Sharlyn J. Lauby's Blog, page 178

Forgetting to Monitor – Friday Distraction

Implementation is not the final step in a process.

Just about every process model I’ve ever seen has a final step called monitoring (or evaluation, or something like it). It’s that final piece in a process where you look at what you’ve implemented, evaluate it, and make tweaks for improvement. While the words do mean something slightly different, you get the point. After creating something, you have to monitor progress.

Today’s Time Well Spent from our friends at Kronos reminded me of the days when I had to forecast and reforecast budgets. Sometimes multiple times within the same month. Budgets are living documents and constantly changing.

If we really want to move the needle and make change happen, then we have to monitor our actions and make adjustments along the way.

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SMART-ly Tracking Your Progress

(Editor’s Note: Today’s post is an excerpt from my book, “ Essential Meeting Blueprints for Managers .” The book is available on Amazon in hard copy and Kindle , in the iTunes store, and directly from the publisher.)

Whether we’re having a meeting to give feedback, convey information or make a decision, documenting what occurs during the meeting is essential. The way meetings are recorded can have an impact on the outcome of the meeting.

Everyone takes notes during meetings. We all do it differently. Where years ago the only thing you saw at meetings were legal pads and pens, today people come with laptops and tablets. We can write with pens, pencils, our fingers or styluses.

Many participants want agendas, handouts and minutes in electronic format. This allows participants to move information into the programs that are most productive for them. It saves the environment by using less paper. The Connected Generation, defined as individuals willing and open to digital content and communications, might also argue that they are more accustomed to using a keyboard. It’s faster than writing. Electronic meeting files can also be put into folders and shared with participants.

Meeting participants should be allowed to take notes any way that works for them. It’s their notes. They will be held accountable for delivering whatever they agreed to. That’s what I want to talk about – documenting what everyone agreed to during the meeting.

Definition of SMART

Years ago, I worked for a company that, every time something went wrong, our President wanted a meeting to discuss how we were going to fix the problem. Afterward, we had to create something called “a SMART plan” explaining the steps we were going to take. Sad to say, we developed a lot of SMART plans. I thought it was some sort of punishment.

It wasn’t until I started studying for my human resources certification that I learned SMART plans have been around for many years and weren’t some dreamt up form of torture from senior leadership. The project management term was first used in 1981 by George T. Doran. SMART is an acronym:

Specific represents exactly what you would like to accomplish. Think of it as the who, what, where, when, which and why of the goal.
Measurable answers the question of how success is measured.
Actionable (also seen as Achievable, Attainable) outlines the steps it will take to complete the goal.
Responsible (some versions use Realistic or Relevant) identifies the people needed to reach this goal,
Time-bound (or Trackable) establishes the time frame to achieve the goal.

Over the years, I’ve found the SMART acronym easy to remember, so I mold it for creating meeting minutes. I can’t think of a better way to outline what happens at a meeting:

What are we going to do? (Specific)
How will we measure our success? (Measurable)
What are the steps that will help us attain our goal? (Attainable)
Who will be responsible for each step? (Responsible)
When will the task be completed? (Timely)

Benefits of Using SMART

In my experience, I’ve found the biggest benefit of SMART plans is they allow me to steer conversations in the right direction. For each item, we have to address all of the steps: Specific, Measureable, Actionable, Responsible and Timely. It’s often easy to get someone to say “We need to do this or that.” Others may chime into the conversation and add, “Well, in order to accomplish the goal, we must do these 10 things.”

So, you get a lot of ideas. Then the conversation gets quiet.

SMART allows you to guide the conversation along. Here’s an example: We’re in a meeting and someone says, “I’m tired of the copiers not working right. Let’s upgrade our copier machines.” On the surface, this seems like a fine idea. Everyone agrees.

After the meeting, the facilities director comes to you and says, “I don’t have a problem upgrading the copiers, but it’s going to cost us thousands of dollars because we have a contract.” Later, the technology director comes to you and says, “I don’t have a problem upgrading the copiers, but we should consider wireless printing options. It will allow printing from anywhere in the building, but we need to do some rewiring (and there’s a cost).”

You’re thinking – why didn’t this come up at the meeting?!

SMART keeps the discussion on track. Now when the copier gets brought up, someone can say to the facilities director, “It sounds like a good idea. What would be involved from your perspective?” They get the chance to answer.

Same goes for the technology director. You can ask them, “Are there any new technologies we need to consider?”

Now the whole group is informed and can make a good decision. It also saved a lot of time after the meeting with conversations that should have happened during the meeting.

SMART goals are particularly valuable in the areas of measurement, responsibility and timeliness.

I used to work with someone whose entire goal during a meeting was not to be assigned anything. It was so obvious that his co-workers would joke about it – during the meeting!

Using a SMART format to keep track of the meeting gives you the ability to make sure every action step has a person responsible. It ensures that the person who will be held accountable for completing the step is committed to getting it done. It also helps the group understand the allocation of resources.

As you’re putting together the SMART plan, you can see if one person is ending up with too many responsibilities and shift the workload. You can also see if someone who should have a role in the plan, does.

Next, a great way to create commitment to the plan is by giving the people responsible for each actionable step the opportunity to choose their deadline. An individual can’t say that some other person imposed an unrealistic deadline because they agreed to it. Participants also get to see how their action step impacts the other parts of the plan.

A participant knows up front their role and the impact of not meeting the goal. If you’re leading or managing a group, this is the essence of holding people accountable for performance. Set the level of expectation. Have that discussion in the meeting.

Use SMART plans in meetings to hold people accountable
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Lastly, SMART formats provide participants with the ability to see and celebrate their success. When goals or action steps are created, everyone should understand what success looks like. This is the measurement component. Participants will use this information as motivation and validation that the plan was good.

If we use the copier example, upgrading the copiers will cost money and the inconvenience of rewiring the office. The measurement is that the copier will break 50% less and employees can print from anywhere in the building. Employees are willing to complete the action steps asked of them because the measurement (aka sign of success) is attractive. Who wouldn’t like to cut the amount of time dealing with paper jams in half?

Using the SMART plan for meeting minutes also helps direct conversations toward key discussions like “We have a great idea here…now who’s going to take ownership for getting it done?”  And “Thanks Joe for leading this task, when can we expect it to be completed?”

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Respect Email Expectations

I’ve read a few good posts recently about the need for schedule management. So naturally, I feel compelled to toss in my two-cents. The first one that crossed my desk was from the Harvard Business Review titled “Your Late Night Emails are Hurting Your Team”. It’s a very good read and one that managers should spend some time pondering. My guess is we’ve all done it at some point. And maybe we still do. It’s late, you remember something and, so you don’t forget it, you shoot off a quick email. It’s not meant to be a burden to the recipient. It’s meant to be a relief for the sender.

Now as you can surmise from the title, the author suggests not sending emails late in the evening hours because it totally stresses out employees. I totally get it. And even though I’m one of those people who does send a late night or weekend email, I completely agree with the author. Companies with an “always being on” culture are burning employees out.

But banishing late night email isn’t the answer. Because that just turns late night email into first thing in the morning email. The answer is to set expectations regarding email response times. And respect them.

I think I’ve mentioned once or twice before that I facilitated a focus group for a customer service program I was designing. We talked about email response times. You know what the overwhelming answer was from focus group participants regarding acceptable email response times? 24 hours. Yep.

Not ten minutes, not ten days. 24 hours.

Which means that if someone sends an email at 9 p.m. the recipient should not feel guilty that they weren’t tethered to their phone ready to respond within ten minutes. And the sender shouldn’t expect them to. If it’s an emergency, then it should be treated like an emergency, which probably means another form of communication other than email.

The second read that caught my eye was fellow Workforce Institute board member David Creelman’s latest post, “Employee Centered Schedule Optimization”. What struck me is that we’re not talking about an “only exempt” or “only non-exempt” issue. Being able to have some control over your schedule impacts every single level of the organization.

David’s post serves as a reminder that, in order to achieve balance, we need to have some rules or guidelines about work schedules. Even when we’re in positions that might appear to be incredibly flexible. For instance, many organizations give non-exempt staff a tremendous amount of schedule flexibility because they can contact them after hours. But is there a point where that after hours contact is crossing the line?

Sure, I understand. Maybe it only takes 5-minutes to respond. How much can that contribute to stressed out employees? Unfortunately, it’s when there are multiple 5-minute responses. Every evening. And all weekend long.

The answer isn’t to stop allowing employees schedule flexibility. The answer is to set expectations and respect them. Flexible working arrangements are not a substitute for answering evening or weekend emails.

We need to set workplace expectations and respect them
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The bottom-line is that everyone should have a certain level of consciousness about the content of their messages, the method they use to send them, and the timing. In addition, there should be clear and reasonable expectations regarding a response. And those expectations need to be respected.

Image courtesy of Sharlyn Lauby

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Companies Pre-Screen Candidates Using Social Media [infographic] – Friday Distraction

According to this article in The Recruiting Times, candidate confidence is on the up. Meaning that companies are hiring and individuals are looking for jobs.

Companies are spending significant resources to position their employment brand to attract the best talent. In turn, job seekers should be putting personal branding first and foremost. And I’m not talking about buying a suit for an interview. I’d like to think by now we all know to wear what’s appropriate for the company you’re interviewing with.

This infographic from ColumnFive Media and Jobvite shares some interesting information about how companies are using social media to pre-screen candidates. This isn’t the first infographic of this type we’ve run here on HR Bartender. What really hit home for me was comparing this infographic to the older ones. The same red flags appear: profanity and grammar.

On the flip side, companies continue to give high marks to volunteerism efforts. It was interesting to see that 1 in 3 organizations have found information about a candidate on social media that made the candidate more favorable. I would expect that number to continue to increase as more recruiters utilize social media.

So as fast as the working world is moving, there are some things that stay the same. Individuals should ask themselves, “Is this what I want to be known for?” because social media is part of your personal brand.

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If You’re Being Investigated by Human Resources – Ask #HR Bartender

During my human resources career, I’ve conducted more than my fair share of investigations. Some that turned out to be nothing and others that has serious consequences. Needless to say, investigations are not fun for anyone involved. Today’s reader question deals with handling the situation.

I was recently promoted to the top sales rep at my company!

Last week, I made a sale and submitted the paperwork for processing. Now the customer is stating we never met. In fact, the customer sent a letter to the accounts receivable department stating that we never met. The customer’s letter was sent to HR and now HR is questioning me. How do I handle this?

Obviously, we don’t know enough about the specific situation to know what the customer is thinking and/or doing and whether a policy or procedure was broken. That being said, it can be a serious shock when an employee finds out human resources is investigating something that involves them – whether they are the focus of the investigation or just that their name has come up in conversation.

Because investigations can have consequences, I asked a labor attorney to share his thoughts. Mark Neuberger is with the firm of Foley & Lardner. Mark has shared his expertise with us before. This post about the proper way to terminate someone is one of my favorites. (And please remember that Mark’s comments should not be construed as legal advice – you know the drill.)

Obviously, you work with human resources regularly during investigations. What should employees remember when they’re asked to meet with HR regarding an investigation (regardless of their involvement)?

Every employee has a duty to reasonably cooperate with an employer’s investigation. For an at-will employee (no written contract) at a private sector employer, failure to reasonably cooperate with your employer’s investigation could be grounds for discipline or discharge.

At the same time, an employee should quickly assess whether they are being interviewed as a witness or as a target for wrongdoing. If the employee suspects they are the target of something that might constitute criminal conduct, they would be well advised to immediately consult with an attorney. However, contrary to popular misconception, a private sector employee has no federal constitutional rights against their employer and, therefore, no right to have an attorney present during employer interviews. Employees who work for any entity of federal, state or local government have an entirely different set of rules, because they, unlike private sector employees, have constitutional rights.

A big concern for employees when they speak to human resources is confidentiality. Can you share some insight into how confidential investigations are conducted?

No investigation will ever be 100 percent confidential. The person you talk to will eventually have to report it to someone else higher up in management. The question is whether management is taking reasonable steps to keep those in the know in a very tight circle. Shame on the company that doesn’t try to do its best in this regard.

As much as we in HR tell employees to keep a matter confidential, it seems like stories will start floating around the office. If an employee is approached by a co-worker and asked what happened during the investigation meeting with HR, is there something an employee can say?

In another job, I used to sit right outside of the HR manager’s office. Merely by watching who went in and out, I was sometimes able to figure out what was going on. So again, nothing will ever be 100 percent confidential.

The best thing employees can do is not gossip and speculate. I understand that saying that is much easier said than done. However, in the end it is most likely another employee and not the company that will be harmed by the gossip mill so try to respect your co-workers’ concerns.

Another concern for employees is retaliation. If an employee feels they are being retaliated against because they’ve spoken to HR, what can they do?

Whenever an employee is interviewed as part of any investigation, the employee should ask ‘If I am in any way retaliated against, who should I tell?’

In this situation, a customer is also involved. If an employee feels a customer isn’t telling the entire story, could they address the situation with their manager or HR? Wouldn’t that just come across as sour grapes or making excuses?

The employee should be candid with management. When a customer is involved, unfortunately many times, a business might tend to want to keep the customer happy to the detriment of the employee. When I worked in a supermarket during high school, the manager repeatedly told us ‘the customer is always right.’ What is almost always a bad idea in this situation is for the employee to pick up the phone or send off an email to the customer and start ‘mixing it up’ with the customer. That will almost always end badly for the employee.

Many thanks to Mark for sharing his expertise with us. Staying calm, cool and collected is a worthwhile strategy. If you want to get more insight from Mark and the other attorneys at Foley, be sure to check out their blogs.

Image courtesy of Sharlyn Lauby

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The Only 3 Reasons to Hold a Business Meeting

Business meetings are the bane of our professional lives. According to The Muse, managers spent between 35 – 50% of their time in meetings. That’s a pretty significant number.

You might be saying, the answer to this is get rid of meetings. But here’s the thing. I doubt that meetings are going away. The definition of meeting is “a coming together of two or more people, by chance or arrangement.” People will still get together to accomplish stuff. That’s a meeting.

Some companies feel the way to reduce the number of meetings is to attach rules or guidelines to them. For example, companies will abolish meetings on Tuesdays. I can’t help but think they’re in essence saying, “Schedule the meeting on Wednesday.” Meaning, they really aren’t impacting the amount of time in meetings. They’re just taking one day off the meeting schedule. Or what about the organizations that mandate 10 minute meetings. Aren’t they really telling employees, “Have all the meetings you want, just make them all 10 minutes long.”

These rules or guidelines don’t fix the real issue. The way to fix our problem with business meetings is to run better meetings. Starting with the reason a meeting should be scheduled in the first place.

I’ve never heard a person complain about a meeting that was essential. Granted they might complain about the way it was conducted. I’ll save that for another post. But as a general rule, people do not complain when the reason for scheduling the meeting is legit. And they will always complain if the meeting was called and could have been handled with an email.

In my experience, there are only three reasons to hold a meeting.

The first reason to hold a meeting is to provide information. Those regularly scheduled department meetings are a perfect example. The purpose of those meetings is to provide information. The reason they’re so dreaded is because, when there’s nothing to convey, the meeting still happens.

Same with networking meetings. These are useful, valuable opportunities that participants should covet. Despite what someone says, those synergy calls when one person talks the entire time are not networking meetings. They’re really sales presentations.

Brainstorming meetings are another type of meeting designed to provide information. Brainstorming often gets a bad rap because people use the time to also evaluate ideas, which is contrary to the whole brainstorming concept.

The second reason to hold a meeting is to create a mechanism for decision making. One of the most important decision making meetings in business is strategic planning. The organization is developing their goals and direction. Other types of decision making meeting are pitch meetings, where individuals or organizations are pitching their ideas and project meetings, where groups are tasked with accomplishing a goal or task.


The last reason to hold a meeting is to allow for feedback and discussion. Before you ask, I do view feedback a bit different than information. Feedback is a reaction to a product or performance used to ultimately create improvement. The first type of feedback meeting that comes to mind is the focus group. Whether it’s internal or external, focus groups are completely about providing feedback.

Employee coaching meetings are another form of meeting. It can be to tell an employee they’re doing well or to share concerns. But it is a meeting. There’s also training meetings. When training is done properly, it’s about creating a safe environment where individuals can learn, practice, and receive feedback.

There are only 3 reasons to hold a business meeting
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One of the best skills to have as a working professional is the ability to run a good business meeting. Employees who have this skill will be able to gather groups and engage their talents. The first step is knowing when to call the meeting.

Image courtesy of Sharlyn Lauby

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