charles sterling, ph.d. san francisco how to build and keep the team you want june 21, 2003

Charles Sterling, Ph.D.San Francisco

How to Build and Keep the Team You Want

June 21, 2003

Mercer Human Resource Consulting 2

Life is Easy, Right?

High unemployment means you have your pick of the very best employees available

Employees are grateful—thrilled even!—to come to work everyday

All worries about losing your best employees evaporated when the labor market turned

Any concerns you had about paying your employees appropriately have gone away—they’re happy just to have a job!


No?

You’re not alone!

– Good leaders and successful business owners realize the truth behind the statement “Our employees are our most important asset!”

– How do you translate that statement into a reality for your business? Let’s begin our journey.


Begin with a Vision


The Importance of Vision

Why stay with a company if you don’t know what it’s purpose is? Why get out of bed in the morning if you don’t know the importance of what you’re doing?

Don’t think that vision, or mission statements, are trite just because so many companies do them poorly

According to Ken Blanchard*, “Having a vision means being so clear about your purpose, so committed to it, and so sure about your ability to accomplish it, that you move ahead decisively despite any obstacles.”

*For additional information on this subject, see Ken Blanchard and Jesse Stoner (2003), “Full Steam Ahead!”


Essential Elements to the Vision

Significant Purpose

– Answers the “Why” question; gives employees an understanding of what the company is here for

Clear Values

– Answers the “How” question; provides guidance around the question “What do I want to live by?”

Picture of the Future

– The picture must be that of the end result, something you can actually see. It focuses on what you want to create and envisions the end result.


Rewards


A Framework for Understanding How Rewards Work

Effort Performance Outcome

Expectancy Instrumentality

(Valence)


Rewards Need to be Right

Many elements of rewards that need to “Be Right”

– Mix of pay (base, short-term incentives, and long-term incentives)

– Benefits

– The work experience


Pay is Complex

“Pay” has many different components that affect how people perceive—and relate to—their work

– Starting salaries

– Base pay levels

– Merit increases

– Promotional increases

– Short-term incentive targets (including commissions) and payouts


How do you Address this Complexity?

Know thyself

– Start with a philosophy of pay that’s aligned with your mission statement and how you value your workforce

Address issues such as:

Pay levels relative to the external labor market

Balance of base pay relative to incentives

Fiscal responsibility of your pay program

Legal defensibility



Know thy neighbor

– An enormous amount of data is available from commercially available surveys

– Find out what salary surveys your competition participates in, and participate in them yourself!

– Consider an industry-specialized survey for highly unique jobs



Seek out guidance and support

– Developing pay programs sometimes requires specialized experience generally not found within a typical human resources department

– Assistance can—and should be—highly customized; the result should be simple to understand and easily administered


Go Fishing!Bringing fun, passion, focus, and commitment to work

For more information, see “Fish! Tales”, by Lundin, Christensen and Paul (2002)


A Compelling Fish Story

What was going on here? Was there a larger story for workplace success?

The workplace experts spent time getting to know the operation—filming the engaging environment, talking to the customers and the workers—and found a compelling and fascinating story based upon four basic principles they call the FISH! Philosophy.


Principle 1: Play!

Work made fun gets done, especially when we choose to do serious tasks in a lighthearted, spontaneous way.

Play is not just an activity; it’s a state of mind that brings new energy to the tasks at hand and sparks creative solutions.


Principle 2: Make Their Day

When you “make someone’s day” (or moment) through a small kindness or unforgettable engagement, you can turn even routine encounters into special memories.


Principle 3: Be There

The glue in our humanity is in being fully present for one another.

Being there also is a great way to practice wholeheartedness and fight burnout, for it is those halfhearted tasks you perform while juggling other things that wear you out.


Principle 4: Choose Your Attitude

When you look for the worst you will find it everywhere.

When you learn you have the power to choose your response to what life brings, you can look for the best and find opportunities you never imagined possible.

If you find yourself with an attitude that is not what you want it to be, you can choose a new one.


Conclusion

Like all important choices in life, the choice of which company to work for—and the significant effort put forward to excel—is highly complex.

Understand that monetary rewards play a significant—but not overly significant—role in the decision to join, succeed, and leave an organization

Don’t compete on the basis of pay alone; pay attention to the humanity of your workers


Thank you!

Charles Sterling, Ph.D.

Mercer Human Resource Consulting

Three Embarcadero Center, Suite 1500

San Francisco, CA 94111

(415) 743-8960

[email protected]

Presentation available on the NASPD website

charles sterling, ph.d. san francisco how to build and keep the team you want june 21, 2003

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