Alcoholic Employee Spotted Coming Out of Liquor Store: To Step In or Not Step In

Several years ago a supervisor met with me to ask about one of his recovering alcoholic employees

who he saw come out of a liquor store one weekend. The employee's work was satisfactory without any issues.

I guess it is a small town.

The $64K question was, should the supervisor intervene, confront the work on Monday, report it to HR, or blow it off. What would you do?

This employee was in fact referred to treatment several years earlier and a last chance agreement to keep good attendance and maintain productivity was still in effect. What should the supervisor do?

The answer is pretty cut and dry. Do nothing. Less you disagree, follow this path of logic and remember something important: Business organizations are all about productivity and contracts to pay for productivity. They are not business to be ambulance chasers, do-gooders, or involve themselves in the personal lives of employees. Remember as well that witnessing this incident was coincidental. It could have happened five minutes before or five minutes after the time that it did.

This employee may still not be drinking, but even it the supervisor saw the employee turn the bottle up on the way out the door, work performance at this point is still characterized as satisfactory.

Here is what I told the supervisor. Tell me in the comments if you agree. Like any employee, you have the freedom to contact the EAP for any reason you feel appropriate. I encouraged the supervisor to take this step. That step is a confidential one for the supervisor, and actually has some real risk management dimensions to it.

Although many concerned persons would react with alarm to what you have seen, realize that your focus should remain on the employee’s performance and that you don’t have enough information to make an accurate judgment about what you have seen. Your call to the EAP will be treated confidentially. Don’t expect the EAP to provide details of your employee’s treatment or say what will happen with the information you share. But yu can be the EAP will do a little bit of follow up to see how things are going if there is still any level of involvement still in place. There is no guarantee, but it is likely. So far, so good.

Focusing on performance is the surest way to help the employee to not only be a good performer, but to also follow through with whatever his or her program of recovery entails.

Remember, you can’t control the employee’s behavior or outcomes in his or her personal life. Realize, too, that events such as this one frequently have simple explanations. For example, your employee in recovery may have had second thoughts and simply left the store, paid an old debt, or said good-bye to the clerk he never plans to see again!

#supervisortraining #newsupervisor #supervisoryskills

Phone 1-800-626-4327 to get a 25% discount of the 14 Vital Skills for Supervisors Program this monthly only! See the 50% of each of its skills here.

Do you have a training program about Alcohol Abuse? It is a good idea to educate your employees about substance abuse because even if they do not have a problem themselves, a family member may indeed be severely in trouble, and such education always travels home. Find drug and alcohol problems here.

To learn more about WorkExcel.com, download our free materials by signing up to receive useful products on the home page here at http://workexcel.com

Women in the Workplace 2018: A Comprehensive Ground Breaking Research Study 2018

There's a lot of critical information in this new report on women in the workplace.

Despite the push to grow more diverse and inclusive workplaces, African American women in top management are still quite rare.

And there are more findings in this report critical to workforce management.

The new 2018 Women in the Workplace Study is a document you should read for three important reasons:

1) awareness for the problem of barriers to gender diversity that still exist;

2) the reliability of the information found in the document that discusses many aspects of modern day institutional discrimination; and

3) ideas about how you can make a difference in your role no matter what it might be.

The study was conducted by the prestigious 

http://www.icontact-archive.com/YAuysBsJ0Zzmn9lCXd4C99Oqz2AMSdZW?w=3

Managing Poor Performing Employees with An Ultimatum that Works

Supervision skills are not just about managing employee behavior, coaching, inspiring, and

praising workers. They are also about knowing when NOT to do those things, and to instead use resources outside of the supervisor's realm to intervene with unacceptable or unsatisfactory performance.

And here is the signal for when to do just that -- when you are failing at changing behavior.

When you can honestly say, "Wow, things are not changing, and my supervisory skills are not making a large enough dent!" -- Say that, and it's time to look outside the supervisory toolbox realm.

So, what's the next path?

The answer: some sort of professional or counseling help with your company's employee assistance program. (Do you have one? No worries. I will discuss another suitable path.)

If you have an EAP, do not see this program as a nice self-referral benefit for employees. This is absolutely the wrong paradigm. What EAPs are, are management tools--pro-employee and pro-management, neutral source management tools to salvage workers.

Sure EAPs take self-referrals you never hear about, but they were never initially designed for that purpose. They were created to salvage troubled workers with awesome skills.
You do not lose valuable workers just because they are sick or temporarily nuts.

Listen and email publisher@workexcel.com to receive the second half of this audio instruction guide

TURN SPEAKERS UP!

PART 1
http://workexcel.com/content/Interveen/01%20-%20Track%201.mp3

PART 2
http://workexcel.com/content/Interveen/02%20-%20Track%202.mp3

Diseases, psychological problems, and other stimuli that adverse affect performance are treatable. Repeating -- don't lose employees because of personal problems that are adversely affecting performance.
======================================================
Preview our entire world famous Supervisor Training Program here.
======================================================

If you do not have an employee assistance program, you can still leverage job security to motivate your employee to accept help and go to a helpful resource. It's all in the wrist. By this I mean the formulation of an appropriate disciplinary action that you will promise without any doubt, to deliver and dispense in response to an incident that just occurred which represents the type of performance problems you have been discussing with your employee.

Okay -- at this point, there is the disciplinary action sitting on the table in front of you and the employee -- what's next? What's next is up to the employee.

Either he or she accepts a referral to a professional counselor who can determine the nature of any existing problem with a release signed by the employee to inform you about whether there is a problem or not, but not what it is.  ...... or WHAM! A legitimate disciplinary action is given for the latest unacceptable infraction. Simple.

By the way, when the employee makes the wrong impulsive choice, have small discussion and let them understand the ramifications. See below.

Also that release should remain active so you can get phone calls reporting that the cooperation recommendations continuing.

Remember this is all up to the employee voluntarily in order to avoid the immediate dispensing of the disciplinary action.

Part of your conversation as a supervisor will also be to promise that participation in counseling if it is recommended or any treatment program if that should be the case, and that this will not affect or in any way impede or hamper or negatively affect the employee's job security, promotional opportunities, pay, or status with the organization, and that the entire matter will remain out of the personnel file.

Sound like a good deal? It is!

Let this message sink in while you are sitting there with the employee. Then ask, "what do you want to do?" If the employee says, I have no personal problems, repeat what you are offering. This is a statement the employee will use as a side door to escape this "no win" scenario (actually it is a win-win for the organization in that the problem is being resolved today.)

95% of employees in my experience will accept the professional help, assessment, referral, and signed release of information and agreement to cooperate with a therapist over the disciplinary action. You are not diagnosing your employee. You are saying "Do you want to be accommodated in case a personal problem is contributed to these performance issues?"
If not, dispense the action including termination if necessary.

So, with the above you are saving the company, not the employee. You are putting the company first.

The disciplinary action must be appropriate, but the entire process above must be repeated up to and through termination if necessary. Eventually the employee will accept the help if a personal problem exists. Bet on it. Remember, he who care least wins, and this process is designed to protect the company with job security as powerful leverage for change.

The process described in this post works. If you have any doubt, feel free to download the following document

Get your supervisors trained with 14 Vital Skills for Supervisors and keep that practical training right in front of them all year long to reduce risk, increase productivity, create better engagement among your employees, and improve morale. Go here to preview our 14 Vital Skills for Supervisors education program and get all the formats at no extra charge PowerPoint training supervision skills, Web course you own, or DVD training for supervisors, and of course our favorite - videos.

#supervisor  #supervisortraining  #supevisorskills

Supervisor Training and Skills: Pay Attention to Employee Hangovers: Signal to Get Help?

Hung-over workers cost employers billions of dollars per year in lost productivity and absenteeism. Have you  seen an employee come to work with a hangover? Have you notice a pattern with some employees.

Although heavy drinkers and alcoholics (approximately 11 percent of drinkers) experience more hangovers and contribute to more financial loss, hung-over workers are more likely to be light to moderate drinkers because there are more of them.

All drinkers will occasionally over-use booze. In fact, this is precisely how all social drinkers know when to quit--they've experienced the toxic effects of drinking too much. Ouch. Alcoholic however lose control over their drinking, which means the time, place, amount of consumption, and what happens to them if they drink.

CLICK THE LINK TO JUMP TO THE SUPERVISOR TRAINING HANDOUT ON WORKPLACE SUBSTANCE ABUSE AND THE PROGRESSION OF SYMPTOMS YOU WILL SEE IN THE WORKPLACE.

Don't think that a hung-over employee is more likely to be an alcoholic or is a troubled employee automatically. The key is a pattern of problems.

Alcoholics do have hangovers, but social drinkers do too. A hangover means you drank too much, or at least enough to feel the affects of acetaldehyde - a metabolite of digested alcoholism and a toxic substance. Most people return to this nasty experience with long periods of avoidance in between. Alcoholics not so much. They have more frequent hangovers.

Some people can get a hangover from just a couple of drinks. Coming to work with a hangover can pose substantial risk to yourself and others even if you have a zero blood-alcohol level. So here's is a bit of advice.

Take a look at this chart above ( click to see the supervisor training handout -- or click here ) to get the supervisor training handout. Give it to your supervisors. Yes, it is $17, but it is also reproducible forever. I call it supervisor training for substance abuse on one sheet of a paper.

Use your company's EAP and refer employees with patterns of problems before crises begin.Document efficiently. The handout will help train supervisors because it has the right signs and symptoms it that can be relied upon for documentation.

Check out -- see it all -- our 14 Vital Skills for Supervisors--our supervisor training and skills program is used world-wide.

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Supervisors and Leadership: Helping Your Employee Generate and Act on Great Ideas

You have many employees with great ideas. These ideas might be for new products, new processes, or even management ideas you can employee as a supervisor. Can you do anything as supervisor to help your employees not only consider great ideas, but not forget about them? Imagine the ideas that float around in your employees minds. Here's how to empower these workers to win for themselves and the work organization.

Let's assume therefore that you have had employees with amazing ideas in the past but

they didn’t act. Start with awareness for why employees give up on their great ideas. New ideas often challenge the status quo and, when examined, feel as if they are outside one's comfort zone. Help employees to feel comfortable challenging their comfort zones. And don't forget you told them to do so!

Remind your employees that it is not you that is holding them back. It's them, more than likely. In fact the following issues typically undermine great ideas. 1) Fear of failure – what you imagine will happen if the idea flops; 2) Fear of success – apprehension about what will be different if you succeed; 3) Procrastination – this postpones or avoids the pain of #1 or #2; 4) Depression and anxiety – these conditions undermine excitement (seek evaluation/treatment if you suspect that they are holding you back); and 5) Inertia – the tendency to do nothing or have things remain unchanged is its own force for inaction. 6) Erosion of excitement - employees with great ideas get excited, but the mind will maintain this level of excitement unless action is taken. So encourage employees to act.

Inspiring employees, praising them, and motivating them to take action by giving them a vision that they truly covet -- one that let's them see what's on the other side of the mountain top is a critical supervisory skill. You train all the supervisors in your company to think in these dimensions with 14 Vital Skills for Supervisors, our worldwide appreciated and celebrated course for any corporation. Go here to see the entire program.

Anger in the Workplace: Supervisor Skills that Build Effective Relationships Can Help

Not all employees handle anger at work in the same way. Some struggle with it regularly, while others may have rare experiences that trigger them to display an unprofessional

scene of discontent.

As a supervisor, if you blow up at disappointments perpetrated by management or your staff, rage at inconveniences, or bark at others’ mistakes, then you probably recognize that you have an anger management problem.

Are you still struggling to get a handle on it?

The change you want entails education about anger, self-awareness, and triggers; practicing alternative responses; logging attempts at change; practicing response tactics; apologizing to others when you slip up; and measuring progress.

Anger responses become ingrained, which is why a programmatic approach is often needed to gain control in the long term. Talk to your company's employee assistance program or a counselor to discuss the pieces above and how to turn them into a plan that will give you results.

Learned management and supervisory skills can help you build more effective relationships with your subordinates, and this in turn can have a major impact on anger responses. You simply learn that there are more effective ways to handle your emotions. Consider our 14 Vital Skills for Supervisors program for your corporate supervisors. You can preview the full program for free. Phone use at 1-800-626-4327 to learn more.

Bright and Educated Employees Who Don't Perform...What to Do.

Do you have a bright employee you know is packed full of potential, but who is not producing the work product or quality you absolutely know they are capable of? You may feel like you are pulling teeth getting them to start producing at maximum levels.


Here's how to make an impact. Typically, if your reasonable attempts to correct performance have not worked, that’s a signal to consider a referral to someone who can interview the employee confidentially and conduct an psycho-social and occupational productivity assessment to find out what is causing your worker not to measure up to their potential. How do you convince such an individual to actually do this!?!

It is much easier than you think, but you must know where your bottom line of low productivity expectation is located, otherwise you will not find the leverage necessary to motivate change. 

You must first identify what level of performance you expect and then stick to your guns. The failure to measure up will be the level you have determined is minimally acceptable is the justification for your referral to a professional who can perform the proper assessment.

The assessment professional will not tell you about what takes place in this meeting, but will and must assure you that your employee came to the appointment and cooperated with recommendations given. This person can be an employee assistance professional operating within EAP principles, but it can also be a privately contracted counselor third party you temporarily hire to perform this function. 

First, before confronting your employee (I will share with you how momentarily) you should consider whether you have used appropriate management tools up to this point--everything but disciplinary action. For example, proper accountability is frequently overlooked by managers although they think it exists. For example, have you set up a procedure in which your employee is obligated to report decisions to you and justify those decisions and actions as they occur? Do you have a mutual understanding about the consequences of failure to meet certain defined outcomes? This is also called “transparency” in supervision. Negative feedback (and positive) should not follow only after the fact, but should be offered before decisions are made and undesirable outcomes are produced. Accountability and transparency in supervision relationships change the mind-set of employees and for many are all that’s required to produce the results managers expect but never thought they’d see.

The Hazards of Delay and Overlooking Employee Performance Evaluations

Are your employees supposed to get annual evaluations but in reality they are often overlooked or delayed? Have some employees gone 2-3 years without such evaluations. If you are like most supervisors, you do not like doing employee evaluations for a number or reasons. The first is that they are a hassle aren't they?

Even though annual evaluations are burdensome for supervisors, not doing them can create a ton of headaches, risk to the organization, and an out of control mob of employees you can't stuff back into the supervision conformity box.

You may notice that some difficult employees in your organization are also the ones who have not had a review in years. These may be employees who feel empowered, manipulate and frankly, start to become bullies. They are empowered without accountability, and begin making their own rules""running the asylum. is

the impact of not getting an evaluation regularly? In some organizations, it is not uncommon for employees to report that they have had infrequent performance evaluations. Years may pass between such reviews.

Regular performance evaluations help validate and increase an employee’s productivity. Failure to conduct regular reviews can contribute to problems among troubled employees because of diminished accountability for performance and behavior.

In many instances, behavioral problems worsen as time passes without a realistic performance review that would otherwise argue for change or some consequence. Some supervisors may avoid writing difficult performance evaluations for employees with problematic performance. Each year that passes without the evaluation makes it more difficult to write one without surprising and angering the employee whose poor performance has long been tolerated. You never have to worry about how to manage employees and help them reach full productivity with a program called "Oh, So Easy!" 14 Vital Skills for Supervisors.

Disrespect in the Workplace---How Do You Respond?

Do you see a fair amount of disrespect between coworkers on the job—things like backbiting, name-calling, gossip, and being inappropriate with jokes? Have you dismissed this sort of behavior and attributed it to stress or the economy? Have you said to yourself, well, employees need to vent a little bit.

STOP! Don’t be fooled, it isn’t the stress, and it isn’t “just the nature of the business.” If backbiting, name-calling, gossip, and general nastiness are the norm where you work, then you’ve got yourself a respect problem—one that you need to get a handle on yesterday, if not sooner.

Few things buy trouble like excusing bad behavior. Left unchecked, disrespectful interactions feed on themselves, growing into a culture of personal conflict and simmering resentment that will eventually undermine your mission and productivity. No one wants to work in such an environment, and your best employees certainly won’t. They’ll leave, and you’ll be stuck with the mess. 

Respect is an institutional mind-set that must be promoted and practiced from the top down. As a manager, you’re on the front line in this struggle, and although it can be daunting, you have the influence and control to stop it. Consider the following programs to help gain superior skills in managing respect and employee behavior.

1. 14 Vital Skills for Supervisors
2. Mastering the Respectful Workplace

Energize and Inspire Employees As A New Supervisors

Every conversation with your employees produces one of three results: positive impact, no

GET THIS TRAINING PROGRAM AT 14 Vital Skills for Supervisors

impact or negative impact. You want to create as many positive encounters as possible.

To inspire people, set their sights on a faraway goal that’s so exciting and potentially rewarding that they cannot help but covet it. Help them visualize what it’ll feel like to reach the mountaintop—to know that they gave every ounce of their effort to deliver superior performance. 

Skip the long speeches when you’re trying to inspire employees. Instead, summarize a tantalizing goal and then ask lots of questions. That will turn your workers into true believers.

Try these techniques to engage them: Remind workers of their past triumphs. Ask them to reflect on what drove them to achieve successful outcomes in the past. Examples: “When you won the Jones account, what did you learn that you can apply to this challenge?”, “Remember your great work organizing our Hawaii convention? How about topping yourself by planning an even greater convention next year?” 

Probe to identify your employees’ source(s) of inspiration. Ask them to tell you whom they admire as a mentor. Examples might include their parents, siblings, friends or teachers. Armed with this information, you can ask each employee how his or her most cherished role model would approach the situation at hand.

Align their interests with yours. Succinctly explain why the goal is important to you and your organization. Then give the employee a chance to chime in. Use this format: “Here’s why it matters to me. Why does it matter to you?” In terms of praising employees, ignore the conventional wisdom of dishing out daily doses of compliments to everyone you supervise.

It’s better to recognize superior effort or performance rather than try to praise everyone, everyday. Praise resonates more deeply when you express it just before and just after an employee takes on an assignment.

When you delegate a project, offer a brief expression of support (“Jim, you’re our expert on this, so I’m sure you’ll do a good job,” “Mary, with your work ethic and determination, I won’t have to worry about this getting done right”). And when the employee completes the assignment successfully, acknowledge the fine work (“Ray, your sophisticated analysis really helped us beat the competition,” “Jane, I appreciate you stepping in at the last minute and doing such fantastic work”).

Praise also carries more weight when it’s specific. Go beyond saying “Good job” and give details of what you admired most about the individual’s work. Examples: “Good job staying calm with that irate customer,” “Great work answering all of those phone lines when we were swamped this morning,” “I’m so pleased that you trained those temps so quickly to use our new software.”

Mix public and private praise. Save time in staff meetings to spotlight those employees who deserve kudos. Lead the group in a round of applause for your starring employees and ask them to stand and perhaps say a few words to the team. Their comments can prove just as inspiring as yours, especially if they thank their peers.

Saluting outstanding performance lifts everyone’s morale; even those workers who are not basking in applause will see that you value outstanding effort and they’ll push harder to excel in the future.

When you praise in private, maintain eye contact and avoid distractions. Speak with passion and sincere appreciation. And don’t follow praise by making a request; that can seem manipulative and undermine the goodwill you seek to establish. 

At its best, praise serves as a management tool. If you want to induce certain behavior among your team, praise individuals already exhibiting it. To spur workers to propose ways that improve operations, praise the clerk who came up with a money-saving idea. To highlight the need for superior customer service, praise service reps who inconvenience themselves to satisfy a demanding client.

WARNING: Never praise out of obligation.  If you sense an employee craves recognition, don’t feel you must find a way to compliment the person. Instead, dangle a challenge. If the employee accepts your challenge and delivers fine results, then your praise will truly matter. TIP: Nothing will inspire employees more than the opportunity to achieve personal goals that add meaning and excitement to their lives.

Listen carefully to your employees and help them identify personal work goals—magnificent obsessions—that fit within the goals of the organization or work unit. IT’S TRUE: In survey after survey, employees indicate that they value praise, recognition and a positive, high-morale workplace more than pay.

So, ask yourself, do you find it’s just as easy to recognize people for what they do right than to chastise them for what they do wrong. Think about this. You have reflexes, and they may be reflexes to be more negative than positive in order to feel more empowered with yourself. 

A Manager's Guide to Superior Customer Service

Sure employees get training in customer service. That's critical. But, unfortunately, there is one person who is in charge. It's the supervisor.

If supervisors don't know how to lead customer service teams, then all the training  employees get can be for naught. Well, problem solved.

Here is a course for supervisors that hits every key point.

Cost: $79.00
CEUs: 0.3 (Contact Hours: 3)
Access Time: 30 days
Course Description

A Manager's Guide to Superior Customer Service explores the art and science of developing a superior customer experience. Customers are vital to any organization and superior customer service can pay large financial dividends.
Learning Outcomes

•     Explain the concept of the comprehensive customer experience
•     Discuss the case for offering superior customer service
•     Describe the customer service philosophies of leading companies. including Apple,
      Nordstrom,   L.L. Bean, and others
•     Discuss the concept of performance measurements and Key Performance
      Indicators (KPIs)
•     Describe the use of the Net Promoter Score (NPS)
•     Discuss the Voice of the Customer (VoC) process
•     Outline ways to build customer loyalty
•     Explain how to calculate lifetime Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)
•     Discuss the issues involved in managing customer service
•     Describe how to establish customer service expectations
•     Discuss the approach to providing customer service on different platforms (in-person, over
      the phone, online)
•     Explain approaches for handling difficult customers

Key Features

•     Expert-supported
•     Mobile-friendly
•     Accessible
•     Badge and credit-awarding
•     Games & Flashcards
•     Real-world case studies
•     Audio-enabled in app

https://www.workexcel.com/supervisor-training-and-leadership-education-courses-online/#ManagementRefund Policy

You may request a refund up to 5 days from the purchase date. The registration fee will only be refunded if less than 10% of the course has been completed. Completion percentage can be viewed on the Course Progress page from within the course.
Notes

Estimated time to complete: 5 hours

This course has an "Ask the Expert" feature, which submits your questions directly to an expert in the field you are studying. Questions are answered as quickly as possible and usually within 24 hours.

This course does not require any additional purchases of supplementary materials.

Learners must achieve an average test score of at least 70% to meet the minimum successful completion requirement and qualify to receive IACET CEU credit. Learners will have three attempts at all graded assessments.

Get started here.

Reasonable Suspicion Training to Spot Substance Abusing Employees

You will not see skills in spotting substance abuse as a popular and well promoted supervisor training topic, however, every supervisor should be educated in this topic. Essentially, reasonable suspicion training is about spotting two things 1) Signs and symptoms of substance abuse actively being used in the workplace or the withdrawal symptoms thereof; and, 2) performance related signs and symptoms that may have absolutely nothing to do with alcoholism or drug addiction, but serve as the basis for a referral to a professional counselor where a personal problem, if existing--including substance abuse--can be identified and referred for treatment by a professional.

Examples of substance abuse signs and symptoms can be found here:
On this chart. . . .

And workplace performance related signs and symptoms can be found here:
On this chart.....

Together these two sets of signs and symptoms will give supervisors most of what they need to confront an employee and refer for possible drug/alcohol use on the job or referral to an employee assistance program. The video on reasonable suspicion training located here will lead you to a non-dot and dot supervisor training option for pulling this program together.

Energize employees by taking every opportunity to recognize their contributions and urging them to excel.

Every conversation with your employees produces one of three results: positive impact, no impact or negative impact.

You want to create as many positive encounters as possible. To inspire people, set their sights on a faraway goal that’s so exciting and potentially rewarding that they cannot help but covet it.

Help them visualize what it’ll feel like to reach the mountaintop—to know that they gave every ounce of their effort to deliver superior performance. 

Skip the long speeches when you’re trying to inspire employees. Instead, summarize a tantalizing goal and then ask lots of questions. That will turn your workers into true believers.

Try these techniques to engage them: Remind workers of their past triumphs. Ask them to reflect on what drove them to achieve successful outcomes in the past. Examples: “When you won the Jones account, what did you learn that you can apply to this challenge?”, “Remember your great work organizing our Hawaii convention? How about topping yourself by planning an even greater convention next year?” 

Probe to identify your employees’ source(s) of inspiration. Ask them to tell you whom they admire as a mentor. Examples might include their parents, siblings, friends or teachers. Armed with this information, you can ask each employee how his or her most cherished role model would approach the situation at hand.

Align their interests with yours. Succinctly explain why the goal is important to you and your organization. Then give the employee a chance to chime in. Use this format: “Here’s why it matters to me. Why does it matter to you?”

In terms of praising employees, ignore the conventional wisdom of dishing out daily doses of compliments to everyone you supervise. It’s better to recognize superior effort or performance rather than try to praise everyone, everyday.

Praise resonates more deeply when you express it just before and just after an employee takes on an assignment. When you delegate a project, offer a brief expression of support (“Jim, you’re our expert on this, so I’m sure you’ll do a good job,” “Mary, with your work ethic and determination, I won’t have to worry about this getting done right”).

And when the employee completes the assignment successfully, acknowledge the fine work (“Ray, your sophisticated analysis really helped us beat the competition,” “Jane, I appreciate you stepping in at the last minute and doing such fantastic work”). Praise also carries more weight when it’s specific. Go beyond saying “Good job” and give details of what you admired most about the individual’s work.

Examples: “Good job staying calm with that irate customer,” “Great work answering all of those phone lines when we were swamped this morning,” “I’m so pleased that you trained those temps so quickly to use our new software.”

Mix public and private praise. Save time in staff meetings to spotlight those employees who deserve kudos. Lead the group in a round of applause for your starring employees and ask them to stand and perhaps say a few words to the team.

Their comments can prove just as inspiring as yours, especially if they thank their peers. Saluting outstanding performance lifts everyone’s morale; even those workers who are not basking in applause will see that you value outstanding effort and they’ll push harder to excel in the future. When you praise in private, maintain eye contact and avoid distractions. Speak with passion and sincere appreciation.

And don’t follow praise by making a request; that can seem manipulative and undermine the goodwill you seek to establish.  At its best, praise serves as a management tool. If you want to induce certain behavior among your team, praise individuals already exhibiting it.

To spur workers to propose ways that improve operations, praise the clerk who came up with a money-saving idea. To highlight the need for superior customer service, praise service reps who inconvenience themselves to satisfy a demanding client. WARNING: Never praise out of obligation.

If you sense an employee craves recognition, don’t feel you must find a way to compliment the person. Instead, dangle a challenge. If the employee accepts your challenge and delivers fine results, then your praise will truly matter.

TIP: Nothing will inspire employees more than the opportunity to achieve personal goals that add meaning and excitement to their lives. Listen carefully to your employees and help them identify personal work goals—magnificent obsessions—that fit within the goals of the organization or work unit.

IT’S TRUE: In survey after survey, employees indicate that they value praise, recognition and a positive, high-morale workplace more than pay. So, ask yourself, do you find it’s just as easy to recognize people for what they do right than to chastise them for what they do wrong. Think about this. You have reflexes, and they may be reflexes to be more negative than positive in order to feel more empowered with yourself. 

Harassment Prevention at Work Is Much More than Sexual Harassment Education

Less that half of all lawsuits for workplace harassment are sexual in nature. However, sexual harassment gets the most attention in the media.

This is a grave error for human resource managers--to only see harassment prevention training as something only associated with sexual harassment. Now there is a course, only found at WorkExcel.com that covers all the forms of workplace harassment and delivers the information employees need in a fascinating 12 minute video, PowerPoint, DVD, or our favorite--a web course you own and upload to your own Web site complete with test, handout, and certification of completion to hand to your insurance company to prove due care.

Unfortunately, every company faces these risk if they have over 15 employees, and state laws cover all employers in most cases. Lawsuits against employers for failure to prevent many types of harassment can be enormous due to the Civil Rights Act of 1991 which establish financial awards for workplace violations against employers.

So, there are many other types of workplace harassment and they are also illegal. Most companies aren’t doing anything about these risks. They aren’t providing general anti-harassment training. They are ticking time-bombs without trained and aware employees--and supervisors who speak and act before they think.

There are many types of illegal harassment in the workplace ranging from religious, pregnancy, race, disability, ethnicity, and more. Making employees aware of these forms of harassment is critical, but few organizations are doing so. Most are just taking their chances. They don’t know where to get workplace harassment training so they can assemble a program. They are playing with fire without one.

Don't Just Do Nothing Workplace Harassment Training
While most companies do nothing about general workplace harassment training, others have a handbook or letter from the CEO. That’s nice, but this doesn’t cut it. What’s missing is training, awareness, and an emotional connection with the content to influence the employees powerfully and effectively so they remember to steer away from these behaviors at the very moment impulse strikes.

Lawsuits cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Out of court settlements for harassment are common and the awards can also be astronomical. Here’s the problem. If you get sued, you have a 60% chance of losing either way -- with an out of court settle or a jury trial. Those are terrible odds.
But for $397 you can have a program to educate employees. Sounds like a bargain? It is.

Reduce your risk of lawsuits from harassment with an intense short presentation that includes a handout and test questions.


WorkExcel.com’s program will help employees think twice because the content makes an impact. Avoiding Workplace Harassment covers the types of harassment the U.S. Federal government has deemed illegal. Anti-harassment training can be accomplished in about 12 minutes. There is no fluff in this anti-harassment training program.

You may have struggle to find a general program on harassment. There are very few. Since you obviously need employee trained and aware, you can stop looking.

All business leaders worry about risk and problems of mutual employee respect in the workplace. You can lose sleep over it. Preventing workplace harassment will help you know you have something solid in place. This workplace harassment training program solves the problem with a PowerPoint with sound (or use without sound), a Web course to document education and satisfy risk management needs, a DVD, or a Web video you can place on your Web site. You own these products after purchase. You control them. They are also editable and brand-able.

For such a low cost, why ignore this problem any longer? You can stop thinking about finding an general harassment program. That takes time and energy and you are most likely to keep kicking the can down the road. You have it here: Avoiding Workplace Harassment and you can download it after purchase today.

The Equal Employment Opportunity commission recommends training in harassment prevention for all employees. And many companies make it mandatory because their attorneys said, “do it!” What better proof of need is there?

When employees are aware of boundaries and respect, workplace morale improves, conflicts are fewer, and productivity increases. There are also improvements in workplace communication. All of it flows from education and awareness, and resulting behavior changes that will come after training with Avoiding Workplace Harassment.

Anti Harassment Training Pays Off

You will experience fewer complaints in the HR office or directly to top management itself that are related to harassment after offering this presentation and having all of your employees sign a statement that they saw it and completed the test questions. You will also sense better communication and improve morale, and have a general sense of improved respect among employees. Anti-harassment training pays off.

If you do not experience enormous paybacks as described, or you sense this unique program from WorkExcel.com is not effective for your purposes, a full refund is yours with no questions asked.

Use the shopping care on this page to order this workplace harassment training product now. Or print the Avoiding Workplace Harassment Brochure and fax to 843-884-0442. Request the Web course if your employees are scattered far and wide. If you have a classroom setting you can use the PowerPoint or DVD format. Request two formats and the less cost format (or same cost format is 50% off.)

You should not wait to obtain this training program and begin anti-harassment training. Risk exists every day and eventually these risks catch up to employers. Don't let that be you. You want to act before bad things happens. You want to think upstream. Be able to prove to the court that you took "due care" in educating employees about workplace harassment prevention. Don’t put this one off. You can download the product today.


What's in the Avoid Workplace Harassment Program? The program includes:


A discussion of what Is In the Workplace Harassment Training Program

• When most people think of workplace harassment, they usually imagine . . .
• But there are other forms of harassment associated with work and employment ...
• It’s important to know about the legal definition of harassment ...
• Harassment is unwelcome conduct that is based on...
• Harassment becomes unlawful where ...
• Offensive conduct may include things ...
• There are virtually no restrictions who can be harasser. It could be...
• And the victim of harassment does not have to be ...
• Has your workplace behavior ever crossed the line...
• Workplace harassment is covered by Title VII of the Civil ...
• A Key Myth to Dispel
• None of us think of ourselves as the type of person ...
• The great myth of harassment is that...
• Understand Individual Boundaries
• A little "good-nature" fun to one person may be offensive ...
• The workplace relationship unavoidably influences ...
• Friends at work do not equate to college roommates ...
• Even if you socialize with your coworkers off the job...
• Our increasingly diverse culture has made it very difficult ...
• Even ethnic, racial, or cultural jokes ...
• As a rule, gauge your comments in mixed company. Avoid negative ...
• It’s okay to say ...
• More specifically, the ability to be aware of your reaction toward others, and pay attention ....
• Types of Harassment
• Almost all harassment has one thing in common...
• To be on the safe side follow this rule...
• Harassment vs. Offensive Behavior
• Although good manners and civility are the general expectations of your employer, unlawful harassment is necessarily ...
• The important point is this...
• So, how can you avoid ...
• The answer is to practice ...