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Issue 7 · Friday, 3 April 2009
A personal message from Joan
Welcome to the April edition of the Ladder newsletter and a special welcome to new readers.
Exciting times continue here at Ladder Mansions. We now have Joan's videos and a free downloads section on the site.
We’re also motoring along with the production of the training DVDs, having had some very positive and useful feedback on the pilot versions. Ambitious stuff for someone with ‘a great face for radio’!
I do hope spring is bringing you some sunshine and that any green shoots of recovery are to be found in your back yard.
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New performance management papers
You might remember in January’s newsletter I wrote an article on 5 steps to effective performance management.
I’ve had some really good responses to the article and I’ve now written four papers describing in detail the ‘how to’ of the steps. The papers are available to download from my site.
Please feel free to share these papers and do let me know what you think. I’m intending to share much more of the ‘how to’ of practical people management as downloads and I’d love to hear if you have any specific issues or topics you’d like me to write about.
Generation Y: employees or volunteers?
I guess it’s always been true that employees ‘sell their labour but volunteer their commitment’.
I’m sure it’s never been truer than with those highly talented, highly sought after Gen Y’ers.
On the basis that research suggests that in ten years time these people (who are currently aged up to 28) will make up the largest proportion of the workforce and that demographic trends suggest that in a few years we will have both a talent shortage and a people shortage, how to recruit and retain these people is proving a major challenge for many organisations.
Clearly this is a complex area. One way of exploring how we may need to adapt our management styles and practices is to probe Peter Drucker’s idea that we have to ‘accept the fact that we need to treat almost everybody as a volunteer’.
So here’s a question:
"How would you manage your staff differently if, instead of being paid employees, they were volunteers?"
I count myself lucky that as president of my local branch of a national charity I get to ‘manage’ volunteers. Reflecting on how I work with these volunteers compared to how I used to manage my staff I’ve identified some key differences:
- People have much more flexibility around what they do and when they do it.
- I thank and praise people much more often.
- I spend significantly more time with our new ‘recruits’ exploring what motivates them – what their specific interests are, what type of work they feel they are most suited to, and so on.
- I spend more time discussing with people how important their work is, highlighting the value of their contribution in light of what we are aiming to achieve.
- I use a more collaborative decision making process – all decisions are joint decisions in our group.
Now, I’m willing to accept that this list may say more about my lack of skills as a manager than anything else (and it’s been some time since I’ve managed a significant number of people – think Iron Age) and clearly I’m aware that there are some fundamental differences between both the motivations and responsibilities of paid employees and volunteers.
But it’s not difficult to see how the style of management outlined above could have a positive impact upon an employee’s commitment – irrespective of the generation they belong to.
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Do you want to use my articles in your newsletter or website? You can but please include the following text and link to my site:
Joan Henshaw publishes her monthly Ladder newsletter for business owners and managers. If you want ideas on how to improve your practical people management practices, get your free tips now at www.ladderconsulting.com.
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