Are you hassled by issues like how to get the right people into your organization, how to keep people fully engaged and committed to their work, and how to recognize and reward the contribution of top performers?

Many of these issues are not the result of poor management (or lack of attempts to solve the problems). Rather, they are symptoms of structural and systemic issues. For example, high turnover may be a result of an inadequate hiring system, or the outcome of a weak performance management process.

Finding the root cause of the issues you face, and applying proven solutions to tough employee-related challenges solves these issues and lets you get back to running and growing your business.

Call today for a complimentary consultation.

Employee Engagement

Are you concerned about how well your employees are involved and committed to your business? Have you ever wondered as a business owner or leader why other people in your organization aren't as concerned about your business as you are?

Keeping employees involved requires more than just giving them clear direction and good work. It also requires knowing them and being concerned about their well-being. And Gallup has done some excellent work on understanding well-being. Leaders and managers would do well to follow the ideas put forth by Gallup on understanding well-being. Below are the five elements of Gallup's Wellbeing Index:

The first element is about how you occupy your time or simply liking what you do every day: your Career Wellbeing.
The second element is about having strong relationships and love in your life: your Social Wellbeing.
The third element is about effectively managing your economic life: your Financial Wellbeing.
The fourth element is about having good health and enough energy to get things done on a daily basis: your Physical Wellbeing.
The fifth element is about the sense of engagement you have with the area where you live: your Community Wellbeing.

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Services - Employee Engagement

Controlling Costs

Whether you call it Labor Cost, Payroll, or something else, the money you spend to compensate your employees is precious. Every dollar you invest in your people is a dollar you can't invest in areas like products, marketing, or capital.

Rule one of business is that you must get a greater return than your investment. It goes without saying that without a positive ROI, your business will fail. Labor cost is the number one cost for most non-retail companies. But how many businesses truly understand their labor cost and the corresponding return on investment?

Labor cost is simply defined as money paid to workers during a defined period, including wages, benefits, and related taxes. It should not be confused with payroll as that does not include the full scope of Labor Cost.

The value of understanding Labor Cost goes beyond the awareness of expense. It is critical to strategic decisions such as pricing and product mix as well as staffing and development. It also provides a measuring-stick view of productivity and efficiency.

Let me give you one example of using labor cost to make strategic decisions based on an experience I had.

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Managing Performance

Yet again we have a credible source saying we should do away with the Performance Review. In late 2008, UCLA Professor Samuel Culbert offered seven reasons why performance reviews are "ill-advised and bogus." Among those reasons: Performance Doesn't Determine Pay, Objectivity is Subjective, Personal Development is Impeded, and Disruption to Teamwork.

Culbert has now released a book titled "Get Rid of the Performance Review: How Companies Can Stop Intimidating, Start Managing – and Focus on What Really Matters" in which he makes the case that performance reviews "produce no results of any value."

But if you don't conduct performance reviews how do you manage performance? Before answering that question, let me give you an example from my experience of where performance reviews clearly did not produce results of any value.

One services organization of about 250 account executives I worked with was coming up short on their revenue goals. With a little digging and some analysis, I learned that almost 20% of employees were not delivering results equal to or better than their goals. This was happening consistently with credible and achievable goals. The surprise was that almost 80% of these under-performers had received acceptable performance reviews.

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