How to Avoid Being A Jerk And Still Fire The People You Need To

Anyone that has ever fired someone knows that it isn’t exactly what most of us would call a good time. Actually, it pretty much sucks, which is exactly why business owners hire people like George Clooney’s character in Up in The Air to come in and do it for them.  In the movie, it shows every business owners worst fear-former employees crying hysterically, throwing things, threatening lawsuits, and most of them were just pissed. Sometimes the person you are firing has become toxic to the company and is spreading ill-will, other times it is simply an issue of work not getting accomplished in a timely and/or correct manner. Whatever the issue is, managing the firing is crucial to your sanity, the well being of your company,the emotional well being of the rest of your employees, and the employee in question.  I have a pretty non-traditional approach to firing that I like to call the non-jerk approach. Basically, I think that there is a way to fire people and still treat them well.

Give them fair warning

If one of your clients has become displeased with your service, you want to know before they go to your competitor. Similarly, it is unfair to fire an employee without first presenting them with the specific problems you are having with their work and giving them a specific time line to rectify the problem.  This puts the ball in the employee’s court: they can choose to fix the issue or they can choose to leave. A few years ago I was having a problem with an employee turning in hours where she was either not working or working at a very inefficient pace. I called her into my office, explained the problem and gave her 30 days to rectify the issue. She ended up deciding to leave on her own, which prevented her from being fired and prevented me from having to fire her. It was a win-win. Some think that this gives your employees an unfair advantage, personally, I think it gives you both the advantage of looking at the situation and considering your potential options.

Plan out what you are going to say. 

 

Let’s face it: some of us are a little hot-headed and blow up when angered. Others are meek and when faced with confrontation, tend to back down from what really needs to be said. Either way, none of us can effectively convey what we want to when we are running on emotion. If you are emotional, there is a much higher chance that the employee will be emotional. Since you are making a huge impact on the life of the employee and possibly his/her family, it is only fair to put some thought into what you are going to say. I try and start off with, “we spoke 30 days ago regarding your job performance and unfortunately I have not seen enough progress to keep you with our organization. I think that you are (insert something complimentary-smart, talented, personable, etc)-but I just do not think that you are a good fit as our company continues to grow.” I have found that explaining the problem, but softening the blow with a compliment helps immensely. Also, this unemotional, professional method will help you remember to convey all necessary information, make sure that they sign necessary documents (such as releases, etc). Besides being an ethical way to treat your now-former employee, it is also good to have proof that you gave your employee a warning in the event of litigation.

Give time for goodbye

Don’t escort someone out of the office unless they have truly done something worthy of being escorted out. I know that this is highly nontraditional, but I believe that unless it is a criminal or ethical matter, giving them time to say goodbye will help offer resolution for the former employee as well as your current employees. Plus, it is kind and discourages feelings of ill will. I know many employers that choose to do the escort out of fear of files being stolen or property damage. If you give them a 30 day warning, the employee will know that there is a strong chance that they will be fired and will be much less likely to do something to harm your files, computers,equipment, etc.Of course, I would not leave them completely alone in their office, but there is a big difference between leaving them completely alone and giving them what is essentially a police escort out of your building.

Explain the situation to the rest of your staff. 

After the former employee has left the office, have a meeting where you explain that there was a problem, the employee was given 30 days to rectify the situation, and they chose not to rectify the situation (which resulted in the firing). I usually do not give the specifics on the problem, out of respect for the former-employee and in the interest of not seemingly-bashing them to the rest of my employees. This reassures your staff that they will be given fair warning if you are displeased with their work and will also reassure them that you did not do something based on your emotions, but, rather, made the decision in a logical, methodical way.

I am sure there will be situations arise where this method will not be effective, and you may think that this method would never work in your organization. Whatever your opinion, I would love to know your thoughts as well as your method of firing! You can reach me at jdanner@peoplelease.com.

What I Learned From The Apprentice

This week one of my all-time favorite reality television shows (yes, I love fauxlity tv) begins again-The Apprentice premieres on Thursday.  While I have learned many valuable lessons from the show, like never to mess with crazies like Amarosa and that Brett Micheals can do a lot more than rock a guitar, the lesson that has proved most valuable is about balancing street smarts and book smarts.

On season 3 of The Apprentice, they formed the teams into street smarts vs book smarts. The book smarts pretty much thought they had everything figured out coming into the initial challenge. Even the business rookies felt like they were much more prepared than the seasoned business professionals because of the base of knowledge they had acquired from school. Pretty soon, it became painfully obvious that the MBAs had no ability to work with other people. They even lacked the ability to maintain basic civility in the face of stress. For the street smart team, this was no problem-they had all built their businesses on being able to deal with people in a highly effective manner. They knew how to deal with stress. They knew what to do when their plans went off course. They had the ability to change course when necessary and evaluate themselves instead of being evaluated. In a recent article, Entrepreneur explored this issue with Steven Arroyo, a restaurateur from Los Angeles who never attended any college,“The street will teach you honesty, integrity, humility, and how to BS”. First of all, I just love this quote-especially the BS at the end…but I also think it is really accurate. If you are planning on having successful interactions with others in the business world(or even just in life), being able to communicate effectively is a mandatory tool. However, as season 3 progressed, there were some challenges that the MBAs won simply because they were more current on the latest technology. The street smarts tended to be a little bit more old school-depending on more traditional methods of sales and project management- while the MBAs tended to come to the table with more innovation. Sure, their team worked awfully together and often imploded, but they had a better skill set to survive. The MBAs lost challenges because they couldn’t manage their egos, while the street smart team lost because they couldn’t always manage the task. 

When this season aired in 2005, I was really had no desire to get an MBA-I saw it as unnecessary in the trajectory of my career. While I can’t really say that this season was the deciding factor in getting my MBA, it did open the door to it in my mind. Five years and big tuition bills later, I feel somewhat qualified to speak on this issue.  I learned some really interesting, valuable things in my program-like how to make decisions, how to manage, how to do strategic planning and lot of other insights that academia usually produces. But, honestly?  I don’t feel like having an MBA has made my career, but I do feel like it was a career advancer. For me, it’s a calling card that gets me recognition, gives me validity, and gets my foot in the door. From there, street smarts have got to take over. I think it would be virtually impossible to have any successful long-term business career and have no ability to deal with people, no salesmanship, and no ability to BS your way through. At the same time, there have been occasions where my degree has put me ahead of my peers and taken me to the next level.

In the end, I think that it really depends on your business and what your life goals are. Mine dictated an MBA, for many others it may be an unnecessary waste of time and expense.

Let me know your thoughts on this issue at jdanner@peoplelease.com

Have a great week!

Be a Saint-Don't Let Your Company Meetings Become Viking-ish

In the after-glow of a great Saints win last night (WHO DAT!), I thought I would give a few tips on how to make your meetings a little more New Orleans and little less Viking-ish. Taking the boring out of the afternoon meetings while still making them highly productive can be a tough task.  Here are some tips that I hope help.

1-Make everyone’s life better and implement the 10-40 rule.

Everyone knows that there is nothing worse than listening to someone stand up and read every single word that is on their power point slide. Besides being mind-numbingly boring, it always comes across to me that almost no thought was put into what was actually going to be said. After all, if you are involved in a business meeting, then there is a good chance that you have mastered the fine-art of reading and have moved beyond needing someone to read for you. The 10-40 rule completely changes the idea of presentations around from being all about your slides to making them an aid in your overall presentation. The idea is that your first 10 slides should never have more than 40 words on them. The highly effective presentations, such as shown on TED.com, use far less than 40. According to researchers at Penn State, achieving the word-picture balance has been scientifically proven to be the most persuasive to our brains.

If you have a more casual approach to your meetings, it might be effective to start putting your employees on a rotation where they give a 5 minute presentation about their field. This not only breaks up the monotony, but it can also be informative for the entire group!

2-Pay Attention

There are many peer-reviewed studies that show that senior executives’ actions can reverberate throughout an entire organization, ultimately undermining or bolstering their cultures and performance levels. When you are engaged, your team is much more inclined to do the same. Hearing is passive, while listening requires energy and attentiveness. The same applies to looking and seeing.  Just because you have the physical ability to look at things doesn’t mean you’re using that gift to its full potential. Make sure that when your team presents their ideas, you are giving your full attention.  In a recent study, 64% of employees felt their bosses where incompetent. The reason they gave was that their bosses were so disengaged, they felt there was no way they could know what was going in the overall-organization and had even less knowledge of what the employees specifically did.

3. Take great notes

I worked for a guy that took amazing notes of every meeting that we had. Due to his notes, our meetings were seamless-he always knew right where to pick back up. Not only did this convey that he really valued my work, it also saved a ton of time!

4. Finish off with a quiz

I recently read an article about a start-up company in California that ends every staff meeting with a five question, no pressure quiz on what was discussed in the meeting. Whoever shouts out the answer first gets anything from a piece of candy to a $5 starbucks giftcard.  After someone gets an answer right they are no longer eligible to answer any more questions (this helps prevent the know-it-alls from dominating). For their company, it is a great incentive for everyone to pay attention and livens the meetings up.

Hopefully some of these ideas will bring some life back into your company meetings! Happy Friday!

Increasing Productivity for Your Office-Part 2

1

            Develop a routine

When I was in sixth grade, my parents made a decision that forever changed the course of my life. They took me out of school. While the reason for the switch to home-schooling was academic (clearly a good decision two B.S. degrees, an MBA, and a Ph.D. later), there was a huge side effect that perhaps had a bigger influence on my life. When my parents announced this change, I was pretty sure I had it made-I was going to sleep late, work fewer hours, play more tennis and basketball (at the time two of my favorite activities),etc. So, on the first day, you can imagine my surprise when I was awakened at 5:30 and was enrolled in what my family now laughingly refers to as Danner military academy. It was tough. When I say tough I mean like grad-school tough. It wasn’t really the material (although I was woefully behind where I should have been), but rather, the routine. At my old school, I worked for about 5-20 minutes of every hour and goofed off the rest of the time-because I could. That whole system really didn’t roll for my mom, who viewed my schooling as my 11 year old job. After a while, my mom eased up a little and I fell into a comfortable routine of work that I have continued to this day. When you come in every morning not knowing what your day entails, it is a lot easier to waste time than if you come in knowing what you need to get done and you already have a system in place to accomplish those goals. Research has shown that when you operate under a routine, you eat better, you sleep more (which is absolutely essential for productivity), and you exercise more-all things that greatly increase your productivity. Just sleeping alone can drastically change the productivity of your employee. Scientists at the University of Pennsylvania found that those who slept four to six hours a night for fourteen consecutive nights showed the deficiencies in cognitive performance equivalent to those that went without sleep for up to three days in a row! However, the subjects reported that they felt only slightly sleepy and were completely unaware of how impaired they were. While you obviously cannot mandate that your employee get more sleep or keep a routine, keeping the office running in a routine greatly increases the chances that they will continue the pattern once at home.

                                                                                                                       

2.    Be a Sprinter Not a Marathon Runner

I worked from home for about 4 years. Anyone who has ever tried to do this knows that being productive at home is extremely difficult. Something always seems more important than your work (even if it is just reruns or chores). In order to curb my home-ineffectiveness, I developed a system for myself. Actually, I didn’t develop it-it has been used for decades in the school system. It is the 50 min work hour. Let me explain. Every hour, I work as hard as I possibly can for 50 min. I do not get up, I do not talk to colleagues (unless, of course, they speak to me directly), I do not play around on the internet or check my email-I just work. During my 10 min breaks, I visit the restroom, refill my coffee cup, and check my personal phone and email. Creating these intense periods of working dramatically raised my productivity. It was shocking, actually. Taking purposeful breaks helped me buckle down and focus during the work time. I actually go to the extent that if I think of something that I need to email or speak with someone about, I jot it down until my next break. This concept of increasing productivity is nothing new. In 1926, Henry Ford famously adopted the 40-hr work week. He was widely criticized by his fellow members of the National Association of Manufacturers. His theory (which turned out to be completely accurate) was that cutting the work week from 6 to 5 days and cutting down the work day from 10 to 8 hours increased total work output and decreased production costs. Sometimes increasing productivity (and sanity) means developing a system that is workable for you and your employees. My system probably would not work for everyone-there are tons of variations on it. The idea is to break up your work into smaller chucks-your brain simply cannot work at a high pace when you over-exhaust it. Helping your employees find an effective system for their work schedule can dramatically increase their productivity.

Hope this helps as we roll into Friday!

Increasing Productivity for Your Office-Part 1

Summer is done and football season has begun. As fall kicks into high gear, it is a great opportunity to reevaluate your company’s productivity. Since this is something we are always trying to improve on, I thought I would give a few tricks and tips I’ve picked up on to help beat those end-of-summer blues around the office.

1.      Create Goals

I think that there is very little question that having your own goals for your company and for yourself is absolutely necessary. Something that often gets overlooked is making sure that your employees also have their own set of written goals. Not only will this give your employees a sense of purpose and placement, but it will also provide you with a very insightful look as to what they think they are supposed to be accomplishing versus what you actually want them to be accomplishing. Sometimes, the biggest hindrance to someone being productive is that they simply do not know what they are supposed to be doing (even when it seems abundantly obvious to you!). Usually, employees know the big lofty goals such as increase sales, but do not know the specific steps to accomplishing those goals. Good leaders excel at converting something ambiguous to something behavioral. Make sure that the goals are challenging but also realistic. Give them the goal of increasing sales or bettering customer service, but see what their specific steps are to accomplishing that goal. Then, go over the plan and help them figure out the best method of attack. Change cannot happen if there is no clarity. By being exact, it becomes much easier for the employee to accomplish their goals and it also becomes much easier to evaluate them on their progress. When a consensus is reached of what the employees or team of employees goals are, it gives a sense of team spirit which greatly motivates productivity.

2.      Make a list for the next day in the last 10 minutes of this day

Research shows that success in the business world isn’t about how smart you are-only fourteen percent (14%) of Fortune 500 companies are led by ivy leaguers. We all know that success doesn’t occur because of the resources you have acquired. Rather, success in business (and in life) is primarily achieved through preparation. I have really taken this to heart. For the past few years, at the end of every work day I formulate a specific list of what I want to accomplish on the following work day. That way, when I come in I invest no time in getting ‘back into the swing of things”, but rather, jump right in on my day. I found this to be immensely helpful in making my day significantly more productive. By doing this simple step, it reminds me of what I was working on the day before and provides me a leg up on my day. I try and follow the mindset of Mark Twain which has since been adopted by many in the business community."If you know you have to swallow a frog, swallow it first thing in the morning. If there are two frogs, swallow the big one first."  Meaning: if you have something unpleasant, really important, or a big task-start working on that first. Making sure that your employees are dedicated to this model will ensure that the things that have to get done get done.  I try and make sure I give myself more than what I HAVE to get accomplished for the day, so that I am always pushing myself it cross more off of my list. When your employees create this system for themselves, it is much easier to determine what exactly was accomplished in their day and where productivity can improve. It is also great incentive for your employees to get to work. Accountability always increases productivity.

I will post the continuation of this list later on today! Got to start being productive now! :)

The Best Employees for Your Small Business- Part 2

Yesterday I started a list of the characteristics needed for effective employees that will most benefit your small business. Here is the continuation of that list!

4. They have growth potential.
 
The right employee's reach exceeds her grasp for today. They are willing to accept higher levels of responsibility than is the norm for the person  in their position, title, experience level, and/or salary. In fact, they prefer it that way. They act as a strong role model, trains and coaches others, and soon begins to assume supervisory responsibilities.


5. They are team players.

The right employee is a team player and recognizes how their role effects the entire flow of the organization. They accept the ownership for their area of responsibility and also recognizes and applauds the efforts made by others.


6. They have the ability to multitask.
 
The right employee is flexible enough to accept new duties, assignments, and responsibilities. They can perform additional roles as necessary and are willing to do the grunt work tasks usually performed by lower level employees.




7. They are improvement oriented.

The right employee is more willing to challenge existing procedures and systems in a constructive way. They suggest changes and improvements frequently and encourages others to do the same.



These employees are easier to manage and produce extraordinary results. However, this caliber of an employee can be difficult to find.  At People Lease, we can help you with the pre-screening of your employees. Of course, you don't have to worry about an HR department, because we take care of that for you!!

The Best Employees for Your Small Business-Part 1

As a small business owner, deciding which employees to hire can be one of the biggest decisions that you make. in order to be a fast growing company, it is crucial to hire employees that have an entrepreneurial spirit. These employees can come in all shapes and sizes with all sorts of different skills. However, there are some characteristics that can help you weed out those with an entrepreneurial spirit from the rest of the pact.


1. They have the ability to work well under stress.

As you well know, a small business can be chocked full of stress. Having employees that can deal with risk and uncertainty is an absolute must. When facing these stresses, he will still be able to make progress towards goals and  make decisions even when lacking resources or data.


2. They are results oriented.

The right employee can take ownership in their work and have the chutzpa to get the task done. She is a can-do person and demonstrates common sense in decisions and actions. They are able to resolve problems and divert others. They learn as they progress and become more efficient and stronger with each experience. They commonly suggest new and innovative ways to accomplish tasks and even when supervisors or managers disagree with the alternatives presented, it is agreed they are reasonable for the situation.


3. They are energetic and enthusiastic.

The right employee consistently generates output that is higher than can reasonably be expected and does so with a smile. He is totally committed to the organization's goals and overall success. These types of employees tend to seek out an organization that solicits and acts upon their ideas and gives credit where it is due. They appreciate it when errors and poor decisions are pointed out quickly and clearly so they can resolve the problems as promptly as possible. They are always looking for ways to improve the firm. This employee will perform best under limited supervision and will be able to self-motivate and set priorities with minimal guidance.


Check back tomorrow for more tips on the best employees to hire!