Pat Perry: New Year's revolution needed in workplaces

Lose weight, read a book, take up a new hobby and spend more time with the family.

Perhaps some of these and maybe more are on your list for the New Year. These may have appeared before as your New Year's resolutions, but for some reason they reappear each year.

Somehow, they just don't get accomplished. There are lots of reasons for New Year's resolution failure. We get busy, other stuff happens, and we lose our focus and energy around these "life enhancements."

Perhaps there is a different way to accomplish your New Year's resolutions.

How about delegating them to someone else! That way, they are sure to get accomplished if you delegate them to the right person. Consider this approach at work, and you may find that in 2013 several of your resolutions actually get accomplished. This could be especially true if you are the boss.

Here are a few examples:

-- Get fit — This is not just about losing weight. Make a commitment that you are once and for all going to get physically fit.

Getting there can be life-changing and life-saving. Your productivity will soar, your waistline will shrink, and you will be happier! This is easier said than done. So here are some company "get fit" policies, that you can have others research and implement that will significantly assist you and your staff in attaining this lofty but very reachable goal.

Ask your event and meeting planners to replace doughnuts, muffins and bagels at all company meetings and events with healthier options. It's a hard line, but the results can be life-changing and life-saving.

Have HR set up incentives for weight loss, enhanced fitness levels and smoking cessation.

If you don't have a wellness program, have someone on your team work with an outside group to create one. Make sure you take the lead in participation and ask your assistant to make your participation a priority in your calendar.

The more public you are at the workplace about your energy around fitness, the quicker others will want to be like the boss. Leadership by example is contagious, so infect someone today!

Ensure that you and all of your management team participate in an annual Executive Health program. Executive health exams are one of the best returns on invest you can possibly make. Have HR set this program up with a group like University Hospitals, and then have your assistant schedule everyone up for their exams.

If you smoke, quit. Have your HR or wellness program coordinator or committee establish and support a well-structured smoking cessation program. Then participate.

If you smoke, it's killing you. If you're a good boss, people want you around for awhile — so do them a favor and do what you have to do to increase the odds that this will occur.

-- Spend more time with family — This one is easy. In the next day or so, tell everyone that you expect them to be home for dinner with their family (unless they are travelling). That means you, too.

No work on the weekends either. And, if your response is that this cannot be done, then perhaps you should look at your organization's structure and the individuals you have on staff. The right structure, plus top performers, allows great workplaces to establish and maintain family-first cultures. Very few people at your work will remember you or care you are dead and gone, but your family will. And, your top performers will tend to stay with you a long time because they will truly appreciate that you value family way more than the job. Your HR professional can be a great help with the attraction and retention of top performers.

-- Treat people better — Another easy one, unless you are a jerk. Work with your HR and management teams to identify ways to establish and enhance a culture where respect for co-workers prevails.

Make sure your team understands the importance of respect in the workplace — all employees, regardless of title or pay, must be treated with the same respect. If you are not so good at this and get caught up in your day-to-day activities, request that your assistant provide you a daily mandate of a random act of kindness toward one or two of your employees.

-- Learn something new — Request HR to conduct a training needs assessment in the first quarter of 2013 to fully understand education and current skill gaps, including yourself, your management team and all of your employees. Today's business environment mandates that you and your organization get better all the time.

-- Get organized — If you are not well organized, hand off your calendar and the organization of your office to someone more capable. If you do this well, some of your other New Year's resolutions become more attainable.

Your New Year's resolutions can be easy to attain when someone else is responsible for making them happen! We all start out the year with good intentions, but work seems to get in the way now and then. With the right assistance with your resolutions, you can attain your personal and professional goals and at the same time positively impact your employees' lives. If you do that, you will actually change their world and that is a resolution that can be revolutionary.

Pat Perry is the president of ERC (www.yourERC.com), a Northeast Ohio-based HR organization that assists companies with the attraction, retention and motivation of employees.