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Christmas Can Come More Than Once a Year!

Don’t worry: the economic meltdown (which needs no introduction) makes everyone feel like a cheapskate. When recruiting online, it’s not uncommon for some staffing professionals to mark the pay rate as “negotiable” or leave out the salary altogether, because not everyone’s quite certain what they can afford. However, eventually it’s time to meet the applicants in person and with yearning in their eyes they’ll ask you, “How much will you give me this year, Santa? I’ll work hard and I’ll be good.”

Okay, you’re not Santa (though you do have merry dimples and rosy cheeks, and you keep a bowl full of jelly in the break room, which is close enough). However, they’ll still want to know how much you’re willing to pay. To be fair, you can check other forums, such as Monster or CareerBuilder to determine the market rate for that particular position. In Hiring Your First Employee: A Step by Step Guide, Fred S. Steingold suggests referring to the following website for average market rates in any given metropolitan area, for any given occupation: php.democratandchronicle.com/RocDocs/pay.

Now, let’s say you’ve checked the median rate, and man is it steep (considering how little profit you’re making this year)! Remember, there are other ways of making your employees happy. It’s July, but everyone could use a little holiday pick-me-up right about now.

Here are twelve incentives to spread some cheer around the office. (You don’t actually have to put them in a velvet sack. Who do you think you are? Santa?)

(My Employer Gave To Me…)

1. Sun Chips and a Pepsi. Some of your employees might lose steam just before lunch hour. You can provide them with snacks and drinks to keep their momentum going throughout the day. They’ll also be saving money on items they would have bought for themselves. Just make sure you know their snacking preferences (i.e. feeding pork rinds to a vegetarian is a mistake).

2. Lunches on Fridays For Free. Some companies adopt a casual-Friday policy, which enables employees to wear jeans on the last day of the work week, or leave a little early. Take it one step further by casually picking up the phone and casually ordering take-out for your employees.

3. Schedule Flexibility. An eight-to-five schedule doesn’t really allow for running errands. Many people are willing to sacrifice a little pay if they can occasionally leave the office to take care of those things that seem to constantly go unattended (such as sanity).

4. Firmer Arms and Stronger Knees. If you can’t afford benefits such as paid memberships to a gym or health club, buy an affordable elliptical machine or exercise bike and keep it in one of the spare rooms. There may be a few people interested in light aerobic exercise (or serious sweating). An energized person is a more productive person.

5. Five Books on Podiatry. Once your employees sink into a routine, they may desire something, well, a little less routine. Not an expert on feet? That was just an example. You can gather all the resources you’ve collected on your particular trade and cultivate a small library.

6. Telecommuting Opportunities. Maybe you’d rather keep your employees where you can see ‘em. But if the work needs little or no supervision, and your expectations can be met via all the gadgets of a home office, why not allow the guys/girls to work in their cozy living rooms?

7. Education or Workshop Series. Extend the number five incentive even further and sign them up for enrollment in a work-related class or workshop. Incentives: cerebral stimulation, occasional complimentary juice and donuts.

8. A Beautiful Lounge Area Filled With Trees. A lounge area can be a good retreat from the shackles of the office. If you’re into interior design, this can be a fun project for you. Fill the area with pots and plants and/or striking artwork. Set a table next to a window in view of the park across the street. Put a jukebox in there. Be wild.

9. Reimbursement For All Gas Fees. If you ask your employees to run personal errands for you, or errands pertaining to the company, reimburse their gas mileage at the standard IRS reimbursement rate, 55 cents per mile. This covers gas and wear and tear on the car. And unless the employee’s car breaks down and he/she needs a new carburetor, it ends up being a paycheck boost.

10. Souvenirs From Various Countries. It’s not always fair that you get to travel the world, while your employees are traversing the Quickbooks reports. If you go on vacation, think about bringing back a little something for the tired worker, such as a Pashmina scarf from Nepal, a beer stein from Germany, or a Matryoshka doll fom Russia.

11. Smoking-Cessation Studies. Smoke breaks are a drag for you and your assistant, an apologetic smoker, who feels ashamed every time he needs to go outside to take a puff. If you’ve set aside just a bit of extra cash, but can’t afford to offer a significant raise, a smoking cessation program could be a good idea for an employee on the verge of quitting. Do they actually work? According to the American Heart Association, the success rate is 20-40%, with participants staying off cigarettes for at least a year.

12. A One-Half Hour Freebee. It’s really not a very long time. Let your employees take a breather, eat their ham sandwiches, read their spy novels, and return their missed calls. People are much nicer when they’ve refueled and gotten paid for it. And you need dashers, and dancers, and prancers.

Every company can benefit from the “on-the-ground knowledge of their staff. Not all companies realize just how beneficial this knowledge can be, however. In fact, there are even employers who frown upon advice, suggestions, or information from their staff. That is an unfortunate occurrence, but there are sometimes valid reasons for the frown as well.

The solution to being able to deliver on-the-ground knowledge that benefits the company and prevents the frown has been the development and use of a system that allows employees to provide suggestions, remarks, feedback, ideas, or information without having to reveal to their bosses or to their co-workers who they are.

There is a drawback to it as well, the drawback is if your tip take the company to a new level of gross receipts that you are not benefiting from. You may feel resentful. Here’s some thoughts on how you and your company can benefit.

1. Suggest to the management or employer the idea of creating a “Staff Suggestions Box” that can be placed in the lunch area or some other group-based location. This box should be similar to a lockable mailbox, where only the authorized person can gain access to it.

2. Suggest to management that employees be allowed to provide their suggestions – in typewritten form with no signature.

3. Provide guidelines for the suggestions – try to make it clear that this is not an employee complaint system. This is a system that allows employees to quietly review their work environment and find ways to improve it for the benefit of all. Valid suggestions would include things like equipment that could be updated and what may be a good type of update (older style monitors retired for flat screens, providing better visibility, and more desk space, or work flow interruptions such as incorrect multi-tasking functions leading to stress and incomplete work load). Make it clear that complaints about management or co-workers or conditions can be accepted, but only if a) they are not negative and b) they provide a solution.

Example: My co-worker has consistently had a quality issue with project X, despite my attempts to correct the quality point, the problem persists. When we spoke of this, she explained that she was struggling with a keyboard that keeps sticking and causing untold trouble for her. If we could have somebody take a look at providing some kind of routine maintenance on heavily used office equipment, this problem would not crop up for employees.

1. Ask the management to implement a policy that if Management likes the suggestion and would like to implement it into the company, that the person then could reveal that the suggestion was theirs. They can inform management of the date and time that they offered the suggestion. This should have an expiry date for coming forward as well – for example, two weeks.

2. Ensure that employees know that this is a completely voluntary program and the person can continue to remain anonymous if he so desires. It is also important for the employee to understand that there is an expiry date for a number of reasons.

Systems like this one are becoming more and more popular in the work place. Management can’t be everywhere all the time, solving every problem that crops up. Employees want to solve problems but don’t always feel like the have the right or authority to do so. Safe and anonymous tips can be a real problem solver for all.

There is no better music to one’s ears than the boss telling you about the raise you are getting. Let’s face it, we work to get rewards. Rewards are identified by the pleasure you get from doing your job well, by the pleasure you get of a purposeful existence, and by the monetary gain that you can achieve – thus advancing your own lifestyle more and more.

The main question in most employee’s minds is of course: “how can I get that raise?” It is a good question too. Basically, in a small office or company, where there is no real management staff or “Corporate America” type environment, it will reduce down to how good of a job are you doing in being the type of employee that the boss “wants to give a raise to” because in these type of environments, there isn’t usually a set standard or a routine protocol for the evaluation of employees and their performance.

If you are in the Corporate America type environment, as long as you do your job well, you’ll get routine raises, whether or not you truly earned it. There’s good and bad to that in terms of your overall performance. The good is you know you’ll be able to keep up with the cost of living. The bad is that you may not know if your raise is a true reflection of your ability and performance.

Typically, In the smaller and less regulated office, the raise comes when the boss is pleased with you and your performance. Thus our title.

The first thing to know is that brownnosers and suck ups are not necessarily the type that get the raise. Don’t think that because you always agree with the boss, always laugh at his jokes, always support his opinions, and bring him a jelly donut just because you know how much he loves them that you will now suddenly find yourself with a fatter paycheck because nine times out of ten, you won’t. Ingratiating mannerisms and attitudes are actually unbelievably annoying – especially to the boss. And, he is not pleased.

If you want to actually please your boss and see a raise in your paycheck here’s how you go about it.

• Be reliable and dependable – get to work on time, don’t take off too much time, get the assignments done on time and correctly.

• Be sensible – dress correctly, converse with co-workers correctly, manage your time wisely, be willing to speak up when your workload is too great or too little.

• Be work-oriented at work – don’t talk on your cell phone, don’t go shopping at lunch, then return to work to show your latest and greatest find to other workers, don’t use work time to pay your bills, or make a phone call to the cable company about your cable box.

• Be industrious - Work through a few breaks, and take shorter lunches whenever the work load of the day suggests that you need more time.

• Show initiative - Take initiative to come in early and get a head start on a project with a tight deadline so that it is seen that you will do whatever is required to make a deadline happen.

• Be helpful – lend a helping hand to other staff because they need it and you can. Team players are always valued. But . . . do it because it needs to be done. Not because you are sucking up.

• Be accountable – if something goes awry and you were involved – own it and suggest how you can resolve it.

There are very few places that will tolerate a person drinking on the job for long. Although alcohol is legal and there is no rules or regulations in our society for day time drinking – save for behind the wheel- there is an accepted fact that alcohol in the workplace does not mix.

Common practices of the past are heavily frowned upon in today’s work environment. You rarely see employees have a drink at lunch anymore, and often you will even find that many employees no longer stop with other workers after work for a drink or two during happy hour.

The attitude more and more is that a sober workplace is a sane workplace. Employees have found that keeping their pleasure away from their work has also saved them from hearing about potentially embarrassing moments at the bar. It can be difficult to maintain one’s respect from his co-workers if he keeps finding himself out drinking with them, getting too “wild” or out of hand.

There are also a number of sexual harassment issues that can be avoided when co-workers remain as co-workers and not drinking buddies. In years past there more and more women were reporting sexual harassment from male co-workers whom they had truly just become friendly with – sometimes because they’d gone out for a drink with a group from work. The woman who analyzes who she chooses to associate with and what type of association she will embark upon is very wise. Thus, staying away from potentially harmful situations that can crop up from male/female co-worker fraternization in the bars has become more and more the norm.

You will also find that employees who do imbibe during the work day are easily spotted by management staff. They do not tolerate it for long. If you are aware of somebody “having a couple at lunch” you will see that it doesn’t take long for the person to either get a warning, or worse yet, get his walking papers.

There are a number of reasons why employers no longer tolerate any kind of drinking during the workday. Some of these reasons are based upon overall employee performance such as quality and quantity of work. Some of these reasons are based upon the employer’s obligation to keep a safe and sane work environment for the rest of his staff. There is nothing more frustrating that trying to work on a project with a co-worker who may have gotten a little “tipsy” over the lunch hour.

In the trades, the reasons are also for safety. Imagine a framer working seven stories up, or a surveyor who keeps a six pack in his lunch box, having a drink during the course of the day to “keep him focused” or “keep his nerves steady”. Not such a good practice obviously, the framer puts himself at risk with his tools, and his equilibrium, the surveyor may be questioned the next day as to the accuracy of his plotted points. These two examples are not even invented. They are actual occurrences.

The best rule of thumb for anybody who enjoys their alcoholic beverages is to remember that when one is taking care of business – they do it sober. They and their coworkers will all benefit from their sound decision.

There is nothing more frustrating than trying to determine the best course of action when you realize that you have a co-worker on drugs. There are a number of thoughts that goes through a person’s mind:

• “It’s none of my business”

• “Management will figure it out soon enough.”

• “Maybe I should talk to them, try to help,”

• And so on.

The co-worker is a problem because of his drug use in a number of ways. Just as big of a problem is what you are supposed to do about it. Let’s examine.

The safe route – It is none of your business. Sadly – it’s not a safe route, moreover, it is affecting you and your work performance, so it seems that their personal choice coming into the workplace is in fact becoming more and more your business. Routine habits such as continued tardiness, missed days, poorly done work, etc. are all making it harder and harder on you to perform your duties. More and more the management is noticing “bumps in the road” coming from your zone – they don’t know yet who the problem is, they may do a blanket cleaning up – because nobody really wants to dive in too personally. You could find yourself out of work simply because you operated from the viewpoint that the coworker had a habit that was none of your business.

The “other” safe route – Management will figure it out soon enough. If you are fortunate enough to work for a company that does routine drug testing, then maybe so. There is a check and balance system in place that will protect you and the rest of the employees, weed out the person with the problem, and maybe even instead of letting that person go, there is an insurance plan and an opportunity for the person to seek treatment and get himself or herself back on the right road to being a productive employee.

The other scenario is that Management won’t figure it out, there is no program, and eventually the person gets fired, and as discussed above, maybe you too.

The more direct route – Talking to them. Sometimes you can do this, and sometimes you can even help. There is much honor and respect in reaching out to someone in need or with a problem and offering to help them. Be fully aware of the actions and habits of a drug user, however, do not allow yourself in an attempt to help them to be used or played. Give them the help of locating programs they can go into, and making it clear that you will not pick up the slack for them when they are not performing well. Do not loan them money or listen to their sad stories. Just give them the right information to get professional help. If they take the help, you’ve done a good thing, if they don’t, you can at least satisfy yourself with the knowledge that you tried.

Ultimately, you are stuck with the problem, and that is where the controversy comes in. No matter what you decide, the person is or will impact you. The society we live in today frowns upon “ratting”, which is a sad thing. When a person is on drugs and using them in the work place, and we all stand around saying and doing nothing, we are not helping them, or ourselves, and we are suffering. Whereas a simple approach of letting it be known, may just save a life and definitely help to save your job.