Three Reasons Good Recruiters are Good at Recruiting

What separates good recruiting from bad recruiting

I think there are three big differences that separate good recruiting from bad recruiting. They are:

1. Good recruiters have the ability to change your mind about an opportunity before money is even discussed. Bad recruiters lead with the money. Good recruiters believe in their organizations, believe in the position, and believe in the hiring manager as a great leader. Then they make you a believer!
2. Good recruiters know your rejections before you know them and address them as such. Relocation is probably the toughest one that comes to mind, next to relocation and a spouse who doesn’t want to relocate (that’s like kryptonite to a recruiter!). Getting someone to relocate for a new position, new company – when they are a great talent with a great organization – takes a recruiter with an exceptional ability to connect the dots for the candidates. This becomes the “this is why you need to be here, right now” kind of moment that great recruiters come up with instead of just hanging up the phone and calling someone else.
3. Good recruiters know how to dig and love to get dirty. Let’s face it: mining the Monster database isn’t recruiting. I can easily find a $10/hr administrative type who can do that and they’ll actually be more engaged doing it! Good recruiters love the search. Yeah, it can be frustrating and heartbreaking, but when you uncover that hidden gem, it very much is worth the work!

Why good recruiting is invaluable

The last four or five years have given us an environment where newer recruiters just coming into the industry didn’t have to be good – they just had to be present. Being present isn’t a qualification, necessarily, to becoming a good recruiter. High unemployment and a low number of jobs available gives you an abundance of candidates, and usually qualified candidates as well.

This doesn’t make you a good recruiter; it makes you a good screener. In many industries, we are now seeing the value of good recruiters come back as certain job markets are opening up in a big way and candidates, even bad ones, are no longer advertising themselves as available.

Good recruiting is invaluable to a good HR shop – and bad recruiting is the quickest way for your HR shop to lose credibility with your leadership. So, what can you do? Don’t allow bad recruiting to live in your barn!

Good recruiting is hard, and it shouldn’t look easy and it doesn’t work 40 hours per week, 8 to 5 pm, Monday thru Friday. But, bad recruiting is betting on the fact that you don’t know the difference, or, you are to lazy to do anything about it.

By Tim Sackett, MS, SPHR is Executive Vice President of HRU Technical Resources , a contingent staffing firm in Lansing

Survey- Employees report sick to chill out at home

A global survey has found that many employees call in sick from work just to watch television or stay in bed when they are not suffering from any illness, with those in India and China leading the charts.

Employees surveyed in India, Australia, Canada, China, France, Great Britain, Mexico and the US, have all admitted to varying degrees that they have called in sick when they were not actually sick, a survey commissioned by The Workforce Institute at Kronos has revealed.

China led all other surveyed regions with 71% of employees admitting to pretending to be sick, followed by India with 62%, Australia (58%), Canada (52%), the US (52%), Great Britain (43%) and Mexico (38%).

France had the smallest number with only 16%, the survey said.

Of the surveyed, 44% employees in India said they called in sick because they felt stressed or needed a day off.

In India and Mexico staying home and watching TV was the top choice followed by meeting up with friends and relatives.

When asked what their employers could do to prevent this practice, most employees around the world felt that the opportunity to work from home and to take unpaid leave could help reduce this practice.

About 24% workforce in India also felt that providing more paid time off to employees would make a difference.

"The majority of employees in all regions said they were negatively impacted when co-workers called in sick, with the top reason being that they had to take on the work or shift of the missing employee," the report said.

These kind of unscheduled absences, like when an employee calls in sick at the last minute, cost organisations 8.7% of payroll each year, the survey said.

Business Standard: Mumbai Jun 17,2012

Why Employer Brand is Critical to Retention and Engagement

Trends related to talent shortages, globalization and offshoring, not to mention the economic slowdown, have ensured that talent managers are focused on engaging and retaining their current talent pools. To ensure top talent stays where it should - within your organization - talent managers must consider how to create a positive employee experience as a piece of an employer's overall brand.

The Importance of the Employee Experience

The bigger the consumer brand, the more likely it is that an organization will attract top candidates, at least in the initial recruiting stages. However, your company brand is only as good as the employee's experience of that brand promise. If the consumer brand is strong but the employer brand is weak, an employee may feel deceived or undervalued and think, "This company is not what they portray to the public," or "they are not committed to their people." Neither is a good message to send to potential or existing talent.

The employee experience starts with an employee's first interaction with an organization. That first impression may extend far beyond company offerings in position, salary and benefits. Today's workforce is equally concerned with opportunities for career advancement, rewards and recognition, management style and company culture. Together these blend to make up the employer value proposition and employer brand, that impact the employee experience and, ultimately, the hire's decision to join and remain with an organization.

"Early-stage companies must put their best foot forward to attract top talent, as they don't necessarily have a visible consumer brand," said Blake Wolff, COO of Astadia Inc., a management consulting and on-demand technology solutions company. "Once new hires have joined the organization, the employer should reinforce the brand promise with an environment of open, honest communication and a well-developed career development program."

Connect Employer and Company Brand

One leading high technology organization has a mission to foster highly customer-centric employees. Its mission to deliver superior customer service and satisfaction is reinforced throughout the recruiting process. This mission drives the branding and messaging for all its online recruiting campaigns. Resulting candidates are deemed a good fit for a position if they demonstrate proven customer-centric knowledge and skills. By ensuring their new hires' skills and prior experience match core company culture, the organization is setting a strong framework for success.

But the importance of brand doesn't stop at the recruiting process. Financial services firms are known to support formal career tracks for their talent in order to create the right kind of employee experience. Many have received the "Best Company to Work For" label that aids brand building because employees like to know that an organization is committed to employees' long-term growth and development. Companies that incorporate this commitment into their employer brand and message will have an advantage because the employer brand validates why top candidates came to the organization in the first place.

"A thoughtful employer brand can be just as valuable as a well-executed consumer brand," said Gordon Rudow, CEO of San Francisco-based Bonfire Communications, an agency that specializes in building company brands. "Just as a good consumer brand inspires trust and loyalty, so does a strong employer brand help attract, engage and retain the best people and harness their performance."

Many talent managers partner with the marketing department to help build an effective employer brand. It makes sense to leverage the expertise of marketers that spend their days building brands and running programs to attract and retain customers. They know a customer today is not necessarily a customer tomorrow, and HR and business leaders can apply marketing concepts to their recruiting and branding efforts to build a competitive edge.

Employer Brand, On-Boarding and Company Performance

On the first day of work, an employee is exposed to a company's values, mission, culture and attitudes. This usually happens during the employee on-boarding process. The new employee soaks in the company atmosphere via provided materials, messages from colleagues and communications from HR and business leaders.

Imagine an employee who has a negative first impression because the company mission is unclear, on-boarding instructions or product materials are inconsistent or colleagues are complaining. Given those mixed messages, that person may wonder about the viability of the company and may not commit fully to the organization or his or her new role.

Then imagine an employee arrives for the first day of employment and finds a solid company message on the organizational culture and mission. Colleagues are upbeat, and company product and service information is clearly and consistently presented. This employee likely would be more excited to be part of that team than the former. Further, the employee presented with positive, consistent employer brand message is more likely to refer a skilled peer to the organization.

"A new hire's on-boarding is only the beginning of the overall employee experience," Rudow said. "That initial interaction is reinforced by a series of touch points around the company's mission, vision and values, learned through the attitudes and behaviors of colleagues and executives. Those touch points become the foundation of an employer brand."

On-boarding programs are a perfect opportunity to reinforce the employer brand and generate a positive employee experience. For example, a leading media organization has a comprehensive way to help new hires get acclimated quickly and get them excited about the company and its brand. Each employee goes through a formal online on-boarding program in which they hear the company mission from the CEO, learn about the company culture and history, and learn about its core products and value propositions. They receive buddies or mentors to guide them on their career paths.

The company's focus on the employee experience via a formal on-boarding program has had a high impact on engagement and performance. Employees know how to do their jobs, are clear on company values and messaging, and feel part of a greater purpose. Activities and messages are delivered through a Web-based on-boarding application that standardizes how the information is delivered and also manages activities such as shadowing a manager or attending a specific course or seminar to help them grow in their roles.

On-boarding programs also are an opportunity to set expectations around performance and establish employee guidelines for a successful working relationship with the organization. Astadia connects company strategic objectives to employee actions immediately. During the first day of employee orientation, an Astadia executive reviews the company's strategic objectives and outlines the importance of aligning them with individual objectives and tasks. Then the annual employee review process measures individual objectives success and how that success impacts the company's strategic objectives.

A company's strategic objectives and mission should be clearly communicated early and on a continual basis throughout the employee life cycle because they make up the core components that drive the employer brand.

Happy Employees Can Be Great Brand Ambassadors

Imagine a happy new hire has been working for the organization for a couple of months. Now imagine this employee in front of a potential customer, partner or other influencer. If this individual shares the vision, mission and can clearly articulate the value of the organization's products or services, he or she is a strong ambassador for the company brand.

"All too often, companies overlook the role their people can play as frontline champions of their brand," Rudow said. "But the more these companies develop their external brand, the more they realize the value of starting from the inside out."

Companies need to continually align employee knowledge, the corporate mission and brand messaging. If an organization is launching a new product or service, make sure employees are appropriately trained to speak about that product or service.

"Our client's perception of our brand is based on the actions, statements and successes of our team," Wolff said. "With consultants deployed globally, we work constantly to increase the consistency and impact of our internal messaging to drive positive external branding. Mentoring during an employee's first few months at Astadia has not only positively affected performance, but also has significantly helped in getting employee buy-in and engagement in regards to employer brand."

Solicit employee input regularly to see if the organization fulfills the employee brand promise. This can be done through annual employee engagement surveys, or through more frequent, informal surveys. Feedback received will help the company ensure it is investing in the programs that matter most to its talent.

Further, company brand and experience can and should extend out to an organization's network of partners, resellers and distributors. Just as internal employees are brand and company advocates, a company's trusted network of indirect sales channels should be, too. Many organizations use extended enterprise training solutions to share best practices, vision, mission and brand with their partners.

For remote partners, Web-based systems can facilitate knowledge sharing and collaboration of brand and related materials. Many organizations also request partners be certified on their ability to deliver consistent brand messaging.

Beyond Employer Brand

Companies spend billions every year on their consumer brands to attract new customers and open new markets. These vast sums are meant to entice the consumer to buy and continue buying throughout the product and company life cycle.

Leading organizations may suffer if their employees don't understand or can't articulate company value to the marketplace. Formal employer brand programs will help attract, retain and motivate top talent in a market in which the talent pool is shrinking and recruiting costs are growing.

[About the Author: Julie Norquist Roy is director of marketing for Cornerstone OnDemand.]

Use Personal Communication to Boost Engagement

A still-uncertain economic environment - which includes repeated downsizing, heavier workloads, smaller raises, less job security and fewer opportunities for advancement - dampens morale, and talent managers find themselves struggling to engage employees.

The October 2011 Gallup Employee Engagement Index showed that 71 percent of American workers are not engaged or, worse still, actively disengaged. Many talent managers think they're already pulling every lever to engage employees; however, there's one that's vastly underutilized: the personal connection between top executives and employees.

Here are five ways to improve this type of internal communication:

1. Band together.

From the dawn of human history, people facing fear and insecurity have formed tribes to which they often develop unshakable loyalty. Banding together in the face of adversity is hardwired into the human psyche. Deep down, we long to belong. Especially in stressful times like these, employees are genetically predisposed to be engaged.

If a business organization is analogous to a tribe, then executives are its de facto tribal leaders. But rather than personally promoting group identity and shared purpose, executives too often stand distant and aloof. Not enough top leaders set a compelling example for middle managers and front-line supervisors.

2. Provide a place to meet.

"It is the CEO's duty to be a platform where people can meet to share best practices and learn from each other," said Daniel Vasella in an interview he contributed to research and consulting firm Healthy Companies' leadership research while he was CEO of Novartis. Vasella was broadly visible to employees across the pharmaceutical giant, earning trust through open and authentic two-way communication. He then leveraged that trust, pushing his people to do "the slightly impossible."

3. Make it personal.

Personal, two-way communication is vital. Most employees pay little attention to proxy communications such as those issued by the internal communications department. People recognize that while the message may be issued in the name of a senior leader, it actually comes from staff.

Employees want to hear directly from their top leaders and to know them as more than formal authority figures. To engage employees, executives must reach out year-round, keeping employees in the loop, clarifying where the business is going, specifying what each employee can contribute, and demonstrating that they genuinely care about the people they lead. Personal connection is how leaders help people across large organizations feel included and engaged.

4. Leverage technology.

Modern electronic communications platforms have improved the potential for top leaders to maintain continuous personal connection with every employee. Talent managers can deploy secured, private Internet platforms that foster ongoing dialogue between top leaders and the company at large.

5. Challenge executives.

Talent managers who have experimented with traditional approaches, but have not yet seen the employee engagement results they want, should constructively challenge their organization's top executives to take ownership of engagement and then provide senior leaders a platform that makes it simple and time efficient to stay personally connected with all employees throughout the year.


By Eric Sass- executive vice president, strategic communications and learning at Healthy Companies International, a research and consulting firm

ARE YOU CREATING DISGRUNTLED EMPLOYEES?

YOU CAN'T MAKE EVERY WORKER HAPPY, SURELY, AND SHOULD A BUSINESS EVEN TRY? EVIDENCE FROM OUR RECENT RESEARCH SUGGESTS, ACTUALLY, THAT THE ANSWER IS YES. OR RATHER, OUR EVIDENCE SHOWS THAT MANAGERS ARE GIVING UP FAR TOO SOON ON THEIR DISGRUNTLED EMPLOYEES, MAKING THEM LESS PRODUCTIVE THAN THEY COULD BE, EXPOSING THEIR COMPANIES TO UNNECESSARY RISKS FROM THEFTS AND LEAKS IN THE PROCESS, AND INFLATING TURNOVER COSTS.

WHAT CAUSES EMPLOYEES TO BECOME DISGRUNTLED AND WHAT CAN BE DONE TO PREVENT IT? TO FIND OUT WE ZEROED IN ON THE MOST UNHAPPY PEOPLE IN OUR DATA. THESE WERE 6% IN OUR DATABASE OF 160,576 EMPLOYEES WHO DISPLAYED THE LOWEST LEVELS OF JOB SATISFACTION AND COMMITMENT ON THEIR 360 EVALUATIONS OF THEIR BOSSES. WE WERE LOOKING FOR THOSE AMONG THEM WHOSE MANAGERS ALSO OVERSAW THE MOST SATISFIED EMPLOYEES. IN THIS WAY WE IDENTIFIED THAT GROUP OF LEADERS WHO WERE MANAGING BOTH THE VERY UNHAPPY AND THE VERY HAPPY AT THE SAME TIME.

THE RESULTS OF THE DATA WERE CLEAR: THERE IS MOST DEFINITELY SUCH A THING AS "THE BOSS'S FAVORITES." AND WHILE, IN ANY DISAGREEMENT WE INEVITABLY FIND BOTH PARTIES BEAR PART OF THE FAULT — THAT IS, THE DISGRUNTLED EMPLOYEES DO CERTAINLY PLAY SOME ROLE IN THEIR OWN UNHAPPINESS — WE CONSISTENTLY FOUND IN THE ANALYSIS THAT THEIR COMPLAINTS WERE JUSTIFIED. THEIR MANAGERS WERE IN FACT TREATING THE DISGRUNTLED EMPLOYEE DIFFERENTLY THAN THEY TREATED THEIR VERY SATISFIED EMPLOYEES. WHAT'S MORE, WHEN THE MANAGERS IN QUESTION STARTED TO TREAT THEIR DISGRUNTLED EMPLOYEES LIKE EVERYONE ELSE, THE EMPLOYEES' BEHAVIOR QUICKLY IMPROVED.

OUR RESULTS SUGGEST A CLEAR PATH FORWARD FOR BRINGING DISGRUNTLED EMPLOYEES BACK INTO THE FOLD. IN PARTICULAR, THE UNHAPPY GROUP IN OUR SURVEY STRONGLY AGREED ON SIX MAJOR AREAS IN WHICH THEY FELT (AND WE AGREE) THAT THEIR LEADERS NEEDED TO IMPROVE:

• ENCOURAGE ME MORE. 

WHEN WE ASKED THE UNHAPPY 6% TO NAME THE SKILL THEY THOUGHT WAS MOST IMPORTANT FOR THEIR BOSS TO DEMONSTRATE, THE TOP RESPONSE WAS "INSPIRE AND MOTIVATE OTHERS." TOO OFTEN, MANAGERS TAKE A NEGATIVE TONE WITH DISGRUNTLED EMPLOYEES. EXPECTING THAT EFFORTS TO MOTIVATE WILL BE IGNORED, NONE ARE PROFFERED, AND THE EXPECTATIONS BECOME SELF-FULFILLING. BUT OUR DATA SUGGEST MANAGERS SHOULD TAKE THE OPPOSITE VIEW: WORK HARDER TO INSPIRE THIS GROUP. KEEP THE CONVERSATION POSITIVE. EXPECT THE BEST, NOT THE WORST.

• TRUST ME MORE. 

IT'S PROBABLY NOT SURPRISING THAT BOTH PARTIES — UNHAPPY EMPLOYEE AND BOSS ALIKE — DISTRUST EACH OTHER. THE KEY TO RESTORING TRUST IS TO OPERATE WITH THE BELIEF THAT THE OTHER PARTY CAN CHANGE. HERE WE'D SUGGEST THE MANAGER MAKE THE FIRST MOVE BY MAKING THE EFFORT TO UNDERSTAND THE EMPLOYEE'S PROBLEMS. THEN, AS BOTH PARTIES WORK ON THEIR RELATIONSHIP, THEY MUST STRIVE FOR CONSISTENCY —THAT IS, THE MANAGER MUST STRIVE TO TREAT ALL EMPLOYEES EQUITABLY, AND BOTH PARTIES MUST STRIVE TO RELIABLY DO WHAT THEY SAY THEY WILL DO. OVER TIME, TRUST WILL GROW.

• TAKE AN INTEREST IN MY DEVELOPMENT. 

IF A PERSON WORKS HARD AND GETS A PAY CHECK HE HAS A JOB. BUT IF A PERSON WORKS HARD, GETS A PAY CHECK, AND LEARNS A NEW SKILL, SHE HAS A CAREER. CAREER DEVELOPMENT SHOULD NOT BE FOCUSED ONLY ON THE HIGH-POTENTIALS. AS COUNTERINTUITIVE AS IT MAY SEEM, DON'T LEAVE THE UNDERACHIEVERS OUT WHEN DISTRIBUTING STRETCH ASSIGNMENTS.

• KEEP ME IN THE LOOP. 

COMMUNICATION IS FUNDAMENTALLY A MANAGEMENT FUNCTION, SO THIS RESPONSIBILITY RESTS SQUARELY WITH THE MANAGERS. GREAT COMMUNICATORS DO THREE THINGS WELL. FIRST, THEY SHARE INFORMATION AND KEEP EVERYONE WELL INFORMED. SECOND, THEY ASK GOOD QUESTIONS, INVITING THE OPINIONS AND VIEWS FROM OTHERS — ALL OTHERS. THIRD, THEY LISTEN. AND NOT JUST TO THE PEOPLE THEY LIKE.

• BE MORE HONEST WITH ME. 

PEOPLE WANT TO KNOW HOW THEY'RE REALLY DOING ON THE JOB — AND THE ONE'S NOT IN FAVOR PERHAPS EVEN MORE THAN THE ONE'S FEELING THE WARM GLOW OF APPROVAL. THEY WANT TO KNOW WHY THEY'RE FALLING SHORT. THEY WANT A CHANCE TO IMPROVE. TOO OFTEN, THOUGH, THE BOTTOM 6% FELT THEIR BOSSES WERE NOT GIVING HONEST FEEDBACK, GLOSSING OVER PROBLEMS WITH COMMENTS LIKE "YOU'RE COMING ALONG FINE," WHEN CLEARLY THEY WERE NOT. WHAT'S MORE, MANY REPORTED PROMISES BEING MADE ("IF YOU FINISH THIS PROJECT ON TIME THEN...") THAT WERE NOT KEPT. HONESTY IS THE BEDROCK OF GOOD RELATIONSHIPS.

• CONNECT WITH ME MORE. 

ANYTHING MANAGERS CAN TO DO IMPROVE THEIR RELATIONSHIP WITH THE DISGRUNTLED EMPLOYEES WILL HAVE A SIGNIFICANT POSITIVE INFLUENCE. HERE'S WHERE FAVORITISM TAKES ON ITS MOST CONCRETE FORM: MANAGERS GO TO LUNCH MORE WITH PEOPLE THEY LIKE, OUR DATA SHOW; THEY TALK WITH THEM MORE SOCIALLY (ABOUT CHILDREN, SPORTS, ETC); THEY KNOW THEM MORE PERSONALLY. THIS IS NATURAL, SURELY, BUT SO ARE THE FEELINGS OF EXCLUSION IT CREATES AMONG THE LESS FAVORED. A SMALL EFFORT BY MANAGERS TO SPREAD THEIR ATTENTION AROUND MORE BROADLY CAN GO A LONG WAY HERE.
AS LEADERS, OUR KNEE-JERK REACTION TO UNFAVORED (AND DISGRUNTLED) EMPLOYEES IS OFTEN — "IT'S THEIR OWN FAULT!" OUR RESEARCH SHOWS THIS IS NOT ALWAYS (AND OFTEN NOT WHOLLY) THE CASE. BEFORE YOU SETTLE FOR LETTING YOUR DISSATISFIED PEOPLE GO AND COST YOUR ORGANIZATION THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS IN EMPLOYEE TURNOVER, TAKE A MOMENT TO CONSIDER HOW THESE PERFORMERS NEED TO BE TREATED.

IF NOT FOR THEIR SAKE, THEN FOR EVERYONE ELSE'S SAKE. RESEARCH BY THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA RECENTLY PUBLISHED IN THE JOURNAL OF HUMAN RESOURCES HAS SHOWN THAT THOSE WHO WITNESS WORKPLACE BULLYING BECOME EQUALLY DISGRUNTLED AS THE VICTIMS AND JUST AS LIKELY TO QUIT. ALL EMPLOYEES NEED LEADERS WHO KNOW HOW TO INSPIRE AND MOTIVATE THEM, GIVE THEM OPPORTUNITIES FOR DEVELOPMENT, AND TREAT THEM WITH THE RESPECT AND DIGNITY THEY EACH DESERVE.

A THIRD OF A PERSON'S LIFE IS SPENT IN THE WORKPLACE, SOMETIMES MORE. WHEN THE ENVIRONMENT IS CREATED BY AN EXTRAORDINARY LEADER WHO CARES ABOUT EVERYONE'S DEVELOPMENT, IT LEAVES EMPLOYEES WITH LITTLE ROOM TO COMPLAIN.

By JOSEPH FOLKMAN - PRESIDENT OF ZENGER/FOLKMAN - A LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT CONSULTANCY. 

It’s Not as Much About What You Pay as What You Offer

The problem is most retailers, do a poor (often rotten) job of hiring.

It is not as much about what you pay as what you offer:

1. Hire people who like working with people.
2. Hire people who want to serve.
3. Hire people who want to learn and teach them new stuff.
4. Hire people who want to be challenged. Make them stretch.
5. Hire people who like your products or services.

Now do the following:

1. Quit hiring great applicants and start hiring people who will be great employees.
2. Only allow your best people to interview and hire.
3. Make sure your hiring managers are taught how to hire the best.
4. Don’t settle for mediocrity.
5. Recognize and reward your great employees.

The most important decision a manager makes every single day is who they allow in the door to take care of the customers.

By Mel Kleiman, CSP, is an internationally-known authority on recruiting, selecting, and hiring hourly employees. 

3 Ideas to Retain the Young & Talented When Career Paths Are Scarce

Creating career paths for the young & talented

Of course, there are obvious reasons why this may be, including those employees who would typically retire at 65 remaining in the workplace much longer due to the recent recession and loss of planned retirement funds. Regardless, the reality remains the potential lack of career path for those who typically at this stage rapidly advance in their careers.

If you can’t offer a clear career path, what do you do to keep these young, highly motivated, talented employees on board and engaged with your organization? This article offers a few ideas, but I don’t think they go far enough.

Here are three more ideas to create career paths for young, talented individuals.

1. Ensure all employees understand very clearly the value they and their efforts bring to the organization with frequent, timely recognition and detailed feedback.
2. Continue to train and develop employees in the roles they are in. Skills can always be improved.
3. Allow employees to invest some increment of “work time” in creative ideas and outlets that could bring benefits to your organization, e.g., Google’s “20 percent time.”

By Derek Irvine - Vice President, Client Strategy & Consulting Service at Globoforce

4 Ways Social Technology Is Impacting Talent Management

Here are four ways social technologies are having a positive impact in talent management:

1. Enabling open door policies

Dominion Enterprises, a marketing services firm based in Norfolk, VA, has always had an open door policy, inviting its 3,000+ employees to share feedback and ideas. But leadership struggled to sift through and act upon all the input they received. They realized they needed something more: a central platform for gathering, sharing and developing ideas.

“While we had channels for feedback and input, it was hard to get traction around ideas,” explains Susan Blake, VP of HR.

Dominion implemented UserVoice Feedback software, which allows employees to submit ideas, vote on others’ ideas, and discuss them. After giving UserVoice a test run in one department, they rolled it out company-wide in March. The software had immediate impact, giving management the tools they need to give their open door policy new life – with employees from every department offering suggestions for improving products, policies and processes.

Based on employee feedback, Dominion has implemented several product improvements and is reconsidering their PTO policy. By showing employees that their feedback results in real changes, they’ve seen a spike in employee engagement. “To say UserVoice was a catalyst is an understatement,” says Blake.

2. Connecting experts

Today’s enterprise social technology has turned traditional employee directories into a strategic tool for both employees and leadership. While you can still track down your coworkers’ contact info, interactive talent directories in innovative products like Saba’s People Cloud do much more.

Employees can create detailed profiles that list skills, competencies and interests relevant to both their current roles and their career goals. This enables colleagues to locate internal experts, as well as to find internal viable candidates for key hires. It also allows employees to garner attention from peers and leadership by regularly lending expertise hand or sharing articles of interest.

3. Improving performance visibility

While social talent management systems feature a lot of employee-facing functionality, vendors are also delivering on a major challenge for leadership: visibility into employee performance. Using the same signals that indicate an employee’s daily activity and contribution, leaders can monitor and evaluate a new, more dynamic set of performance metrics along with the old. This enables leadership to benchmark performance and engagement in real-time.

SilkRoad Technology’s Point is a great example of this. Point graphs employees’ influence, and lists their connections and expertise–and brings these into play in the review process. By continuously collecting performance data from all over the organization, conversations around performance are no longer limited to a 10-question review template.

The breadth of data that systems like Point collect provides a more rounded picture of each employee, which is particularly valuable during performance reviews.

4. Motivating career management

One of social talent technology’s greatest value-adds for employees is in career management functionality. Systems like UpMo – the first enterprise talent network – are offering users a unique approach to career pathing by putting employees in the driver’s seat.

With UpMo, employees grow their internal network and their skills profile simultaneously, making them more appealing candidates for opportunities in the organization. Like other social talent technologies, there’s even a bit of gamification built in, which encourages usage and makes the process more engaging. Employees can give each other shout-outs for a killer meeting (a +1 in Presenting), or thanks for explaining Cloud computing (a +1 in Cloud).

This highly social product, which just launched a free version, brings new energy to career management by keeping employees focused on growing within their organization.

Social technology has hurdles to clear

While the products described above offer significant value, social technologies as applied to talent management still have room to evolve, in two areas. First, some vendors need to stop thinking of social functionality as a standalone platform or an add-on to existing products.

“Unfortunately, existing HR talent management vendors see social as another set of features to be added on top of what exists,” says Rob Garcia, VP of Product at UpMo. “From a product architecture and strategy perspective, this is a recipe for disaster.”

Instead, vendors should re-think how to make social a core, foundational piece of functionality that can enhance every application and module in talent management software.

Seamless integration with other systems is also important. For example, simply having a single sign-on across systems could greatly boost user adoption.

“It’s a real problem if every product requires another log-in or user profile,” says Joe Fuller, CIO at Dominion. “We want single sign-on – it’s the biggest complaint.”

By Kyle Lagunas - HR Analyst at Software Advice Software Advice

Why Even Great Compensation & Rewards Can’t Overcome a Bad Boss

Think that a generous, transparent, strategically aligned rewards package will “compensate” for the fact that you have lousy managers in key positions that company leadership is simply unwilling to address?

Better think again.

A recent study by Zenger/Folkman featured in a HBR blog post, provides some compelling evidence on the impact of bad bosses on employee satisfaction, engagement and commitment. The study centers on the effectiveness of 2,865 leaders (as judged by bosses, subordinates, peers and other colleagues via a 360 degree assessment) in a large financial service company.

Good rewards can’t overcome a bad boss

As the chart below shows, the sales, engagement and commitment levels of employees working for the worst bosses (those at or below the 10th percentile) reached only the 4th percentile.

As the article states, this suggests that “96 percent of the company’s employees were more committed than these mumbling, grumbling, unhappy souls.”

The other end of the chart shows that the employees working for the leaders with the highest assessments are more satisfied/engaged/committed than 92 percent of their peers.

Although it may temporarily salve their pain — and the tough labor market may prevent them from jumping ship — not even a world-class rewards program will be able to override the impact of a bad boss on employee morale and productivity.

Many of us can vouch for this fact based on personal experience.

Are you letting lousy bosses undermine your reward investments?

By Ann Bares - Managing Partner of Altura Consulting Group

5 Employee Retention Strategies for a High Performance Environment

1. Hire retainable employees

The pressure’s on from Day One in a high performance environment. While some thrive under pressure, others will falter. Elissa Tucker, Human Capital Management Knowledge Specialist atAPQC, says the first thing leading organizations are doing to curtail this type of turnover is a focus on “hiring retainable employees.”

While there are some obvious indicators of a candidates’ ability to deliver consistently (e.g. three to five years’ tenure in a similar role), there are other signals that can provide insight in your sourcing and screening.”

Tucker suggests working with your managers and top performers to identify what backgrounds, skills or personality characteristics your retainable employees have in common.

2. Plan careers, don’t fill roles

It’s easy to focus on the near-term when managing people in a high performance environment. You bring in “A” players with the expectation that they’ll succeed in the role for which you’ve hired them — and unrealistically assume they will stay in that role forever. Your top performers are thinking about their career, and you should be too.

“Best-practice organizations work to help individuals plan to stay with the organization — to plan their careers with the organization,” says Tucker. The key is to guide your employees in mapping out how they can attain their career goals within your company.

For example: If a top salesperson sees her current role as a rung in the ladder up to senior management, outline some long-term goals that will get her there. If another is just in it for the money, keep him in challenging roles that will reward him for working hard and allow him to play hard.

3. Make retention personal

Every employee is motivated by different things, and retention strategies thus need to be tailored down to the individual level.

Steve Miranda, Managing Director of the Center for Advanced Human Resource Studies, Cornell University ILR School, says, “The key phrase is specialized efforts.” Successful organizations, he says, don’t view retention initiatives as ‘one size fits all.’ Instead, they’re making retention strategies personal. How? By simply asking, “What motivates you?”

You may be surprised to find that monetary incentives are low on the list of responses you get. These days, “A” players are more concerned with challenging work, personal and professional growth opportunities, work/life balance, and workplace flexibility.

4. Get to the heart of underperformance

Let’s face it: Underperformance happens, but you don’t want to lose employees who were previously strong performers. If you notice a drop in performance, Miranda advises against writing them off without first getting to the heart of the issue.

In my conversation with Miranda, we broke underperformance down into a few root causes:

• Skill and competency issues often come up when someone’s been promoted into a role they weren’t quite ready for. Fortunately these can be addressed with coaching and training–and usually for a fraction of the cost of replacing an employee.
• Behavioral issues are usually more difficult. “If it’s a behavior issue,” Miranda says “identify the source of the issue to get an idea of whether it’s something worth investing the time and effort in.”
• Personal issues are a leading cause of burnout among top performers. Things come up (divorce, health issues, mortgage issues, etc.), and can distract employees from their work and affect their ability to deliver. In these cases, a little support and flexibility will go a long way toward cultivating loyalty.

You may uncover trends in underperformance that you can use to your benefit. Are employees bored with the work? Are people burning out after six months? This kind of feedback is vital to the refined people process that supports success and curtails turnover.

5. Invest in your line managers

“Employees don’t quit jobs,” says Miranda. “They quit managers.” He estimates that 80 percent of turnover is driven by the environment a manager creates for an employee (compared to 20 percent resulting from issues with company culture). Because of this, any investments in training and development for your line managers are well-spent.

The success of your retention strategies are ultimately subject to your line managers’ ability to deliver on initiatives you put in place. According to Tucker, “Whatever your company values, you have to be sure your managers are executing on it. Help them help you reduce turnover. Teach them how to empower employees to succeed and grow, rather than just drive performance.”

It’s also critical to keep the line of communication about careers wide open between employees and managers, especially because career goals change over time. Build more opportunities for employee check-ins (formal and informal) with managers. As Tucker points out, “Individualized conversation needs to happen on a regular basis.”

By Kyle Lagunas  - HR Analyst at Software Advice Software Advice

Why Employees Lie to Get Off Work

3 reasons employees lie to get off work

1. Mental health days are not a figment of the imagination. Sometimes at the end of long project or in the midst of a crazy workload, employees just need a break. Those who claim a sickie when not actually ill may feel guilty at leaving the work on their colleagues to take time off. And if you want to reduce the number of these false claims, look into this research showing supportive supervisors are the number one factor.
2. A selfish and competitive spirit extends even to preferred vacation time. Though I’m often not in favor of hard policies, sometimes it’s necessary to deal with those 1 (one) percent claiming a honeymoon just to get their preferred vacation dates when they didn’t plan ahead as well as their colleagues. Then again, I always hated to hear about organizations requiring employees to bring back funeral programs to prove a loved one had died and they’d gone to funeral. What’s next? Requiring proof of cruise itinerary on the honeymoon?
3. It really is that bad at the office. Someone ate shampoo to be able to leave sick? Can anyone imagine what that work environment must have been like for the employee resorting to this? If you are one of those organizations with a hard and fast policy around vacation or holiday time, have a think about the unintended consequences your policy might be generating.

By Derek Irvine - Vice President, Client Strategy & Consulting Service at Globoforce

HR Mistakes To Avoid In A Startup

We all probably know a lot about HR management and the value of good team in a startup. To further help on the same issue we surveyed some startup employees and have compiled a list of most popular and significant mistakes committed by some well known Indian startups and their founders. For privacy issues we have not used any names.

1. Forgetting to appreciate: You have read enough about employee motivation but you must learn to appreciate daily procedural work as well. Things that look trivial actually make a lot of difference to your company in the long run. Like a good resume found by your HR department on Naukri or forwarded by your current employee. Appreciate that, even if it was their daily work. This requires consistency and may not be easy but certainly keeps the employee excited all the time. – HR executive, BPO

2. Not defining tasks: Learn to define the task in one simple line, being very specific about what is to be delivered. Most of the time a task is undone not because the employee is not making enough efforts but because employer never knew what exactly he wanted to be done. -Graphic designer, Ecommerce

An acclaimed Indian creative director puts it this way – “If i don’t get an idea after reading the brief for the 3rd  time then probably the brief is all bull shit and I will deliver bull shit.”

3. Not encouraging to ask questions: Remember, if he is interested in asking questions he will also do the job well. If he leaves with a question in his mind, he will come back to you without the work. Give me some time to clear my doubts before you say “I want it by EoD”. – Programmer, IT services

4. Forcing decisions in cases when you are not an expert: Say if it is about deciding the color of your website. Both you and your emlpoyee are not an expert, then you should let the employee decide. It won’t make any difference to the product but would encourage him and not make you a Hari Sadu. – Programmer, Ecommerce
5. Not crediting salary on time: In a startup there are chances that you are already underpaying him so even a single day delay matters. The paychecks should be handed out before the month ends. You are not giving him advance for the remaining number of days but it is he who worked for you without pay for these many days. Do you take up a project without advance payment? – Network Manager, Hosting Services

Their might be a risk of high churning rate at month end but that is again for the X type of employees, that too the low skilled workers.

6. Restricting certain websites: You might have done this for productivity issues but you do not realize that it makes the employee believe that you do not trust him. By doing so you have proven that he is not motivated enough. He is not a kid who has to be forced to study (work). If he does not want to do it, he will not deliver his best. This might increase procedural efficiency but not effectiveness of your team. – UI Designer, Web Marketing.

Platforms like Youtube etc. host a lot of informative videos as well. Also, if a quick game of 5 mins can refresh his mind, he would be more productive for the next 55 mins.
7. No or Limited free coffee – Programmer, Classifieds (and about 8 others)

Founders, try and conduct a regular session with your team where they can speak their heart out. If you already conduct such sessions do share your experience.

The craft of connecting

Effective communication is among the top five characteristics needed by teams and leaders to succeed in a complex working environment

Between 2000 and 2004, companies with most effective communication programs returned 57 percent more to their shareholders than companies with the least effective communication programs, as per the findings of Watson Wyatt’s 2005/2006 Communication ROI Study. Good communication is among the top five characteristics needed by teams and leaders to succeed in a complex working environment. A key factor that emerges from studies of successful managers is that they have a regular and meaningful communication process with their staff. They connect! Let’s look at how this meaningful connection is established.

Crafting the connection

It is essential to clearly establish objective of the communication, timeframe for it and how and when it is to be done. Every conversation you have, every communication you make in the work context takes you a step closer to a goal. So it is important you craft each one of the communications with care.

Firstly, promise something only if you can follow through with it. Also, avoid any gaps in understanding – it is a good idea to clearly communicate your understanding and get agreement on it. Equally important is to maintain consistency in communicating a message, whether within your team or across groups. Gone are the days when it was possible to develop tailor-made communications for different groups. In today's networked society, where information spreads fast through blogs, social networks and other kinds of speedy media, every group can become aware of the communications to other groups.

Base your decisions on visible and logical factors. People want to know why they are being asked to do or not to do specific things. Such knowledge not only helps them execute their tasks more effectively but also helps them accept the instructions and decisions more willingly. Even adverse decisions like a retrenchment can be made acceptable if employees understand their rationale.

Try changing the questions you ask. Instead of asking “Why are we falling short of this month’s sales goal?” ask “What do you think we can do to ensure we meet our sales goal?” In the first case you make the listener feel defensive, and in the second case he/she will feel involved in the solution (versus being accused of the problem) and will be receptive to brainstorming alternatives.

It is of utmost importance that you select communication methods appropriate for a particular target audience. For instance for communicating with an employee in another location you may want to use e-mail, instant messaging, intranets, social media and other web tools. There are some very interesting possibilities in the new-age communication tools. While company intranets can serve as central hubs of information about the organization for employees, teams can hold brainstorming sessions or maintain ongoing conversations with questions and answers on a blog.

You can even use wikis to manage projects, share best practices and research case studies. The CEO can keep a blog or a podcast and companies can use RSS feeds to send regular news to employees. If an organization plans to use new-age communication tools, then it is important to effectively implement them and provide necessary training and support in the use of the same. This will ensure that employees experience higher levels of communication satisfaction.

Connecting effectively by knowing your audience

An important step in connecting to people is being aware of who you are connecting with and what essential information they need. For instance, while working with the executive level (board of directors, executive staff, your direct manager), you need to take hierarchy into consideration, depending on the culture at your workplace. Also, you need to focus on business and ROI. On the other hand, while communicating with your team, consultants or vendors, you need to explain the technical background, outline and explain requests, justify outcomes and specify clear instructions and conditions for the satisfaction of requests.

When communicating with peers or other functional groups, you should be clear and concise. You need to make sure that you answer questions, like ‘when, where, why, and why not. And finally, while communicating with external customers, you should be politically correct, aware of revenue impact and conscious of issues related to security and breach of contract.

Internal communication best practices

If you want internal communication to succeed, it is essential that communication be ‘two way’ i.e., employees should not only receive communication, but always have a chance, and be encouraged to ask questions, discuss and express their ideas. Asking for feedback identifies problem areas where messages are misunderstood or not received at all.

Very often good news is given, bad news is withheld. Be it feedback on individual poor performance or difficulties the company is facing, if they are not shared and discussed with the employees an important opportunity to build trust and to improve performance is lost. So don’t just share the good news, but also share bad news if any.

Feedback mechanisms and sharing best practices internally should be an integral part of organizational performance and individual performance management system. Provide regular, on-going opportunities for employees to provide feedback to management. The opportunities can be provided through employee surveys, suggestion boxes, town hall meetings, individual or small group meeting with managers, and an organizational culture that supports open, two-way communication.

It is also crucial that you measure improvements in your performance and not just communication since you are ultimately using communication to achieve your work goals. Have there been changes in the way your team communicate with customers? Are you getting closer to your customers? Is employee retention improving? Is information being communicated throughout your department on a timely basis? You need to seek answers for these questions on a time-to-time basis.

Be it giving work instructions, aligning individual goals to company goals, inspiring team members or understanding team needs, effective communication, without a doubt, forms a key factor in making these connections successful.

The author is Founder of The HR Practice