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Recently in Employee Relations Category
After July 31st, all players that teams attempt to trade must pass through waivers. If any of the other teams in baseball put a claim on the player, then the team must either remove the player from waivers (thus making him untradeable the remainder of the season), negotiate a trade with the team who claimed him, or let him go to another team with no compensation.
Manny Ramirez was claimed by the White Sox and the Dodgers gave him up in what could be called a "salary dump". Mike Napoli and Ted Lilly were claimed by the Red Sox and Yankees respectively, but their teams instantly removed them from waivers.
Sometimes the waiver wire is just used to gauge interest in another player by other teams. How can this be used in business? A good HR philosophy by a company would be to regularly have high level meetings between locations discussion potential talent, transfers of management, and potential for trading staff to fill gaps where needed. A company would be wise to hold these meetings on a regular basis (maybe twice or quarterly) to share what talent is available, offer talent who is interested in moving, and also share what talent may be available once the next meeting commences.
As a Yankee fan, I am excited for another season here in the Bronx. However, it saddens me to see what appears to be the dramatic decline of skills in the Captain, Derek Jeter. Some reports have blasted him for perennial hitting into a double play (one blog actually said he should change his uniform number to 63 because he always seems to hit into a 6-3 groundout).
Is it age? Is he injured? Or is it just that he happens to be in the right place at the wrong time? These are things many managers have to consider when one of their top performers suddenly declines in performance.
The key in business (and baseball) is to not rush to conclusions when someone who has consistently performed at a high level suddenly drops off. It is important to see what is going on in one's personal life, if there are new stressors at work, or if there are medical or other issues that need to be addressed.
As a fan, it's easy to jump all over Jeter (as my friends and I have in our Yankee discussions), but the important thing here is to look at the person's performance over time and see what adjustments can be made to make that person more comfortable and perform better.
Manny Ramirez has now worn out his welcome with two baseball teams - the Boston Red Sox in 2008 and now the Los Angeles Dodgers this year. However, the issue with Manny could have been averted years ago if the Red Sox took proper disciplinary action.
For years, Manny Ramirez altered between a powerful offensive force on the team to being a negative offender of clubhouse rules and playing field decorum. Until the Red Sox finally traded him, they didn't really make enough of an effort to nip his behavior in the bud or handle the issues as they came up.
Just as in the work place, if someone is a top performer but displays negative behavior towards the organization or to coworkers, not person or player is worth keeping around if they aren't playing on the team or working with others well. If people aren't dealt with early on, they feel like their behavior will be tolerated.
Next time you think someone on your team is just acting that way because they just have a case of "Manny being Manny", you need to ask yourself if this is behavior that can be changed or altered before you have to take drastic action to remove the person from your team or organization.
I'm a stickler when it comes to attendance, and my students and former staff are well aware of how irritated I get when someone is late, wants to leave early, or doesn't show up without notice.
I think it is very important to start people on the right foot by being rigid with your attendance policy. Once employees or students feel you are lax in allowing lateness or frequent unexplained absenteeism to occur, your place of business or classroom will suffer.
Common courtesy around attendance involves informing those who you are reporting late to or not reporting to at all of your situation. I have had several people in both my academic career and professional career who have been late or absent a few times, but there is always a legitimate reason, and they always let me know ahead of time. As well, I have statistical evidence that shows that those who do not give notice of their lateness or absenteeism end up leaving school, failing courses, losing their job, or having further problems at work than the absenteeism.
What strategies have you employed in the workplace or classroom to prevent these situations from becoming problems? I'll share more, as well as reader feedback, in a future column.
On August 12th, I posted a column asking the following questions. Here is feedback from readers, as well as some ideas from me.
What activities do you involve your team in during non-peak hours? How can your team be managed more effectively to prevent productivity lapses? I'll share some best practices from readers on a future post.
"I use non-peak hours to do continual training and role plays of customer service scenarios..."
"During non-peak times, I find that these are the best times to hold informal one-on-ones with my staff."
"I find that my staff is even more productive when its slow. They realize that to fill the sales floor and to keep it neat at slow times makes it much easier to sell and merchandise all day long."
Some of things I have found work effectively include
- splitting up employee's hour long breaks into half hours to take advantage of the slow time to get breaks over with
- holding meetings with the staff on the floor.
- refocusing on the core principles of the company/day by interacting with the staff and going over the daily/weekly/monthly goals
The title of today's article is a question one of my friends like to ask people he meets for the first time (or people who he has known for a quite a long time).
What does this have to do with HR? Well, what do you carry around with you in your wallet? Are there business cards of people that you have acquired that you haven't contacted in a while? Do you have pictures of people you haven't kept in touch with in a while? What has lay dormant that you can address that is sitting within some side pocket?
Carrying pictures of dead people in your wallet can remind you of just how important it is to remember those who have come before us. It can also remind us that when we put something in our wallet, it should be something we look at often and don't leave hidden away to never be used again.
How about respect? Sometimes people are just looking for recognition of their efforts through respecting their time and brain. People want to know that their reputation doesn't need to be proven time and time again. As well, many people long for and deserve the faith in them that comes with having been there before and having been successful at whatever you have thrown at them in the past.
Lastly, trust. Trust and respect pretty much go hand in hand, but continuing to trust people with more and more responsibility or freedom helps grow relationships where there may not be opportunity for advancement. When employees feel that they can still grow even if their title doesn't change, they are willing to stick around for other opportunities that may arrive.
Improve your ART-work, and you will see just how incredible your workplace can continue to become.
There are times you feel that you need another
voice to calm your storm and no voice is to be found, and it is during
these times that the solution is to take a deep breath and realize that
you alone can conquer any storm.
At work, we often face stressful situations that require an outside voice or colleague to assist us with our decision making. Many times, there may not be anyone around to make the difficult call that has fallen into our laps. At these times, it is almost fate that we are alone in our decision making, and it is during times like this we can find our greatest strengths amongst are loneliness.
Next time you are faced with a crisis at work, think about what you would do if there was no one else to turn to, and before you reach out to others for an opinion or support, see if you can solve the issue on your own. You will find that very often, there is no customer, employee, or vendor or any other person who you aren't able to deal with effectively.
I always marvel at the surprise or lack of awareness when people run into me or others when it is out of context or out of the normal routine. When people see me at the gym, walking around town, or in a public place, I often notice them, but they don't notice me (and as I joke with whoever I am with at the time, it's not like I am very inconspicuous).
When you run into employees or employers in a public place where they aren't engaged in private dialogue, sitting at dinner, or giving off social cues that indicate that they don't want to be bothered, it's polite and normal to say hello and go about your business.
In the workplace, I think there often is the fear that we are invading people's privacy by saying hello to them when they are out in public, but the opposite often occurs; if we can't feel comfortable saying hello to someone in an unexpected moment, than how should we feel on a daily basis when we see those people at the office?
Some of the greatest waste in organizations comes during non-peak hour employment periods. In retail, especially, certain times of the day require minimal staffing and maximum productivity.
Effective operations will do their best to monitor sales per labor hour or similar metrics to determine optimum coverage at optimum times. However, some organizations need to manage their workforce through times that may not be consistently off-peak by using them to prepare for the peak periods.
What activities do you involve your team in during non-peak hours? How can your team be managed more effectively to prevent productivity lapses? I'll share some best practices from readers on a future post.
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