Invest in Low-Wage Workers If You Want to Grow Your Business.

Designed by Taina Cunion

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Your Path Coaching and Consulted is committed to helping Small Business Owners attract, develop and retain employees. If you are looking to improve your people management strategy, visit our website. Or click this button to schedule a meeting

Start building your ideal culture

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Low-wage Workers Make Up a Significant Portion of the Labor Force

More than 40% of US labor force contains low-wage workers (Harvard Business)

Attracting and Retaining Employees Can be a Challenge

Companies facing the hardships of understaffing turn towards short-term incentives to fill in low-wage roles, such as sign-on bonuses or slight wage increases, yet why does turnover continue?

Employers' Beliefs Versus Survey Data

Common narrative regards workers as “fickle” people who constantly change jobs but the reality is that low-wage workers would rather stay with the companies that employ them.

• Harvard Business Study surveys shows 51% of low-wage employees had remained at their company for over four years

• 62% say that a promotion or higher pay would motivate them to stay

• 9% say they would like to stay if the employer offered them more skills training

• 6% say they would like to stay if the employer offered them more responsibility

• 22% agreed with the statement, “Even if my company doesn’t offer me higher pay, skills training, and more responsibility, I would prefer to stay at my current company”

• Changing jobs causes a disruption in a person’s life, which may not be a viable option depending on their financial situation.

  • No state offers a minimum wage that is in line with the living wage (CNBC)

  • 181,891 low-wage workers studied in 2012 found 60% of them remained stuck in such positions five years later (Harvard Business)

  • Americans who are employed in long-term low-wage work tend to be Black or Hispanic, are more likely to be women, and have less than 12 years of education, the researchers found (CBS News)

• Low-wage workers will stay at jobs longer if they have easy transportation access

• But when people feel trapped, it has rippling effects on the business

  • Low retention

  • High absenteeism

  • Low morale

  • Low productivity

• As temporary employees go in and out, more pressure is placed on long-time employees who stay. Eventually, they may burn out taking on extra responsibilities while management struggles with staffing

• Low-wage workers are thought of as easily replaceable, but there is a cost to constantly recruiting and training people

  • “At most companies with which Good Jobs Institute has worked, employers are pouring the equivalent of 10 to 25% of their labor budget on replacement costs—the costs to recruit, train, and reach baseline productivity, only to start all over again when employees leave.”

  • Senior living, call centers, warehouses, retail stores, and restaurants have to replace their entire frontline workforce annually, with more than 100% employee turnover (TIME)

Programs that are working

Sam’s Club- reduced hourly workers’ turnover by 25%, productivity increased by 16%, customer loyalty increased by 7%, and sales grew by nearly 15%.

Quest Diagnostics- reduced hourly turnover by more than 50%- At Quest, overall costs decreased by $2 million, $1.3 million of which came from ideas from the reps

Mud Bay- Mud Bay reduced turnover by 35%, 12% higher sales per labor hour, and 25% higher sales per square foot (compared to the 9% industry average at the time)

Eligible employees, after 90 days, can enroll in Disney Aspire, which provides full tuition payment for a high school diploma, degree, or vocational skill

• Of 14,000 hourly employees enrolled in Disney Aspire, 50% are working on a bachelor’s or master’s degree

  • 3,500 have graduated since it started in 2018

  • 2,800 graduates and students have been promoted internally

    • Of those enrolled in the program

      • 50% are people of color

      • 60% are women

The Path to Prosperity

If employees were set up for success from the beginning with full training, a livable wage, and support options for upward mobility, morale, and productivity would go up, and employees would be more likely to stay and grow within organizations.

Ensure Benefits are known

• 33% reported they were unaware of any opportunity to progress in their organization

• Only 55% of workers reported they’d ever had a supervisor or mentor who helped them succeed

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Your Path Coaching and Consulted is committed to helping Small Business Owners attract, develop and retain employees. If you are looking to improve your people management strategy, visit our website. Or click this button to schedule a meeting

Start building your ideal culture

Strong Organizations Hire for Potential

Hiring for potential can be a great way of developing a diverse and well-rounded team. Leaders tend to want to hire people based on experience. Experience-based hiring is a safe bet to make in most organizations. Few organizations will question a leader's judgment if they hire someone with previous experience doing the job, especially if that individual has worked for a prestigious company. While this approach might be safe, it has flaws. Prior experience does not equate to an individual's job mastery. It also does not predict how well an individual will perform the job they are being hired for. Relying too heavily on prior experience may also limit the size and diversity of the applicant pool. When making hiring decisions, employers should consider the employee's potential for growth in addition to their prior experience. Employers considering growth potential when making hiring decisions better position themselves for long-term growth.

Benefits of hiring for potential.

Companies broaden their application pool by shifting their primary focus from experience to a broader focus on potential and experience. Macroeconomic shifts and changes in individual employees' preference for where they work create an opportunity for employers to hire individuals who started their careers in one industry but are looking for opportunities in others. These potential employees have developed skills and knowledge within their current field that, with some training, could be easily transferred into other industries. For decades, large corporations have recruited retired military veterans to transition into corporate America. Companies have hired veterans based on their leadership potential and taught them the fundamental of their industry. Companies could do the same for teachers, retailers, artists, and other professionals who have developed management, communication, influence, creativity, and teaching skills but need training on applying those skills within a different industry.

Define the ideal candidate.

The first step to hiring for potential is to define the ideal candidate. For every role, there is a minimum level of knowledge and experience that an individual needs to succeed. For some positions, this will mean particular licenses and or certifications. In establishing your minimum, it is prudent to leave the minimum requirements low enough to include individuals that could gain the necessary knowledge and experience within six months of working with the organization.

It is also beneficial for companies to define what type of person does well within the organization. All companies have organizational cultures; some candidates will fit better than others. Organizations that are clear about their values are more likely to attract candidates that share similar values. Communicating the company values on the company's website and during the interview process will increase the likelihood of attracting candidates who will be a good fit.

Build rapport with the candidate.

At the beginning of the interview process, managers should focus on building rapport. Interviewers should use the first 10 minutes of the interview to participate in small talk and begin to learn basic information about the candidate. The goal here is to reduce the candidate's stress or anxiety and to get a baseline understanding of who the person is. Hiring for potential requires you to learn the individual's capability for growth. The interviewer can gain valuable insights by getting the interviewee to open up and share their story. Candidates will be more transparent if there is a comfort during the interview process.

Ask behavioral questions.

Hiring managers should spend most of the interview asking open-ended questions that allow the applicant to talk about the skills they have developed and how they learn. As hiring managers listen, they should look for examples of the applicant

• taking on a new task

• learning from experience

• growing from mentoring and coaching

These stories will give the hiring manager clues into the environment in which the employee thrives, their learning ability, and adaptability.

Identify the applicant's values.

During the interview process, seek to understand the applicant's values. Values play a significant role in motivation and how people engage with others. An individual's values will help to drive their behavior. In addition, employees perform best when their values align with the company. Hiring candidates whose values align with the job's needs and the organization's values is ideal.

Be unconventional.

One of the best ways to get to know someone is to see them in a different environment. Polished interviewers rehearse sitting in an office and discussing their past accomplishments. Often, hiring managers are amazed by scripted answers presented by applicants that present whom they would like to be, not who they are. One tactic for mixing the interview process up is not completing the entire interviewing process in a traditional office environment. Doing something as simple as going on a walk, standing in a conference room, or going out for lunch can shift an interviewee off script so that the interviewer can see a less rehearsed, more authentic version of the candidate.

Get a second opinion.

Hiring managers should seek out the opinions of others when making a hiring decision. Including team members in the interview process helps the company gain different perspectives on potential employees. One effective best practice is to have potential employees engage in "day in the life" activities to shadow future peers. Shadowing days accomplish two goals. First, it allows the employee to learn more about the company and the job to discover if both will fit them. Second, it allows future peers to meet the candidate and provide the hiring manager with a different perspective on the candidate. Using multiple interviewers can shed additional insights into the candidate's interests, capabilities, and potential.

Identify what makes the person unique.

Every person has something unique and special about them. Through the interview process, a hiring manager seeks to understand what makes an individual unique and how their uniqueness can help satisfy a need within the company. Employees can maximize their contribution to organizations by adding something unique and special currently missing from a team. Managers that can identify and close current gaps by adding new talent position their organizations for success.

Summary

Too often, hiring managers rely too heavily on experience to guide their hiring decisions. A focus on hiring for experience limits a company's application pool and can result in hiring individuals with limited growth opportunities. Hiring for potential requires more judgment because there are no quantifiable measures to predict how much someone will grow once they are in the role. Hiring managers must rely more on subjective analysis of candidates' ability to communicate how they take on new challenges, learn new skills, and expand their capabilities. While hiring for potential may carry some additional perceived risk for managers, it also brings the potential for many more rewards. Having a broad range of individuals with diverse talents and experience strengthens organizations. When organizations can add talented individuals with high growth potential, they expand the possibilities for their entire organization.

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Dorian Cunion is an Executive Business Coach with your Path Coaching and Consulting. He specializes in coaching services for managers, executives, and small business owners.

For tips on leadership and professional development, follow me:

• LinkedIn

• Facebook

If you are interested in working with me as a coach, contact me at

• Email: dcunion@yourpathexecutivesolutions.com

• Phone: 804-220-5771

Improve your Team Culture with this 15-minute routine.

Improving team culture is a challenge that is universal to all leaders. At their roots, teams work best with a shared purpose, good communication, and collaboration. Like a rowing team, everyone must have a cadence for working together and rowing in the same direction. One of the primary roles of a leader is to bring talented people together, create that cadence, provide guidance, and help them to achieve more together than they could apart. Implementing Recognition, Obstacle, and Win (ROW) meetings can help leaders achieve these goals. ROW meetings improve communication, encourage recognition and bring visibility to obstacles in a time-efficient and effective way.

ROW meetings are about developing a cadence for communicating the good and bad things happening in a business. These meetings are typically 15 to 20 minutes long. Each participant comes to the meeting prepared with a 2-minute recap of their week. The summary should include recognizing one person for doing a great job, one obstacle they needed help with, and one team win they wanted to celebrate. Since each participant only has 2 minutes, it forces them to be brief and only focus on the highlights. These recaps should mirror the trailer for a movie. The goal is to provide enough information for people to know what is happening in the person's area of responsibility. If anyone attending the meeting is interested in learning more, they can follow up after the meeting with questions or suggestions.

Recognition of Employees

One of the hallmarks of a good culture is recognition. Adam Grant and Francesa Gino's research has shown that expressions of gratitude can help build employees' self-efficacy and social worth, motivating them to engage in prosocial behavior. Thanking employees for a job well done is one of the best ways to improve a team's culture. Employees go to work every day, doing their job, and many never hear a thank you from their peers or boss. Organizational culture improves when leaders maintain a process for slowing down, considering the contributions made by those ad them, and expressing gratitude.

A supplemental benefit of this routine is how it supports people in getting to know each other. During group meetings, there is a tendency for some extroverts to dominate conversations and for everyone else to listen. The imbalance of communication can create group thinking and blind spots within a team. The two-minute target for each participant ensures that everyone has an equal opportunity to communicate. More value is generated during the meeting because there is a greater diversity of thought and inclusion of everyone's ideas.

Sharing of Obstacles

Each participant will share one obstacle they needed help solving. Initially, leaders might be uncomfortable voicing challenges if it is different from the norm within the organization. It is common for employees to be private about the barriers preventing their success until they have done everything possible to solve the issue independently. The hesitation to share challenges creates unneeded pressure within organizations and can slow down the removal of obstacles. By individuals being vulnerable in the group setting, other participants that have prior experience with similar obstacles can assist the person in need. In addition, when there is a commonality in challenges, participants can partner together to find solutions.

Obstacles are like weeds that prevent organizations from reaching their full potential. Employees within organizations do their best to pull weeds. Often the process is long and complex because employees need more tools, resources, and power to address complex issues. Managers are essential in getting employees the tools they need to overcome barriers. The ROW meetings provided a cadence for managers to check in with employees. As they inquire about challenges, they can provide tips and guidance for addressing opportunities. If they cannot solve the problem at their level, the manager can bring it to the meeting and seek advice and support from the team.

Celebrating Wins

The final segment of the recap is a review of wins for the week. Celebrating successes is essential for locking in learning. In Whitney Johnson's book Smart Growth, she evangelizes celebration's role in cementing lessons learned and strengthening relationships. Leaders work hard to drive results. Time must be allocated for them to feel the joy of their team's accomplishment. Sharing of wins provides examples of excellence for the broader group. It also creates opportunities for individuals to be more aware of success outside their direct business, which can both motivate and inspire others to greatness.

Talking about team wins during group meetings helps the team focus on the big picture. Most organizations operate in silos. For information to be shared, it has to flow up one silo to the leader and then back down another silo. The multiple communication points can be slow and weaken the benefit of the message. Often this results in team members focusing too much on their silo and not dedicating time or energy to thinking about what is vital for the overall organization. Good teammates care more about winning the game than their individual performance. By celebrating the wins generated across the different teams, the collective group can take pride in the overall organization's progress.

Insights

Weekly meetings can be an excellent way for a leader to do a temperature check with the team. When things are going well, meetings will be super positive, high energy, and upbeat. The organization will feel healthy, similar to a person with a 98 degrees temperature. When the obstacles are growing or when stress rises, the meeting will have a completely different feel. There will be more negativity. People will struggle more with finding and talking about wins. And the group will spend more time discussing obstacles. When this occurs, it will feel like the organization has a fever. Just as you would take an aspirin and get some rest at the first signs of a fever, it will be necessary for the leader to take steps to bring the team's temperature down collectively. The best way to address the tension is to recalibrate goals and verify that project timelines are realistic.

Summary

The ROW meeting approach can effectively establish a culture of recognition, positivity, and accountability within the team. It will ensure that every member of the team speaks during each meeting. It encouraged them to spend 66% of their time talking about positive events in the last week and only 33% of the time on obstacles. It challenges them to prioritize, summarize and be direct with their communications. Recaps will be 2 minutes, so there is not much fluff. Speakers must communicate what is essential and pass the spotlight to the next person.

The call will be engaging because multiple voices will be heard, and the topic of conversation will be focused on the remarkable things that are happening in the business. Team members will find it refreshing to get obstacles brought to the table, and the group will feel a greater sense of cohesion as they discuss ways to solve problems after the calls. Implementing this 15-minute-a-week routine can do a lot to improve the culture of an organization. The practices leaders establish say a lot about who they are and what is essential. Leaders who build routines around recognizing team members, capturing obstacles, and celebrating wins build a strong foundation of trust within their organization. The very trust needed to build a strong culture.

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Dorian Cunion is an Executive Business Coach with your Path Coaching and Consulting. He specializes in coaching services for managers, executives, and small business owners.

For tips on leadership and professional development, follow me:

• LinkedIn

• Facebook

If you are interested in working with me as a coach, contact me at

• Email: dcunion@yourpathexecutivesolutions.com

• Phone: 804-220-5771

Interested in working with an executive coach?