Eric Chester

Featured Keynote Programs

The biggest threat facing today’s business owners and managers is not how they can get new customers and improve sales, but rather how they can find, develop, and keep qualified employees to do the vital work that keeps them in business. The kinds of jobs you rely on to keep the wheels of your business moving. They’re also the kinds of jobs where employee turnover is rampant. Employers need to find and retain competent employees, but those employees are hard to find—hard to train—and even harder to keep. 

In this high-stakes hiring environment, employee engagement expert Eric Chester has gone behind the curtain to interview thousands of owners, managers, and leaders of companies, organizations, and franchises of all sizes to shine the light on best practices for attracting, developing -- and yes, even retaining -- amazing employees at all levels, often for jobs that aren’t considered sexy by today’s standards. 

Discover how savvy employers have made bold moves, implemented guerrilla-recruiting tactics, and transformed the way the hiring and retention game is played. Eric’s presentation will delight, surprise, and get you thinking—and the strategies and methodologies he illustrates will inspire you to change the way you recruit, hire, and lead your employees so you, too, can proudly say you’re FULLY STAFFED. 

Take-Aways: Leaders, managers, and supervisors walk away with actionable ideas for building an invincible army of entrepreneurs who take pride and ownership in their work. Participants will discover secrets and proven strategies including:

• Why good employees are so much harder to find.
• Why you must stop fishing for employees…and start hunting.
• How to be the best place to work in your community.
• Creating, developing, and reinforcing the “7 pillars of an On Fire workplace culture” i.e., Compensation, Alignment, Atmosphere, Growth, Acknowledgment, Autonomy, and Communication to improve productivity and ignite performance.
• How to get your top-performing employees recruiting for you.
• Methods for recruiting from high schools, colleges, trade schools, ex-military, retirees, etc.
• Approaches to stabilize application flow even when compensation is less than what is offered elsewhere. 
• How to determine ‘better fits’ to ensure those workers that are hired are safe bets for long-term employment. 
• Incorporating onboarding tactics guaranteed to slash costly turnover.

In a perfect world, business leaders would employ a workforce that’s engaged, enthused, and ethically unassailable. The reality, of course, is that the new emerging workforce is streetwise and techno-savvy, but they’ve not been taught how to succeed in the workplace, at home, or at school.
Eric Chester is the leading authority on developing work ethic in young adults and leading Gen Y employees to achieve at their remarkable potential. His presentation will illustrate why the work ethic in America has declined, and he’ll provide solid, actionable ideas and tools for developing the young worker and restoring the pride of a job well done, instilling within them the work ethic they should have received at home and in school – but didn’t.
• Discover the 7 Indisputable Core Values that every employer demands from every worker, and why they are getting harder to find but are essential to develop.
• Find out how to promote a workplace culture rooted in reliability, professionalism, integrity, and respect.
• Learn how to be an 'up and over' leader, moving employees from “Idle,” “Lucky,” and “Cheating” behaviors into the “Valued” Quadrant.
• Improve customer service in your business to break free from a “vending machine mentality” by learning how to instill an attitude of gratitude across your front line.

How Educators Can End the Entitlement Mentality Among Students and Create an Environment of Achievement

Eric Chester is a former HS business teacher and football coach-turned motivational speaker. He spent 10 years speaking exclusively to students and was an invited presenter at more than 1000 schools in North America. However, for the past 12 years, Eric has been speaking to, and working with employers who are feeling the effects of an emerging workforce that is woefully prepared with the work ethic necessary to succeed.

Developing work ethic in students is not optional; it is a responsibility—one that should be shared by every individual employed by a school district—whether in the classroom, the cafeteria, the administration office, or the school bus.

The purpose of schools is to prepare students for success in the real world. Developing a healthy work ethic prepares young people to be better students while they are in school, but also prepares them to be better employees, better leaders, and better citizens.