e-Xchange - Online Newsletter from Express Personnel Services

Last month's issue of e-Xchange focused on Marcus Buckingham's and Donald Clifton's book, Now, Discover Your Strengths. The article discussed the importance of focusing on your strengths to become more effective, and on motivating employees and improving productivity by focusing on employees' strengths. This month's article discusses Buckingham's latest book, The One Thing You Need to Know.

The focus of Buckingham's third book is on great managing, great leading and sustained individual success. He discusses the four basics of good management: selecting good people, setting clear expectations, rewarding excellence with praise and recognition, and showing employees you care for them. However, doing all of these things does not guarantee success. Buckingham reveals the one thing all great managers have in common: discovering what is unique about each person and capitalizing on it.

Good management does not equate to good leadership. Buckingham believes that a manager's purpose is to make other people more productive while a leader's purpose is to create a vision for the future and motivate people to change the status quo to achieve that future. The one thing about great leadership is discovering what is universal about your followers and capitalizing on it. Focusing on this common bond between employees allows you to develop one message that everyone can get behind. To do this, leaders need to determine who they serve, their core strength, how they measure success and actions that can be taken today.

Contrary to popular opinion, Buckingham does not believe everyone has the capacity to be a great manager or leader. As he discussed in Now, Discover Your Strengths, he believes each person has natural strengths. For some people, developing their strengths will help make them become great managers and leaders. For others, focusing on their natural talents will make them realize they excel at what they do, but do not excel at motivating others to perform better. This is the key to the third area Buckingham discusses. The one thing you need to know to achieve sustained individual success is to discover what you don't like doing and stop doing it. For some, this means quitting management. Many people who excel at their jobs are promoted into management because it seems like the logical reward for excellent performance. However, success at a job does not equate to success as a manager. It also does not equate to finding enjoyment or fulfillment. Sometimes people cannot comprehend why someone would not want to move into management. These workers realize that their strengths lie in performing the job they have now, and moving into management would force them to do what they enjoy the most less. Rather than fighting their weaknesses, they embrace their strengths, leading to sustained success.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the Uniformed Services Employment and Re-employment Rights Act (USERRA), protects the job rights of individuals who voluntarily or involuntarily leave employment positions to undertake military service. USERRA also prohibits employers from discriminating against past and present members of the uniformed services, and applicants to the uniformed services. What does all that mean for employers?

First of all, employers must re-employ workers who left their job to serve in the military or reserves. However, there are some guidelines the worker must follow to qualify for re-employment. The worker must give the employer advanced notice of the service, have five years or less of cumulative service in the uniformed services while with that employer, return to work or apply for re-employment in a timely manner, and must not have a disqualifying or dishonoring discharge from the service. If the employee meets these requirements, then the employer must give the worker the job and benefits they would have received had he or she not left for military service. This does not mean employers have to pay workers during their absence; rather, they must be given the same or a comparable job, or a promotion if they would have received one during that timeframe had they not left for the service.

Second, employers cannot discriminate against a worker or applicant because of past or present military service. This includes initial employment, re-employment, retention in employment, promotion and any benefits of employment. In addition, employers must offer to continue health-insurance coverage to the employee and dependents for 24 months while the employee is serving. This is a change from the previous requirement of 18 months of coverage. The change was part of the Veterans Benefit Improvement Act of 2004, which also made it mandatory for employers to notify employees of their rights under USERRA on an annual basis. Compliance to this requirement can be achieved by posting a Your Rights Under USERRA poster, available through the Department of Labor and third-party providers, wherever employee notices are typically posted.

As employers begin to feel the pressure of the recruiting crunch, strong recruiting and retention programs are necessary to control turnover. We all know the costs of turnover: advertising the opening, down time before someone is hired, management time spent pouring over r�sum�s and conducting interviews, training and orientation time, and the list goes on. But what can companies do to curb the flow of workers out the door?

Approximately 50 percent of workers' satisfaction with their jobs directly relates to their relationship with their immediate supervisors. Obviously, training managers and providing them with the tools to do their job effectively will help alleviate turnover. In addition to this training, an organization's leadership can create a happier, more productive workforce by recognizing the reasons why good performers leave. These workers value a link between pay and performance, career advancement opportunities, recognition for their accomplishments, the ability to use their natural talents, having clear and realistic expectations set for them, and an environment where bad managers aren't tolerated. Organizations who demonstrate that they also value these ideas are more likely to recruit and retain the best talent, while those who don't are likely to be stuck with poor performers who won't or can't leave.

So, what do the best managers do to ensure they retain top performers? They focus on re-recruiting them. Rather than focusing on fixing the performance of average or worse performers, the best managers focus their energy on developing those with high performance levels. These workers are the driving force of any organization and it just makes sense to keep them happy. Make sure to recognize these workers for the role they play in making the organization a success. Often, these workers need to feel they are making a difference through their jobs. If they don't feel like they're positively impacting the business, they may start looking for a position somewhere else that offers them that opportunity. Top performers also typically appreciate regular feedback on their performance. They want to know areas they can improve on now, and don't want to wait for their annual performance review to find out how they're doing. Providing recognition and feedback on a regular basis will spur these workers on to better performance and will make them less likely to look for greener pastures elsewhere.

Non-farm employment increased by 78,000 jobs in May and the unemployment was essentially unchanged at 5.1%.

Employment rose by 35,000 jobs in May with the unemployment rate unchanged at 6.8%. ��