New Business Ideas 4 U

Posts Tagged ‘Management Skill’

HR Sacred Cow 5     All Staff should get the Same Bonus based on Company Performance

Another Toyota why?

Professors Becker, Huselid and Beatty, authors of The Differentiated Workforce, are very forthright about this situation, as shown in the quotation used in the last posting.

They – and I  – would criticize the practice on at least three grounds:

• It does not discriminate between positions – “A”positions and position holders get the same as “C” positions and position holders
• The practice of one bonus for everybody fails to recognize the fact that some positions are vastly more important than others in the achievement of organizational strategic goals
• It does not account for variability in performance of various jobholders

• Not all accounts supervisors supervise equally well, nor do bank tellers all tell equally

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Immunity to Change

Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey, Harvard Business Press, 2009

After more than 40 years in the HR business, I thought I knew most of it. This was my ‘big assumption’. Kegan and Lahey know a great deal more than me, I found out, and I thank them for sharing a generation of experience with me – and I hope, you too.

The authors seem to have found the answer to why people find it difficult to change – as you have doubtless found it difficult to change some of your staff. Their discovery is startlingly simple. Most people have an immunity to change. Their research over many years and thousands of people has drawn them to this conclusion, and in this gem of a book, they share their findings with us.

They show how this immunity comes about, how to identify what the immunity – or blockage – to change actually is, and most importantly, how to use their research findings in developmental  activity with your staff and even staff teams.

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Losing All “A” Performers in a Small Office

This is a true story, and is offered to indicate how not doing what is recommended by Profs Becker, Huselid and Beatty can be expensive and serious for a company.

The office was a small sales office – around 15 people. The “A” job in the office is the sales and marketing manager. Why? Because the office was selling big ticket items – hopefully once in a lifetime purchases – and this manager is responsible for the total top line of the organization. Unfortunately, the “A” job was filled by a “C” performer and fortunately for both the office and the person, she was ‘promoted upstairs’ moving to a job in Head Office.

The recently appointed GM then set a winning strategy, and took over the role of sales and marketing manager, since Head Office would not allow the appointment of a replacement for the sales and marketing manager.  All other jobs in the office were “B” or “C” jobs. Interestingly, both I and the GM saw the job of Customer Support as a “B” job tending towards an “A”, while Head Office saw the job as , the company saw this latter as a “B” job, tending towards the “C” level. Just a necessary evil

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In the last posting on this topic, we looked at how the managers who send hand phone messages can be less interruption and by doing so create better rapport with their staff. In this posting we shall be looking at how the manager receiving the message can reduce the interruption possibilities.

Let’s start by asking a question. When do you switch your hand phone off or deliberately not have it with you? Such times could include when you are in a management meeting, meeting with your boss, having a shower or using the toilet. There may well be others.  Next silly question, does the world come to an unscheduled end, when you do not immediately answer your hand phone at these times?

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