What most employers fail to consider is what should be your unique selling propositions as an employer and what sets you apart from other organizations. Employers need to rethink the selling points that market you as an ‘employer of choice’. If your best tag line features include things you should naturally be doing, a rewrite is in order:

“We provide base salary and benefits” – Great…and you should.
“We are an equal opportunity employer” – You are supposed to be!
“We offer a comfortable working environment” – Opposed to?

These types of postulates remind me of banter with mates who want undeserved points for paying their bills on time, taking care of their kids and being a courteous driver.  All fantastic qualities affording you the right to claim you are a decent human being, but nothing that sets you apart from what you should be doing.

Employers want to believe that their offerings are original and different, when in fact there is little that is separating them from other organizations. Consider identifying benefits that are outside of the norm. Do you offer tuition reimbursements and professional development? Do you offer flexible hours for those who have varying commitments supporting a healthy work/life balance? Do you promote strong workplace values such as public image and ethics?

Employers need to discontinue marketing themselves with reasons that should be expectations of employees and not as perks. Less credit needs to be taken for the things that employers should be doing naturally, and more for truly enhancing an employee’s experience with an organization.

Most employers appreciate that terminations must be handled sensitively, carefully and with forethought. However, as employment counsel, we often see mistakes or missteps in the termination process by well-meaning employers. Sometimes these mistakes can be overcome with a generous separation package. In other cases, however, they can contribute to unnecessary, protracted and expensive litigation. As many of these missteps seem to repeat themselves, the following short refresher is offered on some “do’s” and “don’ts” of terminations.

DO….expect that a terminated employee will review the circumstances of the termination, and any separation package offered, with legal counsel.
Employers often tell us that a particular employee is not the type to challenge the fairness of a separation package, start a legal action, pay for litigation, etc. The fact is that employers should draft termination letters and prepare separation packages expecting that any terminated employee will seek the advice of legal counsel. Much has changed over the last two decades. In part, as the result of media focus, employees are now keenly aware that they have rights related to their employment, even if they do not always have a clear understanding of the nature and extent of these rights (see “privacy”). More importantly, access to legal counsel has never been easier. The Internet means that any employee can quickly find lawyers in their area who practice employment law. In turn, the Law Society of Upper Canada has now formalized rules allowing lawyers to negotiate contingency fee arrangements with clients, making litigation more affordable.

DO…consider consulting legal counsel before terminating an employee.
Unfortunately, employers often consult legal counsel only after the termination has taken place, words have been exchanged, a separation package has been offered, etc. In most cases, with some general information, employment counsel can quickly assess whether or not the employer is in a defensible position to argue cause (if that is a relevant consideration), and if not, the elements of a reasonable separation package.

DO…consider consulting legal counsel to review or draft the termination letter.
In my opinion, drafting a well-crafted and professional termination letter is absolutely essential. Many employers fail to appreciate that when an employee consults a lawyer, the employer’s termination letter may be the only document that the lawyer sees. Lawyers develop opinions and impressions about the employer, including impressions about sophistication and vulnerability, based in part upon what the termination letter says and how it is constructed. For example, we recently reviewed a termination letter given to a long-service female employee. The letter ended by wishing a different (male) employee well in his future endeavours. Clearly, the employer had used a precedent letter from a prior termination and failed to change all of the name references. Aside from angering the terminated employee, such gaffes provide legal counsel with opportunities to argue that the employer is disorganized, uncaring and unprofessional. Similarly, wrong facts, legal concepts unknown to law, spelling mistakes and poor grammar, all provide plaintiff lawyers with ammunition to discredit the employer and leverage negotiations. Whenever possible, I would recommend having legal counsel draft or review the termination letter in advance of conducting the termination.

DO….consider offering reimbursement for outplacement services, up to a maximum specified amount.
Generally speaking, when a terminated employee replaces his or her employment at company A with equivalent employment (and equivalent remuneration) at company B, at law the employee is considered to have fully mitigated any damages suffered through the loss of employment. In other words, the original employer is no longer liable to pay damages once the employee has obtained equivalent employment. Therefore, as part of a separation package, and particularly those prepared for long-service employees, it often makes excellent business sense to offer some level of reimbursement for outplacement services.

DON’T….ask an employee to sign a release to receive his or her minimum entitlements pursuant to the Employment Standards Act, 2000.
Entitlement to termination pay and, where applicable, severance pay, pursuant to the Employment Standards Act, 2000, is accrued through years of service for the employer. The employee’s right to these amounts crystallizes at the moment he or she receives notice of termination. Accordingly, an employee does not need to sign any form of release to be entitled to these statutory amounts. The circumstances where an employer may request a release, arise when the employer offers additional pay in lieu of notice or other benefits, over and above the employee’s statutory entitlements.

DON’T….ask an employee to sign a release in the termination meeting.
An employee losing his or her position is in a particularly vulnerable situation, and one that is likely to generate considerable sympathy with a Court. Employers often assume that if an employee agrees to a separation package offered in a termination meeting (as evidenced by the employee’s signature), the employer is protected from a wrongful dismissal action. In fact, it is more likely in my view, that seeking a release from an employee in a termination meeting will improve the employee’s case for being treated unfairly. Whenever a separation package is offered, provide the employee with at least 7 days to consider the separation package, before requiring the employee to return a signed release. In addition, consider advising the employee in the termination letter of his or her opportunity to consult legal counsel about any separation package that has been offered. If the package is fair, the employer will be able to defend its offer even if the employee retains legal counsel. On the contrary, if insufficient time is provided to the employee to consider the separation package and/or the opportunity to consult legal counsel is not identified, the employee’s acceptance of the package may be deemed uninformed and unenforceable.

DON’T…mix “cause” and “without cause” reasons to terminate in the termination letter.
When an employee is terminated for cause (e.g. theft, dishonesty, violence in the workplace), he or she is generally entitled to receive only accrued but unpaid wages, expenses etc. to the date of termination, and nothing more. There are certain situations where an employer may allege cause to terminate the employment relationship, but also pay to the employee his or her entitlements to termination pay and severance pay pursuant to the Employment Standards Act, 2000, however these situations are exceedingly rare. Accordingly, if the employer is terminating an employee without cause (e.g. restructuring), the termination letter should refrain from referencing performance issues, personality conflicts, attitude problems etc. as these issues are irrelevant. Where such issues are identified in the context of a termination “without cause”, this again provides plaintiff counsel with ammunition to allege that the employer was not forthright about the reasons for termination, or that it was unnecessarily hurtful toward the employee who has just lost his or her job.

Think of all the email you receive on any given day – how much heads straight to the trash bin?  Or should, for those hoarders in the group.

Email can be a very effective communication tool, but it gets used and abused way too often.  So if your organization is like most, and you’d like to get some control of the Inbox-monster and improve company productivity you might consider some of the following.

Stop the Reply-All Hell – Only use the reply-all function when EVERY person in the group needs to know your message.  Otherwise consider replying only to the sender and CC a few other relevant people.

Thank you is Implied – Its not necessary to send ‘Thank you’ emails when someone has replied and finished a request.  Replying to requests is part of our jobs, and your Thank you email just makes for more work – hitting the delete key yet again.

Filters are your BFF – Filters, otherwise known as rules, are a tremendously valuable tool to sort through your emails and organize them where they need to go.  Subscribe to a newsletter?  Send them automatically to a newsletter folder to keep them out of your inbox.  This gives you clarity in your inbox, and a single place to click when you have the time to catch up. (BFF = best friend forever)

Practice Inbox Zero – Become an Inbox Master by filtering, processing archiving and deleting emails with passionate zeal.  Got a thank you email, hit delete.  Newsletter gets filtered to a folder for later.  Process short requests right away and banish it from your inbox.  Head over to 43folders.com to learn more about this email philosophy.

Outlook is not Your Boss – Change the settings to check for new message every 30-60 minutes or more.  Having email constantly coming in and interrupting your work is a total productivity-killer.  Push the envelop on this and see how far you can go – perhaps to scheduling yourself limited time per day to process email.

We can Re-build It – Office communication that is, can be rebooted using alternative tools that offer better ways of working and communicating in a group.  Here are a few ideas:

• A group messaging tool, such as Campfire, allows an always-on ‘chatroom’ for everyone on the team to communicate and share information.  The conversations are archived and searchable, including any documents shared – which is really powerful when new people join the team.  They can just search for the documents instead of emailing a request.  Check out how one company used Campfire to not only tame the email beast, but also reduce the frequency of meetings.
• Web-based project management tools are a great way to work together in a team, with a central source of information fueling the team.  Tools like this are especially useful to teams spread across time zones, or offices.

This is just a short list of ideas – what does your company do to help the flow of communication and improve productivity?

• Are properly oriented, trained and supervised on jobs.
• Meet minimum age requirements
• Are protected by safety measures to prevent injuries.

They state this blitz will be focusing on workplaces where young adults are frequently employed, including stores, wholesales,  restaurants and vehicle sales.

“Young and new workers in Ontario are up to four times more likely to be injured during the first month on the job than at any other time. Ontario is committed to eliminating workplace injuries. All workers have the right to come home from work each day to their families, safe and sound.”

– Peter Fonseca
Minister of Labour

Indeed, everything from management strategy to recruiting tactics to employment legislation has shifted over the last year, and all of this change was naturally bringing with it new approaches, strategies and understanding.

And frankly, after a year of talking in my “mommy voice” and discovering that I have a disappointing and very large capacity for hating children’s television — yeah, I’ll send Dora on a voyage of exploration; as long as it’s one way! – I welcomed the opportunity to encounter the new, changed landscape of work.

But…what I didn’t realize, was how much technology – and in particular social media — has influenced the workplace in so many different ways.

Twitter, Rypple, LinkedIn, blogging, “digg”ing things, Facebook as a recruitment tool, online surveys through Wufoo (I can’t believe I just typed that). These are my new social media friends. They’re here to stay. And now it’s up to me – for the first time in my career – to play catch-up with workplace technology and learn how I fit into this new social media world at work.

Honestly, it’s a bit of a daunting task. Almost as daunting as dodging mashed carrot from your son who just won’t eat WHY WON’T HE EAT I MEAN I’M TRYING TO FEED HIM AND WHAT MORE CAN I DO WILL YOU PLEASE EAT THE CARROTS PLEASE CAN WE MAKE A DEAL HERE, HOW ABOUT SOME DORA…

(Sorry. That happens every now and then. I’m sure it will pass.)

The point is, as strange as some of these social media tools and terms may seem (wufoo?),they can also be overwhelming. There’s a lot to learn. There’s a lot to take in. There’s a lot to make sense of.

However, just as quickly as I’m learning to have meetings on dim dim, I’m also learning that these social tools are actually fun, helpful and surprisingly easy to use – once you get the hang of it, and simply stop fighting the movement.  I feel ridiculous saying wufoo but it’s a great tool and it makes my job easier.

So if you’re finding the whole social media blitz overwhelming, my advice to you is to take a deep breath, go at your own pace, ask for help when you need it, and take it one day at a time.

Heck. If I can master the fine art of mashed carrot dodging, I’ll OWN this social media thing in no time.

When performance reviews arrived onto the scene, they were embraced by managers for their promise to objectively evaluate performance, detect areas in need of improvement, and reward those who might otherwise have their contributions overlooked.   And for employees, they were excited by the promise of clear expectations, reliable feedback and linking performance to reward.

Unfortunately however, for many, the love faded over time.  And these days, more often than not, among both managers and workers, performance reviews enjoy a legacy of eroding morale, confusing expectations, undermining standards, and with staggering irony, actually lowering performance.  I am always surprised  by how many managers and employees perceive the process – one that was really developed with their needs in mind – as something they ‘have’ to do as a matter of due process (read: because HR is nagging them).

What Went Wrong?

Interestingly, the problem is not the very idea of performance reviews – they are still valuable when implemented correctly.  I suspect that the root cause of the misery lies in the following:

• Many performance reviews attempt to achieve objectivity through what is, fundamentally, a subjective process. Instead of focusing on the work-related elements that should being evaluated (objective measurement), attention is inevitably drawn to the evaluator him/herself  (subjective measurement).  Not unlike school – managers (like teachers) are sorted into easy and hard graders.

• Many employees feel condemned when they do not ‘exceed expectations’.  This is a result of the new workplace where ‘more’ is the norm and you have to ‘go above and beyond’ the ‘above and beyond’ in order to gain attention for your work efforts.  Very unfortunately, the evaluation of ‘meeting expectations’ has come to tacitly penalize competent workers who are simply doing their job the way they’re supposed to do it. That these workers aren’t over-achieving (at least according to the manager; see the point above) becomes a condemnation that they’re under-achieving.

How to Fix Things?

Fixing performance reviews so they provide value is challenging, but not impossible or even daunting. Furthermore, there is no need to rebuild/replace the performance reviews that an employer uses or wants to use (e.g. 360 feedback, etc.).

The fix lies in implementing performance reviews with the following guidelines:

• Accept the subjective nature of performance reviews, and take ownership of that feature. Since managers have (whether they truly want it or not) the power to subjectively grade a performance review, they must also accept the responsibility to communicate how and why they grade the way they do. This helps turn attention away from the grade and the grader, and towards the meaningful information that comes from the performance review itself.

• Talk about the performance review form. Here’s a secret that needs to be brought unto the clarifying light of blatant truth: many managers don’t know how to fill out the performance review form. For example, a manager ranks a worker as  a “3 out of 5” on a particular question, but is unable to explain his/her rationale (why not a 2? Why not a 4? And so on). Often, the reason for this confusion is the performance review form itself – it “forces” the manager to address an issue in a certain way that is either incomprehensible or inapplicable. When this happens, managers should talk to the worker about the issue pointed to by the question, and build an action plan (if necessary) from there.

• Create consistency across the organization where possible. Managers should communicate with each other to strive for some sense of organizational consistency in performance review grading. When this is not possible due to structural, cultural or other differences, these inconsistencies should be clearly identified, and managers should be prepared to discuss these differences with workers if they arise as issues.

• Revisit rating scales on a regular basis, and be prepared to change them. Ratings scales aren’t carved in stone, and shouldn’t be treated as sacred. Perceptions change, cultures change, expectations change, and most certainly, rating scales change as well – or at least, they should change whenever they cease to lose their “common sense” and no longer apply. For example, earlier the point was raised about how meeting expectations has become, in some workplaces, synonymous with under-performing. This is a clear call to change the rating so that “meeting expectations” recaptures its original, non-critical meaning, and rather than criticizing an employee, actually applauds them for doing a solid job. Also keep in mind that there are some situations where taking away the rating scale altogether is wise, as it would make the performance review process more effective.

Workplaces need to recapture the spirit of the performance review process and form.  Performance reviews (should) exist to help achieve workplace goals. When performance reviews cease to provide this outcome – that is, when they cease to be useful, beneficial tools – then managers must either adjust or replace them before they continue doing more damage; some of it lasting and very difficult to repair.

I would argue you should never shift focus away from retention, but this is perhaps for another blog post. The reality is that retention has simply not been a priority for most businesses in the past 18 months and that needs to change.

An extraordinary legacy of the recent economic downturn is its creation of a new kind of employee; one who has seen, felt and experienced first-hand the trauma of working inside an organization when the economic world outside is crumbling. These employees are the witnesses. The survivors. And while they’ve been seriously disgruntled for months now (Great Recessions will do that), they’ve stuck around because of limited options elsewhere.

That’s changing.

Now, as the economic storm is ending, companies are hiring again. And so the fear of unemployment which held your workforce together is fading (it may be already gone). Your employees are polishing their resumes, getting in touch with contacts, sharpening their interview skills, and emotionally have one foot out the door. They’ve just been waiting for the skies to clear and for the storm to pass.

And – of the utmost importance to understand — they’re not doing this out of disloyalty. They’re doing this because they aren’t happy (to put it mildly) with what they saw, or how they were treated.

That means, frankly, that some of your best performers – the ones you kept — are poised to walk out the door, take their knowledge capital with them, and leave you with the costs of hiring and training new staff.

Your challenge? Stop this scenario before it happens by implementing smart retention strategies that work.

The Retention Strategies

The old “3-R’s” of realistic expectations, rewards and recognition all still matter, and not even a Great Recession can shake that.

Yet in addition to these staples of retention wisdom, you need to modify your approach in light of what has transpired in the workforce; both in your unique workplace, and in the overall sector/market.

Below are four best practices that can shape and direct your retention efforts.

• Communicate effectively and honestly. Times have been tough and stress has influenced your’s and your colleagues’ behaviour in a lot of undesirable (okay, ugly) ways. Now that things are calmer and cooler, don’t behave as if “nothing happened.” Talk about decisions with your employees; explain some of the reasons behind them, and be open about where the company is and where it’s going.

• Accept responsibility (or at least take ownership) of regrettable actions. If your employees respond to your authentic communication efforts with sadness or anger, take it – own up to it. Your goal is to leave as little room for rumour and fear as possible.  If you — or your company, of which you were the unlucky representative — made decisions which weren’t “employee friendly” (you know the ones we’re talking about), the blunt fact is you can’t do much to make up for that. The wound is there; it can’t be undone. However, you can and should own up to the actions and be prepared to accept some unhappy, hurt, and angry responses.

• Focus on supervisor-employee relationships.  Broad retention strategies have their place, but the relationship between an employee and his/her boss is what really counts. One of the cruelest consequences of the economic turmoil has been an erosion of personal relationships and trust. By fostering supervisor-employee relationships, you help restore this bond – and keep a valued employee from leaving for greener pastures.

• Focus on compensation.  Many non-financial factors influence retention and you should focus on those. However, don’t delude yourself into thinking they replace compensation. They merely enhance it. In short: compensation matters. If it’s time for you to give employees a bump or a bonus, now is the time to do it.

Context is Everything

In closing, remember: while these practices are all good ideas under any circumstances, your challenge is to apply them in context of what has transpired over the past months. So in other words, if after reading the best practices above you figure that you’re “doing all of this stuff already and have been for years,” then re-visit this belief and ask yourself: am I modifying these to reflect the new, post-recession labour market reality?

Chances are, you aren’t.

However, that’s no cause for alarm – not yet. Because you’ve identified a critical retention issue in your company before it becomes an expensive, time consuming and possibly un-solvable problem. That’s something to feel good about.

Your clear top priority now is to implement retention strategies that work and make sense in the new “recession aftermath” world. Be assured: it can be done, and the sooner you start, the safer, stronger, and more successful your company will be.

Download a free white paper written by Pam to go further in-depth on this topic.

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