This is Part 4 of a 6 part series on transformation leadership.  In part 1 of this series, I laid out five great New Year’s resolutions for Executives in 2013.  In this post, I offer some practical suggestions for Resolution #3: Treat your employees with more respect in 2013.

Why Employees Deserve Our Respect

A very close friend of mine works for a large, well-known and well-respected food manufacturer.  The company pays quite well, has a good benefits package, and would generally be considered a great place to work. And right on their website, they state their vision that employees who feel valued are more likely to be fully engaged in our success.

Except my friend happens to work for the “boss from hell”.  You know the kind I am talking about.  He’s the one who belittles your ideas for improvements — and then one week later presents them as his own ideas.  He’s the one who is very quick to criticize, even when you have nothing to do with the problem, and very slow to praise, even when you are the one who saved the day.  And he’s the one who won’t approve your vacation requests because you are “too valuable” to be allowed to take time off.

All of these behaviors are not only disrespectful, they are bordering on abusive. And they certainly don’t represent a sense of “valuing” employees.

Employees who do not feel valued are less likely to put 100% of themselves into the job.  They make mistakes.  They have accidents. They arrive late and they leave early. They are surly to their co-workers — and to customers.   And, ultimately, they impact your bottom line by raising your costs and damaging your company’s reputation.  Yes, there is the occasional “bad actor”  - the employee who will do all these things even with the best boss in the world.  But if you have a lot of these “bad actors” in your company, I will submit that you have a more serious and systemic management problem.

While customers are our reason for being, employees are the reason we continue to exist and to grow.  They are the ones who interact with our customers through sales and customer service activities.  They are the ones who interact with our suppliers, through purchasing and finance.  They are the ones who have to work together to produce our products or deliver our services.  In short, unless you are a one-person company, you need your employees to be successful.

Without productive and engaged employees, we cannot provide our customers with the best products and services at a fair price. But it takes more than a good pay scale, decent benefits, and some nicely worded sentiments on the company’s web page.  It takes the heart felt commitment of every executive, manager, supervisor, and team leader in the company to provide the leadership that these valuable resources deserve.

So what can you do in 2013 to treat your employees with more respect?

Complete performance reviews on time — and with purpose.

Here is a simple “True or False” question to ask yourself.

Performance management is the single most important activity that any supervisor or manager should do.

If you answered “True”, you can skip this rest of this section.  You are already among the few leaders who understand the true importance of effectively and purposefully managing the performance of your people. But if you thought of even one thing that you think is more important and answered “False”, read on.

As a consultant, educator, and business development professional, I have had the opportunity to learn how organizations of all sizes approach managing the performance of their employees.  One of the sad truths I have learned is that employees nearly always place a higher value on the performance review than their supervisors and managers.  Some of the problems employees report include:

• Reviews are not completed on time, if at all.  Smaller organizations are particularly prone to this.  I have worked with some companies where employees have not received a performance review for  years.
• Reviews are arbitrary and vague. Employees in companies of all sizes frequently complain that their supervisors do not provide them with feedback that is specific and actionable.  As a result, employees do not know what they need to do to improve their performance.
• Reviews contain big surprises.  Employees frequently report that they received no feedback or coaching during the year, only to be blindsided during the annual review with major performance deficiencies.

For their part, managers and supervisors also report frustration with the performance review process.  They may view the annual performance review as an administrative task that takes time away from “more important” work.  They are frustrated by the paperwork.  They have not been trained to complete performance reviews properly or conduct face-to-face performance reviews.  They are ill-prepared to provide coaching and counseling to employees to help them improve performance on an ongoing basis.

If any of these observations sound like they came from your employees or management team, then 2013 might be the year to tackle your performance management system.  Take a look at whether your performance review process is designed to develop the behaviors you need to achieve your vision.  Then provide your entire team with the tools and training they need to successfully manage the performance of your employees.

Make training and development a priority.

One of the objectives of any good performance management system should be to identify skills and knowledge that an employee needs to be more successful in their job and advance in their careers.  Performance review forms usually contain a section for supervisors to list up to three training or development activities for each employee.  Yet, only the best managed companies actually use this information to prepare consolidated training plans and budgets for the coming year.  Instead, most companies leave it up to the employee and their supervisor to find — and fund — the specific training.

So how can a company make training and development a priority?  Certainly, setting up a training budget — and protecting it — is an important first step.  But instead of treating training as a discretionary budget item that can be reduced or eliminated at will, treat it as a mandatory budget item — just like health benefits or retirement funds.

Another important step is to set aside time for each employee to participate in training.  One company I worked for early in my career set aside 3 weeks every year for every employee.  While 3 weeks may be too much for most companies to absorb in today’s business environment, why not start with 3 days?  Make a commitment to your employees that you will provide them with a minimum of 3 days each year to develop the skills or acquire the knowledge you need them to have to be more successful.

Finally, hold yourself and your management team accountable for making sure that each employee receives the training and development that is identified each year.  Make it part of THEIR performance review (and yours) to provide the training and development opportunities that your employees need.

By elevating the importance of training and development of your employees, you will be showing your employees how much you value them.  When you do it with purpose, you will see a real and meaningful improvement in your organization’s overall performance.

Honor commitments for time-off and vacation requests.

We all need time off to relax and recharge our batteries, from the top of the organization to the very bottom.  One of the perks of being an executive is to have even more time off than our entry-level employees.  And most executives make sure they take every day that is due.  Yet, while we enjoy 4 or 5 weeks of time off each year, we may have employees who only have 5 or 10 days each year.  So why do companies make it so difficult for employees to schedule these few days off when they need it?

When we fail to approve a request for time-off that is submitted well in advance or when we cancel an approved request at the last minute, we are telling employees that our needs are more important than theirs.  Instead of communicating that they are valuable to us, we are communicating that we do not value them or their families.

Yes, there are times that we need to ask an employee to reschedule a vacation.  There may be a critically important project to complete or a game-changing proposal to submit.  But these should be the exception and not the rule.  And paying an employee for unused vacation time isn’t the answer, either.  An employee who is burned out is less motivated and less productive, regardless of how much we pay them.

As we begin 2013, examine your organization’s practices for scheduling time off.  Are you taking a balanced approach or are you treating some employees more favorably than others?  Is canceling or rescheduling time-off the exception or the rule?  If you do have to ask an employee to cancel or change a vacation, are you reimbursing them for non-refundable costs or are you shifting the financial burden to them?

Just like honoring your commitments to training and development, honoring your commitments for time-off requests demonstrates to your employees that you respect and value their contributions to your success.

Make the tough decisions to remove the “bad actors”.

I started this blog with a story about the “boss from hell”.  It turns out that this boss is one of the exceptions and not the rule at this particular company.  It is widely known in the organization that he does not treat his employees with respect, that he takes credit for ideas that are not his own, and that he takes advantage of his best performers by denying time-off and training requests while rewarding the poor performers by approving these requests.  So why does he still have his job?

As an executive, one of the best decisions you can make for your entire team is to remove the “bad actors”.  Whether it is an employee who simply is not performing or a manager who refuses to conform to your principles, leaving these “bad actors”  in place is demoralizing to everyone who needs to cover for their shortcomings.  If you have been putting this off because it is difficult, do not put it off any longer.  You are likely spending far too much time and energy on managing these people and the consequences of their actions at the expense of the people who can actually help you achieve your vision.

Celebrate your employees’ successes.

One of the easiest — and costless — things you can do to show your employees more respect is to simply thank them for the work that they do.  Certainly, you can and should have more formal means of celebrating success, such as raises, performance bonuses, and other recognition programs.  But a simple thank you from the “big boss” on an ordinary work day can often produce the most extraordinary results.

You can start your resolution to treat your employees with more respect as soon as you are done reading this blog.  Just walk the halls of your facility or pick up the phone to call remote employees with no purpose other than to shake a hand and say thank you.  You will make their day — and they, in turn, will help make your year the best it can be.