"Everyone is going to have to take 10 days of unpaid vacation."
"Everyone is going to have to take 10 days of unpaid vacation and a 1% (or more) pay cut."
I don't know about you, but as a manager, those are messages I definitely wouldn't want to share with my staff. I'd much rather be spending my time coming up with alternatives to reward peak performance and boost employee morale. The subject is top of mind because I spent part of my morning doing just that.
Maybe it's cheesy, but with a little spray paint and some inspiration from Bud Foster and the Virginia Tech football team's defensive unit, I created the "Golden Lunch Pail Extra Effort Award" which will be given quarterly to a member of the staff as voted on by his or her peers. And, like the Stanley Cup, it will remain in his or her possession for the quarter until a new winner is named. To make sure the process is straightforward and fair (as we all know, awards can sometimes turn into a popularity contest), the next step is going to be developing a few guidelines. And, as the title states, the award will be for extra effort--going above and beyond what is expected of the person in that role.
A colleague is going one step further. He's granting his employees comp time so they can each take one day off every other week during the month of July. It doesn't seem like much, but an additional 4-5 days of vacation, if nothing else, can provide some much needed time out of the office.
In addition to the comp time, he's also buying breakfast for his team every Tuesday. I really like this idea 1) because it's a nice gesture and 2) because a regularly scheduled weekly breakfast can help bring them closer together as a team. And along those lines, I'm trying to find a time when our group can volunteer at a local soup kitchen. In my experience, getting out of the office to volunteer in the community is one of the most rewarding things we can do as a team.
What are some other low cost alternatives you've implemented to reward your staff?
168 people applied for the opening. We interviewed 5 which means, if you do the math, that we rejected 163. Our policy was to only notify those who were interviewed but not selected—potentially leaving those 163 in limbo as to their status for weeks and months to come. So instead, once we selected a candidate and that person accepted our offer, I pulled together a rejection letter, printed them off, signed them, and put them in the mail.
End of the story? Not exactly. About 10 days after I sent the rejection letters, I received an email from one of the candidates. He opened by thanking me for letting him know he wasn’t selected for the position, commenting on how rare it is to hear from an organization at all (if only there were a candidate’s bill of rights…but I digress).
But he didn’t stop there. He mentioned that he was still very much interested in working in higher education and asked if I would be willing to meet him for lunch or coffee. About a week later, we were able to connect. He came well prepared, able to talk specifically about the types of positions he’s interested in and how his background lends itself to each one (an absolute must when networking). He also asked thoughtful questions about what it’s like to work in a university environment.
All in all, it probably took me an hour to draft and mail the rejection letter. We met over coffee for around 30 minutes. If I was able to help someone who was willing to reach out and turn a negative into a positive, it was obviously well worth it. I was able to connect him with one of my colleagues from another department within the University. So, at the very least, he was able to grow his professional network.
On the flip side, I have yet to hear from the other 162. Only 1 person out of 162 reached out to me directly in response to the letter. Now, to be fair, HR did ask me to point any questions or comments to them to keep my inbox and voicemail from exploding…but 1 person tracked me down and reached out.
Colleagues might have thought that I was wasting my time (and a few extra dollars to print and mail the letters) by sending rejection letters, but his email reaffirmed that contacting all candidates in a timely manner regarding their status is the thing to do.
Shawn Graham is Director of MBA Career Services at the University of Pittsburgh and author of Courting Your Career: Match Yourself with the Perfect Job (www.courtingyourcareer.com).
When it comes to customer feedback, you usually only hear from the people who really love you or the ones who really hate you but generally not from those who land somewhere in the middle. And, somehow, the negative always seems to outnumber the positive, no matter how much you try to over-service your customer base.
Sharing positive feedback with your team should be the easy part. I say “should be” as I’ve worked for some bosses that have done a great job of doing so, and others who haven’t. Many bosses talk about celebrating small victories and shared credit, but whether it be their own ego, forgetfulness, or some other reason, they just don’t do it. But it’s sharing the negative feedback that keeps me awake at night.
In a perfect world, you have a chance to prepare your team emotionally and mentally before discussing any scathing comments you have received from your customer base. But that’s not always possible. As a result, the negative feedback can open the door to hurt feelings, resentment, and anger that could (and usually does) put a strain on the interactions between your team and your customers.
How do you handle damage control?
In my experience, the first step is stripping away how the feedback was framed to get at the core issues. For example, the wording someone uses to express their opinion on a comment card might be inappropriate (that’s why it’s always a good idea for you, as the manager, to screen comments before they get to your staff), but the point they’re trying to make could be meaningful. Because they’re emotionally invested, the team could get caught up on how it was said instead of focusing on the underlying message.
Once you’re able to work with your team to identify the core issues, that gives you a chance to talk about how you’ll respond. That discussion can also help to diffuse the situation because it allows you to talk through the customer’s experience and what might have led them to feel that way.
How do you handle sharing negative feedback from customers with your team?
Shawn Graham is Director of MBA Career Services at the University of Pittsburgh and author of Courting Your Career: Match Yourself with the Perfect Job (www.courtingyourcareer.com).
A member of your team takes the ball and runs with it. He or she shows initiative by identifying a project and then sees it all the way through to completion. The only problem is it doesn’t align with any of the strategic priorities of the department. And oh, by the way, the final project also made its way to your boss before you were made aware that your employee was working on it to begin with. As a result, you have egg on your face in front of your boss and you’re also forced to provide “constructive” feedback to one of the members of your team on misguided initiative.
Most managers I know provide a great deal of autonomy to their employees. They provide guidance as needed and are always available to answer questions or to act as a sounding board when their team members are about to launch a project. In this particular case, the manager didn’t want to micromanage, but also didn’t appreciate having to hear about a project from his or her boss before hearing about it from his or her own team. A communications issue--the solution in this case is relatively simple. The manager asked members of the team to keep him in the loop on any key projects they’re working on before communicating externally.
The bigger concern, as a manager, is the loss of time and resources that the employee spent on a project that doesn’t align with the strategic priorities of the office. Had he been able to catch it early, he could have refocused the project. Instead, he was left with providing constructive feedback on how to keep it from happening again in the future. To keep it from happening again, you need to instill check points without making your employees feel like you’re looking over their shoulder. Start by making sure that you frequently (and clearly) articulate your strategic initiatives. Then, be sure to check in with members of your team periodically to see what they’re working on. Some managers prefer pre-scheduled individual meetings with their staff every other week. Others prefer to pop in periodically to see how things are going. Either way, the important thing is that you check in.
To help avoid misguided initiative, check in with each member of your staff (whether formally or informally), clearly define and communicate strategic initiatives for the department and create a culture that allows members of your team to feel comfortable coming to you with questions along the way. By doing so, you can avoid having to provide negative feedback on something that should have been seen as a positive.
Shawn Graham is Director of MBA Career Services at the University of Pittsburgh and author of Courting Your Career: Match Yourself with the Perfect Job (www.courtingyourcareer.com).
Staying productive while waiting for people to follow up, especially when they possess information I need to move forward, is something I struggle with. Actually, it’s more the loose ends that their lack of responsiveness cause that I struggle with. You see, I’m on a constant quest to minimize the amount of loose ends on my radar screen at any one time.
Following up with people who don’t follow up is draining. First, you have to develop a system to track all of the people you’re waiting to hear back from. And, I don’t know about you, but with the sheer quantity of emails, phone calls, appointments, and everything else that pops up on a daily basis, that’s no small task. To make things more manageable, I try to spend at least 20 minutes a day reviewing the status of existing projects, determining key input sources, and reaching out to the people who have the information I need to move the project forward.
But tracking loose ends is only part of the battle. You also have to follow up frequently… but not so frequently that you come off as a stalker or huge pain. I once sent someone nine emails over the course of three months and finally, miraculously, received a response. Did she apologize for the lack of responsiveness or provide an explanation? Nope.
And then there’s the impact on productivity that comes from being stuck in a never ending holding pattern when you don’t hear from people who possess the information you need to move a project forward. When that has happened in the past, I was forced to look for other low hanging fruit that I could work on while I was in the lull. In fact, one time I even found myself updating contact information on a fax cover page template because I was on hold with eight different projects. Maybe it wasn’t the best use of my time, but it beat sitting there twiddling my thumbs while I stared at my inbox.
Which leads me to a question I’ve been pondering for quite some time--is there a correlation between career success and responsiveness? In my network of colleagues, I’d have to say there definitely is. Somehow, the people I know who are the most successful and have the most stuff going on in their lives personally and professionally are always the most responsive. I once emailed Seth Godin, marketing guru and bestselling author, with a question about writing a book and he responded within 24 hours. Pat Croce, former President of the Philadelphia 76ers, responded when I contacted him through the University of Pittsburgh alumni database—me, a random guy in my early 20s who’d never even been to a Sixers game.
If I ever decide to pursue a PhD, I’m pretty sure I’ve identified my dissertation topic. Until then, I’ll continue to manage the process of following up with people who don’t follow up. I don’t know about you, but I think it’s much easier to shoot back a quick email than it is to let repeated follow up emails fill my inbox. Instead, I often find myself stressing out over whether I’m being a pest.
Shawn Graham is Director of MBA Career Services at the University of Pittsburgh and author of Courting Your Career: Match Yourself with the Perfect Job (www.courtingyourcareer.com).
Whether you’re looking for your next job, positioning yourself for a promotion, or hoping to start your own business, your ultimate success will begin or end with personal branding.
Targeted at college students and young professionals, Dan Schawbel’s new book, Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success, provides a comprehensive crash course on personal branding that includes easy to understand tips and strategies, expert quotes, and even a personal branding toolkit.
Defining and managing your brand doesn’t just happen, it takes a combination of proper planning and execution. And today you’ll get a chance to hear from an expert on the subject—someone Fast Company calls “a personal branding force of nature."
Dan Schawbel is the leading personal branding expert for Gen-Y. In addition to managing the Personal Branding Blog, Dan works as a Social Media Specialist at EMC Corporation where he has spearheaded the company’s Twitter, Facebook, social media press release/newsroom, social bookmarking and blogging strategy in the past year. All that, and he’s only about three year’s out of undergrad.
Me: What would you say to any college students out there who might want to dismiss personal branding as something only marketing majors should care about?
Dan: Everyone should be a marketing major at heart because we all have to market ourselves in a daily basis. We are always being judged based off of first impressions and we always have to sell our ideas to management, our teachers, friends and family. We need to lead with influence, so that people support us as we navigate through our careers. It will be very hard to get an internship or job, without the right marketing mindset these days. For instance, I think everyone should have their own business card and website.
Me: With undergrads being one of the primary audiences for your book, how early do you think they should start thinking about their brand?
Dan: If I was a freshman right now who understood personal branding, I wouldn't have to even apply for jobs when I graduated. Personal branding is the best career protection you can have because you'll have a strong network, a strong sense of being and a strong determination to succeed. The sooner the better in my opinion.
Me: What’s one tip you can share on how to effectively use ebranding to further your career?
Dan: Claim your domain name (yourfullname.com), yesterday!
Me: How important is it to have a personal marketing plan?
Dan: It's very important because a good personal marketing plan will align with your development plan and give you a good sense of what you can pull off, for what price and when you should execute. It's also good to know what tools out there are available to you and which ones make sense for your brand. A personal branding plan, just like a business would have a marketing plan, is essential to help get your name out there over and over again, which is essentially what branding is all about.
Me: I know I sometimes struggle with trying to balance managing my in-person networks while also maintaining virtual networks through sites like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. What advice do you have on how readers can decide which social networking sites to join and which ones to avoid?
Dan: You need to choose the ones with the largest volume (Facebook has 200 million users), the most credibility (LinkedIn has Bill Gates) and the ones that are most relevant to you and your industry. Avoid ones that don't fit any of these. Me: It’s one thing to develop your brand, but another to maintain it. Will you talk a little bit about reputation management? Dan: Once your name is all over the internet (or at least you hope it is), you'll want to keep a pulse on what people are saying about your personal brand. Reputation management is important because if people are negatively portraying your brand, you'll want to intercept that before it spreads virally throughout the internet.
Me: If you could pick one personal brand not your own, who would you choose and why?
Dan: Right now, Shaquille O'Neal has impressed me a lot with his personal brand. Aside from him being famous for being a top NBA basketball player, his use of Twitter has really helped people keep in touch with him. Some Twitter users have even met him in person after a tweet. He's able to remain transparent and authentic, without having a PR person take control.
Me: What inspired you to write this book and what do you want people to get out of it?
Dan: A lot of my friends were having trouble getting jobs and they were begging for a resource. Also, I feel like I was born to do what I'm currently doing because I was always interested in self-marketing back in college and I have a deep interest in social media and how people can use these tools to connect in meaningful ways and form a "fan base" of some sort. I think it's all extremely powerful and the end result is that you can monetize your passion and enjoy life.
Shawn Graham is Director of MBA Career Services at the University of Pittsburgh and author of Courting Your Career: Match Yourself with the Perfect Job (courtingyourcareer.com).
My boss did it. My predecessor did it. And now, I’m trying to do it. After being involved as a volunteer with charitable organizations in the past, I've decided to throw my hat in the ring for a spot on a non-profit board.
Over the years, I’ve had a lot of conversations about my personal and professional development with previous managers but, for some reason, the topic of serving on a board and the benefits of doing so never seemed to come up.
The selection process varies somewhat for each organization. But, based on conversations I’ve had with colleagues, it seems like the single best way to get your foot in the door is to serve on a committee. And if you decide to go that route, look for opportunities that blend your interests and skill sets. In my case, I started out looking at committees focused on strategic planning as 1) I think it’s something I’m good at and 2) it will reinforce my positioning for future leadership roles. But beyond having something impressive to add to my resume, there are other benefits to serving on a non-profit board. In particular, doing so will:
Require you to employ a different leadership style than you might use at your day job. Not only will you have to learn to work with your fellow board members, but you’ll also have to provide guidance and feedback without, in most cases, being directly involved in the day-to-day operations of the organization.
Facilitate connections with other board members and leaders in your community. These connections will not only help you grow professionally by learning from people from disparate backgrounds, but it also is a great way to grow your network.
Allow you to give back to the community. In my case, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my involvement with a number of charitable organizations. Joining a board will be the perfect extension to that experience.
I should know if I’ll be nominated to serve on the board within a few weeks. But regardless of how things turn out, I’m glad I became aware of the possibility of serving on a board and how to go about being considered.
Shawn Graham is Director of MBA Career Services at the University of Pittsburgh and author of Courting Your Career: Match Yourself with the Perfect Job (www.courtingyourcareer.com).
I was listening to a radio segment on the subject of Twitter and one of the guests on the show mentioned receiving a Tweet from John Edwards at the exact second he was standing at a podium delivering a speech. Needless to say, that created quite a stir in the Twitterverse. The former presidential candidate now includes a disclaimer indicating when a post was created or submitted by a member of his staff.
Lucky or unlucky for me, I don’t have a staff. I will, on occasion, ask my good friend John to proof some of my blog posts but that’s mainly for two purposes: 1) I hate (hate) editing; and 2) I want to make sure my content adds value. Other than that, everything I share on the social media circuit is authentic or, as defined on dictionary.com--not false or copied; genuine; real; unfiltered.
On the flip side, sometimes you need to filter. Recently, a public relations writer lost his job because he used Twitter to blast a city he was visiting for a client meeting; you guessed it, the negative Tweet made its way back to the client who, in turn, told his boss.
Make no mistake about it, when it comes to social media, authenticity and personal branding matter. I’m also a big believer in the concept of microcelebrity. And, as illustrated by the above examples, when we’re more concerned about being on the social media superhighway than we are about being authentic to the people in our virtual community, people will notice.
Before your next Tweet, ask yourself how it will impact your microcelebrity and personal brand.
Shawn Graham is Director of MBA Career Services at the University of Pittsburgh and author of Courting Your Career: Match Yourself with the Perfect Job (www.courtingyourcareer.com).
Just over a year ago, I would walk into a big box home improvement retailer to pick up supplies for a project and, instead of seeing sales associates eager to assist me with my home improvement questions, I saw tumbleweeds. Okay, so I didn’t actually see tumbleweeds but I also didn’t typically see any sales associates either.
Fast forward to the present. I walk in the main entrance and I’m greeted, almost accosted, by a small team of employees who are more than eager to assist me in finding whatever I need. It’s actually quite overwhelming. I haven’t even had a chance to notice that I grabbed the one shopping cart with the noisiest wheels on the planet—and I am expected to quickly transition to sharing my shopping list with a small group of strangers in orange aprons.
As much as I’m happy to see the return of customer service as a strategy for combating the current economic crisis, it all seems a little disingenuous…and a bit humorous. Imagine, sitting in a board room trying to come up with innovative ideas to increase same store sales and to improve overall customer retention. Someone suggests adding a Wal Mart-esque greeter at the store entrance. Brilliant! Especially since Wal Mart has been doing it since at least the turn of the century and because the drop in retail sales means they’re going to have to operate on a skeleton payroll to compensate for operating at nonexistent sales revenue and smaller margins.
In the case of the unnamed retailer above, I know the focus on customer service also probably has a lot to do with a change in senior management. But I can’t help but think the economy has also played a part.
Once we climb out of the mess we’re in, I hope businesses will remember to value their customers as much as they value Kaizen strategies, market share, and quarterly earnings. How long will the return of customer service last? I’m guessing supplies are limited. So enjoy it while you can.
Shawn Graham is Director of MBA Career Services at the University of Pittsburgh and author of Courting Your Career: Match Yourself with the Perfect Job (www.courtingyourcareer.com).
As much as
you strive (or should strive) to seek out feedback and include members of your
team in the decision making process, at some point you’re likely going to be
tasked with instituting programs, goals, or policies they’re probably not going
to agree with (ahhh the challenges
of being a manager). And when that happens, you basically have two
options--roll it out without asking for input or ask for input even though it
won’t really have any bearing on your ultimate decision (this usually happens
when you’ve been given a mandate by your boss). In the end, both options will arrive
at the same outcome, but one will help you secure more buy in from your staff
and while at the same time going a long way in maintaining employee morale.
When you
roll something out, especially when it’s going to directly impact those on your
team, and you don’t give them the heads up, it’s a lot like throwing a grenade
and then waiting for the collateral damage. Over the years, I’ve seen this
happen more than a few times. Decisions were made without consulting the
leaders and managers who would be the most affected by them…managers who were
rock stars in their field and who had spent years helping to build the
organization.
The other
alternative is to give
employees a say, even if it’s a token one at that. If you’re going to set
goals for an operating unit, especially if they’re audacious
goals (and who isn’t a fan of those?), schedule a meeting with the team,
explain the purpose of the goals and what you’re hoping to accomplish by
instituting them, ask for feedback, and then make a decision. Even if you think
you’re going to have to institute changes irrespective of the feedback from the
group, there’s a pretty good chance something will come up during the
discussion that could make the roll out more effective. For example, they might
have information on a particular measure that would change the way you’d want
to capture information. If you don’t ask, you could be chasing the wrong
metrics. And that will cause a backlash.
Instead of
just blindsiding your team with an email on a new mandate without giving them
any advanced warning, consider letting them a token say even if the mandate is
pretty much a foregone conclusion.
Shawn Graham is Director of MBA Career
Services at the University
of Pittsburgh and author
of Courting Your Career: Match Yourself with the Perfect Job (www.courtingyourcareer.com).
