Water Cooler Conversations

Written by Pat Perry
President, ERC 

Last week ERC recognized the NorthCoast 99 winners (www.northcoast99.org) at the annual awards dinner.  The 2008 winners represented organizations and industries throughout our region and share a common focus of attracting and retaining top performers. The theme of our event was Workplace Revolutions.  We believe that this past year and all previous 9 years that ERC has recognized great workplaces that winners revolutionize their workplaces – making small and large scale changes that differentiate their organization and most importantly make a difference in the lives of their employees.

We looked back over the past ten years of celebrating
Northeast Ohio workplaces and recognize that much has been accomplished by these extraordinary organizations.  To put things in perspective, our NorthCoast 99 winners have made the following impact to our region:

• ten years of better than average salary increases for thousands of employees throughout Northeast Ohio.
• ten years of increasingly robust career development, mentorship, and safety programs for those employees.  
• ten years of enhanced employee benefits including wellness, financial, and retirement planning education; onsite convenience services, and support programs.  
• ten years of expanding workplace flexibility, telecommuting options, compressed workweeks, and the slow but steady extinction of traditional and punitive policies.  
• ten years of increasingly open communication about company and individual performance and greater opportunities for employees to provide input into how to make those companies more successful.  
• ten years of leaders taking more active roles in interacting with all employees, recognizing performance, and participating in and promoting service and social responsibility efforts, and  
• ten years of an ever sharpening focus on the importance of attracting and retaining top talent in Northeast Ohio.

It means increasing opportunity.  It means showcasing our region as a great place to live and work.  It means new jobs – well over 100,000 – and that’s just in the last 5 years.

There is no better way to lead, than to lead by example.  NorthCoast 99 winners are doing just that.  Their ideas and actions in many ways are revolutionary.  It takes guts, innovation and a belief that creating great workplaces for top performers is the catalyst for organizational success. 

This is one revolution against the status quo that is worth fighting.

Written by Pat Perry
President, ERC 

Perhaps some of you remember back to your days in elementary school when the annual “Santa controversy” reared its ugly head? For me, it was around second grade. In the days leading up to the holidays, classmates grilled each other as to whether Santa Claus actually existed. Of course, there was always one ringleader who professed that his/her parents told him/her there was no such thing. And you certainly did not want to be embarrassed by being the last one in school to know the truth. So, in an effort to remain in good standing with your classmates, you went home (unless you were the ringleader) and interrogated your parents regarding “Santa”. 

I vividly remember the pained look on my dad’s face when I questioned him about the big guy from the North Pole. It is the same look, I am sure, that came across my face when my daughter questioned me about Santa years ago. I live vicariously through my kids during the holidays trying to regain magic lost through adulthood. So admitting the truth about Santa may be sobering for kids, but for some of us adults (like me), it is a reminder of a simpler time when the holidays were truly something special rather than the current tradition of gift cards exchange.

Like our children, when the truth settled in about Santa, many of us became painfully aware that all the fun, magic and mystery were gone - Santa evidently did not exist - it was all a lie. After surviving some psychological scarring, we moved on and proceeded to dispel other mythical figures like the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy. 

Well, this is one kid who never wanted to grow up. Believing in magic and little miracles is really something. 

As we approach the 2007 holidays, perhaps we need that magic to occur in our workplaces to push our organizations and Northeast Ohio forward in 2008. Here is a list for all of you “Santas” to ponder as you bestow gifts on your work force this holiday season: (Be sure to check it twice!)

• Eliminate probationary period policies - they send the wrong message to excellent performers.
• Be grateful that employees show up for work and perform.
• Network when you don’t need to.
• Support more balance between work and family life for all your employees.
• WOW top performers.
• Employ at least one unemployed person in 2008.
• Pay employees fairly and competitively.
• Employ at least one intern in 2008.
• Purchase services based on value versus price.
• Buy in Northeast Ohio whenever possible.
• Become passionate about selling your CEO on the idea that the road to unlimited success lies with developing a great workplace.
• Fight to increase your training budget.
• Incorporate wellness and health education into your health insurance program - you will save lives and money.
• Encourage employees to make their workplace better every day.
• Take risks.
• Avoid politics and destroy workplace bureaucracy whenever possible.
• Use the “Wizard of Oz” movie as a leadership development tool.
• Finally, mandate that each of your managers read Tom Peters’ “Re-imagine” and Robert Fulghum’s “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.” Then have them reread your organization’s mission statement and employee handbook to ensure these policies still make sense today.

There is more on my list, but space is limited. So many possibilities remain to provide all sorts of surprises and presents for your employees - some they will consider “miracles”. Many don’t even cost a dime!

So this year, don’t let the Grinch steal your business. Regardless of the news of the day or some economist’s outlook, you have a great ability to spread some workplace magic - you can make believers out of your employees that great things are possible. And maybe, just maybe, there really is a “Santa Claus”. … Quick, go look in the mirror to see. 

Written by Pat Perry
President, ERC    

The NorthCoast 99 winners were recognized this week at a sold out gala of 850 attendees.  The program was conducted at LaCentre in Westlake with the winners of the program and sponsors celebrating the successes a great workplace brings to an organization.

ERC has hosted the program for nine years and I never cease to be amazed at the quality of companies that comprise the NorthCoast 99. Despite the negative news that the Northeast Ohio mainstream media seems to embrace, it is clear by looking at NorthCoast 99 organizations that the region’s future is bright.  Their focus remains on developing and maintaining great workplaces for top performers.  Their employment policies compensation structures, benefits programs, health and safety programs, communication efforts, community service and training programs are different and innovative.  They are designed to attract top talent and remove those employees that just don’t get it.

Their focus is on the workplaces as they understand that profitability, cost controls, productivity enhancements, customer service and quality programs are all improved by swelling their workforce with above average workers.  Study after study shows that organizations focused on the development and maintenance of a great workplace significantly outperform those organizations traditionally managed.  So the statistics are there and the “proof is in the pudding”.  So why doesn’t every CEO focus on the attraction and retention of top talent?  I wish I knew.

So much of our region’s issue would dissolve if our Northeast Ohio leaders started with their organizations first before worrying about the regional plight. There is an old saying; “Don’t worry about your neighbor’s lawn until yours is weed free”.  Imagine if just for one year, every Northeast Ohio organization (private, public, government, academic, etc.) made a commitment to developing a better workplace. Imagine if the leaders of these organizations spent their time improving the quality of their own workplace rather than on committees focused on improving the region.  I would bet that at the end of the year, the results of developing better workplaces to attract and retain top performers would have a much greater impact on the region than all of the many (and sometime duplicative) economic development initiatives.

At ERC we continue to encourage top leaders to accept our regional challenge of the great workplace. 

How do we elevate the business and living conditions of Northeast Ohio? 

We know the answer.

Written by Pat Perry
President, ERC  

Recently I read an article from one of the area “image consultants” that proclaimed that if casual dress continues to be permitted in the workplace, business as we know it today would be doomed.  This consultant stated that business attire was the only acceptable dress day in and day out for all professionals - the “clothes make the person theory.”

Funny, my parents always taught me that “the person” makes the person, and that it is more important how you look on the “inside” than the outside.  According to the author of this article, maybe they were wrong.  Not!

The debate over business causal rages and probably will until the end of time.  Some organizations ban it, some have it on Fridays, some on Mondays and some encourage casual wear on a daily basis.  We know organizations that “reward” employees a few times a year with casual dress days.  Other organizations allow casual dress unless employees are traveling outside the office on business.  So many variations, so many decisions - makes you wonder what is right.

I wonder why Fridays were chosen as the most popular day to allow casual dress.  What’s wrong with Mondays?  For that matter, why not Thursdays?  Ask some organizational leaders to explain why certain days are designated casual and you receive a blank stare.

Perhaps you may want to assess your organization’s policy. 

• Is it current?
• Does it reflect and fit your organizational culture?
• Does it support productivity improvements?
• Are there legitimate safety concerns that dictate a certain dress code?
• Has anyone asked employees lately how they feel about casual dress?
• Have you been able to correlate operational and financial success or failure with casual dress?  In other words, does the way your employees dress in the office have an impact on your business?
• What would happen in your organization if you implemented “Casual Mondays” or “Casual Wednesdays”?

Business casual is alive and well in corporate America.  So is regular business attire.  Businesses will not succeed or fail because of dress. Like any other policy or program, how employees dress for work should “fit” with your organization.  Do what works for you and your employees.

Interestingly enough, a new trend in professional business dress has arisen with some of America’s most prominent executives.  In many of the national magazines and newspapers I have been noticing pictures of several of these executives wearing expensive suits with a new wardrobe “accessory” - handcuffs as they are escorted off to prison. 

I hope this is one fashion trend that is short lived.