Plant These Seeds and Show Employees That You Care

Friends:

Today's POST brings to sixteen the seeds that we all can plant to to show employees, husbands, wives, spouses, children, relatives and colleagues that we care. Be creative, loving and considerate and your returns will far exceed your efforts!

Seed #13: Create an environment of trust between employer and employee! Employees are happier and work harder when they feel like they can trust their leaders. They decide which leaders they can trust based on how their fellow employees, company vendors, and customers are treated. As a leader, do you treat all with whom you come into contact with respect? Do you behave ethically and hold others accountable for their actions? When you have to take tough action, like terminating someone, do you follow proper steps and treat the person with dignity in the process? If an employee
sees you treating someone else poorly, whether it's a vendor or a fellow employee, his level of trust diminishes and he starts to care less about doing a good job for you.

Seed #14: Rid your pasture of weeds! The weeds in your figurative pasture are those poor performers and negative employees who stifle the good attitudes and high performance of their fellow
employees. If you're not pulling out your weeds, then it's likely their counterparts won't stick around and keep working with them. They'll choke out your best performers.

Seed #15: Use internship and mentoring programs to grow and nurture new talent! These programs allow promising prospects and employees to learn what your company culture is all about while
also developing their own professional skills. They offer a win-win situation for your company because they allow you to get a good look at new talent without paying out a huge salary or, making a long-term commitment.

Seed #16: Take a seasonal approach to showing employees you care! "There are any number of ways to do this," says Sujansky. "Be creative. In summer, consider giving half-days off on Friday, or
give a half-day off before an employee's vacation to help her minimize the stress of leaving town. Even something as simple as providing fresh fruit or flowers for the office can make an impact. .... These ideas aren't expensive, and they go a long way toward showing employees that you care!

Halloween, Thanksgiving, and year-end holidays are all opportunities for planting one or more of our sixteen, caring seeds!

Please visit our BLOG again. We await your comments!

Let's Plant More Seeds Today. A Bountiful Harvest Will Result!

Friends:

Here are today's "four ways" which, if followed imaginatively, will help retain key employees and slow down the brain drain:

Seed #9: Conduct "stay" interviews regularly. Great employees like to hear about what they can do to make the company even better. Regular "stay" interviews provide a great opportunity for leaders to compliment their high performers on their great work and also to
inspire them to do more to take the company to the next level.

Seed #10: Create the kind of environment where people can do their best work. Is your work environment restrictive and stifling or is it freeing and innovative? To show its appreciation for innovation, Google allows their engineers to spend 20 percent of their time on independent projects.

Seed #11: Help employees to achieve work/life balance. In today's high-tech world, it is easy to set employees up so that they can work from home. Employees in today's workforce saw their parents give their lives to companies .... only to be laid off at age 55 without much hope for finding other employment! Today's working generation seems to share the sentiment of we're not going to let that happen to us! .... "Providing flexible hours or allowing your employees to work from home shows them you value the lives they have outside the office," says Sujansky.

Seed #12: Insist that your employees take vacations. .... Several studies show that employees who take vacations
are less stressed, lead a healthier lifestyle, and are even at lower risk of having heart disease. All of that means lower healthcare costs for you. .... "Here's a great opportunity for you to lead by example," says Sujansky. "Take time off to show them how important you think it is, and when they are enjoying their own time off don't call them with problems that can wait until they return. .... If they are able to completely disengage, they will come back with renewed spirits—which, in turn, will help them reach their company goals."

That's it for today! Plant these seeds, and the harvest will be abundant and bountiful!

We look forward to your visit tomorrow, and to your comments. Thank you!

Sixteen Ways To Keep Your Best Employees (Continued)

Friends:

Here are another four ways to help retain our best employees:

Seed #5: Give praise where praise is due. If someone does a great job, let him (or her) know. And then let his customers know! Recognizing a job well done isn't an expensive proposition, but it will mean the world to your employee.

Seed #6: Get creative with benefits. You don't have to provide your employees with onsite medical care and
state-of-the-art fitness centers. "There are many inexpensive ways to satisfy your employees; you just have to use your imagination," says Sujansky. "Take a
note from Qualcomm. In addition to offering an amazing healthcare package, the company caters dinner for employees who work late, a relatively inexpensive perk
that is sure to please hungry, hardworking employees. Other options include providing access to dry-cleaning services, treating all of your employees to lunch once a week, or providing them with on-site educational programs delivered by local experts or company vendors in a wide variety of fields."

Seed #7: Be aware of the changing needs of your employees. Keep in mind that as your employees progress in life their needs change. After having a child, an employee may want to travel less than before the child was born.

Seed #8: Realize that great employees thrive under great leaders. Your employees won't leave you for that greener
pasture unless you drive them to it. The buck starts and stops with their leaders. In fact it's commonly said that employees don't quit their job, they quit their manager.

That's my POST for today. Please remember, you can read Dr. Sujansky's article at: http://www.itworld.com/Career/nlscareers071008/index.html, and please use our "comments" box to post your thoughts, ideas and suggestions. Thanks again, and do visit us again tomorrow.

Sixteen Ways To Keep Your Best Employees!

Friends:

My research this past week has led me to a number of interesting and relevant pieces which I would like to share with you!

The most interesting piece is entitled "16 Ways to Keep Your Best Employees -- Without Breaking the Bank." Author is: Joanne G. Sujansky, PhD, CSP, KEYGroup, and the source document can be viewed at -http://www.itworld.com/Career/nlscareers071008/index.html.

Today, and on each of the next three days, I shall POST four of the sixteen "ways" provided. Please peruse each of Dr. Sujansky's "seeds," and be sure to use our "comments" box to share your ideas, thoughts or suggestions. So, here we go:

Ways To Keep Your Best Employees Without Breakin The Bank!

Seed #1: Don't misrepresent your culture. Engaging your employees starts with the first time you interview them.

Seed #2: Learn the rules of engagement. Bored employees are neither happy nor productive.

Seed #3: Cross-pollinate your culture by embracing diversity. It takes a lot of different influences—diversity in race, ethnicity, gender, age, sexual preference, lifestyle, geographic origin, education, personality, values, experience,
socio-economic background and so forth—to make your pasture the greenest.

Seed #4: Be a good corporate citizen. Once upon a time, the corporate heads of many organizations had one concern: "How much money can we make and how fast can we make it?" Well, money still matters, of course. But today's employers are finding that they have to care about more than just profits if they want to keep
their employees happy.

Please think about these suggestions, and we invite you to return for four more tomorrow. Thank you!