Download the Print Version: The Navigator - March 2010 (69)

Do your employees feel valued? How do you know? What are you doing to make you think they feel valued? What are they doing to make you believe they feel valued? If you don’t know how to answer these questions you’ll want to read this article. Don’t just assume your employees are happy, help them to be happy and productive. Your bottom-line will appreciate it.

Workforce Sustainability – How to get the most out of the employees you have!

We’ve heard it over and over: A happy employee is a productive employee.

It’s not like I can cut you from the bottom of your left earlobe down to your forth rib pull that out and go: “See there, that’s your work. Or that’s your personal life.” It doesn’t work that way. We are all like a fine tapestry and when one thread is tugged it affects the others.

Whether you work for a large corporation or for a small mom–and–pop shop you spend a considerable amount of time at work.

That’s why it’s so important to consider the whole employee when determining and providing ways of showing appreciation.

When an employee feels valued they will focus more on the positives of the Company / Management / Task rather than the negatives.

With a more positive outlook people have feelings of being honored and appreciated for not only what they do but also for who they are. This helps to develop an environment that gives people freedom to be their best and to do their best.

We talk about the sustainability of our environment. Our employees are part of that environment. It’s very difficult for a person to concentrate on work, deadlines, and going “above and beyond” when they are unhappy, unhealthy, or have feelings of being unappreciated and over worked.

The workforce today has to accomplish more with less. More work with less people and resources. If employees are using precious mental energy on worrying about their work environment, they will have less of that energy to devote to accomplishing the work.

Employees, people are our greatest resource yet we don’t always treat them as valuable.

Tips for creating a valued workforce:

Health and wellness programs

Health and wellness programs help to cut the costs associated with poor employee health, which include absenteeism, loss of productivity, and poor work quality. There has been a 25% jump in corporate interest in providing Employee Health and Wellness programs.

A healthy and happy person will be more productive in the workplace. Employers are discovering that providing programs and resources directed for the benefit of the employee is good for the health and happiness of the company’s bottom line.

Coaching

Coaching is a hot topic among Fortune 500 companies and a recent Fortune magazine article showed executive coaching yields a return on investment of almost six times its cost. According to Fortune, benefits to executives who received coaching included improved working relationships, productivity, quality, organizational strength, customer service, employee retention, cost reduction, bottom-line profitability, and reduced customer complaints.

You don’t have to be among the Fortune 500 or an executive to realize improvements in productivity, organization strength, and customer relations. In fact, you don’t even have to leave the comfort of your own office. Coaching is provided through a telephone, at a fraction of the cost of executive coaching.

In one company that had launched a coaching program they were able to identify specific financial and intangible benefits that came as a result of their coaching.

The two things most significantly impacted by the coaching process were:

• productivity
• employee satisfaction

These two items alone demonstrate just how valuable a good coach can be to your business.

Additional benefits derived from the coaching program were:

• work output
• work quality

Happy employees are not only more productive they are more creative and more willing to go “above and beyond”. They are also more willing to “think outside the box” which is where the most lucrative innovations and creative problem solving originate.

Imagine how even a ten percent increase in work output by you and your employees could impact your bottom line! That alone would more than reimburse you for the costs associated with a quality coach and coaching program.

Training

More companies are starting to realize that it’s smart and profitable to invest in training for their employees. Technical training for specific job requirements has always played a part in the corporate world.

Now, training is being considered for the improvement of the employee for the employee. Employers are  recognizing that this improvement will also benefit the company’s bottom line.

A few training topics that companies are finding particularly beneficial are:

• Stress reduction and management
• Goal setting and achievement
• Communication
• Nutrition
• Fitness

Training can take many forms. Depending on the employee’s learning style, it can be on-line, in a traditional class room setting, one-on-one, on-site or off-site.

According to a Gallup Poll, 80 percent of employees said the availability of company sponsored training programs was a factor in deciding whether to accept a new job or stick with a current one.

Mentoring

Mentoring programs are classic. The focus of a good mentoring program will be on the development of the employee.

Initiatives to recognize and reward staff can improve an employees’ feeling of being valued, but even a simple “thank you” from management can dramatically improve the extent to which staff feel like key contributors to the organizations’ success.

Don’t mortgage the future of your company by ignoring your employees.

TJ Helm, Certified Professional Coach and founder of Galileo Professionals Services, Inc., provides training programs and coaching services to help you achieve the very best you, you can be. Visit http://www.DoLifeBetter.com, email tj@DoLifeBetter.com, or call 503-846-9228.

By Sarah Jane Keyser

If you are a parent of a child with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) and you have big time problems with homework, explore these seven questions with your child to create the best environment for him or her to succeed.

Understanding how your child’s brain functions will help you find the strategies that work best.

When we are interested in something and are good at it, such as math or English, interest stimulates the brain and aids focusing. For people with ADHD the greater the passion the easier it is to pay attention. Kids who have an interest may be a walking encyclopedia for their favorite topic, like dinosaurs or basketball, but hopeless about school. The problems arise with subjects that are not interesting and may be particularly difficult for your child.

New research supports this experiential evidence.
Recent research has identified two separate areas in the brain which are used to focus attention. The parietal cortex reacts to external stimuli; the prefrontal cortex is active when you must choose what to pay attention to.

The prefrontal cortex is the brain part that is used for executive functions like deciding, planning and activating and is under active in ADHD. It is the last part of the brain to reach full maturity (that’s why Hertz and Avis don’t rent cars to people under age 25). Children with ADHD may be two to three years behind their age peers in mental maturity, but they do get there.

How can you use this information to help your child do his homework?
Your job, Mom and Dad, is to provide the environment that works for your child.

You do not want to do it for him or be dogmatic about how, where or when he should do his homework. But you do need to provide more structure and organizational assistance than for other children of his age.

Talk and explore with her to discover what kind of stimulation works best to help her brain stay focused, every child is different. Your goal is to provide en environment which provides the right stimulation for her unique brain.

Seven questions for you to explore.
1. When does he work best? He probably needs some exercise and a snack after school before settling down to do homework. A snack should include some protein for fuel for the brain.

2. Where does he work best? Does he work best alone in his room with no distractions or does he work better in an open area with some noise and movement around to provide stimulation? Does background music of his choosing help him stay on task?

3. Does he need to move often? Let him work in small chunks and take a short break to jump a bit between chunks. Explore using a rocking chair or a rubber ball seat.

4. Is he an aural or visual learner? Our modern world is expressed mostly through visual media, but some people learn better aurally. If your child is an aural learner have him work out loud recording his lessons on a tape recorder.

5. Is he a verbal or a graphic learner? Some children work better with pictures than with words. Let him use his creativity to illustrate his lessons with pictures cut from old magazines or his own drawings. Provide colored pens and highlighters to make his notes stimulating to look at.

6. Does he have a problem with time? Many people with ADHD have an elastic sense of time. Have your child practice measuring the time he needs to do each assignment. Prepare a chart on which he can record estimated time, start time, end time, elapsed time, and the difference from estimated time for each assignment.

7. Does he have difficulty starting? Some children with ADHD see tasks as one big overwhelming cloud. They need help finding where to begin. Talk with him about the steps he needs to accomplish starting with very simple actions like open your book, read the first problem.

Most important! Enjoy! Have fun!
Tell a silly joke before he starts or when he takes a break. This may sound paradoxical, but laughing lowers the stress level for you and your child.

Courage! Graduation will be here sooner than you think.
Sarah Jane Keyser worked for many years with computers as grammar, analyst, and user trainer, but her struggle with inattentive ADD kept getting in the way of her plans and dreams. Once ADD was identified and the great need that coaching filled, she added ADD Coach training to complete her preparation for a new career as ADD Coach.

For a free coaching session, contact me at skeyser@bluewin.ch. Learn more about ADHD at http://www.CoachingKeytoADD.com or sign up for Zebra Stripes, a free E-zine for ADHD at http://www.coachingkeytoadd.com/newsletter/newsarchive.html.
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