Renaissance Leadership

Take an Extra Minute Before You Hire

Want to find out if your job candidate was really paying attention during the interview?  Want to see if he or she can truly organize their thoughts well?  Want to see if your candidate can retain information and present it in a clear and concise manner?

The next time you have to recruit and hire employees, establish the practice of having them write up the "minutes" of the interview and send them to you.  I've used this practice on several occasions and it amazes me how this one exercise can distinguish one candidate from another. 

There are a lot of people who are great at interviews; they can talk their way into a job quite well.  However, some of these folks have trouble putting their thoughts on paper and that potential superstar you thought you were hiring can turn out to be a major dud.  Having people send you the minutes from their interview demonstrates if they were listening to you and also paying attention to their own dialogue. 

I had a person tell me a story in the interview that they conveniently left out when they sent in the minutes.  When I questioned the person, she said "well, as I was writing the minutes, I realized I wasn't telling the truth!"  Needless to say, I didn't hire this person for the job. 

If you're going to use this practice, I encourage you to tell your candidates upfront that you require them to do this.  To wait until the end of the interview isn't fair to them and could catch someone completely off guard.  In one instance, I provided the major sections to my candidates as to I wanted in the minutes to allow them to still focus on the interview as opposed to worrying about how to organize their thoughts. 

Try this and let me know what happens!

Best Buy Leading the Pack with Results Only Work Environment

Congratulations to Best Buy for being truly innovative and trying something new to make its workplace a more attractive place to work:  The Results Only Work Environment. 

According to a story in Business Week , the electronics retailer is expanding an experiment which gives every single employee complete flexibility at their Minneapolis headquarters in managing their time.  That means no schedules, no having to take time off to go to the dentist, no worrying about being on time in the morning, no mandatory meetings! Instead of worrying about physical presence, the company now looks at your contribution.  In other words, they are evaluating performance based on output instead of hours. 

While it's not a radical idea, companies such as Sun Microsystems and AT&T have all created a more virtual office environment, this is the first time we're seeing this at a large retailer.  Best Buy started this experiment with a few of its corporate staff in 2003 and is now applying the model for the entire location. 

I applaud the company for being willing to take a risk like this, and will look forward to the follow-up to see what impact this has on their retail sales when they expand the experiment next year. On the surface, I think this is a move in the right direction in terms of how companies redefine the modern work environment as it's creating major shifts in how we view work and the importance of physical presence. 

Imagine not having to justify taking off work mid-day to take your child to see a movie, taking college courses in the morning and showing up at the office at noon to start your work day and then leaving at 5 PM to get your homework done, or being able to take care of an ailing parent and logging in to run your team while they're asleep. What might be the impact of that? 

Best Buy, so far, has reported an increase in productivity of about 35% from their employees since starting this experiment.  Add that to a reduced attrition rate, and you've probably got a set of both happy and loyal employees who truly value being treated as if they were mature adults! 

While some of the kinks will still need tweaking, I hope that this proves to be a radical and effective way for looking at today's workplaces.

Where Do I Begin to Attract Top Talent? Try Excellence in Recruiting

One of the core components of bringing the brightest and the best talent into your company requires that you have the brightest and best in your Recruiting team doing the best possible job.  Often the first genuine impression a person gets from your company is when a recruiter makes an initial call to a candidate to let them know there's interest in bringing them on board.

However, what if the folks you empower to fulfill this position of talent acquisition are doing a poor job of it? How would you know? 

A close friend of mine went through the most horrendous process this year to get into a Fortune 500 consulting firm.  Initially, the first series of interviews went well.  He did the standard phone screen with the recruiter who found his resume on Monster, resulting in a second series of interviews that all went smoothly.  In fact, he had a series of panel interviews where by the end people were using statements which implied they were ready to offer him a job.  In fact, he got a call saying they were preparing the offer letter; they just needed the client to sign on the proposal's dotted line.  The last words out of the recruiter's mouth were "we expect to make you an offer within a week."

Fast forward to three weeks later and no calls.  My friend sent an email to check in and still didn't get a response.  Finally, a different recruiter called him to say that the company had reclassified the job he interviewed for and that he was no longer qualified.  Then he got the nice little rejection letter in the mail saying they'd keep his resume on file for a year.

Six months go by and my friend gets another call.  Apparently, they still haven't filled the position and would he consider interviewing again.  I advised him to heed their request, but let the company know his salary requirements were higher since he'd gotten another job that was paying him a higher wage and that this company needed to at least match it. 

My friend went on the interviews. He met the same panel he sat before six months earlier and the only thing they were concerned with was his salary requirements.  The response at the end of the interviews were "we'll be calling you and putting together an offer letter shortly."  And then the process got really weird...

First, my friend gets a call telling him the job would be in Tysons Corners, Virginia and that there was a "concern" that he'd have to go to Baltimore three days a week to work at a client site.  The reason for the concern?  On the day of his interview, my friend took public transportation to the company's site as he worked in DC and didn't want to fetch his car and drive an hour out of his way to get to an afternoon interview.  But because he mentioned taking public transport, the recruiter assumed he did not have a car.  Not only was this an incorrect assumption, but a company has no right to ask you how you get to and from your job--it's illegal.  Instead of saying "This job is in Tysons and requires that you go to a client site three days a week in Maryland.  Do you have any issues with that arrangement," the recruiter made a highly incorrect conclusion and made it sound as if a job offer was not forthcoming had my friend truly had no car. My friend advised the recruiter he had a car and then was told "Great!  We'll have your offer together in a few days."

Three weeks go by and no communication at all occurs.  My friend has given up on the company completely by this point.  His thoughts were that if a company can't recruit your properly, imagine what corporate life there must be like.  He finally gets a call from the recruiter and is offered a job.  He then is told an offer letter is being over-nighted and he has seven days to respond.  That's good news, right?

Well, five days go by and no FedEx.  On the sixth day, he gets an offer and the job description, the location and the salary don't match.  He calls the recruiter and she says "Oh, we filled the job we interviewed you for and this is another one." My friend says he wants to talk to the hiring manager and the recruiter begrudgingly says she'll pass the information along. 

Then three more weeks of silence.

My friend finally sends an email to the recruiter saying he's not taking the job because she failed to follow-up with him.  He gets one of those standard emails that says "Thank you for your interest.  We'll keep your resume on file for one year."

To me, this is a nightmarish situation, but I've learned that this is a standard process for this company and that over 60% of the people who interview with this company--even the ones who end up getting jobs--end up having similar experiences.  The real problem is that EVERYONE in the company who is in HR knows this is happening, but no one does anything about it. 

How can you ever expect to attract and retain the top talent when your recruiting process is broken like this?  How come no one ever conducts quality checks on recruiters?  How come no one ever ensures that hiring managers follow up when an applicant requests it? 

I think CEOS and other C-Suite executives need to have a lot more quality control.  If you can't even get people in the doors and on your payroll properly, how can you expect to retain them?  AT&T had one of the best processes in place.  As a hiring manager, you worked hand in hand with your HR department and you got reports from your recruiters so you always knew where you were in the hiring process.  In fact, any front-line supervisor who was placed in a hiring role had to take training on how to read resumes, how to interview people and how to communicate interview feedback once a final candidate resulted from the process.  It was an excellent approach to make sure managers knew what they were doing.  And we worked with our recruiters as a team.

What I propose is that if your company is having issues with attracting the top talent and you hear of a few stories like the one my friend suffered, you need to take action.  I would invite you to have a few people apply to work at your company and have them go through an interview process purely for the sake of a quality check.  After all, how would you ever find out that your recruiters are lacking in follow-up and effective communication skills. 

The bottom line is that as we become more global and we rely more and more on diverse talent, we cannot afford to miss out on an opportunity to bring in the brightest and the best.  Take time to find out what's really going on in your recruiting department and make sure that the people you have on the front lines to screen for talent and make a great first impression truly have what it takes to get the job done!   

Talent Management: It's Not Just for Junior Staff!

According to a report from ExecuNet, a senior-management recruiting firm, a whopping 87% of Executives who participated in their 2006 survey said they are "vowing to bolt" from their firms within the next year.  To me, this leads to an interesting question: How can you expect to retain your top talent when your top talent wants out?! 

Granted, ExecuNet's survey includes findings from just 100 executives who each make roughly $200,000 a year, but when more than four-fifths of the respondents expressed an explicit desire to leave their companies for better pastures, I find that highly amazing and a little scary. 

This is an intriguing data set as you truly have to wonder what an organization must be like when those who responsible for proliferating the corporate vision and mission, creating accountability for talent management and establishing the corporate culture are the ones who want out.  What must that say about the environment in which these people work?

So why are these executives wanting to jump ship?  According to the survey, the two most popular reasons are because of a "lack of challenging work" or because "there are limited opportunities for career growth."  Interestingly, I would venture to say that the "lack of challenging work" and "limited opportunities" is all smoke and mirrors for not getting cushier increases in pay and additional perks.  Thanks to our friends at Enron and the lovely crew at Wal-Mart, executive compensation is under the microscope again and we're still seeing a vast difference in pay between those at the top to those at the next level down.  So I question the honesty of the responses in the suvey.  The sense of entitlement at the top, combined with further scruitiny of one's accounting practices have created a lot of "sudden departures" among those in the senior ranks.   

Frankly, I've yet to coach an executive who says "my work's not challenging enough to me and so I need to leave." I typically hear how isolated people feel and how they realize that they've gone so far beyond recognizing what work/life balance is that they don't have any relationships beyond the workplace, except with their divorce attorneys.  Most exeuctives are under a lot of stress so if they're looking to make a change, it's because they want to get off the increasingly stressful treadmill they find themselves on day in and day out. 

Unfortunately ExecuNet doesn't say much in its report as to who answered the survey or how they collected the data.  And since they market themselves as a search firm for executives who want better jobs, I'm somewhat skeptical of their findings. 

Nevertheless, when your talent at the top doesn't want to be in the company anymore, it means that you have a lot of work ahead of you to remain competitive in the years to come! 

What are your thoughts on this survey?  Please comment!

Who's That New Person Sitting There?Tips for Bringing In New Hires

One of my best friends started a new job in March and was truly excited to be working for a highly prestigious consulting company.  They have a solid reputation, great salaries and benefits, and plenty of opportunities.  He was thrilled to work on a client project that would allow him to take public transportation to work and work at a cutting-edge client facility. Until he showed up for work.

During his first week, he sat at a desk with nothing to do.  He showed up for his first day of work at the client site and no one knew who he was.  He couldn't get a badge to enter the building and the security guard at the front desk didn't have his name on a list of new hires.  The person to whom he was reporting was on vacation that week and so the only number he had was the HR contact at his parent company. He called and left a message and it took an hour for him to get a call on his cellphone that they were trying to "find someone to take care of letting him in."

After an hour and a half wait, someone finally came down to greet him and told him that since his client-site supervisor had left for vacation the week before, none of his paperwork was signed and no one knew he was coming (after a three-week lag time from the day he accepted the job offer).  He finally got a badge and once he went up to his work area, he was shown "a" desk and was told that no one had ordered him a computer or a phone so they advised him to just sit and wait while they figured something out. 

So he sat for the next two days.  During that time, no one bothered to introduce themselves to him.  People would walk by and see him sitting there with nothing to do and every now and then the Administrative Assistant who brought him upstairs would come by and say "I'm still trying to find something for you to do, so be patient."  Finally he started walking up to people and introducing himself to see if he could meet other people on his team.  It took several tries as his team was clear across the floor of a very large office space and once he met someone from his team, he was told "this always happens to new people." 

This is ALWAYS unacceptable. 

You get one opportunity to make a great first impression as an employer.  Most of us approach the first day of a new job with a lot of enthusiasm and are eager to get into their work and be productive.  When someone shows up for work and you let them just sit there with nothing to do and are not prepared for their arrival, it sends a bad signal that maybe they've made a mistake in coming to your company.  Even if they work at a client site, someone should take responsibility for making sure someone's first days of work go smoothly. 

So here are a few tips for making a good first impression:

• Have a functional office space waiting for the hew hire.  Have the basics waiting for them when they arrive: a phone, office supplies, a team list, a company contact list, and a working computer with the appropriate software on it.  You typically have at least two weeks before a person shows up for work; there's no excuse for not having any space for them to sit and some minimal company information for them to review.  If your new hire requires some sort of clearance to get on the network, explain that during the interview and find something for them to do that gives them the opportunity to participate in the project until their clearance arrives. 
• Be there to greet them when they arrive. You should always welcome a new employee and plan on devoting part of your morning to officially welcome them to the team.  Give the new hire as much information about the company to review and make it a point to schedule a check-in each day during their first week to make sure they're acclimating to the new environment.  If you're going to be on vacation, appoint someone on your team to welcome them to the office. 
• Appoint a new hire buddy. The worst feeling experiences on the new job is a sense of isolation.  Have someone on your team be a point-of-contact for your new hire. Make sure this buddy is part of the team the new hire is on and make sure the buddy takes the new hire to lunch.  You may even want to call a short team meeting after the new hire's arrival so that the new hire knows who the team members are and knows who to go to when he or she has a question. 
• Have a new hire orientation program in place. This may take a while to develop, but I find the best companies offer new employees a whole set of check lists, informational articles and initial orientation/trainings scheduled for the first 90 days of someone's employment.  A company handbook should always be a part of this effort.  When you have a consistent program in place that covers all the bases, people acclimate to their new job sooner rather than later and a comprehensive program often leads to greater productivity and loyalty in the first three to six months of employment.
• When hiring someone to work at a client site, be sure you have someone from your company at the client site the first day of work to welcome them.  This is what happened to my friend and it took four days for someone from his own consulting company to acknowledge his presence.  This is an extremely  inappropriate way to manage a new consultant.  Make sure that your consulting firm does everything to orient a new consultant to not only your company but also at the client site.  Personally, I think you should never send a consultant to a client site until after a new hire has spent time at your company's offices so that they understand their benefits, how your consulting firm works, and can ask questions about the client site before they arrive. 

Taking time out to truly welcome new hires and integrating them into your organization will lay the foundation for a long and prosperous relationship.   This is a mission critical process and how people are treated in their initial days of employement plays a significant factor in how long a person may stay with your company. 

Doing nothing can result in what happened to my friend--he left his new job within six months for a consulting firm that supports the same project he's on--they just offered him a better salary and guaranteed a two week orientation program so that he never forgets who he's working for!   

The investment you make at the beginning of someone's career with your company has great impact on your retention rate.  With so many other companies paying attention to their retention rates, can you realistically afford to abandon a new hire in their first 30 days of work?  If you're not sure, ask the consulting company my friend just left!

Retention As a Strategic Initiative

While you can offer an amazing salary and benefits package and present a highly positive corporate image to attract the top talent in today's world, I don't think any of that does any good unless you've also added the concept of employee retention as part of your overall recruiting strategy.

I've seen a lot of companies invest a lot of time and energy into their external recruiting efforts.  Glossy ads in magazines, catchy radio ads heard on the radio during commuting hours, and websites that promise lots of opportunity and "flexible and rewarding careers."  And these are great ways to bring in the top talent--especially if you have a Diversity-centric component to your recruiting strategy mix.  However, all of this can be undone when you spend little to no time emphasizing your organization's retention efforts. 

A recent study conducted by TalentKeepers revealed that over 60% of the 350 plus companies they surveyed reported turnover rates of 11 to 40 percent and that the CEOs of these companies also predicted that they were not expecting turnover to improve "any time soon."  To me, that's a frightening admission to make, as the average employee departure can cost you anywhere from $5,000 to $20,000 in direct costs to replace them.  Factor in the hidden costs of a high attrition rate--reduced morale, reduced customer service and a faded positive corporate image--and you can see why it becomes necessary to improve your retention rates and focus on what it will take to retain your top talent!

So what can you do?

I say that you have to hold executives and supervisors accountable for retention.  Make it part of their job requirements to focus on retaining their employees.  Combine this with a formal leadership development program in your company, and you can have an amazing impact on your bottom line.  GE Healthcare Integrated IT Solutions, took an integrated approach to retaining its employees and now offers trust-building training, mentoring, systematic feedback sessions and employee training to pro-actively engage its top talent. 

However, in order to do this, your company has to be willing to invest in the necessary skill-training for anyone who supervises people.  Without those crucial interpersonal skills, even the most skilled analytical and logical minded manager might still drive employees away because of their inability to communicate with others. 

If you're still of the mindset that training and employee development are still expenses you can easily take off the books when your projections look slight, think again.  The moment you commoditize your employee development efforts, you're already behind the curve when it comes to leveraging your talent for increased results. 

Instead of focusing on what costs you can cut, I encourage you instead to reframe your point of view to thinking about what investments you're willing to make to attract and retain your best employees.  Besides, if you don't, your competitors will! 

When Attracting the Top Talent, Job Titles Are Meaningless

I recently saw an article that advised companies to use JOB TITLES as a way to attract and reward workers--that somehow having the word "manager" in a job title would motivate an employee and provide "status and self-esteem" and attract a better candidate.  The article mentioned that most people want a "title" more so than they do a raise. 

I think that whole notion is ridiculous. 

A job title is just a name, a set of words that often have very little to do with the work most people perform.  And if you think simply putting the title "Manager" into a job role makes it more attractive to a person, I think you need to re-examine your recruiting strategy and your intelligence level. 

People looking for jobs want meaningful work, an opportunity to contribute and grow, equitable pay and good benefits.  They also want to show up in a workplace that values them.  Does a job title like "Project Manager" convey that?  No. 

A "prestigious job title" really means nothing to an employee if you choose to exploit them or treat them like a cog in a wheel.  Any HR personnel or hiring manager who thinks posting a a "sexy" job title will surely bring them the best talent really is appealing to the most shallow of perspective employees. 

If you want to attract the top talent, I think it's better to first showcase your company's values, potential opportunities and offer a current job description so the top talent with those tangible and intangible qualities can easily determine if they would be a good fit for your organization. 

Simply creating a job title like "Territory Manager" for someone who's responsible for making outside sales won't get you the best talent.  But recruting for someone who is results oriented, a self-starter with highly proficient closing skills who enjoys a flexible schedule to achieve company goals just might bring you exactly what you're after!

Stop Assuming Too Much

A recent survey of 100 HR managers revealed that 56% of them felt there were "major differences" between what employees from various generations want from their jobs.  However, these assumptions are often highly inaccurate and point out a significant problem in many organizations: People are assuming way too much about what people want from work!

When I see HR professionals and managers making assumptions about what employees want and attempt to generalize people into certain categories, I have to roll my eyes in disbelief.  I agree that there are some various predictors and indicators that we can apply to large groups of people.  Historically, older workers do care more about job security than younger people do.  And I am seeing studies that show younger workers entering the workforce today do want a life before they want a job. 

However, you cannot make wide-reaching assumptions about what your employees want from you when they sign on with your organization. 

If you really want to know what's important to your employees, ask them!  It's a simple statement, but I see a lot of companies who are willing to make policy decisions based on external studies as opposed to listening to the voices of their own employees.  And once you ask them, design your programs to fulfill their needs. 

It might be easier to read a few studies and see a few trends about what people want from their employers, but why waste time reading what OTHER people want when you can go directly to the source--your own employees--to find out what they want and what it will take for you to inspire them to want to stay. 

Don't Assume Everyone Wants to be a Manager

One of the key things I've realized in working with large companies who are having "management issues," is that many people who are in charge of teams really have no desire to lead.  Yet their company put them in these roles and they feel obligated to make the most of it, often leading to disastrous results.

If someone excels at their current job, it doesn't mean they want to be a manager.  They may want a new assignment to develop other skills or a chance to work in another area using the same skills to gain company knowledge.  Sometimes people would prefer a lateral shift in other departments so they can apply their skills to a different role, all the while gaining more insight as to how the organization works as one functional unit.

Sometimes it's good to give people temporary assignments supporting other teams or business units for a period of time.  Once they return to their regular work group, they may offer you fresh perspectives or at least feel recharged in going back to their regularly assigned duties. 

Another thing you can do is encourage employees who don't want to be managers to seek out other opportunities to enhance their skills.  Sending someone to a industry conference or sponsoring their membership in a professional association can provide the incentive to continue to be a top producer without having to make them responsible for leading a team. 

The bottom line is to not assume that all people want to be managers and to have a conversation with your employees regarding their developmental needs based on their own values and desires.  This way, you have more of a chance of keeping the top talent by honoring them in their own way as opposed to satisfying your own agenda for what growth and success look like.