ShareFile.com | Straight from the experts | 2017

Straight from the experts Exclusive insights, analysis andadvice from the brightestminds in small business.

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SusanGet 4 tips on building a diverse,competitive company.

Sabrina Starling, PhD, PCC, BCC is The Business Psychologist™ and author of “How to Hire the Best.” She specializes in transforming life- and cash-sucking businesses into highly profitable, great places to work.

Susan Solovic is THE small business expert. She’s an award-winning, serial entrepreneur, media personality, and a New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today bestselling author. Solovic has spoken to thousands of small and mid-sized businesses around the globe and helped build multi-million dollar businesses.

Find out how to attract and keep the best employees.

Sabrina

Michael Parrish DuDell is an entrepreneur, keynote speaker, and bestselling author. He has been ranked as one of the top three most popular business authors by Amazon.com and named “one of the nation’s leading Millennial voices” by IBM.

Uncover the truths about fostering collaboration in an intergenerational workplace.

Michael

How do you avoidthis pitfall to protect your business and maintain a

competitive edge?

Straight from Susan—

Right now, no matter the type of business you’re in, or the size of your organization, your company is at risk of becoming irrelevant. Why? Business owners and leaders get stuck in their current business models and fail to keep pace with changing markets.

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You need to build innovation into yourcompany's DNA. Your business should beagile and flexible with an ability to adjust inreal time.

Tapping into the creativity of yourcompany's team is one way to help youidentify new opportunities and initiatives.However, if your staff members all look and think the same way, it's difficult to unleash real creativity. Diversity is critical to an organization's ability to innovate.

A Harvard Business Review article notes abody of recent research that says nonhomogenous teams are smarter. Whenyou work with people who are different fromyou, you’re challenged to think in differentways. You shed your stale ways of thinkingand are pushed out of the autopilot habitsthat have limited performance. We’realways talking about thinking “out of thebox”; it’s impossible to do if everyone atthe table thinks alike.

Additionally consider this, a 2015 McKinseyreport on 366 public companies found thosein the top quartile for ethnic and racial

diversity in management were 35 percentmore likely to have financial returns abovetheir industry mean. And those in the topquartile for gender diversity were 15 percentmore likely to have returns above theindustry mean.

There is one more important element toconsider in today's changing workforce— generational diversity. Millennials (bornbetween 1982 and 2000), now out-numberBaby Boomers according to the U.S. CensusBureau. This change in demographicsis having an interesting impact on theworkplace.

Millennials and Baby Boomers often clashwhen working together. Baby Boomers viewMillennials as unmotivated slackers, whileMillennials see Baby Boomers as rigid andout-dated. But each group can bring muchto the table, learn from each other, and helpyour organization become more innovativeand creative. The bottom line is, Millennials are the future of business.

“ We're always talking about thinking "out of the box"; it's impossible to do if everyone at the table thinks alike.”Susan Solovic | THE Small Business Expert

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4 tips for buildinga diverse team that gives you the edge

Watch Susan's on-demand webinar

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You can’t build a great, highly performingbusiness if you don’t make the right hiringchoices from the beginning. Having thewrong people on your team comes with asignificant profitability cost. A high turnover in personnel can result in significant costs and can cripple your business. Solution? Make the right hires and give them a reason to stay.

Provide incentives for them to work hard and contribute to the company’s vision. Make employee satisfaction one of the key factors you measure in your business. Companies with a competitive edge hire for the long-term not just for an open position. They want someone who will perform well over time.

Business leaders in highly functionalcompanies today are providing real-timefeedback to employees. Regular one-on-onemeetings allow for the setting of priorities, adiscussion of achievement and some coachingand development. Additionally, peer

performance review is scheduled regularlyin an open environment. While some teammembers may be reluctant to participate,strong business leaders train employees forthose “hard conversations” by explainingtheir importance to the company’s growth.

Technical skills can be overrated. Prisons arefull of criminals who are proficient technically.You can teach skills. By the time men andwomen are adults, it’s virtually impossible toteach character and values. Every organization needs employees who mesh with its core values because values drive business

decisions. Employees who do not adhere to a company’s values end up diluting them. It’s important to screen your job candidates for a good cultural fit. The CEO of Zappos says he will fire someone regardless of their job performance if they aren’t living up to and subscribing to the Zappos values.

Once you have the right players on yourteam, you want to give them the bestopportunity to succeed. That means theyneed time to think. It's critical forinnovation. If you have too much on yourplate, there is no room for creative ideas.To make sure team members have inspiring work, Google provides an allowance for

20 percent “free time.” This program is responsible for some of the company’s most innovative products Including Gmail and Google Suggest. Disney established the Clear Blue Sky initiative that gives funding to staff members so they can develop their own ideas.

HIRE FOR LIFE

GIVE REAL-TIME FEEDBACK

LOOK FOR A GOOD CULTURAL FIT (NOT JUST SKILLS)

ENCOURAGE AND REWARD CREATIVITY

The 3 topstrategies for fostering

intergenerational collaboration

Straight from Michael—

As technology flourishes and the workplace grows increasingly remote, collaboration and cultural challenges will only continue to mount. But where there’s challenge, there’s also opportunity.

In a 2014 survey, 86% of American employees and executives cited a lack of collaboration or ineffective communication as the primary culprit for workplace failures.

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72% of Millennials want to be their own boss. But if they do have to work for a boss, 79%would want her to serve more as a coachor mentor.

The Intelligence Group

Some people scoff at unlimited vacation days, but I could put up a pretty strong fiscal argument that allowing your employees to take unlimited vacation days can save you money as a business and earn you morerespect from your employees.

In 2016, IBM introduced Checkpoint—a platform that allows people within thecompany to give feedback to otheremployees across the organization.

START BUILDING 360-DEGREEMENTORSHIP PROGRAMS

EMBRACE FLEXIBLEWORK POLICIES

USE TECH TO IMPROVETHE FEEDBACK PROCESS

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Meet the newest generation of workplace collaborators — Millennials

• There are more than 40 million in the workforce today.• They’ll make up more than 75% of the workforce by 2025.• The average tenure for a Millennial employee is roughly two years.• 87% of Millennial workers took on management roles in the last five years.• The average Millennial will have more than seven jobs before she turns 29—a third of which will last less than six months.

From hiring and training to growth anddevelopment, this new breed of employeeis thinking about their careers in uncharted ways. While much has been written about thiscultural shift, perhaps the most importanttakeaway is the reconceptualization of workin a more fluid, project-based environment.For many, the chasm between personal andprofessional is beginning to narrow, and the

result is a worker who views her job as morethan just a paycheck but as a fundamentalextension of identity.

A recent study by Capstrat—a leading strategic communications firm—found that 72 percent of Millennial employees are willing to sacrifice a higher salary for a more personally and professionally fulfilling career.

Additionally, a report from Deloitte Globalfound that 60 percent of Millennials choseto work for their current employer partlybecause it offers a "sense of purpose.” Not surprisingly, this unique approach to professional success has created a plethora ofcomplications for organizations that are usedto abiding by more traditional metrics, setforth by Baby Boomers and Generation X. It’salso creating friction for managers who arebeing asked to recalibrate in real-time, oftenresulting in a fractured culture and higheremployee turnover.

This, of course, poses a significant challengefor companies of all sizes and can greatlyaffect the bottom line. Recent estimates suggest that the costs associated with replacing a mid-level employee equate to nearly 150% of the worker’s annual salary.

But where’s there’s challenge, there’salso opportunity.

Recently, I hosted a webinar with ShareFiledesigned to help business and leaders createtruly collaborative companies that traversethe barriers of age and experience. Fromhow to create self-sustaining 360-degreementorship programs to simple strategies forapplying legacy leadership principles in anincreasingly remote workplace, you’ll learnthe tools, tips, and tactics that anyone canuse to empower high-performing teams andorganizations.

“ It used to be that adulthood was the end of all foolish things, like living your dream. But Millennials don’t want financial obligations to stop their

pursuit of happiness.”Jeffrey Arnett | Clark University

Watch Michael's on-demand webinar

Straight from Sabrina—

If you struggle to attract qualified applicants, you're not alone. But as a small business, you may be able to offer the one thing top-tier talent wants more than anything else— true work/life balance.

What do the best employees want?

(Hint: It's not always about the money)

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Did you know nearly 70% of

employees are notfully engaged? We surveyed webinar attendees, and asked

them how much is employee disengagementcosting you this year:

$5000-$10,000 39%

17%

17%

26%

$10,000-$25,000

$100,000-$300,000

$25,000-$100,000

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If you've been assuming it's "better pay," youmay be surprised to learn that's not the onlyway to attract and keep great people. In fact,money only goes so far as an incentive.

Small businesses are much better positionedthan larger companies to meet the work/life balance needs of their employees.

Why? Small business owners can flexibly address work/life balance with their employees. Larger organizations tend to take a one-size-fits-all approach to this issue, which

is very frustrating for employees.According to Stewart Friedman, professor ofManagement and the founding director of theWharton School's Leadership Program, "It'snot an uncommon problem in many HR areaswhere, for the sake of equality, there's a standard policy that is implemented in a way that is universally applicable - [even though] - everyone's life is different and everyone needsdifferent things in terms of how to integratethe pieces. It's got to be customized."

Many of the successful business owners Ihave interviewed for my book, "How to Hirethe Best", are doing just that, but not in a formalized way. It's just who they are. They care about their employees when various circumstances arise in the lives of their employees.

If this is something you are already doing,it's time to "toot your own horn" and makeit more widely know that this is a benefit ofworking for you.

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3 secretsfor hiring top

talent:

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Before you hire a new employee, ask yourself “if this person can only do one thing in a given day or week, what is that one thing?” Next, get crystal clear about how thatone thing ties into the profitability ofyour business.

A-players always hang out with each other. Reach out to your current A-player employees and ask who they know who fits the personality traits and core values you’re looking for. Offer an incentive program to them, not your warm bodies.

The # 1 competency that you need to hire for is resourcefulness. That is what differentiates the A-player from the rest of the employee population.

CLARIFY THE ONE RESULT BUILD AN EMPLOYEEREFERRAL INCENTIVEPROGRAM

ENVISION YOURIDEAL EMPLOYEE

Watch Sabrina's on-demand webinar

Learn even more

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