SCHAUMBURG GRAND PERPETUAL MOON WATCH

Alexander Shorokhof

100 Thank You Notes

To view click here >> Sample of Thank You Notes

A thank you notes you can use for your guest.

10 Things Extraordinary Bosses Give Employees

Credit to >> Mr. Jeff Haden

Something nice to read and it should be a practice although not all of it.

Good bosses care about getting important things done. Exceptional bosses care about their people.

Good bosses have strong organizational skills. Good bosses have solid decision-making skills. Good bosses get important things done.

Exceptional bosses do all of the above--and more. Sure, they care about their company and customers, their vendors and suppliers. But most importantly, they care to an exceptional degree about the people who work for them.

That's why extraordinary bosses give every employee:

1. Autonomy and independence.

Great organizations are built on optimizing processes and procedures. Still, every task doesn't deserve a best practice or a micro-managed approach. (I'm looking at you, manufacturing.)

Engagement and satisfaction are largely based on autonomy and independence. I care when it's "mine." I care when I'm in charge and feel empowered to do what's right.

Plus, freedom breeds innovation: Even heavily process-oriented positions have room for different approaches. (Still looking at you, manufacturing.)

Whenever possible, give your employees the autonomy and independence to work the way they work best. When you do, they almost always find ways to do their jobs better than you imagined possible.

2. Clear expectations.

While every job should include some degree of independence, every job does also need basic expectations for how specific situations should be handled.

Criticize an employee for offering a discount to an irate customer today even though yesterday that was standard practice and you make that employee's job impossible.  Few things are more stressful than not knowing what is expected from one day to the next.

When an exceptional boss changes a standard or guideline, she communicates those changes first--and when that is not possible, she takes the time to explain why she made the decision she made, and what she expects in the future.

3. Meaningful objectives.

Almost everyone is competitive; often the best employees are extremely competitive--especially with themselves. Meaningful targets can create a sense of purpose and add a little meaning to even the most repetitive tasks.

Plus, goals are fun. Without a meaningful goal to shoot for, work is just work.

No one likes work.

4. A true sense of purpose.

Everyone likes to feel a part of something bigger. Everyone loves to feel that sense of teamwork and esprit de corps that turns a group of individuals into a real team.

The best missions involve making a real impact on the lives of the customers you serve. Let employees know what you want to achieve for your business, for your customers, and even your community. And if you can, let them create a few missions of their own.

Feeling a true purpose starts with knowing what to care about and, more importantly, why to care.

5. Opportunities to provide significant input.

Engaged employees have ideas; take away opportunities for them to make suggestions, or instantly disregard their ideas without consideration, and they immediately disengage.

That's why exceptional bosses make it incredibly easy for employees to offer suggestions. They ask leading questions. They probe gently. They help employees feel comfortable proposing new ways to get things done. When an idea isn't feasible, they always take the time to explain why.

Great bosses know that employees who make suggestions care about the company, so they ensure those employees know their input is valued--and appreciated.

6. A real sense of connection.

Every employee works for a paycheck (otherwise they would do volunteer work), but every employee wants to work for more than a paycheck: They want to work with and for people they respect and admire--and with and for people who respect and admire them.

That's why a kind word, a quick discussion about family, an informal conversation to ask if an employee needs any help--those moments are much more important than group meetings or formal evaluations.

A true sense of connection is personal. That's why exceptional bosses show they see and appreciate the person, not just the worker.

7. Reliable consistency.

Most people don't mind a boss who is strict, demanding, and quick to offer (not always positive) feedback, as long as he or she treats every employee fairly.

(Great bosses treat each employee differently but they also treat every employee fairly. There's a big difference.)

Exceptional bosses know the key to showing employees they are consistent and fair is communication: The more employees understand why a decision was made, the less likely they are to assume unfair treatment or favoritism.

8. Private criticism.

No employee is perfect. Every employee needs constructive feedback. Every employee deserves constructive feedback. Good bosses give that feedback.

Great bosses always do it in private.

9. Public praise.

Every employee--even a relatively poor performer--does something well. Every employee deserves praise and appreciation. It's easy to recognize some of your best employees because they're consistently doing awesome things.  (Maybe consistent recognition is a reason they're your best employees? Something to think about.)

You might have to work hard to find reasons to recognize an employee who simply meets standards, but that's okay: A few words of recognition--especially public recognition--may be the nudge an average performer needs to start becoming a great performer.

10. A chance for a meaningful future.

Every job should have the potential to lead to greater things. Exceptional bosses take the time to develop employees for the job they someday hope to land, even if that job is with another company.

How can you know what an employee hopes to do someday? Ask.

Employees will only care about your business after you first show you care about them. One of the best ways is to show that while you certainly have hopes for your company's future, you also have hopes for your employees' futures.

Understanding Developmental Needs

Helping Your People Reach Peak Performance

"What's worse than training your workers and losing them? Not training them and keeping them."
– Zig Ziglar, author and motivational speaker.

While most managers know that training is essential for team success, many don't take the time to understand team members' individual needs. Only by doing this can they ensure that their people have the skills and knowledge they need to perform well and meet their objectives. However, how do you know who needs what training? And, how do you avoid wasting time and money on unnecessary training activities?

An article where emphasizing on Understanding Employee's Needs as for the Skills, Talents & Capabilities.

Why Understand Individual Needs?

Clearly, some training needs will be universal, and will apply to many, if not all, of your team members. However, everyone on your team is unique; they have different skills, different levels of understanding, and different responsibilities and objectives.

Therefore, training and development shouldn't follow a "one size fits all" approach if you want it to be effective. Instead, you need to take the time to understand the training that each individual needs, so that you can provide the right training for the right people. As well as improving performance, this saves time, resources, and money.

With this approach, your people will also feel more empowered, and they'll be able to link what they learn to their own personal objectives. This boosts well-being and morale.

Identifying Developmental Needs

The six steps below, which I have been practising until now,

1. Reviewing team members' job descriptions.
2. Meeting with them.
3. Observing them at work.
4. Gathering additional data.
5. Analyzing and preparing data.
6. Determining action steps.

Let's look at each step in greater detail.

Step 1: Review Team Members' Job Descriptions

Start by thinking about what work your team members should be doing – this will be defined by their job descriptions. Identify the skills that they may need to do things well.

Job descriptions can get out of date. An updated versions of Job Descriptions are necessary as for the staff reference and also the trainer before using them to think about training, ensure that they fairly reflect what individual team members actually do.

Step 2: Meeting with Team Members

Meet one-on-one with each member of the team. Your goal here is to have an open talk about the kind of training and development that they think they need to work effectively and develop their career.

They might not feel that they need any training at all, so it's important to be up front about your discussion. Use your emotional intelligence, as well as good questioning techniques and active listening, to communicate with sensitivity and respect.

Ask the following questions to get a better understanding of your people's training needs:

What challenges do you face every day?
What is most frustrating about your role?
What areas of your role, or the organization, do you wish you knew more about?
What skills or additional training would help you work more productively or effectively?

Also, find out more about their personal goals, and think about how well these goals align with the organization's objectives. Ideally, training and development will help them in both of these areas.

You can pick up some important clues about people's needs by observing their body language. For instance, if they start to fidget and lower their eyes when you talk about their computer skills, it could indicate that they don't feel comfortable in this area.

You may find it easier to incorporate this step into a feedback session or appraisal.

Next, keep an eye on how well your team members are doing with key tasks.

For instance, could they be quicker with key tasks, or are they procrastinating on projects? This might indicate that they're not confident in their abilities, or are not sufficiently well trained in key skill areas.

Try to be fair and straightforward when you do this. If team members know that you're watching them, they might act differently, but if they discover that you're watching secretly, it could damage the trust they have in you. So be sensitive, ask open questions, and, where appropriate, explain your actions.

Once you've observed people working, it can be useful to confirm your assessment by setting specific, time-bound tasks that give them the opportunity to demonstrate their skills and abilities. Do this positively, though – don't set people up to fail.

Step 4: Gathering Additional Data

If you approach data gathering in a sensitive way, you can learn a lot from others who work closely with the person you want to assess.

These people could include internal or external clients, past bosses, or even peers and co-workers.

Remember the following while gathering information from these sources:

Make sure that you don't undermine the person's dignity, and that you respect the context. For example, in some cultures, it may be acceptable to talk openly to co-workers. In others, you will have to do this with a lot of sensitivity, if you do it at all.

Avoid unfocused generalizations. Ask people to back up their comments with specific examples.

You can also use information from past appraisals or feedback sessions.

Step 5: Analyzing and Preparing Data
Now, look closely at the information you gathered in the first four steps. What trends do you see? What skills did your team members say they needed? Are there any skills gaps?

Your goal here is to bring together the most relevant information, so that you can create a training plan for each team member.

Step 6: Determining Action Steps

By now, you should have a good idea of the training and development that each person on your team needs. Your last step is to decide what you're going to do to make it happen.

There are several training and development options to consider:

On-the-Job Training – this is when team members shadow more experienced team members to learn a new skill. This type of training is easy and cost-effective to set up.
Instructor-Led Training – this is similar to a "class," where an experienced consultant, expert, or trainer teaches a group.
Cross-Training – this teaches team members how to perform the tasks of their colleagues. Cross-training helps you create a flexible team, and can lead to higher morale and job satisfaction.
Active Training – Active Training involves games, group learning, and practical exercises. This type of training is often effective, because it pushes people to get involved and be engaged.
Mentoring or Coaching – these can be effective for helping your team members develop professionally and learn new skills.

Make sure that you take into account people's individual learning styles before you commit to any one training program. Remember, everyone learns differently; your training will be most effective if you customize it to accommodate everyone's best learning style.

Also, help your team members get the most from their training. Encourage them to arrive on time, take notes, and communicate with their instructor and each other, about what they have learned. It might also be helpful to perform a type of "after action review" to see how the training went.

Key Points

Most managers understand that they need to train and develop their people to help them excel. However, it's hard to know where to begin, and sometimes it's even harder to know who needs what training.

With this tailored approach, people will feel more empowered, and they'll be able to link what they learn to their own personal objectives

Your Retail Staff Has No Idea How Lucky They Are and It's Your Fault

I've come across this article and for me it's worth to read. As in retail here, most of the representative are not aware what are they doing and the worst part some of the employer are just focussing to expand their bussinesses, creating names/branding but forgeting the most crucial part that is ....... the employee....

Credit To >> Lee Anne Homsey - Customer Service Expert Seminars

Posted on >> June 29, 2013

Your staff has no idea how lucky they are and it’s your fault! You’ve been so focused on your business that you forgot about your employees.

Is the position offered enough to keep your employees happy?

Is selling your widget enough for them? 

Is yours the best widget on the planet and selling it makes your staff jump for joy? 

Probably not .....

"Many employees are arriving daily to accomplish a means to an end for eight hours and they don’t really care what they sell. Which means, of course, they don’t really care if they sell either? This is a bad scenario for retailers. Your widget better not have any competition or be able to sell itself otherwise, you better start caring about your employees and whether they like selling."

So how do you motivate your entire sales team to sell more and drive more traffic to your business? Show them how to take advantage of you. Teach them how to use your widgets for their own personal and financial gain.

I guarantee no employer before you has ever taught their staff how to cut corners and take advantage of a system for their own personal gain. Yet that is exactly what you will be doing when you help them create their first repeat customer.

Repeat, regular customers are great for business. This is a customer the employee can greet by name or wave to fondly from across the room indicating he will be assisting them momentarily. Communicating even from a different department in the store.

This is cutting corners and yet the customer feels as though he/she is getting more customer service and anyone around him. This one customer service trick alone will save your employee hours over the course of a year! It saves hundreds of yards walked a year. 

Wouldn’t you like your employees to have more energy for the things they like to do after work?

Knowing your customers by name does just that.

Employees can tell an entire store that the person who just walked in is their own personal customer with a simple wave.

There are so many nonverbal and verbal ways to communicate with good, regular customers, but this is only possible. Once you know the customer’s name. It will save so much time, energy and stress your employees will be made.

It is also much more difficult to be rude or curt with someone who knows you by name. So your employees experience far fewer inpatient or unfriendly customers and for more customers who treat them with respect and even wish them happiness.

What a different experience the same store can be for the employee who has even one regular customer a day who they would know by name. Helping them find and choose things, learning their tastes and even personal details about their life, children and careers. This type of customer is like shopping with a friend and still getting paid. It’s the closest thing to a stolen hour that they can get and the crazy thing is that only they can create this scenario. No one else can do it for them. How do you learn customer’s names, you may ask? It’s quite simple actually.

Here are two ways; get their names before they become customers or learn names while assisting customers who are coming in anyway.

Why assist nameless people who might be unfriendly when you can turn them into “friends of the business,” who want and request you.

Why settle for the standard that has been set years ago when clearly times have changed?

Windows to new connections have been newly thrown open due to the internet and the ability to create connections has never before been this easy.

If your employees prefer not to engage people who they could be building relationships with then they are absolute fools! You never know where a relationship may benefit you.

As an employer, you are now supplying them everything they need to make their eight hours into a powerhouse of opportunity and promise and their eight hour day will seem more like four hours so if they prefer the old-fashioned ways, then they are no smarter than someone standing in an outhouse with the Yellow Pages and a princess phone.

Each employee has the limitless possibility to open, create, benefit from and even profit from a relationship with multiple regular customers.

“Regular customer energy” is infectious as well. Your other clients will want to be called by name and given what seems to be superior and unique customer service treatment.

If you have an employee incentive program in place, even better! Start a rewards challenge involving introducing customers to the manager. The employee with the most introductions wins a prize. The employee wins the prize, gains customers and request plus now the customer is known by the manager of the store, making it all the more enticing to shop and refer friends.

The competitive “name that name.” Challenge is actually a fantastic tool that your employees will benefit and use in every area of their life! (Free networking tool with this week’s paycheck: Make sure they are writing customer’s names down in a book. You don’t want to remember someone one week but not the next.)

In my opinion, you are creating bad customer service by making your widget the focus of everyone’s attention. Clue phone! It’s not the best widget ever! The focus shouldn’t even be the customer! The focus should be your employees, the conduit to the sale and how to make them happier to drive more traffic. They need to feel loved and appreciated at some point in the equation.

I assume, for example, that your managers are not telling them how great they are, maybe they are only pointing out your employee’s flaws and mistakes. Maybe the customers are unappreciative or inpatient, maybe even rude. If your employee didn’t really even love your widget in the first place but has too much personal debt or responsibility to look for other job opportunities. This is not the best equation to a purchase. In fact if this employee is frustrated enough. He may be displaying passive aggressive behaviors onto every customer experience and you don’t even know it.

What’s shocking is that you and you alone have the power to turn your black and white, cold, boring store into a virtual Candy-land of daily opportunity and excitement for your staff. You just choose not to because the old ways are much more comfortable. Well “comfortable” is going to put you out of business my friend. Things are they really very different and you better get up to speed and start engaging your staff, and giving them the tools and structure that they are asking for or they will eventually go somewhere else but not before the unhappy and unsatisfied feelings seep through the cracks of every conversation that could have easily blossomed into repeat customers, but instead became a poor customer experience, complete with bad mouthing your store’s reputation, bashing on the Internet and around town. Or worse, they say nothing and eventually you close your doors. Stop this vicious cycle and cater to the needs of your employees. Their days don’t need to be interminable until they move on. Make it fulfilling so they never want to leave!

It’s not about your widget. It’s not even about the customer! It’s about the people who make you want the widget, buy the widget, take pictures and post about the widget and the experience buying the widget. It’s the people who shake your hand when you enter the store and ask how your kids are. It’s the people that customers want to thank and send holiday cards to, recommend to friends and for promotions, call with funny stories or questions because they know they are wanted and appreciated by these people, appreciated personally and not just for their wallets! It’s about your employees. These are the people who personalize your business your brand and your widgets.

Employees: if you want to make your working life better, easier, more fun and more profitable than call your customers by name. The way to accomplish this is very easy. Mention your own name a few times or assist your customer with things not related to what you are selling.

Example; if customers are carrying bags, coats, umbrellas greet them and offer to put their items behind the counter or someplace safe. As they are handing their belongings to you asked for their name. (Don’t be nervous! It’s easy, and you are providing extra customer service they didn’t know they needed or could possibly have.) Just say, “And your name? I’ll put a little tag on it so everyone knows it’s yours.” Walla! With seems like extra effort on your part is actually the first step to creating your effortless workday and then workweek and ultimately career in a rewarding customer relations position. (Lucky dog!)

Now it is vitally important that at some point after getting your customer’s name, you write it in a book that will become your regular customer’s names book.

Do yourself a favor and purchase a standard composition book for customer’s names. When you get a name put the date at the top of the page and jot down things like: weather conditions that day and a politically correct description of the customer plus her kids names or career… any little thing that she may have mentioned that will help jog your memory if you don’t see her again for a few weeks.

Another way to get a customer’s name is if they have children with them. Try keeping the kids entertained and or putting the stroller somewhere safe. You can introduce yourself and tell the mom or dad you are more than happy to help. Any time you are not busy. When they obviously appreciate you singing the A B Cs with Junior you can tell them that they can call the store at the time to let you know they are coming in and that way you can finish up with other clients Past to keep Junior company while year she shops.

-END-

Sturmanskie Open Space

SHTURMANSKIE

In 1949 the manufacturing of Sturmanskie watches was started. They were standard issue to all air force pilots at the time and were never sold in shops. On 12 April 1961, Gagarin became the first human to travel into space in Vostok 3KA-2 (Vostok 1) and return. During his historic flight he wore Shturmanskie wristwatch – which thus became the first watch to travel into Space and demonstrated perfect functioning in the conditions of zero-gravity.

In 2001 the Volmax Company produced a model to celebrate the jubilee of Gagarin’s flight.  Yuri Georgiyevich Shargin – a lieutenant colonel in the Russian Space forces – wore his Gagarin commemorative model in space in 2004 as the flight engineer on the Soyuz TMA-5 mission to the International Space Station.  Shargin was the first Russian military cosmonaut to board the station and he wore his Sturmanskie Gagarin for the duration of the 10 day flight.  Shargin had previously flown in space in 1996.

In 2013 "Volmaks" releases the new quartz range of "Sturmanskie" known by highest quality and affordable price point.

SHTURMANSKIE OPEN SPACE SERIES LIMITED EDITION.

March 18, 1965 "Voskhod-2" spaceship was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. Crew consisting of the captain P.I.Belyaev and co-pilot A.A.Leonov opened the new chapter in space exploration. At 11:32 Belyaev opened the hatch of the ship. Alexei Leonov was in the space vacuum for 12 minutes and then returned to the airlock chamber. During ship landing due to failure of on-board navigation systems of Pavel Belyayev had to become the first in the world to have manually-orientated ship towards the sun and switched on the brake engine. On Belyayev's wrist there had been specially manufactured watch in memory of which "Open Space" series was created.

It was created with 2 colors with 250 pieces each, one with Black Dial and one with Gold Dial. Both come with Stainless Steel casing.

Technical Specifications

Vostok Automatic / Self-Winding Mechanism

Calibre 2431, 32 ruby jewels, 24 hours, Minutes, seconds with Calendar.

Totally wound watch runs 31 hours (more or less), Water resistant up to 10 atm, luminous hands and markers Diameter 42 mm, Stainless steel case with screw in crown and screw-down back