Team building in the workplace…

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When people go into work two things can happen: they will go in with the mindset that they love their job and the people they work with, or they go in less motivated and do the same routine every day without investing themselves in the company or in their coworkers. How do you motivate people to become part of the team? The case for investing in team members’ level of engagement is strong. It will result in stronger ties and “ownership” of the company and ultimately impact your bottom line in a positive way.

There are many ways to connect people in the workplace. It can range from small team building activities to big training conferences. In this article, we’ll address three as a basis from which to start building a strong, committed team:

Hiring
Communication
Trust

These days when hiring new employees, a major component is how well they fit in with the rest of the office. Hiring people that connect well with other team members makes for a more productive environment from the start. Sometimes, when a new employee begins work in the office, although they were hired because they’d be a good fit, they lose their “excited new hire” attitude after a couple of days. That will eventually lead to them leaving your company…not an outcome you want. This is when team building really becomes important. From day one of a new hire showing up, have employees interact with them. It’ll help everyone, and especially the new hire, feel more comfortable and increase productivity right away.

Try this: Have everyone on the ENTIRE floor, department or company make sure they communicate with the new hire within the first three days. Whether they call, send an email or stop by, make sure the new hire gets to meet EVERYONE! This may seem outrageous and unnecessary, but it will create a memory that new hire will never forget.

Promote more effective communication between employees. Take one day every 6 months to help your employees get to know each other better by doing something outside of the office, together. With this opportunity to have more informal interaction and communication, your employees will feel more connected to the office and their fellow team members. Having that steady relationship amongst employees and bosses creates a better and stress-free environment for everyone. Employees will start to expresses their opinions and feel more comfortable sharing new ideas and solutions. With everyone on the same page accomplishing goals as a team, your productivity will rise substantially. This will also prompt employees who usually stay in the background to jump at the opportunity to participate in new challenges.

Try This: Once a month, let everyone stop working at noon and take them somewhere special. Surprise them by keeping the location and activity a secret. By not telling them where they are going, it will build up the excitement. Rent kayaks and go on a lake, go to an indoor “I FLY” location and let them fly, go bungee jumping…let your imagination soar and be outrageous. You will not only bond the team, but you’ll also create memories that they’ll never forget.

The trust component may seem obvious, but it is critical. It is the cornerstone of building any good team. Trust is built by consistent team member and team leader interactions and requires time. This can be achieved through activities that can be done around the office like giving people the opportunity to take on new projects or taking a few minutes from a meeting to talk about trust. Building trust will increase the consistency and quality of work. As a leader, participating in these trust exercises with your employees gives them the chance to see anyone in a leadership position as more of an equal or a source of guidance. The overall morale of the office will improve, once again creating a rise in productivity.

Try this: Call your team into a meeting and divide them into pairs. Then blindfold one of the partners, open the doors and let them walk each other throughout the entire office, building or floor with one partner giving instructions to the blindfolded one. Not only will this outrageous activity build trust among the participants, it will demonstrate to those walking through the hallways that your company is fun and values trust.

Investing resources and time in outrageous team building exercises will give your employees the chance to know you, the leader, along with their team members and will ultimately be a catalyst for better team performance. The overall effect of team building efforts will produce a higher level of engagement, commitment, ownership and productivity. Always add that “outrageous” element to anything you do and your employees will see how, by pushing themselves outside of their comfort zones, they can have more fun and get better results.

For more ideas on the benefits of teambuilding, pushing limits and outrageous approaches, go to www.lorrainegrubbs.com

Posted in * Outrageous Training Tactics, * uncategorized

Why Hiring the Right Fit is So Critical to The Success of Your Small Business

By Lorraine Grubbs

In today’s business environment there is little competitive advantage in price, product and process. So, smart entrepreneurs rely on the other “P” to keep them on top of their game…People. By focusing on their people and hiring the right employees, these companies have discovered that they are able to stay ahead of their competition.

As a small business owner, you don’t have a large number of employees, so when you hire, it becomes much more critical that you hire the right “fit”. A wrong fit in a staff of 30,000 is not good, but won’t be felt as much as a wrong fit in a staff of 10 - one tenth of your workforce! Hiring the wrong person will impact productivity, customer service and overall employees’ attitudes.

You’ve heard the phrase “hire for attitude, train for skill”. This article is designed to help you hire the right “attitudinal” fit. Skills will vary from job to job and that is something you can test or interview for without help. But attitude? That’s a different story. When a job needs to be filled quickly, many people will be tempted to put a warm body in the position to eliminate the strain of the extra work. This more often than not results in a bad hire, making your problem even worse.

I learned the advantages of hiring the right fit during my 15 years with Southwest Airlines. We lived by the concept of “hire for attitude, train for skill” and, as a result, enjoyed low turnover and high productivity. So, how can you, the small business owner do it? Here are the 4 steps to hiring the right fit.

1) Identify the traits you are looking for in employees.

“Nice people” is not specific enough. You need to define “nice” by looking at your company’s mission statement. If you don’t have one, think about what makes your company successful. Ask your customers – they know! What makes a good impression on them? What do they need from and like about working with your employees? You will get a list of things that can and should become your standard for hiring. Once you’ve identified the top 3 things every employee working for you must have, make it non-negotiable to ensure that all future employees possess them.

Some good “nice” attributes: customer service, other-versus-me oriented, initiative, empathy, hardworking, team player, etc.

2) Target your search efforts to find those people.

Most small businesses don’t have a large advertising budget, so make your efforts count by targeting “those” people. Are you advertising in a way that “nice” people will be attracted to your company? Target your employment ads so they will appeal to the type of person you want to attract. Want someone with a good sense of humor? Make your ad humorous. Want someone with a caring attitude? Show that on your ad. Don’t overlook one of the most important sourcing channels, your own employees and your customers and vendors. Who better than they know what traits you need? Also, take some time to think about what people outside your organization think about your company as an “employer of choice”. Walk into a grocery store or around your community with your company uniform or clothing with your company logo and see if anyone makes a comment. Ask people what they think, and then be prepared to act on what you hear. With a good employer- branding image, your recruiting process is well on its way.

3) Interviewing the potential candidate.

Your interview process should include someone from the team the person will work with, and a supervisor from that same team. These employees should have received basic interview training prior to being in the interview. This ensures a fair and equitable interview for the applicant. (There are lots of books on the market about the “legal” side of the interview.) Target your questions to get to the top traits you identified earlier. Use behavioral interviewing. For example, if you have identified humor as one of the traits you are seeking, try probing with the following: “Tell me about a time you used humor to defuse a difficult customer situation”. This makes the candidate think of a real scenario which they have experienced versus inventing a “what if”. Want to know if they are good team players? Use “Tell me about a time when you went above and beyond for one of your team members”. Once you have concluded the interview, make sure all parties involved in the interview review and discuss the applicant and all are in agreement as to whether that person is the right fit. Tip: Remember to always treat the applicant as a customer, no matter what. Many of your applicants probably are customers and you want to keep them as such. Practice what you preach. If customer service is important to you, treat them with respect and communicate in a timely manner.

4) The Job Offer.

Employees never forget the moment they were offered a job they wanted. Do you remember where you were when you got the call for a job you really wanted? Phone calls are much better than letters because this not only gives the company the opportunity to convey their excitement about hiring the new employee, but it also gives the employee an opportunity to share in the excitement and ask questions. You want them to remember that moment and retain the great momentum established from the onset.

So, now you know…go out and find the “right fit”. Your bottom line and your customers will be glad you did. You will possess that competitive advantage brought about by the People principle.

The Small Business Blueprint for Great Customer Service

By Lorraine Grubbs

Imagine making a one-time decision to place the fate of your entire company in the hands of your Customers. If your well-placed faith in the good relationship with your Customers is right, you get to stay in business. If not, you’re history.

Such was the case for Southwest Airlines post-9/11. They began to get requests for refunds from Customers who had purchased tickets but were now afraid to fly. Their competitors decided to allow the refund, but tack on a “refund penalty” to cover their cost and lost revenue. Not Southwest. They put themselves in their Customers’ shoes. They thought, “Why should we penalize people who had become fearful of flying due to circumstances beyond their control”? So, they took a risk and decided to offer full refunds to anyone who asked with no penalties. They were counting on their Customers not making a “bank run” refund request. Why? Because over the years they had developed a great relationship with their Customers. And they were right. In fact, not only did many of them not ask for a refund, Southwest was overwhelmed when many of their Customers sent their tickets in with notes saying “Southwest Airlines, take this ticket and keep it. I don’t want my money back…I just want you in business in five years and today you need the money more than I do”.

Where does that kind of loyalty come from? Can small businesses build that kind of loyalty?

Everyone is in the Customer service industry; you just happen to provide a service or produce a product. Customer service is a mindset that should be established from the birth of any company. It’s a living, breathing philosophy that manifests itself in everything you do. It should be a way of life, a credo, and a mantra. Your employees should ooze it from their pores. Customer service should reside in your mission statement, your meetings, and your celebrations. It should start at the beginning of an employee’s time with your company and be rewarded and recognized throughout the employee’s career.

So, how do you do that? By implementing the following Customer service principles in your small business.

The Keys to the Kingdom

Employees should be empowered to “do the right thing”. Empowerment is one of the most powerful tools a company can utilize to ensure that Customers are taken care of when things don’t go as planned. To be comfortable giving that right to your employees, you must be confident in their ability to make good decisions. That will be the case if you have hired and trained them correctly.

With empowerment, however, comes the risk that your employee will make mistakes. How you, as the leader, handle those mistakes is paramount to whether your employees will continue making decisions or default to the rule book with phrases such as,” Sorry, there is nothing I can do”. And employees, like Customers, talk. A wrong move on management’s part in reference to empowerment can demotivate not only that employee, but also others who hear the story.

The secret to empowering employees is to give them the keys to the kingdom and let them know you trust them to use the keys wisely. Give employees the ground rules, but also give them the latitude to bend the rules. Empowerment is a powerful tool that can make the employees feel like owners of the company and, after all, who takes care of a company better than an owner? With empowerment, your Employees will return positive results again and again.

We are Family

When you see your Customers through the eyes of friendship and family, you start to do things for them that you usually do only for your family and friends. Specifically, send your most frequent Customers a birthday card. Know your frequent Customers’ names. Know their children and spouses’ names. Live the adage “No one cares how much you know, until they know how much you care”. Invite your Customers to participate in company events. Ask them to judge employee contests. It will make them feel special and your employees will get to know them outside of the “work” environment.

Fun, Fun, Fun

Have fun! When people have fun on the job, they will be more apt to show up, have a great attitude and deliver great Customer service.

Implement fun in your interview process. One time I was asked, “When was the last time you laughed at yourself?” You want employees who will take their jobs seriously, but not themselves.

Create a “fun” atmosphere in your workplace. Create airplane-flying contests, impromptu hake sake games, and have a Halloween contest. Invite your Customers too!

Keep Customers at the Forefront of Employees’ Minds

Be strategic about finding ways to include the Customer in your daily business.

Have employees come up with ideas to recognize them. The “nicest” Customer, the “funniest” Customer, the Customer with the ugliest driver’s license photo…

Feature your Customers on your walls, in your newsletters and in your company videos.

Consider creating a MOM committee to review operational failures. Ask your employees “If this had happened to your Mom, would you be happy with the way she was treated? Keep an empty chair in all meetings to remind employees to always consider the Customer.

Write a message “Provided by our Customers” on every employee’s paycheck to remind them of the Customers’ importance. Anytime the words Customer is written, capitalize it to stress their importance.

These Customer service principles are the cornerstone that will help your company create Customer loyalty. It’s not rocket science… it’s common sense. Start today. Empower your employees, give them the keys to the kingdom, treat your Customers like family and have fun…then watch your Customer loyalty go through the roof!