Recommended Resource – One Foot Out The Door

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One Foot Out the Door: How to Combat the Psychological Recession That’s Alienating Employees and Hurting American Business
by Judith M. Bardwick, Ph.D.

About the Reference

One Foot Out the Door: How to Combat the Psychological Recession That’s Alienating Employees and Hurting American Business by Dr. Judith M. Bardwick examines the changing employment relationship between American businesses and their workforces and the impact these changes have had on employee engagement and retention. Dr. Bardwick illustrates with hard numbers how employees, once accustomed to high job security, have entered into “a psychological recession” because of the employment uncertainty associated with today’s frequent layoffs, downsizing, rightsizing, and outsourcing. She concludes her work with practical strategies for enhancing employee engagement; thereby increasing job performance and retention.

Benefits of Using this Reference

Success in today’s rapidly evolving business environment requires the full engagement of employees’ knowledge, skills, and experiences focused on the achievement of mission goals. As highlighted by Dr. Bardwick, the continuous reengineering of today’s businesses places a strain on this engagement; one that must be overcome by executives and managers.

StrategyDriven contributors believe accountable, diverse, and inclusive organizations can overcome the “psychological recession” illustrated in One Foot Out the Door and that executives and managers implementing Dr. Bardwick’s recommendations will be better able to fully engage their employees by making them feel that they and their work are valued and significantly contribute to the organization’s success.

Many of the best practice recommendations found on the StrategyDriven website compliment the actions prescribed by Dr. Bardwick in One Foot Out the Door, making this book a StrategyDriven recommended read.

Additional Resources

Interviews with Dr. Bardwick regarding One Foot Out the Door can be enjoyed from the following two websites:

Recommended Resource – University of Houston’s Diversity Management Certificate Course

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Diversity Management Certificate Course
Craig B. Clayton, Sr. PhD
Director and Diversity Strategist
Bauer College of Business
University of Houston

Website Address: www.bauer.uh.edu/degrees-programs/certificates/diversity-management.asp

About the Reference

The Diversity Management Certificate Course provides participants with the tools they need to identify and communicate the business value of a diverse and inclusive work environment. Topical areas covered by the Diversity Management Certificate Course include:

  • Strategic Planning: presents methods for developing the business case for diversity and inclusion relating the impacts of having/not having an inclusive environment to the ‘bottom line.’ Includes training for communicating the business case to executives and board members
  • Human Resources: examines organizational behaviors and biases and how these impact the selection, promotion, and rating processes. Ties these behaviors and the resulting outcomes to the ability of an organization to attract, retain, and motivate diverse talent
  • Training: describes the various diversity and inclusion training types, such as awareness and skills training, and the benefits and challenges of each
  • Marketing and Sales: illustrates the impact of diversity and inclusion on an organization’s ability to market and sell its products and services to an increasingly diverse marketplace. Highlights methods by which affinity groups have and can help significantly improve an organization’s public image and open up markets; all of which increase sales and enhance the ‘bottom line’
  • Procurement: discusses diversity and inclusion of suppliers/vendors and the impact on the organization’s culture and its ability to market products and services to other organizations
  • Production (operations and maintenance): explores the impacts of engaging versus disenfranchising members of the workforce on production. Translates this impact, along with the impacts of undesired attrition, into ‘bottom line’ results

Benefits of Using this Reference

Significant, irreversible forces are flattening our world; bringing all people closer together in ways previously unimaginable. Today’s business environment offers unparalleled opportunities to richly combine the talents of the increasingly diverse workforce for the benefit of increasingly diverse clients if leaders can motivate and inspire each member of our team to contribute the fullest measure of his/her knowledge, skill, and experience to the achievement of mission goals. This level of engagement, however, only exists in accountable, diverse, and inclusive organizations.

While many individuals believe diversity and inclusion is the right thing to do, the Diversity Management Certificate Course helps these leaders express both their convictions and the business value of a diverse and inclusive work environment. By communicating the business value, these leaders earn the support of previously undecided executives and managers who now recognize the untapped value potential diversity and inclusion offers. Having garnered the critical mass of support, the organization can move toward increased accountability, diversity, and inclusion to the benefit of all.

By definition, strategy driven organizations are accountable, acting consequentially to promote the timely accomplishment of the organization’s mission, which subsequently enhances value creation. StrategyDriven Contributors believe accountable organizations will naturally be diverse and inclusive or becoming more so. The tools and techniques taught in the Diversity Management Certificate Course quantitatively illustrate this value relationship making this course a StrategyDriven recommended resource.

Diversity and Inclusion – What Does Your Environment Communicate?

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We have often asserted that organizations, like people, act in a manner consistent with its shared values. Subsequently, those ideals in which an organization’s members truly believe manifest themselves in every aspect of the organization’s physical and social environments. These environments are categorically represented as an organization’s:

  • physical environment
  • social environment
  • decision environment
  • positional environment
  • developmental environment
  • recognition and rewards environment

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Additional Information

As with all self assessments, there exists a wide array of tools that can be employed when examining each organizational environment. These tools range from the concrete direct observation to the less tangible surveys and interviews. Recommendations regarding the collection and synthesis of self assessment data can be found in Evaluation and Control Best Practice 1 – Data Synthesis and the Information Development Model.

Additionally, the most valuable self assessments use standards of excellence as their comparative basis and apply a highly critical eye to the organization’s conditions and performance. Information regarding the application of this high level of scrutiny can be found in:

StrategyDriven Diversity and Inclusion Forum

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“Diversity and inclusion exists when members of an organization act in a manner that recognizes and respects individual similarities and differences such that employees feel they and their work are valued and meaningfully contribute to the mission of the organization.”

StrategyDriven Contributors

Remaining relevant in today’s hyper-competitive business environment requires the full engagement of an organization’s workforce and the retention of highly talented employees. To accomplish this, leaders must capture the passion and commitment of subordinates by providing them with work that has a meaningful impactful on others and is quantifiablely measurable and rewarded; all while connecting with them on a personal level. Similarly, individuals need to connect with their peers in a way that makes them feel their contributions meaningfully add to the team and the organization’s overall success. Simply put, individuals seek to be valuable to and valued by their organizations; limited only by their abilities and desires. Without this sense of value and connectedness, a job becomes nothing more than the means to a paycheck, productivity declines toward that which is required to maintain employment, and attrition rises as employees seek more fulfilling work; all at great cost to the organization.

Gallup researchers found that within the average organization:

  • 29 percent of employees are engaged; working with passion and feeling connected to their company
  • 56 percent of employees are not engaged; putting in time but not energy or passion into their work
  • 15 percent of employees are actively disengaged; acting out their unhappiness and undermining the accomplishments of engaged employees

This research also showed that engaged employees are more productive, profitable, safer, create stronger customer relationships, and stay longer with their company than less engaged employees.

Source: Gallup Study: Engaged Employees Inspire Company Innovation, Gallup Management Journal, October 2006

Increasing workforce diversification challenges all members of an organization attempting to satisfy the individual value proposition. Differences in age, race, gender, religion, and sexual orientation to name but only a few, influence what makes individuals feel valued. Studies have shown the degree to which an individual feels valued by his/her superiors and peers in large part defines his/her work engagement and the subsequent value offered to the organization. Thus, the challenge is a circular one best solved by fostering an organizational culture that respects and embraces diversity and inclusion.

Focus of the Diversity and Inclusion Forum

While there exists a natural association between diversity and inclusion and organizational accountability, this forum will focus on the principles, best practices, and warning flags associated with establishing and maintaining a workplace environment that respects and values individual differences in order to earn full employee engagement and commitment to the achievement of the organization’s goals. The following articles, podcasts, documents, and resources cover those topics critical to enhancing workplace diversity and inclusion.

For additional information on creating a positive, motivating workplace environment, visit the StrategyDriven Employee Engagement Center of Excellence.

Articles

Principles

Best Practices

Warning Flags

StrategyDriven Expert Contributor Articles

StrategyDriven Podcasts

StrategyDriven Podcast – Video Edition

StrategyDriven Podcast – Special Edition

Documents

Tools and Templates

Resources

Books

Reports

Training Courses

Recommended Resource – First, Break All The Rules

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First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently
by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman

About the Reference

First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman explains how great managers select employees, set expectations, motivate people, and assign people to jobs that fit. Selected examples from the vast research for this book reveal in detail why these practices are successful at attracting and motivating the most talented individuals in a way that produces results beyond those realized by applying traditional managerial methods.

Benefits of Using this Reference

The challenge of today’s highly competitive business environment is compounded by an ever tightening labor pool. In order to meet the need of continually producing more with less, managers must attract and retain talented personnel and find better ways to release their creative, productive spirits.

StrategyDriven Contributors like First, Break All the Rules because it clearly illustrates how managers, without elaborate and costly rewards systems, can better attract and motivate employees. Using the insights gained from extensive Gallop Organization research, Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman show how great managers:

  • select employees based on their talents rather than their skills and experiences
  • define goals and expectations for the work employees perform
  • focus and build on the individual strengths of each employee rather than on “fixing” the employee’s weaknesses
  • seek to place employees in jobs that fit rather than on corporate ladder climbing

We believe the management approach described in First, Break All the Rules will motivate employees and help them reach their highest potential; ultimately creating increased organizational value.

Strategy without effective execution is no more than a compilation of good intentions. We believe managers implementing the approach described in First, Break All the Rules will enhance tactical business execution at all levels of the organization; making this book a StrategyDriven recommended read.