“The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.” -

William James

People need to feel appreciation.  Especially now, when all of us are “doing more [and even more] with less;” the yearning to feel appreciated is intense in every workplace.

Pre-recession research from the U.S. Department of Labor revealed that the main reason people left their jobs is because they don’t feel appreciated.  And in one Gallup Poll, 65% reported that they had received no recognition for good work in their workplaces.

During the current recession, employees have been thankful just to have a job.  But, as the economy picks up, we’re seeing indications that “thankful for a job” does not mean “satisfied with a job.”   According to Manpower, 84% of working individuals plan to find a new job this year – up 24% from a year ago. In 2011, the thing most people want to change is their job.

Douglas Matthews, president and chief operating officer for Right Management, a division of Manpower, called the results “a wake-up call to management…This finding is more about employee dissatisfaction and discontent than projected turnover,” he said.

Want to work with people who are positive and proud of what they do?  Let them know you appreciate them:

• Soon Provide the recognition and appreciation as soon after the actual performance as possible.   The connection between the performance and the acknowledgement is weakened if too much time goes by in between.
• Say It G.B. Stern said, “Silent gratitude isn’t much use to anyone.”
• Sincere Describe why you appreciate the work done.  How does this help you, the customers, the organization?
• Specific Describe the behavior or action that was appreciated. Being  specific clarifies and personalizes the appreciation.
• Make it Personal Learn how your individual employees like to receive recognition.  Do they prefer to be praised  in public or in person?  Tell them soon, sincerely, and specifically why their work matters.
• No Surprises Let people know what kind of behavior is expected.  It shouldn’t be a guessing game.
• Acknowledge the Every Day Contributions Show appreciation for “just doing their job.”   People are less likely to feel “taken for granted” if their work on everyday tasks is acknowledged.
• Recognize Effort Don’t wait until the task is complete.  Acknowledge the effort made.
• Ask “How Can I Help?” Let them know you are there to help if needed.
• Ask for Their Input People feel valued when their ideas are heard and considered.
• “Thank you.” Use these two words often, not just as a common  courtesy, but as a way of connecting and recognition appreciation for work done well.
• Praise Peers Praise  from someone you work with, not for, has a powerful impact.
• Praise Up Bosses, supervisors, and owners benefit from praise too.  And all the bullet points above work up the organizational chart too.

Margaret Wheatley said that “In organizations, real power and energy is generated through relationships. The patterns of relationships and the capacities to form them are more important than tasks, functions, roles, and positions.” Showing appreciation is essential to building relationships.

This isn’t an article just for managers or leaders.  Everyone, in every organization, needs to be more generous with expressing appreciation, giving praise, acknowledging effort, and offering support.  We all need to be more generous in recognizing the contributions of others.  As the economy improves, those organizations that haven’t built relationships with their workforce – one person at a time – will just be left behind in the rebound.

Jeri Mae Rowley, MS Human Resource Management, is a professional speaker and master trainer.  She would be absolutely delighted if you shared this article with others.

“Women continue to launch enterprises at a rate exceeding the national average, yet their firms remain smaller than those owned by their male counterparts.” That’s the conclusion reached in the “State of Women-Owned Business Report” published recently by American Express OPEN. For 14 years, the study has tracked the health of Women-Owned Businesses in the United States.
Described as a “mix of progress and paralysis” the report acknowledges a unique dichotomy for Women-Owned Businesses. The good news …continued increase in the number of Women-Owned Businesses. The bad news… the increase is stymied by fewer employees and 14 years of flat-lined annual revenue numbers.

Highlights from the American Express OPEN Report:

• There are over 8.1 million Women-Owned Businesses (WOB’s) in the United States.
• When compared to all privately held firms, women-owned businesses employ 13 percent of the workforce and account for 11 percent of all business revenue.
• Nationally, the number of WOB’s has increased by 50% since 1997.
• WOB’s generate nearly $1.3 trillion in revenues and employing nearly 7.7 million people.
• Between 1997 and 2011 the number of women-owned firms increased by 50%¬ a rate 11/2 times the national average.
• WOB’s remain small. They account for 29% of all enterprises and employ only 6% of the country’s workforce.
• 97% WOB’s have fewer than 10 employees
• WOB’s contribute just 4% of the national business revenues.

“In terms of both revenue and employment, the share of women-owned firms at the highest levels of business accomplishment has remained essentially unchanged over the past 14 years,” the report concludes.

Researchers noted that “the most important insight gained from our analysis lies not in industry or state trends, but in our finding that—even as women-owned firms continue to grow in number at rates exceeding the national average—they are not moving along the growth continuum.” That’s the dichotomy of Women-Owned Business in America. Why are the numbers of WOB’s growing but employee and revenues stay at 1997 levels?

Want to learn more about this research? See link to full report below.

About American Express OPEN

American Express OPEN is the leading payment card issuer for small businesses in the United States and supports business owners with products and services to help them run and grow their businesses. This includes business charge and credit cards that deliver purchasing power, flexibility, rewards, savings on business services from an expanded lineup of partners and online tools and services designed to help improve profitability.
Company: American Express OPEN
Company URL: http://www.openforum.com/women

Tags: women

Family-owned businesses are an enduring backbone of our economy.
“Mom and Pop” remain the true backbone of America’s economy. Family-owned businesses in America are responsible for 60% of total employment, 78% of new job creation and 65% of all wages paid. The importance of family-owned business is revealed in the following 2011 statistics.

Facts About Family-Owned Businesses:
1. America’s 24.2 million family-owned U.S. businesses generate 64% of the gross national product.
2. Families own 88% of all U.S. companies employing fewer than 500 people.
3. Approximately 90 percent of U.S. businesses are family firms, ranging in size from small “mom-n-pop” businesses to the likes of Walmart, Ford, Mars and Marriott.
4. Approximately 60% of all public companies in the US are family controlled.
5. Family businesses are also more successful than non-family businesses, with an annual return on assets that’s 6.65 percent higher than the annual return on assets of non-family firms.
6. Nearly 37% Fortune 500 companies are family-owned businesses—including Ford, Wal-Mart, Anheuser-Busch, Ford Motor Co., Cargill, Inc., Koch Industries, Motorola, Viacom, Weyerhaeuser Co., Gap, and General Dynamics.
7. Although 80 percent of family businesses would like to keep the business in the family.
8. 30 percent of family businesses survive into the second generation.
9. A quarter of all family firms expect the next CEO to be a woman.
10. By the third generation, only 12 percent of family businesses will still be viable, shrinking to 3 percent at the fourth generation and beyond.
Sources: Cox Family Enterprise Center and Trusts & Estates magazine

Will family businesses endure in the future? Dr. O’Hara described family-owned business’s inherent fortitude in his book, Centuries of Success. “Before the multinational corporation, there was family business. Before the Industrial Revolution, there was family business. Before the enlightenment of Greece and the empire of Rome, there was family business.” America’s counting on Mom and Pop to continue being the enduring backbone of our economy.

Jeri Mae Rowley, MS Human Resource Management This saddle maker’s daughter delights audiences with her unique brand of “Western Wit and Wisdom for Your Workplace.™” Please visit her website: www.jerimaerowley.com.

Tags: Entrepreneurship, Family Business, USA

Want to know who is really working for you? Try this fundamental formula to evaluate employee performance: Systems + Ability + Effort = Performance Results.

Systems The process, procedures, technology and resources essential to achieve results are systems. If systems are lacking, it is often out of the employee’s authority to fix. So, assess systems separately from performance achieved through the employee’s ability and effort.

The Performance Evaluation Grid plots the employee’s “ability” and “effort.” On the vertical axis is “ability,” which is defined as the “skills, knowledge, and experience necessary to achieve results.” Ability is the Can-Do aspect of an employee’s performance. On the horizontal axis is “effort,” or the “actual behaviors and activities required to achieve results.” Effort is the Will-Do of performance.

Mind the Gap Any gap between the potential productivity of an employee and their actual performance should be studied to identify the root cause(s) of this discrepancy. What is getting in the way of this employee achieving their full potential? Does the employee lack the ability to do the job? Are they unwilling to perform well? Or both? Is it a weak system, or something else outside of the employee’s control?

Evaluating Effort vs. Ability Evaluate all the tasks the employee performs in their job. For each task, what level of effort and ability identifies their placement on the Performance Evaluation Grid? And, is there one quadrant that characterizes their overall performance?

Most of us are actually in two or three quadrants at any given time. However, there tends to be a quadrant that describes our overall job performance.

Retrievers CAN + WILLThis employee has the natural talents, learned skills, desire, and willingness to do their job well. Our goal is to grow each employee into the “Retriever” quadrant and continue to provide them with challenges and achievements that encourage continuous learning and growth. We want to recruit, reward and retain Retrievers!

Retrievers show you what level of performance is possible. Any performance below this level exists because you are choosing to tolerate it.

Note: If you have a Retriever who is not achieving results, look for the “systems” that may be getting in this “willing and able” employee’s way. Or, it may be a challenge outside of the work environment. Extend support to the Retriever. They might not come to you with their problems. Retrievers aren’t used to needing, or asking for, help.

Puppies CAN’T + WILL Puppies have Retriever effort and attitude but need assistance with ability. Our goal is to grow them into Retrievers by tapping into their willingness and helping them overcome gaps in confidence and competence.

If you hire or promote a Puppy, be sure that they receive sufficient support and direction right from the start. Puppies are ideal for training, mentoring, and job shadowing. Sometimes the greatest challenge with Puppies is holding them back until they are really ready. We want to set them up for success.

Mules CAN + WON’T Mules won’t perform BUT THEY COULD IF THEY WANTED TO! The only thing missing here is effort. Because Mules have the ability, the key gap between current productivity and high performance is their choice not to perform.

What does it take to motivate a Mule? They won’t change if they know you are willing to tolerate their lack of effort. The word motivation comes from the Latin, “movere,” which means to move. People are only motivated when there is an uncomfortable disparity between where they are and where they want to be. Make sure your Mules can only get where they want to be by matching the effort of your Retrievers.

Caterpillars CAN’T + WON’T Caterpillar performance indicates the employee doesn’t have the ability and doesn’t make the effort.

Caterpillars really make us wonder about our organization’s “systems.” How did we get this employee? Did we hire a Puppy or Retriever and our culture or systems turned them into a Caterpillar? Or, were they Caterpillars to begin with? If so, what did the job announcement read? “Are you a non producer, insubordinate, unmotivated, willing to let others carry the load for you? If so please apply to…”

Sometimes an individual, who is placed in the wrong position for their abilities, gets frustrated and quits trying. But their performance might excel if placed in another position, or working in a different system.

In nature, caterpillars can change into butterflies. That’s why low ability/low effort employees are labeled as Caterpillars [not Slugs] in this grid. Hopefully, in the right job—maybe in a different organization—these Caterpillars could “transform” into Puppies or Retrievers.

Blissful Mediocrity Warning! Be aware of what you are tolerating in your organization. If Mules and Caterpillars are allowed to be continuous non-performers, it promotes an organizational culture of “blissful mediocrity.” Mules and Caterpillars are blissful because they don’t have to do what they don’t want to do.

Puppies and Retrievers are smart. Sensing the unfairness and personal costs of always carrying the load abandoned by Mules and Caterpillars, our super-willing employees lose their motivation to keep putting in the extra effort. They turn into Mules or Caterpillars. Or, they move on to be a Retriever in another organization.

The Performance Evaluation Grid reveals what you are tolerating and the gaps between the potential of each employee and their actual productivity. By evaluating the employee’s performance separately from systems we are able to focus the employee’s “effort” and “ability.” The minimum standard for performance has been set by the Retrievers who have shown us what is possible with the right combination of ability and effort.
Who is Working for You? Who is really working for you—Mules, Caterpillars, Puppies or Retrievers?

Jeri Mae Rowley, MS Human Resource Management This professional speaker, master trainer and saddle maker’s daughter delights audiences with her unique brand of “Western Wit and Wisdom for the Workplace.” Please visit her website: www.jerimaerowley.com.

Please open a copy of this article to print and  share at this link: Employee Performance Evaluation 2010 jmrowley

Tags: employee evaluation, employee performance, employees, human resources, motivation

Other kids had tree houses and forts. My favorite childhood hangout was my grandfather’s saddle shop. Surrounded by the pungent aroma of leather and the rhythmic “Tap, tap-tap, tap” of Grandpa’s leather carving tools; I got my first lessons in customer service and appreciation.

Our customers liked to hang out at Grandpa’s workbench too. These ranch families and cowboys were always welcome in the saddle shop.  Poised at my grandfather’s shoulder, I soaked up conversations about the pressure and uncertainty of the cattle business. Farmers and ranchers are used to hard times. Unpredictable weather, high feed costs and low cattle prices—are the cowboys’ three constant companions.

When the customers left, my grandfather would say to me “We’re so lucky, Jeri Mae.” He’d remind me what good, hardworking people our customers were. “Tap, tap-tap, tap” How little they made for their labor. “Tap, tap-tap, tap” And, what a privilege it was to serve them. “We’re so lucky.”

“Bad luck” got my grandfather into the saddle making business. As a child, his legs had been partially paralyzed by polio. His disability prevented him from being a farmer or rancher like the other men in his family. So, after school he worked for the local shoe maker learning to stitch leather by hand.

One day a customer brought him a saddle to “fix.” It required taking the old saddle apart and laying out the pieces on new leather. Essentially, he “built” his first saddle. After high school he apprenticed with saddle makers in the western United States and Canada before starting his own saddle making company in 1934.

More “bad luck.” 1934 was the middle of the Great Depression, and a truly tough time to start a business.  And times just got tougher. Dorothea Lange’s riveting portrait, Migrant Mother, gave a human face to the Great Depression. Migrant Mother was taken in 1936—just two years after my grandfather started his saddle making business.

My grandfather’s business survived the Depression. Actually, he did better than survive. From his startup in the hard times of 1934, E. Ray Holes went on to become a world-famous saddle maker and pass his craftsmanship on to his son, my dad, Gerald Ray Holes. Together they created custom saddles cherished by customers all over the globe.

Do you feel lucky today?  With our economy in a deep downturn, we experience a constant barrage of negative news and forecasts. We need stories like my grandfather’s to remind us that small businesses can survive truly hard times.  We survive by recognizing that customers are our lifesavers. We thrive by showing appreciation for each and every customer who chooses to do business with us. We are so very lucky to serve them.

Oh it seems to me, that sorry seems to be the hardest word. — Elton John

From popes to politicians, powerful executives to professional athletes…the news abounds with opportunities for us to ponder: What makes an apology effective — and what does not?

“When we reflect back on just how many mistakes we’ve made, and feelings we’ve hurt in our lives, you’d think we’d all be experts at the healing art of apology,” wrote, John Kador in his book, Effective Apology: Mending Fences, Building Bridges, and Restoring Trust. But we are not.

Why does “sorry seem to be the hardest word?”

If [“Big if”] we realize that we are in the wrong, we may be humiliated and want to hide from the harm we’ve caused. The opportunity to apologize soon and sincerely is missed. The original harm festers.

Perhaps the discomfort and tension of the situation may causes us to lash out. “Even if an apology is offered, it may be unrecognizable as such because the embarrassment or anger of the person giving the apology distorts it,” wrote Holly Weeks in the Harvard Management Update.

In his amazing book, On Apology, Dr. Aaron Lazare says: “Apologizing is rarely comfortable or easy, so if you’re going to do it at all, make it count.” While it is hard for people to get an apology right, the experts agree on five essentials of effective apologies:

1. Acknowledge the Harm Begin by ensuring the injured party knows you truly understand what harm was done. Use accurate language that does not minimize the offense, question whether the victim was really hurt, or hide behind clichés. Not clearly describing the harm caused is the most common apology blunder, notes Dr. Lazare.
2. Take Personal Responsibility The challenge is to explain how the offense occurred, without excusing it. One honest assessment may be to say: “There is no excuse.” Dr. Lazare stresses that, “A humble remark is better than a dumb excuse.”
3. Express Remorse After acknowledging the harm, and taking personal responsibility, share your remorse. Do you feel sorry, regret the error, feel ashamed or humiliated? Say so. Sincerely. Whether it was a physical or psychological harm, confirm that your behavior was not acceptable.
4. Make Amends “Whenever possible, the apology should try to make the injured party whole,” says John Kador. There may be nothing tangible to repair. More often hearts and relationships are broken than physical objects. The question “What do you want me to do?” can begin the process of making amends. Then really listen. Feeling truly heard has incredible healing power and can mend wounds that seem irreparable.
5. Keep Your Promises Fulfill all your commitments to make amends. Don’t repeat the harmful behavior. The healing process can continue only if promises are kept.

There is no guarantee that your effective, sincere, genuine apology will be accepted. The injured party may be too hurt to forgive. Dr. Lazare invites us to see apology as “not always a one time request for forgiveness, but often the opening of a negotiation between the parties.” The relationships that matter to us most are built on trust. It can take time—and promises kept—to restore precious trust when it is lost.

Popes, politicians, powerful executives, professional athletes…you and me. All human beings need to learn what it takes to offer to others the “most graceful and profound of all human exchanges…” a true apology.

Tags: aplology, Business, communication, Customer Service, customers, relationships, teamwork

By Jeri Mae Rowley
Rushworth Kidder would say ethical fitness is like physical fitness. “You have to work on it all the time so that it becomes a way of life—it is reflected in your integrity and your leadership. A mature sense of ethics is one of the most dominant of all leadership characteristics.”

View entire article:

http://jerimaerowley.com/pdf/Good%20People%20Making%20Tough%20Decisions.pdf

Tags: decision making, ethics

By Jeri Mae Rowley
On my mind lately is the most powerful motivational tool we have in our business tool box…positive reinforcement! People want to hear how valuable they are, how important their work is, and what great work they have done. And they are happy to hear it again, and again, and again.
Bob Nelson, author of the bestseller 1001 Ways to Reward Employees, reminds us that the key to encouraging people to do more good, productive things is gratitude.

View entire article:

http://jerimaerowley.com/pdf/Positive%20Reinforcement.pdf

Tags: Management, positive reinforcement

By Jeri Mae Rowley, M.S. Human Resource Management
Is your business or organization getting a true R.O.I (return on investment) for your employee training dollar? My training mentor, Roberta Smith, first shared this information with our local Society of Human Resource Managers organization. Even though I had experienced training as a manager, as a trainer, and as an employee I didn’t understand how to ensure a better R.O.I for my investment in training. Here’s what Roberta taught me—

View entire article:

http://jerimaerowley.com/pdf/transfer%20of%20training%20article%20canada.pdf

Tags: employee training, ROI, training

By Jeri Mae Rowley

Serious business seems to be taking laughter seriously. Improve your personal health—and the health of your organization—by finding opportunities to experience lots of  “Ho, Ho, Ho” on the job.

View entire article: Ho Ho Ho for Your Health

Tags: health, humor, humor at work, laughter