On AWOL and Training Allowance

I received two questions from readers on the topic recently. I have already responded to them but decided to share my thought with the rest of yous in this blog.

First question:

What does AWOL mean?

if you informed your supervisor about the reason why you are absent prior to start of shift and submitted a medical certificate to certify sickness, is it still considered AWOL?

My answer:
AWOL is absence without leave. In other companies, they add the word "official" so it becomes "Absence Without Official Leave". It means that if you did not abide by the company's policy on filing or notification, it will be considered a violation of company's attendance policy. Now, if you followed the rules, there is no reason for them to charge you with that violation. If they think your reason is not sufficient excuse to be absent, the one thing they can do is disapprove your leave application. Hence, you will not be able to use your leave credit. Many supervisors get confused with these rules and fail to apply the appropriate measures. I suggest that you go back to your supervisor and point out how you followed the company policy on filing for sick leave. If you are not satisfied. you can always bring up your concern to HR.

2nd Question:

Hi! I have been recently hired by an employer . I will be assigned to a new branch. Since the new branch isn't finished yet, they told us to come to the first branch to come for training. I have already been training for 4 days now. (training days are usually on weekends) And then I find out that there is no training allowance. The employer said that they want us to use that time to familiarize ourselves with the stuff needed for the job, therefore the training would not be paid until the new branch opens. Problem is, the new branch is slated to open August 1 but because of other circumstances, it might be later. Is this fair? No allowance until the new branch opens?

My answer:

From an employee perspective, I say that you get what you bargain for. You need to be clear about the details of the engagement including training allowances before getting on board so you won't be frustrated. If and only if you are happy with the deal should you move forward with the engagement. If you feel you've been tricked, move out of there unless you want more tricks in the future.

From an employers perspective, I opine that not giving employees allowance during training is cold especially in a country like ours where a lot of workers get so little in exchange for back-breaking work. The least you can do for your trainees is cover their transportation and meal expenses while they are undergoing "training" which to some of us became synonimous to free or cheap labor. I'm not a lawyer and I'm not sure if there's a law that prescribes giving training allowance. I just think that giving them is the right and moral thing to do.

By the way, to those who are wondering why their questions were not featured here, let me tell you that I receive them and has replied to most of you. I choose what I post depending on how I feel about their usefulness to others. There are some questions that I completely ignore because they are hard to understand.

If you have any questions and you think you can benefit from my opinions, please send them using the form on the right or by posting your question in the comment section of this blog like others do. When you do however, please give me enough details to go with.

What If We Turn Training Departments to Performance Management Department? Part 1

Im just thinking aloud here. I'm thinking that maybe companies who have training departments can change their mandate and start calling them performance management department. They'd probably be doing a lot of the same stuffs and then some. I'm not sure if this is an original idea. I'm typing this post in my cellphone as I sit in a bus. For those who have never thought about it, you might want to consider my ponderings.

I mean think about it. A lot of training investment go to waste because because companies fail to make a direct link between training and performance management. In many companies, training and performance management belong to separate boxes handled by separate groups who are often poorly coordinating if they ever did. In many companies training managers fail to use performance data for identifying training needs. What they often do is send out training needs questionnaires that respondents hastily fill out without much thought and then these become the basis for the company's training plan. In the meantime performance data that scream for the real development needs that impact performance, sit on tables or gather dust in 201 file folders. This is simply because the company use them only as basis for salary review, rewards and all others except training. Many companies don't run an analysis on performance trends that will most likely reveal the needed development interventions. It's such a waste of useful information.

Because training departments are often detached from the business of managing performance, their own performance is often measured by hours of training or successful implementation of annual training plan which may or may not have an impact on actual performance. I'm thinking that if top management can see the direct result of an intervention to performance, maybe they won't be so quick to put them on the chopping board whenever the need or urge to cut cost comes up.

If this post engaged you enough to read up to this far, I imagine you asking how i propose the shift from training department to happen. Here are my answers:

First, let us suppose that top management and training department people are now convinced that this is a right move to make, I imagine that the next logical step is to create a clear mandate for the remodeled group. Off hand, I imagine the purpose of this group to be stated like this:

"To help improve organization-wide performance by offering useful performance management tools, monitor key performance indicators, identify competency gaps, offer solutions in the form of training, coaching, improved work instructions, etc. Monitor the effectiveness of these solutions, create action plans geared towards continous performance improvement and finally make recommendations on items that may be addressed by other departments."

I can see my bus stop ahead and this post has become awfully long. I'm going back to this topic as soon as I can. In the mean time, please help me by co-imagining with me about the possibility of this happening. Share your thoughts by commenting below. I will also appreciate fair warnings. See you next post!

Why Go on a Company Outing During Rainy Season

ExeQserve and CheQ Systems hit the beach in Iba Zambales last June 20 and 21. At that time a storm was brewing up north and the waves were crazy. I'm just glad that the decline in that area was gradual. That was because nothing stopped us from playing in the waves. We had the time of our lives which convinced me that going on a company outing on a rainy season was not such a bad idea at all. Let me tell you why:

1. Playing and swimming in the rain is so much fun. Need I say more?

2. Most of us Filipinos don't need to get tanned. Going to the beach under an overcast sky or in the rain rid us of the fear of getting sunburned.
3. No overcrowded beaches. The one we went to was practically empty. No need to worry about bothering others with our rambunctious horse playing.

4. The hard rain during the night could drown out the off-key singing (no guarantee).

5. Because it is off-season, you can negotiate a good low rate with the resort and the bus rental company. More money for booze and food.

6. Have you tried drinking booze in the rain? (just make sure the rain water don't mix with the liquor) It's great! Binge eating too.

7. If you go to a resort with a more relaxed house rules,( not one of those tight b*tt resorts that make you pay for just about every little thing and ram a barage of rules down your throat) you can come up with a wild party like we did i.e, sing at the top of our lungs, dance like we were drunk (wait, we were drunk!), played crazy games and pour beer and water (whicheve is available) on each other. Because there is practically no other guests, the resort staff just made sure we don't pour water or beer on the karaoke machine.

If you haven't gone to the beach, it ain't too late. If you have, you can always consider doing this next year.

One requirement for having fun, take people who are fun-loving and not those who hit the sack right after dinner or those who will not go out in the rain to swim when it's raining because they are afraid they might catch a cold. :)

Team Building in the Philippines: You Can't Have Teamwork If You Can't Manage the Change

In my opinion, the reason why many efforts to build teamwork go to waste is because managers fail to manage the change. I often get inquiry about team building and when I inquire back about how far they want to go with it, I get silence.

Many managers are convinced that they need to improve teamwork but are unwilling to do the necessary work to have it. They think (or wish) that a one or two-day off site will create some magic that will suddenly turn the backbiting off. That it will suddenly make people more committed to the goals and do their fair share in improving organizational performance. Sadly, this rarely happens or if it does, the improvement is short lived.

No wonder some people are skeptical about it and have lost hope that a team building intervention will help a team work better. I know at least one person who declare that team building is for suckers. I can't blame all those who think the kind of solutions that proliferate out there are not real solutions. I'm of the opinion that a lot of the things people learn from a decent team building workshop are valid. The problem lies in how the whole thing is set up and how follow-through is given.

Building Teamwork is pretty much about managing change. Let's listen to what Change Management Guru John Kotter has to say:He said first "Create urgency". This to me means make a case for the change. Do you need it? Or do you need an excuse to go on a company outing? Be sure that you need it and are willing to go towards great lengths to achieve it.

Kotter then said, "Form a powerful coalition". This means that the journey from no-teamwork to with-great-teamwork is bought into by the leadership of the organization and are committed to championing the change. Since we are talking about building teamwork here, they should also be committed to modeling the way by showing teamwork among themselves.

The third step is "create a vision for change". This is important. We don't have a common understanding of what it is like to have teamwork. For some it's unbridled collaboration and empowerment, for others it's allowing the boss to herd the rest of the team like cows. So what do you really want to see into the future when the team succeeds and becomes a high performing team? This has to be expressed in vivid terms.

Next, "communicate the vision. This can be part of the preparation for an off site activity or can be done in the early part of the event. I prefer the former. I think everybody should be clear about why they are camping out. I tell you I've had more than enough of participants mistaking the offsite activity for company outing and the team building activities mere parlor games! I hate it, I hate it, I hate it! ( Sorry, got carried away there)

The fifth action is to "remove obstacles". This is why people go out for a two-day off site team building. This is so they can identify what get's in the way of teamwork and decide how to overcome them. Patrick Lencioni identified five dysfunctions that get in the way of teamwork and prescribed some ways to overcome them. I use his prescription in my workshops.

You can't go home from a team building event without doing Kotter's 6th step and that is "create short-term wins". You need to identify the things you can do right after the workshop that will pave the way for building a stronger, more cohesive team. These quick-win activities should be clear, specific, actionable and observable.

This will be the subject of step seven, "Build on the Change" Which is following through on the norms set in the workshop and see to it that they all happen. Managers should not let up until all the agreed changes in behavior become habits and that quick wins are pursued and achieved.

The last stage is "anchor the change in the corporate culture". Let it grow roots. Build your policies around strengthening and rewarding teamwork and discouraging, even prohibiting the absence of it.

See? You build your team building effort around John Kotter's 8-step model and I tell you, there's hardly any reason for it to fail.

Here's one more thing. I'll be more than happy to help you use this model to facilitate an organizational culture change for your company if you let me. Forget the one-day or half-day sessions that lead practically to nowhere.

If you want teamwork, manage the change.

Related download: ExeQserve Team Culture Building Program

Let's Grow More Talents

The Funny thing is, despite the economic downturn which some people say lead to loss of jobs, companies continue to find it hard to find good qualified people in the Philippines. There is a tough competition for talent and experience. Mostly the latter than the former.

Many companies prefer to hire people with the right exposure, the right experience in the business they are in, the kind of clients they handle and the technology they are using. This is understandable. It is quite expensive to develop people to have all these and much riskier if the people they are hiring are managers. There is of course the risk of losing an employee after painstakingly training them because other companies who are unwilling to train, are more willing to part with their big bucks eating the cake that another company baked.

In a grander scheme of things, I am of the opinion that this situation is hampering productivity and profitability on a national level. Why? Because the war for talent is jacking up the market rate of hard to find jobs and causing some companies not to afford them. The war metaphor clearly indicates that there are winners and losers here. The price losers pay in the war for talent is stunted growth and mediocre performance. On the other hand, we have an over abundance of talents with no training (and college education, don't get me started with that!) and experience who are left to get whatever work is available. This is why we have business majors who are sweeping floors, engineering graduates working as data entry operators and other jobs that leave them with very little return on their college investment and very little purchasing power to buy the products and services that the industries are churning out. No wonder the economy is bad.

I think both government and industries need and must focus on human resource development. Companies must put up a human resource development plan of their own that will address the competency needs of their businesses. They should be able to hire younger, less experienced people and hone them well enough to succeed incumbent highly skilled people when they move on. Companies should develop their own career development and succession planning program. The Philippine government must look into giving more tax incentives to ALL companies who invest heavily on human resource development. This should ease the burden of finding qualified people and increase the opportunities of young professionals for career growth. I believe in the end, everybody will win.