Tag Archives: skills

Are You Up To Date with Recent Legal Changes in HR?

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The law is always changing around people issues. To help you keep up to date, here are a few of the recent and forthcoming changes that you need to be aware of.

1. Statutory benefit increases – standard rates for statutory maternity pay, paternity pay and adoption pay will increase with effect from 7 April 2013 to £136.78. Statutory sick pay will increase with effect from 6 April 2013 to £86.70.

2. Compensation limits – annual rises for compensation limits have been announced for all dismissals which take effect from 1 February 2013. The cap on a week’s pay rises to £450 and the maximum unfair dismissal basic award rises to £13,500. The maximum compensatory award rises to £74,200.

3. Sickness benefits – from December 2012, people on sickness benefits are being offered work experience to help them back into a job. Short periods of work experience at an appropriate employer will help people with limited employment history get a flavour of the workplace environment, gain new skills and boost their confidence. People who fail to carry out any agreed work related activity without good reason may face sanctions.

4. Fuel rates and car allowances – HMRC has published new advisory fuel rates for company cars with effect from 1 December 2012. The rates are to be used only where employers either reimburse employees for business travel in their company cars, or require employees to repay the cost of fuel used for private travel. The next review will be 1 March 2013.

5. Criminal record checks – the Home Office has announced a new service whereby employees and volunteers requiring criminal records checks will be able to make one application and have access to an online certificate check rather than have to make new applications for each job they apply for.  The service will be free for volunteers.  The new system will be launched by the disclosure and barring services on 1 March 2013.

If you need to know more about any of these changes and how they affect your particular business, leave a comment here, email me your question or pick up the phone and we can talk about it.

Why Bother with Staff Appraisals?

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Why do appraisals? Because you don’t know if you don’t ask! Basically a conversation, appraisals are great way to help you get the best out of your employees and see your business grow. Useful for finding out information and giving feedback, appraisals are also a great opportunity for employees to reflect on their goals, objectives and contributions.

What can you find out?

  • There may be expertise or knowledge within your team that you didn’t know about
  • Some employees may not be happy with their role, have misconceptions about their jobs and abilities, or how they are doing in their role ? maybe they are struggling
  • You may find out that there are gaps in their knowledge
  • Maybe they are really happy and performing well!

So what?

This knowledge allows you to sort out problems and make sure that individuals are the right people for the right jobs. Appraisals can help you make changes to your business, such as:

  • If someone is more suited to a different role, re-structuring will make a more effective use of your resources
  • You can organise training that is needed to increase efficiency
  • You may need to change work patterns, recruit or provide different equipment or tools.

Getting your employees’ views allows you to find out what they need and gives them a sense of being in control of their job. Without talking to the people you work with, you remain oblivious to problems that may be hindering productivity, motivation and ultimately the success of your business.

What you can tell them?

An appraisal is your chance to say ‘well done’ and ask questions that identify why an individual may not be performing at their best. Money is not always the best way to reward people for good work; recognition and praise often work better as they encourage loyalty and focus. Individuals who have received positive feedback about their work are more likely to give 110%. It’s a win-win situation.

When are you next carrying out appraisals with your staff? What preparation will you be doing?

For more tips on appraisals, click here to watch a short video on my website.

Promotion – Are They Really Ready for It?

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You’ve got a great salesman working for you. He’s been with your business for some time and knows the company inside out. He knows all about your products and services and does a great job selling them. You have other members of the sales team who aren’t doing as well and who could learn a lot from this person. So you decide to promote him to Sales Manager. This way, he can lead the rest of the sales team, sharing his knowledge and experience with them. He can inspire them and help create a great sales department.

However, a few months after his promotion, you notice that things are not quite going to plan. Why is this? It is something that’s seen over and over again in companies where someone has been promoted because they’re good at what they do. They end up managing other people and not doing a very good of it. This is often because they have had no management training; they don’t know how to manage other people who are doing what they used to do.

Great salesmen – and many other professions – are good at the technical side of their jobs. They’re not necessarily natural people people.

So what do you do if it goes wrong?

Always start with a probationary period, to give you the chance to review the performance of your new manager

If it’s still not working out:

  • Give them a full opportunity to any discuss problems with their job
  • You’re under no obligation to give them their old job back, but you can discuss it, if it’s still vacant
  • Consider an alternative position before dismissal; tribunals will want you to consider all alternatives before you let someone go.

Before you promote someone to management level, take the time to find out if they are really ready for it. If not, what do you need to do to make them ready to make them into great managers?

To find out more, click here to watch a short video that?s on my website.

Are your people ready for promotion?

Don?t Make a Pantomime Out of HR

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Here’s a little festive tale of HR for you, called the Cinderella School of HR.

Cinderella doesn’t like having to work long hours in the run up to Christmas, and drop everything every time her step mother wants something. She prefers being able to work flexible hours, as she knows what she needs to get done. Helping her identify ways of improving her work/life balance makes her much more engaged with her work.

The Ugly Sisters spend a lot of time telling poor Cinders what to do. They find fault with everything that she does and yet they never lift a finger to help. Why do they pick on their step-sister in this way? Because they’ve both realised that they’re not reaching the objectives that were set at their last appraisals – they’re both underperforming! Making Cinderella look bad means that their mother won’t notice how useless they are. Perhaps they need the Fairy Godmother to carry out their next appraisals and see what needs to be done?

Prince Charming used to be far from charming. He was always doing his own thing, despite having been told what to do on numerous occasions. He turned up late for princely duties; he didn’t send his reports back to the office promptly, so Buttons couldn’t get the invoices out on time. The Fairy Godmother was called in to see if young Charming could be sacked. Instead she suggested a capability meeting, where she explained the concerns and set some goals for Charming to achieve in time for another meeting in two weeks. The King called back just a week later to say that Charming had suddenly become utterly charming and was in fact now the best Prince that the King had ever known. All that from one meeting!

So if Cinderella doesn’t seem pleased to be at work, ask her what you can do to improve her work/life balance.

If you’ve got Ugly Sisters not meeting their targets, or Princes not being charming, instead of trying to get rid of them, talk to them about how you can improve their performance and wave your magic wand! You could be surprised by the results. Oh yes you could!

What can you do to make sure you don’t make a pantomime out of HR in your business?

What’s the Best Way to Deal with Underperforming Staff?

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In a recent blog post I introduced you to Heather, who was receiving poor performance feedback. Click here to read about Heather . Did you have any solutions for her?

Here are our suggestions.

While Heather has a lot of experience developing training courses, she’s not getting good feedback from delivering them. The cause of this could be that she:

  • Only likes writing courses and not the delivery
  • Has been given the delivery, when it wasn’t originally part of her job
  • She doesn’t have the confidence in delivery of the information when asked questioned
  • She thinks she’s being challenged when someone asks her a question.

How can we help Heather?

First it is important to acknowledge Heather’s strengths – her knowledge and ability to write training courses. Then we need to find out what she thinks about the feedback she’s getting and how she feels about the delivery of the courses. Does she enjoy that part of the job? If so, we can help her build up her confidence. Has she had any training in presentation skills? If not and she wants to continue with the delivery, we can look at the right training to help her.

In situations like this, it’s important to hear all the sides of the story, before rushing to any conclusions or imposing a solution. Work with your members of staff to find the best outcome for both of you.

How do you deal with issues of under performance in your business? Leave a comment here to share your views and ideas.

Preventative HR – Keep Your Staff Happy Through Feedback

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One of the best ways you can keep your staff happy and working productively is by giving them regular feedback. Tell them how they’re doing against the standards you’ve set for them and your business.

We all like receiving praise, so make sure that you regularly praise your employees for a job well done. Depending on the size of your team, you can write down one positive comment for each of your team, every day or every week – and share this with them on a regular basis. When you see someone doing something well, praise them for it – you don’t need to wait for a formal meeting to deliver praise. In fact, praising someone as soon as you see them doing something well will have a far greater impact.

If you have members of staff who are doing really well, you can move them on in your business. If you have staff that are not doing so well, you need to tell them about it. And you need to do this promptly. Don’t leave it too long if there’s a performance issue, because it could get worse. Address it promptly rather than waiting for an annual appraisal. When someone is underperforming, they need you to tell them about it. You can’t make improvements if your boss doesn’t tell you that you’re not meeting their standards, or doing something the way they want it done.

Feedback can be delivered on an ad hoc basis, in team meetings and at appraisals, which should be done at least once a year ? more frequently with new members of staff. Use feedback and reviews to look at how you can help your employees improve their performance and you’ll be able to keep them happy and work hard for your business for longer.

To find out more about giving feedback, take a look at the short video on my website ? click here to watch it.

What’s the Best Way to Deal with Underperforming Staff?

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Heather works in the training department of a large IT organisation. She is responsible for designing and delivering interpersonal skills training, including communication skills, networking, and new management training classes.

Heather has excellent knowledge of how to design a training class. She includes behaviour modelling and practice into all her classes. She has also done research on what good communication consists of, how to network and what new managers need to know to be successful.

Sounds good so far!

However, people who attend Heather’s training classes often give her low ratings, saying that she has a hard time answering specific question. They say that she doesn’t seem approachable after the classes or when individuals want to ask questions.

What do you think may be causing Heather’s under performance?

How do you think a manager should address the problem of poor performance?

We’ll give you our opinion on this blog in a few week’s time. Leave a comment here to give us your suggestions!

How to Be a Great Boss

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It can be tough at the top. Here are some top tips to improve your personal success as well as the success of the people working for you.

  • Lead by example. Provide guidance and support and set the benchmark for team cohesiveness and performance.
  • Understand yourself and work on bettering yourself. What are the things you do well and what can you improve? How effective is your management style? By investing time in developing your individual skills you will drive your business forward and reap the rewards in terms of how successfully you lead your team.
  • Be a good all-rounder and play to all your strengths. Technical skills are important but so are soft skills such as people management skills. Do not neglect one in favour of the other.
  • Learn to delegate effectively. You can’t do it all! By relinquishing responsibility to others you are not only ensuring that your efforts are always directed to best effect but also that the people around you feel empowered to make decisions and improve the business.
  • Build a team that can work without you. A team that falls apart when you are on leave or away from the office is not good business.
  • Maintain boundaries: Whilst it is good to develop a good personal relationship with your colleagues, you must establish appropriate boundaries. This will be important during times when you have to make tough decisions that may not always be welcome by others.

What do you do to make sure that you’re a good boss? Share your tips (or mistakes!) with us by leaving a comment here.

5 Tips for Managing Performance with Your Team

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As a boss, manager or supervisor, you play an important role in promoting employee commitment, motivation and retention. You are responsible for developing and nurturing your staff.

Here are 5 tips to help you look after your staff and improve their performance, which will lead to improvements in the overall performance of your organisation.

  1. Set meaningful, attainable expectations aligned with the mission and objectives of your business. Be clear about employee expectations and explain any measurements that will be used.
  2. Approach this process as a collaborative effort, engaging staff in the process. Work with your employees to develop appropriate outcomes that support your work and lead to the achievement of organizational goals. Don’t just impose objectives on your staff without first talking to them.
  3. Provide employee access to the necessary tools and resources needed for performance enhancement. Ask about relevant technology, available literature or other materials they need to improve their performance. Provide them with the coaching and mentoring they need and allow time for employees to learn improved methods and procedures.
  4. Continually asses and communicate progress regarding performance. Don’t save all your feedback until the end of the year. Provide employees with mid-year progress reviews and final evaluation feedback. Face-to-face progress reviews and final evaluations should be scheduled in advance. Engage your employees in discussions about the best ways to meet their future goals.
  5. Show appreciation of employee performance through the use of one of the many forms of recognition and reward available to you.

If you need specific help on managing and improving the performance of your staff, to improve the performance of your business, why come to our next free workshop on 22 November? Being held at The Old Post Office in Wargrave, near Henley in Oxfordshire, this is your chance to get some expert advice on your own issues. Click here for more details and to book your place.

How to Boost Profitability in Your Business

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Here are 10 ideas to help you improve the profitability of your business through your people.

  1. Build a stimulating and vibrant working environment. A diverse workplace is a profitable workplace. Embrace the many different skills, backgrounds, experiences and attitudes of your staff and direct these to best effect
  2. Focus on training and personal improvement. Make sure every member of you team is given the opportunity to reach their full potential by offering them the training and development they need, in technical and soft skills.
  3. Reward and recognise. By recognising and incentivising staff that reach targets or produce a consistently high quality of work, you will encourage them to strive even harder.
  4. Handle difficult situations quickly. Do not let disciplinary or incapability issues turn into problems. Deal with them in a responsive and positive way to reduce the chances of them happening again.
  5. Have a good recruitment and induction process. Make sure that you always recruit the best person for the job and that they perform to the level you require from day one.
  6. Keep up to date with legislation. This is a key aspect in treating your employees fairly and also a way to constantly building best practice into your people management procedures.
  7. Communicate, communicate, communicate.   Keep your staff informed about how the business is doing. What can they do to help? How does their job fit into the bigger picture of the organisation? This will ensure your employees feel valued, engaged and focussed on the success of the company.
  8. Carry out succession planning. Don’t just rely on the skills and experience of long-standing members of staff but put time and effort into training and mentoring programmes that develop the skills and abilities of younger members of the team. This way you ensure success for the long term and continuity of service for your customers.
  9. Look closely at team dynamics. What teams are working well and how can this be replicated across the business? Look for gaps in team dynamics and skills sets that can affect morale development and work to actively improve them.
  10. Be a good boss. Your behaviour sets the tone for how you expect others to behave. Invest time in working on your own management style and take a top-down approach to improving performance rather than relying on the skills of those around you.

We’ll talk more about how to be a great boss in this blog in a couple of week’s time.

In the meantime, what do you do to improve profitability of your business through your people? Leave a comment here to share your tips.