Employee turnover is a fact of life. It’s inevitable. While we’d like to minimize it . . . particularly among out best employees . . . we can never eliminate it entirely. And that’s a good thing. From time to time, we need new people who bring fresh thinking and new ideas. Still, we want
Exit interviews: the gold standard for determining how satisfied (or dissatisfied) your workforce is.
Exit interviews are an incredibly effective HR tool that can help you assess the health of your organization. Yet in many companies, it’s a tool that is used sparingly or not at all. Or it’s used in such a perfunctory manner that it doesn’t really produce any useful information. Why? Because it takes time and
“The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can’t find them, make them.”
Entrepreneurs are a strange breed and largely misunderstood. Some people believe that all small independent businesses are automatically entrepreneurial. Not true. Many small businesses just plod along, day after day, following whatever formula got them to where they are, and never straying into new or uncharted territory. The companion belief is that entrepreneurs don’t exist
“There is no ‘there’: Employee Engagement is a journey, not a destination.”
Can you imagine your employees looking forward to coming to work? Can you imagine them working for a higher purpose than just collecting a paycheck? Can you imagine them committed not only to discharging their own duties and responsibilities, but also to helping the company achieve its long-term goals? Can you imagine your employees so
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”
In their book, “The CEO Next Door,” consultants Elena Botelho and Kim Powell talk about “The 4 behaviors that transform ordinary people into world-class leaders.” They base their findings on studies of over 2600 leaders. While any individual leader may display a wide range of behaviors, Botelho and Powell argue that there are just four
“Give up trying to grow the bottom line. Grow your people and your people will grow the bottom line.”
Simon Sinek is an author and lecturer . . . he’s a favorite of ours and we refer to him often. He is a self-described idealist who “imagines a world in which the vast majority of people wake up every single morning inspired to go to work and return home at the end of the
“When was the last time you did something for the first time?”
George Romney once said, “There is nothing more vulnerable than entrenched success.” In other words, we get a little success under our belt and there’s a risk that we become fat, dumb, and happy . . . in short, complacent. Hubris sets in and some rigor leaves. We take our foot off the gas a
“Success seems largely to be a matter of hanging on after the others let go.”
Let’s talk about Bill Gross, the serial entrepreneur. As it turns out, there’s also Bill Gross the billionaire investor, but that’s not who we want to talk about. We want to talk about the other guy. The entrepreneur. This Bill Gross has personally started over 100 companies, and more than 40 of those have either
“The real job of leadership is not to take charge. The real job of leadership is to take care of the people in our charge.”
As company owners, if we want to grow our enterprise into something that has size, depth, staying power, and value, we can’t do it alone. We need a team to help us . . . a team of leaders. But how do we develop our team? How do we select who will be on it?
Turnover can be good or bad. When we’re talking about inventory, turnover is very good. But when we’re talking about employees, turnover is bad. Very, very bad.
Employee turnover is a serious matter. And it’s a very expensive matter. It affects everything -profitability, productivity, customer service, quality control, and more. Yet too many of us treat turnover as an unavoidable annoyance. It’s true that some turnover is a good thing. From time to time, we need to weed out the people who
