Improve your Business Through Values

There are four critical issues preoccupying the boardrooms of both large and small companies today:

How to attract and keep talented people?

How to increase profits and shareholder value?

How to increase creativity and productivity?

How to ensure ethics permeate the corporate culture?

Building a successful corporate culture and value-driven leadership teams has become the most significant source of brand differentiation in business today.

Why are values-driven companies the most successful?

Values drive culture

Culture drives employee fulfillment

Employee fulfillment drives customer satisfaction

Customer satisfaction drives shareholder value

What Are Values and Why Are They Important?

Values are deeply held principles that people hold or adhere to when making decisions. Individuals express their values though their behaviors and organizations express their values through their working culture.

Research shows that there is a strong link between financial performance and the alignment of an organization’s operating values to the employees’ personal values. Who you are and what your stands for is becoming just as important as the quality of products and services you provide.

In Corporate Culture and Performance, John P. Kotter and James L. Heskett shows that companies with strong adaptive value-driven cultures, outperformed other companies by a significant margin.

Kotter and Heskett found that companies had higher job creation rates, stock prices grew faster, and profit performance was 750 times higher than companies that did not have shared values and adaptive cultures.

In Built to Last, Jim Collins and Jerry Porras show that companies that consistently focused on building strong corporate cultures over a period of several decades outperformed companies that did not by a factor of six and outperformed the general stock market by a factor of 15.

John P. Kotter and James L. Heskett, Corporate Culture and Performance, (New York: The Free Press) 1992 James C. Collins and Jerry I. Porras, Built to Last, Successful Habits of Visionary Companies (New York: Harper Collins) 1994

Great Resource for Monroe County Employers

Monroe County NY JSEC is an independent organization under the auspices of the federal Department of Labor. JSEC stands for Job Service Employer Committee. We are one of 40 JSECs throughout New York State. The goal of the Monroe County JSEC is to provide expert information to employers on issues that affect the business community, engage in public / private ventures that will be of benefit to both employers and the labor force, and effect beneficial legislative changes at state and federal levels. JSEC also provides a vehicle to inform employers of services and programs of the Labor Department they can benefit from.

Meet Small Business Leaders

From Beginners to Bigshots

Forecast and Plan Budget- before opening the doors

Most entrepreneurs detest crunching numbers and creating budgets. Working on an annual budget confines the imagination and limits flexibility. Still, budgets are more important than ever in today’s business environment.

Don't be one to fall into excuses for avoiding budgeting. “Startup cash flow is too unpredictable.” “One big customer order could change the course of the business, so what’s the point in setting a budget?” "I can't predict what will happen next fiscal year until I see what happens this year."

In my experience, it's easy to make an excuse for the right-brain, creative side to take precedence . Entrepreneurs just don’t like left-brain financial planning. So, if you’re running your startup solo, you should force yourself to develop a budget to hold yourself accountable. Here' why:

1. It will help you to become a better manager. When done properly, budgets can be extraordinarily useful in testing and refining your ability to forecast and manage. While boards like to use budgets to hold managers accountable, the startup CEO can use budgeting to test whether the drivers of his business hold true. One straightforward way to do this is to set an annual budget with a set of key assumptions (e.g., number of new clients; product price), then reforecast the year every quarter by updating those assumptions with the latest results.
2. It will help you raise money. When trying to raised money from angel investors or institutional investors, the importance of budgeting is paramount. Investment terms often specify that management must provide the investors or the board an annual working budget. Developing a company culture that tracks results to budget will help you meet and exceed the expectations of your investors.
3. It will help you avoid running out of money. The No. 1 risk to any startup is running out of money. If you’re like most entrepreneurs, you’ll fluctuate between a conservative reality and an aggressive dream state, which keeps you motivated and helps you inspire others. When you build your budget, start with expenses, not revenue; they’re much easier to forecast. This will keep you grounded and reduce your risk of running out of money.

Staff and Management Development

In moving forward to build a more consistent team of supervisors and managers for your business you need to look at and analyze your current team. Assess how they're helping you reach your goals? But and most importantly you need to also be willing to look at yourself, what are you giving them to help reach your goals. Wegmans is a good example, their strong business model has been shown to add great value to our economic prosperity; particularly in urban America. Their success is increasingly tied to the talents of its people and committed workforce. Many cities, regions and companies have made a commitment to building the retention of skilled people as a core economic development strategy. Empowering our staff to build the future, engages the spirit and keeps them eager to continue moving toward success. An interesting added challenge we are facing is the generational mix of staff within companies, ranging from employees born between 1960 and 1975 –known as Gen X’er. Gen X have high expectation of what managers should do to support them. Generation Y, born between 1976-2001 tend to have an even greater needs for feedback and development than the Baby Boomer generation. Baby boomers are of the opinion of having a job is considered thanks enough. Gen-Y and Gen-X workers are accustomed to praise, reinforcement and given time to develop their interests and skills. As with most companies in this economy, not only the non-profit sector anymore, they are trying to doing more business with less staff support; currently managers don't have time nor do they know how to provide constructive feedback and develop people; they are too busy doing. Where do you rank in placing value on the role of supervisors or manager? Employees want structure, they are demanding clear goals, direction, feedback, coaching and recognition for good performance. I suggest allowing your managers to "manage" with the knowledge that they own the outcomes and an equal part of your companies over all success.

Social Media and blogging policies for small business

Your Company recognizes the importance of the Internet in shaping public thinking about your company and our current and potential products, employees, partners, and customers. Your company also recognizes the importance of our employees joining in and helping shape industry conversation and direction through blogging and interaction in social media. So, your company is committed to supporting your right to interact knowledgeably and socially in the blogosphere and on the Internet through blogging and interaction in social media.

Consequently, these guidelines in this blogging and social media policy will help you make appropriate decisions about your work-related blogging and the contents of your blogs, personal Web sites, postings on wikis and other interactive sites, postings on video or picture sharing sites, or in the comments that you make online on blogs, elsewhere on the public Internet, and in responding to comments from posters either publicly or via email. Our internal Internet and Email Policyremains in effect in our workplace.

These guidelines will help you open up a respectful, knowledgeable interaction with people on the Internet. They also protect the privacy, confidentiality, and interests of your company and our current and potential products, employees, partners, customers, and competitors.

Note that these policies and guidelines apply only to work-related sites and issues and are not meant to infringe upon your personal interaction or commentary online.

Guidelines for Interaction About Your Company on the Internet

• If you are developing a Web site or writing a blog that will mention your company and / or our current and potential products, employees, partners, customers, and competitors, identify that you are an employee of your company and that the views expressed on the blog or Web site are yours alone and do not represent the views of the company.

• Unless given permission by your manager, you are not authorized to speak on behalf of the company, nor to represent that you do so.

• If you are developing a site or writing a blog that will mention our company and / or our current and potential products, employees, partners, customers, and competitors, as a courtesy to the company, please let your manager know that you are writing them. Your manager may choose to visit from time to time to understand your point of view.

  Confidential Information Component of the Blogging Policy

• You may not share information that is confidential and proprietary about the company. This includes information about trademarks, upcoming product releases, sales, finances, number of products sold, number of employees, company strategy, and any other information that has not been publicly released by the company.
  
  These are given as examples only and do not cover the range of what the company considers confidential and proprietary. If you have any question about whether information has been released publicly or doubts of any kind, speak with your manager and the Public Relations department before releasing information that could potentially harm our company, or our current and potential products, employees, partners, and customers. You may also want to be aware of the points made in the non-disclosure agreement you signed when you joined our company.

• Your company logo and trademarks may not be used without explicit permission in writing from the company. This is to prevent the appearance that you speak for or represent the company officially.

  Respect and Privacy Rights Components of the Blogging Policy

• Speak respectfully about the company and our current and potential employees, customers, partners, and competitors. Do not engage in name calling or behavior that will reflect negatively on your company's reputation. Note that the use of copyrighted materials, unfounded or derogatory statements, or misrepresentation is not viewed favorably by your company and can result in disciplinary action up to and including employment termination.

• Your company encourages you to write knowledgeably, accurately, and using appropriate professionalism. Despite disclaimers, your Web interaction can result in members of the public forming opinions about your company and its employees, partners, and products.

• Honor the privacy rights of our current employees by seeking their permission before writing about or displaying internal company happenings that might be considered to be a breach of their privacy and confidentiality.

  Competition Component of the Blogging Policy

• You may not sell any product or service that would compete with any of your company's products or services without permission in writing from the president. This includes, but is not limited to training, books, products, and freelance writing. If in doubt, talk with your manager and the president.

  Your Legal Liability Component of the Blogging Policy

• Recognize that you are legally liable for anything you write or present online. Employees can be disciplined by the company for commentary, content, or images that are defamatory, pornographic, proprietary, harassing, libelous, or that can create a hostile work environment. You can also be sued by company employees, competitors, and any individual or company that views your commentary, content, or images as defamatory, pornographic, proprietary, harassing, libelous or creating a hostile work environment.

  Media Contact Component of the Blogging Policy

• Media contacts about our company and our current and potential products, employees, partners, customers, and competitors should be referred for coordination and guidance to the Public Relations or Human Resources department. This does not specifically include your opinions, writing, and interviews on topics aside from our company and our current and potential products, employees, partners, customers, and competitors.

Disclaimer: The provided policy, while authoritative, is not guaranteed for accuracy and legality. While I make every effort to provide and link accurate, legal, and complete information, I cannot guarantee it is correct for your location. Please seek legal assistance, or assistance from State, Federal, or International governmental resources, to make certain your legal interpretation and decisions are correct.

Information provided by: Susan M. Heathfield, About.com Guide