By guest blogger Margaret Jennings, M Squared Consulting

Cybersphere’s newest celebrity, Steven Slater - the Jet Blue flight attendant who announced to the world he was quitting his job by releasing the emergency chute at JFK and, literally, leaping to freedom – was reportedly provoked by a difficult passenger who pushed his patience too far.  For his actions, Slater has become an instant folk hero.

If Slater is to be believed, it may be that, in this instance, “the customer is not always right.”  But some pundits say that Slater, like any other flight attendant on any given day, should have bitten his tongue and continued working normally despite the apparent abuse from the passenger.  But at what point do we, as individuals and as business leaders, draw a line and take responsibility for the well-being of employees over demanding and/or abusive customers? 

Many successful, savvy executives (including Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Atlantic Airways, and Herb Kelleher, CEO of Southwest Airlines) have built their empires on flexible employee-customer policies.  They believe that the happiness of their employees comes first, because disgruntled staff are not well-positioned, nor, at the very least, motivated, to provide excellent customer service.   Kelleher once wrote a personal reply to a passenger who regularly flew on Southwest, and, consequently, complained after every flight.  ‘Dear Mrs. Crabapple, We will miss you. Love, Herb.’

Yet, when an employee accepts a job offer, shouldn’t they be aware of, and take some responsibility for, the type of stress (and abuse?) inherent in the new position?  Certainly, employers should be recruiting people with the right temperament for the job and providing them with adequate customer training.  But it is not always possible to walk away from challenging customers, just to keep your employees happy.  Small businesses in particular face a dilemma when dealing with difficult customers, as a single lost account could mean disaster.

So, if the customer is not always right, where do you draw the line between ‘right’ and ‘wrong’?  Set the line too high or too low, and you risk alienating either the customer or the employee. Finding that perfect balance is difficult, and different for every business.

For information about how M Squared Consulting can help you manage your flexible workforce strategies, visit www.msquared.com or call 888-818-2505.

By guest writer Margaret Jennings, M Squared Consulting

Despite being aware that balance in all things in life (including business) is a good thing, I was quite surprised to read some of the figures quoted by Whitney Johnson in her recent HBR post about the impact women in leadership positions can have on a business.

She cited findings by the University of Michigan and Cornell University that showed that “…IPOs of companies with greater gender diversity outperformed (others) by as much as 30%.”   She also quotes the research of David Gaddis Ross of Columbia University that “organizations most inclusive of women in top management achieve 35% higher ROE and 34% better total return to shareholders versus their peers.”

It is not difficult to reason that there are significant benefits for a business with a female presence in senior management in any business.  However, the 2009 Catalyst Census of FORTUNE 500 Women Board Directors revealed that less than one fifth of companies have three or more women on their boards, and more than 40 percent have no women directors whatsoever.

How can organizations increase the presence of women in leadership roles and across the workforce?  An article in HR Management offers insight from some leading companies:

• “What General Mills does is look at everything from soup to nuts. It looks at the hiring of women to make sure that they’re bringing in women that they know are going to stay and succeed. And, interestingly, the turnover rate is very low at General Mills. They think long-term. They hire someone to stay and not just to fill a gap.”
• Healthcare company WellPoint consistently ranks in NAFE’s list of the top 50 companies for executive women. CEO Angela Braly is also the only woman to serve as CEO of a Fortune 50 company.  Their company ethos is “…you don’t have to check who you are at the front door. Bring your whole self to work. You’re not just an executive, but you’re an executive and a mom or a dad, if you have kids, and it’s important that you be able to spend time on both.”  They also have many work-at-home programs.
• IBM has been supporting women in the work place for over 120 years.  “Work/life integration is extremely important and luckily IBM is a leader in this field. For example, we offer flexible work options and job sharing, and in 2000 IBM created a $50 million global work/life fund to support our employee’s child and elderly care needs around the world.”

Clearly, gender diversity in corporate leadership is good for business, and there is no shortage of examples to demonstrate that fact.

To help your organization leverage the top-tier of the flexible workforce, visit www.msquared.com

Most people know that it makes good business sense to listen to, acknowledge, motivate and reward employees.  A recent article in Workforce Management cites how the Gallup Organization created a feedback system for employers that would identify and measure elements of worker engagement most tied to the bottom line–things such as sales growth, productivity and customer loyalty.

After hundreds of focus groups and thousands of interviews with employees in a variety of industries, Gallup came up with the Q12, a 12-question survey that identifies strong feelings of employee engagement. Results from the survey show a strong correlation between high scores and superior job performance. Here are those 12 questions:

• Do you know what is expected of you at work?
• Do you have the materials and equipment you need to do your work right?
• At work, do you have the opportunity to do what you do best every day?
• In the last seven days, have you received recognition or praise for doing good work?
• Does your supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about you as a person?
• Is there someone at work who encourages your development?
• At work, do your opinions seem to count?
• Does the mission/purpose of your company make you feel your job is important?
• Are your associates (fellow employees) committed to doing quality work?
• Do you have a best friend at work?
• In the last six months, has someone at work talked to you about your progress?
• In the last year, have you had opportunities at work to learn and grow?

In any economy it pays to have engaged employees.  The answers to the questions above will shine a light on how well you’re doing.

For information on how to develop your contingent workforce to the fullest, contact M Squared Consulting at msquared@msquared.com or 1-888-818-2505.

A recent article in Strategy + Business by David Rock entitled “Managing with the Brain in Mind” was a fascinating look at how neuroscience research is revealing the social nature of the high-performance workplace.  In particular, the essay focused on how brain impulses respond to certain social situations.  As M Squared Consulting is focused on helping clients maximize the benefits of the high-end flexible workforce, it was enlightening to explore how business conditions and management styles can be adjusted to improve employee performance.

The entire article explores numerous aspects of this interesting topic.  The short excerpt below examines the response of the brain in familiar and unfamiliar circumstances, and offers some suggestions on how to break down complex projects so that an individual can feel more comfortable and confident:

“When an individual encounters a familiar situation, his or her brain conserves its own energy by shifting into a kind of automatic pilot: it relies on long-established neural connections in the basal ganglia and motor cortex that have, in effect, hardwired this situation and the individual’s response to it. This makes it easy to do what the person has done in the past, and it frees that person to do two things at once; for example, to talk while driving. But the minute the brain registers ambiguity or confusion — if, for example, the car ahead of the driver slams on its brakes — the brain flashes an error signal. With the threat response aroused and working memory diminished, the driver must stop talking and shift full attention to the road.

Uncertainty registers (in a part of the brain called the anterior cingulate cortex) as an error, gap, or tension: something that must be corrected before one can feel comfortable again. That is why people crave certainty. Not knowing what will happen next can be profoundly debilitating because it requires extra neural energy. This diminishes memory, undermines performance, and disengages people from the present.

Of course, uncertainty is not necessarily debilitating. Mild uncertainty attracts interest and attention: New and challenging situations create a mild threat response, increasing levels of adrenalin and dopamine just enough to spark curiosity and energize people to solve problems. Moreover, different people respond to uncertainty in the world around them in different ways, depending in part on their existing patterns of thought. For example, when that car ahead stops suddenly, the driver who thinks, “What should I do?” is likely to be ineffective, whereas the driver who frames the incident as manageable — “I need to swerve left now because there’s a car on the right” — is well equipped to respond. All of life is uncertain; it is the perception of too much uncertainty that undercuts focus and performance. When perceived uncertainty gets out of hand, people panic and make bad decisions.

Leaders and managers must thus work to create a perception of certainty to build confident and dedicated teams. Sharing business plans, rationales for change, and accurate maps of an organization’s structure promotes this perception. Giving specifics about organizational restructuring helps people feel more confident about a plan, and articulating how decisions are made increases trust. Transparent practices are the foundation on which the perception of certainty rests.

Breaking complex projects down into small steps can also help create the feeling of certainty. Although it’s highly unlikely everything will go as planned, people function better because the project now seems less ambiguous. Like the driver on the road who has enough information to calculate his or her response, an employee focused on a single, manageable aspect of a task is unlikely to be overwhelmed by threat responses.”

For the complete article, please visit www.strategy-business.com.

While we are in the midst of a recession it might seem inappropriate to bring up the war for talent. But the market reality is this: even with overall unemployment rising, employers are still challenged to find the talent they need.

As many companies are discovering, while this labor market might be flooded with job seekers, that doesn’t necessarily mean they have the needed talent. In particular, companies can’t always find people with the exact skills and experience they need, when and where they need them. Today, it’s also not uncommon to hear executives express frustration about under-skilled, inexperienced, unproductive, and even unreliable employees who will quickly jump ship for another opportunity.

As you might expect from the generation that has had such a significant impact on our society throughout their lives, the Baby Boomers will also dominate this talent market discussion for the next decade.

How can this be? Aren’t the Boomers supposed to be retiring?

Well, let’s start with the fact that they are the single largest component of the U.S. workforce, so their effect is huge. Then, layer in the fact that with the economic downturn many leading-edge Boomers who under normal circumstances might now be retired (or nearing so) must continue working in order to replenish their battered retirement savings. Finally, we must recognize that the next generation (Gen X) is half the size of the Boomers and quite simply has not had enough time in the workforce to build up the same level of knowledge and experience.

The New War for Talent

Baby Boomers were born between 1946 and 1964, which means that today they are somewhere between the ages of 44 and 63. Many worked their way up the corporate ladder - they are happy to continue working in their area of expertise, where their wisdom and experience are valued. Others are choosing to embark on second, or “boomerang” careers.

The fact is, with their decimated retirement accounts many boomers can’t afford to retire. Others recognize that in addition to the monetary rewards they receive there are many psychic rewards from their careers, so they have no plans to ever retire.

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reports that by 2010, more than 51% of the workforce is expected to be 40 or older, a 33% increase since 1980. The number of workers aged 55 and older will grow from 13% of the labor force in 2000 to 20% in 2020.

All of this is good news for employers because most companies are operating much leaner than ever before, and they need to cost-effectively find the most experienced, skilled people they can in order to achieve their objectives.

How to Leverage the Boomers

Now is the perfect time for organizations to assess their workforce. Strategic business owners and executives should evaluate their workforce demographics and the key positions within their organizations in order to identify current and projected talent gaps. It’s also time to develop programs that will strengthen knowledge retention and sharing throughout the company in preparation for the inevitable “brain-drain” that will occur when the Boomers exit the workforce.

How can employers retain the key knowledge and information that is resident in their workforce?

First, they must recognize who has the knowledge. If they want to hold onto Boomers they must adapt to their needs. Many forward thinking organizations are developing policies and programs geared towards recruiting, retaining, and training older workers. Key options that will help attract and retain these mature workers include flexible work arrangements (such as adjustable schedules and job sharing) and should also part-time or contingent employment options. Fortunately these types of work arrangements require lots of self-discipline and maturity, which the Boomers have in abundance!

Next, companies should institute mentoring programs to help train the next generation of knowledge workers and business leaders. Companies concerned about retaining institutional knowledge can’t afford to have their older employees walk out the door with a career worth of expertise and experience.

Finally, employers must have an honest dialogue with their seasoned team members to help them plan for the next phase of their careers. Companies that demonstrate loyalty towards their older employees by offering flexible employment options, will be rewarded with loyalty in return.

Conclusion - Experience Counts

Because of their proven talent, Baby Boomers will be in high demand for the balance of this decade and beyond. They add value not only to employers’ bottom lines but also to the long-term health of our workforce and our economy.

It is a phenomenon we see every day at M Squared Consulting. When clients want experienced business professionals, those seasoned experts who have translated their knowledge and insight into consulting expertise, they call us. Our talent-on-demand business model is an enabler for companies who need seasoned experts, focused on delivering results. We also enable seasoned experts, who no longer want a full-time role, to bring their expertise to market as consultants.

In the final analysis this whole discussion can be distilled down to two words: Experience counts!

With the lingering effects of the recession it should come as no great surprise that the biggest worries of finance executives can best be summarized as cash, cash and cash!

This according to the latest poll of more than 1,200 senior finance executives conducted by CFO Europe, Tilburg University and Duke University. Ongoing worries about the stability of banks, scarcity of credit and health of counterparties all now rank near the top of CFOs’ top external and internal concerns in Europe, Asia and America.

Companies are tightening their grip on inventories, receivables, and credit lines. As a result, cash - making it, collecting it and hanging on to it - tops the list of CFOs’ concerns. In addition, CFOs are worrying about sputtering consumer demand, stalled credit markets, and the cost of fuel and other commodities.

For the United States the survey results were as follows (with the previous quarter’s rank shown in parenthesis):

1. Ability to forecast results (1)
2. Working capital management (NR)
3. Maintaining morale during downturn (2)
4. Balance sheet weakness (3)
5. Cost of healthcare (4)
6. Attracting/retaining qualified employees (5)
7. Supply chain risk (6)
8. Managing IT systems (7)
9. Pension obligations (8)
10. Intellectual property protection (9)

From a workforce perspective it is interesting to note that finding and retaining talent continues to be one of the CFOs’ top internal concerns. More than 60 percent of firms directly hit by the credit crunch plan to delay, reduce, or cancel hiring plans. We’re finding that many of our clients have hiring freezes or “pauses” in effect for full-time employees, yet they continue to deploy seasoned consultants to execute mission-critical projects and initiatives. The powerful value proposition of the M Squared talent-on-demand model (targeted expertise, driving results) works equally well in up and down markets!

The most common phrasing of the Golden Rule is “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

I recently heard a sarcastic alternative definition: “He who has the gold gets to make the rules.”

While there are obvious problems with this viewpoint, it does offer an interesting perspective when we apply it to the knowledge workforce.

Many experts believe that the war for talent will heat up as we approach the bottom of the recession and begin a period of recovery and growth.

In a similar vein to the “alternative” Golden Rule above, we could postulate a Talent Golden Rule: “Those who have the talent will win.”

What do I mean by this?

Business success is no longer just about capital and natural resources, but rather about brainpower and the ability to execute. Quite simply, knowledge and expertise are the new coin of the realm.

This means that knowledge workers, and the skills, insights, experience, they bring to bear on problems are highly sought after assets. And it also means that those organizations who can attract and retain this talent will win in the marketplace.

This dynamic will become even more important as we emerge from the recession. In past economic downturns it was normal to focus on financials rather than employees. The logic was that when unemployment rose and the markets sank it was a buyer’s market for talent. Employee engagement, talent management and other employee concerns took a back seat to cost and risk management.

Most business executives now recognize the risks involved with this antiquated view of talent. They understand that a time of economic turmoil is precisely when they have the most to gain from focusing on employees. If employees are distracted, anxious, disengaged or believe they’ve stalled in their careers (especially top performers), they aren’t likely to do what’s required to keep the enterprise moving forward or deal with problems.

Unfortunately, there is still a large chasm between recognizing this issue and actually doing something about it. In a negative business climate when company leaders face an unprecedented number of challenges, talent management can drop far down the list of priorities, despite the best of intentions.

So with this talent-centric thought in mind, what are some strategies companies can consider to optimize their workforce and come out ahead when the war for talent heats up?

A few suggestions that will benefit both the organization and the workforce:

1. Lead by example: Business leaders need to present a thoughtful, calm and genuine “public face” to their people in a period of crisis. It’s the right time for straight talk, reassurance, empathy, and a clear vision and plan to move forward. Those companies which emerge from a crisis most successfully are inevitably those that commit to frequent, open, and honest communications with employees and their other constituents.
2. Think creatively about employees: The most common reaction to an economic downturn is to control costs tightly. But even if companywide staffing reductions meet cost cutting targets, they are rarely the best answer. A better solution is to carefully consider how you can deploy employees in creative and more productive ways to help reduce costs or increase revenues. For example, are your best performers doing the highest-value work? Can underutilized workers move to other areas of the organization? By looking at new ways to align the workforce with both short-term opportunities for efficiency and long-term strategies for growth, companies may be able to minimize staff cuts.
3. Take advantage of the opportunity to upgrade talent: With widespread layoffs the available pool of talented professionals is growing. This will be a short-term phenomenon, so smart companies will see this as a time to add new skill sets or increase bench strength. For example, the deep cuts at financial services firms represents a unique opportunity to pluck out talent from an unusually wide and deep pool.
4. Stay close to key talent: In the current environment it’s more crucial than ever to keep vital staff engaged, motivated, and productive. The good news, especially given budgetary pressures, is that pay itself has little to do with fostering engagement. Research consistently shows that engagement builds from emotional connections to the company and the nature of the work experience and environment. While it doesn’t require a big financial expenditure, it does involve a significant investment of time and attention, especially from senior leadership.
5. Embrace the flexible workforce: Increasingly companies have begun to identify the need for flexibility in all Human Capital expenditures, including professional and management talent. A flexible workforce strategy can accommodate volume fluctuations while maintaining a leaner permanent professional staff. Companies that embrace “lean” methodologies recognize the value and cost savings of adding management staff in increments as needed versus FTE. Instead of staffing for the peak, firms can now staff for average levels and use the flexible workforce to satisfy peak, special, or “one-off” needs. Companies are also able to match their special talent requirements with specialized resources.

By deploying independent experts, such as the consultants found in the M Squared Talent Network, companies can get work done in tough times without adding to their fixed cost headcount base. These seasoned knowledge workers are savvy business professionals who have extensive experience delivering results for their clients.

Flexibility, cost-control, and results will be the three primary corporate drivers for the growing flexible workforce. Executive teams need to take a holistic view of their total workforce. New talent deployment models and solution providers like M Squared Consulting are emerging that leverage the flexible workforce to deliver exceptional client value.

Like many successful Silicon Valley companies Google puts great emphasis on its human capital. During the recent Le Web Conference in Paris, Google’s Marissa Mayer offered some simple, yet insightful, advice on hiring top talent.

By way of background, Mayer is the Vice President of Search Product and User Experience at Google. She joined them in 1999 as their first female engineer and led the user interface and web server teams at that time. Her efforts have included designing and developing Google’s search interface, internationalizing the site to more than 100 languages, defining Google News, Gmail, and Orkut, and launching more than 100 features and products on the flagship Google.com.

During the event in France an attendee asked her how she built her team over the last decade. Her answer was brilliant in its simplicity: “I like to hire people who have two traits. They’re smart, and they get things done.”

She went on to talk about the joy of working with a team where every member was passionate about the project. But the key theme of intelligence and results came through. Smart people who aren’t closers tend to flail. In small or lean companies these types of people tend to stand out more, and thus don’t last very long. But in larger organizations they sometimes can find a place to hide where they then fester like a cancer. If a company the size of Google can avoid hiring them in the first place, it becomes a serious competitive advantage.

From my own experience, highly intelligent and results driven team members are like a force multiplier. Their ability to solve problems, innovate, and make decisions enables them to deliver many multiples of value over average or sub-par performers.

The philosophy of smart people delivering results perfectly encapsulates the M Squared Consulting business model and value proposition. Our Consultant Network of over 14,000 experts is a force multiplier for our clients. On a flexible basis we provide our clients with very smart people, who have proven expertise, and are committed to getting things done!

I’ve written a number of articles about the war for talent, and the many variables that create the enormous gap between talent supply and demand that will continue to unfold over the next 10 years.

One of the interesting variables is women in the workforce, specifically the large gender gap that exists among U.S. corporate managers and executives. The primary challenge is that professional women want a career but many also want to have a family, which necessitates a level of work/life balance that has heretofore been unanswered in the U.S. workplace. As a result, many professional women drop out of the workforce entirely. Recent research on the gender gap in the workplace has concluded its positive resolution can have positive implications on company performance.

Women in developed economies have made huge gains in career advancement in the past 20 years. Unfortunately, the truth is that as you examine corporate organization structures, the higher up you look, the lower the percentage of women. Some companies have made significant efforts to increase the hiring, retention, and promotion of female executives. Their initiatives have included efforts to ensure that HR policies aren’t unintentionally biased against women or part-time workers, to encourage mentoring and networking, to establish (and consistently monitor) targets for diversity, and to offer ways to create work-life balance.

Research conducted by McKinsey Consulting in Europe and the United States suggests that companies with several senior-level women tend to perform better financially. Hiring and retaining women at all levels also grows a company’s overall pool of talent, which will yield positive benefits as the war for talent continues to unfold.

The Gender Reality

The simple fact is that a small percentage of women in the workforce become executives. This observation is not limited to the U.S. Across the European Union, women account for only 11 percent of governing bodies such as boards of directors and supervisory boards. In the United States, less than one third of the largest 1,500 companies had even a single woman among their top executives in 2006, according to research from Columbia University and the University of Maryland. Globally, the numbers are even more discouraging: in South Korea, for example, 74 percent of the companies surveyed in 2007 had no female senior executives.

The Talent Gap

Most countries and regions are already facing talent shortages, and those talent gaps are projected to grow much worse over the next decades. By 2040, Europe is projected to have a shortfall of 24 million workers. Simply by raising the proportion of women in the workplace to equal that of men would cut that projected gap down to 3 million. In the United States, the retirement of the baby boomers and many other factors means that companies are going to lose large numbers of senior-level employees in a short period of time. Nearly 20% of the working-age population (those 16 and older) of the United States will be at least 65 by 2016.

Impact on Corporate Performance

Extensive research was done on the relationship between organizational and financial performance and on the number of women who are managers at the companies. It was based on a survey conducted on 115,000 employees at 231 private and public companies around the world. It found that companies with the highest scores on nine dimensions of organization (leadership, direction, accountability, coordination and control, innovation, external orientation, capability, motivation, and work environment and values) are likely to have higher operating margins than their lower-ranked counterparts. Among the companies for which information on the gender of senior managers was available, those with three or more women on their senior-management teams scored higher on all nine organizational criteria than did companies with no senior-level women.

These findings conclude that companies with higher numbers of women at senior levels are also the companies with better organizational and financial performance.

Separate research done by the business schools of Columbia University and the University of Maryland supports this conclusion. Using data on 1,500 US companies from 1992 to 2006, they demonstrate the strong positive association between return on assets, return on equity, and female top-management participation rate. Greater female representation in senior-management positions leads to-and is not merely a result of-better firm quality and performance.

Management consulting is one of the more enlightened industries in terms of gender diversity. In addition to the intellectually stimulating and rewarding work, the inherent work/life opportunities built into project-based work create a powerful career value proposition for women. M Squared Consulting is certainly representative of the industry: we are very fortunate to have a high percentage of women executives on our corporate staff and within our Consultant Network. That gender diversity is no doubt a key part of our strength and a cornerstone of the firms longevity and success.

Executive job satisfaction levels are on the rise as companies begin to realize that one of the best ways to survive the war for talent is to keep the talent you already have. Despite this fact, a recent survey conducted by ExecuNet reveals that not all members of the C-Suite share the same level of professional fulfillment.

According to the survey of 1,597 employed executives with an average annual salary of more than $206,000, 61 percent report they are satisfied or very satisfied with their current job, up significantly from 52 percent one year ago. Among the 39 percent of corporate leaders not happy at work, boredom and a lack of advancement are the most frequently cited sources.

“The increase in job satisfaction among corporate leaders is particularly striking when you take into consideration the demands and challenges executives have faced during the past 12 months,” said Dave Opton, CEO and founder of ExecuNet. “Clearly, sustained job growth at the top of the employment market has many companies rethinking their approach to executive retention.”

While more executives are happier with their jobs, the survey revealed that satisfaction levels do vary across professions:

% of Executives Satisfied with Current Job (By profession)

• CFO/Controller (68%)
• HR (65%)
• Marketing (63%)
• General Management (61%)
• Sales (54%)
• MIS/IT (53%)

Across all functions, the top reasons executives are dissatisfied with their current jobs include:

1. Limited advancement opportunities
2. Lack of challenge/personal growth
3. Compensation
4. Stress level
4. (tied) Job security

“While stress and job security concerns are mounting, boredom and a shortage of opportunities for advancement remain key drivers of voluntary executive turnover,” stated Mark Anderson, president of ExecuNet. “Given the current outlook for the executive employment market, companies capable of keeping their leaders engaged will be well-positioned for sustained growth.”

It has been our experience at M Squared Consulting that many executives who are bored, or looking to make a career change, or desire greater flexibility in their work-life, choose to become management consultants or take on interim management roles.