Strategic Planning  Does your company have clear goals and a strategy to achieve them, or are you finding each day your focus changes?

"One of the reasons some businesses do not survive is due to the lack of strategic planning for the business"  ~Department of Industry, Tourism & Industry  Many companies start developing strategic plans, very few finish them. Attend this month's seminar  to find out the steps required to formulate and deliver a strategic plan for your company & the pitfalls to avoid. HR corner  Who's in Charge Here? In a large financial services office, all work on a key project stopped when the top decision-maker was absent for reasons she had not anticipated - a death in her immediate family. She had not appointed or trained anyone to make decisions in her stead. People at the head of a small manufacturing company failed to anticipate the sudden, prolonged absence of the CEO due to illness. No one knew where he kept key data and information. Even the password to his computer was locked away for a time, putting the brakes on all business. After work slowly started up again, employees continued to operate in crisis mode for a lengthy period of time. The result was low production, high turnover and a serious threat to profits and survival. Both situations could have been easily handled if the CEO or owner of the business had planned for a successor. In the best-run companies, planning for a future without the current CEO often begins years before the top decision-maker's retirement. Some experts say planning 15 years in advance is not too soon. Succession planning does not have to be intimidating, but it must be intentional. This means every company, agency or institution should have a well-thought-out plan that lets the CEO-to-be learn the job before they actually have to perform on their own. The key steps to a solid succession plan should be simple and logical. Top players in finding a successor are a company's executives and human resource specialists. Common sense dictates a potential successor is knowledgeable and supportive of the company's business strategy and will reinforce corporate goals. That means a human resource executive should have the successor's credentials at their fingertips. They should know what education, experience and special skills and knowledge the successor possesses. Here are some steps CEOs often follow when choosing a successor: Select the right person. This is often difficult because of the CEO's closeness to the job. The help of other executives, especially those who understand the job and will be affected by the change, should be enlisted. All employees with skill and knowledge should get consideration, and the future CEO should be considered alongside the future goals and needs of the business. While no one wants to hand over the job and scurry out the door, it's important to establish a schedule. This goes hand-in-hand with the training process. The successor should learn the job while doing, with a clear understanding of roles and responsibilities. After the training is complete, the departing CEO should turn the job over and go. Of course, this formerly busy executive will have prepared in advance for leaving - including what they are going to do with the rest of their life - so they will actually leave and not return unless it's for a visit. While planning a successor for the top job is crucial, company executives must remember all key jobs need the right people. The way to retaining talented people at all levels is to make sure they are in the right jobs to begin with and to provide growth opportunities for them.

Tip of the Month How to Reduce Stress With 75 percent of employees believing that workers have more on-the-job stress than a generation ago, stress management programs at work are popular. Studies show such programs are more effective if coupled with organisational change. Stress at work is caused by duties that go beyond a worker's capabilities or resources. With that in mind, employers should make sure the workload is in line with what an employee is able to do. Other ideas include: Design jobs to provide meaning, stimulation and opportunities for workers to use their skills. Clearly define roles and responsibilities. Give workers opportunities to participate in decisions and actions affecting their jobs. Improve communications to reduce uncertainty about career development and future employment prospects. Provide opportunities for social interaction among workers. Establish work schedules that are compatible with demands and responsibilities outside the job. technical CORNER  Assessment Tools Must Be Reliable When someone takes an assessment several times and receives the same or nearly the same score, this is a good indicator of the instrument's reliability. It is expected there is a level of reliability that provides both accurate and consistent results, called a reliability coefficient. The higher the reliability coefficient, the more reliable the instrument. Profiles' research team analyses our assessment scoring and other data to validate the reliability coefficient. To be considered reliable, assessment instruments must fit within these four areas: The tools must measure what they say they measure. For example, if an instrument claims to assess mental ability, it should apply specifically to mental ability. Assessment instruments must be consistent in their measurement. This means consistently reliable results. The tools must be relevant to the jobs that applicants seek. For a job in which excellent customer service is important, an assessment might test how well the applicant relates to and empathises with others. Finally, assessment tools must allow for more effective employment decisions in hiring the most qualified workers. For example, in a position in which accurate measurements are important, the test should focus on an applicant's aptitude for taking measurements and recording them accurately. The most highly regarded assessments are regularly validated in the workplace. Often our research provides advances that lead to the creation of newer versions of assessments. We maintain reliability in each new version. CLIENT highlight  Creating a "Strong Benchmark" at Specialized Loan Servicing When Lisa Rice sought an assessment tool for her financial services company, she put together a task force of eight to research the products. Several months and three Profiles' products later, she sees a slight reduction in turnover, buy-in from managers, and a strong benchmark for future hiring and employee placement. Founded in 2003, SLS is a financial service company that employs about 410. With a slogan of "Big enough to deliver, small enough to care," the company services mainly mortgage loans and prides itself on good customer service. With workers in all areas - support staff, welcome centre, human resources, mailroom and asset conversion - Rice and her task force found three products to help them: Customer Service ProfileTM, Step One Survey IITM and ProfileXTTM. TM that is specific to the financial business and the Step One Survey IITM Integrity Indicator. For our professional roles we use ProfileXTTM. They are helpful in different ways," said Rice, who has 16 years of HR experience in different industries. "We have established a strong bench around the Customer Service ProfileTM, which we implemented seven or eight months ago. We have been able to go back and look at who leaves, and what their scores were and tie [the scores] into the interview process." In that way, Rice has been able to hire people with scores that better match the jobs for which they are applying. Profiles assessments also help managers ask the right questions, Rice noted, and suggest areas to explore in depth during the interview. "ProfileXTTM helps to see if there are large disconnects between the style and the candidate," she said. Managers who hire sometimes learned the hard way how accurate the assessment tools are. When an assessment indicated a candidate was not a good fit for the job and managers hired the candidate anyway, they later acknowledged the "big red flag" that the assessment raised. "As people wanted to leave or were being asked to leave, we've gotten buy-in across the organization," she said. To get a benchmark, Rice asked 10 employees to take the assessments, based upon performance. " Profiles offered a strong correlation between candidates and job, as well as a good format," Rice said. "It's easy to read and they walk you through the interview process. It seemed relevant to our industry and we saw a correlation to how we were reviewing our employees' success," she added. The thoroughness of Profiles and the time the company spent establishing benchmarks impressed her, Rice said. Even now that SLS has changed the way it is doing some of the assessments, Profiles continues good customer service. Perhaps most importantly, Rice sees changes in the company's managers. "The assessments have given us an opportunity to educate our managers on how important competencies are, and how important the interview process is."

Seminar

Our next  free seminar is:    Strategic Planning Many companies start developing strategic plans, very few finish them. What is a strategic plan & does your company have one? This seminar will provide a concise step by step guide as to how you will formulate your strategy and complete your plan. It will cover an agenda you can use to host your own planning day with key stakeholders and take ideas through a process that delivers a strategic plan which will provide your company clarity in it focus in achieving its goals. When: Thursday 29th March, 2007 from 6.00pm - 7.30pm (drinks and food provided during the seminar) Where: 277 Moray St, South Melbourne VIC 3205 (Next to Tram Stop 23, Route 1) Cost: Free Registration, each attendee will receive a complimentary copy of the book "40 Strategies for Winning in Business" worth US$25 Register via our website