Tweet

Gutless Management

Guest post by: Dr. Rick Johnson

Article Overview: I would doubt that there are many companies out there that don't have at least one or two employee issues that have been overlooked or ignored in the past for a myriad of reasons. Let me tell you a secret, the majority of your good employees know long before you do which employees are carrying their weight and are worth keeping. How many times have you struggled with an employee problem only to finally let them go and your employees said ---- "it's about time."

Gutless Management



Economic turbulence can create opportunity to gain market share. At the very least it offers you the opportunity to fix and repair many issues that should have been addressed months or years ago but due to the fact that profit was easy to come by, many of these issues were ignored, overlooked or just swept under the rug. This is especially true if these issues had a direct impact on employee relationships. In other words, profit covers many sins. Some of those sins can be directly attributed to gutless management. I have to qualify that statement by stating inequivicably that I am a firm believer in servant style leadership. As leaders we need to serve our employees. However, servant style leadership does not mean that we accept incompetence, below average performance or comfort zone apathy. I would doubt that there are many companies out there that don't have at least one or two employee issues that have been overlooked or ignored in the past for a myriad of reasons. Let me tell you a secret, the majority of your good employees know long before you do which employees are carrying their weight and are worth keeping. How many times have you struggled with an employee problem only to finally let them go and your employees said ---- "it's about time."

So, you are now faced with a necessary RIF due to economic crisis. It would be a big mistake to make arbitrary across the board cuts. Now is the time to make an across the board evaluation of every one of your employees. Start by looking at the functional contribution with respect to your revenue stream. Next look at the employee's contribution with respect to top line sales, profitability and their individual performance based on expectations; assuming you haven't set precedent with exceptionally low expectations. Follow this RIF checklist:

RIF PLANNING CHECKLIST

 Communicate the business reasons that make the RIF necessary. You need to be able to document the RIF necessity with economic data that demonstrates changes in the economy and the industry. This is a time to open with your financial statements.

 Make sure you involve legal council in planning the layoff. Consider obtaining waivers and releases in which employees agree not to sue in exchange for severance benefits where appropriate.

 Clearly define the RIF plan other changes that will support the plan

 Outline in detail the process for implementing the layoff.

 Be consistent in your actions and don't make promises you can't keep.

 Clearly define the RIF goals to ensure that the financial objectives are in alignment with the contingency planning goals for the financial stability of the company.

 Evaluate employees' skills, job performance and personal contributions to determine which employees will be included in the RIF. Be fair and consistent.

 Kill all the "Sacred Cows".

 Provide severance benefits where appropriate to minimize individual consequences.

Related Articles
  Business Etiquette Seems To Have Gone Out The Window
  ATrue Business Story: Excuses by Robin J Elliott
  This Week’s True Business Story: Excuses
  Wimpy Boss
  Lesson #5: Create a Vision and Stick To It
  Will Network Marketing Robo-Calling Get You To Run For Your Checkbook And Sign-Up?
  Reduction in Force needs to be a “Surgical Strategy”
  The Main Street Heroes of Commerce
  Article # 35 Managing Your Time When You Have None
  The Heroes Organize Their Business
  Time Management is an Oxymoron
  Culture Fit
  Organizational Readiness To Performance Management
  How Are Your People-Management Skills?
  IS A CAREER IN MANAGEMENT CONSULTING RIGHT FOR YOU
  Contract Management Services – For The Supplier Or The Purchaser.
  Management Training for Effective Delegation
  Extraordinary Self Leadership Means Exceptional Time Management
  CMS Website, Content Management System, Web Content Management System, CMS Website Design
  MANAGING RISK

Article Tags: employee issues, human resource, management, reduction in force



Related Forum Posts
No B.S. Time Management - A great book I read on Time Management is No B.S. Time Management for Entrepreneurs by Dan Kennedy.
Which kind of industries are you interested in? - Ecological or E-business or Investment or Finance or Management or Non-Profit or Retailer or others.
HRPreneur - Hi everyone, I am new to the forum and I recently started my own Human Capital (HR) consulting firm called HRPreneur Inc. HRP focuses on making human capital a strategic differentiator for SME's. Below is a summary about HRP; Who We Are: HRP is a Human Capital consulting firm with 30 years of experience that becomes an extension of your company by providing a full array of services to help you create a highly engaged workforce focused on achieving strategic results in order to build a long lasting great company! Mission: HRP provides small and medium sized businesses a Strategic HR Business Partner to increase employee engagement, resulting in cost savings, increased productivity and results at an affordable rate! Vision: To inspire and warrant SME's reach their full competency! Cost Effectiveness: We provide over 30 years of experience at a fraction of the cost at a strategic executive HR business level You will save between 50% to 60% in costs per year on salary, bonus, benefits, training, office space alone We will provide you additional cost efficiencies through our services Services: • Strategic Human Resources Planning • Organizational Redesign • Change Management • Organizational Culture Development • Employee Engagement Programs • Leadership Assessment and Development • Compensation Design • Talent Acquisition • Assimilation and On-Boarding • Performance Management • Talent Management & Succession Planning • Human Resources Due Diligence • Human Resources Audit • Full Service HR Outsourcing
Re: what position to request? - What do you think of: Executive Manager? Director of Product Management? I am not interested in working as a freelancer. As I mentioned, the purpose of what I am doing is to get involved into a startup that may become successful in the future. This is a situation when a group of people get together to launch something promising and invest into this their time and energy and even may be money.
Management Today - In the UK, I always find that Management Today has a great breadth of information useful for entrepreneurs as well as managers - after all, are we not all, as entrepreneurs, managers of ourselves, if not employees we have? Best


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Using Social Media Marketing

Soda Vending Machine = Energy Hog

9 tips to increase ROI in PPC Campaigns

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.