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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.
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.
Author: Hiring by Design™– copyright protected worldwide. All rights reserved.
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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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 recruiting and hiring top talent, retention, leadership, executive coaching, management and other areas critical to your success. Get all this in our FREE monthly publication.
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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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 recruiting and hiring top talent, retention, leadership, executive coaching, management and other areas critical to your success. Get all this in our FREE monthly publication.
Today’s top talent aims to work for top employers. Feedback from former employees, online blogs about your organization, press articles, tweets – all of these and more contribute to creating your “employer brand.” What’s yours?
Public perception of organizations is greatly impacted today by a tidal wave of online content. Social media has given the microphone to anyone and everyone who has had or wants to have a connection with your organization – favorable, indifferent, unfavorable, or merely imagined.
Now you can be sure that the job candidates you plan to interview have probably already interviewed YOU – online.
The people you most want to work for you are likely the ones who have researched you online and are best informed about your organization. They know how to find out if you have a reputation for producing high quality products and services, follow fair trade policies, pay employees fairly and how much, value diversity, contribute to environmental greening, promote employee wellness, support local community projects, and assure healthy working conditions.
Another source of information about your organization emerges from former employees, who may express details of what it’s like to work inside your organization, day to day. Almost anyone can be reached online, and there are multitudes of industry groups who provide easy-to-access contact points for job interviewers.
Organizations today will do well to remain vigilant about the “word on the street” regarding every facet of their reputation as an employer. As “brand management” applies to products, it now also applies to employers. Your employer brand is a key factor in attracting top talent.
EXECUTIVE TIP: Evaluate your organization’s employer brand today, and consider putting in place a strategy on how to maintain and enhance it on an ongoing basis.
Hiring by Design™ copyright protected worldwide. All rights reserved.
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 recruiting and hiring top talent, retention, leadership, executive coaching, management and other areas critical to your success. Get all this in our FREE monthly publication.
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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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 recruiting and hiring top talent, retention, leadership, executive coaching, management and other areas critical to your success. Get all this in our FREE monthly publication.
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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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 recruiting and hiring top talent, retention, leadership, executive coaching, management and other areas critical to your success. Get all this in our FREE monthly publication.
It’s always a race when it comes to finding top talent before your competition. Inventive online recruitment techniques are fast becoming the industry standard for locating the brightest and the best.
Two words say it all: SOCIAL MEDIA. Twitter, LinkedIn, websites, blogs, and Facebook (among others) are now the contemporary forefront for attracting talented individuals to your organization. A well-placed twitter or LinkedIn post regarding your organization has the potential to “go viral” and bring surprisingly positive results for recruiting. The costs for casting a net using social media are minimal, if you have the right people who can get out the right message in the right way. In short, it also takes talent to operate social media effectively and pull in MORE talent! Beware – an outdated, poorly written piece of social media ad can actually repel candidates.
Social media enables businesses to stay in touch with and remain fresh on the minds of customers and colleagues. Online industry associations and groups provide a wealth of resources for mining specific talent. It is well known that there are tons of passive job seekers who find new positions through referral by someone else in the same industry.
Small businesses leverage social media everyday to compete with big business, getting higher visibility in their industries and competing for the best talent. Everyone can look “bigger” online, and anyone can reach into the talent pool on the other side of the monitor or mobile phone. May the best social media strategy win!
EXECUTIVE TIP: Review your social media strategy, and determine how it can be maximized for top talent recruiting.
We encourage your participation and comments.
Hiring by Design™ copyright protected worldwide. All rights reserved.
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 recruiting and hiring top talent, retention, leadership, executive coaching, management and other areas critical to your success. Get all this in our FREE monthly publication.
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.
Hiring by Design™ copyright protected worldwide. All rights reserved.
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 recruiting and hiring top talent, retention, leadership, executive coaching, management and other areas critical to your success. Get all this in our FREE monthly publication.
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.
Hiring by Design™ copyright protected worldwide. All rights reserved.
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 recruiting and hiring top talent, retention, leadership, executive coaching, management and other areas critical to your success. Get all this in our FREE monthly publication.
