REDEFINING LEADERSHIP: HELPING CLIENT COMPANIES BECOME TRUE ENGAGEMENT CHAMPIONS

Our quest to cut through the chaos for clients starts with the first relationship building touchpoint. As our business development professional learns the pain points, and opportunities, of our new or prospective client partners, asking the right questions about soft skills training and development opportunities is crucial.

Before we get into that, consider what your own training infrastructure looks like. Wait, before we do that, do me a favor and Google “glossophobia.” Or I can softball it over: it’s the fear of public speaking. It’s commonly referenced that 75% of all people have some fear of public speaking. How many of your HR professionals are comfortable, let alone good, at delivering training sessions? How are we finding HR superheroes who love creating and delivering their own content in front of a myriad of faces? Are we Chia petting them ourselves, hoping that they blossom under the continued internal growth models we are offering? What makes an HR person a public speaker?

If you are operating a smaller PEO, say roughly 5,000 or less worksite employees, your support team will be relatively lean to cover your overhead. Amongst the B2B courting process, the needs of the clients you seek to serve will have needs that run the gamut from OSHA compliance training, policy and procedure development, payroll streamlining, to management training. The latter comes up not as a daily ask, but certainly when it does happen the PEO needs to have a SME who can develop and deliver effectively and know when to outsource to other professionals in our networks when we can’t provide meaningful and inspiring trainings.

An HR leader who possesses the ability to deliver forward thinking, empathetic, and impactful training to client companies’ management teams demonstrates not just a perfunctory HR service, but rather puts a stronghold in the hearts of our small business owners that is key in client retention.

Where can these non-glossophobic champions of communication and interpersonal skills bosses be most pivotal? Regardless of how our often-virtual environment has morphed, the common workplace struggles our managers face have persisted.

Management Training
Recognize that many newer managers have never received any form of management training. They were good at their job, so they got the next job up, managing the people who do the job they are good at. Booting the bird out of the nest does not necessarily mean they are ready to launch. Develop a solid Supervisor 101 training program and ensure that your owners and c-suite executives are aware that you offer said training. Make that training available to prospective managers – this is certainly a “stay incentive” to aspiring team members who are not quite there yet, or when such an opening does not yet exist.

Focus this training on no more than four key areas to avoid overwhelming your audience. Do your research in advance – have that template, but as opposed to finding yourself in front of a group that doesn’t do performance appraisals, or doesn’t believe in progressive discipline, set aside time to talk to your client in advance. Ask about their company culture. Find out how they do their hiring, research their turnover, how they conduct their employee reviews, and if they have had persevering issues due to stuckness that you can help unhinge in these trainings.

Soft Skills and Emotional Intelligence (EI) Training
Offer Soft Skills and Emotional Intelligence (EI) training. These customized workshops can help managers develop a deeper understanding of emotional intelligence – what it means, how to improve their own, including self-awareness, self-regulation, empathy, and social skills. This training is essential for understanding and responding to team members’ emotional cues, which will help to create a more supportive and responsive leadership style.

HR Certification
Certify your HR professional(s) in some sort of personality indicator training. There are heaps of options, but some common ones are the Enneagram, Myers-Briggs, DISC, Real Colors. These classes tend to be F-U-N because they allow participants to talk about themselves (most people love this, I’m telling you), and learn factoids about their team members that they a.) would never have guessed and b.) allow them to process their coworkers reactions to workplace situations in a removed manner – realizing that it had nothing to do with them personally!

Communication Challenges
Understand that when your clients state they have “communication challenges,” this is a dumpster term that is not necessarily indicative of any one issue. Get at the issues with them. Has everyone retreated to written communication post-pandemic, and lately getting someone to answer or pick up the phone is akin to root canal surgery? Are we keeping redundant outdated files, creating confusion? Do we have inconsistencies in processes? Often when clients state they need “Communication training”, it can be difficult to not insert our own work narratives. I’ve found that unless you dig at the root cause and key players in the process, our strategies (I’m looking at you, “use I statements”), may not scratch the actual itch.

Perhaps knowing what you are not good at, and where your limitations lie with training and development, is as important as honing or finding your talented HR trainers and coaches. Build your network – it is vital to have a list of great one on one leadership coaches you can refer to. Diversity, equity, and inclusivity experts should also be in your pocket. Unless you are truly an authority on the topic, abstain from pretending that you are. This should further be made clear in the business development process – we are great at many things, and if you have an ask, we cannot fulfill, our team can find you someone to help.

What an exciting place to live as the PEO – knowing that our hard-working experts can help mold and hold together the crucial players of our clients, who keep the entrepreneurial machine propelling forward.