Feb. 20, 2020

This paid piece is sponsored by the USD Center for Professional Development.

From motivating employees to strategic workforce planning, seasoned executive Heather Zweifel has helped guide industries from health care to financial services in addressing their organizational performance.

Zweifel has more than 20 years of executive experience in the technological, financial services and health care industries. She has designed and led all aspects of human resources, strategic planning, project management, sales, organizational design and effectiveness, and product management and has managed P&L responsibilities.

The owner of consulting business Pivotal Performance, she now uses her skills and experiences to help organizations identify and diagnose areas that will further the success of their people, customers and the business while strengthening their legacy for years to come.

Zweifel will deliver two courses as part of the spring offerings from the USD Center for Professional Development in Sioux Falls:

Championship Coaching: Motivate Your Employees to Reach Their Potential

March 10 — 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Strategic Workforce Planning: Align Your Talent to Drive Results

April 2 — 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

We tackled both topics with her for a preview of what participants will be learning.

Let’s start with motivating employees. What are some of the biggest mistakes employers make in how they try or don’t try to motivate?

I feel the biggest mistake is that employers think they need to do all of the planning and work to motivate their employees. In reality, it can be a two-way street. Managers can quickly get caught up in the day-to-day of busy calendars and working to fix issues — which means they easily run out of time to share information with employees, to sincerely thank employees for their contributions, and they don’t make time to listen to the employees’ opinions and ideas.

When employers find themselves trying to fix everything rather than empowering their employees to help, the employer has chosen to carry the full load on their back rather than using the power of the team. One of the biggest motivators is feeling like you have made a difference, and employees can’t do that if they don’t feel informed and empowered.

Are there different motivation techniques to use depending on which fields employees are in or what career stage they are in?

Regardless of industry, when leaders are open and share information with their team, employees can engage and feel like a partner in the work. This partnership is often the best motivator and, in turn, encourages employees to solve problems when and where they occur. I don’t often think about career stages. Instead, I look at demonstrated skills, behaviors and interests. This provides a nice opportunity for everyone on the team to have areas that they can lead and other areas that they can learn from one another. Employers have the responsibility of determining when they need to teach new skills, manage opportunities and/or coach employees to reach their optimal performance.

What do you find are managers’ biggest surprise once they receive some professional education in how to motivate?

Typically, the biggest surprise is how the small things can make the biggest difference. Things like listening, asking open-ended questions and offering specific feedback all sound simple; however, we find that managers often have the greatest ah-has in these areas.

When we think about it, managers are typically promoted into their role because they are great at solving problems, consistently getting the work done, and they understand the department. We don’t often teach new managers how to transition from being that strong individual contributor to managing others. When managers are given the opportunity to think through how they teach, how they manage and how they coach, they are able to better distribute the work of their team and create greater engagement.

So when managers realize that they have continued to take on problems that they used to solve, and multiply that by the size of their team, they have this ah-ha that helps explain why they feel they’re struggling to keep their head above water. Spending the day focusing on basic coaching and managing skills helps them determine what they really need to help with versus how they can empower their employees to handle the work.  And the real light-bulb moments often occur a few weeks later when managers have had some at-bats with their team and are finding that their employees are much more engaged because they can see and feel the impact they are making on the organization.

What exactly is strategic workforce planning? How do you know where to begin?

Strategic workforce planning is really about making sure that an organization has the right people in the right jobs at the right time. The best place to start is with a current look at the resources and capabilities that you have within the organization and the broader market and then compare that to the organizational strategy.  Doing this, an organization will discover its challenges and can then set some targets to overcome them.

How do you go about assessing talent so that you then can begin aligning it?

We really look at two things: quality and quantity. Quality is about current performance and future potential. Employees are rated on each one, giving organizations an opportunity to capitalize on the full potential of their employees while identifying additional coaching and training needs to upskill for the future.

Quantity looks at metrics like turnover, growth, mobility and skill set needs to determine where an organization has risks and gaps and what they will need in the future to reach the goals. This provides a baseline for building talent within and greater clarity on the skills and competencies needed when recruiting new hires to round out the team.

What sorts of changes do businesses typically experience after doing this type of strategic planning?

Often, businesses don’t find the time for this level of planning and, as a result, find themselves reacting to the market and feeling like they are always running to catch up. We spend the class talking through the process of workforce planning and then rolling up our sleeves and getting started by identifying how this would work in participants’ current organizations. This provides a nice mix of discussion and collaboration in the class as wells as a nice stepping-off point for participants to go back to their office and identify how they can put their learning into practice.

Typically, business leaders and owners feel like they have greater control of their future performance and a stronger understanding of their current strengths and opportunities after they complete this type of planning, or, as I often hear, they find they can better flatten the cyclical peaks and valleys of their business and have greater control of their future success.

To learn more and register for these and other upcoming courses, click here. Group discounts are available. 

USD Center for Professional Development triples course offerings for spring