The Help Tabloid

Employment Verification is not only time consuming, it can be equally frustrating. There are many calls that need to be made and references that need to be checked. A large amount of valued time is squandered when verifying potential new hire information. Now there is a system accessible that can take a typically time intense task and turn it into an expedient and accurate process. Outsourcing employment verifications can increase productivity amongst Human Resource employees and can prove to be cost-effective as well. This also allows the HR representatives to focus on other more pressing matters involving current employees as opposed to potential ones. Outsourcing employment verificaiton is popular because it keeps the old employment information confidential. You are able to save your company time and money while assuring all of the files are secure.

A newly discovered way that companies are using to trim costs is by cutting down on the time it takes to complete average tasks. Employment Verification is regarded as one of the biggest hassles that any human resources employee deals with on a regular basis so cutting down on this time would alleviate resources and elevate productivity. Between inaccurate reference and company information, bosses and old supervisors declining to return phone calls, and unanswered emails or phone calls, the average human resources person can lose up to eight hours out of a forty hour work week during this procedure. This time is spent going after information in order to keep the hiring process run a smooth as possible. Seeing that this amounts to 20 percent of the employee’s time, any potential savings in this area would be welcomed by managers across the country.

It’s a common misconception in numerous companies that, by offering each staff member some instruction in occupational health & safety, they have all the knowledge they require to prevent an emergency. The reality is that, regardless your industry, a basic education in safety regulations and risk asessment just isn’t adequate. Equipping employees, providing the right supervisior and promoting frequent safety drills are essential to the safety at work.

Each team must have a professional supervisor to keep an eye on staff performance, but this individual also needs to perform another role on the floor. A supervisor must realise that health & safety education is important and have the ability to encourage other people to share their enthusiasm. On top of insuring compliance with health & safety legislation, the function of a supervisor also includes supervising employee performance. Of course it isn’t easy to accomplish all this at once. Excellent business knowledge is vital for a supervisory job as well as a high standard of knowledge of the latest regulations regarding safety, risk assessment and first aid. It’s just not sufficient to simply send your employees to a health & safety course. Your staff must have practical experience of risk assessment and the identification of problem areas. Staff additionally require a firm grasp of the steps necessary to remedy the situation and how to react when the worst happens. Not until these procedures become automatic are employees properly trained.

Safety equipment is every bit as necessary to the well-being of your employees as training. If they don’t have apparatus they need, or even learn that they’re damaged when they are required, then all the training available can’t help them.

It’s a good idea to inspect on a regular basis to ensure you have everything you need and to check that it is functioning well. When piece of equipment doesn’t meet the applicable legislation, make sure that it’s mended promptly and put it back in the appropriate place. Proper health & safety training is important for the health of your employees, but in addition they need the proper gear, scheduled practises, and an experienced supervisor who can get the workforce to be enthusiastic about being safe at work. And then abiding by the various safety regulations become a normal component of life in the workplace not an inconvenience for everyone to remember.

We recommend you take a look at this detailed source for safety regulations information!

Nowadays many human resource managers think that, by supplying staff with basic training in occupational health and safety, they have got all the skills required to prevent an incident. Realistically however, staff need much more than the basics in safety regulations and risk assessment. Equipping your employees, providing a good supervisior and encouraging regular practise are fundamental to the safety at work.

All teams must have an excellent supervisor to watch staff performance, but this individual also needs to play a greater role on the floor. A supervisor needs to be enthusiastic and also think that training is important.

As well as encouraging compliance with health and safety regulations, a supervisor’s role also often includes maintaining staff performance levels. This isn’t a easy task. An efficient supervisor is required to have an extensive understanding of the industry and production in addition to an in depth familiarity with current regulations with regard to safety, risk assessment and CPR.

Offering health and safety training really isn’t adequate for your staff. To positively identify a hazard they need practical experience. Employees have to know how to eliminate safety risks and how to act when something goes wrong. Not until these procedures have become habitual are workers totally protected. Instruction is by all accounts not sufficient if you don’t have safety gear. If they don’t possess the appropriate equipment or alternatively if they see that equipment is not working correctly in a crisis, then all the education your employees have completed is in vain.

It’s a good idea to inspect often to ascertain if you have everything you need and to make sure it is working properly too. Should you have a problem with your safety apparatus, ensure that it is rectified as soon as you can and return it to the right location. Health and safety education is essential for the safety of your staff, but they also require the right equipment, the chance to practise, and a supervisor who can motivate your staff. If you put this advice into practice you should find that health and safety legislation will be a part of everyone’s working habits instead of an inconvenience everyone has to attempt to remember all the time.

For corporate Human Resources representatives, it is not an unusual occurrence for a staff member to spent as much as eight hours a week maiking phone calls and checking information for Employment Verification purposes. Not only is this process extremely time consuming, it also creates an issue with a position is in critical need of being filled and cannot be done so immediately due to this lengthy process. You can outsource this work easily through an online service specifically designed to perform these types of duties quickly and efficiently. Because this process would be outsourced and no longer performed in-house, the cost to the company would be less than most professionals would earn by working for a half an hour. This adds up to a healthy savings for the corporation over the old fashion method.

Depending on how fast the answer is from the previous employer, you should usually receive the requested information from the employee verification rather promptly. It is good to keep in mind that any previous employer can also include any employee performance, attendance, or any other information viewed as suitable for verification purposes. This kind of information can help you understand the attitude, performance, job skills, and personality of the prospective employee and can assist you in making informed hiring decisions. You owe it to your employees and your business to make sure you hire the right person for the job initially.

Any business can go online and employ other links that can help to find other companies who perform different kind of background checks for a fee. Additionally, these links will allow you to choose by the certain location of your company. Many companies such as schools and school bus transportation will find links for many of the thorough background checks that are necessary in order to protect our children from harm. As the Human Resource representative has many particular jobs to perform, it is wise to dedicate their time to more serious matters than employee verifications of work history. This will eradicate the need to store private employee histories in an unsafe file cabinet.

Effective human resource management skills are very important for business success. These skills can be improved and learned. Having a natural skill for communicating with people and building relationships may be an advantage, all the same there are some skills you can learn that will make this procedure simple. Developing relationships: Begin by remembering staff’s names. Speak to staff; get eye contact during a conversation. Show respect, and listen to everything the other person has to say, even if you don’t agree or have a different viewpoint. The development of listening skills is among the most important things you can do to improve your talent management skills. Show an interest in what everyone can give to the team.

Show integrity: Keeping your word is key. When your word is not kept, it can damage trust, and individuals will not offer you their best efforts if they can’t trust you. Each time you make a commitment or give your word on something, ensure that you can deliver or don’t bother giving your word at all. The truth is, if your people can’t depend on your promises, they can’t be trusted on to be there if you really need them.

Be open to feedback: Feedback must be a mutual process. People management skills mean being receptive to all feedback. If you can establish accessibility and receptiveness, you establish that you respect other’s feedback, and they should appreciate your ideas. Open discourse in addition encourages creative troubleshooting, innovative methods of achieving goals, and develops the team. By giving the team to express their thoughts, the project will become important to each member. Promote communication: Dealing with employees comes down to the same concept - good communication. Be accessible, listen closely to people, retain an open mind, and encourage each of your staff to express themselves. Staff must be encouraged to speak to each other as well as with you. The creative process depends heavily on the open exchange of ideas, and by listening to each other, it is easy to discover any issues before they might present problems, and corrections may be put in place before matters get out of hand.

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Some time will be necessary, but the payoffs far outweigh the work. Through promoting a good team dynamic and taking on board what your team has to offer, a flourishing business will be achieved.

Yes, I know that the title may have either spooked you or made you laugh but I’m glad that you made it past that initial reaction because if you’re a manager this may be one of the most important articles that you’ll read.

There are individuals who think that conflict is not only unavoidable in an organization it is the “creative driving force” that keeps it afloat.

Well I’d like to dispel both of these beliefs here and now.

What is consumed when a conflict situation is in progress?

Well, energy of course!

Whose energy? The energy of those involved in the conflict. If that energy is meant to be directed at some more creative goal like moving the organization in a positive direction then it is also the organizational creative life energy that is being consumed. After all the organizational energy resources are dictated by the energy of its employees, correct?

So in this light “conflict” is just like the friction that exists in you car. Friction has only one purpose, if you can call it that. That purpose is to consume energy and convert it into wasted heat energy or entropy that then can do no work. In other words it reduces the efficiency of the energy conversion process in your car.

In the same way “conflict” reduces the efficiency in which your organizational energy resources are converted into viable products and/or services.

No matter how you look at it this is what happens whenever you have conflict occurring.

Now as I said some believe that conflict can be productive. For instance isn’t that why teams and team work originally came into vogue? Isn’t it thought that having many individuals in a room together “fighting” with each other over their differences is supposed to create wonderful new insights?

Well have you ever been in such a situation? How does it feel to be there? If you’re conscious enough to remember the feelings you likely recall some or all of the following;
feeling angry, frustrated, tired or drained of energy, doubting yourself, inadequate, ganged up on, vulnerable, anxious, confused, having trouble concentrating, stressed out, hurt, and so on.

So what is this a description of? Well it’s essentially that of an individual who is experiencing “trauma”. Yes, trauma!

Emotional trauma has been shown to reduce emotional and physical well being, increase stress levels, reduce creativity, reduce energy levels, accelerate burnout in employees, lead to indecisiveness, increase rates of anxiety & depression, reduce motivation levels, and yes, reduce performance!

So what ever little creativity was “squeezed” out of that team session it came at a very high price if there was a lot of conflict present.

So is it possible to have a “conflict free” organization? If so what are the benefits?

Yes!

The benefits include the following:

Enthusiastic, confident, resilient and risk averse individuals who work with each other in an effortless, creative, passionate, energetic, exuberant, and exceptionally purposeful and productive manner.

How is this possible? Well through a new organizational coaching modality called the Mind Resonance Process(TM) (MRP) it is possible to essentially take the “friction” out of the organization.

This is done through individual and group coaching to help individuals become aware of and address the unconsciously held beliefs that originally create the potential for conflict in the first place.

You see, it is these beliefs which lie dormant in each individual that act like “emotional landmines” (please see my article of the same title) and that set off energy wasting conflicts.

To learn more or to schedule an introductory consultation for yourself or your organization kindly visit the web link below.

Dr. Nick Arrizza is trained in Chemical Engineering, Business Management & Leadership, Medicine and Psychiatry. He is an Energy Psychiatrist, Healer, Key Note Speaker,Editor of a New Ezine Called “Spirituality And Science” (which is requesting high quality article submissions) Author of “Esteem for the Self: A Manual for Personal Transformation” (available in ebook format on his web site), Stress Management Coach, Peak Performance Coach & Energy Medicine Researcher, Specializes in Life and Executive Performance Coaching, is the Developer of a powerful new tool called the Mind Resonance Process(TM) that helps build physical, emotional, mental and spiritual well being by helping to permanently release negative beliefs, emotions, perceptions and memories. He holds live workshops, international telephone coaching sessions and international teleconference workshops on Physical. Emotional, Mental and Spiritual Well Being.

Web Site: http://www.telecoaching4u.com

In its simplest form, bartering involves an equal trade. One business swaps a good or service for another. A lawyer, for example, may swap a few hours of legal assistance for a stay at an out-of-town hotel.

Through professional barter exchanges, where members pay a commission for goods or services traded, more complicated trades are possible. Here’s how it works: A business lists a good or service for trade through the exchange. In return, the business receives a trade credit based on the dollar value of the good or service offered. The business can then use its trade credits to “purchase” goods or services offered by other members. The result is that the business is hooked up with a network of actively bartering businesses.

Bartering enables businesses to trade excess time or inventory for the products and services they need. Trading excess inventory can be a great way for companies to supplement their advertising budgets. For example, if a company has merchandise in excess inventory, it can liquidate those products. Or, it can trade the products through an exchange where it often will receive trade credits for the full wholesale value of those products. The company can then use those trade credits to purchase advertising. So, by bartering, the company is gaining on two fronts: it’s receiving top dollar for excess inventory and it’s able to do more advertising that it would otherwise be able to do.

Take a radio station that wants an economical way to entertain its top advertising clients. The station may offer advertising time and trade its barter credits in for meals at a local restaurant. The restaurant might trade its credits in for computer equipment. And the computer company might trade its credits in for radio ads. Three separate businesses have taken part in a buy and sell transaction without ever exchanging a dime.

The network of goods and services available through barter is growing. Today’s barter exchange may have as many as a few thousand members nationwide. As bartering becomes more popular, some barter exchanges are starting to trade with each other, further expanding the bartering opportunities available to their members.

By bartering, businesses can acquire the goods or services they need without tapping into their cash flow. Bartering also bolsters the bottom line by enabling businesses to trade away excess inventory or resources. A hotel, for example, can fill empty rooms during its off season, a print shop can run jobs during what would normally be a slow time or a newspaper can fill up its advertising space.

Bartering also provides another way of advertising your business. By bringing together buyers and sellers who may not have used each other’s services before, bartering can introduce your company to new customers. These may be one-time customers or people who come back to purchase goods or services once they’ve become acquainted with the business.

Companies that actively barter may do as much as 5 to 10 percent of their business annually through trades. That adds up. The National Trade Association, based in Niles, Illinois, is one of the nation’s largest barter exchanges. And the ability to barter is not limited by size. The corporate giant all the way down to the one-person, at-home business–and everyone in between–all can use barter as part of their business transactions.

Barter exchanges typically charge a one-time membership fee. Some exchanges also may extend a line of credit to new members. That way, they can start using credits before they’ve sold anything through a successful trade. Barter exchanges also offer the advantage that they don’t require an even trade. You can use credits accumulated for one item to trade for several different items that together add up to your total credits. So you can use the credits you earn by trading carpeting to one company to secure, say, a rental car, a hotel room and a meal at a restaurant.

Business people who want to get involved in trading should remember that there is no tax advantage to bartering. Barter and cash transactions are the same in the eyes of the Internal Revenue Service–both are taxed equally. In fact, bartering exchanges must report goods and services sold through barter to the IRS.

Bartering also offers no guarantees. Some trades may happen quickly, others may take some time. An item a lot of people want, such as airline tickets, may be snapped up right away, while carpeting may take a few months to trade.

And you can’t always count on getting what you want when you want it through barter. The amount of certain goods and services available for trade may fluctuate during the year. For example, a computer technician trading his services may not be available to fix your computer on a moment’s notice. He’s going to be offering his services during his downtime, which might not coincide with your computer breakdown. Likewise, a carpet store may offer enough carpeting in trade to cover your office floors, but the carpet selection may be limited. And you’ll probably be hard-pressed to find a Florida hotel room over the Easter holiday.

But you have to weigh the disadvantages against the advantages. Bartering turns your downtime or excess inventory into valuable commodities. It increases your sales while enabling you to purchase goods or services you need without dipping into your cash.

So while bartering may impose some limits, it can still provide advantages to the business traveler. You may not be able to trade for a hotel room or car rental during peak travel seasons, but you’ll probably be able to pay for at least some of your travel expenses during the year through trade. Bartering may also provide an added bonus: You may discover a great restaurant or comfortable hotel you might have otherwise overlooked if it weren’t for bartering.

Remember, to make bartering work, you have to be patient, you have to persevere and you have to pick and choose what you want to purchase through barter.

And don’t think that you have to limit bartering to business. Bartering may be a great way for a busy business owner to take a vacation. There’s no rule that says that the trade credits you rack up for selling excess inventory has to go toward carpet for your office or dinner out with a client. You can trade those credits in for an out-of-town hotel stay–just for the fun of it!

Jack Schacht is president of the National Trade Association, one of the country’s leading barter exchanges headquartered in Niles, Illinois, http://www.ntatrade.com. He can be reached by contacting JoannePR@aol.com.

Many of the world’s corporations today suffer from low employee morale and productivity, which lead to poor-quality products and services, and higher costs. This is because managers today in most corporations lack the listening, feedback, and delegation skills needed to enhance employee commitment and improve productivity.

Successful organizations today must have managers who motivate and inspire their employees, not beat them down. Successful managers must see themselves not just as bosses, but as performance coaches. A manager must be able to provide employee training, help employees enhance their careers, and mentor them to become the best they can be.

A company’s workforce must be nurtured and developed. It’s not enough to throw training at employees and hope for the best. Yet this is what many organizations do. For example, employee training and development is not tied to the organization’s business objectives. It is often conducted in a vacuum, unrelated to problems facing the organization. As a result, employees don’t receive the training they need to perform adequately.

In many organizations, training results are considered less important than the activity itself. Organizations pump out training courses and are satisfied as long as employees attend. Whether employees retain anything, or can apply what they’ve learned to the job, is immaterial. It’s the activity, not the results, that count.

Coaching is a philosophy in developing people. It’s based on the hands-on experience and on-the-job knowledge of you, the manager, not textbook or theoretical training conducted by training professionals.

Unlike training professionals, you must be focused on the company’s business objectives. As a coach, you need to make sure that employees receive on-target training relevant to those objectives. You are also accountable for the performance of employees being trained. Thus, for you it’s results that count, not the training activity. No more training just for training sake.

Coaching also means breaking up training into small units that last only a few hours. This eliminates launching a tidal wave of information at employees that they forget as soon as they step out of the classroom. But coaching isn’t just about training. It’s also about developing the full potential of employees, helping to identify and grow the personality and performance strengths that will make them better employees.

For many managers, training and coaching employees is just another task to be added to their already overflowing agenda. For this reason most organizations view employee development as an activity irrelevant to the job they must accomplish. They see it as an investment of their time with no return. This way of thinking is wrong. Because coaching will create employees who are confident and ambitious, and this will give you a tremendous return on your investment, which will in turn get results.

In traditional organizations that were part of the Industrial Age, professional trainers were people skilled in learning theory, program design, delivery, and were responsible for training. But in the new organizations of the Information Age, managers are ultimately accountable for employee performance, productivity, and the training of employees.

Successful coaching begins with performing the task of the manager-trainer better. To do this managers must have both knowledge and experience in the subject they are teaching. You have to convince employees that you know what you’re talking about. And employees want to know that what they’re learning comes from real-life situations, not books or company reports.

To learn, employees must pay attention to what is being taught. One of the most effective ways to keep employee’s attention is by using diversionary methods such as games or exercises. Employees are thus learning without making any special effort to concentrate on the learning process. Always conduct your training in plain, intelligent, and understandable language.

Training must be tied to a frame of reference that employees can understand. The new material must be associated to something the employee is familiar with, such as an experience, a related topic, or a mastered process. The material must be applicable to the job, and the employee must know how to apply it for training to be truly effective.

The best learning process challenges employees to study for themselves. Don’t just hand information over. Make the material exciting enough to stimulate employees to seek out, understand, and master the information. The acquired material will then be more memorable than if it is simply received on a platter.

Review the material to make sure that employees fully understand it, and know how to apply it to their jobs. At the end of the training, both the trainer and the employees should be evaluated. Different evaluations should measure how much employees learned, their attitudes toward training as a result of the training sessions they just had, and the impact of the training on employee performance and organizational objectives.

The primary purpose of coaching is to help employees consider alternatives and make decisions regarding their careers. While this is clearly beneficial to the employee, coaching also helps the organization by getting the right person in the right job. It prevents organizations from investing too much time and money in employees who are not suited for certain jobs or responsibilities.

Coaches are able to identify deficiencies in employees and find strategies to help them overcome these deficiencies, through training, reading, and research. It also highlights advancement possibilities for employees, encouraging them to stay with the organization.

To be a successful coach, employees must be willing to confide in you. There must be a climate of open communication between you and your employees. It is only in this type of climate that employees will speak fearlessly and comfortably about issues affecting their jobs and careers. But, a positive communications climate has to be more than paying “my door is always open” lip service. Employees have to believe that you are sincerely concerned for their well being.

Once you’ve created an open environment, the stage is set for you to have a good coaching program in place. Now’s the time to call on your interpersonal communication. Such as, showing empathy, understanding, and creating trust in employees. You have to be an active listener, in which you are more interested in what employees have to say than in hearing your own voice, and questioning to clarify employee comments, not get in the drivers seat.

To be a good coach you must be able to reflect on what employees have said, paraphrasing, clarifying, interpreting, or summarizing their feelings and thoughts. Once you have summarized employees thoughts and feelings, you can then determine the most appropriate next steps to follow.

One of the most important parts of coaching is creating a mentoring relationship with your employees. Mentoring allows you to share your experiences with your employees and help them achieve the same level of success as you. As they benefit from your experience, they avoid the mistakes that can set back or ruin their careers.

Mentoring helps employees adjust to the organizational culture and fit in. It also helps you become a caring, sympathetic, and patient manager. You learn to listen to the fears and frustrations of your employees, as well as their successes. In addition, mentoring can increase your motivation and enthusiasm toward your career as you help employees walk the same path you followed.

To become a good mentor you have to create a network of contacts with various departments and hierarchical levels. This will provide you with knowledge about the organization’s history, philosophy, and strategic direction that you need to give to your employees. You also have to allow freedom so that your employees are exposed to different values, beliefs, and goals that are necessary to help them grow. Give your employees the freedom of choice, while making sure the chosen mentor has the necessary qualifications.

For a mentoring relationship to be successful there must be personal chemistry between managers and employees. The best mentoring relationships go beyond the strict goals of mentoring. They enhance and encourage the confidence and creativity of both the manager who is guiding the employee and the employee who is learning how to succeed.

Becoming a good coach takes both time and effort. You have to build close, open relationships with your workers slowly. And, you have to learn the techniques to be an effective trainer and mentor. Before you decide you don’t have time for coaching, ask yourself: Do you want to get the least from unhappy workers? Or do you want to be a manager of the future, laying the groundwork for the success of your employees, and your company. The choice is yours.

Copyright© 2005 by Joe Love and JLM & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide.

Joe Love draws on his 25 years of experience helping both individuals and companies build their businesses, increase profits, and achieve total success. He is the founder and CEO of JLM & Associates, a consulting and training organization, specializing in personal and business development. Through his seminars and lectures, Joe Love addresses thousands of men and women each year, including the executives and staffs of many of America’s largest corporations, on the subjects of leadership, self-esteem, goals, achievement, and success psychology.

Reach Joe at: joe@jlmandassociates.com

Read more articles and newsletters at: http://www.jlmandassociates.com

The need for constant reinvention is a given in today’s business environment. And while a breakthrough product or concept can catapult an organization ahead of its competitors, in these fast-paced times, that advantage is often short-lived.

While major product or service breakthroughs make headlines, it’s the steady incremental innovations made by employees every day that give an organization the sustained growth it needs.

Sustained innovation comes from developing a collective sense of purpose; from unleashing the creativity of people throughout your organization and from teaching them how to recognize unconventional opportunities.

As innovative ideas surface, a clear sense of mission empowers front-line employees to act on new ideas that further your company’s purpose.

It Starts at the Top

Leaders create the psychological environment that fosters sustained innovation at all levels. The challenge is that as an organization grows, management structures and bureaucracies, designed to channel growth, tend to create barriers to small-scale enhancements.

While there are exceptions, in larger organizations employees tend to feel removed from the function of innovation and are less likely to take independent action or offer revolutionary ideas.

The commitment to establishing the right psychological conditions for innovation needs to start at the top. This means that, as a leader, you need to consider your own assumptions about innovation and their role in creating and changing your organization’s culture.

You need to appreciate the value of incremental as well as major innovations, understand the psychology of innovation and take the lead in promoting an innovative culture. Otherwise, it’s just not going to happen.

While your organization’s innovative capability depends on multiple factors, there are several steps you can take to create the psychological conditions that favor inventive thinking, regardless of your industry or the size of your organization.

Establish A Clear Sense of Direction

Changing cultures involves changing minds, and that takes time. But as with any initiative, a clear sense of the target helps to speed the journey.

Your organization’s mission helps to organize and direct the creativity of its people. What is the purpose of consistent innovation in your enterprise? Is it to add customer value to existing products and services…to speed delivery…to increase on-time arrivals?

Having a clearly articulated message allows everyone to focus on innovation where it can deliver the greatest value. Innovation, as Peter Drucker has defined it, means creating a new dimension of performance. A sense of mission clarifies the direction of performance and helps determine which new ideas to focus on.

Open Communication

Open communication between management and employees sets the stage for an atmosphere of trust. But if you want to establish a new, more trusting culture, you can’t expect employees to take the first step.

Company leadership initiates the process of open communication by sharing information with employees on a regular basis. This includes good news and bad.

Southwest Airlines policy of sharing information enabled the company to weather the sudden increase in fuel costs during the 1990-91 Gulf War. The company kept everyone informed as fuel prices soared. Southwest’s CEO Herb Kelleher sent a memo to pilots asking for their help. Through inventive thinking, the pilots found ways to rapidly drop fuel consumption without compromising safety or service.

Leaders of organizations that sustain innovation offer multiple opportunities for communication.

While not every company can offer an open-door policy for its senior executives, or even a chance for regular face-to-face contact, every organization can institute programs that enable front-line workers to feel heard. From CEO lunches with cross-sections of employees, to monthly division meetings between employees and the general manager, to open intranet forums for idea sharing and feedback, leaders can communicate their openness to hearing innovative ideas from those who are closest to the customer.

Reduce bureaucracy

While larger organizations are often considered less entrepreneurial and inventive than their smaller counterparts, it’s not the size of your company that inhibits innovation — it’s the systems. Bureaucracy slows down action and is a serious impediment to innovation.

Smaller organizations can often move faster on implementing innovative ideas because they have less bureaucracy. When Jack Welch was reengineering General Electric he said, “My goal is to get the small company’s soul and small company’s speed inside our big company.”

Faster implementation encourages further inventive thinking. Think for a minute. If you had an idea for an innovation, and it required 6 weeks to clear channels and another 3 weeks to get funding, would you have lost any impetus for further contribution?

Instill A Sense of Ownership

An ownership mentality creates a powerful incentive for inventive thinking. When an individual is clearly aware of how his or her interests are aligned with those of the company, he or she has a strong reason to “go the extra mile” to further the mission.

Stock ownership is a significant, if not essential, incentive for employees. However on its own, profit-sharing doesn’t guarantee your employees will think like owners.

When employees don’t see how their individual efforts affect company profitability, they tend to be passive and reactive. To encourage greater involvement, make sure each employee knows how his or her work affects company performance.

Southwest gave pilots the freedom to design and implement a plan to reduce fuel consumption because they were in the best position to determine what would be effective. Pilots pitched in enthusiastically because they understood the impact their actions had on the bottom-line and ultimately, on their own futures.

Make Sure Recognition and Rewards are Consistent

While financial rewards are often tied to innovations, rewarding only the individual or team responsible for the “big idea” or its implementation, sets up a subtle competitive atmosphere that discourages the smaller, less dramatic improvements.

Even team-based compensation can be counterproductive if teams are set up to compete with each other for rewards. These incentives discourage the cross functional collaboration so critical to maximal performance.

Companies that successfully foster an innovation culture design rewards that reinforce the culture they want to establish. If your organization values integrated solutions, you cannot compensate team leaders based on unit performance. If your company values development of new leaders, you cannot base rewards on short-term performance.

A Tolerance for Risk and Failure

Tolerating a certain degree of failure as a necessary part of growth is an important part of encouraging innovation. Innovation is a risk. Employees won’t take risks unless they understand goals clearly, have a clear but flexible framework in which to operate and understand that failures are recognized as simply steps in the learning process.

Toyota’s Production System transfers quality management and innovation authority to front-line plant workers. Workers are able to make adjustments in their work if they see an opportunity for improvement. If the innovation works, it’s incorporated into operations, if not, it’s chalked up to experience.

A major psychological benefit of Toyota’s method is the development of trust. Employees who trust their bosses are more likely to take intelligent risks that have potential benefit for the company.

Eliminate Projects and Processes that Don’t Work

As your organization innovates you need to practice what Peter Drucker calls “creative abandonment.” Projects and processes that no longer contribute should be abandoned to make room for new, progressive activities.

While no organization wants to squander financial resources on unprofitable activities, it is actually the irreplaceable resource of time and employee energy that is wasted if a company holds on to the old way of doing things.

Innovation requires optimism. It’s about an attitude of continually reaching for higher performance. You can’t expect employees to maintain an optimistic attitude if they feel compelled to continue in activities that are going nowhere.

© 2005 Dr. Robert Karlsberg & Dr. Jane Adler

Dr. Robert Karlsberg and Dr. Jane Adler are senior leadership consultants and founders of Strategic Leadership LLC. They work with senior executives to maximize performance, facilitate transitions and accelerate major change initiatives. Contact them at 301-530-5611 or visit http://www.ExecutiveEffectiveness.com

What would your life be like if you kept doing everything the same way? If you stood still for the next 10 or 20 years and didn’t make progress with anything? If you stayed stuck in the same situations that you’re in now?

If you stayed at the same job, with the same pay, lived at the same apartment? What if nothing changed but the years? You still would have goals and dreams but what if you never took action on any of them?

How long are you going to go through the same story lines like the soap operas do? Just changing the names and faces as time rolls on. Is it going to take one, two or even ten years for you to figure it out? What is it going to take for you to realize that you are just replaying the same events over and over again?

You say you want to make a change in your life but you are afraid to take that first step. If you don’t move you won’t get anywhere. You’ll be stuck in the same situations and will repeat them over and over again. You can’t let your fear keep you frozen. If you do you’ll only have a life full of regrets and what ifs.

Are you willing to forget your dreams and repeat the same scenarios for the rest of your life? Only to say that you lived a safe life. And what’s the point of life if you don’t take risks every now and then?

Is it worth it for you to go after your dreams? What’s the worst that can happen? Sure there’s that possibility of failure. But you can’t succeed at anything in life if you don’t at least give it a try.

Fear of failure can be paralyzing. You need to break yourself free from the grip of fear. The only thing worse than failure is not trying at all. You know you have the potential within you so take the chance of a lifetime and go for it. Reach for your dreams. You just might go further than you expected.

Failure is not a bad word, it’s just another experience that you have the opportunity to learn and grow from. So don’t be afraid of it. Besides if you do fail you might find a way to reach you dreams that you wouldn’t have thought of before. So if you don’t try and give yourself a chance to succeed or fail you’re holding out on many of life’s possibilities.

Stay focused on your dream and make it happen. Isn’t it worth it?

About The Author

Selena Richardson, webmaster of http://www.creationjourneys.com is a believer that you can create your journey in life. Visit her site for more information or subscribe to her free newsletter, Creative Possibilities by sending a blank email to mailto:subscribe-cpossibilities@creationjourneys.com

selena@creationjourneys.com