Here’s what they said: Everyone should be able to throw out ideas without fear of criticism or judgment. If you evaluate ideas as you go, people start to censor their thoughts, and the brainstorming session goes nowhere.

But as it turns out, this conventional wisdom about conducting brainstorming sessions is off-base. According to research from the University of California-Berkeley, people who debate and criticize ideas in brainstorming sessions came up with 20% more ideas than those using traditional judgment-free brainstorming techniques.

The value of dissent
According to the research, dissent is good for our brains. When our ideas are challenged, it forces us to reassess, revise and reframe our views. It makes us look at the problem from a different angle.

And in the process, new ideas pop up – ideas that are more likely to be practical, too, because they take account of other people’s suggestions.

So the next time you run a brainstorming session, make sure the participants know ahead of time that:

• Fair criticism of any and all ideas — including yours — is welcome.
• The goal is to make ideas better, not tear them down.
• No personal attacks are allowed. Any conflict should be over ideas, not personalities.

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Criticism is welcome appeared first on Rapid Learning Institute.

And the people at the big consulting firm Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu have at least one answer: Measure the things that the C-suite wants measured.

To be sure, if you’re doing a competent job within traditional HR parameters, you’re probably already measuring a bunch of numbers and trends.

Among these: employee headcount over time on a full-time equivalent (FTE) basis, total payroll, total compensation and benefit costs per employee, and industry- and geographical-area-specific comparisons of your organization’s compensation levels.

It’s not just about cost
But as useful as these traditional measures are, they don’t do much to elevate the strategic status of HR in the organization.

What do we mean?

If HR tracks and reports only on measures that have to do with cost, then HR stands for reactive record-keeping in the minds of the people who are reading these reports. In other words, you end up always ringing the unwelcome cost bell, not the profit bell that the C-suite loves to hear.

What else to track
So what else should you be tracking, in order to both help the organization and impress the top execs with your strategic acumen?

Performance-driven measures are what the C-suite people look at in gauging corporate success and setting corporate direction.

And you can track some of these measures. When you do, you’ll bring both critical information and an aura of strategic understanding to the table.

"High-Impact HR Communication: How to Speak the Language of CEOs"

Five key measures
Among the measures Deloitte suggests you might want to look at:

1. Time-to-efficiency for new managers and employees. This is a hot measure, according to a worldwide survey of 531 executives – both HR and non-HR – that Deloitte did a few years back. Fully 60% of the organizations contacted either were tracking time-to-efficiency or planned to.
Why is time-to-efficiency so important? We all try to minimize turnover of key employees, but in today’s workplace you have to expect a certain level of turnover. The company that gets its replacement people up and running fastest gains a competitive edge – and that’s language your C-suite understands.

2. Management time spent on people issues. Again, a measure top execs are starting to look hard at. Some 55% of organizations either were tracking it or planned to when Deloitte contacted them.
HR can take a strong hand in improving line managers’ efficiency in dealing with people problems – and then report on its success. You’ll need to poll line managers periodically to get this data.

3. Cost per turnover. Deloitte’s survey showed that almost three-quarters of organizations contacted were tracking this or planned to. Cost per turnover provides HR with a powerful budget argument for retention programs – top executives are often floored when they learn the full cost of losing key employees, which may approach or even exceed annual salary.

4. Recruitment cost per employee. HR can score big points by streamlining recruiting through use of modern methods – social media, job boards, job fairs, tie-ins with key universities, etc. – and then demonstrating the cost reductions.

5. Training spend per employee. Some cutting-edge HR departments go so far as to calculate ROI on training. Training gets to the heart of what almost 90% of the execs surveyed considered their company’s most important source of talent – the development and training of existing personnel, as opposed to outside talent searches.

Is it all worth it?
Just in case you wonder whether it’s worth it to make the effort to track all these trends, check another finding from the Deloitte survey: Just 23% of the executives contacted said they believed HR plays a crucial role in corporate strategy and operational results.

That means 77% held the traditional view that fences HR in, restricting it to the narrower role of record-keeping and compliance watch-dogging.

Yes, some 82% of the respondents said they expected HR to take a more strategic role in such key areas as productivity and talent management in coming years.

But then, people have been forecasting a more strategic role for HR for a while now. You need to do something to make it happen.

Source: www.deloitte.com/us/alignedtop

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what the C-suite wants measured appeared first on Rapid Learning Institute.

But are you unintentionally stunting the careers of the people you allow to work from home? A new telecommuting survey by recruiters Korn/Ferry International suggests you might be.

In the survey, 60% of the 300+ executives surveyed said they believed working from home limited an employee’s opportunity for career growth. Out of sight, out of mind, it seems.

And these aren’t execs who hate telecommuting: 80% allow it throughout their organizations, and 94% agree it’s a key option for working parents.

Stop the disappearing acts
If you don’t want your work-from-homers to “disappear,” try these steps:

• Program a certain number of days per month when they come to the office.
• Make sure they attend relevant meetings, either live or by teleconferencing.
• Keep them involved in office functions like lunches, parties and the like.

Check out the Leadership & Management Rapid Learning Center FREE. Get instant access to a collection of 6- to 10-minute modules perfect for training supervisors and managers throughout your organization.

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“I wish Petra had come directly to me, but I understand you’re good friends, so she was comfortable talking to you,” Molly continued. “And telling her to go to HR was fine. Any complaint can be reported either to HR or to a supervisor.”

“So if what I told Petra isn’t a problem, what is?” Dee asked. “Why have you called me in?”

Spreading the word
“I understand you’ve been talking to a number of people in the company about the harassment complaint,” Molly said. “People in several departments other than this one – some of them friends of yours – are aware of the details.”

“You assume I told them?” Dee replied indignantly.

“I’m not assuming a thing,” Molly said firmly. “I have it on the word of people you talked to.”

“Well, even if I did, what’s wrong with that?” Dee asked. “Are you trying to protect that creep who harassed her?”

No ‘protection’
“We’re investigating, and nobody is protected,” Molly said. “We talk to everyone – accused, accuser, witnesses – and then make an impartial determination about the facts and what to do.”

“But the point is that while we’re investigating, we haven’t yet decided what actually happened,” Molly went on.

“That’s one reason why we ask everyone involved to keep quiet. It’s the best way to be fair to all, and it’s also policy. So please don’t discuss the complaint, even with Petra herself.”

Who’s talking?
“I’m not the only one talking about this,” Dee said stubbornly.

“I’ll be making an announcement reminding everybody of the policy,” Molly said. “But frankly, I had special concerns about you.”

“That wouldn’t be because I’ve complained in the past about discrimination against women in the company, would it?” Dee sneered.

“Absolutely not,” Molly said. “There’s no connection.”

Later, Dee applied for a promotion and was turned down. She sued for sex discrimination and hostile work environment, based in part on the conversation with Molly. Did she win?

‘Handling Employee Complaints: What Every Manager Needs to Know’

The Decision
No, Dee didn’t win her hostile work environment case. The court said it was “not unreasonable” for a supervisor to ask an employee to refrain from talking about a co-worker’s sexual harassment claims. Nor did Molly’s directive to Dee amount to hostility based on gender.

What can supervisors learn from this case?

It’s important to maintain as much confidentiality as possible during complaint investigations, for several reasons: to protect witnesses, to avert any tampering by accuser or accused, and to shield the reputations of people who may not have done anything wrong.

Supervisors should follow company policy on confidentiality. But don’t promise complainants absolute confidentiality when they first come to you; a certain number of people in the organization have to know the facts in order to conduct the investigation.

Cite: Warf v. U.S. Dept. of Veterans Affairs, No. 11-2570, 6th Cir., 4/11/13. Fictionalized for dramatic effect.

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The answer: inability to adapt to a new organizational culture.

We all attempt to explain our company culture to new hires. We put code words in recruiting ads such as “high-energy,” and “fast-paced.” We repeat them in interviews and at new-hire orientations.

The ‘secret sauce’
But culture is intangible. It’s hard to convey the values, unwritten rules and behavioral norms that

• give a company its unique personality; and that
• new hires MUST assimilate in order to succeed.

Fact is, your initial effort to explain your company’s “secret sauce” to new hires is just the first step in a long-term coaching process. Even in the best cases it takes months for new hires to adequately experience the nuances of a new culture and align their behavior with its values.

Now, “learning by experience” doesn’t mean throwing new hires into the deep end and letting them figure it out. Even the most talented new hires have a hard time decoding a complex organizational culture on their own. They need help from colleagues, mentors, and most of all, they need coaching from the person who hired them and who’s the key to their current and future success – their boss.

Easy as 1, 2, 3
Good bosses expect new hires to struggle with a new culture, and prepare accordingly using what we call “Onboarding Teachable Moments.”

Teachable Moment #1: the Crisis Intervention. This Moment is triggered when the new hire becomes engaged in a conflict with another employee. Usually this happens when a new hire encounters a practice or policy incompatible with what they’re used to. In these moments, managers need to clearly explain the company’s practice and its relationship to the company’s culture.

Teachable Moment #2: the Opportunistic Coaching Session. These can happen at any time. Opportunistic Coaching Sessions highlight something that the new hire did well, and why that action or behavior illustrated an understanding of your company’s culture. These work so well because they rises organically from the workday and is often seamless. Sometimes, the employee might not even know she’s being coached.

Teachable Moment #3: the Routine Check In. This is the most structured of the three Moments and includes a scheduled weekly meeting with the new hire – a “listening session”- in which you ask basic questions. How’s it going? What are you struggling with? How are things with your colleagues? Are your expectations of the job being met? After hearing the employee’s responses, it’s essential that you again relate your answers to the company’s culture and how your new hire can best adapt to it.

When using any of the Three Onboarding Teachable Moments, it’s important to be encouraging (“Don’t worry. In time you’ll figure it all out”), and above all, patient. Most successful onboarding efforts take six months to a year.

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The 3 Teachable Moments
appeared first on Rapid Learning Institute.

It’s new data from Gallup that has me asking. The venerable polling organization reports that as hiring has increased in the U.S. over the past four years, so also has self-reported engagement on the part of employees — especially managers and executives.

Managerial engagement surges
Gallup said that overall, 30% of the 150,000+ employees they surveyed for 2012 said they were engaged in their jobs, compared with 28% in 2009. The rise in engagement was particularly strong among managers and executives, surging to 36% from 26%.

Meantime, 40% of managers said their organizations were adding to their workforce, compared with just 26% in 2009. Reinforcing the trend, just 18% said they were cutting headcount now, compared with 30% in 2009.

So what’s the direction of the relationship between these two phenomena, increased engagement >->-> stronger hiring, or vice versa?

Could go either way
I’m going to disappoint you here with an equivocal answer. That’s because even Gallup admits it doesn’t know for sure which leads to which.

The polling organization says two things. First, “It is possible that employees are more engaged because of their organization’s success or more disengaged because of their organization’s lack of progress or the fear of layoffs.” But on the other hand, Gallup notes, according to recent research, “employee engagement predicts financial performance more strongly than financial performance predicts employee engagement.”

Let’s stop a minute to remember why we care about employee engagement. It’s because engaged employees are deeply involved in and enthusiastic about their work, and are actively contributing to their organization. Disengaged employees, by contrast, are doing the minimum they need to do to keep their jobs. Obviously managers want to increase the number of the former and reduce the number of the latter.

Free Training Videos - "Employee Engagement Series for Managers & Supervisors"

Working for improvement
So what conclusions can managers profitably draw? I see two:

• Irrespective of any specific data about hiring or organizational success, there are actions you can take over time to improve employee engagement. These include demonstrating your competence, proving your trustworthiness and creating a “safe haven” where employees can honestly strive without fear of undue, unfair or unexpected consequences.
• But there are also episodic actions you can take to improve engagement, actions that are suggested — although not proved — by the data. Gallup’s latest report suggests that one of these actions may be letting employees know loud and clear when your organization is hiring, as well as trumpeting other measures of success like increased sales and/or profits.

 
To sum up: Building employee engagement is a long-haul strategic process. But you can try to help it along with some short-term tactical boosterism. And because you’re more likely to feel personally engaged these days, per paragraph 3, a booster may be just what you feel like!

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According to a recent poll by Monster.com, only 24% of employees would vote to retain their managers if they were given a chance. Some 25% would choose a colleague they thought would make a better manager, and 30% would promote themselves! (The rest – 21% – would hope a better candidate shows up from somewhere.)

Sobering results
Even though the results don’t represent all employees – Monster noted that the 577 users of its job board who participated weren’t randomly selected – they should sober any thoughtful manager, and perhaps raise the question: If they don’t like us, why not?

Here are some possible reasons. Feel free to ask yourself whether any apply to you:

• Inability to listen. Employees will tune you out – and likely resent you – if you don’t listen carefully to them. You don’t have to agree all the time, but you must listen.
• Failure to give or take criticism well. When you criticize employees, always describe specific instances where they can improve. If they criticize you, ask for specifics, too. It’ll help you do better and also show them you take the criticism seriously.
• A misperception that conflict is bad, rather than inevitable and manageable. There will always be conflict in the workplace. Managers who hide their heads in the sand quickly lose their relevance and much of their influence.

Free Training Videos - "Leadership Training for Managers & Supervisors"

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If that’s not the case, you’ll need to coach them to achieve their full potential. Coaching has been the subject of many lengthy books and essays, but it’s not all that complicated when you boil it down.

Ask and answer
The essence of coaching lies in asking – and finding answers to – three straightforward questions. Here they are:

1. What does this employee want? Some want to earn more. Some want promotion. Some want personal growth. Almost all want recognition. To motivate them, you need to know.

2. What’s stopping the person from achieving his/her objectives? Most people, even the ablest, have an Achilles heel. Using your own observations as a starting point, try to tease this out through questioning.

3. What can I do to help this employee succeed? You may need to challenge the person, be their cheerleader or even their parole officer! Your role depends on what they’re like and what they want.

Source: “The Leadership Pocket Guide,” by John Baldoni.

‘Six Management Styles You Need to Lead Effectively’

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And yet … in a recent survey for CareerBuilder, the online job board, 16% of the 4,000+ respondents said they’d dated their boss. (Beyond those who ’fess up, you can be pretty sure there are more who have but don’t want to say.)

From a supervisor’s perspective, lots can go wrong if he or she – more likely he, according to the survey – romances an underling. Among the consequences:

• quid pro quo harassment complaints if the relationship goes south
• demoralizing perceptions of favoritism among co-workers, and
• damage to the supervisor’s career if it leaks out that he/she is violating any policy on intra-office dating.

Notify if necessary
The point for supervisors is clear: Resist the siren song of a subordinate’s attractions.

But if you can’t – if the earth moves every time you see him or her – let your own superiors know about the relationship, and be prepared to accept a transfer of yourself, your co-romantic lead or both. That’s the solution many organizations opt for.

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But patriotism gets a little tougher when a key employee tells you he or she has to miss two weeks — or two years, for that matter – on military duty.

Thing is, you really, really need the person around in the next couple of weeks. It’s your busiest season, and you think, “I just can’t spare her.”

Without prejudice
Well, under the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act, or USERRA, you’ll probably have to! And if you fall afoul of USERRA by violating employees’ rights to do their military service without prejudice to their civilian jobs, you’re putting your organization in legal jeopardy.

Here’s one way you might unwittingly violate USERRA: Think back to that key employee you feel you can’t spare. You don’t want to flat out refuse her request for leave to carry out her military obligation, but you want to challenge her and see if it’s really necessary.

So you tell her she’s got to bring you written notice of the service from her military unit before you’ll let her go.

Violation!
Uh-oh. That’s a violation. Under USERRA, the employee can give notice orally or in writing. You can’t insist on the latter. Nor can you insist on employees giving notice a specific amount of time before their scheduled service. The law says only that employees must notify their employers of the need for military leave as soon as possible.

USERRA also covers such matters as:

• Hiring of people with military obligations
• Job opportunities and promotions for employees with military obligations
• The right – and wrong – ways of reinstating employees returning from military duty
• Discrimination by co-workers against employees with military obligations
• What you can and can’t expect of employees leaving for or returning from military duty

So when you’ve got a minute, read up on this law — which still isn’t as well known or understood as employment legislation like FMLA, the ADA and the laws against race and sex discrimination.

Check out the Leadership & Management Rapid Learning Center FREE. Get instant access to a collection of 6- to 10-minute modules perfect for training supervisors and managers throughout your organization.

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