Posts Tagged ‘employee education’

What to Do When Employees Say, “It’s Not My Job”

Saturday, January 12th, 2013

Here’s a scenario: Bill, the CEO, walked through the parking lot of the of his plumbing supply business, picking up cups, paper and trash. He walked to the front door and threw out the trash while two of his employees watched him from behind the customer service counter in the building. No customers had arrived yet.

“It gets pretty messy out there,” one of the employees said as Bill came through the front door.

Bill, unable to control his anger at the employees seeing the trash and not making any effort to pick it up, raises his voice and says, “If you see it out there, why don’t you pick it up? How can you let the parking lot look like this? And moreover, why do I have to do this?”

One of the employees look right back at Bill and said nonchalantly, “Our job is to wait on customers, not to pick up trash. Trash pickup is not in our job description.”

If you are like most managers you may be ready to use your “you’re fired” speech. These kinds of situations happen to managers everyday. But before you miss the optimal learning and behavior-changing opportunity, stop and consider these potential responses instead:

1. This is a teachable moment. How will you use this moment to do more than vent your frustration and anger? How can you change employee behavior?

Each moment we have with our employees can be used to positively influence, engage and inspire. Though most of us may have lost our cool in this situation, don’t let a heated response interrupt the potential for learning and growth.Consider sharing the importance and value of customers and their loyalty is what pays these employees’ salaries. Or, share the need to take pride in the appearance of the business. Or emphasize that it is everyone’s job, whether written or not, to personally commit to making each customer’s experience exceptional, including how the facility looks. After the feedback, hold these employees accountable for an immediate change in behavior.

2. What does this tell you about job descriptions? How can they be meaningful in a constantly changing workplace?

Job descriptions are guides – they share the tasks required to achieve the performance expectations. In changing times, these need to be flexible to accommodate what employees encounter in the workplace. I find what works better is to clearly define the performance standard or expectation – to hold the employee accountable for the end results. Then allow the employee some freedom in how to approach the task to achieve the required outcome. Though the issue in this example may be lazy employees (who then need on the spot performance feedback), it could also be an outdated understanding of what a job description is and what they mean in the company. Add the clarity and make it a teachable moment.

Never miss an opportunity to educate employees that it is everyone’s job to provide consistently exceptional service to both internal and external customers. And in the same moment, be the wise manager that can use every situation to influence, persuade and inspire employees to do stand out work.

Need to improve your effectiveness with your employees? Contact me to share how greatness coaching can expand your impact as a manager and improve ability to get the results you want and watch in the next 2 weeks for Work Fired Up!’s new 2013 live and teleclass programs – practical tools to help every manager achieve big, bold results.

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3 Ways Managers Can Become Better Teachers

Tuesday, November 20th, 2012

In today’s intellectual (service) economy, organizations need employees to constantly learn, share information, coach each other and think on their feet. The more employees know (and how to use what they know) the better they can respond and perform in a changing workplace. Helping them learn is a strategic management responsibility.

Here is a great line use by nearly every educator: “Telling isn’t teaching.” But telling is the way many managers approach teaching and guiding their employees. There is no sustainable learning in this approach. All effective learning is a partnership between teacher and learner – manager and employee – that specifically focuses on the needs, motivations and values of the employee.

Consider these 3 ways for managers to become better teachers:

1. Stop talking and start listening. Listening allows you to understand where an employee is in his skill development and subject knowledge. Also listen for the employee’s talents, values and interests – for what inspires and motivates the employee. Knowledge without motivation gets little done. For learning to stick, employees must emotionally connect to both the learning and the reason for learning.

2. Work with employees to develop a learning plan. This mutually-determined plan should be based on what employees need to be successful in their day-to-day work, an area that will advance the employee in the future, and an area that is of personal interest to the employee. This makes it practical and personal (and comes from listening to the employee). Include completion dates, incentives for completion (if any) and planned improvements in performance. Creating the plan together is critical for its success.

3. Get good at performance feedback. In addition to a formal learning plan, on-the-job training must be part of employee education. Spend more performance time with employees to assess their work as it happens; reinforce successful behaviors, train and coach unsuccessful behaviors. On-the-job training is accelerated training as it reviews both skills and skill applications – what to do and how to do it. It is effective because it is real-time learning.

In a world where information doubles every couple of years, creating a workplace that constantly learns (and wants to learn) is critical to its success. And behind a learning workplace are managers who are adept at listening, observing, coaching and teaching their employees. How do you inspire your employees to want to learn more and to use what they know to improve, invent, add value and make a difference?

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Keep Learning Or You’re Behind

Tuesday, October 4th, 2011

So many employees are behind in the first moment of their workday. They are caught in workplaces that have cultures that do the same things over and over, regardless of how their environments change; they don’t commit to regularly challenging employees to constantly learn, rethink their jobs and value, and try new things. They are stuck living yesterday’s workday over and over.

In a period of exponential change, the most successful organizations are flexible and opportunity-focused; they empower their employees to constantly learn, involve them in new tasks/responsibilities and require them to try new things.

These organizations constantly gather new ideas, perspectives and opportunities – the key to developing a responsive and successful performance strategy. The more today’s managers help employees learn, grow and try new things, the more they encourage more robust employee thinking which is critical to sustainable company results.

I come from a large Italian family. Being both a large family, and Italian, we rarely went out for dinner (there were too many of us and besides, our food at home was terrific). However, I do remember one time when we went out to a smorgasbord – a buffet. My siblings and I descended on the amazing food tables and started to fill our plates. Dad called us back to our table, took our large plates away and gave us small plates instead. We were then instructed to follow him two times around the food tables – not taking anything – we were just to see what was available. The third time around we could help ourselves to small portions of things we had never tried before. He promised that if we did this, we would discover at least one new favorite food – we would change the way we think. He was right. I discovered artichoke hearts – and still love them today.

The point? Great managers constantly guide their employees to “walk around the company table” and let their employees explore and try things – through both formal learning and on-the-job learning. This expands not only what employees know, but it encourages broader and more strategic employee thinking – employees find areas of greater abilities, develop greater skills and bring stronger performance to the organization.

Additionally, an organization focused on constantly growing and educating its employees significantly influences employee loyalty. And the key to a powerful, high-performing organization is a stable, consistent and free-thinking workforce.

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10 Affordable Ways to Provide Great Employee Training

Saturday, June 4th, 2011

Just because the recovery is slow and budgets are still limited, doesn’t mean we can pass on employee training, development and learning. In this age of information blur, our employees must always be learning – employee training and development is critical. So when things get tough, the tough find clever ways to provide employee training on a shoestring.

Consider the following ways to keep learning on “go” when the education budget says “no:”
1. Solicit resources from employees – what are their favorite leadership, self-help, skill books and resources – and bring them to the workplace for others to use.
2. Solicit extra resources from local colleges – including texts or resources that are no longer part of a course or program.
3. Identify used copies of great resources by authors such as Seth Godin, Marcus Buckingham, John Fleming, Simon Sinek, Daniel Pink, Steve Farber, Paul Coehlo, Brian Tracy and others. Find them on e-Bay, Amazon.com, Thriftbooks.com, Barnes and Noble and others. Have the organization define the key resources they want, and charge employees with finding them at discounted rates.
4. Create a company library with resources sourced from others and from used copies of current resources.
5. Send one employee to a high-value conference with the requirement to share the message and skills of the conference with the company. Host a “Lunch and Learn” program to review what was learned at the conference.
6. Find on-line training programs that don’t require expensive travel. Have the same requirement to share information as in #5.
7. Give each employee a personal education budget and have them create their training plan with no more than the allocated funds. It is amazing how clever an employee can be when they control their own resources.
8. Develop in-house training for all of the most critical skills. Develop an incentive program for those involved in preparing and teaching skill training. Consider basing the incentive on improved results, not just on preparing and teaching.
9. Create an “on-the-job” academy. Have employees shadow more experienced employees as part of a skill development program.
10. Share training resources with another organization/partner with another organization; find another organization through networking, in a local chamber or in a professional association. Two organizations sharing resources can greatly expand what each organization has access to.

You know how when things get tight we seem to become more effective at rethinking how we do things, how we spend and how we can stretch a dollar. Well, the need for learning remains, even if the funds don’t. Employee training and development is critical for every organization to develop and maintain its edge. How have you been able to help your employees learn and grow even when the resources are limited?

Share your ideas. And for more management tips to help activate employee performance, see the tools on www.FireUpYourEmployees.com.

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