Category Archives: Hiring

Mailbag: How do you talk someone into working Contract?

Posted on by
2

Here’s the question:

“Can you please help me on how do you convince a candidate to work on contract?”

Sam – New Jersey

Here’s some background, because some people might be confused on what the question even asks. A ‘Contract’ position is usually what technical engineering and IT recruiters refer to for a professional temporary type job.  It’s not ‘temp’ that you usually think of when someone says “hey I’ve got a temp job” for you  – which is normally a low paying, manual labor job.  Contract positions are usually project based, highly paid hired guns that come in to do a certain job and move on.  You also see many corporations now using contract hiring for their professional staff as a kind of ‘try and buy’ type of staffing.  Hire talent on contract, if they workout well and fit your culture, then offer them a direction position.

Sam – is new to the professional contingent staffing game – and he’s asking the million dollar question.  Your ability to sell ‘contract’ is what separates the men from the boys in the staffing industry! Here’s my reply:

“Sam,

Here’s the canned staffing industry answer for getting an IT Pro to work contract vs. direct:

You talk a candidate into a contract because of a number of factors – the ability to work a project that gives them experiences they don’t have, to work for a company they have desire to work for, it’s a higher level of position than they currently have and/or it is in a location geographically they want to be versus where they are currently.  A few other things that are enticing – much higher level of compensation, working for a true leader in the industry (mentor type), working on a project that will set them up for future projects they couldn’t get without working on this project.  

 Here’s the reality:

If you have none of these things – you’ll never talk a direct person to go contract – unless they are just plain miserable in their current job.  To get a direct person to work contract you have to find their pain spot – what is it about their current position they can’t stand – and if you can solve that with what you have to offer – just maybe you’ll get that person to accept your contract position.  If you have none of those things that solves their pain – you have no chance.

Good luck, Tim”

Finding an individuals pain spot, or hot button, is the key to any kind of candidate negotiation, but critical for getting someone to accept a contract position.  I’ve been told by 100+ HR Pros that a ‘good’ candidate would never accept a contract position over a direct position.  After 10 years of working the industry – I can honestly look them in the eye and tell them they are flat wrong!  I get people to take contract position every single week who turn down direct positions.  The direct position might be with a bad company, bad location, low pay, etc.  Contract offers them an opportunity to stay where they want, work with a company they’ve been targeting to get into, maybe cash a big check, etc.

I speak to corporate HR Pros every single week and many have the same issue – “Tim – we spend so much time and resources bringing in good talent – only to have them fail and once they are on staff, it seems next to impossible to get rid of them quickly!”   Contract is one answer to solve this.  It allows both sides to feel each other out, see if it’s a fit and then get married down the road after you’ve dated a while.  If it doesn’t work, your hiring managers don’t feel the same ‘ownership’ of a contractor and will cut them loose quicker than they would a direct employee.

 

Finding Mr. Right Too Fast

Posted on by
Reply

Here’s the scenario:

You have an opening and you do your recruiting thing.  You find a candidate and low and behold they are great!  What luck!? You think to yourself. The hiring manager is going to thrilled. Boy, my job is easy!

Do I need to even go on?

You set up the interview with the hiring manager.  She also thinks the candidate is great.  Done deal, you think to yourself.  Then ‘it’ happens.  The hiring manager, she does that thing they do, those hiring manager types, she says that statement we don’t want to hear:

“Let’s take a look at a couple more before we decide.”

Bam!

Just like that, this job went from being easy to being horrible!  You found her Mr. Right and now she wants to see two more Mr. Rights!  Doesn’t she know, Mr. Right only comes around once!?

Grizzled Recruiting Veterans know what I’m talking about.  Finding Mr. Right too fast is a killer.  So, how do you get around this?  There are two ways, neither of which is preferred over the other:

1. Hold Mr. Right and show them Mr. and Mrs. Wrong.  The problem with this is that while you’re messing around showing the hiring manager Mr. and Mrs. Wrong, Mr. Right might just find Mrs. Right Job for him and you’re done holding hands with Mr. and Mrs. Wrong – with a hiring manager saying “I want Mr. Right – Go find me Mr. Right!”

2. Present Mr. Right, and present Mr. and Mrs. Wrong soon after.  This works about 75% of the time if you have secondary candidates waiting to go – timing is everything with this.  Hiring Manager sees Mr. Right.  Wants to see who else might be on the market. You quickly show them Mr. and Mrs. Wrong.  Hiring manager makes quick decision to go with Mr. Right.

Either way getting a hiring manager to understand the market and what they have can sometimes be a sales job!  Too many hiring managers believe you can present them a slate of Mr. and Mrs. Rights!  When in reality you might know that you got lucky finding one Mr. or Mrs. Right – and the chances of finding more are slim to none.  Ah, hiring managers…you can’t live with them and you can’t legally shoot them.

You Still Don’t Work 80 Hours Per Week!

Posted on by
4

I have to say one of my most read posts, ever, and one that I take the most crap about is –What would it take to get you to work 80 hours per week? People actually take this post as a personal attack to their work ethic.  So, I’m here to say – I still don’t believe you!  And, now I have research to back up how you don’t really work 80 hours in a week.  From Fast Company -The Truth About How Much Workaholics Actually Work:

“A study published in the June 2011 Monthly Labor Review that compared estimated workweeks with time diaries reported that people who claimed their “usual” workweeks were longer than 75 hours were off, on average, by about 25 hours. You can guess in which direction. Those who claimed that a “usual” workweek was 65–74 hours were off by close to 20 hours. Those claiming a 55–64-hour workweek were still about 10 hours north of the truth. Subtracting these errors, you can see that most people top out at fewer than 60 work hours per week. Many professionals in so-called extreme jobs work about 45–55 hours a week. Those are numbers I can attest to from time logs I’ve seen over the years. I’ve given speeches at companies known for their sweatshop hours and had up-and-comers keep time logs for me. Their recorded weeks tend to hover around 60 hours–and that’s for focused, busy weeks with no half days, vacation days, or dentist appointments, and, most important, for weeks that people are willing to share with colleagues. We live in a competitive world, and boasting about the number of hours we work has become a way to demonstrate how devoted we are to our jobs.

That would be funny, except that numbers have consequences. If you think you’re working 80 hours per week, you’ll make different choices in your attempts to optimize them than if you know you usually work 55.”

Look – I get you work hard and you work long – but, I also get all of us think we work longer than we actually do!  It’s not an attack – it’s just the truth.  The same goes for all of you out their working 40 hours per week, when you only have about 20 hours of work – you find ways to stretch 20 hours of work into 40 hours of pay!

Ultimately, we shouldn’t be talking about hours, damn Unions!, we should be talking about results.  I don’t care if you work 10 hours or 100 hours – I, truly, only care about what you get done in that time.  We still have too many leaders who worry about hours and watch and see who leaves ‘first’ and who stays ‘late’.  The reality is – it probably has no bearing at all on their performance – and if anything, probably has a negative influence.

Results.  Set the desired result and manage to that.  If you have those not meeting the result – then you manage that issue (which might include the need to work more hours!).  I know, I know the girls from ROWE will love hearing this – and think they converted me – but they haven’t.  While I really like ROWE – it still doesn’t work for every organization.  Ugh, please don’t let Cali and Jody see this!

iTunes killed Recruiting

Posted on by
1

There was an excellent article recently on how  iTunes singles have killed the music industry.  Buying singles hasn’t killed sales, though, in fact sales are actually up!  So, how has iTunes killed the music industry?

“When music sales reached their peak in 2000, Americans bought 943 million CD albums, and digital sales weren’t even a blip on the radar. By 2007, however, those inexpensive digital singles overtook CDs — by a wide margin — generating 819 million sales to just 500 million for the CD. Last year, there were 1.4 billion digital singles sold, dwarfing CD sales by a factor of 7. More than three-quarters of all music-related transactions were digital singles last year, according to the RIAA…

The popularity and ease of downloading cheap digital singles has transformed the industry. Not since the vinyl era has the single been this popular. The smaller, cheaper “45” record dominated music in the 1950s and ’60s, but the music industry wised up in the ’70s.Vinyl, cassette and CD singles were always cheaper for consumers, but manufacturing costs were not. Nor was the space required to house them in stores. Thus, the single became harder and harder to come by.”

In theory, we really ever never wanted an entire album/CD, for the majority of us there were always a few great songs that most listened to, but by having to buy the entire album the artist were able to work their craft. By getting music sold that wouldn’t sell if you’re just by singles, the artist is allowed to have some more freedoms to write and produce songs that might not otherwise get made, which down the road could end up being the start of something new.  Buying singles limits dare I say – diversity – of music.  The concept of only buying popular music singles is homogenizing the entire industry.  The music industry has completely changed in ten years since iTunes was launched.  Now the music industry focuses on producing hits – not music – assuming you don’t want to be one of those starving artist!

So, how has iTunes killed recruiting?

iTunes changed how we looked at something and made us want something different.  We use to want music and knew we had to ‘buy the entire package’ an artist would give us.  That included some great songs, average songs and probably some songs that were purely experiments.  iTunes is so popular many other industries try to copy the method of their success.  This philosophy spreads – “I don’t want to buy what you want to sell me – I want to buy what I want!”  Like Burger King made so popular – “I want it my way!”

Hiring has somewhat become a victim of this, especially hiring managers.  I remember a time when we would interview candidates knowing they were going to have some ‘opportunities’ and we as an organization where going to have to bring them in, give them a big hug, and teach them what they didn’t know and make them valuable to us.  Now, most organizations want to hire like they buy iTunes. They only want superstars.  When you hire a person they should have no opportunities. They should all be hit songs!  This is ruining recruiting!  Because the fact of the matter is, no one is a superstar, and everyone of us has opportunities.  By having a philosophy that you ‘only hire superstars’ you’re setting your organization and the new hire up for major failure because in short-order you’re going to find out they actually do have opportunities.  You’re going to find out, they aren’t all hit songs!

 

 

 

 

Mailbag: How Can I Get My Employees To Refer More?

Posted on by
5

From The Project mailbag –

“Tim –

My company is doing a ton of hiring and we are trying to get our employees to refer former co-workers, friends, family, etc.  We offer a great referral bonus.  We make it easy. Still we get little, if any, referrals – and usually it’s the same people who refer candidates.  What can we do to get our employees to refer more people?

-Jennifer, Talent Acquisition Director, Austin, TX”

I love this question, because I think 99.9% of Talent and HR Pros face this same dilemma at some point in their career.  We spend a ton of time and resources putting together a great referral program – then we get the same results we got from the old referral program!  It’s frustrating. It makes us feel like our employees don’t care about the company. It makes us feel like we must not be doing something that we should.  You’re right! Well, somewhat right!

Here is my response to Jennifer:

“Jen – (It’s funny but I have a small pet peeve – if someone has a longer name with multiple syllables or one that seems formal – I like to call them by the shorter easier name. Sometimes people take offense to that. Like with ‘Jennifer’ – I like ‘Jen’ – with William – I like Will or Bill – Steven is Steve – James is Jim – you get the picture.  If you tell me “No, it’s James”, in my head I’m thinking “No, it’s asshole!” Anywho…back to Jen!)

Everything with your program is fine. Sure you can make tweaks and add technology, etc.  But basically referral programs don’t work because Talent Acquisition does two things wrong:

1. You’re asking the wrong question.  Almost every HR shop wants their employee to refer more candidates – and they will ask “Who do you know that is looking?”  The reply, almost 100% of the time – “No.”  Instead, ask this one question, then have your recruiters shut up and write down what they say: “Tell me the name of one of your previous co-workers from your last company.”  That’s it.  Each name is a referral.  You can tweak it for certain companies you want to pull from and focus the question to those current employees who came from those companies.  It works.   

2. You Don’t Ask Face-to-face.  Employees can blow off email easier than anything. Stop sending email and even calling them.  Get your lazy butt off your chair and have your recruiters sit down face-to-face when they ask this question. 

This change, to how you go about getting Employee Referrals, forces your recruiters to actually recruit – which is why 99% of companies don’t do this on the corporate side of Talent Acquisition!  If all you get is a name and a place of employment – your recruiters will have to Google a phone number and call into a company to speak to the person – they also might be able to find the person on social networks and track them down that way, but it’s faster to just call them at work.  People LOVE being called about a job opportunity!  It’s flattering. You found them – they don’t know how – they must be doing something right!  

Let me know how this works!

Tim”

I hope Jen tries this with her team, but I don’t hold out hope.  People say they want more of something – you tell them how to get it – and they reply with “Oh, I didn’t want to do that”.  Oh, so you were looking for magical unicorns to give you more referrals – my bad – yeah, those work to, magical unicorns are great for referrals!  What people really are saying is “How can I get more referrals without doing anything to get them?”  My answer to that question would be different from what I told Jen above – that answer is:  “Nothing”.

 

 

 

 

A Diversity Plan Even White People Can Live With!

Posted on by
6

When was the last time you went to a crowded beach or park, or even went to an outdoor concert where you had to sit on the grass?  I can bet you did something – because everyone does this.  You set up a perimeter didn’t you? A what?! A perimeter. You put down your blanket, maybe an umbrella, some chairs, etc.  You made sure you carved out ‘your’ space, in a public space that is open to everyone.  Hell, let’s face it – if you would have had portable fencing you would have put that up as well.  Humans like to collect, build and attempt to keep all of it.  It’s why the Great Wall of China was built.  It’s why we have a silly fence up between the U.S. and Mexico.  It’s why you have a 6 foot high fence up around your 40 foot by 40 foot backyard in the suburbs.  You’re protecting ‘your’ space.

Diversity is about breaking down those walls, those barriers, so it stands to reason that those barriers that are being broken down are going to cause some folks to be uncomfortable.  In 99.9% of the cases in today’s work world – those folks are white people – and to slice it even further – white men.  Let me give you an example so we can discuss:

Let’s say you work in a company with 100 employees and 88% of those employees are white.  Now HR comes out and says “we value Diversity” (not sure who the ‘we’ is, but we’ll assume our white leadership team who live in the $750K homes and their kids go to schools with zero diversity), and we are going to do a bunch of ‘stuff’ to increase the diversity of our workforce.  Here’s what the 88% hear.  “You 88 white people aren’t good enough.  We need to get rid of some of you and bring in minorities because they can do it better.”  Which might be true.

Remember your blanket in the park?  Someone just sat their chair down in the middle of your white work forces blanket. That isn’t a good feeling.  (It’s uncomfortable for you to hear/read ‘white work force’ isn’t it? Most people who write about diversity/inclusion will use ‘majority’ and ‘minority’ because it puts it in less black and white terms – makes it easier to accept.)

Most organizations and HR shops struggle to do Diversity and Inclusion successfully in their organizations because they are unwilling to recognize this simple reality and address it.   Oh, believe me I hear you right now!  “Tim – diversity and inclusion isn’t about color – it’s about thoughts and ideas!” Then you my friend don’t get the reality of 90% of the organizations out there today.  For most it is still about faces – shouldn’t be – but it is.  To be successful – we have to move beyond that.  So, how do you do that?

There isn’t a perfect solution.  A silver bullet.  But I do know one way that has helped some organizations – but it might give you (HR and leadership) some answers that will be hard for to live with!  Data.  Data doesn’t lie.  It just gives you the truth.  If you ‘truly’ want better performance – through data, find the exact makeup of the highest performing groups and teams in your organization, industry, competitors, etc.  Here’s the catch – data might show you that your 100% all white guy sales team isn’t the most effective.  You might find that the makeup should be 90% 24 year old Asian females and 10% middle age Hispanic males.  You also might find that 100% white guy is the best.  Data will give you truth – most organizations don’t want the truth.  Most HR shops don’t want the truth.  They want to take your 88% white and turn it into 75% white because ‘feels’ better.

I’m not saying your white employees will like to hear that they are all getting let go so you can bring in your all female Asian team, but at least there is a reason based on data – not feelings.  HR and leadership have been sold a false premise that Diversity and Inclusion is good for all.  It makes you better.  And so we march forward like lemmings off a cliff, not questioning the truth.  The truth is – diversity and inclusion might be great for your organization.  The truth is – it also might be disastrous for your organization.  Do the research.  Stop reading USA Today articles.  Figure out what is actually best for your organization.  Don’t blindly follow anything, just because everyone else is doing it.  There is a ‘right’ answer out their for your organization, and you might be surprised at what that answer is.

3 Stupid Questions To Ask In An Interview

Posted on by
6

I’m sure at this point you saw the news from this weekend – Reese Witherspoon’s husband got arrested for DUI and she did what any drunk celebrity wife should do – threatened a police officer with the best question ever asked by celebrities – “Do you know who I am!?”   Yep – Mrs. Legally Blonde herself asked the one question celebrities are trained to never ask, under any circumstances.  She broke Rule #1 of being celebrity – and it was glorious!

This got me to thinking, from a candidate perspective, what are the questions who could ask that would ensure your interview went from Fab to Drab in about 3 seconds!?  My Catfish Friend, Kathy Rapp, over at Fistful of Talent had a great post this past week – 3 Questions Freakin’ Awesome Candidates Ask – which gave candidates three absolute home-run questions to ask at the end of the interview to show you’re a Rock Star candidate.  My list does the opposite!

The cool part of my list – is that each of these questions are from actual candidates asked during interviews that I’ve been apart of:

1.  Do you drug test?   Nope!  But we do now!  I’m pretty sure the person who asks this question has already made up their mind they don’t want to work for your company and they use this to ensure you won’t hire them.  Believe me there are plenty of people who interview, to get their parents, spouse, etc. off their back, but they don’t really want to work – so they sabotage themselves.  Asking dumb questions at the end is one of the best ways to sabotage an interview! Other question on this path – Do you do background checks? Do you do credit checks? Do you hire felons?

2. How long before I get to use sick time?  Never!  Because you wont’ be working here!  Again, the person who asks this question asks it for a reason – that reason is they ‘plan’ on being sick.  Quick HR Pro Rule of Thumb – if someone plans on being sick – you aren’t going to be happy with that hire.  Other questions on this same path:  When would I get a raise? How soon can I use my health insurance?  What happens if I’m late to work?

3. Can you date co-workers here?  To be honest – my immediate follow up question to this, without answering his question, was – “Are you dating one of the employees here?”  To which he said “No” – but that he ran into this at another employer and didn’t want to ‘have any problems’ again.  So, you’re assuming we have folks here who are just not going to be able to hold themselves back and must date you!?  Is what I’m hearing!  Again, I’ll come clean on my next response – I told him “You’re allowed to date employees here, you just can’t sleep with them.” (That wasn’t actually our policy – but it was fun to say!) At which he had no response and I ended the interview.  Other questions on this same path: Can you drink alcohol on the job here?  Can you smoke pot in the work bathrooms?  Can you steal office supplies?

What has been the dumbest question you have ever heard during an interview you were apart of?

Launch and Learn

Posted on by
1

I love HR Pros! I really do.

There is one common trait that many of the best HR Pros have – we love to have things perfect before we launch or go public with them!  BTW – this is specific to HR – Operations, Sales, Marketing, etc. are all willing to ‘try’ stuff – to throw it out there and see what happens.  In HR this is taboo!

Why is that?

For me this idea is the one thing that truly holds HR back from being innovative.  Think about these words from Mark Suster at the Both Sides of the Table blog:

“I’m sure you’ve all heard saying derived from Voltaire, “don’t let perfect be the enemy of the good” which in a way is encapsulated in the lean startup movement and the ideology of shipping a “minimum viable product” (MVP) and then learning from your customer base.

I think about this topic of perfection being the enemy of the good often. Because I live in startup land where everybody is a perfectionist. I think this is particularly true because every startup entrepreneur is trying to catch lightning in a bottle.

I hear about it in every first product release. You can see it in the founders’ eyes. They want the perfect feature set, the PR company lined up to do the perfect press release, they want maximum coverage, rave reviews, viral adoption and they want to sit back and then wait for the signups to come roaring in.

Life doesn’t work like that. And gearing yourself up for a lighting-in-a-bottle moment leads to bad company decisions.”

If those types of decisions lead to ‘bad company decisions’, inevitably those same types of behaviors will lead to bad HR decisions.

I hear what’s going around in your head right now, HR Pros!  I’m an HR Pro myself – that voice is hard to quiet.  “How can making sure something is perfect – a project, a program, a new process – be bad for HR and our organization!?”  Making something perfect isn’t bad.  Failure to launch is bad.  Also, taking too long or using too many resources to ensure perfection can be a huge negative to how HR, and you, are viewed.  In HR we aren’t trying to save lives or solve the world economic crisis – we have some room to ‘test’ and do some ‘trial and error’ – as long as communicate that is what you’re doing.

I’ll give you a little secret I’ve used for years in HR.  Like most of us in HR I’ve designed my fair share of new programs and processes, and I’ve tried to make them perfect.  To ensure I didn’t have something blow up on me – I always have done ‘soft’ launches.  I’ll launch with a single department or I’ll communicate out that this is a ‘test’ and we need feedback.  99.9% of the time my ‘test’ goes off without any issues and the ‘test’ becomes the program.  That .01% of the time that something goes wrong or there are errors – we chalk it up to why we ‘doing the test first’!  Everyone wins.  Employees and hiring managers get to tell you where you messed up without feeling like they’re stepping on toes.  You get to correct your errors without feeling like an idiot. The company moves forward – faster.

 

The Ultimate Guide to Mobile Recruiting

Posted on by
1

867-5309 (Ok, if you under 35 years old you might not get this reference – but Kris Dunn is 43ish – and he wrote this content – so forgive the GenX reference – but here’s the link to the Tommy Tutone video back when MTV had videos!)

Jenny, Jenny, we’ve got your number…. But in the dynamic landscape of mobile recruiting, those seven digits aren’t always enough to get the job done. So what’s an HR or recruiting pro to do?

Sure you could leave your card plastered on a bathroom stall for all willing and able talent to see, or you could register for the April installment of the FOT webinar and start laying down the foundation for your mobile recruiting strategy.

Join Microsoft’s Xbox’s own – Jason Pankow and Kris Dunn (not from Microsoft Xbox) as they lay down FOT’s Ultimate Guide to Mobile Recruiting, brought to you by the mobile sages at iMomentous.  Join your hosts April 24 at 1pm ET and they’ll hit you with the following:

  • A survey of the mobile recruiting landscape and the factors driving the need for HR and recruiting professionals to develop their mobile recruiting strategy.
  • Mobile site vs. Native App? FOT tackles the great debate, presenting scenarios of how each fit into your mobile recruiting strategy.
  • The five keys to enhancing your mobile recruiting strategy by capitalizing on features like quick apply, SMS, social media and QR codes.
  • The ultimate checklist for selecting your mobile recruiting vendor, including the top questions you need to ask when vetting potential vendors.
  • How to go beyond the optimized screen to attract top talent to your organization by incorporating video content and thought leadership into via your mobile recruiting strategy.

Hire Jenny.

Register for FOT’s Ultimate Guide to Mobile Recruiting webinar today! (It’s FREE because we make someone else foot the bill!)

How New Leaders Categorize You

Posted on by
2

It’s a pretty common phenomenon for new leaders to turnover most, if not all, of their team when they take over.  It happens all the time!  It’s a primary reason while you’ll see senior leadership take way too long to change out an ineffective leader – the fallout sucks.  Let’s take a look at how most leaders take a position.  It usually happens one of two ways: Promotion or Termination- old leader gets promoted up or gets canned – organization finds new leader (internally or externally) to come in and takeover.   Either way, the team has a new leader.  Now, 99.9% of the time, this next thing happens: Change!  New leader comes in and feels pressure to make a difference, to do better – so they make change.  Then, this happens – Crappy Communication!  Most leaders are not equipped or trained at how to communicate as a new leader, and don’t negotiate with their team on how the team likes communication – so they fail at this part.

Change + Crappy Communication = Employees leaving and having bad attitudes about the new leader.

Here’s how a new leader categorizes employees of a new group they take over:

The Converts – These are the people who are going to forget about the old leader as soon as the person leaves the parking lot and fall into the ‘new’ line of thinking.  What’s funny about these folks is many times their thought process switches 180 degrees depending on what the new leader likes, thinks, prefers, etc.  These folks will be the ones who stay around and thrive – they are corporate survivors in the truest form – some will see 10+ leaders come and go in their careers.

The Zombies – These are your victims.  They only support themselves and how bad their life is because bad things only happen to them.  They are just waiting around for the next bad thing to happen to them.  These will be the first people get to get terminated – which perpetuates their Eeyore belief that everything in life is against them.

The Militia –  Are the employees who are going to fight blindly to keep the vision of their old leader alive.  These folks are passionate, so the new leader will try and convert them over to the new vision, because if you can get them on your side – they make great soldiers. But some will leave and/or get fired because they just refuse to give up the rebel flag!

The Double Agents – DA employees fall in the middle between converts and the militia – they really don’t want to be on one side or the other – they want to find another job, but don’t want the new leader to know.  They want to watch the new leader fail, but at the same time need that person to think highly of them to ensure their next position and possible recommendation down the road.  These folks are the ones who surprise the new leaders – they think they’re on board, then get a two week notice dropped on their desk.

The Insider – This is the most dangerous employee to a new leader. The Insider is an employee who has connections and influence and will funnel information on how the new leader is doing to higher level folks in the organization.  Successful new leaders find this person quickly, and convert them quickly – it’s key to survival!

How does a new leader stop a mass turnover of their team?  I like to see new leaders do three things:

1. Communicate the new reality quickly.  I like to see new leaders do this within the first week of taking on the new position.

2. Team transition meeting.  Third party facilitated, this meeting allows employees to share their fears of a new leader, share the history of the collective group and allows the team and new leader to negotiate how they will communicate with each other.

3. Individual meetings. New leaders should set up a meeting schedule to meet with all of their direct reports weekly in the first 90 days.  Making sure everyone is on the same page is critical.