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 With the New Year fully in stride, the array of changes that are occurring in business and regulation are often difficult to track. Whether learning about 2007 salary increase guidelines, new 401(k) plan language requirements, understanding and aligning individual and team incentive programs, or simply knowing more about crisp and clear interview questions, all of these items play an important part in the continued success of your practice.
In this edition of Business Essentials, we have attempted to give you a glimpse of each of these areas. As well, we have also included several additional articles and items for your interest: Getting Back on Track: How to Focus After a Financial Set-back, an article by Michael Menendez, exposes readers to thoughtful tips following a financial set back. And Michael Eisner, long-time Chairman and CEO of Disney, shares his thoughts on success, winning, mistakes and other topics in a new feature called Words of Wisdom.
We hope you find this information useful and valuable in your practice. As always, we appreciate your thoughts on future topics as well as feedback on subjects covered in previous editions. Your feedback is important (
Click Here), so do take a moment and let us know your ideas on articles and subjects of interest to you and your colleagues. And thanks for subscribing to Business Essentials.
Hedley Lawson, Jr. is the managing partner of Aligned Growth Partners, LLC, a strategic, operational and organizational consulting and executive search firm (
www.alignedgrowth.com). Lawson also serves as consulting editor for Jobson's Business Essentials monthly e-newsletter. To read current and past issues of the newsletter go to
www.visonmonday.com.
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| The Incentive Game: Group vs. Individual Plans
Q: I have had problems developing group incentives for my practice. I believe in them and know they are important, but because each employee is motivated by different things, it is difficult to come up with one that satisfies all. Which is more motivating: group or individual incentives? And what is a good starting place for each?
A: What motivates employees today does vary somewhat from person to person. You can take some of the mystery out of your search for a worthwhile employee incentive program by discussing the topic with your employees and seeing what things motivate each of them.
As to which incentives are more motivating: group or individual, the answer is yes. You need to look at and consider both. Individually, employees each want to be recognized when they do good work, and doing so will make it more likely that they will perform well consistently. Asking your employees individually what motivates them—either one-on-one by having each of them list items or by completing a simple questionnaire, will help you learn more about those things they value.
At the beginning of a group task, ask the team how they would like to be recognized or celebrate if the group attains its objectives and yours, then plan on making it happen. You can thank the group for its efforts, but also single out individuals who contributed to the group's success. And don’t forget, simple recognition and rewards go a long way to building and bonding your team, and retaining the most assets in your practice—your employees.
If
you have a question you’d like answered by one of our experts
click
here. |
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Book Shelf |
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 “222 Secrets of Hiring, Managing, and Retaining Great Employees in Healthcare Practices” is a new book by well-known seminar speaker and author Bob Levoy. Based on the research findings from a wide variety of healthcare providers, clinic administrators and practice managers, the 322-page book provides simple, easy-to-use advice and techniques for successfully recruiting, interviewing, compensating, managing, motivating, training, evaluating, and retaining great employees in the clinical practice setting.
This unique book is packed with proven action-steps that can be implemented immediately—as well as lessons learned and tested tips from real people in real practices throughout the country. It will help you make the connection between employee satisfaction, patient satisfaction and practice growth. The book can be ordered from Jones and Bartlett Publishers at: (800) 832-0034 or by going online by
clicking here. |
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| Easy-reference
to web resources about human resource policies and rules |
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401-k Plans and Retirement Plans
Click Here
To order “222 Secrets”
Click Here
Hiring Practices and Tips
Click Here
Family Medical
Leave Act (FMLA)
Click Here
Bills in Congress
Click Here
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Getting Back on Track: How to Refocus After a Financial Setback
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 Life occasionally throws you curveballs. These can include personal setbacks, such as an extended illness or divorce. They also involve financial problems, such as a general downturn in the economy or a poor investment. Whatever its origin or nature, a setback can cause a loss of confidence and momentum in your personal planning. It’s also a predicament your employees can fall victim to, so here are a few tips on how to make the best of a bad situation.
Avoid the Extremes
Money can be emotional even in the best of times. During a setback, you can experience doubts about your future, and panic can set in. This is not a good frame of mind in which to make sound financial decisions, which may nevertheless be necessary to regain your balance. Often, when people are gripped by strong emotions, they pursue one of two extreme courses of action:
- They do nothing. Like a deer in the headlights, they freeze.
- They try to do too much, and can throw out good planning habits and ideas that were working well before the setback. Basically, the baby goes out with the bathwater.
Since both extremes are counter-productive, a little perspective can have great value. After all, you work many years to build assets. A setback can come suddenly or in a short period of time and take you by surprise. So take time to assess the situation. Then act calmly, prudently and decisively.
Take a Step Back
How can you “take a deep breath” after a setback and look at your situation objectively? Here are a few basic rules for dealing with many types of setbacks:
- Assess both long-term and short-term impacts. Instead of abandoning your long-term plan, adjust it as necessary and recommit to it. Accept the adjustment and commit to reaching the new goal.
- Re-examine your attitudes towards risk. How has your tolerance for risk been effected by the setback? If you’ve gone through a divorce, perhaps you have a greater appreciation for its inherent risk and want to reduce exposure. On the other hand, if you’ve gone through a divorce and need to make up “lost ground” in your 401-(k) plan you may need to take a bit more risk.
- Make small adjustments that are meaningful. Both you and your money need to work hard to recover. For example, you may need to curb your spending for awhile, so this can be a good time to develop or revise your budget.
- Learn from your mistakes. Make sure you don’t repeat the setback again later in life.
After you’ve experienced a setback, one idea is almost always true. Procrastination isn’t helpful. There is no better time for regaining perspective and confidence than the present.
 Mick Menendez has been in the insurance industry since 1972 and is currently a senior vice president for Integrated Financial & Insurance Services (IFIS). Prior to his merger with IFIS, he was a general agent with Guardian Life Insurance Company for over 15 years. A Life Qualifying member of the Million Dollar Round Table, he has achieved the prestigious “Court of the Table” status several times. He can be reached at
Michael_J_Menendez@glic.com. |
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12 Favorite Interview Skills From a Top Recruiter
 An executive recruiter can be a master in gathering information during an interview. Here is a list a highly experienced recruiter shared with Business Essentials.
We hope it helps you prepare for your next interview:
- What parts of your current job are of greatest interest to you? Least interest?
- In your current job, what is your greatest frustration?
- Why might you be open to leaving your current employer for the right opportunity?
- What is the number one thing that your current employer could do to insure keeping you?
- In what ways do you see yourself growing professionally in the next few years?
- What's your number one professional development/improvement goal that you'd want your boss to help with or actively support?
- How many hours per week do you choose to work to get your job done the way you want?
- When we call your references, what are the one or two most positive things we are likely to hear?
- What is the least positive thing you'd like to address now which will come out when we call your references so that we can understand it in the proper perspective?
- Why might this career opportunity be attractive to you?
- Conversely, what doubts do you have?
- In closing, is there anything else I should know that you’d be willing to add?
Top Skills For New Employees
In a recent survey by Peter D. Hart Research Associates, here is what employers identified as the most important skills, along with what recent college graduates said they believe employers most value in new employees.
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Employers |
Recent Graduates |
| Teamwork |
44% |
38% |
| Critical Thinking/Reasoning |
33% |
37% |
| Verbal/Written Communication |
30% |
37% |
(Respondents were asked to identify the two most important skills. Survey is based on information provided by 305 business leaders and 510 recent college graduates from Nov. 2 to Dec. 5, 2006)
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The Enron Effect: New 401-k Language |
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Beginning in 2007, a little-publicized provision of the new pension law requires that traditional 401(k) account statements include advice to employees about the need to diversify their portfolio and avoid loading up on company stock.
 Unless otherwise doing so, employers also will have to send 401(k) statements to employees every quarter, rather than annually, as some companies have done in the past.
The new rules fuel a growing trend toward providing investment advice for 401(k) plans. The pension law also has made it simpler for companies—if they choose—to automatically enroll workers in 401(k) plans and to offer them guidance about where to invest.
The changes come as more employers are shifting to 401(k) plans and thrusting the responsibility of saving for retirement onto their employees. In 2005, 36 percent of the largest U.S. companies offered no traditional pension, only a 401(k) plan, vs. 10 percent in 1985, according to Watson Wyatt, a global benefits consulting firm.
Companies have often hesitated to offer employees any investment guidance for fear of being sued. Many employees, however, don't participate in their 401(k) plan, and when they do, they do not capitalize on the full investment potential of their contributions and their employer match, if one is provided.
The pension legislation gave companies the full approval to automatically enroll their employees in retirement plans, pre-empting some existing state restrictions on doing so. The law also allowed financial firms that use an asset-allocation model reviewed by a third party to make investment recommendations.
Employees can expect to see a reasonable and prudent warning on their 401(k) statements: Don't put more than 20 percent of retirement savings in one company or industry.
The collapse of Enron wiped out thousands of employees' retirement savings and provided millions of others with an indelible lesson in the importance of investment diversification. |
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| Words of Wisdom |
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 Michael Eisner, former Chairman and CEO of Disney, shares his thoughts on success, winning, mistakes and other topics in Business Essentials' new feature called Words of Wisdom. The following excerpts are from the 2005 edition of the Lawrentian Fall, Eisner’s high school newspaper. Eisner is a 1960 graduate of the Lawrenceville School located in Lawrenceville, N.J.
ABOUT WINNING: As long as you think and act as if you’re coming from behind, you have a shot at staying ahead.
ABOUT DEALMAKING: Don’t think about whether the deal will make a story on tomorrow’s front page, but whether it will be a short in next year’s business obituary.
ABOUT SUCCESS: It’s often more satisfying and fun and adventurous to be on the bottom than the top—from each position there is only one way to go.
ABOUT QUALITY ENTERTAINMENT: The high road leads to high self- and universal-esteem and often high profits. The middle road of mediocrity leads to little of the real worth. As for the low path, on which each of us should permanently post our own “Road Closed” sign, it leads only to an abyss.
ABOUT THE WORLD: More and more I am convinced that it is round despite the fact that my cell phone mysteriously works in China, France and Argentina.
ABOUT LIFE AS A PUBLIC PERSON: it would be useful to have the skin of the Rhinoceros, but if one would also have to take the brain, then having patience must suffice.
ABOUT MISTAKES: They can be easily avoided, as long as you never try to achieve anything. Otherwise, try not to make the same mistake twice— at least in the same decade.
ABOUT ROLE MODELS: One can’t do better than Mickey Mouse or Kermit the Frog.
ABOUT GENIUSES: I most often find them in biographies and in Omaha.
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| In this edition... |
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 It's Your Business
From the Top
Getting Back on Track: How to Refocus After a Financial Setback
Ask the Experts
The Incentive Game:
Group vs. Individual Plans
People Management
12 Favorite Interview Skills from a Top Recruiter
Rules
& Regulations
The Enron Effect: New 401-k Language
Resource Corner
Links to Important Resources |
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IRS Mileage Deduction Increase Finally Arrives |
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Shout hallelujah! It's finally here. The annual IRS business mileage cost adjustment, which takes effect every Jan. 1. The IRS is helping businesses cut their transportation costs but, even better, businesses are helping employees cut their costs as well.
This year, it's an unusually large change. Your company can now deduct 4 cents a mile more against its taxes for each business mile traveled than it could in 2006. The rate has gone from 44.5 cents a mile to 48.5.
Usually that adjustment is just a penny or so, but this year, the IRS is reacting to the giant jump in gas prices last year. Although, at this writing, prices have ameliorated from a sky-high $3.05 per gallon national average in August, they're still far above what they were as recently as January 2005 ... a what-now-seems-piddling $1.75 a gallon.
Of course, while the IRS change helps business miles, it does nothing for commuter miles, which are not tax-deductible unless the employee is already on the clock before heading for a work assignment. But where Uncle Sam has proved stingy on commuting, employers have begun to help.
It's not all altruistic, of course. Helping defray employees' commuting expenses is a powerful incentive against their finding jobs closer to home, as well as being a morale booster and paycheck stretcher, especially for lower income workers. Here's what some bosses are doing to ease the expense, if not the unpleasantness, of the daily trek.
- Prepaid Gas Cards. Usually used as incentives for good job performance or attendance, these cards can be obtained in any denomination. Their use is increasing, says the Web site ecount.com, which measures their use. Demand for prepaid gas cards is up 500 percent over the last year. Many vendors are listed on the Internet.
- Parking Programs. "How you gonna keep'em down in the city" when suburban businesses are so much closer to employees' homes? One way is to pay for employee parking, either through a prepaid garage space or a subsidy check. A variation is the parking cash-out program, which offers workers the cost of a space as a cash bonus if they don't drive to work. Municipal governments like this, and will sometimes help subsidize this and other employer-offered traffic reduction programs (carpools, vanpools, etc.) through tax breaks or other incentives.
- Telecommuting. Perhaps the ultimate solution to commuting expenses is reducing the commute to the distance between one's bedroom and home office. Where some employers continue to fear that they'll pay for watching soap operas, several studies indicate that telecommuters are often more productive than their workplace-bound counterparts. By eliminating hours in transit, more time is available for work. The daily traffic nightmare that defeats worker motivation before an employee even reaches the job is eliminated as well.
Telecommuting may also mitigate the accessibility and reasonable accommodation issues that come with compliance with the Americans for Disabilities Act, and also mesh well with the Family and Medical Leave Act. |
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics
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