Smart Hiring: Are You Doing It Right?

Does your hiring process consist of proven practices or just a hodgepodge of activities that get into gear when someone says, “I need more people” or “Sally has left and we need someone to take her place NOW?”

Smart hiring is more than posting requisitions, screening, interviewing and checking references.  It is a series of specific procedures that can bring in top candidates or create poor hires.  Here are six ways to enhance the entire recruitment process.

1. Select the right sourcing method.
While the typical sourcing channels include in-house recruiters, employee referral programs, executive search firms, advertising, temporary staffing agencies, campus recruiting and, of course, the internet, not all will be appropriate for filling every position. Are you trying to hire dozens of hourly wage jobs or a senior executive? Each will require different hiring methods. One size does not fit all.

2. Map, flow-chart or diagram what you do.
First uncover delays and glitches that waste time, interfere with getting the job done right the first time and drive good job seekers away. Then identify areas that can be improved by eliminating, simplifying or combining tasks or that can be streamlined electronically for efficiency.

3. Develop realistic job profiles.
Studies have shown that 25 percent of companies don’t take the crucial step of defining what they’re looking for before they begin the hiring process. If competencies (skills, motivations, and behaviors) are not first identified, you will waste precious interview time asking the wrong questions.  Because jobs change over time, review the profiles periodically to verify they are still valid.

4. Create partnerships between human resources and hiring managers.
Remember that both are on the same team. Both are trying to attract and select the best people. Truly understanding the job to be filled requires good communication and cooperation. Jointly develop the job requirements, decide on the screening factors, plan the interviews, assign follow-up responsibilities, and establish selection criteria to make quality decisions.

5. Develop good metrics to make better use of your resources.
Are you getting the right people from your sourcing methods?  Are you spending your recruitment budget wisely?  To find out you need to evaluate the different sources based on the suitability of the candidates each source provides. Suitability can be measured by the percent of total applicants found to be qualified, the number of qualified applicants relative to the number of available positions, or  the turnover rate of new hires overall.

6. Find out what’s working and what’s not.
Use ‘mystery candidates’ to experience your entire recruitment process and provide feedback. Do a survey of all new hires during orientation and ask them for their moments of impression. Then, reinforce the positive factors and eliminate the negative ones. Finally, use your exit interviews to identify additional improvement areas.

Management Success Tip: The effectiveness of the recruitment process impacts the effectiveness of the organization.  A new hire that does not fit the position will be difficult to develop, will perform poorly and more likely leave resulting in need to repeat the process. Only when recruitment is approached as a specific process with definable steps and measurable results can it be managed to ensure the hiring of quality people.

Marcia Zidle, a certified career strategist and business coach, works with high potential, high impact executives, managers and professionals to advance their careers and grow their leadership capabilities. 

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3 Creative Ways to Boost Employee Morale

 Whether you're running a start-up or are a manager at one of the world's largest companies, the morale of your team can make the difference between success and failure.

People want to know why they are going to work each day and they want to feel that they are making a difference.

Helping employees connect with purpose will not only help you retain and attract the very best people, but also will enable you to discover ideas which will save you money and do more good in the world.

1. Cultivate "Stories of Self"

This classic principle of community organizing was applied brilliantly by the Obama campaign during the 2008 election. Instead of training volunteers to memorize a script as to why candidate Obama was great, the organizers trained volunteers to speak about their own experience and why they became involved in the campaign.

Today organizing principles are uniting with business head on. At the recent staff retreat Dev attended for Change.org, a fast growing B Corp, employees developed "stories of self" by reflecting on why they were involved, why the work was important and the turning points that had brought them to that very juncture. It ended up being one of the most intimate and rewarding parts of the retreat grounding everyone in their individual purpose.

2. Contextualize Your Mission

What problem does your company solve? How have people tried to address these issues in the past? Helping your employees identify themselves as part of a long historical arc working towards a common goal fosters purpose and provides meaning. It is a sense of purpose that is commonly found in those interested in family genealogy. Uncovering the past links and stories of our industries forbearers can spark that familiar genealogical sense of importance and responsibility to the work we carry forward.

3. Empower Intrapreneurs

Intrapreneurs are individuals who reshape companies for the better from within the business. Your job is to create an environment that is conducive to intrapreneurs by setting up processes to gather, vet and act on the best ideas coming from employees throughout the company. In these days, it goes beyond just setting out a 1980s-style suggestion box.

As an employer, it is your responsibility to connect like-minded employees encouraging them to move disruptive ideas along for the benefit of the company. It was a Vice Chairman at Morgan Stanley who decided to connect an optimistic micro finance-obsessed intern with the right manager that ultimately led the company to develop a micro finance offering.

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Billy Parish is Co-Founder and President of Solar Mosaic, a solar investment platform. He's also co-author of Making Good: Finding Meaning, Money & Community in a Changing World. @BillyParish

Dev Aujla is the Founder of DreamNow, a charitable organization that works with young people to develop, fund, and implement their social change projects. He's also co-author of Making Good: Finding Meaning, Money & Community in a Changing World. @DevAujla

Tumbuh dalam Keberagaman

Satu konsekuensi terbesar yang harus dihadapi dalam era persaingan global adalah keberagaman sumber daya manusia, baik dari internal perusahaan (baca; karyawan dan pemegang saham) hingga konsumen.

Terlebih jika perusahaan Anda terdiri dari beberapa unit bisnis strategik yang beroperasi di sejumlah negara. Maka, mau tidak mau perekrutan sumber daya manusia dari demografis dan psikografis yang berbeda harus dilakukan.

Konsekuensi yang muncul di antaranya adalah benturan-benturan antara budaya perusahaan dengan nilai-nilai yang dibawa oleh masing-masing karyawan.Tak hanya itu,dari sisi pasar (baca; konsumen), keberagaman nilai-nilai juga turut mewarnai aplikasi bisnis di lapangan.

Sejenak saya mengajak Anda untuk belajar dari IBM. Selama kurang lebih 100 tahun produsen teknologi informasi ini telah beroperasi di 172 negara dengan 427.000 karyawan yang berasal dari latar belakang berbeda. Terbayang betapa besarnya tantangan yang harus dihadapi manajemen terutama dalam menciptakan sebuah budaya kerja yang mengapresiasi nilai- nilai yang dianut seluruh karyawan.

How to Work with Someone You Hate

Working with someone you hate can be distracting and draining. Pompous jerk, annoying nudge, or incessant complainer, an insufferable colleague can negatively affect your attitude and performance.

Instead of focusing on the work you have to do together, you may end up wasting time and energy trying to keep your emotions in check and attempting to manage the person's behavior. Fortunately, with the right tactics, you can still have a productive working relationship with someone you can't stand.

Talent Shortage or Shortage of Creative Talent Strategies?

A lot of people are blaming the lack of talent on the “shortage of critical skills in the U.S.” I think most of the perceived shortage is based on a shortage of creative talent strategies.

In an era of high unemployment, many, employers expect immediate plug-and-play candidates, new employees who come prepared with the skills and training to be productive immediately upon entering the workplace.

Some employers blame the school systems for not educating students with the critical skills employers need. The employers that blame the lack of resources on the “talent shortage” might look in the mirror and ask, “What have I done lately to create a strategic talent pool for my organization?

Employers need to utilize creative talent strategies to grow their own talent pools. It is up to employers to build a creative talent pipeline.

Why Your Employees Are Leaving?

One day when I was out getting a coffee, I overheard a man talking on his cellphone.
“We need to be stricter with our hiring practices next year,” he said. “We want to keep them past a year.”

I wanted to turn around and tell him, “Maybe you don’t need to be stricter with your hiring practices. You can bring them in but you’re not keeping them. It could be your corporate culture.”

Can You Fix My Employees With Training?

“Continual learning is essential for survival in the workplace-instruction in the form of training is not. For workers who are already able to do what is expected of them, but are not performing to expectations, training is not the answer.” Robert F Mager as quoted in the ASTD Handbook for Workplace Learning Professionals p. 173

How often we suppose that the lack of performance is related to training. It is this very assumption that continues to breed frustration in many organizations and certainly fails to result in improved performance despite the fact that is exactly what most parties involved want.  Instead what happens looks something like this:

Manager- “My employees just don’t get it. They need to be trained on how to…..”

HR Pro- “I can set up the training, but if manager doesn’t support it back on the job, it will be a waste of time.”

Employee- “Training on this again. Don’t they know I already know this. I could teach this stuff.”

Trainer/Facilitator-“I don’t know why I am up here wasting my time. This people clearly don’t want to be here.”

So how do you prevent this in your organization? According to the quoted author above, a proper analysis is required to ensure the performance intervention will be successful.  That is a simple enough step. So where is the breakdown in the above scenario?

Simple, responsibility. Who’s responsibility is it to conduct the analysis? The manager blames the trainer, the trainer blames the trainees and/the manager, HR blames the manager, and the employee blames everyone!  Blame gets you in this scenario.

If this is common in your organization, you can change it. Take responsibility to start the analysis and involve the others in the process.

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Sheri Mazurek is a training and human resource professional with over 15 years of management experience, and is skilled in all areas of employee management and human resource functions, with a specialty in learning and development.

Company Reorganization: How to Stay Employed

Your company is restructuring and many roles and jobs are changing. The “new organization”;may make sense for the “new strategy” but where will it leave YOU?

Restructuring can affect everyone. Some people may change departments, others may change responsibilities, and yet others may be asked to relocate.

So does this mean good news or bad news for you? Will you end up with a job you don’t like or lose your job altogether? Or is this the opportunity you’ve been waiting for?

Understandably, you may not like having to re-interview for what feels like your old job or  the new job that will replace it.  But don’t take this personally. If your boss values you and the quality of your work, this can be a great chance to gain a challenging and interesting role in the new organization. The newly defined position may be better than your old one! Remember, you have the experience and qualifications to do this job. So grasp the opportunity and make the most of the situation!

Tips for Re-interviewing

1. Take this seriously.
You are not guaranteed to keep your job, so this isn’t simply a “rubber-stamping” exercise. This process is just as serious as applying for a different job with a different company. However, your preparation is different from interviewing for an outside job. And the interviewing approach can be different. You probably won’t be given that “getting to know you” easy warm-up at the start of the conversation. These interviews are usually hard-hitting from the start. You’re expected to know the job and you have to prove that you’re up to the challenge.

2. Analyze the job and the required competencies.
List the most important skills needed for the job. You probably have the ability to do the work, otherwise you might have been laid off in the initial rounds of restructuring. What personal areas of competence are rewarded, expected and talked about within the company? What have you done that you were given positive feedback?

3. Prepare examples.
The interviewer will look for proof that you can do the job well. Have examples of your work fresh in your mind (depending on the position, you may want to tangible evidence). Be ready to discuss five to seven examples of your skills and accomplishments. It’s best to have a good balance of examples showing technical skills (perhaps demonstrating how you did something) as well as personal competency (perhaps showing how you dealt with a difficult situation or person). Use these examples when you’re asked questions. Remember to concentrate on those areas that you’ve identified as critical to job success.

4. Provide supporting evidence.
Be ready to back up your claims. You can tell people that you’re great at organizing, but your statement carries more weight if you support it with solid data. How did you or your team contribute to the timeliness of the project? How much money and time did the company save because you prepared the project properly? Consider the following: Sales/revenue you generated. Positive feedback your clients gave you. Problems you solved.  Initiatives you took, etc.

5. Prove your enthusiasm.
Your attitude can be as important as your knowledge and skills. There may be many capable people out there who are interviewing for the same position. The reason for hiring often comes down to “will this person fit and do well?”  Interviewers want to know if you have passion for the work. Will you bring a positive energy to the team or will you bring it down?

Career Success Tip:

If you treat this interview with the same importance and significance as a regular job interview, you’ll increase your chances of being successful. Know what your skills are, know what you’ve already contributed to the company and know how much you’re worth. Your preparation will pay off!

Marcia Zidle, a certified career strategist and business coach, works with high potential, high impact executives, managers and professionals to advance their careers and grow their leadership capabilities.

It's Harder than Ever to Be a Senior Executive

The job of the senior executive is much more complicated today than it was a decade or two ago — and that trend will continue, especially if you hope to play on a global stage (which is a nearly universal condition these days for many companies). Why? Here are five reasons.

1. Soft skills are more important than ever. Most people come out of business schools fairly well armed with technical skills, but the softer side of management — communication, collaboration, cross-cultural intelligence, for instance — has dramatically grown in importance, and will continue to do so.
And for many people they're harder to learn. To some extent, they come only from experience. I've written about the rising significance of soft skills, including in the March 2011 issue of HBR (coauthored with Kevin L. Kelly and Bryan MacDonald), on how C-level jobs are evolving, and in my upcoming book on communication with Michael Slind[link]. In a knowledge economy, the shift is inevitable; you need to keep up with it.

2. So are technical skills. Though the balance of management skills has been shifting, hard skills are also more important than ever. Regardless of how it's divided, the entire pie of necessary managerial skills has grown. In other words, you need to be better at everything. Technical and functional knowledge are vital to making good judgment calls, being legitimate in the eyes of your people, and making resource allocation decisions. Running a company has become dramatically more complicated, and your skill set has to keep pace.

3. C-level jobs have become less circumscribed. Senior executive roles are increasingly interdependent, so it's less and less viable to remain a focused specialist. The CIO has to know what's going on in finance and marketing, for instance, and P&L experience is important even for support functions like human resources. That's one reason that job rotation is more common than ever as a development tool. A well-rounded executive will rise to the top much more quickly than one with singular expertise.

4. Companies are increasingly global. A handful of industries are still local — waste management, for instance — but most companies are competing on a global scale at some level. And if they aren't, they will be. So executives need a global mindset and a global IQ — and meaningful global experience (a short stint in Sweden won't do).

They need to be open to different experiences, attuned to cultural differences, and comfortable working with a highly diverse and globally dispersed employee and customer base. And the competition for good jobs is fiercer than ever. So, for instance, if you want a top finance job it's not enough to be the best CFO in the U.S.; you have to be the best CFO in the world. Many executive searches are done on a global basis now.

5. You have to be constantly learning. Industries have become much more dynamic — the rules are always changing, new competitors come out of the woodwork, the talent pool has expanded exponentially. To be employable you need to demonstrate a learning orientation, learning agility — defined as an executive's ability to acquire new skills quickly by seeking and learning from new experiences, which allows them to be more adaptable in this uncertain global environment.

Many executives also set up procedures and relationships to have access to constantly changing information and best practices. Reverse mentoring has become popular today for precisely this reason. Younger employees may lack the experience of their senior colleagues, but they've grown up in a different world and are more accustomed to the new rules of business. And industries are crossing boundaries in completely unexpected ways — there was talk recently of Apple looking to buy the distribution rights to U.K. soccer, for example. You never know where the next challenge is going to hit, but it's your job to be prepared.

That's a pretty hefty set of requirements. And to make matters more complicated, companies no longer have the responsibility to help you update your skills. Many will offer various learning opportunities and they're certainly happy if you're able to keep up, but in the end it's up to you. The emerging global executive has tremendous opportunity for an exciting and rewarding career, but it will take a lot of work. So how are you preparing for the future?

This post is part of the HBR Insight Center, The Next Generation of Global Leaders.

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Boris Groysberg
Boris Groysberg is a professor of business administration at Harvard Business School. His work examines how a firm can be systematic in achieving a sustainable competitive advantage by leveraging its talent at all levels of the organization.