Alexandra Levit's Water Cooler Wisdom

Goodbye to My Current WSJ Column, The Workplace Report

All good things must come to an end.

My syndicated WSJ column, The Workplace Report, is coming to an end. The last 20 months have involved an unprecedented amount of change in the workforce and human resources spheres. I'm leaving it with five major predictions for the near future world of work, featuring Workplace Report highlights from the last year and a half of coverage.

The demand for skilled workers will reach a crisis point due to demographic shifts and falling fertility rates. According to Manpower Group’s 2023 Talent Shortage Survey, 77% of global employers say they are already struggling to find workers with the right mix of technical skills and human capabilities.

Talent intelligence, internal talent mobility, skills-based hiring, and the rise of short-term, rapidly assembled teams comprised of a mix of people with different geographies and employment arrangements – including contract workers and the first permanent WFH employees – will alleviate the squeeze.

Generative AI spreads its influence across industries. Generative artificial intelligence is a form of AI capable of generating text, images, or other media by learning the patterns and structure of input training data and then generating new data that has similar characteristics.

In the coming years, we will see expanded accessibility and impact via AI democratization, the integration of AI into a variety of work functions, and numerous use cases developed and publicized. People are unlikely to lose their jobs due to Gen AI alone, but rather to a human who knows how to work with Gen AI. And managers will need a whole new skillset to supervise human workers empowered by AI to make independent decisions.

Organizations are called to step up holistic employee care. In keeping with the longstanding view of employees as commodities, most organizations have been unaccustomed to concerning themselves with aspects of employee lives outside what they did between office walls.

However, as the definition of full-time employment becomes more fluid and mental health and burnout numbers remain higher than pre-pandemic, some (but not all) organizations will answer their employees’ calls for help (retaining  COVID-19-era benefits and adding new ones, managing layoffs effectively, etc.).

Employee experience will rise to the forefront as an essential part of engagement. Across the employee lifecycle, from talent acquisition to onboarding to learning and development, performance management, and offboarding, companies are making progress customizing their employee experiences to different groups depending on their unique journeys and requirements. Diversity, equity, and inclusion and allyship strategies will continue to be a priority for the most forward-thinking organizations.

The employee experience of the next several years is high tech and high touch and focuses on two overarching themes: purpose and flexibility. Also, the employee experience of 2030 will likely begin to include the metaverse, which will greatly impact organizational culture and work structures.

HR compliance is rising to a never-before-seen level of complexity. This has involved hundreds of new regulations associated with re-opening, distributed and remote work, vaccination, and labor relations, as well as those associated with human capital disclosures, pay transparency, and the increasing use of AI in organizations.

It is just a matter of time before lawmakers draft guardrails to use these technologies ethically and to safeguard sensitive data. As these regulations will vary by country, state, or locality, this will be increasingly difficult for HR and workforce professionals to keep up with.

New Book from Barry Moltz Promotes Agility Among Business Owners

The following is a guest post from my longtime friend and colleague, Barry Moltz. Barry's new book (linked below) is a must-read for business owners emerging from the pandemic crisis.

My work with thousands of small business owners over the past 20 years inspired me to write about how to make changes.

Well, that is not exactly true. More accurately, my frustration and the resulting challenges working with small business owners forced me to write this book. Let me explain.

I’m often asked by many companies and small business owners I don’t know to help them. They are referred to me, hear me speak at an event, or find me online. Typically, they’re feeling stuck by a problem, and their companies can’t move forward. For example, their business growth is stagnant or worse—they’re either losing money or not making enough to grow their companies or be motivated to keep going. After analyzing the situation, if I agree to work with them, we mutually decide on a go-forward strategy. I help them assemble a detailed plan to make any changes and the critical success factors and actions that need to be completed. They agree that taking these specific steps will help them solve their issues, grow their companies, and make more money.

And then, almost nothing happens.

Unfortunately, most small business owners implement a few easy steps but never take the critical or difficult ones that could make a difference. This has long frustrated me since we worked hard to develop a well-thought-out plan and were both excited to see the result. While it may not work perfectly once it is put into action, I know the plan will move their companies forward from where they are stuck now. I also feel bad because they are paying me their hard-earned cash to help them, and we both had agreed on the actions they needed to take and the time frame they needed to do it in. In the past, I tended to blame the inaction on myself. Did they not trust me enough to take significant steps, or did I just give them bad advice? However, after doing the research, I realize I was not the main reason for their inability to change.

I wrote my new book, “ChangeMasters: How to Actually Make the Change You Already Know You Need to Make” to figure out why small business owners do not make the changes or take the actions that they know will help them reach their goals. Where is the gap between the sincere intent to make these changes and the actions to actually do it? What holds most people back and keeps them stuck on the same path over and over again? Why are they still so comfortable not making any changes and staying on the path that clearly does not work for them—one that is not adding to their happiness or feeling of success? What steps do they need to take to slowly break free and start to make those changes today that will help them in the long run?

In this book, I reveal much of the psychological research around why change is so hard for so many people and the real-life strategies that every small business owner can employ to make the changes they need to make in their companies right now.

It starts with:

Narrowing the one change you want to make.

Identifying how you are currently doing that now.

What is driving the change (emotional, financial, etc.)?

What will happen if you don’t make the change?

What is the smallest first step you can make to start that change?

I am not trying to convince you to make a change but rather help you make the changes you already know you need to make but have not been able to do.

Are You Using These Retention Strategies?

Customer retention is the strategy of engaging customers so that they're motivated to continue purchasing from you. As a business owner, you may have tried many approaches to improve your business, but have you looked at your customer engagement efforts? While customer retention isn't an exact science, these innovative customer retention programs are worth a look. Just be sure to look at all strategies through the COVID lens of grace and sensitivity.

#1: Education

In a world where individuals are increasingly responsible for their own professional development, people will be grateful to your organization if you’re able to help them keep their knowledge fresh.

Education offerings can take a variety of forms, from online courses and podcasts to information repositories and access to subject matter experts. I know of a company that provides free sales and marketing training videos and certifications for customers and partners who want to grow their skills.

You can measure the success of customer retention programs involving education by tracking your Customer Retention Rate (CRR) before and after implementation, as well as ascertaining how completing educational initiatives correlates with repeat purchases.

#2: Pop-Up Engagements

"Surprise reciprocity" refers to the act of giving unexpected and delightful thanks to your most valuable customers in the form of a memorable gift or note.

Your offering need not be pricey if it's delivered with care and thought. Some of the best examples of surprise reciprocity are highly personal. If you run a toy store, you may send your customer’s child a handwritten birthday card with a free gift voucher enclosed. And if you have a pet supply store, you might send your customers a painting or cartoon of their beloved dog or cat.

Customer retention is the strategy of engaging customers so that they're motivated to continue purchasing from you. As a business owner, you may have tried many approaches to improve your business, but have you looked at your customer engagement efforts? While customer retention isn't an exact science, these innovative customer retention programs are worth a look.

#1: Education

In a world where individuals are increasingly responsible for their own professional development, people will be grateful to your organization if you’re able to help them keep their knowledge fresh.

Education offerings can take a variety of forms, from online courses and podcasts to information repositories and access to subject matter experts. I know of a company that provides free sales and marketing training videos and certifications for customers and partners who want to grow their skills.

You can measure the success of customer retention programs involving education by tracking your Customer Retention Rate (CRR) before and after implementation, as well as ascertaining how completing educational initiatives correlates with repeat purchases.

#2: Pop-Up Engagements

"Surprise reciprocity" refers to the act of giving unexpected and delightful thanks to your most valuable customers in the form of a memorable gift or note.

Your offering need not be pricey if it's delivered with care and thought. Some of the best examples of surprise reciprocity are highly personal. If you run a toy store, you may send your customer’s child a handwritten birthday card with a free gift voucher enclosed. And if you have a pet supply store, you might send your customers a painting or cartoon of their beloved dog or cat.

For the rest of my list, head over to the AMEX Business site.

How Entrepreneurs Can Use Supply Chain Finance

Supply chain finance, also known as reverse factoring, links the seller, the buyer and the financing party to improve business cash flow on all sides.

How Supply Chain Financing Works

In leveraging supply chain finance, suppliers sell outstanding receivables to financial institutions to accelerate payment of receivables and extend payment flexibility to customers.

Once the supplier sends an invoice to the buyer, the buyer confirms to the financial institution that the invoice is approved and the supplier receives payment immediately. When the invoice is due, the buyer pays the financial institution back.

Benefits for Buyers Using Supply Chain Financing

There are many benefits for buyers using supply chain financing, including increased liquidity, less contentious relationships with suppliers, decreased liabilities and consolidated finances.

Increased Liquidity

Buyers initiate reverse factoring so their suppliers receive more streamlined payments at lower interest rates. The process aids liquidity for buyers because they receive lengthier and generous payment terms.

Buyers also don't need to contend with early payment requests from suppliers. In the reverse factoring process, suppliers are already paid at previously agreed-upon, and typically faster, terms.

Less Contentious Relationships 

Supply chain finance helps the supply chain process run more smoothly and provides advantages for everyone involved.

In dealing directly with a supply chain funder (i.e. the factor), buyers can usually avoid payment disagreements with suppliers. When buyer/seller relationships don't deteriorate based on late payments or failure to pay, they can grow stronger and build trust, and are thus more likely to expand.

Decreased Liabilities

A business liability is money owed from past transactions that will require additional funds to resolve.

Buyers want to reduce liabilities so they can procure lower interest rates from lenders and maintain overall financial health. Using reverse factoring, the factor is on top of invoices and payments so buyers can focus on other things.

For the rest of the article, head over to the AMEX Business website.

Doing Right By Your Customers in a Crisis

Around the world, large companies are making unprecedented moves on behalf of their customers. Dunkin' is awarding its loyalty program members bonus points for using their drive thrus; luxury product manufacturer LVMH switched from making perfume to producing hand sanitizer.

But the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent quarantining procedures present a dilemma for business owners. How should one engage with customers during this frightening period? Is there a right or wrong strategy? Here are three dos and don'ts for effective interaction.

DO offer cancellations and refunds to the best of your ability.

Even if you have a policy that expressly states that all sales are final, recognize that these are extenuating circumstances and err on the side of generosity, especially if products haven’t been used or services rendered. 

Andrew Maff, who runs a digital marketing consultancy, understands why many of his staffing agency customers have pulled their orders as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The job market is a big question mark," Maff says, "so to help our clients do whatever they can to make it through this, we’ve had to be creative.

"For example, while we didn't give outright refunds, we basically offered a hold. Most of our clients have a minimum of a six-month contract. We volunteered to hold the monthly payments for up to 90 days, and then re-evaluate," he explains. "We did have two clients start in March and we voided those contracts, saying we'd revisit in the next few months. For clients who paid us already, we stopped working for the time being and will use the funds as a pre-payment for future services."

DO send a small gift or coupon to make their immediate situation easier.

If your product or service correlates to pandemic-related needs, consider providing something for free or at a discount. While this strategy may help you upsell, this isn’t the goal. You can show your customers that you’re thinking about their well-being by sending a food delivery, a subscription or even a simple handwritten card.  

Lisa Barrington, an employee engagement strategist, realized that her clients could use her advice in their newly created work-from-home roles. She responded by developing and delivering pro-bono webinars as well as free, downloadable videos and resources. The response was positive.

"People wrote on my LinkedIn to thank me for the great resources on my website, and one of my students who'd never worked from home before commented that he really appreciated and found the video useful," Barrington says.

For the rest of the piece, head over to the AMEX Business site.

Time-Saving Ways to Stay Up to Date on Market Trends

Business success today depends on understanding, in real time, what your customers need and what types of competitive strategies are the most effective. After all, there’s nothing worse than spending precious resources launching a new product or service that ultimately flops in the marketplace.

Fortunately, advancing technology makes it possible to conduct competitive market research more rapidly than in the past. Let’s explore how to conduct a market analysis efficiently, as well as strategies that facilitate quick learning of key market trends.

How to Conduct a Customer Needs Analysis

The first step is getting to know your customers, which we’ll discuss in more detail in the next section. You should use the information and feedback collected to divide your customers into segments. Segments should share a common characteristic (such as age or location) and be large enough to warrant individual marketing attention.

Within each segment, it’s helpful to develop buyer profiles. Thanks to the below information on how to conduct market research, you’ll hopefully have a complete understanding of your target buyer’s needs. Picturing her as a flesh and blood human, you’ll describe her demographics and background, her motivations and challenges, what she spends her life doing, how she communicates with businesses she patronizes and the messages that are most likely to appeal to her.

Your last customer needs analysis step? Connect each target buyer’s needs to a product or service. Call out your benefits, why the target buyer would or would not choose you over a competitor. If there are holes, consider refining your offerings to better address critical customer pain points.

How to Conduct Market Research without Spending Months or Millions

You don’t need to spend a fortune with a prestigious market research firm to gain valuable customer insights. There are a number of low cost, time-efficient ways of examining market trends – many of which are online. One go-to strategy is crowdsourcing. You can use social media or online surveys emailed to your database to collect feedback about what’s working (or not) for your existing customers. Be sure to ask the tough questions, encourage honesty, and reward customers for their participation via coupons, discounts, or gift cards.

In some cases and especially if you are developing a new product to service, you might want to access the larger market. Online services like TYLM (Tap Your Larger Market) and Gutcheck allow you to use targeting criteria like gender and income to ask a series of open and closed questions to millions of pre-qualified individuals. In addition to completed surveys, these tools can capture customer emotions via one-on-one video responses and can analyze and summarize the results so you don’t have to spend time sifting through raw data.

You might also deduce market trends through the use of text analysis software. These tools help business owners gain insights from structured and unstructured text data using natural language processing (or a program’s ability to process human speech patterns). Leveraging data from a variety of sources including public reviews, emails sent to your organization, surveys, and phone transcripts, text analysis software can pull out key language patterns that get to the bottom of customer sentiment. As an example, Thematic gathers customer feedback from your existing data sources and, by distilling common themes, analyzes your best route to keeping customers. Similarly, Chattermill takes unstructured input and translates it into clear actions meant to improve customer experience. And best of all, many steps can be automated!

Of course, your market trends analysis won’t be complete without competitor monitoring. If you’re not sure how to find competitors of a company, searching them out via Google and comparing and contrasting the features and benefits listed on their websites is an excellent place to start. A number of paid tools also help with competitor monitoring, including SEMRush, which provides data about your current online performance as well as that of your competitors and helps you accurately assess the search terms leading to your company and competitors. A second option is SpyFu, which allows you to search for any competitor and download their keywords.

While conducting a customer needs analysis and market trends research doesn’t have to take over your life, it may still be worthwhile to hire an intern or freelancer to employ these strategies on your behalf. While you should probably repeat your analyses annually, you will also get more proficient at minimizing time spent!

3 Innovative Business Trends for 2020

Remember when the year 2020 seemed incredibly far away? Sure enough, if we'd read about this year's new business trends in the late '90s, we might have thought they were pretty futuristic.

A few developments—including the artificially intelligent voice economy, democratized IT and enhanced social video—became reality in the last few years and form the basis of future business trends in 2020 and beyond. 

AI-Powered Voice Economy

Proactive voice response systems have long been a part of customer service. A proactive response from a machine prompts a human to ask a question. Then the machine answers and then asks a follow-up question.

For example, a customer might call a drugstore to order a prescription refill. The machine would offer the customer options; the customer could choose one, such as “Do I have a refill available?" and the machine could respond “Yes, there is one refill available. Can I fill the prescription for you?"

Phone-based customer service “robots" were once clunky and fussy, but the technology behind them is rapidly advancing. This progress is mostly due to improvements in natural language processing (NLP), or a machine's ability to process human speech patterns.

Artificially intelligent voice-based assistants like Alexa and Siri are taking off because if you think about it, it's much easier for humans to communicate with digital devices and software by voice than by typing onto a screen. Your assistant sits quietly in the background until you ask for its help, and thanks to NLP, it can respond to you far more accurately than in the past.

For the rest of the innovations, head over to the AMEX Business site.

Supply Chain Strategies for Smaller Businesses

Supply chain management refers to overseeing the processes that transform a raw material into a final product and ensuring that goods and services proceed smoothly from initial manufacturing to customer delivery. Effective supply chain management involves streamlining the flow in a way that maximizes the organization's bottom line and the end customer's value.

Experts believe the future of supply chain management will include increased automation, along with a focus on analytics, sustainability practices and complex supplier relationships. And women are leading the charge—according to a 2018 survey conducted by Gartner Research, there has been "sustained strong representation of women in the senior-most ranks of supply chain organizations relative to other functions. We also find more supply chain leaders spearheading their own initiatives to attract, retain and advance women."

To that end, I asked a few women supply chain leaders what they are doing to further their careers as well as the missions of their organizations.

Smart Analytics

Collecting data from a variety of sources and using it to derive relevant insights for the business can have an positive effect on supply chain performance.

Jill Keto, CMO of Easy Metrics, a cloud-based supply chain visibility provider, has moved up in her career by developing tools that help organizations optimize their largest controllable expense—labor. 

“Using big data in warehouse environments to track labor is a strategy that has paid huge dividends," Keto says. “My customers see improved team engagement, 40 percent productivity improvement and 15 percent labor cost reduction simply by using data to capture the labor costs of every action.

“In a tight job market where labor demand is outpacing supply," she continues, "and where customer requirements like same-day shipping and small orders are the norm, distribution operators are running into challenges that didn't exist before."

Keto leverages the interplay of the Internet of Things, machine learning and big data to bring a degree of calm to the chaos.

Sustainability Focus

Before founding her company virtue + vice, which advises fashion brands on impact sourcing and sustainable supply chain management, entrepreneur Melanie DiSalvo worked in supply chain management, product development and production for major fashion brands. 

DiSalvo's intimate experience with the fashion supply chain and global market trends, particularly strategic regional sourcing and operations, provided the know-how to launch her own company.

“My in-depth understanding of how each level of the supply chain works has gotten me ahead," she says. “My time spent living and working overseas in factories and mills was invaluable because it taught me exactly what's possible and what isn't, and shapes how I solve problems for my customers every day. 

"Because I know what goes into making each component of a clothing item, I can come up with environmentally sustainable workarounds that most people would never think to try," she adds.

For more insights, check out the full piece on the AMEX Business site.

These Business Process Improvements Saved My Company

My business success depends on working efficiently with other companies and individuals. Still, in the past, I structured my business processes as if I were a lone wolf. Every time I developed a process that didn't take others into account and was effective for me alone, I risked catastrophe. Fortunately, as a business process improvement writer, I've been exposed to a bevy of tools that I've adapted for the size and scope of my business and used to future-proof my operations. 

I hope these innovations are as helpful for you as they've been for me!

Low Code App Development

Mobile apps are all the rage, but it never occurred to me that I could build one. Instead, I spent hours pouring over existing solutions that I could never quite customize the right way. 

Low or no-code application development involves leveraging a software solution to create an app that solves a specific business problem without prior coding or programming knowledge. 

I built my first app for financial reporting in less than two weeks. It's designed precisely for the way I work with my accountant, and greatly streamlines our interactions!

Workflow and Collaboration Tools

I work on multiple virtual teams, all with different workflows. Although I'm an organized person, using too many collaboration tools (or worse, no tools at all) was confusing and led to small tasks slipping into the ether. 

Today, I employ a tool that allows me to manage several teams and projects at once and do so according to individual needs. By updating and visually displaying tasks, communication and project goals in real time, I maintain a space shuttle view of my own master workflow and make it easy for team members to work with me no matter where in the world we are.

For more strategies, head over to the AMEX Business site.

Managing Your Business for Profitability

A slow and steady growth strategy wins the race—or does it?

Some new businesses take time to gain momentum and ultimately become profitable, while others go from zero to successful much more quickly.

As someone whose business was in the former category, I set out to learn the secrets of owners who experienced rapid business growth. What did they do, and could their growth strategy be replicated?

Address Customer Complaints

We've all heard that a major factor in a new business' success is whether that business fills a niche or meets an untapped customer need. But if you want to employ an effective growth strategy, you might want to take that idea a step further and provide relief to customers who are vocally expressing anger with a current state of affairs.

Erica Douglass, CEO of the Austin, Texas-based electronics repair shop 1Up Repairs, did just that.

“We noticed that mobile phone manufacturers were making it difficult to get products fixed or working optimally," Douglass says. “Our customers were waiting in lines longer than the DMV to get a cracked screen repaired. If a phone port broke, they'd have to mail the product in and pay upwards of $100. Their batteries would wear out and they'd be forced to buy new phones.

"We addressed an ongoing customer frustration by providing fast and easy repairs to items that most consider essential to their daily lives," she continues, "and in doing so went from a single shop to six in a few years."

Build a Memorable Brand

Will Robins, CEO of men's grooming venture Manscaped, didn't want his new company to be just another provider of razors or body lotion. As he conducted market research, he learned there was a serious deficit in safe, easy-to-use products to groom below the belt.

“That was our plug," says Robins. “Our new brand, Manscaped, offers men not just fancy electric trimmers and razors, but also ones that feature nick prevention—safety guards that prevent customers from getting into a hairy situation. Manscaped became associated with comfort, assurance and the removal of dread for guys ranging from tweens to 50 year olds."

Robins' growth strategy included fully expressing the brand, but in doing so, he and his team did more than develop a cool logo and tagline.

“Through our digital presence and content, especially our humorous videos, we created a unique voice that makes our audience laugh and in the process wins them over to trying the products."

The Manscaped brand caught so much attention that it was featured—and funded—on the ABC television series Shark Tank.

For more where this came from, head on over to the AMEX Business site.