I called Xerox to get independent confirmation (I actually did this: It took all of my composure to convince them that it wasn’t a prank call), and they told me that they don’t track that information. A few online sources report that 23% of repairs are a result of the practice, but those websites aren’t reputable by any measure.

If we accept that the oft-repeated joke of bottom copying at least has some basis in reality, and that the typical photocopier can’t support the weight of a human being, then the logical conclusion is that photocopiers are occasionally damaged by the Xeroxing of derrières. With the cost of standard office photocopiers running into the thousands, this can be a significant financial drain.

Could be worse. David Robert Wright/Flickr

For an HR intervention before your team damages your IT infrastructure, you should consider why these behaviours might take place, and great things you can to mitigate them.

Recognize good work. Clever people find clever ways to be recognized. If Mike isn’t getting kudos for his awesome performance, at some point he’s going to redirect his energy into something that’ll get people talking about him.

Give direction. Help people set goals, and follow-up on their progress. While no one likes the stress of a big workload, knowing that there’s always something to do can be motivating. Effective companies don’t underestimate the ability of their staff to get things done.

Offer distractions. People who work too hard for too long stop being productive. Pranks are a way to blow off steam. If you can redirect negative energy into ping-pong, charity, or Nerf guns, your photocopier just might last a few more years.

And don’t forget: If you’re worried about vulgar tweets from stolen smartphones, make sure everyone (especially people who are privy to confidential information) locks their phone with a password.


Paul Baribeau writes for TribeHR, studies Knowledge Integration, and once considered a career as a pirate (it didn’t work out). TribeHR eliminates the big hassle of HR management for small and medium-sized businesses.

Inadequate or improper orientation is too expensive, too contagious, and too long-term. If great training is a gift that keeps on giving, poor training is a punch-in-the-gut that keeps on punching.

Finding and hiring great candidates can reduce the importance of your orientation program, but should never eliminate it entirely. Want to start the process before you’re even finished hiring? Great idea! Just make sure it happens.

Everything (everything!) you need to pass on to new employees can be put into one of four simple categories. Share each of them properly, and you’re golden. Make mistakes, and it’ll come back to haunt you. Here’s what you need:

Resilience.

This is the traditional goal of employee orientation. Resilient staff are excited to see changes in their lives, and innovations in the organization. They recognize when they’re struggling. They know how to access resources and use software that will help them succeed. They’re motivated to work hard, and believe that hard work will allow them to move up in the organization. They embrace and seek out challenges.

You can promote resilience by implementing mentorship programs, reducing personal risk to new staff, ensuring access to additional training and resources, and fostering a sense of community and common purpose.

Self-Efficacy.

It’s all about confidence in the situation. Staff need to believe that they’re qualified for the job and capable of doing it. They need to feel motivated and competent. They should have a sense of purpose and direction. Help them feel competent and directed by ensuring that they’re competent and directed, not by stroking egos and starting them with banal tasks.

If you get it right, self-efficacious staff will be creative and entrepreneurial, with strong leadership and learning tendencies.

Hope.

Your staff will understand and accept your big-picture mission and goals, and will believe that they have the power to fulfill them. They’ll independently develop their own short- and long-term goals, which are realistic and transcend job descriptions and performance expectations.

Staff with hope will be able to maintain focus on sustainable profitability, and their job commitment and satisfaction will keep them around for years and decades to come.

Optimism.

They’ll see obstacles as hurdles instead of barriers. They’ll embrace failure and everything that can be learned from it. They’ll believe that their work is for the common good, and will be excited to share it and to get others involved.

Optimistic staff are leaders in the organization and in the industry, have low turnover rates, and solid sales performance.

That’s it. Four things. Simple in name, if not in practice. Success means getting them right. Failure means high turnover, low productivity, and broken corporate culture. No pressure.

Source: Saks, A., & Gruman, J. (2011). “Organizational Socialization and Positive Organizational Behaviour: Implications for Theory, Research, and Practice.” Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences 28. 14–26.

Stretch goals are distant aspirations that are both extremely difficult to meet, and extremely novel within your industry. While they don’t have to appear unachievable, they often do (and sometimes actually are).

If you stretch too far, it might hurt. f1uffster/flickr

In 1972 Southwest Airlines was forced to sell one of their four aircraft in order to help pay their bills. Instead of permanently eliminating 25% of flights, they adopted a stretch goal of 10-minute turnaround times at airport gates. Other companies thought it was impossible. Southwest eventually met their goal with a race-car pit crew-inspired maintenance and refueling regimen.

This unprecedentedly efficient use of resources allowed the company to offer enhanced services with significantly reduced infrastructure costs. Southwest would become one of only a handful of American airlines to survive the tumultuous two decades following deregulation of the airline industry.

Researchers at 5 major American universities have found an interesting problem that’s inherent to the concept of a stretch goal. Their findings, published in the July 2011 issue of Academic of Management Review, show that for most firms, stretch goals are either unlikely to ever be pursued, or unlikely to ever be achieved.

Southwest Airlines isn't perfect, but they do a lot of things right. Emlyn Stokes/flickr

In high performance companies, there’s very little motivation to pursue stretch goals. Staff and management are prone to accepting the status quo, and are reluctant to do anything that might present risk or disrupt productivity.

In low performance companies, stretch goals are created in a desperate attempt to get out of the red. Unfortunately for these companies, meeting stretch goals takes time, money, and personnel. Sacrificing core functions to pursue long-term dreams is not a realistic plan for companies without a financial buffer. The benefits of a stretch goal might not be realized for years after the pursuit begins, and by then the company is in financial ruin.

Stretch goals don’t have to be company-wide. Individual staff, or cooperative teams, can come up with their own long-term aspirations. In companies with resources to spare, management and HR should make sure that staff have help developing their long-term plans, and access to the resources that will allow them to succeed.

Big aspirations often present big risks. Before you set stretch goals, ask yourself if you can afford to fail. If you can’t, consider some more modest strategic improvements.

“Success doesn’t come to you; You go to it.”

— Marva Collins

Source: Sitkin et. al. (2011). “The paradox of stretch goals: organizations in pursuit of the seemingly impossible.” Academy of Management Review 36(3). 544–566.

There are all sorts of unwanted side-effects to badly set goals (Ordonez et al., 2009):

• Too specific: It’s easy to get stuck on a goal that’s too specific and lose sight of the overall aim. Goals should be in the service of our overall aims, they shouldn’t be our masters.
• Too many: when people have too many goals they tend to concentrate on the easy ones. If the difficult ones are more important, once again the overall aim can suffer.
• Too soon: short-term goals encourage short-term thinking. Do you want your business to be around in five, ten or twenty years? The reason it’s difficult to get a cab on a rainy day in New York is partly because cabbies do such good business that they go home early, having met their daily target. Why stop working when profits are high? That’s short-term goal-setting for you.

To read the rest of the articles, just pick from the list below:

• The Dark Side of Goal-Setting
• Reaching Life Goals: Which Strategies Work
• The Zeigarnik Effect
• How to Commit to a Goal
• Success! Why Expectations Beat Fantasies
• Getting Big Projects Done: Balancing Task-Focus with Goal-Focus
• How to Avoid Procrastination: Think Concrete
• The What-The-Hell Effect
• The Right Kind of Visualisation

In the article the authors describe 5 self-imposed barriers that prevent emerging leaders from becoming truly exceptional leaders within their organization:

1. Overemphasizing Personal Goals
2. Over-Protecting Your Public Image
3. Turning Competitors into Enemies
4. Going It Alone
5. Waiting for Permission

It would be easy for us to simply say “stop doing these things“, but we thought it more useful to pull together some self-managing best practices to help you better coach yourself into becoming an exceptional leader.

Pro Tip #1: Mastermind Groups

There are many different types and models for mastermind (or peer-coaching) groups, but the basic principles are the same. First, you pull together a small group of individuals that are all interested in reaching a new level of success. Second, you meet regularly to solicit feedback from each other on challenges you are facing, to set measurable goals, and to review on how you’re each doing on the goals you set before.

The structure and principle are both simple: if you spend a bit of time every few weeks thinking about your goals and how to achieve them, you will not only keep those goals top-of-mind, but you will be more likely to pursue them. Add in a dash of peer pressure holding you accountable, and you’d be surprised at how much more effective you can be.

Here is a good link on creating and running a mastermind group.

Pro Tip #2: Ask for Feedback

One of the easiest way to improve is to ask for feedback on a regular basis. If you’re comfortable with the process, we recommend using tools like TribeHR or Rypple to collect anonymous feedback from your co-workers. If you’re not quite as comfortable with the written feedback, try taking a co-worker out for coffee and ask them for feedback over the course of the conversation. Some recommendations on asking for feedback:

• Make it about yourself: note that you are looking to improve, not that the other person needs to change
• Make it specific: avoid general statements, talk about a certain situation or behaviour
• Ask for expertise: ask a person who does well in the area you wish to improve, and ask for tips

Finally, be sure to make note of what you hope to change – you need to make it clear you are taking responsibility, which will not only help you take action, but will also help your co-worker be more open to sharing feedback in the future.

Pro Tip #3: Self-Directed Reviews

A common dilemma in the workplace, is that people often feel that they don’t receive enough feedback. Rather than lamenting the lack of frequent reviews, try delivering your own performance review to yourself and track your progress over time.

If your company has a defined review process, use the same form so that you are keeping your activities aligned to the company. If your company doesn’t have a set process, then try using this template from Microsoft (it’s a surprisingly succinct and useful form). When evaluating yourself, be sure to consider your work from the perspective of your boss and your co-workers. Rather than simply asking “do I perform well“, also think about it as “does it appear that I perform well“. Often, apparent performance issues are as much about communicating your work as they are about actual levels of effectiveness.

Pro Tip #4: Relinquish Control

As a final tip, review the tasks and projects that are sitting on your plate and for each of them, ask yourself if you should be managing them and if you actually need to be managing them. We often hold on to projects because we feel that we know the material best, however careful review of those assumptions often reveal that others within the organization would be just as able. Similarly, in an effort to be helpful, we often hold on to projects and responsibilities that really should have moved on to others.

By taking a regular inventory of tasks and responsibilities, you can identify items that either should be or could be shared with others. The first type (items that should be re-assigned) are often responsibilities that should be sitting on someone else’s plate – shifting these tasks will often improve the performance of your organization. The second type (items that could be re-assigned) may be opportunities to share new responsibilities with others that are looking to grow or try new challenges. By offering interested co-workers new projects, you’re not only helping them grow and develop but also lightening your work load, giving you more opportunity to grow and develop as well.

We hope these tips give you some new ideas on how you can take control of your own development at work.

New “My Profile” Tab

Some of our community members have been asking for a better way to group their actions and information together. Previously, you could view your employee file through the “People” tab, you could set your profile picture through the “My Preferences” link in the header, and you could request time off from the “Overview” page. This update includes the hot new “My Profile” tab that pulls together your employee file, messages, time off, profile picture and our exciting new Goals page!

The old links are still there, just consider this one more way to make your HR experience easy!

New “Goals” Page

For those of you that either really like setting goals or really wish your team was more pro-active in setting goals, this feature’s for you. Introducing our new Goals page! This new page (click on “My Profile” then “Goals” to get there) gives you a complete picture of you and your colleagues’ goals landscape. Here’s a screenshot of the page in action, along with some highlights:

1. Quickly get to your goals through the “My Profile” tab
2. See a snapshot of the goals your Supervisor, Co-Workers and Subordinates have shared with you
3. Add new goals and choose who you share them with
4. Review all your past goals – both new and completed goals

With this new page, you can more easily set goals that you control, and that support your co-workers. This works well if your goal-setting activities are part of a regular review cycle, or if you want to set new goals as the year progresses.

As you can see, we’re working hard to make Human Resources more friendly – if you have any thoughts on our new Goals page, or on any other features we’re working on, let us know by posting a comment!

Broadly speaking, think of SMART as a checklist you can refer you when defining your goals. If your goal passes all five checks, then you’re on the right track towards a goal that will help you grow and develop. Those five checks are:

1. S – Specific
2. M – Measurable
3. A – Aligned
4. R – Realistic
5. T – Timely

Specific

When defining a goal, try to avoid being vague. Your goal should be straightforward and reinforce your desired outcome. Being specific will help you focus your efforts and attention. A great way to ensure that your goal is specific, is to answer the 5W+H questions where possible: Who, What, Where, When, Why and How.

WHO is performing the action? (typically this is you, but it is good to double-check)
WHAT are they going to do? (use action words such as plan, write, build, etc.)
WHERE does the goal apply? (at work? at home? elsewhere)
WHEN will the goal be completed?
WHY is this important?
HOW are you going to do it?

You don’t need to answer all the questions list above, rather keep them in mind as you craft your goal. As an example, instead of aiming to “be a better team mate”, set a goal to “help your coworkers meet their sales targets this quarter by joining them on their sales calls as backup”.

Measurable

What gets measured gets done. Sometimes goals are simple, and success is easily defined (for example, if your goals is to remember to buy milk on the way home). More often, though, goals are complex and it becomes difficult to identify success (e.g. when are you fit “enough”?). The best way to keep yourself focused on achieving your goals is to choose goals with measurable progress so that you can see when you have reached your goal. “I want to exercise 30 minutes, 3 times each week” is a measurable target, whereas “I want to exercise more” is not.

Keep in mind, measurement is not just about measuring the end-point, it’s about measuring the progress as well. In the example above, we can measure an interim step of 20 minute workouts, 2 times each week. When we can measure your progress, we tend to stay on track as we can adjust our behaviour as we work towards the goal. This helps us meet our targets with more accuracy and keeps us motivated to continue our efforts towards our goals.

Aligned

As John Donne said, No man is an island. When you aligning your goals with the goals of the people around you, you ensure that you’re focusing your energy and expertise in the right direction.

This alignment is often interpreted as aligning your goals to the company goals, but good goals extend beyond just the company mission. Take the time to consider the goals of your organization, your manager, your co-workers and your subordinates. If you can align your goals to theirs, you will be more likely to help each other succeed and you will build a stronger relationship with the people best poised to help you in your career.

A great way to accomplish this is to reduce the number of times you ask yourself, “What do I want to do?” and rather ask yourself “What needs to be accomplished?” or “What can I do to help [co-worker's name]?”. When asking these latter two questions, you will naturally gravitate towards goals that you like helping with, and the net result is a goal that answers the original question by a different route.

Realistic

Of all the five checks, this one is the most subjective and personal. Some people are motivated by small incremental improvements, and some are motivated by large, audacious targets. It is important when defining your goals, that they are realistic to you. For example, some people may be daunted by a goal of doubling their sales volumes. Others may rise to the challenge.

When we set goals that are important to us, we naturally begin figuring out ways to accomplish them. If we can’t find a path to that completion, our commitment wavers and we become demotivated. Generally speaking, a goal needs to stretch you slightly so that it feels doable but will still require a real commitment (the amount of stretch, however, varies greatly from person to person). The feeling of success brought on by accomplishing a challenging goal will help you stay motivated.

Timely

A good goal should be set within a time frame; without a time frame there’s no sense of urgency. For example, if you want to learn how to use a new software package, when do you want to do it by? “Someday” won’t work to motivate you, however “by New Year” gives you a specific deadline. If we don’t set a time, our commitment is too vague and we tend not to start because we feel we can start at any time. Without a time frame, there’s no urgency to start taking action now.

Defining SMART goals is a smart way to manage your growth. If you find that your goals are often unclear, ambiguous, or  unrealistic you should consider sitting down with a your manager, a co-worker or someone from your Human Resources group to review them. By developing SMART goals (on your own or with others), you can clarify your contribution to the organization, improve your satisfaction with your work, and ensure your personal progress.

1. light weight,
2. easy to use,
3. and help you get employee information out of a spreadsheet onto something more portable.

It is important to us that we do that but that was focused more on the how. As we have spoken with people and started to get some feedback I think we have been a bit verbose with our vision (or at least it feels that way) so here it is in three simple points.

TribeHR’s main goals are to help you:

1. Evaluate the skills and experience you have in your organization.
2. Identify and develop the talent within your organization.
3. Create a knowledge base of best practices for items one and two above that can backed be up with examples.

We see an opportunity in the apparent divide in the management style that is commonplace and the people that are newer to the workplace. TribeHR is a part of a toolset and it will need to work with other tools in the future (we love APIs). Startups and small businesses are the ones that we believe experiment most with different management techniques and are more flexible which is why we have targeted them first.

What TribeHR isn’t: a tool that will use the Human Resources Buzz word dictionary. We want to make HR more friendly and focus less on terminology and more on the functionality that will have the highest return in order to achieve the goals we set.

I think this makes a bit more sense for us with regards to setting some goals and as we work towards version 1. There are some exciting possibilities that I can’t wait to realize!