Health-risk assessment (HRA)
Health advocacy programs
Health coaching
24-hour nurse line
Use of wearable technology for encouraging wellness results
On-site medical clinic or nurse
Seminars, webinars, or literature to promote wellness and well-being
Stress-reduction programs/offerings (e.g., yoga, massage, meditation)
Tobacco-smoking cessation support
Nutrition counseling (on-site or covered by medical plan)
Weight-management programs
Subsidized weight-loss programs
Discounted fitness club membership/fitness-related subsidies
On-site fitness center and fitness classes
Healthy cafeteria options and vending machine options
Retirement
Defined benefit plan
Defined contribution plan (e.g., 401(k), 403(b), 457 plans)
Non-qualified deferred compensation plan
Retiree healthcare benefits
Employee stock ownership plan (ESOP)
Other Benefits and Perks
Employee stock purchase plan (ESPP)
Long-term care insurance
Auto/home insurance
Pet insurance
Legal insurance, referral or consultation
Identify theft insurance
Concierge services
Free parking or parking subsidy
Commuter/transportation benefits or subsidy
Company car or car allowance
Cell phone (employer-issued, monthly allowance or reimbursement)
Laptop computer
Student loan debt repayment assistance
Debt management (e.g., counseling, education)
Personal financial-planning services (e.g., seminars, access to financial planners, estate planning)
Personal tax services
As you can see, there are many benefits programs to choose from at different price points.
DIG FOR GOLD!
Make sure that you are maximizing everything that you already have from your existing benefit providers. Ask if they offer any additional programs for FREE. For example, life insurance companies frequently offer an employee assistance program (EAP) for free to their customers. In this case, the EAP should be part of your Total Rewards program and communicated to employees.
Once you get all of the free stuff, find out if there are benefit programs they offer as an add-on at a low cost. You might find they offer a program that your employees have been requesting.
Also, ask benefit providers if they will provide education to your employees to enhance the perceived value of their programs, and help your employees receive greater benefit from their programs. By doing this, you are increasing your value/cost ratio of existing programs.
There are a lot of benefit providers out there competing for business. When you are comparing programs, make sure that you assess the full range of services that they provide and that they are willing to educate your employees on their services. Benefits are expensive. Select providers who will help you get the most bang for your buck!
CHAPTER 19
Work-Life Programs
WORK-LIFE BALANCE IS MY PASSION because I love my family and I love to work. Sadly, my domestic skills are minimal. I am perfectly happy in my office, but if you put me in a kitchen, I get grumpy really fast! So, being able to work and care for my family has always been important to me. Personally, I’m thankful that work-life programs have risen to the forefront as a business issue.
Work-Life programs are those that help employees achieve success in their personal lives as well as in business. The most common work-life programs are provided below:
Time Off
Paid Time Off (PTO) (e.g., vacation, sick leave, personal leave)
Holiday pay and floating holidays
Bereavement leave
Paid sabbaticals
Paid parental leave
Paid caregiver leave
Unpaid, job-protected time off (beyond legal requirements)
Caring for Dependents
Childcare resources and referral services
Eldercare resources and referral services
Childcare Center – On-site, nearby, subsidies, or discounts
Backup childcare or eldercare
Dependent care spending accounts
Travel-related dependent care expense reimbursement
Support for employees with special-needs children
Lactation-support services
Adoption assistance or reimbursement
College preparation planning and savings plans (529 plans)
Employee scholarship/ student aide/ loans
Workplace Flexibility
Flex time (ability to adjust workday start and end times)
Telework
Compressed workweek
Part-time/reduced work schedules
Shift flexibility
Alternative worksites
Hoteling
Annualized hours
Job sharing
Phased return to work after leave of absence
Phased retirement
Career on- and off-ramps
Seasonal scheduling (e.g., summer hours)
Results-based work environment
As you can see, there are numerous ways to provide work-life balance to your employees. Keep in mind that these programs are investments in your bottom line. Work-life balance is critically important to your employees, and they will jump ship to another company who provides a better overall life for them.
Work-life programs are a key part of recruiting top talent. People are no longer working for just a paycheck. They are working towards a dream – their dream. Companies who help their employees achieve their dreams win their hearts.
Ziglar Wheel of Life
I can’t talk about work-life balance without talking about the Ziglar Wheel of Life. At Ziglar, not only have I found work-life balance, I have the pleasure of teaching it to other people and making their lives better! You see, true success is not found only in your career, but in your whole life.
The Ziglar philosophy is to help people live balanced and fulfilled lives. Each spoke of the wheel represents an area of life: Physical, Family, Mental, Financial, Spiritual, Career, and Personal. All of these spokes are intertwined; they impact one another. So, you can’t just be strong in one or two and truly have a balanced life.
It is amazing to me that Zig came up with this before work-life balance was a thing. This model is what employees want. They want to have whole lives and be successful in all areas. Companies who understand this—really understand it—will create competitive advantage.
On the Wheel of Life, there are tick marks from 1-10. This is related to the assessment of each area. I’ve provided an easy-to-use Ziglar assessment worksheet on my website that will help you determine where you are on each spoke of the wheel.
After you determine your score for each spoke of the wheel, plot the numbers and connect them. Ideally, you will have a circle, which means that you are developing equally in each area. If you have an area that is flat (lower score than other areas), you know that you are not giving it enough attention and need to strengthen that area.
For me, the Ziglar Wheel of Life is a visual that reminds me of all the things that are important in my life. I’m very task oriented, and the Ziglar Wheel of Life helps me remember to work in the softer areas like building relationships with friends and family.
When I feel that I’m falling down in one area, I’ll place more attention on strengthening that area. For example, sometime
s I feel that my spending is out of control. To get me back in control, I’ll listen to a Dave Ramsey podcast for thirty minutes to an hour each day. Pretty soon I find myself squirreling away money instead of spending it. Once I’m back in control of my finances, I’ll let up on educating myself in this area, because there is always another area that needs work. As Christy Wright says in her book Business Boutique,
Life balance isn’t about doing everything in your life for an equal amount of time. It’s about doing the right things at the right time.
(WRIGHT, 2017)
CHAPTER 20
Recognition Programs
RECOGNITION IS A SHARP TOOL in the Total Rewards toolkit. Dale Carnegie said, “People work for money but go the extra mile for recognition, praise, and rewards.” (Johnson, 2016)
In a ten-year global study by HealthStream Research and O.C. Tanner, they found a link between recognition and financial performance. Employee recognition impacts Operating Margin in a significant way. (Operating Margin is a ratio of operating income to sales.) According to the data, companies with the highest quartile of recognition of excellence report an Operating Margin of 6.6%, while those in the lowest quartile report 1.7%.
Recognition comes in two forms – formal and informal.
FORMAL RECOGNITION
In this section, I’ll talk about the formal recognition programs that are part of a Total Rewards program. These are the award programs that have defined criteria for receiving the awards. Formal recognition programs provide the infrastructure to make sure that recognition happens, and that the right behaviors and actions are rewarded.
According to WorldatWork’s Trends in Employee Recognition report (May 2017), the most common recognition programs are as follows:
Length of service
Above and beyond performance
Programs to motivate specific behaviors
Peer to peer
Retirement
Programs that improve biometric indices through wellness initiatives
Sales performance
Suggestions/ideas
Safety performance
Employee of the year, month, etc.
Major family event (e.g., birth, wedding)
Attendance
HOW TO DEVELOP AN EFFECTIVE PROGRAM
To create a recognition program, you need to decide first what behaviors and actions you want to drive with your program. In the WorldatWork’s Trends in Employee Recognition report (May 2017), the following are the objectives/ goals of the participants’ recognition programs.
As you can see, there are a lot of uses for recognition programs, and most center on enhancing culture, retention, motivation, and engagement. This is a great place to load up your Total Rewards toolbox to create competitive advantage.
The most effective recognition programs offer several different ways to recognize people. Provided below are the four main categories for recognition programs.
1. Career Recognition
These awards are the foundation of formal recognition programs as they have been around for the longest period of time. They include length-of-service awards and retirement awards. Typically, these awards involve public recognition and some type of gift or trophy.
Length-of-Service awards honor people on the anniversary of their hire date. They are usually celebrated on the one-year anniversary and every five-year increment after that (5-year, 10-year, 15-year, etc.). The main purpose of this award is to promote retention.
Retirement awards are a respectful way to say goodbye to an employee. Above all, it is simply the right thing to do. From a practical standpoint, retiring employees will tell others in the community, and possibly online, how they were treated as they departed the company. Also, retirement awards and the public recognition that accompanies them, say volumes to employees who remain. If Old Bob is tossed out the door unceremoniously, it tells other employees that they will be treated the same way, which decreases engagement. Of course, the opposite is true when employees are honored and treated well upon retirement.
2. Above-and-Beyond Performance
These awards are given for significant achievements that exceed expectations. The recognition is typically public and involves a certificate, plaque, or trophy. There is frequently a monetary award or gift/prize as well. Employee of the Month, Quarter, Year are examples of these types of awards.
Above-and-Beyond awards should be aligned with company goals and Core Values. The award should only be given to people who have a significant accomplishment and faithfully demonstrate the company’s values. Don’t award the bull in the china shop who exceeds expectations on a project but takes other people down in the process. What gets rewarded gets repeated. If you award this type of behavior, others will follow, and good people will leave the company.
3. Programs to Motivate Specific Behaviors
Recognition is a great way to motivate certain behaviors and actions. Provided below is a list of some of the most common target behaviors in this category.
Demonstrate Core Values
Achieve sales goals
Provide excellent customer service
Refer people to the company (referral program)
Improve health (wellness initiatives)
Give suggestions/ideas
No injuries (safety awards)
Attend work (attendance awards)
The design of the program is unique for each type of award.
4. On-The-Spot Awards
These awards are also called ad hoc, ongoing, and day-to-day recognition. They award smaller accomplishments such as extra effort, a good idea, working extra hours, good attitude in a difficult situation, etc. In The Carrot Principle, it is recommended that on-the-spot awards be
Frequent
Specific
Timely
In a formal recognition program, the company provides managers with tools for on-the-spot awards, and the knowledge of how and when to give the awards. Some examples of these tools include thank-you notes and gift certificates/ cards.
INFORMAL RECOGNITION
On-The-Spot Awards also fall into the informal recognition category. Informal recognition includes pats on the back, thanking people (in person, via email or handwritten note), praising them in front of a group of people, etc.
Informal recognition is just as important as formal recognition, maybe more so, but there is no formal structure to make sure it happens. Sam Walton said, “Appreciate everything your associates do for the business. Nothing else can quite substitute for a few well-chosen, well-timed, sincere words of praise. They’re absolutely free and worth a fortune.” (Windust, 2015)
In a study by OfficeTeam and the International Association of Administrative Professionals (IAAP), administrative professionals ranked an in-person thank you and the boss sharing accomplishment with senior management as their #1 most valued form of recognition. However, managers ranked job promotion and cash as the two most valued forms of recognition.
What the administrative professionals actually wanted was FREE to the company! For leaders who understand the power of informal recognition, they can save money while creating engagement.
What can you do to ensure informal recognition is happening in your company? First, make sure you are setting the example. People will follow what you do more than what you say. Second, ensure that you have good manager training on recognition, and tie your managers’ effectiveness to their performance scores.
CHAPTER 21
Performance Management
I CAN HEAR THE GROANS now. Most people hate to talk about performance management. Let’s face it – most employees don’t like getting performance reviews, and most managers don’t like giving them. I think this is because most companies are simply doing it wrong. They do not provide the right tools and trai
ning to managers, and performance discussions only take place once a year. (I’ll discuss how to improve this later in this chapter.)
I think of performance management programs as the connector piece in the Total Rewards toolbox. It connects company goals and values to individual employees. Performance management is a system to help employees know what is expected of them and how their work contributes to the company’s goals. People need to feel that they are making an impact on the company, and a performance management program gives them that line of sight. David Lapin said, “Money can motivate people, but it takes a strong, well-defined purpose to truly inspire greatness.”
An effective performance management program defines expected behaviors and serves as a manager tool to discuss behavior with employees. It also facilitates employee development and coaching conversations.
Performance management then connects employee performance and behavior to compensation, recognition, and talent development. It also makes some work-life programs (e.g., flexible work schedules) possible because people are measured on what they accomplish and do not have to be seen doing it.
HOW TO IMPROVE PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT
With the workforce changing at dizzying speeds, the way we manage employee performance needs to change as well. According to an article written by Gallup, 3 Reasons Why Performance Development Wins in the Workplace, “Employees used to expect to work for a boss. Now, they’re looking for a coach.” The article reports that employees want the following from their managers:
Job clarity and priorities
Ongoing feedback and communication
Opportunities to learn and grow
Accountability
According to Gallup’s analysis of high-performing teams, performance reviews can improve effectiveness by being achievement-oriented, fair, accurate, and developmental.
Achievement-Oriented
I have yet to find a man, however exalted his station, who did not do better work and put forth greater effort under a spirit of approval than under a spirit of criticism.
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