|
Topic
|
Title
|
Description
|
Download
|
| Affirmative
Action/EEO |
Sexual
Harassment
|
Sexual
Harassment is unfortunately still a problem in the work place. This
article includes a definition of sexual harassment, supervisor's
responsibilities, basics of an investigation, a sample complaint
procedure and a test to see whether you can identify sexual harassment
situations. |
|
| Communications |
Feedback
Should Not Be Criticism:
|
Managers
give their staff direction and feedback. When done effectively work
happens and it is well done. Unfortunately, the two most frequent
sources of poor performance are ineffective direction and feedback.
We will talk about effective feedback. Often managers give what
they consider useful feedback and wonder why employees are not receptive
to the manager's constructive criticism. There is no such thing
as constructive criticism. |
|
| Employment
Law |
Ten
Ways to Reduce Workplace Liability
|
Avoid
saying and doing things that will cost you because you are violating
employment laws. |
|
| Skills
Assessment |
Manager Skills Assessment
|
This
is written for a retail environment but the format is easily customized.
The Manager assesses his or her own level of important job skills
and then compares it with an assessment done by the Boss. The discussion
that arises from the comparison of indicated skill levels can be
very useful for the Manager's self development. This is especialy
true because the discussion is guided by the skills and is therefore
more relevant than the Boss just saying "this is how I see
you doing". |
|
| |
Assessment
Result
|
A
sample Assessment Result of such an organization-wide assessment
is presented to show how the proceess worked when all the managers
in one organization completed the assessment and the summary was
reviewed for implications for training and development. |
|
Policy
& Practice
|
HR Policy Dos and Donts
|
Policies
are important for ensuring uniform practices and fairness in the
workplace. Here are some guidelines about writing policies. |
|
| Layoff
/ RIF |
Reduction
In Force (Layoff)
|
RIFs
are something too often necessary. If you don't do them objectively
with criteria and documentation you will be at a distinct disadvantage
if your decision is contested. The example provided is engineering,
but the process is the same no matter what industry you are in.
The criteria should be determined by what is important for the job
and the company. |
|
Succession
Planning
|
Succession
Plan for Regional Managers
|
This
is also a retail example but the process is the same for any organization.
Upper level managers rate the lower level manager on imporatnt work
related behaviors and use the results to plan for eventual replacements
and their development. When you don't plan for such replacements
the lower level managers do not feel they are valued and you have
a real problem when important high level staff leave. |
|
| Goal
Setting |
Goal
Linking |
One
of the problems people have once they have set objectives is to
get others who are needed to help implement the objectives (or to
acheive the results) to participate. It's your objective, not theirs.
However, you can't get it done without their help. I call this process
GOAL LINKING. This requires a "role negotiation" process.
The process is shown on the excel sheets available for download.
The process is one tab. And the
commitment form is on the other tab.
|
|
| Morale |
Morale
= Goals, Measurment and Feedback |
WANT
TO IMPROVE MORALE? PAY ATTENTION TO GOALS, MEASUREMENTS
AND FEEDBACK This article is from 1995 so some of the references
are a little out of date, but the ideas are all still quite valid.
Enjoy! |
|
| Organizational
Culture and Quality |
|
This article is an explanation of how
Org Culture can affect quality. It also contains a survey of an
engineering company's staff and how the results were interpreted.
Some data referenced is from a while back but the principles are
the same. |
|
| Performance
Appraisals |
Defensible
Performance Appraisals |
This article concerns some of the elements
most authorities consider necessary to produce a defensible system.
It begins with what is organizationally more important than being
legally defensible - how to develop a system that is employee defensible.
If the system is employee defensible they believe that the process
is fair and there is a link between pay and performance. I wrote
this a few years ago but the basics have not changed.
This article should not be construed as legal advice. Legal advice
is never free. |
|
| Effective
Meetings |
The Effective Meeting Leader: Everyone
at work has to lead meetings at one time or another. If you have
some trouble leading meetings you may find some helpful hints in
this article. It has an 8 step process for deciding when to have
a meeting including a flowchart of the decision process, as well
as, how to deal with lots of information and how to deal with control
issues as you conduct the meeting. |
|
| Six Sigma _Recruiting |
A couple years ago I completed a Six Sigma Green Belt Project in recruiting. We had been filling jobs in an average of 61 days and that was way below what our internal customers and benchmark data (40 days) said should be the case.
Using the Six Sigma DMAIC process I analyzed our process and made changes to the recruiting process that reduced the time-to-fill (TTF) jobs to under 40 days. For the next year TTF ranged from 35-47 days (for all jobs) or an average of 39 days, which gave us ~4000 extra work days from new hires, their first year of work.
Click here for the .ppt presentation of the project.
Click here for the Service Level Agreement we developed.
Click here for the recruiting process map we used with managers to explain the process and show where the SLA came into play. |
 Negotiation Success Requires Planning |
Click on this link for a
Negotiations article I published on the PMForum. |
|
|
