Worcester Business Journal

wbjournal.com | September 4, 2023 | Worcester Business Journal 31 By Julie Bowditch Bowditch is the executive director for nonprofit The CASA Project Worcester County. You have something important to say, share, or sell. Growing and leveraging your personal social media network can be an incredibly effective way to expand the reach of your professional mission, product or service, recruit talent, and crowdsource valuable solutions. 10) Understand your audience. Think first about who you are trying to reach and where they are most likely to spend their time online. Do some re- search around which demographics and industries use various platforms. 9) Be selective. Don't make the mistake of trying to learn and manage every platform at once. Social media is not a one-size-fits-all approach, so choose a couple to experiment with. You can always expand later. 8) Build your network. You could have the most innovative message or compelling content, but unless people are seeing it, it's just shouting into the abyss. Actively and intentionally send out those connection requests. 7) Interact regularly. It's called social media for a reason. React and respond, not only to engage- ment on your own posts, but to your connections' content. Build time into your routine to be active on your platform(s). 6) Be aware. Acknowledge factors that might impact or limit the way people interact with your online platforms. Highly polarizing or repetitive posts can limit your reach, unless that's what your platform is built upon. And proofread; poor editing can distract from your message. 5) Be authentic. You can't have a real connection without letting your own voice be the driver. People respond to authenticity and candor, so don't get so caught up in filtering your content. 4) Utilize resiliency. You can't engage with a larger audience without growing a relatively thick skin. Everyone won't agree with you or appreciate your style, and you need to be okay with that. 3) Don't reinvent the wheel. These steps can be- come time consuming and overwhelming if you let them. Don't overlook the option to share existing relevant content or to draw inspiration from others. 2) Evolve. Remember MySpace? (If yes, I can just stop there. If not, you're reinforcing this point.) What you think you know or the platforms you are most familiar with might become obsolete, or even problematic (hi, Twitter!). Be prepared to pivot along with the ever-changing landscape of social media. 1) Have fun with it. Don't take yourself too seriously. Allow yourself to make mistakes, and celebrate the wins! K N O W H O W e key to recruitment and retention: transparency BY SUSAN SHALHOUB Special to WBJ I f you think your company doesn't need a crisis-management plan, think again. Consulting company PwC interviewed more than 2,000 global senior executives in 2019. ey found 69% experienced at least one corporate crisis in the last five years – an average of three in the same time period – the most common ones being a financial, tech, or operations failure. When it comes to crisis, consider these tips. New companies need plans, too. "Young companies tend to think with the bravado of a 16-year-old with a new driver's license. ey believe nothing can go wrong," Susan Stoga of Carson Stoga Communications told Forbes. "Oen, crisis plans are on the to-do list but not on the priority list." Instead, young leaders would be best served by seeing a crisis plan as insurance or risk management against the reputation of the company or brand. Follow the rules. Management solu- tions organization Smartsheet has 11 Essential Rules for Crisis Management: prepare and make crisis readiness an ongoing process; stay calm and convey confidence to others; gather clear and accurate facts about the crisis as soon as possible; prioritize people over prop- erty; don't make things worse; com- municate clearly and quickly, but avoid a knee-jerk reaction; appoint one credible spokesperson and have con- sistent messaging; never, ever lie; make sure the crisis team has support and resources; don't lose touch with your humanity; recognize people are under stress and may be grieving; and learn from the crisis and fix any underlying problems it revealed. Prioritize engagement. Effective leaders find ways to "engage and moti- vate, clearly and thoroughly communi- cating important new goals and infor- mation," according to Harvard Business Review. Leaders should reach out daily to at least five team members, relating on a personal and then professional level. "One leader we know conducts 30-minute 'wind-down' sessions with direct reports each Friday aernoon … People share their states of mind along with the week's highlights and low points," according to HBR. 10 THINGS I know about... ... Building a personal brand for business success C R I S I S M A N A G E M E N T Tim Winkeler serves as president and CEO of VIP Tires & Service, which has a facility in Worcester. BY TIM WINKELER Special to WBJ W e hear it all the time: Store managers and small business own- ers saying, "We can't find good help these days." Call it a recruitment crisis. Con- sider it a retention failure. One thing is clear: Many employers are struggling to find employees and keep them happy at work. In a world where even Zoom is call- ing employees back to the office, many employers understand the importance of in-person, face-to-face culture. Work- place culture is the difference between success and failure in 2023. Nail culture, and employee satisfaction becomes a strength. Mess it up, and your compa- ny's pasture goes from green to brown quite quickly. One chronically underrated compo- nent of culture is transparency, whereby employees learn to understand the business, feel ownership and connection to it, and adjust their work habits to add the most value. Employees are more loy- al to employers that trust them enough to share and explain the underlying business success factors, in addition to goals, objectives, strategies, and tactics strengthening the bottom line. Workers need to feel connected to their leaders and comfortable commu- nicating with them. Even employees in entry-level positions should have a clear career path and know what it takes to succeed. From servicing clients and customers to earning promotions and pay raises, the most committed, engaged workers aren't le in the dark. Transparency means educating workers about the training and certifi- cations leading to career advancement. Transparency means informing em- ployees about their career path and pay potential. Transparency means outlining a structured long-term plan for the highest achievers, who deserve to know where they will be if they stay with the company. Most importantly, transpar- ency means frequent opportunities for employees to provide honest, construc- tive feedback to improve the company. For employers, the first key is to be open and honest in all communica- tions, and then connecting the drivers of business success to the drivers of employee success. Achieve alignment between company and employee goals, and everyone wins. is applies not only in terms of pay, but broader deci- sion-making. Look at it this way: 96% of engaged employees trust management, while only 46% of disengaged ones are trusting, according to research firm Gallup. at's the difference between a great culture and a broken one. is year alone, VIP Tires & Service has opened two new locations, our sev- enth and eighth in Massachusetts (one in Marshfield and another in Lowell). We are growing rapidly in the state and across New England, not because our company is some $1-billion unicorn or because we invented some cutting-edge technology. Our success is built on our culture. At VIP, employees have a voice. All the best changes we've made to build a better company have come from our annual employee survey and our yearly employee meetings. VIP team members know through open communications, training investments, certifications, and sustained support from our leadership team, they can earn their way from an entry-level position to a highly paid manager or master technician. e best workplace cultures exhibit transparency, welcome honest commu- nications, and leverage each person's desire to succeed. Workplace culture is the key to recruitment and retention, whether you run a biotech firm or you provide automotive service to everyday drivers. And transparency is the key ingredient of culture. W W W

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