What else could go wrong for Bam Bam? Fight with Chaves is in jeopardy.

I was ringside at the Home Depot Center in Carson, California in October of 2012 when Brandon “ Bam Bam “Rios knocked out Mike Alvarado in the seventh round of a brutal slugfest that had everyone in the arena on their feet. Bam Bam moved up from lightweight to face a huge and hard punching junior welterweight, Mike Alvarado and showed everyone that he was up for a challenge. Rios was on top of the world then… It’s been going downhill from that point on

What a difference a year makes. 2013 was a disaster for a Mexican American slugger who lives in Oxnard, California. First he lost a rematch to Mike Alvarado, because a boxer from Denver decided to box a little instead of slugging it out like they did the first time, and Rios did not have plan B.  Then in November Bam Bam went to Macao, China for a dream matchup with superstar Manny Pacquiao. Dream matchup turned into a nightmare as Pacman took Bam Bam to school and dominated him for twelve rounds.

 Brandon Rios never really got beat up or seriously destroyed by any opponent, but in the sport where fan’s theme song is “What have you done for me lately” losing three times in a row could mean death to a fighter’s career.

“Actually it is a do or die for me,” said Rios in an interview with Ring TV:” because I did lose my last two fights. Some people have counted me out. I am still young. I still have a lot to prove and I am ready.”

“You can lose fights and still come out victorious. You don’t have to lose two fights and be a bum,” continued Rios, 28:” Lots of greats lost fights and nobody considered them bums. Its part of boxing you win some you lose some.”

Bandon Rios (31-2-1,23KO) is scheduled to fight Diego Chaves (23-1,19KO) in a ten rounds or less welterweight scrap at the Cosmopolitan Hotel in Las Vegas on August 2nd, 2014. HBO will televise. But as I am writing this article Diego Chaves is still in Argentina without a visa to be able to travel to United States for the fight. Promoter Bob Arum stated that visa problem was created by US government back log.  International telephone conference with Brandon Rios and his trainer Robert Garcia to discuss upcoming bout scheduled for today was postponed. Brandon Rios desperately needs to make a statement in this fight, but right now he is not even sure if there will be a fight. But that’s boxing as Bam Bam would say. Stay tuned.

Get Your Leaders Moving On Your Strategy

Strategic Leadership Development (SLD) Creates the leaders you need to take your organization where it needs to go. SLD is a highly effective change process that addresses all the issues:

• SLD begins with your business objectives and enables you to identify the specific leadership practices needed to achieve them.
• SLD builds accountability into the development process in a uniquely powerful and comprehensive way.
• SLD is grounded in a technically superior, research-based model of effective leadership practices.
• SLD makes your leadership expectations clear and credible - and that is critical to creating the leadership culture you need to reach your business goals.

DEFINE LEADERSHIP REQUIREMENTS

In order to focus and align leadership development with the needs of the organization and its strategy, the first step is to define requirements.

"In the future, our leaders must..."

Using Strategic Directions, your designated team identifies the behaviors needed in the future to create a leadership culture aligned with your strategy. Because there is no "one right way" to lead for all organizations, Strategic Directions enables you to select the template of leadership practices that is right for your organization.

By establishing Strategic Directions, your entire organization gains clarity and consensus about leadership expectations. Moreover, Strategic Directions helps you assess learning and development initiatives to determine where to invest time and money.

Strategic Directions is the best starting point. It produces rapid, impressive results. It provides a road map for change and builds the commitment needed for long-term success.

Strategic Directions answers the question: To create a leadership culture aligned with our business strategy and direction, what leadership behaviors will be required?

#JoeKran

Getting the most out of your core employee!

GETTING THE MOST OUT OF YOUR CORE EMPLOYEES

It has been made absolutely clear to all of us that a successful talent management program is the number one demand faced by senior management. This is not only true today, but good talent management will be more difficult in tomorrow’s workplace. The competitive pressures of globalization, outsourcing, the aging workforce, demographic shifts, generational differences and work/life balance issues will only become greater.

We are spending more of our time and energy addressing this issue. We develop succession planning systems for our high-potential employees to better identify and plan for their growth and development. We are quicker to terminate or shuffle those employees who are not performing well to make room for our up-and-comers. Indeed, our high-potential and poor employees take up most of our effort in managing personnel.

High potential employees or “A” players demand and receive constant attention. Their concerns about career growth and promotion, performance feedback, and their seemingly constant demand to be noticed is a time-consuming experience for bosses and HR. Many bosses initially find mentoring A players to be satisfying, because most of them are topplayers themselves. Bosses see a lot of those attributes which made themselves successful in this group of employees. Given the pressure on their time, they often decide to focus their mentoring on the employees who will benefit them and the company the most.

Because of legal ramifications, management and HR also have to devote a lot of effort and care to handling poor performing or “C” employees.Behind the scenes performance discussions, making sure that solid documentation exists, conducting appropriate counseling sessions and the actual termination are draining. Moreover, filling any vacancy and the ramp up time that goes with it also take a considerable amount of energy and time.

Some studies estimate that bosses and HR can spend up to 75% of their time that is not devoted to administrative duties dealing with A and Cemployees. Yet these two groups of employees usually make up only about 30% of the workforce with A’s consisting of about 20% and C’s 10%.Employee problems seem to gravitate among these categories of employees. In fact, how often have we seen new bosses get “rid of the bad managers/employees and replace them with the excellent ones” and consider their reorganization efforts all but done?

No wonder executives and HR personnel can’t give the third unit of employees the time and attention that is needed. Yet these “B” employees usually constitute about 70% of all company personnel. Their development and mentoring often go wanting. An occasional structured training or formalized course usually makes up their formal training. There is not enough transitional or cross training assignments to give B employees since companies have to run leaner because of global competition. The few ones that do exist go to the A players. And bosses and HR do not have the time, energy or inclination to devote to mentoring these middle level employees.

Yet we often forget that this middle group of employees brings several important advantages with them. B employees are generally not as outwardly demanding of time and attention as are other personnel. These solid citizens differ from the A group in that they tend to pursue organizational goals over personal ones because they value stability both for themselves and for the company. Because they are not promoted as quickly, they build up a greater degree of institutional knowledge which makes them more valuable in times of organizational transitions. And because of this greater degree of stability, they are able to take a longer-term perspective to situations and problems.

IT IS NOT AN OVERSTATEMENT TO SAY THAT B PLAYERS ARE THE HEART AND SOUL OF ANY ORGANIZATION. IF THEY ARE MEDIOCRE, THE COMPANY WILL BE MEDIOCRE. IF THEY ARE HIGH PERFORMERS, THE FIRM WILL BE ONE AS WELL. THE A GROUP WILL NEVER MAKE UP FOR THE MARGINAL PERFORMANCE OF A GROUP THAT CONSTITUTES 70% OF THE WORKFORCE.

Yet this core group often exhibits a greater patience with career advancement and development such that managers often overlook them.Given the constant demands of the other two groups, administrative tasks and planning/strategic requirements, bosses and HR will always be hard pressed to provide the B group with the resources that are needed. There often does not seem to be enough time, money, energy and opportunity to ensure their careful and systematic development into excellent performers. This core group of employees will not be provided with the same level of job rotation, individualized coaching and customized structural training that high-potential employees receive.

Yet, turnover among this core group of employees is rising. Companies are struggling to retain enough B level professionals to service existing clients, let alone acquire new ones. B professionals, like those in the Agroup see themselves as free agents, and stay only until a better offer comes along. One of the biggest reasons why the core employees leave is dissatisfaction with their development. They do not believe that their company really cares enough about them to make appropriate investments, especially when they see what the high potential employees receive.

Constructive steps can be taken to minimize this problem. A critical component is to offer core employees some meaningful level of one-on-one mentoring/coaching and customized training to meet theirindividualized developmental needs. It is important that these efforts are seen as being relevant to the employees’ current challenges and probable future work assignments. The coaching and structured training has to be tailored to the uniqueness of the role that the B employee must play in the success of the company: one that is critical even though none will likely be promoted to executive management. Mid-level skills and competencies must be stressed in a manner that does not come across as canned or off-the-shelf.

It's OK if your managers don't always function as a team!

“If they could just function as a team” often seems to be the perceived solution to many business challenges. Who among us has not wished that our direct reports or peers or superiors work better as a team so that strategies become easier to execute or problems more readily solved? But if you were to speak with most employees, the common perception they would have is that the managers in their department, division or, for that matter, in the company do not function well as a team. They often see individual goals, petty differences, and conflicting objectives as getting in the way of their managers acting as one mind, with one objective without regard to personal gain. Moreover, they would shake their heads incredulously at the notion that their managers could ever develop into a cohesive team on a consistent basis!

THEY HAPPEN TO BE RIGHT. The entire workforce of any large and complex organization can never function as a team, but think about how often executives refer to their company as such. And even more important, it is not necessary or even desirable to a group of managers to always function as a team. Now I know this idea goes against the mind set of most Human Resources professionals and enlightened line management. But this is certainly not a new concept; others have effectively argued this very notion. To better illustrate this concept, we need to first consider how a manager’s job, whether it is an executive or first-line one, is generally structured.

In practice, the overall goals of a corporation are segmented into compartments for maximum efficiency. A company organizes managers to take full advantage of their experience and skills. Manufacturing executives generally only focus on production issues, R&D executives generally focus on research and development efforts, etc. Of course there has to be activity and coordination between departments (R&D has to develop products that can be manufactured on a volume scale), but the reward systems are structured more to stimulate individual, rather than group performance. As manager become more efficient and productive, they become more valuable. They are then given better raises and responsibility for more people and company assets.

This structure is desirable because abstract goals such as “maximize the company’s or “implement the company’s strategy” are too broad to provide the appropriate focus or mutual accountability that is necessary for a real team effort.Without this type of structure, companies, their divisions and their departments would get very little accomplished. Deciding on strategy, getting things done in a timely fashion, taking maximum advantage of specific expertise and skills would all suffer. The company over time will cease to exist or will be gobbled up by another because of poor execution and efficiencies.

On the other hand teams are usually defined as a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, set of performance goals, a group approach for which they are held mutually accountable and where rewards are given out on a group basis. The structure of a team is often diametrically different to the traditional Corporate construction.

Several ingredients must be present for a group to be truly labeled as a team:

• A specific, tangible goal or purpose that the team itself obtains
• Shared leadership roles
• Mutual accountability
• Group incentives and rewards
• Collective work products

Yet no one is understating the importance of team efforts. In fact, as companies are confronted with the need to manage change across their organizations to successfully compete on a global level, the need for more teamwork will be necessary. Teams will become the driving force for success because they can cut though the established bureaucracy, resistance to dynamic change, and limited diversity in skills and knowledge of a homogeneous group.

But this does not mean that teams will or should crowd out individual opportunity, performance or formal hierarchy and process. Rather, teams will enhance existing structures, effort and leadership, rather than replace them. A team opportunity exists anywhere traditional structure, hierarchy or organizational boundaries inhibit optimum results.

Thus, for example, product innovation requires preserving functional excellence while eliminating functional limitations through cross functional team efforts. And first line productivity requires preserving directional and guidance through hierarchy while drawing on the benefits of teamwork. Specific goals, such as getting a new product to market in less than half the traditional time, resolving customer complaints within 24 hours, or reducing error rates by 1/3, trimming costs by 15% are all appropriate for team efforts.

On the other hand, when teams lack that specific, singular purpose, they rarely are effective. This waste of time, energy and talent can be seen in instances such as “quality circles” that could never identify specific quality improvement goals.

The challenge for all executive and human resources leaders is to preserve the traditional hieratical corporate structure where the benefits of individualism, specialization and command control are realized while taking advantage of the vital and discrete work products and results that can only come about through the joint contributions of their teams members. For a company to be successful in this ever increasingly competitive environment, it must do both well!

Company officials must ensure that both hierarchical and team groups are structured and function in a manner to allow its individuals to truly feel engaged and motivated to maximize their contributions. And they need to create an environment where individuals can seamlessly migrate from one group type to another.

We welcome the opportunity to discuss how this can be accomplished at your company. For more information, please contact Joseph Kran at 800-376-8176 or via email at joe.kran@gigincmail.com.

Key Employee Retention in the 21st Century

70 million baby-boomers will retire in 10 years and the next generation workforce will only supply 45 million new workers. The competitive battle among companies for skilled employees will only become fiercer. Employment managers will be in for the fight of their careers in attempting to find and attract needed talent. Of course, this problem is even further exacerbated by today's strong economic climate. With unemployment hovering around 4.8%, competent employees know that they can fairly easily find comparable, if not better, employment with reasonable effort.

Every time a key employee quits, it costs that company 18 months of salary. And when the hidden costs such as lost sales, customer defections, lower productivity and morale are factored into the equation, the loss of a key employee is extremely expensive.

Effectively retaining needed employees will become the most competitive long-term advantage that a company has over its competitors. If a company cannot accomplish this, it will eventually cease to exist. Lowering the turnover rate among key employees will (if it is not already) become the most important priority of the Human Resources function for this century. Pressure will invariably increase from the Board of Directors, the CEO, and the business unit heads to retain valuable personnel. This burden rightly will fall squarely upon the shoulders of Human Resources!

Although salary usually ranks lower than other important reasons as to why key employees leave in any exit survey, a company can always throw more money in the form of increased salaries, bonuses or benefits at this problem. A company can try to make it too expensive for its key employees to leave. Of course, this strategy is untenable because these key individuals only remain because they cannot afford to go to a more satisfying work environment; their productivity and enthusiasm levels will certainly not be commensurate with their costs. Moreover, here is a more practical reason as to why this practice is doomed to failure. The company simply cannot afford to pay these higher wages and still make a profit.

Human Resources is often great at coming up with the latest tactics to combat this problem. A company picnic, employee appreciation day, flexible benefits, a well-defined mission statement, day care centers, etc. are all positive steps that have been implemented to try and stem the tide of key employee turnover. Yet, in current surveys, 6 out of 10 employees state that they are or will be looking for a better position within the next 24 months.

Clearly these well-intentioned programs are not achieving the desired results. These efforts are often fragmented, no more than shots in the dark. They lack a fundamental strategy.

This is not surprising since the long-established implied contract with employees that produced strong company loyalty is no longer in force. Lasting job security and a good pension afterwards are not benefits that corporations can promise its employees anymore to maintain their commitment to stay. And throwing nice-sounding perks at them are not as effective as hoped because they lack cohesiveness.

A fundamental change in how executive management and Human Resources views its employees is needed to generate cost-effective measures to lower its key employee turnover in this current area where employee loyalty cannot be based upon the old retention/ loyalty model.

Employers must now see their employees in the same way as they do their customers. Customers have choice and so do employees, especially those with valuable skills. Customers are not bound to buy and employees are not bound anymore through job security and pensions to stay.

Any good marketing department knows that many factors come into play regarding customer retention. Price, product features, quality, service and promotion are key ingredients. The more that marketing understands the needs and wants of a client, the better the firm can develop and promote products that addresses them. And, therefore, the company has a greater chance of keeping the client. But a good marketing department does not attempt to do this in a piece meal fashion, but rather as part of a systematic process that entails research, product development and promotion.

Key employee retention in this modern era requires no less of a systematic marketing effort! Human Resources must attack this problem as a complex product marketing endeavor. The company is the product and its employees are its customers.

Historically, Human Resources has confined its marketing efforts generally to the employee newspaper and attitude surveys. Those feel-good employee articles and pictures and meaningless messages from the President are about as sophisticated a marketing promotions effort as Human Resources have ever done. Employee surveys generally lacked the comprehensiveness to ascertain really useful information. And when pertinent data was collected, there existed little structure to ensure appropriate follow-up and corrective action.

This must change now. Human Resources must transform and greatly expand its basic employee communications effort into a full-blown "Employee Marketing Department." The primary functions of this unit would be no different than those of any good marketing department: systematic employee (customer) research, long-term strategy development, tactical employee program initiatives and comprehensive company promotion.

No additional funds would be needed to make this re-orientation successful. Companies are spending the money anyway. The only major difference is that company funds for employee programs and benefits would be spent as part of a well thought out, systematic process. And the promotion of these products would be with all the sophistication and intent of ensuring that employees, especially those groups designated as key, know the true value of what the company provides.

If you would like further information about key employee retention, please contact Walter Sonyi at 1-800-376-8176 or walter.sonyi@gigincmail.com.

Making Layoffs the Right Way

Ian Kerner saw it coming. The CEO of Arc, a New York-based Internet consultancy, knew by October that his business was slowing down, and that the next round of funding his investors had promised was probably not to going to come anytime soon. Something had to give; some people would have to go. "This wasn't a case of singling people out for performance issues. I knew I had to do something significant," Kerner says.

"Significant" was an understatement. After a "brutally frank" assessment of Arc's project pipeline, Kerner concluded that he had to let 40 employees go - half of Arc's staff, almost all of whom he had hired personally. "You have very few opportunities to get smaller, and if you miss the right moment to shrink, you go out of business," observes Kerner. "But I felt anxiety, guilt, a desire to help them, a desire to forestall the layoffs."

Firing good employees is one of the toughest tasks a business leader can face. And these days, it's a task that's getting harder to avoid. After years of learning how to manage growth, executives are now being reminded that they need to know how to run a shop in lean times, too.

"There's little worse you can do in the work world than take someone's job away when they've done nothing wrong," says Helen Drinan, CEO of the Society for Human Resources Managers.

Unfortunately, nearly half of U.S. companies fail to provide their managers with any layoff training. But there is a right way to go about downsizing. Do it well, and few of the victims will take it personally. Your "surviving" employees will remain committed to the hard work ahead as well. And your conscience will rest easier if you know your smooth handling of the situation helped soften the blow.

"Companies that are in business for the long term recognize that how they lay people off is just as reflective of what kind of company they are as how they reward people," Drinan says.

The best time to prepare your employees for a downturn is when things are going well. Discussing layoff procedures before they are even a threat allows for a calm, clear exchange of information, which will prove valuable in the event of actual bad news. Regular updates on company or division performance are essential. Keep your employees informed, and they'll be upset -- but not surprised -- when layoffs are announced.

Don't go it alone. Given the number of financial, legal and emotional pitfalls layoffs can bring, human resources professionals lead the effort in most companies. Whenever possible, consult with an employment attorney as early as possible, if only to avoid possible legal ramifications; employee lawsuits are up more than 2000 percent in the past two decades, according to Jackson, Lewis, Schnitzler & Krupman, an employment and labor-law firm.

Having been mandated to cut positions, how do you decide who stays and who goes? It's an easier assignment if you're excising an entire department or division. When Kerner assessed his company's prospects, he chose to close the firm's satellite offices wholesale, and trimmed certain types of jobs he didn't see a market for. "I decided the age of business plan writing was over, so the people I had to write plans weren't going to be as useful going forward," he says.

If, however, you need to cut with a smaller knife, the problem is unfortunately not as simple as keeping the best and jettisoning the rest. Employees with specialized skills (such as knowledge of a certain programming language or a crucial account) may be indispensable despite lackluster performance.

This still leaves you a fair amount of leeway. Redundant positions, relatively poor individual performance, or budget imperatives that suggest cutting higher salaries - all are potentially valid reasons to let someone go. Just be sure to document your reasons for electing each employee, so that in the unlikely event of a discrimination suit, you will have a paper trail to support your reasoning. In larger layoffs, you should make sure that no single ethnic, racial or other demographic group is overly represented on the cut list.

Look out for age discrimination in particular, cautions Lisa Moran, a New York employment attorney. Since age often legitimately correlates to slowing performance or higher salaries, you may find cause to concentrate your cuts on more senior employees. Just make sure you're acting on quantifiable data on performance or cost and not just a general sense that, for example, your 55-year-old salesman "isn't a good fit."

Moran also cautions clients about the WARN Act (Workers Adjustment and Retraining Notification). This federal statute requires companies that have at least 100 full time employees and that are laying off more than 50 of them to give two months' warning before making the cuts. "Most people don't know about this and they get into lots of trouble with it," says Moran. Companies that don't provide the necessary 60-day advance warning not only have to pay laid-off workers for the balance of the 60 days, but also may have to fork out punitive damages.

The next step is to develop a clear message explaining the layoffs. The message must be delivered uniformly to everyone concerned: affected workers, remaining staff, and even investors.

This is also the right time to give your lieutenants the help they'll need to do the job properly. The training should go through the layoff selection process, timing and other logistics, the message managers should communicate, and how to deal with the survivors. Training meetings also give managers a chance to write a script for the dreaded meeting. As unnatural as it may seem during an emotionally intense meeting, having comments prepared can help to keep the interaction from becoming personal.

Keep in mind that while human resources managers may be orchestrating the show, they're the conductors, not the performers. Whenever possible, employees should receive the word individually from their immediate supervisor. "It's awful when you've hired somebody, you've nurtured their career, and now you're going to do something that damages their personal and their professional lives," Kerner admits. "That's why a lot of managers want to delegate the job." He found that in most cases, people handled the news very well. "Most people understood and felt that it made sense."

Once you're ready, don't delay. Break the news early in the week, early in the day. Be concise. "After the initial shock, says SHRM's Drinan, "people can't even hear most of what you're saying anyhow."
A few crucial points to hit: Make sure the employees understand how their layoff fits into the bigger picture. "They have to leave with a story they can tell themselves, their colleagues, their family. If the person's going to be one of 25, they need to know they're one of 25," Drinan says.

Make it clear that this is a final decision from which employees will have to move forward. Avoid explaining how hard this is for you, too. This meeting isn't about you -- after all, you're still employed. Instead, concentrate on what the person is going to do immediately after your meeting. Have something on paper detailing the severance arrangement, COBRA (health insurance) rights, and what must be done with company equipment and facilities like phones and computers.

Once the pink-slip meeting is over, now what? Lawyers and human resources executives often disagree about how to handle the rest of layoff day.

I don't think people should have to leave right away. there needs to be a reaction process and space
Moran takes a harder line. "People say it's inhumane to lock down computers and escort people out, but that's what I would recommend as your lawyer. They're your files and your property," she says.

Closing laid-off workers' email accounts and access to your corporate network probably does make sense. If you're allowing them to use their desks for a few days, consider having your IT department provide a generic log-in so they can have access to the web and email.

Security guards, on the other hand, may be an excessive touch, sending a message that you either fear or mistrust your employees. "Their presence is very, very negative in a layoff situation," Drinan says. "I've been in companies laying off thousands of people. I've never had an experience where anybody has done something where you'd say someone call a guard."

Don't expect much real business to take place on the day the music dies. As people absorb the news and begin adapting, "you cannot over-communicate". You have to woo remaining employees to stay all over again." In your role as a leader, don't downplay or soft-pedal business conditions with the surviving crew. Give it to 'em straight, and don't be ashamed of what you've done. Show that you still believe in the company's future, and that what just happened, while surely unpleasant, was the right thing to do.

"Remember, it's about survival," counsels a Los Angeles media executive who recently laid off staff for the first time in his career. "If you don't do it, 100 more people are going to lose their jobs."

COMPANY SPONSORED PRE-RETIREMENT COUNSELING. IS IT A GOOD IDEA?

76 million US employees are at or near retirement age. The benefits of proper pre-retirement planning for your employees are many and obvious. Yet most of the millions of baby boomers who have imminent plans to retire are ill prepared. They face five main hurdles:

(1) Raising Health Care Costs. Health care costs will conservatively raise anywhere from 12% to 18% per year. As the technology of keeping us alive longer only continues to improve, there will be no relief to the cost of doing so.

(2) Disappearing Pensions. More and more companies are eliminating their company sponsored defined retirement plans. And they are doing so while not significantly increasing their defined contribution offerings.

(3) Inadequate Personal Savings. Not withstanding the recent turmoil in the stock market, Americans simply do not save enough money period, let alone for their retirement years. Study after study indicates that we save less per individual of any major industrialized nation.

(4) Forced To Retire Far Sooner Than They Had Hoped. In a recent study of retirees and pre-retirees, 50% planned to work past age 65. Only 13% have done so. Most of been forced to retire because of unexpected health problems or loss of their job. More than 30% of retirees planned to work part-time after their formal retirement, but only 10% have been able to accomplish this goal. The same reasons have prevented the other 90% from working part-time: poor health and no job opportunities.

Of course this presents a double whammy for retirees who are forced to quit working early and/or cannot get part-time work. They have significantly less time to contribute to their retirement savings and they have to use what savings they have accumulated for more years than they anticipated.

(5) Unrealistic Expectations About Reducing Costs. Only 10% of retirees state that they have significantly reduced their expenses from their pre-retirement levels. Most say that with inflation and higher taxes, it is just impossible to lower your expenses from what you were paying just prior to retirement and keep a similar standard of living.

So your employees need pre-retirement help, but why should companies pay for it? That’s a good question. Why should a company invest any more money in an employee that will retire and no longer be of benefit to the company? This question is especially relevant in light of today’s tough economic times.

We believe that the answer is both no and yes! Companies should not get involved with offering financial advice, either in-house, sponsoring outside providers or by subsidies. Despite disclaimers, the risk of lawsuits stemming from financial downturns or unexpected catastrophic situations are just too great. Even without the potential legal consequences, a company would risk the tarnishing of its image and, therefore, its employee branding. If employees lost a portion of their retirement nest egg by following recommendations made by an organization or individual somehow linked to the company, they would invariably blame the company to some extent.

Fewer companies provide this benefit for these very reasons.Other companies only offer it to their top executives, who presumably have more financial sophistication. With the preponderance of financial companies out in the market today, all levels of employees can find needed assistance on their own for reasonable cost. Investment advice is no longer confined to the wealthy.

However, there are at least four benefits to a company that provides some modest pre-retirement counseling to its employees:

A. Improve Employee Branding. Goodwill will be generated with current employees. This type of effort demonstrates that the company does care about its employees and is willing to invest in their well-being.

B. Create A Pool Of Experienced Part-Time Workers. If structured the right way, retirement counseling can provide options to the retiring employee to return to the company in a limited role. This might be especially beneficial to a company if the retired employee fills lower level vacancies to which they would not normally do so. This allows the company to staff positions with extremely qualified (perhaps over qualified) personnel who know the company and are happy to assume vacancies that have less pressure.

C. More Voluntary Lay-Offs When Needed. If employees feel better prepared for retirement, they are more likely to accept requests for voluntary lay-off packages when the company offers it. This is especially true if the employee has reasonable prospects for part-time work with the company.The company would have less need for in-voluntary reductions in staff and the problems inherent with them.

D. Better Succession Planning. With better planning for retirement, comes a more orderly flow towards people leaving their jobs. Companies have more advance notice to plan for openings and fill vacancies.

Some modest pre-retirement counseling does benefit the company. A good program can be constructed that generates these positives while being cost effective. If you'd like to explore this concept further, please feel free to get in touch with me.