STAYING POWER

STAYING POWER

CATS Recruit, 27 February 2013

Effective human resource management is critical in helping public relations agencies to retain their talent 

A HIGH staff attrition rate is a common problem in the public relations (PR) world. If communication consultancies want to tackle this trend head on, their human resource (HR) departments must take centre stage and play a critical role in recruiting and retaining top talent.

Their familiarity with the intricacies of the business, implementing employment engagement strategies and the ability to customise approaches to suit the agency culture and employees are imperative to both retaining and attracting staff.

This goes together with the importance of using effective line managers to ensure every employee knows that there is someone at the agency who cares about their career and well-being.

Essentially, regular catch-up meetings and a well-structured mentor scheme can be invaluable in offering employees a platform to ask the types of questions they couldn’t otherwise ask in a more formal forum, such as a staff meeting.

The need to be valued
What can compel staff to stay is the irreplaceable feeling that they are highly valued members of a team. Praise and recognition need to be duly rendered. This will in turn promote both the individual’s and agency’s success, while crafting a comfortable working environment.

Without this, high-achieving staff will burn out and opt to leave for a different agency environment. In fact, recognition doesn’t have to come purely in the form of remuneration. It can be as simple as sending an e-mail message at the end of a project to say “job well done”.

Better still, putting in place a clearly crafted career development plan, making known future opportunities and training staff from the ground up can enhance retention by preparing them for a strong future in the agency.

With a clear picture of career goals and objectives, employees can aspire to climb the corporate ladder and envisage a future for themselves at the agency.

A chance to travel
Increasingly, such opportunities are expected to come with the chance to travel and experience different working lives and cultures.

Thus, agencies that can offer varied and diversified roles, including foreign travel. In addition, agencies that can offer secondments or transfers to different offices around the region or the world are much more likely not only to retain employees with a desire to travel, but also gain an even more experienced and cultured employee at the end of his trip abroad.

Sharing success
On both the local and global level, staff also ought to feel that they are contributing to one another’s success. Here, collaboration is key. Agencies can expedite this process by integrating social media tools such as Yammer, an internal collaboration tool, to stay connected with their teams all over the world by sharing thoughts, content and ideas.

Attracting talent
The ability of HR personnel to staff the teams effectively by playing off one another’s weaknesses and strengths can ensure a high quality of work for both clients and staff on the account.

Social media is also increasingly vital, especially from an attraction point of view. Companies can use social media as a key platform to showcase their agency culture and leverage extensive social networks to source and attract the best talent. Platforms such as LinkedIn can reach out to people with relevant experience in the region.

One of the best ways PR agencies can choose to remain relevant in a constantly changing communications landscape is by managing its HR function effectively, in a way that is best fitted to the agency.

Through implementing a variety of tools such as training and engaging staff, ensuring employee satisfaction and creating a desirable working environment, high attrition rates can be alleviated over time.

DON’T PULL THE PLUG

DON’T PULL THE PLUG

CATS Recruit, 28 February 2013

Don’t pull the plug 
Recognise the importance of administrative support personnel as connectors

MALCOLM Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point, notes that there are three types of people involved in the phenomenon of word of mouth, and one of them is “connectors”.

While Gladwell is looking at character traits to clarify personality types, it seems to me that the same can be said for different positions as a function of a job. Certain careers seem to bring out the connector in all of us, and one of those careers is that of administrative support. While the various roles of administrative support personnel (admins) are constantly changing over time, one role never seems to change much: being a connector.

Admins are constantly learning about building relationships and making connections with people — co-workers, clients and managers. But a fact that often goes unnoticed is that admins actually are the connectors in companies.

Who do you connect with?
If this is your role, let’s start by looking at the different departments or people you regularly deal with on a daily basis as a function of your job. Perhaps they include clients or customers, other admins, company management, your boss, travel agents, information technology (IT) staff, accountants and others in the finance department and human resource representatives. The list goes on and on.

Now, what do these different people have in common? The fact that they all connect to each other through you.

You might take the information provided by human resources and sort it for your boss so that she can hire a new employee. You have just connected your boss to human resources as well as some external hopefuls.

Maybe you need the input of a travel agent to provide the finance department with dollar figures so they can arrange the expense account for payroll to cut a cheque for your boss’s trip to a convention.

Here you have connected four people or groups: the travel agent, your boss, the finance accountant and the payroll admin.

Why do you connect?
You might say that you connect with all these different people and departments because it is almost like a side effect of your daily duties. After all, how can you arrange that trip without talking to the finance department and the travel agent? The reason you are a connector, though, lies much deeper in the modern business model.

The business model of corporations — which has filtered down and pervades many small and medium businesses too — is that of separation of functions. People tend to work in groups, or pods, that are constructed based on function: finance, payroll, design, engineering, quality, technical writing, information technology, benefits and so on.

These pods are useful for many reasons, including:
• They make distribution of information easier;
• They provide support from co-workers who are familiar with the field; and
• They even create a sense of teamwork based on that familiarity.
The current business model, however, requires that all of those pods have a connector of some sort.
That’s where administrative support comes into the picture. Admins are the connectors that tie all these pods together.

They create the hubs around which all the other staff are able to work with one another. They unite the disparate groups and, as a result, create a company-wide team spirit.

How do you connect?
The ways you connect with groups and individuals are probably as varied as the number of groups you deal with. You probably have a lot of face-to-face time with your own boss, while other department heads might be reached mostly by phone. Contact with individuals in other departments probably includes a lot of e-mail or text messages, while folks outside the company are likely accessed via a blend of phone and e-mail.

This is why it is so important for admins to be great communicators. To make the company work like a well-oiled machine, admins must be able to communicate well, which in turn will build relationships that will allow them to not only make, but also to maintain, those connections.

Don’t get unplugged
Keep this idea in mind when you are dealing with others, both within your organisation and outside it. If something caused all the admins in your company to be unplugged at the same time, the pods might still function, but the company as a whole would definitely not work as well.

You are the connectors that create the hubs around which the modern business model functions.

Article by Shirley Taylor, a professional speaker, trainer and author. She is hosting a conference for administrators and secretaries in Singapore in April. Find out more from liz@sttstraining.com or www.sttstraining.com/ASSAP/

DON’T PLAY THE BLAME GAME

DON’T PLAY THE BLAME GAME

CATS Recruit, 5 March 2013

Create a workplace culture where learning — rather than avoiding mistakes — is the norm 

“To err is human; to blame it on the other guy is even more human.” — Bob Goddard

WE ARE all tempted to point the finger of blame at someone else when things go wrong. Does this “not my fault” attitude lead to solutions or does it ultimately tear your workplace apart?

When mistakes happen, through no fault of your own, it is easy to point out loudly and in great detail just whose mistake it is and how it is not at all your fault. However, this does not correct the error; it only adds to the tension and will probably create bad feelings between you and your co-workers. It is much more productive to sit down and talk about why the mistake was made, what the impact was, how to fix the problem and how to ensure it doesn't happen again.

“To err is human, but to really foul things up you need a computer.” — Paul Ehrlich

One of the more popular responses to a mistake is to blame the computer. Yes, we have all experienced this, when our computer eats the files we needed for the big presentation coming up or when it mysteriously misplaces that important folder with all the absolutely essential information in it.

Everyone will sympathise with you when this happens — it’s probably happened to them too. Yet that sympathy does nothing to fix the problem. Isn’t it better to ensure you have backed up — multiple times, if necessary — anything and everything you may need to do your job? It is never easy to acknowledge that you are wrong, to admit culpability (for example, you did not back up those important files).

You may think it makes you look remarkably stupid. But in the long run, being able to say “Yes, I made a mistake” and then following up with a solution will be more productive and instil more confidence than if you try to shift the blame or, even worse, ignore the problem.

Do not shrug and say: “Hey, I'm only human — mea culpa (my fault)!” and then walk away. You may just get a cup of cold coffee dumped on your head.

“The man who can smile when things go wrong has thought of someone else he can blame it on.” — Robert Bloch

So how do you get through these challenging situations in which someone (you?) didn’t do the job properly? Well, you can start by creating an atmosphere of confidence and trust — and this has to come from the top. Allowing that people make mistakes and focusing on how to learn from them to ensure they don’t happen again is the first step.

This does not mean it’s okay to continually mess up. What it means is that everyone in the workplace knows mistakes are a part of the learning process. If you encourage employees and co-workers to admit their slip-ups, rather than pointing their fingers at someone — anyone — else, they are more likely to learn and be part of the team when it comes to fixing things.

It is all right to discuss how someone else’s mistake played a role, but laying the entire blame on that person really does not alleviate the situation. If you must place blame, do so constructively. Keep the focus on learning. Create a workplace culture where learning — rather than avoiding mistakes — is the reality. People who feel free to fail feel free to innovate.

Also, ensure there is no tolerance for blame in the workplace. This means not succumbing to the blame game yourself. As tempting as it is to jump up and down, pointing a finger of blame at someone else, calling, “He did it! He did it!”, restrain yourself. Remember, that is not the example you want to set if you want to encourage accountability and trust in others.

Article by Faith Wood, the founder of Inspiring Minds Consulting. As a trainer, coach and human behaviour specialist, she focuses on developing interpersonal communication tools you can have faith in. Visit http://www.imind.ca to learn more. Article source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Faith_Wood

GET THE WORD OUT

GET THE WORD OUT

CATS Classified, 5 March 2013
Written by Belinda Wan

After you have set up your business, and secured your contacts and customers, you should nurture your venture by marketing it well. 

We often hear the term “marketing” being bandied about, but what does it mean? Marketing can be loosely defined as “the action or business of selling and promoting products or services”. This seemingly simple explanation is by no means definitive, and belies the fact that there are at least 200 forms of marketing around.

Contrary to popular belief, marketing is not advertising – the latter is merely a part of the former. Marketing is about creating a desire for your product or service – in short, about employing specific strategies to make a product fly off the shelves. It boils down to understanding and satisfying your customer needs and wants. The ultimate in marketing success is when selling becomes unnecessary – that is, when the product sells by itself.

The concept of marketing is complex, but you need to get a good grasp of what it’s all about before you can think about how to market your business effectively to your consumers. Just think of marketing as a bridge linking consumers and producers/suppliers.

Next, you should define who you are marketing your business to. To identify your target market (or your “best” customers), ask yourself: Which group of people will most likely look at your venture as one that will answer their needs and wants? Which groups of people will find what you are offering useful or beneficial? This is what is referred to as market segmentation.

Remember the four “Ps” of marketing – product, price, promotion and place. All these components involve strategies and tactics that if employed correctly will help you reach your target customers.

To keep yourself on track, write a marketing plan, which should span a year. Refer to it on a quarterly, if not monthly, basis. Marketing is the sum of many parts, so ensure that you are using your resources effectively for the best results. Your marketing plan needs to be consistent with your business plan – as the latter sets the scene within which your marketing plan must thrive.

Lastly, know your marketing jargon. Most people mistakenly think marketing is the same thing as branding. In a nutshell, marketing “pushes” people towards your business, while branding acts as the pull factor.

Branding is a way of establishing what an organisation, product or service stands for by conveying its characteristics and traits to target consumers. It is a strategic exercise while marketing is a tactical one. However, both cannot stand alone – branding must be established before, as well as in tandem with, marketing.

A MATTER OF TRUST

A MATTER OF TRUST

CATS Recruit, 6 March 2013

Companies can increase profits and reduce competition with more transparency 

ENTREPRENEUR.COM predicts that one of the biggest trends this year is companies using transparency to build consumer trust. Yet many businesses fail to understand the importance of building and maintaining trust, and the positive impact this will have on their profits, staff retention and customer loyalty.

In his video Social Media Revolution 2013, Mr Erik Qualman notes that 90 per cent of consumers trust peer recommendations, whereas just 14 per cent trust advertisements.

Yet the vast majority of businesses still channel the bulk of any budgets in marketing or promotion into paid-for advertising. Few, if any, spend time or money on developing and executing a “Referrals and Recommendations” budget.

Mr Qualman is not alone in pointing out how important trust is in influencing buyer behaviour and purchasing decisions. Findings from a survey by Concerto Marketing Group found that when people trust a brand:
• 82 per cent will use its products and services frequently;
• 78 per cent will look to it first for what they want;
• 78 per cent will give its other products and services a chance; and
• 50 per cent will pay more for its products and services.

So why don’t more businesses focus on building high-value or high-trust relationships with their clients and customers? The benefits are huge. High trust reduces doubt, resistance and price concerns. It also increases the opportunity to re-sell, cross-sell and on-sell — not only to existing clients or customers, but to others who are recommended to you by your happy clients.

Fortunately, building and maintaining trust is relatively “E”asy. Focus on:
Emotion — As a product or service provider, logic will make you a contender, but emotion is what will seal the deal. People do business with, and buy from, people and companies they like, and trust. Engage with your customers in a way that’s emotionally positive for them and you’re more likely to win their trust and patronage.

Experience — With many consumers, almost 75 per cent of a purchase decision is based on the experience they think they will have. When all other variables are weighed up and judged as close in impact or value, the perception of a positive, enjoyable, hassle-free experience will tip the balance in your favour. Make it easy for customers to have an outstanding experience and watch your profitability soar.

Esteem — As customers and human beings, we all want to feel both valued and valuable. Treating people graciously and respectfully, before, during and after an interaction helps build trust and encourages customers to not only use you again themselves, but also recommend you to others.

Ethics — Buying from providers that behave in a way that’s transparent, fair and ethical is increasingly important for many consumers. Perfection is not necessarily expected, but transparency and honesty are. When things go wrong, acting with integrity in putting things right will help demonstrate your client-focus and commitment to making amends genuinely.

Here are other practical steps you can take to enhance the level of trust existing and potential customers have in you:
• Avoid being too different; be distinctive instead. Being different can be risky; being distinctive is valuable;
• Avoid making wild claims and promises you may not be able to deliver on. Ensure all claims are viable and realistic;
• Encourage people to try your service for minimal or no cost;
• Use suitable words and phrases — whether in written or verbal communication — that will reassure your customers and reduce perceived risk; • Identify, and tap into, any “grapevines” that may impact you and keep up-to-date with trends and concerns among your customer base. Clarify with your customers what fears and doubts they have;
• Demonstrate you are aware of the pressures customers face and pre-empt common questions to build confidence; and
• Avoid fear-based selling; focus instead on why purchasing from you will enhance your customers’ sense of value and security.

Instead of focusing solely on meeting sales targets, focus too on meeting “trust targets”. If you do, the sales will follow. The truth is, the currency of trust has never been more valuable. Strive to capitalise on the trust people have in you.

Article by Hannah Samuel, international speaker with Training Edge International and an award-winning speaker, columnist and author. She is the founder of online reputation service directory TRUSTcite. For more information, e-mail Hannah@trainingedgeasia.com or visit www.trainingedgeasia.com

RECIPE TO ENGAGE CUSTOMERS

RECIPE TO ENGAGE CUSTOMERS

CATS Recruit, 7 March 2013

Here are nine tips on content marketing you can learn from chefs 

I MAY be a lousy cook, but I am a huge fan of good cooking shows. Why? Because I can get many useful marketing lessons from world-class chefs.

In particular, chefs provide great tips on content marketing — a term that involves the creation and sharing of content to attract and engage with both current and potential customers.

Effective content marketing should provide valuable information that has a positive influence on the customer, without involving any direct sales pitch. Here are nine tips that chefs teach us about effective content marketing:

1 There is no secret recipe
Chefs share their recipes, write books, host TV shows and release tablet computer apps. Being open does not take away any business from them. Rather, it increases their reputation and helps to establish them as thought leaders. This eventually grows their business. If you want to engage better with present and prospective clients, share everything you know in the area that customers would find useful or entertaining. This could include interesting trends or funny examples of how someone benefited from a product or service. If your business depends on “hoarding” trade secrets, you do not have a sustainable business.

2 Create an audience, not just a client base
Most businesses tend to think of growing their client base. However, chefs create audiences — a group of targeted people who are always listening and tuning into their recommendations.

3 Presentation matters
No matter how good the food tastes, few people would choose a poorly presented dish. In business, presentation matters on every front, including the company website, PowerPoint presentations and even a simple name card. If you do not have the required design skills to provide the right image for the company, hire a professional designer.

4 Repeat yourself
Good chefs repeat their ingredients and methods at least once, to ensure that their audience remembers what to do. This is useful when making presentations or pitches. Your business or service solution might be the centre of your own universe, but not others’. A quick repetition by highlighting key points is a good habit.

5 Simplicity rules
Most chefs do not suggest a complex method that only experts can do or recommend a hard-to-find ingredient. Likewise, in business, simplicity is a key success factor. Edit out jargon from your sales pitches and business processes and focus on what matters to your audience.

6 Assimilate and make it your own
At the end of their cooking shows or recipes, chefs often tell the viewers or readers what they can do to substitute certain ingredients. After providing a basic template for cooking a dish, it is up to you to make it your own, by experimenting with different ingredients or changing proportions to suit your unique tastes. In business as well, you should not simply copy what others have done before you. Let your own experience guide you. Wrap your head around what you learn, assimilate it and synthesise it with your own domain expertise. This way, you not only enrich yourself — you also add to the knowledge base.

7 Try ‘new’ things
Many chefs run shows and write cookbooks over more than 10 or 15 years, and yet they manage to keep things fresh and interesting by inventing new dishes and methods. For businesses, remaining relevant is a constant challenge, requiring you to keep re-inventing and re-imagining. For example, if you produced an e-book that did not take off well, look hard at the content. Is it what the audience wants? Can you redesign some of it into an interesting infographic?

8 Don’t miss the wood for the trees
Chefs first envision how the dish will turn out. And while they are meticulous about the intermediate steps, they do not fret over the intricacies. Some things can be adjusted later and some “oops” moments could turn out to be that special touch that gourmands will love. When creating content, do not put all your efforts in the perfect headline, paragraphing, fonts, design, images and the like. Instead, be clear about the message you want your reader or viewer to have and begin from there.

9 Don’t waste your audience’s time
Good chefs are articulate and precise. When trying to communicate with your audience, be concise. This should occur across the various platforms, such as e-mail, websites, presentations and blog posts. People do not have an eternity to listen to your stories. Tell them how you are going to make their life better and rest your case.

Article by Asuthosh Nair, chief operating officer of GetIT Comms, a company that develops and implements marketing programmes, campaigns and projects for B2B organisations. For more information, visit www.b2bento.com

TAKE CHARGE WITH THE 5CS

TAKE CHARGE WITH THE 5CS

CATS Recruit, 9 March 2013

With flatter structures and fewer managers, organisations expect employees to act like leaders 

AS INDUSTRIES become more knowledge-based and workforces more qualified, there is less necessity to appoint formal leaders to supervise the work of others.

In today’s organisations, many employees carrying job titles of “manager” or even “director” are, in fact, individual contributors with no formal people-management responsibilities.

Ironically, even as we require fewer formal leaders, we need more leadership. Individuals are expected to develop expertise in their own areas of work and rely less on direction from their bosses. Everyone has to think, feel and act like a leader and exhibit self-leadership.

There are five elements to self-leadership and they are characterised by the five Cs of credibility, collaboration, change, corporate thinking and commitment:

1 Credibility
Establishing credibility is about developing the trust that others have in you. This comes from competency, commitment and character. First of all, people need to know that you can (competency) and will (commitment) honour agreements. But that is not enough.

When American civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr commented that “we have guided missiles and misguided men” in reference to the actions of the US military during the Vietnam War, he was alluding to the importance of character. To become trustworthy, your actions must be guided by moral and ethical values. You have to demonstrate that you will always choose to do the right thing, even in situations where it may be personally difficult for you.

2 Collaboration
Inevitably, during the course of your work, you will need the support of people whom you may not have any direct authority over. While it is possible to pressure others into supporting you through coercion or threats, the help that you receive in such a manner is less likely to come with real commitment.

True collaboration is built on the foundation of solid relationships based on reciprocity, or give and take. Learn about the challenges that your colleagues are facing. Think about how you can add value to them.

Proactively take action to help people to achieve their goals. By building goodwill with people, they are more likely to reciprocate and offer their support when you need it.

3 Change
Jim Collins’ best-selling book Good To Great, published in 2001, featured 11 “great” companies. Since its publication, half of the companies featured have underperformed and one has even gone bankrupt.

This demonstrates a fundamental truism in life — that no matter how good you are now, you are doomed to fail if you cannot effectively adapt to change. Driving change means always seeking better ways of doing things. It is about constantly challenging how work is done and asking questions such as:
• Is this task still necessary?
• How can we do our work more effectively?
• What else do we need to do to bring ourselves to the next level?

Remember, what your organisation wants is not for you to mechanically do the same thing over and over again, no matter how good you are at doing it. What every organisation wants is for its people to come up with faster, better and cheaper ways of doing things.

4 Corporate thinking
During a recent Formula One race, the Ferrari team deliberately committed a technical breach so that one of its drivers, Felipe Massa, would incur a penalty. This was done to enable its other driver Fernando Alonso (who was still in contention to become the F1 champion) to win more championship points in the race. It was a completely legal manoeuvre and Massa “took one for the team” that day.

This dramatic incident demonstrates what corporate thinking is all about — helping the organisation advance its objectives, even if it means making some personal sacrifice.

Far too often, organisations are plagued by a silo mentality, where everyone focuses entirely on maximising his own achievements, even to the overall detriment of the organisation.

Taking the corporate view means putting your organisation’s goals above all else and aligning your own work objectives to them.

5 Commitment
It is not uncommon to hear of executives suffering from burn-out after being in a role for some time. Burn-out leads to a loss of motivation, which results in poor performance.

What is worse is that burnt-out employees may behave in a way that causes demotivation in others as well. Make it a point to review your career and professional goals regularly and appraise if you are on track to achieving them. Commitment is sustained when you are in a role that is aligned with your interests and talents.

Be honest in assessing your own strengths. Determine what you really enjoy doing and what you are really good at. Then influence your boss to help you grow your job into one that gives you more opportunity to play to your strengths.

Exercise self-leadership
As Mr Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft, puts it, today’s businesses have to operate at the “speed of thought”. Organisations cannot afford to have their employees wait for instructions every time an opportunity or issue arises. The exceptional organisation is one where its people exercise self-leadership and are able to respond independently to challenges.

Article by Lim Poh Guan, founding partner of the John Maxwell Team and managing consultant of the Leadership Performance Group, a consulting firm specialising in leadership development. For more information, visit www.leaders.com.sg