Organizations and business leaders do themselves a powerful service when they empower employees, as explained in a previous HRTools.com Insight. Empowered employees are more likely to feel inspired, to feel respected and to take ownership of their job responsibilities as their fears or concerns are eliminated, enhancing trust, morale, employee commitment and loyalty. 

Don’t take me wrong, as human beings mistakes are going to happen, that’s simply human tendency. Nevertheless, here are some techniques that may help leaders avoid taking some employee empowerment missteps: 

1. Develop ways to build trust with your employees. Give them opportunities for heading up a project and taking responsibility for its progress and results. Expect them to make decisions, recommendations and come up with solutions.
2. Encourage employees to follow up with customers and clients. For example, ask employees to make sure that products or services are delivered as expected. Let employees know that you expect them to solve problems or resolve complaints. This is important so that everyone in the organization takes ownership for client or customer excellence. Remember that regardless of how problems happened in the first place, it’s in everyone’s best interest to resolve them for a successful outcome.
3. Send and reinforce the message that you intend to set employees up for success, not failure. Some employees may have had previously negative experiences, for instance, serving with a focus group in another work setting where expectations did not occur or were poorly handled.
4. Set realistic expectations and make sure that employee goals and objectives are realistic and attainable. Remember the SMART acronym when conducting performance appraisals: Smart, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timed.
5. Develop a strong chain of command. For example, an employee is accountable to the manager; and that manager is accountable to the general manager; and that general manager is accountable to the vice president; and so on. Employees naturally watch this chain of command activity to see if everyone working within that chain is actually held accountable for their actions. This is all part of the ‘buy-in’ process.
6. Hold steadfast to your ethics and values, as employees are also watching this area and gauging how deeds match words. It’s hard for employees to sustain their accountability if they don’t trust their employers.   
7. Remember, building trust is a two-way street. Set employee expectations and communicate to them in ways that clarify how you expect them to follow through. It’s also important that they work to earn your trust, as well. Remember that ‘leading by example’ sets a very intricate tone for how your followers are going react to your actions and decisions. 

Last, but certainly not least, let your employees know that you look forward to their recommendations for improvement, to their ideas and to their dedicated excellence for improvement. But please, don’t stop there. “Going above and beyond the call of duty,” for many workers is extremely important, especially when they are being recognized and rewarded for their efforts. Your business’ bottom line is more important when you empower your human talent to cohesively work towards excellence than when you do not. Think about it!

Can employers and business leaders influence their employees to have a desire and willingness to be held accountable? Before we answer that question, let’s ask ourselves, what does accountability really mean? 

First, let’s define accountability in the workplace. Generally speaking, accountability relates to an individual’s responsibility to do the job he/she is hired to do. In other words, when I accept responsibility for a project or a job function, my employer should expect me to take ownership of that specific project or job function. 

Ownership is the operative word. Here are a few examples of how you know that   employees ‘own’ their jobs and related responsibilities: 

1. An employee attitude that reflects a certain mindset. For instance, your employees should be saying things like, “I’ve been thinking of ways that I can please the client,” or “If I do ‘xyz,’ I believe that the client will view this activity favorably.”
2. An employee attitude that reflects staying on top of projects. Your employees should exhibit signs that they are setting standards and expectations for themselves. You will see employees taking responsibility for their actions, including successes, failures and any misunderstandings. 
3. All that said, employers aren’t totally off the hook either, as it is important that business leaders share some of the burden. In addition to expecting employees to take ownership of their jobs and responsibilities, it is first necessary for employers to take steps that fully support appropriate levels of employee ‘empowerment.’ So, functionally speaking, the concepts of empowerment and ownership work in harmony and hand-in-hand.  

It works like this: In order for employees to demonstrate accountability, they must be empowered by their employers at the same time. From the starting block, then, employers should empower their employees. Here are a few suggestions for accomplishing that step: 

1. Give employees sufficient opportunities for owning their projects.
2. Communicate reasonable expectations and check with employees to make sure that they understand and follow through.
3. Ask employees to make recommendations and come up with innovative solutions.
4. Follow-up with clients and customers to validate that your employees are performing at expected levels. Were the services or products delivered exceeding the caliber that the customer expected?
5. Break away from micro-managing styles, attitudes, habits and actions; in its place, lead from the top by setting an example and by empowering success. 

The last suggestion above is critical, as it really isn’t the boss’s responsibility to fix every single problem within an organization. If employers and leaders expect employees to take ownership and be empowered, they can’t, in turn, micro-manage employees without canceling out all the strides gained in achieving employee accountability. The reality is that, especially in today’s business environment, employers do not have time to constantly look over their shoulders to make sure employees are doing their jobs. 

By all means, your employees might make some mistakes along the way; however, it is all part of the accountability-building process. As the saying goes, “Failure is one of the greatest teachers”. You want to see your employees own-up to their successes, as well as their failures. Successful organizations are the ones who have achieved this ownership/empowerment employee mentality. Also, by stepping aside and breaking away from micro-managing employees, you are building valuable trust while demonstrating that you respect the worth of the individual. 

When employees know that you trust them to clean-up after their own mistakes, you are allowing opportunities for them to learn valuable lessons. As a result, your employees will grow to be even more committed to the success of the organization—and they will become better informed and even more responsible.

When leaders identify their organization’s mission and vision, they take important steps toward establishing a strategic framework for achieving significant successes. 

All organizations, regardless of industry or type of business, should laser in on developing their mission and vision. As a way to begin this process, organizational leaders can take time and answer questions such as: 

1. Why am I in business?
2. What am I trying to accomplish with my employees?
3. What am I trying to accomplish within my industry or area?
4. What part(s) of society am I trying to serve?
5. Why is my image so important to this organization?
6. What is the purpose of this organization? 

At the same time you answer the above questions, in essence, you also create your organizational culture. This process helps organizations identify the specifics of the culture: for example, to enhance productivity, to maximize a return on investment, etc. And, most importantly, your mission and vision are catalysts for obtaining buy-in from every employee who has a relationship with the business. 

If yours is a learning organization, you might be interested in reviewing a few techniques that can help you avoid some common mistakes:   

1. Identify the purpose of the organization. Have you ever read a company’s mission statement, one that includes run-on sentences and tends to go on and on, and you end up wondering, “What is it exactly that they do?” Your mission should identify exactly what you will do in order to succeed.
2. Understand the significance of being ‘culture-specific’ to the business. In other words, you want to do and say exactly what you’re going to do—behind closed doors—the same as how the outside world sees you. Businesses should treat their employees in exactly the same way as they do their vendors and customers. Also, some organizations will include statements about how creative, how analytical, how respectful, etc. they are in their business pursuits.
3. Include components that speak to your values and ethics with a focus on integrity. You want to make sure that you identify your priorities. Identify those elements that help you demonstrate a commitment to the integrity of the organization and to its products, services, etc., which also extends to the well-being of society. You might also value ideals such as innovation, so you will want to incorporate those elements into your operations development.
4. Make sure your mission and vision statements have buy-in from every single ‘C’ level member of the organization. This step cannot be overstated. An organization’s C level members need to be well-versed in these statements, in order for them to be well received by others. Remember, too, future employees may be attracted to your organization by what you say in these statements; and prospective employees may want to work for a company that they feel aligned with and that conducts business in certain expressed ways. 

As a final note: You’re not alone if the process seems like a struggle. I’ve worked with people within organizations who take months, even up to a year, developing their mission and vision statements. Although your final statements may only be a couple of sentences, you should plan on doing a lot of brainstorming. For instance, you will want to discuss what you want to accomplish; how you see employees moving the business forward and how you want to be perceived in the market and by others, etc. 

By taking time to work through the process, I believe that you will find it well worth the effort. I’ve seen it happen where effective mission and vision statements help lead the charge toward increased revenues, higher sales, increased employee retention and other significant bottom line improvements.

The Information Age has plowed the way for the ‘Collaboration Age’ in business today.

The word collaborate comes from the Latin word ‘collaborare,’ which means to labor together. In today’s business world, the word ‘collaboration’ is spoken and heard a lot. In fact, this word—collaboration—is a term often referred to in the workplace, and it represents a relatively new and important strategy used by businesses to gain a competitive advantage. 

As our society has moved from an industrial age to an information age, we have seen relatively new business terminologies take root. When business professionals talk about collaboration, they are basically referring to a synchronization of processes that, when combined with organizational abilities to distribute and delegate responsibilities, cultivate more positive outcomes. 

As a business process, workplace collaboration serves as a platform for developing internal partnerships so your organization can realize a competitive edge in the marketplace. Here are a few examples of the types of advantages that collaboration can put into motion:   

1. Collaboration enhances the ability to support the right people with the right data to obtain the right decision, or to make the best decisions. And it's all about making the right decisions. And I'd like to emphasize the significance of this goal, because obviously organizations make many decisions; but also making decisions doesn’t automatically mean those decisions are always the most thought-through.
2. Collaboration allows for a team of professionals to give their input, which in turn helps instill greater credibility within a new system or process.
3. Collaboration seeks to find the balance between business professionals who are trying to achieve goals with those individuals who are making decisions.
4. Collaboration helps organizations fine-tune their processes for engaging and empowering people and how they maximize their resources. 

Bottom line advantages: Collaborative events, such as the above, help increase coordinated actions and the flow of information within an organization; which, in turn, will help move everyone toward making better long-range decisions and choices. These outcomes can have tremendous impact on those teams of people who collaborated. For example, an effectively led, collaborating team can assess the strengths and the weaknesses of a process or idea before decisions are made on ‘x, y and z,’ and so on. 

The advantages of the collaboration process are not attained in an impulsive or random manner.

I’ve heard of organizations in which a business manager says something similar to, “OK, let’s get together and collaborate,” without realizing how this exchange really happens. Instead, a well-informed business manager will begin a collaborative process only after thinking it through, which includes thinking it all the way through to setting final expectations—before coming to or making any decisions. 

While collaboration is vitally important in this information age, which is also linked to the digital era of ‘do it fast and do it now,’ employers should not expect collaboration to happen overnight or spontaneously. Business managers should be trained in knowing how to properly and thoroughly think through and lead a collaborative effort. 

So I encourage business leaders to acquire and follow the necessary steps for developing a collaborative process. If they don’t, and I’m speaking from a strategic-planning, business perspective, they can end up taking the process in a direction that is detrimental; for instance, if they are striving to introduce new products or initiatives into the marketplace. 

In contrast, effective collaboration that is based on building rapport and uniting people in working toward common goals will better provide businesses with distinct competitive advantages.

“The talent is in the choices.”

                                             —— Actor Robert De Niro. 

Recruitment strategies help companies attract and choose talented employees, those who will also fit into their culture. In these times of worldwide economic challenges, identifying talent is both challenging and more critical than ever. 

When developing recruitment strategies, employers should first look at their cultures, principles and values. Once you have a strong grasp of those criteria, you can then set out to attract individuals who fit those norms. After all, the people you recruit today are the potential future leaders of your organizations. 

How should you go about developing your recruitment strategy? 

1. Know who you are as a company. As mentioned, make sure you know your culture. Do you have prepared mission and vision statements? These statements, when put into writing, force you to think about your purpose and values. They also tell your employees what they are expected to acknowledge and follow. Your expressed mission and values should capture both the minds and hearts of those you want to hire. 
2. Know what type of leadership styles you need for the future growth and success of your organization. These are the people who will ultimately energize your workforce and drive your financial results. Firming up your leadership criteria will also help in attracting and recruiting the most suitable candidates. 
3. Know how you plan to advertise for attracting the most talented candidates. In addition to attractive, well-placed ads, you want substantive information. Your ads should include detailed information about the organization, its goals and objectives. What is your status in the market? In other words, put yourself in the shoes of the most talented of those you want to attract. They will be attracted to verbiage other than words that focus only on the skill sets required for the job. 
4. Know what kinds of opportunities and challenges you are willing to provide and negotiate. If you want “out-of-the-box” thinkers, you will need to figure out how to attract those types of candidates. Some people today want jobs that allow them to spend more time with their families and less time commuting; so some employers today are offering telecommuting and flexible scheduling working arrangements as a way to attract and retain talented individuals. Then we have individuals who want attractive work settings because they consider the workplace as their second home. Office perks may be important to those who will need to spend a lot of time at the office, attending meetings and attending to projects and issues. These employees may desire a more attractive work setting in exchange for the fact that they will be spending less time at home. 
5. Know and understand the value of diversity.  Again, in today’s fast-paced and turbulent global economy, the game of business is expanding. While there is no perfect organization, you want world-class talent in order to compete. You may need to look for that prospective applicant who will bring in a different view or perspective to the organization.  Companies need to be more open-minded and embrace every individual who walks in through the door. If not, you might be missing out on the most talented, the most skilled and the most experienced individual who can carry you to greater successes. 
6. Know and understand your benefits package. What kinds of rewards are you going to offer? In addition to benefits and compensation, you may also want to consider that some individuals are motivated by more than just money.  We know today that many talented individuals are looking for more of a commitment from a company in terms of respect, appreciation for their work and awareness that their personal lives are important. For example, will the company encourage or understand parental participation in children’s school or athletic functions? Does the organization support community involvement? Considerations of this nature can be hugely important and rewarding to some people. 

Finally, well-developed recruitment strategies can help with the overwhelming number of applications and resumes flooding many organizations today. If you know what you’re looking for and you can clearly and concisely communicate that, you will be steps ahead of other employers who are simply casting a wide net.

Ironically, the hot topic of employee layoffs in today’s news can overshadow the importance and significance of employee retention. As a senior human resource (HR) professional specializing in strategic planning, I believe that the costs of employee turnover are underestimated since they are not always directly reflected on the balance sheets.

Some people view employee turnover as inevitable, and I caution against buying into this viewpoint. Instead, employers should prioritize employee retention as a business strategy because employers will, in turn, enjoy measurable monetary returns by reducing expensive tangible and intangible turnover costs. 

Why would an employer want to retain current employees rather than recruit and hire replacements?

For starters, there are hidden costs associated with hiring just one employee. For every lost employee, a business will have advertising and administrative expenses to replace that employee such as the following: 

• time spent reviewing and/or revising the job description;
• time spent drafting the ad;
• costs for running the ad;
• time and resources required for reviewing the resumes;
• time and resources required for interviewing the applicants;
• expenses related to background checks; and
• on-boarding, orientation and training, etc.

The bottom line is that businesses are looking to increase revenues. As mentioned above, the recruiting and hiring expenses to replace just one employee are substantial, which end up cutting into revenues. In addition to that, an organization’s experienced employees are more likely to have higher productivity levels, which help bring in increased revenues. On the other hand, I’ve seen how an organization’s profit and loss statements can be negatively impacted by high employee turnover.

In fact, American businesses cough up millions of dollars for turnover and recruiting costs. The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) says that it can cost up to one and half times an employee’s starting annual salary to replace that employee. So employers need to strategically and tactically utilize their current talent to compete in this “war for talent.”

Employee retention — is it always about the money?

HR professionals are adept at guiding employers to deal with today’s complex and diversified work environment. Everyone talks about compensation, and of course, it is important. But based on my experiences, I believe it is a myth to think of benefits and compensation in terms of money only. It is a myth to think that the more money you pay employees, the longer they will stay with an organization. Simply paying more money to a person certainly does not guarantee that this person will commit to staying with an employer until retirement.

Consider the indirect factors that lead to employee retention.

In today’s business climate, I am really quite comfortable in saying that it is best to focus more on indirect factors such as the following:

1. Developing and instilling a positive workplace culture; one that is attractive to employees and will be embraced.
2. Developing a workplace with a work/life balance.
3. Building a trusting culture, which includes one where executives are trusted to make effective decisions.
4. Engaging the employees by providing meaningful work and opportunities.
5. Inspiring a level of cooperation among co-workers.
6. Providing opportunities for growth and advancement.
7. Creating a challenging work environment, particularly for overachievers who are looking for more challenges and responsibilities.

Understandably, employers—especially those in small- to medium-sized businesses—can become completely engrossed in their day-to-day operations. Taking time to focus on this “war for talent” may seem untimely or completely out of the question. However, by investing a focus on employee retention, your organization can be well rewarded by employees who want to stay and contribute in ways that will increase your profitability and customer satisfaction ratings. Who doesn’t need employees like these today?

In my first Insight, my readers learned how any business can generally benefit from understanding and applying human-resource strategies, also known as Strategic HR.

Today, I invite you to feel as though we’re sitting down for a quick and personal visit. This will not take long, as you can skim through this Insight for a quick snapshot of how a “Strategic HR” approach begins.

My greatest career satisfaction comes from helping businesses focus on what will make them grow and succeed. HR has come a long way since the days we were known simply as “personnel managers.” Today, HR professionals take additional pride in serving as strategic business partners.

True Partners: Your Success is Our Success

As business partners, we tailor strategic principles to each individual business. The cliché, “Your success is our success” certainly applies to this relationship.

If we were sitting down together to discuss your roadmap to success, here are a few sample questions I would ask to get us started:

1. First, I would ask you: Do you want to be the visionary, or do you want to be the “hands-on” person who takes care of the tactical processes? What is your mission? What are your goals?
2. Next, if you are the leader of a brand new organization, I would ask: Where do you want your organization to go? What market(s) do you want to target? How many people do you want to help get you there? What does your Human Talent looks like?

If you are the leader of an organization already in place, I would ask: Can we look at what you have in place? For instance, what transactions and processes are involved in your business flow? Who is your competition? What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? In other words, I would ask questions that establish the groundwork to formulate and develop steps for building a competitive infrastructure.

The above are just a few sample questions that Strategic HR professionals might pursue in order to gain a high-level understanding of you and your business. After additional analysis, work and follow-up discussions, we would start linking your business model into a very competitive Human Resource strategy.

Strategic HR Provides a Roadmap for Your Successful Journey

While this brief summary provides merely a snapshot of a larger component, keep in mind that organizational development processes do not happen overnight. Strategic HR is an ongoing journey, not a one-time event. Nothing worthwhile happens that way, especially in a competitive and diversified business environment.

As with any organizational development program, communication strategies holds the key to making it work. We can agree ‘all day and all night’ on a strategic HR plan. However, you need the human capital to make it happen. You need to engage them to buy into your concept. You need to empower their skills and knowledge. After all, you want them to assist you, the business owner, achieve ‘big picture’ ‘long-term’ objectives.

While a “Strategic HR” program may sound worth postponing, I am pleased to share that a growing number of successful organizations are embracing its opportunities. It diligently adds value to any organization, and the people in such organizations are well-rewarded for putting forth the effort.  After all, Strategic Human Resources is a process that focuses on increasing revenue and employee productivity.

The “HR World” is all abuzz about Strategic Human Resources. 

• What does this term mean, and how is it carried out in an organization?
• Why should a business be interested?

Generally, a strategic human-resources component helps business leaders draw their own picture for success.  It takes a “big picture” approach for understanding and positioning:

• What an organization wants to accomplish 
• How organizational goals are tied to mission and vision
• How employees relate to and help execute these goals
• How employees fine-tune a competitive advantage through processes
• How a business model is formulated to include performance requirements and initiatives

Regardless of size, any business can benefit by adopting a strategic human resources approach.  This big picture, or general approach, sets the stage for getting to the point where you can eventually do a “deep-dive” into more specific HR solutions. 

If you are an entrepreneur, you want your enterprise to succeed. A strategic HR approach helps your business grow and succeed because it: 

1. Takes advantage of people resources
2. Maximizes talents, skills and experience
3. Takes advantage of economic opportunities
4. Gives a competitive advantage for penetrating targeted markets
5. Leverages all resources
6. Develops skill sets
7. Increases opportunities for future successes

Here is a real-life example of how I recently helped an established business in the Northeast region develop a strategic human resources approach. 

First, we took a step back and reviewed their processes.  We wanted to see what tools and procedures they were using. We learned that they did not have the conventional or tactical components that give employees a sense of ownership. All evidence points to this realization as vitally important for increasing business successes.  

We focused on their organizational development and recommended that they reorganize their policies and protocols. We worked with them to identify their mission and their vision. We also helped them understand that they need to “sell” those foundational points to their employees. Next, they needed to develop a relevant culture and walk the talk: This helps build credibility and encourage follow-through.

We also helped them leverage their resources by encouraging and challenging their employees to “think outside the box.” We stressed our confidence in their employees’ abilities to come up with new and more effective ways of doing things.

We explained from the beginning that they weren’t ready for more specific actions until we worked through all the transactional or tactical processes. Now, we are working with the Vice President of Operations to successfully impact the company’s bottom line.

Of course, that is the real value to a business—the financial component—which is what every entrepreneur wants for their business. It doesn’t happen overnight, and it takes a steady commitment from the top on down.

Finally, when a business utilizes a strategic human resources approach to building and growing their business, they are also positioning themselves to better prepare for future uncertainties. A sound strategy helps a business react and rebound quickly from outside or external factors that are often beyond their control. My future blogs will focus on the business implications of developing “what if” scenarios.