When you must downsize, it’s important that you retain your best employees. You can chart their attitudes and productivity to determine their value, but to know whom you should retain and how, you must understand what they think about the workplace environment.

You can do much to reveal what your employees are thinking and develop methods to keep the best ones with an employee workplace evaluation.

You start with an employee survey, in which they are able to explain what they like or dislike about working at your business. The survey should also provide an opportunity to list what they see as barriers to productivity and improved performance as well as the positive elements of the workplace and its systems.

Then, closely study and analyze the survey results—and share them with employees during meetings. This is an opportunity to verbalize your analysis and for employees to expand on their answers or offer new input since the survey. You’ll also find it wise to ask a third-party to be the moderator at those meetings, so the discussion can be frank, fair and open.

Without a doubt, the most important step is to take action on the survey and meeting results. You’ve asked your employees to invest time and thinking in the survey and meetings, so you can’t drop the ball now! You can negatively affect the workplace environment if your employees don’t see you taking action.

An underlying benefit of this process is that your employees are apt to buy in even more to your company’s mission and be willing to give you more of themselves.

Your recruiting of the best and brightest talent for your business can be much more effective—and save you time and money—when you enlist the help of your current employees for referrals.

Another primary benefit of an employee referral program is retention. There appears to be clear evidence that new employees hired in this manner and current employees referring them have a positive outlook of their employment situation.

Other benefits worth considering are:

• Better candidates – Current employees are more discriminating about whom they refer.
• Employee involvement – In some ways, your employees know your company better than even you, which means they are more likely to do a better job selling the attributes of your company to candidates.
• Employee incentives – This is another retention benefit. Employees that refer individuals who are hired receive an incentive, as included in your referral program.
• Saves money – The cost of that referral incentive will probably be considerably less than a recruitment service fee.
• Saves time – Because your employees are making the initial contact (and they’ll be careful about who they refer), the hiring process could be dramatically shortened. Read the rest of this entry

Business might be business, but the trust that is required to make it work comes from the relationships between people. The HR professional is situated in strategic position to foster strong interpersonal relationships between employees and employer and help them all, and the company, benefit from the resulting trust.

In that pivotal role, the HR professional has a number of opportunities to develop excellent relationships among the workforce.

First, he or she contributes to a trusting corporate culture by proposing and implementing policies that are fair. The HR staff can also demonstrate the value of open communication by being a trusted source of important information, related to employment, benefits, etc.

Where the HR professional can have the most influence on the development of trust is in his or her role hiring, coaching and training managers.

• The HR professional should look to hire and promote managers who demonstrate the ability to establish trust with the workers they manage.
• The HR professional provides interpersonal skills training for all managers, so they can avoid failing, which often happens within their first 18 months as managers because of interpersonal situations.
• The HR professional also teaches managers the skills and mindset they need to address difficult employee issues, quickly and thoroughly.

Becoming—and being recognized as—a company’s “trust” manager gives the HR professional great leverage to affect employee retention and satisfaction. He or she will be able to develop a trusting workplace environment where employment issues can be addressed with much less employment liability.

For many years, employee satisfaction has been considered the primary motivator of work performance; however, research from West Virginia University indicates that what really motivate workers is their faith in their supervisor and their perception of being treated fairly throughout the workday.

The research also reveals that supervisors often shape employees’ perception of the company for which they work as well as influencing the company’s perception of its employees. Because of this dual role, supervisors are in the vital position to drive the company’s excellence.

Employers can support supervisors in a number of ways, as they inspire employees to achieve new goals.

First, be sure that all policies and rules, relating to wages, diversity, etc. are fair.

Second, ensure that management is applying those policies fairly and equally when addressing employee and work issues, problems, situations, etc.

Third, suggest a “watchdog” committee of managers/supervisors and employees to monitor the application of fairness in the workplace. It’s also essential that the committee determine to what degree employees (and supervisors) are striving to excel beyond the expectations of their positions.

An expert in human resources says, “that the effectiveness of an organization’s human resource department centers on the managers’ and employees’ ability to trust the HR staff.”

That trust is important because it leads to effective communication, employee retention and employee motivation. In that environment, interpersonal relationships are much easier and managers and employees are able to achieve much more. Conversely, the lack of trust will result in an unstable workforce that is less productive.

Since trust is not a concept that is easily articulated, the human resource expert suggests thinking of trust as being a combination of credibility, reliability, intimacy and personal orientation. Read the rest of this entry

Too many business owners are ready to cut their workforce first to save money, instead of developing a strategy to save as many jobs as possible because that has a direct effect on productivity.

Some of the most important business leaders, such as Jack Welch, former CEO of GE, think that the best strategy is to cut the bottom 10% of the workforce every year. Of course, that may work at a giant global corporation, but it may not be practical for many small businesses. Ten-percent of five total employees is one-half of an employee, which means, in reality, you lose an entire worker or 20 percent of your workforce!

To develop a business-smart approach to cost cutting, first start with the help of a forensics accountant. He or she will be able to find the unnecessary expenditures and waste that you couldn’t. Read the rest of this entry

Eric Quéré, managing director and project manner and product manager at Q-Line Innovations, shares a different perspective on employee and employer loyalty.

He says, for example, an employee’s gross salary is $150,000/year, but the total cost to the employer is more than $200,000. From the employer’s perspective, laying-off this employee adds $200,000+ to the bottom line.

The employee who is paid that $150,000/year salary has a much different point-of-view when he receives an offer from another company to fill a similar position that pays $200,000+. It’s very likely he or she will accept that offer.

Loyalty doesn’t go very far on either side in this scenario, which is why it’s important to have every employee sign a document describing him or her as an “at-will” employee. This protects both parties because the employer can terminate the employee with or without cause, and the employee can quit at any time in the same manner.

Canadian law, governing employment, may be different than U.S. statues, but Howard Levitt, who practices employment in eight provinces of Canada says, “Firing employees in a fit of pique, using colourful expletives, is for TV dramas. Employers who compound dismissals with a dose of embarrassment will incur judicial wrath.”

According to Levitt, Employers will assign inexperienced personnel (managers) to conduct termination meetings without training, planning and legal advice. Dismissed employees can make mental distress claims if they experience poor exit interviews.

Levitt suggests a number of strategies that should be in place before termination meetings. Read the rest of this entry

Despite the current health care and health insurance crisis, most businesses still provide a basic health insurance plan for their employees. This benefits both employees and employers.

Employees can focus on their jobs because they don’t have worry about health insurance coverage for their families and themselves. Employees with health insurance coverage are more apt to seek medical care when needed, and even participate in wellness programs.

Employers experience better attendance and productivity. Plus, a healthy workforce projects a better image to the public and customers.

Although dental, maternity and life insurance have been provided to employees in the past, fewer receive those additional benefits today. Many employees have the opportunity to add dental, maternity and life insurance, but must pay the entire premium.

Some businesses in high-risk industries, such as construction, mining or public safety, may find it prudent to include life insurance as an employee benefit. Employers, with more than an average number of workers starting young families, have discovered that it’s important either to include maternity coverage or help employees find plans with affordable premiums.

Many governmental and business leaders have advocated a federal-implemented ID card system for all citizens as a means to address voter fraud, unauthorized workers and terrorists’ infiltration of the country. Various legislative attempts by members of the U.S. Congress and the federal administration have been thwarted by state governments as further intrusions of their sovereignty and individual citizens as a loss of privacy.

Although it’s understandable why state governments and U.S. citizens may not want a federal ID card, the lack of such a system is causing security, economic and electoral security problems that are costing states, businesses throughout the U.S. and individuals large amounts of time and money.

What could be a simple solution is for the federal government to legislate certain standards for such a system, but allow the states to implement and administer it. Anyone with a driver’s license has already accepted a form of state-issued identification, so adapting a similar card and system for the purpose of general identification should be much more palatable by most citizens at the state level.

An individual’s state-implemented ID card would be scanned when voting or applying for a job and, instead of it being linked to a federal database, it would be verified by a state system.

According to experts, another benefit is that it would be easier to eliminate fraudulent voters and unauthorized workers with the use of a single card and system. Employers that used the system would not be subject to the various laws against employing illegal workers, reducing fraud, paperwork and other administrative costs.

It has been estimated that a states-based ID card system would only cost a few billion dollars and could be introduced in a year or less. For individual citizens, the greatest benefit could be more jobs available for legal workers and, when the economy was robust, wages would increase because of labor shortages.