When Incivility Darkens the Workplace

When incivility occurs in the workplace a steep price can be paid if it’s not dealt with. Incivility takes many forms in the modern workplace: rudeness, obnoxious behavior directed at another, undermining, being disrespectful, ignoring people’s opinion, etc. If not addressed this type of behavior can take a personal toll.

Recently I interviewed a senior director who was the brunt of another’s rude, inappropriate behavior. His failure to address the problem eventually led down a long tunnel of disengagement and his eventual removal from the position. Although happy to move on the “victim” spoke of how ruminating on the incident, prevented him from putting it behind and lead to a greater feeling of insecurity, lower self-esteem, and a heightened sense of helplessness. Job performance suffered. So, when told by the CEO that he was being let go he was only too happy to be out the door.

I’ve found, and others agree that the best results are when you tackle bad behavior head on and not necessarily bringing it to the attention of the HR department, where the usual response often falls short…that’s not to say you wouldn’t report a bullying workmate but the best results dealing with a rude or obnoxious co-worker often come from being responsible, proactive and taking the lead.

Before confronting a rude co-worker, ask yourself these three qualifying questions:

1. Do you feel safe confronting this person?
2. Was the behavior intentional?
3. Was this the only instance of such behavior from him or her?

If you’re able to answer ‘yes’ to all three, then you should address the issue directly. Use this checklist to ensure that you

1. Prepare for the discussion.  Think about a good time and a safe environment in which you’ll both be comfortable. Consider whether you need others present or even a moderator. 
2. Rehearse your ideas with someone whose feedback is trusted. Ask that person to role play the perpetrator, complete with temperament. 
3. Be aware of nonverbal communication.  This includes posture, facial expressions, gestures, tempo, and especially tone of voice. People practiced what they will stay far more than how they will say it. However, word typically convey far less than does the way they are delivered.
4. Proceed with the goal of mutual gain.  During the talk focus on the behavior not the individual and how the specific behavior harms performance and working relationship.
5. Prepare for an emotional response.  If the perpetrator starts to vent, it’s best to listen, try to tolerate it. It may lead to a more productive place. Use words like, “ I understand” and “I get that.” Admitting blame where appropriate may also be helpful. 
6. Be an active listener.  Paraphrase what you hear and repeat it back. Ask for clarification; be humble to gain likeability and credibility. 
7. Focus on establishing courteous norms for the future.  Agree on how you’ll interact going forward so that there is no degraded performance. Follow up with a summary of agreement via email.

Incivility exacts a steep price. As in my example, although somewhat extreme it lead to job change. Using the above 7-point list will help you deal with incivility issues head on.

How to Be Extraordinary as a Leader

I owe any success I’ve had in business leadership and management to a few amazing people I worked for over the years.  These pillars modeled-the-way for me and saw enough in my abilities to spend time providing close-in coaching and helping me see for myself what they saw in me.  My relationships with these leaders helped forge my core beliefs related to being a great leader; for that I will be eternally grateful.  Here are those beliefs that make up my core value-set on how to be extraordinary in business.

Belief #1.   Business is an ecosystem, not a battlefield.

Average leaders see business as a conflict between companies, departments and work groups. They build huge armies of "troops" to order about, demonize competitors as "enemies," and treat customers as "territory" to be conquered.

Extraordinary leaders see business as a symbiosis where the most diverse firm is most likely to survive and thrive. They naturally create teams that adapt easily to new markets and can quickly form partnerships with other companies, customers ... and even competitors.

Belief #2. A company is a community, not a machine.

Average leaders consider their company to be a machine with employees as cogs. They create rigid structures with rigid rules and then try to maintain control by "pulling levers" and "steering the ship."

Extraordinary leaders see their company as a collection of individual hopes and dreams, all connected to a higher purpose. They inspire employees to dedicate themselves to the success of their peers and therefore to the community–and company–at large.

Belief #3. Management is service, not control.

Average leaders want employees to do exactly what they're told. They're hyper-aware of anything that smacks of insubordination and create environments where individual initiative is squelched by the "wait and see what the boss says" mentality.

Extraordinary leaders set a general direction and then commit themselves to obtaining the resources that their employees need to get the job done. They push decision making downward, allowing teams form their own rules and intervening only in emergencies.

Belief #4. My employees are my peers, not my children.

Average leaders see employees as inferior, immature beings who simply can't be trusted if not overseen by a patriarchal management. Employees take their cues from this attitude, expend energy on looking busy and covering their behinds.

Extraordinary leaders treat every employee as if he or she were the most important person in the firm. Excellence is expected everywhere, from the loading dock to the boardroom. As a result, employees at all levels take charge of their own destinies.

Belief #5. Motivation comes from vision, not from fear.

Average leaders see fear--of getting fired, of ridicule, of loss of privilege--as a crucial way to motivate people.  As a result, employees and managers alike become paralyzed and unable to make risky decisions.

Extraordinary leaders inspire people to see a better future and how they'll be a part of it.  As a result, employees work harder because they believe in the organization's goals, truly enjoy what they're doing and (of course) know they'll share in the rewards.

Belief #6. Change equals growth, not pain.

Average leaders see change as both complicated and threatening, something to be endured only when a firm is in desperate shape. They subconsciously torpedo change ... until it's too late.

Extraordinary leaders see change as an inevitable part of life. While they don't value change for its own sake, they know that success is only possible if employees and organization embrace new ideas and new ways of doing business.

Belief #7. Technology offers empowerment, not automation.

Average leaders adhere to the old IT-centric view that technology is primarily a way to strengthen management control and increase predictability. They install centralized computer systems that dehumanize and antagonize employees.

Extraordinary leaders see technology as a way to free human beings to be creative and to build better relationships. They adapt their back-office systems to the tools, like smartphones and tablets, that people actually want to use.

Belief #8. Work should be fun, not mere toil.

Average leaders buy into the notion that work is, at best, a necessary evil. They fully expect employees to resent having to work, and therefore tend to subconsciously define themselves as oppressors and their employees as victims. Everyone then behaves accordingly.

Extraordinary leaders see work as something that should be inherently enjoyable–and believe therefore that the most important job of manager is, as far as possible, to put people in jobs that can and will make them truly happy.

5 Practices and 10 Commitments for Leadership

In The Leadership Challenge, James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner write about the five practices and ten commitments for effective leadership. Their work has stood the test of time. While the context has changed over the years, the content of leadership hasn’t.

 Key Take Aways

Here are my variation of the themes and key take aways:

§  Lead by example. Set an example for others to follow. Practice what you preach. You reap what you sow. What you do comes back to you. Those in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. Take a stand. Stand for something. Find your unique voice.

§  Create an inclusive picture. In Steven Covey terms, these would be avoiding the "scarcity mentality". Have an abundance mentality. At work I see turf wars when there’s a scarcity mentality. The solution is to frame out a bigger space where everybody gets to play.

§  Practice continuous improvement. The Japanese term is Kaizen. Focus on small, incremental improvements. Build momentum from small wins. Start with something small. Success snowballs.

§  Lift others up. In Covey terms, this would be help others find their unique voice. Find the good in others. Leverage the unique values that others bring to the table.

§  Live with passion. Link passion with results. Celebrate the small wins. No good deed goes unrewarded. What goes around, comes around. Stop and smell the roses.

 Leadership in Action

Kousez and Posner write:

"The Leadership Challenge is about how leaders mobilize others to want to get extraordinary things done in organizations. It’s about the practices leaders use to transform values into actions, visions into realities, obstacles into innovations, separateness into solidarity, and risks into rewards. It’s about leadership that creates the climate in which people turn challenging opportunities into remarkable success."

 The Five Practices of Leadership

Kousez and Posner identify the five practices:

1.     Model the Way

2.     Inspire a Shared Vision

3.     Challenge the Process

4.     Enable Others to Act

5.     Encourage the Heart

The Ten Commitments of Leadership

Kousez and Posner identify the 10 commitments:

1.     Find your voice by clarifying you personal values.

2.     Set the example by aligning actions with shared values.

3.     Envision the future by imagining exciting and ennobling activities.

4.     Enlist others in a common vision by appealing to shared aspirations.

5.     Search for opportunities by seeking innovative ways to change, grow and improve.

6.     Experiment and take risks by constantly generating small wins and learning from mistakes.

7.     Foster collaboration by promoting cooperative goals and building trust.

8.     Strengthen others by sharing power and discretion.

9.     Recognize contributions by showing appreciation for individual excellence.

10.   Celebrate the values and victories by creating a spirit of community.

 Practices and Commitments

Here are the commitments mapped to the practices:

Model the Way

1. Find your voice by clarifying you personal values. 
2. Set the example by aligning actions with shared values

Inspire a Shared Vision

3. Envision the future by imagining exciting and ennobling activities. 
4. Enlist others in a common vision by appealing to shared aspirations.

Challenge the Process

5. Search for opportunities by seeking innovative ways to change, grow and improve. 
6. Experiment and take risks by constantly generating small wins and learning from mistakes.

Enable Others to Act 

7. Foster collaboration by promoting cooperative goals and building trust. 
8. Strengthen others by sharing power and discretion.

Encourage the Heart

9. Recognize contributions by showing appreciation for individual excellence. 

10. Celebrate the values and victories by creating a spirit of community.

Get the Book

You can get The Leadership Challenge on Amazon:

Performance Tune Up for Your Service Team Engaged, high-performing service agents are the dream of every manager. Yet there's always a wide range of performance from high, to average, to low. If agents perform essentially the same job, why does their performance vary so much? When agents are measured against the same metrics, why do some agents excel while others lag behind? Obviously, the answer is that each agent is a different person—and each person brings his or her unique experiences and expectations to the job. If we recognize and accept these differences, and focus agent onboarding and development around these differences, then we will achieve performance gains faster and more successfully. A personalized performance “tune up” for each agent can raise the bar and optimize results. Without a doubt, what can drive top performance is a tune up based on what is relevant to the specific needs of each individual. A NASCAR race team would never consider performing the exact tune up for every car. Instead, the right adjustments and corrections are unique to each vehicle. Some cars need more, some less—and some don't need a tune up at all. And it's the same for agents. To be effective, service agent tune ups must be relevant to each person's specific performance levels and needs.    To help your team reach peak performance, tune up your agents with these 5 easy steps. 1)  Dust off the job description. We all have job descriptions, right? Unfortunately, job descriptions usually sit on a shelf or in a file never to surface again from a new employee packet. The job description sets the foundation for performance. It establishes common expectations for every agent. While the job description cannot guarantee performance outcomes, it is the best starting point for tuning up your team. So, don't let the job description sit on the shelf. Dust it off, and start putting it to good use! 2)  Calibrate expectations. For an effective tune up, make sure agents are all “on the same page” when it comes to performance expectations. The job description is a great place to start. Still, the job description may mean different things to different people. If this happens, each team member's response will be different—and so will their performance. A key element of an effective team is how they communicate and how they understand what is communicated. Agents need a common and consistent way to discuss and evaluate performance.  When discussing performance with your team, does each agent understand what is expected? Ask questions and check to ensure that every agent understands performance and job expectations in the same way. 3)  Diagnose current performance. While there is no substitute for day-to-day coaching and performance management, there is also a need for diagnostic tools to benchmark current performance and competency levels. In other words, before starting the actual “tune up” you need to know what to tune up. So, what is the best way to diagnose and benchmark your agents? There are a lot of available options including peer surveys, self-report, customer ratings, performance metrics, skill assessments, etc. Use tools that are calibrated to the specific competencies identified in the job description. Even more critical is to choose tools that provide an objective and independent measures of performance. Why is this important? Because subjective measures (such as surveys) are dependent on the perspective of the rater, so that personal biases and personalities influence the ratings.  Objective performance measures (i.e., performance metrics and skill assessments) are more consistent, accurate and reliable. The more precise you are in diagnosing agents' performance, the more effective their tune up will be. 4)  Create a plan of action. With an accurate diagnosis of each agent's strengths and improvement opportunities, you are now ready to create a tune up plan for your team. The goal is to create a plan of action for each agent—not generalized across the team—but specific and relevant for each person.  The key is to make it practical. You can include on-the-job activities, online learning, company training, etc. Whatever you choose, be sure the activities, priorities, timing and expectations all tie directly to the objective diagnostic evaluation. 5)  Implement the plan. Equipped with a personalized plan for every agent, the tune up can begin.  Each agent has a personal plan. Not only do they have a clear understanding of expectations, but more important, they now buy into the plan because it is designed specifically for them.  The plan becomes a great discussion document between agents and supervisors.  This goes a long way toward removing wasted training and development time and expense.  Agents are getting exactly what they need, and as a result, they are more receptive to learning.  What better way to achieve employee engagement and peak performance than to give each agent a personalized plan for success? By now you may be thinking, “This sounds great, but who has the time to put it into practice?” Or, “Seriously, is it even practical to customize tune ups for each agent?”  Absolutely.  The good news is that the costs associated with personalized tune ups are very low, while the return value—in employee engagement and improved performance—is very high. Here’s to getting your team firing on all cylinders! Contact me directly for a copy of my Performance Appraisal tool.

So You Want to Be An IT Star

Success is not easy or simple. Even in the best of times, workplaces are fraught with changing conditions, political jockeying and limited room for advancement. And these are not the best times. Yet some IT staff manage to get noticed—and in all the right ways. What are the secrets of their success? How do some IT leaders manage to shine? Beyond the basics—energy, enthusiasm, passion for the work—four important behaviors can help catapult you to success.

Be good to your end users. First things first: If you want to get ahead, don't make people feel stupid. This advice can be especially important for IT folks, whose technical expertise can create a danger of doing just that.

People outside of IT won't necessarily understand tech speak, so you need to present information in a manner so they understand technology and what it provides to the company. You need to be able to translate technical information to them in the manner they can understand and assimilate and in a way that shows the benefits to the big picture.

Understanding how technology fits into users' lives is key to creating innovative IT solutions. Thinking hard about how to help someone else understand what you're saying may seem obvious for important presentations; doing it day in and day out may prove more challenging. But don't dismiss those small, cumulative interactions. In those daily interactions lie many opportunities for you to distinguish yourself by your energy, enthusiasm, and likability. This way, when a more senior job opens up, the support to put you in the position is there—not just from your boss, but also from other senior leaders. To make sure your likability quotient is high, focus on being open-minded. Make it a point to really listen to what someone is saying and process what you're hearing. Doing so conveys respect, and you also are likely to develop solutions you wouldn't have otherwise. End-user problems—large and small—are opportunities to build relationships that can advance your career. It's all in how you handle those situations that makes the difference. Don't make an end user feel dumb for not understanding; make them feel good about coming to you and asking what the problem is.

Go beyond the walls of IT and learn the business. IT leaders who want to move up must become business-savvy. Not just so you can talk the talk. Without understanding business users' work lives, it's impossible to deliver optimum technology solutions. I credit much of my own success with understanding how IT fits into my end users' work processes. It is a basic business truth that IT staff who want to climb the ladder must also become intricately involved in other areas of the business. It’s critical to educate your end-users on technology. My philosophy on the subject to my staff is clear: get involved with business users; go door to door and meet with them and their teams. I want my team to "give the customer some tool they may not even have thought of, that they can look at it and say, Wow, I'm glad we came to you." That's only possible if you understand how other groups are run and the challenges they face. Developing such a rapport also helps discourage the tendency of business users to create a shadow IT department. Key point: if you don't solve their problems with good solutions, they will go around you!

Understand the organization's structure and goals. If you want to move up the ladder of success, you need to create strategic IT. To do that, you need to know what top management values. Every company has a culture and those cultures reward different things. Key to moving ahead is knowing what to prioritize. This means, for example, knowing which projects to volunteer for and how to promote them to those above you. Knowing what the business defines as valuable is increasingly important the higher up you go so you've got to understand goals, and how IT can be used to achieve those goals I recommend not just looking for ways IT can create value but also being responsive when opportunities present themselves. One place where this comes into play is the IT budget. Managing IT like a P&L is key to moving up in the organization. IT should be adding value and helping differentiate the business. However, that's not possible if an IT leader's goal is simply saving money. Build into that budget what you need to do to create value.

Build Trust with your boss Trust is the glue that binds relationships together inside and outside of work. Without it, moving up is virtually impossible. And honest communication is a huge part of building trust with your manager. Share the good news—and the bad. Avoid the temptation to sweep bad news about a project or assignment under the rug. You may think you're sparing your boss but my experience has been that it's better to overshare than to undershare. The trick lies in knowing when and where to share information. Sit down and talk to your manager about how to communicate when problems come up. Most leaders don't like when information feels filtered, like something is being hidden but want to know what's going on. The last thing anybody wants is to be broadsided. Information sharing, when it comes right down to it, translates to respect. I think that it's very important to use chain of command in place and not circumvent your manager. It's his or her job to make you look better to the organization. And if you don't have that kind of trust you should look for someone you could have that with.

Re-branding the Help Desk and Creating the Value Proposition

As a director of a customer care service center or help desk you accept the reasonability to craft, and then safeguard your organization’s value proposition. Is it best value, best quality, best service? Do you deliver on promises? Do you differentiate from your competition?

Here’s a checklist that I’ve used to help engineer a business process improvement initiative that focused on assessing the status of the helpdesk within the organization, evaluating internal processes, and identifying human resource management opportunities.

Using this checklist as a guide I was able to re-brand the center, re-educate staff on what matters to the client, and impact the real business side of the equation by improving retention and extending the customer-life cycle.

ORGANIZATION

1. Value recognition

• What value does your organization provide to the company?
• How is the call center's impact on customer retention measured?
• Do agents understand the primary goal of your organization? What are other key goals?
• Are your center's goals consistent with the company's objectives?

2. Stakeholder involvement

• Do you communicate regularly with other company departments? .
• Do you have an organizational chart?
• How is the staff organized?
• How are company managers involved in day-to-day operations?
• How does company management ensure that the call center is achieving its goals?

3. Unique functionality

• Which other units have responsibilities similar to yours?
• What customers do you serve

PROCESS

1. Policies and procedures

• Are call-handling policies and procedures documented?

2. Hours

• What are your hours of operation?
• Do they match your customers' needs? How do you know?
• What options do customers have for contacting the center?
• How do customers know how to contact you?
• How many toll-free numbers do you publish and where?
• Do customers always call the right number? If not, why not?

3. Contact management

• Are customer contacts tracked? If so, how?
• Are contacts tracked through provision of services?
• Is contact management automated?

4. Quality focus

• Do you have a quality-monitoring program in place?
• Do you measure agent performance or customer satisfaction?
• How is data collected and reported?
• What action is taken?

5. Performance measures

• Are performance measures established?
• Are the measures linked to customer satisfaction? If not, how do you measure customer satisfaction?
• What are the trends?
• Does an agent quality-monitoring program exist?

6. Call-handling consistency

• Do agents follow procedures consistently? How do you know?
• Are call-handling procedures available online?
• What resources do agents use to handle contacts (manuals, memos, training guides)? How are they updated?
• Do agents have to search through multiple sources to piece together responses to customer queries or requests?

7. Workflow

• What other departments/groups/individuals do your agents rely on for assistance or to fulfill customer requests?
• How do you track fulfillment?

8. Managing call volumes

• Are processes in place to ensure real-time response to changes in call volumes?
• How do you minimize customer wait times?
• What methods do you use to review how many calls are in queue?
• What do you do if calls are waiting?
• Are readerboards visible to agents?
• Are the agents required to react to the readerboards? How?

9. One-call resolution

• Is one-call resolution a goal of your center?
• How do you measure one-call resolution?
• What is your first-call resolution rate? What is the trend?
• Are there any bottlenecks in the current process?
• Do you have any recommendations for these bottlenecks?
• Why are calls transferred? Where are they transferred?
• Are calls transferred on a blind or warm transfer?
• How long do transfers take?
• What percentage of calls is transferred?
• On average, how many times is a caller transferred?

10. Issue escalation

• When are issues escalated?
• Do agents follow special guidelines to ensure issue resolution?
• Are dissatisfied customers referred to a supervisor? Yes.
• Is the goal customer satisfaction?

11. Market intelligence

• Are product and service issues collected and forwarded to the appropriate departments?
• Is customer demographic data collected and forwarded to the appropriate departments?

PEOPLE

1. Hiring profile/compensation policy

• What is your agent recruitment and hiring process?
• Is the agent's job description and profile documented?
• How long do agents/supervisors remain in their positions?
• What is the cost of hiring?
• Is pay performance-based, time-in-title, or pay-for-skills?
• Do you use team-based bonus programs?

2. Training/career path

• What is the training provided to new reps?
• How do you train call management/customer management/call handling techniques?
• How much time do you spend on call management training?
• Do you train customer advocacy?
• How do you reinforce training on the job?
• Do agents have to pass a test to graduate?
• Does each agent have a training plan?
• How do you measure training effectiveness?
• What is the frequency of training classes?
• What is the average size of training classes?
• How long does training take?
• What is the cost of training?
• Do you provide continuation, refresher on-the-job-training?
• Do agents receive software training?
• What career paths exist for reps and supervisors?
• What is the average time in title/position?
• What career development programs exist?
• Is the training staff professional and well-trained?
• Is the staff focused on customer satisfaction and retention goals?

3. Attrition

• Why do agents leave?
• What is the rate of attrition of agents?
• Describe your employee recognition programs.
• What is the policy on full-time vs. part-time employee usage?
• Are agents hourly or salaried?

4. Workforce management

• What system do you use for workforce planning and scheduling?
• Do you measure agent adherence to the schedule? How?
• What percentage of the agent's day is spent on the phone?
• What activities are completed during non-phone time?
• Are the activities done between calls or at specific times?
• How is after-call work measured?
• What is the estimated volume in each channel?
• What is the average percentage of occupancy?

5. Performance standards

• What are the standards against which agents are measured (call length, hold time, adherence to schedule, etc.)?
• Do they know that they are measured against these standards?
• How frequently are agents measured?
• Is there a performance planning and appraisal tool in place and used?
• Does customer satisfaction affect compensation or promotion?
• Do agents understand their role as customer advocates?

The Do’s and Don’ts of Setting Up a HelpDesk

1. Don’t: Configure the help desk application in a vacuum

You can imagine how difficult it is for a dedicated help desk manager to be gung ho about their new product and processes, spending hard-to-find time with great intentions designing something they think will accomplish the needs and goals for their service center, only to find out they’ve missed the mark completely. Reality is that a lot of people interact with the help desk and their needs for data from the application can vary wildly. Not taking those perspectives into account and having a myopic view on configuration is a sure-fire killer to the success of your new plans.

Do: Design and configure in a team environment and build it together. Be aware that your application is probably powerful enough to be used by other departments. Check with members of HR, procurement, facilities, etc. to gather their input at the beginning and see how seamlessly processes are adopted and utilized when everyone gets buy-in upfront.

2. Don’t: Implement too much of the application too fast

Solution feature sets today cover wide ranges of functionality such as incident, problem, change, asset, knowledge, service levels, customer self-support, reporting, and more. Implementing everything at once may make your support team feel like you’re trying to wash their faces with a fire hose. You end up with staff trying to use a new tool they are not familiar with, getting requests from users on how to do things, and becoming frustrated. You inadvertently create a culture of confusion.

Do: Implement gradually! Pay particular attention to how technically savvy your staff and users are. Start by getting your techs up to speed on basic incident and knowledge management features and then go from there. As a good rule of thumb, allow 30-60 days between enabling additional functionality. Also, don’t overuse the notifications. If a technician is flooded with an email every time an action is taken on an incident, the importance of those notifications is lost in the massive amount of mail received.

3. Don’t: Under estimate the power of knowledge management functionality

You have as much investment in your staff as you do in your ticketing system. Why incur the loss of that investment when the eventuality of employee turnover occurs? Not using the knowledge management capabilities of today’s solutions only exacerbates the problem and makes techs continually reinvent the wheel. Oftentimes the problem is simply a lack of communication about whose responsibility it is to capture the knowledge.

Do: Begin by realizing there’s a greater long-term cost to continually re-engineering the technical know-how of your support staff than there is a short-term cost of establishing an efficient and automated process for capturing and categorizing knowledge. Designate a weekly knowledge approver and give that person a specific day and time to maintain the knowledge base. This harvesting of knowledge will save you time and money in the long run.

4. Don’t: Categorize at too granular a level

Your new help desk software probably has the ability to categorize tickets to varying degrees. Many service teams get far too granular in their level of categorization. When this occurs it creates an inefficient use of the data you are collecting as well as excess clicks. It also often confuses techs who have to scroll through endless tree structures looking for the proper category to assign to a ticket.

Do: Think of what is most important for you to report on. Hardware failures? Printer failures? Training? If your application has decent searching capabilities, you don’t need to categorize to the nth degree. Start out with the minimum requirement of your reporting structure and add on later as the need arises. To assist in building a solid category structure, leave out actual problems, like “can’t print” as a level – that information goes in the Description field. If you find that for every category you are being redundant in your lowest level, you might be using a category field for data that needs to be captured elsewhere – such as a ticket level custom field. You might even consider inverting your category list!

5. Don’t: Fail to create an end user or customer self-support portal

There are definitely organizations where self-support does not fit. If your company is already capturing valuable knowledge content and your users are fairly tech savvy, though, you are costing your service desk time and money by not making that information available to your users. Why encourage calls if the users are able to help themselves?

Do: Create specific portals/desktops for your various sets of users. Allow them to view knowledge/FAQs and submit their own tickets. Be prepared to have to evangelize this new means of self-support to foster us¬age.

6. Don’t: Overlook importance of multiple escalations and notifications (SLAs)

Escalations, notifications, and service level agreements (SLAs) are fundamental parts of providing excellent support. Many of today’s help desk applications allow you to set up very complex, fully-automated SLAs, but oftentimes support desk personnel don’t take the time to set them up accurately or thoroughly. Tickets should not escalate and notifications should not be sent unnecessarily. They are also not one size fits all; an order request shouldn’t escalate the same as a “something’s broken” ticket.

Do: Use care in building your escalations and SLAs, and set up notifications according to the actions required. Identify the special cases where time is a factor, such as a critical hardware failure. Use caution when applying a time-sensitive SLA; for example, if a mail server fails, how will notifications be effective if they can’t be delivered? A page notification could be used instead.

7. Don’t: Let your product choice drive your process

If a help desk software application is so complex that you have to change all your processes and service culture, there will be too many costs involved and not enough buy-in from users. This often leads to the out¬right failure of the implementation.

Do: Don’t be too consumed with standards or immense feature sets. While you may feel like it’s a safe play to buy something that’s “standard certified” or has the most bells and whistles in the industry, if it doesn’t fit with your processes or culture and prove to be easy to use and manageable over time, it’s ultimately your job on the line if it fails.

8. Don’t: Under utilize templates and auto-population

Let’s face it, your service center directive will always be to do more with less. So make sure your staff are not manually entering data that can be pulled in automatically, or typing the same information again and again on common tickets.

Do: Create the most efficient and automated use of your staff’s time by setting up templates to record frequently occurring issues. A good templating tool that uses dependencies can be even better, especially if you can tie approvals to templates.

9. Don’t: Overuse queues

Many service desks will use queues to assign tickets to a group, which often results in everyone thinking the other person is working on the ticket. This common occurrence often causes confusion and misuse of time. This lack of accountability and confusion is easily avoidable.

Do: Designate someone to monitor the queue, reassigning incidents as appropriate. If your help desk software allows, use a distribution method that automatically assigns incoming incidents to remove the chance of incidents being overlooked.

10. Don’t: Be process rigid or bad practice addicted

Not to be confused with #7 above, don’t be afraid to evolve your service processes either at the implementation of your new help desk application or over time as your use of it changes and grows. Too often, when a software package is rolled out, it feels easier to simply get it going yet continue with the status quo service processes. This can create an inefficient use of the new package’s feature set.

Do: Change is often inevitable, so try to keep a fluid mentality towards the processes you rely on in your service center. Re-evaluate your procedures on a set basis (i.e. yearly or every two years) and determine if they still apply. Try not to carry forward processes or procedures just because ‘that’s how it’s been done in the past.’ Any good help desk software vendor will continually work to increase the power and efficiency of their solution, so don’t be so rigid in your ongoing processes that you aren’t willing to consider evolving them over time. Also, leverage content delivered from thought leaders in the industry to see how others are evolving their processes. Read whitepapers, search industry portals, attend industry events, view industry blogs, etc. to gain valuable insight.

11. Don’t: Sacrifice training your staff

Nothing undermines your service efforts faster than under-educated help desk staff. For example, if a technician isn’t aware that ticket information is automatically emailed to the customer, the wrong information can be released, causing irreparable damages. If they are un¬aware of what the SLA time values are for each priority, tickets can be misprioritized and agreements can be missed. If techs are unaware of the category structure, they may not know how to categorize a call without having to do a lot of searching for the correct selection. The possibilities for inefficiency and waste are too numerous to consider.

Do: Seek out training opportunities for staff in need, and be sure they are educated on the specific options available to them in your help desk software and the effect of those options. Remember that it’s easier to train/educate your people than it is to apologize for bad information sent to a customer. Also, put an emphasis on increasing the accuracy of your ticket information – for example, don’t include work history information in a ticket resolution because the resolution can be used on a knowledge entry. It’s not useful to read things like “called and left voice mail” when searching for a solution.

12. Don’t: Cut the communication ties to your help desk software vendor

If your service desk is not utilizing the full functionality of the help desk application you’ve purchased, you are not experiencing the maximum ROI available to you. If you have a feature request that could make usability more favorable, your vendor should be requesting that information from you on an on-going basis. If your staff are not proficient in the use of your help desk application, greater gains may be available with minor investments in training.

Do: Call your help desk software vendor and communicate your needs. When you have only partially implemented your tool, put an emphasis on seeking help to get it 100% optimized. If you have a vendor that doesn’t respond in a favorable or timely manner, con-sider that the next time your software is up for renewal. These soft costs are just as much a part of the value of your solution as the purchase price.

Lessons from the Road: 10 Must Have Business iPhone Apps

Ok, I took my own challenge to travel ultra-lite on my last 4-day business trip…sans a laptop. Could I pull off two presentations, travel to three cities and still stay well connected with tasks and responsibilities back at the office? Here’s the 10 apps that stood out and allowed me to: edit two proposals, update my presentation on my office PC and then download it locally, print out the slides, organize and manage the travel, update my business contacts list, and much more. I might not leave my laptop home on my next trip but now I know if it’s left behind work doesn’t need to stop or slow. As a side note: being a road warrior for +20 years taught me that bringing the little things with just makes for a better experience, that’s why I loaded SlingMedia for the iPhone before I left so I could watch my favorite TV shows without having to learn how to use a new remote!

Quickoffice Mobile Suite

The next time someone e-mails you a Word, Excel or Powerpoint document, Quickoffice will open it and allow you to make quick edits from your iPhone. (Otherwise, you can open, but not edit, Microsoft Office files.) You can also create documents with the app, but it is far less useful for that purpose. Rather, Quickoffice offers a way to complete small work tasks easily while you are on the move.
Print n Share

Print & Share allows you to print documents, emails, contacts, web pages and photos wirelessly, right from your device. It really does add a much needed feature to the iPhone and the experience is seamless. The app's main screen displays six main choices for selection. You may choose to print a file, email, web page, contact or image. You may also use the iPhone's camera to take a photo and print it immediately. From this main screen you may also access the help menu and change the settings. Print & Share is truly an amazing application. It's convenience alone makes it worth the price. With this app, you're basically cutting out the computer as the middle man. Now, you can print a variety of files right from you device. It works on 3G or wifi and the whole experience is smooth and fast. The user interface is beautifully done, with seamless animations between pages and the incorporation of landscape mode. This is an app that will stay on my iPhone indefinitely. I strongly recommend checking this app out.
Dropbox

Got a Dropbox account? Then you absolutely positively need Dropbox for iPhone. It brings the cloud down to device level, providing fast and easy access to everything you've ever shared: documents, photos, videos, presentations, and so on. (In fact, it's a great way to stream videos you don't have room to store on your device.) It works both ways, too: You can upload snapshots and videos from your iPhone to your Dropbox account. The app is free, and works with both free and pro-level accounts.

TeamViewer

TeamViewer is a terrific free service that provides remote access to other PCs. TeamViewer for iPhone is the companion app that extends that accessibility to the device riding around in your pocket. This isn’t just screen sharing: TeamViewer gives you total control over the remote PC. Think of it: You can grab a PowerPoint presentation from a thousand miles away; shut down the PC you left running at the office; or just perform a computing task that can’t normally be done on a phone.
Evernote

The company advertises this as a personal digital assistant, and it’s an apt description. Evernote is a traveling notepad that synchronizes with desktop and browser software (also free). Use your iPhone to copy an image, take a photo, record a voice memo or jot down a note, and it appears on your computer (and vice versa). It also recognizes your written text, within limits. The free version stores a fair amount of information, but for $45 a year, you needn’t sweat the data limits.
Tripit

TripIt is a killer travel-management service that organizes your itineraries, reservations, and the like. It began life on the Web, but now -- well, you know the Apple catchphrase -- there's an app for that. With TripIt for iPhone, you can manage and share all your travel plans. The app itself is free, as is the TripIt service. All you do is forward all travel-related confirmation e-mails (from airlines, hotels, car-rental outfits, etc.) to plans@tripit.com. The service culls all the pertinent details from those e-mails and builds detailed itineraries.
MapQuest 4 Mobile

The stock Google Maps app is pretty good at giving you directions from point A to point B, but MapQuest 4 Mobile goes one step further with voice-guided, turn-by-turn directions -- much like you'd get from a bona fide GPS. It also offers automatic re-rerouting (in case you take a wrong turn), local-business search, and even live traffic updates. Before you spend $50 or more on a GPS app, take this freebie for a test-drive.
Genius Scan+

Want to save a whiteboard diagram for future reference? Keep your receipts for the accounting department? Photocopy a document when there's no copier around? You can do all that and more with Genius Scan+, which can save and send documents in PDF and JPEG formats, upload "scans" to sites like Google Docs and Evernote, and deliver everything to your PC via Wi-Fi, no syncing required. This ridiculously handy app sells for $2.99.
Linkedin

Contact management, networking. For many people, LinkedIn is a useful (but sometimes annoying) Web service. The LinkedIn iPhone app really lets the power of LinkedIn shine. For starters, the app lets you get rid of business cards and vanquish printed resumes. Who hasn't arrived back at the office with a pile of disorganized and creased business cards? Having access to the ultimate social network for professionals straight from your iPhone means you no longer have to swap business cards with people--you can just add each other on LinkedIn, on the spot. You’ll never lose another business card--and therefore lose a valuable contact--again. LinkedIn for iPhone also lets you view your entire network, and you can send and receive LinkedIn updates so that others know what you are working on and where you are.
MyPoint PowerPoint Remote

This cool app allows you to control your Powerpoint presentation from your iPhone. It does require some finagling to get it set up right but then it works pretty well. You will have to download a small app to your PC or Mac to make it work. Works with Powerpoint for Windows 2003, 2007, and 2010; as well as Powerpoint for Mac 2004, 2008 and 2011. Just adds a touch of “tech-iness” to what hopefully wouldn’t be just another boring PP slideshow.

Acculturation and Creating a Great Place to Work

How many people working for you would describe your workplace as ‘great?” If you hesitate when answering that question, it may be time to give it some thought. Having a high turnover rate means that there are problems with the company culture. The last thing you want to do is spend your time recruiting, hiring, and training, only to see those people walk right out the door.

Why They Leave

So why is it, exactly, that an employee leaves a company? Some of the top reasons that employees report for leaving a company are:

1. They don’t have any friends at their office. This is a big one, because nobody wants to spend 40-plus hours per week at a place where they are surrounded by people that don’t think like them or that they don’t like. Talk about having anxiety on the way to work!

2. They don’t like the boss for whom they work. Sorry, I know that may bruise some egos, but it is the truth.

3. And if you want to know what the distant third reason is, it is because the pay just isn’t good enough. This is an issue that may or may not be something you can address, but it can impact the company culture if people feel woefully underpaid or find out the pay of those around them (and feel it is unfair).

Creating Comfort

It goes without saying that if you want to have a great place to work, you need to build a common culture in your company. What this means is that people need to share similar values, energy, and attitude. By doing so, this will automatically engender friendships. Plus, you need to be a great boss – someone who is loyal, trusting and fair to all employees.

But there is more that you can do to create a comfortable company culture that makes people want to stay, rather than clock out for good. Find what works best for your company, but consider the following things you can do to help:


* Help people feel proud and valued, and that their opinions and suggestions matter.


* Provide proper training, as needed.


* Welcome those things that are different about people, and embrace diversity.


* Reward the team when things go right, rather than just one person.


* Respect everyone, regardless of their title.


* Skip the corny team-building sessions and ask employees what they would like to do together, on occasion.


* Try to promote from within, whenever possible. This will give employees hope that someday it could be them that moves up.


* Give your employees credit for the company success. After all, you really can’t be successful without them.


* Pitch in and help whenever possible, showing that nothing is beneath you.


Positive Place

Creating a positive work environment is an effective way to retain your employees. But if you are thinking that an old foosball table will change the work environment, it won’t. In fact, if it is not genuine, it will be seen as a gimmick. The key is to allow the culture to develop naturally, with some guidance along the way. And if it is a foosball table that comes about, well, then it will be an even bigger hit.

Goals and Employees Success

It's common knowledge that helping employees set and reach goals is a critical part of every manager's job. Employees want to see how their work contributes to larger business objectives, and setting the right targets makes this connection explicit for them, and for you, as their manager. Goal-setting is particularly important as a mechanism for providing ongoing and year-end feedback. By establishing and monitoring targets, you can give your employees real-time input on their performance while motivating them to achieve more.

So, how involved should you be in helping employees establish and achieve their goals? The key is to be hands-on while giving your people the room they need to succeed on their own. Here are some principles to follow as you navigate how to best support your people in reaching their objectives.

Connect employee goals to larger company goals
For goals to be meaningful and effective in motivating employees, they must be tied to larger organizational ambitions. Employees who don't understand the roles they play in company success are more likely to become disengaged. Critical: no matter what level the employee is at, he should be able to articulate exactly how his efforts feed into the broader company strategy.

Make sure goals are attainable but challenging
Since employees are ultimately responsible for reaching their goals, they need to have a strong voice in setting them. Ask your employee to draft goals that directly contribute to the organization's mission. Once she's suggested initial goals, discuss whether her targets are both realistic and challenging enough. Be careful though: your team members are likely to resent you if you insist on goals that are too challenging to accomplish. At the same time, you don't want to aim too low, either. If you are overly cautious, you will miss opportunities and settle for mediocrity. Even worse, poorly set goals can be destructive to employees' morale and productivity, and to the organization's performance overall.

Create a plan for success
Once a goal is set, ask your employee to explain how he plans to meet it. Have him break goals down into tasks and set interim objectives, especially if it's a large or long-term project. Ask your employee: what are the appropriate milestones? What are possible risks and how do you plan to manage them? Because targets are rarely pursued in a vacuum it’s important that help your people understand who they are dependent on to achieve those goals. Then problem solve with them on how to best influence those people to get the job done.

Monitor progress
Staying on top of employee progress will help head off any troubles early on. Review both long-term and short-term goals on a weekly basis. Even your high-performing employees need ongoing feedback and coaching. Ask your employee what type of monitoring and feedback would be most helpful to her, especially if the task is particularly challenging or something she is doing for the first time.

When things go wrong
Very few of us reach our goals without some road bumps along the way. Build relationships with employees so that they feel comfortable coming to you if and when problems arise. If your employee encounters an unforeseen obstacle, the goal may need reworking. First, however, ask him to bring a potential solution to you so you can give him coaching and advice. If his efforts to solve the problem fail, you will need to get further involved.

What about personal goals?
Some managers neglect to think about what an employee is personally trying to accomplish in the context of work. For example, if your employee has expressed an interest in teaching but that is not part of his job responsibilities, you may be able to find ways to sculpt his job to include opportunities to train peers or less experienced colleagues.

The first step is for you to understand what these goals are. Ask employees if they have any personal goals they want to share with you. Don't pressure them; they should only share these aspirations if they feel comfortable. Just as with work goals, you need to be sure personal goals contribute to your team, unit, or to the company. It's got to be a shared commitment to experiment and mutual responsibility to check in on how it's going. It's got to be a win for both.

When goals aren't met
There will be times, even with the best support, when employees fail to meet their targets. Hold people accountable. Discuss with your employee what happened and what each of you think went wrong. If the problem was within his control, ask him to apply the possible solutions you've discussed, take another stab at reaching the goal, and check in with you more frequently. If it was something that was outside of his power or the goal was too ambitious, acknowledge the disappointment but don't dwell on it. Do the diagnosis, get the learning, and move forward.

It's possible that you may have contributed to the problem. Be willing to reflect on your role in the failure. Were you too hands off and failed to check in frequently enough? Did you not review his work in a timely way? Have an open discussion about what you can do next time. "If you don't hold yourself accountable, they're going to have trouble with you," says Hill.

Principles to Remember
Do:
Connect individuals' goals to broader organization objectives
Show employees that you are a partner in achieving their goals
Learn about and incorporate employees' personal interests into their professional goals

Don't:
Allow employees to set goals alone
Take a hands-off approach to high performers — they need input and feedback to meet their goals as well
Ignore failures — be sure people have the opportunity to learn when they don't achieve goals