TWENTY FIVE WAYS TO REWARD
1. Flex those hours. If there's one free reward that rises above the rest, it's flexible work schedules. Nearly every expert we contacted suggested flex time as a perk that offers the most gain with the least pain.
“Give a little latitude in determining work schedules and to take time for family or personal issues (such as doctor’s appointment and banking errands),” advised Richard Martin, president of Alcera Consulting Inc. “As long as the employee is deserving and doesn’t abuse the privilege, this can go a long way to building trusting and mature relationships with key workers.”
2. Send a handwritten note. Supervisors should ask top brass to write a personal note to employees who deserve recognition, advised Cindy Ventrice, author of "Make Their Day! Employee Recognition That Works." For example, AdvancedMD CEO Jim Pack handwrites his thank-you notes to employees on a $2 bill. “In three years of doing this, only one employee has asked if he could spend it,” said company spokesman John Pilmer.
3. Make work fun. “During a business coaching engagement, I found employee morale to be way down,” said Terri Levine, president of The Coaching Institute. “We created a weekly event to boost morale. One week we asked everyone to bring in a baby picture, post it on a wall, then pick which person matched each picture. Everyone was having fun and socializing while productivity went from 58 percent to 72 percent — all in the same week.”
4. Help them connect. Introducing employees to key suppliers, customers or someone in senior management can help make an employee's career, says Ventrice — and it won't cost you a thing.
5. Lose the shoes. Kaerie Ray, an account executive with the Echo Media Group public relations firm, said implementing a “no-shoes policy” can make employees feel right at home with each other, which translates into increased productivity. (But she suggests keeping the footwear handy in case clients come in.) “It's great to be in an office where employees are more concerned about doing quality work than what shoes or jewelry they have on,” she said. “We get so much done.”
6. Send them to the showers. (As in parties, not lathering and rinsing.) “Every birth and wedding deserves a shower,” said Ray. “Echo employees always leave early on shower days, and the food is on the house. No need to make up the time.”
7. Reward effort as well as success. Even if their ideas sometimes fail, you want employees to keep producing them, said Alan Weiss, president of the Summit Consulting Group Inc. “When I consulted with the CEO of Calgon, we created an annual award for 'the best idea that didn't work' and presented a loving cup at the annual awards dinner. This stimulated innovation and positive behavior, not 'winning.'”
8. Give them a free pass. Levine suggests giving out a certain number of free days off to employees to use as they see fit. “Employees get a few of these a year and can use them as they like,” she said. “They don't have to pretend to be sick. They can go to the beach, read a book, play with their kids ... it doesn't matter.”
9. Dole out cream and sugar. During the busiest times of the year, executives at the Cigna Group push coffee carts around the office, serving drinks and refreshments to their colleagues, noted Steve Harrison, author of "The Manager's Book of Decencies: How Small Gestures Build Great Companies." As they serve, executives coach and encourage colleagues and hear about real consumer issues.
10. Blow out the candles. Cisco Systems Inc.'s CEO John Chambers hosts a monthly hour-long birthday breakfast for any employee with a birthday that month, says Harrison. “Employees are invited to ask him anything. They feel recognized, and he gains loyal employees who share their ideas.”
11. Spread the love. Ask co-workers to write something they truly like or admire about an employee on a scrap of paper, then frame them along with a photograph of the employee, suggested David Russell, author of "Success With People – A Complete System for Effectively Managing People in Any Organization."
12. Offer a swap. Giving your best employees a chance to pick their own projects or trade tasks with a colleague empowers and rewards them at the same time, said Harrison.
13. Applaud their efforts — literally. If someone has done something really worthwhile, have your entire staff give them a standing ovation at the next meeting, suggested Sharlyn Lauby, president of HR consulting firm ITM Group Inc.
14. Say it with flowers. Professor Linda M. Lopeke, principal of SmartStartCoach.com, sayid she used to reward top employees by bringing in flowers from her garden and arranging them in a spectacular crystal vase on their desks. “Everybody knew what having the custody of the flowers meant,” she said. “Surprisingly, even the men competed fiercely for custody of the flowers.” In the winter, she'd substitute a showpiece display of floating glass fish.
15. Walk it as you talk it. The City of Dallas sponsored a walkathon where employees set goals for walking a certain number of steps each day, offering a free gym membership to those who walked the farthest. Not only did they get more fit, they turned their daily walks into traveling staff meetings, says city spokeswoman Danielle McCelland.
“Group members were able to update one another on projects, solicit team input and improve their fitness,” she said. “The organized program ended after three weeks, but the work group still holds their traveling staff meetings two months later.”
16. Pass the bucks. Handing out monopoly money that can be redeemed for gifts and other goodies may not be strictly free, but it pays off handsomely in the long run. For example, associates at BankAtlantic can pass out “WOW! Bucks” to colleagues who've done something outstanding, said bank vice president Gregory Dalmotte. The bucks can eventually be traded in for real goods. “There's a clear correlation that words of encouragement have created associates who perform at a higher level,” he says.
17. Share the memories. “My team created a scrapbook chronicling the impact I'd had on their company and gave it to me on my last day in the office,” said Lopeke. “People who’d worked on my teams wrote testimonials and creative graphics highlighting some our team successes. It's the best gift I ever received in my 40-year career.”
18. Elect them to the Wall of Fame. Several experts suggested setting aside a public space inside your firm and placing photos of employees who've accomplished something truly special, along with the details of what they did to earn their place on the wall.
19. Create your own "Club Med." Set aside a quiet space or unused office in your building where employees can meditate, chill out, nap or otherwise re-center themselves, said John Putzier, author of "Get Weird! 101 Innovative Ways to Make Your Company a Great Place to Work."
20. Stoke their passion. “Great employees are not mercenaries,” said Dr. Richard Chang, CEO of Richard Chang Associates Inc., a performance-improvement consultancy. “They don’t just want to enjoy their work, they want to be passionate about it ... if you want your employees to feel valued and inspire their passion on your behalf, encourage them to make their own decisions. You can have systems in place to control the implementation of ideas, but you must be certain not to compromise the enthusiasm, creativity and hard work that make them possible in the first place.”
21. Give them a place to park it. Reserve the best parking spot for employees who've done something truly worthwhile, said Lopeke. And if it's next to the CEO's Lexus so the employee can chat him or her up on the way into work, so much the better.
22. Remember the spouses. Independent management consultant Nan Amish recalled one time when she had 16 employees trapped in a hotel lobby on a Sunday night, waiting for the ballroom to open so they could set up a trade-show booth. “I bought flowers at a farmers market, a nice $6 bouquet of roses for each person,” she said. “I told them to take them home to their significant others, apologizing for me taking them away from their families on a Sunday. The next day I got thank-yous from most of them. One wife sent a letter saying I could keep her husband until Friday.”
23. Publicize their successes. “We like to publicly recognize employees so the whole company can share in their accomplishments,” noted Scott Ragusa, president of contract businesses for staffing firm The Winter, Wyman Companies. “Each week, nominations for our quarterly 'Clutch' award are shared with the whole company. The Clutch nominations are a way to recognize our administrative and nonmanagerial professional staff members who have come through in the clutch in supporting their departments or the firm.”
24. Let them phone it in. Telecommuting programs can relieve stress and make workers feel more appreciated, as well as more productive. “Reward the employee by starting with one day of telecommuting, then add additional days as performance heightens,” suggested Brian Margarita, president of IT staffing firm TalentFuse Inc. “Having the option to cart the kids to soccer practice, visit the beach during the afternoon or cut out early to avoid traffic congestion is becoming more important than working an 80-hour week for a larger paycheck.”
25. Remember the secret words. “The two most underused words in corporate America that get the highest ROI (return on investment) and ROT (return on your time) are the simple words 'thank you,'” noted Michael Guld, president of the Guld Resource Group author of "The Million Dollar Media Rep: How to Become a Television and Radio Sales Superstar."
While telling your employees you appreciate them should be obvious, added Amish, no one does it enough or is specific enough about what the employee did. “So when you share your appreciation, be specific about what you really liked, so they not only feel appreciated but can do it again.”
TIPS/PRACTICES TO RETAIN PEOPLE
TIPS/PRACTICES TO RETAIN PEOPLE
1. Take a Direct Personal Interest in All Your Team Members
This can be done by following these simple guidelines:
(i) Know Everyone by Name
Incredible, but true. I have met too many managers who do not even know the names of their team members. Any corporate structure is like a pyramid. No matter what part of the pyramid you occupy, the strength of the pyramid depends on the bottommost layer and it becomes imperative that you know all the people who report to you directly or indirectly. At least, the best managers have an uncanny knack of remembering peoples’ names and making casual personal enquiries about the well being of anyone they meet. Since this kind of behavior is not always experienced, it makes the people realize that they are being given personal attention and builds loyalty in the team. It satisfies the basic human craving of being noticed.
In his classic book “Strategies for success”, Jim Dornan mentions this very principle in the life of Napoleon Bonaparte, and I quote “An excellent example of this from history can be seen in the way Napoleon Bonaparte interacted with his men, he knew every officer of his army by name. He liked to wander through his camp, meet an officer, greet him by name, and talk about a battle or maneuver in which he knew this officer had been involved. He never missed an opportunity to inquire about a soldier’s home town, wife and family. When he did, it always amazed the man to see how much detailed personal information about him his Emperor knew.
Since every officer felt Napoleon’s personal interest in him – proved by his statements and questions- it is easy to understand the devotion they all felt for him.”
(ii) Connect with Everyone
Tough one to explain but let’s consider an example. Archimedes discovered the lever concept wherein let’s say you wanted to move a heavy rock you would be better advised to use a long rod rather than trying to move it with your bare hands.
Similarly, when it comes to people, you are better advised to build relationships first and then steer people in the direction you want them to move. Moreover, in this case, people will follow you willingly. Learn to persuade, not dominate. There is a vast difference between the two phrases ‘Can you please ensure that this is done?’ and ‘You need to complete this work by EOD today.’ One is a slight nudge or a request while the other is a kick. No one likes to be kicked.
Unfortunately, most managers are guilty of using “positional authority” to achieve their ends. John Maxwell talks about the various levels of leadership in his book “Developing the leader within you” and it is clear that positional authority is the worst form of leadership.
One way to measure where you stand on the leadership scale is to check how many juniors come to you for career advice and advice in other areas of their life. If people do not approach you, it means that you are not approachable which is a sorry state of affairs. You simply cannot progress if you are unable to connect with people and you can connect with people only when you take a genuine interest in them, their careers, lives, etc.
(iii) Protect Your Team at all Costs
Protect your team from:
Overenthusiastic sales personnel who try to impose their sales targets on developers
Powerful stakeholders who impose deadline pressure
Prima donna developers who start dominating juniors
Have genuine concern and take true care of your team – the best leaders are the ones who go to extreme lengths to protect the interests of their team. Sometimes, this may mean that you need to lock horns with your immediate superiors and higher management.
Remember, your team is your 1st concern.
Address all team concerns proactively - a concern, like a bomb can be handled if detected early. The greater the delay, the worse it becomes.
The result – people will start recognizing you as a person in whom they can put their faith and trust and become fiercely loyal.
(iv) Solve Problems Even If it is Outside the Scope of the Project
One of your key responsibilities as a Project Manager is to clear all the obstacles which come in the way of your team members and prevent them from performing at the optimum level. While most PMs do handle all the nagging problems faced within the office premises, very few actually look beyond that.
Onsite projects, for example, are always plagued with problems. Adjusting to the local food, travelling and place of residence, are basic requirements which should be taken care of at the very outset. I recall an onsite project wherein I had to visit a foreign country where the employer provided some excellent facilities like:
1 free telephone call every week to keep in touch with the family
A video conference with family members once in 6 months
Occasional weekend trips to famous spots in the city
The buddy concept wherein one local staff whom the onsite person had to interact with regularly was also asked to help him during his stay for other nagging problems – in fact, this was a KRA for the year.
Small acts like these ensured that the employees were happy and there was negligible attrition in the project for almost 3 years. Funny, but treating every team member as if he is your biggest customer yields rich dividends in the long run.
(v) Be Absolutely Honest and Transparent
Trust is the foundation stone of all relationships. Break trust and invite disaster. Be it organizational changes, cost cutting, layoffs, or any other news which impacts the team, always be the first one to inform the team openly and accurately.
In “The 7 habits of highly effective people”, Stephen Covey mentions the ‘Emotional Bank account’ and I quote “An Emotional Bank Account is a metaphor that describes the amount of trust that’s been built up in a relationship. It’s the feeling of safeness you have with another human being.”
Do all your team members feel safe when it concerns you – if not, you need to work towards building up the deposits in that emotional bank account with everyone.
2. Identify your Best People
Suppose you have access to a pool of 10 developers and need to identify the best candidate to commence work on a difficult module. If you fail to identify the right person, you will face problems later on with unfinished, substandard work and compromised deadlines. I usually use what I would like to call the POC – "Proof of Concept" strategy. Assign the task of developing the POC for a project related problem to the entire pool of available developers. The advantages are:
The proposed solution will tell you a lot about the individual’s capability Usually, the turnaround time for any POC is a couple of days – effectively, you do not lose too much time in trying to determine who the right candidate is. Over a period of time, you will be able to determine what the strengths and weaknesses of each individual in your team are, but the POC method always works at the initial stage.
3. Practice the 80/20 Rule
The Pareto principle, in the project management context would mean that 80% of the work is done by 20% of the team. This means that once you have identified your core 20%, make sure you are spending 80% of your time with them.
Sometimes, the weakest developers in your team can end up eating up your entire time and bring down the entire project over a period of time. The same applies to your core team as well – remember, your team is only as strong as its weakest link. Sometimes, the best developers end up spending most of their time in resolving problems faced by their weakest colleagues. Never allow this to happen.
The Pareto principle is beautifully illustrated in the book “Developing the Leader within you” by Dr. John Maxwell.
4. Place the Right People in the Right Areas
Over a period of about 3-6 months, you will be able to pinpoint people’s strengths and weaknesses if you are always involved at the ground level and not just living on updates like average project managers. At this point of time, it is important to strengthen the roles for the core 20% as all high-fliers eventually get restless. The following strategy can be used:
Excellent at analysis, design and finding solutions – needs to be in product development, should be assigned the most difficult modules. It’s a win-win situation, on the one hand, the module gets delivered and on the other, it also provides enough challenge for the developer and keeps him motivated.
Excellent at customer interaction and trouble-shooting. Understands the business impact well – needs to be in production support and over a period of time can occupy the team leader’s position in production support.
Excellent at co-ordination and customer interaction – can be assigned the role of an implementation expert. This role mainly involves interacting with other teams like DBAs, change managers, business users, testers, etc. It also demands that the person has the capability to understand an implemented solution entirely. Such a person may not necessarily be good at finding solutions but remember, his role as an implementer does not demand the same most of the time.
Make sure expectations and responsibilities of the assigned roles are made clear to everyone involved. This tells the top performers that their careers are being taken care of. At the same time, it also ensures that the right responsibilities are being delegated to the right people and will eventually result in the project manager having greater control over his time. Designations are limited but roles can always be created.
Sometimes, people may require counselling to understand their own strengths and weaknesses. More often than not, developers are only interested in coding new modules and do not realize where they can excel. This is where your powers of persuasion will be tested.
Delegation is a two-edged sword, do it right and it will allow you to take up more work and lead to an increase in responsibility, do it badly and you will end up answering escalation emails and attending damage-control meetings.
5. Create Career Development Plans for all your Key People
Most project managers never quite get down to working this step, yet, this is the key step to stem attrition and hold on to your best team members. The best people are usually interested in the following aspects of a job:
Career growth, i.e. growth in responsibility
Growth in income
Better role
Overall, the best people are mainly interested in knowing if the current job provides them enough opportunities to advance towards their long term career goals which might be of becoming an enterprise software architect, project manager, etc.
The following steps can be followed:
(i) Identify the Long Term Career Goals for Each Individual
Use one to one meetings to identify the long term goals of each individual. This will be possible only if you have connected well with each individual as detailed in the earlier steps – if not, you may not even be able to initiate this meeting. The key here is to identify what aspects of the job the individual likes and where he would eventually like to end up in the field. At the end of this discussion, both the individual and you should be clear about the following things about the individual:
Long term career goal, for e.g. becoming an enterprise architect
Current strengths – technical and personal
Current gaps – technical and personal
What should be the next step towards moving towards the role of enterprise architect?
What technology has the candidate not worked on till date and needs exposure?
What are his training needs which will help him move faster towards his goal?
Make sure all these points are documented well and kept confidential. This discussion becomes the basis of future discussions.
The candidate should start getting a vision and game plan as to what is required to achieve his long term goal and what is the next step. For example, a software engineer should first aspire to become a Senior Software Engineer followed by Tech lead and so on.
(ii) Map Individual Goals to Project Goals
This is an extremely powerful concept. If you have followed project management practices at some level and have a clear idea of the project deliverables and the different technologies which will be used, you will be in a position to do work allocation correctly. Before allocating any task, ask yourself:
Is the individual capable of completing this task?
Does it provide him “controlled stretch” which means whether the task will force the person to stretch his abilities and grow in the process?
Does it help him advance towards his long term goal?
Do this right and you will end up having a high-performing team which is also highly motivated.
Every assignment you allocate to an individual should help him move toward his next career goal. Between the decision to quit and the next job lies the quality of assignments given – it is the project manager who decides the team’s attrition rate to a great extent.
“You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help enough other people get what they want.”
- Zig Ziglar
(iii) Create a Leadership Incubator
If you have done the earlier steps right, you will soon reach a point wherein you will have high-performing team members who will continuously take up new challenges. Over a period of time, the entire team environment will start reflecting the same.
(iv) Some Will Still Move On
Despite the best of opportunities, some people will still choose to move on due to various reasons.
Some will outgrow their immediate environment, i.e. your project and will move on – thank them for their contribution. They will always remember you for the role you played in mentoring them.
This is the point where the leadership incubator you have created will be put to good use – others will be ready to occupy the position of the person who has moved on. Succession planning needs to happen at all levels and not just at the topmost management levels.
(v) Believe in Everybody – Wait for Nobod y
One word of caution – you can only help someone to rise higher if he himself is interested and committed towards the same. People can be divided into 2 types – types A are the moving cars (ambitious, career oriented people) which only need to be steered in the right direction. Type B are the parked cars (comfortable, stagnating people) which need to be started off or even pushed in some cases. Do not spend too much time on Type B – remember the 80/20 rule.
(vi) Replace Yourself Eventually
Remember, your influence as a person will grow only when your people grow. You cannot rise unless you replace yourself first. For insecure people, this will be hard to digest. You cannot occupy a new chair unless you vacate the chair which you currently occupy.
This principle is beautifully brought out in the book “The 21 irrefutable laws of leadership” by Dr. John Maxwell. 3 laws mentioned in the book are relevant in this context.
The Law of Empowerment – only secure leaders give power to others
The Law of Reproduction – it takes a leader to raise up a leader
The Law of Explosive growth – To add growth, add followers – to multiple, lead leaders
While it goes without saying that reaching this point will take time and effort – this is the only way to go forward and rise higher. The transformation happens within you first and the eventual handing over of higher responsibility to you is only an acknowledgement of what you have already become on the inside.
6. Praise Publicly and Criticize Privately
Never miss spotting someone doing the right thing – and always acknowledge and reward the same. People literally crave for a kind word and will eventually repeat their best performance when they are recognized for the same.
On the contrary, if a situation demands that some harsh words need to be spoken, then always ensure that this happens in a closed door meeting and never in public. Also, take particular care that you do not violate someone’s sense of self-respect but at the same time you make a person realize the gravity of his mistake.
7. Show Empathy, Not Sympathy
Empathize with people when they miss project deadlines due to personal problems, but do not sympathize.
The dictionary meaning of sympathy is “the feeling of being sorry for someone”,” support for or approval of something” and that of empathy is “understand and share the feelings of another”. There is a qualitative difference between both. When you show sympathy, you will allow a person to drag you into his well of woe whereas when you show empathy you will help or empower him to solve his problem or move on and find someone else to do the job.
Let’s face it, any real project will throw up countless problems at the project and at the individual level. Having empathy will ensure that you give everyone a fair chance but overdoing the same will only lead to a bad situation. This is a key factor to consider when a team member’s personal problems lead to failed deliverables or compromised deadlines.
8. Share Successes with the Team, but Take Responsibility for Failures
Always ensure that the top performers get public recognition for their efforts. This is easy in organizations where you have a quarterly rewards and recognition program. In organizations where this is not the case, the project manager needs to be creative. One way to do this is to be a good promoter of people, this leads to people becoming more and more motivated and striving to consistently meet the high standards they themselves have set.
On the other hand, all failures need to be handled internally. Never reprimand the team members responsible for any mistakes in public. Failure makes a person feel miserable anyway – and highlighting the same too much only adds to his woes. The Project Manager needs to play a key role here in shielding his people.
This is the hallmark of all great leaders. In “Wings of Fire: Autobiography of Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam” an incident is mentioned wherein Dr. Kalam took total responsibility for the SLV-3 (Satellite Launch Vehicle) failure in front of a big group of scientists. The book also mentions another incident when he asked his team members to present their individual reports on the areas they were working on rather than he doing it himself thus giving the team an opportunity for recognition in front of the scientific community. No wonder he is considered one of the most successful scientists to have led India’s space and missile program.
9. Organize Trainings
The training budget is a powerful tool in your hands, use it wisely. Create the training calendar in the beginning of the year keeping in mind the following requirements:
Technical requirements of the project
Individual training requirements to boost career growth
Any gap in skills that needs to be addressed
Quite often it happens that a year passes by without the organizing of any proper training programs and the last quarter is packed with training programs of little value to the individuals involved and the organization itself. Never allow this to happen.
Internal training programs can also be conducted by the various individuals involved in the project on technologies used in the project itself or otherwise. This is an opportunity for personal growth for many individuals.
Trainings always give individuals a good release from project pressure and also helps to reinforce the conviction that the organization is serious about their future and increasing their skills.
10. Celebrate Phase Completion
Whenever a major project phase is over, celebrate. Put the staff welfare budget to good use. Nine pin bowling matches, group movie outings are opportunities which allow people to recharge their batteries. It also provides ample opportunities to build team spirit and strengthen relationships.
11. Balance the Workload Well
Ensure that no single individual is getting overburdened. This also calls for proactive leave management of the entire team. On occasions, you may also need to force some workaholics to take leave.
It is small acts such as these which help you make small deposits in the emotional bank account which we talked about earlier. And these deposits reap rich dividends when the time comes.
12. Do Not Ask for Too Many Updates
Do not be a status update maniac – trust your people to be responsible and deliver results. Ask for an update only when necessary – the best people will usually themselves keep you apprised of the status of the tasks they are working on.
13. Lead by Example
Always be a person worthy of emulation. Set high standards for yourself and do not impose any rule on the team which you do not follow yourself. People automatically follow what they see you do on a daily basis and not what you tell them to do. If you cannot be the first person to enter office, at least be the last person to leave after a hard day’s work and do this only after personally ensuring that your entire team has left for the day. Always walk the extra mile for the team – always come to the forefront when required, be it project problems, technical problems, any problem which hampers progress. When people observe you walking the extra mile consistently, a wonderful chain reaction happens. Some of your elite team members start following your example and this leads to a multiplication of efforts and results.
Consider the equation:
1 person = 1 extra mile
10 persons = 10 extra miles
Do you think this will have a big project impact, you bet !
As John Maxwell says, “The right to lead is earned, not given.” In his classic book “Right to lead” Dr. Maxwell mentions an incident wherein Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf stepped into a mine field to save an injured soldier and the ripple effect it had on all the people in his division. No wonder he was called upon to lead the critical operation during the Gulf war.
True leaders always emerge out of nowhere when a major crisis develops.
14. Motivate the Maintenance Team
Quite often, you will be faced with a situation wherein the production support team starts to feel that they are a group of 2nd class citizens and will develop an inferiority complex and get demotivated which can have a serious impact on the service delivery function. Motivating the maintenance team is a tough task but I have used the following techniques to good effect:
Emphasize the fact to the maintenance team that since they interact with the business users on a daily basis, they are the custodians of the image of IT more than anybody else, including you. The responsibility of the development team ends with project success, but the maintenance team is mainly responsible for ensuring that operations run smoothly and ongoing business success.
The job, contrary to the traditional belief is tough. More often than not, the maintenance team is at the receiving end of bad design decisions taken during development and has to put in quite a lot of performance enhancing fixes in place as the usage of the system increases.
Only maintenance engineers understand a system and the business domain in totality. This is due to the sheer nature of the work. Development engineers never usually seek to understand modules outside the scope of what has been allocated to them.
The crucial life skill of crisis management – taking decisions under mounting pressure can only be learnt in production support. This can never be learnt in development where someone senior will shield you.
When maintenance engineers understand the above points, they gradually begin to understand the value of the work which they do on a daily basis and where it fits in the bigger picture. And once people realize that their work is being valued, they usually stop complaining.
The same point is beautifully brought out in Sir Winston Churchill’s life during the Second World War. Dr. John Maxwell calls this the Law of the Big Picture in his book “The 17 indispensable laws of teamwork.” The book mentions how Sir Churchill managed to motivate coal miners to continue working on the inglorious task of working in the mines against opting to fight in the war on the frontline. A must read account if you are serious about going up on the leadership scale.
Moreover, there are ample career options in production support as well. With most organizations embracing ITIL and standards such as ValIT gaining ground, the service delivery function is being seen as a key provider of ongoing business value. Once maintenance engineers realize that they are not in a dead-end situation and career growth options are available they will not display negative attitude. This is where the project manager plays a key role. Organize ITIL trainings and watch how the maintenance team starts enjoying their role.
15. Sack Non-performers Tactfully
If you have recruited the person after proper evaluation, you will never be faced with this option. However, on occasions you will be called upon to do the inevitable. How do you still retain trust and loyalty in the team? The following strategies have helped me:
Ensure that you give the non-performer a fair chance – try to place him in an area which involves routine work and which does not involve much thinking. Many routine maintenance tasks involve only log monitoring – poor performers can be accommodated in such areas.
Use counselling to good effect – give the person a chance to close gaps and raise his performance to an acceptable level.
Ensure that all the other team members are well aware that the guy is failing to meet the minimum requirements of the job. This needs to be done in a subtle manner – it should not be too obvious.
Exercise all options before giving the final notice – and ensure that all the other team members are well aware that there really was no other option available.
Maintaining transparency in such matters ensures that there is no loss of trust and loyalty in the team. People realize that no one can be continuously paid for doing nothing.
In an interview on CNBC, Mr. Narayan Murthy, the chief mentor of Infosys mentioned that the best leaders have the ability to cast vision and the best people need to see themselves growing into important roles and achieving bigger goals in that vision.
1. Take a Direct Personal Interest in All Your Team Members
This can be done by following these simple guidelines:
(i) Know Everyone by Name
Incredible, but true. I have met too many managers who do not even know the names of their team members. Any corporate structure is like a pyramid. No matter what part of the pyramid you occupy, the strength of the pyramid depends on the bottommost layer and it becomes imperative that you know all the people who report to you directly or indirectly. At least, the best managers have an uncanny knack of remembering peoples’ names and making casual personal enquiries about the well being of anyone they meet. Since this kind of behavior is not always experienced, it makes the people realize that they are being given personal attention and builds loyalty in the team. It satisfies the basic human craving of being noticed.
In his classic book “Strategies for success”, Jim Dornan mentions this very principle in the life of Napoleon Bonaparte, and I quote “An excellent example of this from history can be seen in the way Napoleon Bonaparte interacted with his men, he knew every officer of his army by name. He liked to wander through his camp, meet an officer, greet him by name, and talk about a battle or maneuver in which he knew this officer had been involved. He never missed an opportunity to inquire about a soldier’s home town, wife and family. When he did, it always amazed the man to see how much detailed personal information about him his Emperor knew.
Since every officer felt Napoleon’s personal interest in him – proved by his statements and questions- it is easy to understand the devotion they all felt for him.”
(ii) Connect with Everyone
Tough one to explain but let’s consider an example. Archimedes discovered the lever concept wherein let’s say you wanted to move a heavy rock you would be better advised to use a long rod rather than trying to move it with your bare hands.
Similarly, when it comes to people, you are better advised to build relationships first and then steer people in the direction you want them to move. Moreover, in this case, people will follow you willingly. Learn to persuade, not dominate. There is a vast difference between the two phrases ‘Can you please ensure that this is done?’ and ‘You need to complete this work by EOD today.’ One is a slight nudge or a request while the other is a kick. No one likes to be kicked.
Unfortunately, most managers are guilty of using “positional authority” to achieve their ends. John Maxwell talks about the various levels of leadership in his book “Developing the leader within you” and it is clear that positional authority is the worst form of leadership.
One way to measure where you stand on the leadership scale is to check how many juniors come to you for career advice and advice in other areas of their life. If people do not approach you, it means that you are not approachable which is a sorry state of affairs. You simply cannot progress if you are unable to connect with people and you can connect with people only when you take a genuine interest in them, their careers, lives, etc.
(iii) Protect Your Team at all Costs
Protect your team from:
Overenthusiastic sales personnel who try to impose their sales targets on developers
Powerful stakeholders who impose deadline pressure
Prima donna developers who start dominating juniors
Have genuine concern and take true care of your team – the best leaders are the ones who go to extreme lengths to protect the interests of their team. Sometimes, this may mean that you need to lock horns with your immediate superiors and higher management.
Remember, your team is your 1st concern.
Address all team concerns proactively - a concern, like a bomb can be handled if detected early. The greater the delay, the worse it becomes.
The result – people will start recognizing you as a person in whom they can put their faith and trust and become fiercely loyal.
(iv) Solve Problems Even If it is Outside the Scope of the Project
One of your key responsibilities as a Project Manager is to clear all the obstacles which come in the way of your team members and prevent them from performing at the optimum level. While most PMs do handle all the nagging problems faced within the office premises, very few actually look beyond that.
Onsite projects, for example, are always plagued with problems. Adjusting to the local food, travelling and place of residence, are basic requirements which should be taken care of at the very outset. I recall an onsite project wherein I had to visit a foreign country where the employer provided some excellent facilities like:
1 free telephone call every week to keep in touch with the family
A video conference with family members once in 6 months
Occasional weekend trips to famous spots in the city
The buddy concept wherein one local staff whom the onsite person had to interact with regularly was also asked to help him during his stay for other nagging problems – in fact, this was a KRA for the year.
Small acts like these ensured that the employees were happy and there was negligible attrition in the project for almost 3 years. Funny, but treating every team member as if he is your biggest customer yields rich dividends in the long run.
(v) Be Absolutely Honest and Transparent
Trust is the foundation stone of all relationships. Break trust and invite disaster. Be it organizational changes, cost cutting, layoffs, or any other news which impacts the team, always be the first one to inform the team openly and accurately.
In “The 7 habits of highly effective people”, Stephen Covey mentions the ‘Emotional Bank account’ and I quote “An Emotional Bank Account is a metaphor that describes the amount of trust that’s been built up in a relationship. It’s the feeling of safeness you have with another human being.”
Do all your team members feel safe when it concerns you – if not, you need to work towards building up the deposits in that emotional bank account with everyone.
2. Identify your Best People
Suppose you have access to a pool of 10 developers and need to identify the best candidate to commence work on a difficult module. If you fail to identify the right person, you will face problems later on with unfinished, substandard work and compromised deadlines. I usually use what I would like to call the POC – "Proof of Concept" strategy. Assign the task of developing the POC for a project related problem to the entire pool of available developers. The advantages are:
The proposed solution will tell you a lot about the individual’s capability Usually, the turnaround time for any POC is a couple of days – effectively, you do not lose too much time in trying to determine who the right candidate is. Over a period of time, you will be able to determine what the strengths and weaknesses of each individual in your team are, but the POC method always works at the initial stage.
3. Practice the 80/20 Rule
The Pareto principle, in the project management context would mean that 80% of the work is done by 20% of the team. This means that once you have identified your core 20%, make sure you are spending 80% of your time with them.
Sometimes, the weakest developers in your team can end up eating up your entire time and bring down the entire project over a period of time. The same applies to your core team as well – remember, your team is only as strong as its weakest link. Sometimes, the best developers end up spending most of their time in resolving problems faced by their weakest colleagues. Never allow this to happen.
The Pareto principle is beautifully illustrated in the book “Developing the Leader within you” by Dr. John Maxwell.
4. Place the Right People in the Right Areas
Over a period of about 3-6 months, you will be able to pinpoint people’s strengths and weaknesses if you are always involved at the ground level and not just living on updates like average project managers. At this point of time, it is important to strengthen the roles for the core 20% as all high-fliers eventually get restless. The following strategy can be used:
Excellent at analysis, design and finding solutions – needs to be in product development, should be assigned the most difficult modules. It’s a win-win situation, on the one hand, the module gets delivered and on the other, it also provides enough challenge for the developer and keeps him motivated.
Excellent at customer interaction and trouble-shooting. Understands the business impact well – needs to be in production support and over a period of time can occupy the team leader’s position in production support.
Excellent at co-ordination and customer interaction – can be assigned the role of an implementation expert. This role mainly involves interacting with other teams like DBAs, change managers, business users, testers, etc. It also demands that the person has the capability to understand an implemented solution entirely. Such a person may not necessarily be good at finding solutions but remember, his role as an implementer does not demand the same most of the time.
Make sure expectations and responsibilities of the assigned roles are made clear to everyone involved. This tells the top performers that their careers are being taken care of. At the same time, it also ensures that the right responsibilities are being delegated to the right people and will eventually result in the project manager having greater control over his time. Designations are limited but roles can always be created.
Sometimes, people may require counselling to understand their own strengths and weaknesses. More often than not, developers are only interested in coding new modules and do not realize where they can excel. This is where your powers of persuasion will be tested.
Delegation is a two-edged sword, do it right and it will allow you to take up more work and lead to an increase in responsibility, do it badly and you will end up answering escalation emails and attending damage-control meetings.
5. Create Career Development Plans for all your Key People
Most project managers never quite get down to working this step, yet, this is the key step to stem attrition and hold on to your best team members. The best people are usually interested in the following aspects of a job:
Career growth, i.e. growth in responsibility
Growth in income
Better role
Overall, the best people are mainly interested in knowing if the current job provides them enough opportunities to advance towards their long term career goals which might be of becoming an enterprise software architect, project manager, etc.
The following steps can be followed:
(i) Identify the Long Term Career Goals for Each Individual
Use one to one meetings to identify the long term goals of each individual. This will be possible only if you have connected well with each individual as detailed in the earlier steps – if not, you may not even be able to initiate this meeting. The key here is to identify what aspects of the job the individual likes and where he would eventually like to end up in the field. At the end of this discussion, both the individual and you should be clear about the following things about the individual:
Long term career goal, for e.g. becoming an enterprise architect
Current strengths – technical and personal
Current gaps – technical and personal
What should be the next step towards moving towards the role of enterprise architect?
What technology has the candidate not worked on till date and needs exposure?
What are his training needs which will help him move faster towards his goal?
Make sure all these points are documented well and kept confidential. This discussion becomes the basis of future discussions.
The candidate should start getting a vision and game plan as to what is required to achieve his long term goal and what is the next step. For example, a software engineer should first aspire to become a Senior Software Engineer followed by Tech lead and so on.
(ii) Map Individual Goals to Project Goals
This is an extremely powerful concept. If you have followed project management practices at some level and have a clear idea of the project deliverables and the different technologies which will be used, you will be in a position to do work allocation correctly. Before allocating any task, ask yourself:
Is the individual capable of completing this task?
Does it provide him “controlled stretch” which means whether the task will force the person to stretch his abilities and grow in the process?
Does it help him advance towards his long term goal?
Do this right and you will end up having a high-performing team which is also highly motivated.
Every assignment you allocate to an individual should help him move toward his next career goal. Between the decision to quit and the next job lies the quality of assignments given – it is the project manager who decides the team’s attrition rate to a great extent.
“You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help enough other people get what they want.”
- Zig Ziglar
(iii) Create a Leadership Incubator
If you have done the earlier steps right, you will soon reach a point wherein you will have high-performing team members who will continuously take up new challenges. Over a period of time, the entire team environment will start reflecting the same.
(iv) Some Will Still Move On
Despite the best of opportunities, some people will still choose to move on due to various reasons.
Some will outgrow their immediate environment, i.e. your project and will move on – thank them for their contribution. They will always remember you for the role you played in mentoring them.
This is the point where the leadership incubator you have created will be put to good use – others will be ready to occupy the position of the person who has moved on. Succession planning needs to happen at all levels and not just at the topmost management levels.
(v) Believe in Everybody – Wait for Nobod y
One word of caution – you can only help someone to rise higher if he himself is interested and committed towards the same. People can be divided into 2 types – types A are the moving cars (ambitious, career oriented people) which only need to be steered in the right direction. Type B are the parked cars (comfortable, stagnating people) which need to be started off or even pushed in some cases. Do not spend too much time on Type B – remember the 80/20 rule.
(vi) Replace Yourself Eventually
Remember, your influence as a person will grow only when your people grow. You cannot rise unless you replace yourself first. For insecure people, this will be hard to digest. You cannot occupy a new chair unless you vacate the chair which you currently occupy.
This principle is beautifully brought out in the book “The 21 irrefutable laws of leadership” by Dr. John Maxwell. 3 laws mentioned in the book are relevant in this context.
The Law of Empowerment – only secure leaders give power to others
The Law of Reproduction – it takes a leader to raise up a leader
The Law of Explosive growth – To add growth, add followers – to multiple, lead leaders
While it goes without saying that reaching this point will take time and effort – this is the only way to go forward and rise higher. The transformation happens within you first and the eventual handing over of higher responsibility to you is only an acknowledgement of what you have already become on the inside.
6. Praise Publicly and Criticize Privately
Never miss spotting someone doing the right thing – and always acknowledge and reward the same. People literally crave for a kind word and will eventually repeat their best performance when they are recognized for the same.
On the contrary, if a situation demands that some harsh words need to be spoken, then always ensure that this happens in a closed door meeting and never in public. Also, take particular care that you do not violate someone’s sense of self-respect but at the same time you make a person realize the gravity of his mistake.
7. Show Empathy, Not Sympathy
Empathize with people when they miss project deadlines due to personal problems, but do not sympathize.
The dictionary meaning of sympathy is “the feeling of being sorry for someone”,” support for or approval of something” and that of empathy is “understand and share the feelings of another”. There is a qualitative difference between both. When you show sympathy, you will allow a person to drag you into his well of woe whereas when you show empathy you will help or empower him to solve his problem or move on and find someone else to do the job.
Let’s face it, any real project will throw up countless problems at the project and at the individual level. Having empathy will ensure that you give everyone a fair chance but overdoing the same will only lead to a bad situation. This is a key factor to consider when a team member’s personal problems lead to failed deliverables or compromised deadlines.
8. Share Successes with the Team, but Take Responsibility for Failures
Always ensure that the top performers get public recognition for their efforts. This is easy in organizations where you have a quarterly rewards and recognition program. In organizations where this is not the case, the project manager needs to be creative. One way to do this is to be a good promoter of people, this leads to people becoming more and more motivated and striving to consistently meet the high standards they themselves have set.
On the other hand, all failures need to be handled internally. Never reprimand the team members responsible for any mistakes in public. Failure makes a person feel miserable anyway – and highlighting the same too much only adds to his woes. The Project Manager needs to play a key role here in shielding his people.
This is the hallmark of all great leaders. In “Wings of Fire: Autobiography of Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam” an incident is mentioned wherein Dr. Kalam took total responsibility for the SLV-3 (Satellite Launch Vehicle) failure in front of a big group of scientists. The book also mentions another incident when he asked his team members to present their individual reports on the areas they were working on rather than he doing it himself thus giving the team an opportunity for recognition in front of the scientific community. No wonder he is considered one of the most successful scientists to have led India’s space and missile program.
9. Organize Trainings
The training budget is a powerful tool in your hands, use it wisely. Create the training calendar in the beginning of the year keeping in mind the following requirements:
Technical requirements of the project
Individual training requirements to boost career growth
Any gap in skills that needs to be addressed
Quite often it happens that a year passes by without the organizing of any proper training programs and the last quarter is packed with training programs of little value to the individuals involved and the organization itself. Never allow this to happen.
Internal training programs can also be conducted by the various individuals involved in the project on technologies used in the project itself or otherwise. This is an opportunity for personal growth for many individuals.
Trainings always give individuals a good release from project pressure and also helps to reinforce the conviction that the organization is serious about their future and increasing their skills.
10. Celebrate Phase Completion
Whenever a major project phase is over, celebrate. Put the staff welfare budget to good use. Nine pin bowling matches, group movie outings are opportunities which allow people to recharge their batteries. It also provides ample opportunities to build team spirit and strengthen relationships.
11. Balance the Workload Well
Ensure that no single individual is getting overburdened. This also calls for proactive leave management of the entire team. On occasions, you may also need to force some workaholics to take leave.
It is small acts such as these which help you make small deposits in the emotional bank account which we talked about earlier. And these deposits reap rich dividends when the time comes.
12. Do Not Ask for Too Many Updates
Do not be a status update maniac – trust your people to be responsible and deliver results. Ask for an update only when necessary – the best people will usually themselves keep you apprised of the status of the tasks they are working on.
13. Lead by Example
Always be a person worthy of emulation. Set high standards for yourself and do not impose any rule on the team which you do not follow yourself. People automatically follow what they see you do on a daily basis and not what you tell them to do. If you cannot be the first person to enter office, at least be the last person to leave after a hard day’s work and do this only after personally ensuring that your entire team has left for the day. Always walk the extra mile for the team – always come to the forefront when required, be it project problems, technical problems, any problem which hampers progress. When people observe you walking the extra mile consistently, a wonderful chain reaction happens. Some of your elite team members start following your example and this leads to a multiplication of efforts and results.
Consider the equation:
1 person = 1 extra mile
10 persons = 10 extra miles
Do you think this will have a big project impact, you bet !
As John Maxwell says, “The right to lead is earned, not given.” In his classic book “Right to lead” Dr. Maxwell mentions an incident wherein Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf stepped into a mine field to save an injured soldier and the ripple effect it had on all the people in his division. No wonder he was called upon to lead the critical operation during the Gulf war.
True leaders always emerge out of nowhere when a major crisis develops.
14. Motivate the Maintenance Team
Quite often, you will be faced with a situation wherein the production support team starts to feel that they are a group of 2nd class citizens and will develop an inferiority complex and get demotivated which can have a serious impact on the service delivery function. Motivating the maintenance team is a tough task but I have used the following techniques to good effect:
Emphasize the fact to the maintenance team that since they interact with the business users on a daily basis, they are the custodians of the image of IT more than anybody else, including you. The responsibility of the development team ends with project success, but the maintenance team is mainly responsible for ensuring that operations run smoothly and ongoing business success.
The job, contrary to the traditional belief is tough. More often than not, the maintenance team is at the receiving end of bad design decisions taken during development and has to put in quite a lot of performance enhancing fixes in place as the usage of the system increases.
Only maintenance engineers understand a system and the business domain in totality. This is due to the sheer nature of the work. Development engineers never usually seek to understand modules outside the scope of what has been allocated to them.
The crucial life skill of crisis management – taking decisions under mounting pressure can only be learnt in production support. This can never be learnt in development where someone senior will shield you.
When maintenance engineers understand the above points, they gradually begin to understand the value of the work which they do on a daily basis and where it fits in the bigger picture. And once people realize that their work is being valued, they usually stop complaining.
The same point is beautifully brought out in Sir Winston Churchill’s life during the Second World War. Dr. John Maxwell calls this the Law of the Big Picture in his book “The 17 indispensable laws of teamwork.” The book mentions how Sir Churchill managed to motivate coal miners to continue working on the inglorious task of working in the mines against opting to fight in the war on the frontline. A must read account if you are serious about going up on the leadership scale.
Moreover, there are ample career options in production support as well. With most organizations embracing ITIL and standards such as ValIT gaining ground, the service delivery function is being seen as a key provider of ongoing business value. Once maintenance engineers realize that they are not in a dead-end situation and career growth options are available they will not display negative attitude. This is where the project manager plays a key role. Organize ITIL trainings and watch how the maintenance team starts enjoying their role.
15. Sack Non-performers Tactfully
If you have recruited the person after proper evaluation, you will never be faced with this option. However, on occasions you will be called upon to do the inevitable. How do you still retain trust and loyalty in the team? The following strategies have helped me:
Ensure that you give the non-performer a fair chance – try to place him in an area which involves routine work and which does not involve much thinking. Many routine maintenance tasks involve only log monitoring – poor performers can be accommodated in such areas.
Use counselling to good effect – give the person a chance to close gaps and raise his performance to an acceptable level.
Ensure that all the other team members are well aware that the guy is failing to meet the minimum requirements of the job. This needs to be done in a subtle manner – it should not be too obvious.
Exercise all options before giving the final notice – and ensure that all the other team members are well aware that there really was no other option available.
Maintaining transparency in such matters ensures that there is no loss of trust and loyalty in the team. People realize that no one can be continuously paid for doing nothing.
In an interview on CNBC, Mr. Narayan Murthy, the chief mentor of Infosys mentioned that the best leaders have the ability to cast vision and the best people need to see themselves growing into important roles and achieving bigger goals in that vision.
WHY EXIT INTERVIEWS ARE ESSENTIAL
WHY EXIT INTERVIEWS ARE ESSENTIAL
Understanding why your employees leave is almost as important as understanding why they stay. Some would say it is even more important. An employee’s real reasons for leaving can be revealed in exit interviews. Interviews that are conducted by the human resources department or other company employees at time of resignation may or may not produce accurate and legitimate answers. Most departing employees are reluctant to reveal important demotivators because they do not want to burn their bridges. They may not want to offend the management at that sensitive time of saying good-bye.
An experienced third party, a consultant or firm that specializes in conducting these sensitive interviews and collecting a wealth of invaluable inputs, can often accomplish effective and productive exit interviews. The information gathered in this process can guide corporate management in making changes that will reduce future turnover, as well as potentially solve other problems in the organization.
What is the best way to process an employee’s exit? HR always recommends an exit interview. The process is predictably simple while most people think it’s a big waste of time. If a person resigns, you already know why he is leaving. But mostly the stated reasons are far from true, most resignations state personal reasons or better prospects. If one is being discharged, he will be angry and won’t tell anything useful anyway. Why bother then?
There are a lot of good reasons to bother—administration, protection and good management practice are among them. From an administrative standpoint alone, an exit interview provides an opportunity to get needed information (like where to send the employee’s settlement cheque, TDS certificate, retrieve company property (keys, mobile, swipe cards credit cards, laptops, etc.), clear up any outstanding issues like expense advances and deliver required information.
Administrative details are important, but the real value of an exit interview is in the information one can obtain to protect the company and save a lot of time, trouble and expense later. For example, it is not uncommon for an employee to resign, or be discharged for a reason, but when tactfully handled can reveal the real reasons in an exit interview. For instance, recently when I had handled an exit interview, a very senior executive told me that he is quitting because he is pretty annoyed with the CEO’s arrogance and style.
In a broader perspective, exit interviews provide information about overall management style of the company. An employee who is discharged may not be happy about it, and his or her comments will have a negative slant. But there’s usually plenty of truth to be learned as well. In one case we had observed that one department had a high turnover and exit interviews reflected problem areas like partisan attitude of the supervisor. Consistently high turnover in certain positions can be an indicator that the job or the work is not defined properly, thus, the wrong people are being hired. Reasons for voluntarily separation may be valid, like lack of benefits or low pay or even unsatisfactory designations, improper grades, etc.
Some thoughts about how you say good-bye to employees, whatever be the reason for their exit, salvage some credibility. If it’s a discharge, you’ll want to do damage control as much as possible. Recently, two people who were asked to go within two months of joining, told me how brutal the HR general manager was in handling the exits. Depressed and victimised they felt more angry and vengeful for the simple reason that the HR was even forcing the person to interview candidates on the very morning when he was told to go.
Treating people as human as possible is a good management practice and that dictates he or she be treated with professional courtesy and respect. Conduct the exit meeting as privately as possible. Taking a more positive view of the exit—this is also the time when many employees are willing to point at deficiencies in the company, comments such as, “poor management or supervision”, “complete lack of supervision and support”, “poor communications”, etc, have come quite often when I had handled exit interviews. Any company management that is honest with itself will use these responses to look into the claims and make corrections where the allegations are found or known to be true.
While handling exit interviews handle the employee in simple, direct terms and discuss under what circumstances the decision has been made or try and figure out what triggered the decision to quit. It is invariable that something snapped inside. Without a debate on the merits, gather all required information and record and do paperwork and handle the exit with the final settlement check, so that whatever suspicion the person has is nullified. Whether the separation is voluntary or not, HR has to make sure that the employee leaves without any incident. Exit interview and counselling can avoid much of unpleasantness, someone who can handle the person at times of emotional disturbance is only the HR person.
Exit is just as important as the procedures one uses while hiring. Handled in a professional way, exit practices can be constructive, useful and improve your work environment and above all add to retention.
Understanding why your employees leave is almost as important as understanding why they stay. Some would say it is even more important. An employee’s real reasons for leaving can be revealed in exit interviews. Interviews that are conducted by the human resources department or other company employees at time of resignation may or may not produce accurate and legitimate answers. Most departing employees are reluctant to reveal important demotivators because they do not want to burn their bridges. They may not want to offend the management at that sensitive time of saying good-bye.
An experienced third party, a consultant or firm that specializes in conducting these sensitive interviews and collecting a wealth of invaluable inputs, can often accomplish effective and productive exit interviews. The information gathered in this process can guide corporate management in making changes that will reduce future turnover, as well as potentially solve other problems in the organization.
What is the best way to process an employee’s exit? HR always recommends an exit interview. The process is predictably simple while most people think it’s a big waste of time. If a person resigns, you already know why he is leaving. But mostly the stated reasons are far from true, most resignations state personal reasons or better prospects. If one is being discharged, he will be angry and won’t tell anything useful anyway. Why bother then?
There are a lot of good reasons to bother—administration, protection and good management practice are among them. From an administrative standpoint alone, an exit interview provides an opportunity to get needed information (like where to send the employee’s settlement cheque, TDS certificate, retrieve company property (keys, mobile, swipe cards credit cards, laptops, etc.), clear up any outstanding issues like expense advances and deliver required information.
Administrative details are important, but the real value of an exit interview is in the information one can obtain to protect the company and save a lot of time, trouble and expense later. For example, it is not uncommon for an employee to resign, or be discharged for a reason, but when tactfully handled can reveal the real reasons in an exit interview. For instance, recently when I had handled an exit interview, a very senior executive told me that he is quitting because he is pretty annoyed with the CEO’s arrogance and style.
In a broader perspective, exit interviews provide information about overall management style of the company. An employee who is discharged may not be happy about it, and his or her comments will have a negative slant. But there’s usually plenty of truth to be learned as well. In one case we had observed that one department had a high turnover and exit interviews reflected problem areas like partisan attitude of the supervisor. Consistently high turnover in certain positions can be an indicator that the job or the work is not defined properly, thus, the wrong people are being hired. Reasons for voluntarily separation may be valid, like lack of benefits or low pay or even unsatisfactory designations, improper grades, etc.
Some thoughts about how you say good-bye to employees, whatever be the reason for their exit, salvage some credibility. If it’s a discharge, you’ll want to do damage control as much as possible. Recently, two people who were asked to go within two months of joining, told me how brutal the HR general manager was in handling the exits. Depressed and victimised they felt more angry and vengeful for the simple reason that the HR was even forcing the person to interview candidates on the very morning when he was told to go.
Treating people as human as possible is a good management practice and that dictates he or she be treated with professional courtesy and respect. Conduct the exit meeting as privately as possible. Taking a more positive view of the exit—this is also the time when many employees are willing to point at deficiencies in the company, comments such as, “poor management or supervision”, “complete lack of supervision and support”, “poor communications”, etc, have come quite often when I had handled exit interviews. Any company management that is honest with itself will use these responses to look into the claims and make corrections where the allegations are found or known to be true.
While handling exit interviews handle the employee in simple, direct terms and discuss under what circumstances the decision has been made or try and figure out what triggered the decision to quit. It is invariable that something snapped inside. Without a debate on the merits, gather all required information and record and do paperwork and handle the exit with the final settlement check, so that whatever suspicion the person has is nullified. Whether the separation is voluntary or not, HR has to make sure that the employee leaves without any incident. Exit interview and counselling can avoid much of unpleasantness, someone who can handle the person at times of emotional disturbance is only the HR person.
Exit is just as important as the procedures one uses while hiring. Handled in a professional way, exit practices can be constructive, useful and improve your work environment and above all add to retention.
HR ABBREVIATIONS
HR ABBREVIATIONS
Abbreviations are considered as the luxury of the lazy. Yet, life in the profession could be quite un-exciting without them. How many times have you noticed the Boss marking you the papers in the office by writing, "FNA". And then you carry out the task & send him the note "FKAP". Similarly, "FKPP", "KA", "ASAP","KRA", "MBO", etc. etc. have all been be widely used, understood or abused in the "CJ" of "MNC"&"LJ". For the under-exposed or less-initiated professional corporate mortals (like most of us) needing "HS" breeding, these alphabets packaged in inverted commas mean, "For necessary action", "For Kind Approval Please", "For Kind Perusal Please", "Kindly Advise", "As Soon As Possible", "Key Results Area", "Management By Objectives", "Corporate Jungle", "Multi-National Corporation", and "Lala Ji" respectively . Don't forget the "HS" promoted by the Latka-Jhatka TV anchor person in UN-CENSORED. You still have not got the meaning of "HS"! How "LS"? ("High Society", "Low Society"). When I used to handle placements, I was very fond of using "BOD" and "LBW". Please don't give a blank expression, like most give when they don't know what is there in the abbreviation. Yeah! That's better. The blank expressions are usually there for split seconds only; afterwards everyone is talented enough to hide the bliss of ignorance. Let me tell you a secret - I do the same…Pshsh… "BOD" is meant for giving "Benefit of Doubt" to the candidates. I never reject anyone. I only declare them "LBW"- "Let The Bugger (or Babe) Wait". I love Abbreviations. I don't mind when some people call it a habit of lazy people. Ask them to speak, at least ten times, the full form of "SPICMACAY" (Society for Promotion of Indian Classical Music And Culture Amongst Youth) or the now redundant "COFEPOSA" (Conservation Of Foreign Exchange and Prevention Of Smuggling Activities Act). One of our renowned leader has kept "MISA" as the name of his daughter. I wonder whether he would like to call her every time as "Maintenance of Internal Securities Act". Coming back to the world of Management Abbreviations, I've compiled a reasonably decent list for your everyday benefit. This list is for professional enrichment and amusement without any copyright attachment.
| A | |
| AAMOF | As A Matter Of Fact |
| AAR | After Action Review |
| AFAIK | As Far As I Know |
| AL | Accelerated Learning |
| ALARA | As Low As Reasonably Achievable |
| ASAP | As Soon As Possible |
| ATS | Advanced Training System |
| A/V | Audio Visual |
| B | |
| B&P | Bid and Proposal |
| BEER | Behavior, Effect, Expectation, Results (for feedback for improvement) |
| BET | Behavior, Effect, Thanks (for positive feedback) |
| BPR | Business Process Reengineering |
| BST | Basic Skills Trainer |
| BTW | By The Way |
| C | |
| CAI | Computer Aided Instruction |
| CAX | Computer Assisted Exercises |
| CBI | Computer Based Instruction |
| CBT | Computer Based Training or Competency Based Training |
| CETA | Cost Effective Training Analysis |
| CMI | Computer Managed Instruction |
| CP | Change Proposal |
| CPI | Continuous Process Improvement |
| D | |
| DMP | Data Management Plan |
| DR | Design Review |
| DSM | Don't Shoot Me |
| DTP | Detailed Test Plan |
| E | |
| ECR | Electronic Classroom |
| ENDEX | End of EXercise |
| ERP | Enterprise Resource Planning |
| EOD | End Of Discussion |
| EPSS | Electronic Performance Support System |
| ERIC | Educational Resources Information Center |
| ET | Embedded Training; Evaluation Tool |
| ETC | Estimate To Complete |
| EQ | Emotional Quotient |
| F | |
| FOJT | Formal On the Job Training |
| FTX | Field Training Exercise |
| FWIW | For What It's Worth |
| FYCP | Future Years Corporate Plan |
| FYI | For Your Information |
| G | |
| GIGO | Garbage In, Garbage Out |
| GOK | God Only Knows |
| GTA | Graphical Training Aid |
| H | |
| HPT | Human Performance Technology |
| HR | Human Resources |
| HRD | Human Resource Development |
| HRM | Human Resource Management |
| HUMINT | Human Intelligence |
| I | |
| I&D | Integration and Development |
| I&KP | Instructor and Key Personnel |
| IAW | In Accordance With |
| ICW | Interactive Courseware |
| IIRC | If I Recall Correctly |
| IKPT | Instructor and Key Personnel Training |
| IMI | Interactive Multimedia Instruction |
| IMHO | In My Humble Opinion |
| INPO | In No Particular Order |
| I/O | Input/Output |
| IOW | In Other Words |
| IPT | Integrated Product Team |
| IQ | Intelligence Quotient |
| ISD | Instructional System Development |
| ISD/SAT | Instructional Systems Development/Systems Approach to Training |
| IT | Instructional Technology |
| ITP | Individual Training Plan |
| ITS | Integrated Training System or Individual Training Standard |
| J | |
| JA | Job Aid |
| JITT | Just In Time Training |
| K | |
| KA | Knowledge Acquisition |
| KAS (KSA) | Knowledge, Attitudes, Skills |
| KISS | Keep It Simple Stupid |
| KITA | Kick In The Ass (a motivational method) |
| L | |
| LG | Lecture Guide |
| LO | Learning Objective |
| LRC | Learning Resource Center |
| M | |
| MINIEX | Mini Exercise |
| MOP | Measure Of Performance |
| MPA | Motivation Problem analysis |
| MS | Milestone |
| N | |
| NA | Needs Assessment |
| NDI | Non Developmental Item |
| NIS | Not In Specification |
| NLP | Neuro Linguistic Programming |
| O | |
| OJT | On the Job Training |
| OOBE | Out Of Box Experience |
| OTM | One Time Measure |
| OTOH | On The Other Hand |
| P | |
| P3I | Pre Planned Product Improvement |
| PA | Performance Assessment |
| PE | Practical Exercise |
| PEBCAK | Problem Exists Between Chair And Keyboard |
| PFA | Pulled from the Air |
| PITA | Pain In The Ass |
| PMFJI | Pardon Me For Jumping In |
| PPM | Policy and Procedures Manual |
| PPP | Personnel Performance Profile |
| PR | Program Review |
| PTR | Problem Trouble Report |
| Q | |
| QA | Quality Assurance |
| QAR | Quality Assurance Evaluator |
| QC | Quality Control |
| QI | Quality Improvement |
| QM | Quality Management |
| QVT | Quality Verification Test |
| R | |
| RAD | Rapid Application Development |
| RBM | Rational Behavioral Model |
| RESA | Research, Evaluation, and Systems Analysis |
| RFI | Request For Information |
| RFP | Request For Proposal |
| RFT | Ready For Training |
| S | |
| SAT | Systems Approach to Training |
| SGI | Small Group Instruction |
| SGL | Small Group Leader |
| SIM | Simulator |
| SIMTECH | Simulation Technology |
| SITD | Still In The Dark |
| SKA | Skills, Knowledge, Attitude |
| SMART | Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time based (objective and goal setting) |
| SME | Subject Matter Expert |
| SOO | Statement Of Objectives |
| SOW | Statement Of Work |
| SPEC | Specification |
| SQ3R | Survey the material to be learned, develop Questions about the material, Read the material, Recall the key ideas, Review the material (learning strategy) |
| SQT | Skills Qualification Test |
| STRAP | System Training Plan |
| STX | Situational Training Exercise |
| T | |
| T&D | Training and Development |
| T&E | Training And Evaluation |
| TA | Transactional Analysis |
| TADS | Training Analysis Data Sheet |
| TADSS | Training Aids, Devices, Simulators, and Simulations |
| TBA | To Be Announced |
| TBD | To Be Determined |
| TDNS | Training Development Needs Statement |
| TDS | Training Development Study |
| TE | Training Emphasis |
| TEA | Training Effectiveness Advocate or Training Effectiveness Analysis |
| TEE | Training Effectiveness Evaluation |
| TEEP | Training Effectiveness Evaluation Plan |
| TEMP | Test and Evaluation Master Plan |
| TFT | Technical Feasibility Test |
| TINSTAAFL | There Is No Such Thing As A Free Lunch |
| TKT | Threshold Knowledge Test |
| TLA | Training Level Assignment |
| TLO | Terminal Learning Objective |
| TM | Technical Manual |
| TMO | Training Material Outline |
| TMP | Training Management Plan |
| TO | Task Order |
| TOIS | Task Oriented Instructional System |
| TOS | Training Objective Statement |
| TPR | Trained Personnel Requirement |
| TPTB | The Powers That Be |
| TQM | Total Quality Management |
| TQR | Training Quality Report |
| TR | Training Requirement |
| TRADE | Training Devices |
| TSA | Training Situation Analysis |
| TSFC | Training System Functional Characteristics |
| TSP | Training Support Package |
| TT | Technical Test |
| TTHSS | Touch, Taste, Hear, Sight, Smell (5 Senses) |
| TWI | Training Within Industry |
| V | |
| VAK | Visual, Auditory, Kinesthetic |
| VI | Visual Information |
| VV&A | Verification, Validation, and Accreditation |
| VV&C | Verification, Validation and Certification |
| W | |
| WAG | Wild Assed Guess |
| WBI | Web Based Instruction |
| WBPSS | Web Based Performance Support System |
| WBS | Work Breakdown Structure |
| WIIFM | What's In It For Me |
| WYSBYGI | What You See Before You Get It |
| WYSIWYG | What You See Is What You Get |
| Y | |
| YAFA | Yet Another Fine Acronym |
| YMMV | Your Mileage May Vary |
| YOYO | You're On Your Own |
| YTD | Year To Date |
| Z | |
| ZD | Zero Defects |
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