What Do You Do About Employees Who Quit But Forget to Tell You?

At a recent workshop led by my Insight team, a participant made a very insightful comment about “employees who quit but forgot to tell you.”

I’m sure we can all think of employees like this in our organization. They are at their position in body, but certainly not in spirit. Worse yet, they are earning 100 percent of their pay and benefits, but at best, giving you 50 percent effort in return (and often far less).

Recent Hay Group research on employee engagement reported in the Business News Daily shows this is only going to worsen in coming months.

“Employee restlessness is rising, according to new data from Hay Group, a global consulting firm. Last year, nearly two in five (38 percent) employees planned to leave their organization within the next five years, compared with 30 percent in 2009. In large measure, that restlessness stems from a direct result of lack of engagement, the study found.

“‘U.S. companies have experienced lower turnover rates over the past few years, largely because of the weak labor market associated with the economic downturn,’ said Mark Royal, senior principal at Hay Group Insight. ‘We’re in the eye of a turnover hurricane that has lulled many companies into complacency. In the meantime, employee frustration is rising. Organizations that fail to identify and act on issues affecting employee commitment during this break in the storm are going to find employees exiting in increasing numbers as other opportunities become more plentiful.’”

More recognition = less turnover

In fact, this is in parallel with a key finding in our own Spring 2012 Workforce Mood Tracker Report:

“Search for greener pastures of recognition fuels employee turnover. Employees are more likely to consider leaving a job for a company that recognizes their employees. In fact, most of them have done just that…

“The good news is employees with adequate recognition are less likely to abandon the company. Of those who have been recognized in the past three months, only 23 percent are considering a job change. That is versus 51 percent likelihood of jumping ship from those who have never been recognized. The bottom line: recognized employees are far more inclined to stick around.”

The solution is quite clear. Appreciate your employees for their efforts and behaviors to be sure they’re focused on the task at hand, not daydreaming about quitting and starting anew somewhere else.

By Derek Irvine is Vice President, Client Strategy & Consulting Service at Globoforce

How to Inspire and Motivate High Performance Employees

To become an HPO (a High Performance Organization) it is a precondition to hire and retain the right employees. ]

These are people who have an incurable curiosity, want to be challenged, need to have responsibility and at the same time ask to be held accountable, and want to perform better — everywhere and anytime. These high performance employees perform better than the average employee, and because of that, contribute more to the effectiveness of the organization.

With this type of employees, an organization can transform into a true High Performance Organization.

But, you need to inspire them.

Higher performance through stretch goals

HPO employees want to be inspired by their managers to continuously perform better and achieve extraordinary results. They want to be kept on their toes and be challenged. They continuously want to develop themselves, to achieve the best they can, and because of this, contribute to the success of the organization.

Employees of an HPO are quite extraordinary, and it requires focused attention of managers to keep these people interested in working at the organization.

HPO managers, therefore, consciously inspire their employees by giving them interesting work, challenging tasks and increased responsibilities; and stressing that they should be proud of their own achievements and those of the organization. They stimulate self-confidence, an entrepreneurial attitude, firmness, a can-do attitude, and a winning mindset in employees.

HPO managers raise the performance of their people and themselves by setting high standards and stretch goals. They let people feel they are part of a bigger picture and inspire them to achieve greatness as part of the organization. They possess a crusading enthusiasm and take time to win people over.

Recently I did an interview with Mikael Sørensen, general manager at Svenska Handelsbanken NL. Something he said about inspiration intrigued me:

I walk the talk because that talk is what attracted new employees to the bank. When I had job interviews with people before they started at the bank and I told them how we work, then that was what interested them in the bank. So it is important that when they come in, it actually works this way. And this congruency inspires them.”

How to get started inspiring employees

There are two main ways how you can inspire your employees: by changing your own behavior to be more inspirational, and by creating conditions for your employees that increase their motivation. Below are some ideas for both techniques.

Become an inspiring person yourself by doing the following:

• Be passionate about the goals of the organization, show emotion, and generate enthusiasm for these in your employees.
• Connect with your employees by showing real interest in them and finding out what motivates and inspires them, and actively looking for their ideas and opinions.
• Be somewhat unconventional and take personal risks, by doing things differently and operating outside ‘normal’ organizational boundaries and outside your comfort zone, and letting your employees do the same.
• Make sure inspirational moments are succeeded by follow on actions, so your employees see that you act upon your inspiration.
• Be engaging and a team person, and regularly express to your employees it is all about “we” and not about “I”
• Become a “storyteller” who is able to package messages in an appealing form that captivates employees.

How to motivate employees, too

Create motivational conditions for your employees, by doing the following:

• Paint your employees an attractive picture of the future of the organization and their place in it and provide the rationale why certain goals have to be pursued.
• Give your employees interesting and meaningful work that challenges and vitalizes them. This work should require them to do things differently, with more risk and uncertainty, which gets them out of their comfort zone.
• Set stretch goals for your employees and give them more responsibilities and freedom to schedule their own work, while including the possibility of setbacks that they will have to overcome.
• Provide your employees with the possibility to get into contact with the beneficiaries of their work, i.e. the customers, so they can see the results of their work.

By André de Waal, PhD, MBA, MSc, is Academic Director of theHPO Center

The six competencies to inspire HR professionals for 2012

Modern HR must take on many roles to demonstrate competence and effectiveness, say DAVE ULRICH, JON YOUNGER, WAYNE BROCKBANK and MIKE ULRICH, who celebrate 25 years of research. Can HR turn base metal into gold? A first cut of the results... Additional interviews by DAVID WOODS

Any good HR professional wants to be better. This begins with a desire to improve, followed by a clear understanding of what it requires to improve.

As the number of global HR professionals climbs close to one million, so it becomes important for this relatively new profession to define what it means to be effective. HR effectiveness matters more than ever, because leaders of businesses and not-for-profit organisations increasingly recognise the importance of individual abilities (talent), organisation capabilities (culture) and leadership as key to their success. HR professionals should become insightful advisers and architects on these matters. In a constantly changing world, there has never been a greater need to identify what HR professionals must be, know, do and deliver to contribute more fully to their organisations.

Since 1987 - 25 years and still counting - we've chronicled what it means to be an effective HR professional. Our 2012 data set marks six waves of data collection that trace the evolution of the HR profession(see methodology).

This research is important because it defines what it means to be an effective HR professional: not just knowing the body of knowledge that defines the profession, but being able to apply that knowledge to business challenges.

In this round of research, we have identified six domains of competencies HR professionals must demonstrate to be personally effective and to have an impact on business performance. These competencies respond to a number of themes facing global business today:

• outside/in: HR must turn outside business trends and stakeholder expectations into internal actions
• business/people: HR should focus on both business results and human capital improvement
• individual/organisational: HR should target both individual ability and organisation capabilities
• event/sustainability: HR is not about an isolated activity (a training, communication, staffing, or compensation programme) but sustainable and integrated solutions
• past/future: respect HR's heritage, but shape a future
• administrative/strategic: HR must attend to both day-to-day administrative processes and long-term strategic practices.

Our research found that by upgrading their competencies in six domains, HR professionals can respond to these business themes and create sustainable value. These six HR competence domains come from assessment by HR professionals and line associates (more than 20,000 global respondents) of 139 specific competency-stated survey items.

Strategic positioner. High-performing HR professionals think and act from the outside/in. They are deeply knowledgeable about external business trends and able to translate them into internal decisions and actions. They understand the general business conditions (eg social, technological, economic, political, environmental and demographic trends) that affect their industry and geography. They target and serve key customers of their organisation by identifying customer segments, knowing customer expectations and aligning organisation actions to meet customer needs. They also co-create their organisations' strategic responses to business conditions and customer expectations by helping frame and make strategic and organisation choices.

Credible activist. Effective HR professionals are 'credible activists' because they build their personal trust through business acumen. Credibility comes when HR professionals do what they promise, build personal relationships of trust and can be relied on. It helps HR professionals have positive personal relationships. It means to communicate clear and consistent messages with integrity.

As an activist, HR professionals have a point of view, not only about HR activities, but about business demands. As activists, HR professionals learn how to influence others in a positive way through clear, consistent and high-impact communications. Some have called this 'HR with an attitude'. HR professionals who are credible but not activists are admired, but do not have much impact. Those who are activists but not credible may have good ideas, but not much attention will be given to them. To be credible activists, HR professionals need to be self-aware and committed to building their profession.

Capability builder. An effective HR professional melds individual abilities into an effective and strong organisation by helping to define and build its organisation capabilities. Organisation is not structure or process: it is a distinct set of capabilities. Capability represents what the organisation is good at and known for. HR professionals should be able to audit and invest in the creation of organisational capabilities. These capabilities outlast the behaviour or performance of any individual manager or system. Capabilities have been referred to as a company's culture, process, or identity.

HR professionals should facilitate capability audits to determine the identity of their organisations. Capabilities include: customer service, speed, quality, efficiency, innovation and collaboration. One such capability is to create an organisation where employees find meaning and purpose at work. HR professionals can help line managers create meaning, so that the capability of the organisation reflects the deeper values of the employees.

Change champion. As change champions, HR professionals make sure that isolated and independent organisational actions are integrated and sustained through disciplined change processes. HR professionals make an organisation's internal capacity for change match or lead the external pace of change. As change champions, HR professionals help change happen at institutional (changing patterns), initiative (making things happen) and individual (enabling personal change) levels. To make change happen at these three levels, HR professionals play two critical roles in the change process. First, they initiate change, which means they build a case for why change matters, overcome resistance to change, engage key stakeholders in the process of change and articulate the decisions to start change.

Second, they sustain change by institutionalising change through organisational resources, organisation structure, communication and continual learning. As change champions, HR professionals partner to create organisations that are agile, flexible, responsive and able to make transformation happen in ways that create sustainable value.

Human resource innovator and integrator. Effective HR professionals know the historical research on HR, so they can innovative and integrate HR practices into unified solutions to solve future business problems. They must know the latest insights on key HR practice areas related to human capital (talent sourcing, talent development), to performance accountability (appraisal, rewards), organisation design (teamwork, organisation development) and communication. They must also be able to turn these unique HR practice areas into integrated solutions, generally around an organisation's leadership brand. These innovative and integrated HR practices then result in a high impact on business results by ensuring that HR practices maintain their focus over the long run and do not become seduced by HR 'flavour of the month' or by another firm's 'best practices'.

Technology proponent. In recent years, technology has changed the ways in which HR people think and do their administrative and strategic work. At a basic level, HR professionals need to use technology more efficiently to deliver HR administrative systems such as benefits, payroll processing, healthcare costs and other administrative services. HR professionals also need to use technology to help people stay connected with each other. Technology plays an increasingly important role in improving communications, organising administrative work more efficiently and connecting inside employees to outside customers. An emerging technology trend is using technology as a relationship-building tool through social media. Leveraging social media enables the business to position itself for future growth. Those who understand technology will create improved organisational identity outside the company and improve social relationships inside the company. As technology exponents, HR professionals have to access, advocate, analyse and align technology for information, efficiency and relationships.

Because these six domains of HR competence respond to the external trends we identified, they have an impact on both the perception of the effectiveness of the HR professional and on business performance where the HR professional works (see Table 1 on p23).

This data shows that to be seen as personally effective, HR professionals need to be credible activists who build relationships of trust and have a strong business and HR point of view. They also have to have a mix of competencies in positioning the firm to its external environment (strategic positioner), doing organisation capability and culture audits (capability builder), making change happen (change champion), aligning and innovating HR practices (HR integrator) and understanding and using technology (technology proponent). These competencies explain 42.5% of the effectiveness of an HR professional.

We found that this same pattern of HR competencies holds true across regions of the world, across levels of HR careers, in different HR roles and in organisations of all sizes.

HR competencies also explain 8.4% of an organisation's success. But it is interesting that the competencies that predict personal effectiveness are slightly different to those that predict business success, with insights on technology, HR integration and capability building having more impact on business results. The key issue is for HR professionals and departments to work together and to mutually reinforce their efforts so they collectively achieve high performance.

These findings begin to capture what HR professionals need to know and do to be effective. Some implications of the data for HR professionals include:

• Learn to do HR from the outside/in, understand social, technological, economic, political, environmental and demographic trends facing your industry and knowing specific expectations of customers, investors, regulators and communities - then building internal HR responses that align with these external requirements
• Build a relationship of trust with your business leaders by knowing enough about business contexts and key stakeholders to fully engage in business discussions, by offering innovative, integrated HR solutions to business problems and by being able to audit and improve talent, culture and leadership. Earn trust by delivering what you promise
• Understand the key organisational capabilities required for your organisation to achieve its strategic goals and meet the expectations of customers, investors and communities. Do an organisation audit that focuses on assessing key capabilities your company requires for success and their implications for staffing, training, compensation, communication and other HR practices
• Make change happen at individual, initiative and institutional level. Help individuals learn and sustain new behaviours. Enable organisation change by applying a disciplined change process to each organisational initiative. Encourage institutional change by monitoring and adapting the culture to fit external conditions. Be able to turn isolated events into integrated and sustainable solutions.
• Innovate and integrate your HR practices. Innovation means looking forward with fresh and creative ways to design and deliver HR practices. Integrate these practices around talent, leadership and culture within your organisation, so HR offers sustainable solutions to business problems. Evolve your organisation's HR investments to solve future problems.
• Master technology, both to deliver the administrative work of HR and to connect people inside and outside to each other. Make social media a reality by using technology to share information and connect people both inside and outside your organisation.

We also found that an effective HR department has more impact on a business's performance (31%) than the skills of individual HR professionals (8%). HR professionals need to work together as a unified team to fully create business value..

Conclusion

We are optimistic about the present and future of the HR profession and we have empirical reasons for our optimism. We now have specific insights on what HR professionals need to know and do to become better and more effective at delivering value to employees, organisations, customers, investors and communities. We know the HR department should excel at helping businesses be successful.

By Dave Ulrich and colleagues

Walk Toward Wisdom With Mentoring

If you aspire to be a great leader, you need to develop wisdom.

Wisdom is the application of accumulated knowledge and experience. Contrary to what you might think, wisdom has little to do with age. We have all known younger people described as wise beyond their years, and many of us know a few old fools. The truth is, wisdom is attained bit by bit throughout our lifetime, but it must be pursued.

The following practices will accelerate your walk toward wisdom:

1. Do a self evaluation:

Look in the mirror and be truthful to yourself. Think about what's really working - and not working - in your life and career. Consider your strengths: How can you leverage them? Reflect on your weaknesses: How can you minimize them? Are you adding value to your life, your organization and the world? Self evaluation isn't easy, but it is a necessary starting point to pursue wisdom. As Socrates said, "The unexamined life is not worth living."

2. Get honest feedback:

No matter how insightful we try to be during self evaluation, we all have a limited view of ourselves. To gain proper perspective, we must ask others for feedback. This can be done formally or informally. My associate Rick Tate always used to say, "Feedback is the breakfast of champions." I love that! Ask friends and colleagues at every level for their honest feedback on how you have been doing. Encourage them to be frank. Ask them what you should start doing, what you should keep doing and what you should stop doing.

Keep in mind even the most straightforward people will divulge only about 90 percent of what they are thinking. Fortunately or unfortunately, I've always had several people in my life who care enough to tell me the whole truth by giving me that last 10 percent. It's important to have a handful of these truth tellers around to really keep yourself in check.

If you don't think there are many folks around you who will be completely honest, maybe you should think about how you react when you receive feedback. One of the differences between great and self-serving leaders is the way they respond to feedback. Self-serving people get defensive and will often blame the messenger. Those earnestly pursuing wisdom will simply say, "Thank you. That's really helpful. Is there anything else I should know?" or, "Tell me more."

Great leaders will encourage the other person to give that extra 10 percent of feedback. They want to be sure they get the full truth so they can learn from the experience.

3. Seek counsel from others:

Besides doing a thorough self evaluation and being open to honest feedback, seek out the counsel of those with more wisdom and experience than you. Remember: feedback is about the past and counsel is about the future. My friend Marshall Goldsmith has a great seminar exercise where he has people stand up, walk around the room and talk to each other about something they would like to accomplish that year. He has participants ask others, "Do you have any advice for me?" Everyone gets advice and counsel from 10 to 12 people.

No matter what level of leader you may be, you will benefit from working with a mentor - particularly someone who is further down the road than you are. Borrow that person's wisdom and experience. Ask profound, open-ended questions such as, "What decisions in your life have made the greatest contribution to your success?" "What books have had the greatest impact on you?" "What are the biggest lessons you've learned so far in your career?" Ask your mentors these kinds of questions and really listen to their answers. You'll be surprised what you'll learn.

4. Give it time:

Keep in mind that you won't become wise overnight. Walking toward wisdom is a lifelong journey. With every step you take, you're that much closer to leading in a way that will make a positive and profound impact on the world.

By Ken Blanchard - Chief Learning Officer of The Ken Blanchard Cos.

7 Sure Fire Ways to Fail as an HR Leader

7 things to stay away from

I get it. It’s hard being a leader in HR, that’s why I’m going to help you out and give you some tips of things to stay away from:

1. Think of yourself or your company as “the” industry leader. As soon as you do, someone will knock you off.
2. Identify so strongly with the company that you no longer have a clear boundary between your personal interests and the corporation’s interests. Yes, you should be committed, but don’t be “committed.”  Too often leaders doing this fail to differentiate between their personal agenda and the corporate agenda and start empire building.
3. Have all the answers. This is tough because it’s common leadership training that we all know – use your people, surround yourself with people better than you, make group decisions, etc. But until you put your butt in that seat you never realize how many things will come your way, where people want a decision, and, that they are unwilling to make it – so they look to you for the answer. Don’t get sucked into this trap; push back and make them bring you solutions.
4. Hunt down and kill those who don’t support you. Don’t think this happens? Look at turnover numbers of departments when a new leader takes over – they are almost always higher than those of the organization as a whole.
5. Become obsessed with the company image. Your company image is hugely important, but it is not the most important thing you have going on. Make sure your operations match the image you want to create, not the other way around.
6. Underestimate or take obstacles for granted. As a leader you want to be confident during hard and challenging times, but don’t let yourself get fooled into believing your own confidence will get you through. Having a clear understanding of the reality you are facing, and being able to communicate that without fear to your team with a plan of action, is key.
7. Stubbornly rely on what you’ve always done. “Well, when I was the leader at GE we did it this way…” Look, this isn’t the 80′s and this isn’t GE. Might it work? Sure. But be open to new ways of doing things while being confident of what you know will work. Don’t put yourself or your organization in jeopardy, but be willing to try new things when time and circumstance allow.

By Tim Sackett, MS, SPHR is Executive Vice President of HRU Technical Resources 

7 Secrets That Only HR Knows

The 7 secrets HR is keeping

The article did get me to thinking about secrets and how in HR we seem to always have a few that we are either asked to keep by others, or just the ones we share in this great fraternity of HR. Here are some of the HR secrets that I thought of:

1. Who in the organization is on the way out. (Sometimes many people know of individuals who are on the way out, but usually HR has a good pulse on everyone).
2. Who in the organization is probably on the way up, and not because they deserve it. (Every leader has an attraction to an employee or two, for a number of reasons, and those folks usually find their way into roles that they don’t deserve.)
3. How much money you’ll get on your next raise. (Oh, yes we do know. But keep working hard anyway; we don’t want it to seem like it’s predetermined.)
4. The information behind why certain departments tend to get more (resources, staff, etc.) than others – but we can’t you – it would cause organizational chaos! (I hate to tell you this, but it usually has nothing to do with department performance and everything to do with your departmental leader – or should I say, lack thereof.)
5. What you’re going to get for your annual bonus – usually 6 to 12 months before you get it. (hey, this stuff has to be budgeted)
6. What changes will happen to your benefits – again – usually 4-8 months before it hits you.
7. Who in your company is most likely to go postal on you. (But we can’t tell you for HIPAA reasons – sorry – but if you sit next to Ted you might want to invest in a bulletproof vest.)

Secrets, yes; specifics, no

I’m sure there are a number of others, but many aren’t unique to just HR.

I was thinking of putting down: We cook the books on our metrics, but guess what? So does every other department! Let’s face it, in a political corporate structure that relies on metrics to obtain budgeted resources, the numbers aren’t always going to be clean!

I like HR because we tend to have “big” secrets and are called upon to keep those secrets. It’s probably the biggest failure I see with new HR pros – they tend to try and create organizational friendships by sharing “the secrets,” and it always ends up blowing up on them.

By Tim Sackett, MS, SPHR is Executive Vice President of HRU Technical Resources

11 Good Reasons Why 360 Degree Feedback Simply Doesn’t Work

11 critical issues with 360 degree feedback

1. 360 feedback is silly — Think about it: If you want to get information about your performance, why send a questionnaire to people who don’t know you, don’t care, or don’t see your performance? Isn’t it better to ask customers about customer behavior, subordinates about subordinate behavior, peers about peer behavior, and so forth? You will get better data using a few narrow surveys designed for targeted audiences than one great big one-size-fits-all survey.
2. Too much, too fast — Ask anyone who ever received a 360 report and they will probably tell you the amount of data was so overwhelming it took a half-day workshop to explain. Changing behavior is difficult. We might want to change ourselves, but everyone else wants us to stay the same. In addition, have you ever tried to develop more than one or two behaviors at a time? Keep it simple.
3. It’s irrelevant — Why ask someone to rate things that have nothing to do with job performance? If being inquisitive is not important to job performance, then leave it off the survey. The surest way to confuse employees is to ask questions and give feedback about silly items. Base survey items exclusively on job specifics.
4. Guestimates — This part is really irresponsible survey design. Some surveys suggest not rating items that don’t apply to the job or about which the rater is unsure. So far, so good — but what about rater subjectivity? Do we need to statistically analyze data for agreement between raters? Calculate meaningless averages? Asking for survey items that cannot be seen or heard on a frequent basis is error filled.
5. Reward and punish — Now, here’s a great way to torpedo feedback. As soon as people learn feedback is used to either punish or reward, the system is toast. Keep feedback on a developmental level. Reward and punish based job performance. Treat feedback as the road to performance and rate them separately. Your 360 will either be dead in the water, or, encourage vicious infighting if your organization cannot separate the two.
6. Organizational bias — External consultant are not experts in any single organization. On the other hand, multiple organization experience allows them to recognize strengths, weaknesses, and differences. The trend I see most is “no one here is below average” or, just as silly, “everyone here is seriously lacking.” This is management craziness. In every organization, people range from the top of the food chain to the bottom. Useful feedback is honest, objective and free of organizational dogma.
7.  Not job related — What do you think happens when people are asked a lot of questions unrelated to someone’s job performance? Right — you get a lot of answers unrelated to doing the job. The result encourages confusion, frustration, and a bunch of ticked-off people. This a great outcome if you planned to waste someone’s money and time answering surveys. If you want to avoid that problem, either do a formal job analysis to identify specific competencies, or at least talk to the subordinate and his/her manager to get some ideas of what to survey.
8. Poor planning — It’s simple: Never ask a question if you are unprepared for the answer. Know ahead of time what developmental plans apply to each survey item. Don’t plan? Then don’t ask. And, don’t think recommending a list of books and resources will suffice. It takes an unusual person to engage in self-development. It’s much easier to bury bad news in the bottom drawer and hope it goes away.
9. Crummy items — Asking questions about someone’s cognitive ability is sure to yield worthless results. Are you asking about intelligence? Accommodation to external factors? Based on what alternatives? Who is best positioned to evaluate the quality? Get the picture? As a general trend, you cannot go wrong designing items following theS.M.A.R.T. goal setting principles. If it’s not specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound, then it’s D.U.M.B.
10. No involvement — I know this is a radical idea, but management is more than a title. It’s a responsibility that involves guiding, coaching, and developing subordinates. Any 360 should be a joint activity between coach and subject, again, using the S.M.A.R.T. principles. Your feedback program is short-lived if the people who benefit most are not involved.
11. Uncoordinated — Which do you think works better? An organization-wide initiative to accomplish a single goal or one encouraging everyone to do their own thing? I suggest choosing some kind of common goal such as teamwork, better problem solving, initiative, creativity, goal setting, and so forth. It really doesn’t make a difference just as long as everyone is in it together. Within the umbrella item (e.g., teamwork) each individual employee gets to choose those job-specific teamwork elements making the greatest difference to him/her, and for forth. Group involvement is a great way to encourage group development — and it makes life much easier for the training department.

From a great idea to life support

Let’s summarize: Common sense and best-practices require shared group support; manager and subordinate to working together; isolating a specific area that affects a specific audience; developing a few critical S.M.A.R.T. items; gathering honest and unbiased feedback; using the data to support planned development activities; developing the skills; and, follow-up surveys to check for progress.

Too much work? Management would resist it? You always have a fallback position.

Buy a great big survey with fuzzy generic items that apply to everyone; deliver it up, down, and sideways; summarize the results in a huge report; send subordinate back home with a page of developmental resources; and misuse results in performance reviews. The first year it will be hailed as a great idea.

The second year, however, it will be on life support. In three years it will be dead, and you will have wasted tens of thousands of dollars, managers and subordinates will be thoroughly irritated with you, and your professional reputation will get another hit.

By R. Wendell Williams, Ph.D., is Managing Director of ScientificSelection.com

6 Ways to Retain Remote Workers – and Make Them Feel Part of the Team

Working from home is a growing phenomenon in the modern work arena.

A virtual workforce offers many benefits for employers — for instance, it reduces major office costs. Employees also enjoy the flexibility of being able to work from home and not having to spend hours in traffic commuting.

However, it’s often difficult to get remote workers to feel as though they are a part of the company culture. They are not there for town halls, don’t participate in every conference call, and, many times, they need the folks at corporate to push things through.

What these workers need most is a connection to the vision and direction of the company and their co-workers. They need ways of working better together, which ultimately leads to more collaboration.

Questions employees need to answer

They also need to see the comings and goings that employees at the office see, including what the team is focused on and the latest news. They need easy ways to give feedback and get feedback. They are fresh with ideas, so it’s important that we all take advantage them by leveraging their inspiration and accepting their momentum.

Some simple ways to do this include leveraging cloud technology and publishing important information. Help employees answer these questions:

• What is the direction of the company?
• What are the goals of the team? 
• Other sites? 
• Other departments? 

Providing all of this information and collaborating through technology is the only way remote employees can self-manage, and helps push your virtual workforce into a result-only workforce.

Technology has made it possible for many companies — that would otherwise function primarily out of physical locations — to allow many of their employees to complete their projects from home, often never stepping into the office. The Internet also makes it possible virtual companies to exist, with employees scattered across the country.

While setting up a virtual workforce or even having a percentage of employees telecommute may seem like a simple endeavor, those employees still need to be engaged and made to feel as part of the company, just as employees present in the office feel they are part of a team. Technology makes it easy to set up an office in your home and do your job, but that same technology also presents barriers that make could potentially make it hard to retain the virtual workforce.

What employers can do

What are some things employers can do to assure that their telecommuting employees still function as full-fledged team members?

1. Set them up with the right tools and technology – Use collaborative tools to help your virtual workers connect with the rest of the team from home. Some excellent tools for this include:

• Google Docs and Box for sharing documents and images;
• Jive software (mid to large organizations) for intranets;
• Basecamp and Manymoon for project management;
• Yammer, Chatter and SocialCast for communication and collaboration;
• Skype, Google chat and talk, and other instant messaging programs to stay in the loop;
• WorkSimple for sharing work and goals;
• UserVoice and Get Satisfaction for customer feedback and community; and,
• ZenDesk and Lighthouse for customer service.

2. Collaboration tools — Even if your employees and teams are spread out all over the country, constant communication is necessary in a well-functioning team. Creating a virtual water cooler is necessary for employees as they like to be able to blow off steam in between tasks. Whether the communication is work-related or more about getting to know colleagues, it is no less important for a virtual workforce.

 So, whether you choose some sort of instant messaging system that employees log into everyday like Skype, or have regular staff meetings, online communication tools can make brainstorming and decision making much easier for the virtual workforce.

Here are some great tools to check out for your needs:

• GoToMeeting, AnyMeeting and BigMarker for online meetings and web conferencing;
• Tungle.me, Doodle, ShiftBoard and BookFresh for online scheduling and booking meetings;
• MyClientSpot, Planzone, Teambox and DeskAway for project collaboration andworkgroups;
• Kindling to encourage idea sharing, engagement and innovation;
• SlideRocket, Slideshare and SlideBoom to share presentations;
• Batchbook and Bizroof for contact and customer relationship management;
• OfficeDrop or Glasscubes for file storage and sharing.

3. Be clear about directions and spell out tasks —  Misinterpretation of directions is easier to fix when workers are around the corner to ask questions and clarify. However, with a virtual workforce, employees have to be far more independent and e-mails or IMs can be misinterpreted very often. You can help employees by being clear about their projects or tasks and setting specific deadlines so they can better manage their time.

4. Consider assigning remote workers a mentor — someone who they can go to with questions other than their direct manager. This should be part of your onboarding process. You don’t want virtual employees to feel isolated working from home; instead, they should feel like they have multiple levels of support within their team.

5. Keep them in the loop — Whether it is exciting office news (like a new hire), or even bad news about a product or client that you must relay to your team, be sure to share the news with your virtual workforce at the same time. Online tools like Yammer or WorkSimple can keep them in the loop and helps remote workers feel connected to the rest of the team. If you leave this to managers and executives, nothing will get done. Let it happen socially. If you want them to feel like a full-time employee, share the same news and communicate with them the way you do with your non-virtual employees. Communication is key at any office — and a virtual workforce is no different.

6. Invest in a cloud — Whether it is Dropbox or Google Docs, keep all resources and documents in the cloud so your virtual employees can refer to them whenever they need. Since people will be working in different time zones, it is hard to rely on others to be online just to ask them to forward a link for an article or proposal. As a manager, make it easier on the employee and yourself by giving them full access to any company or client’s documents that they may need to complete their projects.

No clear-cut solution

Collaboration is the future for remote hires. Invest in the cloud and commit to new levels of going social. What departments are social in your company? How can you help team connect? Are remote hires left outside of the company walls?

As Star Trek‘s Captain Picard would say, “Engage.” It’s important to keep a pulse on virtual workers and give them feedback in real-time. This means sending both written feedback and picking up the phone. We are humans; we need human connections. The best way to work with remote hires is to do pulse calls just to see what resources they need and determine where you can help them to better understand processes or obstacles.

While there is no crystal clear solution for retaining a virtual workforce, it’s obvious that communication and clarification from an employer side is even more important than in traditional offices. Those employees are still part of the team and should not be forgotten.

While technology is a big part of maintaining a virtual workforce, it cannot always be relied on to make communication easier. Misinterpretations will still occur and it is up to an employer to make sure virtual employees have the right tools and directions to succeed.

By Morgan Norman is the Founder and CEO of Work Simple