Employment brand: Are you walking the talk?

There are organizations that everyone knows, and large crowds want to work for, for example Google,  Southwest Airlines or Disney. These often are on the Top 100 lists to work for, but they get recognized beyond magazine reviews. Word of mouth combined with their savvy marketing guarantees an enviable position in the talent war; the luxury to select the best of the best. The most coveted companies to work for have perfected their employment branding.

Employment branding is more than just marketing the company to potential employees. The challenge is to convey an authentic message about a unique value proposition that includes both the external brand as well as what the company culture stands for. According the Brand for Talent blog, while 97 percent – to some extent – say their organizations have developed an employer brand, only 43 percent believe their corporate culture supports it.

It does not serve you well if you entice new employees in with lucrative messages, and then when the iron gates of new employee orientation slam shut, reality kicks in. If you want to get top talent to stay, your employment branding must be grounded in reality. If your company is fast paced and long work hours cannot be avoided, don’t lead your employment branding with a work/life balance message. If your company is mature and set in its ways, don’t try to pretend to be the flashy new kid on the block. It’s OK to tell that you are looking for change agents.

To build a true employment brand, more is needed than just marketing. Your own employees are your ambassadors, so their work experiences should match the employment brand you want to create. Review your policies, processes and internal communications to make sure they align with your brand. There are many ways to create a unique value proposition for employment. Design clarity around what those parameters are in your organization. The more emotional connection your employees have with your organization, the more they will vouch for it.

In the era of diversity, be clear who you are targeting. Make sure you are reaching all your audiences by selecting various methods of communication. Generational, gender, or ethnic groups may vary in their way of connecting with your messages.

Just like with external branding, building a strong employment brand will take time and consistency. The best will stand above the rest.

Happiness at work

Positive psychology is gaining in popularity. No longer is it enough to find ways to cure mental illness, but psychologists are now researching ways to help people live more fulfilling lives. I wanted to dig in deeper to see what positive psychology has to say about happiness at work. Does happiness really matter for productivity? And if it does, what can we use from the current research that can be applied in today’s workplace?

The Gallup Management Journal Employee Engagement Survey shows a strong correlation between employee engagement and happiness. Happy employees are more equipped to handle change and new challenges. According to another Gallup poll, employees who considered themselves happy spent 80% of their work time on task, versus unhappy employees who only spent 40% of their time on task. Professor Teresa Amabile from Harvard Business School studies employee innovation and performance. Her research discovered that employees were more creative on the days when they were on a good mood.

To increase happiness, there are elements we can control and some that we can’t. Research suggests that some people are born to be sunnier personalities than others. But, even the grumpsters can increase their level of happiness by focusing on the controllable factors. Our level of fulfillment improves, when we find a greater purpose and focus in our daily activities, play to our strengths, learn and grow, and have meaningful relationships. A good workplace can contribute to these happiness drivers.

Purpose and meaning

Organizations that are able to communicate a greater purpose and create an emotional attachment with their employees can reach over 50% increase in discretionary effort. Organizational communications and employment branding do part of this, but the most critical role falls to the managers who create the link between the organizational goals and the day-to-day work.

Strengths and growth

Recognizing individual strengths and letting employees leverage them not only creates happiness, but is a wise investment for the company. The most intense level of happiness is experienced in Flow, where the level of challenge is highest and skills are stretched to meet it. Continuous learning and growth guarantees on-going opportunities to reach Flow.

Meaningful relationships

One of the strongest engagement drivers is to have a best friend at work. Human connections create a sense of purpose and belonging. Organizations should be cautious of evaluation and reward systems that incentivize individualism and internal competition. Cultures that nurture teamwork and service orientation are more likely to promote happiness and loyalty.

Last but not least, positive language by itself is a self fulfilling prophesy. When employees and managers pay attention to positive events, they are more likely to feel happy. Positive feedback, gratitude and recognition are small gestures that go a long way to promote happiness and productivity. What’s the downside?

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The buck stops at the top

Top team, are you ever frustrated with your managers and employee base? Perhaps you are not seeing enough initiative and enthusiasm? Sometimes you think you have a house full of whiners, and your managers are coddling them. What happened to all the problem solvers and folks who pulled overnighters just for the excitement of seeing that new product come out? Newsflash; this is all your own creation. You made this with your big and small decisions. You can also fix it.

Executive leadership is responsible for many things: the P&L, formulating strategy and executing it, creating a business model that makes sense and operations to support it. However, what may create the most sustainable competitive advantage is the company culture. Every organization has a culture. In some, it grows organically. In winning organizations, it is meticulously managed. Leadership knows that every decision and action it takes sends a message of what is important and what isn’t. If your managers are not holding your employees accountable, and you are not doing anything about it, the signal is clear: Accountability is not a high priority. The same applies to any aspect of culture: respect for diversity, talent, quality, customer focus, integrity… Inaction speaks just as loud as action.

If you feel you don’t have the right people on the bus, did you pick the right people in the first place? Are you clear about what you want? Do you compromise in your selection process? Do you have a rigorous process? Are you involved at all? Are you developing your current team? If you want an A team, you have to be willing to pay for an A team, and treat them like an A team. As a leader, it’s all about putting a stake in the ground. Lukewarm won’t get you anywhere.

Instead of wondering why your people are not excited, give them a reason to be excited. The best way to engage employees is to share a compelling vision and show them how they can contribute. They need to have a sense of purpose, meaningful work and growth opportunities, which is what your managers should provide. If they don’t know how, train them how. Create a sense of community.

Next time you get frustrated about your workforce, do something about it instead. Manage your culture – get real about your people.

Feedback is a gift

Nothing is as bittersweet as receiving honest feedback on a weakness – unknown, or all too familiar. It hurts, yet at the same time it is like a gate opening to an unexplored path. You can give it a shot. This could be that once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to expand your capabilities, and someone just gave the tip for free. If you could just stop shuddering from seeing that ugly picture of yourself, courtesy of a friend holding up a mirror. So embarrassing, yet so liberating. Is there any way we can get comfortable with feedback?

Our first instinct is to protect ourselves from constructive feedback. We naturally love the praise and shun the critique. People who don’t know us very well or who don’t care enough tend to give us what we want instead of what we need. The only way to ensure that we get it all is to assure others that we can handle it. Talk about feedback and how important it is for you. Ask for feedback. The more specific things you ask, the more specific answers you will get. Isn’t it funny that sometimes the most burning issue on your mind is the hardest to ask? Find people you trust who will answer with kindness and honesty.

Your reaction to feedback determines whether the person will continue giving you feedback in the future. This should be your utmost concern when you receive feedback. If this is a person you would like to hear from again, focus all your energy to genuinely thank for the feedback, no matter what the message is. Keep in mind that even if you disagree with the feedback, this is true perception, important enough to be shared with you. Your decision now is whether you want to change this person’s perception about you. If someone thinks you are not a team player, what are you going to do about it? You can only change perception by actions; you can rarely talk people out of a perception.

The best quality of feedback is a dialogue. Two or more people share their perceptions in the spirit of learning and cooperation. It requires high self esteem and respect for others to go on the journey to share how you see others around you. In the spirit of curiosity instead of seeing everything in black and white, it is possible to start seeing two sides of many stories. Entering the dialogue with the assumption that everyone operates with the best intentions but sometimes things go wrong opens new avenues for understanding everyone’s perspective. Learning from mistakes is also a gift.

Winning organizations weave into their cultural fabric the habit of open feedback and learning from mistakes. They create continuous opportunities for sharing feedback, and coach their employees in basic feedback skills. This way, feedback stops being a scary thing of evaluations and becomes a bridge to self awareness and growth.

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How to heal a toxic culture?

We hear stories of workplaces with backstabbing, blame games, taking the credit from others, kiss up -kick down antics and worse. Unfortunately, some of you spend your work days in this kind of environment. In some cases, there are pockets of suffering teams caused by individual bad managers that are allowed to continue their pillaging. In other cases, the poison has permeated the whole company culture. Is there anything to be done when the problem has reached this level of severity? A culture can be healed; it takes time and intentional steps.

Start from the top

One could argue that the most important task of the leadership team is to manage the company culture. Everything else follows. As the top team has such an influence on the culture, you are often part of the problem as well. Do you have the guts and self awareness to put the stake in the ground and turn the company around, even if it requires some significant soul searching and behavior change on your own part? If you can’t resolve your simmering conflicts and passive aggressive positioning, there is not much hope for the rest of the organization.

Trash to treasure

Assess your existing culture. There is no culture that is totally rotten. Identify the legacy you can build on and be proud of. Perhaps among all the stings and arrows flying everyone ended up being very punctual and concise in communications. Or, even though it is totally overboard, everyone says what they mean. Once you are able to articulate what you are dealing with, define what you aspire for. Create a vision for your new culture and share with your employees.

Open feedback

Although easier said than done, the only way to build a new culture is through open feedback. Leaders, managers and employees must learn to express to each other how they perceive each others’ behaviors and how they would like to shape them towards the new culture. The goal is to make it a safe experience, thus it is a delicate, arduous and exciting journey. As many mistakes will be made, the company must also develop a learning focus where learning from mistakes will be celebrated. This concept itself will be hard to grasp for employees who have lived in a company where coworkers were looking for opportunities to pull the rug from beneath their feet at the first opportunity.

Manage out the toxic behaviors

Managers’ role will be to slowly guide the teams to the new behaviors using informal feedback and coaching. Those who are too entrenched in their old toxic behaviors need to be managed out to show to the workforce that the new culture is for real.

Long term maintenance

As the culture gets traction, it is important that the new blood in the company reinforces the new culture. The selection process must be aligned with the new cultural values. The stricter the selection, promotion and reward decisions are made based on the cultural values, the stronger they are adopted by the rest of the population. Track the progress by using cultural surveys and focus groups. The metrics and stories will both tell you when the toxin levels will start decreasing. The business results will show it too.

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Have you captured the hearts and minds of your new employees?

According to an Aberdeen report, the best-in-class companies that have a formal onboarding process improve their new employee engagement by an average of 31% and reduce their time-to-productivity by 24%. Engaged employees in turn are more likely to be top performers, and companies with an engaged workforce have higher profits. Onboarding is much more than a 2-hour session where the new hires fill out the mandatory HR forms.

With new technology, the best companies allow access to a new employee portal and important company and career information even before the start day.  If your company has not caught the tech wave yet, you can still think of ways to share information to affirm their decision to join your company. What can you tell about your culture, your history and your business that can get them excited about being part of your organization? Give details about your benefits upfront, so they can discuss them with their family before they make their final decisions.

Orientation should be a reflection of your company culture. Find a way to reflect your core values through stories, discussion and activities. Orientation doesn’t have to take place in one session either. Bazaarvoice, on the list of Austin’s Best Places to Work For, gives out a list of 55 items to explore during the first week of employment. The new hires are asked to find out from Finance how much cash Bazaarvoice has in the bank. They get to sit in meetings with Sales or executives. They may get to expense a tray of cookies to share with coworkers, or a dinner at a restaurant where Bazaarvoice has celebrated its history. As Bazaarvoice is obsessed with the culture fit, they offer $2000 for any new hire who realizes that they don’t belong and want to leave.

How many new employees have started their first week excited and found themselves rolling their thumbs because the computer hadn’t arrived, the password is not working, or the manager was traveling. This is the first impression you are creating. The logistics process must be rehearsed, until it is flawless. There must be a work plan for the new hire to get started, otherwise, delay the start date.

Engagement is formed in hearts and minds. You capture hearts when your employees feel pride in being part of your organization and create meaningful connections with their coworkers. You capture their minds when they understand the vision and purpose of your organization and how it ties to their role. Onboarding is a great place to start making headway into the hearts and minds of your new champions.

Share your experiences in onboarding: the good, the bad and the ugly!

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The magic of commitment to core values

I am just back from a family vacation at Disney World in Orlando, FL. Despite my aching feet from walking miles across theme parks, each with different flavor of attractions and shows, I can still feel the Disney magic. Every experience Disney creates is just a notch above the rest. With the masses of people everywhere, things work out smoothly; it’s all meticulously planned and practiced. No matter what you ask, the cast members, as they call their employees, are happy to fulfill your request. Nothing is done grudgingly. You get a wave with a smile, a hug, a high five, and for a moment, even a grown up can feel like a school kid again.

Disney’s values are innovation, quality, community, storytelling, optimism and decency. What differentiates Disney from most other companies is the pervasiveness of these values in their organization. When Disney talks about quality, they invest in additional people to make sure that there are no glitches in the guest experience. The rest rooms shine and traffic flows, even with millions of visitors. Our friend asked a cast member where he could find extra napkins, and she offered to run downstairs to get some. In other companies, this would be considered above and beyond performance; at Disney, it is a basic expectation.

Disney spends a great effort in selecting the right people that fit their culture. They are clear about their expectations from the start. Once the cast member is in, they invest in their training and development through proven programs. A survey on management effectiveness in administered on an on-going basis, to make sure that the values are upheld at all levels.

What differentiates the best from the rest is the fanatical commitment to the vision, mission and values of the company. The magic will follow.

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Talent management in high tech – Part 2: Management development, succession planning, culture

In the high tech industry, the manager’s role is impacted by how high the skill level of the workforce is. Close monitoring and supervising only alienates employees who are used to a more self directed style. Managers must balance between the need to develop their employees and get the deliverables out the door. Many managers get promoted from individual contributor roles and don’t necessarily have any formal education in management. However, having worked in a team based environment, almost every manager has had opportunities to lead a team without the reporting authority, which is a great way to gain leadership experience. Management and leadership development is an area where high tech companies invest their training dollars.

When it comes to grooming senior leaders, succession planning is a process that is typically in place only in larger high tech companies, although it is equally important for smaller companies, who may be even more vulnerable for gaps when a key contributor leaves the organization. Succession planning basically serves two purposes; It manages the risk and proactively prepares for having choices of good candidates when positions open. It also systematically clears the path for high performers who company wants to invest in. In high tech, where the right mix of domain expertise and functional knowledge is sometimes elusive, succession planning takes a hard look at the best talent for the long haul. As high tech companies go global fairly early, international assignments are not rare.

There is something distinct about the high tech culture. We see comics about the software engineers in their loafers and shorts. The high tech industry is certainly more casual than, say, the banking industry. The employees have come to expect a more comfortable setting, and for some it is quite important. Autonomy and low bureaucracy are sought after cultural dimensions. Heavy manuals, helicopter managers and long policies are not too welcome. In exchange for flexibility, the employees accept and sometimes expect a fast pace and long hours, especially around product releases. However, as the generational  mix changes, and the talent war and need for innovation force the companies to reach out to more diverse candidates, work/life balance is becoming a higher priority even in the high tech industry.

High turnover is not the hallmark problem of the high tech industry. Employees come to stay in the company, as long as they get challenged at work and the work environment stays positive. Engagement and productivity may be tougher nuts to crack. With high paying jobs, it is critical that the employees feel compelled to give their 100% at work. The high tech companies that find the key to the hearts and minds of their employees gain sustainable competitive advantage.

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Revving up your sales force

Revenue must go up. That is pretty much the mantra for most companies this year. Many companies have to operate with fewer sales people now. Every sales rep counts. Those who are left must be optimized to close more business. The keys to success are a consistent sales methodology, sales management, sales skills competence, functional support and company culture.

Consistent sales methodology speeds things up

There are many top providers selling proven off-the-shelf methods on solution selling, opportunity management and key account management, or you can develop your own. Pick your religion. It really doesn’t matter which one, as long as you stick with it. Not many companies do. Consistent sales methodology creates a common language, speed of execution and baseline performance through the whole sales organization.

Sales management and healthy pipeline

Define the sales manager role clearly. A good sales manager is not a top producer who got promoted just because. The best sales managers are coaches who hold their teams accountable to developing all stages of their pipelines and prevent sales forecast surprises. These sales managers look beyond the hottest close, and challenge their teams on the status of their opportunities in the pipeline.

Sales skills competence

Companies that sell solutions depend on an increasingly sophisticated sales force. Not only do they need deep technical expertise, they also need  consultative selling skills. Add solid sales methodology on top of that. To add value to the customer, the sales person must have solid knowledge of the industry, and deep business acumen to truly relate to the customer’s business issues. These competencies are not developed overnight but require a concentrated effort. Many companies differentiate between ‘hunters’, who go after new business, and ‘farmers’ who nurture existing accounts. These jobs usually require different personal traits that can best be determined through assessments in the selection process.

Functional support for targeted customer face time

To truly shorten the sales cycle and provide support to the sales force, it should be designed together with marketing. The sales cycle should mirror the decision making process of the profiled customer. Marketing provides information about the customer profile, what the ideal customer type is to go after, and what the best communications are for each stage of the sales cycle. Marketing provides the talking points that resonate with the customer – not the list of features, but their pain points and the value of the solution.

At the same time, the organization must do everything in its power to unburden the field sales from administrative tasks. The more customer interaction time they have, the more revenue there will be. Every unnecessary report or meeting takes away from customer face time.

Customer focused culture

How the sales force is treated may be a good indicator of how customer focused the organization really is. The sales force is the conduit for the customer’s voice. If they don’t have an easy way to give input for new product ideas they heard from the customer, the customer voice gets drowned. If they are not the number one priority when trying to resolve customer issues or request, it does tell something about the company’s overall priorities.

2010 is the turning point. Prepare your sales force to go out there and take some market share.

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Copyright 2010 Liisa Pursiheimo-Marcks, all rights reserved. SVPGMGDX8TEC

True core values: Seeing through the spin

We all have read company websites that list their company values. The most common are financial goals, ethics and integrity, teamwork, customer focus, safety, quality and innovation. In employee orientation, we further hear how these values are so important to the success of the organization. And then, after the first couple of days, we start seeing and hearing “how things really work around here”. We start getting the sense what the true priorities are. In successful companies, the management and the workforce walk the talk. The stated cultural values match the real organizational values. In other places, it doesn’t take long to see the disconnect. Sometimes, even good companies lose their True North, a good recent example being Toyota.

Usually, true values shine through when push comes to shove. In final decision making, the most important values determine the outcome.

If quality is a true core value, is the company willing to pay millions of dollars to recall vehicles as early as the defect is detected? Or, in a software release, which core value will win, if the product still has significant bugs, but the product is late? It doesn’t matter how much e-learning is given on integrity and respect, if company executives behind closed doors use four-letter words. Everybody knows.

You can also detect core values through resource allocation. If the company touts how diversity is one of its core values, but cuts its diversity training budget among the first items, the walk does not match the talk. If a company advertises how it is customer focused and then proceeds to lay off its customer support personnel before other functions, the actions talk louder than the words.

Employees choose their actions based on logic. Once they figure out what leads to positive or negative consequences in their work environment, they adjust accordingly. They have been assimilated. This reinforcement comes from leadership, management and their peers. They seek approval of their superiors and coworkers. Start time of meetings is a good example. Ask any employee and they will tell you with 5-minute accuracy how much early or late you can arrive. A scary thing is that in many organizations, bad behavior is tolerated and this is noticed. Perhaps a verbally abusive manager who produces financial results gets promoted. The message sent about the priority of core values could not be clearer. Often, high tech companies have big award ceremonies after a painful release and death march. What they don’t realize is that although it feels so fair to recognize the extra effort, they also elevate the core value of a hero culture, often a result of lack of planning and under resourcing a project.

Every action and decision reflects the culture. Every organization has a culture. The first step is to know your culture, the second step is to manage it.

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How to determine the true cultural values of your organization
	Not our values	May be our values	Our true values
Stated		uWritten on company website uShared in employee orientation uShared in customer presentations	uCome up as priorities in team meetings uUsed as guideline in crisis meetings uStated behind closed doors
Resourced	uDon’t get budget/resources	uGet budget/resources in good times	uGet budget/resources in tough times
Reinforced	uNot tolerated uLead to negative consequences uLead to disciplinary action uLower social ranking at work	uTolerated, no consequences uRecognized	uLead to positive consequences uLead to rewards, promotions uIncrease social ranking at work
Copyright: Liisa Pursiheimo-Marcks – All Rights Reserved