Category: Business Coaching

What is Onboarding?

Onboarding is not easy to define. Some organizations limit it to a simple orientation process. Others go further to include company culture. Onboarding, however, is so much more. Onboarding is a systematic method that allows employers to hire the best employees and align them to the company vision. It will also provide employees with the necessary tools, help them assimilate, and speed up their training process.

Employees typically “break even” 20 weeks after they begin working at a job. This means that their productivity equals what the company has invested in them. They begin to generate more value for the organization over time. Onboarding can improve the time that it takes for employees to become profitable once they are hired. This is accomplished on a functional level and a social level. Companies often focus on the functional level at the cost of the social. This can overwhelm employees and leave them feeling uncertain about whom to go to for help.

Checklist for Onboarding New Employees

When hiring new employees, it is not enough to just walk them through the office, hand them paperwork, and ask them to read manuals. You must make them feel welcome to alleviate anxiety and help them acclimate.

1. Contact the employee after he or she is hired: This can be with a welcome letter or phone call.
2. Send information early: Send the handbook and any paperwork that than be completed early.
3. Choose a mentor: Assign someone to mentor the new hire.
4. Prepare for the first day: Have everything ready for the new employee to begin work on the first day.
5. Have the new hire meet people the first day: New hires should engage with their supervisors and mentors on day one.
6. Schedule lunch: Schedule lunch with coworkers to introduce a new hire.

Onboarding needs to be a professional program. Companies frequently ignore onboarding responsibilities and simply assign the task of orienting a new hire to the least busy employee. This can cause confusion, impede the onboarding process, and give the impression that the company is not well run. It is essential that everyone involved in the onboarding program remain friendly and professional.

If you are interested in receiving one-on-one or group coaching to work with a professional or on improving your business through employee wellness coaching or EAP services, then contact Jasper & Associates today.

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Uncivil Behavior that can be Toxic to the Workplace

Civility represents the social norms and rules that must be followed in order to positively and productively relate with others. When people hear the word “civility,” words that come to mind include respect, courtesy, tolerance, consideration, and a rational approach to conflicts. Behaviors that threaten positive and productive relations with other people, therefore, constitute uncivil behaviors.

You can be uncivil without meaning too — for instance, you simply assume that what’s acceptable in one social context (say, at your old workplace or at your home) is acceptable across all contexts. Or you can be uncivil intentionally, e.g. you verbally attack a co-worker because you can’t be bothered to provide reasonable accommodation.

What behaviors can be considered as uncivil? There are many. Below are just a few examples:

• Failing to acknowledge another person’s presence: Ignoring other people’s greetings and well-wishes; going past a co-worker without so much as a nod or a greeting.
• Using abusive language: Being verbally abusive or using crude language
• Gossiping: It’s uncivil behavior to both instigate and spread rumors against another person, regardless of whether the “news” seems accurate or relevant to the accomplishment of the task at hand.
• Discounting employee contribution: Discounting means deliberately downplaying or ignoring the importance of another person’s statement or work contribution. For instance, some members in a team may tend to cut off a person that they do not like during a brainstorming session. Taking credit — or worse, compensation! — for work that you did not do is also an example of discounting behavior.
• Bullying and intimidating co-workers: Threatening violence against co-workers who would report timesheet irregularities to management; leveraging the power of cliques in order to ostracize particular individuals.
• Sabotaging individual and company efforts: Intentionally not informing a co-worker who is competition for a promotion of the exact time a client will arrive in the building.
• Discriminating against a particular individual or group: Attacking an individual based on intrinsic characteristics such as race, gender, age, mental ability, and physical appearance.
• Practicing insensitivity against co-workers’ needs: Inability to pay attention to the feelings and needs of others e.g. not giving a grieving co-worker time off before demanding workplace attendance. Insensitivity may also come in the form of engaging in activities distracting to co-workers, e.g. taking a cell phone calls while in the middle of a meeting, not cleaning up the whiteboard as one leaves the training room, and demanding attention from subordinates outside of the prescribed working hours.
• Practicing poor etiquette in dealing with correspondence: Ignoring phone calls and emails, using company email to send private messages, and discussing individuals in mailing lists as if they are not there.

It’s worth noting: civility goes beyond mere good manners.

Civility is about effective self-awareness and effective social awareness. You can’t be an effective practitioner of civility until you recognize your place in the general scheme of things, and you develop an appreciation for the unique contribution of all else around. It’s a delicate balance between pursuing self-interest and practicing self-control in order for others and the organization to pursue their interests well. For this reason, effective programs on civility must always be prefaced by a training workshop on attentiveness to self and others.

If you are interested in receiving one-on-one or group coaching to work with a professional or on improving your business through employee wellness coaching or EAP services, then contact Jasper & Associates today.

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Eliminate Rudeness from your Workplace

Overcoming civility in the workplace can be a big challenge, especially in companies where blatant tolerance for explicit and implicit acts of rudeness is already the norm. But this doesn’t mean it’s impossible to create a civil workplace.

The following are just some of the recommended interventions for creating greater civility in your company:

1. Create, communicate, and enforce policies regarding civil behavior in the workplace. 

Organizations have the power to create the kind of culture they desire by making the practice of civil behavior part of company policy. The key is in being explicit from the very onset what is desired and expected behavior from managers and staff members alike. These policies should be included in the training program of each incoming employee. Pre-determined consequences of uncivil behavior in the workplace must also be consistently enforced to ensure that civility ideals don’t remain just words on paper. The creation of a company civility policy will be discussed in later modules.

2. Screen job applicants for tendency towards uncivil behavior. 

Companies can create pleasant and ethical working environments by carefully choosing personalities who will make up the organization. It can only take one bully to create much distress in an organization, which is why it’s important that persons with tendencies towards inconsideration, aggression, and disrespect are filtered out from as early as the job interview. This may sound like common sense, but in reality, companies are willing to overlook personality traits that point to potential uncivil behavior when faced with an employee with impressive credentials and experience. Most instigators of incivility in the workplace are those in management, and competent managers are hard to find. It wouldn’t be surprising if business owners and stockholders turn a blind eye on incivility just to keep top brass.

3. Provide continuous education and training on civility. 

Civil behavior is a skill, and many cases of incivility are simply the result of lack of knowledge and/or practice of skills needed to navigate the workplace in a respectful and considerate fashion. Companies are encouraged to regularly raise awareness on the costs of incivility, as well as keep employees trained in civility-related concepts such as gender sensitivity, harassment in the workplace, stress management, conflict management, and workplace etiquette. Assigning advocates among management and staff members is also an excellent way to keep the momentum of civility training programs going.

4. Practice regular self-assessment. 

If you want to create an environment that values civility, then you have to look no further than yourself. Make sure that you always look at your own behavior and identify the ways you contribute to workplace incivility. All people are guilty of uncivil behavior, some regularly, others on occasion, but this doesn’t make it ok. Modeling civil behavior in your workplace can be the beginning of organizational change.

5. Increase accountability and transparency in the company. 

Incivility in the workplace may persist because company set-up makes it easy for acts of incivility to go unnoticed. If there is nothing keeping an employee from posting derogatory emails to co-workers anonymously, then the company is providing instigators with opportunity. If performance review is based only on the opinion of the immediate supervisor, then it gives supervisors leverage to treat subordinates as they wish. But if there is a system for accountability and transparency in a company, then there is a deterrent against instigators of incivility.

If you are interested in receiving one-on-one or group coaching to work with a professional or on improving your business through employee wellness coaching or EAP services, then contact Jasper & Associates today.

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We should always attempt to make ethical decisions. It is possible, however, for two ethical people to make different decisions in a situation. In business, it is important that people understand ethical dilemmas and the ethical decision-making process.

The Basics

People typically use five different ethical standards to interpret the world around them. For the best results, put the different approaches together and choose the answers that best fit.

Ethical Standards

• Utilitarian approach: This approach focuses on the consequences of actions. The goal is to do more good than harm in a situation.
• Rights approach: Focusing on the rights of all involved defines this approach. It makes respecting the rights of others a moral obligation.
• Fairness approach: Fairness expects people to be treated equally. A fairly based standard is used to determine actions that are unequal such as pay rate.
• Common Good approach: The conditions that affect all people are considered in the common good approach. Systems and laws are created to ensure the welfare of everyone.
• Virtue approach: This approach uses virtues such as honesty, compassion, love, patience, and courage to guide behavior.

Balancing Personal and Organizational Ethics

It is important to be ethical on a personal and organizational level. Personal ethics influence decision both inside and outside of work. These are based on personal beliefs and values. Organizational ethics determine workplace decisions. Managers and employees both face organizational ethics, and the company should have ethical standards in place.

Organizational ethics flow from the top down. Those in leadership need to promote ethical decisions by their example. Occasionally, personal and professional ethics will collide. In the event of an ethical dilemma, it is important to choose based on what is most important and what will do the most good for the parties involved.

 Common Dilemmas

There are many different ethical dilemmas in business that are specific to industries. There are, however, common dilemmas that every organization will face.

• Honest accounting practices
• Responsibility for mistakes such as accidents, spills, and faulty product
• Advertising that is honest and not misleading
• Collusion with competitors
• Labor issues
• Bribes and corporate espionage

Law governs many of these dilemmas, but an ethical organization will make the right decision regardless of legal issues. Because these issues are so common, it is important to create ethical standards and train employees to behave accordingly.

 Making Ethical Decisions

Before making any final decisions, use the following steps to make sure that you are making ethical decisions.

• Determine the ethics of a situation: Does the decision affect a group or have legal ramifications?
• Gather Information: Learn as much as possible about the situation, and get the point of view from all parties involved.
• Evaluate Actions: Make different decisions based on the different ethical standards.
• Test Decisions: Would you be proud of this decision if it were advertised?
• Implement: Implement the decision, and evaluate the results.

 Overcoming Obstacles

There will always be temptation to act unethically. These obstacles are particularly difficult to overcome when other people are encouraging you to behave unethically. They may be in positions of authority or simply intimidating, but you do not have to give into them.

Overcome Obstacles:

• Sympathize: Do not attack unethical people. Sympathize with their situation, but refuse to compromise your standards.
• Make them responsible: Do not quibble. Directly ask people if they want you to do something illegal or unethical. This removes their plausible deniability.
• Reason: Provide them with logical reasons for your refusal to compromise your integrity.
• Stay firm: Make a decision and stick to it. Do not let people wear you down.
• Take precautions: Keep a paper trail of your encounters, and be prepared to defend yourself.

If you are interested in receiving one-on-one or group coaching to work with a professional or on improving your business through employee wellness coaching or EAP services, then contact Jasper & Associates today.

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