NZ Recruiter

Getting ready for the talent wars in 2008

The demand for IT talent has made employers up the ante in recruiting and especially retaining the exceptionally talented, creative and productive. ITworld.com lists 8 new weapons to fight the talent wars in '08. Here's a quick recap of their big 8 recruiting tools and strategies in getting the best and brightest:

1. Using social networks.
2. Using wikis, blogs, and forums.
3. Trying before buying, ie. right-to-hire agreements, contractors, temps
4. Global thinking - outsourcing abroad, specifically India, Russia, China
5. The anywhere workplace - providing for telecommuting and flexible work hours
6. Business vision - hiring more for than just strong technical skills; looking for people who are business savvy and have strong people skills to complement their technical strengths, no matter how hot the skill is (such as .net, PHP, J2EE expertise)
7. Pumped up paychecks (no explanation or comment required here!)
8. Imagination and creativity in compensation and perks - see examples of Great Work Perks, like on-site amenities, exotic research trips, gourmet cafes, countless bonus vacation time/sabbaticals, etc.

Now while these tactics are for employers and recruiters to use, potential candidates out there - take note of these "new weapons" and use some of them to your advantage in finding the best opportunity for you.

First in the list is social networks. If you've been keeping current with your online life (as you should be), you'd be strategic (and professional) in all your profiles and links with network sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Xing. According to surveys, more recruiters are using these online networks to filter in quality candidates because they can interact and get to know possible candidates better. Make sure you're easy to find and by the right people.

Second is Wikis, Blogs and Forums. The trend is for companies to "brand" themselves online through company blogs or employee blogs to attract potential talent. As such, online activity and your online personal '"branding" is important too. Work on your personal branding through your own blog and your contributions to forums. Again, elevate your profile for the right things (like expertise) and the right people.

Trying before Buying. If you're thinking of making a move to a new company or industry, it's probably a good idea for you to try it out as well. Consider a temporary assignment or contracting, although - contracting may be harder since the experience required for those roles are at the level where you can just hit the ground running with your expertise in that technical area and industry.

Business Vision. Work on your business and communication skills while you can in your current job and company. Get on projects where you're facing customers or clients or where you're playing a role in business strategy or managing relationships with other internal business units. Raise your profile in business relations and communication within your current role.

For everything else listed, it's important that you know exactly what your priorities are. What are the things that you'd forgo in order to have? Flexibility over cash? Vacation time over gym membership? Vice-versa? It's important that you know exactly what you want and can present yourself/negotiate when the time comes.

How Doing Good Work Hurts You

Most of us wouldn't think of doing "good" work as hurting us. But in a recent conversation between Michael Bungay Stanier and David Allen on GTD Connect (subscription only) Michael made this point loud and clear. Based on a previous description by Designer Milton Glaser, Michael asserts that in our lives we are only ever doing three kinds of work:

• Bad work
• Good work
• Great work

Michael believes that you will only ever do more "great" work if you can endeavor to remove some "good" work from your life. This idea resonated with me as I believe that the characteristics of great work are fundamentally different from good. In particular, I believe great work requires either a challenge or learning in order to give you a feeling of achievement and satisfaction. And I also believe that great work requires imagination and creativity. Good work can benefit from it as well, but for great work it's a necessity.

In our careers we often get caught up in the mundane or the routine, in work that is neither challenging nor a learning experience. But I believe that the key to turning this around is to take some of the good work you do and focus on using your creativity to make it great. Challenge yourself, stretch yourself to make your work into a creative environment. It will make all the difference for yourself in your career, as well as in your enjoyment of your life.

In particular, I have found that the more creative I was at work, the more I enjoyed myself. Quite often it led to success, but not always! But despite any failures, it has always created indirect benefits that I never considered beforehand. I think it is tough to be creative in our everyday work. And unfortunately many companies seem to pay lip service to wanting people who "think outside the box" (See Kathy Sierra for more). I also think that a lack of tools to really evaluate someone's creativity is a set back for companies in the hiring process.

Have you had an opportunity to be creative at work and have had that backfire on you? Or had it be wildly successful? Would you like to share that story? I would be more than interested in hearing about stories of creativity at work as it seems to be a topic that many readers are really interested in.

Top 10 Success Factors with Onboarding

This was brought to my attention by a comment from Sue Edwards, president of Clearing the 90-Day Hurdle, an onboarding coaching service that deals with all the challenges of a new hire (especially senior executives) - for the employer, the employee, and recruiter. They address a lot of the issues of being a new hire, hiring someone new, and easing the transition into a successful one.

It's clear from the number of hits that my post on Onboarding keeps getting, onboarding is  a concern for a lot of companies who realize the value of keeping the talent they've spent so much effort, time and money in recruiting. They realize why it's just as important to invest as much time and effort into retention and development of staff.

From their website:

A lot can go wrong in the first 90 days after a new executive hire or promotion. Would it surprise you to learn that at least 40% of new leaders fail to meet the expectations of their new role?

• Desired results are not achieved within the expected timeframe

• Difficulties in assimilating to a new culture and earning credibility are barriers to success

• Productivity and employee engagement are negatively impacted

Research conducted with over 20 executives shows clearly that:

• There is remarkable agreement on the most important behaviours for success in the first 90 days — regardless of the interviewee’s industry, gender, internal or external role.

• Providing new hires with the "secrets to success" in their first 90 days is critical to enhancing the ROI on recruitment and re-training costs.

• Even exceptional, talented new hires are often unaware that some of their well-intended behaviours are potentially derailing.

For more insight, there is a free report on Top Ten Success Factors and Seven Deadly Sins for Leaders Transitioning into Organizations, based on Edwards' experience of coaching leaders-in-transitions for small businesses up to Fortune 500 multi-nationals, along with in-depth research with senior executives, human resources leaders and recruiters. So far I've received positive feedback from people I've passed it on to (with her permission of course!).

Onboarding: 8 Ways to get New Hires Onboard

*This was originally posted in The Asia Pacific Headhunter last year*  Although this happened in Tokyo, it addresses the global issue of transitioning new hires into your company.

About six years ago, I placed a mid-level executive with a company in Tokyo. As is my policy, I always check up periodically with a newly placed candidate to see how they’re getting along in their new job. After the first week, my candidate was a bit overwhelmed with the work they had given him. His direct supervisor was actually on a business trip, so he had to fend for himself for the first couple of days searching for help from others. Because he wasn’t given his own workspace yet, he had to set up at a conference table. After the second week, he was thrown into the deep end to face clients about the company’s products despite receiving minimal training. Moreover, he was still at that conference table. At the end of the month, he had serious doubts about whether he wanted to stay there. He hadn’t been given his business card yet (which in Japan is extremely important to have and easy to get), and felt that he wasn’t given any clear goals and how he was to be assessed. As you can imagine, he just didn’t feel it was the kind of company he wanted to be a part of.

The company was actually a successful and growing one. What went wrong? To say the least, this was a pretty extreme case of terrible onboarding. Unfortunately for all parties involved, time and money was wasted – he left after two months, and a repeated search for his replacement followed. A huge lesson was learned from all of this: Onboarding quickly and smoothly is key to productive happy employees who will stay.

What is “onboarding”? It’s getting your newly hired talent up to speed with the policies, processes, culture, expectations, and day-to-day responsibilities of your company. It’s making them feel welcome and excited, confirming why they joined your company.

Whether you’re a huge brand name corporation with thousands of employees, or a small start-up with 3 employees, all businesses have a similar goal: to attract talented employees and to keep them motivated to continuously contribute to the success of your business.

Getting them motivated and on board starts from DAY ONE.

Why onboarding is so important:

1) It builds your company’s REPUTATION for being a thoughtful employer, with great training, clear leadership, and strong organization. Good reputation equals good people wanting to work for you. Nobody wants to work with a company that has unclear goals, no sense of unity, a lack of training, and a haphazard, unorganized environment! First impressions really count here! If this is the first impression a new hire gets, they won’t stay there very long – and will tell everyone all about it.

2) It helps to RETAIN YOUR EMPLOYEES. After investing so much time and money in recruiting the right candidate – why ruin it by letting them down from day one with a poor onboarding program?

3) It REDUCES HIGH TURNOVER COSTS – in terms of both money and time in searching, recruiting, hiring, and training.

4) It gets new employees to REVENUE-PRODUCING LEVELS quickly. Welcome, encourage and nurture employee productivity from the beginning because a long period of struggling to get them up to speed results in productivity loss.

5) It builds a COHESIVE TEAM, therefore raising EVERYONE’S productivity. Once a new hire is up to speed, the whole team moves forward, rather than having to make up for the slack of a slower player.

Below are some basic ideas of what you would want to do to make a new hire feel like he made a great decision to join your company, and to want to stay there. Some things you may find really simple and obvious – but it’s quite surprising how many companies actually don’t do any of them, leaving the new hire to feel lost, uncertain, unmotivated, and frustrated, like my poor candidate back in Tokyo.

Eight Ways to Effectively Get your New Hire Onboard:

1. Clearly WELCOME them on the first day. Greetings and  introductions to everyone (or key colleagues for bigger companies). We often provide a cake with the message “Welcome to the Team!” on the first day for morning or afternoon tea. This is a GREAT and compelling reason to get busy employees away from their desks for a few minutes to chat with their new colleague over cake and coffee. Another good option is to have an informal get-to-know you lunch with colleagues.
2. Even before their first day, give them a written full job description and company manual/policies that clearly explains job responsibilities and goals, outlining what’s expected of them and how they will be assessed. Poor onboarding programs often fail to clearly explain what’s expected of the new employee – with no clear goals or outcomes defined.
3. Set aside a good length of time with no interruptions for the employee to sit with you so that they can ask questions about the job description/company policy that they have already read.
4. Designate a “mentor” to help the new employee during the first couple weeks.
5. Automated onboarding software is the way to go, esp. in larger companies. Administrative things like payroll, healthcare, stock options, sick days, etc. – all those things need to be ready to go.
6. Discuss with the new hire how you’ll be checking in on their progress. Schedule 20-minute meetings for the end of the first day, first week, first month, six weeks, etc. to gain feedback from the employee on their self-assessment and general concerns. Be prepared each time with a      set of questions/checklists to go over.
7. Incorporate a set TRAINING PROGRAM on your company’s products and services. Avoid throwing a new hire into the deep end without giving them sufficient training, no matter how experienced or quick on their feet they are. Of course, this all depends on the nature of the position and the qualifications of the employee, but gauge carefully how much you throw at them without giving them proper training.
8. Have designated workspace all ready with all office supplies provided. You wouldn’t believe how often a new employee is stuck in a cubicle with everyone else’s stuff still in it. Or having to wait for his computer to be networked.

By doing any combination of these, preferably all, you are showing your new employee your commitment to helping them succeed and achieve personal and business goals in their new position and environment. By investing time in getting them onboard quickly and smoothly and making them feel welcome, you are being a thoughtful employer people want to work for and stay with.

Next Action Points:

1) What is your onboard program?

2) How can you improve it?

Continuous Learning is Key

Link: Learning More While Working - Business Pulse - Leadership RC - CIO.

Enough can't be said about continuous active learning, especially as you develop and grow professionally. And especially as companies are needing to retain and attract strong learners/performers. This article points out the need for companies to take charge in providing, facilitating and incentivising training for employees, and for employees to use the training and resources provided. Unfortunately, this isn't always the case. According to NFI Research's global survey, either there's a lack of or insufficient training, or employees simply aren't taking advantage of any provided.

It's been said that top reasons for leaving a job, are mostly for lack of challenges & growth (which comes from training & development). As in my previous post, the best strategy for retaining talent in skills-short MNC China market is through training and development programs.

Aside from responsibility upon the employer, it does boil down to each individual - whether they want to thrive and grow or not. I especially agree with one respondent to the survey:

“My personal strategic plan includes a commitment to lifelong learning,” said another. “It is not just the employer’s responsibility to train its staff. Individuals should take the initiative to constantly train themselves and learn new things. For example, setting a goal to read one book per month is a cost-effective method of self-improvement.”

Testing for the Right Candidate

Link: CIO - Testing times.

Interesting article about alternative ways to finding the right talent - esp. for senior roles through psychometric testing (behavioural/personality). While the standard hiring process is through job ads then interviews, companies nowadays need to realize their largest investment is really its people, and so accordingly need to invest more effort in recruiting the right people - those who not just have the "right" technical skills, but also all the soft people skills, flexibility and agility.

They give the example of Fujitsu Services - where they looked internally to fill their senior account management role rather than externally. Their process included various testing for different abilities and behaviours. While their process proved successful for them, I wonder how effective it would be for a much smaller company, or how comparable it is to executive search.

I think psychometric testing is a good and useful tool. However, I find that the big problem with "standard" recruiting is the nature of how we find people. Many recruiters recruit "passively", that is, they put their job ad up and wait for candidates to apply. The most effective way to start a search for a candidate (esp. for senior roles), is first of all to truly understand the needs, skills, desirables, and culture of the company, and then to actively look for people following those parameters. That's through networking, researching, and talking to a lot of people. Not waiting for people to see an ad and apply. What's more, you're already talking with the right kinds of people, who have the kind of technical skills, people skills, and agility/flexibility because of where they are in their career, what they're currently doing, and their performance record.

And another thing to think about - while testing may find out a person's potential or behavioural disposition to certain situations, it doesn't guarantee that that person will be successful at the job and stay with the company over other recruiting methods. Why? Because the success and productivity of that person results from a relationship - between the employee and employer. Between colleagues and team members. Investing in good people and retaining good people needs constant work on the employers part - not just at the beginning.

Lou Adler on Hiring Mistakes

*This was originally posted on the AsiaPacificHeadhunter blog last year.*

Recruiting veteran and expert Lou Adler wrote an insightful article: How to Stop Making Dumb Hiring Mistakes. He points to last month’s issue of Harvard Business Review which focused on improving the decision making process. From the HBR, you learn some causes of bad decision-making in hiring:

- Managers who have biases and perceptions who end up not using enough evidence to support their decision

- A consensus that wasn’t derived from true discussion of diverging viewpoints

- Gut decisions made in time of crisis, therefore not all factors were considered carefully

Adler continues to suggest 8 ways to improve a faulty hiring decision-making process by creating a more formal process, where opinions supported by evidence and true discourse on alternate views are key. For those who are involved in any way with hiring decisions, it’s worth a read.

Morgan's new venture in talent management

Link: Warehouse deal a boost for Morgan's new venture - 19 Feb 2007 - Information technology.

Sam Morgan is at it again with startup Sonar6, a web based talent management system which tracks staff performance and potential - they  have just signed on The Warehouse with all 3000 full-time employees as a client. But what I really liked hearing was founder Mike Carden's vision in competing globally by tackling the UK and US markets rather than Australia which so many NZ companies target:

"... at this stage of the business we have to go after the biggest opportunities. Because we are a web-based business there is as much effort required for us to be successful in the UK as in Australia, and the UK is more receptive."

Great to see such kiwi entrepreneurship aiming internationally.

5 Steps to Attracting Top Talent

**This post originally appeared here in The Asia Pacific Headhunter blog last year.**

Your company isn’t only selling services and products to customers. Your company is also selling itself as a GREAT EMPLOYER to prospective employees, in particular, motivated and talented people. The more talented people you have, the more services and products you create and sell to more people. Take Steve Ballmer’s word for it. In the December Business 2.0 article My Golden Rule , which compiled the single most important philosophy for each of 30 business visionaries, the Microsoft CEO chose: Make Hiring a Top Priority. He explained, “You may have a technology or product that gives you an edge, but your people determine whether you develop the next winning technology or product.” I’ll take it a step further – your people market and sell that winning technology – determining whether or not your business grows.

Attracting talented people takes a lot of time and effort. And that’s why so many companies are investing in better HR departments, or outsourcing to third-party recruiting/executive search firms. But there are many fundamental things you can do to position yourself as an attractive employer to top talent.

To take a look at how Google does it, read here. Also check out their recruiting video targeting female engineers from an earlier post.

Certainly, Google has the capital to invest in all these things, so Google aside, what can smaller companies do without spending a huge chunk of their budget? Here are 5 steps to ATTRACT TOP TALENT to join your company.

How to Attract Top Talent:

1) Build your Company Culture

2) Be Employee-Centric as well as customer-centric

3) Have an excellent Onboarding Program for new hires and excellent Review Program for employees

4) Be Transparent and Accessible

5) Be Proactive in Marketing and Recruiting to prospective candidates

Company Culture
Probably the first place to start is to define your company culture. What are the values that you uphold? These values should go across the board, to which every person in every department or position adheres. What is the mission statement of your company? What are the long-term goals that your company is striving for? These goals should be clear for all employees to align the way they work within your company. Listen to Adaptive Path's Janice Fraser's podcast on company culture that I posted earlier.

Employee-Centric
Most companies already focus on the customer. That’s where the revenue comes from, right? Unfortunately, some of those companies seem to set employees aside as a secondary priority to pursue revenue and marketshare. Well, if you don’t focus on your employees, you probably won’t retain many, nor will you get the best results from them – affecting the bottom line in the end. So think about the kind of environment that your company creates. Is it supportive? Do you consider the big problems that your employees face that set them back from doing amazing work? Is the environment flexible enough? Is it structured enough? Is there strong leadership allowing for a give-and-take relationship? Do you allow for employees to give constructive feedback and take it into consideration? Are there clear opportunities for employees to advance or self-improve? Do employees feel energized and motivated?

Did you know that one factor that consistently ranks high for employee dissatisfaction (thus leading to resignation) is poor management? Employees who have a poor relationship with their direct supervisor/manager, or who feel their manager is incompetent, unhelpful or hostile, leave their company sooner rather than later. So it’s essential to focus on a manager’s supervisory role, requiring accountability on their part. Clarity of objectives and targets and fostering an open environment for communication and feedback will help supervisors to maintain a healthy and productive relationship with their subordinates.

Onboarding and Review Programs
In an earlier post, Onboarding: 8 Ways to Get New Hires Onboard, I explained why onboarding is critical in not only retaining your new hires, but also for building your brand of being a great employer for future employees. Word of mouth is very strong – people always talk about their work – especially when they’ve just joined a company. It’s so important to integrate those new employees and get them up to speed and EXCITED about being there.

It’s also important to KEEP them motivated about being there – show them that there’s a clear pathway for growth and development. That’s why a review program is just as important as an onboarding program. You should allow for some kind of structured review with clear benchmarks that takes into account performance based on defined goals/outcomes, as well as feedback from that employee, colleagues and/or managers.

Transparency and Accessibility
Now that you’ve got your defined culture and employee-centric focus fostering productive creativity, you’ve got to let everyone know. How can you be transparent and accessible to others who are interested in you as a possible employer? Open up. Reveal more on your website regarding company culture. Encourage employees to give “testimonials” of their positive experience as a member of your company. Encourage employees (or even better, managers) to maintain blogs about working at the company or in the industry. Encourage or participate in online communities, usergroups, industry associations and forums. Host regular sporting or recreational events for your employees to bring friends to. Not only does this provide a benefit for employees, but it also allows for networking. Many companies sponsor recreational sports teams and host competitions. Get involved with local universities and student groups who will soon graduate and become part of tomorrow’s sought-after workforce.

Proactive Marketing to Candidates
This should really be a whole other post, but I’ll address it quickly here. This goes hand-in-hand with being transparent and accessible. The big key is to always think in this mindset – that you’re not WEEDING out people who want to work for you; you’re trying to ATTRACT people that YOU want to join your company. So when you are actively networking and participating in different events and online communities, or even writing up a job ad, you are always marketing to a targeted audience. Be prepared with your selling points about your company – how does your company benefit people in their pursuit of personal and career growth and success? What does your company stand for? And why is your company the better company to work for over the competition?

While proactive recruiting and executive search are the most effective ways of finding top talent, all these other factors I’ve mentioned are things that a recruiter can’t do for you. In building on your company’s culture, environment and branding as a GREAT EMPLOYER, you can work even more effectively with a recruiter to get those top people you want.