It Is Tough To Find Good Help!
Many organizations around the world are finding it increasingly difficult to find good help. As a hiring manager, I have experienced firsthand how difficult it can be to find an employee who is both dedicated and motivated. That being said, finding an employee who demonstrates the below three characteristics on a regular basis is easier said than done. Let’s look at the three main areas employees tend to fall into.
1. How is your employee behavior?
In past blogs, I have already discussed “changing behavior”. Employee behavior can be good and bad. Does your employee make personal phone calls, surf the internet, read the paper or make idle chit chat with co-workers during working hours instead of calling your customers or performing their duties? Are your employees performing the right behaviors on a consistent basis in order to give your organization the best chance for success? I would say from my experience it is very rare when you have an employee who does not need to be held accountable for their utilizations over the course of an eight hour work day. I am not advocating total control or micro-management, but I do believe it is the leader’s role to know during the course of a work day if the employee’s actions were legitimate or not legitimate toward their utilization. Let’s face it, in most cases, not all, our human nature naturally tells us to coast or relax a bit when no one is looking. This very statement leads me onto area number two.
Attrition in Your Organization?
Managing Organizational Momentum
Momentum definition: force or speed of movement; impetus, as of a physical object or course of events.
How do you maintain momentum within your organization once the ball starts to roll? I have tackled this very question in several positions I have had in the past. In reality momentum requires serious effort to get something moving but once it is moving it is harder to get it to stop then to keep moving. One way to keep momentum going is to have constantly greater goals. Below I have outline four additional areas that I have found beneficial to watch in order maintain organizational momentum.
Velocity
“If we weren’t still hiring great people and pushing ahead at full speed, it would be easy to fall behind and become a mediocre company.”
- Bill Gates
First, at minimum your organization needs to maintain the velocity in which the organization is currently operating, and most likely increase it due to competition from your competitors. Velocity is defined as: the rate of speed with which something happens. To continue the momentum, that you worked so hard to create, you have to continue to operate, change and recreate yourself at the minimum rate of speed in which it took to produce the current momentum. History is littered with organizations that were once industry leaders that no longer exist because they failed to change or reinvent themselves to maintain the momentum.
“The world is changing very fast. Big will not beat small anymore. It will be the fast beating the slow.”
—Rupert Murdoch
One Mistake
As quoted by Peg Wood, “Commitment is the ignitor of momentum.” Just like a sports competition, one play can swing the momentum over to the other team and create a dramatically different outcome. Your organization is Read more
Managing Expectations
As a leader, it is one of my responsibilities to set goals and expectations for the team. I know individual workers have goals for themselves personally, professionally and spiritually. However, just like a coach of a sporting team, it is my responsibility in the corporate environment to set goals for my staff (the team), often hoping to accomplish far beyond what many of them think may be possible. There are so many expectations and disappointments when goals go unmet. There are usually three areas that we have unmet expectations: the people around us, our current situation and the uncertain future in front of us. We build up expectations in each of these areas on how we think things should go and are often disappointed when they do not go the way we thought. We need to learn to manage our expectations as well as honor God in the process no matter what. Managing expectations is a critical factor in leading successful change. If you can manage your expectations, you may have a more enjoyable experience with the people around you, the situation you are in or the future ahead of you.
“Expectations need to be managed from the beginning, and throughout the process–which requires a major effort of public information and education … Otherwise expectations are unrealistic, and [people] are inevitably disappointed. When disillusion sets in,… people can easily turn against the … agreement they had at first welcomed.”
–Kofi Annan, Secretary General, United Nations, 14 October 2004.
Whoever I am with, wherever I am, regardless of the uncertainties that lie ahead, I will live to honor God.
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