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How Motivators Matter – Case 1

HbD — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 20:16:31 +0000

What happens when an individual’s inherent motivators are not matched to the job they’ve been hired to perform? Not a lot. People find it difficult to excel in a job that doesn’t inspire them. Here is a case in point.

Because of downsizing, Doug lost a job he’d held for 6 years as a corporate training manager, and began looking for his next career step. Doug is naturally motivated by a thirst for knowledge. He reads avidly. He is passionately interested in adult learning theories, and leading edge technology for online course delivery. He is a devotee of lifelong learning, adult psychology, change theories, and all subjects concerning human development.

Finally, Doug was hired by a large organization as their new training manager. It appears from his resume and skillful interviewing responses that he has exactly the talent required, and Doug really needs this job.

But Doug ends up leaving his new job after only 8 months. Why? The selection process didn’t compare the job’s motivators to Doug’s motivators! The job is motivated to follow established guidelines and deliver standardized curriculum repeatedly. Doug is motivated by continually trying out new ideas, developing new courses, and experimenting with leading-edge training approaches. The job’s motivators did not match his own, and everyone lost.

At Hiring by Design, we believe the talent companies are seeking needs to be compared with MORE than a resume. Matching the job’s and the candidates’ motivators is essential for successful selection. We’ll take another look at how motivators matter in our next posting.

We encourage your participation and comments.

More than a Resume

HbD — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 03:14:47 +0000

While resumes are one of the first things required to begin the selection process, I believe the talent companies are seeking is not necessarily revealed through excellent writing skills, work experience, and degrees. While all of these factors play a role in finding the right person for the job, sorting by resume and sorting by personal talent AND a resume may well give you different results.

In Hiring by Design’s 13 years in the talent selection business, we have consistently used very effective tools and techniques in addition to resumes to identify the right talent for our clients. This has resulted in successfully pinpointing the right talent to achieve job-specific results, as well as an excellent fit within the company’s culture and the existing employee pool. In order to achieve this, job candidates participate with us in a highly interactive process that measures priority talents for success on a specific job. The result is a QUANTITATIVE COMPARISON of the candidates’ individual talents to a job’s true requirements.

Using tools and techniques to clarify the components of talent, such as key motivators, behavioral style, and orientation to life’s challenges are invaluable additions to a thorough resume review. We find that going through this process assures a higher quality talent match to a specifically defined job.

In my next several postings, we will explore with you the tools and techniques I am referring to, and how they continue to provide Hiring by Design’s clients with invaluable selection criteria. I hope you contribute your viewpoints, too.

We encourage your participation and comments.

Decision Point – Train or Hire?

HbD — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 06:46:38 +0000

If you are planning to fill new jobs in the New Year, you may be contemplating whether to train a current employee or hire a new one. What’s the right move? The answer depends on many factors.

There is not a straightforward answer to “train or hire,” but there are many factors that are worthwhile considering beforehand. Here are some of them that will lead to an objective analysis:

What are the KEY RESULTS which must be achieved in the job? This is the first question I ask my clients when they are seeking to fill a position. Typically, every job has 3-4 essential key results it must achieve (different from a job description). When we understand what those are, we have aimed ourselves in the right direction to identify matching talent. I will write more on the subject of key results in future articles, but call me if you’d like a brief explanation of them now.

What are the MAIN TALENTS needed to achieve the job’s key results? Talents required can be identified in a number of categories including: experience, skills, personal attributes, motivators, behavior, attitudes, and achievements. I recommend separating talents into “trainable” and “non-trainable” categories. It helps further clarify the profile of the person you are seeking for the position.

Who in your organization has demonstrated the MAIN TALENTS identified for this job? What proof do you have of this? Proof may be a combination of performance evaluations, awards and recognition, management feedback, mentor and coach recommendations, talent assessment results, and the person’s own motivation for goal achievement.

If you have no internal candidates who are qualified and available for this position, then at this point you have achieved the beginning of a template for hiring!

I hope this is a helpful beginning process for you in reaching the decision to “train or hire.”

We encourage your participation and comments

Author: Hiring by Design™– copyright protected worldwide. All rights

What Are Your 2011 Talent Priorities

HbD — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 06:44:06 +0000

What ranks highest on your talent priority list for the coming year?

No matter what played out within the talent ranks in your organization in 2010, it is almost at an end. This is the belief we all prefer regarding the YEAR THAT WAS, both in good times and in bad, because it clears the way for a new future. Perhaps it is especially healthy to believe it now, as we are shaking ourselves free of a particularly difficult year for almost everyone.

So what are you going to focus on as you move into 2011? Most of you are probably having that conversation within your management team now, or have had it already. The exercise in this article may help add to your clarity.

Here are some relevant priorities for talent management. I invite you to fill in the list below by distributing 100% of your intended focus among the items as they apply to your goals.

My 2011 Talent Management Priorities:

1. ____% Rebuild, de-stress, and reenergize the workforce

2. ____% Identify and develop new leadership candidates

3. ____% Hire new employees

4. ____% Procure specific talent for launching new products and services

5. ____% Eliminate jobs and put a cap on hiring

6. ____% Focus on performance evaluation systems to identify top vs. low-performing talent

7. ____% Reassess and redefine the talent suite needed in moving our organization forward

8. ____% Review and establish a leadership succession plan

9. ____% Create new incentive programs to retain our top talent

10. ____% Add new online social networking tools for attracting prospective employees

11. ____% Refocus the leadership team on NEW goals and objectives

12. ____% Expand job responsibilities and ask people to produce MORE with the same resources

13. ____% Another priority

14. ____% Another priority

As always, we greatly value your individual participation and comments.

Wishing you a successful 2011.

Author: Hiring by Design™– copyright protected worldwide.

Hiring Priority – Build a Talent Template.

HbD — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 00:35:03 +0000

The job market is slowly opening up. Focus is the byword, however, as you receive tons of replies and resumes to sort through each time you advertise a job opening. Focus where? On the specific talents the job requires, and a talent template to support you in making the right hire the first time.

It’s been challenging for organizations over the past several months as they have tried to balance sustainability with the minimal number of human resources needed. While an economic upturn is greatly welcomed, there is a lot of caution when it comes to hiring on more employees. On the other side, people need work desperately and many are at the point where any job will do. For organizations that assess how costly it is to hire the wrong person, more focus on the right talent for the job has become crucial.

Before hiring take an in-depth look at the jobs in your organization. How have they changed during the recession? How do you want them to change for the future? How will you be certain that you and everyone responsible for hiring are focused on the same priorities in selecting the right talents for the job?

For years I have supported my clients in creating talent templates for their jobs. The end result has been more focus and success in selecting the right hire, the first time. It’s a process that, when you understand how it works, becomes a priority to complete before beginning the hiring process. In short, it includes:

Defining 3-5 key results that they job must achieve for the organization (this is NOT a job description).
Uncovering what underlying talents will be most important in achieving these key results.
Designing a talent template, based on the above, for use throughout the hiring process – including behavioral interview questions to quantify talent matches.

It’s surprising how much you learn about a job by completing this process, and how easy it is to redesign the job to suit today’s needs before you hire.

Are you getting ready to hire? What process do you use in defining the talents your jobs require? I’d like to hear about your own process for hiring success.

We encourage your participation and comments.

Is Your Top Talent Playing Hide and Seek?

HbD — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 23:07:40 +0000

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.

Talent Attraction – How Does Your Company Rank?

HbD — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 20:52:13 +0000

Our worlds – often both personal and business – have encountered the “reset button.” On many fronts, we are standing in the midst of toppled icons, and are facing blank screens. This is a time of opportunities to remodel, redesign, and reboot. So it is with finding top talent.

Online candidate sourcing systems, employment ads, headhunters, employee referrals – all of these previously established means for searching and sourcing top talent continue in use. Meanwhile, top talent has more and more access to a model for personal career building that they did not have access to in the past: ONLINE SOCIAL MEDIA. This model continually reports on your business image and activities. Anyone interested in your company can learn what it’s like to work there through browsing press releases, your company website and blogs, industry blogs, informal tweets, social network sites (e.g. LinkedIn), and decide to connect with you or not through using all the above.

So let’s discuss the starting point. What would lead top talent to want to work for your business? How is this being broadcast through social media today? Here is a brief exercise (below). Out of 100%, rank your business’ percentage attraction for top talent:

OUR BUSINESS ATTRACTS TOP TALENT THROUGH BEING KNOWN FOR:

1. Industry leadership ___%

2. Career development opportunities ___%

3. Ethical management reputation ___%

4. Technological innovation ___%

5. Lucrative compensation ___%

6. Global relevance and travel opportunities ___%

7. Other ___%

Now, search online for evidence of your responses. What did you find? Tell us – how did it match your assumptions?

EXECUTIVE TIP: Ask a qualified outsider to give you feedback on your company’s social media image. Find out what they believe are the main attraction points for top talent.

We encourage your participation and comments.

Dancing with Nexters

HbD — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 02:03:27 +0000

The up and coming “Y” Generation, often referred to as Nexters, comprises a powerhouse of creativity for the workplace. It will pay to learn how to leverage the Nexters’ expansive talents for recharging the world economy – but you may have to adopt some new steps for your own work style routines.

Gen Y – do you work with members of this youthful segment of our population born between 1977-1990? Or are you one of them yourself? Either way, there is a definite need in our workplace today for exceptional talent and there is a LOT of talent to be tapped from the Nexters! Just contemplate a few of their key generational values, how they can energize an organization, and ask yourself how you can facilitate their success to benefit everyone:

NON-TRADITIONALISM. It hasn’t been done that way before? No problem for a Nexter. They move readily beyond tradition, questioning why something new hasn’t been tried before. They may have the right answers – but are you listening?

COLLABORATION. Teamwork is important to Nexters, as long as it doesn’t get in the way of their need for individuality, variety, and a fast pace. Nexters move more quickly than most and don’t like being slowed down. Are you mistaking their fast pace as a signal they don’t want to be part of the team?

INDEPENDENCE. One way Nexters demonstrate this value is through their adeptness with technology. Give them a problem to solve, and they seek alternatives everywhere, at the speed of light! They relish challenges. Are you giving them enough challenges to address independently?

SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY. This generation has developed a keen sense of the consequences of corporate and governmental policies. Listening to their viewpoints on these subjects is important to them, and to your organization because of the undeniable power of social media (the Nexters’ domain) to influence the world. Are you soliciting their viewpoints regularly?

Leveraging the Nexters’ talents will provide a major source of innovation and energy in the international workplace now and in the years ahead. Ignoring them – or worse, misinterpreting their strengths – could lower your organization’s performance.

EXECUTIVE TIP: Discuss this article with your management team. How is your organization working with the generation mix in your workforce – Nexters in particular? Where can you increase your success?

We encourage your participation and comments.

A Talented Recovery

HbD — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 01:25:44 +0000

Signs of optimism are beginning to appear more regularly in our economy. Though we hear the words “slow but steady” in the news, the slight upturn opens the potential for a fresh, new perspective on the subject of talent. Are you planning for a talented recovery yet?

Your organization may have been one of many who released a fair amount of talent from your ranks in order to survive the economic downturn. The employees still at work often are under extreme pressure to perform multiple jobs. Signs of fatigue and disengagement are being reported in survey after survey. One of the latest claims only 52% of employees are satisfied with their jobs and the remainder are not happy at work (Sibson Consulting). This indicates a major adverse effect on employee engagement, which Sibson Consulting defines as: employees knowing what to do and wanting to do it.

But look – the road to economic recovery we’ve been impatiently seeking is starting to take shape on the horizon. What if, in a few months, we are verifiably traveling on that road at a steady speed? Imagine what your organization will need to prepare in order to pick up momentum and accelerate into the future. One item that immediately comes to mind is an engaged workforce – people who know what to do in order to attain organizational success, and are eager to do it.

If the economy were to accelerate rapidly in the next few months, how would your current workforce be able to handle the increased business? Perhaps now is the time to plan your acceleration. Where to start? Begin by assessing your current talent pool’s rate of engagement and identify the gaps that need to be filled in order to support expansion. What other resources, systems, equipment, etc., would you require to dash across the start line?

EXECUTIVE TIP: Review these ideas with your management team. Begin planning your “talented recovery” and get ahead of the curve.

We encourage your participation and comments.

New Seat on the Company Bus

HbD — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 21:53:23 +0000

Not much can beat the excitement of the first day on a new job! While new employees’ enthusiasm is usually high in the first week, the tone of the next several weeks is critical to securing their long term personal commitment to your company. Wait a minute, though – did you complete a quality PRE-BOARDING process? If not, you may lose your new hire at the next bus stop.

Hiring a new employee has always been an important decision, and the current slowdown in 2010’s economy makes it even more important today. Budget boundaries, business forecasts, growth opportunities, and the need for top talent all must come together in the right combination. When the result is a job opening, it draws applicants like bees to honey. After the new seat is filled, both the company and the chosen candidate are excited to begin the onboarding process for successful integration.

Sometimes, though, it’s already too late. That’s usually when an organization has not adequately planned for success BEFORE hiring. In that case, disconnects will be discovered during the crucial onboarding process, and the new hire may not retain his/her motivation to perform.

There is a lot of talk about “onboarding” new employees, and there is no doubt that it is a key strategy for hiring success. But I believe there is a strong case for “pre-boarding” as well. My definition of pre-boarding includes careful preparation and coordination before and during the hiring process. In short, EVERYONE involved in the hiring process needs to be traveling the same route on the bus and giving the new hire the same directions. Pre-boarding means everyone who has contact with the final candidate relays a coordinated view of the job so there are no disconnects afterwards. This is accomplished through assuring common clarity. Each interviewer must have the same directions about job expectations, job description, reporting structure, team connections, coaching and mentoring support, company culture, and a mutual understanding of the subsequent onboarding plan. When quality pre-boarding is achieved, chances of keeping the new hire motivated throughout the onboading process, and beyond, are much higher.

EXECUTIVE TIP: Review how well your organization performs throughout the entire new hire process – from pre-boarding to onboarding. Where can you increase your success?

We encourage your participation and comments.

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