Happy New Year Folks!
Someone was filming me on New Years Eve; they asked me what my New Years wish was. I said:
Stay Tuned for part two of Pickled Watches….
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Posted: January 2nd, 2008 under Darin Hanks.
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As Dewitt Jones instructs in his video Celebrate What’s Right with the World, I am going to celebrate what’s right with…. customer service.
Andrews Jewelers and U-Line.
First, Andrews. Let me count the ways. But before I start counting I have to throw in something that Andrews may not appreciate. I watched Blood Diamond ( Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Connelly ) last year and it has caused me to be anti-diamond, but I’ll still purchase chains and other jewelry for my wife.
OK, where was I? Yes, let me count the ways Andrews makes me happy. When my battery is dead in my watch, I go to Andrews, they take it, replace the battery, and return it with a smile. There is no indication from their sales people that I have inconvenienced them. Now here’s the zinger. It’s free. AND THEY DON’T EVEN ASK IF I BOUGHT THE WATCH FROM THEM!!!!! That’s their pickle as Bob Farrell would say.
There’s more! The consistent customer service at Andrews is fresh on mind because my wife recently had to take her bracelet in AGAIN to be repaired. I bought my wife a silver chain two years ago. Twice now it has broke. OK, one could stop there and complain that it broke. But I can’t because the replacement and warranty was handled so friendly and smoothly!
So bravo Andrews. You have hired good people. And you must have an awesome way of training your folks to achieve such consistent service.
Now I don’t want everyone rushing to Andrews for a free watch battery. Or you may ruin my little perk that pleases me so… the desired action is that you ask yourselves what you can do that will make your business stand out from the pack; what can you do to ensure that our employees give consistent, fast, friendly service.
Employee University gives away free shipping and free previews. That’s not cheap. Each preview shipment costs us about the same a as a watch battery, and that’s not counting the labor costs of packing the previews etc. But we know that the free previews mean a lot to our customers, so we are happy to do so. It’s our pickle!
Stay tuned after Christmas and New Years when I’ll resume the blog and tell you why I love Uline so much! Here is a hint: “Oh the humanity!”
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Posted: December 21st, 2007 under Darin Hanks.
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Someone emailed me the following question:
“I am looking for some terminology for housekeeping work performance evaluations. Can you help me out?”
The question raises bigger concerns than the question solicits.
I COULD answer this question specifically because I was an HR Manager in a large commercial cleaning company – the head count ranged from 200-250 while I was there; cleaning within the budgeted time and inspection reports were the two primary measurements. But let me address the issue in a way that all industries reading this blog can appreciate.
Let’s neutralize the question first; let’s change the question to: “Can you suggest terminology for work performance evaluations.”
The terminology for evaluations should be the same terminology that an employee has heard throughout the review period when you’ve given them interim, or informal performance reviews; the same language you have used when training and coaching them.
Employees should never get to a formal review and hear for the first time that you have been keeping track of X, or measuring Y, or learn for the first time that they are not meeting standards in Z.
Some people don’t like it when I say this but a formal review should be a formality. The meaningful discussion related to an employee’s performance and how they can improve should have taken place many times and long before you sit across from them with a typed up document that impacts them tangibly.
What do you think?
(I would also like to offer a suggestion: We have a great training video on this subject, titled: 1 on 1: Informal Employee Performance Review)
Darin Hanks
740-654-8118
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Posted: December 10th, 2007 under Employee Training Tips/Helps, Darin Hanks.
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We’ve tried to find a person who would like to blog regularly for the Employee University audience; trying to find an attorney who could keep us all abreast of case law that is interesting and relevant to life as rat in the rat race.
Since months have gone by without someone stepping up, I’m stepping in.
Hope you enjoy reading my thoughts as they relate to being an employee, managing employees, and encounters with the employees of other organizations.
(I’ll start next week on the issue of procrastinators in the workplace).
Darin Hanks
740-654-8118
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Posted: November 30th, 2007 under Darin Hanks.
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The Good People Bad Choices ethics training video portrays a college age girl talking with her grandfather and his friend (former CEO and CFO) about ethics. She has been tasked with writing a paper on ethics and has turned to these men for lessons learned during their days of operating a business.
I thought it was interesting that the producers chose to have a person of today’s generation look to people from 2 generations ago. It almost implies that ethics are a thing of the past – and perhaps they are. Through their stories of their time leading companies, the two men offer ethics advice in a way that is so fundamental that it seems fresh and new again.
The message I liked the best, is “Ethics takes effort”
“Ethics” isn’t something I would have thought to pair with the word “effort,” but it makes sense. Generally, if people don’t have to stray too far from the way they already think and act, then they might use the message. But if it requires an effort to unlearn an old behavior and learn a new one – that’s a more difficult challenge.
So much of what society has come to consider socially acceptable is downright unethical in a work environment. The bottom line is that it takes effort to unlearn old behaviors of what we may consider right and wrong in order to act with ethical integrity.
The video explains how people who think they aren’t doing anything unethical may still be just as responsible. Acting unethically by avoiding taking action about things we know are wrong requires no effort whatsoever. Plus, it can seem guilt free – the observer didn’t do anything wrong, right? This video does a good job of driving home the message that it doesn’t matter if its “easy” to act ethically, we still have a responsibility to do so.
Other topics covered, conveyed through believable role play skits, include:
The other thing I liked about this employee training video is that it offers actionable techniques that employees can use the moment they walk out of the training room. An example is to have trainees think of the most ethical person they know and act as that person would act. This is a technique that doesn’t require a long learning curve or a huge change in personal paradigms.
The primary reason that I think this video is so important for HR departments is that it offers strategies for employees to deal with unethical managers. Though managers may train employees about other work topics, they most likely won’t teach them how to turn them in if they themselves are acting unethical.
Far too often, people in power can continue to act unethically because employees don’t know how to handle the situation. Unless the HR department makes it clear that unethical behavior is unacceptable, many employees can assume that the unethical behavior of their managers is a little company secret and part of its culture. When managers act unethically, the behavior can trickle down through the company, leading to a corporate culture of unethical behavior.
Overall, this employee training video is a smart choice for companies of any size that are not afraid to teach their employees how to hold themselves and everyone else in the company accountable for their choices.
Christine O’Kelly
Guest Poster
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Posted: August 20th, 2007 under Training Product Reviews.
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“Let’s Get Honest About Sexual Harassment” is a fun training video that delivers just what the title promises – an honest look at the situations we all must deal with in the workplace, but like to pretend that we don’t.
I’ve seen some pretty bad videos about sexual harassment during my time as a trainer. The reason most of them are so bland is because they seem to be avoiding the very issue that they are attempting to discuss, leaving the message hollow and ineffective.
Let’s face it. We’re all human, we all have persona that we’re suddenly supposed to forget about the moment we walk through the office doors. It’s not enough to pretend this side of us doesn’t exist. Instead, this video acknowledges that it’s ok to be the person you are outside of work and gives us strategies on how and why to control ourselves during office hours.
It had me laughing several times when I recognized a person in the video that so very much reminded me of someone in the office. The video boils the office staff down to three types of personalities that you will instantly recognize as accurate.
There is of course the person who is all-business and never talks about their personal life. Then there’s the second type whose attitude is “what’s wrong with a little flirting?” The video recommends a strategy for this person of applying a “grandma filter.” Go ahead and give compliments, but only say something that you might say to your grandmother.
Then there’s the person who thinks “hey, I am who I am take it or leave it.” This is the person who tells you every juicy detail of their date last Saturday night or poses inappropriate questions to other coworkers. This obviously causes a problem for that person, but also for their coworkers!
The nice thing about this video that I haven’t seen in others is that it shows others how to deal with this their inappropriate coworkers. The lesson being that all employees share the responsibility of keeping their loose lipped co-workers in check.
In my opinion, the best training videos are those that will hold a class’s attention and that resonate with truth and honesty. When a hokey video doesn’t seem genuine, people tend not to take the message seriously either. Let’s Get Honest offers a realistic approach to dealing with the very delicate issue of sexual harassment with tact, humor, and common sense.
Christine O’Kelly
Guest Poster
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Posted: August 13th, 2007 under Training Product Reviews.
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The Art of Possibility is a refreshing training video with insight from enthusiastic motivators Ben and Roz Zander. The clips of Ben in the midst of his motivational seminars and Roz’s candid interviews are a far cry from the scripted role-playing model that so many training videos tend to employ.
During the first few minutes of the video, I wondered if it would be slow-going. There was a lot of orchestra music as we are slowly introduced to the speakers and the concepts they will discuss. The music makes sense – Ben Zander is the conductor for the Boston Phil Harmonic and I realized later that the music played a great part in setting the lively and inspirational tone for the messages that were to follow.
It turned out that the video wasn’t slow going at all. They managed to pack quite a bit into this 27 minute video that I found entertaining and enlightening to watch throughout.
Being a consumer of many books, CDs and videos on success and motivation, I often wonder if a new publication can deliver a fresh message. This video did. While the core concepts to success have been the same since the beginning of time, the authors package the concepts in new ways that made me think about the process of purposeful living differently than I had previously.
Roz Zander brought up one point that struck me as extremely useful for employee training. She mentions something to the effect of considering ourselves as actors playing roles in our communications with others. The reason I found this so important for training, is that while it could take years for a person to develop the skills to become a top sales person or a highly effective manager, an employee can begin ‘acting’ like one today.
As those familiar with motivational thinking are well aware of the fact that the first step to becoming successful is to act and feel successful. And really, what is the difference between acting successful and being successful?
A person that attempts to emulate the top sales person in the company in their dialogue with customers will no doubt make more sales. A manager who interacts with associates in a manner similar to that of a highly effective manager will begin noticing different results. These are changes that can happen immediately after watching the video.
Other practical advice such as Ben Zander’s suggestion to throw your arms up in the air and exclaim, “Great! I had a terrific failure!” whenever a mistake is made will certainly benefit anyone who is open to the possibility of creating more possibility in his or her life.
Christine O’Kelly
Guest Poster
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Posted: August 7th, 2007 under Training Product Reviews.
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Watch the two short videos by clicking on the following links and tell me what you think?
(Dr Dennis Davis participates in this video).
Darin Hanks
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Posted: June 13th, 2007 under Employee Training Tips/Helps, Dennis Davis PhD, Darin Hanks.
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Thats right…I am suggesting that we all maintain our sense of outrage. You see, whenever there is a shocking and deadly incident of violence (for example: the VA. Tech incident) there is a lot of outrage and concern. We immediately ask “How can this happen?”, and “What do we do to make sure it does not happen again?” There are panels set up to investigate what went wrong. There are minute by minute reports on the findings of the panels. The daily news is filled with interviews of students, teachers, parents, and others…all of them eagerly giving their opinions on the matter.
Then…it stops. It just goes away. Our attention turns to the next story: The next political scandal; the next Hollywood divorce (arrest/rehab/apology etc.); or the next summer blockbuster movie.
We forget how much sorrow the violence breeds. Somehow, the urgency is lost.
It does not have to happen that way. We can prepare ourselves and our organizations so that the next incident is a little less ugly. Do the following in your company to minimize the severity of the next incident (maybe even prevent it altogether):
*Develop (refine) a workplace violence policy- tell your employees what you expect of them. Most will adjust their behavior to be in compliance.
*Train your first level supervisors in early detection of inappropriate behavior- 1st level supervisors have more contact with your employees than any other level of supervision.
*Instruct you supervisors to document and report all acts of inappropriate behavior-too often, behaviors which signal problems ahead simply fall through the cracks.
*Make sure HR/Legal investigates all reports of inappropriate behavior-doing nothing after a report is made will certainly discourage supervisors from coming forward.
These simple steps will likely decrease the number of violent incidents you have to deal with, as well as decrease the severity of the incidents that do occur.
Dennis A Davis, PhD is the president of The HELP Center, LLC. , a San Diego based training and consulting company specializing in workplace violence prevention and intervention.
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Posted: June 12th, 2007 under Employee Training Tips/Helps, Dennis Davis PhD.
Comments: 1
Jack Valenti died April 2007.
By request from Lyndon B. Johnson, Jack Valenti was aboard Air Force One with President Johnson when it carried President John F. Kennedy’s body from Dallas in November 1963. He can be seen in the famous picture of Johnson being sworn in. He was seated three people to Johnson’s right. That plane is now on display at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. I’ve been through it. It was a slow day the day I was there, so I lingered in the plane for about 15 minutes. It was one of the most interesting “museum pieces” I’ve ever encountered. On one hand, it was interesting to see the lack of luxury on the plane, and how small it seemed. On the other hand, the sense of history was overwhelming.
But trivia aside, Valenti was better known as the president of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), a position he held for 38 years. He was also the creator of the MPAA Rating system (G, PG, R, etc.).
One of the battles Valenti chose in his lifetime was the battle over intellectual property, specifically on the issue of technology and copyright issues and the moral and legal considerations of illegal downloading and copying of motion pictures.
What does this have to do with Lou Holtz’s training video, Do Right?
I was in a someone’s home several years ago when I noticed a VHS tape labeled “LOU HOLTZ DO RIGHT.” This man worked for one of the largest companies on the globe, and he MAY HAVE BEEN in possession of an illegal copy of a training video. Even more ironic, the tape was labeled “Do Right.”
By this time, you may already have guessed what I am getting at, so I suggest at this time you read through THIS INTERVIEW with Jack Valenti, who does a great job defending the position that copying a video is wrong.
It’s easy to rationalize copying a Hollywood DVD; after all, the actors drive the most expensive cars and live in the fancy homes; they don’t need the $19 I’m taking from them by copying their DVDs. Downloading music you are supposed to pay for gets rationalized the same way: Rock stars are living the high-life, they don’t need another $14 from me. Right???
Rationalizing like this may seem okay if you take those reasoning positions: Yes, the stars may not need your $14, because they have already been paid in advance of revenue. But the production companies wait to be paid by our purchases. Each time a person illegally copies something, the investors and the families of those investors have been violated – stolen from.
Last year I produced my first two training videos. As with any investment, it required a personal financial sacrifice from not just me, but my wife, and my children. We all hope and pray that I’ve been a good steward of our family dollars, and have produced a training video that will sell. Fortunately, the videos (1 on 1: Informal Employee Performance review, and Building Employee Morale: Missed Opportunities) has been well received by those who understand employee performance management, and we should break even within the next year if the sales pattern continues.
Recently, a company purchased 40 copies of “1 on 1” and “Building Employee Morale.” But what if that company had simply decided to make illegal copies themselves as that other company did with Lou Holtz’s video, rather than choose the ethical route? My family, as well as other families involved/invested in the production, would have put forth the dollars necessary to pay actors, editors, cameras, lighting, sound, packaging expenses, etc, while that company reaped the full benefits of the training programs, saying “yeah, yeah, sure, sure” when the copyright warning flashed on the screen.
But what about back-up copies? In case one gets damaged; we should have another one on hand. Right?
I bought a basketball last week. I asked the clerk if I could have another one as a backup in case I accidentally punctured it. She just looked at me. I purchased an anniversary ring for wife last year. It cost me more than a grand. I asked the salesman if I could have a back-up in case it accidentally fell down the drain or something. He just looked at me.
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Posted: June 1st, 2007 under Training Videos, Darin Hanks.
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