By David Coffaro, Principal of the Strategic Advisory Consulting Group Originally published by HR.com In business, competition for the highest value resources – human, physical, economic, non-economic – is constant and a given. Less clear is what leaders can do to differentiate their organizations, and to gain and sustain competitive advantages. This is where the principle of “Organizational Relevance” comes into play. Organizational Relevance refers to the pertinence, meaningfulness, and importance that a business earns with employees, customers and all stakeholders. It has a finite shelf life and must continually be re-earned due to the dynamic nature of business environments. Employees’ and customers’ needs, expectations, perspectives are always in motion as well. Perpetual motion in business is normal though speed can vary. Recognizing this fundamental aspect of the paradigm in which we all operate signals us that our jobs as human resource leaders is to continually identify opportunities that deliver greater value to all stakeholders. With our highest value resources, greater value comes from operating as a human resource development exemplar. Many organizations overlook the opportunity to see themselves as human resource development exemplars but the following illustration outside the business arena can help highlight this concept and showcase its value: Precise, authentic classic car restoration is an art and a science, involving research into a vehicle’s original condition specifications, accessing original equipment manufacturer parts and meticulous reconstruction. According to Classic Car Magazine,[1] there are four levels of automobile restoration: Driver Level – Good operating and body condition with the main purpose of providing the car’s owner personal satisfaction. Street Show Quality – The car looks good and drives well, and most of the body work is of high quality. This level generally requires professional craftsperson to help with the finer details of body restoration. Show Cars -These cars are restored with the intent of presenting at shows. Some restoration must be performed at the finest level of detail as professional judges will know the difference. Concours –Also known as mint condition, this level is for cars in national shows or private collectors who don’t plan to drive the vehicle. The restoration process is defined by exemplary craftsmanship in developing the vehicle. The car is completely disassembled to prepare restoration. Significant research is performed to obtain original components, finishes and operating specifications, creating a flawless finished product. These classic car restoration levels reflect a range of physical resource development, up to Concours condition, that demonstrates an extraordinary commitment to vehicle advancement. A similar commitment is necessary to differentiate an organization as a human resource development exemplar. “Stewardship” of human, physical, economic, and non-economic resources is to acquisition of these elements of capital as Concours is to Driver Level automobile restoration. Organizations thus must make conscious decisions about their resource management philosophy. Differentiation as a talent development exemplar is a well-thought-out strategy, implemented through engaged managers who understand the value of the human resources they steward. Soundbites saying “people matter here” or “people are our competitive advantage” are hollow unless they reflect the philosophy, strategy and actions aligned with nurturing and development of highly valued human resources. Mindful talent management strategy becomes a differentiator through a commitment to adding value to human resources under the organization’s stewardship. Differentiation in this domain is essential to attract and retain the best available resources. As a paradigm imperative from my book Leading from Zero, the principle of differentiating an organization as a resource development exemplar applies to human, physical, economic, and non-economic resources available to the organization. Exemplary resource development differentiates an organization, enhances its ability to attract the best available resources and demonstrates a core principle of the Leading from Zero approach, that of the requisite commitment to continually earn, and sustain, organizational relevance. Dave Coffaro is a strategic leadership advisor, executive coach and author whose firm Strategic Advisory Consulting Group works with businesses and nonprofits to define, design and deliver their vision through operating models that create results. He is also author the new book Leading from Zero: Seven Essential Elements to Earning Relevance available on Amazon. [1] https://classiccarmag.net/understanding-levels-of-car-restoration-and-costs-involved/

By Shahid Chowdhary, Founder and Director, Siliconchips Services Accepted for publication in Society of Actuaries’ Entrepreneurial Section Efficiency in business comes down to reaching goals with the highest degree of quality and speed possible. When workflow breaks down and this efficiency fails, it’s worth questioning why it happened and how to prevent it in the future. The breakdown of workflow in our clients at larger firms comes down to failure of two critical elements: communication and accountability. If your client companies are in this category, you’ll likely know what I mean. The question of course is what to do about it. Ultimately, company goals require systems that define achievable steps, task responsibility, and deadlines. Every project member along the way has to be dedicated and held responsible, and someone must be responsible for oversight and follow-through. With workflow software, it becomes easier to remain on task, on time, and accountable since the schedule, assignments, and completion measurements are clear. This project management tool will also streamline projects and make the completion far more efficient. For example, in my work with book publishers, the many steps along the way from editorial to ultimate publication include proofreading, graphic design, interior typeface design, typesetting, double- and triple-checking, choice of paper quality, book jacket design and printing of actual book copies. Without the help of applicable workflow software, each of these steps along the way would be subject to human error and make the process longer, less accurate and fraught with frustration! To efficiently complete any project, large or small, no matter what your industry, the following steps will allow you to reach a satisfactory end without wasting time, energy, or motivation: Any project plan should include delineated steps, assigned jobs, deadlines, and clear measurements of completion along the way. Poorly defined, loosey-goosy plans will lead to unclear, half-finished, pass-the-buck, efforts. 2. Every plan should be checked and double-checked for: –One manager and decider Strengths and weaknesses of team members and assignments Relevance Scheduling 3. Define the project point-by-point so as to eliminate unnecessary steps, erase repetitions within the process, reach the goal faster, and guide the right person toward the right task throughout the process. Communication is key throughout any project. Consider the body: The brain knows what all parts are doing at one time. If the hands and feet, eyes and ears don’t coordinate, the body can’t move efficiently. Your team is the same. When communication breaks down, steps in the plan get done and redone, or not done at all, and the workflow breaks down. In my world, the printing industry, proofreaders need to know how much time they have to complete their task, book cover designers need to know what the book is actually about so that the title and front and back cover designs deliver the right message, the publisher’s sales staff needs to know how close ultimate production will come to the pre-ordained book publication day etc. Only via continuous communication among all parties will ensure the entire operation runs smoothly. Communication is essential and should be required. It’s up to the project manager to verify communication takes place, hold members accountable for this failing, and set the example for appropriate and timely communications. The project manager should also keep an eye on the schedule, sending updates, checking in, and holding project members’ feet to the fire when tasks fall through. In larger corporations, it’s easy for team members and project assignments to fall through the cracks. Workflow software helps project managers and team members know who’s doing what and when steps finish, so it’s an invaluable tools for companies seeking methods for protecting against workflow breakdown. Shahid Chowdhary founded Siliconchips Services in London in September 2010 with one basic idea: to build an organization committed to value-based leadership and promoting a culture of trust, transparency, integrity and mutual respect. His clients include book publishers, digital publications and companies of types with IT needs. To learn more visit https://www.siliconchips-services.com/

By Matt Hollister, CEO, and Jim Edholm, Partner & Founder, Business Benefits Published in Employee Benefit Plan Review             Is a Professional Employer Organization (PEO) an appropriate option for your firm?  For decades, such organizations have offered a co-employment model for employers.  It incorporates employer-members into one mammoth organization, and one which treats their employees to benefits provided by a single organization under one tax ID number. Such an arrangement allows the employer-member to outsource many of the administrative functions to third parties, rather than carrying the full burden all by itself.  This makes for an alluring cost-and-task sharing opportunity for many companies. However, what many employers do not realize — including many using a PEO — is it is possible, particularly with appropriate expertise, to construct essentially the same set of services at a small fraction of the PEO cost and thereby gain a greater ability to structure the level of service to each employer’s specific needs.  The purpose of this article is to discuss and analyze five issues: The services that a PEO allows you to outsource Whether you should consider a PEO if you don’t currently use one Identify and weigh the costs, potential risks, and rewards of a PEO Evaluate the potential savings derived from creating a “virtual PEO,” i.e., a more customized and less restrictive organizational structure than that offered by the traditional PEO, as an alternative Identify the necessary considerations and procedures involved in leaving your PEO if you decide to “go direct” What PEOs Offer the Employer To many employers the most attractive feature of a PEO is the ability to be able to hand off the burden of management of HR and benefits so that the member employer can instead focus its management energy on core business plans.  This is particularly attractive to smaller employers because it offers access to an otherwise unaffordable level of HR expertise. As a result, PEOs are widely used. For example, the CEO of McBassie & Company reported in 2018 that 750,000 US companies with 3.7 million total employees (average size = 21 employees) have taken advantage of the PEO option.[1] However, although most firms are smaller, the employer population sizes can be wide-ranging.  A database of 131 Massachusetts companies using PEOs looked like this: The largest had 1,005 employees The smallest had 1 The average size was 68 Clearly, there is wide variation and employers have different needs and goals.  Smaller employers may delegate the HR function to the office manager, who may not have the requisite experience with the many (and often changing) HR and Benefits compliance rules.  A larger employer might feel that the PEO would be more efficient than hiring a sufficiently experienced HR manager. The primary rationale for retaining a PEO – at least according to the marketing of the PEO itself – is that by bundling multiple employers together it is possible to leverage efficiencies of scale.  Using a common employee benefits program, employer-participants can then share payroll and HR costs. The PEO claim is that a larger group creates administrative efficiency, greater negotiating “heft,” which thus lowers the costs of a smaller group. Additionally, PEOs provide a “single source” for much of the administration of many aspects of Human Resources departments.  Specifically, they provide: Health benefits Payroll 401(K) plans Other Health and Welfare benefits Benefit enrollment administration Cafeteria Plans Employment compliance assistance with Federal and State laws Workers Compensation coverage That seems like an exhaustive list, all of which appears valuable and logical. But is it in fact everything that’s needed, and everything that needs to be done?  Are there other considerations that are important but not included?  And, of course, don’t forget that the PEO charges for its service. In that regard, how is the employer to appropriately measure the value gained for the price paid? Health Care – the Driving Economic Argument PEOs claim one of their most prominent advantages is saving the employer money compared to the direct cost of traditional benefits, particularly health insurance. Since the cost of health insurance is often the largest single employer cost after salaries themselves, it’s obviously critical to evaluate that claim.  If there’s not much difference in the health cost, you can then can directly compare the cost of acquiring the PEO services from the PEO vs. from individual service providers. So let’s evaluate that PEO claim first.  In 2016 ADP Total Source, one of the larger PEOs, reported more than 400,000 “worksite” employees[2].   Because of its size ADP might claim its initial rates should be lower than direct rates from a carrier.  And it might argue that so would the renewal rates given their “purchasing/negotiating power.” But is that necessarily true?  PEOs have been with us for more than five decades, so it stands to reason that if both the initial rates and the renewal increases were lower, the PEO rates would be a screaming bargain compared to direct rates outside of the PEO. Yet our practical experience, working with businesses of varying sizes, tells us that the PEO rates fall within a percent or two of the rates available directly from carriers about 80% of the time.  A study in the Kaiser Family Foundation’s 2019 annual health benefits survey[3] confirms this.  In fact, this study compared average premiums for traditional non-PEO firms both small and large and found that average family premiums differed little – $20,236 for small firms, and $20,717 in large firms (surprise, surprise)!! We therefore advise our client firms there is only a 20% chance their health care rates will vary more than 1-3% from PEO rates.  When they do vary, however, some direct rates are actually much higher than PEO rates; others are much lower. You may ask, “Why would that be?” There are three primary reasons: PEOs aren’t really like a large national employer.  Such an employer gives every employee the same deductibles, plan options, plan provisions and premium contribution On the other hand, PEOs offer multiple plans through multiple insurance carriers

By Steven Borne Published in Op-Ed News Hyper partisanship, national polarization, party politics bleeding into areas it does not belong, and a dysfunctional Congress are no longer the biggest threats to our democracy. The cult-like, self-identification of Trumpism is beyond political division and is pulling our nation into fascism.  To put our democracy back on the tracks, Americans need to do something our nation has not done in a long time, we need to talk. We need to bring back verbal dialogue between individuals. It is only through true discussion and debate that we realize if we are seeing multiple perspectives or just regurgitating propaganda. Online chats, e-mails, Facebook and any one to many communication may be easy, but they are the wrong tool for our current crisis. If you know anyone in a swing state, pick up the phone and call them. Send a text and ask for a time to speak. Have colleagues in those states? Invite them to a video conference lunch or coffee break where you can talk about the upcoming election. Too many people are surrounded by a homogenous mindset and may not have anyone they feel safe speaking with. It is time for all of us to be active patriots and choose to invest our time in having verbal conversations. Start with your personal and professional network and then look to do more. If you have vacation time that will not carry over, use a few days in October to talk with others about our collective responsibility to protect democracy and end partisan self-identification (what enables fascism) Fascism has always been veiled in patriotism, powered by insecurities, and prioritizes blind loyalty. The question is, will Americans step up to fight this common threat or will we be complacent, consumed by apathy and hope that someone else will save the day?  There is now common cause, for Conservative, Liberal, Moderate and others, to jointly shut the door on Trumpism. Conservatives can still vote for Republicans, Liberals for Democrats and Moderates can continue to not have acceptable options, but we all must oppose Trumpism.  Even if you disagree with someone, ask them to explain their opinions. If they are ignoring inconvenient facts, just ask them to explain their points so you can understand what is behind their thinking? There are topics, such as abortion or capital punishment that we need to agree to disagree for now, as we cannot come to common ground solutions until we are better at listening to each other and ignoring biased media. I suppress the urge to scream at Trump flag wavers because it is not effective. For those who have already wrapped themselves in fascist garb, they must take the first courageous step out of the fascist current. We help by listening and talking respectively from the shore, not pulling or pushing. Start with acknowledging that Trump has done some positive things. Take Covid-19 as an example and how travel between China and other hot spots was prohibited. However, there were hundreds of possible actions. Assume Trump had twenty positive COVID-19 actions, he also had at least 20 negative COVID-19 actions and maybe another 60 things that should have been done. So that is 20 good and 80 misses, which is much worse than a F- and explains why with 4% of global population we have around 23% of global cases and 21% of deaths globally.  During the RNC, people cloaked in Trumpism may have believed those who said Trump had fame and money and was only serving as President for love of country. Unfortunately, for a monstrous narcissist with a colossal ego, the Presidency had to be the next meal, and dessert is establishing a family dynasty. At the Manchester, NH Trump rally, I was watching bus after chartered bus unload people sans masks, wondering where they were coming from. I can’t fathom from where in very small New Hampshire a resident would bother to take a chartered bus for around an hour ride? Polarized identification drives people to bus into New Hampshire on a summer Friday evening. For love of country, in respect of veterans, for the chance to heal and work jointly to solve our very big problems, get out there and end Trumpism. Let people know they don’t have to vote Democratic, just no voting for Trump. Also, refrain from voting for all those who endorse Trump, since we desperately need political leaders and problem solvers, not followers. Steven Borne is a citizen activist in New Hampshire and author of the book Consuming Government: Flywheels, Ideas and Individual Actions to Better Manage the Government Services You Buy. Visit https://www.consumegov.com.

The below topics are based on two of Ken’s eight books: The Expert’s Edge: Become the Go-To Authority People Turn to Every Time (McGraw-Hill) The Speaker’s Edge: the Ultimate Go-To Guide for Landing Lots and Lost of Speaking Gig (Maven House Press) For more info, visit Ken’s Amazon page. Topics: (topic blurbs below) Thoughtleading: the Art of Separating Yourself from the Competitive Pack Publishing Articles & Books: Your Lead-Generation Machine! A Book by YOU? Time to Finally Write and Publish a Book of Your Own Is Public Speaking Delivering You New Business? If Not, Stop Leaving $$$ on the Table! Stop Tweeting!!! Attract New Business Via Thoughtleading and “Eblasts” Recharge Your Consulting Career Crafting Your “Impact Message”… Boring, Annoying “Elevator Pitches” Begone! Maximize Your Creativity & Enthusiasm: HowFresh Thinking Can Excite Clients, Prospects, Staff … Everybody! KEN’S BIO: Chief Imaginative Officer (CIO) and Founder of emerson consulting group inc., Ken Lizotte CMC has transformed management consultants, professional services firms and other business experts into published “thoughtleaders” since 1996. His firm has elevated the visibility and credibility of his 400+ client thoughtleaders via books, articles, speaking engagements, podcasts and media. Ken’s website: https://thoughtleading.com/ A regular keynote speaker at events sponsored by IMC, the National Speakers Association, Harvard University and the Concord Festival of Authors, he’s been interviewed by the New York Times, Fortune, Newsweek, Financial Times, Investors’ Business Daily, National Public Radio, CBS, Writer’s Digest and many more. Co-founder of the National Writers Union, he is also current Chair of the CEO Club of Greater Boston and President of Thoreau Farm Trust, the birthplace of Henry David Thoreau. See Ken on video: https://thoughtleading.com/media/ Topic blurbs: Thoughtleading: the Art of Separating Yourself from the Competitive Pack To rise to the next level and eliminate your competition, become a thought leader! You may be the best-kept secret in your target market. This session will change all that as Ken shows you how to get the word via what he calls a “thoughtleading strategy.” Publishing Articles & Books: Your Lead-Generation Machine! Do you currently publish your ideas, or would like to? This session will provide you with effective techniques for leveraging your published articles and books so they produce qualified leads, new clients and projects and fatter profits. A Book by YOU? Time to Finally Write and Publish a Book of Your Own No higher thoughtleader vehicle exists than authoring a book. And there’s never been a better time for fulfilling this goal than now. This session explains what book publishers are looking for and how new technologies are making it easier to publish a book yourself. Ken shows you exactly what to do to make your book dream come true. Is Public Speaking Delivering You New Business? If Not, Stop Leaving $$$ on the Table! Done right, speaking engagements can yield a gold mine of new customers and projects. So if that’s NOT happening for you, you’re undoubtedly leaving money on the table. View each speaking gig as a beginning rather than a one-time event and you’ll soon reap new and long-lasting lucrative clients and projects. No more leaving $$$ on the table! Crafting Your “Impact Message”… Boring, Annoying “Elevator Pitches” Begone! Don’t you just love it when a networking host says, “Now let’s go around the room and hear everyone’s elevator pitch.” HELP! There’s a much better way to not only be heard but to stand out from the madding crowd. An “impact message” will grab everyone’s attention and succinctly state your value proposition all within 20-30 seconds. This session will help attendees craft their own. Stop Tweeting! Attract New Business Via “Eblasts” Despite the explosive rise of social media, creation and activation of an email list still rules the communication waves. Done right, eblasts will deliver prospects to you on a regular basis and keep clients coming back for more. Ken outlines why this is how and how you can do it too. Recharge Your Consulting Career! Has your consulting practice gotten into a rut? Maybe you’ve been wishing you could shift your focus and regain the passion and excitement of earlier days? Well, there IS a way and this session will guide you toward it. Attendees will obtain actionable skills for transforming their consulting career and revitalizing their motivation. Maximize Your Creativity & Enthusiasm: How Fresh Thinking Can Excite Clients, Prospects, Staff … Everybody! Learn skills for creative thinking that will spread enthusiasm throughout the ranks of your clientele, prospective buyers, staff, colleagues, vendors … everybody! This session is fun and uplifting with heightened innovation the result and an ongoing boost of energy your new normal. To learn more from Ken directly, email ken@thoughtleading.com