Setting Leaders up for Success with Manager Contracts

Years ago I learned the importance of setting expectations between managers & new employees through the tough lesson of not asking the right questions on management style of a new employee. I had managed an employee through a 16 week full time summer contract and they were one of the most pessimistic people I had ever worked with. I felt like I was constantly trying to keep him and his teammates motivated as his attitude seeped onto others.  At the end of the program, I sat down with the employee to do their evaluation and so many discussions points came out I wish I had known from day 1. I realized I was trying to drive positivity and results by challenges and incentives – I thought this was motivating to him as had a very competitive nature & always rose to win the challenge. In the review, it came out that he didn’t feel motivated on the program as he wanted increased responsibility to grow additional skills. At first I was frustrated with him – why didn’t he tell me this at some point over the 16 week program? Then, I stepped back and realized that as his manager, this onus was on ME to ask the right questions!

Though it was a tough 16 weeks, I learned a very important lesson that summer as a new people manager. I now believe that as a manager you should be a chameleon and adapt your management style to those that report to you. From this situation, I developed something I call the “Manager Contract.” It is a 2 page document that everyone I work with fills in as it facilitates a discussion on what we both need to have a successful working relationship. I personalize them to each and every direct report.  

The document is broken into 2 sections: section 1 is on expectations for each of us in our roles and section 2 is open ended questions around the topic of personalized coaching. In the expectation section, it reviews the top 15-20 expectations I have for that person in their role. This includes things like answering voicemails/emails within 24 hours and then specifics about team management, problem solving, being a role model etc. Following my expectations on them, it then reviews the expectations they should have of me as their manager. This is a 2-way relationship after all!

My favourite part of the contract is actually part 2, which is about personalized management. I typically keep these open ended questions the same for all direct reports though may edit out a few if that employee is not a people manager. I ask questions like:

-          My best working environment includes

-          I need the following from my manager

-          My goal in my role is

-          My personal career goal is

-          My strengths are

-          My growth opportunities are

-          I will be the following type of leader
-         Etc

I then include a section where I, the manager, answer similar questions about:

-          My best working environment includes

-          I need from those who report to me

-          I will help you achieve your goals/successes by

The process is that I create the template of the contract and then forward it to my direct report to personalize and send back to me. We then have a meeting to walk through the document and set ourselves up for success in our new working relationship. This is a living breathing document so if one member feels the other isn’t keeping up their end of the bargain, then we can pull it out and review; we also refresh/update the contract every 6 months as projects and priorities change. 

I learned my lesson about asking the right questions a LONG time ago and for over 7 years I have had a management contract with every single direct report. I now use the contract more as a reminder of the right questions for myself but use it as a great tool for all of my direct reports who are managers as it sets them up for success with new direct reports.

What do you do to set up new managers and direct reports for success? Do you coach your teams to ask the right questions? Do you want your managers to tailor their style to direct reports or vice versa? Remember templates act as a guide and are a great training tool for new managers!

Happier Employees are More Productive: How Corporate Social Responsibility Contributes

More companies are recognizing that having a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) policy and activities is not only about creating a favourable public image but is a key component in candidate recruiting & employee retention.  Starting in 2009, the 50 Best Employers in Canada Survey (by Hewitt Associates) included CSR as a factor affecting employee engagement. “According to Hewitt, the higher the overall level of engagement, the more your staff will:  Consistently say positive things about your organization; Intend to stay with your organization; Strive to achieve above and beyond what is expected in their daily role.” In summary, happy employees are more productive. Additionally, employees who are happy at work will share their excitement and build up your employment brand. This helps you recruit other great employees. It’s a simple Win-Win.

There is no one definition for CSR activities but it generally includes the integration of economic, environmental and social activities. The goal is to embrace responsibility of a company’s actions and encourage positive impacts.  Investing in social responsibility not only creates happy employees but can improve your bottom line as engaged employees will work harder.  The interesting thing is most studies show that the importance of CSR is not limited to one generation but affects ALL of your employees.

Similarly to the Hewitt Best Places to work survey, a report by the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) on CSR activities states that “investments in CSR programs boost employee satisfaction, retention and loyalty.” The report polled 2,215 workers globally and found that employers want to be proud of their company and if they were proud, they were eager to discuss the positive deeds of their company with others. Thus, within your CSR plan, a communication strategy is also very important. This empowers your employees to act as ambassadors for your company and build up your employment brand.  Train those involved in CSR activities on your communication strategy and ensure to use social media platforms like a blog, Facebook & Twitter to ensure the messages go viral. Potential employees want to hear what their future colleagues think of the company versus PR messaging. What better way to show how great your organization is than share how you give back to your community? Retweeting tweets of employees volunteering, having those involved in CSR activities write blog posts for your website, sharing photos of employees volunteering or highlighting your green efforts online are important to gain value from your CSR activities for recruiting new candidates. Ensure your website features your CSR activities and messaging from your employees as candidates today want to know that their perspective employer cares – for its people, environment and community. 

Here are some of the things that I think are important to consider as you build out your CSR policy:

-     Poll and engage your employees in the process to understand what social activities mean something to them; they are likely more interested if they help design the direction of your CSR policy

-     Consider allowing employees to volunteer their time during company hours

-     Create committees internally to own the pillars of your CSR implementation; empower your team

-     Design Key Performance Indicators to measure your CSR 

-     Provide company updates regularly as part of your internal communication strategy.

-     Ensure your communication strategy considers using multiple platforms and update your website to showcase your CSR activities to support your recruiting initiatives

-     Evaluate and update your CSR policy regularly

Having a CSR doesn’t only make business sense but it will pay out in recruiting, retention & employee productivity. After all, isn’t every company after happier and more productive employees?

Good article about Hewitt Associates Employee Engagement Study: http://bit.ly/ieJEfo

Learn more about the CCL report at: http://bit.ly/h5tV4Q

Building an Online Brand

Building an online brand doesn’t happen overnight – be it a company/product or your personal brand. I dedicate a minimum of 5-8 hours per week working my online network be it reading interesting articles to stay current and relevant, monitoring or contributing to my LinkedIn Group or participating in other’s group discussions, tweeting, or reading/researching/writing blog posts. It takes time and strategy.

Here are my tips for building up your brand:

1.   Know your Positioning/Vision –What’s your purpose? Why do you want to be online? What do you want to share?

2.   Know your Audience – understand who you are targeting and then design content that is relevant to them. This will keep them coming back for more!

3.   Have a Strategy & Set Goals – I go on and on about the importance of having a social media policy. Don’t just jump in and be a split personality online with spastic messaging and no relational content or consistency. Decide why you are online (related to knowing your vision) and understand what tactics will help you meet your goals. You should visit this vision, tactics & goals often.

4.   Balance Mediums – don’t limit yourself to one online platform. Spread the wealth with multiple audiences; however, don’t go crazy and spread yourself too thin at the same time. Pick the sites that make the most sense for your message and understand where your target audiences spends time online & then spend time in the same place. Creating a listening campaign where you seek to understand where people in your space exist will help you know the spaces you should be playing in.

5.   Use your Offline Network to Build your Online Network – extend your real life relationships into an online space. Connect with friends and colleagues on LinkedIn, ask them to follow you on Twitter and to follow your blog. Friend’s are a great support to help you build up your online reputation. Additionally, seek out others who are similar to you in online spaces, engage with them and build new online relationships. Encourage their online efforts and in turn, hopefully, they will support yours! Don’t be afraid to ask for this support. When I write a blog post that I know someone will enjoy, I’m not afraid to send them a tweet or an email asking them to comment & spread the word. Balance these reach outs as they will fail to have impact if you inundate your friends or network.

6.   Create conversations – Remember that having an online brand is not about pushing out your messaging it’s about engaging with your followers or fellow group members and creating conversations about your product or about your opinion. Ask questions, participate with others and engage versus just pushing out PR based messages.

Good luck & let me know what your key strategies or techniques or for building up your company bran/product or personal brand online. Cheers!

Handling Social Media Mishaps - the Good, Bad & the Ugly

A scary part of social media sites dominating communication channels today is that brands no longer have control over their products or the messages surrounding them. There are 2 fantastic examples of brand faux pas’s within social media recently - one the good and one the bad & very very ugly. @BPglobalPR is a twitter account mocking BP through very ‘official like’ messages. This handle has 177, 360 followers and is listed over 8,000 times meaning that the reach and WOM of this handle is out of control and yet BP has no control over the messages released by this handle. On the other hand, there’s the recent Red Cross Twitter faux pas, which is an excellent example of how a brand successful handled an ‘oops’ moment online.

Let’s talk about these examples and hopefully you will learn some things NOT to do with your brand online & then a few tips on what to DO when something goes wrong (which is bound to happen when this many people are talking about you online).

@BPglobalPR is a twitter handle created on May 19, 2010 mocking BP’s handling of the gulf oil crisis. In my opinion, it is the most professional case of newsjacking to date. BP tried to have the account shut down but twitter essentially quoted freedom of speech and took no action. As a result, the account turned up the mock factor by 10 as seen in this response. “BP wants Twitter to shut down a fake account mocking the oil company. Twitter wants BP to shut down the oil leak that’s ruining the ocean.”  BP had no control over its message and the ‘fake’ account soon had greater reach than BP’s official news releases. People were drawn to the satirical comments and the ‘real’ truths being shared mocking BP’s efforts versus the canned message BP was offering. It’s a pretty scary place for a company when a handle is set up on a social media site and you have absolutely no authority to shut it down or influence the message.

Let’s talk about a good example of a brand owning up to a mistake. Recently the @RedCross account mistakenly tweeted something that should have come from the tweeter’s personal account via a mishap on hootsuite. The tweet read:

Oops – not exactly the message you expect from a 130 year old humanitarian organization. What the American Red Cross did well was own the issue, apologize and move forward. The discussions across twitter no longer mocked the mistake but complimented the Red Cross for owning it.  The Red Cross responded on their website with: “We realized our honest mistake (the Tweeter was not drunk) and deleted the above Tweet. We all know that it’s impossible to really delete a tweet like this, so we acknowledged our mistake:”

They turned this blooper into a powerful social media moment showcasing that the organization is run by “real” people. The twitterverse’s respect only increased for the organization. If only more companies were like the Red Cross and confident to show their human side and have a little laugh at their expense.

Ensure you don’t wait for messages about your brand to go through a thousand and one PR official channels; remember you have to be timely in using social media as if you aren’t someone else will!

Red Cross Twitter Faux Pas: http://bit.ly/dIW65p

@BPglobalPR on Twitter: http://bit.ly/i7tmna

Read more about BP asking twitter to shut down the “fake” BPglobalPR account: http://aol.it/cCDqf3

Interesting article about the man claiming to be behind the @BPglobalPR handle and his motives: http://bit.ly/9HmQot

How Smart Phones are Changing Everything - Are You Ready?

The internet is currently going through a revolution and it’s largely happening because of the growth of smart phones. The days of surfing the internet are over; most people are now accessing the internet via a mobile device seeking specific information. You have to drive people to access your brand directly versus hoping they might come across you via an internet search. Using a mobile device is “expected to take over the PC as the most popular way to get on the Web within five years.” Not only is mobile web usage growing but so are the number of apps available to drive specific destinations or information. Scared? Does your marketing plan take into account that your target audience has the web in their hands…literally? Are you thinking about the most used apps and how you can be on those sites because they are where your candidates/consumers are spending time?  Strategy Analytics in March 2010 forecasted that over 1 billion people will browse the mobile web via a smart phone by 2015 – not so far away!

Here are some amazing statistics from Mobi Thinking: Over 300,000 mobile apps have been developed in 3 years and have been downloaded 10.9 billion times. This should peak in 2013. So what are people downloading? Most used mobile apps in the US are “games; news, maps, social networking & music. Facebook, Google Maps and The Weather Channel rule.” Mobile use is only going to get bigger as mobile phone penetration outnumbers fixed internet users 5:2.

Some other interesting facts: 35% of mobile users are now using a media service that connects to the network (other than SMS, MMS, or voice), and the number of ‘just voice’ mobile users has fallen 18% year on year, and is now 35% or less. Also, people who access Facebook from their mobile devices spend approximately 68 more minutes there compared to people who access Facebook from their desktop. Don't you want to be mobile friendly?

So what does this mean for employment branding? A few things to think about are: Do you have a mobile friendly website? Can candidates apply on their smart phone? Are you using social media platforms? Are you available on those apps that your candidates are already spending time – especially Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Foursquare etc… How are you ensuring that you are not just keeping up with the trends but stay ahead of the curve to differentiate yourself from your competitors?

What are you doing to plan for the future and prepare your marketing and employment branding campaigns to be mobile friendly?

Want to scare yourself further about mobile internet use? Check out amazing statistics from Mobi Thinking at: http://bit.ly/fFcgjy & http://slidesha.re/hqw0Ea