The Underdog Workplace Edge: Recent Episodes
Erin Colbert
A podcast about keeping employees AND increasing your profit??? Your humble Underdog is here to help smaller companies without HR and Training departments grow their profitability while keeping great people, one interaction at a time. She’s been in the corporate space and solved a lot of problems in the people-process-purpose arena with precision instead of pushing big time-consuming programs and flavor-of-the-year changes. Her aim is to help owners and leaders of small businesses keep and grow employees at work by involving them in smarter work methods. Her mission? To help you get quick results in daily work situations without expensive training and long programs. Smaller companies have an edge - the opportunity to pursue profit while caring for the people in their business - each and every day. Calling all underdogs to join the conversation!
008 - Quite often we think about using coupon cards (you know - the fundraising kind you buy from kids in your neighborhood) as the only time you ever redeem something. Redemption is purchasing back… getting value back for a price paid.
We all make mistakes and have misunderstandings, especially at work. Instead of trying to make fewer mistakes, we have an opportunity to seek redemption. Seeking redemption in failures leads to growth and change. People want to grow whether they realize it or not.
Moments have value for the present and the future. Investing in smaller problems regarding people has a big future payoff. Leaders and owners of small businesses are wise to invest in people to help them redeem mistakes and shortcomings.
Of course, invest wisely… determine the threshold of what’s an acceptable risk and seek professional HR counsel for such things.
The next episode will be focused on how to leverage opportunities for redemption. Until this... here's how to identify those opportunities at work today:
- Observe employees as the main character of their movie.
- Observe how they choose to proceed once they discover a mistake, mishap, or misunderstanding.
- Consider which role you’ll choose in their movie…guide, villain, or extra.
- Tune in to the next episode for details on how to proceed if you choose to play a supporting actor role.
I invite you to connect with me by email and through my website!
Peace, Erin (chief underdog)
Worksmartlovepeople.com
007 - With so many people who don't see work to be a good thing, it's up to you and me to help them change their minds.
Many people in our society today don't want to work or they avoid work.
Some younger people think they don't have what it takes to do hard work.
Whether people are avoiding work or afraid of it, we can change their perception.
Work isn't just about one person getting paid… it's about our need for a workforce, personal gratification in serving others, and doing what we are made as individuals to do.
The edge for smaller businesses is to look for potential and attitude and be willing to invest in them.
If you're willing to invest in people to come and work in your business, they'll stay and tell others.
- How many of your employees are bringing their friends and family to come work at your workplace?
- How do you train someone to be a great employee (beyond the normal training needs)?
- In the first few days of every employee's career in your company, how well do you connect with them? How well do you connect them with others? How well do you connect them with your company?
- In the first week of every employee's career, how well do you clarify their role and what it means to work in your business or at your workplace?
- Are you telling them or are you listening to them?
- Once they are learning how to do their job, how do you build their confidence?
Do you have a system for doing these things?
If not, take my course where I'll come alongside you in live online sessions. We'll do it in 21 days. Register at https://worksmartlovepeople.com/21days
006 - When it comes to training, less talking is better for the goal of the training. After all, what's the goal of training? That an employee can DO something at the end of it. Is your training focused on just that goal of what the employee needs?
- Who's doing all of the talking in the training in your workplace?
- How do you transfer knowledge from process experts to new employees?
- What is the result of your training? Is it great, good, or not getting the results you want?
- What is training? It's not information sharing - it's about the planned utilization of information.
- What's the purpose of training? To allow people to choose to believe, understand, and DO things.
- If you want help with your training, I've got a program I'm working to release. Go to worksmartlovepeople.com/podcast to receive updates... AND to receive a remarkably simple guide to start new employees strong in their first week with your company - every time.
- Is your training good? Is it mapped out to focus on the 3-5 things that a person in a role needs? Is it relentlessly simple? Is it question-driven and does it allow the employee to choose to learn?
005 - Employees don't know all of the reasons that leave an employer. After all, people have needs that they don't realize and articulate - they just go where they're met. So, what is a need that employees have today and how is that being met in your workplace?
- Gallup has developed a 12 question employee survey that indicates how engaged employees are. (If they're not engaged, they're likely to leave the company.)
- One question on the survey is controversial and a lot of people make fun of it, but it's remarkably important to the employee's longevity with a company.
- When 6 in 10 employees answer "yes" to this question, your company can expect increases of 7% in customer engagement and 12% profit.
- Employees need this whether they realize it or not.
- Work to support new employees in this need on their first day.
- Make a little time and space for existing employees for this to foster their fulfillment in this area, too.
Do you need to know how to get employees started on Day 1 in a way that increases their odds of staying? Check out worksmartlovepeople.com/podcast for a ready-to-use Day 1 onboarding plan that will give you the best edge in getting and keeping great employees.
004 - We talk to a lot of people day in and day out... and we fall into ruts and routines of conversations without realizing it. What messages are you sending and are they the things that you are truly most concerned about in your workplace? Let's think through this today to see if we can clear up mixed messages.
- What are your employees hearing from you on a regular basis?
- Are your main talking points supporting your top priorities?
- What information are your employees encountering on a regular basis?
- Is the repeat information employees see what they need in order to progress into greater performance? If not, what do they need?
- If you're stuck talking about things that merely maintain the business, how can you reorganize conversations so you talk about improving the business?
- Who drives the drumbeat of communication in your company? How is that your advantage over large companies?
- How will your employees benefit if you clear up your mixed messages?
- How can you remember what you want your drumbeat of communication to be?
003 - You know all about everything that's happening in your business. And, you KNOW there's a lot of opportunity to work better, faster, cheaper... but where can you start? The lowest hanging fruit is somewhere you might not think to look.
- What's the best starting point to find your greatest opportunities for better results fast?
- What's the harm in just talking to a few employees for their ideas?
- How do you need to handle employees' ideas and why?
- Why is your approach to employees important?
- What are 3 positive ways to ask new and existing employees for improvement ideas in a non-threatening way?
- What's the benefit for you in asking employees for areas where business processes can be improved?
- What is your edge in being a small workplace as you look for areas of improvement?
002 - Are you overwhelmed by all of the priorities at work? In this episode, we are categorizing them to make sure we're hitting on the ones that have the most potential to grow your profits and your business.
- How do you determine if a work week is successful?
- What's your edge in a smaller workplace when it comes to priorities?
- What types of priorities are competing for your time?
- Where do you need to develop and delegate to "mini-me"s?
- What's are the costs of a broken process?
- Which two types of concerns do employees have every day?
- Which two types of priorities can grow your business and profits?
001 - In this podcast launch of the Underdog Workplace Edge find out...
- Who I'm calling underdogs.
- How I was an underdog and allowed it to catapult me to breakthrough results.
- The 3 areas you need to juggle every day in an underdog workplace.
- How on-boarding isn't limited to new employees - it's the antidote to chaos in your business.
- If you're an underdog
- What you can expect in future episodes.