HRCharles

Are your recruitment ads really gender smart?

2011-07-06T23:42:00.000-07:00

Many organisations in Australia, particularly listed companies, are focusing on gender equity at board and executive levels. A gender balanced organisation is not just an outcome by achieving gender ratios, as there is also a need for a process to develop a more strategic approach.

Recent research by Roy Morgan Research highlighted specific gender differences for buyers of packaged alcohol. Female buyers are placing more importance on the service of staff, whereas male buyers are more influenced by lower prices.

The business implications are clear – females value service and males look for signs that advertise cheap beer.

In the world of recruitment, there is also a shift required to more gender smart recruitment advertising.

Changing your ads
Job advertisements on job boards would typically provide a brief paragraph with information about the company, followed by some description of the role, as well as some of the responsibilities attached to the vacant position. Some clues or filters would then be provided in terms of competencies that applicants should have, in order to be considered.

Despite the great advances we have made in technology, all that has happened today is that the same ads that used to be published in newspapers are now being replicated on job boards. As result, we have seen a massive increase in quantity, but quality has in fact deteriorated. Often ads would include some basic errors, and sometimes some grave ones.

Why Should I Apply?
These job ads are usually doing a reasonable job of providing limited information about the job, but usually fail to encourage the job seeker, particularly the passive job seeker that may just glance at an ad, that the recruiting company is offering a real career.

Often in job ads there is a discrepancy between what recruiting companies say and what they have done. This perception difference between external perception and internal reality is the driver for employer branding initiatives.

Lack of awareness
There is still a major lack of understanding or awareness of how job advertisements are demonstrating that the organisation was attractive to women and in what way. Recruiters would expect applicants to access the company’s web site, but not be thinking about how the organisation appears to women, when the board and executive team photo’s clearly highlights the lack of senior women leaders.

As an aside, there is ample opportunity with hyper links, to facilitate and influence this search process by directing prospective applicants to relevant information on the company’s web site.

Adapting the recruitment process
Gender balanced organisations have adapted their recruitment approach to include those themes that are the most likely to be of strong interest to women, focusing on flexibility, the culture, collaboration, and opportunities for development.

There needs to be an alignment and consistency of what the recruiting company is saying and what it is doing. Progressive organisations will always ensure that there is a person that applicants can talk to and discuss the role and potential opportunities in more detail, rather than directing applicants through the applicant tracking system, without any conversation.

Perhaps an example will better illustrate my point. Real estate agents have been very effective with advertising houses, using pictures and being able to tell a story. Now I am not suggesting that recruiters should apply the same creative license, but one thing real estate agents are doing well is to convince buyers that they are selling a home, not just a house.

This was really well illustrated by the popular Australian movie – The Castle. In this movie, the Kerrigan family is threatened by the compulsory acquisition of their family home, which is not just a house, but in their eyes – their castle filled with memories that can’t be replaced.

Telling a story
Writing a good job ad takes time, particularly we make the transition. Working with a HR team recently, we devoted half a day to finalise the ad for a role that was really difficult to fill. Every job advertisement should tell a story. It takes more than just a picture of a female.

Rather than using words such as challenge, drive, determination and results it may be more effective to use language such as opportunities, engage, contribution, partnership, team, relationships and outcomes. This is not about being politically correct, but to be more aware of the subtle messages we communicate to applicants.

A recent ad used some very effective descriptions:
- Make you feel like coming home
- Comfortable with relationship management
- Using your charms to influence outcomes
- Flair for effective leadership

Language is very powerful and unconscious bias may impact negatively on our ability to attract talented staff, particularly if a company is trying to attract and encourage more females to apply for certain roles. Gender smart organisations are aligning their HR systems and processes to achieve a better balance in talent management.

If you have any ideas or suggestions please share your views.

How to Use Social Media Strategically to Find Top Talent

2010-07-19T19:29:00.001-07:00

Companies will be able to attract top talent more effectively by leveraging social media using four key strategies. Though many companies are keen to explore social media, there is an underlying wariness as policies are trying to control the flow of information. This article provides an overview of social media and the potential application to attract top talent.

Underneath the iceberg of vacant jobs being advertised on job boards and newspapers, a strong invisible current of talent is ingeniously using social media to identify and strategize their next career moves. Prior to the popular rise and rise of social media, such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, the talent sourcing process was limited to a linear process - where a vacancy is filled in transactional fashion, embedded in a perpetual recruitment environment of sourcing in new talent.

The advent of job boards have resulted in a significant shift away from print media, but compounded the overload of thousands of job boards, with job aggregator sites promising candidates to identify vacant roles. Though the cost of recruitment has been reduced, the process remained reactive.

Integrating Technologies
The convergence of a number of technologies and the establishment of a talent pipeline has created the opportunity to develop relationships with talented candidates through an effective just-in-time recruitment model.

LinkedIn is the preferred social networking site from a business perspective, with more than 72 million users across the world. In Australia about 25% of all employed people are using LinkedIn. Users can create a brief profile with recommendations, making it easy for recruiters to search for talent.

Facebook is by far the most popular social media site, with more than 300 million users. Most professionals demarcate their social media presence, with limited access to Facebook restricted to friends and family, with a dash of business added for interest, though Facebook offers a level of granularity to separate friends and business contacts. Companies are increasingly using Facebook to create a social media presence. A weekly email report provides HR recruiters with statistics to track a summary of activities by fans.

Twitter is being used by a large number of companies to post job openings, though smart employers are also using it to share interesting news and to strengthen their employment brand. By using a tool like Tweetdeck, companies can easily monitor channels and track activity.

Companies can use creative ways to find talent through social media, by running competitions, surveys, blogs and email updates. The importance of reputation management cannot be overemphasized and a high level of authenticity needs to exist. Most companies will have a Social Media policy that determines the flow of information, with Internal Communication often reporting to HR, though there is a strong connection with Marketing departments.

Though some companies tend to use social media as just another distribution channel, a strategic sourcing strategy provides the challenge and opportunity to connect with potential future employees in ways exponentially more effective than reactive recruiting for job postings.

Building a Talent Pipeline
Companies can and should use social media to find top talent, by building a talent pipeline:

Leveraging LinkedIn to create a company network with alumni employees, staying in touch as these ex-employees have an excellent understanding of the business. Alumni should be able to register for events, finding about jobs and connecting with others. The boomerang effect extends beyond savings in recruitment costs, as alumni can move to customer organizations, or become ambassadors through their extended networks.
Engaging interested fans through Facebook and LinkedIn to track the company and maintain a watching brief about interesting company news and developments. Companies can enhance their employer brand by positive influencing interested applicants through regular updates.
Integrating the various social media in a deliberate and authentic fashion. By adopting a consistency in the information flow to potential future employees, companies can engage and connect with passive applicants in more meaningful ways that develop positive talent relationships.

Investing in technology rather than just banking the cost savings of recruitment without third party recruiters (TPRs). Using a good applicant tracking system (ATS) is not enough, as companies need to invest in resources such a researcher or social media recruiter, in order to maximize the benefits of social media to attract top talent.

Looking ahead to future talent needs
With the advent of technology, top talent are empowered to research their target company beyond annual reports to a level of detail where they will research the profiles of their future manager and the interviewer.

Companies need to invest and explore how they can tap into social media to find and attract top talent, long before they need to fill a specific role, rather than fighting fires by being stuck in a transactional recruitment system, where they are to busy to plant the seeds so they can enjoy the harvest.

Social media is much more than just another channel and by integrating it with the overall employer branding strategy, companies can attract top talent that can grow with the company.

Why are you wasting your time with reference checks?

2010-07-05T21:27:00.000-07:00

The poor cousin of the recruitment process is the obligatory reference check. Too often it is nothing more than a perfunctory procedure to conclude an exhausting number of interviews.

Most reference checks are the outcome of a telephone conversation, as most recruiters will attach little weight to any written references. Many companies have policies prohibiting managers from providing written references, in light of potential litigation. Often the risks of providing references are overstated, resulting in limited information being provided, due to concerns about negligent referral or defamation. Privacy laws govern the contacting of referees and keeping of information. Though recruiters adopt a code of professional practice, the risk of hiring managers using their informal network to get anecdotal half-truths remains problematic.

A reference check is not a fishing expedition or idle gossip, but a structured and important part of the hiring process. Research has indicated that reference checks have about half the validity of structured interviews.

The declining value of reference checking is because it is badly done, rather than being of little value. The big challenge for recruiters is to develop a new and better way of conducting reference checks with a higher validity so that they can be more useful.

A Strategic Approach to Reference Checking
There are three very deliberate and strategic actions that recruiters can adopt to achieve significantly better results from reference checking. Having successfully implemented this approach in a number of companies, have also resulted in better retention of top talent.

(a) 360 Reference Checking
Extrapolating the benefits from 360 feedback systems, recruiters need to adopt a wider and more comprehensive approach by including:
Executives (one over one); Direct Manager; Peers; Direct reports; Clients and customers.
It is not sufficient to conduct only a minimum of two reference checks, which seems to be the general practice in many companies.

(b) Competence based Reference Checking
Often companies neglect the opportunity to assess competencies throughout the recruitment process. An ideal process would include screening, interviews, testing and reference checking– often the first and last are omitted or not performed as well.

Even during psychometric assessment there is often insufficient linkage to the specific position description and identified role competencies.

By clearly defining key competencies and developing structured reference checking techniques, a continuum of competence can be identified and validated throughout the recruitment process.

(c) Integrated Reference Checking
By consolidating the richer feedback of a wider group, information can be interpreted and validated. It is important to keep in mind that some referees may have worked with the candidate at different companies, which may add a different dimension in terms of performance results. Behavioural comments should however be consistent.
Requests for reference checking to be partly handled by an external recruiter and partly by the HR Manager or hiring manager should be strongly resisted. It is imperative that one person conducts all reference checks, otherwise the validity of the reference check will be variable.

Taking Action
In summary, companies can significantly influence the factors that determine the validity of reference checks. Recruiters can make a real contribution by improving the existing referencing checking process. There is no need for a non-rational fear that the reference checking process will capsize the recruitment just before landing the appointment.

Not only should reference checking assist to identify the competent but corrupt individual, but it actually reinforces the suitability and employability of good candidates, by providing a more complete process.
Reference checking is an important step in the recruitment process and needs to be elevated to equal status to other stages. The consequence of this for candidates will be to take much more time in discussing their career objectives and recruitment activities with their referees.

A well-prepared referee who has some understanding of the role that the candidate is being considered for will provide more useful and pertinent information during a more strategic reference check, making reference checking a more valuable recruitment activity.

Is an Appraisal the Same As an Assessment?

2010-05-26T23:33:00.000-07:00

There are a number of core HR processes that are intrinsic to good and effective people management. The biggest challenge in companies today is the development of talent. Most companies apply a number of HR strategies to become an employer of choice and to be a great place to work.

There are five core people strategies that helps to a company to improve the performance of their employees:

1. How to attract top talent?
This strategy is all about building a strong employer brand, so that applicants are attracted to come and work for the company. Part of good recruitment is to attract applicants so that the company find and recruit the best employees. Best-in-class companies have good assessment processes. In a recent survey by the Aberdeen Group of 400 organizations, it was found that top performing companies are using assessment more broadly across the business, as well as more frequently and consistently.

2. How to motivate employees?
Most companies have an annual performance appraisal process. This is the usual process of conducting a performance appraisal, which is a formal process of reviewing the employee's performance over the last year. Unfortunately many performance systems are better at demotivating employees as supervisors are either reluctant or poorly trained to give constructive feedback to employees. Good performance discussions focus more on the future than on the past.

3. How to reward employees?
Reward systems have improved in the last ten years and there is a better understanding of the need to structure pay to reward both short and long term performance. By having an appropriate fixed pay, the company can then provide variable pay in the form of incentives to encourage performance. For pay systems to work, the systems have to be meaningful and transparent, with clear line-of-sight so that the employee can impact on their pay outcomes. If companies spend half the time in this area, and more time in developing and growing employees, we would have much happier and productive workplaces.

4. How to develop and grow employees?
Most training takes place to improve the employee's performance in the current role, typically technical training or on-the-job training. Far too few companies have good training plans in place for every employee to help them to grow and develop to their full potential.

5. How to retain talented employees?
If all of these five strategies are integrated in a coherent and logical way, this strategy is really about having an open culture so that talented employees share their dreams and aspirations with their managers, making it easier for a company to provide an environment where work is meaningful and rewarding.

Now that we have covered the five core strategies, it is much easier to answer our fundamental question.

What is an assessment?
Conducting an assessment, usually as part of recruitment, assists in the selection of top talent. Many companies only do assessment towards the end of the recruitment process, usually just before reference checking. However, there are a small number of employers that have realized there are significant benefits in pre-employment screening to identify top talent. If you are asked to participate in an assessment process, it is always advisable to understand what sort of tests are going to be conducted and to ensure you get feedback once assessment has been completed. Assessment typically includes a number of tests to determine and measure the person's knowledge, skills and abilities; as well as beliefs that impact on their behavior.

What is an appraisal?
Appraisal is part of performance management, an essential part of giving an employee feedback on their performance. There has been a significant shift in performance management in recent years. Employee feedback is a powerful way of motivating employees, however in most companies it has become an administrative process, rather than being an opportunity for the employee to do a self-assessment and sharing feedback with their manager. If you asked to participate in a performance appraisal, it is helpful if you agree with your supervisor on the process beforehand, so that you are well prepared so that you can fully participate in the appraisal of your performance - after all, you have been experiencing the role firsthand.

In conclusion, both these processes share one characteristic, receiving feedback. Assessment is useful to understand an employee's potential; and Appraisal assists to understand an employee's current performance. There is a clear correlation between these two factors - potential and performance. Like champion athletes, an employee with high potential could also be a top performer.

Finding a job in a difficult job market

2009-12-24T00:04:00.001-08:00

Growing your career in 2010

2009-12-24T00:02:00.001-08:00

The Many choices of Human Resources

2009-12-23T15:26:00.000-08:00

Last week, a final year MBA student wanted me to coach him, as he was keen to move into HR, in itself a little unusual as a career choice. In talking to his university career manager, he was an excellent student with a passion for HR. Now HR is not always seen as the preferred choice for ambitious, talented and commercially orientated graduates, which is his profile.

At times, I am still amazed and also a little disappointed, when I read the criticism by HR people of HR and it’s value to the business. The ability of HR professionals to denigrate their own profession is simply a mystery, and a classical case of being your own worst enemy.

Choice of Industries
HR is one of the few career disciplines, where you can move from one industry to another, with little difficulty, using your HR toolbox to make a company a great place to work.
During my HR career of 30 years, I have been privileged to work in a multiplicity of industries:
- institutional sector (Air Force, a scientific research company, an university) – using the intricacies of precedents to develop policies;
- services sector (two IT companies) – trying to understand the complexities of frame relay systems;
- the tough world of manufacturing (a secondary steelmaking operation – explaining the shaking of the office building during interviews after the pouring of each heat; and a carpet manufacturer – getting used to the smells of making rubber underlay);
- the dangerous mining sector (drilling, shaft sinking and tunneling group – going 2 miles underground in a new gold mine shaft); with
- a major stint in FMCG (two dairy companies and an international brewer – hearing 30,000 bottles filling per hour on the packaging line and developing an incredible thirst).

Choice of Roles
Though the career path of HR has changed with various specialization fields, such as Employee Relations, Learning and OD, a generalist role really shapes the bread and butter operational skills, such as recruiting.

Working my way up from an entry position as a Personnel Officer with a Psychology degree, it didn’t take too long before manager was added to my title. As Industrial Relations was the fast track in the early eighties, I decided to do a post graduate degree, and soon after, got my first CHRO role at the age of 26, and the youngest executive in the company (who says you can’t be ambitious in HR!). Functional specialist roles in Talent Management and OD contributed to further studies, before moving again into CHRO roles in NZ and Australia.

Choice of Countries
Despite different employment legislation, it has been great to live and work in different countries, including South Africa, New Zealand and currently Australia. One major benefit with a change in government is a major review of employment legislation, which is presently the case with the Fair Work legislation in Australia. A similar situation occurred in NZ when Labour came into power in 1999.

Choice of Careers
Being in HR and wearing many hats, made the transition into a line management role with P&L responsibility possible. It is only when you have 500 real (external) customers, that you understand the various priorities our internal HR customers are facing on a daily basis. Due to specialization in OD, there has also been the bridge to external consulting, working with some great companies and clients.

A Final Observation
There are great opportunities to develop a long and rewarding career in HR, where you can play a significant role in developing capability within organizations, by attracting and developing people.

HR offers great choices, and if I could have my career over, I wouldn’t hesitate to again work and achieve success in HR. My oldest daughter is also working in HR. Would you recommend HR to your son or daughter or to a keen student?

Jumping the hurdle to win the job

2009-12-23T00:35:00.000-08:00

Finding the right person for a vacant position is not always a rational process, despite the procedures that companies may use for recruitment. This is a lesson I have learnt many years ago when I was responsible for developing recruitment systems for client companies.
There are many stages to the recruitment process, before a company decides to fill a vacancy.

Why is there a vacancy?
Logically, it starts with the exit interview to find out why the previous incumbent decided to move on to greener pastures. Some companies are now doing these interviews only after an employee has left the company.

Why was the new job created?
Sometimes, a new job is created as result of increased business and there is usually some reallocation of tasks to define the new job description.

The Multiple Hurdle Process
The bigger the company, the more likely that they will follow a more formal process, usually through job advertising, interviews, psychometric tests and reference checking. This process is often referred to as the multiple hurdle process. The idea is that with each hurdle a few more people will drop out, until you are finally able to identify the most suitable candidate.

Recruitment is critical for smaller companies
Smaller companies may not follow the same rigorous process, but in fact recruitment is even more important. When you employ only fifteen staff, every person is vital to the whole team – just see what happens to a sports team if one player is having a bad day, or has been sin binned.

Why you should not target big companies?
It is natural for candidates to try and target the big companies. The majority of job seekers tend to approach the bigger companies, the Top 100. Having worked for some of these companies, I have seen how people limit their search to the familiar names and brands.
Did you know that your best chance of success is with a smaller company?
There is nowadays an international trend for MBA’s to join smaller companies, as these companies offer them more opportunities for understanding the whole business, rather than just a division or business unit.

Why am I suggesting smaller companies?
Right in the beginning I have suggested that often a non-rational process is adopted in recruiting people. We tend to appoint people we know. As 80% of jobs are filled through the hidden job market, then your job search strategy should determine that only 20% of your time should go into scanning and responding to advertisements.

Have a good job search strategy!
The key part of your strategy is to get an interview. This is done by effective networking, a good CV and a proper job search strategy.

The first phase is doing all you can, not to be screened out – to get an interview.
The final phase is not about screening people out but deciding who best fits the profile. The key skills here are all about selling yourself and asking the right questions, to get a great job.

The Recruiting Matrix

2009-12-18T22:53:00.000-08:00

Recruiting is all about relationships. It is all about building enduring relationships with companies and with applicants. But often there is an unhealthy focus on filling the vacancy.

A major part of the reason is the recruitment sales model, which is sadly broken. Most recruiters are focused to get vacancies, then to get candidates, and then to close the deal. During this transactional approach, there is insufficient focus on developing meaningful relationships. And because of the model, if there is a change in either recruiter of company manager, the whole process is duplicated.

When I speak with other HR managers or hiring managers, there is an unanimous view that many recruiters are not interested or able to develop a consultative approach. There is little in terms of adding value and adopting a more considered approach.

For example, it would be an exception to the rule to meet a recruiter that asked me as part of the briefing what the outcome was of the exit interview. There is a general discussion, but no deep analysis or understanding of the trigger for the vacancy. In most of the cases, the recruiter is ready to present their shortlist. There have been a few times when I would even receive a number of CV’s before the briefing, though the recruiter has never done any recruiting for the business. Very proactive but also perhaps just a little bit premature to demonstrate real consulting skills. The first step in consulting is to fully understand the problem.

Recruiters need to be able to reflect, develop and build contacts, have a real knowledge of their clients and most importantly, be a consultant by adding value to the recruitment process.

In The Matrix (1999) the following scene takes place:

Spoon boy: Do not try and bend the spoon. That's impossible. Instead... only try to realize the truth.
Neo: What truth?
Spoon boy: There is no spoon.
Neo: There is no spoon?
Spoon boy: Then you'll see, that it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself

As this blog post is about the Recruiting Matrix, I include the following matrix to highlight the considerable shift in relationship moving from just another supplier to being a recruitment partner.

The relationship can best be depicted as an arrow as we aim for a strong partnership. The deeper the relationship, the more likely is the mutual benefit for both parties. We need to change our thinking, by bending ourselves.

In a previous blog, Are you a gold recruiter?, I highlighted that there is a huge business cost in dealing with a large number of recruiters. In a previous company we were dealing with more than twenty recruiting companies! Every week I would meet with a different recruiter, either updating them on the business, or worse, having to explain the business to a new recruiter.

So here is a real challenge for each recruiter in 2010 – take a bit of time to see how much of your business is in the first or second columns, versus more value added relationships in the last two columns.

And for HR departments, if your recruitment budget is tight and you are dealing with a variety of recruiters, you may just be missing out on the great opportunity to have a real recruitment partner in your corner, helping you to attract and retain great talent.

Surfing the jobs wave in Australia

2009-12-18T21:46:00.000-08:00

The last few days in Australia has highlighted a strong surge in jobs as the economic recovery is on track. The stimulus package was intended to keep people working.The results were a surprise to the markets as there was an expected lag effect.

The headlines on Friday 11 December:
- Jobs surge as recovery gathers pace (Australian Financial Review)
- CEOs warn on jobs squeeze (The Australian)
- Sting in jobs cheer (Business Daily Herald Sun)

The pertinent facts and figures are:
- Almost 100,000 jobs have been added to Australia’s economy in the past three months
- A hefty 31,200 jobs were added in November
- A solid 30,800 full-time positions made up the bulk of new positions
- Victoria state added the most new jobs

Unemployment
The unemployment rate dipped to 5.7% – the same as earlier in March this year, and down from 5.8% in October. This rate is a major contrast to the formal projection of 8.5%, which seemed high at the time. These figures are revised every six months and mid-year financial outlook will be released towards the end of the year.

Most economists expect a peak of a little over 6%. The Deputy Prime Minister stood by official forecasts that unemployment would reach 6.75% in the middle of next year. However, as it is now clear and undeniable that job losses have bottomed around July, these figures can only be political justification for the on-going spending by Government.

Implications
The fastest job growth in three years has significant implications for employers and employees – higher interest rates, skills shortages, pay demands, higher turnover, and more recruiting.
Higher interest rates – rates will continue rising and we have seen the Reserve Bank moving away from other major central banks lifting rates in October, with a rate rise only a week ago.
Skills shortages – some CEO’s are already concerned that we will experience skills shortages in certain industries, particularly with increased demand from resource projects.
Pay demands – as many companies implemented pay freezes over the last year, new staff insisting on higher pay packages will put pressure on pay equity for existing staff. Companies will also need to consider some catch-up increases to avoid lagging the market. Unions have been reasonably conservative with their pay demands and will leverage any shortages of trades people to target higher pay increases.
Higher turnover – as the general confidence improves there will be an increase in staff turnover, as many employees are waiting for the new calendar year to start looking for new job opportunities
More recruiting – there has been strong anecdotal evidence from my recruiter network that there was a significant pick-up in the number of current assignments. The top end is still patchy but also starting to get some signs of life. We all look forward to a busy 2010.

Outlook
In summary, the economic recovery is gaining momentum and we appear to be sailing into 2010 with a better outlook as a year ago, which must be good news.

The Trusted Recruiter

2009-12-11T03:02:00.000-08:00

In his well-known book, The Trusted Advisor, David Maister explored the paradigm of that very important business relationship, using the professional services paradigm as a basis. His book covered some key components of trust (the trust equation), the process of creating trust (including the most common trust-breaking mistakes and this post includes a good example).

Trust is not a soft or an ambiguous concept – and it should not be. Some years ago I attended a one-week leadership course by an American trainer – Ken Blanchard (not the writer). During the course we did a trust exercise and the one take-away learning was that trust is an absolute concept. You can think clearly about it and be seen as a trusted advisor by your clients.

Disclaimer: It has taken me some time to process this story. To protect the guilty some details have been changed.

As Head of HR I was in the midst of new business acquisition and we were reviewing the new structure for the business. Fairly early in the process it was evident that some new staff would have to be moved into other roles.

It is not uncommon to receive calls from recruiters and a search consultant phoned me for new business, having completed a search assignment a few months prior. On a confidential basis I mentioned to him discreetly, that should he run into a good technical production manager in New Zealand we might be interested.

Imagine my surprise when I got a call from the MD early on a Monday morning, asking me why we were advertising for a Production Manager in Australia. It seemed that the Production manager saw her job being advertised and obviously were a bit nervous, to put it mildly. Staff knew that roles were being reviewed, but no consultations have yet commenced.

When I phoned the recruiter he informed me that one of their clients withdrew an advertisement at the last minute. The recruiter, a senior consultant took the opportunity to insert an advertisement at no cost to the company. He inserted this advertisement without authorisation from the company but, did so believing he was adding value by giving a free advertisement to the company.

Following further investigation, it emerged that the advertisement on the jobsite was approved by the recruiter, but the location was not reviewed by him and his assistant took the initiative of loading it with the specific location, and made it obvious to all and sundry which company was advertising as there was only one production site of that specific technology at this specific location.

At no time did the company authorised this advertisement. The recruiter unreservedly apologised for any embarrassment their actions have caused.

Now we all know we don’t live in a perfect world and things can go wrong. I just wonder if we do learn from our mistakes. This reminds of a study done earlier this year at Harvard Business School.
It would seem that people do not learn from failures. Too much self-rationizalization perhaps? Then again, some people may learn more from our success than from our failures.

I phoned the recruiter after receiving their letter of apology and told him the matter was closed. We sorted out the matter with the production manager. But the trust was destroyed and we will never do business again. Once the trust is gone, it is difficult to maintain the relationship. There is no anger, just sadness.

Sadly, core values such as honesty and integrity are in short supply in today’s business world. The rapid decline of trust is all too visible. The paradox is that the more we are trusted by our clients, the more business we will get from them, and the more we will benefit both professionally and personally.

How much are you really trusted by those clients you deal with?

Making HR a more strategic function

2009-11-29T20:11:00.000-08:00

Recently I was approached by an HR Manager, to assist her with some coaching and mentoring. It is typical as part of the coaching process to define some clear coaching goals.
One of her top three goals was to make HR more strategic in the business. Over a number of weeks we worked through the various issues, constraints and opportunities.

The Value of HR
As we covered the other two goals, we eventually focused on how she could demonstrate the value of HR to the business. Despite the fact that she was reporting to the CEO, she was not seen as part of the management group. In fact, she had no budget, was not completing even an HR report.
It is important for HR Managers to be successful in the basics, before trying to leap tall buildings in a single bound. Mastering the functions of any line manager such as a budget and a monthly report is critical for HR to be seen as part of the business.

HR Budget
We agreed that a basic HR Budget should be developed, as well as developing a process with the financial accountant to identify all HR related expenses. The accountant was very supportive of the need to establish a specific HR Budget.

The reality is that line managers are not good at budgeting for people related expenses. The worst example I have seen was a single line item for people costs, where managers would simply apply a standard percentage, e.g. CPI, for their next year’s budget. This included all costs, one big bucket, including employment costs, training, and salaries.

HR Report
I still have to find a single human being that loves their monthly report. A few years ago I was consulting to a marketing team, only to discover that they would spend a whole week every single month to complete their monthly reports. Yes, the reports were very aligned with their strategic plan, with a number of initiatives supporting each strategy, with clear milestones and accountabilities.

What I learned from that experience, after succeeding in reducing the reporting time, but still providing good management information, was the need for marketing the HR function. HR needs to be highly visible in the business. What is not needed is a long, boring report with lots of HR speak and non-business related information.

There is a missed opportunity by not having HR as an integral part of the overall business report that is submitted to the board.

An effective HR report could be as brief as a one pager. In addition, picking a specific theme each month provides the HR manager with the opportunity to put the spotlight on a relevant topic, such as:
o Feedback from new staff after the on-boarding program
o Analysis of distribution of ratings after annual performance review
o Diversity report and gender information for promotions and training

By combining quantitative information, such as tracking against KPI’s is an excellent opportunity for HR to demonstrate their real understanding of their business function.

Financial Intelligence
Most HR managers are not good at understanding and managing key HR numbers, compared to the Finance function that can quote outstanding debtors in days and dollars by heart.
Good HR managers understand how they can impact on and improve the bottom line. You can be financially intelligent, but still not helping to improve profitability. The real challenge is not just in reducing costs. Most managers are good at that.

For example: using your OD knowledge to ensure that your new sales division have resilient staff – having reduced staff turnover (cost) and achieving better sales (profit). One of the companies I worked with used dieticians to sell a new product. They were technically good, but couldn’t sell. By putting the right sales staff in these roles all sales targets were achieved within the next year!

Any opportunity to spend real time in the trenches are invaluable. It is only once you have to worry about 500 customers and achieving all your business targets, that you realise that the latest HR program is not the highest priority, even if HR think it is.

By understanding how you in HR can show and explain the benefit for the manager, you will realize that telling a manager it is good for the business is not enough! Trying that approach with an external customer will be incredibly shortsighted, but I am always surprised how HR people struggle to explain the real financial benefits.

Another example: Recently I consulted to a company that decided due to high petrol costs to change company cars. By using a positive change strategy, field service operators were given 4 cylinder 4WD’s more suited to their needs, rather big 6 cylinder station wagons. This resulted in real direct saving of $20K per vehicle per annum. Both benefits and cost savings were achieved!

Moving to Strategic HR
A few years ago I was part of a benchmarking team looking at strategic planning. One of our global competitors was agreeable to meet with us, and shared a number of their strategies with us. When we discussed the various strategies, they concluded that the real challenge is not about developing smart strategies, but it is all about implementation and execution.

Before we can make HR a more strategic function, and become a strategic architect, HR managers need to be good operational executors.

The Magic of Recruiting by Splitting a Role

2009-10-06T20:47:00.001-07:00

The Magic of Recruiting by Splitting a Role

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Streaming your career

2009-09-24T23:42:00.000-07:00

Some years ago a lot of companies referred to career ladders. This approach suggested that you simply keep on climbing the ladder until hopefully and eventually to you get to the top.

The reality was many people would hit a ceiling, either due to factors such as discrimination, lack of opportunity or internal politics (favouristism).

The concepts of career paths then followed, suggesting that a roadmap exists, and with the right development a person can reach their potential.

The reality is that career development is like trying to cross a raging river. You have little chance of reaching an exact spot on the other side.

Copyright: Raging River Painting by Priyadarshi Gautam

Using the concept of a career stream, a person should consider therefor various roles that may be lateral moves, sometimes even taking a lower level role to change from one function e.g. marketing to sales.

Another relevant aspect of a career stream is the dynamic flow of a person's experience and skills, similar to the movement of water, sometimes slowly over rocks, and other times as a water fall.

The key is to channel your career in the right direction.

Showtime - United States of Tara Home

2009-09-21T18:48:00.001-07:00

Showtime - United States of Tara Home

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Not all roles are created equal

2009-09-21T00:50:00.000-07:00

Life is just not fair. There are some roles that get the best out of a person, and then there are roles that were designed to make your life feel at times like hell on earth.

The best roles are those with a great company and with a great boss. However, some roles are just not equal. In two of my roles I only stayed for one year, but started looking around after one month, as I realized my unfortunate mistake.

To cope with the demands of different roles, you almost need to live in the skin of Tara, changing constantly to deal with different situations.

Here are some interesting roles that you may be recruiting for:

1. The Explorer. A new role is always risky. Often the business is unsure of what the role is all about. You need to shape it to fit the business. They will either love it or hate it. Usually takes leave at the end of a role. Ideal for adventurers keen to explore new territory. Must be a problem solver par excellence.

2. The Actor. Role has been revamped as the previous person failed to make it. Look for murder weapon. Role may have been vacant for years until need have finally been reestablished. Now includes all the odd jobs nobody wants to do. Takes leave every few months to look for another role. Ideal for those that still believes in fairy tales.

3. The Rower. This is an on-going role. The seat was still warm and everyone expects you to simply pick up where the last person left off. Works best if you share the same name as the previous incumbent, saves on working to create an impression, as well as email – charles@. Needs to take three weeks leave every year to recharge the batteries. Ideal for those looking for a comfortable role and keeping things steady.

4. The Diplomat. Your manager had too much to do and all delegated/unwanted tasks have been packaged in this role. Great title but no responsibility. Will spend most of your time in endless meetings. Takes leave one day at a time so job insecurity remains undiscovered. Ideal for a go-between. Previous marketers please apply.

5. The Slave. Often carries title such as Administrator. Low risk role but heavy workload. Previous person knew everybody. Need ability to write down long list of things to do. After every meeting will have an action list. Takes all their sick leave. Ideal for those who likes extreme sports.

6. The Player. Great role and you are part of the team. Your role is well-defined and every one knows your role and how it fits in with the rest of the team. Last incumbent was promoted. Leave is planned months in advanced. Ideal for hard-working and ambitious person.

All roles need to be filled. Badly designed roles will often do little to enhance a candidate’s CV or help the recruiter with more roles.

It has been said that people join good companies and leave bad managers. Most of my roles have been great, largely because I got on well with my manager. A good manager can make a bad role tolerable and will promote you if do a good job. A bad manager will quickly make a good role feel like you are part of a losing team.

Finding a great role with a great company is like finding a great script with a great producer. It makes for a great story!

Recruiting for the Future

2009-09-15T05:09:00.001-07:00

There are two types of companies – those that are growing and those that are slowly dying. This was a key lesson that I learnt some years ago from one of my mentors.

Trying to pick out a winner is not always easy, as some companies are suffering from the "boiling frog" syndrome, and it requires an alignment of the stars to get your selection perfect.

When we recruit for key roles, it is also vital to ensure we appoint candidates that have the potential for further personal growth, in particular with the ability to be promoted in more senior roles. This is one of the reasons why I strongly favour one-over-one recruitment, as the Chairman or CEO will invariable assess for executive potential.

Recently, I was coaching a HR Director and he was debriefing the termination of a Simon as Marketing Executive. Simon was in his role for five years, but the new MD felt he did not have razor-sharp commercial skills and after a brief period of counseling his services were terminated.

This unhappy outcome can surely be traced back to the initial appointment, as commercial skills should have been identified from the outset as critical to achieve strategic marketing outcomes. For recruiters it is particularly helpful to understand the underlying competencies as it relates to a specific strategic goal.
This business is today more than three times the size when the Marketing Executive was initially appointed.

The key questions are:
- Was Simon able to grow with the business?
- Did he reach his ceiling?
- Did the business do enough to develop him to full potential?

As a Talent Manager one the most rewarding activities is to recruit a graduate that would blossom into a general manager. I have been fortunate to work with some very talented HR people that have been promoted into senior HR roles. This includes two PA’s becoming HR Managers.

When I interview candidates, I try and track their career to see if it a steady upwards curve, or if they have plateaud, or if their career suffered from the yo-yo effect. This provides some clues, but I also try to understand the support and influence of mentors, their managers and others.

Whenever I am asked to review a situation where an executive is a poor performer, I often find they were good or even high performers in other companies, but were unable to make the cultural adjustment, demanding perhaps more of a need to operate on their own, or working in a virtual structure.
For clarification sake, I am again not necessarily suggesting recruiting the best person that may want to look for a promotion in six months’ time.

The challenge is finding those high-performing and high-potential candidates that can grow with the business.

How long is your shortlist?

2009-09-12T15:35:00.000-07:00

“What do you mean there is only one person on the shortlist?” Bob exclaimed as I discussed with him the recruitment process for the Environmental Engineer. Despite the tight labor market and war for talent, managers still expect and demand to see between three and five applicants on the shortlist.

One of the flaws in recruitment is that most managers tend to recruit on the basis of finding the best person for the role. Taking this flawed approach to the next level, they will interview their shortlist, to then compare these applicants through some sort of scoring process, to add some rationality and validation for their appointment decision.

But what if you are selecting the best person out of a bad bunch?

Good recruitment always starts by having a really good understanding of what the role is. Most recruiters would get a briefing by the recruiting manager, hopefully with an updated position description.

Role clarity is a subject all on it’s own, which I will expand on in a next blog. More than once I have been called in by a recruiter, after a frustrated stop-start process, as they find a moving target in trying to define the role.

Having a well-written role competency profile is critical - not a flowery or generic description of tasks that make it impossible to understand what the top two or three outcomes are for the next six to twelve months.

Armed with a clearly defined role competency profile, the real comparison is to take our one shortlisted environmental engineer and to determine if they are a good fit with the role requirements.

Sure, it is always possible to stack the shortlist with two other applicants, making sure the manager feels comfortable in their misguided recruitment decision. But how fair is it to waste the time of other applicants and the manager in spending hours on what is clearly a non-value added activity?

By developing a trusted advisor status with the recruiting manager, which started with a clear understanding of the real role requirements, there is no need to fall into the trap of a shortlist of five applicants. Talking through the list of interviewed or screened applicants will provide the recruiting manager with an appreciation of the process and context of the shortlisted applicant.

A shortlist is not a list of the top three or five applicants.

It is also not a checklist of the recruiting manager’s requirements: qualifications, experience, previous roles, industry experience or other general criteria.

Many managers have an incomplete understanding of the critical success factors for a role, particularly a new role. A high number of recruitment failures are in greenfield roles! Next time you have a recruitment failure, start by critically reviewing the position description.

In conclusion, it is quite possible to have a shortlist of one as you are comparing this person against the role competency profile, which is your baseline. And yes, Bob did appoint the environmental engineer and he is still working at the company.

Talent Sourcing should not be a mystery

2009-09-12T01:34:00.000-07:00

Often recruiters would send you a good CV, or a thoughtful applicant would send you their CV, thus creating the challenge of figuring out where to place them. It is hard enough to identify and assess current good talent in any business, as well as to elegantly manage the expectations of high-performers and managers’ staffing needs.

Talent management is the balancing act of ensuring you have the right people at the right time in the right roles with the right skills.

This is a tough act in normal situations (if that condition actually exists) but try walking the tight rope when the circus tent is being blown away in a tornado. Most organizations are in constant change, either as result of new strategies or structure changes.

Amidst all this “surround” change, you receive your unsolicited résumé of an experienced sales manager. The recruiter highlights current experience, as well as the need to interview the applicant.

You have a few choices – you put the résumé on your long list of “to do” items; you reluctantly agree to interview the applicant; or you prefer to wait until a vacancy is available.

Because of time pressures you decide to use phone screening. You discover the candidate has already left their current job, having been retrenched, keen to find another sales role. After your conversation you are still unclear as to where the candidate will fit. You diplomatically decline to agree to another interview.

Neither the recruiter nor the applicant was really able to give you a clear picture of the skills and potential talent the candidate would bring the business, as their focus was more on what the candidate has done, rather than what they can do for your business.

At the end of a long day you reflect on the balcony, looking at the bright city lights. Talent sourcing should not be a mystery!

Control over chaos

2009-09-02T17:16:00.000-07:00

All change starts with one small step.

The action of doing is much more than just thinking without doing.

We are surrounded by change, which is creating an overload.

It is just like all the emails sitting in your in-box. You can ignore it, delete it, read it or file it in a folder for later.

What are you doing with that unread email sitting in your in-box? Ignoring it until you are ready to deal with it, or disrupting your thoughts to ensure you can feel a sense of control by opening it.

Control, that is what it is all about. How can we have some level of control to manage the chaos around us?

Even if we only have some limited option of not doing anything, we still have some control.