Workplace Organization

Why do 50% of startups fail after 5 years? What is happening within these companies, that after ten years, only 30% are still active?

The reasons for failure can be many, but a key building block for success is finding the right team.

‍Startups are small - very small. The foundations and fuel of the company are almost entirely derived from the skills of the team behind it. Because generous budgets are a luxury startups do not often enjoy, the available resources are limited to what your small group of ambitious visionaries is bringing to the table.

Everyone in your ranks should be a bit of a workhorse. In a startup, being driven, self-motivated, and passionate are essential. Each one of you would never say no to a task considered too small because you all know that every job is equally critical to the company’s success.

Because these qualities are a given, let’s look at the three people you absolutely need to find for your company.

The Visionary

This is usually the founder or CEO of the company, but the qualities would be equally as beneficial coming from any employee!

A visionary sees the big picture and empowers everyone around them to help build their dreams. Charisma comes naturally to a visionary, who is so impassioned by their ideas that they could get you excited about any new project.

Within the company, the visionary encourages all team members to share their ideas as well.  While cultivating a work place culture of open communication and collaboration, they also reach out beyond the company to make connections and establish relationships with investors and partners.

A visionary brings an optimism that will keep you all encouraged through the bumps and hurtles which will inevitably come your way. Just make sure they aren’t too impulsive—a little self-restraint and level-headedness are definitely assets.

The Structure Giver

The Yin to the visionary’s Yang, a structure giver is the person who gives shape to ideas. This person sees the vision and identifies the steps needed to get there.

Defining roles, outlining goals, and monitoring performance fall under this team member’s to-do list.

When looking for the right person to fill this role, you want someone who is reliable, organized, inventive, and being a penny pincher also doesn’t hurt. However, for all of their type A personality traits, they are still adaptable. The structure giver within a startup must always maintain a certain malleability—listening to others, staying approachable, and communicating effectively will ensure the company functions as a democracy, not a dictatorship.

The People Person

You are all working very hard, but please, for your own sake don’t forget you are human beings! Putting your heads down and grinding the days out may be productive for a while, but it will inevitably tire everyone out.

Having someone on your team that is naturally a social butterfly and morale booster will keep the positivity alive. You can usually identify the talkative trait in a face to face interview very quickly, but it's not just about being chatty.

This person should be highly perceptive and able to shift their perspective at key moments. They know when a night out for drinks is needed or if the appropriate solution is to offer a helping hand to a stressed out co-worker. They are the consummate listener and mediator: when someone opens up about a problem, they know how to respond and find a solution.

Think of your people person as your HR department, but because you’re a startup, less of a department and more an invaluable force of positive, compassionate energy.

As you sift through resumes hunting for that perfect combination of dreamer and doer, take a moment to reflect on why these applicants are attracted to working for you. Yes, startups are exciting and offer a chance for rapid personal growth and innovation, but they are also agile, fast-paced, and demanding. Many hopefuls are not aware of how vastly different the attitude and skills needed in this environment are from those in a much larger and more stable organization.

But you do know.

So now, your job is to read between the lines of their carefully crafted cover letters and to find indications of courageousness: a startup is no place for the risk-adverse.

You cannot rely on their self-describing adjectives: so they say they are innovative, but what concrete examples of creative “outside-the-box” thinking can they provide?

Lastly, when you think you really have found the right person, have your entire team interview them. A startup is no place for big egos. Put in a room with the rest of your A+ quality team, an arrogant applicant will likely let their need to be the biggest star in the room slip out.

Don’t rush into hiring someone- hold out for the person who can work with every member of your team. Your company’s life depends on it.

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You know what else your startup can't live without? A full circle recognition and rewards program!

Meetings are a necessary part of company management but have a bad reputation for often being ineffective and time-consuming. Employees and management alike are all too aware of those meetings that run far too long and don’t accomplish their goals. Even with an agenda, group meetings can easily be thrown off track and one on ones can become one-sided lectures. As attention spans dwindle, employees disengage, and the clock ticks away valuable company time, you may think to yourself, there has got to be a better way!

Well, there is!

‍Group meetings and one on one sessions can be utilized strategically to achieve different results. Knowing the strengths and weaknesses of the two models will save your company time without sacrificing any of the benefits.

The Group Gathering

There will never be enough time in the day for everything on your team’s to-do list, so setting aside time specifically for a meeting guarantees you a chance to address the entire office. Now that you have this distraction-free period, how should it be used?

A group meeting can benefit your organization in several ways a one-on-one cannot. This is a chance to get everyone on the same page and foster communication, collaboration, and workplace culture.

‍Departments that wouldn’t regularly interact with one another and employees who work remotely and rarely make it into the office can all be called into the same room. With a group meeting, you have the ability to create an interactive environment where new perspectives, ideas, and knowledge can be shared. Something someone says or proposes may inspire a new collaboration or project, fostering an ongoing relationship beyond the boardroom.

With group meetings, watch out for the age-old problem of “too many cooks in the kitchen.” When there are multiple voices vying to share thoughts and comments, the meeting’s schedule can fall off track and that allotted thirty minutes may turn into an hour. Make sure there is a clear leader in the conversation to ensure you stay on track and cover everything on the agenda for the day. Don’t be afraid to cut a conversation short - make a note to schedule a follow-up time for those involved and move onto your next topic.

The One-On-One

The best part of a one-on-one meeting is just that: it’s one-on-one. Making time for an employee shows you care and is the optimal time to check in with that member of your staff on how they are doing in their role, their strengths, weaknesses, and what you can do to help them succeed.

This is your chance to have a personal, honest conversation. Whether it be with a new employee or someone who has been with the company for years, an individual meeting gives you both an opportunity to build a stronger relationship and trust. You can use this time to ask about anything! You may want to know about your employee’s experience with new policies the company implemented, their overall job satisfaction, or even provide feedback yourself on their job performance.

The key here is to be careful that you don’t monopolize the conversation, or you will miss out on learning more about the person in front of you.

Understanding the members of your team on a personal and professional level will help you utilize their personality and skills to their maximum potential. You are effectively assessing the parts of the whole; knowing the members of the team will give you invaluable insights on how to help the group function as a whole.‍

One-on-one meetings are extremely useful when time is tight. If hitting all your pertinent topics is crucial, a personal meeting will be the better option since you can manage the conversation and won’t have other voices to contend with. Also, shy employees who wouldn’t necessarily feel comfortable speaking up in front of the office will be more engaged and involved in a one-on-one.

If meetings are something you are just beginning to implement, it is important to let staff know that this is a new company-wide practice. Be clear that the intention is to help management connect the team and establish a new workplace culture; employees may feel singled out or concerned that meetings are a punishment if they are not aware of the actual reason.

Whatever meeting model you choose to use, always have clear objectives and an organized timeline going into it. There is nothing more frustrating than setting aside that invaluable time, and at the end of it realizing you haven’t accomplished what you needed to.

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Book your free demo with Qarrot to explore all things recognitions and rewards related!

If you own or operate a retail or food service business, you may be amongst the large percentage of companies that is stifling its managers and, by extension, the performance of your front-line.

Over 50% of the global economy is driven by businesses with “distributed networks” of sites and employees. Retailers, including food service and retail banks, are an important segment within this group. And for most of these businesses, McKinsey & Company has found that managers are being stifled. Whether by over-loading them with heavy administrative burdens, or simply not empowering them to make decisions critical to providing a good customer experience, these companies are undermining their own success.

According to McKinsey, front-line managers – including district or area managers as well as store managers – are not empowered to spend their time where it can create the most value. Instead of spending as much as 60% of their time on administrative tasks, front-line managers could be spending more time on the floor and coaching staff.

In fact, a lack of front-line coaching can be disastrous for service businesses, where research shows that the attitudes and behavior of customer-facing employees is strongly related to customers’ perceptions of service quality.

It’s no surprise then that Gallup has found hiring great managers can result in a 27% increase in revenue per employee. Gallup’s own research shows that many companies hire managers based on years of service or tenure instead of talent and their natural ability to lead. This natural ability to lead – to inspire employees, drive outcomes, overcome adversity, hold people accountable, build strong relationships, and make tough decisions – drives better performance by itself, but is also critical to overall employee engagement.

In fact, Gallup reports that naturally talented managers play an essential role in creating an engaged workforce, explaining at least 70% of the variance in the engagement of their teams. But many companies haven’t woken up to this reality. Based on 2012 data showing that the majority of American workers are either “not engaged” or are “actively disengaged” at work, Gallup calculates that low engagement levels are costing U.S. companies between $450 billion and $550 billion per year.

But before changing hiring practices, many companies ought to first rethink the role of their front-line managers. Rather than ‘cogs’ in the administrative machine of the company, the role of front-line managers should be about achieving improved store performance.

This may be easier said than done.

Current attitudes towards the role of front-line managers have left many believing that their ability to impact the business is limited. McKinsey reports one study showing that store managers spent more than half of their time on administration and felt they had no control over key performance drivers (such as sales in important product categories). The company in the study experimented with an improved store layout, streamlined reporting, and other strategies to free-up their managers to spend more time on the floor.

The results were impressive: Their managers were able to allocate 60 to 70% of their time on the floor, providing high-quality coaching to staff and interacting with customers. Through their coaching, managers were able to discuss strategies and performance metrics with their staff. This included a new performance scorecard, which helped focus staff on key behaviors like greeting customers when they enter the store and on “suggestive” selling. When rolled out across their store network, this new approach drove a 51% increase in productivity in one region and 65% in another.

With this mind, we believe retailers can make significant gains by both hiring great managers as well as implementing the strategies and practices that empower them to allocate more time to the floor, making decisions, and acting on opportunities.

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Engage your managers and empower them to motivate your front-line for better results with Qarrot! Book a demo!

Implementing an eLearning program in retail and franchise businesses will improve the effectiveness of front-line staff and positively impact overarching business objectives.

There are several elements that eLearning programs combine that make them particularly effective when deployed in organizations to train staff.

The gamification of eLearning programs means that competition is encouraged amongst staff, and points are accrued for carrying out desired actions. Employees are incentivized with perks, like gift cards, and are accordingly rewarded when they’ve achieved a high level of performance.When searching for an optimal eLearning platform, the following attributes should be considered:

• Interactive and engaging: Is the platform easy to access from mobile devices? Is the interface and user experience inviting, or would it be difficult to use the platform for a long period of time? Does it provide staff with clearly outlined goals and does it adequately convey rewards?
• Ability to customize: Are there facets of your business that need to be emphasized? Look for a platform that allows for flexibility.
• Administrative view: A robust platform should allow for management staff or corporate to analyze the progress of staff. It’s critical to have a clear view of the impact the platform is having, in addition to having insights on how employees are progressing. For franchise businesses, this would be especially important to track how various locations are faring compared to one another.

Ultimately, eLearning programs prep retail staff to best serve customers and mobilize them to work towards achieving sales and revenue objectives.

‍How to ensure the success of a virtual learning program

‍Prior to rolling out an eLearning program, businesses should assess the types of KPIs and metrics they will be focused on measuring. Bob Phibbs, a thought leader in the sales training industry, notes that businesses should be looking at not only higher sales, but also at the number of items per transaction and the average sales per employee per hour of work.

Once metrics and benchmarks are set, businesses should remember to frequently check in with staff to gauge their progress and their level of engagement with the platform.

‍Training programs deliver unparalleled results

‍In the same piece by Phibbs cited above, he explains that investing in a training program for front-line staff will produce results that a discount or marketing program wouldn’t be able to. What’s more, the training will stick with staff and improve their performance well into the future, as opposed to simply boosting sales for a temporary period of time.

‍Neglecting staff training is detrimental to businesses in the long run

‍As it turns out, businesses who believe there’s not a significant enough ROI on front-line staff training programs are mistaken.

Emad Rizkalla, CEO of Bluedrop Performance Learning, explains that companies failing to “develop their employees could be doing damage not only to morale, but to the bottom line as well.”

He cites a finding by HR Magazine that says “companies investing in $1,500 or more per employee per year on training average 24 percent higher profit margins than companies with lower yearly training investments.

Further findings to illustrate his claim include stats from the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD), including one that states that companies who offer comprehensive training have a 218% higher income per employee than those who offer lower quality training.

For companies with training programs, Rizkalla also points out that there are other less tangible, but equally important, outcomes. This includes “happier employees, better leaders and enhanced teamwork.”

Accordingly, Phibbs stresses that employers who invest in training programs will experience lower levels of turnover in their organizations.

Learn more about how to create an eLearning initiative that your front-line staff are motivated to complete!