We’ve received a number of comments on a recent post, “Why Is Change So Difficult?“ Many of you commented that top management holds the key to overcoming resistance to change, yet company leaders sometimes don’t lead very effectively. Well, top management, here are some suggestions for overcoming resistance to change:

1. If you say “we need to change” and you don’t follow that up with a rationale, education, support, and guidance, you lose credibility with your employees. You have to lead, and not just with words. You have to show what change will look like, how it will come about, and give your people an honest, accurate cost-benefit analysis (i.e., it will take x, y, and z and may cause some short-term pain but we’ll be a stronger company in the long run).

2. Acknowledge employees’ stake in the outcome. If you think company owners are the only ones who have a stake in whether the company is successful and profitable, you’re looking at the situation too narrowly.

Your employees all have a crucial stake. If the company maintains the status quo and falls behind its competitors as a result, many employees may be out of a job. It’s in their best interest to see their company grow and change with the times.

Whether you know it or not, the majority of employees feel the company’s products are their products. Acknowledging this sense of pride in ownership will only reinforce their sense of worth and investment.

3. You value your employees’ insights. They’re involved from day to day in all the low- and mid-level processes. They see many things you don’t. Furthermore, you don’t have time to look for all the little details. Trust them to know what’s going on and invite their observations and criticisms.

4. At the same time, understand that your employees have different backgrounds and, therefore, different perspectives on your situation. They all have an interest in seeing the company change and improve, but how they read the company’s situation — and how they’d go about effecting change if they were in top management’s seat — will vary. Value the different viewpoints and use them to your advantage.

5. Understand the needs and requirements of the company at the different levels. Have you had a good talk with customer service, purchasing, or production lately? How do they see the company? What do they think the company needs to move forward? What do they need at their level to make change work?

6. You didn’t hire the best just to sit on their experience and talents, did you? You believe their personal and professional growth is in their best interests and yours, right? Well, why not make use of all that they have to offer? Show some trust in their knowledge and instincts…and in yours. It doesn’t make sense not to.

7. Everyone working together toward a common goal gives employees a sense of belonging and togetherness. “We’re in this together” isn’t just a slogan: it’s how exceptional organizations are run. It’s how companies like yours stay ahead of their competitors.

How does your company encourage change? How do you involve your employees in change? How do you get them to buy into the idea? I look forward to your comments.

On November 21, 2009, the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, or GINA, goes into effect across the United States. GINA, signed into law on May 21, 2008, is designed to protect Americans against discrimination based on their genetic information.  Employers cannot make decisions regarding employees’ health insurance and employment.  GINA requires that covered entities obtain and post notices informing covered individuals of their rights under the new law.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has updated its “self-print” EEOC poster to include information about GINA.  All covered entities are required to post the most recent EEOC poster, along with five other required Federal posters.

Is Your Company a “Covered Entity”?

• Private companies with 15 or more employees
• Some public sector employers
• Employment agencies
• Labor organizations

Is Your Company Posting All Six Required Posters?

1. EEO – Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
2. FLSA or Federal Minimum Wage – Fair Labor Standards Act
3. OSHA – Occupational Safety and Health Act
4. EPP – Employee Polygraph Protection
5. FMLA – Family and Medical Leave Act
6. USERRA – Uniform Services Employment & Reemployment Rights Act

Depending on your company’s circumstances, you may have to display as many as eight other Federal posters to be in compliance:

1. DOL Wage/Hour Division Poster- Notice to Workers with Disabilities
2. MSPA – Migrant & Seasonal Agriculture Worker Protection
3. IRS Poster- Check Your Withholdings
4. EIC – Earned Income Credit
5. ARRA – American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
6. DBRA – Davis Bacon Act
7. SCA – McNamara-O’Hara Service Contract Act
8. LMRDA – Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act
9. ADA – Americans with Disabilities Act

In addition, you should know and be prepared for the recently enacted American Recovery and Investment Act (ARRA).  While ARRA compliance is not an issue, certain aspects of the Act could have a positive effect on your workforce.

Your state is likely to require you to post certain information with respect to state labor laws, as well.  Check with your state Department of Labor or Employment Office; the US Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division is a good starting point.

One of the more complex — and frustrating — aspects of operating a business is the plethora of federal, state, and local employment regulations.  Many companies — small, large, and in between — are simply overwhelmed by the wide variety of labor laws they need to comply with.  (Did you know that by the time a company reaches twenty employees, it must comply with virtually all Federal labor regulations?)

Keeping track of the “alphabet soup” of acronyms and abbreviations is extremely challenging for business owners, top executives, and HR professionals, but they have little choice in most instances.  Not understanding and not staying current with labor laws raises your risk of noncompliance, which can leave your firm vulnerable to lawsuits, fines, negative publicity, and loss of revenue.  Simply failing to display any one of the six mandatory posters can lead to thousands of dollars in fines.

If you’re not sure whether your business is subject to ERISA, IRCA, ADA, COBRA, FMLA, and other employee protection laws, we’ve constructed a handy reference table (below), listing the major Federal Employment Acts and when compliance is required, based on company size.  Additional compliance requirements for federal government contractors are also listed, as are links to websites for the various government agencies that oversee these regulations.

A much easier-to-read version of this table is featured in the Bizmanualz Human Resources Policies, Procedures, and Forms Manual (ABR41), a product specifically designed to help businesses like yours maintain a procedural framework for regulatory compliance.

Federal HR Laws

Many metrics exists to focus an organization on important organizational objectives and drive the company forward.  Key organizational metrics are more controversial.  Many organizations will focus on revenue, profit, and growth as “Key” measures of success.  Yet, all three are lagging indicators and will not tell you the whole story about your organizations prospects.

Revenue does not say anything about your foundation.  Revenue can rise due to asset sales, unprofitable discounts, or realizing future revenue today.   Profitable revenue is more important yet profit is an accounting number filled with depreciation, amortization, absorption rules and tax effects.  Growth sounds great but can hide failing products, while horizontal growth can spread the organization too thin.

So what is an organization to do?  Produce a balance of leading and lagging indicators for your success.  leading indicators represent metrics that forecast a high probability of future success.  For example, the relationship you have with your customers can say a lot about your future sales, you competitive advantage, and your prospects for future growth.

Below are Ten Leading Indicators of Organizational Success

1. Communication Effectiveness – Did your employees understand, not just hear, your latest communication message?  Sure you said it in your last meeting, newsletter, memo, or web page, but does anybody understand it.  How would you know?  Did you use a test, quiz, or did someone repeat it back in different words?  Do you have a measure for the effectiveness of your communications?
2. Customer Relationships – We are not talking about customer satisfaction.  Often times a customer may be satisfied but what is your relationship index with them?  Relationships are two-way streets.  How do you feel about them?  Do they pay on time, generate enough revenue, and are they easy to work with?  Focusing on customer satisfaction alone could lead to unprofitable customers.  Sure the customer is always right but are they the right customer for you?  Do you have a measure for customer relationships?
3. Employee Satisfaction - Happier employees will lead to happier customers.  Do you have an employee satisfaction index that measures: absenteeism, complaints, turnover, and surveys?
4. Brand Image - This is about more than recognition, brand image is a leading indicator of success regarding how people feel about your organization.  Use market research and survey your market to determine if your brand image is rising or falling.
5. Distraction- Everybody has a job within your organization but how much time do they spend on what they were hired to do?  Do you have a measure for administrative tasks, quality improvement, and other management assignments?  In lean we try to eliminate this waste.  How much time is spent on those tasks management asked you to do but are not part of your job description?
6. Trust- Do people believe in your organization/leaders?  You could call this the “foot-dragging” index.  If people do not believe in their management then they will erect barriers that will slowdown the implementation of any management program or initiative and customers will stall and stop buying.  Do you have a measure for determining your organizations level of honesty and integrity both inside and outside of your organization?
7. Customer Frustration – Don’t you want your customers to have a consistent and beneficial experience with your organization?  So how do you seek out, count and measure the aggravations, frustrations and negative surprises that your customers experience as they do business with you? I know that most companies do not measure this because every major corporation has a phone tree you must navigate to talk to them, and then you are put on hold, only to talk to the person that cannot help you.  Frustrated customers will eventually abandon your organization in search of a more pleasant vendor experience.  Are you measuring customer frustrations?
8. Supplier Relationships - Just like customer relationships, supplier relationships must be measured too.  How easy is the supplier to do business with? Are they responsive to your needs? Is their quality more than sufficient?  Suppliers provide inputs that are, in some way, passed on to your customers.  Garbage in equals garbage out so how do you measure your supplier relationships?
9. Project Management - Every organization has projects, either for clients or for internal customers.  The better your organization is as delivering on project objectives, the more effective and efficient it will be.  How do you measure a project’s budget and cost performance, schedule completion, quality and even innovation?
10. Employee Competence - This is more than just training hours, it is about actually learning something useful to your job.  To do this right is difficult.  You might develop a competency matrix defining the required skills versus the required skill level.  Then measure everyone’s current skill as a percentage.  The gaps indicate the training required to move the organization toward higher competence.  Are you measuring competence?

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… Rank: wait… Traffic: wait… Price: wait… C: wait…

Like we’ve been shouting from the rooftops since last Thursday, Bizmanualz passed our ISO 9001:2008 certification audit, both for our products and our consulting services.

I don’t like this blog to be about tooting our own horn, but I did think it would be beneficial to pass along some of the positive comments our auditor made that perhaps your organization could use. Each company is different, and what works for us might not for you. Take the general idea and see how you can implement a style or form of it customized to your company.

ISO is a lot about communication. Management is supposed to communicate to employees the goals and vision of the company, specifics on the quality management system, and host of other subjects. As Shailesh pointed out, our auditor praised our method-holding daily meetings circled around our scoreboard.

Bizmanualz Morning Meetings

Each day we talk about different internal processes, i.e., Fulfillment, Projects, Internet Marketing, Quality, Human Resources, Strategy, etc., and discuss the latest developments or current work happening on each. We also are able to celebrate each other’s successes and talk about corrections or corrective actions that may result from defects or problems that arise.

It’s a way to keep everyone in our company in the loop, see where we are, and compare that to where we would like to be.  If your company is larger, perhaps you could do this departmentally or weekly instead of daily. The important part is that the communication is happening.

Below is our actual scoreboard. On it, we are able to see the person(s) responsible for each internal company process, the open action items in each of the processes, the current metrics (gauging successes or shortcomings of the process), and the overall status of each. These are updated daily, marked with positive or negative colors, and discussed.

It may seem like a lot to do daily, but we have a solution for that. As you can see in the photo above, we stand during the meeting, which tends to shorten the amount of time people ramble.

We also close the meeting with a quote–typically one that either inspires the staff or makes them think. It’s a great way to start off the workday, and I highly recommend it to any company looking for ways to improve the way it communicates to its staff.

By the way, I had today’s quote: “It is amazing how much people can get done if they do not worry about who gets the credit.” -Sandra Swinney