Tina Chemini

January 2010 | dlpmagazine.com
	Competitive Edge: Employee Management

Management is difficult enough without  having to manage in a down economy. We are concerned about our businesses, the welfare of our employees, as well as our own welfare as we wait for things to turn around. The experts tell us the upturn is coming, but I doubt that you, like me, have seen many positive economic signs.

I was told recently that economic trends hit the dental industry about six months after they hit other industries, so it looks like we may have a ways to go. Think about the points below as you continue to manage through our current economic downturn.

As hard as we may try to hold on to every employee, sometimes that is not a financially responsible reality. A business slowdown may provide the ideal opportunity to re-evaluate your staff and let go of an employee or two who have questionable work ethics and are causing employee morale problems.

Bad morale is often caused by incompetence allowed to exist in the organization. If left unattended, employees who are meeting or exceeding standards perceive a lack of fairness or of unequal treatment.

In this economy, there can be no “sacred cows”-everyone needs to work hard to keep the business financially stable. Getting rid of employees who are not pulling their weight will help improve not only the morale of the remaining employees but the products and services you offer.

Employees with poor attitudes also should be considered as the second tier of expendable personnel. Occasionally, I find we at National Dentex have great technicians, but some possess poor attitudes. It may be the employee who never volunteers for overtime, starts rumors, is always five minutes late in the morning or doesn’t get along with others. Don’t kid yourself, we all have one!

Be as candid as possible with everyone in your business. Let employees know how the business is performing against its goals and targets. One of our managers told me, “Trust is everything, and a great way to lose that is to try to hide something.” If sales are down and job cuts need to be made, communicate this with the employees. When employee cuts come, at least they won’t be surprised. One of our locations even asked if any employees would volunteer to be laid off, and amazingly, received a few. Be truthful to those left behind about what their new reality looks like, whether that means a reorganization, a new manager, longer hours, or different work.

The newly laid-off personnel have just received a life-changing announcement. It will take time for that message to sink in. Allow these employees the time to say goodbye to friends, collect their personal belongings, and leave the building, but under the watchful eye of management.

Some companies prefer to escort employees who have been let go directly to their cars and arrange a time to later return and clean out personal belongings. Layoffs conducted last thing on a Friday afternoon or just before a holiday do not send a good message to remaining staff. Encourage former employees to call you with questions and to keep in touch. When business gets better, they may be candidates for rehire.

A job loss is just that, it is a loss that triggers all the emotions any loss triggers. If employees want to talk, let them talk; if former employees want to visit, let them visit, but in a managed way.

One of our laboratories allowed a former employee to frequently come to visit, entering the lab through the back employee entrance. She would then make her way through the lab, talking to everyone one at a time. Obviously this behavior was disruptive to production. The compromise reached was the former employee could visit, but only at break or lunch time and needed to enter the lab through the front visitor entrance and be escorted back to the break room to minimize the disruption.

It’s important to maintain some semblance of normalcy. Continue to celebrate what you have always celebrated-be it perfect attendance, birthdays, or holidays-but do this in a manner reflecting the challenging economic times. One laboratory relayed its year-end luncheon will be a BBQ instead of turkey and all the trimmings. It’s still a celebration, but one that does not conflict with the cutbacks taking place.

It’s tough out there, and glimmers of hope are getting brighter. Once we get through this tough economy, we will be better for it in many ways.

Articles

January 2010 | dlpmagazine.com Competitive Edge: Employee Management  Management is difficult enough without  having to manage in a down economy. We are concerned about our businesses, the welfare of our employees, as well as our own welfare as we wait for things to turn around. The experts tell us the upturn is coming, but I doubt that you, like me, have seen many positive economic signs.

How to stay up in a down economy

Constructing a strong professional team starts with a solid foundation.

At one time, the San Diego Zoo had narrow and well-defined job responsibilities: Keepers did the keeping and gardeners did the gardening. The bureaucratic system was effective as long as there were clearly defined boundaries between animal exhibits, public areas, and horticultural displays.

Conditions changed in 1988, when the zoo began to develop bioclimatic zones resembling native habitats and let visitors walk into and become part of these environments. Because the zones are more interdependent, the employees who manage them must work more closely together. Zoo executives, therefore, decided against having employees from traditional functional areas manage the bioclimatic zones. Instead, the responsibility was assigned to self-directed, multidisciplinary teams. These teams monitor their own budget, and members are jointly responsible for the display and help out with the various tasks necessary.

What type(s) of teams do you have in your lab?


	
	Project team
	A group of people who come together for a specific project and then disband when the project is over.
	
	Task force
	A type of project team that is formed in order to deal with a long-term strategic issue, such as purchasing and implementing a new inventory system.
	
	Virtual team
	A team made up of members who are physically separated from each other, communicating using telephones, e-mail, and/or video conferencing.
	
	Cross-functional work team
	A team of employees from different functions who have overall responsibility for something such as a customer, process, or line of business.
	
	Functional work team
	Employees from a specific function, such as a department, who pool their resources to serve their customer groups.
	
	Work cell
	Members focus on meeting production requirements and may be responsible for safety and training of cell members.
	
	Continuous improvement team
	Members focus on continuous process improvement.
	 

 Team members are selected and brought together; members come to accept and commit to the established goals. The Team Manager needs to organize, teach, and set standards and goals.

 Conflict, resistance, and hostility often appear during this stage as team members vie for their place on the team. The Team Manager acts as a counselor, manages the conflict, is an active listener, and begins to assess the team’s performance.

 Members begin to cooperate, communicate openly and effectively, and become a cohesive team. The Team Manager coaches, communicates, and provides feedback to affirm or redirect behaviors.

 Team becomes productive, engaging in problem solving; team members develop a strong atmosphere of interdependence. The Team Manager problem-solves, rewards, makes decisions, and builds consensus.

 The goals have been reached (or abandoned) so the team is disassembled, team members separate, and there is closure and celebration. The Team Manager evaluates, reviews, and makes suggestions for future improvement.

Team members receive extensive cross-training. They analyze the work required, set goals, and gradually build a sense of mutual responsibility and ownership for the exhibit. Although the move to self-directed teams was a painful, bumpy road, it has paid off. Zoo attendance has increased, disability claims are down, and workers report a higher quality of work life.

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Managing People defines a team as “a group of people who collaborate and interact synergistically in working toward a common goal.” To accomplish the goal, team members must work together. But in a dental lab environment, where each person is assigned a different task and is expected to master that task, where does this “team” concept fit in, and how can you assemble a team comprised of individuals?

Many different team types exist in the dental lab environment. Instead of trying to identify the teams in your lab, concentrate on recognizing them and keeping them functioning in the manner that they are intended.

This comes to the basic management tenets of selection, training, motivating, and rewarding. The tenet that lies under all these concepts is communication. If you have good communication skills, all the other requirements of managing your team will come naturally.

In the selection process, you need to be clear about what skills and abilities are required of the position and hire only those who possess those skills. Training is all about communication-how to do the job, what is expected of the employee as an individual and as a member of the team, the establishment of clear goals, effective feedback that helps them determine whether the training is working, and what additional training may be required. Additionally, training for team members should include teambuilding, communication, problem-solving, and conflict-resolution skill-building-topics that may not be offered to other employees.

Motivating a team differs from motivating an individual and can take many forms. It is up to you to determine what works. It could be setting interim goals and having mini celebrations when those goals are met; it could be posting results for all to see; or it could be adding new challenges or offering additional training. You are in the best position to determine what will motivate your team; if you don’t know, ask them! The same goes for rewarding.

The bottom line: To have effective teams, you need to manage the process-hire the right people and then give them clear goals, adequate information and training, and honest feedback. Be open and forthcoming, trustworthy, patient, flexible, and willing to change, if necessary. Offer yourself as a mentor and an active listener. 

Employee Management: Full team ahead

	Do you have employees who work from home? Or employees such as sales reps working on the road with no set home base? Or how about employees working in an established location but being managed by an off-site manager such as in a satellite lab?.

	If you do, you know managing off-site employees in each of these scenarios has its rewards and challenges. If you are considering a remote management situation or are being challenged by an existing situation, keep the following key points in mind.

	Not everyone can work remotely. Remote workers must be able to set priorities, keep on task, and to a large degree, be self-motivated and self-managed.

	Employees who require a large degree of direct supervision will not be successful working in a remote environment. If you have the luxury of hiring the employees who will be working remotely, look for these qualities in your candidates.

	However, many of us “inherit” remote workers. It is up to us then, as managers, to groom them into successful employees or replace them. Honesty is the most important quality to look for in off-site workers. You need to trust that they are working, that they are productive, and that they are doing what they are supposed to be doing.

	Even if you have the utmost trust in your remote employees, they still need to have goals and to know the priority of each of those goals. The goals should be mutually agreed upon, committed to writing, and must directly support the overall goal of that department and/or the organization.

	Clearly defined and mutually agreed-upon goals and priorities help the remote worker know exactly what is expected, and the motivation to reach these goals is then internalized.

	The old-fashioned report is the tool of choice. Sales reps submit daily, weekly, and monthly reports of their sales activities. Remote customer service employees complete a daily call log, tracking all incoming calls, the reason for the call, and the outcome.

	Satellite technicians log in cases, and then bill them out when they are done. Remote managers run production reports and sales reports to measure the performance of their employees.

	The reports compare the mutually agreed-upon goals with the actual outcome and will reveal success or a need for improvement. The output measured by these reports will confirm the remote arrangement is, or is not, working, or if priorities need to be adjusted.

	E-mail, instant messaging, phone and conference calls, Web and video-conferencing, and face-to-face meetings are great tools to keep off-site employees in close communication with managers and other employees.

	Not everyone communicates successfully using the same method, so while many employees like using e-mail as their primary communication method, others will prefer picking up the phone. The downside of e-mail messages is they do not accurately convey the author’s tone and can often be misinterpreted. Long e-mail exchanges should be avoided, instead opting for a phone conversation. But nothing can replace the face-to-face meeting. Most of our remote managers are advocates of monthly meetings, with an absolute minimum of annual visits.

	Make sure remote employees have everything they need to be successful. Having the proper communication equipment such as cell phones, PDAs, laptop computers and fax machines is vital to a successful remote arrangement.

	The authority to make decisions is as important as the equipment. Employees working remotely will face many instances during the normal work day when they need to take immediate action. If they must stop and call their remote manager each time, then work stops until they get a reply. Giving the remote employee a clearly defined authority level will eliminate this often overlooked and underappreciated contentious issue.

	The remote workplace is becoming a business trend of the future. It dramatically cuts overhead costs and actually can make a company more agile in responding to shifts in the industry. Before you enter into a remote arrangement, be sure to weigh the pros and cons and be ready to make changes when necessary.

 Do you have employees who work from home? Or employees such as sales reps working on the road with no set home base? Or how about employees working in an established location but being managed by an off-site manager such as in a satellite lab?.  If you do, you know managing off-site employees in each of these scenarios has its rewards and challenges. If you are considering a remote management situation or are being challenged by an existing situation, keep the following key points in mind.  Choose the right people

Managing remotely

	Our consciousness of personal privacy was elevated several years ago with the passage of Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), which was designed to “restrict the uses and disclosures of participant’s personal health information (PHI) by an employer’s medical plan.” This law created a protective wall between the employer and medical plan, thereby making it illegal for an employer to use PHI to make employment-related decisions.

	Business owners scrambled to quickly designate internal Privacy Officers who would ensure compliance.

	This same law also required that dental labs, as healthcare service providers, protect patient PHI (e.g., name, age, treatment plans) and only use PHI for planning, designing, and fabricating prosthetic devices, or to obtain payment for services rendered.

	Labs were inundated with requests from clients to sign Business Associate Agreements, and our Privacy Officers were charged with having employees sign Employee

	HIPAA provided individuals with more control in how their information may be used. Authorization must be received before identifiable information is used or disclosed. As employers, for example, we could no longer provide identifiable information to an insurance broker. Our dual identity as No. 1, an employer, and No. 2, a provider of a medical device, required that we must protect identifiable health information that is transmitted electronically, by paper, and via verbal communication.

	If this all wasn’t bad enough, along came the massive theft of personal information in the case of TJX Corp. in 2005. In this case, credit card information of a staggering 45.6 million people had been stolen by unknown attackers who had breached the company’s computer transaction processing systems.

	In addition, more than 450,000 names, addresses, and personal ID numbers (in most cases, the person’s Social Security number) also were taken from the company’s servers. A 2004 audit of the company’s network had found “high-level deficiencies” in its security practices.

	As a result of these recent high-visibility security breaches, the federal and state governments have been working diligently to enact legislation that mandates the information keepers do a better job of protecting that information. The Federal Trade Commission has its “Red Flag Identity Theft Rule,” which requires businesses that permit the deferred payment of a debt to develop and implement a program to prevent identify theft.

	Here in Massachusetts, we are dealing with our own version of this type of legislation, which went into effect on March 1. Under this new law, because we have both employees and customers who reside in Massachusetts, we must have a written security plan that protects personal information (PI) that we have in our possession. PI is defined as social security, drivers license, or State-issued ID number, or a financial account number (bank account, credit card, debit card, etc.) in combination with the person’s name.

	Complying with these laws will take some effort, but in analyzing our strategy, we found we already intuitively were doing many of the things that the “experts” were suggesting for protecting information, be it personal or confidential.

	To protect the personal and confidential information that you have in your possession, use common sense. For example, to protect the security of your physical space, require that visitors wear a badge and be escorted by an employee; don’t allow ex-employees to wander freely; and be aware of unusual or suspicious questions or requests for favors.

	Your employees and your customers trust you with their most valued asset- their personal and confidential information. Honor their trust by taking this responsibility seriously and guard their information as if your life depended on it. As we saw in the TJX case, breaches in security can have wide reaching, disastrous and costly results.

 Our consciousness of personal privacy was elevated several years ago with the passage of Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), which was designed to “restrict the uses and disclosures of participant’s personal health information (PHI) by an employer’s medical plan.” This law created a protective wall between the employer and medical plan, thereby making it illegal for an employer to use PHI to make employment-related decisions.

Protecting personal information

	Management is difficult enough without  having to manage in a down economy. We are concerned about our businesses, the welfare of our employees, as well as our own welfare as we wait for things to turn around. The experts tell us the upturn is coming, but I doubt that you, like me, have seen many positive economic signs.

	I was told recently that economic trends hit the dental industry about six months after they hit other industries, so it looks like we may have a ways to go. Think about the points below as you continue to manage through our current economic downturn.

	As hard as we may try to hold on to every employee, sometimes that is not a financially responsible reality. A business slowdown may provide the ideal opportunity to re-evaluate your staff and let go of an employee or two who have questionable work ethics and are causing employee morale problems.

	Bad morale is often caused by incompetence allowed to exist in the organization. If left unattended, employees who are meeting or exceeding standards perceive a lack of fairness or of unequal treatment.

	In this economy, there can be no “sacred cows”-everyone needs to work hard to keep the business financially stable. Getting rid of employees who are not pulling their weight will help improve not only the morale of the remaining employees but the products and services you offer.

	Employees with poor attitudes also should be considered as the second tier of expendable personnel. Occasionally, I find we at National Dentex have great technicians, but some possess poor attitudes. It may be the employee who never volunteers for overtime, starts rumors, is always five minutes late in the morning or doesn’t get along with others. Don’t kid yourself, we all have one!

	Be as candid as possible with everyone in your business. Let employees know how the business is performing against its goals and targets. One of our managers told me, “Trust is everything, and a great way to lose that is to try to hide something.” If sales are down and job cuts need to be made, communicate this with the employees. When employee cuts come, at least they won’t be surprised. One of our locations even asked if any employees would volunteer to be laid off, and amazingly, received a few. Be truthful to those left behind about what their new reality looks like, whether that means a reorganization, a new manager, longer hours, or different work.

	The newly laid-off personnel have just received a life-changing announcement. It will take time for that message to sink in. Allow these employees the time to say goodbye to friends, collect their personal belongings, and leave the building, but under the watchful eye of management.

	Some companies prefer to escort employees who have been let go directly to their cars and arrange a time to later return and clean out personal belongings. Layoffs conducted last thing on a Friday afternoon or just before a holiday do not send a good message to remaining staff. Encourage former employees to call you with questions and to keep in touch. When business gets better, they may be candidates for rehire.

	A job loss is just that, it is a loss that triggers all the emotions any loss triggers. If employees want to talk, let them talk; if former employees want to visit, let them visit, but in a managed way.

	One of our laboratories allowed a former employee to frequently come to visit, entering the lab through the back employee entrance. She would then make her way through the lab, talking to everyone one at a time. Obviously this behavior was disruptive to production. The compromise reached was the former employee could visit, but only at break or lunch time and needed to enter the lab through the front visitor entrance and be escorted back to the break room to minimize the disruption.

	It’s important to maintain some semblance of normalcy. Continue to celebrate what you have always celebrated-be it perfect attendance, birthdays, or holidays-but do this in a manner reflecting the challenging economic times. One laboratory relayed its year-end luncheon will be a BBQ instead of turkey and all the trimmings. It’s still a celebration, but one that does not conflict with the cutbacks taking place.

	It’s tough out there, and glimmers of hope are getting brighter. Once we get through this tough economy, we will be better for it in many ways.

 Management is difficult enough without  having to manage in a down economy. We are concerned about our businesses, the welfare of our employees, as well as our own welfare as we wait for things to turn around. The experts tell us the upturn is coming, but I doubt that you, like me, have seen many positive economic signs.  I was told recently that economic trends hit the dental industry about six months after they hit other industries, so it looks like we may have a ways to go. Think about the points below as you continue to manage through our current economic downturn.