The Pew Research Center is currently working on a yearlong series of reports that will profile the generation known as Millennials — reports that will enable employers to further understand the drivers and motivators to which this group responds.

What is a Millennial?

The most cut-and-dry identifier of someone in the Millennial generation is that they were born between 1978 and 2002. Attitudinal and behavioral tendencies generally observed in this generation include:

• Prolonged adolescence
• Better educated than previous generations
• “Helicopter parents” have instilled a strong sense of the Millennial’s uniqueness, which leads to the belief that they are special and should be treated as such
• Use of technology comes as second nature

What Millennials mean for your business

The above description of Millennials may indicate that they have a warped sense of reality, and to some extent that’s true. But they’re also a tolerant, tech-savvy bunch that can help move your organization into one that makes more effective use of technology, builds a stronger of community (internal and external), and fosters trust. They were born in the era of laptops and iPods, Facebook and Twitter, and they know how to use them effectively.

Millennials tend to be civic-minded and confident, valuing diversity and achievement

They like to be challenged. They want to like their work and to leave work at work (not take it home like their parents did); if they don’t, they will find more meaningful work elsewhere. Use this information along with their Kolbe Indexes® to align your Millennial employees with your business strategy.

Your business will benefit from Millennial’s persistence, optimism, diversity, confidence, and multi-tasking abilities, though you’ll need to provide plenty of structure and to grow their experience working with people. You can optimize Millennial’s performance by:

• Budgeting plenty of time for orienting them and creating a clear picture of the work environment and expectations
• Learning about the employee’s goals and develop a strategy for weaving them into job performance
• Setting employee goals (short- and long-term)
• Growing  your training department  and providing opportunities for professional development and continuing education
• Demonstrating and developing strong leadership
• Where there are lots of Millennials, consider expanding the size of teams and appoint a strong team leader
• Offering assistance with handling difficult people issues
• Establishing strong mentoring programs – matching young workers with most seasoned people with whom they resonate

What are some ways you have succeeded working with Millennials in your organization?

Dealing with conflict takes self-awareness, respect, careful listening, honesty, and structured dialog in order to be positively resolved.

Disrespect breeds an unhealthy approach conflict.

Respect is the foundation of understanding differences. If you do not respect the person you’re engaging, then you likely have little true desire to discover and negotiate your differences.

Disrespect typically comes from one of three sources:

• Some form of emotional, physical, or resource-affiliated abuse
• Denial of rights for a person to act or feel a certain way
• Misalignment of ethics and core values between two people

Be honest with yourself and identify whether any of these issues exist. If they do, you may need to accept that some level of conflict may always exist and that conflict management may be more realistic than conflict resolution. If maintaining a relationship requires conflict management then you need to understand some facts:

• Choosing to be in situations that include an obstacle to successfully handling the demands and responsibilities of a relationship undermines your ability to construct and maintain a positive self image.
• One of the most consistent and strongest findings in research about conflict is the significant relationship between conflict and stress-related health outcomes, which include: psychological strain, anxiety and depression, somatic complaints, elevated blood pressure, and substance abuse.

Approaches to conflict

Self-awareness goes a long way in dealing with conflict. Knowing how you operate initiates the process of understanding the skills you need to handle stressful situations. Your personality, values, beliefs, instincts, and intellect all affect how you handle stress. The Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument identifies five conflict-handling modes.

According the Thomas-Kilmann, in a conflict situation a person’s behavior can be described in two basic dimensions:

1. Assertiveness: the extent to which the person attempts to satisfy his/her own concerns
2. Cooperativeness: the extent to which the person attempts to satisfy the other person’s conflict

These two dimensions further flesh out to define five methods of dealing with conflict:

1. Competing: assertive and uncooperative, this is a power-oriented method.
2. Collaborating: both assertive and cooperative, collaboration may take longer but provides a win-win outcome.
3. Compromising: intermediate in assertiveness and cooperativeness, compromise offers a middle ground that is often lose-lose.
4. Avoiding: unassertive and uncooperative, avoidance does not address conflict. This along with the following method often lead to passive agressive behaviors.
5. Accommodating: unassertive and cooperative, accommodation is the the direct opposite of competition and leads to habitual self-sacrifice.

Once you understand how you approach conflict you will begin to develop conflict-resolution strategies that are relevant to how you behave under stress.

Convert conflict into constructive energy. Working through conflict is better than putting up with it. One of the best processes we’ve found is the Kolbe Conflict Counter Actives™ that leads to mutual understanding, defined goals, and resolved conflict around a specific issue.

A conflict-resolution dialog. There are many layers of discovery required when people explore core issues and root causes of conflict. Here are some modified steps for dialog that demonstrate the types of considerations needed:

1. Listen, listen, listen. Listen actively for words and feelings. This means to listen with empathy and without evaluation. Be present. Be encouraging. Reflect back to the speaker what you heard before you respond.
2. Write down and define specific examples of the conflict. Discuss your examples. Are they based on similar situations? Do you agree on what isn’t working?
3. Reaffirm your mutual trust.
4. Identify the areas where you leverage each other’s talents.
5. Develop a list of shared goals. Discuss differences and commonalities.
6. Discuss the amount of time you spend together, what materials and resources are shared, and whether one person has more control than the other. Do you agree on how it should be and why?
7. What disagreement do you have about each other’s feelings, thoughts, and actions? Where do your perspectives differ the most and why? How are your perspectives the same?
8. Are your natural approaches to problem-solving different? If so, name the differences.
9. What are the consequences of your conflict? How do they affect the other person’s expectations?
10. What are more realistic expectations? How will you achieve your common goals?
11. What action steps are you each willing to commit to? How often will you meet? How will you define success?

We recommend using a facilitator help you to learn the comprehensiveness of the process, especially in complex situations.

It’s imperative that business owners and leaders take every opportunity to know who their employees are and what they want from their lives and work. Such understanding leads to high workplace morale and high employee retention.

“Improve the odds” of hiring well & getting a person plugged into the right role

At Insight, it’s no question what tool yields the most useful assessments: the Kolbe Wisdom™ system. We’ve used Kolbe for over twelve years now because it’s different from the other indexes; it neither seeks to identify personality style (affective) nor to measure intellect (cognitive), either of which the majority of other tools seek to do. Rather, Kolbe identifies a person’s natural instincts and drive — also known as conative style. Personality can change over time due to circumstances, growth, and experience, whereas one’s natural instincts and ways of taking action remain consistent over time.

The Kolbe A Index® measures a person’s instinctive approach to creative problem solving. In other words, it helps you to predict how a person will solve problems and provide solutions for emerging issues. It describes the natural way each person takes action in four distinct modalities/action modes, and since every individual has 100 percent mental energy or creativity that is distributed across all four action modes, understanding a potential employee’s Kolbe A gives you valuable insight into whether and how they will fit into your organization and contribute to your success.

The four Kolbe Action Modes:

• Fact Finder: The way we gather information. People within this mode range from generalist to specialist.
• Follow Through: The way we organize information. People within this mode range from being adaptive to being structured/systematic.
• Quick Start: The way we deal with time and uncertainty. People within this mode range from stabilizers to improvisers.
• Implementor: The way we seek tangible solutions. People within this mode range from being abstract to concrete.

How to use conative information

Understanding how instincts combine with intelligence and personality will help you optimize the hiring, deployment, retention, and effectiveness of your employees. Assessing and understanding the instinctive methods of all of your employees will create a less stressful work environment in which employees are more satisfied and more productive in their positions.

To see and achieve the big-picture vision you must use multiple assessment tools

You need to use more than the Kolbe A assessment to make a hiring decision. While it does provide information about the person who completed it, the Kolbe A does not tell you whether a person will be good at a particular job – that’s where Kolbe B Index® and Kolbe C Index® come into play and measure the potential gaps a person may have in a role per your expectations of the job or the current or past match of a top performer doing the same job.

The Kolbe B Index® is similar to the Kolbe A, but instead measures the person’s own expectation about fulfilling the job. A significant difference between an employee’s Kolbe A and Kolbe B indicates a stress point or strain. This is useful for comparing current and past employee’s perception of the required job performance for the position you are hiring to the results of the candidate. It is helpful to know the view of a person who actually performed the postion before in order to set your expectations for the job.

The Kolbe C Index® builds on A and B to measure the supervisor’s requirements for the job. A significant difference between the results of the Kolbe C and the Kolbe A identifies another point of tension.

The only way to use the Kolbe A Index® result in hiring is to compare it to the instinct demands of the job you’re filling. When you bring in the complete trio, you have data from both successful people already in the job (when applicable) and from supervisors and others who know the demands of the job. Under fair-hiring laws in the United States (and many other countries), employers must be able to prove that the criteria that they use in hiring are related to the successful performance of the specific job. Implementing the Kolbe Wisdom™ system enables you to demonstrate and document your compliance.

Insight is an expert in the Kolbe process

We’ve developed a recruiting process called “The Insight Whole Mind” that uses the Kolbe Wisdom™ system among other assessments to help our clients in their hiring and workforce development. I am a Copper Circle Member, the only Kolbe Certified Independent Consultant in Michiana, and have more than twelve years of experience and training using the Kolbe system. Feel free to contact me to set up a consultation and to explore your organization’s workforce development plan.

We believe that by understanding that each person has a distinct talent you will frame how they will approach their interests and their work. We also believe that the greater a person’s ability to match his talent with his work, the better his attitude and by his extension productivity will be. In our experience, most organizations don’t encourage the time and effort it requires to provide this advantage, and we can provide some advice on how to make this happen.

Job matching is ultimately a collaborative support process.

The keys to understanding and implementing a unique competitive advantage are to define your organizational goals and expectations and to know your people and support their growth. Integrating these two ideas is a powerful, effective method for increasing efficiency, improving performance beyond your expectations, and as a result retaining your best people.

Before we get to how to match people with jobs, let’s take a step back.

Any business initiative can be derailed without committed purpose and people supporting the necessary actions. The overarching reason for failure is a lack of understanding of these two elements. Specific issues include:

• Not identifying and/or consistently communicating a common purpose
• Losing focus on priorities
• Too much responsibility in too few of hands
• Too little attention to detail
• Poor matches of people to jobs
• Lack of individual ownership toward change
• Pessimism
• Erosion of innovation and creativity
• Complacent leaders without vision

Leaders must work to develop clear, understood purpose and actively align employees and roles with initiatives, otherwise hard work will continually be wasted effort, which in turn will deplete employee morale and retention.

How to get started matching people with the right jobs

Job matching requires meticulous detail in developing a process that is consistently implemented throughout your organization. We find that the best approach is to start in one specific area that is experiencing problems and adapt the following steps to your organization’s needs.

Three Phases of Development: Ready, Set, Go!

To prepare the development of your job matching process, start with completing the following steps:

Get Ready: Inspect and reinforce your organization’s foundation

1. Utilize a process to set specific organizational goals
2. Develop a three-year vision and set up one-year goals for the organization and for individual departments
3. Learn about your employees! Support managers with processes and tools for learning, understand each person by using assessments, and comprehend and track their short- and long-term goals

Get Set: Articulate specific expectations for your job matching process

1. Create job centers for each department by categorizing the main functions in each department. For example, separate job centers in a product department may include line operators, shipping, receiving, and packaging.
2. Detail specific job profiles in each job center, specifying the responsibilities, competencies (i.e. skills, talents, and attitudes), work environment, and training and education requirements.

Go: Integrate the information from steps 1-5 to match people to specific jobs

1. Use a methodology to match your employees with the job profiles
2. Dialog with each employee to discuss fit
3. Set goals (3, 6, and 12 month) with each employee
4. Create a communication plan for each employee to discuss progress
5. Always reward accomplishments with a consistent company reward system

Introducing job matching to your employees

It’s important that a job matching program be a positive, non-threatening process. Here are some tips to achieve that:

• Leadership must communicate the program and already be successfully implementing job matching with their managers
• Leaders must be involved in the training process by sharing their personal experiences implementing the program and the desired expectations
• Don’t enforce the whole system at once. Find a specific starting point, and introduce it bit by bit over a year or longer. You may want to break your job matching process into phases and sequentially introduce each phase throughout the organization, or you may want to implement the complete process one department at a time.

For additional tips and more extensive information let us know, and we will send you an article that includes details about leadership involvement, implementation, feedback loops, and collaborative support.

Why should you conduct layoffs with a sense of positivity and possibility?

There are two main reasons that positivity is important: preserving your organization’s “employment brand” and maintaining high morale among remaining employees.

News travels faster than ever these days, and with the proliferation of instant publishing tools like Twitter, Facebook, and blogs your company’s environment and actions are always a potential topic of conversation. A disgruntled former employee can vent their feelings for the world to read and seriously damage your organization’s ability to recruit high-quality talent down the road. The economy will rebound, and you will again have to compete for talent because, after all, aligning the right people with the right strategy maximizes your success. Maintaining a positive employment reputation and expressing empathy even in difficult times bears fruit beyond what you’ll see in the short-term.

Your remaining workforce will likely feel the strain of any layoff. Minimize the tension to keep morale and productivity up. Transparency is the key; current employees should see and understand the layoff process because employees who feel their jobs are threatened will begin to look elsewhere.

These 5 tips provide guidance on what positivity looks like.

Obviously there’s no ideal way to conduct a layoff session since each employee and each situation is unique. A few general tips, though, will give you some ideas of positive approaches to the potentially painful session.

1. Draw information from assessments. Ideally, the employee would have completed personality and conative profile assessments. These assessments contain information that can help you find and highlight the possibilities. For example, since these assessments profile the person’s natural ways of thinking, working, and relating to others you can use these indicators to help the individual identify potential careers or roles that will suit them well.Practically speaking, you can specifically mention the person’s unique qualities and strengths in letters of recommendation. You can also encourage the person to share their assessment results with potential employers during job interviews; this information may demonstrate to the potential employer just how compatible the person is with the open or future positions.
2. Express appreciation. Spend time expressing and discussing with the individual the ways they’ve improved the organization. Make sure you review their work before going into the session so that you’re thoroughly prepared to be specific. With the employee, review and emphasize their strengths; it is not appropriate to not criticize or critique their work. You can suggest new career areas and positions that may fit the person well and enable them to find deeper career satisfaction.
3. Provide (gentle) advice for their job search. Because you are well-acquainted with their assessment results and work history you are in a unique position to provide practical advice. If you know of open positions in other organizations that might be a good fit, now is the time to direct the person to the potential employer.
4. Help the person envision a positive future. Sincerely express your appreciation for the person’s work and empower them to also consider the possibilities and opportunities that they may now have — even encourage the person to explore their passions and interests and how those might lead to a new career. Remind them that unemployment is temporary and is not a reflection of their competency or ability. You may even want to share a personal story about a time in your own past when an apparent setback transformed into a successful endeavor.  Help demostrate a future that supports their interests and give a list of resources that offer free resources to help their search.
5. Pay attention to remaining employees. Your remaining workforce will be affected by the layoffs. Avoid the temptation to retreat into your office and withdraw all communication; instead you need to reassure and rally your employees with positive messages, updates about the state of the company, emphasize the current goals, and keep information flowing. In the end this will reassure workers, prevent a drop in morale and productivity, and provide a sense of purpose and hope.

What recommendations or tips do you have to offer employers who are forced into the difficult position of laying off employees?

Research studies have shown that 73% of companies that have a clearly outlined strategy have managed to achieve their growth goals. Imagine how much smoother the processes could be and how much greater a percentage would succeed if strategy and workforce development were in sync. By tending only to strategy or only to employee development, businesses fail to fire on all cylinders and reach peak performance.

A solid strategy and direction helps set a path . . .

Most business leaders would agree that having a business strategy — a focus, goals for growth, and a plan of action — is an undoubtedly vital element of running business. Companies spend a considerable amount of time, energy, and money identifying a strategy, acquiring and implementing the right equipment, technology, and processes. Of course they do! Otherwise they leave themselves wide open to unimaginable risk. The fact is over 60% of employees state they have no idea what their company’s strategy is, or how their job fits into the success of the strategy.

. . . and the right personnel enables your company to stay on course and on pace.

We know that “people issues” can have a negative ripple effect on productivity, quality, sales, customer service, and growth. Having the right people implement your strategy — whether she’s the one who can properly run the equipment or he’s running client meetings — means you won’t fall into the bucket with the many, many companies whose mismatched roles, lack of organizational clarity, and employee turnover cost them thousands upon thousands of dollars annually in lost productivity.

Often we encounter companies that are examining strategy and workforce development simultaneously, but they lack a comprehensive focus that explores how the two align. They fail to see successful business scenarios for success and how their people should fulfill strategy.

The kind of people and strategy we’re talking about really is possible.

At Insight, we see that people drive organizations. Your people plus your strategy forms the DNA of your business, and it’s that DNA that sets you apart, makes you unique, and gives you your competitive advantage. And when you align your people with your strategy and reach optimum performance, that’s an untouchable  recipe that your competition cannot replicate.

Ask yourself the following questions about you and your organization:

• Do you have active compelling business scenarios, a strong brand proposition, and focused market strategies that are aligned with the trends and uncertainties of our time?
• When was the last time you developed and evaluated your strategic initiatives and communicated them to your management team?
• Do you agree that you have the right people on board?
• Are your people aligned correctly in the right roles?
• How are you tracking their development?
• Are your strategies outlined well and broken down into measurable and time specific tasks that can be assigned to the right individuals and teams within your organization?

It’s a busy business world, and Insight can help you align people with strategy and see the results with BLOOM® Performance Management System.

BLOOM® is propriety, web-based software developed, implemented, and provided by Insight. It’s a customizable system that will enable your organization to communicate long- and short-term strategic goals and tasks, who’s responsible, and when they’re due. BLOOM® goes even further; it tracks progress, specifies training, defines roles, measures performance, and completes all other common strategic planning and human resource performance planning functions. In short, BLOOM® knows where your organization is heading and the steps they will take on that path.

Benefits of BLOOM®

• Serves as a central location for all strategic initiatives with corresponding people development tracking
• Reduces phone tag, paperwork, and data entry
• Provides secure online access so that you can view and update information anytime, anywhere
• Enables single source access to the most recent versions of information
• Automates time-consuming, often avoided processes
• Facilitates unified communication to all employees
• Grants multiple security levels to display information at the Individual, Managerial, Executive, and Administrator levels

Features of BLOOM® include:

• Performance log
• Performance reviews aligned to specific role descriptions
• Employee compensation analysis per company wage scales
• A unified location and tracking system of all strategic initiatives (e.g. scope, objectives, and budgets)
• A way to link individuals to assigned strategic priorities
• Self-service access for employees to review to their information and assignments

What’s more? It’s intuitive.

Call us at 866.250.8710 to schedule a free, no-obligation demonstration. We even offer a 30-day free trial so that you can see BLOOM® in action and discover the difference it can make for your organization.

Intimacy builds the trust that we consistently see in strong teams.

We all know the drama that can flare when friends work together as coworkers or in employee/supervisor relationships. We also know the tension that can poison the office when employees and their managers do not see eye to eye. Members of high-performing teams have established trust, a heightened awareness of other members’ strengths and weaknesses, and a commitment to watch each others’ backs. Yet those bonds can impede employee performance if one member is favored or supported over the others.

Accountability means that expectations are clear and effort is required.

You need your employees and managers to be responsible to the project, team, and organization to optimize employee performance. Consider the employee who does what her job requires and nothing more. She knows and meets all the expectations, yet because her concern is with only her individual contributions, her coworkers — even her manager — do not see her as a valuable team player. The reasons for her behavior aside, she is so focused on meeting exact expectations that she overlooks the opportunity to positively influence team results and dynamics. As a result she receives satisfactory (not exceptional) performance reviews, but continues to be baffled as to why her teammates “don’t like her.”

Likewise, when teammates are achieving high synergy, productivity and efficiency, they are top performers who get along along and enjoy being together. They see a vision and are feeling in sync with organizational and individual goals.  They jump in and help each other out, understand each other’s strengths and are willing to make each other’s jobs easier. When a vibrant organization is growing this surge of participation and energy can be long-term. There can be lulls between projects, however good leadership knows how to keep the positive energy flowing.

What is the right balance, and how do you achieve it?

Naturally, the solution lies between employees as friends and employees as automatons. We suggest the following to instill a culture of accountability among people who not only care about each other, but also care about the outcomes they can achieve together toward clear outcomes that go beyond the ego of any one person. The right balance requires individual understanding and acceptance and clear lines of authority and accountability.

What the Right Balance Looks Like

We call the right balance “synergy.” Synergy can be recognized by seeing projects being completed on time; team understanding of organizational goals and objectives; experiencing low to no stress among team members; witnessing an aura of fun and positive attitudes; high willingness for collaboration and problem solving; increased productivity and efficiency; fewer workplace accidents; higher profit; longer employee retention; and resistance to distractions and petty behaviors that break down trust among the team.

Steps for Achieving Balanced Synergy

Sound too good to be true? It is unrealistic to expect this state on an ongoing basis. Everyone needs time to recharge and to recommit to new inititiaves that are meaningful both individually and organizationally. However, when it matters most, winning organizations have a routine for preparing for and engaging in synergy – and leadership knows how to tap into it as needed.

1. First, synergy starts with clear expectations, guidelines and action plans for the next strategic destination. These goals are clearly developed and articulated by leadership. There is no nebulous talking about success. The target is clear, and the team understands the assignments and roles required to achieve their part of the quest.
2. Synergy is achieved by aligning employees to the right job tasks in terms of their natural problem solving talents, learned skills, social style, world view, and values. If you like action movies where the special forces team sweeps in to an assignment and conquers the enemy, then you will like the thrill of experiencing synergy by a top performing team. If you notice, the top talent is engaged for the perfect part of the mission. Each member does their part and leads action to the engagement of the next expert.

   To achieve this high performance, obviously experts are required. Chances are you have them in your organization, however you likely haven’t assessed their talents, skills, and abilities well enough to know how and when to engage them. Also, be cautious of making assumptions. Use assessment tools to understand the people in your organization.

3. Calibrate team performance to achieve specific results. Closely monitor results along the way and adapt team members and activities as required. Marketplace players and customer needs are constantly changing. This requires your team to continuously adapt to the external demands and problem-solving opportunities that exist for growth.  We believe that organizations struggle in tough times because they have no routine for adapting to changing needs. They become complacent, and they don’t think about guiding the way to an evolved future until they realize they have hit a wall. High performing teams are always engaged in innovation and critical thinking exercises because they are matched to jobs; they understand the goals; and they are riveted by the challenge to win at solving customer problems.
4. Expose team members to new resources such as new internal and external experts to collaborate with them and solve specific problems. Problem-solving requires a complex set of skills that needs to be kept active. The collaborative envionment that we are suggesting leads to intimacy between team members. When this intimacy is not kept active and focused on organizational outcomes, dysfunction occurs. Likewise, this intimacy can become stale to a particular mode of operation for a team to solve problems that in fact cannot work for solving every problem. As a leader you need a palette of resources that is vibrant and available to help you paint your vision for success. It is you who holds the brush and it is you who chooses the colors/resources with which you paint. Your authority in shifting skills and talents for the mission at hand is what your team relies on you to do to help them achieve collective success. Often leaders’ views of themselves, their possibilities, and their resources are far to narrow for the aspirations they hold. Thus, frustration and a feeling of standing in dead water can overtake the culture. By engaging resources that keep the team challenged, vibrant and alive, you keep people focused on intended outcomes and the big picture for success.

How Synergy is Measured

Aside from the indicators mentioned above, there is only one scientific way to measure synergy. The Kolbe LEAN Reports developed by the team of Kathy Kolbe are what we use to measure synergy. In any situation it is possible predict how a team will and won’t solve problems. In today’s times, it is especially crucial to know when to engage the innovators and promoters and when to engage the analysts and planners. One wrong move can waste months and years of effort and disuade top performers from being a part of the team. These times are crucial. There is no time to waste and there really is no excuse for not achieving your goals and initiatives if you have the right players working together in natural, informed, cohesive, and collaborative ways which you have orchestrated for the scenarios you see ahead. The closeness that is achieved is invigorating and often the best kind of “family” that can exist. Yet too, accountability, clear expectations, and measurements are not only appreciated by your team, they are the fuel that keeps energy flowing through the river of your organization.

Set up structures to communicate expectations, encourage innovation, and build trust.

How do you ensure that everyone in your organization is not only reading the same book but on the same page? Clearly communicate your vision and expectations, and implement strategies that always align with your goals. When it comes to workforce management that includes several components:

• Define roles: When each employee has a clear understanding of his/her role in the organization it’s clear where responsibilities lie and where to seek information. Each employee knows what is expected of him/her and takes ownership or else projects lag behind. In turn, employees must collaborate to make the company vision a reality: the idea people must talk to the implementers, the implementers must talk to the marketers, the marketers must talk to customer service and so on. Everyone knows where to go or who has the authoritative word because there is a clear chain of command and there are established processes for communication.
• Put the right people in the right places: When people feel competent and valued they feel “in the zone.” If you hire someone who is talented at coding but who has weak people skills, don’t start her out in customer service thinking that she will improve her people skills. Instead enable her to further develop the talent she already possesses and that is mission-critical to your organization. This alignment increases the likelihood of the employee’s success and devotion to the company while showing that you truly value what she brings to the table. She’ll have a sense of pride and ownership rather than feeling incompetent, unappreciated, or unnoticed. By providing opportunities for employees to build their skills you communicate a willingness to invest in people.
• Build cohesive teams: Achieving the right chemistry and balance of skills instills trust and creates strong relationships. Because members of cohesive teams look out for each other and work as a unit, they often are better able to communicate, innovate, and quickly mobilize when it comes to new projects and initiatives.
• Set goals: Measurable, attainable goals provide direction and a clear destination, and they must be set at all levels: employee, team, department, division, and company. Reaching goals provides a sense of accomplishment and pride and builds the confidence needed to tackle the next challenge. Recent research states that 65% of employees don’t understand how their role fits into the strategic goals of the organization (SHRM, 2009). Don’t let your organization be one of the many.

Exhibit leadership qualities that foster mutual trust.

With your systems and support in place and your employees in mind, consider what you as a leader must do to maximize the productivity your workforce affords.

• Be visible and accessible: Employees need to see their leaders at work — whether they’re heading to a client meeting or checking in with the team about a specific project. Demonstrate an awareness and an interest in what your team is working on, and make yourself, supervisors, or team leaders available so that suggestions, questions, and concerns can be communicated as soon as possible.
• Request input: You may be the CEO, but you can always use a fresh perspective on what’s happening within your customer base and workforce — and you can do that by simply asking for insight. Ask your employees — or your customers, when appropriate — to help solve a particularly tricky problem or to offer feedback. Such requests are about increased understanding, not about pandering or flattery, so take input to heart. If you can transform a complainer into a contributor you have another new champion for your brand.
• Keep a finger on the pulse of your workforce: Simply put, be aware. Economically speaking, times are tough, and your employees may have a tremendous amount anxiety about the company or their job stability. Schedule regular reviews and interviews with employees and managers so that you can keep a bead on things and address any anxiety or negativity early. On the flip side, if you sense an air of enthusiasm and optimism acknowledge that too.
• Share success: The adage “no man is an island” is true precisely because no one succeeds alone. Acknowledge a job well done.
• Admit mistakes: When a plan didn’t go quite right, the team knows it. So acknowledge it, articulate what you learned, and explain how you’ll adjust your approach.

Forward movement is the natural outcome of strong leadership and empowered employees.

Having built trust and opened the lines of communication, you now have the structures and channels in place to identify areas for improvement and to initiate implementation. You’ve enabled employees to identify opportunities and provided a means for them to communicate their insights and ideas, and also instilled a confidence in your leadership that will inspire them to follow your cue.

Every organization needs these functionalities in its talent management system to be effective:

• Recruiting
• Position management
• Performance management
• Goal setting
• Succession planning
• Learning management
• Compensation
• Analytics
• Information center
• Employee access

We’re not talking about maintaining disparate systems here, either. We’re talking about getting each of the above functional areas in one place, enabling them, and requiring them to talk with each other seamlessly. To be effective, these systems must work together, and all too often we at Insight and others in the HR industry find that either pieces are missing or they’re in various stages of implementation or priority. Historically, this kind of fragmentation has been the accepted modus operandi, and it often comes with hefty user-based requirements and price tags.

Fortunately, a clearer and more effective school of thought and practice has emerged, and we’re helping to shed light on its path. After all, talent management is as crucial to the success of small businesses as it is to that of billion dollar corporations.

Talent management must be strategically aligned with business goals and objectives.

The trick is to determine the overarching growth goals of your organization and to distill what is required to match and relate growth goals of an individual employee per the skills, talents, and aspirations required. Read our blog post about people development for more specifics about the role employee performance plays in your company’s success.

Studies by Bersin & Associates and Cornerstone OnDemand corroborate our own findings: complete talent management system integration is far from the norm

A 6-month study conducted by Bersin & Associates found that 14% of the 460 respondents had no talent management system in place, and 54% had disparate systems. The respondents noted a variety of challenges when it came to implementation, including: lack of executive or IT support, multiple systems in various stages of development or implementation, and multiple systems from multiple vendors. Imagine the efficiencies and valuable information left unharvested!

A co-presentation by Cornerstone OnDemand and Turner Broadcasting at the HR Technology Conference & Expo in Chicago last month highlighted these successes of talent management strategies:

• Lower turnover and less downsizing during the recession
• Revenue per employee is 25% higher than those without an integrated talent management system
• Star performers produce 3 times as much as average performers, and Superstar performers product 12 times as much

As you consider your company’s bottom line and its future goals and objectives, consider also the impact that the above findings could have and the role that talent management should play. Are you integrating employee performance and development that contributes to your success, or are you overlooking valuable opportunities?

It’s tempting to focus attention on technology, materials, and processes to manage costs and gain efficiencies. While those are certainly important, it is your people that actually run technology, acquire materials, and initiate processes. You can have the best resources in your industry, yet without the right people operating and managing your resources, your efficiencies and productivity will be compromised. The time you spend developing your people can be the solution to ultimate cost savings and efficiency. We propose that your next quarter, or even makeover this next year, should focus on developing your people to be more effective than ever. Think longer-term. Think employee performance.

Attention to Employee Performance Yields Great Returns

• Instills a sense of ownership and self-worth
• Promotes mutual accountability between the employee and the manager
• Improves overall company morale
• Builds trust and a positive, innovative environment
• Increases job satisfaction

Improved Workforce Performance Affects Your Bottom Line and Your Reputation

• Improves employee retention
• Fosters adaptability and resiliency
• Increases productivity and efficiency
• Promotes longevity and profitability
• Improves customer satisfaction and retention

How to Approach Performance Management

Insight’s experience shows that focus on employee development rapidly deteriorates after the hiring process; little thought and few resources are allocated to foster and grow the talent of people already on the payroll. Further, many employees are misaligned with their current jobs, which results in inefficiency and dissatisfaction that costs your company time and money while you accommodate, avoid, or are simply unaware of the problems that result. Every job within your organization should have a career path identified for growth and development. This assures that from day one employees are engaged in a growth program and will view their job as fulfilling and valuable.

Think of Your Employees as You Do Your Customers

Customers are getting smarter. So are employees. Both have needs that must be met for your organization to succeed, and if your company doesn’t tend to those needs then you’ll be left behind. Even a stagnant job market won’t dissuade an unfulfilled employee from looking elsewhere. Research shows employees are more willing in these times to start their own venture and take on entrepreneurial risk rather than work for a company that doesn’t clearly value them or encourage their growth. Meet your employees’ needs by understanding their aspirations and tying those interests into the needs of your organization for growth.

Capitalize on Individuals’ Desire for Self-Improvement

Walk through a bookstore or turn on the television and you’ll be bombarded with products and services from the “self-help” industry. It’s no secret that these items sell because people want to improve themselves — and that ambition can carry over into the workplace, too, if you make the effort to better understand and develop your employees. Engage an individual goal setting process that clearly defines training, projects, and education that employees desire and align those goals with specific role description requirements and organizational strategic initiatives.

Continuously Work to Build Teams that Mentor

Teams that have clearly defined roles and goals have members who are sharper, more focused, and more willing to contribute at a moment’s notice. Clearly defined roles enable each member to see his/her position in and value to the big picture and to focus on the task at hand. When team members know and understand each other — including strengths and growth areas — they can better accept one another and consistently work as the proverbial well-oiled machine. Make employees’ individual goals known throughout the organization. Encourage mentorship and support among team members. The more reliant team members are on one another, the more accountable and motivated employees are to grow and succeed.

Now is the time to invest in people development and employee performance

The work of your people, their flexibility, and their ability to quickly adapt to changing dynamics will sustain long-term success. A leader must understand what makes each person tick and consequently provide meaningful work that engages each employee to achieve predictable and desirable results.

Keeping people engaged in your organization through high levels of purpose, passion, and ownership encourages them to continue to want to be associated with your company. If your employees are not engaged, motivated, and secure then your profitability, morale, and customer service can plummet.

There is no better opportunity than slower times to focus on areas that were neglected and not fully nurtured in the past:

• Focus on what you do best with a vengeance
• Reconnect with the specific DNA that makes your business unique
• Envision how to serve your customers and employees better going forward

In terms of people development that means you need to:

• Develop career paths for key employees
• Realign performers to more optimal jobs
• Implement training programs to support growth goals
• Take time to hire the right people for growth-focused initiatives
• Implement assessment tools to better know the skills, talents, and preferences of your employees
• Conduct performance reviews as a communication vehicle
• Engage team members as mentors engaged in mutual growth and success

It’s inevitable that any business initiative without committed purpose and supportive people is easily derailed. We’ve developed a unique process — the Invest People Development Process — that can improve workforce performance 225%. If you’re interested in learning more contact us, and we’ll send you a case study that details our work with a U.S.-based automotive water pump company.