Tag Archives: staff

Getting Started with Performance Appraisals Part 2

Posted on by

Here are some things to think about, before you carry out your annual staff appraisals, to make them less daunting and more effective. We’ll go into more details on these tips and what to actually in the appraisal meeting, at our forthcoming workshop on 11 September 2013.

Prepare. A good appraisal form will provide a natural order for proceedings, so use one. If you don’t have a standard appraisal form then find one online – there are plenty of templates available. Organize your paperwork to reflect the order of the appraisal and write down the sequence of items to be covered. If the appraisal form includes a self assessment section and/or feedback section, make sure you give this to each member of staff in plenty of time, allowing them to complete it before the meeting.

Part of your preparation should also consider ‘whole-person’ development, beyond and outside the job skill-set. Many people are not particularly interested in job skills training, but will be interested and motivated by other learning and development experiences. Get to know what your people are good at outside of their work. Appraisals are not just about job performance and job skills training. Appraisals should focus on helping the ‘whole person’ to grow and attain fulfilment.

Inform. Let your staff know when and where their appraisal will be held. Give them the chance to assemble any data and relevant performance and achievement records they need.

Venue. Plan a suitable venue that’s private and free from interruptions. Privacy is absolutely essential.

Layout.  Room layout and seating are important elements as they have huge influence on atmosphere and mood. Irrespective of content, the atmosphere and mood must be relaxed and informal. Remove barriers – don’t sit across the desk from your staff member; use a meeting table or easy chairs and sit at an angle to each other.

Introduction. Relax your member of staff by opening with a positive statement. Smile, be warm and friendly to create a calm and non-threatening atmosphere. Set the scene by explaining what will happen and encourage a discussion and as much input as possible from them

When you spend some time thinking about how you’ll carry out your annual appraisals, they’ll be much more effective for both you and your members of staff.

For more information, come to our workshop on 11 September 2013 for just  £12 +VAT. Click here for the details and online booking.

Getting Started with Performance Appraisals

Posted on by

Here are some things to think about, before you carry out your annual staff appraisals, to make them less daunting and more effective. We’ll go into more details on these tips and what to actually in the appraisal meeting, at our forthcoming workshop on 11 September 2013.

Prepare. A good appraisal form will provide a natural order for proceedings, so use one. If you don’t have a standard appraisal form then find one online – there are plenty of templates available. Organize your paperwork to reflect the order of the appraisal and write down the sequence of items to be covered. If the appraisal form includes a self assessment section and/or feedback section, make sure you give this to each member of staff in plenty of time, allowing them to complete it before the meeting.

Part of your preparation should also consider ‘whole-person’ development, beyond and outside the job skill-set. Many people are not particularly interested in job skills training, but will be interested and motivated by other learning and development experiences. Get to know what your people are good at outside of their work. Appraisals are not just about job performance and job skills training. Appraisals should focus on helping the ‘whole person’ to grow and attain fulfilment.

Inform. Let your staff know when and where their appraisal will be held. Give them the chance to assemble any data and relevant performance and achievement records they need.

Venue. Plan a suitable venue that’s private and free from interruptions. Privacy is absolutely essential.

Layout.  Room layout and seating are important elements as they have huge influence on atmosphere and mood. Irrespective of content, the atmosphere and mood must be relaxed and informal. Remove barriers – don’t sit across the desk from your staff member; use a meeting table or easy chairs and sit at an angle to each other.

Introduction. Relax your member of staff by opening with a positive statement. Smile, be warm and friendly to create a calm and non-threatening atmosphere. Set the scene by explaining what will happen and encourage a discussion and as much input as possible from them

When you spend some time thinking about how you’ll carry out your annual appraisals, they’ll be much more effective for both you and your members of staff.

For more information, come to our workshop on 11 September 2013 for just  £12 +VAT. Click here for the details and online booking.

How to Improve Employee Retention

Posted on by

Employee retention is about keeping the great staff you have, once you’ve found them.  There are a number of factors that have an impact on improving staff retention, including:

  • Improving communication processes
  • Staff involvement
  • Confident senior and line managers with strategic direction for your organisation
  • Providing training and development opportunities
  • Market-aligned pay and benefits
  • Fair and effective management of staff by managers
  • Competence of line management.

Focus on improving these areas and you will be able to improve your employee retention. But don’t get complacent – there are many threats to retention. What might cause your employees to leave? They include:

  • Re-organisation of your company – particularly if staff are not consulted
  • Redundancies – people can lose morale when others leave
  • Recruitment freezes – this could be a sign that the business is not going places
  • Lack of confidence in management – if you people don’t have confidence in their managers they may not stay
  • Line manager incompetence ‘ your line managers may not have the skills to keep your staff!

What’s the biggest threat to employee retention? It is poor employee engagement. Work on improving your employee engagement and high employee retention will follow.

For more on employee retention, click here to watch a short video.

Employee Engagement – Where is it Going?

Posted on by

According to the CIPD Employee Winter Outlook for 2012-2013, employee engagement levels dipped to just 35%. At the same time, a massive 61% of employees are neither engaged nor disengaged with their jobs and their companies.

On a more positive note, engagement is highest in small businesses, with 60% of staff in small businesses saying they’re happy at work. Perhaps this is because a disengaged member of staff can cause more problems within a small team and issues can be spotted more easily than in a large business?

Employees with the shortest service are the most engaged at 43%. This means that as a manager, you need to make sure you look after your staff as they continue their service with you. Don’t get complacent and assume that they’re still happy just because they haven’t left.

56% of staff agree they have achieved the right work life balance. Is this enough or do you want more of your staff to have the right balance?

Here are some more interesting numbers from the survey:

  • 19% feel it is likely or very likely they could lose their job
  • 20% are looking for a new job
  • 26% of senior managers are looking for a new job
  • 36% of employees with 1 or 2 years service are job seeking
  • 33% report that redundancies have been made
  • 14% say redundancies are planned
  • 42% of employers have frozen pay
  • 20% report that working hours have been decreased

How engaged are your staff? How has this changed in the last year?

How Happy Are Your Employees? How Do You Know?

Posted on by

I’ve written a lot recently about employee engagement. What is it? It’s a positive attitude held by your employees towards your company and its values. An engaged employee knows where your business is going and works with colleagues to improve performance to benefit your business. But how do you measure engagement? How do you know just how engaged your people are with your business?

To find out how happy your employees are, you could start with a survey. This will give you a quantitative measure, such as a score or the percentage of people saying they are ‘very happy’, ‘quite happy’ and so on. It relies on a quantity of people answering the survey to provide an accurate result that is representative of your staff.

A good survey helps you not only determine the level of engagement (or disengagement) within your company, as well as which elements help drive engagement, are very good or need work. An employee engagement survey can help you find out how your people feel about whether or not they feel listened to, how much they trust their leaders and other emotions, views and experiences.

So why not just ask how engaged your employees feel?

Probably because job satisfaction is not the same as being engaged. Since studies show that 70% of UK workers don?t actually trust their management, can you trust them to give an accurate answer to this question?

The other thing to consider with surveys is that they are not engagement. When the results are in, what happens next? Engagement isn’t something you can tick off.

So what do you really want to measure? Employee engagement is inextricably linked to increased customer satisfaction and subsequent profitability. So rather than trying to measure employee engagement and customer satisfaction separately, you can evaluate the two together. If customer satisfaction improves, then your people are more engaged. If sales are up, customer satisfaction is increased and employee engagement is raised.

So what’s the best way to measure employee engagement? Start by carrying out an employee engagement survey to establish baseline scores. Use the results to decide what improvement initiatives you are going to use. Then resurvey periodically to measure the effectiveness of changes you make.

Just remember that employees feel engaged when they feel listened to. So if you carry out a survey, really listen to what your people say and do something about it. That way everyone will see the benefits – your employees, your business and your clients.

How happy are your clients? How do you know?

Unfair Dismissal Claims – Q and A

Posted on by

Here are some common questions about unfair dismissal and my answers to them.

Q – What is unfair dismissal?

A – Dismissals are classed as ‘automatically unfair’, regardless of the reasonableness, if an employee is exercising their rights related to the following:

  • Pregnancy, including all reasons relating to maternity
  • Family reasons, including parental leave, paternity leave, adoption leave or time off for dependants
  • Representative and trade union membership grounds and union recognition
  • Discrimination on the grounds of age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation
  • Pay and working hours, including the Working Time Regulations, annual leave and the National Minimum Wage.

Q – When is a dismissal fair?

A – Dismissal is normally fair if an employer can show that it is for one of the following reasons:

  • A reason related to an employee’s conduct
  • A reason related to an employee’s capability or qualifications for the job
  • Because of a redundancy
  • Because a statutory duty or restriction prohibited the employment being continued
  • Some other substantial reason of a kind which justifies the dismissal.

Q – How do you dismiss employees?

A – The key points to remember are:

    • Dismissing employees should be the last resort and employers should carry out necessary investigations without unreasonable delay to establish the facts
    • Employers should use a fair and consistent procedure when dismissing employees
    • It’s always best to try to resolve any issues informally first
    • Employees have the right not to be unfairly dismissed
    • Set out in writing your rules and procedures for handling disciplinary procedures
    • Make sure employees and managers understand the rules and procedures for disciplinary issues.

Q – When can an employee make a claim about unfair dismissal?

A – In most circumstances employees will need to qualify before they can make a complaint to an employment tribunal. They need:

  • At least one year’s continuous service for employees in employment before 6th April 2012
  • Two years for employees starting employment on or after 6th April 2012.

Q – How do you avoid costly mistakes?

A – Before thinking about dismissing an employee, stop and think – are you doing the right thing? To make sure that you comply with the law and don’t make any costly mistakes, whether you’re an employee or an employer, get the right advice.

Top Ten Issues Affecting Employee Engagement

Posted on by

According to a survey carried out by XpertHR in 2011, the top ten issues that affect employee engagement are:

  1. Pay
  2. Quality of line management
  3. Job security
  4. Leadership visibility and confidence
  5. Relationship with manager
  6. Working culture
  7. Internal communications
  8. Organisational change
  9. Workload
  10. Job satisfaction

I’m not sure if these are ranked in any particular order, or the size of the companies that took part in the survey, but the list makes interesting reading.

If you ask your staff how happy they are at work and what is stopping them from being fully engaged, would they list any of these issues? How many of them?

The good news is that you can do something about all these issues – whether you think they’re a problem or not. Work through the list and make sure you’re doing all you can for your employees – giving them top quality line management, strong leadership and effective internal communication. Employee engagement, or keeping your staff happy and motivated, is not just about giving them a pay rise!

You can find out even more about the best way to keep your employees engaged – and thus how to grow your business and your profitability – at my next workshop on 17 April 2013 in Reading. It costs just £20 +VAT and places are limited, so click here to book your place.

Can You Serve an Unfair Dismissal Claim While on ‘Garden Leave’?

Posted on by

‘Garden leave’ is a period of time after you’ve been asked to leave your job or you’ve been made redundant, when your employer carries on paying you, but when they don’t want you to continue coming to work. During this time, you’re still employed so you can’t take another job with a different employer.

So can you serve an unfair dismissal claim while on garden leave? Can you appeal against being asked to leave your job?

To serve an unfair dismissal claim, you need to complete the form ET1 to send to the employment tribunal. You can only submit this form after you have been dismissed and worked your notice. ‘Garden leave’ is notice without having to do the work you’re being paid for. If you’re thinking about a tribunal application then you must do this within three months of your termination date. If you’re on ‘garden leave’ then you are still employed, even though you’re not working. This means that if you want to make a claim for unfair dismissal, you can’t do it during a period of garden leave – you have to wait until you actually finish working for that employer and they are no longer paying you.

Your contract of employment will tell you what else you can and can’t do while on garden leave and what your employer will expect from you during that time.

In addition, if you were employed after 6 April 2012, you need to have worked for the company for two years, to be able to claim unfair dismissal. If you started work before 6 April 2012 you have to have completed one year’s service to be able to claim unfair dismissal. (This means that at the time of writing this blog in March 2013, no one will actually be able to claim that they have been unfairly dismissed until 6 April 2014.)

There is more information on all this, including a short video that explains it all, on my website. Click here to watch the video.

Employee Engagement – How Do You Get the Best from Your Staff?

Posted on by

Employee engagement is about making sure your employees are happy at work, so that you can get the most out of them, while they’re at work.

Managers and employers need to remember that not everyone goes to work just to earn money. They go for lots of other reasons. It may be that they have to work and they just need a job, but you should also look to see if your people want more from their employment than that. If employees are engaged in their jobs we know that they’re much more productive, that they’ll do much more for your business, and they’re much more likely to stay with your company and help to develop your business – including your profitability. Studies have shown this!

What do people value at work? They’re the same things that we value in everyday life, such as:
–    Being treated fairly and with respect
–    Being told when we’ve done well and if necessary, when we’ve done badly
–    Wanting to work with people who are good managers and who are successful.

These are key parts to feeling part of an organisation and are what make people willing and able to go the extra mile. If you’re a business owner, you want your staff to think about your business in the same way that you do. This doesn’t just happen – it needs work.

How do you do it? You need to look hard at what you offer your employees so that you can get the best out of them. They need to understand clearly what part their role plays within the organisation – how they fit in and why they’re important to the success of the business.

Good leadership and guidance will motivate your staff to go the extra mile for you. Give them opportunities to improve and develop. Don’t think that training in too expensive or that someone will leave once they’ve had some training and developed new skills. Look for ways of developing your staff with on the job training to give them as sense of achievement.

How else can you motivate your employees to be better? Find out more at the workshop I’m running on 17 April 2013 in Reading. The half day session costs just £10 +VAT (or £15 +VAT if you’re not an FSB member) and you can book online by clicking here. Buffet lunch included!

Keep Your Staff Happy to Grow Your Business

Posted on by

When your employees are engaged with your business, you have a much greater chance to grow a profitable business and keep your customers satisfied.

So what makes an engaged employee? How does their engagement affect your business? How can you achieve engagement with your staff?

As an employer you need to create the right environment to allow engagement to flourish in your workforce. To help you get the basics in place, here are four steps to follow:

1. Create a strategic story – Where are you? Where have you been? Where are you going? As a business owner you probably know this, but do your employees feel part of that story? If they know the story, it lets them see how the work they do fits in with the business’s goals. This isn’t something you can simply put on a poster on the wall to get buy in. You need to repeat the story over and over again to employees and give them a sense of ownership in it. If your story is on the wall, ask your staff to add to it; create a timeline of diagrams, new solutions and innovations leading to your company’s goals. Create a buzz and encourage people to share their ideas, so they can see how their achievements fit into your company’s ‘big picture’.

2. Engage managers – If you try to engage your staff without first engaging your managers you may get limited results. Many employees’ motivation and engagement will depend on how they feel towards their bosses. If those managers are not engaged themselves, where’s the motivation to engage their people? Engaged managers focus their people and enable them to get the job done, treat their team members as individuals and coach and stretch them. When your managers build bigger relationships with people as individuals, those workers will make bigger contributions.

3. Give employees a voice – Listening is a key part in giving employees a voice but it doesn’t stop at the 360-degree survey. A survey might tell you how people are feeling at a certain point in time but it doesn’t tell you why they are feeling like that. Members of staff have insights into why and where things are going wrong. Somebody knows before the event that something is going to go wrong. If they know that they can speak up and be listened to, the problem can be pointed out before it becomes a disaster.

Employees who are able to speak up will share the good as well as the bad. If they feel that their ideas are listened to, they’ll share them, which will increase their engagement in their work.

4. Make sure there is organisational integrity – This means avoiding the “do as I say, not as I do” mentality. If your company’s values are not reflected in the day-to-day behaviours of managers or colleagues, then it will be seen as a corporate spin exercise and will not be trusted by employees. When your values are aligned between staff and managers, then trust is created and so is engagement.

Different companies will need to create different engagement programmes, but if you follow these four steps, you’ll be able to create a strong foundation for any efforts you make to increase employee engagement and develop your business.

Are your employees engaged? Are they giving their all to your business? If they’re not, then come to our workshop on 17 April 2013 in Reading. During the workshop, from 9.30am – 12.30pm, we will look at key ways to improve engagement of your employee, in order toincrease profitability, efficiency and achieve faster growth, and improve attendance, retention and job satisfaction

It is being held at Symantec, Green Park, Reading and costs just £20 +VAT to attend. To book your place online, click here and scroll through the list of events to 17 April 2013.