Two Weeks Notice

I remember the first real job I ever quit.  I mean, I had a little newspaper route with "The Levittown Express", but quitting that really doesn't count.  I never had a boss looking over my shoulder, checking the quality of my work.  My output was not someone else’s input.  Also, I was probably 7 years old when I quit that job and I knew less than nothing at that point.

No, the first job I ever quit was my job stocking shelves at Bradlees.

Two Weeks Notice

The year was 1995.  I had joined their team during the summer between 11th and 12th grade.  It was a relatively fun job putting sports gear and action figures up, straightening and fronting the merchandise.  There was even a cute girl that worked the electronics counter that I got to talk to occasionally.  I really liked the job and felt bad when summer was over and I had to quit to go back to school. I probably could've kept working part-time, but I was afraid that it might affect my grades in my Senior Year.  So I quit.

Unfortunately, at this point in my life, nobody had informed me that it was customary to give your employer a two week notice before leaving.  It was a training event for me.  When I spoke to the store manager, I remember how her nostrils flared.  She had assumed that since I didn't give her my notice earlier, that I would be staying on over the fall.  I let her know that it was my last day.  That was when she told me about the two week notice.

The reason I bring this up is as a reminder that sometimes someone is counting on you; others have expectations that they expect you to meet.  If for some reason you cannot do something expected of you, it is usually a good idea to give notice ahead of time.  Do not wait until the last moment, because you might leave someone in a bind.  Try to be respectful and always remember to give an employer two weeks notice so that they can try to find a replacement.

Please feel free to leave a comment.  Tell me about the first job you ever quit.

Be Human... Be a Resource...  Be a Resource for Humans.

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Retaining Your Seasoned Talent

How are you retaining your seasoned talent?  If you have employees that have been around for more than a few years and they have deep institutional knowledge, you should have a plan in place to help keep that talent in place.  As always, please feel free to leave your opinions in the comments section at the end of this post.

RETAINING YOUR SEASONED TALENT

Many employees may remain in at one company for an extended period of time, sometimes within the same position.  With this experience comes the synergistic benefit of institutional knowledge.  These seasoned employees not only know about the current state of the company, job, and accounts; but they also retain an understanding for how things used to be done.  This can be valuable in decision making, knowing what has or has not worked well in the past.  This can be valuable in administration, remembering past sorting or filing procedures.  This can be valuable in sales, remembering people in your network that can be useful in the future.  They can be valuable mentors, saving you time and money in training newer employees.  There are so many ways that long-term, experienced workers can benefit a company, that it makes sense to structure incentives into your policies to retain these employees.

IDEAS ON RETAINING MORE EXPERIENCED TALENT

For employers, there certainly can be an attractive draw to bring in newer, younger talent versus retaining existing seasoned employees.  Among other things, the newer employees may be more open to new ideas and bring fresh systemic knowledge.  However, it would be a mistake to neglect those employees that are already working for you.  These are just a few incentives that you may want to put in place, if you have not already done so:

• Updates to Vacation Days - A common way to incent long-term employees to stick around is to allow those that have been with your company longer to have more PTO based on seniority/tenure at the firm.  You may also want to increase the number of days that can be rolled over each year.

• Years-of-Service Bonuses - You could consider a non-discriminatory bonus based on the numbers of years worked at the company.  The bonuses could be in cash, stock, options, etc.

• More Flexible Schedules - Offering more flexible schedules to more highly tenured workers can offer two benefits.  First, it can encourage your workers to stay with you as they adjust through their life changes, should they need time off for medical or family reasons.  Second, it can help them feel more valued as you are accommodating them.

• Promote From Within - Many of your employees are probably more skilled and have more potential than you give them credit for.  Be sure to promote and hire from within; employees will stay longer if they think they will have a future at your company.

• Responsibility - Hopefully an employee that has been with your company for a long time has proven themselves as responsible individuals.  Consider giving them greater responsibility and not just more work.

These are just a few of the incentives.  What are you doing to retain your seasoned talent?

COMMUNICATION

A final thought:  Employees that feel valued are less likely to leave.  Remember to keep the lines of communication open.  When an employee is new, they are probably going to receive more attention and hand-holding until they have mastered their position.  However, seasoned employees still need interaction as well.  Perhaps it would let them know that they are still valued if their managers spoke with them in person occasionally.  Try doing that instead of firing off another email.  While speaking to you employee, remember to tell them “Thanks for all you do.”

And remember all of you Human Resources professionals:  Be Human... Be a Resource...  Be a Resource for Humans.

Interesting Links:

http://guides.wsj.com/small-business/hiring-and-managing-employees/how-to-retain-employees/

http://www.goprintandpromo.com/article/human-resources-long-term-employee-retention-key-business-success-br-by-barry-franklin-general-manager-vulcan-information-packaging-40275/1

http://www.forbes.com/sites/elenabajic/2013/07/15/the-6-steps-for-retaining-good-employees/

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-14/employers-spruce-up-benefits-to-keep-older-workers-bofa-says.html

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this post are by the author Trevor Stasik, and do not necessarily reflect the views of any employer or any other organization. Please note, this information is based on my understanding and is only to be used for informational and educational purposes. Do not take what I am writing as advice. Seek your own legal counsel and/or see a tax accountant before making business or personal decisions. The author of this post makes no representations as to the accuracy or completeness of any information on this site or found by following any link on this site. The owner will not be liable for any errors or omissions in this information nor for the availability of this information. The owner will not be liable for any losses, injuries, or damages from the display or use of this information.

Training for Violence at Work

What kinds of dangers are your employees at risk for at work?  Have you properly considered workplace violence?  Certainly some jobs come with a potential inherent danger of violence, such as those working in police forces or security.  However, workers in offices and those that directly serve the public may also be at risk.  Today we will look a little at what one organization, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), is doing (and not doing) to tackle this problem.  As always, please feel free to leave a comment or opinion in the area below the post.

Training for Violence at Work

There is one group of workers that are currently at risk, agents of the IRS.   According to a study by the Department of Treasury, agents that worked directly with the public were not trained in how to handle a variety of situations which could arise.  The study was prompted by a suicide attack on an IRS building in Austin, Texas in 2010.  It was believed that the audit he was undergoing by the IRS may have been a contributing factor in the attacker’s instability.  The Treasury Department has a program known as the Potentially Dangerous Taxpayer (PDT) program.  This program designates that some individuals may be prone to violence and could be deserving of extra caution when dealing with them in person.  The Austin attacker is one individual that would likely have been identified within this program.

Define The Threat

How does your organization define the threats that workers may be facing?  Within the IRS, those PDTs identified have certain characteristics:

--- Individuals have committed violence against IRS employees in the past

--- Individuals that have physically threatened violence

--- Stalkers

--- Individuals that are members of groups that protest and promote violence against the government

--- Individuals what have committed violence against other government officials.

Report The Threat

Do you encourage your employees to speak up when unusual and possibly dangerous events occur?  At the IRS, they take this seriously.  The study by the Treasury Dept. identified a series of actions that have led to increased risk to IRS agents in the past.  These actions include:

--- When employees that received threats, they refused to believe the threat was credible.

--- Employees that were threatened believed they had calmed down the taxpayer, so therefore no reporting was necessary.

--- Employees were not intimidated by the threats.

--- Empathized with the plight of the taxpayer, understood why they were threatening them.

--- Employees did not understand that they were being threatened.

In all of these cases, proper reporting of a potentially dangerous situation was not reported.  This left future IRS agents at risk of harm because they did not know the risk existed.

Combat The Threat

At your organization, are your employees trained to deal with a threatening situation?  The first step in combatting potential threats to your employees is training.  The IRS is looking to expand training of the PDT program to ensure the safety of their workers.  One tactic IRS agents use in confronting PDTs is to invite them into an IRS office to speak with them.  By inviting the individual in, it draws them out of their comfort zone where they would be compelled to act.  IRS agents and Revenue Officers may bring their own armed escorts or seek police protection when encountering individuals identified by the PDT program. 

Stay safe out there and consider what your organization could learn from the IRS.

And remember all of you Human Resources professionals: Be Human... Be a Resource... Be a Resource for Humans.

Useful Links:

http://www.accountingweb.com/article/irs-employees-need-more-training-dealing-troubled-taxpayers/221360

http://www.accountingtoday.com/news/IRS-Employees-Unaware-Efforts-Protect-Dangerous-Taxpayers-66023-1.html

http://www.wisegeek.org/what-does-a-revenue-officer-do.htm

http://www.treasury.gov/tigta/auditreports/2013reports/201340014fr.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Austin_suicide_attack

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potentially_dangerous_taxpayer

http://www.irs.gov/irm/part5/irm_05-001-003-cont01.html

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Disclaimer: The views expressed in this post are by the author Trevor Stasik, and do not necessarily reflect the views of any employer or any other organization. Please note, this information is based on my understanding and is only to be used for informational and educational purposes. Do not take what I am writing as advice. Seek your own legal counsel and/or see a tax accountant before making business or personal decisions. The author of this post makes no representations as to the accuracy or completeness of any information on this site or found by following any link on this site. The owner will not be liable for any errors or omissions in this information nor for the availability of this information. The owner will not be liable for any losses, injuries, or damages from the display or use of this information.

PowerPoint For Training

How many of you have sat through endless training, made even more endless through the use of PowerPoint?  Scott Adams has referred to this as "PowerPoint poisoning" in hid Dilbert comics.  More effective use of PowerPoint can help reduce this problem.  Please feel free to leave a comment or suggestion down below about your own experiences with PowerPoint in a training environment.

PowerPoint For Training

Today I would like to talk briefly about using PowerPoint For Training.  Human Resources departments, Training Departments, and Management are frequently required to produce presentations.  PowerPoint was rolled out by Microsoft on May 22, 1990.  Prior to that day, presentations may have relied on a speaker’s knowledge and speaking ability, along with how ambitious a trainer wanted to get with photographic slides or large paper pads.  Due to the effort of putting together these low tech solutions, speakers perhaps used them less frequently and were more focused in their presentations.  Now with PowerPoint, you have a powerful tool that can be relied on too heavily sometimes.  First, you should ask yourself whether PowerPoint is really necessary to get your information across to your audience.  If decide that you are going to use PowerPoint, there are a number of things you can do to make your presentations more effective.

Shorter is Better

In PowerPoint, it is easy to create slides.  You can even copy and paste your existing slides to double the length of your presentation.  You can make a slide for every sub-feature of your current product line or service, and you can break that down into its individual components.  However, should you?  The length of your presentation should only be as long as it needs to be to get the point across.  No longer.  Quality over quantity.

Transitions and Animation

I would suggest using these features sparingly.  A simple fade from slide to slide can be useful at keeping a presentation flowing.  Many of the other transition effects can come off amateurish and unprofessional.  I am not saying that you can never use a Vortex or a Cube to move from slide to slide, but really consider the context.  Animation works the same way.  As a general rule, keep it simple.  With animations, you only want to use a few simple motions to illustrate a point.  Too many transitions and animations will leave your audience dazed; forgetting the content of your presentation and just remembering all of the graphics flying out at them.

Structure

Most presentations follow a linear, hierarchical structure.  Slides and bullets move from point to point.  PowerPoint has some very useful templates built into it to help beginners with building a slide show.  It enables a presenter to create points, followed by supporting points that fall underneath of the main point.  Again, it is easy to get obsessed and create a spiderweb of branching sub-points.  Just focus on delivering quality content, not quantity.

Interaction

Try to incorporate elements into your presentation to draw out your audience.  Ask questions in your PowerPoint, but make the students provide the answers.  Adding surveys, riddles, or games between major portions of your presentation can help engage your workers.  Also, consider asking for volunteers from the class to come to the front to describe their opinions about something on a slide.  A presentation is about the people you are training; about how you can best engage them and drive knowledge retention.  Interactive elements can make the presentation more memorable.

Voice Inflection

This applies to all presentations, and not those just given by PowerPoint.  Use the full range of your voice when presenting information.  It can be far too easy to drone on in an endless run-on sentence reading from PowerPoint slides talking on and on and on while your students drift away into sleep but you won’t notice because you are too busy reading from your slides... which can go on and on... forever and...

STOP IT.

Think about how you would want to hear the information given.  Then present it that way.  Use your voice to go up and down.  Stress various words and numbers.  Add pauses.  Stretch words.  Speak in a high pitch.  Engage the audience.  Use eye contact when speaking to them.  Do anything but be monotone, while reading directly from your slides.

I will probably return to the topic of Powerpoint in a future post, but for now, I need to sign off.

And remember all of you Human Resources professionals:  Be Human... Be a Resource...  Be a Resource for Humans.

Interesting Links

http://www.armytimes.com/news/2010/09/army-colonel-fired-for-powerpoint-rant-090210w/

http://www.presentationzen.com/presentationzen/2010/08/a-long-time-ago-before-death-by-powerpoint.html

http://www.edrev.info/brief/jan08.html#7

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Disclaimer: The views expressed in this post are by the author Trevor Stasik, and do not necessarily reflect the views of any employer or any other organization. Please note, this information is based on my understanding and is only to be used for informational and educational purposes. Do not take what I am writing as advice. Seek your own legal counsel and/or see a tax accountant before making business or personal decisions. The author of this post makes no representations as to the accuracy or completeness of any information on this site or found by following any link on this site. The owner will not be liable for any errors or omissions in this information nor for the availability of this information. The owner will not be liable for any losses, injuries, or damages from the display or use of this information.