According to a variety of sources, there are anywhere from 2 million to as many as 40 million workers who telecommute for at least part of their work week.  Telecommuting, or using computer technology to work from home, became a buzzword in the 1990s, but as the nation struggles with soaring gas prices, air pollution and traffic congestion, telecommuting is again appealing to many workers and employers.

At different times in my career I have been fortunate to be allowed to telecommute.  I’ve had great bosses who didn’t have to see me every day. I was evaluated on what I accomplished, not where I accomplished it at.  The office environment can get very hectic and the quietness of being at home for one to two days a week helps to work uninterrupted on big projects. 

Currently we are seeing a resurgence of telecommuting because of fuel prices.  In the mid '90s, you saw it in companies where employers were trying to keep the talent they had. There hasn’t been a decrease in telecommuting, because where it's worked, it's typically worked well.

Companies offer telecommuting for numerous reasons –

·         Reduces vehicle emissions

·         Reduces commuting cost, employees can save money in fuel costs

·         Employees can put in more hours by working during times they would ordinarily be commuting

·         Increased worker productivity with fewer interruptions

·         Improves work-life balance

·         Reduces absenteeism

·         Allow employers to keep valuable employees

In 2007 the Society for Human Resource Management conducted a study to determine how many U.S. companies offered telecommuting as a benefit to employees.  The results were eye-opening.    

Telecommuting Trends

·         56% of those polled indicated their company offered some form of telecommuting

·         33% offered telecommuting on a part-time basis

·         21% provided telecommuting on a full-time basis

Trends by Industy

Industry	Percentage
Finance	47% part-time & 22% full-time
Services (Profit)	37% part-time & 23% full-time

Since many companies are either experiencing layoffs or keeping reducing expenses in this economy, it’s harder for managers to argue against telecommuting as they see their employees and themselves hammered by escalating fuel prices.  And it seems employers are becoming more receptive to the idea.

In fact, last month the House Speaker of the state of Georgia told state employees to start working from home one day a week as a way to fight high prices at the pump.  By telecommuting one day a week, employees can save 20 percent on their gas bill. Gas prices hit a new record last week, closing in on $4 a gallon.

Two years ago the Telework Consortium provided this analysis:

When gas is priced at $3 per gallon, it would take an employee earning $65,000 per year who commutes 40 miles roundtrip per day more than two months to pay for commuting. That is nine weeks and three days of his/her take-home pay, just to pay for a daily commute.

Quite an effective illustration, I think — even more so now that gas at $3 a gallon would have people lined up down the street.  The bottom line is, telecommuting can provide big payoffs for both the employee and the employer.

Assume a customer has a very positive and memorable experience with you.  The experience somehow exceeded his expectations, whatever they were.  Perhaps the waiter was more attentive than expected, or the price was better than expected, or he received an immediate return phone call with a resolution to his problem. 

How many people will he tell about that experience?  Given the fact that service that exceeds expectations is quite rare, I would suggest that he will tell everyone he knows.  Positive word-of-mouth referrals will exceed the success of your marketing program every time.  Satisfied customers will provide a limitless number of referrals for an organization.  But just remember, the opposite of this is also true. 

Think about a time when a company exceeded or failed to meet your expectations.  How many people did you tell?

With any organization, there will be times when their service level leaves the customer feeling dissatisfied.  We all expect that their will be some problems, the true test of the company is how they respond to those problems. 

Step 1 - The Apology
Let the customer know that you are very sorry that the product didn't meet their expectations, wasn't delivered on time, fell apart, or was missing parts.  It is not the customer’s problem, it’s yours.  Simply apologize sincerely for not meeting their needs, and offer to do what it takes to make it right for their complete satisfaction.

Step 2 - Make it Right
Probe and explore with the customer what "making it right" means for them.  At this point in the service recovery process most customers will have appreciated your interest in their satisfaction and will come to terms with what they require to 'make it right.'  Getting to this point may in itself be a 'wow' factor for many people... but there is more..

Step 3 - The Wow Factor!
This is a mandatory step in service recovery.  You have apologized, taken full accountability for your problem, explored and agreed with the customer on how to make it right to their complete satisfaction.  It's about whatever it takes, in this situation, to demonstrate to the customer that you are accountable for their complete satisfaction, you value them as your customer, you have pride in the products and services you provide, you regret the inconvenience you have caused them and ... you care.

Tomorrow I will tell you about a great customer service experience I recently had. 

Say what you mean and do what you say. 

Failure to uphold this customer service tenet is often the crux of miscommunication.  We tend to think that whatever we say is always clear, obvious and should be easily understood. But the fact is, others don't always see things as we do, and therefore we need to make allowances for this. We each tend to have our own view of the world which acts as a filter through which we perceive everything that happens in our lives.  

When looking to improve our communication skills two thing you can do to avoid miscommunication, is:   

Learn to Listen

We know that communication is plagued by difficulties in the way we express ourselves and how we perceive others.  It is also easy to see how important it is to learn to listen properly. This is different to the type of listening we are probably used to.

I know that there are all sorts of things going on in my mind when others speak to us. Real listening (and I mean totally paying attention, not just periodically listening and occasionally nodding our head) means that we become open to what others are saying, without interrupting them, without justifying our own position in our minds, and without mentally formulating a response while the other person is talking.

Either the vendor or client believes they communicated something that the other party did not hear or understand.  It is important to take time to ensure that you have communicated the message you intended to.  This can be especially difficult when using various technology devices.  

Do What You Said You’d Do

In addition if you’ve communicated that you will take some action, be certain that you follow though.  I try to make a point of responding to client’s emails advising them that I am working on their issue so they know their request hasn’t fallen on deaf ears.  I also regularly touch base with them on the progress I’ve made throughout the resolution of the issue.  A common mistake is assuming the other party knows you’re working on the issue.  In reality, I know when I am the customer if I haven’t heard from them; I think I’ve been forgotten. 

These days we have less and less human contact.  We shop at a supermarket with self-checkout lanes, we pay bills on-line, we order food from a drive-thru, and get cash from an ATM.  It’s no wonder that with all of these high-tech options that customers look for high-touch service people. 

When we have a problem we can become frustrated very quickly when we try to find a “real person” to assist us.  We’ve all gotten lost in the maze of an automated attendant answering system with an endless list of “press 1 for ….., but no option that is actually what we’re looking for and certainly no option to speak to an actual person.  Or we’ve initially been pleased when a web-site offers “live chat”, only to learn that no one is available to chat with us for hours.  These are both excellent technologies, but must be used with caution. 

At Achievant, we have real people who answer our telephones.  Clients can always obtain customer service assistance from a live person almost immediately if they need help using our HRIS software.  We recognize that people don’t want to communicate with an “organization” or a “computer”.  They want to talk to a real, live, responsive, responsible person who will assist them and resolve their problem satisfactorily.   

What kind of access and response time have you received from your vendor?

Yesterday afternoon I had the opportunity to talk to a potential client.  Invariably I am asked what differentiates us from other HRIS technology providers.  My response always includes the words “customer service” and “partner”.  So today I am beginning a series on Customer Service Assassins.  I will discuss some of the things that will “kill” customer service and customer relations.   

I manage the Services area at Achievant, which is a huge responsibility and one I don’t take lightly since I am the person who has the most contact with our clients.  I know that to our customers, I am the company.  Their feelings about our company will relate directly to their experience with me.  I believe that in any company, the sales force can be limited or enhanced by the efforts of Services group.  You can have a great technology product, but no one will want it if they check references and hear horror stories about poor customer service. 

Usually when a vendor client relationship goes awry it doesn’t happen all at once, it usually happens over time, little by little - one defining moment at a time. Don't be a victim to these subtle assassins.  As a new client you get pretty good customer service, but over time you see that change.  Some of the tell-tale signs are –

• it takes longer and longer for your calls to be returned, if they are returned at all
• you’re on your fourth service rep in one year
• you know more about the product than your service rep
• you don’t know who your service rep is and you haven’t heard from then yet this year

Some of the assassins I’ll discuss are Technology, Miscommunication, Responsiveness and Service Recovery.   

This morning I read an article by Anthony Balderrama who is a writer at CareerBuilder.com.  Anthony asserted that we all tell lies at work.  Now I don’t know about you, but that wasn’t a news flash for me.  Our workdays are filled with many “little lies” or exaggerations and they have become part of the corporate culture norm. 

 

The good news is that much of our dishonesty doesn't result from bad intentions; it often is the results of trying to please other people, even at our own expense.  Although telling a lie can be easy, and you might even get away with it sometimes, you're not creating the best work environment.  To help bring more honesty into the workplace, Anthony identified five lies we're all guilty of telling. 

 

You might ask yourself if you are guilty of telling them and assess how you could better handle them.

 

1. "I'd be happy to"
   
   Think about the last few times you've said you'd be happy to do something.  How often was that statement sincere?  I oftentimes find these words coming out of my mouth before I think the assignment all the way through.  If I accept a task then my boss expects me to get it done.  So if I’m afraid that a new assignment might interfere with my other work I usually try to review my workload with my boss to clarify priorities and remind him what else I have on my plate.   
   
   
2. "No, I don't have any questions"
   Ok, who hasn't been given an assignment that just didn't make sense, but when the boss asked if you had any questions you said no?  Usually this is based on the fear of believing that if I ask questions, they’ll think I don’t know what I’m doing.  However, in reality the opposite of this is true.  Projects usually turn out better with clarification. 
   
   
3. "My alarm didn't go off"
   This one is not a problem for me as I am rarely late for work.  I tend to take the straightforward approach of, "I'm sorry I was late", and then get right to work.  If it happens infrequently, it probably won’t be a big deal.   
   
   
4. "I'm not sick – it's just allergies"
   The only thing worse than being sick is having to use personal time to cover it and getting even further behind on your work.  If you think you have too much work to take a day off you might be tempted to pull one over on your cold and flu-fearing co-workers and attribute the sniffles to allergy season – don't.  Your coworkers won’t be pleased that you're putting their health at risk and lying to them.  If staying home is not an option for you, at least barricade yourself in your office and try to minimize contact with co-workers.
   
   
5. "I'm right on schedule"
   As someone who has project management responsibilities, I am very cognizant of meeting deadlines.  When asked about the status of a project it can be very tempting to say everything is going as planned, when it’s not.  "I am working on it," might be the better response, but you need to develop a timeline to put the project back on track. 

 

Today I had to contact a vendor over a potentially serious problem we were having with some of their equipment. They have a nice little automated package to which you send an email and from you which a new case is automatically created, support personnel are contacted and an initial response sent.

I marked my issues as needing immediate attention and went about my business waiting for a reply.

Three hours ago a reply would have been timely.  A reply now might save a good part of someone’s derriere.  A reply any later than, say, right now will get me a little wound up.  Like Tasmanian devil wound up.

Anymore, every industry is a service industry.  A three hour response to an issue isn’t even remotely acceptable.  You might not be able to solve my problem as quickly as I might like, but at least let me know you’re working on it.  Via a real person.

With live chat support, 24x7 email and phone support and the long list of other support means now available from virtually any company if your company doesn’t supply top notch customer service you’ll pretty much be immediately behind on the customer service learning curve.  And any company that isn’t supply either great service or who doesn’t have a monopoly just isn’t going to make it.

It may seem obvious, but clients are a company’s number one asset and any company that doesn’t jealously protect and nourish that asset is going to lose it.

Like most retailers the Atlanta based home supplies chain, Home Depot, is facing tremendous pressure to be more efficient, increase sales/revenue….basically do more with less.  To that end, they are reorganizing the human resources function—a move that will result in cutting its 2,200-person HR staff in the field by about 50 percent.

Today there is an HR manager in every store, but in the future, there will be 230 district HR teams that will oversee six to ten stores each.  Each team will consist of an HR district manager and three HR managers who report to that person.  Each store will continue to have an administrative HR employee on site who will oversee schedules of the associates. Home Depot is also creating a 200 person service center to handle HR calls from employees and managers.  The new structure is expected to be in place by May.

Home Depot plans to use the savings resulting from this restructuring to add three sales associates to the floor of each of its stores by year-end.  Analysts are already applauding the move by Home Depot believing that they were overstaffed with the current structure. 

I think that it will take some time before we know if this restructuring really saves them money.  Without the right support and training for the store managers, Home Depot may find itself redirecting its HR workforce “savings” into a litigation fund.  Store managers will need to be willing and prepared to “step up” to activities currently handled by their on-site HR such as employee relations, wage and hour, and harassment issues. 

We’ve seen that other big-box retailers such as Wal-Mart have learned the hard way that it can be very costly to the organization when there aren’t enough HR reps in the field.   So with Home Depot, we will wait and see. 

I spent my morning with a potential partner going over key aspects of their business model for which we will be adding support in our application.  It was a very typical software requirements meeting: it started out with a group of people looking across the table at each other wondering how to start.

I suggested we start with four or five goals and work our way into the details of each in succession.  Pretty soon we were drawing like cavemen on whiteboards, talking compensation matrices and other minutiae of the HR world.

Some of the items we indentified would be tough to implement and at one point the statement was made that “maybe this isn’t a solvable problem”.  Huh uh.  No way.  Not going to happen.  All problems can be solved.  Sometimes the cost or the time or the effort required exceed our means, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be done.  It just has to be rethought.  We left the meeting with scads of notes, a number of great ideas and the general feeling that we’d had a productive morning.

When I got back to the office I found a news article about Time Magazine’s Top 100 Influential People in the world.  It was an interesting read.  One story in particular reverberated with me after the morning’s meeting:  if Mary Lou Jespen can bring a computer to children around the world who don’t even have physical classrooms I can create an enhanced performance management and  compensation management tool that can morph and evolve to meet almost any client’s needs.

Challenges arise, problems happen and all too often I see people give up.  I hate that attitude.  With creative thinking, some strategic compromises and hard work a lot can be done with a little.

My hope is that after each such meeting, whether with a client, a potential partner, or our own staff people leave with the feeling that by working together, by pursuing the goal we can get to wherever it is we want to go.

 

I was interested to read about a new program launched by Wachovia Bank that allows employees to take an unpaid leave of absence for up to three years to care for loved ones.  It does not grant job protection and once on extended leave, individuals are considered inactive employees and their benefits are put on hold. 

However, the program does provide a formal way for employees to maintain a presence with the bank.  They retain access to some of Wachovia’s web-based tools, stay in contact with managers and receive employee communication materials.  They are also given regular listings of job openings within the company. When they return, benefits kick in immediately—such as 401(k) plans and vacation days—as though they had never been away.

This initiative is noteworthy for several reasons.  Obviously it highlights Wachovia’s willingness to be a flexible employer which will enable it to differentiate itself in recruiting.  Aside from being a recruiting tool, I think Wachovia will also see it as a key tool for retaining good talent as employees comparison shop, it is difficult to assign a dollar value to flexibility.  Flex programs are relatively inexpensive to create and generate employee appreciation.

Wachovia’s program is generous not only with the time employees can spend away from the workplace, but also with the definition of who is eligible for the extended leave - spouses, children, parents, domestic partners, grandparents, siblings, grandchildren, and in-laws.

It will be interesting to watch if other large employers follow Wachovia’s lead. 

Yesterday we got the news that we will be attending the 60^th Annual SHRM Conference & Exposition at McCormick Place in Chicago on June 22-24! 

 

I’m very excited for several reasons -   

1.        First, what could be better than hanging out with 15,000 HR folks and seeing the exhibits of more than 760 companies. 

2.       I’ll have an opportunity to share the benefits of selecting Achievant as a vendor with thousands of potential client companies. 

3.       Looking forward to attending the conference sessions to pick up much needed recertification credits. 

Let me know if you are attending and be sure to look us up. 

 

 

 

So, recently, here in Indiana there was a story about a school system permanently losing some school records due to a computer glitch.

My first reaction was: Really?  That can still happen?  No way!  But apparently it can and still does happen.  Read the story and you’ll find this quote:  The school district's announcement said IBM engineers determined the loss of data was caused by "an unfortunate and very rare combination of hardware problems and backup configuration settings."

I don’t know about you, but if I read between the lines I am pretty sure that means someone wasn’t backing up what they should have been and when the hardware crashed and burned they discovered the omission too late to do anything about it.

In my opinion if you’re the conservator of someone’s data you need to be sure it’s being taken care of.  Here at Achievant we have a very robust back-up plan that backs up the data and then backs-up the entire disk image on which that data lies.  We keep the back-ups for at least 14 days, some for a month and some for a year.

We also routinely restore from back-up to ensure that we can.  Sometimes we restore just a single file, or a single database table or even an entire database.  And now and then we restore an entire server.

When you back-up you need to test and audit those back-ups.  You need to know that they work the way you expect them to and that in a true emergency they are there, whole and ready to go. 

Losing grades is bad.  What if it had been your banking records or your time and attendance data or your benefits information?  Our world runs on data these days.  Being sure our data will survive everything from an oops to a typhoon is s fundamental.

Everywhere I’ve worked I’ve recommended background checks on employees along with drug screens and a robust set of policies and procedures. 

It’s not the most fun thing to do.  I generally dislike a lot of policy and procedure.  It’s annoying and it sets a tone I don’t really like.  However, take a look at the security breach at LendingTree and you’ll see why these things are necessary.

In short, employees from the company gave their passwords to unscrupulous individuals who then accessed account data of clients using the service.

This is a tough hacker approach to defend against.  Offer someone enough money and they are likely to be willing do most anything.  How much for info on Britney Spears’ medical records?  How much for a photo of a celebrity’s kids?  How much for a password?

You can’t control human behavior, but you can be aware of it.  If you run a shop with sensitive data and you hire people who have a criminal record, with huge debt, who maybe take drugs you increase the likelihood that those employees can be compromised via bribes or other approaches to illicit data access.

Performing background checks and drug screens help weed out potential risks.  Having robust security measures, frequently changing passwords and a termination workflow that makes sure account access is terminated in a timely fashion when an employee leaves the company all help ensure your data doesn’t become someone else’s data.

Routine review of access logs would also have helped catch the LendingTree problem more quickly.  If a user is suddenly accessing the system all hours of the day all days of the week it’s a fairly sure sign that that user’s account has been compromised.

A little bit of due diligence, however tedious or even slightly uncomfortable can go a long way to ensuring that your data remains secure.

One of the many benefits of using Achievant’s HRIS system is the on-going system improvements that we provide.  We are continually working on the system, module by module, to make improvements.  Typically the suggestions for potential enhancements come from either our clients or Achievant staff. 

Best of all, we provide these enhancements at no additional cost to our clients.  Very few Human Resources software technology companies offer this.  Usually the new version comes at a significant cost to the client. 

Currently we are working on some Training or Learning Management enhancements.  We anticipate having these enhancements ready to roll out late April/early May. 

We are excited to be rolling out the following features:

• Place to record outside classes – allows for better tracking of conference or workshop attendance
• Ability to add classes not part of curriculum – allows for customized or ad hoc additions of coursework unrelated to an organization’s curriculum map for the position
• Class start and stop times – improvements to the training calendar view
• Track number of training hours – more and more organizations set standards as to the number of hours of training each employee is required to have. 
• Print roster for class sign-up sheet with class proctor capabilities for attendance and scoring
• Course enrollment close date – if desired, decline admittance to a class after a certain date
• Track scores and Pass/Fail on per class basis
• Determine class size by course and close class when seats are filled
• Set a minimum class size and if desired, cancel if the minimum is not met
• Create additional reports

 What has your HRIS software provider done for you lately - for free?

 

 

 

As I logged into my NCAA tournament bracket today (I am tied for first, BTW) I was struck by the fact that my username and password for that login matched my username and login for an account at work.

So then I wondered: does the company hosting my bracket protect my login credentials with the same rigor as I would protect login information for a corporate account?  The honest answer was: probably not.

Password diversity is a part of password complexity that is often overlooked.  I think we all find a password we like and then stick with it or variations of it over time.  I am currently on mypassword24 on one of my accounts simply because I can easily remember it, can type it reliably and am not go-getter enough to think of a new password.

The problem with a lack of password diversity is that once one account is breached all of your accounts are breached or easy to breach if you are using the same password of variations of the same password.

It’s a pain to remember all of the passwords one has anymore.  I have at least 15.  Having them all the same or similar simplifies the task of remembering them, but the risk is fairly monumental.  Of someone compromises my tournament bracket password do I want them to be able to easily guess my mutual fund password, on line banking password or network login?  Not at all. 

So, just after checking my final four picks I went through every login I have and chose different passwords.  Each is in some way tied to the application I am using so that I have a sort of mnemonic for remembering them, but each is sufficiently diverse enough that someone who gains access to one will not easily gain access to another.

Over and over I have seen the performance appraisal process fail because -

• Manager lacks information concerning an employee’s actual performance.  This is one of the primary reasons 360 reviews are so beneficial.  They provide the opportunity to see an employee’s performance from the perspective of subordinates, peers, and management. 
• Standards are unclear. 
• Manager is not prepared or fails to take the evaluation seriously.  They schedule the review and then throw it together at the last minute. 
• Manager is not honest during the review.  The manager doesn’t know how to effectively provide constructive criticism. 
• Employee does not receive continuous feedback.  The only time they hear how they are doing is at “review time”.  Feedback must occur on a regular basis. 

There are also advantages for an employee to receive a performance appraisal -

• It provides a clear and complete view of how they are performing compared to expectations.
• It provides a time to discuss their strengths and weaknesses.
• It provides a time to set future goals and recommend a specific program designed to help them improve performance.
• It’s an opportunity to express opinions in two-way communication.

Although I mentioned earlier that I believe the process is more important than the form, I do want to mention a couple things to keep in mind while writing the performance evaluation -

• Review the performance throughout the entire evaluation period, not what has just happened recently.
• Include comments consistent with ratings.  If you rated them high, tell them why.  What specifically do they do that made you rate them that way.  Likewise, be sure to provide comments for “needs development” ratings. 
• Be sure to include specific examples:  customer comment cards, employee of the month, perfect balancing, etc.
• Finish the evaluation by adding comments to areas of strength and areas that need improvement.  Require the use of a self-evaluation. 
• Don’t hesitate to have HR read the evaluation before giving it.  Sometimes an unbiased observer can shed valuable insight into an employee. 

Now that you’re ready to give the performance evaluation –

• Schedule a time and place for the evaluation.
• Be specific, not general.
• Discuss the employee’s developmental needs and goals.
• Discuss the salary increase or lack thereof.
• Give the employee time to comment on the evaluation and to sign it.

One of the most important components here is training on how to do a performance evaluation.  Tomorrow, I’ll explain what that should look like.

 

There seem to be no end of cautionary tales in the media these days.  Hackers steal over four million credit card numbers,  more hackers steal students’ personal information,  electronics come straight from the factory already infected ,  your swipe card for door access at work and other places can be easily hacked , and even your pacemaker (if you have one) isn’t safe.

It’s like a hail storm of bad technology news.  I might move to a deserted island somewhere and give up all my modern conveniences in order to escape to digital mongrel hordes that are after my data.

So what do you do?  You take all the precautions you can.  You make sure your anti-virus, anti-spyware, anti-malware and anti-spam software are all up-to-date.  You make sure your OS is up-to-date.  You are careful about what links you click, what emails you open, what programs you install.  You make sure your spouse, kids, mom, dad, cousin and aunt are all aware of the same precautions and are taking them.

Sounds tedious.  Sounds time consuming.  Sounds like a pain in the rumpus.  It is. But you’re not done yet.  You need to make sure that all the people who have your data do the same: the grocery store, the bank, your online retailers, your doctor, your accountant, your HRIS vendor and pretty much everyone else you do business with.

If you outsource an HRIS needs (like time and attendance, learning management, payroll integration, etc) you need to make sure that vendor is doing all they should.  They don’t just have your data… they have the data of every employee in your company and quite possible the data of their dependents, beneficiaries and a whole host of other innocent people.

A company should spend at least 10% of its IT budget on security.  All of the things I suggested you do above are the bare minimum they should be doing.  Ask to see their security policies, their intrusion response documents, their SAS 70.  Ask to see everything.  Then ask them how they know all of these policies are being followed.

For me, I believe actions are better than words.  Any good company has thei