How the Golden Rule Should Be Part of Your Employee Handbook

Founder/Owner: Lisa Marie Wark, MBA & Assoc.

Founder/President: BuyYourApp.com Revage Medical Spa, LLC Medspas.com

SVP Marketing: Century Wellness Clinic

SVP Marketing: Cancer Screening & Treatment Center of Nevada

Affiliated Associations

Public Board Member: Nevada Dental Board of Examiners

Consumer Advocate Board Member: American Board of Dental Examiners

Chairman Public Advocacy Committee: North Eastern Regional Board of Examiners

Lisa Marie Wark, MBA is a medical practice management firm and

media agency that is dedicated to the success of medical practices.

Golden Rule“Do unto others as you would have them do unto

you.”

The Golden Rule in the Work Place

Even if you have the gold and make the rules, the Golden Rule is not a set of laws, but is

• Internalized belief in how an individual should relate to others.

• It can hold employees accountable for how they outwardly treat each other in the workplace.

• common sense tenant to guide your business and those you employ.

Implementing the Golden Rule

The Greatest Challenge:

The biggest challenge with implementing the Golden Rule is

communicating this to employees.

“We know that communication is a problem, but the company is not going to discuss it with employees.”

Poor Communication Impacts the Golden Rule

• Increased employee turnover

• Increased absenteeism

• Poor customer service

• Ineffective change management

• Failed project delivery

• Greater incidence of injuries

• Higher litigation costs

• Lower shareholder return

Bad Customer Service 78% of consumers have

bailed on a transaction or not made an intended purchase because of a poor service experience.

A typical business hears from 4% of it's dissatisfied customers.

It takes 12 positive experiences to make up for one unresolved negative experience.

News of bad customer service reaches more than twice as many ears as praise for a good service experience.

Ineffective Change

Management Employees Don't

Receive Enough Information During Corporate Change

Decreases Employee Morale

Decreases Innovation

Lower Efficiency

Mistakes

• Two thirds of employees do not receive enough

information during corporate change.

• 84% of workers are caught up in some sort of change.

• Poor communication during change increases

misconduct by 42%. which affects the bottom

line and shareholder returns.

Increased employee turnover

• Research shows that 60-80% of all difficulties in organizations

come from strained relationships between employees, not from

deficits in individual employee’s skill or motivation.

• A Watson Wyatt study found that companies that communicate most effectively are more than

50% more likely to report turnover levels below the

industry average compared with only 33% for the least effective

communicators.

• The typical manager spends 25-40% of his or her time dealing with workplace conflicts. That’s one to two days of every work

week.

Increased absenteeism

Inadequate, inefficient and insensitive communication severely impacts employee motivation. This

in turn drives the employee's decision to come to work each day.

• One company study revealed that 18% of the variation in sickness and absence rates

across the company was due to variations in communication

practices.

• A more general study showed that where employees feel fully

informed, absence rates are below average.

• Workers who must take time off work because of stress, anxiety, or a work conflict will be off the

job for about 21 days.

Failed Project Delivery• 2 in 3 projects FAIL due to poor communication.

• Poor communication is cited as the main cause of failure for IT projects by 28% of respondents in a survey conducted by a national association of IT professionals.

Greater incidence of injuries

Inadequate communication is a major factor in many of these

incidents.

Occupational health and safety accidents and stress related

illnesses cost organizations and taxpayers billions of dollars each

year.

For example, the US Joint Commission for Hospital

Accreditation reported the primary root cause of

inadvertent patient harm was communication failure in over

70% ofcases.

Higher Litigation Costs

Employees feeling stress from poor relationships at work is a key driver of

company law suits.

• One survey puts the proportion of employees suffering relationship stress at 16%.

• Putting in place collaborative communication systems and processes for resolving conflict assists greatly in reducing the high cost of law suits.

• One study reports that organizations implementing collaborative conflict management systems reap savings in the order of 50% to 80%.

Lower Shareholder Return

• A Towers Watson study concludes that companies with highly effective communication practices enjoy 47% higher total returns to shareholders compared with firms that are least effective at communicating.

Other costs impacting companies include

• dampened innovation,

• lower employee productivity and increased incidence of product defects.

• cash flow and revenue, the balance sheet, with the top

Companies that put an emphasis on transparent communications experience an estimated 30% higher market valuation compared with their poorer communicating competitors.

Communication, Golden Rule, Leadership

Five Golden Rules in Employee Handbook

Define your organizational chart

Define SOPs & Job Descriptions for each department and Employee

Resolve Management Conflict quickly and swiftly

Implement Progressive Discipline Policy

Weekly and Daily Meetings and Annual Reviews

Organizational Chart

Five Reasons for Organizational

Charts

“Who is Who?” & “Who does What?”

Defines the function and role of every single individual in a company

so that there is room for accountability.

• Delineate work responsibilities

• Establishes specific tasks

• Clarify work relationships

• Establishes hierarchical structure of decision-making and power

• Provides you an information portal

Conflict Resolution

Managing Conflict

Define roles and responsibilities.

Avoid socializing the disagreement.

Address people in a non-confrontational manner.

Focus on the Solutions rather than the Problems

Sign off on a Mutual Agreement

Seek to minimize conflict by fostering a healthy,

communicative organizational culture.

Skillfully and swiftly resolve it once issues

arise.

SOPs Job Descriptions

5 Benefits of SOPs

Reduced learning curve/training time for new employees

Ensured business continuity

Standardized processes

Delegating tasks becomes a no-brainer

Ensure that your clients are getting the best possible experience with you

A Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) manual helps streamline your practice. This manual lists the all the tasks that are essential for your business success, how to do these tasks, and who is responsible for the tasks listed.

SOP is a living document, which is subject to change.  (It is good to review it quarterly). It is therefore useful to have it in electronic format on a web-based collaborative system so that all employees have access to the latest version.

Progressive Discipline

Policy

Progressive Discipline:

Progressive discipline during a twelve month period will be:

1 Violation =Verbal Counseling Session

2 Violations =Verbal Counseling Notice

3 Violations =Written Counseling Notice

4 Violations =One Day Suspension

5 Violations =Three Day Suspension

6 Violations =Termination

• Takes the drama out of correcting behavior

• It defines and catches poor patterns of behavior

• It helps the employee understand the boundaries of what is acceptable and/or not acceptable during work hours.

Huddles – Meetings – Annual Reviews

• 15 Minute Huddles – Recap of the previous work day conflict,

issues, etc.

• Helps with problem solving – What was accomplished?

• Employee Collaboration – Top 3 priorities

• Team Environment – Recognize team member compliments

• Patient Updates

• Strive for Continual Improvement

Golden Rule SummaryDefine the roles and responsibilities of all your Employees by clearly communicating the following:

• Create an organization flow chart• Job Descriptions• Standard Operating Procedures• Communicating on a daily basis (Huddles)• Implement a Progressive Discipline Policy• Resolve Conflict by focusing on the

Solutions

Resources• Workforce.com• Daniel Dana, Managing Differences: How to Build Better

Relationships at Work and Home (2005, 4th ed.); Barbara J. Kreisman, Insights into Employee Motivation, Commitment and Retention (2002)

• Stewart et al., 2003 • Washington Business Journal, May 2005 • American Psychological Association, 2004 • Northwestern National Life • American Institute of Stress • US Bureau of Labor Statistics • National Committee for Quality Assurance, 2002 • U.S. Surgeon General’s Report on Mental Health, 1999 • "Connecting Organizational Communication to Financial

Performance – 2003/2004 Communication ROI Study" (2003). Watson Wyatt & Company, 3 November 2003

Resources Con’t• Brown, A., Duncan, A., and MacDonald, F. (2003). "Proving

Communication Impacts Business Performance", Strategic Communication Management, Vol. 7, No.6, pp 28-33

• Pinnington, Dan (2011). "Communication-Related Errors Are the Most Common Cause of Real Estate Claims", Slaw online legal magazine,http://www.slaw.ca/2011/02/14/communication-errors-most-common-cause-real-estate-claims/

• Rucci, A., Kirn, S., & Quinn, R. (1998). "The Employee-Customer Profit Chain at Sears", Harvard Business Review, Vol 76, No 1, pp. 82-98

• "Capitalizing on Effective Communication – How Courage, Innovation and Discipline Drive Business Results in Challenging Times" (2010). Towers Watson, originally published by Watson Wyatt Worldwide,http://www.towerswatson.com/assets/pdf/670/NA-2009-14890.pdf

• "Survey: Poor Communication Causes Most IT Project Failures" (2007). Computerworld Inc.,http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9012758/Survey_Poor_communication_causes_most_IT_project_failures

Resources Con’t• Leonard, M., Graham, S. and Bonacum, D. (2004). "The Human Factor:

The Critical Importance of Effective Teamwork and Communication in Providing Safe Care", Quality and Safety in Health Care, 13, 85-90,http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1765783/pdf/v013p00i85.pdf

• WarrenShepel [online] (2005). Health & Wellness Research Database,http://www.shepellfgiservices.com/research/stats.asp

• Ford, John (2000). "Workplace Conflict: Facts and Figures",http://www.mediate.com/articles/Ford1.cfm

• English, Laurel (2005). "Tying Employee Communications to Organizational Value: In Search of the 'Missing Links'" http://www.english-communications.com/downloads/capstone.pdf

• http://www.holmesreport.com/expertknowledge-info/13511/Employees-Dont-Receive-Enough-Information-During-Corporate-Change.aspx#sthash.15F1P1xy.dpuf

• American Express Survey, 2011• “Understanding Customers” by Ruby Newell-Legner• White House Office of Consumer Affairs