Are you killing your employee’s enthusiasm?

It is common for a manager or business owner to feel overwhelmed by their workload and when it finally reaches the point that they can justify hiring someone to pass tasks to, they “forget” to let their employees do the job they hired them to do!  Or only the bare essential administrative sections are handed over when the job description indicates they are supposed to be the back-up when management are unavailable.  Beware, of holding back on letting your employees do the job you hired them to do, it is a quick way to kill your employee’s enthusiasm.  So how does one avoid falling into that trap?  Or how does one get out if are already in the trap?

First, self-reflect.  Ask yourself some hard questions.  But more importantly, answer them honestly.  Have you let go of the things on your list that you needed help with?  I mean truly let go, and handed it over, accountability for that task now fully rests with your employee.  Speaking from experience, that is not always as easy as it sounds. 

But don’t beat yourself up, when you hire someone to help you by taking over some of your tasks, it’s like you’re starting a new job too.  You need to figure out how you will work at letting things go and starting to work on your “new responsibilities.”  These “new responsibilities” are really the things that were always on your to-do list, but pushed off because you didn’t have time, but now you need to build them into your new routine.

Why aren’t you letting go of some tasks?  Let’s be honest, maybe doing those tasks was enjoyable, they were easy and came as second nature to you and when you finished that task, it gave you a sense of accomplishment.  Give your employee the chance to experience that same feeling of accomplishment.

Second, determine how you will keep informed on the things that your employee is working on.  Maybe by doing those tasks it was how you keep your finger on the pulse of what was going on, and you have a fear of being out of the loop.  What is a good way for communication to happen between you and your employee, so you don’t feel out of the loop, and they don’t feel micro-managed?  Weekly check-in meetings have worked for me.  Keep them short and to the point.  Create an outline of key areas that contain information you need to be aware of.  Communication is two-way street, what information should you be sharing with your employee so they can be successful in their job?  Let your employee know that if there are urgent matters that come up between meetings to let you know.  Be clear with examples of what you consider to be urgent.  The longer you work together the more you will start to sync up, but in the beginning, it is a learning process for both of you, so have patience and be consistent on expectations.

Third, communicate with your employee.  Ask them how things are going from their perspective.  Listen closely to their answers, are there clues that indicate they would like to take on more?  Go over their job description together, have they been trained on all the items they are responsible for?  Have you handed over all the items to them or are you still hanging on to some?  Do they have additional capacity that you are not tapping into?  Maybe there are other tasks that can be handed over to help them grow professionally and free you up for other tasks, which in turn lets you grow.

When handing over tasks, you will typically train the employee the way that you have always done it.  In the beginning until they have some experience it is reasonable to expect them to do it exactly the way you trained them, but as they get more comfortable in their role, they may see ways to streamline the process.  Let them have the freedom to own their job and be accountable for it.  For example:  If I do a monthly audit of the health insurance invoice against employee payroll deductions, I may have a step-by-step process that I follow.  The result of this audit exercise is to be sure all the right people are enrolled in health insurance and on the invoice – none missing, and no extras, and that the correct deductions have been taken from the employees’ paycheck.  Someone else may approach this audit exercise a little bit differently than I do, but if the result is confirmed accuracy, and the person responsible for this task switches up step C and D, who cares?  It is ok as long as the same result is accomplished, and accuracy is ensured.

Bottomline, let employees do their job.I know, that seems like an unnecessary statement, however sometimes we need to work on ourselves first before we can build quality leadership skills.If you do not take the time to adjust how you work, it may leave your staff wondering what their job is and they may get bored and leave or worse get bitter and stay!

What does your business look like after COVID?

Now that we have a been through an entire year of COVID, lockdowns, quarantines, and gathering restrictions how did your business fare?  Were you able to make a pivot and adjust so you could keep your business going?  I remember thinking that this would be a couple of weeks and then back to normal. 

We had been planning a big family vacation.  Plane tickets had been purchased, our housing was arranged, and reservations paid in full for several tourist excursions.  Even 6 weeks into this new world of COVID we were hoping it would let up in the “near future.”  So repeatedly we extended our reservations, but ultimately by mid-summer were resigned to the fact that this was not going away, and we cancelled everything, getting back what we could from the pre-paid plans. (The travel industry was hit particularly hard.)  And here we are still dealing with the same travel concerns a year later even with vaccines well underway.  I do believe that there is light at the end of this long tunnel, but I think the new normal may look different.   

Much of what I do can be done remotely or via Zoom, but there are some things that I’m just used to doing in person and it was difficult to make that shift especially when neither clients nor I were completely comfortable with in-person gatherings.  Zoom was better than phone, but there is something lost with meeting something in-person.  Handshakes may be a thing of the past.  Still trying to get used to elbow bumps, it just feels weird and too casual to me.

For many managers making a pivot from supervising staff in-person vs. remotely became the biggest challenge.  If not already adept at that skill, managers had to learn on the fly how to gauge productivity by output vs. actually seeing someone working at their workstation.  If you hired well initially, this would not be an issue.  Employees who feel valued for what they do will work well from home or in the office.

The question now is in the long term how will you run your business?  Some of the changes we were forced to make proved to be beneficial, other changes may have hurt your business.  What changes will you keep and what are you looking forward to being able to get back in place again?  How will your business thrive moving forward?

Thoughts on Leadership

No matter the size of your business, being a good leader will attract employees to work for you.  Being a bad leader will either chase employees away or worse they will stay and become disgruntled.  One sign of a good leader is a person who is present, available, and approachable.

What does it mean to present, available and approachable?  To me it means checking in regularly with each employee asking how things are going.  Actively listening to hear if there are struggles your employee is trying to tell you without complaining.  Asking them how they plan to work through that struggle and if they need any help.  Be sure they have the tools needed to do their job effectively and efficiently.  Providing encouragement and direction on projects or if dealing with a difficult task.  Sometimes it might just be keeping employees “in the loop” on what is going on.  In a remote working setting this is even more important because people tend to feel isolated and disconnected.

Actively try to be present, available, and approachable for your staff.  You cannot possibly be leading if your staff never see or hear from you.  Yes, COVID rocked the working world when many people had to suddenly work from home, and it is difficult to be present, available, and approachable when you and your staff are in separate locations working remotely.  However, for you to be successful in this new remote environment you will need to embrace this new way of work and find ways to be available for your staff.  It may look different than what you are used to with the in-person office pop in but find new ways with technology to connect!

Identity Being Stolen to File an Unemployment Claim

During times of crisis, criminals seize the opportunity to take advantage of unsuspecting individuals.   The Unemployment Departments across the nation are totally overwhelmed with all the claims coming in.  In an effort to get the mounds of claims processed as quickly as possible, fraudulent claims are slipping through the cracks.  You may have heard on the national and local news that criminals are filing false unemployment claims to take advantage of the overwhelmed system.  The Maine Unemployment has set up a place to report these fraudulent claims.  https://www.maine.gov/unemployment/idtheft/

This is good time to remind ourselves of some common sense practices to protect our identity:

• Be on high alert for anything weird or unusual in your emails or bank accounts especially if it says COVID. 

• Don’t click on links that are unknown or you are not sure about.

• Don’t send any money to ANYONE you don’t know.

• If someone you know asks for money, check it out first to be sure it is really who they say they are.

• Do not respond to calls or texts from unknown or suspicious numbers.

• Limit the personal information you share via email, text, or over the phone.

Consider if it makes sense to put a freeze on your credit with the three major credit reporting agencies.  The credit freeze will prevent unauthorized parties from accessing your credit report. When you put a freeze on your credit accounts, it will require an extra step to unfreeze it if you’re going to take out a loan, but that small inconvenience  prevents someone else from taking out an unauthorized loan in your name. For more information, you may visit the Maine Credit Freeze Fact Sheet.

Allowing bad behavior to continue is a failure of leadership.

The inaction to address bad behavior leads to morale issues in your team. By delaying or not addressing the behaviors the leader is in fact endorsing the behavior. Employee notice what the leader does and does not do.

In his book EntreLeadership, Dave Ramsey talks about Sanctioned Incompetence. “My friend John Maxwell, a great leadership author, says, “Sanctioned incompetence demoralizes.” If you as a leader allow people to halfway do their jobs and don’t demand excellence as a prerequisite to keeping their job, you will create a culture of mediocrity. If you allow people to misbehave, underachieve, have a bad attitude, gossip, and generally avoid excellence, please don’t expect to attract and keep great talent. Please don’t expect to have an incredible culture.”*

*Dave Ramsey, EntreLeadership, Simon and Schuster (2011), p. 159

Video Meeting Etiquette

These days so many of us are doing our work via video meetings. It is a great technology and has helped many businesses stay open while having their employees working remotely. But has it made us all a little too casual?

As I look at my own picture while sitting on the 3rd video meeting of the day; I notice that the closet door in the background is wide open! Yikes, winter coats mixed with spring coats spilling out the open door because I have not had time to pack the winter coats away yet. Was that mess showing in my other meetings too or did one of the kids just open it up a few minutes ago?! It got me thinking over all the video meetings I have attended recently, there seems to be at least one person who is oblivious to how they are coming across. Maybe there should be some rules established.

1. Try to establish a place with an uncluttered background, at least close your closet doors. This is mine; I own it and will be working to make improvements.

2. Mute yourself unless you are speaking. How distracting is it to hear the background noise from five different places interrupting the speaker which in turn causes them to pause and say, “what/” repeatedly. The sound of typing keys (this also applies to rule #4), dogs barking, the breathing from the people that are using the phone feature instead of the video feature and have their mouth too close to the phone. It is not that difficult to click on mute.

3. Don’t eat or chew gum. No one wants to watch or hear you eating food of any kind, crunchy or otherwise! Chomping on gum, really?!

4. Be engaged at the meeting, that may mean you choose not to attend every meeting. I have seen people texting through an entire meeting without even the slightest effort to hide the cellphone and what they were doing. Typing on a computer, no doubt multitasking, but that is rude to the speaker. Either be engaged in the meeting or do not show up.

5. Be aware of your movements while on camera. It is very distracting for others to watch someone rock back and forth in their chair or playing with their hair throughout the entire meeting.

Four Steps for Creating a Business Re-opening Plan

As phased business openings start taking effect, each company should be preparing for how they plan to apply those guidelines to their own business situation. This should be done in a thoughtful and organized manner.

1. Determine who should be on the team. Human Resources and Operations should be front and center, but the discussion needs to include representation from all areas of the organization. Each member of the team is looking through a different lens and will bring a different viewpoint. This is important so that all aspects of the opening plan can be addressed.

2. Determine what processes need to be changed for the business to comply with phased opening guidelines. Is there a need to rearrange the office in anyway to keep social distancing? Does it make sense to build barriers between the client and the employees? What kind of signage needs to be put up? How will this affect employees? Are there any potential special accommodations that need to be considered? How will workflow through the office? How will cleaning and disinfecting be handled? Just to name a few.

3. Document the processes agreed upon for the re-opening, include definitions and examples to make it clear when shared with the entire staff. Establish or revise policies if needed. For example: Companies may choose to have a travel restriction for outside the state. Determine what that means to an employee, and how it will be handled if someone does travel outside the state. Document and communicate it so that misunderstandings are avoided.

4. Communicate with staff clearly and often about the reopening plan and any new policies that may have been created. It is important that everyone in the organization is informed and everyone is following the same plan.

Managing when work has been turned upside down.

COVID-19 has disrupted so much in our lives, overnight the way we do work and manage our staff has been turned upside down. The lucky ones keep working, albeit in a different format. Businesses had to make major pivots and quickly without time to analyze the potential outcomes of those quick changes.

There may be some unintended consequences from those quick pivots. For example, if the company did not have telework options before, but had to quickly move everyone to working from home. There are a lot of practicalities to work through, like what software to we own, and does it allow for remote work, or do we need to have a smooth telework process? How will work be done if no one or only one person is in the office at a time? Who should be assigned to come into the office to sort through the mail? You can be sure that if the team was already dysfunctional, those dysfunctions will be magnified during a crisis.

Now is NOT the time to ignore those issues, just hoping that they will go away. Address any behavior or productivity issues immediately as they arise. A crisis does not give employees a pass to bad behavior. I had someone say to me recently, “I know it’s a problem, but we’re in the middle of a crisis, now is not the time to address it. When things get back to normal, we’ll start addressing Sally or Joe’s behavior.” It is wishful thinking to hope the problem will work itself out on its own. A more likely scenario is that morale will spiral downward and then there will be a slow march of high performers walking out the door. Meanwhile the problem remains and likely gets worse.

Crisis or no crisis, expectations should be clearly communicated to staff and then hold employees accountable. In a crisis, more than ever, keep that line of communication open with your staff using all available avenues (video, IM, phone calls, texts, and emails). Remind your staff of the expectations and talk to someone when they fall below expectations. If you need to have that difficult conversation and an in-person meeting is not an option, then use a video chat to meet with that person. IM and email reprimands leave out the tone of voice and do not allow for an opportunity to engage in a real discussion, therefore should be avoided. Do not wait for when things get normal again, this may be the new normal and you need to adjust how you manage.