Nonprofit Executive Director/CEO Evaluations – A Best Practice

On its website, www.councilofnonprofits.org, the National Council on Nonprofits highlights 5 Basic Good Governance Practices as follows:

5 Basic Good Governance Practices

1. Maintain minutes of all board meetings (and committee meetings for committees that are authorized to act on behalf of the board, such as an executive committee). (See IRS Form 990, Part VI, Section A, line 8)
2. Annually review a written policy and complete a questionnaire about conflicts of interest. (See IRS Form 990, Part VI, Section B, Line 12) and document in minutes of board meetings when the policy is invoked.
3. Approve the executive director/CEO’s compensation and benefits, and document how the board determined that the compensation is appropriate, and not excessive. (See IRS Form 990, Part VI, Section B, line 15)
4. Require the board to review a copy of the IRS Form 990 before it is filed. (See IRS Form 990, Part VI, Section B, line 11) For smaller nonprofits that only file the Form 990-N, make sure the board knows about the annual filing requirement.
5. Disclose to the public the nonprofit’s three most recently filed annual returns with the IRS, as well as its application for tax-exemption and related correspondence and attachments.

Relative to #3, the Council states that a board of directors is responsible for hiring and establishing the compensation (salary and benefits) of the executive director/CEO by identifying compensation that is “reasonable and not excessive,” but that also is attractive enough to retain the best possible talent to lead the organization. The recommended process for determining the appropriate compensation is to conduct a review of what similarly-sized peer organizations, in the same geographic location, offer their senior leaders. Nonprofits filing IRS Form 990 must describe the process they use to approve executive compensation as part of the nonprofit’s responses on the annual return, IRS Form 990, Section VI, Part B, line 15.

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At Tweed-Weber, we believe strongly that the overall performance of the nonprofit executive director/CEO should be evaluated by the board on an annual or biannual basis as a companion to the peer review. To that end, we have developed an evaluation tool and turnkey process that “leaves the driving to us.” We can help you Know More, so you can Do More. Call us toll-free at 1-800-999-6615, email us at mail@tweedweber.com and/or visit us on the web at www.tweedweber.com. Also, be sure to follow us on LinkedIn (Tweed-Weber, Inc.) and Twitter (@TweedWeber).

Why do Employees Fear Workplace Engagement?

We have in our “interesting read file” a great article, The 3 Fears Employees Have About Engagement — and How to Confront Them. The article was written by Chris Powell of TLNT | Talent Management and HR. It was written so well that we wanted to share the main gist of it with all of you. Chris hit the right points about employee engagement, so we figured we wouldn’t reinvent the wheel. Here’s a bit of what Chris had to say.

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Employee engagement initiatives don’t have to be stressful. Too many times, we’ve seen organizations dragging their feet on engagement work. And we get it; change is hard, and a new engagement initiative can mean big changes in culture and operations at an organization. But, those changes result in very good things — like better retention, more satisfied employees, higher productivity, and a healthier bottom line.

In many cases, the source of stress is actually unfounded fears. Here are the most common fears we see at the companies we’ve worked with, along with some pointers on how to successfully manage them.

1. Fear of the unknown

If you’re considering an employee engagement initiative, it’s probably because you believe people are disengaged at your organization. You’re losing employees or productivity is down. But what if it’s even worse than you think it is? What if you survey employees and the results spell out exactly what they don’t like about working there?

For many leaders, contemplating those questions are a fast track to stress. They get frozen by fear of what they don’t know and what might be uncovered by an employee survey. And that simply compounds the problem, especially if any announcement about improving engagement was made to the employee population.

The reality: It’s impossible to manage engagement without knowing your baseline. It may be an eye-opener to see results from a survey, but you can’t change without it. You know you want to improve engagement at your organization, so keep in mind that knowing the specifics will help you manage it more effectively.

2. Fear of irrelevance

Some HR departments hold off on engagement initiatives because they may think that employee engagement is a passing fad or another box to check off. They may resist implementing a change because they think in the next year or two there will be another trend to chase after.

The reality: Employee engagement initiatives get proven results. When Gallup performed a meta-analysis on its Q12 measure, it found that engaged organizations perform better. It describes the relationship between engagement and performance as “substantial” and that this relationship is applicable across organizations.

Employee engagement represents an opportunity to coordinate employee attitudes and business goals for long-term success.

3. Fear of extra work

Once an organization commits to doing an employee engagement survey and gets the results, it faces a critical question: Who will do the work to improve engagement? Not doing anything is even worse than not surveying in the first place; it only gets employees’ hopes up that something might change, and when it doesn’t, they can be even more disengaged.

The reality: The results you get from your employee survey will provide a path you can follow to boost engagement, but remember that the path is made up of many small steps. It’s impossible to change engagement levels overnight, and there’s no reason to try to do so. Managers are often on the front line when it comes to instituting engagement efforts, so find ways to educate and empower them to take on engagement-boosting efforts as part of their work.

Thinking about your business objectives and the role employees play in achieving them can help ease some of the stress around engagement. An engagement initiative can help identify things managers need to know to drive performance and keep them in front of problems before they happen.

Employee engagement is not a switch you can turn on. It’s a series of small steps that the entire organization must take over time to achieve change. The process doesn’t have to be hard; it simply takes a commitment from people at all levels to make changes in the way the company operates internally.

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At Tweed-Weber, we make implementing an Employee Engagement Survey easy. We can help you Know More, so you can Do More. Call us toll-free at 1-800-999-6615, email us at mail@tweedweber.com and/or visit us on the web at www.tweedweber.com. Also, be sure to follow us on LinkedIn (Tweed-Weber, Inc.) and Twitter (@TweedWeber).

Did you take the tour?

We are excited to share our new website with you! After months of designing and planning, we finally launched our new site in the beginning of August. Have you had a chance to tour it?

You may be asking yourself, “What is different with the new site, and why are we so excited to share it?” Well, for starters, it’s a whole new design. When we first started talking about what we wanted to do with the website, we all came to the conclusion that we wanted something clean, something professional, but at the same time fun – which is why we have a stock ticker on our homepage! We also wanted to showcase our different aspects of research, and also highlight Strategic Planning more.

Some of our new highlights to our new website are the Strategic Planning FAQs, our TWI Nonprofits Matter, TWI Bank, and Around Greater Reading. Let’s go into a little more detail about these different sections.

Strategic Planning/FAQs

What is strategic planning? Why does your company need it? What are the benefits? Our strategic planning page, along with our FAQs, goes into detail about why strategic planning is important to your business and answers the questions you may be asking yourself to decide if it is what your company needs.

TWI Nonprofits Matter

Our TWI Nonprofits Matter brand is dedicated to helping nonprofits achieve their mission and vision. In our TWI Nonprofits Matter brand, we offer Board Assessments and Executive Director Assessments to help nonprofits. Learn more about our processes, and read testimonials from nonprofits in the area about our great assessment services.

TWI Bank

Our TWI Bank brand is something new to us, and we are proud to offer services to banks. What does our TWI Bank brand offer? We offer board assessments for both banks and credit unions so they can gather perceptions from board members in an effort to meet regulatory standards and measuring board performance, compliance, and efficiency. Also, our TWI Bank Board Self-Assessments meets FDIC requirements –an added bonus!

Around Greater Reading

One of our newest pages, and something close to our hearts, is our Around Greater Reading page. We wanted to be able to share with readers our love for our community since we are Reading Proud. This page focuses on the latest happenings around our community, but also highlights our community service as a team. 

To view our new website, click here!

Step Aside Paper and Pencil!

In today’s world, people are constantly on the go. Whether it’s checking emails, searching the latest news, updating a company’s choice social media, or contacting clients, people heavily rely on their mobile devices to do everyday tasks while they’re out and about. The days of solely using a desktop computer are slowly dwindling. Technology has allowed us in the research industry to easily create detailed questionnaires that would normally cause hand cramps and multiple sheets of paper and writing utensils. Not to mention, online surveys are more engaging and reduce data collection bias by allowing respondents to directly answer questions themselves. 

When it comes to survey research, the percentage of people using their mobile devices to take online surveys continues to increase. The movement to online survey completion causes concern over the user experience, as well as the shift to shortened research studies. It’s no question that mobile devices provide much less screen space than traditional desktop computers. Does that affect the end user taking the survey? Researchers question if they should condense surveys into a series of single-choice questions, or should they continue to use research instruments that respondents may find annoying and time-consuming. 

Have no fear! With a little ingenuity and technological tools, it’s possible to ask the questions you need answers to without requiring too much from the respondent. Mobile users want two things: speed and usability. As research companies, we need to be able to provide them with exactly that. Although screen sizes continue to decrease, an increasing number of resources are available to help collect the data you need in order to help create clarity and understanding for your clients. Much like Google and Amazon who have mobile-specific websites, researchers should have the ability to redirect respondents using a mobile device to a mobile-friendly version of the survey, allowing them to enjoy the same functionality as they would on a desktop computer. No more zooming in and out in order to see the questions or images on the screen. 

Research companies need to focus on making online research enjoyable, not just bearable. One way to do that is to make the core content of the survey responsive. With responsive design, there is one set of content and one template for both the desktop site and the mobile site. Your survey will automatically adapt to the respondent’s screen size, regardless if they’re using a mobile phone or a traditional desktop computer. Aside from design, you need to make sure that each survey page can handle touch commands. Touch support can help increase functionality. It’s important to also consider the bandwidth. Some mobile users can’t access advanced services because of slower service. In order to improve their experience, develop your survey as simple as possible. Lastly, always make sure to put yourself in the respondent’s position. When you put yourself on the other side of the survey tool, you are able to identify and improve the kinks for a more enjoyable experience.

As researchers, our overall goal is to ensure that our instruments allow for honest and thorough feedback from our respondents. Whether they’re using a mobile phone, a tablet, or a desktop computer, there needs to be an environment conducive to providing comments. When you use online survey research, your interview length will be shorter and your respondents will care less about time. Author of Easy Answers, Ken Berry, says “if we build instruments that are respectful of their time, they will be more likely to give it.”

To find out more about our online survey options and how they can help you KNOW MORE so you can DO MORE, contact Tweed-Weber, Inc. at  toll-free at 1-800-999-6615, email us at mail@tweedweber.com, and/or visit us on the web at www.tweedweber.com. Also, be sure to follow us on LinkedIn (Tweed-Weber, Inc.) and Twitter (@TweedWeber).

*To read the whole article, click here: quirks.com/articles/2015/20150206

What motivates your employees?

While reading the most recent issue of Quirks Magazine, I came across the article of “Job satisfaction, focus on research steady.” It discussed job satisfaction within the research industry. According to the annual corporate researcher salary survey, job satisfaction data for the research industry is similar when compared to years 2013 and 2014. In 2015, data shows that 21 percent of respondents are very satisfied with their current job, 34 percent are satisfied, and 20 percent are somewhat satisfied. An improving economy and salary increases may have contributed to the high levels of satisfaction; however, it’s not the sole factor. The survey found that those who were very dissatisfied with their job also reported making the second-highest average salary of $131,000. As a side, one commentator offered a suggestion for all businessmen and businesswomen: “knowing what you are worth can be powerful leverage during raise negotiations.” Presenting survey data from research studies on compensation can help serve as an aid when discussing salary.

Employee satisfaction is a culmination of numerous factors. It can be affected by compensation, bonuses, non-monetary benefits, company culture, opportunities for advancement, etc. When asked what benefits accompany a positive company culture, one respondent in the research industry said “weekly on-site massage therapist, weekly on-site counselor, sick rooms, a gym….” Another respondent asked for intangible benefits, such as dogs at work and workplace flexibility. While all companies may not be able to physically or financially achieve those exact benefits, it’s important to listen and to respond to employees’ needs that are practical and feasible. When you feel like your voice is heard, you feel more valued, thus strengthening your commitment to the organization.

Now, let’s say you’re not in the research industry. How do you know if your employees are satisfied with their current job, as well as the company as a whole? What do you look for? What, not to mention how, do you ask? How do you know if they’ll provide you with honest feedback? By having a clear understanding of employee perceptions, it offers you opportunities for performance improvement and new business idea generation. An employee perception survey helps you identify what motivates and constrains your employees, as well as the overall health of your organization. It provides employees with an avenue to contribute detailed, unfiltered feedback to a third-party, giving your organization actionable data to help determine where you want to go and how you’re going to get there.

To uncover how your employees really feel and to learn how our employee perception survey can help you KNOW MORE so you can DO MORE, contact Tweed-Weber, Inc. at  toll-free at 1-800-999-6615, email us at mail@tweedweber.com, and/or visit us on the web at www.tweedweber.com. Also, be sure to follow us on LinkedIn (Tweed-Weber, Inc.) and Twitter (@TweedWeber).

* For the full article, click here: www.quirks.com/CorporateResearchReport

What is a Net Promoter Score® (NPS)?

The Net Promoter Score, or NPS®, is based on the fundamental perspective that every company’s customers can be divided into three categories: Promoters, Passives, and Detractors.

By asking one simple question – How likely would you be to recommend XYZ Company to others as a good company to work with? – you can track these groups and get a clear measure of your company’s performance through your customers’ eyes. Customers respond on a 0-to-10 point rating scale (10=extremely likely; 0=not at all likely) and are categorized as follows:

• Promoters (score 9-10) are loyal enthusiasts.
• Passives (Neutral) (score 7-8) are satisfied, but unenthusiastic.
• Detractors (score 0-6) are unhappy customers.

The NPS can be as low as −100 (everybody is a Detractor) or as high as 100 (everybody is a Promoter). A NPS that is positive (e.g. higher than zero) is felt to be good, and a NPS of 50 is considered excellent. To calculate the NPS, you subtract the percentage of customers who are Detractors from the percentage of customers who are Promoters.  

If you would like to find out about your customer NPS, give us a call. We can help you Know More, so you can Do More. Call us toll-free at 1-800-999-6615, email us at mail@tweedweber.com and/or visit us on the web at www.tweedweber.com. Also, be sure to follow us on LinkedIn (Tweed-Weber, Inc.) and Twitter (@TweedWeber).