FOR THE PEOPLE

May/June 2011 A snapshot into the current issues affecting your people

Dont Let a Disaster Catch You Unprepared

With recent disasters caused by tornadoes in the South, flooding in the Midwest and fires in Texas, the possibility that an unexpected natural disaster could strike close to home is a real one. The key to dealing with a natural disasters aftermath is preparation beforehand. In order to plan accordingly, disaster planners should take into account how Mother Nature can damage properties: through wind, water and earthquakes. A great plan focuses on protecting a businesss three biggest assets: 1. Property (Buildings, Equipment and Vehicles) 2. Accounts Receivables / Clients 3. Employees For our purposes we will focus on your employees and the things you need to do before, during and after a disaster. Before disaster strikes: Make sure you have up-to-date information about your employees. You should update your records twice a year to ensure you have your employees correct address, home and cell numbers and current emergency contact information. You should also establish a business emergency phone tree. Create a small business card that shows who should call whom and then give each employee a copy of the card. Having a phone tree is a great way to disperse information quickly to multiple people without having one person make all the calls. Establish a protocol for what your employees should do as far as evacuating an office building or going into a shelter if your building has one. Conduct an annual drill to make sure your plans actually work. If your employees work outside or use vehicles as part their job you should establish and train employees as to what they should do in case of an emergency. Company vehicles should be in compliance with OSHA and DOT regulations but you should also have disaster kits made that take into account all likely emergencies. If your type of business benefits from or is essential after a disaster, decide in advance how you will likely get open after a disaster has struck. During a disaster: Make sure you actually do what you practiced and emphasize that protecting your Please see Disaster Prep, page 2

Inside This Issue

Dont Let a Disaster Catch You Unprepared Extreme Makeover: ADA Edition Race to the Top: Ranking Your Employees Yup, They Said It Perfect People Solutions

Disaster Prep
Continued from page one

people is priority one. Stay calm and remember that your business has prepared for this very situation. After a disaster: You will be using your phone tree to make sure everyone is OK. Some businesses create an emergency fund for employees. This fund usually consists of employee contributions plus matching funds from the business. It can be used for hotel stays, food purchases or other disaster-related needs. Some businesses work out cooperative arrangements with each other to swap services in times of emergency (auto services for hotel stays as one example). The key to all of this is actually writing a plan, practicing the plan and hoping that you never have to use it.

Extreme Makeover: ADA Edition

As part of the 2010 census it was determined that almost 18% of Americans suffered from some sort of disability that would allow them to be covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) created back in 1991. The ADA was given a makeover in 2010 and the new regulations went into effect on March 15, 2011. This change was made because Congress noted that our baby boomer population, over 70 million strong, will be reaching their 60s and 70s over the next few years. These individuals will have a need for facilities that are more accessible for those with disabilities. The ADA is one of few regulations that dont exempt a business due to the number of employees or size of the business. The changes in the regulations are too cumbersome to go into at this time but a quick review makes some things clear for small- to mid-sized businesses: 1. If your business facility was compliant with the original regulations from 1991, you will receive a Safe Harbor exception for most of the elements of your physical plant. This exception will stay in effect until you make alterations to your physical plant. For example, if you decide to repave the sidewalk or repaint the parking lot in front of your building, that new sidewalk and parking lot must be done in compliance with the 2010 changes. There are exceptions to Safe Harbor if the elements in your building or business were not covered by the 1991 regulations. Examples of items not addressed in 1991 are swimming pools, play areas and exercise equipment. 2. If you have business policies that dont make it easy for those with disabilities to do business with you, you may have to make changes. Some possible changes might include allowing service animals into your facility or making product selections or recommendations to sight- or hearing-impaired customers. It is highly recommended that you do a review of your business with regard to compliance with the 2010 changes as soon as possible. Lets say that during your review you see a physical plant issue that will require you to make a change, such as needing to replace your front door. If you make the change prior to March 15, 2012, you will have the choice of complying with the 1991 standard or the 2010 standard. Please note that you cant cherry pick from the 1991 standard for some things and the 2010 standard for others. As America ages, businesses need to be prepared for these changes, not solely because of the new regulations but because the more accessible your business is to your customers, the more customers you could have.

Race to the Top: Ranking Your Employees

We do it in every part of our lives each and every day. We rank our favorite restaurants, our favorite movies, our favorite cars and even our favorite Super Bowl commercials.. We may do it as a top five list or as David Letterman has made famous, the Top Ten. We are constantly ranking and reviewing; why should that stop with our employees? Think you dont do that? Which employees do you trust to do difficult or important tasks? Which employees do you talk to more about the business or how things are really going for you today? You know who these people are even if you havent formally thought about it. Why should you rank your employees? Simply put, when you make decisions about your business or your group, your top people are who you should have in mind. They are the ones who do your heaving lifting; the ones you can trust to do the right thing when you arent around. If you have a limited amount of money for raises you make sure these top people get the lions share. They should be the examples that are shining beacons to everyone else. The goal here is to make your employee rankings clear to yourself from a planning and management perspective. This does not mean that you need to create a formal employee review process. The creation of formal reviews is not recommended unless (a) your business has multiple managers who have wildly different ways of evaluating your talent or (b) you have reached employee levels that are regulated by state or federal equal employment opportunity commissions or other labor laws. In fact, most businesses should stay away from formal reviews unless they are also willing to have a formalized raise and compensation change structure put in place. That is because almost every employee in America is conditioned to receiving a raise following a positive performance review. When ranking your employees, establish what three or four things are really important to you as a business owner and then rank your employees against this criteria. Many owners consider work ethic, loyalty, customer focus and positive attitude as their criteria for a top-shelf employee. Once establishing the criteria, the owner/manager would go through his employees and rank them in order based on same. Done at different times of the year, employees should move up and down the list. This ranking should not be done in writing or if it is, should be disposed of after you have completed the exercise to minimize any morale or legal issues that might come from it being distributed. The big key here is that as we approach better economic times, the employees at the top of your list should receive most of your attention. They are the ones who, if they left you, would hurt your business. Owners and managers often spend more time on poor performers than they do on their best people. It is common for a manager to say, My best people know how I feel about them. Are you sure? If you asked your best employees you might be surprised by their response. Spend more time on your best and brightest and you will reduce the chance that your best employees will leave you. Be around to listen to them as they suggest changes in the business, their jobs or even their compensation. Dwight Eisenhower once said, Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it. If you really want to lead your business, set your expectations and constantly communicate with your topranked employees.

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Perfect People Solutions (PPS) is a cutting-edge consulting company focused on providing new and creative people solutions to all kinds of businesses. At PPS we are attentive to each individual client, their business and their culture, creating an answer that is unique to them. We have a stable of consultants with years of business and human resources experience. Our consultants cover everything from recruiting to immigration, training to terminations, coaching to counseling, government regulations to org design and development. We can be your HR team or we can provide support to the team you have in place. We are available to support your business in different ways. Monthly The majority of our clients take advantage of our monthly protection plan, which includes a set number of consulting hours every month at a significantly discounted rate. Any unused hours rollover every month. Hourly Do you have a question concerning a people issue but dont want to pay the high fees a lawyer or large consulting firm charges? We offer our expertise on an hourly basis substantially below an attorneys or large HR firms fees. Projects You engage us to solve a particular problem or to deliver a finished product either over a period of time or by a specific deadline. We hope you found this edition of For The People helpful. We stand ready to assist you with the issues addressed in this edition or with on any other topic that is affecting your people. Please visit our website at www.perfectpeoplesolutions.com or contact us directly at (888) 423-4184.

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P ERF ECT P EOPLE S OLUTIONS

Yup, They Said It

After all of the recent issues with automobile safety, a major car manufacturer decided to include the phone number for the National Transportation Safety Board in the their owners manuals. More than one million manuals were printed at the cost of several million dollars. The manufacturer quickly figured out that something was wrong as they began getting complaints about the number. A call to the number revealed that instead of printing the correct 888 area code, they had printed the number with the area code 800. The woman who answered the phone with a very sexy voice offered to solve any problem the customer had for 99 cents a minute. The manufacturer quickly issued a million new manuals, apology letters and strangely had to pay for a few large phone bills.