Exchange

Tips and advice about social media use are abundant these days, as the use of social media tools becomes increasingly important and widespread across organizations from large to small.

Your business may or may not have a formal social media presence, but if you’re a typical adult, chances are, you have a personal account on at least one of several popular social media sites.

Perhaps you use LinkedIn to connect with colleagues, peers, and other professionals. Maybe you have jumped on the Facebook bandwagon in hopes to reunite with friends, family, or former classmates or colleagues.

Whatever your level of social media activity, as a business leader, it’s important to consider how you will use social media sites, because your activity will set the standard for others in your organization.

So, consider these three issues of social media involvement for professionals to make sure you are leading with integrity in the social space.

How will you use social media?
What sites should you use?
Who will you connect with online?

To find out how you can best use social media as a business leader, view our complete guide:
Download the free PDF now. [Size: 1.12 MB]

Feel free to forward this link to our social media guide for business leaders to anyone you feel might find the information of use: http://bit.ly/sm4leaders

Getting Ready for the Fourth Quarter

Start Building Your Agenda Now

As the fourth quarter approaches, it’s time to tie up loose ends, plan departmental goals for 2010, and maintain employee morale and productivity. Check out these must-dos to finish the year strong and head into 2010 on a high note.

Employee Relations
Your number one asset is your employees. Keeping them happy, motivated, and productive should be top of mind as you head into the fourth quarter. After a year of more downs than ups, employees are most likely feeling overworked and underpaid, and morale has suffered because of this. As you head into the fall and winter months, there are a number of items to plan for in regards to employer/employee relationships.

• Create a time-off plan for the holidays. Layoffs put many companies in short supply of workers, so make sure you’re prepared for the holiday season and staffed to adequately meet your workload demands while allowing your employees a much-deserved vacation. If too many want the same days off over the holiday season, use a staffing company and hire temporary workers to fill the gaps. This will go a long way with your permanent employees.

• Plan performance reviews. Whether you have yearly or quarterly performance reviews with your employees, make sure to schedule time with each of your employees and discuss fourth quarter goals, past performance, and future expectations so everyone’s on the same page about what’s in store for the remainder of the year

• Outline bonus structures. By now, employees are probably not betting on quarterly, holiday, or end-of-the-year bonuses, but don’t assume this has been clearly communicated to your staff. Reiterate any change in holiday bonuses, and include your staff in any discussions about possible fourth-quarter incentives.

• Celebrate small successes. For much of the year, your employees have been inundated with news about falling profits and a down economy. This is enough to depress even the most positive workers, so try to combat negativity this quarter by celebrating accomplishments. This will help keep morale up and foster a healthy work environment.

Department Goals
For any company to be successful, departments must run efficiently. Planning goals, creating budgets, and wrapping up projects are just a few of the to focus on before the start of a new year.

• Set goal planning meetings. Before you know it, the holiday season will be here, and staff members will be taking time off to spend time with friends and family. So, schedule a goals planning meeting before the holidays hit so everyone can attend. This will ensure you have everyone in attendance and that they can plan their holiday time off around the meeting.

• Create next year’s budget. After you’ve met with your team to determine the next year’s goals, you will need to figure out your team budget. Make sure to include any raises, bonuses, or other incentives for your employees in your budget.

• Wrap up projects. In addition to a goals planning meeting, you will also want to plan an end of the year wrap-up meeting to make sure projects and tasks have been completed. If there are projects still pending, be sure to create a plan of action and set deadlines for them.

With fourth quarter just around the corner, companies should start gearing up to finish the year strong and prepare for the coming year. Paying attention to these top agenda items can ensure that you head into the new year ready to hit the ground running.

The Business of Leadership in The Age of Turbulence

How to Prepare for the “New Normality,” Featuring John Caslione

You purchase a ticket. You arrive at the airport. You board a plane, destination in mind. The plane taxis the runway, takes off smoothly, and you settle in for a typical flight.

Suddenly, something unexpected happens. The plane begins rocking violently. Turbulence is literally rocking the craft, and you’re along for the ride. Now, what happens from this point depends on one thing: Is the crew prepared to handle what’s going on outside the aircraft?

John-Caslione This metaphor is precisely how global business strategy expert John Caslione explains the times of turbulence businesses face today.

“We’re entering The Age of Turbulence, not the age of chaos,” Caslione says. “Turbulence defines the unpredictable and sometimes undetectable patterns that external factors place upon businesses across the world in these uncertain times,” he goes on to explain.

“Chaos is something that happens to companies as a result of their lack of preparedness to take steps to detect and deal with turbulence,” Caslione notes. Recently, he experienced a flight that served as a perfect metaphor for this idea.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve been on a flight with that much turbulence,” as Caslione recalls a flight earlier this year from Chicago to Shanghai that departed 30 minutes late because air traffic control detected turbulence in the flight path and needed to reroute the aircraft.

Caslione goes on to explain that a little more than one hour into the flight just as dinner was being served to all the passengers, turbulence hit – unexpected turbulence. “Food and drinks on the floor. Overhead luggage compartments opening with luggage and packages raining onto passengers seated below. People screaming. It seemed like it lasted several minutes, but it was probably about 20-30 seconds.”

“Then, the pilot came on over the loudspeaker and said, ‘I want to apologize for what you just experienced. We encountered turbulence that we could not detect. The good news is, we found a different altitude that will give us a 200-mile per hour tailwind, and we’ll actually arrive into Shanghai an hour earlier than originally scheduled, even despite our 30-minute delayed departure from Chicago.’”

“This story is an ideal metaphor to explain turbulence and chaos. Some turbulence you can detect, some you can’t,” Caslione continues.

“But when you encounter turbulence, if you’re prepared for it, then there’s minimal or no chaos in your life – in your company’s life. The flight crew had trained for this. The pilots and the flight attendants knew exactly what to do, and they went immediately into fast action response mode. And never for a moment were any of us in danger. That Boeing 777 we were flying was built to take that much turbulence and even a lot more – no problem. The passengers were the ones ill prepared for turbulence and were the ones who experienced chaos.”

“So, when it comes to turbulence in business, if organizations are prepared for it, they can minimize chaos or even prevent it from happening to them,” Caslione continues. “When you encounter turbulence, you must develop new strategic behaviors – Chaotics behaviors – to find a way to work through the turbulence and create new opportunities that turbulence undoubtedly provides. Leave it to your competitors who aren’t prepared for turbulence to ‘get rocked’ by the turbulence to have their vulnerabilities exposed causing their organizations to fall into chaos.”

So, how can today’s business leaders prepare for and react to turbulence? In Chaotics: The Business of Managing and Marketing in The Age of Turbulence, Caslione and co-author Phillip Kotler outline a new system – The Chaotics Management System – that business leaders can use to plan for and respond when the unexpected happens.

Read more about the eight elements of The Chaotics Management System:
Download the full PDF version of this article now. [Size: 693 KB]

HR Tips: Are You Prepared for Flu Season?

Tips to Think Ahead of H1N1

Flu-Season-Business School has started back, and the fall flu season is coming. Is your workforce prepared in case employees or their family members get ill?

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has provided a comprehensive response plan you can use to help answer questions you may have about managing during this flu season. The CDC recommends addressing the possibility that H1N1, also known as Swine Flu, might affect any member of your workforce directly or indirectly. So, before flu season hits, consider the following CDC recommendations now:

Plan Proactively

Create or review a plan to manage staff and productivity now, and consider all possible scenarios and contingencies.
Make your plan flexible, and re-evaluate the plan if unexpected scenarios occur.
Involve employees in the creation and review process.
Consult with a workplace expert for specific planning recommendations for your company or industry.

Communicate Continually

Discuss your flu plan with team members as you’re creating it.
Identify gaps or issues that need to be addressed before flu season starts.
Share the plan with all employees, and explain HR and attendance policies, and benefits available to them.

Address Attendance Policies

Review typical absenteeism rates for the fall and winter season so you have a benchmark.
Determine how to monitor absenteeism to determine if levels are increasing this fall and winter due to H1N1.
Do not require a doctor’s note for ill employees.
Encourage employees who have H1N1 symptoms to remain at home until their fever subsides, or to contact a physician.
Allow sick workers to stay home without fear of losing their jobs. To cover staffing gaps, contact your local Express Employment Professionals office to quickly find temporary workers to fill positions until staff members can return to work.
Create a flexible policy that enables workers who need to care for sick family members or children who may be dismissed from school to avoid a community outbreak to stay home.

Consider Your Community

Establish contacts and official communication channels with local agencies to make sure you receive accurate and up-to-date information about local H1N1 outbreaks.
Share your response methods and best practices with organizations in your community and supply chain.

Having a formal pandemic flu policy or procedure in place that you can implement in case of a widespread flu event will protect you and your employees this flu season. Each business, industry, and field will need to consider different issues, scenarios, and outcomes. For more guidance on how to handle staffing shortages or HR policies, contact Express today.

Additional Resources:

Exchange is a publication of Express Services, Inc., Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Copyright 2009.