Month: April 2018

Posted on by Wifi Attendance Super Admin

The performance and productivity of employees are of utmost importance for any business organization. However, at times, employees are burdened with their own personal problems restricting them from performing their best.

Psychological problems, legal issues, substance abuse, emotional stress, physical stress, and other personal troubles can reduce the ability to complete tasks. It can result in a lack of focus lowering productivity, increased absenteeism, and higher health care expenses.

An Employee Assistance Program is what you need to tackle these issues and take care of the personal needs of you and your employees.

What is an Employee Assistance Program?

When employees are challenging personal issues and need to cope with the same, an employee assistance program comes into play.

The program is employer-sponsored and offers solutions to eliminate the negative impact caused by work-related or personal issues. An EAP can help to lessen the expenses you incur on employee health, increase the productivity and morale.

When an EAP is introduced, employees have the access to communicate with trained counselors 24 hours a day either via phone or face-to-face.

What is covered under Employee Assistance Program?

The Employee Assistance Program is different for every organization, however certain elements are common. While some programs may only be restricted to the abuse of alcohol and drugs, others cover a larger scope addressing a range of troubles and issues. Generally, the issues covered under EAPs are:

  • Substance abuse
  • Consumption of alcohol or drugs
  • Problems in marriage
  • Stress management
  • Child/Senior citizen care
  • Gambling cessation
  • Financial troubles
  • Legal issues
  • Psychiatric or psychological issues
  • Crisis intervention
  • Health issues
  • Eating disorders

How is an Employee Assistance Program beneficial?

There are very few people who do not face problems in day-to-day life. A problem hampers the physical and mental ability of an individual thereby affecting the way they perform. Let us take a look at how an EAP can benefit employees and improve their productivity:

1. Confidentiality

EAPs give employees the opportunity to discuss sensitive issues in confidence with a resource. The employer is not aware of when and why the service has been utilized and therefore, the employee does not have to worry about being judged, or having put his or her job in danger. Chances of a potential black mark that acts as a hindrance to the job are low.

2. Instant Assistance

An EAP hotline is available 24 hours a day. This means employees usually do not have to wait for assistance. When the need for an appointment with the medical practitioner or counselor arises, the same can be instantly fixed.

Moreover, since this is a service offered by the organization, the employee can confidently use the work phone to call and discuss their issues.

3. Preventing Escalation

Stress at work can sometimes result in conflicts with peers and fellow team members. It can also escalate to become a challenging situation requiring the intervention of the senior management and implying a stricter action.

In the existence of an EAP, employees can consult counselors in the early stages of a problem preventing it from transforming into something serious.

4. Tackling Personal Problems

Many times, job performance is hampered because of problems outside of the workplace. An EAP helps people cope with their personal problems as well.

Employees struggling with substance abuse, marital problems, legal issues, grief over a loved one’s loss, or depression can also seek the assistance of a counselor through the employee assistance program.

The purpose of the program is to give employees a platform where they can find resolutions to their problems or at least obtain some peace of mind so that their job efficiency is not hampered.

5. Employer Advantages

Employers also benefit from an EAP. Since employees can easily vent out their problems and find solutions to the same, absenteeism or a lower productivity is avoided.

The workforce is happy and remains motivated to perform. The costs for health insurance plans are also diminished because the EAP is available for dealing with stress-related illnesses.

In conclusion, an employee assistance program is required in the workplace to keep employees free from any kinds of personal or work-related challenges. This way they are able to improve performance and remain efficient and motivated.

Posted on by Wifi Attendance Super Admin

Company culture originates from the management and then goes down to different employees in an organization. As such, the company culture takes care of most of the employee activities, interests, and behaviours.

If you as a business owner take efficient managerial decisions and recruit people who can best suit your requirements, you are bound to have a productive and healthy corporate culture, just the way you want.

Here’s a list of distinct types of corporate cultures evident in different companies across the globe. Whether you manage a small, medium or large company, you will be able to notice some similar core values and also cherry-pick some others to integrate them with your current managerial strategy.

1. Strong Leadership

The foundation of this corporate culture lies in the hands of leaders – both existing and upcoming. Leadership training, coaching programs, and mentorship programs are adapted and focused upon.

Existing leaders invest their time and effort in fostering subordinates to become the next leaders. Employees who perform well are given the opportunity to rise and take leadership positions of their own.

It may seem that a strong corporate structure is important for a foundation of strong leadership. However, this is not necessarily true.

An organization where each individual is trained and motivated to be a competent leader can successfully operate on the culture of leadership.

2. Role-Playing

When the corporate culture is that of role-playing, the focus is laid on specialists. What is important is the skill you possess.

Every employee is trusted to be responsible for the project they are appointed to take care of.
Hiring in organizations that adopt role-playing culture is very selective.

This is because only those who possess exceptional skills are hired. Wages are also high because the selected employees have been thoroughly tested and trained for a particular activity, carefully evaluating the mastery of their craft.

A role-playing culture is generally observed in teams with web and software developers since they are capable of writing specific codes for computer programming.

3. Excellence in Customer Service

As the name suggests, this corporate culture focuses on the customer. The ‘customer is always right’ approach is adopted by all teams across and each employee, whether facing the customer or not is bound to keep customer satisfaction in mind.

Product manufacturers focus on the ease of use, website developers ensure that the website is user-friendly, sales teams frequently conduct customer surveys to understand feedback, and customer ratings and reviews are regularly monitored.

Marketing teams are active on social media to respond to customer queries and the phones lines are always available.

Amazon is one such example with its focus on customer satisfaction and customer service excellence.

4. Sales

A sales culture concentrates on accomplishing quarterly sales targets and goals. Every team member must have working product knowledge and must strive to perform activities that help to generate revenue and profits for the company.

A combination of the customer service and sales culture approach can prove to be extremely fruitful for the growth and success of a company.

5. Empowerment

As part of this corporate culture, the employee is given utmost value. Be it a senior-level employee or an employee of lower ranks, each one is made to feel that their contribution is vital for the organization.

Wages and reward schemes are prepared generously keeping the demands and requirements of the employees in mind. In times of a conflict, employees can easily reach out to their superiors and discuss their issues.

Salary increment, medical leaves, and position change requests are considered with genuine understanding.

6. Power-driven

Here the focus is on intense competition among employees. Each individual is devising their own strategy to acquire power. The entire focus is on – the survival of the fittest. Such organizations don’t intend to accomplish company goals since power culture is dominant.

A typical example of power-driven corporate culture can be noticed in insurance sales, financial consulting agencies, and investment banks where individuals are constantly battling for self-growth.

7. Innovation

When conventional ideas take a back seat and a constant attempt is made to stay in line with the changing trends and demands of the society, it is an innovation-based corporate culture. Each one is challenged to think out-of-the-box and create something magical for the organization.

Hierarchies and routes of formal communication are abandoned for sharing ideas that can make a difference.

8. All-Stars

This one is a stricter version of the role-playing culture and is often seen in startups. Employees are selectively hired purely on the basis of exceptional skills and job positions are created only when 100% necessary.

The team size is generally smaller and every individual is an all-star or all-rounder employee taking care of several activities at one time.

9. Task-Oriented

A task-oriented organization focuses on smaller teams handling specific goals and activities. These teams must smoothly function with each other and carry out the tasks assigned to them in an efficient manner.

The hiring process also involves an interaction with several team members and most of the day-to-day operations are tackled in conference rooms with specific team allotments.

10. Mission-Based

A mission-based corporate culture is popular amongst not-for-profit organizations and startups. These employees are passionate about what they do and sometimes neglect personal commitments and work-life balance on account of company goals.

They devote their time and effort to the activities they have been assigned with and ensure that work is completed to utmost satisfaction. Communication with clients, partners, associates, shareholders, and investors is extremely strong in such mission-driven culture organizations.

While it is pretty obvious that the workplace culture you adopt in your organization will be of your own choice, educating yourself on the different types of corporate cultures is a good idea.

Posted on by Wifi Attendance Super Admin

Any business owner understands and appreciates the importance of a Human Resources (HR) business plan. While a good strategic vision and an overall business plan are important, the HR plan is also essential for securing success in business.

In the absence of a human resource plan, your staff will not be prepared and will not work in accordance with the goals of the organization. When the need arises, hiring new employees will be a challenge and you won’t be ready for turnover and succession planning to manage your company.

The following five steps help you plan your human resource in style and ensure that your company is ready to tackle all sorts of staffing and management issues:

1. Know the Abilities of your Employees

Before you prepare your human resource plan and set out to hire new employees in the future, it is essential that you evaluate the skills and abilities of your current workforce.

The data you collected at the time of hiring will have most of the information available, such as educational qualifications, past experience, skills, projects they have administered to you etc.

This can act as a stepping stone in knowing what your employees are capable of. Additionally, a lot of employees you would be working with currently will have skills and talents that you are unaware of and haven’t been used to your advantage.

How to get information about such skills? Just ask! Have a conversation with your employees and identify their strengths. Employees appreciate such dialogue when you take interest in their potential. Record this information and use it in a manner that it can easily be accessed later.

2. Prepare a Succession Plan

Every business organization undergoes changes in management. This is something that cannot be avoided. Managers will join and leave, positions will be open, and new employees will be hired as you continue to expand and grow.

In order to be able to tackle these changes, preparing a succession plan in advance is advisable. You can choose to include or not include your employees in this succession plan.

Nevertheless, remember to keep their career goals and future plan in mind so that all such changes can be adapted by both you and the employees. Keep them informed of the changes.

A succession plan helps you easily identify who has the skills to fill the important positions of your organization and where there is a need for a new hire.

3. Focus on Employee Development

If your workforce is strong enough to take you forward and help you grow, you are now ready to figure out how their potential can be maximized. Of course, this does not mean that you lose focus on your business goals.

Once your company requirements have been clearly highlighted, it is time for you to match your employees’ goals with the goals of your company. Understand what their goals are and weigh them with their current abilities.

This way, you will be able to decide on what skills your workforce needs to develop in order to stay in-sync with your goals.

Moving on, frame an employee development plan and apply the strategies to help your employees enhance their skills.

According to studies, if the employees are included in the growth of the company, they tend to stay motivated and dedicatedly work towards the betterment of the organization.

4. Perform a Gap Analysis

A gap analysis basically compares the workforce you have currently with the workforce you will require as you expand and grow in the future. This study will clearly identify if your HR services are outdated and need improvements to keep the company going strong.

The process of a gap analysis will require a check of the job descriptions you use for hiring. Are they up to date as per employee expectations or do they need some kind of modifications?

Your employee handbook will also require an evaluation to ensure that all employment laws are timely updated and there is no policy that can be questioned.

The training policies must also be looked at so that changes with respect to the health benefits and sick leave have been taken into consideration appropriately.

The performance of your existing employees will have a significant impact on the future of your business and therefore, a relook at all of these documents as well as the employees’ rewards package is crucial for an increase in revenue.

5. Expand your Workforce as Business Expands

Your workforce must not feel burdened. You must carefully evaluate when you need to hire new employees and take action against the same.

Make sure that the reward schemes you set in place match the expectations of the employees you intend to hire. Also, keep your work culture strong so that employees are motivated to continue working and do not face any kind of challenges.

With the above-mentioned steps in mind, you will be able to manage your hiring and recruiting processes efficiently and only have qualified individuals working with you.

Your human resource planning will be performed in a manner that it does not result in any kind of obstacles and challenges.

Posted on by Wifi Attendance Super Admin

A good work environment is essential to company’s growth and success. Bain & Company reported that companies with more engaged workforce grew revenue 2.5x more than companies with a less engaged one.

A toxic work environment on the other hand drags down your company’s growth. A bad culture kills employee morale, pulls down the office energy and perpetuates a sense of incompetence.

It is hard to define a toxic environment but here are some signs that your office culture is turning negative:

  • Low employee morale
  • Sluggish rate of project completion
  • Frequent miscommunication
  • Blame games
  • Employee resentment
  • Absenteeism
  • High turnover

How does a company come to the point of having a toxic work environment? After all nobody planned to have a bad work culture, right? Not planning for a healthy work culture is actually the reason for landing up in such a situation. A good culture has to be actively nurtured by leadership and personnel management in a company.

More often than not the company culture is a reflection of business leadership. This is made clear by cases like Uber which gave excessive power to its co-founder Travis Kalanick and had to face numerous allegations last year.

For others like Amazon, a stressful work environment is just by-product of their value to be the best at any cost.

How can you bring back your company culture after it has become toxic? Obviously something has gone wrong down the line. Your first step is to inspect your journey and pin point the mistakes that happened. More often than not there will be many things that require change.

Following are some effective ways to clean out toxicity and have a healthy, happy environment again:

  • Improve communication

Bad communication is the number one cause for a toxic culture. Companies with a bad culture usually have the grapevine channel stronger than formal communication. Make your formal communication robust, timely and transparent.

Share everything with employees officially so that there is no room left for rumors and fear. Not addressing a sensitive issue only makes it more likely for miscommunication. So share everything openly and honestly.

  • Review your Leadership

Clean up your system of people you are toxic. Is there someone in the top management who is perpetuating stressful work practices or politics? Work ethics always trickle down from the top management. Hence, it is important that your leadership shares the values of your companies.

Sometimes it may also be a handful of employees in the executive or mid-management who are contributing to the problem. Remember that no one is worth it if they bring fear, stress and politics to the office every morning.

  • Review the Company structure

Clash of roles, duplication of roles and complicated reporting structure can also be a source of conflict in office. Review your company hierarchy and remove and complications. Confusing structures give rise to unnecessary blame game and stress.

  • Take Employee Feedback

How do you take actions on the above points? How would you know which leaders are causing a problem and weather the reporting structure is confusing or not? The answer is employee feedback.

Change is company culture is for your employees and hence their opinion must be taken in the activity. It would be a good idea to take representatives from each department and form a ‘cultural change committee’.

This will spread a loud and clear message to everyone- ‘we have taken note of the bad culture and we are going to change it’. This itself will be enough to lift up the spirits.

What makes toxic culture worse is that everybody complains about it in the hallways but nobody admits it in front of the management.

Acknowledging the problem in open will be a signal that things are changing and management is being honest of the ground reality. 

  • Align Performance Management

Are your employees happy with the way their performance is reviewed and appraisal is done. Appraisal and recognition is a sensitive topic and a common cause of employee dissatisfaction in many companies.

Dissatisfied employees are more likely to spread negativity and spoil office environment. Therefore it is important to minimize the number of employees walking our disappointed from a performance review.

Some of the steps that HR can take are – having a clear KPI and break them down into quarterly or monthly goals. This way the employee has time to take corrective action instead of facing a shock end of the year. Also keep scoring as objective as possible to avoid favoritism in office.

Final Thoughts

A toxic environment is a downhill spiral of negativity which can turn your talent unproductive. Catching early signs of company culture going bad allows you to take corrective action quickly.

Since leadership is the main influencer of culture it is important to review top managers. Make your communication open and timely and review your company structure. Take continuous feedback from employee and involve them in correcting the culture.

Posted on by Wifi Attendance Super Admin

If you have any experience in managing teams and running a business you would know that company culture has a big impact on business revenue and employee retention.

In 1992 a Harvard Business Study found that companies with strong culture saw  a 4x greater increase in revenue and more than 12x increase in stock price.

Sometimes people may not realize it but company culture is actually at the root for every business’s success, failure, fraud, collapse or growth.

It’s no secret that happy employees lead to happy customers. This is clear in service of companies such as SouthWest Airlines and Google. A fun and safe culture also attracts new talent to the company.

Here are some ways to build a better company culture at your workplace.

Have a Purpose

You must first decide the culture that you want your company to have. Simply copying the values of other successful business will rarely work.

Your company culture comprises your values, beliefs, purpose and philosophy in serving others. The company culture is almost always a reflection of its founding members and should be as unique as each human being is.

Think of the kind of atmosphere and working style you want in your office. A small start up will naturally have its founder’s culture but will require conscious effort as the team grows bigger.

Use stories

Use stories and brand ambassadors within your company to propagate values. These stories could be of founders or top level employees.

Personalities such as Richard Branson (Virgin brand) and Steve Jobs (Apple Inc.) are an inspiration in themselves. They form a major part of the brand they have built.

Not every company will have a popular personality to influence its culture. Even everyday stories by frontline employees or action on social media can be used to reinforce values and build culture.

company culture

Hire Right

Zappos the online shoe seller is loved for its company culture and customer service. Did you know that Zappos gives cultural fit a 50% weightage when hiring an employee!

That means a candidate with impressive skill sets could still get rejected because he is not right for the culture of the company.

Culture is made up of people and stories, so it makes sense to protect it from getting corrupted. It is possible to teach a skill set but it is much harder to change a person’s attitude and belief systems.

Always hire people who add to your culture and share your sense of purpose. Hiring employees who have conflicting values is quick way to turn your culture toxic.

Encourage right culture

It is also important to encourage the right behaviours after hiring the right employees. Make sure your awards and recognition reflect your values.

Take the example of Publix Super Markets, the largest employee owned company in United States. They offer their employees company stock after a year of service and additional stocks each year promoting the culture of inclusiveness and ownership.

As a result their turnover rate is as low as 5% and profits are more than that of Wal-Mart.

company culture

Have zero tolerance for breaches

What you stand against is as important as what you stand for in building a strong culture. Make clear that behaviours and practices against the company’s values will not be tolerated.

Have a written code of conduct and policy that reflects your culture clearly.

Rewards and punishments are noticed by employees and travel through the grapevine quickly. It is an effective way to keep your company culture in check.

Sum Up

94% of executives and 88% of employees believe a distinct workplace culture is important to business success. Company culture does require time and effort but it is well worth the effort.

In fact, it is impossible to have a sustainable long running business without a strong culture.

Building a culture starts with having a purpose, hiring right people and nurturing it daily. Company culture will evolve as the business grows and next generation of workers are hired.

However, the core of the business and its essence must always be preserved and reflect in everything the company does.

Posted on by Wifi Attendance Super Admin

Employee Absenteeism costs companies billions of dollars globally. It can be defined as intentional and habitual leave from work that is unscheduled. Calling in sick, arriving late daily and taking undue long breaks is also counted as absenteeism. It leads to loss of productivity and disruption in work flow.

In some companies absenteeism is a chronic problem leading to low morale and affecting the bottom line negatively.

Many times the cause of an unscheduled leave is genuine like medical emergency, personal work or ill family member, but employees who are absent regularly are simply avoiding work.

There may be authentic reason behind not wanting to attend office too. Reasons could vary from office bullying to having an indifferent boss. It is the company’s job to find out the reason and address it before widespread absenteeism becomes a disease in the office.

All companies face absenteeism in some form and at some stage. Here are ways to deal with it and keep your workforce productive and motivated.

Ways to Deal with Employee Absenteeism

 

Study the Problem

It is important to first study the problem of absenteeism in your company. Collect data on leaves and people on unscheduled absence. Does absenteeism peak during a particular month or is it more prevalent in any one department? These questions will help you to get to the root cause of the problem.

Having attendance and leave management system like Wi-Fi attendance will help you in getting data easily.

Have a Written Policy

Many companies do not have a written policy on work absence. This leads to confusion and wastage of office hours by some employees. Make sure you have a written policy stating the office hours, acceptable delays, half day provisions if any and possible consequences of breach of policy.

Make it a part of induction program for new joinees and especially educate managers on handling absenteeism.

Train Managers

Managers must identify absenteeism in early stages and resolve or report it to HR. Any employee taking more than two unplanned leaves a month or arriving more than an hour late everyday is a red-flag; although the limits will depend on your company’s policy.

There must be a clear course of intervention for such employees and the managers should be instructed to take these cases seriously.

Wi-Fi Attendance System

Common attendance system can be exploited by employees who want to avoid work. The problem with RIFD and biometric attendance system is that they can be fooled with proxy attendance and cannot register actual time worked by an employee.

Wi-Fi attendance on the other hand tracks real time location of the employee using office router. Employees can mark attendance only when they are connected to office wifi.

This allows HR to note unreported absence or inadequate working hours by any employee. A technologically advanced wifi attendance system is hence an efficient way to tackle employee absenteeism.

Employee Support

A good Employee Assistance Program or EAP does a lot to keep absenteeism low. EAP are support programs that help out employees in personal front. This could be though financial support, healthcare services, flexible works schedules, counseling etc.

EAP aims at supporting employee in testing times so that he/she can get back to full productivity at their earliest.

It also makes the employee feel cared for which makes it less likely that they will miss office or cause a loss to the company.

Final Thoughts

Employee absenteeism leads to low productivity and huge costs for companies. Dealing with it requires a formal process and good technology.

By tracking attendance through Wi-Fi Attendance App you can keep a close eye on unscheduled absence and take corrective action.