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Tag: Managing Employees

  • Creating This Type of Culture Helped Our Company Triple in Size | Entrepreneur

    Creating This Type of Culture Helped Our Company Triple in Size | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    When I joined my company in a leadership role nine years ago, I had an outsider’s lens in more ways than one.

    Not only was I new to the organization and the people who ran it, but the industry of in-home healthcare was a big pivot from retail, where I had spent most of my corporate career.

    What struck me the most as I embarked on new terrain, was the genuine kindness I witnessed from our people who were servicing our clients with great compassion. Our business isn’t built on transactions — it’s built on trust. Our clients have to feel confident in our ability to support and care for their loved ones.

    As genuine as our approach was, it was also clear there were areas where our corporate culture needed reshaping. For example, I recall walking into our shared kitchen daily, only to find the sink overflowing with dirty dishes. In meetings, I would hear people blame other team members for performance issues — signs that discipline and self-responsibility weren’t being prioritized.

    At the time, we had roughly 40 franchise locations, primarily in Canada. It was a healthy achievement, but I knew if we wanted to grow and expand internationally, we had to transform our culture and people practices.

    Today, we have more than 300 franchise locations in four countries and have grown our revenue by more than 200%. We’ve also developed a culture where 60% of our people have grown into different roles, allowing them to build new skills and challenge themselves. Here’s how we’ve accelerated the growth of our company and developed our people by creating a culture of bold kindness.

    Related: Why Patience And Kindness Need To Be At The Center Of How You Run Your Business

    Defining a culture of bold kindness

    Bold kindness is more than exercising empathy on a client phone call — it’s about shifting from a culture of “nice” to one of accountability while creating an environment where people feel their personal wellbeing matters.

    Creating a culture of self-discipline and accountability doesn’t require instilling fear or pulling corporate rank — in fact, it’s quite the opposite. We’ve found when you empower your team at every level to play a significant role in decision-making, you can exercise kindness and care for their wellbeing. This inadvertently helps build intrinsic motivation where teammates are driven to take ownership over their own work.

    According to data from McKinsey employees who are intrinsically motivated are 32% more committed to their job, have nearly 50% higher job satisfaction and perform 16% better than other employees.

    Today, everyone in our company works towards the same vision — we call it our “painted picture.” We set bold goals, and each one of us is accountable for helping achieve them, but we also respect that every team member has their own process for getting there.

    This intentional shift towards balancing a culture of self-responsibility with care for our people shows up in every aspect of our teams’ performance. From putting their own dishes away in our now well-maintained shared kitchen to the increase in our Net Promoter Score from the low 50s to the high 70s — bold kindness has motivated our team to achieve exceptional results and to be proud of the work the team has done.

    Related: Compassion Will Boost Your Business: Making The Case For Showing More Kindness At Work

    Knowing the people behind your performance

    We recently had two people within our company become first-time dog owners. We celebrated these milestones similarly to how we would if a team member had a baby. We were flexible in allowing our new dog owners to work from home and allowed them to transition back to in-office hours on a schedule that worked for their unique situation.

    In both circumstances, we wanted the underlying message to be clear: We value you, and what you’re going through matters. Operating from a lens of bold kindness means taking the time to understand your talent as people first. By celebrating and supporting each team member’s journey, both personal and professional, you foster a sense of belonging and care within your workplace.

    New research shows that when employees feel a sense of belonging at work, they are five times more likely to want to stay at their company. On the other hand, employees who feel insecure about their place within an organization are less likely to collaborate, share their creativity or perform to their highest potential.

    In contrast to traditional corporate environments, when our people come to work, they aren’t expected to leave personal matters at the door. If we ask someone how their day is going and they sound off — we stop to check in. We want to know what is really going on with our teammates, whether it’s personal or professional.

    Encouraging people to show up as their whole selves to work isn’t a license to forgo professional duties when a personal matter arises; it’s acknowledging the circumstances they are facing and supporting them through it so that they can do their best despite the distraction.

    Related: How Your Company Culture Can Be a Force Multiplier (For the Good and the Bad)

    Showing up as a human-first leader

    As CEO, I’m not immune to personal challenges. Just as I encourage my people to show up as their authentic selves at work, I’m transparent about my life with my team. As a leader, I’m aware that how I show up at work sets a tone, and it’s my responsibility to shape an environment where everyone can thrive.

    When I walk in on a Monday, I take time to greet everyone and listen with genuine interest as I hear about their weekends. These personal connections have been essential to our team’s success.

    A global study by the International Social Survey Program, published by the Harvard Business Review, showed workplace relationships have a significant impact on job satisfaction. Not only that, but researchers at the Universities of Pennsylvania and Minnesota have confirmed close relationships at work increase productivity and result in higher levels of commitment, better communication and morale.

    I’ve worked in traditional business environments where orders are expected to be followed without question and where parts of my identity weren’t welcomed. I’ve experienced firsthand how that kind of culture kills morale and innovation, and it always comes from the top.

    Bold kindness isn’t taught in traditional business schools yet, but for us, it’s been a game changer. Not only has the shift in our culture helped us triple our company’s size and expand internationally, but it’s also created a work environment where I and everyone around me feels supported and inspired.

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    Cathy Thorpe

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  • Great Leaders Must Be Great Coaches — Here's How to Become One | Entrepreneur

    Great Leaders Must Be Great Coaches — Here's How to Become One | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    What makes a great leader? Our traditional visions of leadership often center around a lone hero taking charge and charting a bold path for others to follow. But in my years of research on leadership development and my experience training hundreds of executives at top companies, I’ve found that successful leaders are much more relational and cooperative than this outdated view imagines.

    An entrepreneurial leader coaches her team to unleash their full potential. She helps team members develop a vision for their ideal versions of themselves and fuels their intrinsic motivation to bring these ideal selves to life. Your job as a leader is not to blaze a path alone. It is to inspire your team to move forward together.

    Related: 3 Effective Ways to Lead as a Coach Rather Than a Boss

    How to inspire growth

    To be a successful leader, you must become an expert in how to help others grow and develop. Unfortunately, many of the existing models for professional and personal development focus on setting goals, tracking progress and measuring outcomes — and inevitably lead to feelings of failure and disappointment when we fall short. These punitive, results-driven models don’t offer the inspiration and support people need to fuel lasting change.

    There is a better way to coach your team. The research-driven approach I teach at Babson College’s Arthur M. Blank School for Entrepreneurial Leadership is based on two existing behavioral change models that are built around internal psychological development and self-realization, instead of externally imposed metrics.

    Intentional change theory (ICT), developed by Richard Boyatzsis, posits that people change themselves in a sustained way by making five self-discoveries, which I will explain in detail below. These self-discoveries lead to a vision of our ideal selves, which serve as our North Star as we grow and develop, and a process for aligning our current selves with our ideals.

    Edward L. Desi and Richard Ryan’s self-determination theory (SDT) argues that the chances for sustained change are highest when people are driven by intrinsic motivation — their self-developed, internal motivations for change — as opposed to external motivators such as pay and praise. We are most likely to achieve this intrinsic motivation when three basic needs are satisfied: autonomy (a sense of being self-directed), relatedness (a sense of connection with and care for and from others) and competence (a sense of self-confidence in our words and actions).

    To be a great coach and effectively develop your team, you must meet these three SDT needs that are the springboard for intrinsic motivation, and then use that motivation to help your team members achieve sustained change by guiding them through the ICT discovery process. I’ll explain the discovery process step by step to demonstrate exactly how it works, and you can read more in my paper on this topic for Leadership Quarterly.

    Related: How Real Leaders Coach Their Employees For Success

    The process of intentional change

    First, successful coaches encourage people to find their ideal selves — the initial discovery. The ideal self is someone’s aspirational view of who they want to become or what they want to do, instead of what they feel obligated or expected to be. The ideal self serves as a guiding light giving life to someone’s aspirations and actions. 

    You can help team members identify their ideal selves by asking targeted questions to develop a vision statement for who they ultimately want to be. A vision statement isn’t a traditional goal, but instead an inspiring description of someone’s biggest aspirations. The questions should also positively impact a person’s feelings of autonomy, relatedness and competence (the three core SDT needs). This will build trust in the coaching relationship, allowing team members to tap into the creative and vulnerable space needed to identify their ideal selves. As your team’s needs are met through discovering their ideal selves, their intrinsic motivation will rise.

    You should take a similar approach to the second discovery process: helping team members identify their real selves. The real self is someone’s current self as expressed through their values, strengths and weaknesses, personality and more. As in the first phase, you can employ questions and assessments that fulfill each of the three SDT needs as your team members work to pinpoint their real selves. Commonly used assessment tools such as Firo-B, Strength Finders, MBTI and DISC help people identify the strengths and capabilities they can leverage to move closer to their ideal selves.

    After your team members have identified their ideal and real selves, you can guide them to develop a learning agenda. This agenda outlines concrete action steps by which someone can close the gap between their real and ideal self by harnessing the strengths identified in the prior phase. A learning agenda should be inspiring and aspirational while offering feasible and concrete steps to align the real and ideal selves, a balance that helps maximize motivation and persistence.

    Your team members can then move to the fourth discovery step, experimentation and practice, where they try out a “provisional self” by practicing the actions from their learning agenda that will move them closer to their ideal selves. Keep an eye on your team members’ connections to their ideal self during this experimentation. If they seem unmotivated or start to lose direction, you should help them reconnect with their ideal self, potentially by returning to the first phase in the process if necessary.

    The final discovery — trusting relationships — is not a phase of its own, but a quality that should happen at each stage in the process. True, lasting change is most likely if there is a trusting, supportive relationship between an individual and their coach. It is your role to help foster this relationship with your team members throughout the discovery process and beyond, which will both increase their likelihood of success and serve as a boon to their motivation and overall wellness.

    Related: 10 Rules for Coaching Your Team to Greatness

    Effective entrepreneurial leaders coach their team members to become the most aspirational versions of themselves. This approach creates psychological safety and satisfies people’s needs in a way that allows them to maximize risk-tracking, creativity and innovation. They will be ready to confront a world with increasingly complex and unexpected challenges that require dynamic solutions.

    Becoming a better coach — and making sure other leaders in your organization are effective coaches — is one of the best ways to supercharge your organization’s success and your team’s fulfillment.

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    Scott Taylor

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  • Tactical Solutions to 5 Frequent Business Obstacles | Entrepreneur

    Tactical Solutions to 5 Frequent Business Obstacles | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Starting and growing a business is tougher today than ever before. You have to hire, manage and process payroll and are likely in charge of keeping the books and staying updated on tax laws. You might also have to deal with (and bounce back from) supply chain issues and the occasional emergency amid ample economic uncertainty. Operating an enterprise, therefore, is not for the faint of heart. Whether you are a principal in an existing one or are thinking of taking the leap, it’s wise to consider the most pressing challenges you’ll be up against.

    1. Hiring and managing

    Finding employees — and ensuring that they’re the right ones — is, of course, vital. The average hiring process lasts three to six weeks, and if you don’t have a dedicated HR professional (or team) doing this work, it’ll be necessary to put other responsibilities on hold to do so.

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    Mike Kappel

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  • How to Structure and Build a Team For Long-Term Success | Entrepreneur

    How to Structure and Build a Team For Long-Term Success | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    My dad was a high school basketball coach in the middle of rural Arizona. He rarely had the exact same group of players on a team year after year, so he never had just one system that he relied on. Instead, he learned to accept that he got who he got, reviewed what talent he had been given, and built that year’s system based on the player’s strengths.

    And I’ve learned from his example. As a manager, that’s how I try to structure my teams. I ask myself who I have or can hire that can fill a role based on their temperament, abilities and goals. Ultimately, that puts people in places where they can contribute, and if those individuals succeed, the team and organization will grow, too. On a larger scale, this can position a company for stronger growth and competitiveness.

    Four core components necessary for success

    There are many ways to structure an organization: A leader can use a matrix structure with various employees reporting across functions or teams. Or, organizations can employ a more formal pyramid structure. Some marketing departments will align their teams around the various audiences or channels they’re trying to reach.

    However, who I’m hiring for the team is much more important to me than how the business charts out. I prioritize who candidates are as a person, looking for four considerable qualities:

    1. Grit — Have they experienced failure in their life, and did they rise above it? Do they own up to that failure and understand the lessons learned from the mistake, or are they still just running from it?
    2. Optimism — I wish I could tell you that I am naturally optimistic. Unfortunately, I’m a glass-half-empty kind of person and know keeping a sunny outlook isn’t easy. I look for consistently positive people because it fosters stronger team bonds. I have found that optimism can often get a person noticed, which tends to move them up the ladder as people gain confidence based on their positivity.
    3. Written communication — I have spoken at several marketing conferences, and the one skill that I have told young marketers is to hone their writing skills. Communicating your ideas within an organization through email, creating an effective AI prompt, or drafting a persuasive marketing plan relies on the written word.
    4. Seeking “good enough” — Marketing budgets are rarely as large as the team believes they need. A good marketer has to make do and figure out how to get things done despite a lack of budget. In my experience, people will often sacrifice “good enough” to reach perfection. They don’t understand that perfection is illusory. It doesn’t have to be perfect, and everybody will make mistakes. The ability to effectively solve a problem in a matter that is efficient and effective without being perfect is a skill that leaders highly value.

    Related: 5 Effective Ways to Build a Winning Team

    Strategic placement means everybody wins

    When leaders are actively developing the structure of their company, it’s wise to hire individuals who are good at things they are not. But they also can look at what individuals have the potential to be good at. In a previous organization, I had an employee who was involved in event management but who wanted to move into marketing; I had another employee who was tired of email marketing but wanted to learn event management. Both employees had to learn new skills to move forward with these new paths. Being in this situation allowed me to help both of them achieve their career goals while putting them in positions where they could learn and be happier.

    Related: 10 Simple Steps to Build an Exceptional and Efficient Team

    True relationships are worth the balancing act

    Leaders have to be careful not to get caught in a situation where somebody could misconstrue their kindness or attention, but being in leadership doesn’t have to mean sacrificing gaining friendships. Balance being too friendly with being able to offer necessary corrections. By nature, I tend to be a people pleaser, so I must work on being tougher — especially early in relationships. After my collegiate basketball career ended, I became a high school basketball referee. I found that the whole game went smoother if I was tough in the first quarter of a game. It is important to establish a sense of control when they first hire a new team member, and then they can infuse the second, third and fourth quarters with more friendship.

    Leaders can have situations that test the relationships they’re working to build. Let’s say someone has two people on their team, and they have to decide which one gets promoted. The one who didn’t get promoted might feel like the leader let them down. Leaders must maintain enough professional distance so that an employee knows it was not due to favoritism in this situation.

    Sometimes, giving certain people opportunities to learn conflicts with the experience others already have. Suppose an employee is an excellent marketer, so they’re put in charge of a small team. What happens if one of the people who will now be reporting to this new manager already has experience as a manager? If the first employee is not given this opportunity, they won’t learn how to manage a team without the promotion — but if they get the position, jealousy could set in with the second employee who has proven skills. In this particular instance, it helps maintain clear communication between those getting the promotion and those not. Utilizing various conversations, such as during mid-year or other reviews, points about your plans for the individual and the overall team can help you manage through the inevitable tough times.

    As I think through my career, it is actually not just my team’s work that I am most proud of. It is seeing those team members go on to become great managers in their own right. If, at the end of the day, I can look back and see many of my former team members becoming great managers, I will feel like I was a success.

    Related: Not Sure How to Grow Your Team? Focus on These 3 Things.

    For a responsive foundation that lasts, build on people

    Company structure matters, but I consider who employees are to be more important when building a business. By intentionally playing chess to move workers where they can have the greatest development and influence, leaders can set themselves and their teams up for success.

    Along the way, leaders shouldn’t be afraid to pursue good relationships, even though doing so requires balancing potentially conflicting goals or interests. By making people the heart of the company and viewing success through a different lens, leaders can establish a reliable, flexible framework that can respond continuously to the future.

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    David Partain

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  • Boost Employee Success with These 3 Proven Strategies | Entrepreneur

    Boost Employee Success with These 3 Proven Strategies | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    This story originally appeared on Under30CEO.com

    When your employees experience success, your company experiences success. This makes it imperative for you to help your workers so they can succeed. However, you can’t relegate your support to their professional lives but their personal ones as well. That way, they’ll be more poised to apply themselves when they’re working — and that’s good for them and for your business.

    Employees who are unencumbered by burdens and stress have more time and energy to devote to their occupations. They can dive into projects and harness the creativity and problem-solving so necessary for innovation. This encourages them to find meaning in their output. As a recent Paychex survey showed, having meaningful work is a key reason many people stay with their employers. Workers who are succeeding are, therefore, not just more likely to share their talents but are apt to stick around. That’s good for any company, especially on the heels of the Great Resignation.

    Related: Are You Taking Care of Your Employee’s Mental Health?

    How do you set the stage to boost your workers’ success? Aside from being respectful and offering fair compensation, try these strategies.

    1. Provide mental health and well-being support.

    Research from Pathways indicates that mood disorders like depression will affect one out of six American adults. Like any condition, depression doesn’t just affect a person’s home life. It affects everything they do, including their career. Yet, it can be difficult for employees who are suffering to feel comfortable or confident starting a treatment plan or even rehab. What they need is a psychologically safe workplace environment that gives them room to improve their mental health.

    If you haven’t done so already, revisit your benefits package. See if there is a mental health component. For example, you may want to ensure your health insurance options include mental health coverage. Additionally, make certain your managers are watchful for signs of burnout and depression in their direct reports. These signs can include difficulty concentrating, anger, or any unusual, uncharacteristic behaviors, according to Pathways.

    Of course, not all employees who are irritable are dealing with depression. Nevertheless, those who are struggling may be more willing to get treated if their supervisors facilitate genuinely caring conversations. And without the cloud of depression and mental illness, they can better hone their talents and show off their skills.

    2. Remove your employees’ nagging obstacles and friction points.

    It’s impossible to be successful when employees aren’t given the right tools or resources. For instance, if you expect your people to optimize their workflows, you’ll need to invest in more tech. Similarly, you may have to be flexible in letting team members have autonomy in terms of their working arrangements. This can include allowing remote-capable employees to work from home or another location at least some of the time.

    Currently, around half of the organizations with remote-capable workers are operating in a hybrid fashion per Gallup. Not only is this strategy working, but it’s allowing employees to better structure their days. The result has been a surge in self-reported productivity levels. More productivity naturally leads to more on-the-job success.

    Related: Out-Talent the Competition With 7 Tips to Help Your Employees Self-Actualize

    Not sure what roadblocks could be holding back your workers? Ask them. They’ll be able to tell you where their biggest friction points are. With that knowledge, you can make changes to address those pains and give them the freedom to move ahead faster.

    3. Offer constant, relevant upskilling and retraining opportunities.

    A full 68% of workers surveyed by the University of Phoenix said they’d stay for the long haul with an employer that upskilled them. Why, then, aren’t more companies offering professional development? The answer is that many are, but their training may be lacking the relevance and depth that it needs to have to make a lasting difference. A good example of this would be one-and-done training on a new software program. Some people might find the training interesting but not pertinent. Consequently, though they technically were trained, they weren’t trained on something fitting for their positions.

    Ideally, each worker should be able to engage in personalized upskilling that leverages core strengths, aptitudes, and future goals. Again, this is where some employee feedback and surveys can be invaluable. These vehicles can show what kinds of training are “nice to have” and which are “need to have.” After every employee training experience, managers can serve in mentoring roles to guide their direct reports from milestone to milestone. In time, this process will improve not just workers’ abilities but their confidence.

    Remember, though, that training doesn’t always have to be formal to have a serious impact. Professional development can take place informally. Let’s say you have a budding sales leader who needs more exposure to the broader sales field. You might want to send her to an annual industry convention. That way, she can get more knowledge as well as network with peers. More exposure to experts in her desired career path can help her achieve her occupational objectives.

    Related: Motivation is the Secret to a Successful Team — Are Your Employees Motivated? 4 Tips for Empowering New Hires

    Your employees want to feel like they’re doing their best. Now is the chance for you to make it easier for them to be as successful as possible. To start, you have to put some measures in place to serve as springboards so they can rev up their acumen and accomplishments.

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    Kimberly Zhang

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  • Don’t Talk to Another Customer Until You Learn This Simple Customer Service Secret | Entrepreneur

    Don’t Talk to Another Customer Until You Learn This Simple Customer Service Secret | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Here’s a simple principle of exceptional customer service that is essential to learn and take to heart: Every customer is at the center of their own world.

    The person a customer cares most about (at least when conducting business with you) is themself. They don’t care about, or at least don’t give any thought to, the challenges that an employee serving them may be navigating. They don’t care that other customers also need to be served or about the behind-the-scenes realities at your business, least of all your company’s organizational chart.

    In your customers’ day-to-day lives, when they’re not buying from or being served by you, they may be the most open-hearted, considerate, and even philanthropic people in the world. Yet, as customers, they’re almost universally focused on themselves (as well as their kids, pets, partner or their boss).

    And that’s OK — it’s the way it should be.

    A charitable way to put this? It’s not that your customers don’t care. Rather, they simply don’t realize that any extraneous (to them) elements and challenges are involved in serving them. From the viewpoint of your customers while doing business with you, they are at the center of the world.

    My suggestion is that, rather than resenting this reality, lean into it by making the customer feel that they’re at the center of your world as well. Revamp your attitude by recognizing that embracing your customers’ self-focused reality isn’t a negative; it isn’t demeaning. Instead, it’s a way to get the cash registers to ring.

    Related: What I’ve Learned Training the Top Hotel Brands in Customer Service

    Serve one customer at a time

    If you want each customer to feel like they’re at the center of your world, learn to focus your attention on just one customer at a time.

    Here’s the mantra that should be seared into the soul of every employee in an organization: The only customer who matters is the one in front of me right now. Strive to bring a laser-like focus to the customer in front of you (or on the telephone or video call) and let the rest fade into the background.

    I can’t pretend that focusing on one customer at a time will be easy. In any business, there will always be competing priorities and multiple customers clamoring for attention. Nevertheless, making a focused connection with one person, even briefly, is supremely powerful. On the front lines, this power is self-evident. In the back office, it’s also powerful, leading to less abrupt communications and correspondence. In leadership or strategic positions, it keeps you from so completely aggregating how you look at customer feedback and data that you miss the nuances of what individuals are asking of you.

    Related: 4 Surefire Ways to Be Exceptional With Your Customer Care

    Does putting the customer in the center mean moving the employee out of the center?

    The short answer is “no!” — though this is certainly one of the ways I worry that my teachings will be misapprehended and misapplied.

    The longer answer: learning to look through a customer-focused lens when you are providing customer service is entirely compatible with having a company that is focused — in a broader sense — on the needs and aspirations of its employees.

    Customer focus shouldn’t be used as a rationale for unpaid overtime, unfeeling scheduling practices, or HR trickery couched as pro-customer decision-making.

    Happily, most (though sadly, not all) pro-customer organizations are also pro-employee. Why? There are multiple reasons: the overall health of most pro-customer organizations, the empowerment employees tend to have there, and the happy phenomenon that when such companies deploy pro-customer efforts, it’s nearly inevitable that such efforts will positively affect how a company treats employee needs and aspirations as well.

    Related: 10 Reasons Why Your Startup Isn’t Getting Customers

    Eight simple ways to put the customer at the center of your world

    Here are eight simple ways to provide the kind of recognition that lets a customer know you’re putting them at the center, which I frequently stress when I’m delivering customer service training:

    1. Use your customer’s name. (Within reason! Don’t overdo this and start sounding like those irritating fill-in-the-blank salespeople.)
    2. Offer the customer your name.
    3. If a customer takes the time to ask, “How are you doing?” answer them and volley the question back to them: “I’m doing great! And how are YOU, [Jeremy]?”
    4. If you know where a customer lives (it’s quite possibly included right there on the invoice filling your screen) and you’re familiar with the area, comment on how it’s a nice or convenient area, that you used to live there, that your daughter lived there when she went to college, etc. (I wouldn’t do this, however, with a high- net-worth individual [HNWI] or celebrity—going on about how luxe their neighborhood is may make you sound a bit creepy or stalker-like.)
    5. If you know anything about a customer’s hobbies, interests, pets, kids, spouse, partner, family members, etc., check in on them.
    6. Show gratitude to the customer for being a longtime (or first-time) customer, for choosing your company, for allowing you to work on their account, and so forth.
    7. Use “spark words,” little phrases that ring in a customer’s ear with reassurance that this matters to you: both their issue and the pleasure of conversing with them. Here are four such phrases:
      • “Nice [or “Great”] to hear from you [again]!”
      • “I’m your person to resolve this for you from here on out.”
      • “If you ever need anything, here’s my direct extension.”
      • “Now that you have me working on your issue, I will get you the absolute best resolution.”
    8. To make sure customers who are on your premises never feel unrecognized, use the 10–5–3 sequence:
      • When a customer is 10 feet away (this assumes that they’re walking toward you or you toward them), acknowledge their presence with a nod and direct eye contact.
      • At five feet, smile.
      • At three feet, say “hello,” “good morning,” or “good afternoon,” assuming the customer is not otherwise engaged (e.g., on their cell phone or talking to a companion with whom they’re shopping). If they are thus involved, leave them alone!

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    Micah Solomon

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  • CEOs Are Tricking Employees Into Spending More Time In The Office — But Here’s Why They’re Only Fooling Themselves. | Entrepreneur

    CEOs Are Tricking Employees Into Spending More Time In The Office — But Here’s Why They’re Only Fooling Themselves. | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Why are CEOs intent on killing the golden goose that is hybrid work? Remember the fable of boiling the frog? Well, it seems traditionalist CEOs are turning up the heat to trick employees into spending more time in the office, but at what cost?

    In a dramatic shift, companies like Chipotle and BlackRock are nudging their in-office mandates from three days a week to four. Nike, not to be left behind, has pivoted its return-to-office strategy, insisting that employees “just do it” and be in the office four days a week, up from the previous three. The rationale? A spokesperson from Nike expressed a yearning for “the power and energy that comes from working together in person.”

    Let’s talk about Amazon for a moment. The tech behemoth’s three-day in-office requirement hasn’t exactly been smooth sailing. With a senior executive conceding it hasn’t “been perfect” and 30,000 workers signing an anti-return-to-office petition, the company still thought it wise to empower managers to fire those who refuse to comply with its hybrid mandate. Are these changes a natural evolution or a regression into an antiquated working model?

    Related: Workers Are Disengaged. Here’s How Employers Can Win Them Back.

    CEOs’ mirage of a pre-pandemic world

    According to KPMG’s 2023 CEO Outlook survey, 64% of CEOs at large companies see a return to pre-pandemic office routines in the next three years. Staggeringly, 87% aim to use financial rewards and promotion opportunities as carrots to lure employees back to their cubicles. But the question looms large: Are these CEOs out of touch with what their employees actually want?

    It’s not like we don’t have data. A recent BCG survey laid it bare: nine in 10 global office-based workers consider flexible work crucial when job-hunting. Employees disenchanted with their current work model are 2.5 times more likely to consider leaving within the next year. So why are CEOs choosing to ignore these glaring signals?

    The employee’s sacrifice for flexibility: A wake-up call for CEOs

    Now, let’s layer in some more compelling data that amplifies just how much employees value flexibility. According to a recent report, a staggering 62% of employees would accept a pay cut of 10% or more just to maintain the ability to work remotely or in a hybrid setting. And if you think that’s eye-opening, consider this: 4% would go so far as to quit their job if this flexibility were revoked.

    These figures should be a siren call for any CEO orchestrating a retreat to office-centric work. When a majority of your talent pool is willing to take a financial hit to preserve their work-life balance, it’s more than a trend — it’s a clarion call for a new social contract between employers and employees. Ignoring this can have real-world consequences, ranging from a hollowed-out talent pipeline to a disengaged workforce. So, who’s really winning when companies decide to turn the dial back on flexible work arrangements?

    The data-backed optimum for employee engagement

    Before CEOs rush to imprint their will on company policies, they should pay close attention to a revelatory study from Gallup. The data doesn’t just suggest — it lays bare that the sweet spot for employee engagement lies in a two to three-day on-site workweek.

    Beyond this balanced approach, the numbers reveal an alarming drop in engagement rates. For highly collaborative jobs that benefit from real-time interactions, engagement plunges from 49% to a lackluster 40% when the office time goes from three to four days a week. Engagement for more independent roles takes a dive from 39% to 34% when these roles are confined to an office setting for four days instead of three days.

    This is not merely a numbers game; it’s a psychological dynamic that can ricochet through the corridors of an organization, well-known by now through the term “quiet quitting.” When engagement dips, so does productivity, creativity, and, ultimately, profitability. The Gallup data serves as a glaring red flag that increasing time in the office beyond a balanced threshold can lead to burnout and a higher intent to leave the organization. Are CEOs really prepared to stake their companies’ future on policies that actively erode the foundations of employee engagement and organizational health?

    It’s not simply retention and engagement that are endangered: it’s innovation and progress. The EY Technology Pulse Poll recently revealed that an overwhelming 78% of high-ranking technology executives contend that remote work environments are actually conducive to sparking innovation. Ken Englund of EY suggested that’s because remote work not only obliterates geographical limitations in talent acquisition but also recharges the workforce by eradicating the grind of daily commuting.

    This insight couples alarmingly well with the previously discussed Owl Labs report. Employees don’t just want flexibility — they’re empirically proven to work better within its confines. It stands to reason, then, that any deviation towards old-school, rigid work schedules isn’t merely ignoring employee preferences; it’s actively undermining the data-proven pathways to a healthy, robust and engaged organization. CEOs must ask themselves: Is enforcing greater in-office attendance worth the cascading repercussions it triggers, including eroding trust, diminishing engagement, and ultimately, draining talent?

    Boiling the frog: A losing strategy

    The notion of boiling the frog represents a stealthy but dangerous approach. Laszlo Bock, former Google HR chief and current CEO of Humu, suggested that this method is designed to subtly erode hybrid mandates, aiming to make the office-centric schedule the new normal. But here’s the kicker: It might be a pyrrhic victory for CEOs, as Bock warns that this approach could actually destroy trust and morale.

    It’s becoming increasingly evident that by reverting to pre-pandemic norms, CEOs may be sacrificing the long-term well-being of their organizations for immediate gains. Fostering a culture that doesn’t adapt to the changing work landscape is a gamble. Is it worth rolling the dice when employee satisfaction, productivity and even mental health are at stake?

    While another day in the office might seem trivial to some, it’s a significant shift in policy that ripples across various facets of organizational dynamics—from employee engagement and trust to talent retention. If we assess the costs holistically, it’s not just about losing a day of remote work; it’s about disregarding the preferences of a workforce that has tasted the freedom and effectiveness of a more flexible model.

    Related: Our Brains Will Never Be The Same Again After Remote Work. Forcing Your Employees To Readapt to The Office Is Not The Answer.

    Seizing competitive advantage

    It’s time for companies to buck the trend. Some forward-thinking organizations are already embracing permanent remote work or extremely flexible hybrid models, and they’re reaping the benefits in employee satisfaction and productivity. CEOs clinging to the past need to ask themselves: Is the temporary thrill of control worth the long-term sacrifice of losing the talent wars, a company full of quiet quitters, and the decimation of innovation?

    Traditionalist CEOs may think they’re boiling the frog slowly, but my clients who have veered off that well-trodden path are showcasing that embracing a modern hybrid work environment is not just possible but remarkably rewarding. One of my clients, a Fortune 500 company in the tech sector, took the plunge by committing to a flexible hybrid model, and the dividends have been remarkable. Despite initial resistance from upper management, they decided to trust the data over gut instinct. Not only did they see a 15% increase in overall productivity within the first six months, but they also noticed a 22% boost in employee engagement metrics. They’ve become a magnet for top-tier talent who are fleeing more rigid competitors.

    Consider another case: a mid-size financial services firm in the New York City area was feeling the heat of high attrition rates. They decided to counter the trend of Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan and adopt a flexible hybrid model. The result? They not only reversed the attrition trend but also increased quarterly profits by 11%, an upswing they directly attribute to heightened employee engagement and innovation.

    Lastly, the largest law firm in a Midwestern city became a surprising torchbearer. Skeptical at first, they conducted a six-month trial period of a flexible work model. The outcome was unambiguous: a 35% drop in the use of sick days, a 17% boost in retention, and a 20% uptick in billable hours, effectively quashing every preconceived notion about the inefficacy of remote work in the legal sector.

    So, while traditionalist CEOs are stuck playing checkers, my visionary clients are playing 4D chess. They’re not only responding to employee needs but also using the hybrid and remote work models as strategic assets. The results speak for themselves: higher employee satisfaction, greater innovation, and, yes, a healthier bottom line. If that’s not future-proofing a company, I don’t know what is.

    Conclusion

    So, are we going to let the frog boil? It’s time for corporate America to recognize that what seemed like a temporary disruption in the work environment has paved the way for transformative, sustainable change. CEOs — take note: Turning back the clock could very well be a ticking time bomb for your organization’s future.

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    Gleb Tsipursky

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  • 5 Ways to Turn Every Employee Into a Sales Master | Entrepreneur

    5 Ways to Turn Every Employee Into a Sales Master | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    I admit it. For years, I hated the idea of selling. In fact, I turned down sales jobs. However, when I started my own business, it became a priority. Most small business owners love what they do. They enjoy developing the product or service. They love doing the work and are excited when someone buys what they make. Selling-not so much. Over the years, I have changed my attitude. I don’t sell. I don’t need to. Instead, I have conversations with clients. I ask questions. I listen and offer ideas. In short, I educate and consult.

    But I am not the only one who sells at my company. In fact, selling is everyone’s job. Why? It is simple. When you run a small business, you do not have a machine to grind out leads, vet them, and close the deal. You need every person on your team to generate business for the company. Not to mention selling your company to potential employees and partners. Skeptical? Don’t be. Even the most introverted person can sell with a little bit of help. Here is how to turn every employee into a sales superstar.

    Related: Why AI Won’t Replace (Great) Salespeople

    1. Develop business literacy

    Engaged employees are good for business. In many cases, it’s why they choose to work for a small business, where there is more opportunity to be hands-on. We need to ensure employees understand the business — all parts — not just their individual roles.

    In my organization, this means having an employee shadow someone to learn more about the process. We routinely do a debrief so employees know what we are working on. We show how we quote jobs and the financial picture. In other words, we are constantly educating. We also encourage questions and ideas. When employees understand the business, they are more comfortable talking about it and can sell others on the organization.

    2. Ramp up communication skills

    Think presentation and communication training is just for supervisors or employees on the fast track to promotions? I say no, and it comes from experience. I have developed and presented communication seminars for various individuals, from people on the plant floor to frontline call center workers, sales trainees, and company CEOs. Want to energize your team? Help them develop personally and professionally? Create a bond with your company?

    One way is to invest in them by offering communication workshops. This shows employees you care enough to provide an opportunity to learn new skills and connect with others. Those skills come into play in day-to-day interactions and conversations. Remember I said I don’t sell; have conversations. Your employees’ conversations are just as important, if not more important, to selling your products and services. They are on the front lines and may discover customer needs before anyone else does. If they are good communicators, they can spot the opportunity and then connect customers to the right source.

    Related: Why Every Employee in Your Company Should Have Communication Training

    3. Share your sales toolkit

    If you want employees to help champion your efforts, they need to understand your sales and marketing toolkit. What strategies are you using to grow the business? Show them how you present the company brand to customers. They connect their work with the end result by helping them get familiar with all of your sales tools. Use company meetings or gatherings to feature company videos, display marketing collateral or demonstrate new products. You can also send links for employees to watch presentations or take part in webinars.

    Related: 15 Strategies for Quickly Expanding Your Business

    4. Give employees facetime

    For a long time, business owners or salespeople were the face of the company. That’s because many are under the false impression the person with the title is the best one to communicate or sell. That is not necessarily the case. Today, progressive companies are looking to broaden their efforts and feature employees at every level of the organization in critical communications, from recruitment to customer sales.

    I like to involve employees in meetings with clients. First, they listen and observe. Later, we discuss how the meeting was conducted and the strategy. The next step is to have them participate in a targeted way. Employees who participate or are featured in customer interactions have a more intense connection to the company. They are proud of their work and love to serve up their expertise. For example, have them share a story about how they built a product. Ask them to describe a process or give them a “tour” of your facility.

    Confidence comes from ability, and ability comes from practicing or doing a task. When you give real people facetime, it is a powerful sales tactic.

    5. Offer rewards and recognition

    Do employees value recognition? Yes. In fact, Gallup and Workhuman have research that shows there is a direct correlation between employee recognition and business outcomes. That is why it makes sense to recognize employees who take part in customer meetings, sales efforts or employee recruitment.

    I love to do a “shout-out” during a company huddle and share details about how the employee helped make an impression or close a sale. If you have a company communication, feature them. As for rewards, there are options. You can send employees home early on a Friday or give them an extra day off. Gift cards are popular. Bonuses are even better.

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    Cynthia Kay

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  • How to Improve Team Management and Grow Your Business | Entrepreneur

    How to Improve Team Management and Grow Your Business | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    This story originally appeared on Under30CEO.com

    You want to grow your business, of course, but are you a leader who motivates your team to perform better?

    You can invest in new technology or hire the best and brightest…and you should! However, if you neglect your team members, you risk failing to grow your business.

    Your success begins with the people you hire to help you grow your business. However, if you don’t understand their needs or fail to create an environment where they thrive, your business is bound to fail.

    That being the case, how can you ensure your employees help you grow your business? Listed below are four strategies business owners can use to manage teams and cultivate growth effectively. Also, check out this article on Entrepreneur to review some of the top team management tools to use.

    1. Foster psychological safety.

    It’s important to make sure your employees feel comfortable asking questions, speaking up, and disagreeing with the order of things. They should be confident that no one will punish them for presenting their questions, voicing concerns, or making mistakes.

    But why does psychological safety help grow your business? Psychological safety creates an environment where employees become comfortable with who they are. This results in them having more confidence at work. Confident employees perform better.

    Promoting confidence can help you grow your business when employees feel safe taking risks, collaborating, and innovating. They feel comfortable enough to point out initiatives not helping the company and confidently seek market opportunities that propel your growth.

    But how can you, as a manager, foster psychological safety?

    • Allow employees to tell you when processes aren’t working.
    • Recognize mistakes and failure as growth opportunities.
    • Be willing to consider out-of-the-box or creative ideas, even when not tested or well-formulated.

    2. Build a strong communication framework.

    An effective communication framework consists of techniques that encourage teamwork and open communication. To grow your business, you need an effective communication strategy that helps get things done more efficiently.

    What’s more, your communication strategy should improve employee engagement, create space for innovation, and increase productivity. But how can you ensure your communication design leads to business growth?

    Use technology.

    The right technology can help you create an environment where your employees share ideas, stay on top of projects, and proactively follow up with teammates. It doesn’t matter whether your team works in the office, remotely, or both; you need great communication tools if you want to grow your business.

    Opt for a platform that allows teammates to share tasks, collaborate on projects, and interact socially. For example, Slack is an effective tool for all of this, but you can also leverage other collaboration tools such as Trello, Dropbox, Google Drive, and others.

    Provide multiple feedback opportunities.

    To truly have an open communication culture, you need to show employees that you want feedback and are willing to listen to it. Make sure they know you openly accept feedback. Ask for it during meetings. Use an app with which employees can offer feedback anonymously.

    More importantly, do something with the feedback you’ve collected. You may not be able to implement every suggestion, but you can offer updates on why you implemented some suggestions and what was learned from the feedback.

    Specify tasks and instructions.

    Be clear on tasks and how they fit into company goals.

    Give specific instructions, especially in terms of how employees should perform the task and deadlines for completion. That way, you avoid problems including project delays, partially completed work, costly mistakes, etc.

    Boost departmental communication.

    Practice good communication across departments if you want to grow your business. After all, every department works toward a common goal. The easiest way to achieve it is to have people work together, but how can you encourage communication across departments?

    • Hold meetings where all departments are represented.
    • Assign new employees mentors from other departments.
    • Have regular meetings where different departments appraise others on projects they are working on.
    • For remote teams, have channels or chat groups where teams from different departments can connect socially, ask questions, or share concerns.

    3. Train and upskill.

    Upskilling employees leads to improved performance, goal achievement, and better employee retention.

    Upskilling employees leads to improved performance, goal achievement, and better employee retention.

    Source: TalentLMS

    Upskilling can help you grow your business since it makes employees ready to adapt quickly to technological advances and changing market needs.

    But how can you upskill your team? Have team members learn from others in-house, hire external experts, or invest in courses from online providers such as Coursera, Udemy, etc.

    Create a work environment that supports and encourages self-development and appreciate the extra effort employees take to improve their skills. For example, you might offer to pay for a portion of their fees when they enroll in certain programs.

    Most importantly, ensure they understand that their educational development contributes to the company’s success.

    4. Design workplace experiences that grow your business.

    What does it feel like for employees working in your business? Many businesses focus on offering great customer experiences but forget about providing an ideal environment for employees to offer these services.

    To successfully grow your business, you’ll want to create an environment that enables employees to become productive. Every business outcome — from talent retention, productivity, efficiency, innovation, and growth — starts with how you make your employees feel.

    Here are some simple suggestions you can use to offer your employees a great workplace experience.

    • Provide employees with easy access to the resources and information they need to complete tasks.
    • Modernize the physical workspace to ensure your employees feel safe and comfortable.
    • Be aware of every employee’s professional journey and offer an adaptable and collaborative environment.
    • Ensure employees clearly understand your business, purpose, mission, core values, and culture.
    • Support a healthy life-work balance.
    • Educate department heads and supervisors about the importance of healthy manager-employee relationships.
    • Foster a collaborative and transparent culture.
    • Improve the onboarding processes.
    • Show recognition and give feedback.

    Reinforce your team and they’ll help grow your business.

    To grow your business, you need to do more than make sure your team understands their weekly tasks, your budget, and company goals. Growth requires determination, dedication, and team management strategies that boost productivity and innovation.

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    Gaurav Sharma

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  • Don’t Fall for Subtle Power Moves: Here’s How to Regain Control | Entrepreneur

    Don’t Fall for Subtle Power Moves: Here’s How to Regain Control | Entrepreneur

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    Power imbalances are everywhere, and they can show up in subtle ways, even during simple, initial interactions. Ever had someone say “it’s nice to see you” at a first meeting, then repeat your name ad nauseam? The person could be attempting to build rapport, or they might just be deploying tactics they’ve gleaned from leadership literature.

    Sure, some leadership advice can be helpful (most people do appreciate eye contact and a smile). Still, it can also be shallow, unnatural and, ultimately, detrimental — for example, the oft-repeated suggestion to turn up the volume to seem more commanding. Part of the problem? Management books and commentaries often oversimplify and rarely offer useful guidance about the skills and behavior required to get things done, according to McKinsey & Company.

    Subtle power moves, whether off the cuff or calculated, have the potential to throw their recipient for a loop, effectively giving the person using them the upper hand. Sometimes, it can be challenging to determine another person’s intentions, especially if you’re not well-acquainted with them. But when it comes to power imbalances, impact just might be more important than intent: If you feel like your power is slipping away, it probably is.

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    Amanda Breen

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  • How to Be a Great Manager — 5 Essential Tips | Entrepreneur

    How to Be a Great Manager — 5 Essential Tips | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Being a good manager is about more than just being proficient in your field — in fact, it’s a distinct skill that requires its own cultivation. As Michael E. Gerber says in his classic business book, The E-Myth, not all good bakers should become bakery owners. Over the course of my entrepreneurial career, I’ve found this advice to ring true again and again, and it continues to motivate me to improve my own management skills.

    In this article, I want to share five essential tips that will help you become an effective and successful manager. I apply these tips every day in my role as founder of cat brand tuft + paw, and it’s led us to incredible results.

    Related: What Sets Apart A Good Manager From A Bad One?

    1. Embrace radical honesty — high empathy + high directness

    The foundation of effective management lies in radical honesty — a perfect balance between high empathy and high directness. This means being forthright and transparent in your communication while empathizing with your team members’ feelings and perspectives. Avoiding difficult conversations can create more significant problems in the long run, undermining trust and respect — and frankly, wasting everyone’s time.

    Incorporating radical honesty into your management style can be challenging, especially if you’re a naturally reserved person, but I promise the payoff is worth the effort. I recommend periodically checking the radical honesty graph from Kim Scott’s book, Radical Candor, which serves as a reminder of the balance you’re aiming for. Strive to address issues directly and promptly, keeping in mind that honesty is the highest form of integrity. By cultivating this open and transparent environment, you will foster a culture of trust and respect within your team.

    2. Build trust and rapport through face-to-face interaction

    While radical honesty is essential in the workplace, it’s also important to build personal trust and rapport with your team. Make time for unstructured get-togethers with your team members, providing an opportunity for genuine connection beyond work-related discussions.

    Listen actively to the conversation and participate. We’re all humans with our own desires, concerns and experiences, and connecting on that personal level is the best way to show that you care. Over time, this approach fosters a sense of belonging and strengthens the team’s commitment to achieving shared goals. Building strong relationships with your team will not only enhance team morale but also enable you to better understand everyone’s unique strengths and weaknesses.

    3. Encourage open and honest two-way communication

    Building upon your own radical honesty and rapport with the team, encouraging open and honest two-way communication is the next piece of the management puzzle. Establish a culture where team members feel comfortable sharing their thoughts, concerns and ideas without fear of repercussions. As a manager, practice what you preach by actively seeking and valuing feedback from your team. Act on their suggestions when appropriate, which proves to them that their voices matter.

    Additionally, create forums for open dialogue, such as regular team meetings or anonymous suggestion boxes. Emphasizing transparent communication will quickly lead to improved problem-solving and better team dynamics, and in the long run, it will build the foundation for a more innovative company.

    Related: 6 Common Things Good Managers Do to Create Engaged Teams

    4. Give autonomy and flexibility to your team

    Great managers understand the importance of giving their team autonomy and flexibility in their roles. Trust your team members to take ownership of their tasks and responsibilities, and empower them to make decisions and contribute creatively.

    An excellent way to do this in our current work landscape is to offer flexible working hours or remote work options. By allowing your team to build a schedule that works for them, you’ll help create a workplace culture that prioritizes a healthy work-life balance. Employees who feel supported in their personal lives are more likely to be productive and engaged at work. However you choose to do it, giving your employees independence and flexibility will improve loyalty and motivation and will help you build a team that’s committed to the success of the business.

    5. Support team member growth and development

    As a manager, your responsibility goes beyond day-to-day operations; you must also be invested in your team members’ growth and development. Identify their strengths, weaknesses and career aspirations to help them reach their full potential (see the connection with tip #2?). Encourage continuous learning and professional development by providing opportunities for training and skill-building.

    One of my favorite business quotes goes: “What if we train people to be so good they leave us for somewhere else?“

    To which the response is: “What if we don’t train them and they stay?“

    You can see the problem here. No business can achieve its full potential without training its staff to achieve their full potential. When you invest in your team’s growth, you’re building a loyal and dedicated workforce that will contribute significantly to the organization’s success.

    In a nutshell, adopt the mindset that it’s better to train people to be so good that they might leave for other opportunities, rather than neglecting their growth and having them stay in unfulfilling roles.

    Becoming a good manager requires more than just technical expertise; it demands a commitment to developing essential leadership skills. By embracing radical honesty, building trust through face-to-face interaction, encouraging open communication, granting autonomy and supporting team member growth, you can become an incredibly effective and influential leader. Remember, the success of any organization lies in the hands of its managers and the culture they cultivate within their teams. Lead with integrity, empathy and determination, and watch your team thrive.

    Related: The 10 Golden Rules of Effective Management

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    Jackson Cunningham

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  • How Employers Can Better Support Working Parents and Caregivers | Entrepreneur

    How Employers Can Better Support Working Parents and Caregivers | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Despite years of experience juggling progressively demanding roles, I wasn’t prepared for how challenging this fall would be as a marketing executive with a kid starting school for the first time.

    And I’m one of the lucky ones: I work in a company with progressive policies that recognize the unique challenges parents and caregivers face. Nonetheless, this season has been a crash course in adapting to new schedules, managing conflicting emotions and moderating my own expectations of how I show up as a leader and a mom.

    For many parents, the transition to back-to-school for their kids means coping with scheduling conflicts and new demands on their time: from orientations and gradual entry schedules (and the mental and emotional labor that goes along with them), to inevitable sick days and the awkward discrepancy between school dismissal and standard business hours.

    What has become clearer to me is that, in many ways, school is designed for a bygone era when it was the norm that one parent stayed home (which is no longer a reality for many families). Although I am lucky to have a partner who shoulders some of this load, what’s helped the most is having an employer with flexible, family-friendly policies and leaders who understand the reality for working parents.

    I know I’m not alone in navigating the challenges that come with back-to-school season. A recent survey revealed that parents commonly feel overwhelmed at this time of the year. Yet, most employees want to succeed at work while raising kids, and helping them do so increases workplace satisfaction, loyalty and productivity.

    Here are a few steps employers can take to make this transition less overwhelming for parents (and that I believe can be impactful for other caregiving situations as well):

    Related: How Employers Can Help Working Parents Navigate Back-to-School Season

    Normalizing the realities of parenting

    Remember those awkward moments during the early days of remote work when kids popped up on Zoom cameras during meetings? Thankfully, I no longer feel self-conscious when my daughter barges in during a meeting. It’s simply part of being a working parent.

    The pandemic may have shed light on the juggle for employees with kids, but there are still significant challenges for those navigating this experience. One study found that 85% of women leave full-time work within three years of having their first child, and 19% leave work completely due to the lack of flexibility employers afford.

    Employers can support working parents by normalizing and accommodating caregivers’ needs — and their experiences. I’m a huge advocate for parenting out loud in the workplace. It’s one reason I’m proud of our dedicated Slack channel, “#parents-helping-parents,” where anyone can share their caregiving struggles and wins. Not only does it provide an outlet for those facing challenges, but it also offers the rest of the team visibility into the unique situations parents and caregivers face — and inspiration for designing policies around them. Case in point: This year, we were able to be proactive about shifting all leadership meetings for September to accommodate back-to-school demands.

    Related: Tips To Balance Work With Parenting

    Treating employees like the adults they are

    While there are many ways companies can support working parents, the irony is that when designing policies, many employers inadvertently treat their employees like children. Working parents, who are used to making the most of what time they have to get things done, know that flexibility is the ultimate benefit. It’s what has led organizations like ours to measure productivity based on outputs, not hours worked or rigid schedules.

    This flexibility has shown up in other ways as well: When I started in my current role, I was four months pregnant and unsure what that would mean for my future. But the leaders I work with were completely unphased. They knew I would need wiggle room in my schedule, even when I hadn’t yet realized it myself. And they gave me the autonomy to set my own boundaries with the reassurance that, together, we would make it work.

    It’s also worth noting that flexible hours and boundary-setting benefit everyone — not just parents. Whether employees want to pick up their kids at 3:00, come in late due to a medical appointment or work remotely from a different timezone, they can. All that matters to us is that the work gets done. It’s not always a perfect system, but it does allow parents to prioritize their family needs — and that makes them happier and more productive at work.

    Related: Give Working Parents What They Really Want: More Time

    Leading with empathy as a North star

    I am lucky that the people I work with understand just how much life — and priorities — change when you have kids. This was clear when I initially returned from maternity leave and was put through a rigorous re-onboarding process. Not only did I need a refresh on how the organization had changed, but it also reflected my team’s understanding that I had changed, too. To meet me where I was and allow me to reintroduce myself was highly empathetic on their part and reflects the old adage that it takes a village — both to raise a child and to care for its parents!

    I know this level of understanding isn’t always the norm, especially in startups where the median age is younger and fewer people may have kids. But even in companies where leaders aren’t parents, it is possible to act with the assumption that all employees — and especially those who are caregivers — may be struggling to balance the demands of work and home, especially during high-stress times like back-to-school season. And what they likely need more than anything else is an ally as opposed to an adversary at work.

    By embracing empathy, creating a culture where people can bring their full selves to work, and designing policies that allow for flexibility and autonomy, employers can make an already stressful time a little bit easier.

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    Christie Horsman

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  • How TikTok’s Office Surveillance Could Backfire and Cost The Company Billions | Entrepreneur

    How TikTok’s Office Surveillance Could Backfire and Cost The Company Billions | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Recently, TikTok made headlines for the wrong reasons — introducing a badge monitoring app called MyRTO, aimed at enforcing its office attendance policy as part of a top-down return-to-office mandate. According to the New York Times, this app tracks employees’ badge swipes and can even penalize them for “deviations” from their expected attendance. While many companies are recalibrating post-pandemic work expectations, TikTok’s approach not only raises serious ethical issues but also amplifies broader concerns about its surveillance culture. Let’s deconstruct why this is a critical misstep for the platform.

    TikTok’s employee monitoring

    In an era where employee expectations have shifted toward greater work-life balance and flexibility, TikTok has chosen a path that is perilous for its brand, not to speak of employee retention, productivity, and morale. The company recently deployed an employee badge monitoring app called MyRTO. Built into TikTok’s own internal software, MyRTO monitors badge swipes as employees enter the office.

    The broad policy for TikTok employees involves coming to the office in person at least three times per week, and a smaller percentage is even required to be in five days per week. The MyRTO tool may demand explanations for absences when the employees were expected to be on-site. The data compiled by MyRTO is shared with human resources and is also made visible to the employees themselves. Notably, the company has even threatened termination for employees whose home addresses do not align with their designated office locations. The policy aims to create “transparency and clarity” about return-to-office expectations, according to a TikTok spokesperson.

    Related: It’s a Job Seeker’s Market — Here’s Why Employers Should Think Twice About Using Surveillance Technology

    The dangers of employee monitoring

    A Harvard Business Review article finds that such monitoring can have unintended consequences. The researchers conducted a survey of over 100 U.S.-based professionals — some under workplace surveillance and some not. The findings indicated a pronounced trend: employees under scrutiny were notably more prone to unauthorized break-taking, insubordination, willful property damage, stealing and purposefully working at a slow pace, among other rule-breaking behaviors.

    Of course, this survey only determined correlation — so to prove causation, the authors ran a second, experimental study. They asked another 200 U.S.-based employees to complete a series of tasks. Half of this cohort was informed they would be under electronic watch while completing specific assignments. Intriguingly, those aware of the monitoring exhibited a higher propensity for unethical conduct, such as cheating, compared to their unmonitored counterparts.

    How did the researchers explain these seemingly contradictory findings? Employees who knew they were being monitored were more likely to offload the responsibility for their actions to the authority figures conducting the surveillance. This reduction in a sense of personal agency made them more likely to act against their moral compass.

    To combat the erosion of agency and moral responsibility that the Harvard Business Review research highlights, and the harmful consequences of cheating and slacking off that results, leaders need to instill a sense of fairness in monitoring procedures. And given the employee leaks to the New York Times complaining about the MyRTO tool, TikTok clearly failed to do so.

    Moreover, other surveys reveal negative employee attitudes toward surveillance technology. A survey by 1E of 500 IT managers and 500 non-manager IT workers, for example, finds that 73% of IT managers said they wouldn’t feel comfortable instructing their staff to deploy productivity surveillance tech. More than a quarter of IT managers indicate an uptick in employees quitting (28%) and difficulty hiring new employees (27%) when these tools are in use. More than half of IT workers (52%) said they would turn down an otherwise desirable position if they knew the company used employee productivity surveillance technology. Three-quarters of IT workers say requiring them to deploy such software to track other employees would negatively impact their willingness to remain in their current position. In fact, 30% would begin actively applying for different jobs. In turn, a report from Morning Consult of a survey of 750 technology workers finds that at least 1 in 2 tech workers said they would not accept a new role in their field if the company used a surveillance technique.

    Thus, the tech workers at TikTok are highly likely to be disengaged, demotivated, and disillusioned by the MyRTO surveillance technology. It will lead to increased attrition and loss of productivity.

    Amplification of PR nightmares

    Perhaps even more problematic is the own goal of doubling down on the association of TikTok with surveillance. The social media platform has been subjected to legislative grillings in Capitol Hill sessions and dangled on the precipice of national bans — largely due to apprehensions around surveillance concerns and its alleged affiliations with the Chinese government. As such, the company is already navigating a precarious PR landscape, making it particularly vulnerable to any additional reputational tarnishes.

    The introduction of the MyRTO initiative exacerbates this fragile situation. Far beyond the physical badges, the program serves as a symbolic embodiment of a corporate culture that leans towards Orwellian control mechanisms over fostering an atmosphere of mutual trust and individual autonomy. The narrative now being constructed — whether intentionally or inadvertently — is one where TikTok is willing to sacrifice the organic relationships between management and workforce on the altar of hyper-surveillance and omnipresent oversight.

    Moreover, in our contemporary climate, where viral information can be disseminated globally within seconds, a PR misadventure of this magnitude carries exponential risks. It’s not merely a matter of immediate negative press; the long-term ripple effects can permeate stakeholder trust, impact user growth, and even invite further regulatory scrutiny. The imbued perception of a dystopian corporate environment can be a latent liability, hindering future partnerships and tarnishing the brand in ways that are complex and multifaceted, yet cumulatively catastrophic.

    So, while the MyRTO initiative might have been conceived with an eye toward enhancing the return to office mandate, its inadvertent contribution to a burgeoning narrative of corporate overreach likely outweighs any benefits the platform could hope to gain. Therefore, TikTok faces a strategic imperative to rapidly reassess its stance on employee monitoring in the interest of averting a full-blown reputational implosion.

    While TikTok claims it has invested $1.5 billion in ensuring that user data is secure and confined to U.S. soil, actions speak louder than words. The surveillance measures essentially throw gasoline on an already raging fire of mistrust and skepticism. They make it increasingly difficult for TikTok to argue against the narrative that it’s a tool for “control, surveillance and manipulation.”

    Related: Returning to The Office Without a Strategy Is The Biggest Mistake You Can Make. Follow These 4 Steps for a Perfect Transition.

    Conclusion

    In the grand scheme, the MyRTO tool might appear to be a small, internal administrative change. However, this ‘minor’ change encapsulates everything that’s potentially problematic about TikTok’s strategy and public image. The platform needs to recognize that its actions echo far beyond the confines of its offices, influencing not only its brand reputation but also the broader conversations about ethical corporate behavior and workplace culture in the 21st century.

    TikTok’s deployment of MyRTO is a tactical win but a strategic loss. While it may achieve short-term compliance from employees, it erodes trust and adds another layer to the growing wall of skepticism surrounding the company. It’s a move that reflects not adaptability and forward-thinking, but rigidity and an outmoded understanding of productivity. Companies aspiring for a resilient and favorable position in the marketplace should treat this not as a model but as a cautionary tale.

    As businesses pivot to new modes of work, those that embrace transparency, employee autonomy, and ethical conduct will find themselves leading the pack, as I tell client companies who I help figure out their flexible work models. Companies caught in a time warp, clinging to surveillance and control, will likely find the path ahead much more challenging.

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    Gleb Tsipursky

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  • Free Webinar | October 26: How to Be a Visionary Leader for Yourself and Those Counting on You | Entrepreneur

    Free Webinar | October 26: How to Be a Visionary Leader for Yourself and Those Counting on You | Entrepreneur

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    Vision is the cornerstone of achievement, and visionary leaders possess the unique ability to see opportunities where others see obstacles. Learn how to unlock the secrets of becoming a visionary leader and start your journey toward unprecedented success!

    Join us on October 26th at 2:00 PM ET for an inspiring webinar led by Logan Stout, author, keynote speaker, and entrepreneur, whose companies have generated billions in revenue. Discover how you can become a visionary leader not only for yourself but for everyone counting on you.

    During this insightful webinar, you will learn:

    • How to establish a clear Vision that guides your path to success.
    • Strategies to take action on your Vision and turn dreams into reality.
    • Techniques to embody your Vision, making it an integral part of your leadership style.
    • Methods to effectively transfer your Vision to inspire and empower your team.
    • The self-discipline needed to stay committed to your Vision, no matter the obstacles.

    Don’t miss this opportunity to learn from Logan Stout’s wealth of experience and wisdom. Register now to secure your spot for this transformative webinar on visionary leadership! Whether you’re an aspiring leader or an established one, this event will equip you with the skills and mindset needed to make your Vision a reality.

    Register now and set yourself on the path to becoming a visionary leader.

    About the Speaker:

    Logan Stout is an accomplished business owner having generated billions of dollars of revenue throughout his career. He is a philanthropist, entrepreneur, best-selling author, keynote speaker and leadership trainer who has made regular appearances on all forms of major media outlets: TV, Magazines, Radio, Podcasts and more.

    He has been endorsed by Hall of Fame athletes including Troy Aikman and Pudge Rodriguez, renowned entrepreneurs Barbara Corcoran and Daymond John from ABC’s Shark Tank, Success Magazine’s Darren Hardy, Zig Ziglar’s son and CEO of Ziglar, Inc. Tom Ziglar and many more spanning a wide range of professions.

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    Entrepreneur Staff

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  • Dynamic Leadership Teams Ignite Tech Startup Success | Entrepreneur

    Dynamic Leadership Teams Ignite Tech Startup Success | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    This story originally appeared on Under30CEO.com

    The tech startup landscape in 2023 demands companies to form varied leadership teams consisting of individuals with distinct skill sets. This strategy enables startups to navigate the complex business and technological environment successfully. While larger corporations often adopt a more structured approach, startups thrive on creativity, cooperation, and adaptability. As a result, assembling a leadership team that personifies these characteristics is critical for success.

    The importance of diverse leadership teams in tech startups

    A diverse leadership team unites people with unique perspectives and experiences, fostering innovative problem-solving techniques and a holistic approach to tackling various business challenges. Furthermore, encouraging a culture of open communication and collaboration within these teams allows them to capitalize on opportunities, surmount hurdles, and pivot effectively to follow ever-changing market trends and demands in the dynamic tech startup world.

    Constructing the ideal leadership team

    To achieve this feat, founders must first assess their own and their colleagues’ strengths and weaknesses, using this insight to build a team that supports and complements each other. By blending technical and business-oriented mindsets, startups can develop imaginative solutions catering to customer demands and attracting investments.

    Related: 15 Strategies to Help Leaders Overcome Resistance to Change

    With a well-rounded team, startups can better handle the various challenges that emerge in the early stages of business development. This approach promotes a culture of collaboration and innovation while significantly increasing the likelihood of long-term success and growth for the company.

    Leveraging diverse professional experiences

    A paramount aspect of encouraging high-performance culture is tapping into diverse professional experiences and incorporating various viewpoints from the leadership team. This tactic not only enhances communication within the company but also nurtures a culture of constant experimentation and prompt decision-making.

    By embracing diversity and inclusion, organizations can establish a collaborative environment where individuals with different skills and perspectives work together towards a common objective. This dynamic workplace not only engenders innovation and creativity but also leads to increased employee satisfaction and retention, ultimately contributing to the organization’s overall success.

    Multidimensional leadership in a fast-paced world

    In today’s rapidly changing world, multidimensional leadership empowers organizations to adapt to fluctuating market trends and maintain their competitive advantage. By merging the ideal blend of expertise and viewpoints, startups are more likely to optimize their performance and increase their chances of achieving long-term success.

    Related: Should You Accept a Promotion Without a Raise? Here’s What Experts Say.

    This leadership approach cultivates a collaborative setting where diverse teams can effectively communicate, share ideas, and innovate collectively. Consequently, multidimensional leaders not only propel the growth of the organization but also nurture a productive and resilient workforce capable of facing complex challenges.

    Conclusion

    The competitive nature of the tech startup scene in 2023 necessitates a diverse and adaptable leadership team. By recognizing the strengths and weaknesses of each member, startups can create dynamic and well-rounded teams capable of fostering innovation and addressing various challenges. Through multidimensional leadership, organizations can build a more collaborative environment where diverse skills and perspectives contribute to long-term success and a resilient workforce.

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    Erica Stacey

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  • 15 Strategies to Help Leaders Overcome Resistance to Change | Entrepreneur

    15 Strategies to Help Leaders Overcome Resistance to Change | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    In the ever-evolving landscape of the business world, change is an immutable force, one that is indispensable for fostering growth and adaptation. However, the inevitability of change doesn’t negate the fact that even the most well-conceived and well-intentioned transformations often encounter formidable resistance from employees and stakeholders alike. As a change leader, your proficiency in skillfully navigating and surmounting this resistance is not just a valuable asset but an absolute necessity for the triumph of any transformational endeavor.

    This article delves into the intricate dynamics of resistance to change, dissecting the underlying factors that fuel this resistance, and it serves as a compass to guide change leaders toward effective strategies to quell such opposition. From understanding the psychology of fear of the unknown to addressing concerns of job security, we will equip you with actionable insights and proven tactics to foster not just compliance but genuine enthusiasm among your team and stakeholders during times of change.

    Related: The 5 Most Important Aspects of Leading Others in Times of Change

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    Taiwo Sotikare

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  • How to Build a Company That Excels at Both Leading and Coaching | Entrepreneur

    How to Build a Company That Excels at Both Leading and Coaching | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Companies, in an effort to be more efficient, are thinking twice about how many middle managers they need. And that makes it more important than ever to move from managing people to leading and coaching so they can do their jobs without the kind of oversight we thought they needed in the past.

    Getting it right starts with understanding the difference between managing and coaching.

    What happens if a professional football coach puts a player into a game who is underweight, inexperienced and doesn’t know the playbook?

    Let’s think about what might happen. The player could get hurt or get others hurt. Teammates will be scrambling to make up for his lack of experience and incompetence. The team will be mad at the coach. Lots of not-good things will happen. So, coaches try to avoid this.

    Related: Coaching Over Managing: Motivate Your Team

    The difference between coaches and managers is that coaches know they have to put the right people on the field. Most managers don’t worry about that because, deep down, they think they could play the position. That’s called micromanaging, and almost no one likes to be micromanaged (besides, do you really want to lead those who do?).

    That’s why the age of managing is over. I believe we are moving into an age of leading and coaching.

    Companies have come to realize they don’t need layers of managers, and employees are increasingly — and appropriately — asking for explicit levels of autonomy and authority. A business runs best when team leaders talk with their staff about what’s expected, turn those expectations into agreements or commitments (when agreements aren’t possible), and then get out of the way. And the key to doing that successfully, without losing some measure of supervision, is taking accountability for leading and coaching.

    Leading is straightforward, and it involves: having a compelling vision; being clear about who is responsible for what; giving people the resources they need to do their work; staying connected; making sure there are agreements (or commitments, if you can’t agree) — and that agreements/commitments are lived up to; ensuring everyone is walking the talk.

    If you think it’s all about leading, you’re flat wrong. Leaders are playing their own version of Don Quixote if they’re unable to provide coaching. Coaches help their teams get whatever they need — resources, training, systems, etc. — to honor their agreements or commitments.

    If you think that’s a lot, well, maybe it’s time to get out of the leadership and coaching game.

    There are four basic steps to building a company that is really good at leading and coaching:

    Related: 3 Effective Ways to Lead as a Coach Rather Than a Boss

    Hire the right people

    Effective coaching starts with hiring the right people and giving them the tools they need to succeed. Half of new hires are unsuccessful. That’s a dismal rate for hiring “managers” (I don’t like the word “managers”). A football coach would be gone with a statistic like that.

    A team leader who hires the wrong person often ends up micromanaging them instead of working to “hire right” in the first place. So, interviewing skills are key. Interviewers should be clear about not only the position’s roles and responsibilities but also key performance indicators (KPIs) and targets that foster clear understanding of what it means to do the job well.

    New hires need to understand the organization so they can get themselves up and running within 90 days without close supervision. That means being very intentional during the onboarding process and then, assuming they meet key requirements, staying out of their way and letting them bring their unique attributes to the organization. Everyone is different, with a collection of aptitudes, skills, experiences and motivations.

    Employees need to understand who is responsible for what — they require access to a platform that makes it easy to familiarize themselves with the organization’s chart of accountabilities — as well as business processes and company culture. They need to have a sense of the company’s ideal client and unique value proposition. After all, they’re part of an ecosystem — a complex adaptive system — that is explicit, coherent and resonates with all of what we call their ideal stakeholders (not all stakeholders are ideal, so please don’t worry about the ones who frankly don’t matter).

    Hold effective meetings

    At Ninety, our team leaders meet one-on-one twice a week with every new team member during the 90-day onboarding period and once a week afterward. There’s a set agenda that includes reconnecting as humans, reviewing KPIs and 90-day goals to make sure everything is working well and is on track, and bringing up and solving any issues.

    By onboarding team members properly, including ensuring they have an understanding of what defines the company (the why, who, what, when, where and how), meeting with them weekly, and agreeing on clear goals and metrics — especially those that help us agree on when things are wonky — both sides are set up for success. Employees won’t need micromanaging, giving you ample time to lead and coach your entire team.

    In short, the way a company views meetings is a clear and unambiguous sign of how well it’s run. A great company schedules almost all meetings. Ad hoc meetings are for urgent, unplanned business, and a well-run company shouldn’t have to scramble to react to events.

    Provide continuous feedback

    Well-run companies have ditched the annual review (don’t get me started on this topic). Everyone should meet quarterly with their team leader and have a simple, structured conversation about how they are doing as a leader/coach and as a team member.

    Consider conducting “stay interviews.” Many companies have exit interviews. But asking employees who don’t plan to leave what they love about the company and listening to their constructive feedback can be an incredibly positive experience.

    Related: 10 Rules for Coaching Your Team to Greatness

    Have the right compensation structure

    Using the right incentive plan for your company’s mix of employees is key. Companies have different cultures. Some, particularly in fields such as investment banking and private equity, have more of a warrior mentality. So, in addition to hiring people with related skills, a company would want an incentive plan that’s warrior-based — people who are paid to close deals or complete other high-consequence tasks. Another company might take a more team-based approach, and that company should have team- or company-based incentives.

    What you don’t want is a warrior-based culture with a team-based incentive plan or vice versa. That won’t make anyone happy because your words and incentives are incongruent.

    It is possible to create a place where people love going to work. To get there from where you are now, you’ll find it’s super-helpful to provide autonomy where it’s earned and appreciated, and form a culture that is explicit, coherent and resonates for all ideal stakeholders.

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    Mark Abbott

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  • 5 Ways to Cultivate a Resilient Digital Employee Experience | Entrepreneur

    5 Ways to Cultivate a Resilient Digital Employee Experience | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    In an era of rapid technological advancements and an evolving workforce landscape, companies now encounter both previously unimaginable possibilities and difficulties. One of the pivotal challenges plaguing this digital landscape is ensuring a harmonious and satisfying experience for employees, regardless of their location or the devices they use. This is where a well-crafted and comprehensive digital employee experience (DEX) strategy comes into play.

    Related: Unhappy Customers and Employees Can Wreak Havoc on Your Business. Here’s How to Make Both Happy.

    Understanding the essence of the digital employee experience

    Gone are the days when work was confined to physical office space and a standard 9-to-5 routine. Today, employees collaborate across time zones, harnessing a surfeit of devices and applications to accomplish tasks. Before we delve into the intricacies of crafting an effective strategy, we must grasp the essence of the digital employee experience.

    The idea of a people-centric workspace has existed for some time. However, many business leaders and organizations still need clarification on what DEX entails. In simple terms, DEX is the accumulation of every interaction a workforce has with their company’s technologies and processes. However, since every interaction impacts DEX, how can organizations enhance it?

    Related: 78% of Employers Are Using Remote Work Tools to Spy on You. Here’s a More Effective (and Ethical) Approach to Tracking Employee Productivity.

    Crafting a harmonious digital employee experience is a dance of technology, creativity and genuine care. Employees more or less want three things in terms of their digital technologies. They want technology that is simple to use, dependable and effective. However, the tricky part is balancing what employees want while maintaining a resilient security posture. Here are five steps for a harmonious digital experience strategy.

    Step 1: Holistic alignment with business objectives

    Creating a harmonious digital employee experience begins with aligning your strategy with overarching business goals. Every digital initiative, whether it’s the adoption of collaboration tools or the implementation of unified endpoint management systems, should be aligned with the company’s larger purpose. This alignment ensures that the digital employee experience is seamless and contributes directly to the organization’s success.

    It’s critical to include important stakeholders from multiple divisions to accomplish this alignment. HR, IT, and upper management should collaborate to identify the most critical digital touchpoints for employees. By weaving the digital employee experience into the organization’s fabric, you create a sense of purpose that resonates with every employee.

    Step 2: Providing a seamless onboarding experience

    An employee’s experience starts from the moment they are onboarded into the company. This marks the foundation for a positive employee experience is laid. Leveraging cutting-edge solutions like Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) and Desktop as a Service (DAAS) can significantly enhance these critical phases.

    UEM allows organizations to efficiently manage and secure various devices, from laptops to smartphones and tablets, from a single console. By providing a seamless and secure onboarding experience across devices, UEM facilitates a positive initial impression for new hires. Furthermore, the implementation of DAAS streamlines the deployment of virtual desktops, guaranteeing that employees enter a uniform and well-optimized workspace right from the start, regardless of their physical whereabouts. This streamlines the onboarding process and empowers remote workers to hit the ground running, eradicating any possible frustrations stemming from technical glitches.

    Step 3: Nurturing the anywhere work environment through remote monitoring

    The modern workforce isn’t confined to a single location, making the health and performance of endpoints a troublesome endeavor.

    UEM solutions shine in this arena by offering remote monitoring capabilities that allow IT teams to watch endpoints’ health irrespective of their physical location. By proactively identifying and addressing potential issues, such as security vulnerabilities or performance bottlenecks, organizations can ensure that the remote work experience remains seamless.

    A common pain point for employees and IT teams is the cumbersome process of resolving technical issues. Waiting for the IT helpdesk to intervene in the application or endpoint problems can lead to frustration and productivity losses. Remote capabilities allow IT teams to troubleshoot these issues irrespective of a device’s location. This approach boosts productivity and demonstrates a commitment to employee well-being, reinforcing a sense of support and care.

    Step 4: Empowering employees through continuous training

    Empowerment is a cornerstone of any successful employee experience strategy. When employees are given the skills and resources to navigate digital obstacles, they develop greater independence and self-assurance in their work.

    Offering comprehensive training sessions on using digital tools, troubleshooting common problems, and staying vigilant against cyber threats can empower employees to take charge of their digital experiences. By fostering a culture of continuous learning, organizations not only enhance the skill set of their employees but also demonstrate a commitment to their growth and development.

    Related: Enough About Employee ‘Engagement’! Focus on the Digital Employee ‘Experience’ Instead.

    Step 5: Measuring DEX success through comprehensive evaluation

    In the realm of business, what is not measured often remains elusive. The digital employee experience is no different. Organizations must set up reliable assessment and feedback processes to assess the efficacy of the tactics they have adopted.

    Surveys tailored to capture employees’ sentiments provide invaluable insights into their experiences. These surveys can delve into aspects such as ease of technology usage, satisfaction with support services, and overall comfort with the digital workspace. Furthermore, leveraging tools such as End-User Experience Management (EUEM) solutions that monitor user interactions and sentiment analysis can provide qualitative feedback, real-time monitoring and a continuous benchmark system.

    Crucially, these measurement strategies should be accompanied by a commitment to iterate and adapt based on feedback. Continuous improvement is at the core of a harmonious DEX strategy, as it reflects an organization’s genuine dedication to enhancing employee well-being and efficiency.

    The way forward

    A harmonious DEX strategy extends beyond optimizing processes; its essence is nurturing feelings of affiliation, empowerment, and employee welfare. In an age where the virtual realm assumes an increasingly significant function in our professional lives, enterprises that give precedence to enhancing the digital employee encounter are better poised to attract, retain, and nurture a workforce that excels within this evolving digital landscape.

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    Apu Pavithran

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  • How to Create Decision Frameworks That Drive Business Growth | Entrepreneur

    How to Create Decision Frameworks That Drive Business Growth | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    No company can rely on a single person to make decisions. According to a study by McKinsey, managers at a typical Fortune 500 company waste more than 500,000 days a year on ineffective decision-making. The more diverse your team, the better their decisions, so it pays to empower all your team members to make decisions autonomously.

    As the CEO of an 8-figure technology company responsible for hitting the KPIs of our publicly traded parent company, I see firsthand the benefits of getting this right. Our unique approach to leadership has led directly to 7-figure annual growth year over year, even during a market downturn.

    From the start, my leadership philosophy is that no single person should be burdened with all the decision-making. This can create a bottleneck and limit what your team can accomplish. Instead, it’s vital to create frameworks for decision-making that empower each individual on the team to make consequential decisions while still being accountable to me as a leader.

    If you want to increase the efficiency of your teams, read on for my five-step process to take you out of the day-to-day and accelerate your business growth.

    Related: 4 Leadership Methods for Empowering Employees and Building Strong Teams

    Empowering your team

    The key to successful decision-making lies in trust. You need to empower your team members to make decisions while still giving them the guidance and authority they need to do so correctly.

    This means that you have to be clear about expectations from the start by setting up an environment where everyone is aligned around a common goal and vision for the company’s growth and development.

    One of our main strengths is that we are a small, flexible and agile organization. We have a startup culture where the structure needed to be established from the ground up, and establishing the foundational framework has helped to shape the organization. We don’t have too many layers of bureaucracy, so our team members are able to act on their decisions quickly and efficiently.

    Build a system to your company’s method for making decisions, such as “anything under $500 to fix, decide for yourself” or other types of guidelines. This demonstrates that you trust their ability to make decisions and bolsters the team’s trust to carry out their roles and responsibilities.

    Without some level of autonomy, decision-making can become bogged down and slow. And that’s the last thing you want regarding business growth.

    Compartmentalizing responsibility

    The great thing about creating frameworks for decision-making is that each team member has a defined role and responsibility. This makes it easier for them to make decisions without worrying about stepping on someone else’s toes.

    For example, each member of our sales development team is expected to work on their own initiative to identify potential leads, develop relationships and close deals. This allows everyone on the team to focus on what they do best and act quickly without having to check with me for approval every time. Plus, it also creates a sense of ownership among team members. Everyone feels like they have a stake in the success of the company and are doing their part to contribute.

    Establish a balanced combination of servant, situational and adaptive leadership to build your decision frameworks. The focus is on solving problems with innovation. For example, stay involved in the training process upfront for the team to activate around customer acquisition and sales, instead of taking a permanently directive “ivory tower” approach. Once they understand the structure and how you think, each member of the team can take their role and run with it. That way, you understand the intricacies of their day-to-day overall operations and understand every decision the team makes over the long term. This helps to bring everyone together and communicate clearly.

    Related: 6 Ways to Encourage Autonomy With Your Employees

    Reducing risk and setting boundaries

    Of course, that’s not to say you should throw caution to the wind and let your team run wild without oversight.

    On the contrary, setting boundaries and managing risk is essential when creating decision-making frameworks for your team. Outline a transparent chain of command so everyone has a sense of who is responsible for what and when. If something goes wrong, each team member knows who to turn to first and who will ultimately be held accountable.

    It’s essential that your staff know when they can act independently and when they need to refer a decision up the chain. This gives them a sense of freedom while also providing guidance and structure in their decision-making process.

    Setting boundaries for an autonomous team requires trust, effective communication and a commitment to a shared purpose. By providing guidance and structure while respecting their decision-making capabilities, you can create a team that excels while maintaining a healthy level of autonomy.

    I provide a clear understanding of the team’s overall goals and objectives. When team members know what KPIs they are working towards, they can make decisions that align with these goals. I also give team members access to relevant information, data and context that can aid in their decision-making process. This enables them to make well-informed choices within the defined boundaries.

    Building a culture of trust

    The greatest asset of any company is its people; creating an environment of trust is essential for successful decision-making. It starts with communication — keeping your team informed about updates and changes.

    Schedule regular daily, weekly or monthly check-ins with the team, formally and informally. This helps you keep abreast of any issues they might face and offer guidance when needed. Consider quarterly strategy meetings to evaluate the progress in relation to the KPIs and highlight any areas of improvement.

    Finally, celebrate successes and recognize individual contributions. People need to feel appreciated for their efforts in order to stay motivated. A culture of trust and respect will also encourage open dialogue, feedback and collaboration, which is essential for innovative decision-making.

    Related: 4 Ways to Guide Your Employees Toward Empowered Decisions

    Build a framework for your success

    The key to successful decision-making is a framework that lets your team make powerful decisions while still being accountable for them. Empowering each individual on your team by giving them clear expectations and autonomy is essential in creating an environment of trust.

    Ultimately, by creating transparent decision-making frameworks, you can foster an environment of collaboration and innovation that will drive your business growth and success for years to come.

    By setting clear expectations, compartmentalizing responsibility, building a culture of trust and managing risk through clear boundaries, you’ll be able to ensure that each team member is making the right decisions, on the right subjects, at the right time, to help your business excel.

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    Sebastian Huelck

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  • How Leaders Can Foster a Sense of Belonging in the Workplace | Entrepreneur

    How Leaders Can Foster a Sense of Belonging in the Workplace | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    When employees feel a sense of belonging in the workplace, they’re free to be their authentic, true selves, which makes it easier to show up, engage with others, create solutions and perform well. People who don’t feel workplace belonging experience anxiety, (dis)stress and mistrust that ultimately hampers their performance and creativity. That’s why entrepreneurs and leaders should design organizational policies and practices to encourage it.

    Well-known, but nonetheless important, examples include knowing a team member’s name, welcoming them into the company through appropriate onboarding procedures and traditions, and regularly checking in to see how things are going through staff meetings, one-on-one huddles and feedback-based performance evaluations.

    In this article, I draw upon an impressive array of data from our recent studies with corporate, non-profit and legal consulting clients to put forth fresh ideas for boosting workplace belonging. Fresh ideas lead to specific solutions and useful examples from companies witnessing solid results.

    Related: Employees Want to Feel a Sense of Belonging at Work. Here’s How Leaders Can Make That Possible.

    Fresh ideas

    It’s no secret that workplace belonging is an essential component of employee engagement. When employees feel like they belong, it results in positive work-life balance, better relationships, low(er) stress levels, greater productivity, low staff turnover, higher job satisfaction ratings and better performance metrics.

    For example, in one study, high sense of belonging among employees was strongly linked with a 56% increase in job performance, 50% decrease in risk of leaving and 75% reduction in sick days. For a company of 10,000 people, this could mean annual savings of more than $52 million. Figure 1 presents a summary.

    The benefits of workplace belonging are indisputable. But how can entrepreneurs and leaders foster a sense of belonging within their organization? Belonging must be more than a buzzword. It refers to a feeling, a perception or an emotional connection that makes people feel accepted, respected, safe, secure, valued and understood at work, just as they are. One way to do this is by listening to and sharing team members’ stories about who they are, what they value, where they are from and what they love to do, both inside and outside of work. This is a great opportunity for humanizing the workplace — showing that the organization cares about its people and their well-being.

    Another way to promote workplace belonging is to provide meaningful opportunities for connection, collaboration and social interaction amongst your team members. These vary in form and fashion, but our work with dozens of companies shows several fresh approaches to book clubs, employee resource groups (ERGs) and other affinity groups. Business leaders can also encourage employees to interact and share their fresh ideas and perspectives through staff pulse polls, feedback channels or team meetings by providing special breakout rooms or skipping-level meetings.

    Specific solutions

    To build a culture of belonging, managers must strive to make all employees — whether in-person, remote or hybrid — feel like they belong by caring for their colleagues, advocating for each person’s needs, making or holding space for all voices to be heard and investing in their professional success. Additionally, leaders should be mindful of the impact of isolation in the workplace and take measures to prevent it, such as implementing formal staff mentoring programs or planning regular check-ins with individual staff members and teams. This will ensure that all employees have the resources they need to do their jobs well, thrive professionally and feel like they belong in their organization.

    Business owners and leaders should also foster a culture of trust by encouraging honest dialogue, promoting anti-racist and non-judgmental practices, praising vulnerability and being mindful of power dynamics, especially in difficult situations.

    A good place to start is fostering employee advisory groups, championing diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) promising practices and ensuring that everyone has a safe, brave space to share their doubts, concerns, complaints and fears through electronic channels, climate surveys, feedback loops and one-on-one meetings with mentors, liaisons or managers.

    Remember, the evidence is clear. A strong sense of belonging can bolster an organization’s bottom line, with research showing that it leads to a 56% increase in performance, a 50% decrease in turnover risk and a 75% reduction in sick days. It can also lead to a 167% increase in employer net promoter score, two times more employee raises and 18 times more employee promotions — the latter being person-level gains associated with performance metrics in studies.

    Belonging is an essential building block of a successful workplace and an essential element of entrepreneurial success. While some companies overemphasize profits and gains — though dollars make sense in business (and cents make dollars) — belonging calls much-needed attention to the important role that emotions, feelings and perceptions play in business. How people feel can make or break a business; unlike widgets and contracts, feelings can’t be forced, fabricated, easily fixed or forgotten.

    Our work with leading companies reveals several useful examples — what I refer to as promising practices — from businesses seeing solid results after prioritizing such feelings.

    Related: 3 Simple Ways to Help Your Employees Feel They Belong

    Promising practices

    As a leader, you can take several actions to promote belonging in the workplace. For example, one Chicago-based tech firm invites staff to share their personal stories in team meetings, on social media and through the company’s podcast. This is an opportunity for everyone to get to know one another better, which contributes to a sense of community. It’s also a great way to discover commonalities and connections across departments, divisions and teams.

    In addition, if business leaders encourage employees to express their opinions at work, they will feel like their ideas are valued and respected. A workplace that prioritizes belonging is one where all voices can be heard, celebrated and respected, regardless of the messenger, the message and its contents (within reasonable limits).

    One Virginia-based non-profit takes several steps to create space for 360-feedback loops, including “Feedback Fridays,” where employees are rewarded (financially and otherwise) for identifying bottlenecks that threaten organizational excellence.

    Remember, asking employees to air their perspectives is one step. An important action for leadership, however, is to listen to what their people need — and then act on it. When you do, don’t forget to circle back and share the solution while tracking its impact on fixing the problem.

    It bears repeating: A sense of belonging is important for all employees, especially women and minorities who often feel isolated in male-dominated, predominantly white fields. By encouraging all employees to express their authentic selves, businesses can foster a more trusting and empowering culture that boosts employee performance, fuels innovation and hits the bottom line, all part of the connection equation.

    To encourage a sense of belonging, leaders should consider the solutions and promising practices described in this article. Demonstrate that employees’ unique contributions are valued, and make an effort to understand their backgrounds. Promote a culture of belonging by creating opportunities for workers to collaborate with their peers in a supportive environment. All of this will help to build relationships and trust, which are crucial in fostering a sense of belonging. Indeed, work relationships move at the speed of trust.

    Related: The 3 Pillars Your Company Needs to Cultivate a Culture of Belonging

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    Terrell Strayhorn, PhD

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