After Amazon was described as a ‘bruising’ workplace, what kind of business do you want to be?

In an exposé published earlier this month in the New York Times, online retail giant Amazon was described as a ‘bruising’ place to work, coming under fire over allegations around its work conditions.

These included being described as subjecting its workers to “brutal exploitation” and making staff “physically and mentally ill.”

The problem has been attributed to the level of scrutiny under which all employees perform, with high minimum performance levels in place and almost everything measured – allegedly leading to work-related stress and anxiety in some cases.

The report also suggests that working less than 80 hours a week is frowned upon, emails are expected to be replied to 24/7, and even personal crises aren’t call for reduction in performance targets.

Some have defended Amazon online, suggesting that the company remains compliant with employment laws, with employees made aware of what is expected of them when they join, and pointing to the company’s large growth and continuing innovation.

And Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder and CEO, came out to defend the company, saying the article didn’t describe the Amazon he knew.

Whether or not the article is an accurate depiction of life at Amazon, it raises a question for businesses: What kind of business do we want to be, and how do we achieve that?

It’s natural for businesses to want to perform to their maximum capacity, but this should include getting the most from employees – not pushing them beyond their limits to breaking point.

Our Manager’s Guide to Objective Setting eLearning course is an in-depth resource to help managers get the most out of their staff by setting the right objectives, which both push employees to reach their potential and meet organisational goals.

Taken from the course, these Six P’s of Effective Objective Setting can help any business in setting the right objectives:

  • Participate – managers and employees should work together to set objectives that the employee buys into, with the employee owning responsibility to complete the objectives and the line manager responsible for mapping out strategies to ensure this is possible.
  • Precise – objectives should be precise and logical so that both employee and line manager know what is expected. Using a SMARTER (Specify, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound, Exciting, Reviewed regularly) framework for objective setting can help with precision.
  • Push – objectives should push employees to the extent of their capacity, so they realise their potential and optimise their performance – but objectives must still be achievable.
  • Purpose – objectives should be aligned between individual, team and organisational goals, providing motivation to the individual while incorporating the bigger picture.
  • Pathway – there should be a clear pathway to achieving objectives to help employees stay on track. Setting milestones and combining long and short term goals which can be regularly monitored can help to achieve this.
  • Performance Feedback – managers should regularly seek and provide feedback about employee objectives, ensuring that feedback remains focused on the tasks and is based on measurable indicators.

eLearning courses are an effective way to shape the culture within your business, and make delivering consistent training to all employees straightforward and cost effective. Our Performance Management Suite contains a number of ready-made eLearning courses designed to deliver essential training in all areas of performance, which can be tailored to meet your particular business needs.

18 Dos and Don’ts for improving your recruitment techniques

A CIPD report released this month highlights the need for improved recruitment techniques in order to create diverse workplaces.

The report, “A head for hiring: The behavioural science of recruitment and selection,” suggests that there is a long way to go when it comes to recruiting the best candidates for roles, including “biases and judgment errors that may occur on the assessor’s side.”

Failing to choose the best candidate for a job, for whatever reason, unnecessarily limits the potential productivity of the role. Equally serious, rejected candidates may have a case for discrimination if the reason for them not being selected is found to have been unrelated to skills.

Our Performance Management Suite contains eLearning courses which help managers achieve the best possible results while complying with relevant employment law, and includes a Manager’s Guide to Interviewing Skills.

Taken from that course, here are some dos and don’ts of interviewing, which can help to ensure the best candidates are hired for your business:

Do

  • Review anonymised CV’s alongside the job description to identify relevant skills and experience, as well as highlight possible gaps which could be areas for questioning.
  • Agree roles with anyone else involved in the interview, including deciding who will ask which questions and who will take notes.
  • Greet the candidate, introduce yourself and anyone else involved, and offer the candidate a drink. This is your first opportunity to build a rapport with the candidate to put them at ease.
  • Signpost what will happen during the interview, providing timings.
  • Ask a variety of questions including biographical questions which explore the candidate’s career history and experience, and situational questions which explore the behaviours and skills they’ve utilised in managing different situations.
  • Ask open and probing questions which will enable you to identify whether the candidate is right for the role, asking clarifying questions to clear up any ambiguity.
  • Listen actively while the candidate is talking.
  • Answer any questions the candidate has about the role in as much detail as possible – this is a chance for both of you to identify if the role would be a good fit.
  • Record both quantitative and qualitative data during the interview which can be used to make a decision later on based on the candidate’s suitability for the role.

Don’t

  • Ask candidates about their age, or make any related questions such as enquiring about the year they finished school.
  • Ask candidates whether they have children or are planning to have children in the future, or about their marital / civil partnership status.
  • Ask closed questions which don’t invite further elaboration, such as “Do you agree?”
  • Ask questions which aren’t relevant to the skills and experience necessary for the role.
  • Tell the candidate how you personally would face a similar situation to the ones discussed – the interview is about the candidate.
  • Forget to sell the organisation to the candidate – if you make an offer, they still need to accept it.
  • Discriminate against a candidate on the grounds of their race, sex, age, disability, sexual orientation, religion or belief, marriage or civil partnership, gender reassignment.
  • Take your mobile phone, computer or any other form of distraction into interviews – ensure the candidate has your full attention.
  • Forget to explain the next steps at the close of the interview, including when the candidate can expect to hear back from you.

Transforming performance management into a leadership opportunity: 12 suggestions

According to the 2014 CIPD survey, almost a third of employees feel performance management systems are unfair. This is an uncomfortable wake up call for people managers.

From years of working with managers worldwide, we know that a worryingly large number find performance management to be a tiresome compliance issue. If that is the attitude communicated by a manager, it is hardly surprising that many employees feel cynical and distrustful of the process.

Here are 12 suggestions for you to consider which will reinvigorate your performance management:

1. Keep it SMART and simple

Performance management is an opportunity for employees to align with their manager, team and the wider organisation. The language, terminology and materials must be simple, understandable and consistent. Ensuring that objectives are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound is crucial to give employees a chance of effectively achieving their objectives.

2. Clearly communicate the process

Your performance management cycle is the foundation of the whole process and it is important that it is communicated clearly at all levels. The cycle is underpinned by the enduring view that performance management is an opportunity for leaders to integrate strategic objectives into the daily work of their employees, and achieve engagement, sustainable performance and good business results at the same time.

3. Define roles and responsibilities

Ensure that everyone understands that it is the manager’s job to communicate the business strategy and plan, and it’s the employee’s job to think about and (with some direction and support) identify the impact on his or her objectives.

4. Focus on the journey as well as the end-goal

Help managers and employers to collaborate on the basis that it is not just about the results – but as much about how they achieve them.

5. Monitor your progress

Once you’ve embraced the first part of the process, subsequent inaction will lead to failure to achieve objectives, and individual and team disengagement. Happily the reverse is true when managers genuinely strive to get it right. You don’t have to be infallible to win – but your intentions and drive to deliver need to be evident.

6. Encourage collaboration

Performance management is just about dialogue. It works when it is genuinely a collaborative process, a foundation stone for a feedback-rich culture that aligns development with individual and business performance.

7. Demonstrate emotional intelligence

Empathetic dialogue requires managers and their employees to demonstrate effective emotional intelligence, meaning that giving and receiving good feedback demands an appropriate mix of courage, clarity and discipline.

8. Own your role

Performance management isn’t an extra-curricular activity, but an essential part of manager’s role. The continuum from informal, event-driven or operational conversations to formal discussions and reviews have, at their core, the same purpose – the opportunity and commitment to helping people reflect, understand, plan and determine what they do well, could do differently or might improve.

9. Don’t be confined by norms

To some, the term ‘performance management’ has command and control connotations that suggest top down directiveness rather that the ‘top down meets bottom up’ purpose for which it is intended. Consider a rebrand to make it more accessible for your employees.

10. Get the positioning right

Heralding performance management as an HR-led process can set the process off on the wrong footing. It’s about the business. It’s led by managers, owned by all employees, and facilitated by HR.

11. Don’t make it a burden

Too many managers burden themselves with the bulk of responsibility for validating, documenting and measuring their employees’s performance. Focus on placing more responsibility on employees for: identifying qualitative and quantitative measures; gathering evidence; having the courage and skill to assess their own performance; and identifying critical learning actions and how best to act on them.

12. Adjust your mindset!

If you are introducing a new or revised approach to performance management, adopt a long-term focus with a few quick-wins up your sleeve to encourage momentum and application. It will need nurturing, marketing, training, coaching, direction and all the influence you can muster to sustain the culture change it represents.

This article is an excerpt from a whitepaper by our partner, JSB Learning and Development.

8 good practice elements for managing sickness absence

Sickness absence is a thorn in the side of the UK economy, each year resulting in organisations losing an estimated £17bn and 190m working days, equating to an average 6.5 days off sick per employee each year.

Most organisations have a sickness absence policy in place to promote the welfare of employees, but the role of the manager in enforcing the policy with fairness and consistency is crucial, enabling issues to be resolved at the earliest possible moment to reduce the impact of sickness absence.

Our Manager’s Guide to Sickness Absence eLearning course includes a number of topics to help managers enforce sickness absence policies, including setting and following formalised processes, the impacts of different management styles on employees, and setting and monitoring attendance targets.

The course also details the 8 good practise elements of managing sickness absence, shown below in shortened form to help managers to manage sickness absence the right way:

  • 1: Reporting absence and staying in touch – by ensuring employees report absences at the earliest opportunity, managers can organise cover and prioritise workload, and also discuss and address any ongoing concerns with the employee at an early stage
  • 2: Recording and monitoring absence – by recording data related to absences, managers can identify and monitor patterns of absence, and in turn help businesses to understand, and hopefully remedy, the causes of absences
  • 3: Welfare contact – this contact, during the employee’s period of absence, gives managers an opportunity to discuss the nature of the employee’s absence, their potential return to work date, and any support they may need to return to work healthy, such as flexible working or a workload overview
  • 4: Return to work contact – when an employee returns to work after sickness absence, a manager should take the opportunity to ensure the employee is fit for work and that their return won’t lead to further absences, as well as identify any other potential issues before they escalate
  • 5: Absence triggers and policy stages – certain levels of absence should trigger a Formal Stage 1 meeting, in which a manager can offer support, set attendance targets and review periods, and formally raise concern over the level of absence. If absence continues to be an issue, then policies should progress the issue to Formal Stage 2 and Formal Stage 3 meetings
  • 6: Occupational health referral – by referring employees to occupational health at the earliest opportunity where medical advice is required, managers will be able to make informed decisions about dealing with sickness absences
  • 7: Special types of absence – certain types of absence, such as disability-related absence, pregnancy related absence, accidents at work and work-related illness, stress-related illness, mental ill-health and terminal illness, require managers to apply special consideration to ensure compliance with discrimination and health and safety laws
  • 8: Ill health retirement – certain levels of incapacity can result in ill health retirement, which usually need to be certified by an independent occupational health practitioner and authorised by the relevant pension fund.

Our Manager’s Guide to Sickness Absence eLearning course contains the above elements in a full detailed module, as well as an overview of sickness absence policy and modules to support managers through each of the three Formal Stages.

With over 75 minutes of high quality content, it is designed to give your managers the skills and tools they need to minimise sickness absence while promoting the health, safety and welfare of employees.