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#Leadership : 5 Reasons Employees Don’t Trust Their Boss or Their Company…Recent Report find that a Lot of Workers are Very Skeptical of their Bosses, and the Companies they Work For. In Concert, that Impacts Productivity, can Lead to a Toxic Workplace, and Hurts the Bottom Line.

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Trust and loyalty are difficult to come by in the professional world. While the millennial generation seems happy enough to job-hop their way to the top, more and more employers are looking for ways to increase employee loyalty within their organizations. Finding new and trustworthy employees is difficult and expensive, and even as many people are willing to lie on their resumes to get the job they want, most wouldn’t want their employers betraying their confidence in similar fashion.

Free- Rusted Tanker

But there have been signs that the tides are turning. Employers have started to implement new ways to keep employees around, and the numbers show that more raises and promotions are being handed out to loyal, long-time workers. That means there is at least some sort of divide being bridged between management and labor, in some organizations.

When we dig a little deeper, however, it becomes clear that there’s still a wide gulf when it comes to confidence in our employers. The latest Trust Barometer report from Edelman all but confirms it. The annual report, now in its 16th iteration, took the pulse of tens of thousands of workers, in an effort to see just how much trust (or distrust) is prevalent in the economy.

The findings? A lot of workers are very skeptical of their bosses, and the companies they work for. In concert, that impacts productivity, can lead to a toxic workplace, and hurts the bottom line.

This is a wake-up call for any business leader who underestimates the importance of building trust with employees,” said Nick Howard, executive director of Edelman’s employee engagement business in Europe in an accompanying press release. “Edelman’s special report on Employee Advocacy shows that non-trusting employees are far less likely to say good things about their employer. And worryingly, the bad things they say will be believed by consumers.”

Christopher Hannegan, executive vice president and lead of Edelman’s employee engagement business in the United States, echoed Howard’s sentiment. “The findings are very clear,” he said. “Consumers trust companies that treat their employees well. Companies that have ethical business practices. Are transparent and open. And respond well to problems and crises. Equally clear is that these are the topics that employees are most trusted to talk about.”

Here are five of the chief reasons Edelman’s Trust Barometer says employees don’t trust their employers. Do you agree with any of them?

1. Engagement

Where there’s a lack of engagement and communication, there’s a lack of trust. We see the same dynamic at play in our personal relationships, and that extends to the employee-employer relationship as well. When there are limited lines of communication and engagement, skepticism bubbles up. You start to worry about potential changes that you may be missing. It’s difficult to manage — and employers who keep employees in the dark are feeding distrust and discontent in their ranks.

It also leads people to believe there is something to hide, which obviously leads to distrust.

 

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2. Short-term thinking

“Short-termism” is when a company or leadership team puts short-term profits ahead of an organization’s long-term goals and survival. It’s how you end up with car companies cutting corners like GM or Volkswagen’s recent scandals, or how we end up with huge disasters like Deepwater Horizon. It’s about making the quarterly numbers look good, at the expense of long-term projections. And employees hate it.

“More than two-thirds of people feel that CEOs are too focused on short-term financial results,” said Howard.

3. Belief in the company

Do you believe in your employer? That is, do you believe in the company’s mission and purpose? People want to work for employers who are addressing society’s needs, and positively impacting their communities. That may mean taking measures to protect the environment, or simply taking care of employees so that they can afford life’s necessities without struggling. But there’s an evident gap in Edelman’s numbers that show employers are coming up short. And that breeds distrust and contempt.

 

4. Product quality

This is a call back to the discussion around “short-termism.” People trust companies that create and sell high-quality, reliable products and services. It’s easy to work for a company that puts pride into its work, and pumps out products people love. Think of companies like Apple, for example. If you can personally stand behind your employer’s products, it’s easy to trust them.

Now, put yourself in the shoes of a Comcast employee. You’re consistently fielding calls from angry customers about being overcharged, and how their service is out. That’s going to take a toll on your pysche, and how much you trust your company.

5. Ethics

Most of these other points boil down to this: ethics. While we’re all taught to act ethically, so many headlines fill the newspapers and cable news networks about corporations or individuals taking short cuts, ultimately earning a big pay day at the expense of everyone else. We saw ethics go out the window during the financial crisis, and by decisions made at (again) GM and Volkswagen.

Employees want to work for ethical companies, who aren’t doing shady things, and are cleaning up after themselves. If they don’t, then what kind of example are they setting? It becomes hard to trust your company, and its leadership, when all kinds of unethical behavior is being exhibited.

If your own employees don’t trust you, you can bet that customers won’t trust you either.

Check out Edelman’s complete Trust Barometer report.

Follow Sam on Facebook and Twitter @SliceOfGinger

 

CheatSheet.com | August 21, 2016 | Sam Becker 

 

#Leadership : How to Get the Best from your Employees without Burning them Out…What is it that Drives Employees to Lose Faith in their Employers, Lose Motivation in their Careers, and Drives them Away from your Company and to Another?

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We all want to maximize productivity within our businesses, large or small, yet the techniques of the past are rarely sufficient for a modern workforce. More and more, I’m finding that the personal touch goes a long way toward employee productivity, as well as morale and retention.

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What is it that drives employees to lose faith in their employers, lose motivation in their careers, and drives them away from your company and to another?

I find that it’s often a combination of bureaucracy and stress. To minimize both, you need to identify what it is that your employees reject, and figure out a way to fix the issue.

1. Minimize the red tape

One of the most frustrating walls an employee encounters is requiring permission to do their job, time and time again.

Yes, there are security reasons for some measures. But often, old policies from petty managers trying to hoard power have led to “the way things have always been done” inertia, which keeps bad rules in place.

Just like in marketing with conversion rates, minimizing the number of obstacles between employee and desired outcome will increase productivity.

2. Be liberal with non-financial benefits

I completely understand that many businesses operate on tight margins. Your best employees deserve raises and bonuses, but when the budget doesn’t allow it, you have to do something.

Why not offer a bit more paid time off or allow the occasional work-from-home day? Sometimes it can be as simple as setting up a room for the occasional sanctioned, on-the-job nap.

Personally, I’d much rather have an employee feel safe nodding off for half an hour than having them doze at their computer getting barely anything done for half their shift.

 

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3. Ditch the performance review

Or, rather, make sure they’re relevant if you have one. Performance reviews are a source of stress even for good employees — check out impostor syndrome — and they’re often just filed away and never referenced again.

Unless your reviews are both accurate and used regularly, they’re probably doing more harm than good.

Frankly, I think official performance reviews are an antiquated relic from the ghost of management past. If you’re paying attention and have a working relationship with your employees, you’ll be able to tell how they’re performing.

More importantly, if you’re open and they can come to you with problems they face, you can help stave off the issues that drive down their morale. Half of the reason for a negative performance review is toiling under strict conditions that limit an employee’s ability to work in the first place.

 

4. Establish a way to report and address problems

Part of this comes from fostering a culture of gentle management. I’m not saying you need to make friends with all of your employees, but you should be approachable and attentive when they have something to say.

If the problem is a business system, consider why it’s causing an obstacle to productivity and look into alternatives. If it’s not something you can change, at least consult with the employee about why that’s the case.

One circumstance that may come up is when an employee is the problem. Sometimes a new hire just isn’t working out, and their coworkers are better positioned to see it than you.

You don’t need to set up an anonymous tip line for bad behavior, but you can accept employee advice when a developer tells you the new guy is consistently breaking things and barely doing their job.

5. Trust your employees to do what they do best

Ideally, you will avoid the above situation by hiring a competent, intelligent team. The number-one thing you can do is stay out of their way and let them do their thing. Eliminating red tape and bureaucracy is one part of it, but another is being more of a facilitator than a dictator.

Provide guidance and advice. Establish goals and plans. Don’t micromanage their hours and set unrealistic deadlines. If they need more resources, help them obtain them or explain why the restrictions exist. Keep them in the loop and aware of what’s going on in the bigger picture, so they know what they’re working toward.

The ideal situation is one of trust, awareness, and facilitation. The days where management is a harsh gatekeeper of information and resources are gone. We live in a world where your best employees will be more than happy to jump ship unless you give them a reason to stick with you.

Sometimes, yes, that’s going to be money, and yes, you’re going to lose some good employees when your budgets are tight. You’d be surprised, however, just how many good people are willing to stick around when you simply have a pleasant place to work.

James Parsons is a content marketing influencer, entrepreneur, and writer. He writes for large publishers including Entrepreneur, Inc., and The Huffington Post. You can reach contact him on his website or on his Twitter profile.

 

Businessinsider.com | August 18, 2016 |  James Parsons 

 

#Leadership : How Leaders Can Engage & Retain Top Sales Talent…Turnover: Minimum 20%. Fact: 71% of Companies take 6 Months or Longer to Onboard New Sales Reps; & at a Third of All Companies it Take 9 Months or More.

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According to Glassdoor, professionals working in sales can make well into the six figures and are one of the most popular positions companies seek to fill. But retention tends to be low with the pressure to meet numbers, lack of adequate training and inevitable rejection.

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71% of companies take 6 months or longer to onboard new sales reps; and at a third of all companies it take 9 months or more (source: ClearSlide and CSO Insights).

And there is a minimum 20% annual turnover in Sales—and it’s up to 34% if you include both voluntary + involuntary according to Bridge Group research.

Millennials are even more likely to turnover:

 

What’s happening here?

I pondered this recently with Dustin Grosse and Michael Shultz of ClearSlide, and here’s what we came up with—based on both research and our decades of experience in the world of Sales and Sales Management.

Here are the top 4 Reasons Why Sales People Quit—and what to do about them:

  1. They don’t have coaches and mentors. New salespeople, and especially millennials, need strong coaches and mentors to find long-term success. When they’re left on their own without adequate support, they’re likely to hit a roadblock after a period of initial success.

According to CSO Insights, sales leaders spend only 20% of their time helping their team close deals. If your sales leaders are “too busy” to help, nobody wins. Make supporting your team a top priority. Give them best practices, be available for questions, ask how things are going and offer advice. Set up a mentorship program, pairing veteran sellers with new recruits. The initial time investment will motivate and inspire newer reps to commit and persevere, even through the rough patches.

According to the Deloitte and CEB studies above, Millennials cite lack of professional development, coaching and mentorship as top reasons why they transition out of companies.

Retention of millennials requires 2 things: continuous feedback so they can have insights, and an Individual Development Plan (career path with clear skills building plan) so they can aspire.

 

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  1. They don’t have the latest sales tools. Millennial salespeople are typically tech savvy and eager to embrace modern sales technology. When they don’t have the latest tools and modern platforms, that can hurt morale and impede productivity.  

Many salespeople — particularly younger ones — conduct business on mobile devices, but it can be impossible to access the content they need to close deals on their smartphone or tablet. In fact, according to a CSO Insights survey, 88% of sales professionals are unable to find or bring up critical sales material up on their smartphones, and 60% of sales organizations report a longer sales cycle due to a lack of proper tools. This hurts the sales professional’s long-term productivity and success. Companies that want to set their sales team up for success should move away from general purpose tools and invest in more modern sales-specific tools and platforms.

ClearSlide, for example, offers an engagement platform that helps companies to offer content to support the sales process (a video, a whitepaper) and then track which content is consumed: how and when. ClearSlide connects to the top CRMs, and real-time viewing stats and alerts are provided so the sales people can connect with the prospect as they are in process of consuming the content. This dramatically increases the quality of engagement.

  1. They don’t understand that data and insights are their secret weapons. Salespeople need to embrace the advanced analytics that can give them an edge.

Today, there are more people involved in the buying process than in the past. Buyers are typically more sophisticated too since they can conduct research online before they ever respond to an offer. According to research from CEB, the average B2B buyer is at least 57% through a purchase decision before ever connecting with a salesperson. This means sellers need to engage with prospects very differently – selling in a way that maps to the buyer’s journey and expectations. Give young sellers data that help them identify, target, and interact with the right context at the right time. Sales Engagement Platforms allow sellers to track genuine customer interactions across channels, giving them the insights they need to accelerate sales cycles

    1. They don’t have a playbook. Salespeople need to ramp up rapidly, and have a clear playbook to navigate prospects and the selling process.

Our clients find that the key components to a sales playbook are:

  • Sample messages for each persona – Providing sample email messages and scripts for outreach, follow up, nurturing and revival are key. When a salesperson sees how to most effectively communicate with a particular persona they can simply edit and send the message. This saves them hours each week and keeps them focused on what they do best: prospect, nurture and close. LinkedIn, for example, has a Perfect Pitch Library which is a library of videos of actual prospect interactions from a video call.
  • Tools and resources per sales stage – New salespeople need to have quick and clear access to tools and resources (such as content) to move prospects through the sales process swiftly. Guiding the sales process with content helps both newer and experienced reps to reduce the sales cycle base on the best practices of their top reps.
  • Industry fluency – millennials struggle to understand the industry that the prospect works in. For example if selling into financial services and having no background there, have industry executive summaries, key pains in the industry, key trends and buzzwords, internal case studies and use cases. This helps the prospect have the experience of “same as” and helps the salesperson build both rapid rapport and to do reference selling to get rapid credibility with the prospect.

Also it’s key to note that inside selling and field selling are converging. Insiders are now expecting to get out into the field, and field reps are doing more video conferences and “inside” work than ever before. Both need to learn new tools and techniques.

How is your sales force doing?

Christine Comaford is the author of SmartTribes: How Teams Become Brilliant Together.

 

Forbes.com | June 18, 2016 | Christine Comaford