The Status Quo Never Leads To Wonderland

Sometimes people forget how much 365 days actually brings to their lives. They just wait years to do something new, to take risks, or to pursue a dream. They just settle. The same happens to companies… 

So, if you are starting a new chapter why not to use this new year to change, and to do things differently and better than before?

Embracing change can be good for your company

Unfortunately, to many people, change means something negative, something to fear. Change can be seen as something dramatic or painful, instead of something positive -an evolution.    

In many organizations, people are just afraid of change because it means shaking solid organizational cultures, procedures and behaviors. People might feel afraid of losing the power or the status they have achieved during the years they have worked for the same organization. In some cases, they might be afraid of losing their jobs or of being forced to do something very different.  

Customers' needs, economic and political situations in the country, market and industry changes, and even competitors' actions force companies to change. This means, changing is not an option but mostly, a need.

A change will bring more experience to your employees and to your company. It will help you to rediscover your potential and to see the business from a new perspective. A change will take you out of your comfort zone but, at the same time, will help you to explore new dimensions of your business, new opportunities.    

Picture: pixabay.com

So, you think you don’t need to change? Think twice.

There is not such a thing like a perfect company. This is perhaps the most common mistake we face in some organizations. We believe that everything is good and therefore, we want things to stay in that way -without risks. We can get used to certain conditions because those are quite OK for us. We believe that the status quo is good because we feel safe and comfy.

It is perhaps when the employees have been there for a while, without changes or surprises; or when the company has been selling regularly the same amount of products every year, or when the company believes that its relationship with its partners is stable. Those symptoms can make us settle. However, the truth is that settling can damage your company in the long term.

If you are wondering why to change if everything is fine in your company, let me tell you something, the status quo might be a comfortable status but, it is not enough for your company success. Most of the organizations need to adapt and change if they want to survive in the wild business environment that we are facing nowadays. 

If you're doing things the way you always have, you might be already obsolete or you might be losing a lot of opportunities to grow and to expand. Think about online selling, globalization, social media marketing, customer service, and digitalization. These are only few examples of things which have dramatically changed in the last years. No doubts those things are already affecting your business, right? 

The status quo and your employees

You are not the only one responsible for creating and maintaining the status quo. Your employees play an important role in creating and breaking it. However, it is your responsibility as a leader to choose and support your employees wisely.

Supporting the status quo is not good for your employees. When the employees get comfortable because everything is good, they get complacent with the status quo. They do the same things over and over again. If fact, they will resist changing due to the risks that change entails.

So, what should you do now? Well, it is time to review your employees' behavior. Despite of some managers' believes, a good employee is not the one who just do what is required to do without challenging him/herself or challenging the company situation. They might be good in their actual jobs under the actual conditions, but they will find challenging thinking outside the box, doing things in a different way or adapting to new conditions.

When focusing on the employees mentioned above and when giving all the credits to them for doing things "as we always have done", you might be pushing away your top performers or not using their real potential. Bringing new people to your organization will help you to break this status quo. (Of course, if you let them do their job). They will bring to your company new skills and new perspectives. Remember, it does not make much sense to try to change them and make them act as the rest of your people.

Change management and leadership

Challenging the status quo is not easy. Change is not easy.

Change management is all about persuading people to break with the status quo. As a manager, explaining to your employees why we need to change it is extremely important but, not enough to achieve the goal and to change. You need to create a realistic plan with tasks and activities to lead your company to the new direction. The activities and tasks can be small, too. This means that you could change step by step. You have to motivate your team and employees to support the change and all the change initiatives that are generated in your organization. You need to get them involved.

Unfortunately, most companies talk about change far more than they actually engage in it. So, as a leader, your most important task is to walk your talk. There is nothing more frustrating and confusing than having a manager that want innovation while exhibiting behaviors that endorse doing things as “we have done before”.

You have a new year, a new opportunity to break the status quo and take your company to a better situation. Make each day count.

Are You Ready to Listen To Your Employees?

Every day employees find small problems and challenges at work. However, this is not a bad thing. In fact, each challenge can spark ideas for improvements. Even the simplest idea can have a positive impact on your company performance improving your revenue, your safety and also your employees' engagement rate. 

When you open "the employee's suggestion box" with an open heart and especially, with an open mind, you can make your employees feel valued, therefore, their performance can reach a completely new level. 

Your employees can help you to improve different processes and areas in your company

Are you currently receiving fresh and innovative ideas?

- You have asked your employees for opinion and you have gotten no answer
- You have a suggestion list on your internal system with no marks
- Nobody comments on ways to improve performance
- In team meetings, your employees are mostly silent and agreeing in everything you say. 

It is time to check why this is happening.

Corporate culture for innovation: 
 
In many companies, suggestions seem to disappear into a dark hole. In others, employees with new ideas might be seen as an unfit for the organization. Sometimes, the company's priorities list does not include managing employees' suggestions. Or perhaps they are just "too busy" to improve.  

If you want to properly use your employees' suggestion to improve your company's performance, you need a corporate culture that matches and supports it. It this is not the case at the moment, you must reboot your existing corporate culture. 

Be ready, this is not an easy task.
 
How to work on your employees suggestions: 
 
Evaluate your corporate culture: if you are not receiving fresh and innovative ideas and your employees remain silent when you ask for suggestion, it is time to evaluate your corporate values and rituals. Change those in a way that your new values supports the employees' suggestion experience. 

Create a safe environment for suggestions and input: make sure that your employees feel free to talk about their ideas and point of views. Your employees' collaboration will be better when they feel comfortable providing input without being demeaned.

Be welcome and open for ideas: as each employee is different, you might get ideas, proposals and points of view which are different than your own. If people want to do things in different ways than your way, it does not mean that they are wrong, that they don't know how to do things or that they want to go against you. When you add different approaches to your company actions and processes, you inject richness into your company.

Be empathy: let say that your employee is sharing a solution to a problem he is facing at work but, this problem does not resonate to you, remember to put yourself in this person's shoes and try to understand his situation.

Facilitating spaces for experience sharing:  I have learned so much from the professional experiences of my colleagues located in other units and regions, that I cannot recommend this experience sharing enough. The point is not to imitate the tactics that others are implementing but, to learn from them, take some inputs from the cases and perhaps, adapt and use those inputs in your own activities. Make experience sharing a regular part of your communication and processes. 

Give space to the anonymous: The truth is that not everyone feels comfortable to share the own ideas, however, this does not mean that they have no ideas at all, or that their ideas are invaluable. By giving the chance to share their points of view in an anonymous way, you are getting also another set of ideas and approaches.

Focus on things that add value: positive and constructive criticism is accepted, to be negative and nasty, is not.

Prioritize: you might receive many suggestions and it might feel a bit overwhelming. Talk to your people a select those topics and actions which are more urgent. Make a priority list and go trough the cases according to the list.

Engage people in solving the problems: you don't need to be in charge of solving all people's problem. In fact, you should delegate and engage your employees in solving their issues. Making them responsible of some improvements, will make them more committed.

Follow-up tasks: work together with your employees and create clear plans and deadlines for these improvements. You can, for example, manage those as projects. In this way you can follow up and evaluate the results.




Receiving feedback and suggestion from your employees will help you to develop as a manager and especially, to develop the way your company is doing things. Remember to be open minded and make your employees part of the process. Your employees will feel that their opinions are valued and they can have an impact on changing things to better. If at the moment you are facing difficulties receiving feedback, you might need to transform your corporate culture into one that is open for employees' suggestions and feedback. For that, you need organizational commitment, clarity and ongoing communication

Marketing For Non-Sexy Industries

Heavy machinery, engineering jargon, niche markets, kind of unknown products...

It is not an easy task for a marketer or a communication person to get the attention of the media or of the public when the product or the industry is everything but sexy. Right?! If you feel represented, trust me, you are not the only one struggling with it. But, what are you doing to make your content more interesting?

It does not help just giving up and falling into the trap of thinking that your brand is too boring or too traditional. 

Remember even in the weirdest industries, 

there is an audience waiting for information 

and getting ready to make a purchase. 

 Make it happen. 

Be brave, take risks.

 

8 Marketing tips for challenging industries: 

1. Share useful content: Remember the content main goal is to inform, educate and entertain. You should give your customers what they actually need (not just what you want to share or -better to say, to sell).
2. Make the content appealing: the content should be interesting and relevant but, please, do not forget using the right font, good layout, and the visuals. There are so many channels and tools out there, that you can try new things even at low cost. No excuses.
3. Focus on one topic at the time: The more common mistake when writing about a product that is not that "sexy", is that you try to say too much. Just visualize for a second a brochure with too much text and too many pictures, well you know the feeling...Forget to try to speak about everything. That will not increase your blog readership, either. Instead, focus on main points.
4. Write for a wider audience: rather than writing from engineers to engineers, (sorry for my honest example), try to make your topic more interesting for other people. Forget that technical jargon. It is not making you look as an expert or smarter. This is very relevant if you want your content to be shared on different channels. If more people understand your content, you will have more readers and therefore, more chances to get shares, likes, and comments. This approach will help you when working with the media, too. A journalist will not write about something that is too difficult to understand or that needs many hours to get deciphered. Keep it simple.
5. Stop measuring a number of readers (or likes); focus instead on quality leads: I know you think I am contradicting myself but, my point here is that you need to get more readers, but a number of readers does not guarantee the sell. You need to create content that will attract the buyers, too. A funny picture can get thousands of likes, however, they are not buying your product. 
6. Stop selling or advertising: Nobody wants to read a blog post that is only an advertising in plain text. What about talking about cases or examples in which those benefits are shown? Don't push your products. Make your customers discover the benefits between the lines of your stories.
7. Make your employees your ambassadors: If you are running out of ideas why not to talk to your own people. They can help you finding great ideas, new perspectives, new topics and why not, they can help you creating the content. What about getting a great picture from your factory, or the story behind the guy who creates your latest hit... Your company is not only about selling products, there is much more happening inside the organization. Share it! 
8. Track the results: You have the chance to try many things, but the only way to know if those have an effect on your results is by measuring. You can measure the changes to the sell, the reach of your stories, the media coverage, changes to the brand awareness, etc. Decide the measurement tools according to your goal.  

Employer Branding Has No Holidays

Each company, from startups to corporations, should invest in creating the right perception of their organization. It is not only about creating catching recruitment ads or paying the highest salaries in the market; it is more about taking care of the diverse processes which involve the company and the employee even before this person is hired.  

Summer employees, an investment. 

At least in Finland, summer employees are common figures in many organizations. They come to substitutes some people and to help when the regular employees are taking their annual leaves.

We know that a summer job is a great opportunity for any employee to gain experience and develops his/her skills. For the company, this is a fantastic chance to create the "right employee for the future" and to show them all the opportunities they might have in the organization. But, what happens when the summer employees are abandoned on the new role? Or when the induction is poor because “they will be working for us only couple of months”?

Well, the truth is that employer branding has no summer holidays. Keep in mind that if you decide to take an employee to help you during the summer, you need to be committed to take care of this person. If things work well, the employee might want to stay in your organization, might get very motivated to continue developing his/her skills and even recommend this place to his/her school classmate and friends. However, if things are handled poorly during this period, the employee's results might be unsuccessful and he/she might not be willing to come back to the company. You all are losing your time (and your money).

Taking care of your employees: 

If you are having summer employees this year, remember these basic things to consider when the person comes to the company: 

- Prepare the initial paper work. Make sure that your employee has the contract, work permissions and all the documents that are needed to start the job.

- Arrange the tools which are needed for the role e.g. a working place or desk, computer with proper software, office keys, ID cards, uniforms, safety equipment, appropriate clothes, cellphone, etc.

- Arrange the appropriate orientation for the hires. In addition to the proper training related to the job, you should have some training on the company and the industry. Remember to show the place where this person is going to work and introduce him/her to the team and other units. If you are counting on somebody to take care of the training, you need to make sure that this person is available during the summer or at least during a reasonable amount of time. List the things the new employee needs to learn and schedule the training. Remember to let some "extra air" just in case the training takes longer than expected. Based on my own experience, I recommend you to plan some "training review" few weeks after the initial training in case the employee has some questions or doubts. You cannot digest all the information at once.  

- Describe the role clearly and agree together on the tasks and goals. Especially if you are having young employees who are working for first time, you might want to offer some structure to the job. It will be useful to clearly share what does this person need to do, when does he/she need to get it ready, as well as how the results are going to be measured. If needed, define the processes and tools that employees should use to get the job done. 

- Make sure that you deliver the information to the other units, too. This might be very useful if for example, you need to get email accounts open by another team and salary payed on time. 

- Offer the right challenges to the right people and if your summer employee develops quickly, remember to offer tasks in which he/she can develop even more. For many students, the point of getting a summer job is to find out their real interests and passions, to learn more, and to develop their skills. If the job is not challenge enough, they might move forward to another role just after the summer. 

- If you find the diamond, try to keep it. If you have the resources and the need to hire somebody after the summer period, make sure you are retaining the top talent on time. Do not wait until the last minute to inform him/her that you want him/her to continue. You just invested your time and your money, so make the most of it.

-  If you need to let go your summer employees, prepare suitable exit programs which will give the best impression of your company. It is recommended to have exit interviews with your employees. You can get constructive feedback to develop your processes in the future. Make sure that you deliver all the documentation needed for the exit such as payments receipts and certifications. 

- Remember to communicate often. Make sure that things a clear and this person receives support during this working period.