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 Change. A simple word, but a word that when mentioned in a staff meeting can send shivers over the most seasoned group of employees. But why does this happen?
Many business people and their employees know intuitively that unless change is a part of their everyday thinking, they will likely lose their competitive edge. In the context of your practice, it means thinking about new ways to schedule patients, continuously thinking of new methods to make the exam and frame selection a pleasurable experience. For the new contact lens wearer, it means thinking of new ways to prepare patients for adaptation to a new lens experience.
On the business side, it means thinking of new ways to use technology to assist office staff in scheduling and billing, or notification of an annual eye exam. It means thinking of how the office should be arranged or decorated. It also means learning new ways of doing one’s job, or developing more streamlined office processes or procedures, or learning new sales techniques, or simply just learning.
Organizations that have not made change a way of life find that when the word “Change” is mentioned in a business discussion, some staff will resist and push back, believing the ‘status quo’ has worked well and can continue to do so. However, a broad array of case studies and the many documented business successes indicates otherwise.
In this month’s edition of Business Essentials, we have drawn from a variety of sources to provide you with information about how to make change a successful and continuous part of your practice. We hope you find this information to be of value in your way of thinking about change and how you can make change a part of the cultural fabric of your practice.
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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| Policies for Cell Phone Usage
Q: Is it necessary to have a policy in place policing electronic communications, specifically company cell-phone usage, for my employees?
A: Most definitely. These recommended policies are meant to outline the appropriate use of electronic communications and to remind employees that company equipment is meant for company-related business, not personal affairs. Recent workplace trends and new legislation suggest that employers should update these policies, adding specific emphasis to safe cell-phone practices.
In October of 2006, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed SB 1613 making California the fourth state in the nation to ban cell-phone usage while driving, unless a hands-free device is used. In addition to New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Washington D.C. (and now California), 20 counties have also passed similar cell-phone safety laws. Though California’s law will not go into effect until Jan. 1, 2008, it is advisable for employers to encourage this safety measure immediately.
A policy requiring the use of hands-free devices not only encourages safe practices for employees, but also may protect employers from liability. In 1997, Salomon Smith Barney settled a case in which one of their brokers hit and killed a motorcyclist while trying to retrieve a dropped cell phone. The plaintiff argued that the employer was negligent in requiring employees to use cell phones for business without providing training on safe practices and potential risks.
Of course, the safest employer policy would prohibit the use of cell phones while driving at any time. However, in our fast-paced, customer-focused marketplace, this is not always practical. If employees are in situations where they may use their cell phones while driving, it is advisable that employers develop policies requiring hands-free devices. In addition, if you provide cell phones to your employees, it is advisable that you also provide a hands-free attachment.
--Hedley Lawson
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Business Building Compensation Strategies:
What's in Your Program?
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 Having a well defined compensation strategy that supports your business model is important to building your business and reducing the incidence of employee turnover in your practice. A solid compensation strategy allows you to keep your fixed costs in line while still rewarding employees based on performance, through variable costs. This results in a stronger business model and satisfied employees who in turn are more loyal and productive.
The following formula is a simple and reliable template to use in order to get started. This particular formula for compensation includes base pay (a fixed cost) and three variable costs:
Pay (wages and salary) + Bonus + SPIFF + Contests = Compensation
Base Pay is the hourly/weekly rate an employee is paid to do a good job. The remaining components of the formula—the variable cost elements—are used to help employees focus on what is most important over a given interval of time.
BONUS: a pay incentive that is offered over a specific time period and tied to overall results for the company; the bonus is paid out to individuals based on their contribution to the total goal. (Examples include achieving a total sales goal or gross profit for a quarter of the year or for the entire year.)
SPIFF: a pay incentive that rewards associates for focusing on a specific objective, usually based on their individual performance. (Examples include achieving a target percentage of sales of a premium lens, second pair sales, or meeting a quality control metric.)
CONTEST: a pay incentive or reward designed to build teamwork and excitement. Contests are most effective when they are for short periods of time, two to six weeks for example, and results are published throughout the length of the contest to build awareness. (Examples include best attendance for store or department, meeting a sales goal, or achieving a quality control metric.)
Employees need to know and understand the compensation strategy of the company and be able to focus on what is important to building the business. If your compensation plan is based on variable programs that make up 5 percent to 15 percent of their compensation total, employees need to plan accordingly. Employees at the top of a wage range need to know they can make more money by performing better based on the variable compensation programs.
 Sandy Likes is president of GreenTree Capital, LTD.
—a business advisory firm focused on helping companies increase productivity and improve retention.
She can be reached at
slikes@greentreehr.com or
(866) 315-4747. |
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Eight Steps to Successful Change
 John Kotter's highly regarded books Leading Change (1995) and The Heart of Change (2002) describe a helpful and practical model for understanding and managing change. Each stage acknowledges a key principle identified by Kotter relating to people's response and approach to change, in which people see, feel and then change.
Kotter's eight-step change model can be summarized as follows:
- Increase urgency: inspire people to move, make objectives real and relevant.
- Build the guiding team: get the right people in place with the right emotional commitment, and the right mix of skills and levels.
- Get the vision right: get the team to establish a simple vision and strategy. Focus on emotional and creative aspects necessary to drive service and efficiency.
- Communicate for buy-in: Involve as many people as possible, communicate the essentials, simply, and to appeal and respond to people's needs. De-clutter communications—make technology work for you rather than against you.
- Empower action: Remove obstacles, enable constructive feedback and lots of support from leaders—reward and recognize progress and achievements.
- Create short-term wins: Set aims that are easy to achieve—in bite-size chunks. Finish current stages before starting new ones.
- Don't let up: Foster and encourage determination and persistence. For ongoing change, encourage ongoing progress reporting and highlight achieved and future milestones.
- Make change stick: Reinforce the value of successful change via recruitment, promotion, and new change leaders. Weave change into the culture of your practice.
Ten Ways to Make Change a Routine Part of Your Practice
Everyone’s familiar with the old adage that says “Change Is Good.” But in the real world, at one time or another, we’ve all experienced difficult change in both our personal and professional lives. This leads us to the other side of the coin that says, “Change Is Hard.”
Following are a few practical tips on how to treat change as a routine matter in your practice:
- Hire talent that gravitates toward change and has a demonstrated track record as a driver of change, creativity and innovation;
- Hold all staff accountable for talent acquisition and development;
- Select talent to fit opportunities that match their competencies and passion;
- Institutionalize new talent and ongoing orientation practices to accelerate learning and to support new colleague success;
- Ensure a diverse work force because diversity breeds unconventional thinking;
- Be open to creative thinking and constructive challenge by staff of the status quo;
- Communicate and recognize frequently those colleagues who are drivers and change agents, and notable successes associated with continuous improvement initiatives;
- Ensure education and learning opportunities continuously exist, and make it easy for colleagues to connect with new learning and development opportunities;
- Ensure appropriate rotation of assignments, jobs and responsibilities to build a robust talent pool ; and
- Manage performance on a continuous basis, recognizing and rewarding “A” players, developing and coaching “B” players, and transitioning all others.
 Four Cures for
Workplace Stress
Colleague job stress can take a heavy toll on your practice - in high turnover, frequent illness, increased workers' compensation premiums, and reduced productivity. Fortunately, there are steps that you can take to ease job stress. The solution often lies in making organizational changes that will improve working conditions. Here are four ideas:
- Give colleagues more control over their job performance. According to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), employees who have some control over how they do their jobs take greater pride in their work and are more productive, have more self-confidence, and cope better with job stress. Allow employees to make decisions, undertake new challenges, and learn from their mistakes.
- Adjust expectations to cutbacks in staffing and budgets. Staff reductions and budget cuts increase stress levels by overburdening remaining employees. Today's leaner practices call for careful prioritizing, and smaller teams require prudent management of office and patient work requirements. Avoid taking on new projects that your employees can't adequately manage with their daily work responsibilities.
- National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) advises that you try to keep employees abreast of what's going on in your organization - the good news and the bad.
Provide employees with an opportunity to air their concerns informally with you, individually and with your team.
- Be sure that all colleagues take their vacation time instead of letting it accrue indefinitely or getting paid for it.
Employees who have an opportunity to relax and rejuvenate away from the office develop fewer stress-related ailments. They are also more alert and energetic when they return.
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New HIPAA Nondiscrimination Rules for
Wellness Programs |
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 The U.S. Department of Labor's Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) has published final rules regarding compliance with the nondiscrimination provisions of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) for wellness programs. The rules will be effective on the first day of the plan year beginning on or after July 1, 2007. For calendar year plans, the new rules generally apply beginning January 1, 2008.
HIPAA's nondiscrimination provisions generally prohibit group health plans from charging similarly situated individuals different premiums or contributions or imposing different deductible, co-pay, or other cost-sharing requirements based on a health factor. Health factors include: health status, medical condition, claims experience, receipt of health care, medical history, genetic information, evidence of insurability, and disability.
The nondiscrimination rules, however, contain an exception that permits plans to offer wellness programs. In particular, if none of the conditions for obtaining a reward under a wellness program are based on an individual satisfying a standard related to a health factor, or if no reward is offered, the program complies with the nondiscrimination requirements (assuming program participation is available to all similarly situated individuals). Examples of compliant programs include:
- A program that reimburses all or part of the cost for memberships in a fitness center.
- A diagnostic testing program that provides a reward for participation rather than outcomes.
- A program that encourages preventive care by waiving the co-payment or deductible requirement for the costs of, for example, prenatal care or well-baby visits.
- A program that reimburses employees for the costs of smoking cessation programs without regard to whether the employee quits smoking.
- A program that provides a reward to employees for attending a monthly health education seminar.
On the other hand, wellness programs that condition a reward on an individual satisfying a standard related to a health factor must meet five requirements described in the final rules in order to comply with the HIPAA nondiscrimination provisions. |
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Dealing With an Early
Daylight Savings Time
This year, daylight savings time came three weeks earlier than usual, and employers need to be aware of how that affected the wage and hour front.
On Sunday morning, March 11, 2007, at 2 a.m., the country switched over to daylight savings time. This means that clocks moved forward one hour. If you had employees who were working during the time change, chances are they'll end up working one hour less. Generally, if workers are nonexempt, you are only required to pay them for the actual time they work (plus, overtime, if applicable), even if their shift ends up shorter than usual. For exempt employees, be sure to pay them their full salary for that workweek, without deduction for the lost hour.
Also, be sure to check your time clock and other computer systems to make sure they're programmed to handle the earlier time change. Systems that aren't updated to the new daylight savings date will have their clocks set one hour slow during the three weeks covered by the extended daylight savings time period. |
| From the Corporate Executive Board
What is your organization’s projected average salary increase for 2007? |
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| 1%-3% |
30% |
| 4%-6 % |
59% |
| 7%-9% |
4% |
| 10%+ |
4% |
| No expected increases |
4% |
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www.executiveboard.com |
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SMALL-BUSINESS OWNERS WANT BETTER CUSTOMER SERVICE SKILLS
Top responses from a recent American Express Small Business Monitor survey of 625 small-business owners with fewer than 100 employees: |
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Customer
service |
63% |
Marketing and
sales |
58% |
| Financial management |
48% |
| Decision-making |
40% |
| Negotiating |
30% |
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