What's New?

There is nothing like traveling to a new city or country to reenergize your soul and renew your passion. The Academy's International tour was an amazing opportunity for that and much more. So many of our international partners have embraced the business center training provided by the Academy and for that, we say THANK YOU! During the ABCN WorldView Forum in Amsterdam, many more of you expressed a desire to enlist the Academy team to improve your team, center and operational performance. We also THANK YOU for your confidence and we look forward to making difference to you and your centers in the very near future.

Masters of the Academy

We don't often use the word luck in business, because you create your own luck by working hard and staying focused on your goals. However, we feel very lucky to announce the newest Master of the Academy. Annette Reizburg joined the Academy as Master of Operations just in time to make it to the ABCN WorldView Forum in Amsterdam. Annette's career spans from Center Manager to Owner of multiple business center locations (then HQ Business Centers) throughout the state of Florida, which she successfully sold in 1998.

She has been involved not only in her own operations, but has also had a hand in many training and development teams and served as a quality control auditor for the HQ Franchise. She was a member and board of director of OBCAI for several years, presented at many of their conferences, and gave the keynote address at their convention in St. Petersburg.

Annette has received numerous awards. Four of her centers have were named Center of the Year by the HQ Network from 1991 to 1998. If you thought that we were passionate about this business, you’ll want to meet Annette. Annette is so passionate about the industry that even after she sold her centers she couldn't stay away. We guess we all drank the same Kool-Aid! Please join us in welcoming Annette to the Academy and to your pool of business center resources.

Training that Works

Employee Orientation: Crucial to Energizing, Integrating and Retaining Your New Hires

You've spent lots of time and money finding and hiring the best team members. Once they are on the job, however, many employers inadvertently discourage and chase off these new hires by not providing orientation and on-boarding programs.

Given the extremely high cost of replacing good workers (up to 150% of their salary and benefit costs) establishing employee orientations that introduce new team members to your workplace and get them up to speed quickly will pay big dividends immediately.

Within the first few days and weeks, you can engage new workers in your organization's culture, help them set goals in their jobs, forge strong connections with their managers, and understand your policies and procedures.

If you would like to learn how to build loyalty among new team members and boost their productivity as you reduce turnover, contact Susan Smith at ssmith@theallianceacademy.com for your free copy of the Academy's Team Member Orientation Program.

Case Study

The State of Employee Engagement in 2008

A recent study from Blessing White, a consulting agency based in the U.S., found that 85 percent of engaged team members plan to stay with their companies during the year ahead. One of the conclusions is that engaged team members stay for what they give, while disengaged team members stay for what they get.

Examples of potential benefits include job security, growth opportunities, salary increase, and favorable conditions. Employee Engagement is defined as "alignment of maximum job satisfaction with maximum job contribution."

The survey data divides team members into five elements of engagement within North America. Only 29% of team members are engaged with their jobs, meaning they are contributing fully and enjoying the work. Another 27% of team members fall into the "almost engaged" group in that they are high performers and reasonably satisfied with their jobs.

New team members called "honeymooners" and highly productive workers who focus on the wrong issues, called "hamsters," collectively make up 12%.

The major problem groups are crash and burn (13%) and disengaged team members (19%). Crash and burners are high performers with low job satisfaction, while disengaged team members are the most disconnected, making minimal contributions.

The top reason team members cited for job satisfaction included more opportunities to use talent, as well as career development and training. Team members cited lack of career growth, unsatisfying work and bad management as reasons why they wanted to leave their jobs.

The almost engaged team members are a primary target for improved engagement. By offering more growth opportunities, they could move into the engaged group. To keep the honeymooners focused, companies need strong on boarding processes that set clear priorities and teach the organization's culture.

The study found that only 53% of team members trust their senior leaders. For engagement rates to improve, managers need to be held accountable for how active their team members are in the workplace. It is no longer acceptable to have a manager who focuses solely on results, because that's a short-term outcome.

Focus On...

I recently attended the 2008 ABCN WorldView Forum in Amsterdam. There were over 33 countries represented during the conference. Most all attendees were fluent in several languages. In fact, several people knew over 10 languages. I must admit that I can barely speak proper English, much less a second language. This experience started me thinking about how I have limited my professional and personal growth by not embracing other cultures and languages.

Globalization in our marketplace is occurring at an unprecedented rate. Our clients can now envision opportunities across borders that modern technology and infrastructure have taken from impossible to almost mandatory. Are we missing a potential revenue stream here? Could we provide language classes and culture workshops to better our client’s chances of success? Of course we can. Could a new language open new doors for your professional advancement? Of course it can.

For a full discussion on how to establish the best plan for your business center to be successful on a global scale, contact Susan Smith at ssmith@theallianceacademy.com.

Insider Tips

By now, you have probably heard of the book and movie entitled The Secret. The central message of The Secret is that you can have everything you want in life by visualizing and thinking happy thoughts about it. This will supposedly trigger the law of attraction, which enables yours goals to miraculously appear. It’s a wonderful idea that has been embraced by millions. If the process was that easy, everyone who has positive thoughts would be happy, thin, rich, successful, and enjoying a wonderful relationship.

I have read the book and practice the technique in my personal and professional life. I usually get the things that I want most in life, but I think has more to do with other factors that I use to achieve my goals and realize my full potential.

1. Decide exactly what you want. You cannot hit a target that you cannot see. When you decide exactly what you want in each area of your life, you increase likelihood that you will achieve these goals five or tenfold.

2. Write it down. A goal that is not in writing is merely a wish or fantasy. A wish is a goal with no energy behind it. When you write down your goal, you active your three learning modalities: auditory, visual and kinesthetic. You envision and subvocal the goal as you write it. And because you are using your hand, wrist, and arm to write it, you are activating your kinesthetic sense as well. As a result of activating your three learning modalities, the writing down of your goal actually transfers and programs it into your super-conscious mind. It's like saving it to your hard drive and having it become a permanent part of your memory operating system.

3. Set a deadline. The more specific and precise you are about your deadlines, the more rapidly you active your mental powers to move you toward your goal, and your goal toward you.

4. List everything you need to achieve your goal. The greatest enemies of success are our own doubts and fears. We aspire to better things in each of our lives, but we doubt our ability to achieve them. When you make a list of every single thing you could do to achieve your goal, something happens to your fears, they begin to dissipate. Simultaneously, your confidence and faith in the attainment of those goals increases.

5. Take action. If you take action in the direction of your goals, only two things can happen: success or failure. If you succeed, you do more and improve. If you fail, you learn from it and try again, or try something else.

6. Determine the additional knowledge and skills needed. For you to achieve something new, you have to learn and practice something that you never learned and practiced before. What one skill, if excellently developed and used, would help you the most to achieve your goal?

7. Keep persevering. The most important part of the real secret of success, once you know exactly what you want and take all of the requisite steps to achieve it, is persistence. Your ability to be absolutely clear about what you want and to throw your whole heart into achieving it, backed by relentless persistence and determination, is the final element in the real secret of success.

You have within you, right now, more talent and ability than you could use in a hundred lifetimes. Your job is to unlock your full potential for success and achievement by deciding what you want and then by never giving up until you reach it.

For more Insider Tips, visit the Academy site to access the Training Bytes section.