E-Tip 272 - 7 Steps to Do BEFORE an Employee Leaves

Whether an employee leaves your company amicably on their own terms or after being fired, there are a number of steps a business should take to ensure their security and, in the end, their prosperity. The departure of an employee is far more critical a moment than when they first join your team as new employees know nothing about your operation. Conversely, departing employees have cultivated and retained a great deal of knowledge about your business, your competitors, your financials and, most importantly, your client list.

Even If It Is An Amicable Separation, You Need To Read This . . .

Even if the departing employee has performed admirably and has shown no signs of hostility during their employment, there is no way of knowing for sure how they will react when it comes time to part ways. To help keep your company safe, we have consolidated seven key steps to take when an employee departs. Try not to look at these steps as measures to take for problematic employees, but rather a standard set of rules to follow regardless of who the employee is and what kind of employment record they had with your business.

The 7 Steps To Take BEFORE Any Employee Leaves Your Business:

1. Issue A Final Paycheck - Every departing employee must be issued a final paycheck, but when they must receive it depends on your state's laws. In some states, an employee's final paycheck must be issued on their last day of work. In other states, their paycheck may still follow the usual payroll cycle. There is also the matter of accrued unused vacation time that may need to be included in the final paycheck. After payroll has cut the employee's final paycheck, have the accounting clerk remove their name from payroll.

2. Collect Company Property - Do not let departing employees walk out the door for the last time while still in possession of a company car, keys, security cards, company credit cards, computers, cell phones, company manuals or any confidential material. While this may seem obvious, it is very easy to forget these items when you have trusting feelings toward certain employees.

3. Cancel Credit And Phone Cards - In addition to collecting company credit cards and phone cards, as mentioned above, you should also cancel them. An employee could have easily copied down the card's information for personal use. And since there is no way of knowing whether they did, the best course of action is to cancel those cards.

4. Deactivate Personal Passwords - The departing of an employee is always a matter of security, and one of the chief security concerns is access -- access to the building, access to your network, etc. Be sure to disable any personal passwords or entry codes to the building, especially if you use a biometric system. Remove any lingering profiles they may have on the network, and institute a company-wide password change to anything with a generic login.

5. Address Confidentiality Policies - This coincides with the collection of company property. Since you cannot collect something intangible like knowledge, it is pertinent that you debrief departing employees. Review any non-disclosure agreements and/or non-compete clauses you may have arranged with the employee. It is crucial that you make clear their obligations to adhere to those arrangements. We also suggest that you give them a copy of the agreement for future reference.

6. Decide Who Will Handle Projects - To make certain your employee's departure does not impact the company's day-to-day productivity, create a plan that distributes their responsibilities among other employees. Also, have the departing employee personally brief these employees, but be cautious about this; it can sometimes be caustic if the person is not leaving on good terms. Make sure you start this process early to give everyone involved enough time to get coordinated on picking up the extra work.

7. Assign A Point Of Contact - Even though an employee is leaving, they may still need to communicate with your company for several weeks, especially regarding references. Give them a point of contact within the company they can solicit needed information.

Executive Summary: Whether an employee departure is on their own terms or against their will, you need to remind yourself that this is strictly business; therefore, try to keep your emotions in check even though a good friend may be leaving the company. As a reminder, collect the company's property, deactivate all passwords, and debrief the departing employee. These steps will ensure that your business goes through a seamless transition when an employee leaves without any serious hiccups, significant loss or damage incurred.

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E-Tip 271 - 8 Teambuilding Ideas for You

As 2010 gets underway, a number of executives throughout the region are focusing on their team building skills. This is because they understand that their company's success is dependent on their employees working as a team -- regardless of the company's size or what product/service it offers. They also understand the fundamental principles of team building.

Basic Corporate Team Building Skills Are Driven By Unity.

Every business has a variety of different teams, teams like management, operations, sales, production, warehousing, etc. But no matter what any one team is responsible for, all teams contribute to a single goal: The success of the company.

Corporate Team Building Skills Enable Companies To Grow.

There are a number of core components for developing your team building skills, like:

· Communication

· Concentration

· Fast decision making skills

· Effective decision making skills

· Self-confidence

· Respect for others and oneself

In order to help you strengthen team unity at your business, we have developed 8 team building ideas, techniques and tips you should employ when managing your teams from hereon out.

1. Make sure that the team goals are completely clear, completely understood and accepted by each team member.

2. Make sure everyone on the team understands who is responsible for what in order to avoid overlapping authority. For example, if the risk of two team members competing for control in certain area exists, try to divide that area into two distinct parts and give each team member more control in one part or the other. Base your decision according to the individual's strengths and personal inclinations.

3. Build trust with your team members by spending one-on-one time in an atmosphere of honesty and openness. Be loyal to your employees if you expect them to be loyal to you.

4. Allow your office team members to build trust and openness between each other in team building activities and events. Provide them with opportunities to socialize with one another in an atmosphere that encourages open communication. For example, have a group lunch on Fridays, occasionally. Just be sure your corporate team building activities do not compete with your employees' family time.

5. For issues that rely heavily on team consensus and commitment, try to involve the whole team in the decision making process. What you want to achieve by doing this is for each team member to feel a personal investment in the final decision, solution or idea. And the more he or she feels this way, the more likely they are to agree with and commit to that decision when it is executed, and in the process deepen team commitment to progress.

6. When managing teams, make sure the lines of communication are not blocked so that you and your people remain fully informed. Even if your team is spread across different locations, you can still maintain effective team communication.

7. Do not miss opportunities to empower your employees. Say thank you or show your appreciation for a team player's work.

8. Do not limit yourself to negative feedback. Be fair. Whenever there is an opportunity, give positive feedback as well.

Summary: Team building is developing relationships, whether they are with a casual acquaintance, a friend, a colleague from work, or your significant other. The stronger the relationship between people, the more dynamically they perform. This is true of team building. But team building does not happen overnight. Like any relationship, it requires push and pull, give and take and time to be nurtured. While this may seem like a lot of work, and a bit of an inconvenience, the value that healthy, dynamic team structures can have for your business are immeasurable and essential to the success of your company.

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E-Tip 270 - 9 Tips on Leading a Virtual Team

Over the years, we have worked with many global companies. And when a business is global, it often times requires managing people virtually, which creates a completely new set of issues for team leaders to overcome. To help with these challenges, we have listed a number of tips below should you find yourself leading a team with members who do not share a common location.

The 9 Tips On Managing A Virtual Team Are:

Tip #1. Have A Live Meeting To Jump-Start The Project - When working on a long-term project or with a newly created team, we suggest having a live meeting first, so that everyone can meet face-to-face. Doing so will help develop a well-built foundation the group can leverage over time. Although it may appear to be a huge expense, experts feel that this investment will have a high return in the end.

Tip #2. Take Advantage Of Today's Technology - There are so many ways to communicate these days, from gotomeeting.com to web conferencing. Although they can be useful, we suggest that you do not get too caught up in going 100% virtual. While some of your employees will agree that it works and use it readily, others will be slow to adopt the technology. Remember this: The best piece of equipment in today's business world is still the telephone.

Tip #3. Know The Time Zones Everyone Is In - One problem many people have when working with a virtual team is knowing the time zone changes for the entire team. Whether it is calls to the east coast, west coast or even calls to Europe or Asia, you need to respect the time zones everyone works in. And if you are global, you need to understand that not everyone is going to have a convenient call-in time.

Tip #4. Keep Your Calls To 45 - 60 Minutes - Whenever you are on a national or global team call, there will be some people driving the call while others sit back and listen. To keep everyone mentally tuned in, try to keep calls to a maximum of 45 - 60 minutes. At the end of the call, have someone summarize the call before you close using defined action items, and then send out an e-mail in outline form for easy follow-up.

Tip #5. Keep Everyone Actively Involved With The Conference Calls - One of the best ways to keep a conference call working is for everyone to call in on separate lines. Doing so will keep people focused on what the topic is and allow them to run any applications via their own computer. If not, you run the risk of people not talking loud enough if they are in a conference room or not seeing the details during the presentation.

Tip #6. Focus On Your Meeting And Project Management Skills - As the team or project manager, you need to keep your meeting and project management skills sharp. The importance of having an agenda, role definitions, action items and documentation amplify when there is a virtual team formed for a project.

Tip #7. Schedule One-on-One Calls With Your Team - We often suggest scheduling one-on-one calls with your team members, as this provides an opportunity to build rapport with them. Schedule these one-on-one calls every 4 - 6 weeks in order to maintain that rapport.

Tip #8. Develop Team Building Skills - Work on team building projects that can help build trust and cooperation among your staff. We suggest going to Google and running a search on "low-cost team building exercises."

Tip #9. Give People Time To Review Related Content - No matter what time zone your team members live in or language they speak, we recommend giving everyone 36 hours to review your documentation. We also recommend sending an agenda a full 24 hours before a conference call so that participants can print the agenda and read it that day or the following morning over a cup of coffee.

Executive Summary: A virtual group's dynamic is always changing based on personalities, skill sets and project scope. Additionally, you need to be consciously aware of your team building, project management skills and one-on-one team building skills. Once you have mastered these three things, you will find life as a virtual team member will be a lot easier for everyone (including you).

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E-Tip 269 - The Cost of "Cyber-Slacking"

These days, it is all too common to stroll by an employee's desk and catch them browsing the Internet -- usually, notably, for personal use rather than business-related research. In fact, the American Management Association (AMA) discovered that 68% of businesses lose money and time on employees who are "cyber-slacking."

Cyber-slacking is the use of work internet access for personal enjoyment while maintaining the appearance of being productive. The trouble with cyber-slacking, unfortunately, is that it comes in a variety of different shapes and sizes. Worse yet, it is typically carried out on software that businesses rely on, such as e-mail clients and web browsers.

The Five Most Common Forms Of Cyber-Slacking Are:

1. E-mail correspondence to personal contacts
2. Web browsing, primarily to news and sports websites
3. Online stock trading
4. Online gambling
5. Chat rooms/instant messengers

How Much Is Cyber-Slacking Costing Your Business?

Of course, not all cyber-slacking starts intentionally. Often enough, employees log online to look up something business-related, but through a series of "wiki moments" find themselves viewing websites that stopped being relevant to work several clicks ago. However, the bottom line is that cyber-slacking is nothing but costly. In a study conducted by surfControl, a web-filtering software maker, it was revealed that if 1,000 employees engage in personal web surfing for only one hour a day it would cost that organization up to $35-million a year.

Combat Cyber-Slacking Effectively.

The most obvious way to combat cyber-slacking is to monitor Internet usage, but this can be tricky. This is why we suggest including Internet usage policies in your employee handbook. These policies should define what sorts of websites are considered inappropriate as well as address excessive Internet usage. Furthermore, the consequences for violating these policies should be outlined clearly. These can range from docked pay to having computer privileges restricted.

If you do choose to monitor employee computer usage, be sure to consult with an attorney in order to avoid any legal risks relating to rights to privacy.

Executive Summary: As powerful a tool as the Internet is, especially for businesses, it is also a vehicle for distraction and procrastination. Everyday software such as e-mail clients and web browsers provide a temptation for employees to catch up on news or read about their favorite sports heroes. In order to effectively combat cyber-slacking, employers should take preventative measures by writing Internet usage policies into their employee handbooks. And instead of monitoring the sites employees visit, employers should evaluate how much time employees spend online to better address concerns about productivity.

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E-Tip 268 - 8 Tips for Leadership Development

We all know that conflicts at work are inevitable. But when these conflicts become disruptive and affect productivity, they become costly as well -- especially if the person spending their time trying to resolve these issues or conflicts is you. Eventually, you may find yourself asking, "How am I supposed to get my job done when everyone asks me to solve their problems?"

If you are spending a significant amount of time dealing with other people's issues, you are partially to blame. It is imperative, for your sake and their own, that your team learns to solve their own problems. If they do not, they will always look to you to solve their problems. Remember, your job as a leader is not to solve someone else's problems or issues, but to foster the growth of confidence and skills necessary for them to solve their own problems.

Instead Of Solving Someone's Problem, Try Asking Questions.

Did you know the best course of action is not to outright solve an issue, but rather to ask general questions about what the team thinks should be done or could have been done to resolve their issues or problems? In doing so, you help someone gain confidence by learning to solve things on their own. Here is a process that some people found success in implementing:

• Have the person define and simplify the issue. Does it warrant action? If so, what type? Is the matter urgent, important or both?
• Have the person gather all relevant facts to better understand what caused the issue.
• Have that person create a small group to brainstorm possible options and solutions.
• Consider and compare the pros and cons of each option.
• Have the person select the best option (avoid vagueness or a compromise that is just politically correct) that solves their issue.
• Have the person explain their decision to those involved and affected, and then follow-up to ensure proper and effective implementation.

As the employees who directly report to you begin to solve their own problems, their confidence will grow. This process is just one of many that can help build strong leaders.

We have come across a number of principles that have helped successful leaders and managers strengthen the people surrounding them. We have listed eight of those principles below for you and your staff.

1. Work on establishing trust before offering advice.
2. Keep the promises that you make, even the small ones.
3. Work on making others successful.
4. Recognize the potential in others and develop those skills.
5. Catch people doing things right (this even works for kids).
6. Go out of your way for people, as the little things make all the difference.
7. Know what motivates one person vs. another.
8. Understand the differences between men and women.

Executive Summary: The key to having other people solve their own problems is to take them out of the issue emotionally and put them in a position to be decisive. Once that is done, your role in helping them solve any problems will be a lot easier.

Your Next Step: If you want to find out more about how Dale Carnegie® Training can make your business more effective, or need more information on this subject, please contact us at our website!

E-Tip 267 - The Value of Client Surveys

The start of a new year is a time of renewal for many businesses. And one of the best ways to help augment the process is to conduct Client Satisfaction Surveys, as they will provide a snap shot of what is and is not working in the eyes of a client.

What You Do Not Provide A Customer May Not Be Obvious To You...Even If You Are The President.

As you look back on 2009, you probably learned a lot about your business, but what may not be obvious are the things that a customer desires, wants or needs from your business. That being said, we suggest conducting a client and past client satisfaction survey. By implementing a survey, you will learn a lot about what your company is doing right and perhaps what you should be doing.

4 Ways To Conduct A Survey.

There are four main ways to implement a survey:

1. Face-to-face interviews
2. Telephone interviews
3. Written questionnaires (faxed back or mailed)
4. Online surveys

Of the survey types listed above, online surveys are by far the most cost-effective and the results can quickly be compiled with online survey tools. No matter what venue you choose, we suggest keeping three factors in mind: The quality of your e-mail or mailing list, the type of survey questions/choices and, of course, the results.

Survey The Right People.

Before you begin developing your survey questions, put yourself in the shoes of your target audience. You will want to ensure that you know the name of the person being surveyed, their title, mailing address, phone number and e-mail address. Do not hesitate to spend extra time double-checking your database's information.

Ask The Right Questions.

When you are ready to design your survey, ask yourself, what is the objective of this survey? If you are building the survey questions around multiple sections, use a logical break in the sequence of questions asked. If not, your survey will seem jumbled and confusing. In other words, keep your survey simple and straightforward.

When you are developing the choices for your survey, avoid score-based questions, as marketing research has discovered that survey respondents are often too generous with their scores when grading is required. For example, out of a ten-point scale respondents will typically select 7's, 8's or 9's and rarely ever dip below 6. Naturally, this results in inaccurate survey data that businesses cannot rely on for self-evaluation. Because of this, we suggest using:

• Strongly Disagree
• Disagree
• Agree
• Strongly Agree

When asking someone to grade a product, we recommend using a three-step expectation scale, like this:

• Much more useful than expected
• About as useful as expected
• Less useful than expected

Take The Results To The Next Level.

After sending out your survey, wait 1-2 weeks before collecting your responses. Keep in mind that when it comes to online surveys, a 30% response rate is considered good. Once you have your responses, use the data as a springboard for discussion with clients. Ask them if the results mirror their own sentiments regarding your services and inform them of any changes you may soon implement.

Executive Summary: Every business should strive for improvement, especially if they hope to succeed in this ever-changing business climate. One of the best ways to start to upgrading or changing things at your business is to ask the people who spend the most time using your products or services...your clients and past clients.

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E-Tip 266 - Call Me After the Holidays

At last, we have reached December, a time of the year when things start to get interesting for many salespeople. This is when salespeople start to hear prospective buyers say things like:

• "Call me after the holidays."
• "Our business is slow right now, so we won't be buying anything until after the first of the year."
• "We're going to wait until after the first of the year before we change _________."

Unless what you sell can be given as a holiday gift, this time of year presents a unique and difficult challenge for many salespeople.

Here Are Just A Few Ways To Handle A Prospect Delaying A Buying Decision...

• "I understand. Some businesses are putting off _____________ until after the first of the year and because of that, I wanted to see if your company qualifies for our new cost saving ____________ program (or whatever your special offer is called), which has an extra bonus if you sign up by December 30th. This would save you X%."
• "I can relate to things being slow right now. By the way, I wanted to share with you a new _______ package to introduce our (insert your product/services here). How many employees are on your payroll?"
• "I can relate to things being slow right now, but tell me, will anything change after the first of the year that will prevent you from starting then?"
• "I understand. What day after the first of the year would you like to start your _____________?"
• "I understand. We can deliver the products now and bill you after the first of the year. Does that work for you? On top of that, you will save X% by avoiding the 2010 price increase."

What You Say After Being Told "No" Will Prompt A Prospect To Tell You Their Real Objection.

Often times, the reason a prospect stalls their buying decision is because they are afraid of taking a risk. They may be thinking, "Suppose this service doesn't work well for our situation-then I'll be in trouble." In addition to fear, another reason a prospect may be stalling is if their cash flow is off and they are not authorized to make any purchases. Whatever the real reason may be, you need to flush-it-out and solve it.

If A Prospect Still Says "No" Here Is What You Need To Do.

Like you, I talk to people who want to put things off until after the first of the year. In order to get around this, I do three things. First, I schedule a follow-up call in my database for the first week of the year. Second, I place them in my weekly e-tip marketing campaign so my company's name stays in their conscious and subconscious mind. Third, I send them relevant information about their industry, not notes asking, "Are you ready to buy yet?"

See below for some additional ideas:

• Postcards that promote special offers on your products or services
• Special reports or white papers about cost savings, customer success stories or related customer testimonials.
• Buying guides that help them make the best buying decision. Consumer Reports magazine does a great job at presenting this type of data.
• Letters from the president of your company thanking them for their past business.
• Independent articles that talk about cost saving from your product or services.
• Press releases on new clients, customer service guarantees or special interest projects.

Executive Summary: If a prospect is delaying their decision to buy from you, we recommend offering an alternative close. By doing so, you will most likely find the underlying cause of why they are not buying from you.

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