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Finding top talent for your business may be a matter of looking more closely at who’s working for you now. Why do so many companies fail to do this?
Routines and established habits of working together can lock in anyone’s perceptions, can’t they? But moving forward into tomorrow is all about questioning current perceptions, taking things apart and putting them together again in new ways. Why not try this with your employee talent pool as well?
For example, Anita is your talented IT project manager. She’s an ace at keeping projects on track and meeting deadlines. That’s what you see and know about her talents. Maybe what you don’t see is that she’s burning out on the project management front, and feeling like she’s overdue for a career change. A little in-depth exploration may reveal that much of her success is due to the fact she has great talents in persuading, developing, and reading people – skills that may be just what you are seeking for that new HR/Recruiting position you are thinking about creating.
Organizations often miss the opportunity in front of them to reevaluate their own employees’ talents on a regular basis, and discover talents already within their ranks. Performance reviews are usually based on today’s job performance, not necessarily on what the employee is capable of performing in the future.
By reassessing your current employees’ talents, you may find you also create new energy throughout your organization. Who wouldn’t want that?
For example, you may find out that Mark doesn’t really have any inherent talent for one of the major tasks in his (overloaded) marketing job description: writing company blog entries. He hates that part of his job, but he’s not complaining because it’s a tight job market these days! However, you discover that Lauren’s talent assesses high in creativity, and she loves to write. So you move that task out of Mark’s job (for which he’s delighted and more productive in his other tasks) and offer it to Lauren (which reignites her, too). Now they’re both reenergized through engaging more of their individual strengths at work.
EXECUTIVE TIP: Consider that you may already have the talents you seek. Consider assessing your employees’ talents and viewing them in a new light for further opportunities and possibilities.
We encourage your participation and comments.
Author: Hiring by Design™– copyright protected worldwide. All rights reserved.
Mentors within your organization have the power to develop or demoralize your talented employees. “Masterful” mentoring is not automatic – it needs planning and skills development.
Mentoring is an interpersonal process through which information and knowledge regarding successful workplace performance are exchanged, usually from an experienced employee (often a manager) to another employee with high potential. The important objective is personal and professional development of the organization’s talent base.
Some people are naturally good at mentoring, but most people need at least some instruction on how to do it. Simple approaches such as “Follow me around – I’ll show you how it’s done,” or, “I’ll tell you step-by-step how to do this job,” are less than effective, and may achieve the opposite objective – demoralization!
Setting expectations and preparing your internal champions for mentoring high potential employees is crucial. Here are some ideas with which to begin:
Define precisely what you want to achieve through an internal mentoring program, and determine how to measure it. Review the results and report on them at regular intervals so your mentoring program maintains its focus and importance throughout the organization. Word spreads fast when programs derail.
Select qualified mentors who demonstrate excellent communication and interpersonal skills. If they have poor skills in these areas, consider offering them coaching before, during and after their mentoring assignments.
Offer orientation sessions for mentors to clarify the mentoring process, and how it differs from “managing” and “coaching.” Consider including exercises, questions and answers, a role play, a quiz and a mentoring handbook.
Build in regular feedback sessions for mentees (those employees receiving the mentoring) to discuss progress with someone other than their mentor. Address any issues promptly.
EXECUTIVE TIP: Review your mentoring program’s effectiveness to date. This important process is a key to building the strength of your talent base. It needs a powerful internal advocate to plan and support its ongoing success.
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A large quantity of undiscovered talent is likely working for you already. Most organizations have neither identified nor accessed the latent talent of loyal employees, leaving creative possibilities untapped.
Much has been written about finding the right talent for the right job, and substantial recruiting effort is validly expended to achieve that perfect match. Yes, that is all well and good. But smart organizations also think about this subject in reverse: find the right JOB for the right TALENT – the talent that is already working for you.
It’s about tapping untapped human potential. It’s about looking for the less than obvious. Bottom line, it’s about recognizing the width and breadth of the talents already at work in your organization’s jobs and creatively leveraging it into new opportunities.
A powerful competitive edge emerges in organizations that have a current knowledge base of their employees’ talents. They benefit from increased agility, an ability to redeploy and reconfigure their workforce as required. They also benefit from increased employee motivation as people feel more valued for the scope of their inherent talents – not just a boxed-in identity based on a “job” definition they perform at the moment.
Building an inventory of employee talents to leverage in changing times provides insurance of flexibility. This can be accomplished through a combination of performance evaluations, internal interest interviews for job openings, and ongoing employee talent assessments. The talent you need to grow your organization may already be within it.
EXECUTIVE TIP: Think outside the box. Create an inventory of your existing talent pool and discover the wide resource of talents already working for you
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Moving your top sales performers into management may require some focused coaching. Their current strengths could become their biggest liabilities.
In his book WHAT GOT YOU HERE WON’T GET YOU THERE, Marshall Goldsmith, one of today’s top corporate coaches, underscores the priority of coaching your best performers to successfully reach the next rung on the ladder. This may at first appear counterintuitive. After all, for example, aren’t your best sales performers the ones least in need of coaching? Actually, Marshall has the best answer here: what makes your top performers very successful in their former jobs may prevent them from succeeding in their next jobs.
A common scenario in many organizations is the promotion of top sales performers to sales managers. Top sales people are not necessarily management-ready. Their sales success is often due to their outstanding competitiveness, individualism, and self sufficiency. When promoted to management, these strengths can quickly become liabilities as their direct reports get trampled under their new manager’s charge for results and recognition!
Of course, top sales performers can become top sales managers – but they need to take a close look at how their strengths will support or hinder their future success. Ideally, they will have an experienced coach at their side to support them in this process. The coach can help them step into the new management role successfully by mapping out a plan with steps including:
Exploring and defining what “success” will look like in their new management job – as opposed to their previous sales job
Mapping out goals to achieve both individually and through direct reports
Working through management scenarios
Debriefing situations and scenarios with them for the first several months, assuring they are headed in the right direction for success
EXECUTIVE TIP: Support your top performers with coaching focused on their continued self development and job success. You will maximize AND retain your best people.
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Your “A” players – your top performing employees – are the mainstay of an organization’s success, and retaining their loyalty is a real priority.
Work ethics and attitudes have changed, giving the most talented employees more power and more choices than ever. Because of this, dissatisfied employee defections to a competing company can result in big financial losses for the organization in terms of lost sales, production, and contacts.
Surprisingly, the main reason top talent leaves one company to work for another is not always because of salary dissatisfaction. Current studies reveal it is often because some aspect of what attracted them to your company initially deteriorated to the point that whatever the new company offers them seems more attractive! And you won’t know it until they’re gone – unless you stay connected.
Problems can be addressed by managers on the lookout for problems large or small. Things that may appear trivial to others, such as conflicting working styles, can cause major breakdowns in communication and result in job dissatisfaction on all sides. When conflicts are left unaddressed to heal on their own, the result may well be unwanted letters of resignation. People’s feelings about such matters, large or small, simply cannot be ignored without consequences.
The rules have changed from yesteryear when employees remained committed to their jobs for a lifetime, and resigned to putting up with daily irritations. Today’s management teams should be vigilant in spotting and resolving dissatisfaction in the workplace before it pushes “A” players out of the game.
EXECUTIVE TIP: Explore ways your organization can promote a culture of teamwork, respect, individual recognition, and a continuous loop of valuable employee feedback.
We encourage your participation and comments.
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Success in today’s work environment depends largely on talented people who are willing to propose creative ideas and take risks. Encouraging and rewarding personal accountability increases their motivation.
Due to the speed with which our workplace continues to change, “Follow the leader!” has taken a back seat to “Try something new!” Dictatorial leadership and micro-management are being shunned by talented people who view multiple career moves as a normal part of working life. Top talent now produces results for leaders who recognize them for their valuable creativity, listen seriously to their suggestions, and hold them personally accountable for results.
More and more people accomplish their jobs through networked teams, creative collaboration, flexible work arrangements, outsourcing contracts, and a “results only” focus – all of which emphasize the prized talent of personal accountability.
A culture of personal accountability instills energy and individual commitment into an organization through valuing top performance. The message is, “YOU matter, and YOU determine your organization’s success. Give us your best effort!” Organizations can encourage a culture of personal accountability in many ways, for example through:
Hiring people who have demonstrated a high level of personal accountability elsewhere. You can achieve this through a combination of effective talent assessments, reference checking, and behavioral interviewing.
Getting to know your people’s unique personal strengths and talents. These are the best indicators of what they will most naturally be personally accountable for achieving. Regularly seeking input, suggestions and commitment from your key people. People who play a role in formulating plans are more committed to achieving the results.
Giving feedback, recognition, and rewards to people who achieve successes. Timely recognition fuels increased personal accountability.
EXECUTIVE TIP: Review how your organization can maximize its culture of personal accountability, creativity, and risk taking to enhance retention of top talent and promote continued success.
We encourage your participation and comments.
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The coaches in your organization take your lead in representing and driving your business culture throughout your talent pool. Are you keeping them informed and accountable?
Corporate coaching, whether delivered by internal or external coaches, is well established as a valuable tool in accelerating talent. But what many leaders overlook is the power of corporate coaching to convey leadership messages that shape and drive business culture. In times of rapid and continuous change, all effective resources that integrate and guide your business forward must be leveraged – including coaches.
Coaches specialize in improving your top talent’s managerial performance and dramatically sharpen natural talents and abilities. They also act as a conduit of your organization’s leadership messages. The combination of credibility and support a coach offers directly to your employees can be highly influential in motivating people to understand, internalize and act on current leadership initiatives.
It is the coach’s job to insure that your talented employees fully understand how the success of your organization is achieved through their unique contributions, and how that success can be maximized. Coaches are also very skilled at discovering the common ties between what the organization AND the individual employees want to achieve. This is why it is essential that leaders begin to leverage the work their coaches can do for them throughout their organization by aligning talented employees with key initiatives.
EXECUTIVE TIP: Assure your organization’s coaches are current with your leadership messages and consistently incorporate them into their work.
We encourage your participation and comments.
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Identifying and developing talented successors you need in place to lead your organization into the future is a top leadership priority. Consider the changes they will face, and what talents they will need to succeed.
No one disputes that the business climate has changed, and that the forecast is for more change. What is regularly disputed is the leadership talent set needed by tomorrow’s organizations. While every organization has unique requirements, you can safely bet that there will be a few KEY talents that will undoubtedly bolster your successors’ success.
Influencing others – People follow leaders who can express themselves clearly and convincingly. Leaders require the ability to get others onboard, enthused, and motivated.
Personal accountability – “Do what I say, not what I do?” Today’s workforce says, “No thanks.” Leaders who openly hold themselves personally accountable are able to gain commitment from top talent, who in turn mirror their behavior.
Self-management – Evidence of a leader’s self-management talents are front and center in every organization, whether they are effective or not. Excellent self-management ability earns respect and sets the pace for all managers.
Goal achievement – This is an obvious key talent, because without consistently reaching goals, leaders just don’t last for long. This talent necessarily includes creative thinking, inspiring teamwork, and tenacity in the face of challenges.
Interpersonal skills – Collaboration with others (leadership teams, employees, customers, the press, etc.) necessitates understanding how to “tune” communications for a variety of ears.
None of the above talents are the sole property of one leadership style. Effective leaders come in all shapes, sizes, and personality styles. What matters is what is right for your organization, and whether your potential successors excel in the key talents needed.
EXECUTIVE TIP: Evaluate potential leadership successors in these key talents, and identify where they may need coaching and development.
We encourage your participation and comments.
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Disengaged employees cost your organization money – but how much, and where does it show? Here are several areas where you can, and should, measure these costs.
Disengaged employees do less work per day; they waste time by procrastinating or griping. An outside firm can survey your workforce, anonymously, to determine the level of engagement. One example: in 2008 Staffing World reported that, on average, American workers wasted 2 hours in each work day. To annualize this, multiply those lost hours by the number of working days in a year (about 200 days). To determine the annual cost, multiply that by the number of employees, times the average hourly wage in your organization. Another approach to this calculation is to determine the wasted fraction of a work day. In the Staffing World report, this would be about 2/8 hours, or about ¼ of the work day. Multiply that by your organization’s annual payroll: was 25% of your payroll wasted last year?
Disengaged employees accomplish less with the opportunities they encounter. It may be most obvious in a sales organization. Will the employee make the extra cold call? Push for a closing date? Check back on customer satisfaction? Disengagement may be as easy to measure as a loss in year to year sales.
Disengaged employees do not initiate or innovate. They become satisfied to do the same old things in the same old ways. This is an obvious problem in a marketing organization, where it is critical to attract new customers by generating new campaigns. But most very successful organizations thrive on employee suggestion programs, where front-line workers contribute to improvements on the assembly line, to innovations in products, or to streamlining processes.
Disengaged employees are more likely to resign or to be terminated. They resign because they hope to have more fulfilling careers elsewhere. They are terminated because their performance did not measure up. What did your organization spend on severance payments last year? Were those disengaged employees? Consider the lost productivity from the time an employee resigns to the time the replacement worker becomes a fully functioning member of the team. Ask your Human Resources department what it costs to recruit, background-check, interview, and finally hire an employee. Then annualize the cost: how many employees were hired last year?
Disengaged employees lead to disengaged customers. Your organization is a rare and endangered species if it does not depend on repeat business. Your organization also benefits from favorable word-of-mouth to attract new customers. Your customers will notice poor or slow service; lack of attention to detail; or anything that says “I don’t care”. Have you lost customers due to intangible issues? Has the number of customer referrals gone down, over the last year? What did that cost your organization?
Now more than ever, organizations should be investing in surveying their employee engagement. Find out why your employees are disengaged. Are they in the wrong job? Are they not sufficiently challenged? What would re-energize them? Find out and do something about it today. The results could re-energize your company's bottom line.
Authors: Tricia Neves and Gary Sorrell – copyright protected worldwide. All rights reserved.
If you have any questions about this article, or about how we can help you with your current hiring needs, contact us today!
We encourage your participation and comments.
Also, please feel free to forward this blog to your friends and colleagues and to come back often.
Get the latest tips, strategies and best practices in leadership, executive coaching, management, recruiting, hiring top talent, retention and other areas critical to your success. Get all this in our FREE monthly publication.
Upon completing a successful selection process, the next challenge a hiring manager will face is finding ways to ensure that all the time, effort, and money spent does not go to waste by having their top talent leave for greener pastures. Below are some of the common retention challenges faced by hiring managers.
Employee disengagement - is one of the challenges facing hiring managers when it comes to the retention of staff. In fact, a Gallup study has shown that as many as 70% of the workforce is disengaged.
Mismanagement – research by Target Training International showed that over 95% of all people stated that they have been mismanaged. As a result, they will attribute their below par performance at certain periods during their employ as having stemmed from this mismanagement. Eventually, those interviewed gave their reasons for leaving the company as being because of one reason: mismanagement.
Beingunclear about job accountabilities - a common reason why people are let go is that there is disagreement at the manager level about what constitutes “superior performance”.
When the individual’s talent is not being applied or when they are not rewarded by the job - are common scenarios which can pose a challenge to successful retention in a company. Both of these issues occur when there is a bad talent/job match and are easily eliminated when the talent of the candidate and the talent requirements of the job are identified, measured and matched appropriately.
Conflict within departments or teams - no matter how talented the team, if the members can't get along and align, the team will not succeed. Occurrences of conflict within a team or between two employees can be avoided completely, or significantly improved when the talents of each individual involved is recognized and understood.
By accurately measuring talent and thereby understanding each individual’s talent, recruiters and hiring managers can tackle the challenges that hinder successful retention in a company. Gallup identified key questions that when answered positively correlate directly to retention.
• Do I know what is expected of me at work?
For a “yes” answer, be sure to inform your staff about what is expected of them at work in the most effective way for their particular style of communication.
• At work, do I have the opportunity to do what I do best everyday?
Give every individual the opportunity to do what they do best at work everyday, based on their particular talent strengths.
• At work, do my opinions count?
Give the individual an opportunity to voice their opinions, while providing them with opportunities for growth based on their particular strengths.
• Does my supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about me as a person?
In order to enable the supervisor to create a powerful working relationship with the individual, ensure that you provide them with key talent information.
We have the tools necessary to accurately measure all of these areas for each candidate, employee, and the requirements of these for the job itself.
Contact us today!
Authors: Tricia Neves and Gary Sorrell – copyright protected worldwide. All rights reserved.
If you have any questions about this article, or about how we can help you with your current hiring needs, contact us today!
We encourage your participation and comments.
Also, please feel free to forward this blog to your friends and colleagues and to come back often.
Get the latest tips, strategies and best practices in leadership, executive coaching, management, recruiting, hiring top talent, retention and other areas critical to your success. Get all this in our FREE monthly publication.
