How You Can Move Up the Ladder by Creating a Culture of Success
Look around your office. What is the average age of the middle and upper management employee? If the company where you work is privately owned, what is the age of the dealer principal(s)? For the next 16 years, baby boomers will be turning 65 at a rate of more than 8,000 per day. As more baby boomers in management positions retire, opportunities to advance to these newly vacant positions increase. The openings for promotions to mid and upper management levels are magnified within the office imaging industry because the copier industry came of age in the mid-1970s. The window of opportunity for advancement is opening wide for those who are prepared.
Rule 1 of being able to advance within your current employment is to have trained, mentored, and prepared someone else in your organization to take over your current responsibilities. At the same time, you should be creating a history of dependability, leadership, ongoing technical skills, critical thinking, management and leadership skills, self-directed education and understand how to create profit in a fair and equitable manner. If you want to be the prime candidate within your company to advance, you should consistently display the skills required to do the job on the next step of the managerial ladder.
Rule 2 is to always be on the lookout for people with initiative, talent, creativity, economical reasoning, and street smarts—basically, someone who has the ability to improve the profitability of your organization. Look for someone who has the potential do your job even better than you have been able to do it. As you rise up within corporate management, your ability as a senior leader is judged by the effectiveness of your department (group, team, division). Great leadership helps create future leaders.
A’s hire A’s. B’s hire C’s.
Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a target no one else can imagine.
– Donald Rumsfeld
So what issues are facing Generation X and Y in getting ready to take over? The American Management Association stated in newly released white paper that today’s employees need to be able to think critically, solve problems, innovate, collaborate, and communicate more effectively at every level within the organization. They must excel at the 4 Cs::
Critical thinking and problem solving—the ability to make decisions, solve problems, and take action as appropriate
Effective Communication—the ability to synthesize and transmit your ideas both in written and oral formats
Collaboration and team building—the ability to work effectively with others, including those from diverse groups and with opposing points of view
Creativity and innovation—the ability to see what’s NOT there and make something happen.
To excel in building an A team, you need to know how to hire the best possible candidates. The high unemployment rate and large college graduate population are not enough to guarantee the ease of finding and hiring the right candidate. Many of today’s office equipment dealerships are seeking new employees, both in service and sales. The ultimate service candidate that possesses both technical knowledge and the 4 Cs is rarely encountered. But when a future super star performer walks into the interview room, the person conducting the interview should be more prepared for the ensuing conversation than the interviewee.
How does the modern day service manager prepare to find and persuade an A applicant to come work for their company?
The days of finding a potential A applicant that is only concerned with their starting pay rate are long gone. The re-mingling of multi-generational households has created a deeper interest in how the long term financial, health and retirement responsibilities are being provided by one’s employer. As the economy improves and the hiring of new staff resumes there is a new standard of questions being asked by the candidate during a 2nd or 3rd interview or after a job offer is made but before the job is accepted. The days of merely mentioning a starting wage and, ‘We offer competitive benefits,’ is no longer acceptable when you are dealing with an A applicant. Today, the A interviewee requires specific clarification of what competitive benefits are being offered.
Most college graduates looking for a job are facing the need to repay student loans. The importance of affordable health insurance is factored into the offered base pay. The specific amount and percentage of health insurance co-pay and if the monthly cost is administrated through an approved tax deductible Cafeteria Plan is required. Often an itemized summary of health care benefits and a list of participating physicians are requested. Additional inquiries on the percentage of 401K matched contributions and 5 and 10 year annualized yield of the retirement program options are made.
A savvy service professional who is involved with the hiring procedures should come prepared to provide accurate answers to these types of questions. Those who say they will have to get back to you, or refer the candidate to the human resources personnel are immediately viewed as a pass-the-buck, non-leader. If you are interviewing a highly qualified A candidate for a technical position it is just as important for you to be as knowledgeable in your job as you expect the interviewee to be.
A preloaded thumb drive with your company’s logo can display your company’s ‘About Us’ statement, mission purpose, policy and procedure manual, health insurance options, 401K prospectus, co-pay educational offerings, and fully outlined paid time off programs. This may impress the A type of worker you are hoping to hire. Having a speaking knowledge of the complete package of benefits will make a great first impression, not just about the company but about your leadership style.
An additional approach that can be used during the interview sales pitch is, “Our benefits package represents the high standards that help develop and nurture our employees. The only way the company can afford these exceptional employee benefits is to have the entire staff working together to maximize the value we provide to our clients. In order to be competitive in the market place and be able to provide our employees with a superior compensation and benefits package, each member of our staff has to work to their full capability each day.
“The smarter and harder each employee works and the greater the commitment to our customers 40 hours each week, the greater our ability is to provide the benefits package that is being offered to you today. No privately owned company can provide an outstanding employee atmosphere without each employee consistently contributing to the necessary work for the achievement of our sales goals and providing our clients with superior customer interactions. An elite company does not happen by accident. We are always looking for a select few who can blend into our company culture of excellence.”
Service professionals who actually make the time to meet with highly qualified employment candidates before a job offer is made can maximize the mutual expectations that are being offered and weighted by both parties. Both people need to present their A game to maximize the first impression. If you want to be able to hire people who embody the 4 Cs and are legitimate candidates to eventually take over your current position and enable you to continue to be an effective leader in the future, bring your A game to the interview. Success requires continual creativity and energy. Individual service professionals who desire to attain higher management positions should have the power to create an energetic atmosphere of expectations, competency and accomplishment. Success breeds success.
