Top Ten Rules for the staff Christmas party:

1.   Set a 'Party Policy'

From the employer's point of view, the Christmas party is classed as a 'work activity'. It therefore should therefore be treated as such by having guidelines in place. This could be as simple as displaying employees' responsibilities, such as acceptable standards of behaviour, on a notice board. The employer's responsibilities, for instance meeting health & safety requirements and providing grievance procedures to deal with any resulting problems, should also be outlined.

2.   Identify potential hazards

Just as with any other work-related activity, a risk assessment must be carried out to identify potential hazards. This could involve inspecting the venue to plan for drunken slips and trips, considering the safety of people going home after the event, and even identifying any potential conflict between employees, so that table plans can be organised accordingly.

3.   Issue behavioural guidelines

This should be included in the 'Party Policy' and should clarify unacceptable behaviour, such as harassment, bullying and fighting. Employees should understand that, as this is technically a work activity, normal disciplinary procedures would be applied.

4.   Invite husbands, wives... and life-partners

If inviting employees' partners to the event, employers need to tread carefully. This should not be restricted to husbands and wives but also extended to partners of the opposite and same sex, to avoid potential sexual orientation discrimination claims. With the introduction of  Ontario legislation, granting same-sex couples the right to enter into  of marriage, employers should make extra sure that, if inviting partners, same-sex partners are not excluded from festivities.

5.   Avoid 'tipple tattle'

Boozing managers should avoid discussing promotion, career prospects or salary with employees who may use the convivial situation to discuss matters that are more suited to a formal appraisal or private meeting. The employee is likely to expect any career promises to be kept - even if the employer can't remember the conversation!

6.   Limit the spirit

If the employer supplies the alcohol, or encourages its consumption, they may be legally responsible for the welfare of the employee if they suffer from drink induced disasters - even if they occur outside of the party itself. The best solution is to limit the number of free drinks and be prepared to ask individuals to take it easy if they appear worse for wear. Suggested that you offer a cash bar.

7.   Don't poison your staff

If providing a buffet, the food must be safe to eat. Buffets present a particularly high risk of food poisoning from foods such as cooked meats, eggs, mayonnaise and cooked rice. Food should not be left out at room temperature for more than 90 minutes and should be stored below 5°C.

8.   Ditch the mistletoe

The Christmas party is the perfect environment for a festive fling but this could have repercussions when employees return to work. A brief encounter under the mistletoe can cause embarrassment in the workplace and put strain on working relationships. While many businesses have informal views on office affairs, most do not have a policy on workplace relationships.

9.   Curb drunk driving

As employers are responsible for employees' actions after consuming alcohol they have provided, sensible bosses will issue advice before the party about not driving after having an alcoholic drink. It is advisable to hire a minibus for the end of the night, or provide the numbers of local taxi firms to demonstrate that reasonable steps have been taken to minimise this risk.

10.   Don't expect miracles the morning after!

A contract exists between the employee and employer that they will be in a fit state to carry out the work they are being paid to do. Employers should decide to what extent they will be lenient to staff coming to work with a hangover, arriving late, or even not at all, and inform employees. More important is the safety of employees, who may not be fully sober the next day, especially if they need to drive or operate machinery. Employers should either advise employees beforehand not to drink too much alcohol, or remove the risk to safety by giving them alternative work until they are fit to resume their normal tasks.

Working with you.

Chris Wilkinson.                              

Certified Business Behaviour & Attitudes Analyst.               

Business Coach.

Tel: (905) 275-2907 (Mississauga--CANADA).

E-mail: buspilot@bell.net

8 Ideas on how to create a new company culture....

1.Creating a new culture calls for new methods. Creating a new culture will be extremely difficult if you insist on doing it by playing with the old rules. Trying to change while still using the old rules is futile — the rules themselves are part of the problem.

2.Champion the vision and re-channel the energy. When change happens, people get disoriented and fear and resistance take over. Start by communicating a compelling vision to focus employees’ attention. Give people something to aim at—be specific and avoid generalities.

3.Make your early moves bold, dramatic, and unwavering. Culture change requires a unique combination of passion, courage, conviction, audacity, and determination. Your early moves must be strikingly bold, lightning fast, and out of character in relation to the old rules. You must gain momentum quickly, and employees need to see your resolve or you won’t overcome resistance.

4.Surround yourself with talented, tough-minded nonconformists. Creating a new culture is not only about changing the rules; it’s about changing the rule makers. Surround yourself with people who are as passionate about the new vision as you are and are willing to stand up to the heat.

5.Re-engineer the reward system to reinforce the behaviors you want. Culture change won’t happen unless people see a personal return on investment for behaving in different ways. If you don’t radically restructure how you reward people you’ll fuel the fires of resistance. Change what you celebrate, honor, and who you hold up as heroes. Devote your time to those change agents and vision champions who add value.

6.Track progress, measure results, and hold people accountable. The cliché is true: You get what you measure and reward. Holding people accountable means paying close attention to what’s important. Like a rubber band, if you relax the pull of the new culture, people will revert back to old comfortable patterns. Tracking progress enables you to know Sincerely,  

E-mail: buspilot@bell.netwhere the resistance lies and where you should be allocating rewards.

7.Remove obstacles and bureaucratic practices. You’ll gain respect and credibility by breaking the chains of bureaucracy. But bureaucracy is a formidable adversary — it’s the ball and chain of ‘the way we’ve always done it.’ Your employees will have a difficult time contributing to the new cause if they are shackled by the old rites, rituals, and rules.

8.  Establish concrete evidence and tangible results quickly through small wins. Tangible pay-offs fuel the fires of motivation and contain the skeptics. It’s hard to argue with success when you can measure it in hard dollars, time saved, and percentages of rework minimized. Advertise successes—many cultural initiatives fail because employees in the trenches don’t see or hear about positive results.

Chris Wilkinson.

Certified Business Behaviour & Attitudes Analyst.

Business Coach.

Tel: (905) 275-2907 (Mississauga).

So what should we be doing to prepare for a sales call? Here are 14 tips.

1. Have an objective: Maybe one of the things I've screwed up the most in my sales career but when you think about it rather obvious isn't it? You need to think about what you want to happen as the result of the meeting. Often we don't have enough information going into the meeting to know exactly what objective is achievable so it’s good practice is to have a 2-3 outcomes that work for you. Most of the time in a complex sale "get the deal" is NOT a likely outcome.

2. Confirm who will be there: This one seems to be forgotten quite a lot. Meetings change their flavour dramatically depending on who’s there. Is the CEO coming? If so, his team will act a little differently. I just heard of a real life case where a CEO was supposed to be at a meeting but canceled last minute due to a crisis. Even though the sales person executed the sales call well the sale only moved forward slightly as the CEO was not present. Your preparation depends heavily on whose coming.

3. Prepare to fight the status quo: When you think about real selling today, fighting the status quo is the stiffest competition out there. So many of the opportunities we have in the pipeline seem to go to Neverland. Before any sales meeting how about preparing to fight you toughest competitor: Mr. Status Quo? What arguments do you have that are so compelling that this super-busy prospect will make a change?

4. Research the company: Sales 101 stuff. Make sure you do the basics of knowing about their company, visiting their website for goodness sake. It’s happened likely to every sales person sitting in a sales call and the prospect says “well you probably know that from our website” and they forgot to look!

5. Research the person: Also obvious but also not always executed well. You’re selling to the person not to the company. So find out what you can about them personally. Of course spend more time if this is a big opportunity for you and less if it’s a small potato. But do some quick research on the person whenever you can (Google and Linkedin at least.)

6. Anticipate objectives and questions: Prospects have questions. They may even sound like objections. What do you say to these things? Don’t try to wing it – you will take unnecessary risks by winging it. Go in prepared. Think about the most likely questions and objections you are likely to hear and prepare your responses.

7. Know issues in their industry & about their competition: What are the prevalent issues in the prospect’s industry? What moves are their competition making? What can you learn from their competition which gives you insight into what your prospect company may be dealing with?

8. Come in with assumptions: These days not only can you not ask questions like “what business are you in?” but you need to be a consultant that has an overview of the prospect’s market. You need to enter with a statement like “we’ve noticed lots of companies like yours dealing with cash-flow management issues [replace with relevant issue]. Is this affecting you? How are you handling it?”

9. Think about bringing some hope with the “N” in SPIN: Can you create a positive experience? If you’ve tried your hand at SPIN questions you’ve probably noticed the most powerful questions are the “N” questions. These are the “positive energy” questions. “What would things be like IF?” These tend to leave your prospect feeling good. As they allow him/her to visualize a better (less stressed) future. So what kind of “N” questions can you come up with for your super-stressed prospect? (By the way, these are also the hardest questions to ask so you’ll definitely only pull them off if you prepare them beforehand).

10. Prepare case studies and testimonials: Make sure you have your relevant case studies and testimonials lined up. Keep them in your briefcase until you really need them (hint: use them at the end of the meeting as proof not at the beginning as a “dog and pony show” -- you are there to listen).

11. Bring your ROI information: Same here as for case studies: what have you got that supports the ROI on your services/widget? Do you have any actually numbers? $’s speak the loudest, but operational metrics are great too. What can you show me about the amount of payoff and payoff time to break even?

12. How about an agenda? Sort of seems radical to many sales people but how about actually having an agenda for your meeting? A lot of your prospects are used to having agendas for well-run internal meetings so why not for your sales call? Agendas help iron out any misunderstandings on the goal for the meeting, saving you valuable time. Plus your prospect will likely be impressed at how professional you are, making you stand out from other sales people – cool.

13. What do they see when they look for you? When your meeting pops up on your prospect’s calendar they might be tempted to remind themself of who they are meeting with? Will they Google you? Check your Linkedin profile? Probably. What will they find? What picture of you will they have before you even enter their door?

14. Match prep time to the importance of the call: For more important calls spend more time on preparation. As a rule-of-thumb, I’d expect to spend at least one hour preparing for a fairly important one hour sales call, half an hour for a half hour meeting etc. - increase or decrease to taste.

Sincerely,  

Chris Wilkinson.

Certified Business Behaviour & Attitudes Analyst.

Business Coach.

Tel: (905) 275-2907 (Mississauga, ON Canada).

E-mail: buspilot@bell.net

Do you have a company e-mail privacy policy?

 Email Privacy—a sample policy….

  

Individuals using the email system should expect that messages sent on Company business or with the use of Company facilities are available for review by any authorized representative of the Company for any purpose related to Company business.  The Company reserves the right to access the contents of email communications at any time and for any reason.  It is a violation of the Company policy for anyone to use the email and computer systems to satisfy idle curiosity about the affairs of others, with no substantial business purpose for obtaining access to the files or communications of others.

 Email communications may be monitored at any time and for any reason, including but not limited to, breaches in security, violations of law, or infringement of Company rules.  If indications of illegal activity or violations of Company policy or security are noted during monitoring, the individual(s) involved will be reported in accordance with Company policy.

Do not send interactions or material that may be considered offensive to others, including, but not limited to, racial or off-color jokes, pornographic or sex-related links or content, or jokes based on age, national origin, ethnicity, religion, pregnancy, marital status, sexual orientation, disability or any other legally protected category.

If you receive interactions or material that may be considered offensive as described in the previous sentence, it is your responsibility to advise the sender to discontinue sending you inappropriate emails or messages.  If you are not comfortable advising the sender to stop sending these types of message, please contact your Manager or Insert:  appropriate contact for assistance.

	Although lawyer reviewed for use in Ontario, you should review this sample policy for your own unique situation with your legal representative, prior to use.

 

 Sincerely,  

Chris Wilkinson.

Certified Business Behaviour & Attitudes Analyst.

Business Coach.

Tel: (905) 275-2907 (Mississauga, ON Canada).

E-mail: buspilot@bell.net