Tag Archives: Benchmark

How Do You Recruit and Retain the Best People? Three Suggestions

Situation: A company is losing employees. Not the top ones, but the 2nd level. It’s not a manner of money but other reasons. Some don’t like the developing culture of accountability. Others are younger high potential employees who have performed well but have left for unexplained reasons. How do you recruit and retain the best people?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • It’s important to learn why they are leaving.
    • It may be a millennial phenomenon – this group may regard work as a transitory necessity.
    • Determine whether it because of accountability or other reasons.
      • Could they be unhappy with the level of growth opportunity?
      • Previous generations were used to moving to move up – are the younger employees less prone to do this?
    • Could younger workers see work as a job, whereas previous generations saw work as their livelihood – as their life.
  • What options could be tried?
    • Set up a hiring plan – over-hire to assure availability of talent – 15 people in the next 3 months.
    • During the hiring process employ a focused interview diagnostic to identify the key factors that will boost in employee retention.
  • One CEO has suggested an approach:
    • Start with a volunteer employee focus group that holds a series of meetings over lunch.
    • Use company channels to ask for volunteers.
    • Allow the group to relax and open-up over time. Then begin to drill down to the real issues, including legacy issues.
    • Use feedback from the focus group meetings to design a survey to establish metrics, validate the findings of the focus group, and establish benchmarks for long-term attitude monitoring.

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How Do You Integrate a New Team Into Your Culture? Six Ideas

Situation: A West Coast company has recently acquired an East Coast company. The two companies serve similar customers with different but complimentary services. The acquired team has a history and mode of operating. The CEO seeks advice on how much they should require the new team to operate as they do at the home office. How do you integrate a new team into your culture?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Have patience. The transition and transfer of culture will take time. Your priority is for both offices to operate smoothly and profitably. Business practices differ by geography to suit their regional cultures. The remote office need not function just like the home office.
  • If you want a manager from your home office in the new office, take care who you select. Since you have history with the new company and office, select a manager who already has a good relationship with key senior managers in the new office. This will ease the transition, and will keep you updated on what is happening there.
  • Organize a dinner with your new manager and the senior managers in the new office. At dinner you will want to communicate your expectations and accelerate the transition.
  • Involve the senior managers from the new office in mentoring the new manager. This will give them an important role and will show respect for their knowledge and expertise.
  • Do all that you can to reinforce the link between the offices – in a constructive way.
  • Set benchmarks and plans of action, and manage to these.

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What Leading Sales Indicators Are Effective? Four Suggestions

Situation: A company has experienced low sales early in its peak season due to bad weather. The CEO wants to develop additional leading indicators that will help predict whether sales will recover prior to the end of the peak season. What leading indicators have you found effective in predicting seasonal sales?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Access to benchmarked research can be helpful, especially industry reports that cite growth indicators. Some industry report producers can generate drill-down reports of their base data for a fee. This allows you to tailor your own study based on their data.
  • Depending upon whether you set revenue projections by brand or product line, look for indicators within brands or lines that will provide you with clarity on sales projections. An example is product reviews in relevant newsletters, provided that these have effectively benchmarked to sales results in the past.
  • In addition to new leading indicators for existing products, there are a number of ways that you can reduce the impact of seasonality on your cash flow. These include: investments that will lead to future income streams; new product placements to compliment or extend current lines; new key customers or outlets through which you can expand your market; and increasing sales calls to create new demand. Also, use the current season to establish additional benchmarks that will be useful in future years.
  • Other tactics include evaluating in-house versus contract production of your products to improve your margins, and strategies to improve up-sales from medium to premium products where margins are better. You can also focus on smaller independent outlets rather than national chains which are dominated by national brands, and also regional explore private label opportunities.

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