Create an Atmosphere for Employee Contribution

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In our world of rapidly changing business practices and marketing techniques, innovation is essential for keeping businesses in the race. Fostering a business that thrives off change and innovation may seem illustrious and distant, but it isn’t out of reach—even if you’re working with a small team. 

There are plenty of unique ways to get creative, but without first implementing these key concepts, your efforts won’t be as successful as you hope.  

1. Create an atmosphere of psychological safety 

This may seem obvious, but it’s all too often taken for granted. At some point, most of us have worked under a manager who valued their position of power and resisted anything that might threaten it. Like that great idea you had about how to attract a new type of customer.   

“That’s great, but we like how things are now and we don’t want to upset the balance we’ve created.” In other words: “I am comfortable being the shot caller and I don’t want anything to change in case it affects my position.”  

This behavior is not only toxic to the future of the company, but to the employees working around it. No one wants to be shot down for their idea, or to see their ideas get pushed aside over and over again. Eventually, they’ll stop speaking up and start looking for a job where the contribution of their ideas is welcomed. 

Ensuring that every employee from each level of the company has the opportunity to share ideas expands your resources. Each employee is exposed to unique challenges and experiences based on their job, and they just might come up with something that management would never have thought of.  

Your employees are the driving force behind your vision and accomplishing your goals. Without a culture that praises and encourages new solutions, ideas, and tools offered up by employees, no one will want to contribute, and you’ll lose their buy-in. Show them you value their ideas by giving them the opportunity to share and act on them.   

2. Encourage collaboration  

Collaboration fosters imagination, productivity, and inspiration. Think back to the last time you had a great meeting with a group of people that fed off each other’s energy and ideas, where you got more done in an hour together than you had all month alone.  

Take advantage of this collaborative approach in your organization by giving employees opportunities to learn and expand their vision. 

  • Conferences are a great opportunity to get people working with each other and expose your employees to new ideas and techniques. They also provide a chance for you to stay up-to-date on what your competitors and peers are doing. Encouraging employees to attend conferences is also a great way to give them a refresher—get them out of the office and into something new so when they come back, they’ll be full of new ideas and energy.   
     
  • Teams 

Great teamwork is one of the most coveted accomplishments in business. Nothing generates productivity and success like a team that works together to implement new ideas and challenge the status quo. Building teams and a culture of collaboration is a huge part of getting ideas flowing and generating momentum within your company. Assign team leaders who are responsible for bringing new ideas to leadership to ensure they get heard and considered. 

  • Networking 

There are countless professionals in every area of business that are interested in helping and collaborating with each other. There isn’t anything to be gained from keeping your employees separate from other professionals in their field just because you don’t want to share with competition. There is plenty to go around, so don’t hesitate to send your employees out into their professional community to sus out new ideas, technology, and techniques.  

  • Aligning Departments 

Interdepartmental collaboration is so important, not just for creating an innovative culture, but to help align your business with your core goals and values. Set up meetings between departments to talk about the challenges they face and crowdsource ideas about how to address them. You never know, Sadie from marketing might just have the perfect solution for dealing with a common roadblock that is stopping sales from closing their leads. 

Taking full advantage 

It’s critical to remember that each employee at your company has something unique to offer. Each person has their own strengths, interests, and motivations. By building a culture that encourages and enables each employee to bring all their tools to the table, you’re diversifying your pool of potential solutions to any problem.  

The key is to remember the individuality of your employees and incorporate it into the heart of how you run your company. When employees can tell their ideas and solutions are valued, they are more likely to feel a sense of loyalty to their workplace. Not to mention heightened engagement. That’s what smart business is all about.  

 

Content provided by Q4iNetwork and partners

Photo by Aleksandr Davydov

 

The Webinar: A Lesson Learned

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Last week I did something professionals do all the time. I attended a webinar. It was advertised by an HR company I follow and the ad was effective and engaging. It highlighted three HR professionals who would be hosting the webinar and the core topics they were covering.  

It seemed like it was set up to be an extremely informative webinar where I could learn from HR leaders about core challenges and concepts relevant to HR professionals around the world today. So it’s not surprising that I was expecting to walk away from the webinar with new ideas and direction for how to approach the challenges facing HR.   

Sadly, I was both mistaken and disappointed. What could have been a great opportunity to learn, turned into what I can only describe as listening in on a loose and free–flowing conversation between all three hosts that was not only hard to track, but that lacked clear direction. Although the conversation was lively, it covered very basic topics that I come across every day in my reading but without the structure you’d get in an article.  

R.E.S.P.E.C.T 

You can have as many brilliant and successful people on your webinar (or presentation) as you’d like, but if you skip over what’s needed to prepare, you’re going to disappoint your audience.  

If you plan to host a webinar, presentation, panel, or anything that has people taking time out of their day to sit down and listen to you, you’ve got to take steps to prepare. Respect the time your audience has dedicated to listening to you, hoping to learning something.  

Define your goal 

You may have a great topic for your presentation, but if you don’t define your goal, you’re going to have a hard time untangling your topic into a clear story that your listeners can follow. This is especially true if you’re presenting with multiple people.  

You may all be experienced leaders with informed opinions, but without sitting down and defining your goal as a group, everyone is going to come to the presentation with a different goal in mind. This lack of structure is guaranteed to come across in your conversation.  

So sit down, and hash it out. Figure out what you want your listeners to walk away with. Is it a list of actionables they can use in their practice? Or a new way of thinking about an old topic? Or a better understanding of the drivers behind an issue? Whatever it is, figure it out beforehand and structure your presentation to support your goals.  

Visuals, visuals, visuals 

It may seem like a lot of work, but a webinar without visuals is like a foreign movie without subtitles. You may be able to follow along with the plot, but you’re going to lose a lot of the subtext at the very least.  

It takes work to capture and maintain people’s attention. You aren’t going to get it just by putting a few slides together with bright pictures and the questions you’ll be talking about on them.  

Break down your talking points. Go back to your goals and trace them into what you want people to take away from your presentation. Then write it down and put it on their screen. This will help your listeners process what you’re talking about and it will help you to stay on track as you talk. Listeners truly appreciate useful and informative slides. I have yet to attend a webinar and not had someone ask if the slides will be available after the presentation.   

Practice! 

Ok, you may be rolling your eyes at this one, but it can’t be stressed enough. I felt as though I was listening in on a phone conversation between three people who wanted to chat about their jobs. They interrupted one another, went on tangents, and it was hard to follow them.  

Practice the presentation all the way through multiple times. Ask yourself at the end of each run-through what you think your audience walked away with. Ask yourself if it was clear and concise or if you went on unnecessary tangents that should be cut out of the actual presentation.  

This is a great opportunity for you to parse away any extra material that might clog the flow of the presentation and muddy your talking points and common goal. Figure out who is going to talk and when so you’re not interrupting each other and can step in for support if someone strays off topic.  

Even if it’s just you presenting, practice will help you clarify in your mind how you want to talk about the subject and what parts of it matter the most. When it is clear for the presenters, it’s clear for the listeners.   

If you’re going to ask people to take time out of their day to listen to you, you owe it to them (and you) to come prepared. You know you’ve got something worth talking about, otherwise you wouldn’t be there.  So show it! Treat your presentation like the valuable offer it is. Your audience will thank you, I promise.  

Content provided by Q4iNetwork and partners

Photo by Teeramet Thanomkiat

Social Media for Your Business: Behind the Scenes

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Social media is rampant and here to stay. You already get this. You understand that marketing on social media is a big part of building your brand and finding new customers. There are thousands of articles titled things like “Social Media is Here to Stay” and “Why Your Company Needs an Online Presence.”  You’ve probably read some of them. 

You know its importance for establishing your company’s social credibility and promoting your products. But social media channels offer so much more useful stuff than just a space to promote your products. It can become a tool to keep your company ahead of the curve and build the kind of following that pushes you to where you want to go.  

So what are we talking about here? Special secret doors of coding that can lead your company to the pot at the end of the capitalist rainbow? Maybe not. But we can tell you about a couple great uses of social media that can help give you the insight and support your business needs to succeed—beyond just promoting your products.  

Social listening 

Social media provides an opportunity to learn more about your audience and your surrounding community. It opens you up to potential customers near and far and allows for you and your audience to observe each other.  

One key to building a successful customer experience is understanding your company’s ideal customer, creating a buyer persona, and using this partially real/partially constructed personality to guide the way you develop your customer experience, your marketing initiatives, and your products. 

Building a buyer persona is tricky. You want to use a mix of real data and well informed decisions about personality traits, along with buyer pain points, so you can tailor your customer experience to best meet the needs and expectations of your customer. And where better to look for useful data and information about your customers and audience than social media?  

Using social media channels, you can get an in–depth look at how your customers interact with and talk about your brand. You can learn about other brands and companies they interact with, and the kinds of common pain points that drive them to look for solutions. You can: 

  • Read review sites that cover your market to identify what people find frustrating about your industry and find opportunities for you to fill gaps in what is available. 
  • Keep tabs on what your competition is doing, how they are approaching their customer base, and where they are excelling and lacking. 
  • Learn about shared interests of your audience, discovering what people in your community have in common (pain points, interests, and methods of communicating). 

Once you begin down this path, you’ll see just how far it goes. There is an endless amount of information and data you can collect to inform your customer experience, your buyer personas, and your company as a whole. 

Market your company to job seekers 

This one may seem obvious, but you’d be surprised how often businesses simply post a job on Indeed and call it good. But the statistics say it’s no longer acceptable for companies just to stop at posting a Craigslist ad. This study found that 94% of working Americans would visit a company’s social media before applying to work for them.  

People want to work for (and buy from) a company that aligns with their values and makes them feel good. Especially now that employment is at an all–time high, companies have no excuse not to do everything in their power to attract top talent.   

Using your social media platform to promote your company values, your brand vision, and your culture isn’t just a great way to drive people to have positive emotional responses to your brand, but it will do wonders in driving the talent you need to your door.   

Here’s how you can optimize your social media to help attract talent. 

  • Get your employees involved in company social media. Have them share articles, post reviews, and stay active on the company page.  
  • Promote information about your company culture. Highlight your values, any charitable events you sponsor or participate in, and perks you provide for your employees. 
  • Share educational information for people involved in your industry. This helps build your brand authority and sets you up as a reliable source of helpful and useful information to both customers and workers in your industry.  

More, more, more! 

Do your company a favor and do your research. Find out what you don’t know about the tools social media can provide you. The more you delve into all the ways social media can get your company ahead, the more difficult it is to ignore.   

Social media is a massive resource, and it’s free. The opportunities for what you can mine from social channels and how you can expand your brand’s voice and power are unlimited. And the really exciting thing is that it’s always expanding. So, jump in and take advantage of the opportunity social media can provide, both to your customers and to your company.  

 

Content provided by Q4iNetwork and partners

Photo by ronstik

 

Create a Winning Strategy with Happy Employees

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In today’s job market, companies are having to take extra steps to stay ahead of their competition. Prospective employees have more options than ever and are often already employed.

Now more than ever, employees are valuing jobs that support their ability to lead a healthy lifestyle. The Randstad 2019 employer global report found that the demand for employers that support a healthy work-life balance has steadily risen since 2015 and now sits above job security.

Building a work environment that supports a healthy work-life balance and encourages employees to take care of themselves outside of work may sound like a daunting ask for an employer. Here are three ideas to get you started.

Consider a shortened work week

There’s a recent study going around that’s gotten a lot of media coverage—for good reason. Microsoft’s subsidiary in Japan did an experiment over the summer to investigate what would happen to productivity if they cut their work week from five to four days a week. The result was a 40% spike in productivity from the same month of the previous year.

Take a moment to let that sink in.

Employees were given less time to accomplish their duties and more time to focus on their personal lives and the result was a massive increase in productivity for the company. Not to mention the savings they had from decreased electricity usage (down almost a quarter from the previous year) as well as a decreased use in office supplies.

Talk about a win-win for both employees and employers.

This may not be a model that works for your company, but don’t worry! There are other ways to offer employees greater personal control over work hours.

Flex time

While remote working options have taken a huge rise in mainstream economy, it doesn’t work for a lot of people for a variety of reasons. Flex time, however, offers employees greater flexibility for the hours they work without having them work at home.

Often, flex-schedules revolve around a set number of hours that are agreed upon, allowing employees to control what time they begin and end their workdays. Companies that offer flex-schedules often have set hours during the day or week where all employees are required to be at the office, allowing for easier scheduling and promoting collaboration.

Employees with children or family members in their care are able to make work schedules that allow them to run errands, drop children off at school, or take someone to a doctor appointment.

The easier you can make it for employees to work for you, the less stressed out they’ll be. And the less stressed out your employees are, the more likely they won’t call out of work. (Which, by the way, contributes to over half of all the lost working days in a year.) 

Perks

Purchasing a benefits package for your employees can be incredibly expensive and isn’t an option for most small business owners. But that doesn’t mean you can’t provide employee perks that encourage self-care.

Consider getting rid of those beanbags no one ever sits in, and instead, offer perks that encourage employees to take time to nurture themselves.

Providing your employees with a gift certificate for a massage every quarter or offering a sponsored gym membership are great examples. If you can, try putting together a number of options for employees to choose from.

When you offer employees a variety of perks and let them choose which is best for them, you’re contributing to a great employee experience. Offering choices increases the chance they’ll use it, allows you to give them autonomy, and helps personalize the work experience. 

You can even take this a step further and create opportunities for team building and development around fun, recreational activities. Just be sure you select activities that are accessible to everyone in your office for it to be a team morale booster.

Encouraging your employees to take care of themselves, to prioritize their mental, physical, and emotional health not only shows that you value them as individuals, but that you recognize a healthy employee is a good employee. Talk about a good loyalty-builder! 

It’s good for everyone

Work-related stress can cause literal death, but it also contributes to lower engagement, lower productivity, and lower job satisfaction. Having stressed out employees does no good for anyone.

So whatever it is your company does to help, be it increased flexibility, decreased hours, or a free massage every few months, make sure your company is doing something. You’ll nurture trust, loyalty, and engagement in your employees.

Plus, it’s just the right thing to do. Care for them, and they’ll care for you.

 

Content provided by Q4iNetwork and partners

Photo by ammentorp

 

 

Produce, Post, Reuse: The Content Lifecycle

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I’m sure you’ve heard the advice promoting the use of blogging to boost your company’s online presence and increase SEO and brand authority. And yes, blogging is great for all of these purposes. There’s one problem, though. Businesses invariably offer this excuse when they consider blogging: “We don’t have the time.”

It’s true, producing consistent, high quality content is time intensive. You’ve got to come up with a topic, do your research, generate a catchy title, optimize it for SEO, and actually write the thing. It can take up to three hours to get to a finished blog. So why is it worth your time?

Because creating and sharing content shows your audience how you think, what you think about, and gives them a glimpse into what type of business you are. They get an idea of the type of ideas and advice you’d bring to them as a client. Buyers don’t want to talk with a new company until they get the chance to know them a little bit. And there’s no better way for someone to get to know your company than by letting them inside your head!

To find success in blogging, it’s important to step into it with a realistic idea of how it works. Blogging isn’t just about publishing one piece of content, hoping it brings in some leads, and then forgetting about it. At the center of a blog’s value is the content and the capacity for the content to be reworked into a variety of different formats.

The power of repurposing content

Every time you write a blog, you’re compiling a number of things including researched information, useful tips or guidance, and good copy. Putting all of them together in a blog is just one form that those components can take. If your excuse for marketing falls into the “no time” category, then the importance of maximizing energy, work, and resources should be at the top of your mind. Recycling content is the best way to maximize the time and effort you take when creating a blog.

The lifecycle of a blog doesn’t have to stop at the publish date. In fact, it shouldn’t. After your blog has been published, read, shared, and liked, you can begin to use it for other pieces of content.

Say you wrote a successful blog that generated a good amount of traffic. You can then turn that same information in to an infographic, highlighting the main points you made, or even elaborating on one section. You might then share that infographic on social media. And because it’s visual content, it will likely garner more and different attention than your blog post. By using the same information in a variety of formats, you’re expanding the audience who sees it and the way it’s consumed.

Here’s what a full life cycle might look like:

  1. Blog post
  2. Infographic
  3. Downloadable checklist
  4. Short video
  5. Webinar
  6. eBook

You may stumble upon a whole category of blogs that you find really interests your audience. You can then use all those related blogs you’ve created and combine them to create a piece of educational content like an eBook or even a webinar. There is no shortage to what you can do with the research and time you put into creating a post! 

Recycling content

Using your blog post to create new content is a great way to maximize your time and effort, but you don’t have to stop at posting a blog just once. Don’t be afraid to repost your articles on social media platforms–just because you’ve read it doesn’t mean your audience has. You should be reposting an old piece of content every week, as long as it’s relevant.

Another great way companies keep up with high demand for new content is to go back and update old blogs to be republished.

In terms of time spent, recycling old blogs doesn’t take that much time. However, when you’re recycling an old blog post, you can’t just give it a new title and be done.

In order for your blog to be recycled successfully, you need to do a few important things:

  • Come up with a new, catchy title (Keep your keywords)
  • Update old links and statistics
  • Make sure all the information you provide is still relevant and up-to-date
  • Update your headlines 
  • Update any bulleted or numbered lists
  • Update your conclusion
  • Replace the photo

Quit finding excuses

So, if you’re still wondering if it’s worth making the time to write blogs, think about the amount of content you can get from just one blog post. Think about your audience members who will begin to rely on you for useful information, and trust you to be their advisor.

Remember, blogging isn’t a one-and-done deal. You can transform your content over and over again to help you build relationships with your audience and reach more people in different ways. It’s worth the time and effort, you’ll see.

 

Content provided by Q4iNetwork and partners
Photo by
Dean Drobot

How Coaching Can Save Your Team

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Employee engagement and retention are (or should be) top of mind for company leadership and HR teams. Having an engaged workforce means a stronger, more productive company. Unfortunately, only 34% of employees report being fully engaged in their workplace. That said, companies have been spending a lot on this problem. In fact, an estimated three-quarters of a billion dollars, each year.

Obviously, this is a huge issue with many components. Employee development and education, benefits, and company culture all play into the employee experience, which directly impacts retention and engagement.

It’s all about the culture

This issue poses too many factors for business (especially small ones) to address from every vantage point. Most medium and small sized companies have a tight budget set aside for employee experience. But you don’t necessarily have to spend a ton of money on perks to create a culture of productivity and engagement. Not surprisingly, 76% of employees cite their manager as the leading influencer of workplace culture.

With that in mind, you’d assume companies are taking advantage of this knowledge and setting up their managers and leaders to be trailblazers for building a happy workforce, right? Sorry, not so much.

A shocking 71% of companies do not feel their leaders are able to actually lead their organization. And we can assume that leaders who are unable to lead are negatively impacting the people they’re supposed to lead.

So, if managers are the major influencing factor in creating company culture, and companies don’t feel they’re doing their job well, it’s time to think about the tools they’re given to accomplish company goals.

How are your managers trained to manage? Do they even get training? Or does your company just promote highly functioning employees into manager roles and let them figure it out on their own?

Training your managers to take a different approach to supervising their teams might just be what your company needs. But how, you ask? By training them to coach instead of manage.

Coaching vs. managing 

The difference between coaching and managing is fairly simple. Where managers:

  • solve problems
  • answer questions
  • delegate tasks
  • evaluate performance

Coaches take a different approach. Instead, they:

  • empower their team to solve their own problems
  • ask questions
  • encourage employee input into how tasks get accomplished
  • urge employees to think critically about their own progress

Coaching also involves continuous conversations back and forth between team members, individuals, and managers. It is a highly effective way to engage your workforce.

Empowering your employees is at the core of why coaching is so effective. By empowering your employees to solve for their own problems, you are showing that you value their opinion and trust their ability to address and overcome challenges. Employees who are given the lead to solve problems become more self-reliant and feel a greater sense of accountability and responsibility, which leads to increased engagement and satisfaction.

Demonstrating trust in your employees to effectively address challenges is a very direct way to help them build on their own self confidence as well. Helping employees grow by creating a culture that nurtures self-confidence and independence is a sure-fire way to make people feel valued. Not to mention a sense of personal growth. 

Building an ongoing dialog between your employees and managers, as well as within their own team, is also a significant part of coaching. Where managers might only speak with individuals before or after a large project or when it comes time for their yearly assessment, coaching encourages a much more fluid form of communication.

Think increased employee recognition and opportunities for development. When there is an ongoing conversation between manager and employee, there is increased opportunity for managers to discover previously unknown strengths and skills that the employee may have. This can lead to employees getting assigned projects that play into their personal strengths and allow them to develop skills they are highly interested in.

Increased communication is also an effective way to suss out employees who are struggling and may need some extra support or direction. Showing that you are paying attention and willing to help guide and support an employee through a difficult time generates loyalty and a sense of safety that people value.

Value for you and them

Coaching is a much more people-focused way of managing your company. There are many different ways to implement coaching within your team and many different types of coaching to consider. By training your managers to coach, you’re not only giving them better tools to nurture a happier, more engaged workforce, but you’re investing in the future of your employees by offering more opportunities for personal development and creativity.

So before you consider spending capital on unnecessary toys for the employee rec room, think about whether or not your managers could use training in how to coach their teams to success. Remember, employee experience and culture comes directly from leadership. So give your leaders the tools they need to win, and watch your company win.

 

Content provided by Q4iNetwork and partners
 
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rawpixel

HR’s Secret Weapon: Marketing Communications

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If you were asked what HR’s job is, I’m sure you’d come up with a list of answers. Keeping the company in compliance, managing workplace risk, providing resources and support to employees, payroll, hiring top talent, maintaining a positive company culture… the list goes on and on. But what ties this all together? 

Communication. 

HR has the responsibility to communicate all this and more to company employees, but all too often the tactics fail to actually get enough attention to be noticed. This is where HR can take some pointers from marketing. Because when it comes down to it, marketing is communication. And HR needs high quality communication to do their job well.  

Think about it. How difficult is it to get an employee to read (and understand) their benefits package, or the employee handbook, or any other important information HR needs them to have? Difficult enough to be causing HR professionals some frustrating headaches for sure.  

So how do you approach this problem? Following are some marketing tips HR can apply to their communication tactics to get, and hold, the attention they need. 

Send out a weekly or monthly email/ newsletter  

Highlights: Use this to highlight work events that are coming up, give a shout-out to a team or employee who has gone above and beyond or completed a big project, and talk about things you want the entire company to know about. This could be an upcoming employee survey, a deadline for enrollment for benefits, or a reminder about checking tax withholdings to help employees prepare for tax season.  

Perks: Overview the perks you offer to employees such as opportunities for personal development and career coaching, company retreats, and PTO. Keep the resources you make available to employees top of mind.  

Goals: Review company goals and how specific teams and departments can help reach them. This is a great opportunity to highlight what different teams are doing to reach the same overarching goal. This can help align departments and keep everyone focused and feeling the team spirit. Plus, if you give a shout-out to a team or an individual, you’re creating a culture of appreciation and recognition! Talk about a good employee retention strategy!  

Teamwork: This also encourages different departments to see how they support each other, further bringing the community together. The more clarity there is about how teams work together and support each other, the higher functioning the company. And the less time HR spends on mitigating interdepartmental disputes.  

Attract the talent your company is looking for  

Marketing works to help guide people from being prospects to customers by meeting them at all the various points of contact they might have with your company. It’s marketing’s job to draw customers in with useful information, content offers, and guidance specifically targeted to where they are in their journey to becoming a customer.  

HR can take the same approach with attracting the type of employees they want working for the company, sometimes even hitting two birds with one stone.  

For instance, you can create a video highlighting your company values, perhaps interviewing an employee about their experience or covering a recent charitable event your company hosted or participated in. This type of content is not only one of the more successful types of content marketing, but it could also help promote you to prospective employees. People tend to want to buy from (and work for) a company that shares their values and makes them feel good.  

HR can also take a page from marketing’s book by streamlining the process to apply. Just like you want to make it as easy as possible for customers to interact with your company (i.e., providing social icons for sharing and having easy options for answering questions and contacting support) you want to make it as easy as possible for job seekers to apply to work for you. You can: 

  • Keep the process down to five minutes or less  
  • Offer useful information at different points of the application process to help applicants discover more about you and what to expect throughout the application process 
  • Convey your company values and culture through the job description 
  • Highlight the perks and benefits your company offers 
  • Showcase the employee development and training services you offer 

Great communication = trust 

When it comes down to it, HR has a lot on its plate. So make it easier by learning to communicate often, clearly, and with the employee (or prospective employee) in mind. The better you communicate, the more people feel they can trust you, and the easier it is to do your job. It also means you get your message across in a way that sticks. 

As an HR professional, you work so hard to make other people’s jobs easier and to help provide useful information that will support and inform employees. We know how challenging it can be to find successful channels for communicating. So next time you’re looking for an effective way to provide that helpful information, think about how marketing would approach it and try using some of these tactics to help you. It’ll maximize the work you’ve done to provide support, and it’ll help them receive it.  

 

Content provided by Q4iNetwork and partners
 
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alesmunt

How (NOT) to Deal With Workplace Conflict

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Interpersonal conflict is something every workplace has to deal with at some point. When people work in close quarters, there is bound to be some type of friction that comes to the surface and needs to be dealt with. 

Sometimes the people in the conflict are able to work it out themselves. This usually happens if both people are willing and able to sit down with each other and hash things out. However, there are many people who are uncomfortable with directly addressing issues and conflicts and who will do anything to avoid uncomfortable conversations.  

This results in passive aggression, negativity, decreased productivity, and team dysfunction which can spread and begin to negatively affect other employees. Conflicts like these are best solved quickly, and strategically, and often guided by management. 

Unfortunately, if leadership isn’t prepared to handle conflicts correctly, they can have a much greater negative effect on the situation and will end up making it worse for everyone. Here are a couple leadership practices that are guaranteed NOT to succeed in solving a conflict. 

Avoidance 

We know you’re busy. You’ve got a million things on your plate and goals and quotas to meet. So that argument between Tim and Kathy on the production team just doesn’t seem important enough for you to prioritize today. Oh sure, you’ll get to it, but it not today. Maybe tomorrow. Or next week? You’re hoping that maybe by then, it’ll just go away. Spoiler alert: it won’t.  

Avoidance can come in many different forms. For instance, say you’ve talked to Kathy and Tim separately and heard their different sides of the story, but you haven’t yet set up a meeting with both of them together. It might feel like you’ve made some progress after hearing them both initially. People often feel better after they’ve had a chance to get their story out and feel heard. This might have even deflated their frustration for the time being. But it won’t last.  

No one likes to have uncomfortable conversations, and you’re no exception. Being in leadership doesn’t mean you’re automatically exempt from having the same reservations about confrontation as the rest of humanity. You may be a good problem solver and a good listener, but if you just stop at having individual conversations and don’t move forward to confronting the issue together, you’ve halted the healing process.  

Separation 

Keeping people apart when they are fighting might work with children, but it isn’t a sustainable solution for dealing with conflict at the office. Employees must be able to work together and rely on each other as a team. Just trying to give them different projects and hoping they won’t run into something that requires them to work together isn’t going to help you or them in the long run.  

Just listening to their individual stories and sending them in different directions is setting your team up for failure. Plus, it’s setting an unhealthy standard for how your company handles interpersonal conflict.  

It’s better this way 

Unless you take the step to get them talking face-to-face, you’ve just put the problem on hold, not dealt with it. Having a functional, healthy team should be a top priority for any leader. The chances of meeting your goals with a robust team working together are much greater than working with a dysfunctional team and their infighting.  

Taking an hour out of your day today to solve a conflict will save you hours of cleanup work later down the road. It’ll also ensure that the conflict doesn’t expand and begin to affect other team members.  

Constructive confrontation = solution 

If you’re uncomfortable with confrontation, or not sure how to go about mitigating the conflict, it helps to go in with a plan.  

  • Structure the conversation so that both parties have their chance to speak and respond to each other  
  • Encourage them to each take accountability  
  • Set the expectation that they will come to a resolution, creating a clear, actionable plan for how they will move forward 
  • Set a follow-up meeting a week or two down the road to help keep everyone accountable  

You may never be comfortable with confrontation, but fortunately, with practice you can get better at successfully dealing with it. The more you set the expectation that conflict will be dealt with in this way, the easier it is to do it. Hopefully, it becomes so ingrained in your company culture that co-workers will begin to do it themselves without the need to bring in leadership to help mitigate the discussion.  

So next time there’s a conflict at the office, don’t hesitate to deal with it then and there. Don’t put it off, don’t avoid the uncomfortable conversation. Show them you believe in their ability to solve the problem themselves by bringing them together to do so. You’ve got this and so do they.

 

Content provided by Q4iNetwork and partners

Photo by Andrey Popov

 

Paying Overtime: No Buts About it

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If your employees are willing to go the extra mile, you’ll want to make sure they are rewarded accordingly. Doing so could mean dishing out individual or group recognition, special bonuses, or other creative on–the–job perks.   

That said, if going the extra mile means your team is working overtime, creativity may not be an option. If you have employees who are overtime eligible, you’ll have to play by the rules.  

If your overtime-eligible employees are putting in more than forty hours in any given work week, whether it’s mandatory, approved, or unapproved, they must be paid overtime.  

The following are NOT solutions to paying overtime: 

Adjusting hours or pay periods  

An overtime eligible employee who works 60 hours one week and 20 hours the next is still entitled to overtime for those 20 hours worked in week one. This is true even if all of this occurred in a single pay period. Hours worked per week are hours worked per week. Period.  

Work weeks can begin on any day and at any time and may be different for various employees and work groups, but the work week must be a set standard. Employers cannot shift work week start days or times to avoid paying overtime and hours cannot be averaged over multiple weeks or pay periods.  

Withholding pay for any reason 

Overtime pay earned in a particular week should be paid on the regular pay day for that specific pay period. It cannot be withheld as an incentive, until it reaches a certain number of hours, in retaliation, or for any other reason.  

Paying the wrong rate 

One common wage and hour violation is when employers attempt to pay overtime hours at an employee’s regular rate of pay. This is an incorrect payout. While the first 40 hours of the week are paid at the regular rate, all additional hours worked in that same week must be paid at 1.5 times that rate.  

Mixing up employee classifications 

Some employers misclassify employees to avoid paying overtime, but this can be a very expensive long–term strategy. Intentional misclassification of employees can result in time consuming audits and expensive fees and fines. Class action lawsuits can lead to exorbitant legal costs and settlements, negative PR, poor morale, and a damaged reputation. 

Replacing it with comp time 

In one study, one-third of 500 private-sector employers said they used comp time instead of overtime — a common violation of the FLSA. Private sector non-exempt employees covered by the FLSA must be paid for all overtime hours worked and are not eligible for comp time. Even if both the employer and the employee would prefer a comp time system, it’s rarely legal. The FLSA still mandates that nonexempt employees be paid overtime instead of granted comp time.   

But we didn’t mean to… 

Sometimes employees aren’t out to get anyone. They just don’t understand the complicated rules and regulations and how to apply them.   

  • Supervisors may think all exempt or salaried employees are exempt from overtime.  
  • Employers may not understand how to properly classify their positions.  
  • Employees may be classified incorrectly and not even know it themselves.  
  • Companies may have a comp time policy that is in violation of FSLA. 

Meanwhile, overtime can seem like a squishy concept in the following circumstances: 

  • When employees want to work extra hours and insist they don’t need to be paid for it. 
  • If technology allows workers to be available 24/7 and they are taking advantage of it. 
  • When employees are voluntarily working extra hours and not tracking or reporting it. 
  • If employers instruct employees not to work overtime, but they are doing it anyway. 
  • When businesses are using a comp time system that is in violation of the FLSA.  

In reality, overtime rules are not squishy at all. They cannot be bent, circumvented, or ignored. The FLSA requires that all overtime eligible employees be compensated for overtime if and when they work it, no matter what the circumstances surrounding it may be. Not buts about it. 

It’s important to note that overtime laws and requirements can vary by state, and that they may provide greater protection for employees than what is given under the FLSA. Where federal, state, and local laws are in conflict, the law that is most beneficial to the employee should be upheld. This is why it’s critical to stay on top of your local regulations or work with an expert who knows the laws inside and out.   

Making sure your company is playing by the right overtime rules will decrease your business risk and your HR headaches. And that’s a winning strategy.  

 

Content provided by Q4iNetwork and partners

Photo by Roman Samborskyi

If Your Company isn’t Using Video, it’s Time to Hit Record

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There’s no doubt, communication and marketing have been constantly changing and evolving since the creation of the internet, and it can be hard to keep up. But one thing is for certain, the popularity of video content is on the rise and it isn’t going to slow down.

To be clear: video content is more than just a trend. It’s becoming foundational to the way brands and people communicate online. Every minute, over 500 hours of video content is being uploaded to YouTube. Every minute! That’s a staggering 720,000 hours every day, just on YouTube.

There isn’t any getting around it: video content is here to stay. If your company hasn’t already embraced video as a key communication tool, it’s time to get onboard.

It’s what people want

Any good marketing strategy is based around giving people what they want. It’s just common sense. Video is a lot more popular than any other form of online content. You are much more likely to grab attention and engage visitors with video content than you are with text. 80% of people visiting a site are going to watch a video over reading the text on your page.

It’s the same with social media. Your posts are much more likely to get liked and shared if they have video content. People just find it more engaging to watch video. Period.

Get remembered

Viewers are also more likely to remember visual content. People are able to remember 65% of visual content they are exposed to days after seeing it. Talk about a good brand recognition strategy! The more people remember and recognize you, the more likely they are to trust your brand, which helps build authority and attract the type of employees you want within your community.

This is what good marketing is all about. Creating a brand that people recognize, trust, and want to engage with.

But using video marketing isn’t just about making content people will like and remember, it’s about growing your business and producing results. Any successful marketing strategy should have the goal of educating, engaging, and selling. And what form of content do you think is successful at driving sales? You guessed it.

Drive engagement with your product

You’ve probably heard that people want to watch a video before buying a product or filling out a form. It’s true! Using video to encourage people to engage with your content offer or product greatly increases their final decision.

Here’s what the statistics say:

It’s Not Just About Your Customers

While customers are the obvious target for using video marketing content, there’s a whole community of job seekers out there looking for the company that’s right for them. Using video content—the type of content that grabs the most attention and sticks in people’s brains—to promote your company culture and values to prospective employees is just plain smart.

Imagine you create a video that showcases your employee community and company values. Maybe you even include a recent charitable event you participated in or sponsored. Then think of everyone who comes across the video. You’re not only giving prospective customers a chance to build a personal and emotional connection to your company, but you’re giving job seekers a chance to get a feel for what it might be like to work for you.

Use video content to create a reason for people to want to work for you (and to buy from you!) by showcasing your strengths, your values, and your vision.

Aaand, action!

So there you have it. Your company can raise brand recognition, increase website visits, engage new customers, drive sales, and attract top talent. All by using video content. Don’t think you have the funds to do it? You may be surprised! There are many ways to create fun, engaging video content on a budget. Plus, if you invest in video marketing, you’re almost guaranteed to be happy with your ROI.

If you’re looking for the next best way to improve your company’s marketing strategy, look no further. It’s just a video away.

 

Content provided by Q4iNetwork and partners

Photo by Maxim Lupascu