PD Strategies Blog

How does your business create value? You should have a powerful customer value proposition. But don’t forget your staff, your team. Do you have a powerful employee value proposition? Successful companies with loyal customers have both. When I consult with business owners in Westchester County New York often I hear comments about getting the staff to do the right things. Sometimes an owner is willing to place all the blame on the staff being lazy, unmotivated, or the like. Fortunately, most will ask how they can improve their ability to get the team behind them. You can change things by being laser focused on the goals and leading by example. Your laser focus empowers your employees who in turn create loyal customers by their actions. Being Laser Focused - You may be the owner or manager but that does not mean you are seen as the leader. As owner you can...

Now might be a good time to look at the strategic direction of your company. Here are two basic questions. What business are you in? Are your employees aligned and are they doing the right things for the right reasons? What business are you in? Don’t laugh. What product or service do you really provide and have times including the last two years caused you to rethink? You might be providing computer and IT support but now you may be a consultant to clients to protect and secure their information. You might need to do a scan of the landscape, gather information, talk to customers, and study industry trends. Failure to do this may cause your business to decline. Listen to your customers and ask for their opinion about your services. Learn this and create your customer value proposition. Are your employees aligned and are they engaged? You will not exceed...

I mentioned previously that you don’t employees, but you need the right employees. You do need to make sure, of course, that they are the right fit. But what if you make offers to people that fit but they turn the offer down? It is time to look in the mirror and check your Employee Value Proposition.  An Employee Value Proposition explains why a highly qualified employee would want to work for your company and why that highly qualified person would want to stay. This Employee Value Proposition would be tied to your strategic plan and include your vision, your values, and, your mission. The values should include such things as social responsibility, ethical conduct, and reputation. All three together establishes your organization’s culture. Can you describe your culture? Every organization has a culture. Question is this. Is it the culture you want? The Employee Value Proposition EVP matters. Although people...

What do you think the stress level is at your workplace? Every workplace has stress. Management should be concerned about the level of stress in the workplace. Some people have personal stress the carries into the work life. This could be any number of things such as home problems, health, financial worries, and the like. It is wise for management to have outside help available rather then getting involved with employees’ private issues. A good EAP (Employee Assistance Program) can be obtained through an outside provider. However, this conversation is about workplace stress brought on in the workplace. Being challenged at work can escalate into having a highly demanding job. Often a result of poorly designed jobs, stress resulting from excessive demand happens when workloads become overwhelming, or skills or talents don't match the position. That being said, here are 7 workplace factors that might be causing stress with your team....

Retention of key employees is important to your company. What was your retention rate last year? Whatever it was, if you want it to improve this year you will need to have a strong Employee Value Proposition. An Employee Value Proposition explains why a highly qualified employee would want to work for your company and why that highly qualified person would want to stay. This Employee Value Proposition would be tied to your strategic plan and include your vision, your values, and, your mission. The values should include such things as social responsibility, ethical conduct, and reputation. Strong employee engagement produces successful business outcomes including a loyal customer base. And this leads to increasing sales and profits. The reverse is also true. Employees who are not engaged have no passion for their work, are frequently absent, make mistakes, and cost the organization its customers. Understanding what engages employees involves connecting with...

You may believe that you have a powerful customer value proposition but if your employees are not on board it will never be fulfilled. If they are not on board then, perhaps, you are not leading them. When I consult with business owners in Westchester County New York often I hear comments about getting the staff to do the right things. Sometimes an owner is willing to place all the blame on the staff being lazy, unmotivated, or the like. Fortunately, most will ask how they can improve their ability to get the team behind them. You can change things by being laser focused on the goals and leading by example. Your laser focus empowers your employees who in turn create loyal customers by their actions. Being Laser Focused - You may be the owner but that does not mean you are seen as the leader. As owner you can influence...

Your most important task in your business is to attract and retain customers. Second most important task is to attract and retain great employees. You need a great product or service and a great value proposition to have loyal customers. The same is true for your employees. You must have a great employee value proposition. You are never going to learn the truth about your value proposition if you don’t ask. There are some organizations that never ask their customers or staff how the company is doing. Fear of hearing bad news will not make the bad news go away. However, it appears that many companies are just not comfortable asking the ultimate question, “How are we doing?” The reason that we know that companies are not interested in knowing how they are doing can be found in a Gallup survey. According to Gallup around 30% of employees are engaged at...

The employees of your business are important to your success. And today more than ever their connection with their job and your business is directly related to your success. In past times, leaders would give directions and expect them to be followed. Leadership today requires collaboration. Instead of saying what you want done you will say, “here is what we can accomplish together to achieve our goals.” Unfortunately, I am sometimes contacted by business owners that can’t understand why there are so many bad employees and they want me to fix them. I was asked by a family business what I felt needed to be done to “make their people work.” They did not ask me what they could do differently. For starters, family members disagreed on the operation of the business. Because of this, some key employees chose to align with one family member over the other. The managers in...

Have you noticed that it is getting harder find good people and that when you do they do not stay long? What value do they find in working for you? That is known as your Employee Value Proposition. An Employee Value Proposition explains why a highly qualified employee would want to work for your company and why that highly qualified person would want to stay. This Employee Value Proposition would be tied to your strategic plan and include your vision, your values, and, your mission. The values should include such things as social responsibility, ethical conduct, and reputation. Strong employee engagement produces successful business outcomes including a loyal customer base. And this leads to increasing sales and profits. The reverse is also true. Employees who are not engaged have no passion for their work, are frequently absent, make mistakes, and cost the organization its customers. Understanding what engages employees involves connecting...

Successful business leaders see their companies through the eyes of their employees and their customers. To successfully see as others do you must be able to listen and understand. More important than that you need to continually listen and measure and measure your results. This is not necessarily as easy as it sounds. Many times, when you see something every day you stop noticing. This might give a false sense of security. Everything is working and if it’s not broken don’t fix it. But things might have changed in the last five years or even two years. Has the customer value proposition or the employee value proposition with your company changed? How would you know? Here are two questions you should be asking yourself. Has a new team member joined and pointed out things you didn’t see? Have you had any suggestions or complaints by customers? Sometimes a person with a...

HDWe can’t seem to find anyone who wants to work. How many times have you heard that or maybe said that yourself?   Or you may have heard, “Unless I tell them what to do nothing gets done. I can’t trust them to do it themselves.” When I recently heard this I asked the owner to give me an example.   “Well,” he said, “I have given them detailed directions of exactly what I want done and they don’t do it the way I told them.” “Wait a minute,” I said, “Didn’t you just say that you wanted them to take ownership?”   If you want employees to take ownership you must empower them to make decisions as to the best way to get things done. If this is a source of frustration to you, here are two questions that you need to ask yourself. First of all, have you provided her with...

Now that you have carefully selected the correct fit for your company you will want them to stay. You do that by creating an Employee Value Proposition. Get this wrong and you will continue to tread water always trying to catch up. Get this right and you have one very important component for taking your business to the next level. a team of people, or are charged with human resources in your organization you know how important it is to retain your best people. So why do so many employee leave, or worse, why do they stay and become a drag on the organization? Here is a sobering fact. Employees do not leave companies, they leave supervisors. Many supervisors believe that if only the pay and fringe benefits were better their best employees would stay. I would not deny the compensation is important. However, people who are truly engaged with their...

If you are an employer in Westchester County New York, you know that it is difficult to find qualified employees. Once you find them you want them to be productive. And if they become performers you want them to stay. You need a Value Proposition to attract customers to your business, right? Well guess what, you need an Employee Value Proposition to attract and retain employees. Your employees really want opportunities to grow and develop. They want to do the best they can do and be the best they can be. It is important for you to engage that. Create a platform for Employee Development and Results. We start with expectations but before we measure expectations we need to set expectations. It is not merely enough to tell an employee here is your job description and see me if you have any questions. Establish expectations from the start. Help orient your...

What is the best was to see your business grow and have a sustainable business? The answer is this. It has been proven time and time again that a manager who empowers his or her staff by giving them authority to make decisions and control outcomes is many times more successful than a manager who holds the control. Management teams in Westchester County NY that have been following this advice have been seeing their sales increase and their employee turnover decrease. Clearly empowerment of staff creates better outcomes. Unfortunately, managers and executives find it very hard to let go and allow their staff to drive results. In some cases, the need to be right prevents the manager from trusting his or her employees. If you have a trust or fear issue you might want to ask yourself these two questions. First of all, have you provided your staff with all of...

Your company needs a value proposition to make itself relevant in the market place. How about your employees? Are you relevant to them? What is your Employee Value Proposition? This employee value proposition would be tied to your strategic plan and include your vision, your values, and, your mission. The values should include such things as social responsibility, ethical conduct, and reputation. Strong employee engagement produces successful business outcomes including a loyal customer base. And this leads to increasing sales and profits. The reverse is also true. Employees who are not engaged have no passion for their work, are frequently absent, make mistakes, and cost the organization its customers. Understanding what engages employees involves connecting with them. The Employee Value Proposition EVP matters. Although people work for money there are other factors and these other factors matter to the new workforce. A study done in 2013 by PwC and others reported...