News & Events

By Mac Smith, Marketing & Special Events Manager

When you work at a staffing firm the halls are filled with the intrigue of the hiring and firing of employees for client organizations. I’ve witnessed the counseling of dozens of clients concerning their employment actions, so when NPR fired Juan Williams last week our entire organization winced. The consensus opinion inside Nonprofit Staffing Solutions was that this dismissal was going to be a public relations nightmare.

It is never easy firing a popular member of an organization. When that person is a face of the organization for the public and membership, it is almost impossible not to make waves inside and outside the organization.

Williams represented a part of NPR’s national brand. A political insider for decades in Washington, D.C., he knows a lot of people and has enough connections to provide him access to almost any federal agency and political personality. He was even able to obtain a one-on-one interview with former President George W. Bush for NPR. At the time this was a huge score for NPR, since the Bush administration considered the national organization to have left-leaning political tendencies and leadership.

All of this makes any dismissal of Williams difficult for NPR. But for argument’s sake, I’m going to Monday-morning-quarterback the firing. This painful past week for NPR is a learning tool for the rest of us; especially nonprofit organizations dependent upon member dues and donations. These organizations have to groom their public personas very carefully and dismissing popular personalities is very problematic for them.

I have no direct knowledge of the internal personnel issues or agreements between Williams and NPR (referring to the national organization), but any casual follower of Washington politics and NPR knows that portions of NPR’s membership and leadership have had issues with Williams. His dual role as a political commentator for Fox News where he was offering his professional and personal opinions and his role as a traditional political journalist for NPR have a tempestuous history.

So right off we have a red flag for the HR department. We have a part of the organization whose outside activities are a perceived conflict with the mission of our organization. The conflict is also a public relations issue. This is an excellent example of a situation where the HR department can lead.

First, dealing with this type of HR issue is going to require paperwork and lots of it. Is the person’s job description clear concerning performance? Does it address actions to handle negative performance? Has a set process for reviewing complaints against this person been created? What members of management are part of reviewing this person’s performance? Is management crystal clear that all complaints need to be documented and shared with the person in question?

Second, do the HR department and the PR department have a clean relationship and clear process to deal with high profile personas? Is everyone on the same page? HR should take the lead on all of these issues, especially when dealing with the PR managers. Public Relations departments work in a multicolored world with lots of possibilities and loose rules. HR departments are more black and white. There are rules and they have to be followed. HR needs to make sure parameters are set and that PR understands the reasons for the rules. All of this is most easily achieved with an internal organizational chart that leans a little bit towards HR concerning the management of staff. The slight weight in HR’s favor will help offset the possibility that management has more experience in fundraising and PR than operations and human resources.

Hopefully these internal controls can prevent the nightmare scenario that occurred at NPR last week. But still, these things happen and sometimes an organization has to cut ties with a high profile person for the good of everyone; especially for the good of the organization’s mission which is supposed to be the priority.

I’m sure all my readers know their HR 101 on firing; it should be the final chapter of an ongoing conversation. The person has been clearly told that problems exist and how to change. The statement needs to be made that a job is on the line if change does not occur. But does your management know how to fire someone? Is there an approved process at your organization right now concerning firing?

Having covered all of the above, we can now address how Williams was fired…over the phone. My hand went straight to my head when I read that NPR had terminated Williams over the phone. This is a major HR failure on NPR’s part and it turned into a PR nightmare. The failure was also exacerbated by the press conference comments of their CEO Vivian Schiller a few days later. But I’m willing to bet that the organization could have saved face if HR had a stronger hand in the dismissal of Williams.

This is the time when an HR manager can put on her Superwoman cape and swoop in to save the day! The HR manager needs to be in on the sacking meeting. The HR manager needs to help craft the press release about the sacking. The HR manager needs to help draft the memo to staff and membership concerning the sacking. And as a marketing professional, I need help from HR to talk down the CEO from going in front of the cameras. Let the head of marketing/PR walk out in front of the world, read the press release, and walk back into the building.

I believe that Schiller’s foot-in-mouth comments could have been avoided if the internal policy concerning the firing of high profile personas had more input from HR. I further believe their recommendation would have been to issue a press release and call it a day.

As I wrote in the beginning, this is all Monday-morning-quarterbacking on my part. But we would all be stupid not to learn from NPR’s mistakes. Do you have any Juan Williams’ in your organization? If so, now might be time to pull out a sheet of paper and write a memo to your CEO or executive director. Bullet point one should be “do not fire staff over the phone.”

By Chris Arringdale, Co-Founder/VP of Marketing at ReviewSNAP

With the aging population and an ever increasing pool of nonprofit employees approaching or reaching retirement, it is becoming more critical than ever to develop younger talent that can replace these knowledgeable and experienced retirees. One of the deficiencies found in a number of nonprofit organizations is the lack of focus on establishing a framework for managing the performance and succession of employees. This can lead to a lack of viable successors as the more experienced employees retire.

Talent continuity, a term often used to describe how well an organization maintains a pipeline of skilled, productive and accountable employees, represents an objective that all nonprofits should strive to achieve. Helping a significant percentage of your employees achieve high levels of performance on a consistent basis such that it becomes habitual is possible only when enough attention is paid to performance. Too often organizations simply allow performance to just happen. When that approach is taken, a “soft” workforce evolves and overall performance of the organization deteriorates.

A major factor in developing talent that can succeed retiring workers is the degree to which solid and accurate feedback about performance is provided. Employees should have personal goals that align with organizational goals and they should clearly understand what expectations you have for them. In combination, these form the basis for measuring performance.

Once this foundation is in place, there need to be mechanisms in place to encourage routine recording of performance “events”, both positive and negative. This serves multiple purposes; 1) it allows for a clear written description of exactly what occurred so the feedback to the employee is accurate, 2) it provides documentation should it be needed for disciplinary reasons down the road and 3) it serves as a performance journal that can be referred to when it is time to conduct formal performance reviews.

Regular feedback by the manager to the employee about performance is a way to reinforce positive progress in meeting or exceeding expectations and goals. Employees need feedback in order to modify their “work behavior” as needed to ensure their performance and skills advance as needed over time. Having accurate documentation of performance gives managers a far better foundation for coaching employees. If employees feel the manager is delivering inaccurate feedback, credibility for future conversations and coaching sessions can be compromised.

Another key element in helping ready employees to take on more responsibility over their tenure with the organization is the formal performance review. While ongoing feedback is critical to coaching and development for all employees, that feedback needs to be reinforced with regular comprehensive reviews of overall performance and progress toward meeting goals.

Too many organizations view these reviews as an exercise rather than an opportunity. Performance reviews really are an opportunity for the manager to bring everything together and present a thorough review of what has gone well and what may need more work. The cycle of feedback and review from year-to-year is critical to developing talent continuity because employees who are not provided with the necessary feedback and coaching tend to wander in their performance and progress. This cycle keeps them on track and allows the manager and employee to really connect from a communication perspective allowing for more open and honest dialogue.

Many managers complain that they need more automation to support this process. Manual or quasi-automated systems are too cumbersome, confusing and time consuming and managers and employees tend to drift away from being committed to the cycle of quality feedback and review.

There are automated tools available that enable organizations the opportunity to put in place an excellent performance management infrastructure. Web-based systems can bring nonprofit organizations a user-friendly solution that gives them a robust method of easily journaling and documenting performance and a complete automated performance review solution that encourages managers and employees to make the most out of their coaching and review opportunities.

The important thing to keep in mind is that achieving talent continuity is not difficult. But it does take a certain level of commitment from all involved starting at the top of the organization. Commit to excellence in how employees are communicated with in terms of their performance and watch your employees thrive.