December 18, 2009 by Richard Yadon
We are finding that many companies have hired below their standards over the past several years and need to upgrade people in their organizations. While this might sound harsh, it is a disservice to any employee to keep them in a job for which they cannot, or will not, excel. Other employees suffer as well when they see underperformance tolerated, or worse, when they have to take up the slack. As things tighten on businesses your competitive advantage will be the people you employ.
When you look at your employee pool what do you see? To you see a flock of eagles or a pond of ducks? How do you even know? Most businesses are too weighed down by bureaucratic momentum, lack of time, or lack of resources to objectively analyze their workforce. It is tough to say if you have eagles if you don’t know what one looks like. If you are still interviewing to validate a resume then you aren’t making objective decisions about who you hire. There is, however, one simple step any business leader, department manager, or supervisor can take that will help you determine which roles need some upgrading.
To understand what an eagle looks like you must profile your key jobs; those that have the most impact on your productivity, profitability, and quality. Job Profiling is a systematic way to analyze the needs and competencies that the A-level, player, the eagle, must have in the job. You want to objectively understand what an eagle should look like in any key position. Once you have the Job Profile you can establish a performance-based interviewing process that more accurately predicts success of a candidate.
If you need to upgrade now is the time to do it. Health Care Reform will likely be a reality in 2010 and its impact will be felt across all industries. Your business can’t afford to wait to put the right people in the right roles. Start upgrading and looking for your eagles today.
Tags: health career professionals, hiring best practices, job descriptions, multi-generational workfroce, performance base hiring, strategic employer
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November 18, 2009 by Richard Yadon
We often hear about Performance Reviews and Performance Improvement techniques. Sometimes the Performance Review is called an Annual review or something similar. Performance Improvement plans are often associated with poor results or as the last step in helping an underperforming employee out the door. Both of these “performance” techniques are somewhat reactionary and only address past performance.
Strategic Employers adopt a different view when it comes to measuring and evaluating performance. They focus on evaluating an employee’s performance before they are hired! By creating a profile of the desired performance in advance of the actual hire, these employers are able to predict success and performance much more accurately. There are several methods to creating these profiles, but the time invested in the process has a significant ROI. For instance, more objectivity is injected into the interview process. Everyone involved works from the same set of criteria. This can greatly compress the time-to-hire and more quickly eliminate unqualified candidates. Another gain is increased retention of the employee. They are more effectively matched to a role that will allow them to excel, thus increasing their productivity and longevity.
The process is surprisingly simple, yet often missed by most organizations. Usually an outside party, detached from internal corporate politics, agendas, and preferences, can quickly guide a hiring manager through the profile process. From there a standard set of interview questions can be created and assigned to various members of the interview team.
Clearing understanding and documenting the successful results of any job in advance of the hire is much more than a job description. Strategic Employers bypass the traditional descriptions that outline what a person must have and focus more on what they must do to be successful. This process is a better predictor of hiring success and increased retention.
Tags: employee turnover, hiring best practices, keeping good people, performance base hiring, retention, selection, strategic employer, turnover
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November 4, 2009 by Richard Yadon
This Wall Street article is an excellent example of the kinds of issues Strategic Employers embrace and leverage for retention. A good chunk of the corporate management corps will have to deal with aging parents. They will look for employers who recognize and support this need when it arises. How companies react to this issue will also be closely watched by the younger generations. They know that one day it will be their turn and they especially want to associate with employers who allow them to integrate their lifestyle with the demands of work. As the labor pool shrinks and top talent becomes harder to find, Strategic Employers will have to pay attention to these issues if they want to attract and keep good people.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704317704574501891316541578.html
Tags: Aging parents, boomers, innovative benefits, keeping good people, multi-generational workfroce, retention, strategic employer, turnover
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October 21, 2009 by Richard Yadon
Strategic Employers give more than just lip service to employee empowerment. They know that the best people are looking for this, particularly workers in Generation X and the Millennials. Last week I wrote about the first five of ten employee empowerment tips. Here are the rest….
6) Glory through delegation – don’t just give your employees the “grunt” work, give them an opportunity to shine with important tasks and jobs as well.
7) Demonstrate that problems are caused by faults in the system, not by faults in people. Let your employees solve the problems by changing the systems, not their co-workers.
Feedback, feedback, feedback – do yourself a favor and tell your people how they are doing and tell them often.
9) Recognize and reward your people when they do something through their empowerment.
10) Provide direction by asking lots of questions.
Tags: boomers, employee, employee turnover, generation y, hiring best practices, keeping good people, millennials, multi-generational workfroce, retention, strategic employer, turnover
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October 15, 2009 by Richard Yadon
As the Boomers retire from the workforce, Strategic Employers must rely more and more on the upcoming generations. Both Generation X and the Millennials value work and
work/life issues very differently than their Boomer managers. There are also much fewer of them willing to devote the same degree of corporate loyalty as does the Boomer and
the Veteran generation.
One easy, inexpensive, and smart move Strategic Employers can make is to appeal to these generations in a way that motivates them to stay. Employee Empowerment is valued by
both of these generations, but not in the same way it was used to influence and generally coerce their predecessors. If you truly want your employees to be empowered, and enjoy the benefits of an empowered workforce, you should begin with these ten principles:
1) Show that you really do value them.
2) Don’t keep your Vision a secret, tell them about it.
3) Let them know your company’s, your group’s, or your team’s objectives.
4) Give them the information they need to make good decisions.
5) Show your trust and believe in their ability to do the right things.
Next week I’ll add the other five…
Tags: boomers, employee turnover, generation y, keeping good people, millennials, multi-generational workfroce, retention, strategic employer, turnover
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October 9, 2009 by Richard Yadon
There is a myth that the current marketplace is flooded with top talent looking for work. As this article points out, this is just not true. Top talent is as scare today as it was before the recession. What has happened is that Strategic Employers now have more options. For instance…
1) You should look at your current workforce and ask yourself if you had to do it all over again would you hire the same people? If you can’t say ‘yes’ for everyone then the current employment market might give you some options to upgrade.
2) Topgrading should become a strategic priority. Benchmark your best people with a comprehensive assessment tool and “profit interviews”. This will help you objectively identify the “keepers” and learn why they stay with your company.
3) Review your onboarding process. If you can find top talent you want this process to fully integrate them into your company. Be sure you have flexibility in your onboarding process so you can meet the diverse needs of the four generations in your workforce.
Here’s the article….
http://www.tennessean.com/article/20091005/BUSINESS01/910050320/Lack+of+qualified+workers+leaves+good+jobs+empty
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September 21, 2009 by Richard Yadon
Management Attitudes and Generation Y (Millennials)
Of all the generations that complain to me about Millennials, it is the Boomers who seem to have the most difficulty. They can’t seem to understand why this generation approaches work so differently (and if the Boomers were truthful they’d say “wrongly”). Boomer managers focus so much of their attention on changing the Millennials on their team that they become extremely frustrated and often drive the person away. This is costly and unnecessary. Millennials are going to arrive at your company with very different attitudes about work; regardless of whether you think these attitudes are right or wrong. Perhaps what should be more frustrating to Boomers is the fact that they created this attitude in the Millennials!
The Millennial generation, the children of the Boomers, saw their parents move from job to job during most of their working years. What the Millennials learned, much faster than their parents, is that you will not be rewarded for loyalty to a company. Even Boomers who worked for companies for decades found themselves laid off or their jobs eliminated. This often created hardship, anxiety, and financial pain for their families. Millennials lived through this and saw the effect on their parents. Is it any wonder that they think about work very differently than Boomers?
This experience has not only influenced the Millennial’s loyalty factor, it has shaped their entire way they view a “career”. They fully expect to spend their working years as more “free agent” than “company man (or woman)”. As soon as they perceive their employer has run out of opportunities, they will begin looking elsewhere. Boomer managers should focus more on engaging and creating opportunities that appeal to this generation than trying to change them. You can’t change them, they won’t respond to it, and you really have no one else to hire. If you want to end your management frustration with this generation, you’ll have to first change your attitude about them.
Tags: boomers, employee, employee turnover, generation y, keeping good people, millennials, multi-generational workfroce, retention
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September 8, 2009 by Richard Yadon
The link below describes an interesting development when one company doubled its cost for employee benefits and realized an exponential increase in ROI. Why? Mainly because it cut turnover by approximately 60%! The impact of retention on the bottom-line is often overlooked by many employers. This is one example of a Strategic Employer understanding how turnover economics increases profitability and competitiveness.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125149100886467705.html#mod=article-outset-box
Tags: competitiion, employee benefits, profits, retention, turnover
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August 10, 2009 by Richard Yadon
It’s common knowledge that referrals are the best way to build a successful business. An online survey at Financial Advisor Magazine found that client referrals were cited by 43% of practitioners as the source of their best new clients. On-line networking sites such as LinkedIn and Facebook as well as blog sites like Word Press see an influx of individuals seeking adivce, connections, and referrals on a daily basis.
People feel more comfortable going into a business relationship with an unknown party if a friend or colleague has already begun to bridge the gap. In a study conducted by Forrester Research in 2008, they found that 83% of people would trust the opinion of a friend or acquaintance who has used the product or service. This statistic can transfer very easily into client referrals.
Health Career Professionals has recently launched the new Client Referral Program. This program is designed to encourage and reward those individuals who offer client referrals. Is there someone in your network we should be speaking with about jobs at their company? Has someone told you about a hard to fill position they are responsible for? Do you have a colleague in a new management position who is trying to build their team?
When you refer a new client and a person is successfully placed in a job at their company, Health Career Professionals will award you a $500 gift certificate or donate $500 to your favorite charity in your name.
Visit site for more details and to refer someone today!
Tags: blog, client, Client Referral, facebook, health career professionals, hiring, LinkedIn, referral, retention, selection, social networking
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July 27, 2009 by Richard Yadon
Have you read any of the jobs posted on job boards or company career pages? Most of what I see doesn’t really describe the job at all. What is does is describe the person the company wants to hire. There is a real problem with this in that often times the person you really want to hire won’t fit the description!
Strategic Employers need to set a goal of only hiring high performance employees. To maintain competitive edge and profitability they have to attract, select, and retain the best people. With or without a recession, it will be getting harder to find these people. One reason is the labor pool of top talent is shrinking. Another is that top talent is rarely looking for your jobs. They will not see your job description and, if it is like most of the stuff posted, it will not entice them to respond.
A Strategic Employer attracts superior people by defining superior performance – not a set of selection criteria. Results, which should be the main concern of a Strategic Employer, comes from performance, not skills and qualifications. You want to find people who are competent and motivated to get the results you want. They may not always match the skills and qualifications you list. Ask yourself if you’d rather have a person who can get the job done with superior results or would you rather have a person who matched a set of skills and qualifications? If you must compromise, do so with the skill match not on the performance.
When you write a job description to attract top performers, write about what they get to do. Write about the performance expected. Don’t focus so much on what they need to “have”, focus on the “results” they need to get. Top performers will not want your job because they match the qualifying criteria. They want the job because they get to do new and challenging things and achieve a higher level of results.
Strategic Employers know that they can’t attract, select, and retain the old way. Attracting top talent means being focused on performance instead of qualifications. When you change to this approach you’ll increase the quality of talent you attract.
Tags: health career professionals, hiring, hiring best practices, job descriptions, job posting, performance base hiring, retention, selection
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