Productivity Hacks

Every company has people in management that use certain types of leadership styles. Depending on how your personality clicks with the leadership style used, you can either prosper in your position or despise going into work. There are six leadership styles that you can find in the workplace. Leaders can adopt one or a combination of all styles to best suit the company’s and person’s needs.

You may see your boss using the visionary leadership style. This style works well with new companies or ones needing a new direction. Visionaries see all employees working as a team to meet the same goal and company dreams. They visualize what needs to be done by having an innovative spirit and love of experimentation. This leadership style believes productivity relies on taking taking risks, but at the calculated level. Visionary leaders do not concern themselves with the day-to-day activities of how the group will achieve the visualized goals.

The second type of leadership style you may find in the workplace is known as the commanding style. Think of a military leader and strict disciplinarian, and you can better understand this type of leadership. If your boss barks out orders and does not concern him or herself with your response or ability to do the task, they are using the commanding style. Criticism is common and positive feedback almost nonexistent. Common results of working with this type of leader are poor productivity, lack of morale and minimal, if any, job satisfaction among employees.

Another leadership style involves coaching. If you thrive in dealing with bosses who like working with you on a one-to-one basis, this leadership style is for you. Coaching styles work best with employees who the initiative to work up the corporate level while improving individual skill sets. This style concentrates on helping employees reach their potential by improving performance, productivity, communications and working on goal setting. Coaches believe that when employee goals align with company goals, great things can happen. On the negative side, the coaching leadership style can be perceived as micromanaging employees. This can come across as not trusting the employee’s judgment and capabilities.

You will see the democratic leadership style in use when your boss thrives in creating a group of people with a variety of skills and knowledge that can be used to the group’s advantage. He or she will work with the collective wisdom of the group to meet goals. This style believes that goals are achieved by building consensus among the group. On the negative side, this style is not appropriate in times of crisis. Crisis warrants quick decisions, and this leadership style does not fit that bill.

The affiliate leadership style feeds off team work by creating group harmony. Goals are achieved by increasing communication among group members. Leaders are comfortable giving praise for a job or idea well done. This leadership style increases employee morale, restores trust in an organization and helps form a bond among team members. Since this leadership style depends upon praising so much, poor behavior can not be dealt with properly. Mediocrity can come across as being acceptable.

The sixth leadership style you can find in your workplace is known as pacesetting. If your boss sets very high performance standards and appears obsessed about getting things done quicker and more efficiently, he or she is probably using this style of leadership. Everyone is expected to perform at the same level. When used extensively, this style can undercut employee morale and negatively affect the work environment.

Many times, management personnel can adopt one or a combination of all leadership styles to best suit the company’s and person’s needs.

Finding the right leadership styles can make or break a company!

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 Retaining Intellectual Capital and Seasoned Staff

The aging work force of America has grown in recent years, and this has made a huge impact on businesses. As large numbers of baby boomers are retiring, the amount of intellectual capital that businesses have is shrinking. Although underestimated, intellectual capital has the knowledge and skills that younger workers may not have or have overlooked. These workers have the technical skills, the background knowledge of the industry or company, and the knowledge of the history and evolution of a product or service. These workers carry with them valuable information and maintain valuable contacts that are essential to a business.

In this budget conscious time, employers are laying off or giving early retirement to those who make the most: the intellectual capital. Without intending to, these companies are ridding themselves of their most valuable asset. Some experts have nicknamed this as “brain drain” or “knowledge collapse”. Although in the short-term the company will save capital by replacing high salaries with lower entry salaries, the long-term effects are costly and potentially devastating. Imagine the top sales rep leaving with all of his contacts and relationships, and a new sales rep stepping in to take over. With no knowledge of the personal relationships, this could be a disaster. Many retirees do not take the time to write down everything they know to pass along to the next guy. Additionally, the number of people entering the work force is significantly lower than those retiring, which can cause a long-term money drain on a company. With fewer candidates, higher salaries can be demanded with large sign-on bonuses. Very soon it becomes clear that it would have been less costly to keep the older employees rather than forcing early retirement.

Using What You Have

As an employer, it can be confusing in how to handle this shift in employees. Several options are available for employers to help ease this transitional period without causing damage to the company.

Most importantly, employers need to analyze what information needs to be passed to the new employees. Organizing this information in an easy to use database, preferably searchable, will ensure that all employees can access what they need quickly, without frustration. Although this seems simple, keep in mind that employees sometimes keep knowledge to themselves to remain valuable to the company. The mindset is if you are the only employee that knows how to do something, you are less likely to be downsized. It is vital to ask yourself if you reward your employees for sharing, or do you run a more private information shop. Leaning to the information sharing route will make this transition relatively easy.

It is also important to periodically review your existing situation and analyze if you are ready for anyone critical to the operation to leave. How long will replacing that person take? Does that person hold the information vital to your organization to themselves or is it readily available? Those are a few of the questions to ask before making a plan.

Not To Overlook

• Baby boomers are changing the face of retirement. Many boomers plan on working through their retirement, whether it be full-time or part-time. As an employer, look at retaining some of these workers, or even recruiting them for part-time positions.

• Analyze your workplace culture. Are the efforts of your older workers rewarded, do they get projects, are they treated fairly in comparison with the younger workers? Be sure to not engage in age discrimination, even unintentionally.

• Flexibility is the key to retention. Many retirees want to continue to work, but do not want the long hours or rigid time constraints. Try new schedules or ideas with these boomers to keep them on your team.

Phased retirements are an attractive option for both employees and employers. Consider taking on some of the retirees as contractors, giving them the freedom to work with flexibility and less pressure. Restructuring, such as flex time employees or job sharing can offer retirees another option. This also can help keep young talent with your company as well. If a company shows that they are willing to work with their situations, the talent will be more likely to stay with that company. Another option is to offer your part-time retirees benefits. Many are willing to take lower salaries in exchange for better benefits.

Other Ways to Succeed:

• Make a plan for those potential retirees. Find ways to offer them a plan that will retain the information and the employees themselves on terms that work for everyone.

• Actually run the numbers and figure out which is more beneficial to the company: keeping an older employee or hiring a new one. Be sure to include all factors.

• Recognize that a wide range of ages in your workforce means diversity.

• Acknowledge all factors in aging. Everyone’s personal aging is different based on their circumstances, and thus some older workers are in better health than younger ones and take less days off for their health.

• Allow older workers to engage in training sessions. Let them teach when appropriate, and if not appropriate, have them train with the younger staff. Refresher courses never hurt!

• When creating teams, put younger and older workers together to allow sharing of knowledge.

• Make the workplace friendly for the aging, keeping in mind that aging sometimes means hearing and vision changes. Also keep in mind that joint and back problems can be prevalent in aging, so provide ergonomic furniture and workspaces.

• When recruiting older persons for volunteer positions, give them duties relative to their talents. Don’t just have them answering phones, give them leadership roles as well.

• Find agencies that can help employ aging workers and can allow businesses to circumnavigate the tangled rules of Social Security and Retirement Acts.

With the retirement of so many baby boomers, businesses need to be aware of strategies to retain the intellectual capital needed. Long-term effects must be examined in order to view the whole picture of what impact these losses can create. Keep in mind that passing the office to the younger workers does not necessarily mean that the knowledge is passed as well. Using the above strategies can help retain the intellectual capital of businesses and be a major factor in the betterment of the economy.

Up Next is a guest article by Chase Smith of www.chasingproductivity.com “How to Stay Positive& Productive”
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