Horizon Point Consulting

Category: Skills Improvement

We all need a little personal development mixed in with our professional and career development. Read blogs in this category for personal skills improvement.

  • Impacting the performance of employees when you just want them to show up, do their job and not complain

    Impacting the performance of employees when you just want them to show up, do their job and not complain

    “I just want them to show up and do their job and not complain,” said one burned-out manager to me not long ago.  He was struggling with how to motivate the performance of several members of his staff, and in his exhaustion to try to be a leader, had adopted a mindset of something far from leadership.

    So how do leaders influence and impact the performance of employees when sometimes we just want them to show up and do their job and not complain?

    1.  Adopt a Leadership Mindset. First, a mindset of leadership needs to be present.  Leadership is grounded in seeing people as assets and realizing that the greatest responsibility of the role is to invest in people to drive their performance.   This means spending most of our time as leaders with those we are trying to develop, not wishing they would disappear into the oblivion get their work done and not bother us.  My manager client is never going to be able to drive performance in his employees long-term if his mindset about what his role is doesn’t change to one of leadership.

    2.  Get over your own burn-out. You can’t motivate performance if you’re burned out yourself.  My client was tired.   On top of dealing with employee issues that were unpleasant, he was trying to run a business, meet client needs and juggle a never-ending myriad of tasks.    The personnel issues were just another thing that he was barely spending enough time on to be able to see any results, and his people know from his actions that they are being seen as just another annoyance in a never ending cycle of being hopelessly behind and burned-out.  If you aren’t working smarter, not harder, why would they?  Part of a leadership mindset is setting an example.  If you are burned out and annoyed, you’re probably complaining and that’s why they are complaining too.

    If you are burned out:

    1. Take some time to regroup; get away if you have to and unplug.
    2. Manage your time. Consider how you can kill two-birds with one stone by empowering your people through delegation.
    3.  Get rid of stuff that doesn’t matter- say no.  And saying no to investing time your employees shouldn’t be one of the no’s on your list.  Saying no to things that aren’t important leads you to be able to say yes to your employees, who are important.

    The bottom-line is leaders impact the performance of their employees by the example they create.   If you want people to show up, do their job and not complain, then do the same.  Adopt a leadership mindset and find ways to get over the burn-out and negativity you may be experiencing.   If you can’t, then maybe you’re in the wrong role.

    You’ll find that if you empower employees through your positive mindset and results, you’ll get much more than just a group of non-complainers who do their job.  You’ll get a group of people who are engaged in their work and drive productivity. Start with yourself and it will rub off on those you seek to lead.

  • How Personality Assessment Can Help You Be A Better Leader

    How Personality Assessment Can Help You Be A Better Leader

    “This is why I’m not married anymore,” said a participant in a recent leadership training class.   She was partly kidding, but it was obvious that the results of her personality assessment, which were being used to launch the leadership training series we were conducting for her company, had struck a cord.

    Her personality assessment showed that she was a highly dominant, take charge, get it done kind of person.  These characteristics had served her well in her role in finance with the organization, but she realized that maybe her personality had impacted the success of her marriage.

    In another conversation with the director of a college career center, concerns were expressed about students’ ability to know themselves- their strengths and areas for development- and take this knowledge into the workplace in order to succeed.  In designing a leadership workshop for them, our first approach was to implement a personality assessment to help these student leaders with the self-awareness they seem to so desperately need.

    As we’ve often said, self-awareness is the first step in establishing yourself as a leader.   Although it isn’t the only way, personality assessment can help with this self-awareness and then provide a framework for building interpersonal relationships, providing feedback, delegating and a host of other leadership issues.

    Here are some assessment tools/vendors we use based on client needs (Note: It’s important to know which personality assessment is right to use based on your organization’s needs.   You should define the needs first- are you wanting to facilitate teambuilding, leadership coaching or training, make better hiring decisions, etc.- then pick the best assessment, not the other way around.):

    Hogan Assessments

    DiSC Assessments

    Tools from Assessment Associates International

    Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)

    How as a personality assessment helped you at work or in your personal life?

  • Throwing compensation structure out the window

    I’m going to contradict myself (again). I seem to do this a lot, outlining a way to be process oriented by designing a traditional talent management program.  We’ve done this over the last couple of weeks by describing how to do job analysis, job descriptions and design a compensation plan. 

    But the key to knowing how to design any talent management program is to know yourself, or rather know your company. For mid to large companies, having job descriptions and a wage structure to define how you compensate people is more than likely completely necessary. It keeps things consistent, fair and easier to administer. 

    However, in a world where jobs are constantly changing and therefore the knowledge, skills and abilities necessary to define jobs are also constantly changing, defining a job based on hard and fast definitions and then trying to recruit and retain employees based on these hard a fasts may be a tremendous challenge.

    Another approach

    Instead of defining a job and recruiting to that description, find the superstars, those who know how to constantly learn and adapt in a fast-paced world, and hire them, then define the job around them. Pay them what they demand (the superstars know how much they are worth) and then temper their demands with a structure that incentivizes results your company needs them to achieve. 

    Notice this doesn’t mean ever defining the job, but it does mean that you may do it after you make the hire. We’re pretty adamant about defining the job through the behaviors you want people to exhibit and the results you want them to achieve in order to measure and reward performance. 

    We’re in the process as a small company of doing this now. A compensation structure is not what we need to recruit and retain people at this time. What we need is a superstar or two that understands the core of what we do (career development and talent management) and has experience in it, reflects our company values, and is motivated by achieving the results we need achieved.

    One day we may need a defined compensation structure, but right now it isn’t what we need, so we aren’t going to try to cram ourselves into a traditional process that may inhibit our ability to recruit and retain talent. Your company, on the other hand, may need to structure in order to recruit and retain talent. Realizing the outcome we all want is great talent that stays doesn’t mean we all get to that end result the same way.  

    What processes (or unprocesses) do you have in place to make sure you get the talent you need?

  • Want to keep great employees? Know how to compensate them.

    Want to keep great employees? Know how to compensate them.

    We’re working on a compensation project now with a company to redesign their exempt salary structure. When thinking about how to best design a system, it’s important to realize there are two key factors: 

    Internal Equity– Are you paying people fairly compared to what other people within the organization are making based on the knowledge, skills and abilities required for each role? 

    External Competitiveness– Are you paying what the market demands for certain knowledge, skills and abilities required for each role in order to recruit and retain people?

    Basic steps to consider when designing a compensation structure: 

    You gotta do a job description. In considering the factors of internal equity and external competitiveness, both of these hinge on knowing the knowledge, skills and abilities needed for the jobs in which we you trying to define a compensation structure.  Read more about performing job analysis and what a job description needs here (link back to previous post). 

    Get market data.  For external equity, you need to know what the market pays for the jobs you have.   

    Some sources for market data: 

    Career One Stop

    Salary.com

    Salary Expert

    BLS

    Define compensable factors. Compensable factors are based on what the organization places a value on (internal equity) in order to differentiate the value of roles.  For example, education is a compensable factor.  In general, positions that require a bachelors degree have a higher value placed on them than those that only require a high school diploma.

     

    Create the structure. Creating the structure takes the information defined in the previous steps to create salary grades and ranges. Grades are the hierarchy of the salary structure (grouped by jobs with relative worth) and ranges are the minimum and maximum established within grades. Using compensable factors for each job, you will then place each job into the appropriate salary grade.  

    Create a Salary Administration Manual. In order to make sure that the structure you created is implemented appropriately, a salary administration manual needs to be created.  The manual should include a description of the newly created structure, administrative procedures governing the structure and guidelines for annual salary increases. In addition, it should contain ways to keep the program up-to-date through a periodic systematic review of the structure.

    Designing and creating a compensation system seems like a daunting task. But if you take things step-by-step, you’ll see that it can be manageable. More importantly, if done correctly it can add tremendous value to your organization by helping you recruit, retain and reward talent appropriately. 

  • 2 Ways to Get What You’re Worth

    2 Ways to Get What You’re Worth

    Out looking for a job or considering a discussion with your boss about a raise?  If you are, you need to do your research to consider what the knowledge, skills and abilities you have are worth in the marketplace and to the company in which you work or are negotiating with. (Note:  The best time to negotiate your worth is before you accept a job. Once you get locked in a job and a salary range, usually the only way to get a substantial raise is to switch jobs either through a promotion or a move to another organization.)  

    Get the facts about what you’re worth in the market.

    The first thing to do is compare what you do with salary data that is free out there.  Some places to look review salary data: 

    Career One Stop

    Salary.com

    Salary Expert

    BLS

    Take all these sources and compile them to average out what an overall market range is for your role.  Having the facts about what the market will pay for your skills will help you create a case for your value. 

    Know what you’re worth to the organization and suggest that worth be tied to your compensation package. 

    Next, you need to consider how you will or are currently adding value to the organization that may be outside the scope of the traditional job description tied to published salary data. If you are, we suggest instead of trying to get that value quantified through a salary, really prove this worth by suggesting that part of your compensation be tied to that extra value you add. You don’t get that extra unless you create a win-win for the company.  

    For example, if you are awesome at looking at company processes, realizing where there are inefficiencies and cutting costs which leads to increased profitability and margins, gather your numbers and facts and present a case to get a share as a part of your compensation of that increase profitability you created or know you can create.

    If, through your efforts, you are able to bring in more clients or business, quantify this and request part of your compensation be tied to a cut of the increased revenue that comes from your efforts. 

    Most employers will be impressed with the initiative you take to tie your results to company results. Yeah, its riskier to not have it all in guaranteed in salary, but the alternative is more than likely a 2-3% increase a year and no one gets rich off this.  

    How do you make a case for your value? 

    Want more? You may also like: 

    Know Your Value

    Why you should STOP being afraid of negotiating salary