Recruiting Ninjas: 5 Ways to Build a Niche Network

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Sales and recruiting have a lot in common and I think just about any recruiter out there would agree with that. Given this similarity in function, you can imagine the path to success for both is likely similar. All good salespeople and recruiters know that networking is the key to any long term success.

Successful networking involves repetitive and constant effort. All plants will eventually die if you don’t water them. Just like sales, all recruiting networks will eventually dry up if you don’t nurture them. As a recruiter you most likely already have a technology solution to let you manage job openings and applicants. If not, you need to get one! An applicant tracking system like HireCentric ATS from ExactHire is what you need to track and manage all your leads and applicants resulting from your networking efforts.

Recruiting is a “results-based” endeavor. Meaning, placements and hires are what matter. However, all recruiters know there is a significant amount of activity that goes into it. Since you don’t have unlimited time, you need to make sure your activities are focused on what will get you results and what will help you build your network.

Building a successful network requires focusing and fine tuning your efforts. In order to focus your network efforts you need to pick a niche. If you are hiring software developers, your networking efforts need to focus on those groups, activities and associations. Focus on the following five activities to build your niche network, be more efficient, and reduce your time-to-hire.

Niche Job Boards

Focusing your efforts is critical to getting the best return on your [time] investment. Job boards can take some getting used to and none of them are real easy to post openings on or search for candidates. So how do you make your use of job boards effective? There are a few steps you can take.

First, find a job board that is very specific to the target market for which you are hiring. Do your research on the volume of jobs posted.  If it has a resume database, evaluate the number of resumes it contains. Do some searches for your target candidates. How many are in the system, when were their resumes last updated? These are questions to ask when evaluating the system.

Hint, hint! If you’re an agency recruiter or independent recruiter, look at the companies that are posting jobs on these boards. These are potential leads and you can clearly identify their needs. Use it to your advantage.

Attend Niche Professional Organizations

Building a network must involve–you guessed it–networking. Forget about recruiter networking groups. After all, you aren’t hiring recruiters. Identify networking groups that are associated with your target market. If you are seeking candidates, focus on groups and associations in which they would be involved and attend those events. If you are seeking clients, focus on groups and associations to which those hiring managers [decision makers] would belong.

Hint: Most of those groups will have both potential candidates and clients as members.

Speak at Niche Events

Speaking is always a great way to network with many people at once. It’s also one of the toughest areas to break into and you usually need a network to get started in speaking. That being said, many professional organizations are always looking for speakers at events. As long as you’re competent and you know the material you are presenting, speaking is the best way to get branded an “expert.”

Tailor your message to your audience. You have a captive audience for networking so take advantage of it. This is more than an elevator pitch, it’s a full commercial. Continue the conversation with those who come up to speak with you afterwards. If you’re speaking to potential clients, this is great exposure to your services.

Give Career Advice

Since you are a recruiter you should, by default, be an expert in career advice. Since you live and breathe job placement everyday, you have unique insight into what employers seek, how they make decisions, what candidates want, etc. Share this knowledge and information with both potential clients and candidates.

You should use a variety of mediums to share your knowledge such as blogging, writing articles and short books, speaking (as mentioned above) and volunteering at career centers and workshops. These are all fantastic ways to build your network. Focus your advice on interviewing, resume writing and job searching. You’ll also have the side benefit of getting first glance at potential candidates before they even apply to other jobs.

Know Your Stuff

A recruiter who is competent and credible in the industry in which they recruit will achieve greater levels of success than his peers. Some of the most successful recruiters have actually practiced the trade for which they source candidates. Being able to talk-the-talk and walk-the-walk will not only help you win instant respect from clients, but also from candidates.

Now demonstrate your expertise and knowledge. Seek out any opportunity to write for blogs, submit articles, etc. Sign up for opportunities to be an expert source or reference for different publications at the site Help A Reporter Out (HARO). Brand yourself and your social media presence as an expert in the fields for which you recruit. Actually take the time to learn the jobs of those you are recruiting. Know what goes into their daily activities. Know the good and the bad. Understand the typical struggles. Most importantly know why your candidates typically look for new opportunities.

 

Building a niche network will not only help focus your precious time and efforts on the activities that will actually generate better results for your recruiting efforts, but it will also brand you as a career expert in your area. When you are a defined expert, people will seek you out. In recruiting this means not only will candidates seek you out, but clients will as well.

Want to leverage your recruiting network? See how ExactHire’s Applicant Tracking System can quickly get your postings to the niche job boards you need.

Contact ExactHire

 

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5 Recruitment Tools That Give You the Advantage

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The competition for talent requires organizations and their armies of recruiters to maintain a competitive advantage and a sharp edge when it comes to their recruiting and hiring practices. The modern day recruiter must be proactive, responsive, open-minded, and a little bit competitive. An applicant in your pipeline has also applied to other places so it’s imperative you’re on your game.

There are a number of things that can give an organization and its recruiters a competitive advantage in the gladiatorial arena of today’s hiring environment. Whether you face lack of applicants or lack of qualified applicants makes no difference. The fact is, the best applicants aren’t just dropping on your door-step.

An ace recruiter realizes that speed to hire without jeopardizing the process or quality is critical to winning the recruiting war. You have to be able to attract the best active job seekers to apply and make it as easy as possible for them to do so. Likewise, as a recruiter, you need to be able to sort through those applicants efficiently and recognize the best fit quickly.

Fundamentals of an Advantageous Process

There are some basic considerations when establishing a process aimed at giving you the upper-hand in hiring active candidates. The combination of speed, information requirements, accessibility and recruiter decision making all come into play.

Reducing the complexity of applications is probably one of the most critical aspects of the process. Allowing for a “quick app” collecting the minimum information needed for you as a recruiter to make a “call / no-call” decision is about all you need initially. Making your application mobile friendly is a good first step in this process as it forces you to abbreviate the information you are requesting.

Many times an application process is bogged down with irrelevant and excessive information. This can be a turnoff for some candidates and they may leave the process. There’s nothing more frustrating for an applicant than spending a lot of time on a resume, uploading it to your ATS, only to find out you want them to fill out a digital application as well. Limit the information you need to collect from them to the essential information you need for a “call / no-call.” decision. You will get more applicants!

Mobile friendly application processes will place your opportunities in the hands of more people, literally. If they they can apply with a few taps of the screen and a little bit of initial information (e.g. via Indeed or LinkedIn), you are sure to gain the attention of more people. This also means you can’t purely rely on the artificial intelligence of most applicant tracking systems. AI features are great at flagging applicants, but a human decision is still required.

Gain a Competitive Advantage with These Five Functions

Be sure that the applicant tracking system you select provides for these five key functions, which when leveraged properly, will grant you an extreme competitive advantage.  A system like ExactHire’s HireCentric ATS will provide all these features and more giving you a robust platform with the functionality you need to compete in the recruiting space.

User Interface

As mentioned earlier, the less painful you can make an application process the better. A mobile application is a must and an abbreviated process is critical. You don’t want to lose applicants before they’ve even completed the application. Take a hard look at your ATS of choice. Is it just an infinite amount of text fields requiring manual data entry?

A fast application should provide for the critical information necessary for you to make a “call / no-call” decision. This may include name, phone number, email, current position and brief summary, and any “knock-out” questions you may have. Caveat – make sure knock-out questions are actually relevant and matter.

Social Recruiting

It goes without saying that integration with social media sites is a must for every recruiter. A modern and effective ATS needs to interact and leverage social media. You should be able to push jobs to and share jobs on social media sites. As well as allow current employees to do the same. This allows a more active approach to recruiting rather than relying on the “post-and-pray” method.

Applicant Management

Your applicant tracking system is the heart and sole of your hiring process. If you’re fortunate enough to get high double-digit or even triple-digit applicant counts, you will need an efficient method for keeping them organized.  Top line features allow for the integration of applicant assessments and questionnaires. Your information gathering process should rely on who the applicant is and what they are capable of more so than a labored list of previous jobs, duties and functions. Assessments and questionnaires will provide you with an interactive look at who you’re considering for employment.

Paperless Onboarding

The hiring process doesn’t stop once an offer is made. Your onboarding process is the first impression your new employee will receive from your company. Remember, they have nothing invested yet, so a bad first impression could be the difference between a fully accepted offer and a rejected offer. Allowing for e-forms, digital signatures, video tutorials, etc.; will set you apart from the labored and antiquated new hire paperwork.

Analytics and Sourcing

What good is an ATS without the ability to leverage and mine the data that exists? Continuously improving on your process is sure to improve your speed to hire and attract more of the right applicants. Basic information such as time-to-hire, workflow, interviews, hiring yields among others, should be expected. Advanced information that gives you the ability to more precisely target your most successful applicants is what makes a significant difference.

 

The application process is the first impression an applicant gets of your company. Make it a good one. If you keep these fundamentals in mind and choose an applicant tracking system with some key competitive features, you will surely be on your way for winning the war on applicants. Remember, in today’s labor market, you typically need them more than they need you!

 

Want an advantage? Contact ExactHire to learn how our Applicant Tracking System can give you the edge you need.

Contact ExactHire

 

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7 Signs Your Company Culture is Corrosive

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Should your organization be successful and productive when you consider your products, market outlook and available resources? If your company is not making the headway you’d expect, you could have a silent saboteur–corrosive culture. To see whether your company culture is thriving or diving, here are seven signs that may suggest danger ahead.

1 – Difficulty filling jobs relative to your competitors

Your local competitors are hiring talented employees, so why aren’t you? Toxic company culture may be to blame. Some websites allow potential employees to investigate culture within a company before stepping foot on their first day. Glassdoor, The Undercover Recruiter, and Yelp are just a few that allow job seekers to peer into topics such as a typical day for current employees, the reasoning behind termination, and management review protocol. These options can make it difficult to find a new hire if you have poor reviews. Unfortunately, there is no quick or easy fix for poor reviews’ influence on new or potential hires.

To improve morale and stimulate positive feedback, plan events that encourage a sense of comradery. Another way to woo potential new candidates is to enhance your company’s career page to allow easy, seamless applications.

2 – Frequent short-term turnover

A “there are no problems when things are growing” mindset can be a symptom of a struggling culture when a business is growing rapidly. A few issues could be at play if your company is frequently hiring new people to fill the same positions. Though new hires in new positions can be a positive sign, repetitive single position hires may be a sign of poor pay rates, a lack of excitement or passion for the business, or just a bad employment match for both employee and employer. Address the cause of poor job fit with a planned hiring strategy. The company must decide what it wants in a candidate and seek applicants who display such qualifications and traits.

Fast, uncontrolled growth can lead to “Band-Aid” fixes, as the company tries to solve problems by slapping on short-term solutions. But, by defaulting to the fast fix approach every time, you cut corners and severe issues may emerge later. As a result, short-term turnover could become frequent, causing both wasted resources and time for everyone involved. Also, hastily sourced hires might lose interest in the employer if adequate job expectations are not set or if the employee onboarding process is rocky.

3 – Lack of organizational and individual value alignment

While an employer must understand that individuals on the team each have unique values, it is paramount for organizations to convey and celebrate their own organizational values, too. Without clarity around the behaviors and ideals that drive business objectives, it’s difficult for employees to judge whether their own personal values complement those of the company.

Embed your company values into every aspect of operations so that you hire the right people who will be excited about what you have to offer, and who will strengthen the direction in which you wish to head as an organization. Your team should be a community, and communities are made of single residents, each with their own lives.

4 – An idea-sharing shortage

Are your teammates compelled to share new suggestions? If few people in the office are contributing, it may be a sign there isn’t engaged work going on throughout the day. Not only is a lack of new ideas an obstacle to a healthy organization, but it could signal a major mental absenteeism issue throughout the company. Sure they are coming into work, but are they checking out mentally?

Encourage employees to share and express ideas, whether they are a new hire or veteran within the company. If sharing ideas is viewed negatively within team meetings, candor will become suppressed. Value employee contributions by supporting suggestions to encourage the development of a solid idea pipeline.

5 – Lack of collaboration

If you’ve noticed a work setting full of information silos, then you may have a “me first” mentality on hand. Employees are motivated to hoard information for personal gain, rather than share knowledge to elevate everyone’s productivity. To combat this phenomenon, examine incentives that may motivate selfish behavior. Eliminate those incentives and then design processes to encourage employees to share knowledge, instead.

6 – Little to no participation in culture-related activities

Sometimes people are legitimately busy or unable to make every single potluck. But, if there’s a pattern of spotty attendance at occasions especially designated to be culture-building events, then you have a problem. Lack of interest may be due to poor senior management support, excessive work responsibilities or a disconnect between options and what is actually meaningful to employees. Examine the potential causes and then communicate a new plan of action to employees to stimulate future interest.

7 – Gossip and closed door talks

Discouraging gossip and talk behind closed doors seems like a no-brainer, but it may not be as easy to spot as you may think. If there are cliques or negative rumors around the office, it’s important to address them. Then, spend time contemplating why this type of behavior is occurring. Are some people in the wrong jobs? Are people creating their own reality due to a lack of communication from management?

Model desired behavior and communicate in as transparent a way as possible for your organization, based on its values. To end negative gossip and rumors, speak to the affected parties to mediate a solution.

 

Half the battle of improving work culture is identifying the behaviors and outcomes that flag a problem in the first place. Now that you know what to look out for, partner with senior management to make a plan for change.

 

Company Culture Ebook Download | ExactHire

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A Strengths-Based Culture Drives Performance

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Why are sports analogies commonly found in business? Because nurturing talent in sports is all about finding out what someone is good at and then making them really great at it–strengths-based culture. Coaches rarely focus their effort on developing the weakest part of an athlete’s game or ability. They will always find their best attributes and strengths and apply those–hence the term positional player.

Too often in business we place an individual in a position, give them performance reviews and identify the areas they need to improve on. Then we spend time and money working to improve the individual’s weaknesses while spending no time developing their strengths or placing them in positions that utilize their strengths to the fullest extent possible.

A strengths-based culture is developed by focusing on aligning strengths with requirements. To do this, a company’s talent management strategy must focus on hiring based on strengths, developing those strengths and applying those strengths appropriately. You must also adopt the tools and resources necessary to identify and evaluate those strengths.

Download ExactHire Company Culture E-book

Strengths-based Hiring

The interviewing process needs to be swift, targeted and effective in the limited time you have available. This doesn’t mean sacrificing quality, rather it means being intentional and focused on what you are trying to achieve. The intent of most hiring managers in an interview is to identify if someone is qualified for the position. Qualifications are also considered abilities. So ultimately you want to understand their abilities.

What you don’t want to achieve is a list of all the things a candidate is not good at. Interviews that focus on weaknesses will almost always lead the hiring manager to find reasons not to hire someone. Instead, focus the interview on strengths and then identify how those strengths fit the requirements of the position, or another position. Look for the reasons to hire somebody.

A good method to conduct a strengths-based hiring program is to have a few layers to the process. First, interview for strengths that fit the organization as a whole. Don’t get blinded by the exact requirements of the position they are interviewing for. Second, interview for strengths as they relate to the position. Even then, stay focused on the critical few required for success in the position.

Develop Strengths and Forget about Weaknesses

Don’t fall into the trap, and don’t let your employees fall into the trap, of strictly focusing on improving and developing their weaknesses. Be aware of weaknesses and avoid situations that highlight them. Instead, be keenly tuned in to strengths and actively seek to apply them in various situations.

In, “Strengths Based Leadership,” by Gallup authors Tom Rath and Barry Conchie explain their research that demonstrates effective leaders know their own strengths and invest in the strengths of others. The point being, you can get much further aligning strengths with objectives than you can developing someone’s weaknesses.

Have you ever been in a relationship where you focused on the other person’s faults and forgot about their features? Worse yet, you thought you’d be able to change them. How well did that work out? Investing in strengths is no different.

Develop Roles and Teams Based on Strengths

Your typical job description usually consists of all the things an employee is required to do — known as essential functions. There’s usually some ceremonial skills, education and soft requirements thrown in there, but usually without much thought.

Approach job descriptions from the “one-thirds / two-thirds” perspective. One-third of the job description should be the core essential functions only. The other two-thirds should consist of how success will be measured and the competencies and strengths required to be successful in the position. Evaluate employees and potential employees against these for strength-based placement.

How to Choose an Assessment

There are hundreds of assessments out there to chose from. They range anywhere from full day interactive processes that cost a few thousand dollars to 15 minute survey based assessments that can cost less than $100. After determining your budget and needs, you can begin the hunt for an assessment.

Choose an assessment that allows an employee to self learn such as the Strengthsfinder 2.0. ExactHire offers an array of assessments available to achieve the right job fit.  If you’re making an organization wide push for a strength based culture, utilizing assessments associated with books allows everyone to receive the same information and be speaking the same language. Additionally, these well established assessments typically come with training and development tools.

The downside to online only assessments is that they rarely provide an interactive learning process. A summary will be provided to the respondent, but that is usually it and leaves the employee guessing what the results were. You want to be able to sit down with an employee and be transparent about the results. Highlight their strengths and establish a collaborative plan to apply and develop those strengths.

Things to Remember When Using Assessments

Assessments are a tool in the toolbox. This is very important to remember. You should never use an assessment as the ultimate decision factor in hiring or placement. Think of the decision as a three-legged stool. You need all three legs for the stool to stand.  The assessment is only one of the legs. The other two legs consist of the person’s experience (what they’ve actually accomplished) and their competencies or abilities (what they can actually do). You must bring these three things together and evaluate them against the environment in which the employee will be performing.

Make sure the assessment is applicable to what you are trying to evaluate and achieve. Also, keep the assessment consistent across the organization. Using different brands of assessments for different individuals can be problematic. However, you may need to identify different assessments for different levels within the company, such as leadership assessments for leaders.

If you are able to align your core talent management practices of hiring, training and development, and placement with individual and team strengths you will see much better overall performance. Additionally, employees’ motivation and satisfaction will increase as they will succeed more often, be more engaged in their roles and satisfied with the work they are doing.

 

Looking for tools to improve your employee selection process? Contact ExactHire to learn how our assessment tools can connect the right employee to the right position.

Contact ExactHire

 

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How to Motivate Management to Support Company Culture Improvement

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Hopefully you’ve had the pleasure of working for an employer with a deeply rewarding work culture. One of the reasons you enjoyed the experience probably had something to do with the actual work you accomplished there, but that likely wasn’t the only factor. Or, maybe you long for culture improvements at your existing employer, but struggle to make a business case to senior management to win their support and resources for what can sometimes be deemed as a “fluffy” back-burner endeavor.

However, the impact of corporate culture is anything but fluff. In fact, Lindsay McGregor and Neel Doshi, the authors of Primed to Perform, have repeatedly done work with organizations to quantify the marked impact that company culture has on employee motivation. They’ve based their work on research initially presented by Edward Deci and Richard Ryan a few decades ago, that suggested that there are six primary reasons why people work–three of which are direct motives being related to the work itself, and three of which are indirect since they are not connected to the actual work.

Direct Motives

  • Play – the extent to which you love the work itself
  • Purpose – the extent to which you identify with the impact of your work
  • Potential – the extent to which you stand to gain from the impact of your work

These direct motives tend to increase performance, with those motives being closest to the work itself having the most significant impact (i.e. play is more powerful than purpose, and purpose more powerful than potential).

Indirect Motives

  • Emotional pressure – the extent to which you work to avoid your identity being marred by some external force
  • Economic pressure – the extent to which you work to be rewarded or avoid penalties
  • Inertia – the extent to which you work simply because it’s what you’ve always done and not because you have any other sound reason

Unlike direct motives, indirect ones generally weaken performance. Emotional pressure doesn’t weaken it as much as the subsequent indirect motives because it is still connected to your identity even if it’s not connected to the work itself.

So Why Does This Matter?

Simple. Engaging senior leaders to your company culture improvement cause must start with applying the very same motives that will eventually drive your actual culture improvement efforts–once they’re approved, that is.

Let’s break down six common objections human resource professionals may hear when trying to make a business case for work culture change. Each of these objections will touch on one of the six aforementioned motives. By reframing each objection into an opportunity to maximize a direct motive or minimize an indirect motive, HR professionals stand a much better chance at creating total motivation (ToMo) to convince senior leaders to invest the time and resources necessary to engage employees via culture revolution.

6 Senior Leader Culture Development Excuses

Culture is warm and fuzzy. We have bigger fish to fry.

 

PLAY

Do you sometimes think your company’s owners are singing “Shiny Happy People” by REM when your HR team brings up anything culture-related in conversation? Or, maybe their version is “Shiny Happy HR People.” They’d rather relegate warm and fuzzy culture development to the people who are more likely to enjoy that kind of work. It’s not their idea of play.

Maybe some senior leaders don’t love the work of cultural activity planning themselves, but maybe they do love enabling their department heads to do the work that invigorates them so that they find their own sense of play. Perhaps the owners’ idea of the play motive is entrepreneurial at heart…getting the right people on the team and then giving them the reins to do great things, to experiment and fail, but most importantly to learn what works and what doesn’t.

If this describes your relationship with management, then brainstorm ways in which you can appeal to your company owners’ work passions. That might include an experiment with trying a new, entrepreneurial approach to teaching the workforce how to play the game of business, or using business analytics to find patterns in what has engaged employees in the past.

I don’t understand what good will come from making changes.

 

PURPOSE


The purpose motive highlights whether you personally identify with and are motivated by the outcomes of your own work. If your senior management team is skeptical that anything will materially change as a result of getting new swag for employees and holding a foosball tournament, then I wouldn’t fault them. They may not have experience with knowing what specific impact a focus on culture may have on the organization (and therefore on their identity as the leader of that organization).

Of course the previously mentioned cliche culture activities are not a sound solution to your employee engagement problems. Many other moves may fall short, as well, if you fail to set expectations with ownership about the desired positive outcomes that you hope to realize as a result of any changes. Help them identify with the potential impact of the organization’s focus on culture improvement on others and themselves.

Here are positive outcomes to which businesses often aspire when endeavoring culture evolution:

  • Greater sense of shared purpose (does your work save lives, help people in need, make life more efficient, etc.)
  • Intrinsic motivation (employees are self-directed)
  • Knowledge sharing (no department silos and selfish data hoarding)
  • Momentum for change; enhanced learning leads to richer workforce skills inventory
  • Expanded opportunity for “play” which leads to innovation
  • Better adaptive performance; or, the ability to be flexible with unanticipated demands and not just tied into rigid tactical performance
  • More productivity; higher revenue
  • Healthier workforce; fewer costs related to health insurance and absenteeism
  • Less turnover; faster time to productivity (this outcome alone is very easily quantifiable to the CFO)
  • Wide span of idea sourcing; really good suggestions come from all areas of the organization
  • Increased access to A-player talent when sourcing new hires

Frame your conversation in a way that makes it clear that these positive outcomes will result, in large part, from the owner’s own work to publicly support culture development initiatives.

I fail to see a link between the investment required and a future financial gain.

 

POTENTIAL


To be successful, you must quantify how culture change will move the organization from point A to point B in a financially lucrative way. But how do you quantitatively benchmark culture…that warm and fuzzy, you-have-it-or-you-don’t organizational je ne sais quoi?

The good news is that you can assign a ToMo score to organizations using an analysis of employee responses related to the six work motives. In their consulting work, the authors of Primed to Perform have done this over and over again at many different organizations. And, they found that “in many industries, the most-admired cultures tend to have 15 points higher ToMo than their peers” (e.g. Starbucks, Southwest Airlines, Apple Retail Stores).

The research suggests that a focus on having a positive work culture can materially move the needle and deliver a positive ROI. By sharing examples of these kinds of organizations and painting the picture of the impact your organization might have not just on employees, but also on your industry, potential will become clear to your leadership team.

I don’t think we have a culture problem. / I’m worried we’ll try and fail.

 

EMOTIONAL PRESSURE


It’s not really my thing. I don’t want us (or me) to look dumb. I don’t want to acknowledge the cultural elephant in the room. Reframing excuses that relate to one of the indirect motives can be a bit trickier, but never fear. Any of the aforementioned comments reek of emotional pressure and are understandable, as we’re all human.

To overcome the insecurity that they seem to suggest, don’t just explain the “why” of culture improvement to your senior leaders, but supplement your plan with the “how.” You’ve heard it before: come with a solution, not just a problem. Letting your senior management team know that you’re in it to win it when it comes to improving your work environment alleviates some of the emotional pressure (or burden) they may have been feeling about it themselves all along. Double down by enabling senior leaders (and others) the opportunity to “play” to brainstorm ideas on how the culture change might go down. Acknowledging to others in advance that a change is desired, and that it might not be perfect the first time round, is okay. It’s a step in the right direction.

Additionally, during the brainstorm process make sure that managers’, employees’ and customers’ motivations are aligned to succeed. For example, if customer and management expectations for service involve a customized, hold-my-hand relationship, but customer service representatives are paid based on the number of cases handled, then emotional pressure is sure to weaken organizational performance.

It will cost too much.

 

ECONOMIC PRESSURE


Not every company is going to even come close to Google’s budget for culture. However, every company needs to set aside either some funding and/or employee time to intentionally focus on culture development. Focusing on ToMo score in this scenario is helpful in making an argument in favor of culture change, as well. When you think about companies that are admired for their culture like Southwest and Whole Foods–companies with leading ToMo scores in their industries–you’re also reminded that they’re highly successful.

So then the compelling argument to senior leadership becomes, what’s the opportunity cost of doing nothing? Surely, that type of economic pressure warrants consideration relative to the cost of endeavoring change (given that you’re reading this article). In fact, budgeting for culture and engagement may end up eliminating costs in other areas…areas that may include incentives that are eventually found to create the wrong behaviors that weaken total motivation.

It’s how we’ve always done it.

 

INERTIA


The dreaded inertia might as well be called “insanity” in the context of this conversation. After all, insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result. But inertia is comfortable, familiar, it doesn’t make waves. It’s insidious.

While on its face, this motive seems like the mildest of the three indirect motives, it is the most harmful to total motivation and performance. In fact, it may even be the culture itself…“the way” things get done around your organization.

Tackle this senior leader objection head on with proof that what has always been done no longer (or has never) produced the desired results when it comes to engagement and performance. This may involve an honest look at how your organization stacks up against his competitors in terms of market share, ability to source top talent and length of customer relationships (among other indicators). You may lessen the likelihood of continued inertia by disrupting the status quo with clear suggestions on how opportunities to incorporate play, purpose and potential can be baked into the change process.

 

Convincing senior management to support your company culture improvement endeavors doesn’t have to be a cringe-worthy event. By bearing in mind that the six main reasons people work are the same six reasons your owner works, you can isolate objections and counter with objectives that will both maximize direct motives to support your plan, and minimize indirect motives.

Company Culture Ebook Download | ExactHire

Are Employers Required To Provide Time Off To Vote?

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The U.S. Presidential Election is heating up–honestly, it’s a firestorm already. Tuesday, November 8, 2016 is the culmination of 18 months of primary and general election campaigning. And as with every election, the candidates, political parties, and special interest groups will all be pushing for strong voter turnout as that date nears.

Free, fair, and regular elections are essential for a democracy. To the extent that citizens exercise their right to vote, our democracy will come closer to the ideal of a government governing with the consent of the governed. So while, as a nation of citizens, we will never unanimously agree on who should be elected to government, it’s imperative that barriers to voting be removed wherever possible.

Employers are in a unique position to facilitate voting by their employees. Although polls are open a few hours before and after typical work hours, it’s not always easy for people to make it to the polls. Long commutes, childcare, and “the unexpected” can all become obstacles to voting before and after work. By providing employees with time off to vote during the work day, employers can expand options for employees and build a stronger work culture.

Employer Law On Voting Leave, A Mixed Bag

Currently, there are no federal laws requiring employers to provide time off to vote. However, the majority of states do have laws around employee voting leave. As you can imagine, these laws vary greatly. Here are examples of how state laws can differ:

States Where Employers Are Required To Provide Time Off

  • Some must provide paid time off, but not all
  • Some specify the amount of hours an employer must provide
  • Some require employees to prove an inability to vote outside work hours
  • Some require employees to give notice to employer
  • Some require employees to provide evidence that they did in fact vote
  • Some punish non-compliant employers and/or supervisors with fines
  • All prohibit employers from disciplining, rewarding, or terminating an employee for voting or not voting or for voting a particular way

States Where Employers Are Not Required To Provide Time Off

  • No requirement to provide leave, but voting law prohibits discipline, reward, or termination of an employee for voting or not voting or voting a particular way

Obviously, if you’re an employer who is wrestling with whether or not to offer employees time off for voting, you’ll want to check on the voting laws specific to your state (here’s where you can do that). However! Legal requirements should be the first, but least of your considerations. Employers must also take into account the benefits–outside of avoiding legal fines–of offering voting leave, and the drawbacks–outside of lost productivity–of offering it.

Time Off To Vote?

As mentioned, the right to choose our leaders in free and fair elections is fundamental to our democracy, a right that millions across the world do not enjoy. To not exercise that right by choice is a personal prerogative, but to be hindered by an employer in exercising it–directly or indirectly–can be demotivating and stressful for an individual. “So what?” Says the indifferent, cynical employer.

Well, let’s compare a couple scenarios. Scenario A is what might happen when an employer fails to offer time off to employees for voting. Scenario B is what might happen when they do offer it, and perhaps even encourage it.

Scenario A

Your Employee’s Friend (did vote): Hey Becky, how’s it going? Did you rock the vote yesterday?

Your Employee (didn’t vote, but wanted to): Ehh no. I know I’m awful, Gina. But I was rushed this morning with the kids and I had to work late. Traffic was horrible. And they don’t let you off work to vote. I just couldn’t get away.

Your Employee’s Friend: Damn Becky. That’s crap that they don’t let you leave to vote.

Your Employee: I know, right? I’m going to go overshare about it on Facebook and in the comment section of the local newspaper…maybe Glassdoor if I have time.

Scenario B

Your Employee’s Friend (did vote): Hey Becky, how’s it going? Did you rock the vote yesterday?

Your Employee (left work for an hour to vote):  Hell yeah I rocked it, Gina! We have a voting day party at work. They bring in American flag cupcakes and a cardboard cutout of Uncle Sam. We all leave to vote for an hour in shifts. At the end of the day we set off fireworks in the parking lot.

Your Employee’s Friend: Oh. My. God. Becky. Your voting turnout must be so big! What about employees who don’t want to vote or can’t? Can they participate?

Your Employee: Sure! They can use the time to do whatever they want. Our owner just asks that everyone sticks to the time limit.

Your Employee’s Friend: Your company is awesome! I wish my work was that cool…

Your Employee: Damn Gina! You know we are hiring in HR? You should apply for the job. You’d be a great fit!

Do The Right Thing

While I may have overdramatized the above scenarios–and indulged in one too many oblique references to the early 90’s–the outcomes are not far-fetched. Regardless of what state laws require, employers who proactively provide time off to vote and embrace it as an important part of company culture will strengthen their employer brand in two ways.

First, employee morale will increase thanks to the generous policy and creative celebration. Second, job seekers –especially those likely to be referred by current employees– will be attracted to a fun, unique work culture.

Too often, employers look at the the lost hours or productivity that may come with granting time off to vote. However, if they would take a step back and look at voting leave as an opportunity to bring employees together in a way that is so much bigger than work, then they could very well end up with increased productivity, along with a stronger employer brand.

Plus, in most cases, it’s the right thing to do.

Please note:  The ExactHire team is not legal counsel, and we do not offer legal advice, so any questions regarding your company’s legal requirements to provide voting leave should be discussed with your company’s legal counsel.

Image credit: voting by JustinGrimes (contact)

New Hire Onboarding Success with a SWOT Analysis

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The purpose of a SWOT analysis in the business planning process is to make sure you’ve identified all the possible strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to your business.  Only then can you create a business plan taking into consideration all these aspects and setting your business up for it’s best chance at success.  The new hire onboarding process should be no different.

Some aspects of the SWOT analysis are designed to act upon.  For example, you want to make sure you capitalize on and take advantage of your strengths and seize your opportunities.  Other aspects are for you to be aware of.  You must be aware of your weaknesses and competitors in the market place.

If you really think about it, doing the same type of analysis for a new hire should be no different. To a new employee, changing jobs is a “new business” operating in a new environment with different conditions. Extremely savvy job seekers will do their own SWOT analysis on the company before joining.  Why?  They want to make sure they are setting themselves up for the best chance at success.

Your analysis of your new employee should occur over the course of his/her onboarding and should be a critical part of the employee onboarding process.  Ideally you would have done most of this during the hiring process.  However, it’s not an exact science and you may have missed some items. Hopefully, at a minimum, you determined the new hire should have a seat on the bus.  Now you just need to figure out what that correct seat is.

It’s not uncommon for individuals to be hired for a certain position then find themselves in another. This happens quite frequently in organizations that focus their hiring efforts on the type of person and their strengths and abilities, more so than technical knowledge and experience.  You can only gain this much clearer understanding of the best fit for the individual once she is on board and you have had a chance to analyze her capabilities against various positions.

 

Strengths

 

This is the single most important aspect of an individual’s SWOT.  If you do nothing else, make sure you thoroughly assess strengths and figure out how to apply them appropriately. Getting a new hire aligned with his strengths is the best way to set him up for success in his new role.  

To properly identify strengths, you must allocate the proper time and training.  Just immersing someone in a new role will not yield the results you need to identify his core strengths.  Step one would be to have a simple conversation with the individual and see what he thinks his strengths are.  Consider a tool such as the Clifton StrengthsFinder assessment to assist in this endeavor. Then have him work through various aspects of his role (and other roles if possible) to see where he naturally excels with the least amount of direction.  By doing this, you can identify where his best opportunity for success may be.

 

Weaknesses

 

Awareness of weaknesses will avoid early failure and miss-steps for a new employee.  It is critical that he be given every opportunity to succeed, build confidence in his new role and gain confidence of his coworkers.  This doesn’t mean you don’t want to challenge him, but you want to make sure you are challenging him utilizing his strengths.

Once you’ve identified potential weak points, note them and work to avoid them.  The last thing you want to do is try to change someone or improve his weaknesses.  It’s much easier to focus on the strengths.  There’s also a tough leadership decision in this step of the process.  If it so happens that his weaknesses actually need to be his core strengths for the position, you will have to find this employee another seat on the bus — or another bus.

 

Opportunities

 

This is the fun step.  After your analysis of strengths and weaknesses you should have a pretty good idea of the direction(s) the individual can go within the organization after his onboarding.  These are his opportunities.  By the time you get to this step, the individual has probably started to see his opportunities as well and may have expressed some desire towards those.  

Don’t forget to have this important employee development conversation.  This will likely be the difference maker between an engaged long-term employee or a short-term employee.  Most employees will look for their next opportunity within the organization fairly quickly and if they don’t see one they’ll plan their next move — out of the company.  Your job as a leader is to make sure the opportunities they are seeking within the organization align with their strengths and avoid as many of their weaknesses as possible.

 

Threats

 

Typically addressing threats in a SWOT analysis takes into account competition.  We don’t want to think of competition in terms of an individual’s employment SWOT.  Rather, you want to look at what potential roadblocks stand in the way of his success.  The roadblocks you should try to identify are resource issues, process and procedural issues and potentially other individuals.

Ever wonder why they sweep the ice in front of the stone in Olympic curling?  They are grooming the ice and creating the best possible conditions for the stone to travel further and straighter.  As a leader you must continue to sweep the ice in front of an employee to ensure his optimal onboarding experience and continued success.  What you are doing is eliminating or mitigating the threats you know will stand in the employee’s way.   

 

If you’ve properly integrated a SWOT analysis into the new hire onboarding process you will be setting the stage for initial and continued success for the employee and your team/company.  It takes a little bit of discipline and practice to master, but really isn’t that difficult.  The most difficult part is evolving to the point where you only focus on aligning his strengths within the role, or a different role, and completely avoid any assignments that will draw on his weaknesses.

Done correctly, and applied correctly, a SWOT analysis will ensure a business stays on course, remains competitive in the market and services customers profitably.  This directly correlates with the same success of a new employee, his level of engagement, productivity and length of retention.

Looking for tools to improve your employee onboarding process? Contact ExactHire to learn how our employee onboarding software can automate your new hire paperwork and workflow.

Contact ExactHire

 

How to Turn Pay Secrecy Obstacles Into Pay Transparency Opportunities

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I’ve been thinking about the impact of snap decisions a lot lately. Having just finished the book Blink by Malcolm Gladwell, I have a new interest in the role of the subconscious on action and performance. Gladwell presents mounds of evidence supporting the idea that instinct shouldn’t be discounted relative to more involved decision-making processes. Essentially, gut counts for something.

Just as recently, I learned about the passage of a new employment law in the state of Massachusetts that bans employers from inquiring about an applicant’s salary history prior to offering the individual a job. It is slated to be effective in July of 2018. The intent behind the law is to prevent future pay inequity obstacles for women and minorities, as it makes it impossible for an applicant’s prior history (of being potentially underpaid) to follow them around to future employers. It gave me pause because while, especially as a female with a recruiting/HR background, I have never consciously been a part of a decision to underpay a new hire, what if my peers and I have unintentionally perpetuated pay inequity simply because I’ve been privy to applicants’ salary history in the past? How many times have you had two great final candidates with similar experience, but chose the one that had a history of making less money at previous employers because you could get a great deal on talent?

Reconciling Individual Rights & Employer Interests

It’s an interesting topic because as an HR professional you must act on behalf of the best interests of your employer. Those interests should include what is best for the employer in the long run; not just the short term benefits of a metaphorical fire sale on talent. Massachusetts isn’t alone, as other states have passed similar laws and proposed similar legislation aimed at promoting pay transparency in general. Many hope that these state-championed movements will lend more support to federal action to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act which, in part, makes it illegal for employers to prohibit employees from disclosing their wages to other employees or retaliate against them for doing so. The inability for employees to freely discuss pay information with one another has arguably prevented some individuals from taking advantage of federal protections available under the Equal Pay Act of 1963 and the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 in the past.

This practice of pay secrecy has undoubtedly perpetuated the pay inequity that exists in our country today. According to this Huffington Post article by key representatives of the EEOC:

“Today, 57 percent of women work outside the home, but the typical woman working full-time full-year still makes 21 percent less than the typical man working full-time full-year. And the pay gap is significantly greater for women of color: the typical black non-Hispanic woman made only 60 percent of a typical white non-Hispanic man’s earnings, while the typical Hispanic woman earned only 55 percent.”

Working to Minimize Pay Inequity

Despite the aggregate inequity that exists in pay practices today, there are changes being made that aim to minimize the pay gap:

And while eliminating instances of pay inequity is the right direction in which to head, it doesn’t come without short-term hardship for some employers. Moving from a pay secrecy mindset where the employer often traditionally came out on top, to a pay transparency mode which stands to expose some unsavory disparities, is challenging. However, if organizations approach the process with not only economic and compliance pressure as the motivation, but also a motivation to fulfill a yet unlocked potential in its employees with new opportunities, the process will run more smoothly and be much more sustainable.

In fact, let’s examine some of the obstacles this transition could present to organizations, and reframe each of them to suggest an opportunity that will benefit the employer in the long-term.

 

Obstacle #1 – Compliance burden for multi-state employers

Organizations that have employees in more than one state should be aware of how the law differs across their covered geographic areas. For example, if a company has a plant in Massachusetts then it will have to adjust its existing employment application to ensure that it no longer asks applicants for salary history from previous employers. However, if the same organization has a distribution facility in another state, the same requirement regarding pay history may not apply.

Opportunity – Efficiency through technology

While managing differences between states can be onerous, organizations have an opportunity to embrace an attitude that supports pay equity by adopting the requirements imposed by the strictest state/city in their employment realm for all of their locations. Alternatively, to ease the administrative burden, an employer may partner with an applicant tracking system that allows the employer access to multiple versions of an online job application which can be implemented at the job listing level.

 

Obstacle #2 – Time & money required to get better market pay data

In terms of both the money required to pay fees for compensation software, as well as the investment of time in mining the data to incorporate it into internal pay decisions, being more transparent about pay requires an employer to be solid in how it determines the going rate for different positions.

Opportunity – Develop pay grades that reflect current market pay, among other factors

While creating accurate pay grades isn’t something you whip up in a week, it is an exercise that can be motivating for employees in that it conveys potential to them for growth through a job category and/or into other management positions. Additionally, it gives organizations that may be reluctant to disclose individual pay an opportunity to at least convey ranges of information for each role so that individuals better understand where they stand with regards to their runway for future earnings. It helps your organization more effectively compete for talent by ensuring that you regularly evaluate the system to ensure it is still reflective of market pay.

 

Obstacle #3 – Training staff to have the right expectations about pay differences

When moving away from a culture of pay secrecy, organizations open themselves up to the new-found need to better explain differences in pay across job categories. While much of this may be attributed to market demand for various position types, depending on the organization, a fair amount of internal equity among positions may factor into the organization’s overall valuation for each role. Without a clear purpose or mission, as well as defined values, explaining the motivation for different internal equity factors may be more challenging.

Opportunity – Evaluate the impact of internal equity & reward the most critical players disproportionately

A shift toward the pay transparency side of the spectrum necessitates more work spent on defining the factors that determine individual pay decisions, and especially starting pay for new employees. Use this as an opportunity to explore whether certain job categories merit paying above market based on a potentially disproportionate impact of the department’s work on the organization’s mission/productivity. Additionally, use this exercise as an opportunity to train hiring managers on how to confidently and correctly explain the pay factors to individuals employed with the organization.

The tech company, Buffer, has taken this to one extreme by incorporating a compensation calculator available for public use on their corporate website and publishing the salaries of all of its employees. While this approach isn’t for every corporation, it was an important move for Buffer since one of its core values is to default to transparency. But think about the opportunity this has brought the organization, including the chance for managers to not only explicitly explain pay factors to employees, but to blog about it publicly and contribute to the media exposure that has arguably made Buffer one of the darlings of the corporate culture world. For a less extreme approach, consider the company PayScale, which falls closer to the mid-section of the pay transparency spectrum. It doesn’t share every employee’s individual salary, but rather shares the median salary for each job category.

 

Obstacle #4 – The cost to increase pay for underpaid employees

For employers who are willing to take the proactive plunge toward being more open about pay differences, the cost to actually correct inequity can’t be discounted. So how do you make the most of that exposure and turn a vulnerability into a positive?

Opportunity – Communicate the action taken as a result of the lesson learned

Nobody loves being wrong or having their error paraded about town; however, there’s something to be said for the credibility and goodwill gained from admitting one’s mistake and taking action to ensure that it doesn’t happen again. Take tech software giant, Salesforce, for example. CEO Marc Benioff was approached by two female employees about exploring potential pay gaps between employees of different genders. He didn’t expect to find an issue, but conducted an internal audit that would later find six percent of employees needed a salary adjustment. So, the organization spent three million dollars to eliminate statistically significant differences in pay. While it did cost the company money that probably wasn’t forecasted for that period, it has brought tremendously positive attention because the organization has been so open about it with employees, and has leveraged its actions with media exposure that will undoubtedly help it attract top, diverse talent down the road.

 

Obstacle #5 – It’s just uncomfortable to talk about potential pay differences

Cultural norms may suggest that it’s taboo to talk about what people make, and especially difficult if there’s an unfair disparity between what people who do similar work make. So even if employment law continues to progress to the point that encouraging pay secrecy is completely prohibited, employers and employees may be slow to embrace the concept of openness.

Opportunity – Focus on the “why” behind the transition

Different organizations will adopt varying degrees of transparency when it comes to compensation. While full disclosure may work for companies like Buffer and Whole Foods, a more conservative approach, like disclosing only the factors that contribute to pay decisions, may be more appropriate for others. The common denominator for success, regardless of the approach, seems to be process transparency, or a focus on the “why” according to this Fortune article.

By frequently discussing the reasons behind decisions, the motivation for employees to understand and engage with them improves. Conscientious communication around how pay decisions will help reduce long-term turnover, minimize office politics and support core values (especially if they relate to fairness, trust, respect) is an essential component of a smooth transition toward pay transparency.

 

In addition to the opportunities presented above, employers can capitalize on a commitment to improve communication about pay decisions by emphasizing employees’ total compensation packages. Whereas some organizations may not choose to pay at or above market for salaries for various roles, the relevancy and strength of their benefit offerings may serve as an effective counterbalance. It will be interesting to watch employment law in this area in the coming years, and especially after this year’s presidential election comes to a close.

Employ people in multiple states?

Our HireCentric applicant tracking system can help you manage multiple job application versions.

 

Are You Delivering on Your Employment Brand?

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What is an employment brand? In short, it’s how employees and potential employees view you as an employer. As a business you go through the painstaking process of identifying your ideal customers and what they value, than work tirelessly to deliver. Your employment brand is no different. It is what defines you in the labor market–internal and external. How do you differentiate as an employer and are you actually delivering on that?

The ultimate position for a company to be in is to be perceived by both current and potential employees in a desired manner–your employment brand. An employment brand is not all that different from your company brand. If fact, they should really align with each other. It’s much easier to deliver on your employment brand if it’s aligned with your product or service brand.

Make it Intentional

An intentional employment brand is a well thought out point of view. A point of view in which a company wishes to be viewed and what they want to be known for. It’s easy to dream of yourself as an employer of choice. The question is, can you deliver.

If you don’t intentionally define your employment brand, both your current and prospective employees will define it for you. And they will share their definition of employment brand with their friends, family and network on social media. You may luck out and end up with a positive perception of your brand. Most likely you will end up with a perception that is not desirable.

When striving to differentiate from other employers in the market, it is critical that an employment brand provide for a value proposition. An employment brand needs to address certain questions that every prospective — and current– employee will have. It’s critical that you provide a value proposition.

Why should employees work for you?

What do you provide your employees that they will value? You can’t be everything to everyone so don’t try to be. For example, maybe you are in an industry that routinely has irregular shifts and schedules. You may want to differentiate yourself by working hard to set consistent schedules for your staff. This would be part of your employment brand and value proposition. Employees who value consistent schedules will want to work for you.

What do you want to be known for as an employer?

Within the circles of your ideal employees and industry you want to be known for something as an employer and you need to identify what that is and work to promote that, internally and externally. When you ask people why they like or want to work with you, their answer should match what you want to be known for. If it does, it means you have identified an employment brand that is of value and you are actually delivering on it.

In establishing your employment brand you should have taken into consideration what your ideal employee would look like. Who will fit with your culture, business model, industry needs and the type of work. Who will want to work with you and will excel in the environment you provide?

Assuming you have an established employment brand, you want to make sure that is the actual perception among the workforce. After all, perception is reality. The last thing you want to do is promote an employment brand you can’t deliver on. Just like you wouldn’t give your customers a value proposition you can’t deliver on. You’ll want to test your employment brand from time to time.

There are two areas to focus on to quickly take the temperature of your employment brand. Leverage both the court of public opinion as well as quantifiable data to validate your employment brand. Remember, perception is reality! Use the following techniques to take the pulse of your employment brand.

Read More:  “5 Steps to Assess Employer Brand For Small Biz Owners.“

Conduct Surveys

A great place to start is to conduct surveys with your current employees. Remember those criteria you established to identify your ideal employee? Great–now take those, turn them into a survey and send it out to your employees. Analyze the data and see where you are misaligned.

Focus Groups

This is a great tool to use. Large organizations, especially tech companies, will use focus groups to identify if their products are delivering what customers are seeking. Identify small groups of employees within your company and speak directly with them about certain aspects of employment. You’ll find doing this in a small group setting over coffee or lunch will yield the best results.

Conduct Multi-Rater Feedback Surveys

The number one reason people are unhappy in their jobs is their manager. It is also the leading cause of turnover. You may be providing all the right benefits, working conditions, etc. that you aspire to in your employment brand, but if you have managers not executing accordingly your brand will suffer. Conducting anonymous reviews on your managers by gathering employee feedback will not only identify issues, but give your managers information to learn from.

Review Your Hiring Practices

Do your job ads, sources of applicants and interviewing process target your ideal employees and do they identify fit with your employment brand? If there is misalignment here you will not be hiring the right people and your brand will suffer.

Utilize Public Information

There are a number of free sites out there that allow for you to be able to take the pulse of current, former and prospective employees. Two popular ones are Glassdoor and Indeed. Current and former employees will leave reviews on these sites. Much like you pay attention to reviews from your customers on public sites, pay attention here as well. You can also catch social media and online mentions by setting up Google Alerts using keywords that would tip you off to on-line comments about employment at your company.

Employment brands are only good so long as you can deliver on them. Don’t try to do the “popular” thing if you can’t deliver on it. Don’t try to be Google if you’re not Google. Carve out your own niche, make sure you can deliver on it and test it periodically. Find employees who value your employment brand and fit with it. Take these intentional steps and you will find yourself attracting the right candidates who are delighted to work with you and will refer their friends and family to work with you.

Employment Brand White Paper | ExactHire

Photo Credit: Clem Onojeghuo