Think With Your Head, Not Your Heart

It is often difficult to discipline an employee that we like. Some employees have a way of making their way into a manager's heart which can make the manager's job difficult when it comes time to deal with problems surrounding that employee. A manager certainly must show compassion and concern for employees' welfare and development. But there is a significant difference between compassion and concern and allowing problems to slide.

When it comes to employee issues, try to think with your head rather than your heart. Thinking logically through an issue as opposed to allowing emotions to drive one's thinking is critical to making good decisions in terms of employee issues.

When you are faced with an issue involving an employee, try very hard to forget about whether you like or dislike that employee. When emotion is allowed to creep into employee issues, inconsistency in how problems are resolved can set in. A mature manager is able to establish a positive relationship with employees without jeapordizing the ability to be assertive and direct and coach and counsel employees in dealing with performance or attitude problems.

Some employees are adept at getting close to people and know which buttons to push to get their way. Others are much less people-oriented and don't tend to develop a strong relationship with their supervisors. This is simply human nature and everyone has a different personality profile. To hold an employee's inability to make a manager feel good about them against the employee is immature and unprofessional. Because an employee is outgoing and knows how to "play the game" should never be a reason to favor one employee over another.

Base decisions and attitudes about employees on performance, not on whether or not you like them. If an employee has a positive attitude and is a high performer, but hasn't endeared him/herself to a manager, is it fair to treat that employee differently than someone who has the ability to get close to people? Certainly not.

Are you getting too close to certain employees. Do you treat people consistently? Do you let emotion play into your perception of an employee's performance?

If you answered "yes" to any of these questions, step back and rethink your approach to dealing with employees. Try to establish consistency in how you treat employees. Deal with performance or other problems without emotion and think with your head, not your heart.

Your people are the key to your success (or failure). Why anyone hurries the hiring process is mind-boggling to say the least. Even in a tight labor market businesses want to hire the best of what's available.

Here are some tips for hiring good people:

-Be patient. Don't hurry the hiring process. We believe you are better off with a vacant position than having a marginal employee filling it.
-Develop a complete and accurate position description that details all aspects of the position.
-Develop what you feel is an ideal profile of the person that will fill the position.
-Utilize an employee assessment instrument in the hiring process. These tools are essential to uncovering a person's interests, ability and personality. The best instruments provide a profile of the individual against the ideal profile for the job.
-Spend a little extra time and money attracting as many quality candidates as possible. You will want to be able to select from as many good candidates as possible.
-Be prepared! Develop interview questions prior to any interviews. Focus on the desired traits and profile when developing interview questions. Design the questions to draw out traits and tendencies. Get at the past behavior of the candidate in the interview process. Have candidates explain situations they have dealt with in the past that are relevant to the job you are hiring for. -Put the candidates through a series of what if questions. These are situational in nature and force the candidate to think about what he/she would do in each situation.
-Once you have boiled the candidate field down to just a few people, bring the finalists back for a second round of interviews.
-Have several people interview the candidates. This allows for different perspectives and accounts for various biases.
-Examine your wage/salary and benefits structure. Are you at least competitive with the market? The best people will be attracted to the highest paying positions in most cases.
-Think long-term. Ask yourself if hiring the candidate is in the best interest of the organization. -Remember that hiring marginal employees has a devastating short and long-term impact on a business.

Establish A High Performance Culture

Your business should strive to be a high performing organization. Becoming a high performing business takes careful attention to detail and instilling a high level of accountability and discipline. When accountability for completing tasks and meeting expectations is lacking or loose, a business will have a very difficult time achieving a high performance state. Hiring good people is the first step in becoming a high performing business. Without excellent people who fit the jobs they are hired into an organization will struggle to consistently achieve at high levels. It is critical that everyone in the business understand that nothing less than high performance will be tolerated. The "bar" must be set realistically high in order to enahcne performance. At what level does your business perform?

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Managers' Self-Assessment Questionnaire

In assessing a manager's ability to manage people, we believe it is important for a manager or supervisor to step back and look introspectively at their ability to direct the efforts of others as well as think about the environment they operate within. The following brief questionnaire is for your use in carrying out this type of self-assessment. Please respond to each question as honestly and objectively as possible in order to provide yourself with an accurate reflection of your situation.

1. I believe that I am an effective manager. True or False

2. My employees would say that I am an effective manager. True or False

3. I feel comfortable in my role of managing people. True or False

4. My ego does not get in the way of making sound, logical decisions. True or False

5. I am a good leader of people. True or False

6. My people are high performers. True or False

7. I have confidence in my people to meet my expectations of them. True or False

8. I have confidence in my own abilities. True or False

9. I understand what is expected of me. True or False

10. My people understand clearly what is expected of them. True or False

11. There is a cohesive, team-oriented atmosphere in my company, department or work unit.
True or False

12. I deal with problem situations and employees in an expedient manner and don't ignore them. True or False

13. My attitude is positive. True or False

14. I am a good communicator. True or False
15. I set an appropriate example for my employees. True or False

16. I establish clear expectations for all of my people. True or False

17. My people feel good about working for me. True or False

18. My people regularly come forward with ideas, problems or suggestions. True or False

19. I would rather deal with people than numbers or things. True or False

20. I look forward to coming to work in the morning. True or False

21. I am effective in coaching my people to higher levels of performance. True or False

22. I would describe my management style in the following way:

23. My biggest day-to-day challenge is:

24. These are my concerns about my people in terms of their ability to meet my expectations:

25. My strengths and weaknesses as a manager are:

26. I feel that I need to improve in the following areas in order to become a better manager:

27. I would describe the culture in my work unit in the following way:

28. My three biggest frustrations as a manager are:

29. My people would describe me as:

30. I currently hold my people accountable for meeting expectations in the following manner:

31. If I could define my ideal job, it would be:

32. The one thing I enjoy most about my job is:

33. The one thing I enjoy least about my job is:

34. My personal goals for the next year are:

35. My personal goals for the next five years are:

Avoid Hair Trigger Hiring

When there are problems in a particular area of your business, make every attempt to determine the causes of the problem before hiring additional full-time permanent employees to deal with the problem. In other words, don't automatically assume that the problem is too few people. For example, suppose a distribution company is constantly dealing with backlogs and delays in shipments. The first reaction is probably to hire more people to pick and bundle orders. But is the problem one of too few people or is it a process problem? Before hiring the additional order pickers, it is much more prudent to closely examine the process and make it as efficient and accurate as possible. And ask yourself if there are marginally performing employees currently involved in the process that need to be dealt with? To hire more people without fully understanding where the problems lie will simply reduce your bottom line. But a natural reaction when process problems or backlogs occur is to hire more people. Try to avoid hiring additional people right away unless you are certain that the process in question is as efficient as possible and that the employees involved in the process are performing up to expectations. Never hire another employee to compensate for marginal employees. Deal with the marginal employees and either expect them to elevate their productivity or terminate them and hire high performers. Don't hesitate to hire additional employees when necessary, but first ask yourself if it truly is necessary.

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Don't Short Change Employees

Your employees are your most important asset. While the primary mission of any business is to make money, we don't recommend doing it at the expense of employees. In other words, holding employee wages down to boost short-term profits is usually a big mistake. We emphasize looking at the long-term. Paying employees at levels that are not competitive is not a good long-term strategy for enhancing profits. It is critical that wage and salary structures be sufficient to attract and retain top people. Without excellent employees, the likelihood of success is not very high. Ultimately the less competitive your wages are the worse your employees will be, meaning you get what you pay for. Poor wages are going to cause you to lose the good employees you already have and make it difficult to find more good employees.

Strive for Higher Levels of Productivity

Employee productivity is one of the most important factors in overall profitability. When employees are highly productive, products and services are sold at a faster rate, overtime is reduced, staffing is kept lean and the customer is more satisfied. Productivity is often overlooked as a key variable in enhancing profitability. This web site includes a number of articles dealing with this issue.

Productivity is directly related to the quality of employees hired and the management of those employees. Establish productivity standards and expectations for all functional areas within your company and then measure performance against those standards/expectations. Identify the key productivity indicators that you will measure. These indicators can be any units of measure that makes sense for your business. But the important thing to keep in mind is that productivity isn't something to merely talk about. It must be measured and managed. And employees should be evaluated and rewarded based on their level of productivity.

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Avoid Duel Reporting Relationships

Put yourself in the shoes of your employees. Would you want to be subjected to having two or more bosses? Some organizations do, in fact, have an ill-conceived organizational structure that calls for an employee to report to more than one supervisor.

Since this situation nearly always creates confusion, conflict and indecision, it is wise to avoid it completely. An employee might have responsibility across two or more functional areas. But does that mean the employee must take direction from more than one supervisor? Rarely. It is vital that employees work closely with one supervisor to set expectations and goals, take direction and receive feedback about performance. When more than one supervisor is involved, the employee is subject to the potential for far too many mixed messages.

Because management styles can vary widely, the employee is subject to differing approaches. Supervisors who are expected to manage the same employee can become frustrated, angry and possessive leading to potential conflict with the other supervisor(s).

Look for situations in your organization where there are formal or informal duel reporting relationships. Work closely with the supervisors involved to resolve the reporting relationship. Many times employees are taking direction from more than one supervisor without the formally designated supervisor being aware of it. The employee continues to take direction often out of fear or confusion about who he/she reports to.

Clearly define the organizational structure for each work unit in your business. Keep the structure as simple and easy to administer as possible. Once completed, communicate it very carefully and completely to all employees. Supervisors and employees must understand who reports to whom.

If, for some odd reason, an employee must report to more than one supervisor, it is essential that the supervisors work together closely to define each of their roles in the relationship with the employee and to break down responsibilities. This is often best accomplished with the supervisors' manager involved. Once the details are worked out, they should be communicated clearly to the employee.

Promote An Employee Only When They Are Qualified

We believe strongly that the number one reason businesses struggle or fail is due to ineffective management. There is little doubt that most businesses do a poor job of hiring and promoting the right people into management and supervisory slots. This article focuses on promoting employees into management primarily because there is overwhelming evidence to indicate that most of these promotions are given based on improper criteria.

The most common reason businesses promote an employee into management is longevity. The prevailing attitude is that someone who is loyal should be rewarded by being moved into a management role so they can make more money and be given an incentive to stay on. The unfounded fear is that if the employee isn't promoted they will go elsewhere. Our first rule in promoting employees is that longevity should play a secondary role in the decision to promote. In fact it should be used only in the case where two or more employees are vying for a management position and all are equally qualified to be promoted. Rewarding long-term employees by promoting them into positions they are not well-suited for is unfair to the employee, fellow employees and the company.

Another common reason people are promoted is because they are well liked. Being well liked in and of itself is not a reason to promote someone. Certainly if the employee posseses the requisite skills and profile to be an effective manager they should be considered for the promotion. However, it seems that too many owners and managers promote people because they like the person. They want to reward the individual for making them feel good and for being a good team player.

Some employees are promoted because they are doing an excellent job in their current positions. But does that alone indicate they will be effective at the next level? Absolutely not! Many employees that are effective in their current positions fail miserably as managers and supervisors.

So when does it make sense to promote from within? It only makes sense when an employee has the ability to manage effectively. That means that all of your personal biases about employees must be shelved when making promotional decisions. It means that unless an employee is an excellent fit for the job they shouldn't be considered for the promotion.

The problem in hiring and promoting employees is that gut feelings and subjective criteria are too often used in judging whether someone can move into a management role and be effective. When promoting employees, they should be taken through a rigorous process to determine their chances for success in a management position. The employee should be expected to interview with top management and should be put through the paces to isolate behavioral tendencies that will give some indication about how they will handle various management situations. And the employee should be tested and assessed to determine the degree to which they match the profile of a manager/supervisor.

Most promotional decisions are made too quickly and without sound rationale. Putting some structure and objectivity into the process will help immensely in making the right decision. And we need to realize that some employees will be passed over for promotions into management simply because they are not qualified to manage. Will they leave the company if they can't advance into management? Maybe. But would you rather have an employee leave or have them attempt to fill a role they are not capable of filling? If they are promoted and are not capable of doing the job, they can do a significant amount of damage and you will have done nothing more than set that person up to fail. They will ultimately be demoted or terminated. Handled properly, an employee passed up for a promotion will often stay with the company.