Every year when I do reviews I take a look at what the benefits I provide to my employees cost. As you can imagine, sometimes when I see the figures I worry that my defibrillator may kick in. Over the last 5 years the cost of benefits has risen faster than any other category in the company.

I’m damn proud of that. What you say? Well, with a diverse work force (20-something’s to 50-something’s) they all need and want different employee benefits. As you can see from this survey, the type and cost of benefits vary across the country.

I’m really proud of the fact that in every one of the talked about categories (except Child Care) we pay for everything and we have a few extras that I don’t often see offered anywhere else.

For instance, we now offer a fitness consultant. An Exercise Physiologist/Personnel Trainer meets with all the staff members who wish to learn from her. They set goals, talk about nutrition, workout programs, smoking cessation and all manner of things that can affect your health.

The benefit to me is two-fold: the staff thinks it’s a great benefit and I get to help my staff maintain their health and physical wellbeing. And guess what? A healthy staff translates into a lot less sick time. And another surprise…its entirely voluntary and every one of my staff is taking advantage of it.

So, don’t be afraid to invest in your staff in ways other than salary and vacation time. My diverse staff loves the variety and uniqueness of our benefits program. And they like it even more since they don’t pay for it. Trust me, I get every dollar back in a happy, healthy staff.

Running a business is not easy. This is true of any business, but I think it is especially true in the advertising agency business. In our business you have many diverse creative specialists: art, public relations, web design, event planners and account executives and, well, you get the idea. Can you say herding cats? That’s what it is like if you try to micro-manage these folks. In this business, you hire them to be creative and successful; therefore, you must let them do their jobs.

Not easy you say? Of course it’s not, all of us who own businesses feel a certain need to control our product – and we should. But this need must be balanced with some trust. The worst thing you can do is be afraid to let a staffer make a mistake because it’s only by making mistakes that people learn. Trite old cliché you say? Damn right, but as true today as ever. Do a Google search on micro-management and you will come up with lots of articles like this one http://www.adams-hall.com/micwilstrany.html. As this article clearly articulates – micro-managing can be death for any firm.

I have a very young staff (well, yes, compared to me everyone is young) but with a bunch of 20-something’s who have all been empowered to think the world owes them something, you must handle with kid gloves. Hey get the analogy kid gloves? I learn every day that these folks can teach an old dog new tricks…now if they could only fix my golf game (but then again they think that game is for old people).

Hey, why should you? I’m just an ad guy trying to make a buck and thought maybe I might have an idea that could help you or your company. But hey, you most likely would be a real pain in the a** and why do I need that grief?

Not returning calls is one of my very biggest pet peeves. Why? Well, as this article also points out, it is damn rude. Okay, I know you are all busy executives with too much technology to deal with, but not returning calls is not only rude – it’s just plain bad for business. I tell my employees (and I do the same myself) that you need to return all calls. It’s not always easy and some days it’s down right annoying the calls I get. But other than investor calls, I try to call everyone back and would love the same courtesy.

So who are the biggest offenders in our business? That would be the folks who called ME and wanted to talk to ME about HELPING them with their advertising. So I spend some money on a pitch, go to a meeting and follow up with a phone call. Then…well they must have short-term memory loss since they forget they called ME in the beginning, they never take my call and I never hear from them again. Listen I know we don’t win every time we go pitch a prospective new client, but at least have the common decency to call and tell me where I went wrong or that you just aren’t interested and leave it at that. Is this really too much to ask?

The phone and voice mail are here for the duration and if you don’t use them correctly it will catch up with you. This arrogance of not returning phone calls only creates a good deal of anger in people, I see it more and more every day. People want to do business with people who are courteous – not folks that don’t care. Remember that as you get that phone call today from someone who might help you.

Another article of interest, if you share my opinion, can be found at
http://www.mobar.org/0f4af594-39c8-4ca1-8c1b-783f4733ff0b.aspx.