong to and provide a fuller picture of who they might be hiring.

The jury is still out on whether tweeting for work is the wave of the future or a passing fad. In the here and now, it is the new word of mouth. Most of the best jobs are filled on the basis of personal word-of-mouth recommendations. The thing to remember is that it works both ways.

With social media such as LinkedIn, which was set up for the purpose of business networking, members expect others to scrutinize their profile. But what about friend networks like MySpace and Facebook? If you are looking for a job, there is a fair chance that the person looking at your application will be looking for your social media profile.

If there really was a spider HRbot, would you get caught in its web?

Neurodiversity in the Workforce

2010-02-08T14:51:00.000-08:00

The twenty-first century has brought a groundswell of multi-cultural diversity to the workforce. For the most part, society has judged that to be a positive thing and employers often seek to achieve it, but what about neurodiversity? Are we equally willing to embrace these differences?

What Exactly is 'Neurodiversity' Anyway?

The term was first coined by Harvey Blume in 1998 for an article he wrote in The Atlantic about geeks and nerds. The neuro- part of the word refers to how the brain is wired. People with neurological conditions like hyperactivity, attention deficit, and high-functioning autism all have brains wired a little differently than what is typical. It has nothing to do with intelligence. It is about how they process the information their brain receives. Neruodiversity accepts atypical wiring of the brain as beneficial.

Many examples exist where someone whose brain is wired a little differently has succeeded in life—the absent minded professor, the hyper-active used car salesman, and those who have channeled attention deficits into lively jobs where they thrive as journalists, restaurateurs, or soldiers. Asperger's Syndrome can be an asset when working with the predictability and logic of computer technology.

The Wave of Things to Come?

Blume says that neurodiversity is "not only timely but quite possibly irresistible." Employers who take a fresh and objective view of the hiring process recognize that many people with tons of talent and intellect aren't very good at selling themselves during the job interview. These are people whose neurological wiring is a little different than the conformist team players and the socially adept in-crowd. They are the individuals who solve problems outside the boxes and see things that others may miss.

It is not always easy to integrate someone who thinks or acts a "little funny" into a stable and staid working environment. Change merely for the sake of change is a rash decision. Employers should still be mindful of hiring people with good and honorable character, but a neurologically diverse roster of employees can give a business more flexibility, open up new prospects, and accommodate a wider range of challenges than a cookie-cutter crew.

How To Improve Your Payroll Accounting

2010-02-04T14:57:00.000-08:00

You have a business to run. Do you really wish to spend your workday caught up in the minutiae of ever-changing payroll tax laws and forms that have numbers and letters for titles instead of real names? No.

You have a business to run. Is it really wise or affordable to disconnect from that aspect of your business and have your payroll completely outsourced? Maybe not.

Between these two extremes is the alternative of using a payroll service with flexible options. A payroll service will take the data on the hours your employees worked, their pay rates, and other payroll-related information and use your numbers to generate the paychecks, payroll reports, and payroll tax filings for you.

Having a good payroll accounting system helps keep both your employees and the government happy, and it can keep you from pulling your hair out. Employees get paid correctly and on time. The government gets its cut correctly, on time, and filed with the proper form. You get a service that helps shoulder the load and frees up more of your time.

Some payroll accounting services will handle just the payroll taxes and filings for you, while you remain hands-on and pay your employees. If you want your payroll service provider to pay your employees, they offer both paper paycheck and direct deposit options. A full-service payroll accounting provider can manage retirement accounts, workmen's compensation, and specialty services for employees who receive much of their income in the form of tips.

The payroll service may use software on your own computer, or you may select to enter data online. Either way, the data has to be entered only once for both paychecks and taxes. The outcomes always match since they both started with the same numbers.

Keeping your data secure is always a priority with a good payroll accounting service. They will also generate accurate, understandable reports that make it easy to see exactly what your labor costs are and to share this information with your accountant. Choosing to use a payroll service is often the simplest way to improve your payroll accounting.

Outsourcing Your Payroll: a no-brainer

2009-12-28T13:23:00.000-08:00

Few things demoralize your work force faster and more severely than for employees to find that their paychecks aren't there on time and in full. Managing the payroll can be a tough task with high consequences if you get it wrong. With the added complications of personnel changes, changing tax regulations, and unforeseeable delays, stress becomes a daily companion.

Over a fourth of all businesses have found that the cure for these headaches was as simple as making the decision to outsource their payroll. Outsourcing makes good sense for many reasons.

Saves on Software Costs
No purchase, installation, support, or maintenance of elaborate payroll software is needed, and the payroll company is responsible for the updates. Payroll companies can interface with your existing office accounting system.

Adapts to Personnel Changes
Growing companies can add new employees seamlessly. For downsizing ones, the payroll company handles the layoffs, unemployment insurance, and severance pay. This scalability is especially valuable for companies that hire seasonal help.

Frees Up More Time
Payroll outsourcing allows you to concentrate on your product or service. In the average business, payroll typically consumes one employee workday each pay period. That's eight to ten hours that could be better spent on enhancing productivity.

Improves Efficiency of Timekeeping
Employees can log their hours directly into the payroll company's data base electronically, eliminating the need for timecards and reducing the chance of human error. Managers retain the ability to approve or adjust the data, as needed.

Accommodates Special Circumstances
One-time bonuses, variable commissions, fines and other irregular payments can all be handled by payroll companies.

Allows Flexibility in Form of Payments
You have the option of distributing paper paychecks or of having deposits made directly into your employees' bank accounts.

Shifts Regulatory Compliance Tasks
If you haven't decided to hire an outside payroll company yet, consider this: Payroll services take on the responsibility of covering shifting tax regulations and mandatory withholdings at the local, state and federal levels. They also manage contributions to health and retirement plans. Hiring an outside payroll company is a good business decision for this one reason alone. But there is yet an additional level of protection in outsourcing payroll. The payroll company, not you, will pay the fines if they are not in compliance with the rules and regulations

Some business decisions are easy. The decision to outsource your payroll is one of them.

Updating the Description of a Job Description

2009-12-09T15:22:00.000-08:00

Do you recall some of the early writing lessons you had in grade school? Remember the assignment where you were supposed to describe a dog? The finished sentence went something like, "The dog was big and black." The reader still did not know if, upon meeting the dog, he should prepare to have his face slurped in exuberant friendliness, or if he would be more likely to lose a chunk of his ankle.

Many job descriptions haven't evolved much beyond a third-grade creative writing project. They still read like an inventory of attributes and say very little about what to expect as an outcome. Most job descriptions are duty lists that have been divorced from the esprit of the work.

As "The Staffing Advisor" at wordpress.com laments, "The most accurate part of many job descriptions is 'other duties as assigned.'"

As a remedy, some HR professionals are taking a new look at old job descriptions. They're asking if this old staple of business needs to be retooled to keep up with the times. They suggest that business ought to shift the old paradigm of determining the talent needs by the number of jobs to a new one that is more focused on the output of the work.

It may seem a subtly of language to move from "what should the employee do" to "what should the employee accomplish," but the effect can be profound. It shifts the focus from the drudgery of the work to the achievement of the goal. It redirects the attention away from a list of tasks to a description of performance expectations.

This new orientation will necessarily alter some of the traditional approaches to hiring. Different questions will be asked, and different qualities will be looked for.

Goals and expectations change over time, as do markets and technologies. The new breed of job descriptions will have to be more fluid and adaptable than in the past. For many jobs, an employee's natural talent will become just as important as his honed and practiced skills.

Effective hiring managers consider not only where a company is today, but where a successful employee will help to take the firm in a year's time. In the past, ill-fitting job descriptions confined this forward-looking approach to hiring upper management. But focusing on results is a principle that is not just for the big guys anymore.

Providing Health Insurance Coverage

2009-12-07T13:57:00.000-08:00

Question:
What do most Americans consider more important than managing debt or building their retirement fund?

Answer:
Having health insurance! The intensified media coverage of the past year has boosted health care to the number two spot on a list of financial planning issues, according to the 2009 National Consumer Survey on Personal Finance recently published by the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards.

The top five concerns are: (1) managing retirement income, (2) providing health insurance coverage, (3) managing/reducing current debt, (4) building a retirement fund and (5) building an emergency fund.

Clearly, having health coverage for oneself and one's family is an important issue for many Americans at all levels of income and education, no matter where they may live or what their gender or ethnicity is. But the report does not indicate what kind of health insurance people want. In fact, many seem willing to trust their employers or others to make that decision for them.

When planning your financial future, it is important that your decisions do not oppose each other. This is an issue where your goals need to work together so that funding one area won't inadvertently cause increased debt in another.

Regulations on Rounding Employee Hours

2009-11-17T09:47:00.001-08:00

Question:
Is it permissible to round off the minutes worked and pay employees in 5-, 10-, or 15-minute increments? Are there any special rules to observe when rounding off the minutes that an employee works?

Answer:
Yes, you can do that. The gist of the rule is that rounding off time has to be done in a fair manner. In other words, you cannot always round a worker's time down to favor the employer. To paraphrase an old saying, what rounds up, must round down.

The official policy is found in § 785.48(b) of the Fair Labor Standards Act under the heading of "Hours Worked Regulations" and is quoted below:

(b) ''Rounding'' practices. It has been found that in some industries, particularly where time clocks are used, there has been the practice for many years of recording the employees' starting time and stopping time to the nearest 5 minutes, or to the nearest one-tenth or quarter of an hour. Presumably, this arrangement averages out so that the employees are fully compensated for all the time they actually work. For enforcement purposes this practice of computing working time will be accepted, provided that it is used in such a manner that it will not result, over a period of time, in failure to compensate the employees properly for all the time they have actually worked.

It may be read in its entirety here: http://www.osha.gov/pls/upub/wageindex.download?p_file=F30725/WH1312.pdf

Preventative Health Benefits Sees an Increase

2009-11-13T14:31:00.000-08:00

Due to current economic conditions, many companies are shutting their doors, downsizing, and businesses are looking for ways to save money. Employee benefit programs, such as health insurance, paid vacation time, and bonuses is just one area that has received a lot of scrutiny. According to the 2009 Employee Benefits Survey released by SHRM indicated that 60% of human resource specialists who responded to the survey indicated that the current economic downturn has impacted their employers' benefits offerings. However, despite all the efforts to cut corners, there is one particular benefits area that has seen significant efforts to augment current offerings--preventive health and wellness.

Offering preventive health and wellness benefits is a method in which employers reward employees for taking measures to prevent chronic diseases and illnesses by reimbursing a specified dollar amount monthly or yearly. Examples of preventive health measures include acupuncture, health club memberships, chiropractic care, and mental health counseling. Engaging in this practice will not only improve employee health thereby reducing absenteeism but it will also lower the cost of healthcare for everyone involved.

The SHRM survey supports this trend:

* Within the next 12 months, 10% of respondents indicated that they are going to implement health and lifestyle coaching.

* 5% of respondents are going to begin offering wellness resources, information, and weight loss programs.

* 7% of respondents who currently have employees with chronic health conditions plan to launch preventive programs targeted at these employees.

* Finally, 10% of respondents have indicated that they are going to implement rewards or bonuses for acheiving or completing certain health and wellness goals. Based on the 2009 Employee Benefits Survey along with the need for employers to save money while still offering employee benefits, it is evident that preventive health and wellness benefits are the wave of the future.

Taking the Temperature of Small Business: Owners in Nevada Say They’re Squeezed Between Soaring Health-Care Costs and Going Uninsured

2009-04-14T15:05:00.000-07:00

After pay, heath insurance is the most important inducement small businesses use to recruit and keep workers. Yet more than half the 365 small businesses in a recent survey said their premiums rose as much as 10 percent this year.

Almost one in 10 told the Nation Association of Professional Employer Organizations they would dump their health coverage next year or are unsure about it.

"This is another wake-up call" said Shanon Hennesay, HR Director, Pay Pros Las Vegas. "Soaring health costs hit small businesses especially hard, and these businesses employ the cast majority of workers.

So this is an extremely troubling development, not just for small business's and their workers, but the entire economy."

Around 1996, more small companies began offering health benefits. Then, from 2000 ti 2005, the percentage dropped, says the Kaiser Family Foundation, from 68 percent to 59 percent - back to the same level as in 1996.

That's stabilized in the last two years. NAPEO's survey shows 71 percent will continue to insure their workers in the coming year - but another five percent remain unsure about continuing.

Cutting Benefits Beats Cutting Jobs

2009-04-13T10:19:00.000-07:00

Media companies (such as newspapers, magazines, broadcasters, etc) have eliminated 41,000 jobs in the US (4.6% staff) since December of 2007 when the recession began. To learn more about why a PEO advises implementing alternative work schedules, read this article from the Denver Business Journal.

PEOs Can Ease Burden

2009-03-18T15:30:00.001-07:00

Nothing good comes easy, and that includes hiring and managing employees. That's why many small businesses turn to professional employer organizations (PEOs) to handle the complex, time-consuming administrative burdens.

PEOs are companies that help businesses find and hire people, plus manage such things as health benefits, worker's compensation claims, payroll, unemployment insurance and more.

As a business owner, you contract, with a PEO to assume these and other responsibilities, allowing you to concentrate on the revenue-producing side of operations. PEOs establish and maintain an employer relationship with the workers assigned to you. They assume many employer responsibilities and risks.

Most small businesses are new to the human resources (HR) field. One advantage of using a professional employer organization is that they have experienced HR workers who can handle benefits, payroll, OSHA compliance, and just about everything else you will need. By bringing employees into a larger overall group, a PEO can offer your workers benefits, such as health insurance and retirement plans. These can be valuable perks you would be hard-pressed to deliver on your own.

Pre-employment testing is another area where PEOs can help. Without a screening process, you risk placing the wrong person in the job, leading to lost productivity and costly turnover. PEOs tailor pre-employment tests to predict loyalty to you, as well as success on a specific job. The tests aren't foolproof, but they can have a positive impact.

Small-business owners don't relish the idea of reading stacks of resumes and conducting interviews for prospective hires. PEOs can reduce this burden and deliver candidates quickly, then handle the paperwork for the new hire. Some PEOs have entire divisions devoted to recruiting and helping small-business owners gather information to make the right hiring decisions.

An excellent source of information for identifying and working with PEOs is the National Association of Professional Employer Organizations (NAPEO). Its a WB site, http://www.napeo.org, describes how PEOs work, the benefits they offer new and growing small businesses and guidelines for selecting one that is right for your HR needs

article from
The Beacon Journal/Ohio.com
Gary Sutherland