Managers and Entrepreneurs Need Training Too

In today's economy more and more people are turning to entrepreneurship as job replacement. This is true for two instances:

• People who can not get jobs and need to start their own business to earn money.
• People who are under-employed and need to start part-time businesses to supplement their income.

In both cases, these individuals, who are not necessarily entrepreneurship-inclined and trained; need to take steps to enure their businesses succeed and that they do not take a bad situation and make it worse; and that they do achieve what they set out to do – earn enough money to pay the bills and live a comfortable (at worst) life.

Before starting a business keep in mind that:

• 50% fail in the first year
• 10% to 33% are left standing after five years (depends upon the study you read)

And that the main reasons business fail are:

• No business plan
• Poor management

Interestingly, research I have done shows:

• 80% of all entrepreneurs indicate a business plan is important
• 20% of all entrepreneurs have a business plan

Looking at the last stat, along with many people starting businesses with no management training; it is no wonder the vast majority of new businesses fail.

This is why I implore people starting businesses to generate a business plan (worst case in bullet point format) and, at minimum, know what management tools are needed to run a business successfully.

A business plan is needed for many reasons, not just to obtain financing. A business plan is a feasibility study to ensure your business can earn enough money to cover your personal and business expenses. A business plan helps set strategies so you can measure if you are on the path to success or need to re-look what you are doing (and to do so quickly before you get swallowed up by debt). Researching and writing a business plan also helps define your management strengths and weaknesses. If you cannot develop a good marketing promotion while generating your plan, you better improve your skills or leave room in the budget to hire someone to develop one for you.

As far as management tools go; you need to implement a strategic plan, with specific objectives, strategies, tactics and goals from day one and monitor your progress quarterly. You also need to understand marketing. This includes advertising and promotion, pricing strategies, your competition, perfecting your sales skills and elevator pitch, and understanding branding. Other areas you will need to perfect include: customer service, cash flow management, project management, market research, and more.

I teach a course, “How to Start, Grow and Manage a Business.” The course covers business plans and management tools. I wrote a book to support the course. It contains much of the lecture content (in bullet form so you do not have to read four paragraphs to get the key piece of information) and has lots and lots of worksheets that entrepreneurs can use in their business and to outline a business plan.

You can check out the book's table of contents on Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/Building-Successful-Business-entrepreneurs-instruction/dp/1470000636/ref=sr_1_29?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1328713612&sr=1-29). If you cannot find a better deal on line, go to my book's web site, https://www.createspace.com/3785695 and use coupon code ADF28U4Q for $5 off.

The book is perfect for entrepreneurs, whether new or seasoned, and for managers employed by a business who want to learn new to implement improvements to their departments.

Bring Back Customer Service

Two of the first things to be cut in a struggling economy are training and customer service. Interestingly, both are viewed as costs but are, in reality, profit centers.

I have written about training in depth, so in this blog I will concentrate on service.

With businesses struggling, they are becoming more and more dependent on offering products and services at reduced prices to generate sales to keep themselves afloat. However, businesses must have a strategic plan centered on low prices for this tactic to work. If not, they could be causing long term damage that will be difficult for their business to recover from.

Remember the following "Jay Goldberg" truths:

People brag about getting low prices.
People recommend when they receive excellent service.

So low prices bring businesses bargain hunters through word of mouth;
while excellent service bring businesses customers through word of mouth.

Conclusion: If your business is a discount provider of goods and services, then the low price result fits into your business model. However; if your business is not a discount provider of goods and services, then low prices could be causing long term problems for your business.

Providing superior service, therefore, could be a good alternative to reducing prices; especially for a business looking to be around for the long haul.

However, be aware that customer service is a science, not an art. There is a right way and a wrong way to provide customer service.

Most businesses employ a "seat of the pants", or a "this is what I would want, so this is what I'll give my customers" approach to service delivery. That usually doesn't work. Remember, the goal of providing superior customer service is to add to the business' bottom line; not to feel good about what you are doing. There is a trade-off between service levels, expected revenues, and costs. And proper customer service needs to be taught to employees, not left to their discretion.

As a first step, my book, How to Get, Keep and Be Well Paid in a Job (click here for more details), has a chapter on customer service. That chapter includes some basic skills you can learn and teach your staff. To learn more about my background in customer service (former Service Director for Citibank where I was employed from the late 70's to early 90's) and some services offered by my consulting firm, click here.

See you in my next post.

Job Talk with Jill and Jay, Part Radio Talk Show, Part On-line Training

Hello. For those of you have been following my blog entries, which started in June of 2008, you can hear the voice behind the writer by clicking on the Blog Talk Radio Player in the right hand column of this page.

My entries here have ranged from:

• Advice for the job seeker, the employee looking to grow in his or her job, and current or future managers;
  
• to my views regarding the proper way to teach work readiness skills, the future of training, and the effectiveness of different training methods;
  
• to some (hopefully not too much) self-promotion for my book How to Get, Keep and Be Well Paid in a Job and my consulting business, DTR Inc.;
  
• to much more.

The online radio show, in which I team up with fellow Outskirts Press author Jill DeSena-Shook (Just Tell Me How to Get Hired!) follows a similar format. We give advice. We provide exercises listeners can perform at home to improve their skills. We talk about our views, philosophies and experiences. We do a little promotion for ourselves and our books. We answer questions from our audience. And hopefully we entertain while we do all this.

For example, in our pilot episode I discuss the difference between normal conversation and active listening. I also provide exercises that people can do at home to develop or improve their active listening skills, a skill that will make them a more valuable employee, and a skill that will help them immensely during an interview. On the same show Jill talks about the accountability ladder, and how interviewers view perspective employees based on where they place them on the ladder, which is valuable information for anyone looking for a job.

In Episode 1, I talk about ethics, while Jill discusses the pluses and minuses of using a recruiter in your job search.

Episode 2 is scheduled for Super Bowl Sunday, February 7th at 9:00 AM EST. This is the first show where we will answer questions from our listeners so go to the show’s web site to submit a question (www.jobtalkwithjillandjay.com) or join the show live at (www.blogtalkradio.com/jobtalk) and call in. Our topics for this show are deep thinking versus surface thinking, and what you’re appearance reveals about you. Please note that all shows are around 30 minutes. We now set the timer for the show at 45 minutes in case we are in a good discussion and want to run over a bit.

Jay Goldberg's Ten Rules for Supervisors to Ensure a Harmonious and Successful Workplace

When you read books on management you find that there are different, often conflicting management philosophies.

While this can be confusing, one of the keys to being an effective manager is to have an approach and philosophy that you believe in and follow so your staff knows what to expect, how to behave, and how to succeed in the workplace. The worst thing a manager can be is inconsistent. Workers get frustrated if the rules change or of they believe that they are being treated unfairly as compared to their co-workers.

I will go one step further and suggest that every business needs to establish a management philosophy that it expects all its supervisors and managers to follow. This eliminates the inconsistencies not only by one manager, but across the entire business.

What follows is my copyrighted take on the ideal management philosophy for a business. These rules can be used as is, modified, expanded, or contracted as you see fit.

Jay Goldberg's Ten Rules for Supervisors to Ensure a Harmonious and Successful Workplace

1. Ensure that there are common goals between management and staff. One way to accomplish this is by defining desired outcomes for the unit/business and measuring the unit's or business' success towards accomplishing those outcomes on a regular basis.
   
   
2. Explain why. Many supervisors just tell their staff what to do. However, informing them why tasks are done a particular way, or why certain behaviors are required goes a long way towards eliminating worker/supervisor friction, ensuring that the tasks and behaviors are actually done correctly, and that improvements in the workplace occur through suggestions from workers who are performing those tasks on a regular basis.
   
   
3. Be results oriented. Many workplaces value time over results. However, unless a job function is time-based (e.g. customer service phone representative), reward the results of someone's work more than their face time on the job. A worker who works a normal work day but produces high quality output and new ideas is more valuable than the worker who spends more hours at work but produces lower quality work and has fewer new ideas.
   
   
4. Promote balance. Many workplaces want their employee's top priority to be their job; over family, over enjoying life, and maybe even over life itself. In my opinion this leads to employee burn-out and many employees eventually working on “auto-pilot”. The best employees are employees who have a balanced life. Whether they balance work with family, playing softball, donating their time to a not for profit, or going to the movies is irrelevant. When an employee has balance and works for a business that promotes balance, when that business needs him/her to go through a period of time where work comes first, they will do it and be effective.
   
   
5. Demand the best. Don't accept workers being just okay. Remind them that they weren't hired to do a so-so job. They were hired and are being paid to do a good job.
   
   
6. Hold workers accountable. Your workers are adults so treat them as adults. Don't act like an enabling parent. Don't accept excuses, don't allow them to slide through, don't allow them to point fingers. You'd be surprised how holding workers accountable results in good workers performing at their best and feeling fulfilled at work; and bad workers (probably performing a lot worse than you realize) quitting or starting to look for work elsewhere.
   
   
7. Reward properly. This means both rewarding the right people and rewarding them appropriately (no big reward for a small accomplish). This includes verbal praise as well as tangible rewards such as raises and bonuses. Nothing disrupts the smooth operation and effectiveness of a workplace more than the wrong workers getting the recognition and rewards. Therefore, you need to be aware not only of the actual performance of your staff, but their perceptions of who are the best workers. Then you need to take steps to ensure that their perceptions coincide with your employees' actual performance by communicating what you value.
   
   
8. Encourage creativity. Not everyone is creative. Therefore, creativity needs to be part of “going above and beyond” not part of the expected work product unless a person's job is a creative position (e.g. writing advertising copy). That means that creative employees may not be creative on the job since it isn't part of their standard job functions. So encourage creativity by always responding positively to creative suggestions (unless they are clearly ridiculous) and reward useful creativity with excellent rewards.
   
   
9. Provide ongoing feedback. Don't leave your employees waiting for their annual review to know how well they are performing on the job. Also, don't wait for them to ask how they are doing. Provide ongoing feedback; positive feedback to your top employees (but also include areas where they can improve) and constructive feedback for others (don't just let them know they need to improve, but give them steps to take to help them improve their performances). Also let your employees know that they really need to worry when they are receiving no feedback from you. For the under-performing employee, lack of feedback on their performance means you do not think that employee can improve, so you aren't wasting your time talking to him/her about his/her job performance. This is also a good way to send a message to employees you would like to look for work elsewhere.
   
   
10. Build an effective team. All managers obviously promote teamwork. However, there are some who build teams of workers who all have skills and knowledge that overlap their own, but at a lower level. Other managers build teams with workers with skills and knowledge that compliment their skills and knowledge. You would be surprised how many take the first approach since they either are intimidated by employees that know more than them in a specific area, or they do not have confidence that they can make good management decisions on topics that they are not knowledgeable on. However, that is not the way to build an effective team. Build your team with employees that have skills and knowledge that you do not possess, and have confidence in your ability to think logically and make solid management decisions.

Managers and supervisors, senior or junior, check out the book How to Get, Keep and Be Well Paid in a Job (click here). This book will help you manage your workplace. It is a work readiness rulebook that not only teaches what needs to be done, but why specific behaviors and skills are required in the workplace and provides examples outside the workplace to help you illustrate key points to your staff.

IF COMPANY TRAINING BUDGETS CUTS ARE HERE TO STAY, WHAT ARE THE POSSIBLE TRAINING SOLUTIONS IN THE (NEAR) FUTURE?

Being a professional who develops highly-regarded training programs, teaches training courses and develops trainers, I hate to admit that the forced cutbacks in training budgets due to the poor economy appear here to stay; even well beyond any economic recovery. And the cutbacks are at all levels: individuals, small businesses, large corporations, and even funding for Economic Development Centers and other Not for Profit Business Resource Centers. This does not, however, eliminate the often severe need for training. In fact, the lack of training initiatives and programs in businesses is helping to fuel the economic downtrend. Remember, the strategic goal for training is to increase revenues and reduce costs through improved employee productivity, improved service, increased sales, less employee turnover, better management, and much much more.

So how could the training landscape look down the road? Who will be the first to take the steps needed to put this valuable resource back in play? And, most importantly, who will pay for the training?

Let me start with the first question. I believe there is a two-fold answer to how the training landscape will look down the road. First, training will be provided as a value-added service by business-to-business providers as a means of maintaining and growing market share. Here business-to-business providers will pay for the costs of the training and its customers will appreciate getting this “free” service knowing both its importance and value. The business-to-business provider has economies-of-scale in regards to the training costs since their training “class” will allow for a single training venue to be used across its full customer base. If its customers like this service they will not leave the company for another that is selling the same service a little cheaper. In addition, this value added service will be a tremendous advantage when looking for new clients.

Now, what happens if eventually all of a business-to-business provider’s competitors offer free training? Well, if that company’s CEO believes in himself/herself and his/her company, the training service offered allows for that business-to-business provider to compete for new business aggressively without having to be the “cheapest on the block”. While many, if not all, of its traditional products and services may have little differential with its competitors outside of product/service cost or product/service return, as those of you who read my blogs regularly know, there are effective and ineffective training methodologies as well as effective and ineffective trainers. There will be a difference in the training product offered by each business-to-business provider, thus a way to separate from competitors other than by cutting fees.

The second trend I see is that supervisors will have to take on a greater role in training their employees. While they usually do this now for the tasks and procedures specific to completing work product for the company for which they are employed; they do not train or train but are really not equipped to train on the basics (e.g. work readiness, customer service skills, generic sales skills, ethics, supervisor/management skills, strategic planning, budgeting, etc.).

Here, I believe, training organizations and professionals will evolve from costly full service providers to more of a mentorship relationship. The training professionals will provide training materials, coaching for the supervisor, possibly monitoring of the training process, and be available to answer supervisors' questions. Like the business-to-business providers, this individual will not be an employee of the business for whom he/she is providing the service, but will be a consultant working with multiple clients to keep the cost per client reasonably low. The primary income stream for the Training Mentor will be selling or licensing the training materials (one time expense for the client) which will include an implementation plan (or lesson plans) for the supervisor to follow at work. The coaching of the trainer beyond the initial delivery of the training materials, the monitoring of the training process, and the ongoing customer service function will all be optional.

I know what some of you are thinking. There are already training DVDs, web sites, etc. with training materials that supervisors can use. However, please remember “DTR Inc’s Hierarchy of Training”. The less self-motivated the participant, the more “live” the training has to be to be effective, especially in areas where changing and shaping attitudes is as important as the knowledge being taught. DVDs and pre-recorded web-based training only works well for individuals who strongly want to learn the material they are viewing.

While I answered two-thirds of the questions I posed at the beginning of this blog, I still have to answer who will be the first to take the steps needed to employ this upcoming change to the training landscape. While I cannot pinpoint the specific business-to-business providers; or the forward-thinking companies that will embrace a reshaping of its limited training budget away from ineffective training methodologies to the “training mentorship” approach I have outlined here; I can state that I have re-tooled DTR Inc. and am set up to be the training expert/resource for those business-to business providers and companies to utilize.

I have developed a training lecture series that I see working for banks to provide a competitive advantage via this value-added service that will maintain and grow their business clients. The lecture series can also be used by other business-to-business providers. Here is a link to my new service: http://www.dtrconsulting.biz/dtrbank.htm. In my local market I will perform the lectures. In other markets I will train and manage a local training professional(s) to give the lectures (must be an effective speaker, very knowledgeable about the topic, and able to competently answer questions).

For “Training Mentorship”, I have developed a program I call Custom Scenario Workplace Training. To find out more about this service, go to: http://www.dtrconsulting.biz/dtrscenario.htm.

Finally, to help supervisors teach work readiness skills, customer service skills, ethics and more, I wrote a book, How to Get, Keep and Be Well Paid in a Job. The book received a five-star review from the Midwest Book Review. An inexpensive, informal training program can be used centered on the book. Use the book in a read and discuss format (employees read a chapter and then have a group discussion on the chapter read with their supervisor). After the read and discuss, when everyone understands the concepts, start holding the employees accountable for demonstrating what they learned on the job. I would include that learned skill/behavior as part of the employee appraisal process. For more information regarding the book, go to http://outskirtspress.com/webpage.php?ISBN=9781432725297.

These are my initial offerings, I will be developing more. I am also open to the idea/needs of specific businesses/industries. Send me an email if you have a need: JayGoldberg@DTRConsulting.BIZ (in the subject line please write “October Blog” to ensure your email is not sent to the junk mail folder).

I can also be contacted at 561-842-9942 (voicemail account only, leave a message and I will return your call).

Thank you and see you in my next blog.

ETHICS IN THE WORKPLACE

I recently published a series of three blog entries for Jobing.com. The entries went over very well and were featured in the Jobing.com newsletters for both employers and job seekers so I’m going to share the “meat” of those blogs here.

Before summarizing the information below I want to point out that the ethics example used comes from my book, How to Get, Keep and Be Well Paid in a Job, a work readiness rulebook that received a five-star review from the Midwest Book Review, an entity libraries rely on when ordering books for their collections. In addition, I am now offering a new service for businesses that I will run through my account at wisdompan.com. Every month I will present a fictional workplace case study. Companies will sign up for an account where they will get a private company message board where their employees will comment anonymously on the fictional case study. Towards the end of the month I will comment on their comments (on the board), present the answer, and provide key learning points. At the conclusion of the month a competency statement will be provided to the company based on the lesson learned for the month. From that point forward the employees will be held accountable for demonstrating that competency at work, and their performance of that competency becomes part of their job appraisal process.

The new service is not up yet on wisdompan.com, however, I will only be accepting 15 businesses for this service. Please contact me (jaygoldberg@dtrconsulting.biz or leave a message on 561-842-9942; in email or or phone message indicate "your employer work readiness program" to ensure your message gets the attention it deserves) if you might be interested and I will place you on my list of potential clients. I will contact businesses in the order I receive their potential interest to explain the service/process in more detail and to fill up the 15 slots.

PART I – Ethics fictional case study

Situation: A bank has a strict policy that all tellers must have at minimum a high school diploma or a GED. There are no exceptions. In fact, a good friend of yours who was an excellent teller for another bank, just lost his job because of the downturn in the economy, and was turned down by the bank you work for because he did not have his GED or high school diploma. Your friend was told that every teller in the bank has at minimum a GED or high school diploma, and that the bank even uses that fact when soliciting new accounts. Today the teller who sits next to you, someone who is not your friend, not even someone you go to lunch with, turns to you and says, "I can't wait. Next month I am finally getting my GED."

Question: What would you do, if anything, after finding out that the teller sitting next to you did not have either a GED or high school diploma?

PART II –Commenting on the Comments

First, in addition to being the author of the book, How to Get, Keep and Be Well Paid in a Job, which is a work readiness guide; I also developed a work readiness certification training program that was called the best in the Country by a member of the National Skills Standard Board in January of 2003. I mention that fact because during the initial rollout of that program I trained the teachers. While instructing them on how to teach ethics, I used a scenario similar to the one presented here. I did so because I knew the situation would result in a diversity of answers regarding the correct action for the employee to take, with people digging in deeply to their point of views. However, during all that discussion no one came up with the answer presented by Roosevelt Williams, and I found his response very well thought out. It is both intelligent and cautious. Bringing up the specific situation to his supervisor to help clarify a company policy was brilliant. Management is now aware of a potentially damaging fact, and Mr. Williams was able to bring it to the attention of his supervisor in way where he was finding out about company policies, not directly "talking about" a co-worker.

Both Monica Diaz Veliz and Jan Teegardin made statements that were true. Businesses often do hire employees below the stated requirements for a job and give the new employees time to accumulate the credentials they lack. While that could be true in other scenarios, I tried to close that door here when I wrote "that there are no exceptions". But more important is that I mention that the bank uses the fact that all tellers have at least a high school diploma or GED to solicit new accounts. If customers found that statement to be untrue, they could become uneasy with the bank. Even if they do not care whether the tellers have a high school diploma or GED, they may question the truth when the bank informs them that its checking account has no fees. After all if all tellers really means almost all tellers, does no fees really mean almost no fees? Losing the trust of customers can lead to customers leaving and to negative word of mouth on the street about that business.

Adrienne Ishmael's answer shows she is an honest, compassionate person. In my experience, I have found that the majority of people respond to this situation in a similar fashion to Ms. Ishmail. Ms. Ismail indicated that she would be reluctant to do anything because she wouldn't want to be responsible for setting the wheels in motion that could eventually get her co-worker fired. However, she was also very insightful in her answer pointing out that it is possible her co-worker lied to get the job. In addition to Ms. Ishmael's reason for not taking any action, I have heard responses from people who would not do anything ranging from, "It's not my job to correct a mistake made by Human Resources", to "I'm not a rat, I'm no squealer", to "If I keep my mouth shut no one will ever know that I'm aware of that fact" to more. I hope after reading my next blog everyone will realize that deciding not to do anything in a given situation is something that has to be thought through. Not acting on a something does not ensure that there are no consequences for that inaction.

Finally, Mirna Musharbash took a point of view I respect and have valued in my employees, but may have gone as the band Madness would say, "One Step Beyond". I like when employees look at situations through the eyes of a supervisor. It means that they care about the business, take their jobs seriously and want the business to succeed. So I applaud Mirna Musharbash for taking that approach. However, there is a fine line between looking through the eyes of your supervisor and taking it upon yourself to make decisions that should really be made by your supervisor. In this case Mirna was basing the decision to bring this fact to the attention of management on how well that person performed in his/her job. First, Mirna is not in the position to evaluate a co-workers' job performance, because I know Mirna is busy working and therefore, not in a position to observe all work completed by any co-worker. Second is that reviewing the overall job performance of Mirna's co-workers is the responsibility of Mirna's supervisor, not Mirna. Furthermore, even if Mirna was correct in the assessment of the co-worker's job performance that may not be the key factor in management's view of the situation. As mentioned previously, the fact that the employee lied on his/her job application and the fact that the bank is marketing that all tellers have high school diplomas or GEDs to its customers and could lose business if customers found out that that was untrue, could be the chief concerns of management in this situation, not job performance.

PART III- My Final Remarks

In my prior two blog entries on this topic I first presented a workplace scenario, requesting comments from readers; and then wrote a blog commenting on my readers’ insightful comments. In this wrap-up blog I will give my view on ethics and my answer to the workplace scenario. To not re-invent (or in this case, re-write) the wheel, I will use some quotes from my copyrighted book, How to Get, Keep and Be Well Paid in Job.

“A behavior is either ethical (right) or unethical (wrong). There is absolutely no gray area. Being ethical means doing the right thing. What determines if something is ethical or unethical is the behavior itself, not the circumstances surrounding the action taken, not the relationship between the people involved, not an individual’s culture, not a person’s value system, not life’s experiences, etc., etc., etc.”

That said, acting unethically does not mean you are a bad person. For example, speeding is against the law, thus unethical. However, driving 10 miles an hour over the speed limit doesn’t make you a bad person.

“The key to understanding ethics is to be able to define if an act is ethical or unethical. Once you have identified the ethical behavior, then you decide what to do. In other words, to either do the ethical behavior or do the unethical behavior. This is where circumstances, relationships, culture, values, life’s experiences, etc., etc., etc. come into play. You decide in each situation if you are going to act ethically or unethically.

There will be times in life that you feel strongly that choosing the unethical behavior is the right choice for you. However, you must be aware that if you choose to do the unethical behavior there can be severe consequences. Therefore, if you choose to act unethically, know what those consequences could be (obvious and hidden), and be prepared to accept those consequences for making the decision to act unethically.”

In the case of the unethical act of driving 10 miles over the speed limit, for example, you have to be prepared to possibly: get a speeding ticket and see your insurance rates increase; to be at minimum partially liable for any car accident; and may have given cause for a police office to search your vehicle.

Now on to the scenario from this blog:

The ethics of the situation is clear. The bank teller obviously lied during the job interview process and on his/her application which is unethical. So, what would I do?

I would first inform the bank teller that I am very annoyed that he/she told me that they are breaking bank rules and that by telling me of that fact he/she has placed me in a difficult spot; a spot I would rather not have been in, and a spot I am only in because of his/her action. I would next remind the bank teller of the fact that we promote to all potential new customers (and existing customers) that all our tellers have at least a GED or high school diploma. Next, I would tell the bank teller that I will give him/her two days to inform our supervisor of this fact, or that I will have no choice but to tell our supervisor myself.

I know what many of you are thinking. What a rat, especially since by just keeping your mouth shut nothing would happen to you, Jay. Well, let me play this scenario out.

Let’s say that my supervisor finds out that the bank teller did not have his/her high school diploma or GED when he/she was hired. Maybe the bank teller celebrates when he/she finally gets his/her GED, or maybe someone sends him/her congratulatory flowers. When the bank teller is called onto the carpet by his/her supervisor, the bank teller comments that he/she didn’t think it was a big deal and that he/she mentioned it to Jay and Jay did not think it was a big deal either. That statement by the bank teller just brought me into this mess.

As a result of the lie on the application the bank teller gets fired (this is usually a policy; companies can’t start looking into the degree of each lie on a job application). Nothing happens to me. I keep my job and, in fact, have no idea that my name was brought up in the meeting between my now fired ex-coworker and my supervisor. However, my supervisor now feels that my priorities are wrong. I do not have the best interests of the bank in mind. I knew the bank was informing potential customers that every teller had a least a GED or high school diploma, knew that was untrue, and keep my mouth shut. If I thought I would be admired for not “tattling” on a coworker who was untruthful on his/her application, I might be by some misguided coworkers; but I won’t be by people of influence in the company.

A year later there is a promotion opportunity in the bank. I believe I am perfect for the job. I don’t get it. The same thing happens nine months later, then fifteen months after that. Unfair I think. However, it all goes back to me deciding to act unethically. It is the fact that management in the bank does not believe they can count on me to do the right thing for the bank that is preventing me from advancing in the company. And by this time I have totally forgotten that offhand comment by my ex-coworker; and never got a chance to explain my side of things, although I doubt that that would have made a difference anyway.

There are often hidden consequences to unethical acts. People who say “Why doesn’t anything ever work out for me?” or “I constantly have bad luck” may just be living the hidden consequences of prior unethical acts. Here, I would not be willing to risk my advancement in the bank, possibly being stuck in the same relatively low-paying job for a long time, because a co-worker acted unethically (lying on a job application) and brought me into the mess; most likely on purpose to have an ally in case the situation went bad.

See you in my next post.

Effective Training Results in Lower Costs and Additional Revenue, So During Tough Economic Times Why Are Companies Cutting Training Staff and Budgets?

To borrow a phrase from Ray Davies of the Kinks, in this "mixed up muddled up shook up world" it is not surprising to me when the government makes decisions that result in it shooting itself in the foot, but it always takes me aback when it happens in the Corporate World. After all, the primary goal of Government is not to make money. However, maximizing profits is exactly what the top priority is in business. Politicians get elected based on ideals. CEO's get hired to make stockholders rich.

So when the government looks at economic development solely as an expense, and ignores the revenue generated from that development, resulting in the economic development funds being cut during tough economic times (while funds to social programs remain in tact or even grow), I get discouraged, but not surprised. I mean, I shout at the television, radio, newspaper, or web site where I get that news, “don’t you idiots know that helping small businesses in their time of need succeed and grow results in more revenue for the government (taxes, licenses, filing fees, etc.), and more jobs, or higher paid jobs which reduces government expenses (unemployment, welfare, food stamps, etc.) while also increasing government revenues (taxes from welfare to work, additional taxes from higher paid employees, additional sales taxes due to increased purchases from the higher earnings – which then has a positive effective on the owners/employees of the businesses where the additional purchases are made, additional taxes from gasoline because more people are driving to work, etc.).”

However, the impact of cutting funds to effective economic development centers goes even further. If these small businesses fail, they will create the next generation of people in need of the social programs that are still being funded. Therefore, if small businesses keep failing, the cycle will never end. It’s politically sexy to help someone keep his or her home, or to set up a Rec Center to get kids off the street to help reduce crime. It’s not politically sexy to say you helped a struggling small business succeed which resulted in the owner not being in a situation where he/she could not pay the mortgage, that the business growth resulted in the hiring of a manager who can now afford his/her mortgage, and the business hired a couple young adults who if not working would have been hanging around the streets looking for a Rec Center to help keep them out of trouble. Therefore, I look at effective economic development as the ideal form of “preventive medicine”; stopping major problems while earning revenue.

While I think cutting off/tremendously reducing government funds for economic development, especially in economically tough times is poor policy, I just cannot understand this movement by businesses away from training. The situation reminds me about how corporations used to view service delivery.

Back in the early 1980’s when I was a junior officer at Citibank, a forward-looking Vice President named Mike Cole came to me, placed a book of studies undertaken by a company called TARP on my desk, told me to read a specific study and do something similar for the Bankcard Business. The study showed how good customer service resulted in additional profits for a business. Mr. Cole, being the Vice President of Bankcard Customer Service, knew we were a profit center for the bank, but was fighting the fairly universal perception throughout Corporate America that customer service was just a “necessary cost”. Therefore, customer service strategy was usually reduced to spend as little as you can to provide service at a level where the customers will stay with the business.

I analyzed that TARP study and determined it was a different model than the one we needed. Their model was for a business that did not have to have a help desk, and was set up to conclude yes or no on implementing one. Our customer service center was not optional, so the model I developed compared Citibank credit card usage patterns for customers receiving good customer service to customers receiving poor customer service. I then set about formulating an equation that encompassed all bank costs and revenues associated with credit card usage; collected and analyzed data to determine factors like, for credit card revolvers, what was the average time it took for a transaction to be paid and off the books; and surveyed customers. The results were eye-opening. Since, at that time, cardholders had multiple options for making purchases (multiple cards, cash, checks, etc.), when a cardholder was dissatisfied with Citibank’s service, on average, that cardholder reduced their usage of their Citibank credit card significantly. This was one of the first looks at service as a way to generate profits in Citibank. A few years later, the bank took on the corporate strategy of providing superior service to differentiate itself in the marketplace and grow market share.

Today, almost everyone agrees that superior customer service can grow market share, keep customers and, therefore, is a profit generator, not a just a “necessary cost”. So why isn’t training looked at the same way? Effective training reduces employee turnover (cost saving), reduces workplace errors (cost saving, revenue saving), results in more informed employees (more sales), results in more dependable and reliable employees (cost saving and revenue generating), results in a better team approach (cost savings, revenue generating, business growth), and much much more.

One reason may be that, like service was in the not to distance past, training is looked at just as an expense, not as a positive factor to a business’ bottom line. Another reason could be that companies do not develop a training strategic plan, so they just train employees on work procedures instead of having training goals, with strategies and tactics, aimed at reducing costs and increasing revenues. The third reason is just like economic development and customer service; there is no direct correlation between the actions taken and the increase on the bottom line (through reduced expenses or additional revenues). For example, if a business trains its managers to explain why a process or procedure change is being implemented, instead of just telling his/her employees what the changes are, the results would be:

• Lower employee turnover (cost savings)
• Happier in job resulting in better interactions with customers (more sales)
• A better understanding of the purpose for the change which results in fewer employee mistakes/errors (customer retention)

However, when the bottom line is looked at, the impact from these positive effects from management training cannot be quantified. So when the economy is tight, trainers and training budgets get cut, and the impact is far greater than the business owner/manager could have ever imagined.

In my opinion it’s time for training to take the step that service did back in the 1980’s. Service strategic plans were implemented. There were objectives, strategies, tactics and goals. For example:

• Objective: provide superior phone service
• Strategy: answer the phone in a timely manner
• Tactic: measure phone representatives speed in answering calls using the statistics on the ACD system
• Tactic: monitor call traffic in real time/full time to manage call traffic flow
• Tactic: manage phone representatives breaks, lunch times, system plug in time
• Tactic: survey customers to determine customer satisfaction
• Goal: 95% of the calls answered within three rings
• Goal: 95% of customers surveyed satisfied with time it took to get to speak to a phone representative

This same strategy can, and should be applied to training. Training needs to be linked to goals of keeping costs down (e.g. low employee turnover, minimize employee errors, etc.) and profits high (product knowledge to increase sales, management skills to keep good employees, etc.).

If you would like to contact me about developing a training strategic plan, developing effective training courses, or using some of my existing courses please call 561-842-9942 and leave a message, or email me at JayGoldberg@DTRConsulting.BIZ and write “training blog” in the subject line to ensure your email is not deleted as junk mail. Find out more about me at www.dtrconsulting.biz.

At a minimum, if your company has limited funds for training, purchase my book, “How to Get, Keep and Be Well Paid in a Job” (web site) and use it as a work readiness training guide for your business. You can also contact me to arrange for live webinar training in support of the book.

Catch you in my next blog, whether here or at Jobing.com.

Free Live Work Readiness Training Webinar

To introduce its live webinar training series, DTR Inc. is having a free preview on Friday, November 28th at 11:00 AM. The live webinar will last about one hour, and the specific topic will be “Ethics in the Workplace”. To find out more information about the webinars, and to request a free ticket to the preview, go to www.workready.org/dtr.htm or send an email to jay@workready.org. After requesting a free ticket, you will be sent an email with the web address for the webinar, login instructions, a user name and a password.

The topics of the webinars will range from work readiness to customer service to sales skills to supervisor skills to entrepreneurship. DTR Inc.’s CEO, Jay Goldberg created a work readiness training program called the best in the country by the National Skills Standard Board, is the author of the book, “How to Get Keep and Be Well Paid in a Job”, is a former Service Director for Citibank, and, in conjunction with staff at the Palm Beach County Resource Center, developed what has been called a “revolutionary” entrepreneurship training program.

The intended audience for the free preview is human resource, training and management personnel who would like to sample DTR Inc.’s product offering to determine if they want to sign up their employees for future events. Business owners are also welcomed since entrepreneurship courses will be available in December.

With training budgets and staff being cut, it may be up to individuals to improve their value to their employers on their own. Therefore, individuals can also request a ticket to the free preview since the pay-per-view webinars are priced so that individuals looking to improve their value to their employer by taking work readiness or supervisor development courses can afford to attend them.

In my previous blog I wrote why live events are much more effective than pre-recorded events. If you have not done so yet, please read that blog.

The success of my training webinars will be based on the positive impact seen in the workplace. Therefore, the webinars are designed with that goal in mind. The vast majority of other workplace training programs measure success by how well the participants do on assessment tests, and are structured accordingly. However, doing well on an assessment test does not mean that workplace attitudes and behaviors were changed. In fact, many workers will answer the assessment questions by thinking, “What would my boss want”, not, “What do I think is the correct answer”.

That’s all for now, hope to see you in the free preview.

IT'S TIME FOR AN EXPANDED EMPLOYEE HANDBOOK

This blog contains original material plus a quote from Jay Goldberg’s book, HOW TO GET, KEEP AND BE WELL PAID IN A JOB (click here to go to the book’s web site), a book that just received a 5 star (out of 5 stars) review from the Midwest Book Review.

Employee handbooks are important business documents. Unfortunately, many small businesses do not have them, and many large businesses have them, but they are not as effective as they should be.

Traditional employee handbooks contain workplace and personnel policies ranging from policies on sexual harassment, discrimination, and conflict resolution, to employee benefits, compensation and workplace safety.

One of the reasons for having an employee handbook is to protect the company against law suits. Employees acting inappropriately can lead to legal disputes. So can employees who are confused regarding company policies, particularly as it applies to raises, promotions, compensation and benefits. Having a clearly written and well thought out employee handbook can protect the company. In legal conflicts, employee handbooks are often viewed as contractual obligations. And if you are familiar with any of the daytime courtroom shows you’ll know that written contracts are much better than oral contracts, which is what you basically have if you do not have a formal employee handbook.

Obviously, the employee handbook is a major communication tool between the company and its employees. With more and more business owners and managers complaining about the lack of work readiness skills in their employees in focus groups throughout the country, the “new” expanded employee handbook becomes the ideal vehicle for a company to define its work readiness workplace expectations (which also makes it part of the “contract”).

The most effective way to teach work readiness is to not just state expected behaviors and skills, but to explain why those behaviors and skills are important in the workplace, and to clearly define what they are. This means that traditional Dragnet (“just the facts, ma’am”) employee handbooks need to evolve into more of a document that will not only state the facts, but change attitudes and educate employees (and be even clearer to judges during legal disputes).

For example, instead of just stating the number of sick days employees are entitled too, an explanation of what sick days are is needed. Below is a quote from my book:

“Please be aware that in trying to be fair to employees many companies allow a generous amount of sick days. Often the longer you work for a company, the more sick days you earn.

Sick days are not vacation days or even personal days. They are an insurance policy the company provides to its employees. They are to be used only when an employee is sick. Since sick days are an unplanned absence, when used there is a negative impact on the workplace. If all employees used all their sick days a company would have no choice but to reduce sick days for everyone. Think how high your car insurance would be if every driver except you had two accidents a year. Insurance companies cannot pay out money it does not have. They cannot survive if they pay out more money than they take in. No business could. In this case everyone’s car insurance rates would go up (including yours) to an amount where the insurance company was taking in more money than it was paying out.”

A truncated and modified version of the sentiment in this quote needs to appear in the employee handbook in the section dealing with sick days. In addition to educating employees on the real purpose of sick days, it would also help the company if it needed to fire an employee who abused his/her sick days.

I strongly believe the “new” expanded employee handbook needs to be a combination of the traditional employee handbook and work readiness topics like the ones contained in my book. To see the topics covered in my book, review its table of contents on the book’s web site.

If you would like me to review, append, modify or create an employee handbook for your company, my contact information (and information about my company) is available at my web site, www.DTRConsulting.BIZ.

On a different topic, I was just nominated and accepted a position on the Children's International Obesity Foundation's (CIOF) Board of Advisors. The CIOF is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit foundation that does good work in the area of childhood obesity. Please visit the site by clicking on the CIOF image on the right-hand side of your screen and if you like their work, and the information they provide, make a tax deductible donation. Even small donations help. Thank you.

Catch you in my next blog.

Interview Tips: The First Date

This posting includes excerpts from my book, HOW TO GET, KEEP AND BE WELL PAID IN A JOB (click here to go to the book’s web site) and some original, new, fresh content; like this intro sentence.

The initial chapter in my book is “The First Date” and is about the interview process.

“When you finally get a date with the woman or man who you have had your eye on for awhile, you know two things about your initial date. First, you are going to be on your best behavior. Second, you are going to be, at least, a little nervous.

Your date is going to listen to what you say (and what you do not say), observe your behavior, and make a decision on whether or not he/she will be going on a second date with you. The job interview process is no different. Your potential employer is going to do the same things, only money is waiting for you, not a second date.”

While I will not post the full content, I will briefly list three of the tips from this chapter of my book.

1. Know all you can about the Company before going on the interview

“Think first date. If all you know about the person you have been waiting to date is that he/she looks fine, your first date has a better chance of being a disaster than if you know that person’s interests. While there is a mutual attraction, you may have nothing in common and may have a lot of awkward silence. In the same vein, if all you know about the job for which you are interviewing is the pay scale, the same thing can occur. You may not be able to successfully inform the interviewer how your skills, knowledge, and background fit into that particular job and company. Therefore, before going on your interview know everything you can about your potential employer.”

One way to find out about the company you are interviewing with is to go online and find the company’s website. Look at the site to become familiar with the products and services the company sells. Also look for a page that informs visitors about the company and, possibly, a page listing recent company press releases.

2. Rehearse your answers to interview questions

“Before asking the person you want to date out, many of us practice what we are going to say before picking up the phone or talking to that individual in person. Some are even “George Costanza-esque” and have a pre-determined list of topics to talk about prior to picking up the phone. Likewise, when people have to perform in public, they practice before the big event. Whether it’s a play, a political speech, testimony in a trial, a business presentation, etc.; the presenter practices before the big event to ensure success. A job interview is no different.”

I will go a step further here than I do in my initial chapter. While practicing questions and answers is helpful, it is most useful on the setup or initial question (in Zig Zigler’s sales process these are called “open door” questions). To hit a home run on the follow up questions (or Zig Zigler’s “closed door” questions), you need to understand the job functions for the position you are interviewing for, and you need to understand what behaviors and skills employers’ value. That is why I recommend that job prospectors read my whole book (or any book on work readiness skills and behaviors) before going on an interview, not just my initial chapter on interviewing. This provides the background to do well on both the initial questions and follow-up questions.

Let’s say (or in this case, let’s write) that you are interviewing for a job as a Help Desk Phone Rep and are asked, “What are your strengths?” You have practiced an answer to this specific question, have a great answer and deliver it like a pro. Then you are asked, the all annoying, sometimes unpredictable “closed door” follow-up question, “Wow, you certainly have a lot of strengths (sarcasm implied to throw you off guard), give me an example where your strengths came into play in your last job.” Here is where knowing what is important to employers and what is important to the specific job for which you are interviewing comes into play. Showing up to work on time, all the time is very important to employers, and vital to Help Desks (and Customer Service Centers) so that Help Desks can meet their service standards (customer service will be a topic in a later blog). A practiced answer to this question would be, “An example of my reliability was that I was never late for work.” An informed answer would be, “An example of my reliability was that I was never late for work. While I know this is important in any job, I understand its special importance in regard to a Help Desk. Our job is to provide superior service to our customers and that means having the stations manned to minimize callers’ time on hold. If someone is late, that leads to longer wait times for our customers and that is unacceptable.” This answer can only come by understanding the workplace. Based on these two answers, which person would you hire? The first could be viewed as “just words”, while the second person “gets it.”

3. Bring all questions back to the job, even ones that appear to have nothing to do with the job.

Beware of “the interviewer who tries to bond with you by uncovering interests he/she has in common with you, and moving the interview away from the traditional question and answer towards a more conversational approach. By making the interview more informal, the interviewer is hoping that you, the interviewee, will provide a more in-depth and personal window into who you are. Be very careful. There is a good chance that the interviewer really isn’t into slasher movies, heavy metal music, and shoot-em-up video games. The interviewer just indicates that he/she has that in common with you so you will reveal more about yourself than you would otherwise. When you come back from an interview thinking that you and the interviewer really clicked (in areas other than the job), more often than not you opened up too much and you will not be getting the job. The interviewer is looking for an employee, not a best friend.”

For example, if I’m asked, “What is your favorite book?” I would not say one of the many Stephen King books I love because it has nothing to do with the job and the interviewer could be concerned that I read horror novels. Instead I would say, Dune by Frank Herbert because among other things, Dune is a novel about economics and I found that subplot in the book very interesting.

That’s all for now, catch you in my next post.

Who is Jay Goldberg and why is he blogging?

Hi, my name is Jay Goldberg and I will be posting a couple of blogs a month, so in my first blog I thought I would introduce myself and let you know what I will be covering in my blogs.

I am a former Vice President for Citibank where I was a Service Director. At Citibank, I hired, trained and managed numerous employees. For the last 14 years I have been CEO of DTR Inc., a Business Consulting Firm in South Florida. At DTR, I developed the strategy, curriculum, lesson plans, competency statements and teacher training procedures for a work readiness training program called the best work readiness certification program in the country by the National Skills Standard Board in 2003. More information about my company can be found at www.dtrconsulting.biz.

In April of this year (2008), my book, How to Get, Keep and Be Well Paid in a Job was published by Outskirts Press. This book was written to be an enjoyable, enlightening, attitude-changing read. In addition to stating the behaviors and skills valued by employers, the book explains why those skills and behaviors are important to employers and uses real-life analogies to help illustrate key points.

This book is ideal for parents to purchase for their kids as they are first entering the workforce; for employers to purchase as a training guide to communicate to their employees what they need to do to become valuable employees and grow within their company; for individuals who find themselves continually passed over for promotions or who continually move from job to job without significant increases in pay; for schools that want to teach work readiness (also is being used in ESOL programs); for Job Centers to have as a reference book that their clients can read; and for anybody who wants to truly understand why specific behaviors and skills are valuable to employers so they can manage a career rather than just get paid to perform a job.

More information about my book can be found at www.outskirtspress.com/Goldberg.

I also work part time with the Palm Beach County Resource Center (PBCRC), an economic development 501(c)(3) Nonprofit Corporation. At the PBCRC, I was instrumental in developing a revolutionary entrepreneurship training program with a structure unlike any other entrepreneurship training program in the country. More information about the PBCRC's entrepreneurship training program can be found at www.SEEKexcellence.BIZ.

My future blogs will cover the following topics:

• What makes effective training programs
• The difference between education and training
• Tips for individuals looking for jobs
• Tips for individuals to keep and grow in their jobs
• Tips for supervisors
• Tips for business owners
• Tips for individuals looking to start new businesses
  

FYI, the Table of Content for my book follows:

BOOK CHAPTERS

The First Date
(Interview Process)
Includes: Know all you can about the company before going on the interview; rehearse your answers to interview questions; stay focused (bring all questions back to the job/company), interview tips; nonverbal communication; know yourself (strengths, weaknesses, life/career goals); the job application; resume

They Like Me, They Really Like Me
(Preparing for First Day of Work)
Includes: When do I report; where do I report; to whom do I report; what should I wear; is there anything I can do to prepare

Am I Really in the NFL?
(Business Profits)
Includes: Why employees need the company they work for to be profitable

Now That I’m On the Team, What Are the Team Rules?
(Employee Handbook)
Includes: Benefits; company policies, compensation, workplace rules

Take a Stand, Is It Abigail or Flagg?
(Ethics)
Includes: The case of Don Imus; music downloads; work scenario #1; work scenario #2; work scenario #3; stealing from an employer is not only stealing money

Mr. Rogers Was Right! Be a Good Neighbor
(Workplace Behaviors)
Includes: Absenteeism; use of sick days; tardiness; grooming; be responsible; safety; mannerisms and habits; positive attitude; positive self-image

What Are the Special Codes for This Game Called Work
(Workplace Skills)
Includes: Active listening; following instructions/directions; managing your time wisely; completing tasks accurately and efficiently; creative thinking/problem-solving skills; telephone technique; communication skills

Be Nice to These People; They Helped You Buy Your Car!
(Customer Service)
Includes: Customer focus; service delivery; service measurements; phone center; barriers to communication; service attitude; customer service skills;; choosing words; classifying customer statements; overcoming objections; managing customers

Check Your Baggage at the Door
(Personal Life vs. Work Life)
Includes: Reason for working; objectionable behaviors; harassment; discrimination; drug/alcohol abuse; violence; a plan of action

To Date or Not to Date, That is the Question
(Social Life at Work)
Includes: Dating in the workplace; your employment relationship; lifestyle compromises; lifestyle choices; take control of your life

These People Are Nuts!
(How to Get Along With Co-workers)
Includes: Blueprint for getting along with co-workers; importance of teamwork; working with the Team Leader; how to be a good team member; value of diversity in the workplace

Congruent Theory of Work: Good For Boss = Good For Me
(Working With Supervisors)
Includes: Supervisor responsibilities; meeting supervisor’s expectations; communicating with supervisors; understanding expectations; performance appraisals; raises and promotions; role reversal

I Am a Stock
(Improve Your Skills)
Includes: Learning strategies

What I Learned in School Is Wrong For My Job, Huh?
(Reading, Writing and Arithmetic)
Includes: Reading; writing; arithmetic

Avoiding the Messy Divorce
(How to Leave a Job)
Includes: Proper way to leave a job, why it is important to leave on good terms

I already have some ideas for my next post. I hope I peaked your interest so that you'll give it a read.

I have an alternative version of this blog at jobing.com