Developing the right leaders and culture to get results from your business

I caught up with the renowned Human Resources guru Norm Smallwood to get his thoughts on how organisations can develop the right leaders and culture to drive the business. Norm Smallwood is a recognised authority in developing businesses and their leaders to deliver results and increase value. His current work relates to increasing business value by building “outside in” organisation, leadership, and people capabilities that measurably impact market value.

1.       Does leadership quality play a significant part in the success of the organisation?

·         Absolutely yes. Several years ago Dave Ulrich, Jack Zenger and I wrote a book called Results Based Leadership that looked at the connection between leadership qualities (or competencies) and results. We believe that leaders should start by identifying the needs of their stakeholders (customers, investors, employees, the community, etc.) and then build their qualities so that they can add value.

2.       What does research show and what is happening in practice?

·         We have done research and written several books and articles on the connection between leadership and investors (How Leaders Build Value and the Leadership Capital Index), leadership and customers (Leadership Brand), leadership and employees (HR from the outside in) and so on. In practice, most organisations don’t start with their stakeholders they start with the leadership qualities that they think they should improve.

3.       How do you measure the quality of leadership in an organisation? What are the indicators we can track?

·         In publicly traded companies, we look at Price to earnings ratio over a ten year period of competitors in same industry who have faced same challenges during the same time period. Two companies can have the same earnings but have very different market values depending on their multiple e.g. company A and B both have earnings of 10. Company A has Price to earnings of 10 and company B has price to earnings of 15. Company A has market value of 100 (10 x 10) and company B has market value of 150 (10 x 15). The logic is that company B has higher levels of investor confidence in the future because of quality of leadership.  

·         In non-publicly traded companies, I’d recommend that you do some interviews of internal and external stakeholders, especially customers to get a view of how they perceive the quality of your leaders.

4.       Does succession planning work? If so how do you make it work?

·         Succession planning does work. Senior leaders of a company should form a team that reviews succession on yearly basis. This process is typically supported by information from HR. Many companies use the 9 grid which looks at performance and potential i.e. is performance low, medium or high and is potential for future, more senior roles, low, medium or high. Candidates are placed within this grid.

·         The best companies for developing talent also utilise a concept called corporate talent which means that a group of high potentials careers is owned not by their current geography, business or function but by the company. In this way, the best talent can be moved and can’t be held onto leaders in their current area.

5.       What do you think is the role of HR in leadership development?

·         Line managers should “own” leadership development and HR should support them to develop leaders. We see six elements that HR can help to build a capability of leadership: 1) build the business case for why we should invest; 2) clarify what effective leaders should know, be and do (their qualities); 3) assess leaders; 4) build the plan to invest in leaders through job assignment, training and development and building a culture of leadership; 5) Measure the impact of the investments in leadership (much easier if there is a business case; 6) communicate with internal and external stakeholders about how what we are doing to improve leaders will also improve our results.

6.       Is organisational culture real? If so how do you build a culture that supports the business?

·         I talked about outside in leadership that starts with customers and external stakeholders. Same holds true for culture. A high performing culture exists when employees resonate with customers at every touch point. To do this well, need to clarify the customer value proposition and the firm brand identity (why customers buy from us) and to make that real to customers and to employees. This can be done by mapping every touch point and embedding the value proposition at each touch.

7.       How important is coaching with regard to developing effective leaders?

·         I believe that coaching is an essential component to developing leaders. There are many kinds of coaches: coaches that can help me stay on track, coaches that give me feedback on my interpersonal skills and help me improve them, coaches that give me insight into my strategic priorities. These coaches can be external or internal. But, having someone help to hold me accountable to what I said I would do is a key to becoming an authentic leader who does what s/he promises to do.

In 2000, Norm co-founded The RBL Group with Dave Ulrich. Norm has co-authored eight books: Real-Time Strategy, Results-Based Leadership, How Leaders Build Value, Change Champions Field Guide, Leadership Brand, Leadership Code, and Leadership Sustainability. Harvard Business School Press published his latest book, Agile Talent, coauthored with Jon Younger in February 2016.  He has published more than a hundred articles in leading journals and newspapers including Washington Post, Forbes, Harvard Business Review and Financial Times and has contributed chapters and Forewords to multiple books. Norm has been a frequent blogger on HBR Online where his blog on Personal Leader Brand was highlighted as one of ten most read of 2010. Norm was a faculty member in executive education at the University of Michigan in the Ross School of Management between 2001 and 2003.

This interview was done with Memory Nguwi. Memory Nguwi is an Occupational Psychologist, Data Scientist, Speaker, & Managing Consultant- Industrial Psychology Consultants (Pvt) Ltd a management and human resources consulting firm. https://www.linkedin.com/in/memorynguwi/ Phone 481946-48/481950/2900276/2900966 or or email: mnguwi@ipcconsultants.com  or visit our website at www.ipcconsultants.com

Leading change – why some turnaround strategies are failing

A brief review of organizational performance over the past five years indicates a lack of consistency in business performance. Considering the number of organizations now finding themselves in non-viable positions we are forced to conclude that earlier reported successes were probably due more to chance factors than to capable executive leadership. Research indicates that up to 70% of organizational climate which is a determining factor in an organizations success can be attributed to leadership style.

For an organizational leader to create an effective climate for success they need to possess sufficient technical depth in the “core” business. This will allow them to accurately analyse organizational performance reports and identify potential problem areas early enough to make important changes. A number of organizations in Zimbabwe are led by brilliant scholars who possess all the academic qualifications one can think of but lack the practical “know how”. This forces them to rely on the reporting of subordinates which is frequently tainted with incorrect facts if not based on non-factual data. Perhaps the time has come for us to take stock of the fact that, the state that an organization finds itself in is a true reflection of the organization’s leader. In recent times we have found it convenient to blame the environment for all of an organisation’s misfortunes but the truth is that the real starting point is self introspection.

Executive leadership is a key source of competitive advantage and the question each CEO or Managing Director should be asking themselves is, “do they have the key competencies required for the job and the correct mind-set about their responsibilities to themselves and other people with whom they work?” Transformational leadership is what responsible CEOs should be considering with a view towards advancing the interests of the stakeholders, as opposed to individual interest. Most corporate scandals in Zimbabwe and the world over involve the pursuance of personal interest at the cost of organizational sustainability.

Transformation will not take place as long as decision makers continue to base appointments on non - job related factors. Using such criteria for appointments also results in the appointees owing their allegiance to certain individuals as opposed to shareholders. This has resulted in the flourish of unethical business practices. Each individual manager has a responsibility to the shareholders which should be reflected in the way they conduct the company’s business. This involves reporting unethical business regardless of reprisals.

We should learn from what is happening around us by immediately changing a course of events to correct a faulty process or outcome. This in itself represents a change of mind-set. In order for us to implement this important principle we need to change the manner in which we react to events in organizations such as “killing the bringer of bad news, encouraging people not to rock the boat or insistence on continuing to do things as they were done in the past”.  As part of the journey of change, some organizations need to re-look at their executive teams and ask themselves if they have the capacity and willingness to embark on the journey that is essential to the organization’s continued viability. Decision makers need to take the drastic action of getting the “right” people on the bus and taking the “wrong” people off the bus.

Leaders need to take the stand for personal change by starting to do their own work and thus providing a model to the workforce which they seek to influence. If we consider that only 50% of most workforces have the motivation to keep learning and improving, 4 in 10 people cannot work cooperatively and that only 19% of entry level applicants have adequate self-discipline for their jobs, we are made aware of why leaders are fundamental to the success of an organisation. Leaders need to start behaving differently, make the hard changes in themselves and realize that its as much about changing their own personal lives as it is about changing their organizational roles. This conscious approach to transformation can create conditions required for discovering the future and ways of being that our organizations and society need in order to thrive.

More still needs to be done to improve customer service at Banks

We recently undertook a research to get to better understand the opinions of the banking public about their respective banks. This was the second year we have run this survey – the first survey was in 2012.

Between November 2013 and March 2014, 872 bank account holders were asked 15 questions related to their bank. The questions ranged from their customer service experience to product offerings amongst others.

96.90% of the respondents were currently employed, 3.10% were unemployed. 67.00% of the respondents were males and 33.00% were females. 19.00% were non-managerial employees, 23.70% were part of junior management, 29.10% were in middle management, 16.00% were senior managers and 10.50% were executives. 7.40% of the respondents earn an income of US$ 500.00 and below per month; 27.90% earn US$ 501.00 – 1000.00; 44.90% earn US$ 1001.00 – 2999.00; 11.10% earn US$ 3000.00 – 4999.00 and 8.70% earn over US$ 5000.00 a month.

The aim of the study was to establish the level of engagement that customers currently have with their banks. Customer engagement is defined as the degree of customer connection with a respective company. It is measured by the degree of satisfaction that customers have with the company’s various touch points, be it, the internet, phone, staff, and transaction services. Many of the challenges that banks are currently facing can be addressed through a defined focus on customer engagement.

Our research revealed very interesting findings:

·         The next engagement score of 11 out of 12 participating banks increased by over 50% from what we observed in 2012.

·         Interestingly, although customer engagement is increasing, 74% of the respondents want to move from their current banks. This finding is similar to what we observed in 2012 where a similar 74% of the respondents wanted to move banks. The key variance we noted was that of preferred banks, that is, the banks that the respondents want to move to. As per the current survey, the top 3 banks that the respondents would want to move to are international banks. This is as compared to 2012 where 1 international and 2 local banks were the most preferred.

·         65% of the respondent say their customer service expectations are significantly higher than they were in 2009 (when the economy was dollarized).

·         Most banking sector customers (44%) view courteous bank tellers as what they like most about the service at their bank. This was followed by 35% of the respondents who say they appreciate the efficient service provided by their banks (that is, fast moving queues, quick response and resolution of queries).

·         Inasmuch as efficient service is what 35% of the respondents appreciate the most about their bank’s customer service; the same issue appeared the most when we asked the respondents what they dislike about their current banks. 31% said their bank was inefficient (that is, queues are long and move slowly and their banks take long to respond to and address their queries).

Research has revealed that fully engaged customers spend more, stay with you longer, and are more profitable than average customers. It is not surprising to know that organisations that have placed customer engagement at the foundation of their marketing strategy tend to win in the market. These organisations understand a simple fact: organizations that engage their customers outperform those that do not. To achieve customer engagement, organizations need to align themselves around the idea of building a base of high-value, committed customers. Engaged customers are less likely to jump ship when competition comes.

Our findings also show that although many of the expectations that customers have of their banks are really realistic and achievable, very few banks are living up to them. The consequences for those banks that that continue to ignore customer needs will be disastrous. The era of traditional banking has passed. Traditional banking players have an urgent need to overhaul their current approaches to customer engagement. Customer engagement interventions need to be immediately implemented or risk a mass exodus of your banks’ clientele.

To receive the full Banking Sector Customer Engagement Report outlining detailed bank specific results, contact me on the details below.

Mystery Shopping – a must do for every organisation

Poor customer service in Zimbabwean companies remains a cause for concern. There are some companies that pride themselves on good customer service and really put effort into ensuring that their customers are served well. There are however, other companies which do not seem to make an effort, or to be bothered at all, by customer service, or the lack thereof.  It is interesting to see how some companies ignorantly believe that their employees’ customer service skills are ‘fine’ or ‘great’ but when you interact with their front-line employees you are appalled at the poor customer service.

This information gap is usually caused by ineffective methods of observing levels of customer service and collecting customer feedback. Many front-line employees behave very well in the presence of superiors; but once their superiors are gone, they return to their usual behaviour. Employers can learn a lot by carrying out a mystery shopping exercise and using this to get feedback on the real customer service practices pertaining in their organisations.

Mystery shopping is a tool used to measure the quality of service and compliance with customer service procedures. The mystery shopper’s identity and purpose is not known by the employees being evaluated and employees themselves are not aware they are being assessed. Mystery shoppers perform specific tasks such as purchasing a product, asking questions or registering complaints whilst observing the employees response. Detailed notes on the observations and experiences are then developed and submitted to management.

Mystery shopping can be done physically – as a walk-in customer or over the phone. If done over the phone, the person doing the mystery shopping calls your offices, asking for a particular service. As with the physical mystery shopping, the Consultant deliberately asks a series of questions with the objective of testing your employees’ customer service skills.

The major benefit of using mystery shopping is that you will get to know the state of your organisation’s customer service first hand. It is best to receive the unedited notes and voice recordings from the mystery shopping exercise so that you can really see what is happening in your company.

Mystery Shopping helps you to understand and satisfy your customers with greater precision. Most of the time, organisations assume that they know what customers want and do not bother to research. They then develop solutions based on these assumptions and are very surprised when the solutions don not work! Customer service interventions should be evidence based. If they are not evidence based, you are wasting your time. When you have the feedback from the mystery shopping exercise, you will be better placed to know exactly what to fix in your company.

I usually recommend that companies perform a mystery shopping exercise before and after any customer service training intervention. In this way you ensure that your training is evidence based and targeted to where the customer services problems and opportunities really are.

Mystery shopping can be done internally or externally by engaging customer service experts. Research has however shown, that if you engage external people, your chances of getting an impartial opinion on the overall performance of your organisation increases. The shoppers should be well trained and should be able to objectively interact with your employees to get you reliable information. In all cases, the exercise should be done discretely. The fact that there is no prior knowledge of the mystery shopping exercise also ensures that your employees behave naturally.

Lastly, managers need to know that mystery shopping is not a witch-hunting exercise. Further, the results of the mystery shopping should not be used to dismiss employees – this is inadmissible before the Law. Instead, mystery shopping should help you target training, develop better policies and produces around customer service all with the objective of increasing customer satisfaction and customer loyalty.

Whats Your Strategy For Ensuring Product Knowledge?

Have you ever noticed that when you visit service providers you encounter employees who tell you they have no idea about a product that the company is selling? I have had many encounters with employees who are clueless about the company’s products. In some instances you also get companies launching products into the market when the majority of their employees are in the dark.

Imagine the amount of business companies would be generating if every employee is fully conversant with company products. Each employee will be a brand ambassador of the company. Each employee will be actively promoting company products even if they are off-duty because they will have enough knowledge about the products. This is not what is happening on the ground in many organisations.

How should this be handled? I remember years back when I was working for one organisation every employee would be tested for product knowledge every quarter.  You would be picked at any time of the day and be required to sit for the product knowledge test there and there. There would be no prior warning and employees would be chosen randomly. The tests would be changed constantly and so in a year you would right four different tests. This kept every employee well updated on company products. The organisation also made an effort to ensure that employees are well updated on products and services new and old. This information will be readily available through the company intranet and other company forums. Getting a score below 80% would attract disciplinary measures. This program worked wonders for this organisation including revenue growth and top of the drawer customer services.

In most organisations in Zimbabwe, employees and even people in customer service has very little knowledge about the company products. This is precisely why you find that you get refereed from one person to the other when you inquire about certain services. Organisations need to invest in educating every employee about their products and test employees regularly on product knowledge.

Organisations need to realize that customers get frustrated when they are receiving assistance from people who have very little knowledge about company products. With competition beckoning in every sector of the economy organisations with better product knowledge at every level and every department will fare better than those that take this important aspect of the business for granted.

Lack of soft skills: The biggest challenge to Zimbabwe’s economic recovery

The biggest challenge facing our country is not the lack of money but the lack of soft skills in our managers. We have highly skilled people who have been praised all over the world for their work ethic. Our own assessment over the years indicates that technically Zimbabweans are gifted but they lack one group of skills that is needed in a struggling economy: soft skills.

Have you noticed that most organisations that are clamoring for more money from banks and shareholders do not have the basics needed to run a successful business?  Organisations need both technical and people management skills as a starting point before borrowing money. Some organisations have borrowed money and they still fail. Once they fail they blame the country’s politics and economy when the fault lies within the organisation. Organisations must do proper due diligence of the soft side of business before borrowing money or acquiring new equipment. Without this shareholders will continue to lose money.

Across all sectors of our economy the technical skills depth required to handle any job are available. Managers however lack the skills to manage people. Here we are talking about people management skills. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that no single university in the country or even outside teaches people management skills. Yes, universities and colleges teach human resources management which is not the same as people management. Most universities and colleges teach technical human resources skills that are normally taught to human resources professionals. What is required is for universities and colleges to teach people management skills focusing on how to deal with people and understanding that people are not objects. Managers need to understand that people have emotions and they should be handled differently from machines.

Most managers lack the Emotional Intelligence to handle people at an emotional level. The lack of such skills has led to so much disillusionment in many organisations. In Zimbabwe you rarely come across employees who say their managers look at the emotional side of the business. This leads to low employee engagement which in turn affects the level of employee productivity. Low employee engagement is an issue that should be handled at the highest levels within the country. Industry leaders and politicians rarely talk about the impact of low employee engagement on productivity.

Most managers use threats to manage their subordinates. However, if they are educated in the psychology of people they would know that threats do not produce the best in people. If threats worked there would be no thieves. What they need to understand is that behavior is a function of its consequences. People do what they do because of what happens to them. Managers need to understand that for instance if significant positive performance improvements were to happen they need to apply both positive and negative reinforcement. However the reinforcements works only if they are certain and immediate. Look at this, if AIDS was killing people on the spot, there would be very few infections taking place. The reason why people continue to be infected is because the consequence is in the future and is uncertain because people can die of other causes besides AIDS.

Apply the same principle to how we manage people. In most instances employees are promised bonuses at the end of the year. This has very little impact on performance because the consequence is in the future and very uncertain as the company can decide not to pay the bonus for other reasons. Therefore employees will not change their behavior if the consequences are in the future and uncertain. Managers unfortunately manage people as if they are managing people who do not know what to do or people who do not want to do what they are told. Only managers with the right emotional intelligence will be able to get the best out of their subordinates.

It is also critical for managers to appreciate that naturally, individuals are different and they have certain preferences in the way they behave. Having a deeper understanding of your subordinate’s personality profile can help in reducing conflict and increasing effective communication with the subordinate. It also helps the manager to have their own personality profiled so that they can have a better understanding of their own personality.

Due to the low emotional intelligence in our managers we now find work situations that are tension filled, toxic and have no regard for customers. Managers generally have a mistaken belief that being tough and rough when handling employees indicates that they are good managers. This is a terrible mistake as most of the poor performing managers are normally those perceived to be the tough guys who are failing to get the best out of their people.

Organisations will benefit significantly from having managers with the right level of emotional intelligence. Organisations should make it mandatory for managers to go through a one week intensive people management course which includes pre-workshop assessment of Emotional Intelligence and their Personality Profiling.

Zimbabwe Employee Engagement Trends Report 2013

Introduction

The road to recovery from the recession that characterised the Zimbabwean economy between 2001 and 2009 is proving to be long, winding and bumpy.

Driven by recovery in domestic demand and government consumption, the World Bank estimates that real gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 20.1% in 2009-2011i. This growth was fueled by strong growth in mining (107%), agriculture (35%) and services (51%). Growth in the manufacturing sector (22%) was less aggressive.

In 2012 and 2013, economic growth slowed down. The growth figures for 2012 and 2013 were estimated at 4.4%iii and 3.4%iv respectively.

On July 31, 2013 Zimbabwe held harmonized elections. President Robert Mugabe won the election with 61.09% of the total votes cast, and his party Zanu PF won two thirds majority, with 160 seats in the House of Assembly out of 210 seats. Government proceeded to launch the Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation (Zim Asset) as the economic blueprint for the period October 2013 – December 2018.

Undoubtedly government faces formidable challenges as it attempts to resuscitate the economy.

In a recent statement, the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) claimed that as many as 300 employees are losing their jobs every week.

The Zimbabwe Independent recently quoted a July 2013 National Social Security Authority (NSSA) Harare Regional Employer Closures and Registrations Report for the period July 2011 to July 2013 that showed that 711 companies in Harare closed down, rendering 8 336 individuals jobless.

The African Development Bank through its country profile on Zimbabwe argues “The economy continues to experience structural challenges emanating from the limited sources and high cost of capital; uncertainties arising from policy inconsistencies, especially with respect to economic empowerment and indigenisation regulations; dilapidated infrastructure and obsolete technologies.” It continues “The poor performance of domestic revenue inflows against the background of rising recurrent expenditures will continue to constrain the fiscal space. With the continued use of the multi-currency regime, monetary policy is not expected to change significantly.”

Whilst employees would have hoped for quicker results – increase in income, increase in employment opportunities and more secure jobs, the reality appears to be very been far from this.

Interestingly however, defying this gloomy outlook, employee engagement went on to increase on a year on year basis.

Executive Summary

The Industrial Psychology Consultants (Pvt) Ltd 2013 Employee Engagement Trends Report is the result of surveying 4,115 Zimbabwean employees about their levels of Engagement and work experiences.

The following report explores five key areas:

1. Benchmarking Employee Engagement



Fewer employees are engaged today (60.59%) than in 2011 (64.26%), when employee engagement peaked. Interestingly, the 2011 peak coincided with the peak recovery in the economy.

Comparatively, Zimbabwe continues to have a significantly higher percentage of Aligned Skeptics when compared to Europe. 38% of Zimbabwe’s workforce are Aligned Skeptics, compared to only 12% of Europe’s workforce. As this report will show, we have consistently observed this trend since 2010.



2. Shifts in Employee Engagement Drivers

a. Zimbabwean employees rate remuneration and rewards slightly higher (1.19%) compared to 2012. Although slightly higher, these extrinsic (functional) motivators that have traditionally been seen to drive work performance have not reached satisfactory levels. Our assessment suggests that low perceptions of remuneration and rewards continue to negatively affect engagement levels.

b. Engagement levels continue to be dampened by poor communication in organisations. Compared to 2012, 0.81% less employees seem to believe that they are informed about matters that affect them or that management keeps them informed about developments in the organisation. Fewer employees also seem to believe that they have opportunity to air their concerns and that communication in their organisations is two way.

c. Employees feel more positive about leadership in their organisations. In particular they feel that their leaders are capable of running their organisations. More employees seem to believe their leaders lead by example as well as adhere to sound corporate governance.



3. Three theories on current trends in Employee Engagement

Industrial Psychology Consultants attributes this increase to a combination of three theories: relativity at play, employee coping mechanisms, and sampling methodology of this survey.

4. Determining if Employee Engagement Measurement is still relevant



In spite of this unexpected upswing, measuring employee engagement will continue to be the most reliable metric of any company’s overall climate and health. Business leaders should begin taking steps now to ensure that this trend will hold in their organisation.

Business leaders should also begin to assess how they can link employee engagement to other key drivers of the business such as labour productivity, customer satisfaction, revenue growth, cost management and profitability.

5. Recommendations for Improving Engagement

Based on this, three recommendations are offered on actions leaders can take to foster Employee Engagement within their organisations.

The Winners

2013 ZIMBABWE BEST EMPLOYERS PRIVATE SECTOR

1. Seed Co Zimbabwe (Pvt) Limited.

2. Propak Hessian (Private) Limited

3. Brands Africa (Pvt) Ltd

4. NicozDiamond Insurance Limited

5. BDO Zimbabwe Chartered Accountants

6. Ecobank


7. Securico Security Services



2013 ZIMBABWE BEST EMPLOYERS NGO SECTOR

1. Catholic Relief Services

2.Transparency International Zimbabwe

3. World Vision Zimbabwe

Celebrate when employees resign

One thing both employers and employees have never appreciated is that an employment relationship is not “permanent” and is never to meant to be permanent because the business environment is dynamic. If an employee comes with a resignation to your desk, you do not need to persuade them to stay. If they were genuine about whatever concerns they have they would have discussed this with you without the threat of a resignation. Once you get a resignation letter acknowledge it quickly and wish them well in their future endeavours. Effectively I am saying do not counter offer when an employee resigns no matter how good they are. You will ways find a replacement. In any case never rely on one employee to do a critical job in your organisation. Always develop other people who can assume any role in your organisation at any given time. Invest a lot in developing a multi- skilled team to deal with any challenge your organisation may face.

Employees who use a threat of a resignation to bargain for a better remuneration package are not good for your organisation. I believe all genuine employees will negotiate in good faith and if you can’t agree so be it. If an employee brings a resignation letter as a threat accept the resignation and ensure they are out whenever they are ready to leave. There is no need to be vindictive by putting very difficult conditions for them to leave. Remember each resignation is an opportunity to renew your organisation. You can look at other bright and capable people within your organisation to take over when such people leave.  So when they leave you must hold a party in honour of what they contributed to your organisation during their service to your organisation. There are lots of positive aspects to a resignation.  Only immature managers try to harass the employee after the resignation.

It’s also a bad policy to rehire people who have left your organisation. It is advisable to rehire previous employees if they left to pursue further studies and they left after fulfilling their contractual obligations. In a country where we have so much talent that is waiting to be developed why should you recycle employees? This belief that some employees are irreplaceable has destroyed some organisations. You must make sure that your employees know that each and every one of them can be replaced the same day. This will force you to develop enough talent. Some organisations have been caught off guard when employees resign to such an extent that they literarily beg the employee to give them more time to look for a replacement.

It is also important to note that when employees resign and join other organisations and you have been treating them well they will spread the goodness of your brand.  Looking at the bigger picture, you must also remember that when employees whom you have well trained join other organisation they are seeking an opportunity to even contribute more to the development of the country. Effectively you train your staff so that they can contribute to the development of the country irrespective of the organisation they work for. If you take this approach you should never be aggrieved when an employee resigns. The same employee may be your customer in the future so why should you harass them when they want to further their career elsewhere. You should be very proud of yourself when your employees go out in other organisations and excel.

It is also important to note that in the current environment very few employees actually give the required notice period. We have however seen organisations that force employees who no longer belief in your brand and what you to serve the notice period. If you force your employee to serve the notice period when they want to leave immediately you may harm your business than protect it. How can an employee whose mind is elsewhere give hundred percent to your cause.  We are seeing more frequently people resigning with immediate effect without giving the required notice. Do not be vindictive. If you were prepared that any of your employees can leave anytime you should be able to let them go. Do not harass them or tell them to leave immediately. Ask them when they would want to leave and allow them to leave. It is a sign of good leadership and preparedness to allow people to leave your organisation whenever they want to without strict conditions.

Normally people will resign once they have exhausted their leave days so you may not be able to recover anything from their terminal benefits. It is a fact of life, we have to live with.

We have also seen some bosses haunting the employee once they leave the organisation by saying bad things about your subordinate. These bad things are said to both people within the organisation and those in the new organisation where this particular employee now works. It is a sign of leadership immaturity to be petty to that extend.  You should be able to wish your employee well wherever they are going.

So the message is you must be able to celebrate when your employees tendered their resignation.

Memory Nguwi is the Managing Consultant of Industrial Psychology Consultants (Pvt) Ltd a management and human resources consulting firm. Phone 481946-48/481950/2900276/2900966 or cell number 077 2356 361 or email: mnguwi@ipcconsultants.com This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or visit our website at www.ipcconsultants.com

Managing For Results

In a challenging economic environment like ours, the only way to ensure the continued viability of companies is to focus on performance and reward it accordingly. What should be on the minds of executives is how they can effectively measure and manage performance at all levels within their organisations. More and more organisations are implementing performance incentive schemes for their staff and these companies have already started seeing a turnaround in their performance. The only way to guarantee future success is to focus on issues of performance and rewards. However, many companies often miss it in that it is not only rewarding performance that is important but effectively managing it. As a manager, you need to motivate your team to get things done. Motivation is beyond remuneration or handsome incentives. As a manager you need to bond with your staff. You also need to develop relationships that inspire employees to get involved and do more.

Many organisations these days have mercenaries. Their employees are there just because they want to be paid at the end of the month. Performance in this case is driven by the fact that the employee wants to make “ends meet.” When you ask these employees how work is like, there are really upfront and tell you, “I hate my job!” Whilst there may be many other reasons why employees grow to hate their job yet still do it, a primary reason is a poor subordinate – boss relationship. Very few managers have the requisite people skills needed to effectively manage their subordinates for performance. This only makes sense because very few managers have been trained to do so. Many managers have been taught to manage by objectives and metrics to monitor performance, and they have this misconception that bonding with your team members will be seen as a distraction at best or weakness at worst.

Leaders should develop personal relationships with their subordinates. The productive manager is less like a football coach with a whistle around his neck and more like a belayer helping climbers reach the next goal. While it is true that companies with abundant resources can afford to use fear as a motivator and absorb the cost of more frequent hirings and firings, this approach frequently ends up with a demoralised workforce, high staff turnover and poor service delivery.

Many employees are emotional hostages to their work places. They are hostages to emotions such as anxiety, fear and ambition. This negatively impacts on performance. George Kohlrieser (George Kohlrieser, 2001), argues that to escape from these emotional hostage situations, each employee needs a secure base — a person, place, goal or object that provides a place of protection, gives a sense of comfort, and a source of energy. This is where managers are most important.

As a manager, you are there to motivate people to respond to the changing goals and circumstances. You define and direct what needs to be done and you inspire employees to accomplish that. Too often, your subordinates do not give you the results you want because there is no relationship between you, the manager, and the employee. An example would be employees’ response to change. Employees do not resist change itself, rather the pain of change and the fear of the unknown that comes with it. As a result, employees think more defensively, they hold back and resist pursuing success and playing to win. In the workplace, leaders who show concern and interest in their employees' lives and have a predictable set of rules, create a healthy attachment that empowers others to embrace the risk of pursuing success.

Employees want to be cared for. They want to feel that their manager genuinely has their interests at heart. Effectively managing for performance will require that managers move beyond simply giving instructions and demanding results. I am not suggesting that managers should act as “caregivers” or “parents”; rather that these insights help managers work with people's strengths and tendencies, rather than against them. Isolating an employee with authoritative demands and intimidation triggers a sense of isolation, threat, and fear. Then the brain slams the brakes on the ability to take initiative and makes it harder for people to think productively.

Behavioural psychology teaches us that humans will behave more favourable to crisis situations if they feel they have support. Strongly subordinate superior bonds can help teams survive and thrive in crisis situations. In the same light, a thing that managers often miss is that employees will respond more favourably to a rebuke, for example, where they feel that there is a positive relationship between you and them. When you look at it, developing relationships is also psychologically rewarding to those who give it, generating a sense of reward and connection.

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Harnessing the power of teams in organisations?

One of the key challenges facing organisations today is building effective teams that will help the organisation achieve its goals. The need for teamwork at all levels of the organisation cannot be over emphasized. For organisations to achieve superior performance, employees need to work together. However getting people to work together towards achieving a common goal is a challenging assignment for all managers. Part of the reasons why we undertake employee engagement surveys is to help managers assess and improve teamwork in their organisation.

What is a team? There are two key characteristics of a team; the presence of a unifying task and interdependence among the members in accomplishing the task. Besides these, the environment in which a work team operates also plays a key role in the success of any team effort. Putting together an effective team is not an easy task. In most cases people pretend to work together on the surface but there will be deep-rooted divisions within the team that need attention for the team to succeed.  It is easy to talk about teams when in actual fact it is a group of individuals who share nothing in common besides having the same paymaster.

If only organisations could understand and harness the power of collaboration in group relations, there would be a marked improvement in performance. Ordinarily employees are geared to work in teams and the primary role of management in this case is to integrate team practices into everyday work patterns. However, before embarking on this exercise, it is important to assess and understand the teamwork environment in the organisation. Without a thorough understanding of the said environment in the organisation, team building efforts may fail because you might be addressing the wrong team issues. There is also a need to understand team-working styles of each team member. This information can be used as a basis for giving feedback to the individual and fellow team members. The strength of this approach is that information gathered herein normally leads to self-awareness and self-correction.

Effective teams, to a large extent, rely upon the psychological capacity of team members to work together. Individual team members need to have an appreciation of their role in the team and how it affects the effectiveness of the team. The members need to have a clear sense of the goal the team is trying to achieve.  They need to have a collective sense of reality, where each one clearly understands not only their role but also that role of other team members.

In a presentation to the International Society for the Psychoanalytic Study of Organisations Symposium, Susan Long (2000) noted that most people in work teams or organisations saw their role as the single most important without which the organisation would not operate effectively. It is this kind of attitude that forces people to be single-minded in dealing with work colleagues or fellow team members to the detriment of the team.

Considering the number of different groups individuals are members of and the roles they play in these groups at work, there is potential for difficult inter -group relations. The effectiveness of any team efforts revolves around the ability of individual team members to integrate the different roles, values, and the way they exercise authority in groups. The way people exercise authority is very critical in the success of team working in organisations. Without clear authority and boundary definition, work teams spend most of their productive time engaged in counterproductive behaviour.

For a team to be effective there must be a way of containing the anxiety arising from working in a group. When a group of people meet especially in the work place a number of group dynamics take place and, if not handled properly, can destroy the team. You are probably wondering about situations in your own organisations where people rarely work together towards achieving the organisation’s goals. In most cases it will seem there are personality clashes when in actual fact, it is all to do with group dynamics related to how people exercise authority in groups. The bad attributes of the team are often projected onto other people or departments within the organisation. This is normally a source of frustration and conflict that characterizes work teams in organisations today.

Without the ability to understand the deep-rooted psychological basis of group relations, team building efforts will continue to produce lukewarm results.

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The New Sliced Bread

Psychometric tests are fast gaining popularity as the tool of choice for various uses such as Recruitment and Selection, Staff development and Team development. Many organisations are now opting for psychometric tests as they have realised that they are a powerful way of ensuring the best candidates are selected by assessing their ability and preferred behavioural styles. Organisations can use these tests for career planning and matching employees to jobs, identifying academic abilities and aims and aspirations covering work and life outside work.

Psychometric tests aim to measure attributes such as intelligence, aptitude and personality. In recruitment they are used (in conjunction with other methods) to help determine how a candidate might perform in a given role. With the current situation in our country where, if a vacancy comes up, hundreds of people apply for it, psychometric testing can be a very effective tool in the selection process to determine the most suitable candidate. Given that the majority of managers regret their hiring decisions almost immediately, not forgetting the cost of recruitment, it makes sense to make sure you get it right from the onset. Psychometric testing improves the efficiency of the recruitment process, thereby reducing the time and money spent on unsuitable candidates.

The main purpose and key responsibilities of a role need to be considered, and there is a need to separate the desirable, essential and peripheral skills/attributes before committing to psychometric testing. After this you can then determine which psychometric tools to use. Psychometric tests allow you to measure and analyse specific information that may otherwise be very difficult, or time consuming to accurately gauge. There are various tools which can be used, not only in recruitment but in the retention and development of staff as well. For example, personality or behavioural profiling can be used to gain an insight into particular traits, areas of strength, weakness, work style and preference. We all know the saying,

‘employees don’t leave companies, they leave managers.’

If you understand how individual employees might respond to different situations, you can adapt your style to bring out the best in your staff. This can all be achieved through the use of psychometric testing.

Psychometric tests can be used in profiling for internal promotions or re-organising work flow. By reallocating tasks amongst staff members to suit their abilities and preferences, you can increase job satisfaction and organisational efficiencies. When everyone is put in a position where they are able to fully utilise their natural abilities, there is a higher chance of them being more productive as well.

Overall, psychometric tests can be used to the employees’ and the organisation’s benefit. The expenses involved in psychometric assessment are minimal when compared with the costs of high-turn over, under-performance or misemployment of staff. Both parties stand to gain, depending on the objective of the tests. The organisation will benefit by getting the best skill to fulfil its need, thereby guaranteeing longevity and sustainability. The employee will benefit by being placed in a department, or being given work, which best suits his profile. This results in a win-win situation.

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Something's Gotta Give

There is so much pressure on working mothers. At home, you have to be a jack-of-all-trades and a master of all: cooking, feeding, nursing, cleaning, singing, teaching, juggling… all the professions rolled into one! At work, you have to be the cool, calm, collected, no-spit-porridge-milk-or-vomit-on-my-clothes professional with not a hair out of place. You cannot afford to get flustered or frazzled lest you be called unprofessional. All thoughts have to be collected and filed in a chronological order for quick and easy access (never mind that worrying cough that kept you awake last night..)

There is so much competition in the working world and for working mums, its double the workload. You cannot afford to, no matter how much your body begs you, just fall into bed at the end of an exhausting day at work. There is still homework to supervise, a family to feed, fevers to tend to. On top of this, you still have to read and research in order to keep up with the Joneses of the workplace, that young flock who are up to date on the technology, who are innovative and vibrant and ready to take on the world and all her cousins (could it be the ready meals when they get home and the undisturbed nights???)

How then to juggle all this and still maintain one’s sanity, and still maintain an edge to be competent enough at work? If anyone has a solution, I would love to know it please! I believe something’s gotta give. You can do the juggling act perfectly enough, but the results you produce will not be perfect. The house will not be as sparkling as you want it to be, the kids as cultured and well mannered as you would wish them to be, the husband as cooperative as he should be. At work, yes, you will produce results, on time too, amazingly. Yes there will be few or no errors (whether of judgment or typos) in your reports. Yes you will know exactly where you put which file, how to search for documents on the computer, how to google anything, and even how to use Excel. You will not be as techno-savvy, as well read and researched, as on-point as you would want to be. This would mean cutting on the other side; no homework supervision, no picnics with the family, no after work bathtimes…

Competing with the workplace Joneses? I don’t know. They will always have an edge over you. They do not have so much to juggle. They do not have to come to work having left a sick child at home, worried sick about that 38 degree reading on the thermometer before they left home. They have all the time to do research and to read as widely as they can.

Slow down, take a deep breath, refocus and be realistic. If you can’t beat them, then start a new game. Do your best, at home, at work. Put your all into what you are doing. Do your reports as thoroughly as you would change a diaper or feed a fussy eater. Learn what you can, research what you can. Be the best you can be, don’t overpromise on deadlines, and it will all work out. Because apart from clocking 24 hour days, there’s just not enough time to keep up with the Joneses!

By Lesley Nyandoro (Consultant)

For views and comments email Lesley at lnyandoro@ipcconsultants.com or ipc@ipcconsultants.com

The Customer Has Been Neglected

The Customer has been neglected

It is amazing how very little attention is paid to the aspect of customer care by a lot of organisations. While management spends hours on end drafting and crafting strategies, trying to pave the way forward for their organisations, this very important aspect is most often forgotten. It is rather ironic that regardless of what strategies you come up with, the onus at the end of the day rests on the client /customer, without whom you would have no business.

Just trying to get a phone call through to some organisations is a nightmare because the telephone is constantly engaged or no one bothers to answer it, not to mention the time you have to spend on hold after which you are told that the person you are looking for is unavailable, before being unceremoniously cut off without even a chance to ask if someone else could help you.  In some instances you are told that the person you are looking for is not in and upon requesting on being assisted by someone else, you are rudely informed that no one else except that person can help you so you just have to try calling them back later. Honestly some of the things you hear are appalling to say the least. There is a serious need for organisations to become customer focused and realise that they exist to serve the customer and going out of their way here and there to please them is mandatory for organisational success.

A customer can be external or internal and both are important. The Human Resources Department, for example, exists to serve internal clients, whom if dissatisfied cannot carry out their work effectively and this has an overall negative bearing on the organisation as a whole. So whether internal or external, the least service you can afford a customer is to please them with efficiency, good attitude and knowhow of what you are doing.

This concept has been so widely understood by organisations in first world countries but now has to be just as equally understood by organisations in Zimbabwe if they are going to be competing in the big league. This is where customer care courses come in. For a long time Zimbabwean organisations have gotten away with being rude and hostile to customers because at the end of the day, it had no real bearing on organisational performance. Customers had no option for alternative services or products and in most cases had to swallow down abuse being totally at the mercy of the service or product provider. Fortunately dollarization has brought with it customer freedom, where customers can choose, except of course in the case of parastatals where one just does not have any choice for service provision. It is these organisations that perhaps need customer care skills the most.

Customer care courses help to re-orient the employees on what is truly important –customers. The objectives of these courses are to create a mind shift for employees from “I am king and this is my domain’’ to “Customer is king and my job here is to delight them with excellent service.” Employees need to understand that customer service is not in any way linked to the amount of money they are getting on the job or how they are being treated by their superiors. This is often the justification for poor customer service. What we often forget is that each one of us is at some point a customer or client of someone else, and just as you do not understand why someone may go out of their way to be nasty to you a customer who has done nothing wrong except choose them as their provider of goods or services, is the same confusion that customers face at your hand. They do not and should not care about your work conditions or that you are not feeling well or you have just had a fight with your boss. All they should worry about is that their needs are effectively and efficiently met without any emotional pain. The fact that you as a service or goods provider are sitting behind that desk and not at home means you have an obligation to the customer and are bound to deliver good service with a good attitude.

Employees, especially customer facing ones need not only to manage their own behaviour but to understand customer behaviour and how to deal with individual needs. Skills need to be developed and refreshed to address all aspects of customer service and understanding customer care standards.

Other organisations argue that training should be the least on the agenda of things to do considering the tight cash flows that they are facing. It is true that some organisations can really not afford to train but for others it is a mere excuse to make way for “more important” projects. What they forget to realise is that training is a long term investment if done correctly, one that will reap them life time rewards. For once an organisational culture of customer excellence is set; it can be easily perpetuated for as long as long as the organisation is in existence.

A while back I wrote about the importance of employer branding and how some organisations would never get people interested in working for them because they have built poor brands for themselves. An employer brand is what insiders and outsiders to the organisation perceive that organisation to be like. Most of it has to do with customer service. Who would want to work in an organisation in which you have been treated like trash? Chances are when the name of that organisation comes up you are quick to point out how terrible they are and this is how an organisation’s image is tarnished just by word of mouth.

The new age customer is different, more demanding and more aware of their rights than the customer of old. Organisations that are aware of this fact are likely to do better than those that aren’t. It is never too late to make a turnaround for the better and most often the difference between being great and mediocre lies in refocusing and letting the customer be the central focus of all business activity.

Memory Nguwi is the Managing Consultant of Industrial Psychology Consultants (Pvt) Ltd a management and human resources consulting firm. Phone 481946-48/481950/2900276/2900966 or cell number 077 2356 361 or email: mnguwi@ipcconsultants.com or visit our website at www.ipcconsultants.com