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.

Talent resolutions for the New Year

Human resources processes, human capital management and workforce productivity all sound so complex and demanding, with so many moving parts to manage. There are employee handbooks and policies to worry about. There are rules and regulations. How is the management to know what to do with the employee base? Although there are certainly some things that are required by the law, here are three guiding principles that will get you far. Make them your New Year’s resolutions, if you are not already following them.

1. Don’t compromise on talent

Decide what kind of talent will get you where you want to be. Understand what drives performance in your business. Be as specific as you can. Don’t add any unnecessary criteria to narrow your talent pool to choose from. Then go after it. When you hire, don’t bring in anyone else except those who meet your standards. When you promote internally, be just as selective.

2. Hold people accountable

If you want a high-performance culture, accountability is a basic cornerstone of it. The building blocks are so simple, yet seem to be so hard to put into practice. Set clear goals. Set clear expectations for behaviors. Create an environment for open feedback and teach everyone to give feedback to each other. Give both positive and constructive feedback. Track results on an on-going basis. Correct performance as soon as it starts veering off track. Celebrate successes.

3. Invest in your people

Investment in people has significantly higher ROI than investment in capital equipment. People learn, grow and develop. Make the investment purposeful and intentional. Invest time in your people by having weekly meetings with managers, communication meetings by the leaders and also by having career dialogues annually. Invest in mentoring, coaching and training. Plan career ladders and growth opportunities. Most importantly, pay attention to your people. Treat them as individuals, all with a valuable contribution to make.

With these three resolutions, you can’t go wrong.

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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.

How’s that warm body strategy working for you?

What's your hiring criteria?

Many companies that are suffering from high turnover strive to fill the open positions as quickly as possible. If the hiring process is truly optimized, that’s all fine and well. If the speed is achieved simply by picking the first candidate who meets the minimum requirements, it’s called the ‘warm body strategy’.  Although it may bring short term relief, it can also amplify the original problem. The new hires who don’t fit the company culture and are not necessarily high performers are likely to quit or frustrate their coworkers. The vicious cycle continues.

To break the cycle, hiring managers must turn their attention to the quality of hire. It is easier said than done, when the team is working overtime, or an important deadline is looming around the corner. Some key elements to increase the quality of hire are being specific about what you want, assessments, skilled interviewers and good follow-through.

Culture fit is the highest determinant for long term success for the candidate. You must be clear on what types of behaviors it takes to thrive in your organization. Add specific functional competencies, and your recruiter can source much better matches to start with.

The interviewers’ time is valuable. The best practice is to narrow down your candidate pool by assessing the candidates before interviews. This way, you only interview good matches. There are multitude of assessments to choose from, depending on the position you are hiring for, ranging from cognitive and psychomotor tests to skill and personality tests. Make sure that the tests are valid and reliable, to avoid inadvertently discriminating against any candidates.

Hiring an employee is an important investment for your company. It is surprising how often those who interview candidates do not take this investment decision with the appropriate seriousness. The interviewers should also keep in mind that they are creating the first impression of their organization. All who interview should coordinate their questions ahead of time and reconvene or submit comments afterwards. HR or recruiting often takes the lead in coordinating this process. The interviewers should be trained in behavioral and situational interview techniques. One of the most in-depth interviewing techniques is topgrading.

When you have done all this work to identify a truly excellent fit to the company and the position, don’t drop the ball on day one. The highest turnover takes place in the first 90 days. Focus on the onboarding process and ensure that the new employee feels welcome, gets clear direction and the tools to get productive fast. Now you have much more than a warm body working for you.

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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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Should you hire unemployed talent?

I sat in a meeting last week and heard from a talented and very experienced peer who is currently on the job market that a senior leader refused to interview him simply because he is unemployed. Not because of a gap in his resume or a cultural fit – just because of this manager’s perception of unemployed people. I can tell you that tons of bad karma was flowing in her direction from all of us in the meeting. This new trend has been brought up in the media. It’s not just that it feels wrong; turning away a whole talent pool based on one factor is not a smart thing to do.

Human resources and hiring managers are getting inundated by hundreds of resumes every time they post a job opening. They have to find a way to screen out the unqualified candidates and unearth the best of the best. They cannot use methods that would discriminate against protected classes (race, gender, disability etc.) One area where employers are already stepping into landmines is by increasing job requirements just because the talent is available. If you require a degree or certification for a job that didn’t use to need one, you may be headed for trouble.

Discriminating against unemployed status is not illegal, although not smart. Some employers are still under the impression that the people currently seeking work were laid off for performance reasons. Newsflash: Whole departments were slashed. Some companies had to reduce 50% of their workforce. One of my least favorite corporate assignments was to coordinate a (large) reduction list. The managers who had to submit names were fighting tooth and nail to keep their employees. There were no low performers to let go.

The talent thrown over the corporate fence has been through good in-house schooling and knows the functional best practices. The talent from small and mid-sized companies is truly versatile and has learned to perform multiple roles and keep many plates spinning in the air. Savvy recruiters and hiring managers should give both a second look.

There are better ways to screen talent than unemployment status. Use clear job requirements; know your culture and what kind of behaviors you are looking for. Consider an applicant assessment before you interview. Use an employee referral system.

Current job seekers are not standing still. They are retraining, learning new skills, volunteering, networking and doing pro bono project work. I hope they are highlighting these activities in their resume. One of them might just be the right one.

Hiring managers, HR, recruiters and job seekers: Do you agree or disagree? Share your experiences!

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Talent management in high tech – Part 1: Talent acquisition, rewards and performance

 

Source: Bersin & Associates

 

Bersin and Associates just released their new framework for talent management. In my opinion, it’s an excellent illustration of what’s involved in building a high performing workforce. You start with the workforce strategy. You attract the right talent that fits your plan. You manage performance, select the rewards that fit your strategy, and develop your employees. You create the right environment to engage your employees. You develop managers and groom leaders. You shape your culture to win. When you optimize each building block, just listen to your organization humming. Each industry has its own challenges and advantages. In today’s and next week’s blog I will examine high tech.

High tech is characterized by its highly skilled workforce. Often the entry level expectation is at least a bachelor’s degree. In engineering, there is fierce competition for some specialized talent, whether it is a certain engineering field, or a rare combination of software language skills. In marketing and sales, the companies are looking for the sweet spot of technical background and functional expertise, trying to find the right balance between the two. In many instances, a complex sales process is involved, which requires business acumen, seasoned opportunity management and the account management skills of the sales people. As in many other industries, if the high tech company manufactures it products, its logistics function, support staff and managers must be increasingly familiar with outsourcing and off shoring. As the applicants are tech savvy, more and more recruiters are turning to social media to source the candidates.

As the applicants are screened, a high IQ is just table stakes. What differentiates candidates is their EQ – emotional intelligence. High tech companies develop new products in a team based environment with tight schedules. Hitting the market window is critical for revenue and profit targets. The employees must be collaborative and able to adapt to change and a fast pace.

When it comes to rewards, most high tech companies’ reward philosophy is pay for performance. Merit increases, bonuses and equity are distributed based on the performance levels of the employees. This creates some requirements on the performance management process and management skills. The stakes are higher for a fair performance evaluation, when the employee’s compensation is linked to the manager’s assessment. Many companies use some type of forced or guided distribution to be able to manage their rewards budget – not everyone can get the highest rating and richest reward package. Manager training and guidance on consistent performance standards is another way to get the ratings closer to a normal curve. When forced distribution processes are not managed and communicated well, they pose challenges in creating a competitive culture and a perception of internal politics, and some high tech companies have faced employee lash out on this practice.

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

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