Do you encourage your staff to volunteer?

By Jayne Morris, Chief Executive at TPP Not for Profit.

Charities are very good at encouraging private sector companies to give their staff time off to volunteer, but how many have their own policies in place to support their own employees in volunteering?  In this article, we look at the benefits of promoting volunteering to your organisation’s staff and the different ways in which you can support them.


Why encourage your staff to volunteer?

Charities may think that encouraging their own employees to volunteer may simply be taking them away from their desk for no real benefit, but this is far from the truth.

Your employees have chosen to work in the charity sector and obviously want to support good causes.   It is likely that many of them are already involved in some sort of voluntary activity.  By allowing them time to help other organisations, you are both supporting the sector as a whole and showing your employees that you value them and recognise the value of their volunteer work.

Giving a workforce opportunities for volunteering has been proven to improve productivity, morale, and retention.  This is as true for third sector organisations as for those in the private sector.  An occasional change of scene and a bit of variety in a role can make a huge difference in improving someone’s happiness, as well as giving them a new perspective and the opportunity to look at their current role in a new way.

Volunteering is an excellent and extremely cost-effective way for staff to develop new skills and learn from other organisations.  Charities are very good at sharing best practice, but there’s no substitute for being on the ‘shop floor’ of an organisation to learn how they really do things.  Some organisations even include volunteering done in performance reviews and promotion decisions.

Having your own staff volunteering policy in place could help support your argument when going to the private sector to ask for time or funding.  It’s a great way to demonstrate to companies that you truly believe volunteering is valuable.


How can you encourage volunteering?

There are various different ways in which you can approach volunteering in your organisation, depending on the size and make up of its workforce.  When choosing what to put in your volunteering policy, you need to balance the potential benefits of volunteering against any impact of staff being away from their desks.

As a first step, you could take a proportion of your staff out of the office for a short period of time to work on a specific volunteering project.  Many private sector companies approach these opportunities as team-building exercises.  However, these short-term projects can be difficult to organise and don’t always benefit the recipients in the long term.

You could find another organisation to partner with – perhaps a local charity or one with overlapping aims.  You could then ‘swap’ volunteer employees on a regular basis in a mutually beneficial arrangement; both parties learning from one another’s experience.

Probably the most flexible option is to allocate a certain amount of paid leave each year for volunteering.  Each staff member can then choose where, how and when they use their own volunteering leave, and an employee’s support for a charity can be sustained over the long term.

Rather than give paid leave for all volunteering, some organisations choose instead to match employees’ volunteering time.  So for every hour a member of staff volunteers in their own time, they receive a matched hour of paid leave, up to a specified limit.  This requires a bit more commitment on the part of your employees, but can be a less frightening prospect for smaller organisations.

So what next?

Once you have decided which option best suits your organisation, make sure you have a policy in place which is circulated to all employees (you can find an example policy template here).  Whichever option you choose, your employees will certainly be appreciative.  And remember, volunteering must always be optional and must be done for another organisation, not the employee’s own charity, or it is simply extra unpaid work.

TPP give all of our own employees 5 days volunteering leave a year, and many of our staff are trustees or regular volunteers for various charities.  You can find out more about the volunteering that our staff do on our website.


Find your nearest volunteer centre here:
http://www.volunteering.org.uk/where-do-i-start

5 simple ways to reduce your stress in the workplace

By Jayne Morris, Chief Executive at TPP Not for Profit

Work stress can be brought on by a number of reasons, such as increased work demands, deadlines, changes to staff or bullying. This can have a negative impact on your health, and create problems such as not sleeping, lack of concentration or cause unhealthy behaviours, such as drinking in excess. It can also make it difficult to prioritise, juggle demands and can lead to long term absences from work. It is important to therefore tackle and manage your stress as soon as possible for your overall health. 

In this month’s blog we give our top 5 ways to managing your stress in the workplace. 


1.   Speak out

Speak to your Manager when you feel you have too many demands or deadlines approaching. Together work out a plan of tackling your workload before it becomes too much.  By speaking to your peers or colleagues, they may have ideas you had not thought of or may be able to help complete some tasks for you.

Your Manager may be able to make reasonable adjustments to assist you in performing well or suggest ways to organise your workload to help. It is essential to tell your employer if it is putting you or others health at risk, as they have a duty under the Health & Safety at Work Act 1974 to ensure your welfare at work.

If you are stressed over staff/company changes or being bullied, talk to your Manager or an employee you can trust. They can help you understand why changes are happening or deal with a problem, such as bullying, through your HR department.


2.   Build relationships with colleagues and peers

If you are in a senior role within an organisation, it can feel isolating at times; use your network or social media to connect with other peers. People in a similar position can help you obtain ideas and cope more effectively. Be positive and have positive people around you and avoid people that can be draining. Have regular meetings with your colleagues, discussing tasks on your radar. This can help ensure tasks get dealt with promptly before it becomes too late and prevent your workload from becoming too much.


3.    Have breaks

Take breaks at work, away from your desk. A brisk walk can really help clear your head and although may not feel like it, physical exercise can sharpen your focus and lift your mood, making tackling a stressful situation seem less daunting.  Take time to eat throughout the day. Low blood sugar levels can make you feel anxious and irritable. By eating healthy and throughout the day you can keep your energy levels up and stay focussed, to help you tackle your work.

It may feel like you’re wasting time that could be spent working, but you’ll be much more productive, as well as less stressed, when you return to your desk.

Access to work from home, such as through a mobile phone/ laptop, can actually make it more difficult to switch off from work or a problem such as bullying. It can be more tempting to check your emails late at night or at the weekend, giving you no time to clear your mind. Switch your phone off after a certain time and at weekends.

Many organisations offer advice and guidance on a healthy work life balance through employee assistance programmes. Speak to your HR department for advice on this.


4.   Get Organised

It is very easy to say ‘yes’ when asked to do something by your Manager or a colleague, but if you are taking on too much you will end up doing nothing well. Think about your current workload and use a “to do” or task list, prioritising your tasks and how long they will take you to complete. Use this information when assessing whether you have time to take on additional work.

If you have a large task to complete, break it down into smaller tasks. This can make it easier to handle and give a greater sense of achievement as you complete parts of it. If you are find you are getting distracted from a task being in a noisy office, with phones ringing and emails flooding in, put your out of office on and turn your phone on to do not disturb. Switching off from distractions and getting a task completed can really help your workload and reduce stress as a result.  If your workload is still too much after prioritising your to do list then delegate responsibility.

If staff changes are affecting your workload, have a meeting with your team, to work out how to share increased demands and who is best placed to handle tasks. For issues such as bullying, ensure you record when the problem happens and report each instance of it. Having everything in order, will help when speaking to HR.


5.    Think Positively

Stress can feel a lot worse by thinking negatively; you won’t feel motivated or have the energy to tackle the problem. Give yourself a well done for completing tasks, however small and using your network, build relationships with positive people.

If changes in the work place are causing your stress, think about the positive impact this may have on your organisation. People generally don’t like change but certain things are out of your control, such as redundancy by your employer and worrying or stressing about them won’t stop it happening. Instead have plans for ‘what if’ scenarios and try to think about the positive it could have on your work life.


Links for HR/Line Managers

If you are a HR Manager or line Manager, you may find the following links useful in tackling the issue of stress in the workplace. Employers have a legal responsibility to ensure the health, safety and welfare at work of their employees under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.
 

CIPD – Line management behaviour and stress at work
Health & Safety Executive – Management Standards for work related stress
Employee Assistance Professionals Association


Useful Links on managing your stress

Managing Stress at the top
Help guide – Stress at work
Health & Safety Executive – tackling work related stress

 

 

 

 

Top tips for managing employee departures

An employee leaving for pastures new can throw an organisation into turmoil, particularly if they are in a highly specialist role with a lot of technical or legacy knowledge. In this blog post, TPP Not for Profit offers some tips on how to ensure a smooth handover for everyone concerned.

Be prepared

Your team may seem settled, with a good level of morale and productivity, but don’t assume that means no-one will be leaving in the near future. Employees leave their jobs for a wide variety of reasons, ranging from being headhunted or taking early retirement to resigning because of family responsibilities or relocation.

It is vital to have a policy in place for unexpected departures, as notice periods can go extremely quickly and it’s easy to forget vital steps in the handover process. It’s also always a good idea to share vital knowledge across teams, so departures don’t result in the loss of key information.

In the notice period 

Once an employee has handed in their notice, it can be very difficult to keep them productive for the rest of their time. Work out which projects they can reasonably finish within their notice period and sit down with the employee to create a plan for their completion. Any tasks which will remain outstanding once the employee has left should be handed over to other staff as early as possible.

Use the notice period as time to sit down with the departing employee and create a thorough handover document detailing the jobs they are currently working on and including any key contacts. Don’t just rely on the original job description to define their role, as it may have changed considerably during their time with your organisation.

Make sure they leave on a high 

The departure of any valued employee can be a stressful time, but wherever possible you should ensure that they leave with a positive feeling about your organisation. Many employers choose to throw a party or buy gifts to say goodbye. Exit interviews are a great opportunity to clear the air if there have been tensions at work, as well as an extremely useful tool in preventing further departures.

Ex-employees can still act as fantastic advocates for your organisation in their community. Leaving them with a bad impression can potentially damage your employer brand and possibly even future donations. The not for profit sector is a small world, and it’s quite possible that the leaver may return to your organisation at some point in the future.

Decide if you need to recruit

In the short-term, preferably before the employee leaves, you’ll need to create a plan to share out their workload and responsibilities so nothing falls through.

At this point, you’ll need to decide whether to recruit a replacement or if you can restructure your team to absorb the leaver’s duties without recruiting. Natural wastage can be an effective way to reduce costs in times of economic hardship, and is generally preferable to making redundancies, but can result in resentment among the remaining workforce unless managed correctly.

If, as is most likely, you do decide that you need to recruit, it does not necessarily have to be a straightforward like-for-like replacement. This is an opportunity to improve efficiency and to add or move around responsibilities within your team. Look at flexible working options – could making the role part-time, a job share or home working widen your pool of candidates or improve productivity? Don’t forget to consider whether it could be a promotion opportunity for an existing member of staff.

Consider interim cover 

For some roles, especially particularly specialist or senior ones, you may need more time to find exactly the right candidate and the rest of your team will not be able to cover the role indefinitely. In these circumstances, it is a good idea to use temporary or contract cover.

As well as ensuring the leaver’s role is covered, using interim staff can give you an opportunity to ‘try before you buy’ or test out a possible permanent replacement before committing to a permanent contract. Alternatively, if your organisation is going through a period of change, you may wish to delay recruiting permanently until you have a more settled view of the future. Interim employees can be used to bring in new skills that are particularly helpful on a short term basis, such as change management experience.

Reassure remaining staff 

When employees leave an organisation, particularly at the more senior level, it can leave the remaining staff feeling unsettled and dissatisfied. It is important to meet with your team as soon possible to reassure them and to explain the leaver’s motivations. Ideally, this meeting should be in person, so that employees can ask questions.

Explain why the employee is leaving as honestly and specifically as possible. It’s important to stop the rumour mill and staff know that platitudes such as ‘leaving to spend more time with the family’ are not generally the real reason. Go through your steps to deal with the departure, including any temporary solutions, and wherever possible promote the situation as an opportunity to improve the team and for internal promotion.

Don’t forget practicalities

There are many small actions to take when an employee leaves, that are easy to overlook in the rush to replace them. Don’t forget to retrieve keys, passcards, mobile phones etc from the leaver. It may be necessary for them to sign a confidentiality agreement, if they have very sensitive information, and best practice is to change the passwords for all systems they had access to.

Communicate the departure internally, and externally if appropriate, and make any necessary amendments to organisation charts, websites, phone lists, brochures etc.  Encourage the leaver to update their social media profiles to reflect the change (eg update their current employer on LinkedIn) and purge any of their contacts if necessary as per your social media policy.

Need some help? 

If you’re having difficulty deciding on the best way to replace a departing employee, TPP Not for Profit can help. One of our specialist consultants can arrange a visit, talk through the old role and what your organisation needs from a new employee. We can then offer help on writing the job description and person specification and advice on salaries and availability of potential candidates. For more details on this no-obligation service, please contact Donna Newton, Client Relations Manager on 020 7198 6111 or donna.newton@tpp.co.uk.


Of course, the best solution to losing valuable employees is to stop them leaving in the first place. Our past blog post on how to stop best employees leaving may give you some tips to keep hold of your organisation’s valuable assets.

Five ‘hidden’ employer benefits of flexible working

Recent research from TPP has shown just how valuable offering flexible working can be for non-profit organisations, and the positive effects it brings to productivity, morale, recruitment and retention have been well-documented. However, some organisations are still reluctant to introduce flexible working practices or extend them more widely throughout their staff.

There are benefits that flexible working brings that are less obvious than those mentioned above, but should still be taken into account when considering whether to introduce or extend your flexible working scheme.

Improved diversity

Offering flexible working is one of the key ways in which organisations can build a more diverse workforce. Employees with different lifestyles, family responsibilities or long-term health conditions usually find it difficult to manage a 9-5 office-based job, and flexible working is vital for them.

Diverse workforces have a broader mix of skills, knowledge and experience, giving an organisation more creativity and flexibility to overcome challenges. It has also been proven that increasing diversity leads to better staff retention.

Find out more about improving diversity

Support for local communities

In recent years there has been a growing trend within charities to decentralise resources, as charities increasingly try to keep close to the local communities in which they work. Local communities also play an important part in fundraising.

International development organisations have been at the forefront of this trend, as their service users are in a different country, and often in a different time zone, and on the ground employees can be much more effective.

Some of the larger UK-based charities have set up regional units in satellite offices to encourage localism, but for smaller charities this is not always possible. However, recruiting staff from the local community and encouraging them to work from home wherever possible can help a charity to keep in touch with its service users. It can also benefit the local community as staff spend more of their salary in that area.

Environmental impact

Most charities, whether it is part of their mission or not, tend to act in an ethical manner regarding the environment wherever possible.

According to the Office of National Statistics, the typical carbon footprint of an officer worker is 1.5 tonnes of CO2 per year, compared to the 865 kg footprint of a home worker. That’s a 42% saving, roughly the equivalent of 100 loads of laundry.

Even if it’s not possible to offer full-time remote working, encouraging employees to work some of the time from home and use web- or telephone-conferencing rather than travelling to meetings can all help reduce their carbon footprint.

Cost savings

The average office cost per employee in the UK is £6k per year. That’s a huge amount of money considering the average UK office is only at 45% occupancy over the working day.

In the current economic climate, when charities are being forced to explore ways of cutting costs without affecting their services, this is really a factor you cannot afford to ignore.

Staggered home working, combined with hotdesking, can really improve the efficiency of your office and help bring down overhead costs.

Skills sharing and upskilling

Having staff members who are regularly out of the office can have a positive effect on the team as a whole. Responsibilities and the skill sets they require are more likely to be shared across the team, and the likelihood of skills silos decreased.

This gives employers the opportunity to take over tasks they might not normally handle, allowing them to grow their skills and giving them a more varied work life, which can help boost morale. Spreading skills and knowledge across a team also helps to ensure that productivity does not drop in periods of staff turnover.

However, to really foster a spirit of cooperation in an office, it is important that all employees are given equal opportunities for flexible working. Allowing some staff to work remotely but giving others no flexible options can create resentment and will make it much harder to create an environment in which workers are willing to share their knowledge and skills.

Now is the time

At a recent conference, Transport Minister Norman Baker, encouraged organisations to use the London 2012 Olympic Games as an opportunity to test different flexible working strategies that allow staff to work from home or from offices closer to where they live.

The Family and Parenting Institute expect the Olympics to be a “watershed moment” that embeds widespread flexible working practices in the UK, as organisations create opportunities for flexible working, see the added value it brings, and implement these schemes on a more permanent basis.

Business Secretary Vince Cable has said that flexible working is essential for future growth in the UK, so why not embrace the challenges of the Olympics as an opportunity to harness the full value of flexible working for your organisation?


More information

For more help with flexible working strategies, see:

TPP Blog - Part time workers can add value to your organisation

TPP Blog - 5 ways to engage remote workers

Civil Society Finance - Flexible working: the new normal

HR Zone - Four managerial traits to ensure flexible working works

Small Business Blog - Five Ways Flexible Working Can Boost Productivity

Achieving diversity from the bottom up

Almost all not for profit organisations now recognise the value of having a diverse workforce and that achieving this is something they need to work towards. Organisations often begin by seeking to increase diversity among their senior, high visibility staff. But it is equally important to make sure that you have a diversity strategy in place for entry and lower level staff, ensuring that you are creating a pool of employees to become future leaders.

Why embrace diversity?

Employing people from a wide range of ages, backgrounds and lifestyles can add a great deal of value to organisations. Diverse workforces have a broader mix of skills, knowledge and experience, giving an organisation more creativity and flexibility to overcome challenges.  It has also been proven that increasing diversity leads to better staff retention.

For not for profit organisations, it is particularly important that their staff empathises with the beneficiaries of their services, and a diverse workforce can help to achieve this. Charities also have a public duty to promote equality, as per the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000, Disability Discrimination Act 1995 and the Employment Equality (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2003.

Top down or bottom up?

Bringing in top level staff from a non-typical background is a great way for not for profit organisations to publicly demonstrate their commitment to diversity. However, it is also important to diversify the composition of staff at lower levels, to ensure there is a ‘talent pipeline’ that will supply the next generation of management.

Improving diversity at all levels of the company is also important in encouraging staff to believe in and support equal opportunities policies and mission statements.

So where do you start?

Obviously, to ensure you have a diverse workforce, you have to be able to measure both your existing workforce and progress against targets. When setting these targets, you need to consider the populations you want to reflect – the public in general, your specific service users and your volunteers and donors.

Following are some specific ways in which you can introduce equal opportunities at the lower levels of your organisation.

Explore different advertising options

To improve diversity in your workforce, it is important not to rely on word of mouth, referrals and traditional routes to market to advertise your roles. These generally only bring in candidates who are similar to your existing employees.

Instead, explore different networking channels such as special interest groups or training organisations. Make sure your vacancies are advertised among your organisation’s beneficiaries, by putting them on your website and in any newsletters, magazines or other publications you produce.

Start at the interview stage

If you are serious about improving equal opportunities, you need to make sure your interviews take place in accessible locations and at flexible times.

Assess each person you consider against a predetermined person specification, and not against the other candidates. Take care when writing this specification to avoid your own beliefs and attitudes don’t skew the selection criteria, and be sure that the qualifications specified are really needed to do the job and not ones based on assumptions.

Consider positive action

Reverse or positive discrimination is illegal in the UK.  However, there are measures you can take to target particular groups that are under-represented in your company.

For example, including statements such as “we welcome applications from disabled people” in your job advertising or offering guaranteed interviews to disabled candidates can encourage more of these people to apply for your roles.  You could also consider allowing certain groups more time to submit their applications.

Other positive action steps that you can consider include offering on the job training or flexible working options targeted to attract a specific group.

Recycle unsuccessful candidates

If you’ve seen a candidate who you feel would work well within your organisation, but might not be suitable for that particular role, don’t automatically dismiss them but take a while to consider how they could fit into the organisation in other ways.

Are there other vacancies coming up which they could apply for? Or is it possible to place them in a role in which they could be trained up to do the job they originally applied for?

Mentoring and work placements
A great way to bring candidates from different backgrounds into your organisation is to offer mentoring or work experience schemes. This way, you can give disadvantaged candidates some valuable work experience and career training and advice. If you come across any who might fit particularly well within your organisation, you can then choose to move them to temporary or permanent paid employment.

See the DTI Work Experience Guidelines via the Skillset website for practical advice on offering work experience.

How can TPP help?

Many employers, particularly small organisations, simply may not have the resources available to devote to diversifying their workforces. This is where a recruitment consultancy like TPP Not for Profit can offer real value.

We have arrangements with a wide variety of associations, networks and job boards, meaning that your vacancy can either receive as wide a coverage as possible or be targeted at a particular population group, depending on your requirements.

Useful Resources

The Equalities and Human Rights Commission
Diversity works for London
Chartered Institute of Professional Development
REC factsheet on the access to work scheme (provides funding to employers to improve access for those with disabilities)
REC factsheet on the recruitment of ex-offenders 

5 ways to engage remote workers

It is increasingly common for employees to wish to work from home on the odd occasion, eg in cases like transport strikes or last year’s snowy weather, or on a permanent basis to give them a better work-life balance.  Many not for profit managers also have to manage ground staff based overseas or in distant locations.

This means that enabling and managing remote working is becoming increasingly important to not for profit organisations - 86% of third sector decision makers say it is their key technical challenge.

But remote working can lead to employees feeling isolated and demotivated, as well as leaving their line managers in the dark about progress.  How can you manage remote staff to make them an effective part of a team?

Why use remote workers?

One of the most common reasons for employees choosing to work from home is to improve their work-life balance, eg giving them time to pick their kids up from school.  Flexible working is one of the key benefits that attracts staff to a third sector organisation (as shown in TPP’s fundraising recruitment survey), so being able to offer remote working is a definite advantage in sourcing top-quality employees.

Working remotely is also traditionally perceived to improve efficiency, as employees are happier and less stressed.  BT claim that flexible employees who choose remote working are 20% more productive than their office-based counterparts, while absenteeism has been reduced by 60%.   Allowing primarily office-based employees to work from home on the odd occasion can also greatly improve morale and therefore productivity.

Remote working also opens up opportunities for people living with disabilities, who might find it hard to work if they had to travel to an office, helping to improve your organisation’s diversity and giving you a wider pool of potential employees.

Many not for profit organisations, particularly those working in international development, prefer to employ local staff who are native speakers to run their programmes overseas.  However, these employees are often ultimately managed from the UK.

Enabling employees to work from home can also allow money-conscious charities to save, as overhead costs are cut and productivity is maintained if staff cannot get in to work, as in last year’s period of snowy weather, in which snow absence rates in the UK were estimated to reach almost 14% and cost the economy £0.5bn a day.

1.  Hire the right employees

Managing your home workers to ensure they stay effective starts right at the point of recruitment.  Selecting the right staff is important – look for employees with previous successful experience of remote working and justifiable reasons for wanting to work from home.  Even if they are not office-based, it is still important that they fit with the organisation and team culture.

It is also important to make sure that contracts set down the terms of remote working clearly, and measures of performance are in place from the start.   Make sure these are consistent across all your remote and office-based staff to avoid generating resentment.

Also detail the parameters of this type of work arrangement. If employees are working off-site, how quickly do you expect them to respond to e-mails, pages or phone calls? Can they work a flexible schedule or do they need to perform their jobs during specific hours? What technologies will be made available to employees to facilitate working remotely? How many days a week can people telecommute? etc.  Not every position lends itself to a teleworking arrangement

The more effort you put into defining requirements such as these early on, the less complicated it will be to supervise people once they are off-site.  TPP Not for Profit has recruited many remote workers to the third sector, and we can offer great advice and help to organisations looking to recruit home workers.

2.  Keep remote workers included

Managing remote workers is all about inclusion – it is all too easy to overlook employees not in the office.  Include remote workers in all team meetings, either in person or via a conference call or on speakerphone, and make sure they are invited to staff events, even informal ones like team drinks.

Lack of opportunities to chat informally with colleagues can also hinder working relationships, as it makes it harder for fellow employees to build the rapport that helps with collaborative projects.  Encouraging all group members to hold frequent discussions can help to keep teleworkers engaged, even if it’s just to let everyone know that work is progressing to schedule.

Where possible, you should also encourage your remote workers to visit the office on a regular basis, eg for monthly catch-ups or for important group meetings.  This allows them to meet their colleagues face-to-face.  If this is not possible, organisation charts and staff profiles with pictures can help remote employees put faces to names.

3.  Train in steps

It’s important to make sure that remote workers aren’t forgotten about when it comes to staff training, both at the start and throughout their careers.

When office staff are trained, a manager can constantly oversee their progress and give instant feedback.  With remote staff, this process is much harder but can be avoided by training in chunks, or scaffolding.  Essentially, the training programme is split into steps and a new employee must be able to demonstrate that they are fully competent in each stage before they can progress.

Training this way means that a manager can be fully confident that their remote employee can handle tasks on their own without constant feedback and support.

4.  Set goals and monitor progress

It is usually necessary to have a more formal schedule of update meetings with remote employees than office-based staff.  Ideally, you should aim to have a quick daily phone call with each remote worker, followed by a longer weekly catch-up.

You need to be even more clear when setting goals for remote workers; making sure that the expectations of both parties are agreed at the start of each project and a schedule of formal contact to monitor progress is set.  There should be clear procedures in place for remote workers to follow and people to contact if things start to go wrong at any point.

When it comes to monitoring the productivity of remote workers, managers have an advantage, in that there is usually an extensive document trail to help them investigate concerns or problems, for example by checking when employees were logged into a network.

5.  Keep improving your processes

If you are successfully using remote workers, it is important to keep evaluating and improving your processes.  Feedback from both remote and office-based workers about how the situation is progressing is vital to make sure both sides remain happy.  New technology is constantly being developed that can help to make remote workers more integrated with the rest of the team.

Most importantly - don't distance yourself from team members. Be available to them, this will increase the trust they have in you and let's you show them that you respect them.

Examples

Some case studies on remote working from the not for profit sector:

ramsac Provide CHASE hospice care for children with Remote Working
NPC slashes ICT costs and risk to maximize its impact
Home-based workers fundraise for charity: Actionaid's NTT operation
Case Study: Merlin Life-saving Communications at an Affordable Price
Case Study: New Charter Housing Group
Case Study: ActionAid

The Pitfalls of Ignoring Poor Performance

Charities are continuing to feel increasing economic pressure and this is having a negative effect on staff morale.  60% of charity staff have experienced redundancies in their organisation, and 55% feel their workloads are getting heavier, leading to stressed and unproductive employees.  And with half of voluntary sector leaders expecting their organisation’s situation to worsen over the next 12 months, the situation is not likely to improve in the near future.

However, not for profit organisations can be reluctant to tackle poor performance in the workplace - only 57% of staff reportedly receive useful feedback on how they are performing.  With over 218,000 employment tribunal claims brought last year, and charities particularly vulnerable to claims, failure to manage underperformance can have serious consequences for charities.

In this article, TPP examines the most common reasons for failing to tackle poor performance, and why these are misconceptions.



"Nonprofits should be kind"

This is an extremely common problem in the not for profit sector.  Most charities recognise that their staff often accept lower pay than in the private sector but expect a higher level of job satisfaction.  Combined with the fact that charities exist to promote ethical values, this can often lead managers to want to be “kind” to their employees, and turn a blind eye to underperformance.

However, failing to tackle poor performance at an early stage is more often than not an unkindness, both for the organisation, whose effectiveness will suffer, and for the employee themselves, who will continue to underperform until their manager has to tackle the problem, which can be a set up for an unfair dismissal claim.  Unproductive employees are also usually unhappy in their job, and treating the problem can improve morale all round.  Being a supportive manager, who proactively handles performance and develops their employees, is not being unkind. Allowing people to fail is unkind.

“We need to follow this through by managing poor performance when it arises. Anyone who hides behind the charity mask on this one and feels it is not compatible with being nice to people is not being professional or businesslike - nor maintaining the charity ethos.”
Valerie Morton in Third Sector magazine


Fear of litigation

Charities are usually heavily reliant on their public image to bring in funding and volunteers, and so are reluctant to enter situations where litigation might result which will give them negative press.  Charity employees can be more willing than most to bring a claim against their employer if they feel they are being treated unfairly, as they have an innate sense of justice and fair play.  This means that voluntary sector managers can be unwilling to speak to employees about poor performance and scared of getting into situations which they feel may eventually lead to dismissal.

Once again, the solution to this is to tackle poor performance at an early stage, rather than simply ignoring it.  Properly handled, an employee may well improve their effectiveness, avoiding the need for dismissal.  But if it does get to that stage, an employee is more likely to feel aggrieved about being dismissed if their employee has not attempted to address and solve the issues leading to the underperformance, and will almost certainly have a stronger case at tribunal because of this.


Worrying about morale

In the current economic climate, when many charities have experienced downsizing, many managers are concerned about maintaining the morale of their team and fear that confronting an employee, particularly one that is popular with the rest of the staff, about their performance may lead to a wave of fear among the team and a drop in morale.

In this scenario, managers are assuming the worst.  Handling unproductiveness sensitively and at an early stage can lead to the employee becoming both more productive and more satisfied, which is likely to positively affect the rest of the team.  If this does not happen, and the process eventually leads to a dismissal, there certainly is a risk that the rest of the team will become worried, but reassurance and support can help to tackle this.  However, leaving that employee to carry on as they are will definitely lead to a drop in morale as the rest of the team have to make up the slack.


Extenuating circumstances

A common reason for underperformance can be personal problems that are unrelated to work.  If a manager is aware of these circumstances, they could very well be tempted to let poor performance slide on the assumption that the employee’s effectiveness will improve once the situation has been resolved.  However, simply ignoring the issue is doing the employee no favours.

Talking through the issue with the member of staff will alert them to your concerns, demonstrate your support in their situation and may lead to a mutually beneficial solution, such as allowing them to take a paid leave of absence.


Losing a star performer

Sometimes, an employee can be a high performer in numerical terms, but can still require performance management for unacceptable behaviour, such as negativity, dishonesty, harassment or bullying.  Managers may be reluctant to tackle this behaviour, even if it is having a negative impact on the rest of the team, for fear of losing their star performer.

Leaving this kind of behaviour untackled ends up sending a message to the rest of the staff that conduct like this is acceptable as long as targets are met.  Staff may become disillusioned and leave due to perceived unfairness.  Performance management should always have the welfare of the team as a whole in mind, not just that individual.


Conclusion

If your beneficiaries are likely to suffer due to a drop in team productivity and morale, is there really any excuse that could be valid for failing to deal with poor performance early on?  A good manager should be able to effectively communicate and document an employee’s poor performance in a timely manner, so that any disciplinary action is never a surprise. If it does happen, it should only be the culmination of a process where the manager is sincerely working to change an employee’s behaviour for the betterment of the organization.


Resources

Further advice on performance management and involuntary redundancy:
KnowHow NonProfit
CIPD
10 point checklist for confronting poor performance
Crash Course: Seven ways to manage poor performance

Training
CS Skills Centre - Managing poor performance
The Centre - Managing poor performance, absence and stress

Healthcare Conferences UK - Managing Poor Performance and Supporting Nurses in Difficulty

Forms & Templates
Various forms are available from HR Bird

Finally, for further guidance on how NOT to conduct a performance review, learn from the master - David Brent.

5 ideas for training on a budget

Not for profit organisations have been hard hit by the economic downturn over the last 12 to 18 months, and when savings have to be made, training, learning and development is usually one of the first things to go.  However, this can be a false economy, as slashing funds for training means your staff don’t develop at the same rate and your organisation becomes less efficient and productive.

However, with a bit of creative thinking, there are plenty of ways to provide your employees with training opportunities when funds are tight. Here are TPP’s top ideas for training on a budget:


1.  Use your existing staff
There are several ways to use your current employees to assist with learning and development.  Find out if your members of staff and in-house volunteers have any skills they can communicate to others, and appoint internal mentors to guide the development of more junior staff.  This is particularly useful for ‘soft skills’, such as communications and team management.

You could choose to make one member of staff a ‘champion’ for a particular topic.  Once they have received training, they should then be responsible for communicating their learnings to other employees.  This has the added advantages of cementing the knowledge in the employee champion and creating an in-house support service for queries regarding that topic.

Encouraging your employees to take part in internal secondments or shadowing also allows them the opportunity to learn from other members of staff and teams.


2.  Share resources
You can get more from your training budget by partnering with other organisations.  For example, banding together with sister organisations or other charities to offer joint courses will bring down your training cost per head.  Or do a skills swap with another organisation, where you share knowledge and experience between you.

The Small Charities Coalition facilitates the sharing of skills, experience and expertise between charities, and is completely free to join.  Even larger organisations can benefit through sharing their skills with others.

Investigate any private sector companies your organisation has contact with, such as corporate donors or service suppliers.  Do they run in-house training programmes your staff could piggyback on?  Of course, this training will not be charity-specific but could still be useful.

Encouraging your employees to volunteer or become a trustee in another not for profit organisation is another great way to bring new knowledge and skills into your charity.


3.  Look for freebies

If you know where to look, there can be many opportunities for free training for your staff.  The key is to make the best use of your network of suppliers, partners and membership organisations.

Private sector firms who work with the third sector often offer free training, eg TPP Not for Profit runs a series of professional development seminars, and solicitors’ firms often hold regular legal updates for their clients.  Simply googling “free <topic> training for charities” can usually bring up some interesting possibilities.

Membership organisations, such as the NCVO, IoF or CIPD, often run training sessions that are discounted or free for their member organisations.  Investigate what is included in your membership and make sure you are getting the most from the fees. 

Charity Days and the NFP Academy organise free training for not for profit organisations, and their websites are well worth a visit.  There are also opportunities to get funding for learning and development, such as the InterChange funding for leadership and management training.

Check out the blog comments below for some free training courses coming up soon.


4.  Investigate online training

The huge growth of the Internet has brought a wealth of resources for online learning and development, often specially aimed at not for profit organisations.

Knowhow NonProfit have a wealth of career development information, most of it completely free of charge, including videos, training courses, articles and discussion forums.

The Media Trust website has a wide range of articles on marketing and communications topics for not for profit organisations.

The Charity Learning Consortium offers a wide range of eLearning for their members.


5.  Get value for money

Sometimes, paying for training is unavoidable, so you need to make sure you get the best possible return on your investment.  Investigate running courses in-house using small training providers or consultants, as this can be less expensive than sending multiple staff members on external courses.  It also has the added advantage that the course content will be tailored for your organisation.

If you are investing with any new suppliers, eg of any new software, make sure that training is included for free or at a discount in the initial agreement.  In addition, when creating new PSLs, why not ask suppliers if they can offer any training as part of the deal?


Summary

As you can see, there are ways to continue to provide opportunities for learning and development to your staff while keeping training budgets tight.  However, your organisations will always need to invest some funds in training to make sure employees remain efficient and productive.

TPP Not for Profit is a big supporter of investing in learning and development, as it helps to keep staff motivated and reduce turnover, and makes your organisation more attractive to new recruits.  Don’t forget to check out our programme of free seminars.

We are also speaking at and sponsoring several upcoming events, such as the Third Sector Social Media Convention and the IoF Annual Convention.

The 3 stages of a successful exit interview

An exit interview is an interview conducted by an employer with a departing employee. They can be conducted via face-to-face or telephone interviews, or through paper or online surveys.

Exit interviews are a useful tool for:

• Enabling the transfer of knowledge and experience from the departing employee to a replacement or team
• Providing an early warning about sexual harassment, workplace violence and discrimination issues and measuring the success of diversity initiatives
• Finding out employees' perceptions on everything from your organistaion's culture to the office facilities and making improvements

It is important to put a positive spin on your findings from exit interviews and ensure they are used to generate suggestions for improvement, as this will help attract and retain talent in your organisation.

Exit interviews are particularly useful as they provide more objective feedback than attitude surveys among existing staff, as departing employees tend to feel free to be more forthcoming, constructive and impartial than staff still in their jobs.

Despite this usefulness, past research from TPP has established that although most employers say their organisations hold interviews with leavers, only 42% of employees have ever had an exit interview.



To ensure you get the maximum benefit from your exit interviews, there are three key stages to follow:

1.    Be prepared

The key to a successful exit interview lies in the preparation. Nothing is more frustrating than an interviewer who isn't ready, willing or able to conduct a productive exit session.

Draw up an assessment or a list of questions and areas for discussion on the basis of the individual's achievements and performance, eg:

• Was their performance consistent?
• Did they frequently demonstrate initiative?
• How was their relationship with other members of staff?

Common questions include reasons for leaving, job satisfaction, frustrations and feedback concerning company policies or procedures. Questions may relate to the work environment, supervisors, compensation, the work itself and the company culture.

• Preparation is just as important for the employee; both sides will gain a great deal from the exercise if the employee is pre-warned and has time to formulate their thoughts in advance.
• There is a chance that some employees will use the interview as an opportunity to rail against their managers, colleagues or the organisation. Providing a mechanism to focus their thoughts may help avoid this, such as following a set list of questions.
• Find a comfortable and quiet room and reduce the possibility of interruptions.

2.    Be Objective

It can sometimes be difficult to hear criticism of your employer, particularly for not for profit staff, who often have a strong emotional attachment to their organisation.  It is therefore vital to remember that the goal of an exit interview is to extract information that can be used for positive change and it is in your interest to be objective.  Exit interviews are only of use if you can look beyond your immediate emotional response and make practical and rational plans for the future.

Try to remain impartial, rather than emotional, and to ask open questions that encourage honest and considered responses, while avoiding leading and limiting questions.

Don’t just listen to what an employee has to say.  Like a normal interview, an employee’s body language can give you valuable insights into their true feelings, which can then be explored in more depth using specific work situations to put them into context.

Exit interview can be conducted by a relatively neutral party, such as a human resources staff member rather than a line manager, so that the employee will be more inclined to be candid, as opposed to worrying about burning bridges.  Some companies even opt to employ a third party to conduct the interviews and provide feedback.


3.    Be appreciative

Whatever the employee’s reasons for leaving and however critical they are in the exit interview, endeavour to ensure that they leave the interview in a positive frame of mind.  Don’t forget to thank the employee for their work for your organisation and their co-operation in the interview, and be positive about the feedback they provide.  If your organisation has benefited from the skills and dedication of the employee, the exit interview is the right time to express your appreciation for their contribution to your business.

If the person leaving is a loss to the company, it is likely you will want to leave the door open for them to return.  But even if they are not likely to return, a disgruntled ex-employee with contacts in your sector can undo months of positive brand-building.  The exit interview is a final chance to ensure they leave with a positive view of your organisation.


Summary

A successful exit interview will extract information that will assist the organisation in recruiting a replacement. It can also facilitate improvement to achieve greater employee job satisfaction and to become an employer of choice.

If you decide to use a recruitment consultancy such as TPP Not for Profit to find a successor for your ex-employee, don’t forget to feed back the knowledge gained from your exit interview, as this will assist us to find a successful and long-term replacement candidate.

How to stop your best employees leaving

The New Year is traditionally a time when disgruntled employees consider making a change and dusting off their CVs – as many as 1 in 4 employees say January is the most likely time for them to leave their roles.

The third sector had a staff turnover of 20% in 2009/10, significantly higher than the 13.5% UK national average, and expectations of increased stability in the economy is likely to make this percentage even higher this year, as employees feel more confident about leaving their existing jobs.

So how can not for profit organisations tell if their valuable staff are considering leaving, and address underlying issues before they lead to a resignation?

Look for danger signs in your staff

Employees often make changes in their behaviour when they are feeling unhappy at work.  It is important for managers to pay attention to these indicators and not ignore them.  Typical warning signs include:

• Increasing lateness or absenteeism
• Drop in productivity
• Employee seems stressed or hostile
• Employee is much quieter than usual
• They request holiday one day at a time
• They stop volunteering and are not enthusiastic

Get to the bottom of the problem

If a manager spots any of the above changes in an employee’s behaviour and suspects they might be considering handing in their notice, they need to act fast to discover the underlying reasons.  Arrange a meeting with the staff member and keep probing to get to the bottom of the problem – don’t simply accept the first answer given.  It is important to listen to the employee’s answers and not to give your opinions of their situation or jump to conclusions.

Don’t fall into the trap of assuming all problems are salary-related.  Most employees cite pay as their reason for leaving, and in some cases this is true, but it is often used as an excuse as it is a ‘safe’ and incontrovertible answer.  As long as an employee feels they are being paid adequately, more money won't buy more motivation or loyalty.  For more information on motivations for non-profit employees leaving roles, see TPP’s recent Fundraising Recruitment Survey.

Look for solutions

Once you’ve got to the bottom of any problems an employee is having, it is vital to come up with a plan to solve them, or at least stop them escalating.  Together with the employee, a plan of action should be agreed on, and the manager must take responsibility to ensure that it is pursued.  Each action point should play to an employee’s strengths and should be an actual, not just verbal, change.

Solutions you might consider include:

• Changing the employee’s role
• Adjusting the employee’s level of responsibility
• Flexible working
• Increased employee recognition
• Better internal communications

What if they have already resigned?

If an employee has already handed in their notice, but their loss is likely to drastically effect your organisation, you may wish to consider making a counteroffer.  However, any successful counteroffer is likely to require a financial incentive, which will make the employee question why they were not receiving that level of pay before.

The counteroffer with the greatest chance of success will consist of a package of solutions, such as increased responsibility and recognition, together with a pay increase.  Of course, it is always better to make sure that such a valued employee never gets to this stage.

Is it worth the effort?

Before undertaking any action, you need to weigh any possible consequences against the value of the employee.  In some cases, the departure really is best for both parties. An unhappy employee is difficult to manage, tends to disrupt the effectiveness of his or her team, and will most likely leave eventually anyway.

However, for your most talented people, a concerted effort to solve their problems can lead to them becoming even more motivated and loyal to your organisation.

Case studies

Here are just a few examples of charities that have successfully implanted strategies to reduce their staff turnover:

•    Cancer charity, Marie Curie
•    Disability charity, Leonard Cheshire
•    Youth charity, YouthNet
•    Health charity, Autism Plus
•    Tower Homes, a London housing association
•    Children’s charity, Children’s Links

How TPP Not for Profit can help

One of the best ways to increase your employee retention is to hire the right staff in the first place.  Taking your time and getting expert advice can help you find exactly the right person for you team, meaning they are more likely to stay long-term.  TPP’s consultants are sector specialists who can give you advice on benefits and remuneration packages and make sure you find exactly the right employees.

For more information, contact TPP Not for Profit on info@tpp.co.uk or 020 7198 6000.