March 8, 2010
In the article link below, you learn that Canadian employees’ level of engagement has actually risen during the recession. In surveys these employees attribute “positive management, good company morale, and pay levels that have improved or remained steady” as the primary reason.
Sounds simple, yet so many employers miss this. In the U.S. surveys suggest as much a 51% of the workforce suffers from “warm-chair” attrition. This is when the body keeps showing up for work, but the mind is completely disengaged. Companies who have this epidemic need to change at least three areas of their talent management strategy:
1) The selection and hiring process: Mis-hires are too costly to not have a structured, objective process. Stop validating resumes in interviews and figure out what the job really requires.
2) On boarding that works: On boarding is not HR’s orientation meeting about the benefits paperwork! On boarding starts before the person’s first day on the job and continues during their first year. If you have a structured hiring process you can develop an “owners manual” for the new employee. This ensures quick and lasting employee engagement and productivity.
3) Multi-generational retention strategies: You don’t retain a Millennial like you retain a Veteran. Your managers have to understand what each of the four generations value at work and retention needs to me a serious management metric.
Here’s the article link: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/canadian-employee-loyalty-heightens-during-economic-recession-kelly-workforce-survey-reveals-2010-03-08?reflink=MW_news_stmp
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Posted by Richard Yadon
March 3, 2010
“Employee Engagement” gets a lot of lip service, but very little action. This is the key to motivating and retaining a productive workforce. More simply stated employees have a WIIFM attitude. People are not going to work for the company’s reasons; they are going to work for their own reasons. Unless company leaders can tap into those reasons they risk spreading the disease of “warm-chair attrition”. This is the state of having an employed body in a chair, but the mind has long since quit the job. It is the responsibility of corporate leaders to eradicate this disease from their organization.
This is easier said than done. It is virtually impossible if managers and leaders don’t know who works for them. Today four generations are working together, each valuing work very differently from the other. Few companies have trained their managers on how to relate to a multi-generational workforce. In the absence of any guidance, managers will motivate employees from their own perspective and needs, not from the employee’s. We all laugh at the “Beatings will continue until morale improves” signs, but many employees perceive corporate retention strategies and performance management programs as just that!
The best solution is for companies to teach their managers about who works for them. Teach them how each generation and individual employee values their work life. When armed with this knowledge, companies can create an effective and profitable talent management strategy. This would include everything from recruitment, HR management, to the on boarding process and employee retention. If done correctly then employee morale won’t be a problem. Once word gets around people will be clamoring to work for the company.
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Posted by Richard Yadon
March 3, 2010
One of the most effective and creative ways is to create cross-generational teams . There are two benefits to using this approach. First, team members develop a greater appreciation for the power and perspective of the other generations. Second, each generation will approach the problem from different aspects. Their unique experiences will suggest possible solutions that might not be considered outside of a single generational perspective.
Managers will need to create these teams carefully. There are certain ideal generational pairings that foster tremendous synergy. Other parings will take more thought and guidance to be productive.
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Posted by Richard Yadon
February 26, 2010
This question was recently addressed on LinkedIn. Here’s how I answered it…
Performance Management is necessary when you have the wrong people in the wrong job. If companies continue to use a job description and continue to interview to validate resumes they will never know who they really hire. The wrong fit always creates performance issues.
A better way is to first truly understand the job. This means digging into the Key Performance Indicators, developing the kinds of performance behaviors that will be successful, and then Benchmarking the top people in the job. This information is then coupled with a solid performance and behavioral based interviewing process to match the person to the job. When you have a good match you don’t need to “manage” performance, you just need to let the employee do what they do best.
How would you answer this question? You can see other answers at this link: http://www.linkedin.com/answers/management/organizational-development/MGM_ODV/637145-6126809
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Posted by Richard Yadon
February 24, 2010
Do you have a Hiring Combine?
“Speed, strength, and the inability to register pain immediately.” ~Reggie Williams, when asked his greatest strengths as a football player
Each year the NFL hosts its annual combine. It is the annual job fair for prospective new NFL players. For six days, players are put through a series of drills, tests and interviews with more than 600 NFL staff including head coaches, general managers and scouts. These coaches and scouts assess every aspect of athletic performance. They measure the hopefuls in strength, speed, aptitude, and position specific skills. Teams will make multi-million dollar investments and they want to know what they are getting. There is more at stake than just winning games. Superstar players drive team licensing, merchandising, and advertising revenue. Management doesn’t make players into household names out of the goodness of their hearts. This is an important business decision. If not assessed correctly the first time, it could become extremely costly.
What would you think of an NFL team if they had a short telephone interview with the young player, making up the “probing” questions a few minutes before the call? Maybe, on the basis of that call, they will “like” the athlete and fly him in to visit them at the team offices. Suppose the player meets with the coach and a few assistant coaches. But since everyone is so busy they have the towel boy to take him to lunch and then on to the airport afterwards. The next day a few of the coaches swap some email comments about the player or maybe stop in the hall to ask the highly inquisitive question “What did you think of so and so?” Based on this exhaustive process, the coach calls the player, makes a multi-year, multi-million dollar offer and the player accepts. Later they are astonished to see the player fail. I wonder why the NFL doesn’t do it this way.
You wouldn’t think much of an NFL team who hired players like that. Yet companies make multi-million dollar hiring decisions every day in just the same way. Maybe if companies approach hiring top talent with the same rigor as the NFL they’d find more “superstars” – and profits.
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Posted by Richard Yadon
February 17, 2010
Everyone wants to know how they are doing at work. We have performance appraisals, goals, incentives, etc… all to help us keep score. But often these measures don’t tell us the real story. As a corporate leader you might excel in your business goals, but have a failing grade in your long-term strategy. This could be especially true if your long-term strategy does not include upgrading and topgrading your team. Here is a quick “360” checklist to assess how you‘re doing:
- Have you profiled the key jobs in your company or department?
- Do you truly understand the success metrics of each job?
- Have you benchmarked your key jobs against your best performers?
- Have you stopped asking interviewing questions based on a person’s resume?
- Have you implemented independent, third-party assessment tools?
- Would you classify all the potential candidates you’ve interviewed as ‘top talent’?
- Have you identified and started to develop your replacement?
- Are you spending time each week on a retention strategy?
- Does your on-boarding for new hires last throughout their entire first year?
- Have you integrated your Millennial generation hires into cross-generational teams?
If you answered ‘No’ to any of these questions then you have some work to do. Traditional management and hiring is gone, stop using those techniques today. Nothing has more impact on your current and future profitability and competitive edge than your people. Pick one ‘No’ question and spend the next six weeks getting it to a ‘Yes’. It is that important.
“That which cost little is less valued.” Cervantes
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Posted by Richard Yadon
February 11, 2010
Although the expanse of health care reform may have been trimmed back, Medicaid expansion is still a centerpiece and likely to be included in any final legislation. Medicaid Managed Care organization’s will have a tremendous financial, logistic, and staffing issues to resolve when the wave of Medicaid enrollments start. With government, market, and public relations pressuring MCO margins, companies need to start today preparing their most valuable resource – their professional talent.
Here are specific steps Medicaid MCOs need to do now:
- Listen to our recent webinar about this topic at your next management meeting. You can access a recording on our website by clicking here.
- Identify the key positions in your care management department that will shelter you from this storm.
- Assess your Talent Equity against benchmarks.
- Contrast your readiness against company goals and objectives for 2010.
- Fill or upgrade the positions where you have gaps.
These steps will allow MCOs to place their human capital into the right roles for the right reasons. Companies will see increased productivity, avoid burn-out, and surge ahead of their competition.
Let us know if we can help facilitate these steps in the process.
Heres a link to the article from Healthcare Finance News
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Posted by Richard Yadon
February 10, 2010
The resume looked great! They’d had all the right titles. Their responsibilities were in line with your job description. Education (Masters “preferred”) – CHECK. Correct number of years of experience – CHECK. Willing to relocate – CHECK. The resume was even printed on fine, light beige, linen paper. Obviously a seasoned professional who had all the qualities you were looking for. The phone screen went well, they met some of your colleagues, HR did the background check (no problems), and you liked the person. Amazingly, six months into the job things weren’t going well. They just didn’t click with your style or the company culture. Their performance was not measuring up to your expectations. You tried all the performance improvement tricks you knew. This was starting to cost you time, money, and reputation. After all, you made the decision to hire them.
As time wore on you realized they had to go. Alas, more job requisition paperwork from HR and time to give it another try.
Unfortunately this scenario plays itself out over and over at almost every company. Millions of hard and soft dollars are lost on these kinds of mis-hires. And don’t forget the lost productivity of the hiring team, lost revenue opportunities, lost operating efficiencies, lower morale, and decreased creative energy. These dollars have a direct impact on the bottom line. They also have a huge impact on competitive edge. Plus, it will get harder and harder to find replacement employees as the pool of qualified professional talent continues to shrink. Guess what – it doesn’t have to be this way!
Resume hiring and traditional interviewing only tells you where a person has been. You want to know where they are going to take you. Here are five simple steps you can implement today. Following these steps will tell you if the next person will move your company forward;
- First, profile the key positions that will drive your profits and competitive edge.
- Second, benchmark the top performers in these key positions. This tells you exactly what the next hire has to look like.
- Third, STOP interviewing from the resume and start asking questions developed in the profiling and benchmarking process. Demand that everyone in the interviewing team use this consistent set of questions.
- Fourth, have a third party independently assess anyone you are considering for a key position.
- Fifth, interview for the behaviors the person needs to be successful in the job.
In a hyper-competitive market with a diminishing talent pool, companies can’t afford traditional, job description hiring. When you implement these five steps you’ll find the right top talent to take your company to the next level.
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Posted by Richard Yadon
February 8, 2010
There are several principles that managers can employ to keep employees motivated during a downturn.
First, communicate twice as much as you normally would. There is a lot of anxiety, rumor, gossip, and stress among employees. They need to be kept informed about company performance, progress toward goals, and about their own performance. Keep the dialog open, informal, and frequent.
Second, make sure each employee knows how their contribution impacts the bottom line. Help them understand that what they do matters. Show them that doing better benefits the entire organization and makes the entire company successful.
Third, be sure managers understand the ‘WIIFM’ principle. Employees will only be motivated for their reasons, not management’s. Corporate leaders must know what their employees work for, what inspires them, and why they come back everyday. It will be different for each of the four generations working in your company, but it must appeal to them individually.
If you start with just an informal, conversational survey of your employee’s motivations, you’ll be off to a good start.
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Posted by Richard Yadon
February 3, 2010
An appreciative “Thank you” to Vincent Vanderbent for recognizing my answer as being the best in response to his LinkedIn question
“Employee retention: why do you keep inefficient managers and staff?”
It is a great question and the answer has eluded countless organizations. You can read the full question and my answer at the following link:
http://www.linkedin.com/answers/management/labor-relations/MGM_LBR/625840-23470066
Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: hiring best practices, job benchmarking, job descriptions, performance base hiring, retention, turnover | Permalink
Posted by Richard Yadon
