Celebrate the Right Way

Seen this?



 Let this be a lesson in knowing what "success" means before we start a project.  Celebrate to soon, turn your back for a second, take your eye off the critical change management work to pat yourself on the back just once, and it can all fall apart.

Remembering

Pushing the Spectrum (from Seth Godin) makes a subtle but important statement today.  He references how parts of our society has tried to turn fear into hatred.  (He kindly refers to the people as "marketers," which I suppose is technically accurate.  I'd call them something far different.)


There are a lot of blogs, news items and Facebook posts today about what happened nine years ago.  My most vivid memory, aside from the news, was checking my email.  Earlier in the year, we had taken a trip to Germany, and had stayed in small B and Bs the entire time.  That afternoon, I received an email from all five of them, letting us know they were thinking of us and that they hoped we were safe.  These were not long stays, mind you.  Two of them were just overnight.  But it was that outreach and support that I remember most.


In contrast, I still receive mass emails from time to time about boycotting "Arab businesses," about how much everyone in the Middle East wants to destroy us, about how horrific it would be for a religious/community center to be built near ground zero.  Rarely are these well thought out, logical missives about our world.  Instead they propagate hate and fear toward a race of people who, for the most part, want little more than to live in peace, celebrate their faith, raise their children and enjoy each other's company.  


There are extremists in all corners.  Just as most of us, I hope, would not want to be judged based on a "preacher" who slings hate and burns religious books that are different from his own, I hope we have moved past a time when we judge all members of a religion based on the actions of a few extremists.  

HR Tech Conference iPhone App

If you are planning to attend (and by all accounts, you should), and if you have a iProduct of some sort (and statistically, you probably do), you might find this of interest. 

http://www.filecluster.com/iPhone/HR-Technology-2010-31274.html

"This is the version of HR Technology 2010 for iPhone / iPod Touch. This is the official mobile guide app for the 13th Annual HR Technology® Conference & Expo being held at Chicago's McCormick Place, Sept. 29 - Oct. 1, 2010.
The HR Technology® Conference & Expo is the world's leading business conference and expo on every aspect of technology for HR.
This app will enable you to view the full agenda, look up details such as speakers, sessions, and search for exhibitors, sponsors and Expo information. Utilized onsite, this will be a great tool to help you easily get around the conference."




**Disclaimer:  Not my software, haven't yet tested it, can't vouch for performance.  Will update as warranted.**

Lean is Inclusive, not Intrusive.

Recently read an article talking about how HR and Lean can "join forces" to change the world.  The article is good, but I think it propagates a fundamental flaw in our thinking about Lean and anything.  Lean isn't something you do on top of your "day job," it's how you do that job.  The problem with sustaining improvement programs is when comments like "I can't run a project, I'm too busy with my regular work" are encountered without immediately coaching that person on using those Lean tools to accomplish their work in a more efficient way. 

We don't have to "join" Lean and anything.  Lean is a toolbox to help us accomplish our goals.  If it's seen as anything else, it's a failure.

5 Ways to Reduce Waste in Your Recruiting Processes

Talent acquisition is rewarding, but can be a painful process for both the recruiter and the applicant(s).  Here are some suggested methods for cutting waste and improving the overall recruiting process...

1)  Online applications.  Most companies are either in this game or going there, but many that use an application tracking system also have paper applications.  In some cases, they require both.  Not to mention the redundancies of having a CV or resume, then the online application, then the paper application.  Don't waste you applicant's time with rework, and don't waste your own in dealing with reams of unnecessary paper.

2)  Incentives your externals the right way.  The best system I've seen offers their external recruiters a bonus payment if the first candidate they present is hired.  This gives them incentive to really learn the culture and position to give you a great candidate the first time.  If you think of the wasted time and money in looking at multiple candidates, it's a small price to pay.

3) Cut your interview to offer time.  Sometimes the bottlenecks are simple ones to reduce, once you realize that time is not a free resource.  One team I worked with waited until the end of the process (meaning post-acceptance) to perform the background check and drug screening.  It added 5-10 days to the end of the process.  The cost for each round of checks was about $50.  Once I asked them if the position added more than $10 per day of value, it became an easy decision to move it.  Now they perform those checks on the final three candidates just before the last round of interviews.  Results don't come back until after the interviews and (generally) the decision is made, but the delay in getting the offer and acceptance in greatly reduced.

4) Create a pull process in staffing.  Recruiters will tell you there is a limit to how many searches that can do at once before you start to lose quality.  Ten seems to be the average.  If you are using an online talent system, hold the requisitions back until one of the ten they are currently working is closed out.  This also allows you to track your staffing levels and know if you have the right number on the team, too many, or not enough.  Speaking of which...

5)  Centralize your staffing team.  Just like a call center, shared staffing resources allow you to handle the peaks and valleys of demand across your business without over- or under-worked people (as well as often needed fewer recruiters overall).  Rather than have a staffing person for each location/department/business leader, build a central team that can take requests from across the business and triage them for best responses.  Within that team you can still have specialists as needed, but you reduce your risk of losing an expert recruiter because their knowledge can be more easily shared. 

And the unnumbered bonus tip is, of course, get really good at talent retention and development.  It will help keep the recruiting needs to a minimum, which is the best way to reduce the waste in the first place.

Who do you work for?

Working this week on building an employee self service function, we
review how we support someone with no computer or no desire to us one.
The solutions are designed to drive employees to the new site and help
them get to know the interface. As a technology guy, I look forward to
it. But for whom is this solution built?
Our HR leaders will enjoy the lighter transactional burden on their team.
Our finance leaders will appreciate the expected reduction in the
cost of HR overall.
Our IT partners get to build the slick interface and get their data
scrubbed, not to mention some server and software upgrades.
Nowhere in this, though, has the overall employee experience been a
discussion point, beyond some vague chatter around "engagement" and
"empowerment."
This isn't new. Service organizations have been cutting costs for
years now, and the customer experience has taken a back seat. Rather
than following the basic tenants of LSS, such as letting the strategy
pull the projects, or doing real VOC work to see what customers want,
we charge ahead into a world where we are pleased to get through a
transaction on the first try.
HR desperately needs to stay in touch with our only real customer, our
employee population. Keep them happy, and make their lives simple.
It's all they really want. Just ask them.

Why Do We Wander?

At some point in your career (hopefully), you'll get a call from a recruiter for a job that intrigues you.  And you'll listen.

It has little to do with desire to change jobs or engagement.  If you are attractive enough to get a call (and even more, and interview), you're doing something right.  Good work, results, and enough positive press to get attention, even if you generate it yourself.  That generally means the work you are doing is meaningful to you, you are having success at it, and you are being acknowledged for it.

So why do we wander?  Is it that recruiters are so good at their pitch, we have to listen?  Maybe some.  Is it that we are secretly miserable and hoping the next call will ask us to be the new GM of the Padres?  Doubtful.  Are we just too darn polite to hang up the phone?  As likely as anything.

But the reason people listen is because of ego.  It feels good to be wanted.  If feels nice to have someone you don't know call you up and say "I want you on my team!"  Even if you feel engaged and valued in your current job, it's nice to hear it from someone else.

So how do we combat this with our own teams?  An easy answer is to make sure your stars are getting the respect and recognition from someone else besides you.  Another level up is good, but a leader in a different function or location, who has very little contact with them, can make a huge impact just by saying "I've heard about the work you're doing, and it's great!  Glad you are on our side!"

It's ok to let them wander.  Just make sure they are wandering close to home, and they come back at the end.