Best HR Practices

• Aliah Wright wrote an article called "Millennials: Bathed to Bits" in the July 2010 edition of SHRM's HR Magazine in which he states, "Old style interviews are out.  Two way dialogues are the way to hire."  If you've not seen this article, be sure to check it out.  Great perspective on a new hire's first three months and a new paradigm for the employee lifecycle.
• Diane Spiegel's posting, "7 Questions You Wouldn't Expect During a Millennial Interview" aligns perfectly with Wright's article. The questions she presents are great examples of a candidate engaging the interviewer in a real dialogue.  Are you ready to answer these questions? 

We just added “Special Projects Consultant” to the “Advisa Hiring Manager” title held by our Dana Harrison. That makes sense for us and our clients because Dana both enjoys and is good at delivering results on “Special Projects”. This work involves evaluating a specific problem within a client; putting forth a solution that they find satisfactory; and finally implementing that solution to the clients’ satisfaction.

Recently, she's partnered with our consultants on “Special Projects” which have included:

· Diagnosing a national organizations’ hiring processes and putting HR best practices into place

· Analyzing and strengthening the employee recruiting process of a multi-national organization and training the revised effort to multiple locations around the world

· Providing coaching for better self-understanding to a group of sales managers to yield stronger teamwork, communication and better performance

· Facilitating the development of a strategic planning approach for the HR function within an organization

Dana has a gift few others have. She can analyze a situation; combine her experience with research and common sense to conceive a plan; and then discuss and finalize it in partnership with the client. Once the plan is agreed to, she then works like crazy to implement it to assure the desired result is accomplished. Our consultant’s know that when Dana is given a “Special Project”, their clients will be happy with the result. And that’s good for everyone.

If you have a “Special Project” – a business or personnel problem you just don’t know how to solve, give us a call. It may be beyond our capabilities (and if it is, we’ll let you know). But there’s also a real good chance that our team's involvement could yield the results you desire.

Last week, I talked about how we altered our mid-year review to have our employees have a larger role in driving the process. It’s gone so well (so far) I thought I’d share a little more.

Historically, our mid-year review went like this. Advisa management would write up a summary of the qualitative aspects of an employees’ performance and use that as a discussion point before going into the quantitative aspects of performance. There, we’d compare performance metrics with results and finally provide competency evaluations. It was a discussion, but it was very much management led and felt very directed and stilted – and ultimately, not very collaborative. 

This year we asked employees to talk with us about 5 questions:

1. What are you most proud of regarding your performance in the first half of the year?

2. What’s been challenging or frustrating?

3. Is there anything Advisa can do to better support you?

4. What are your goals and intentions for the second half of the year?

5. What skills or competencies are you focused on developing? How will you measure your success?

What we’ve discovered in changing the focus of the review from management directed to employee directed is that we’re having conversations about the same topics but in a spirit that is truly collaborative as opposed to directive. That made it easier to explore ideas, problems and most importantly, solutions as partners. The reviews wound up lasting just as long or longer than they had in the past (averaging about 1 ½ hours) but wound up being much more fulfilling for all parties.

Is it time to integrate this HR best practice into your organization too? If you’re interested in finding out more on how you can implement this kind of program combining strategic planning theory and balanced scorecard metrics into a review process, give me a call.

The review system we use within Advisa has been an evolving process.  We try to follow and update best hr practices and use what we learn both internally and with clients.  It only makes sense to practice what we preach.

Here are the highlights of our own evolution.

Shortly after hiring our first employee, I heard a terrific presentation about cascading Key Performance Requirements (KPR’s) to individual employees that were derived from implementing strategic planning.  I used what I’d learned to create balanced scorecard metrics for our people that dovetailed with our plans.  We began having year-end reviews to discuss progress against the measures and what the business could do to help employees accomplish them.  All the numbers were published and managed monthly, but we did a full fledged review at the end of the year.  The process assured that our people knew what they were supposed to be doing, how it was being measured and how what they were doing fit into our strategic planning framework. 

Several years later, I’d read “First Break all the Rules” by Buckingham and Coffman (if you haven’t read it, you should.  It’s a must read business book).  One of the 12 questions listed in the book that research had shown distinguished the best run companies was:  “In the last six months, has someone at work talked to me about my progress”.  It became apparent one review per year wasn’t enough.  We moved to two.  That assured that our people had regular discussions about their progress and how it helped accomplish their goals and the goals of the organization.

When Heather Haas (our COO) came back from an assignment with one of our clients who had adopted a competency model to augment their performance metrics, she had seen the benefits that were derived from the effort.  As a result, we investigated adding competency evaluations to our review process and concluded it would add value to our process.  We now evaluate 7 job-specific competencies as part of each employee’s review.  This addition allowed us to successfully evaluate some of the softer skills that allowed us to dig deeper into a person’s success (or struggles) than what we were able to achieve with KPR’s alone. 

Some of the employee development programs that Heather and Dana Harrison (our Advisa Hiring Manager) have been creating for clients have led us to another tweak of our process that’s beginning with this set of mid-year reviews.  We’ve found that hr best practices show that more commitment is garnered from employees when they help to drive the look and feel of their own goals.  Thus, we’re asking our employees to have a much more active role in providing input, doing their own goal-setting and encouraging management evaluations at mid-year reviews.  The process is just beginning, but so far, it seems to have opened up communications and done a better job of gaining personal commitment to where people are trying to go.

What’s the take-away for you?  Nothing’s ever perfect.  Always evaluate what you’re doing and keep your eyes and ears open to what others are doing and what the research says.  The opportunity to get even better than wherever your performance level is might be just around the corner. 

And, of course don’t be afraid to call us at Advisa if you think we can help you get even closer to perfection.  We probably can. 

• Recruiters don't seem to truly understand the role they are recruiting for or that much detail about the clients needs.
• I am not sure if the post-interview feedback is honest or I don't get feedback at all.
• Most headhunters don't return my calls or acknowledge that I applied for a job.
• As a hiring manager, I hate when recruiters sling resumes at me and don't take the time to understand my needs."
• Dishonesty about a position, company, or the requirements for a role
• Recruiters seem unethical and will do anything to make a placement; their tactics to recruit or develop accounts are dishonest.
• I feel like job postings are not real jobs some time, the Bait and Switch.
• Recruiters are only working for the company and aren't looking out for my best interest through the offer stage.

            

• Each of these individuals specializes in executing searches.  They are highly adept at understanding your company and what you need – your Partner will take great care of you utilizing best hr practices and hiring assessments.
• They instill confidence that a thorough assessment of the candidate pool occurs, and that the process is as efficient as possible.
• If you are a PI® client, your consultant receives communications about the progress of your search. 
• Gina, Sally and Beth are committed to representing you accurately and we will always have your needs and desires at the forefront as we review candidates. 
• Keeping you informed is important to us, so each week you will receive a summary of the search, including the number of applications received, the strength of the candidate pool, and how many candidates are in each process of the screening. 
• T  he ADVISA Hiring Partners are not compensated by commissions.  They work for their clients as if they are on the clients' payroll.  Like all of us, they put pressure on themselves to please our clients, but they don't feel any pressure to submit unqualified candidates.
• The candidates, both successful and unsuccessful are treated professionally, with respect and sensitivity to their personal situations. 

Last Saturday night the band “The Fourth Wall” debuted in a small restaurant / pub in Nashville - four guys who'd been together a couple of weeks who were just looking to have some fun and play some music.  My wife and I and our two eldest sons were there for the performance.  Brandon, our middle son, is the leader and front man for the band.

What got us here is an interesting story.  Brandon moved to Nashville initially because he had a job opportunity that covered two of his secondary areas of interest – theatre and teaching.  Jacob, his older brother, was already employed at the private school doing the hiring and suggested Brandon interview for a part time job in technical theatre.  Brandon liked the idea because if he got the job, he thought he could pursue his primary interest (at the time) – becoming a rock star.  He thought the best track for that would be the open Mic circuit - and Nashville would be an ideal place to start (Nashville’s Bluebird Cafe is one he's played at and perhaps the most famous of them all).  Three years have passed and Brandon’s not only teaching full-time but become head of the arts' department of the school he was brought into.  He’s really enjoying the teaching.  And recently, he started his own open Mic to see where his music would lead.

Personnel selection for “The Fourth Wall” wasn’t what you’d call “best hr practice” or a part of a larger "recruiting strategy".  People who showed up for the open Mic on Wednesday would do their own songs individually and jam together later.  Those that got along, had some talent and were willing to practice a few times for the Saturday Night band gig were in.   Those that failed on any of the qualifications were out.  Brandon sang and played guitar, Neato played the keyboards, Todd drums and George bass.  They’d all had some professional (money making) musical experience, but none had hit the big time.  They got along well enough and figured their joy of music would carry them.

At about 8:15 Saturday night everyone was ready and the music commenced.  I’ve heard many iterations of Brandon’s music, but this was the best I’d heard – a professional band really does make a difference.  The fact that they were having a great time helped too.  The four men were united by the joy of making music together – work satisfaction in action.  The crowd was pleased and the band took both energy and tips from them gratefully.

Time will tell if “The Fourth Wall” lives on or not.  If nothing else, it was a Saturday night of fun and good music.  That's all the band and crowd wanted - a one night gig and good times. 

I'm not sure Brandon or the band are looking to review their personnel selection or strategic planning systems.  They're not thinking about hiring strategy or the future of the band all that much.  Maybe they'll play again, maybe not.  They're not looking to make a living out of their efforts or turn their band into a business.  They're just having fun and if and when the fun stops, so will they.  It's a different approach than I'd suggest for a business, but for them, for now, why not?

Once or if the band starts thinking about their tomorrow's, Bran and I will probably have a chat. At that point, they may need to be a tad more rigorous in their approach to many of the fundamentals what could become their business - and in that, I could help.  But perhaps, if or when it becomes a business, it will cease to be a fun Saturday night.  That may not be the direction things take.  We'll see what happens...

I've been working with a client this week who started using Preditive Index® in their applicant screening process after ADVISA took them through a custom training program.  Recently, there had been a hiccup and some less than ideal communications around one recent hire, so they were coming back for guidance.  We sorted through the bumps they'd had and here's a truth that emerged:  there are some very delicate aspects of hiring, regardless of if you use personality assessments and which one you might use.

1. When you're doing candidate screening, you have to know what you need and you have to know your deal-breakers, but you also have to know where you have wiggle room.  In other words, you have to apply wisdom. For example, you say you need 10 years experience, but this is actually one you can fudge on when you get somone with 8 years experience with really tremendous work during that time, right?  But you know that someone with only 2 years experience just won't work - deal-breaker.  Same thing if you're using personality assessment: you have to know the critical personality traits you need, and then you have to consider where you have wiggle room.
2. Reprioritizing is a reality.  You can start a search knowing that you want a certain kind of experience, a certain personality, and you're willing to pay a certain amount, but you may have to move around on some or all of those as you look at your candidate pool.  This happens in the hiring process with or without the incorporation of a personality assessment.
3. Hiring decisions and search status should be communicated by Human Resources (or one designated person who's coached on how to do this, if there's no HR).  This helps protect the company against risk and helps provide the best experience for candidates.
4. When you reject a candidate, resist the temptation to explain why.  This really gets hard when a candidate comes asking why they weren't offer a job.  The best answer is always, "Another candidate fit our needs better."  Or, if no one was selected, "We just didn't find the right candidate."  In both cases it's good to add, "You're welcome to apply again in the future."  That's it.

There are multiple products in the marketplace for scripted interviews in which every candidate is asked the exact same questions - the interviewer literally reads the script.

Understandably, HR departments and hiring managers find this to be appealing for candidate screening because it's simple: the script tells everyone involved exactly what to do.  Interview scripts I've seen can also be very comprehensive, or exhaustive, depending on your standpoint. 
 

1. interviewers disengage from thinking and do not ask candidate-specific questions or important follow-up questions;
2. candidates feel “depersonalized” and lose interest in the opportunity.

Is this how you want hiring managers and top candidates feeling?  Would you describe this as best hiring practices? 
 

Consider an alternative: structured interviews. 

Like scripted interviews, structured interviews have a pre-determined format that eliminates haphazard questioning and helps interviewers cover the critical areas and avoid unimportant (or non-compliant) questions. However, structured interviews support customized interview questions for a particular candidate. This customization engages the interviewers more, elicits more meaningful information about the candidate, and provides a better experience for the candidates. 

Here are important elements for a successful structured interview as part of your applicant screening process. 

• Facilitation - Designate someone as the facilitator for the interview.  This is the "ringmaster" who helps to keep the discussion focused and flowing.
• Team - Interview as a team, so that people can take turns listening and thinking, rather than just trying to think of the next question. 
• Deal-breaker list - List the critical qualifications for what someone needs to know and how they need to do their job.
• Interview segments - Rather than a list of questions, take a deal-breaker and consider it to be a segment of the interview where multiple questions are asked around the same factor. For example: With a sales person, explore how strategic they are with selling.  Start with, "I see you exceded goal each of the past 4 years.  Tell us how you did that." Then keep peeling away the onion to get to how they accomplished this (and consider if how they did it fits with your needs). 

If you'd like to learn more about structured inteviews, contact me at ADVISA - we can explore how structured interviews may work for you. 

In his newsletter, recruiting and HR expert Peter Weddle urges employers to consider the importance of “ordinary instants” and their effect on big life decisions - like whether to pursue a particular job. This phrase refers to the thousand of hum-drum, banal instants that make up the typical hiring process – those we don’t even normally think about because they are so ordinary. They are the tiny intersections we have with job candidates from beginning to end like: 

• the tone of the job advertisement
• the hoops we require them to jump through to apply
• our acknowledgement of their application (or lack of acknowledgement)
• the greeting we use when we begin a phone interview
• the communication we use to schedule a face-to-face interview
• the kind of reception we give candidates when they visit.

These ordinary instants exert a far greater impact than their name would suggest, Peter says, for three reasons:

1. The sheer volume of ordinary instants make it likely that they will influence the course of what we do
2. They often lull us into a kind of carelessness that can permit them to fester into their own version of a really BIG problem.
3. The ordinary for one person can be a tipping-point for another.

Here at ADVISA Hiring we agree with Peter’s point and remind our clients to consider "ordinary instants" in their hiring process.  You'll hear us refer to this as the employer's "brand."  It consists of the manner in which employers interact with their job candidates (as well as with with their customers).

What is your employer brand? What does your hiring process say about you? Does it reflect HR best practices? Does it reflect professional courtesy and respect for candidates' time? 

Perseverance in the face of adversity is the first “biz lesson” I highlighted in my earlier blog post on The Beatles. The inspiration for these musings is the audio book on The Beatles by Bob Spitz. Another key lesson with management implications is the change in personnel the band experienced in its early years. 

Most of the early personnel changes that swirled around the core trio of John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison were haphazard events whose only real management implication is that your strategic planning methods have to allow for the unexpected. The group’s first bass guitar player died suddenly in Germany just before a long-running gig. Other players drifted away when the group changed its musical style. The guitarists struggled for some time with no drummer at all then got Pete Best to join them just before their first long-running gig in Hamburg in 1960.

The most-important change had to do with the removal of Pete Best in August, 1962. This was a deliberate decision by Lennon and McCartney to make a change and to then recruit the drummer in another band – Richard Starkey, aka Ringo Starr. Given the pre-post results of the band’s career around the personnel-change milestone it marked the acceleration of the band’s rise to unprecedented heights of musical and cultural significance.

In the Bob Spitz book he identifies Best’s skill as a drummer as a nagging problem that the group failed to deal with for a long time. They went through multiple auditions and Best’s contribution was one weak point holding back acceptance by major record labels. Another interesting question is how Best was viewed by the other band members. Look at this startling picture that includes Best with the three other familiar faces – who is the most attractive? Best was a favorite of the women who loved the band and jealousy may have had as much to do with the decision as drumming talent.  Jealousy can destroy the motivation for teamwork and given the importance of motivation it can lead to terminal dysfunction.

Whether it was a negative impact on teamwork or a skill deficiency – when Starr replaced Best the band began to rocket to stardom – and the management implication is that when you need to make a change, do it!

Of course your "change" in personnel may be to implement an employee development program that will lead to change with the under-performing individual rather than just make a body switch.

Another lesson from this scenario comes in the young men's naivete regarding HR best practices.  Even after his dismissal, the band expected Best to play for several more nights - of course standard separation best practice is to make a clean break when a person is removed - and, predictably, Best didn't show up for those additional performances. 
 

This the second entry of the "Turbocharged Screening & Selection" Series
 

To systematically match people to work in ways that maximize employee productivity and work satisfaction we need a personality assessment tool that can be used in the hiring process. With some personality assessments we can define the behavioral target of an “ideal” performer for any job.

We typically develop this theoretical target based on the Job Description and management judgment. These inputs are converted into the “language” of appropriate personality assessments using  advice on HR best practices provided by either an internal expert (typically HR or OD personnel) or an external consultant.

This “Ideal Personality Target” (IPT) is summarized in a variety of ways, including key behavior characteristics such as:

•      Communication Style

•      Decision-Making Approach

•      Drive for Goal Attainment

•      Team Orientation

•      Sense of Urgency

This clarification of the desired behaviors simplifies future decisions by clarifying exactly what we need – decisions can then be made faster.

Before using this description we must “validate” our target by comparing it to what we see in the personality patterns of our incumbent personnel.  This is the focus of Phase 2 -"Validating the “Ideal Personality Target” with incumbent analysis" which is described in the blog entry below.

It is the beginning of the baseball season, but this isn’t a take-off on Abbott and Costello’s “Who’s on First” routine.  It’s a story about a job search and what are decidedly not HR best practices.

Here’s what happened. 

A friend of mine (let’s call him Brent) asked for some advice.  He’s a mid-level manager within a non-profit with a decidedly “Collegial” culture (that we’ll call NP).  On the one hand, the atmosphere at NP is very open and friendly.  Nothing can be said negatively to anyone about anything – least of all performance – in the carrying out of responsibilities.  If it is, the group disdain of peer pressure is strongly felt.  If an employee can stomach those few people who receive paychecks at NP for little or no effort or output, the environment can be a warm, vibrant community of people who (generally) care.  Needless to say, the lack of performance management or some kind of balanced scorecard metrics become a source of frustration for those concerned about the overall quality of work delivered.  They either accept the culture or they leave.  Brent has chosen to stay.

He described his specific dilemma over the phone.  The director of NP is looking for an assistant manager for a person working underneath Brent.  Because the director wants to interview the most talented people for the job, he’s describing the job to applicants as “Co-manager” to draw their interest.  The reality of the position is that it is an Assistant Manager and that will likely be revealed to the applicants toward the end of the first interview or (potentially) on the second.  Brent raised this disparity to the director.  He dismissed it as inconsequential; something they’d work through.  But, Brent knew the candidates would view it as anything but inconsequential.  He wanted to know what if anything he could do.

I suggested Brent lay out for the director two scenarios.  First, I suggested, just tell him how you would respond to the interview.  Let him know that once you discovered the reality of what you were interviewing for, you’d be polite and understanding, but that you would not be able to trust the organization for deceiving you about the job you were interviewing for and would have a hard time accepting it, even if it was what you were looking for.

Then I suggested Brent advance the name of an NP colleague who is both known for strong assertiveness and their talents at doing their job.  I suggested Brent ask the director, given what they know of the colleague, how that person would respond to the deception and what the implication of the deception would do to influence their job choice.  Because the director is decidedly uncomfortable with conflict (as you might guess by reading this), I also suggested Brent raise the question of the likelihood of confrontation with the assertive employee in this scenario.

It’s too soon to know if Brent’s approach will change the direction of NP’s search.  There are several lessons you might learn from the interaction, however.

1.    Honesty is always the best policy.  Deception today yields future trouble tomorrow.  A recruiting strategy that is built on lies won’t be of much help in building an organization.
2.  Employee engagement is reduced where nice trumps performance or truth.  Some kind of balance between results, truth and positive interactions is necessary for work satisfaction to thrive – even in collegial environments. 
3. Even in situations where leadership clearly doesn’t function very well, it makes sense to try to do your best to proactively address actions destined to fail.  Even if you don’t succeed, you have the knowledge that you did your best – and that should at the least make you feel good about your efforts.

If you’re in need of sound business or non-profit advice, please contact me at bwilson@advisausa.com. 

We had our worst year in our 23-year history in 2009.  We were down 18%.  It may surprise you, but we felt pretty good about that.  It seems we outperformed most of our peers and we’ve prepared ourselves to blossom when the economic spring arrives.

Our organizational planning process allowed us to survive the long economic winter reasonably well – we both made a little money and used the downturn and our recruiting strategy to add two very talented people to our team (Dana Harrison and BJ McKay).  Going into this year, our strategic planning approach was to work hard and hope for a flat year – likely, plus or minus 7%. That was where we assumed the last of the winter would leave us.  If the winter ever left us.

Maybe the season is starting to change.  Last month, we performed very well on, what is for us, a key balanced scorecard metric – Net New Business (NNB).  Obviously not a GAAP approved measure.  NNB is simply the difference between the revenue we add and what is cancelled in our 90-day forecast.  In February, our number came close to the levels of the hot times prior to the deep economic cold spell that has engulfed most businesses recently.  We hadn’t seen that for a while.  And March is tracking similarly.

In watching our clients, we see some businesses that are continuing to struggle on what is, for them, a frozen landscape.  But, we also see businesses that are starting to bud – to push optimistically toward the sun.  They’re recognizing that it’s time to invest in those things that we can bring to them:  implementing organizational planning programs, improving their sales performance and instituting HR best practices.  Overall, they're wanting what we deliver:  the organizational confidence that yields sustainable results.

Like the daffodil buds bursting from the ground outside my office window, I think the economic spring may be here.  It’s been a long, cold winter; I’m ready to once again see and smell the flowers.  I’m excited.

Many of my career moves between companies have been aided by contacts I’ve developed through networking.  In my current work, I’ve gained clients through the same method. This process is most effective when you communicate regularly with people you know and actively support their efforts too.

As noted by the author of a recent Ad Age article, it is important to remind ourselves of the “two-way” nature of networking in employee recruiting.

While word-of-mouth connections have been among the best HR practices since people began talking, the power of an individual’s voice has been multiplied by the advent of social networking tools like LinkedIn & Facebook. Your recruiting strategy will benefit by encouraging active networking on sites like this, in addition to traditional face-to-face venues such as community groups and industry associations.

One of the things I enjoy about the networking game is you can get to know people without the pressure of formal candidate assessment procedures. You can only gain this benefit if you’re “in the game” on a regular basis. The hunt for work is an ongoing process that requires your participation.

Huh?  RPO is NOW?!

RPO stands for Recruitment Process Outsourcing - it's taking the standard recruitment/hiring work off your desk and putting it on ours.  And so why is RPO NOW?  RPO began emerging several years ago (we started offering this service nearly 6 years ago, but simply referred to it as Advisa Hiring) and the current workforce and economic situation has made it especially relevant right now. 

When you have RPO help, the RPO provider acts on your behalf in sourcing and screening candidates, only the RPO is not another staff member or an in-house recruiter who is idle (or laid off) when you're not hiring.  The RPO provider can offer the expert best hiring practices guidance and search management that you otherwise might not be able to access.

RPO is not a traditional, retained search recruiter (a.k.a. headhunter) because RPOs work on a flat fee or hourly fee that is not related to the hire's salary.  This means that the RPO works fully for you, the client, not the candidate.


Here are indications that an RPO could be meaningful for your company:

• You have no dedicated HR staff, so no one to dedicate time to hiring and to apply special skills and knowledge to the process.
• You've downsized your HR staff and they're overwhelmed dealing with the daily issues, compliance matters, labor negotiations, etc. that must stay in-house.
• You're ready to start hiring, but no one is in a position to spend time doing so.
• You're going through a growth spurt and need help with hiring, but you don't want to add an employee you won't need in a year.
• You have a history of bad hires.  A fresh, third-party, expert perspective may turn this around.
• You've been casual about hiring, but see the need to be more professional and strategic with it. 
• You've been doing the hiring yourself and you simply must spend time elsewhere.
• You want help with recruiting strategy - spray and pray is not cutting it.