Category Archives: Retention

Do Your Employees Really Like Your Organization? #EWS2014

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Hey, gang I’m running a sponsored post by the great folks at Spherion regarding their 2014 Emerging Workforce Study which has some really great data, check it out.

I’m a company guy.

When I make the decision to go to work for an organization, I’m both feet in.  I’ve always been that way. I’m the dork who loves to get the company logo gear and I don’t just wear it to work on ‘casual’ Friday, I’ll wear it to my families holiday get-togethers!  To me, supporting the organization you work for is a non-negotiable. I want to work with people who want to work with the organization we work for, and if you don’t, get out!

Spherion’s 2014 Emerging Workforce Study found some really interesting statistics around this, that blew my mind!  Crazy as this will seem to you, not everyone thinks like me! Check this out:

    • Only 35% of workers would say something very positive in discussing their company with other people.

35%! If you would have asked me this question, without me first seeing the data, I would have said this was 75%.  I was way off.  This is a major problem for organizations!  65% of your employees basically believe they could not say something very positive about your organization.  Ouch! That hurts.

You want to see another major disconnect that is playing into this lack of engagement?

    • 64% of companies believe their younger workers lack the business and life experience required for leadership positions.
    • While companies believe younger workers lack experience, 61% of Gen Y workers agree they have greater opportunities available to them because of their age.

Organizations are finally really starting to feel the pain of their aging Baby Boomer workforce beginning to leave their positions.  This is that ‘oh crap’ moment when you realize you don’t have the proper succession in place for the future. To make this situation worse, your younger workers believe they’re ready to ‘drive’!  They want the keys to the executive washroom, but you know they’re not ready.

Put on top of all of this, about ten years of not developing your leadership competencies because of the recession, and you my friends have some major organizational issues you are about to face!

What can you do about this? Here are a few ideas:

1. Hire people who really, really want to work for you. Brand advocates will stick with you through thick and thin, even when you’re not at your best.

2. Teach your leaders to be ‘great’ at performance management.  Spend money and time on this.  There is great technology out there that can help as well.

3. Know who your true internal influencers are on your staff, and invest in them.

There is no easy way out of this, for any of us.  But, the awesome part of this mess, is that HR can have a great impact in making our organizations better.  Time to sharpen the saw and get to work HR Pros!

 

Disclosure Language:

Spherion partnered with bloggers such as me for their Emerging Workforce Study program. As part of this program, I received compensation for my time. They did not tell me what to purchase or what to say about any idea mentioned in these posts. Spherion believes that consumers and bloggers are free to form their own opinions and share them in their own words. Spherion’s policies align with WOMMA Ethics Code, FTC guidelines and social media engagement recommendations. 

T3 – BlackbookHR – Sense, RNA and Presto

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T3 – Talent Tech Tuesday – is a weekly series here at The Project to educate and inform everyone who stops by on a daily/weekly basis on some great recruiting and sourcing technologies that are on the market.  None of the companies who I highlight are paying me for this promotion.  There are so many really cool things going on in the space and I wanted to educate myself and share what I find.

So, I’ll start about saying I’m a proud member of Blackbook HR’s Advisory Board, along with some other great HR pros. But, even prior to that I was a fan of their products – my review of Sense. This review is highlighting two new products that Blackbook HR has launched – RNA and Presto.

First, let me say that I’m not the only one who is really liking what Blackbook is doing.  They were named one of the 2014 HR Tech Conference Awesome New Startups (don’t worry, I’ll be highlighting many of these others as well!).

RNA (Relationship Network Analysis) is one of Blackbook HR’s newest offerings.   When I saw the demo of this at HR Tech I was blown away.  It basically shows you your organization chart, but not by title, by influence!  It’s super cool, and the application of uses for retention, performance and succession are really limitless. One customer is using it to transition new leaders into the organization, so they know which players they need to connect with immediately, and how their organization is really getting work done!

Some of the other really cool things RNA can do if allow you to search your organization by skills. Not only self-reported skills, but all the employees in your organization can also rate each other on those skill levels.  So, you need someone for a new project that has project management skills?  What about the one person in your organization that their peers rate them highest in that skill!?  It does that.  Losing folks to turnover or retirement and need a pool of potential replacements (Succession), you can source that data here.

Also, think about any change management. Who are the most important employees to ensure are bought into the change before rolling it out?  That’s critical for success in any change, and RNA can give you these connections.  You can now go out and work with these individuals first, and let them help drive the change, positively, forward. Merger and acquisitions would be another way I could see this data being extremely important.

I will say, this is much more of an enterprise type of solution.  Most SMB’s probably don’t have enough data to really take advantage of this type of solution. But, if you are in the 2500+ employee range, this will blow your mind.  It’s fairly inexpensive, and the analytics you get from this data are crazy, it’s well worth a demo for sure!

RNA

 

Presto, is Blackbook’s other new product, and it’s totally free to use!  Basically, Presto is a survey App you can use within your organization, department and group.  It doesn’t even have to be used for business, but that’s what it was originally designed for.  Let’s say you just came out of an executive meeting and one of your senior leaders wanted to know how an announcement of some big new project was being ‘viewed’ by your employees.  You could within seconds put out a survey question to your organization, and watch in real-time the survey results come back to you.  Not only do you see, but everyone who participates can see the results.

I even joked you could send it out to your department to see what people wanted for lunch, and the entire group could see what everyone preferred!  It’s basically a real-time way to gather feedback in your organization. Totally free.  Completely simple to use.  I can think of a hundred ways I could use this, or coach my hiring managers to use this in an organization.  While this is a mobile app, the users can also log into a dashboard that gives you tabulated, colorful graphs, that are easily manipulated to share with your organization in which communication way you would like.

Yeah, I’m a fanboy of Blackbook HR.  The thing I like is the people running the company aren’t designing things thinking, ‘what will sell’.  They’re designing things thinking, ‘how do I solve this problem?’, then going, oh crap, how do we make money on this!  That gives them some of the best technology on the market, which you can actually buy or in Presto’s case use for free.

Next Tuesday I’ll be looking at recruitment marketing solution SmashFly!

3 Real Reasons HR Does Exit Interviews

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The exit interview process is much like most organizations employee referral process. You believe you should have a process.  You design the process.  It’s going to be great! It starts out great.  At some point, soon after starting the process, it dies a slow horrible death!

Exit interviews are something every HR pro believes are important, but very few actually do a great job at.  The problem with most exit interview processes is that their very HR dependent and take a ton of follow through.   Another major problem is that while our executives say they want the data from the interviews, rarely do they believe what they are given.  Most chaulk bad interviews up to disgruntled employees and discount the entire process.

So, why do we give Exit Interviews?  I’ll give you three ‘real’ reasons HR wants to do exit interviews:

1. We want to know where you’re going!  Yep, HR folks love to gossip and we want to be the first ones to know where you’re going and why.

2. We trying to get your current manager fired!  You know what’s really frustrating in HR? Having to hire over and over again for the same bad managers!

3. We need data to look strategic. But we’ll never really make any changes based on what we find.  What? Everyone is leaving us because our competition across the street is providing more flexibility.  Yeah, well, they suck and you suck if you go to work for them!

Chalk this up to data that our executives say they want, but they really don’t!   What they want to hear is the problem our people are leaving us are easy fixes.  When they find out they’re leaving because of their bad leadership, every person who fills out an exit interview immediately becomes a piece of garbage in their eyes.

How do you fix this?

Do ever deliver specific exit interview data immediately after one person leaves, that seems to similar to why that person leaves.  Basically, you never get credit for that being real data.  Exit interview data only becomes ‘real’ when it’s based on a many data points put together.  The problem with that, is it takes most organizations a while to get that much data.  Usually, at that point, it starts to become vanilla.

Individual exit interview feedback can be powerful, but only if it is coming from a top player and you can get everyone involved to agree this is a top performer before the data comes in.  At least, at that point, you have a fighting chance to get them to listen and not discount the feedback.

Let’s face it, we all know most of our issues.  We just hate it when our past employees throw those in our face, when we think we’ve been working hard to correct them.   That kind of feedback is hard to accept, and we tend to discredit it way too fast.  Don’t allow yourself to believe data isn’t statistically significant unless you have a lot of it.  One great employee leaving is significant, and you need to listen to it.  Just know, the up hill battle you’ll face in actually creating the leadership change necessary to address it.

 

Recruitment Marketing Is Not One-size Fits All!

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Hey, gang I’m running a sponsored post by the great folks at Spherion regarding their 2014 Emerging Workforce Study which has some really great data, check it out. 

The big ‘Wow’ that came out of the study for me is how organizations might be discounting how potential workers are using social media to influence their decision on who they work for! It used to be we would primarily rely on our social networks to give us insight to how we thought about potential employers.  “Oh! I know my aunt used to work there and she loved it!” Or, “I know my neighbor works there and says it’s awful!”   Now, it seems like we have an endless supply of opinions and connections about potential employers via the use of social media.

From the study:

    • 44% of workers believe social media is influential in their view of a company they might work for.
    • 51% of workers agree their company’s online reputation impacts its ability to recruit workers.
    • 46% of workers say when they consider new employment, the company’s online reputation will be as important as any job offer they are given.

Too many organizations still do not believe social media really has that much of an impact to their hiring, or their ability to attract the best hires. This is especially true in small and medium sized businesses (SMB). In reality, SMB organizations might be impacted by a negative, or positive, social media perception of candidates than larger organizations, where the data gets washed out by the many numbers.

One other piece that came from the study is how organizations are failing to market towards all generations.  Some of this, for sure, is based on the use of new media, which tends to target a younger workforce.  Organizations really need to dig into their recruitment marketing strategy and specifically look at what mediums are we using and what are those mediums getting us from a candidate demographic perspective.

More interesting data from the study:

    • Less than half (45%) of companies utilize tailored recruitment strategies based on different age groups or professions.
    • Yet, recruiting workers isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach. Manufacturing workers are mostly likely to land their job through a staffing agency, while accountants rely on professional associations and networking, IT workers use online sources and admin/clerical workers secure their jobs through classified ads and company websites.

The reality is most organizations don’t dig into this, because like Tom Cruise in A Few Good Men, you don’t want to know the truth!  The truth is, in my opinion, most organizations want to market towards younger workers, so they’re completely fine using a one approach marketing strategy that misses out on older, more experienced workers.  It’s a poor strategy, for sure, as more competitive organizations are figuring out very quickly on how to use and leverage a more experienced aging workforce.

Check out the 2014 EWS Infographic:

Spherion EWS Employment Life Cycle Infographic (first 3 phases)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Disclosure Language:

Spherion partnered with bloggers such as me for their Emerging Workforce Study program. As part of this program, I received compensation for my time. They did not tell me what to purchase or what to say about any idea mentioned in these posts. Spherion believes that consumers and bloggers are free to form their own opinions and share them in their own words. Spherion’s policies align with WOMMA Ethics Code, FTC guidelines and social media engagement recommendations. 

You Need a Professional Tribe

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One of the things I speak about when presenting to HR pros is there need to become part of the ‘Tribe’.  Meaning, if you want to have your seat at the table, you want to gain influence with your leadership team, you need to become part of that tribe.  How do you do that? Well, every tribe is different, you need to figure that out. There is no magical answer, but my guess is they have or do something in common. Find out what that is, and slowly work yourself into that tribe!

HR people struggle with this concept.

“Tim, I just want to do my job and go home!”  Okay.  Then stop bitching that you’re not getting any respect from your executives.  You’re choosing not to be part of that tribe.  Tribes take care of themselves.

You see, most HR pros place themselves on a professional island.  Just Tom Hanks in Cast Away, they’re all by themselves, plus maybe there own little ‘Wilson’ comfort toy picked up at a SHRM conference, a Monster stuffed animal, a Careerbuilder ‘recruiter’ doll, you know the ones!

I have a really, really cool tribe.  In fact, I have many tribes.  First and foremost of have my family.  My HRU tribe is next.  I probably spend more time with them, then my real family on a daily basis!  I also have a number of other personal tribes around youth sports, neighborhood, etc.

My FOT tribe is professionally very cool and satisfying. It’s a group of HR and Talent bloggers who are super smart and snarky, and they make me laugh every day.  I support this tribe and they support me.  They make my professional world better.  They help make me get excited about what I do, and how I do it.  They challenge me to be better. There are many subsets of that tribe, like the 8 Man Rotation tribe, the greater HR blogger tribe, etc.

Tribes are important.

HR and Talent Acquisition pros need to take down their locked HR office doors. Take them right off the hinges.  Get out and start getting involved with professional tribes.  Start in your own organization first.  Do you support a department or client group?  Get into that tribe, now!  Go to lunch with them. Go for drinks after work on Friday.  Bake cookies and bring them to the tribes.  All tribes like to eat and drink! Never underestimate the importance of being a part of that tribe.

I hear from HR pros who tell me all the time, “Tim, ‘they’ just won’t listen to me. How do I get them to listen?”  My first question is to ask them what relationship they have with whomever isn’t listening. That answer is usually, none, or next to none.  They aren’t part of that tribe. That’s the real problem.

I’m not saying it’s easy to break into every tribe. It might not be, but that shouldn’t stop you from trying.  Also, you can create your own professional tribes.  There are so many people just like you that just want to be a part of a tribe.  Go find them! Start a tribe.  You’ll be better for it.

5 Signs Your Employees Are Interviewing For Other Jobs

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A few weeks back Kris Dunn, Laurie Ruettimann and I did a series for SumTotal called HR Hangouts.  The concept was to get on a Google Hangout for twenty minutes and just talk about real HR things. Basically, watercooler conversations for the modern world.  Quick and easy.  Here’s the actual video (it’s about 20 minutes if you have the time):

We called this one the FOT Turnover Predictor, which was basically what things do your employees begin to do to start showing you they are getting ready to turnover?

We all had different ones, but here are some of my favorites:

1. Parking Lot Calls.  It doesn’t haven’t to be the parking lot, it can be a back stairwell, out a back door to the picnic table behind your building, etc.  Basically, when an employee feels the ‘need’ to start taking calls away from their normal work area, for privacy, something is going on!  Usually, that something, is another job.  As an HR Pro I always address it right away, because it’s obvious and everyone sees you in your car for an ‘hour’ talking during your lunch, when you usually sit at your desk and check Facebook.

2. Banana Republic Wardrobe Update. “Hey, look, Tim has Skinny Jeans!” Wait, isn’t Tim like 40!?  No, Tim isn’t going through a midlife crisis.  Tim is interviewing! Work clothes are like a uniform. No one really wants to spend a ton of money on a uniform, so you tend to wear work clothes way too long.  When you see your employees doing some major updates to their ‘uniform’ there’s a reason – newly divorced, having an affair, interviewing.

3. Crisp White Button Down, Dark dress slacks.  No one normally wears black or navy dress slacks and just a white freshly pressed white dress shirt to work.  Want to know why? It’s a jacket and tie away from being an interview suit! The only other time you see this is when someone will be attending a funeral that day.  So, finding out who is interviewing is usually pretty easy.

4. Professional LinkedIn Updated Headshot.  You know we all get emails when our connections do updates to your profile, right!?  Oh, look, Tim just updated his LinkedIn profile photo from the one of him at the tailgate to one of him with a jacket and tie that looks like it was taken in his dining room with a sheet hanging on the wall…

5. New More Professional Personal Email Address.  Hey, everyone, I just wanted to inform you I will now be using timsackett@gmail , instead of RecruitingGod@gmail – thanks!

 It’s funny how employees really think they are being covert about looking for a new job, when usually everyone in the office knows.  Our worlds are so interconnected now it becomes really difficult to try and go through a traditional job search, when you have a job, without anyone knowing you’re doing it.

Unlimited Vacation Policies Suck!

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Well, it had to happen, unlimited vacation policies have jumped the shark!  Billionaire Richard Branson announced this week his company, Virgin Group, would begin offering unlimited vacation to all corporate employees. Here’s a statement from Richard:

“Take a holiday whenever you want. Take as much holiday as you want. We’re not going to keep a check on how much holiday you take,” he said in a CNN interview…”Treat people as human beings, give them that flexibility and I don’t think they’ll abuse it. And they’ll get the job done,”

Here’s what Richard knows, it’s been proven time and again, study after study, that companies that implement unlimited vacation policies actually show a decrease in vacation time used, not an increase!  He’s not making a decision based on people, he’s making a decision based on business.  That’s how you become a billionaire, and not a thousandaire!

One other issue I have with the announcement, is him saying ‘we’re not going to be checking”.  Really!?  You aren’t going to have anyone checking who and how much vacation is being used. What if you have some employees not using any vacation at all?  Isn’t that a problem?  Shouldn’t someone be ‘checking’ on this?

Let’s face it, unlimited vacation day policies were garbage the moment companies discovered that the psychology of these policies was causing their employees to actually take less time off, not more time.

We all write and design policies we think will have benefit to our employees and the organization.  It’s a balancing act.  As soon as you come out publicly with a policy and state it’s a ‘benefit’ to your employees, when you know it isn’t a ‘benefit’ to your employees, you lose credibility.

The design of unlimited vacation policies were broken to begin with, but we got sucked into the dream of taking every Friday off, and taking a 3 week holiday in the summer to some island.  Then reality kick us in the teeth and we realized what would actually happen if we tried doing something like that.  It’s hard enough to use the time you had given to you previously, and your leadership team made your employees feel like crap when they did have to use it.

Unlimited time off was designed to be trap.  Let’s see which poor sucker will actually try and use it, and then we know which person is least engaged and not fully on the bus!  No one will say this, because the companies using these policies think they’re saving the world one stupid app at a time.

The reality of most work environment is you are hired to do a specific job.  When you are not there that job doesn’t get done, or at the very least gets put on hold for the period of time you’re gone.  So, you, taking off all this wonderful vacation time, only means your job really doesn’t get done.  This becomes a performance issue, and/or a resource issue, since now we have to hire someone else to pick up your slack while you’re out on ‘holiday’.

How long do you think you’ll keep your wonderful job, with unlimited vacation, when your organization is having to bring in other people to do the job you are supposed to be doing?

Yep. Not long.

What’s a better alternative?

Design the amount of time off around business needs.  I’m in the Midwest, most companies are a ghost town between December 23 and January 2 or so, depending on the calendar. They are also empty Thanksgiving weekend.  Throw in a few days around July 4th, and a week for spring break, and you have almost 3 full weeks of vacation time.  Your employees now have sick time, doctors and dentists appointments, a day here or there for personal business (banking, family, etc.), there goes another week.  How about a real vacation?  You know the kind where you sit at home with a list of a thousand things to do, but spend four days watching Netflix!  Now, we’re at 5 weeks.

5 weeks of total time off, probably works for about 99% of people in the world.  Anymore and it’s hard to actually do your job.

Dream Jobs Are A Lie

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I hate that we are meant to feel that we should have our dream job.  It’s drilled into our society at nausea from mass media, our celebrities, our teachers and spiritual leaders. It’s all basically complete bullshit, but we eat it up like it came directly from G*d.

It didn’t.  Whichever G*d you believe in, she/he never said ‘Thou shalt have your dream job’, never.

Celebrities stand on award stages and tell our children to never give up their dreams, you can do whatever you want.  No.  No, they can’t.  Let’s face it, Mr. Celebrity, you were given a gift, most people don’t have that same gift, so stop telling my kid they can be you.

I know this upsets some people.  They love to live in a fantasy world that someday they stop working their 9 to 5 and start being a fairy princess.  I hate to tell you this, but you won’t.  Sorry, Billy, you’re an overweight short kid with bad eye sight and irrational fear of clouds.  You won’t be the next NFL Hall of Fame quarterback.  But you might be a really awesome Accountant, and that’s not a bad gig.

I don’t have my dream job.

I have a job I like a lot.

My dream job would be to make a ton of money managing and/or coaching a professional sports team. I would take basketball or baseball.  I really think I would be happy with either.

I know that won’t ever work out for me, so I don’t spend much time really thinking about it.  It would be stupid for me to do so.  But that’s my ‘dream’.

If it’s my dream, shouldn’t I give up everything I have and chase it?  Give up my well-paying, really good job.  Give up my house.  My kids college education.  My retirement account.  I mean this is MY dream!

Mr. Celebrity said I can reach my dreams.  We all can.  We just have to want it more.  We just have to not give up striving for it.

I met a person last week who said he had his ‘dream job’.  It was a good job, but he also told me he missed his kids, because his dream job made him travel a lot.  He also said his dream job had him working harder than he ever had prior.  The longer he talked, the longer it didn’t sounded like a dream job, and the more it sounded just like every other job.

The concept of dream jobs is bullshit.  That’s okay.  The sun will still come up tomorrow, even if you tell yourself I’ll never have my dream job.  You’ll be alright.  You can still have a really good, awesome life.

Be wary of someone telling you to chase your dream job.

The Voice – Picking Leaders

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I like watching the TV show The Voice.

It’s singing competition show that has four famous singer judges who compete against each other by picking teams of singers who compete against each other.  The Voice doesn’t allow the professional judges/coaches actually physically see the participants before they’re selected.

It’s a ‘blind’ audition. They can hear them, and have to decide if they want the singer based upon their voice, not how they look. It’s really well produced and the people are talented and hungry.

One thing happens on the voice with the four judges every so often.  A singer will be so good that all four judges will turn around and want the singer to select them to be their coach.  This causes the judges to ‘sell’ themselves on why the singer should pick them over one of the other judges to be their coach.

Within these scenarios is the heart of great leadership and determining what people really want.

Adam Levine, the lead singer from Maroon5, is the best at ‘winning’ these scenarios.  He definitely let’s the person know he wants them on their team, but he also gives them some very critical feedback on what he will do to make them better.  He almost always wins.

He’s figured out that why people definitely love to be told their great, they also want critical feedback as well.  Most of us have this deep need for people to be truthful with us.  “Thanks, I appreciate the kind words, but what do you really think? And, how can I get even better?”

It’s so freaking simple, it’s insane!

Still, most of our leaders, especially new leaders, are unwilling to understand this concept.  Critical feedback won’t push your employees away from you, if you can learn how to deliver in a manner where the employee can see the benefit to them.  Of course, this is based on trust and respect.

It’s also based on a belief from the employee that you as a leader have only one goal. To help make them better.  Period.  It’s not about me showing I’m smarter, or know more, or I’m in control.  It’s only about me helping you get better.

Want your employees to ‘select’ you as their leader?  Make them a better version of who it is they want to be.

 

Are Your Managers Really Doing their One-on-Ones?

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I’m at the HR Tech Conference this week, so plan on some short and quick posts about cool stuff I’m seeing.  Today, I got to demo Halogen’s new, and Top Award winner for 2014, 1:1 Exchange.  It’s a module within their performance management suite that makes manager and employee one-on-one meetings a breeze!

Here’s the deal.  Your managers aren’t doing their one-on-one meetings.  You know it, they know it.  You have worked endlessly to get your organization to understand how important these communications are to better performance, higher retention and higher employee satisfaction, but still, they aren’t consistent enough in your environment.

Don’t get depressed. Everyone is having the same issue.  That’s what I love about Halogen’s 1:1 Exchange. It’s practical and it works. At HR Tech, that is actually kind of rare!  You get a lot of cool stuff, that really doesn’t have practical application in real world day-to-day HR and management.

1:1 Exchange actually builds your managers full one-on-one agendas, tracks everything, gives them great kickoff questions to drive conversation, ties back to your department and organizational goals, and schedules followups. It pretty much idiot proofed one-on-ones for your managers! That’s a good thing! Many of them need this, desperately!

Something so simple, but so powerful.  We talk to we’re blue in the face about the importance of one-on-ones, and this system makes sure you as a leader, HR and executive have the ability to not only check to ensure they are happening, but you can spot check the quality of message that is being delivered.  While some managers might see this as micromanaging, I look at it as a great way to know which of your managers need additional help in getting better at these meetings.  This isn’t about punishment, this is about helping our managers get better at leading people!

Halogen already has one the best performance management systems on the market, and by adding 1:1 Exchange, they might have just lapped the field.  Check them out!