Finding Good Talent: (Series 3) A Messy Candidate Market

A Messy Candidate Market: Many companies not only had to reduce staff in the down economy, they used the down economy to cull the herd of poorly chosen hires so that they could clean up their work force.  The problem is, now that companies are attempting to rebuild, it’s not easy. 

Solutions:

Candidate info online - there are a great deal more resources available to management such as LinkedIn, JigSaw, Facebook, recruiting agencies and simple Google searches that allow companies to search for information on potential new hires to name a few.  LinkedIn itself will show you the electronic resume of a candidate as well as what type of contact they may be interested in.  They may be perfectly content with their job but still interested in hearing about better offers.  Note: this is the same for your employees as well which you should be considering at all times.  See “Competition” below.

Learning from you competition - good managers will figure out what other companies are doing to rebuild their workforce and where they are finding the “good ones”.  If you lose a candidate to your competition, find out why?  Ask them.  Often times they’ll tell you or can direct you to the recruiter that was working with them.  It can be as easy as asking.

Supporting Your Current Workforce – having employees that believe in your company and enjoy the workplace and their career will have your good employees recommending other employees from the same pedigree.  Note: I’ll be adding a blog about Empowering the Culture You Want, covering culture both internally and externally to your business, in the coming weeks and what some really respectable companies and I are working on.

Know what you want – I recently consulted for a CEO whose staff was seeing roughly 20 in person candidate interviews to only 1 hire.  This was for mid level sales people.  This is a flawed process, period.  Many of the CEO’s that I work with know exactly what they want “out” of an employee but don’t know what they want “in” an employee.  There’s a great deal more about retention and employee satisfaction that has to do with the leadership, the mission statement, the culture and the type of work they’re hired for.  Figure out through the interview process how you might better sort through these points.  I can add to this if anyone is interested in hearing how other companies are doing just that.

These perspectives are gained from sitting in the board room.  Note that all views and opinions within these blogs are issues, solutions and general thoughts that C Level executives go through.  Most of the work I do is to sit in external board groups that I monitor and work out solutions on everything from firing negative influences within a corporation to IPOs.

These are just a  few points that I wanted to share with you from conversations in the board room and with C Level executives around the nation.  There are many other details we can get into if anyone has any questions.  Feel free to connect with me on @barretn via twitter or email me if you have any comments, additions or feedback that you'd like me to add in.  I appreciate your interest and time in reading Executive Decisions.

Finding Good Talent: (Series 2) Burn-Out

Burn-Out (2): In 2009, some executives changed their perspectives on what they required of their workforce, and though they chose to do this out of perceived necessity, it was often times to the detriment of the staff that still remained.  Managers in down economies will naturally expect more from their employees.  The staff that was still around were required to wear more hats, gain more skills and work more hours for less money in many cases.  The problem is that perception is always changing, the economy (whether realistically or based upon perception) is settling and the opportunities for reemployment are again increasing as 2011 continues.  Though uncertainty still remains amongst business leaders, the need to adapt and move forward hasn’t changed.

Solutions:

Social Media Fish Bowl - There is a strong movement that Social Media is causing that will push managers and business owners towards investment in the culture of the company and its people.  Good companies are figuring this out.  Some great articles have been put out by key executives including one from Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce.com regarding transparency and the social movement and how it will affect the company’s workforce satisfaction rates like never before. Further review of this under Social Media post coming soon. 

Rebuilding your workforce -  start investing in support staff now.  You were able to temporarily take advantage of giving more responsibility to staff members.  Don’t wait until your employees start listening to the numerous recruiting calls they receive throughout the month simply because they’re tired of the increased hours and you’re not listening. 

Reward good deeds - don’t feel as though patting someone on the back every once in a while is patronizing.  They like it and certainly it’s not above the station of the CEO to do it himself if it’s notable enough and significant enough to the company or that persons position within your organization.  They’ll remember it and tell others about it both inside and outside your organization making your job easier overall.  This may turn your employees into your best recruiters.  Note: sometimes continuous rewards go further emotionally than pay increases.  Depending on the type of work, different incentives work better than others.

Listen and Then Speak – if your staff is complaining about long hours, low pay, or too much work, understand that it took a little while to get there and if they’re speaking about it openly, you’d better believe that they are talking about it online, to their friends and family and other staff members or union reps.  If this isn’t at least addressed verbally (regardless of whether there is a solution or not), they will feel as though you don’t care.  I’ve seen a lot of CEOs that go home and stress out over these issues yet never let anyone else know that they feel anything over the issue.  This only causes resentment.

Bottom line.. don't let these points become issues.  It's really easy to slow down, listen to your staff, see how other companies are rewarding the efforts of your staff, and if you can't figure out the solution, just ask.  There are other companies and leaders out there that are dealing with the same issues or have already overcome those issues.  Use this power, it could just save the life of your company.

These are just a  few points that I wanted to share with you from conversations in the board room and with C Level executives around the nation.  There are many other details we can get into if anyone has any questions.  Feel free to connect with me on @barretn via twitter or email me if you have any comments, additions or feedback that you'd like me to add in.  I appreciate your interest and time in reading Executive Decisions.

Finding Good Talent: (Series 1) Competition

Competition: Hopefully every CEO starts out wanting to do good things with the companies they create or run.  The need for ethical and empowering leadership is greater today than it has ever been.  Keeping good workers is hard and unless your employees believe in the company and its leadership it becomes even harder.  Additionally, with LinkedIn and other social networking sites, your workforce has their resume online and available to your competition full time.  Your competition isn’t just those that directly compete with you.  For example, any time you’re seeking a great VP of Marketing, you’re competing with every other company that is seeking the same regardless of their industry.  In a series of conversations with a Social Networking executive, when a competitive organization was looking to come out with a competitive service, the original Social site paid a developer $1M dollars just to stay with them and not transfer to the new company.  They set policy in place that would offer the same retention package for any Senior Developer that received a legitimate offer from their new competitor.
            Solution:

Retention – there aren’t many examples where any of the executives I work with have to start offering $1M dollar retention packages but there are different degrees of the same problem.  In times of growth or anticipated growth, companies are out there looking for the type of talent that will take them to the next level.  Understand that if you’re not finding ways to acknowledge the efforts of your staff, reward them for going above and beyond the call of duty and finding ways to empower them and make them feel heard, you will lose them. 

Find Employee Strengths – most times, if you or your managing staff hired someone, you liked them for a reason.  If you see them as an asset yet they aren’t reaching their potential, there are plenty of “strengths finder” surveys and exercises that you can take them through so that you can figure out where to move them within your company so that they can better realize their potential as well as stimulate your business and ultimately their happiness.  This will reduce the issue of keeping them on board.

Creative Hours – some companies will give time each month for employees to come up with creative new ideas, new technical code, products, service techniques, etc that they feel will help the company become better.  This can be well worth the time of the company to embrace these techniques and ideas.  Not only does it get the mind of the workers off of mundane tasks for a bit but provides them an opportunity to use their minds and stretch their potential which they like. 

Transparency – this is covered in more detail under the “Social Media” addition to this series but some food for thought, CEOs are getting smarter.  They’re finding out quickly that with the advent of Social Media and the access their staff, competition, and customers have to company data, financials, image and influence poses many potential problems.  If you’re not ready to start embracing a society of openness and honesty as well as allow those that have influence over these details of your company to work with you in a positive fashion, you’ll die from it.  This can be a huge positive tool.  You just have to know how to use it. Your competition will use these tools against you if you don’t get with the program.

Empowering Your Staff – There are plenty of ways to make employees feel as though they have control or influence over the direction of the company.  Many companies provide internal Wikis that allow employees to communicate with each other for the purpose of providing feedback, assisting each other, innovating through shared ideas, and allow them to suggest ways to make the environment, product and service better, as well as predicting future moves by your competition. Note: I can elaborate if anyone chooses on techniques used by other leaders.  A prime example is Dell computers and the techniques they have implemented over the past few years that have created great successes for other companies to follow.

These are just a  few points that I wanted to share with you from conversations in the board room and with C Level executives around the nation.  There are many other details we can get into if anyone has any questions.  Feel free to connect with me on @barretn via twitter or email me if you have any comments, additions or feedback that you'd like me to add in.  I appreciate your interest and time in reading Executive Decisions.