ELECTRONIC HOUSE CALL - March 10, 2000

WE HAVE MET THE ENEMY...AND HE IS (STILL) US!
This from my colleague Ron Scott:

Just a thought on retention. My son works at a [national chain] unit here in the Memphis area. He is trying to earn a living and save for school. He was promised health benefits after 90 days employment. Following his 90-day requirement, he kept asking the manager where his health care was. The manager kept putting him off with excuses that blamed the head office. Finally fed up with the run-around, he contacted the head office and was told that he was required to work an average of 32 hours a week. His manager had been sending him home early on some days resulting in him working an average of 31 hours a week. He is a great employee, dedicated, honest, sober and hard working (he has become their lead area training person). He will be leaving as soon has he finds a more honest employer.

We should give employees no less than we expect from them in way of integrity and honesty or retention will just be a strange word.

A note from the Doc:
The only way to teach it is to live it. Don't sweep it under the rug thinking "you just can't find good help anymore" or "these kids today have no work ethic." What they see is what you will get!

NO CHEESE DOWN THIS TUNNEL
I know of a company who has just decided that what their managers need is training in conflict resolution. On the surface there is nothing wrong with this . . . except that you cannot eliminate conflicts by becoming proficient at techniques for coping with conflict (which is all conventional training will provide) and coping techniques are unlikely to result in any long-term resolutions, anyway.

You will only eliminate conflicts when the managers' understanding shifts to a place where they do not even see conflicts any more. This is not a "head in the sand" approach -- actually quite the opposite. When "conflicts" are understood for what they are -- innocent symptoms of thinking -- they just look like one more minor thing to handle. In fact, they hardly require any effort at all to resolve and often resolve themselves without the need for third party intervention.

You cannot get to good feelings by going into bad feelings. Don't try to eliminate conflicts by going deeper into the conflict . . . and don't waste time solving a problem you can eliminate!

WOULDN'T IT BE COOL IF . . .
As many of you know, I have been doing a major consulting project for the coffee industry. I was having dinner in Orlando tonight with the head of the project and he would like to find out how operators are presently handling coffee in their operations. I said that a questionnaire is fine, but that all of you were too busy to fill one out unless there was something in it for the extra effort :-).

He said, "OK. What would be a good incentive?" I figured that the best way to find out what would work is to ask you (duh!) so I want to toss it back for an opinion.

What would make it interesting enough to spend a few minutes filling out an online survey? The options are roughly these: 1) a cash reward ($20 or so) for everyone who fills out the questionnaire and/or 2) a couple of major prizes to be selected at random from the people returning a completed questionnaire. By major, I mean something personal with a retail value of up to $1000 -- big screen TV, a computer, digital camera, a trip, a custom-made Italian suit, whatever.

I want to give him some feedback by early next week, so if you want to name your own reward, just send me an e-mail and let me know what would get you excited. Let your imagination run wild. I will let you know what happens.

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