Job Performance

• mid-to high- energy level - I like to multi-task and I'm not the most patient person around
• mid- to high-assertiveness - competitive and achievement-oriented
• high sociability - conversational (surprise, surprise)
• lower accommodating - I won't necessarily follow the group just to get along with others

1. "We educate as much as we evaluate. We realize that throughout the entire recruiting process we must continue to show the value of the opportunity, the potential for personal growth, and future direction of our company.  The candidates are interviewing us as much as we are interviewing them.
   

2. Be honest with the candidates.  We talk about the specifics of the position, the requirements, and what our expectations are for performance.  False expectations on either end will end in disappointment (on either side).

3. If a candidate is not a good fit for the position, we will try to help them network with others that might be a better fit.   We have done this with several individuals and helped them find the right position (with another company)."

I am positively euphoric this week after watching my Butler Bulldogs bring a juicy Final Four bone home to their own backyard! As a member of the very first “Barry’s Bad Dogs” student cheering section more than a decade ago (now known simply as the “Bad Dogs” since Barry Collier is the AD while Brad Stevens has the coaching reins at Butler), it is amazing to realize what my alma mater’s team has accomplished in the last ten years.

There’s a lot of talk about The Butler Way. While it has certainly been defined, anyone familiar with the style of Butler basketball knows that it is a distinct, disciplined, collaborative way of playing the game, grooming the players, and emphasizing athletics and academics. It is a culture in itself.

With any culture, as values are increasingly well defined, individuals involved in the group enjoy a synergy and understand how to work in a way that promotes the most efficiency and success for the group. If an individual’s behavior, skills, cognitive ability and personality are a natural complement to the group culture, he or she is sure to achieve his or her full potential and contribute to the success of the group.

The Bulldogs’ continued effort to recruit players that subscribe to their culture is paying off in a big way. But in your organization, do you have a clear vision of your culture and how it translates into bull’s eye job fit for your employees and future hires? And if you do, great, but how do you then measure and assess an individual’s likelihood of superior job performance? You use employee assessments as part of your talent management process.

Sure, you think you have done a decent job of screening and hiring successful employees without assessments so far. Most of your hires work out, some don’t. I challenge you to think about whether your current caliber of teammates and talent acquisition processes would barely qualify you for the NCAA Tournament; or, would you make it to the Final Four and win the championship in your industry?

To win in your industry by recruiting players with better job fit, contact ExactHire at www.exacthire.com. Go Dawgs!

Libby Sartain, Chief People Officer at Yahoo says that “What makes a great employer brand is how it serves to attract and retain and engage talent.” It seems like we are all trying all sorts of ideas to do just that. Ms. Sartain, along with Mark Schumann, has completed a book entitled, Brand for Talent, a sample of which can be read here.  There were a couple of issues that caught my attention. They were how a talent brand must “be the strategic tool for a company to attract and retain people and survive Social Media.” Connect to article here.

In the book, the authors emphasize that there is a new “consumer of work.” This consumer is what we used to call job seekers. While the leaders of this new shift are members of Generation Y, it can just as easily be those well before Generation Y. It is not as much the age factor that is working here as it is a comfort level with and reliance on technology. These are people who see no reason to shift their reliance on technology when looking for a job. 

If these new “consumers” are not totally engaged in the organization, they will continue to look for opportunities even after they have taken a position with your company.  Their overall job performance will likely suffer if technology isn't central to the duties of the job.  Therefore, it becomes even more important to begin that engagement process at the earliest possible moment à from the time they view your application process(including addressing the social media piece) to how you ask your interview questions to how you onboard them.

This means using HR software as a cornerstone to your recruiting and human capital management processes is critical.  Applicant Tracking Software is the first interaction most of these "consumers" will have with your organization.  You want to utilize a solution that  provides the tools you need to be user friendly, technology savvy, and offers a way to express your company brand effectively.  In addition, the solution must provide multiple ways of using  social media to get your brand and job opportunities visibility in the employment marketplace.  Finally, this applicant tracking software should offer a way to ask those critical interview questions right on the application that can help ensure that a person is going to fit within the culture of your organization. This most definitely contributes in a positive way to ensuring the engagement of these "consumers of work" and their long term commitment to your organization.

Visit our website at www.exacthire.com to learn more about how our applicant tracking solutions can help you better acquire the right consumers of work for your organization.

At ExactHire, we believe that picking the right employee for the right job is the most critical part of the hiring process. Making sure there is a fit can make the difference in whether you keep a customer or not. And, keeping the customers you have and gaining more leads to financial success.   While we all agree with this line of thinking, let me share a story as to how this has been statistically proven to be more than just a theory.  

In 1997, Anthony Rucci, then Chief Administrative Officer at Sears, wanted to test a theory. The theory was that the leading indicators that predict financial performance were employee attitudes and whether customers saw their stores as fun places to shop.

They went to Claes Fornell International Group, an organization made up of

econometric statisticians at the University of Michigan and asked them if they could help prove this theory. CFI took years of data that Sears had collected on customer satisfaction and work-place questionnaires and put it into their causal modeling technique. The result was that the CFI modeling told Sears that two key components, employees’ attitudes about the job and attitudes about the company, predicted their behavior in front of the customer. How employees behaved in front of customers predicted the likelihood of customer retention and customers recommending Sears to others.  In turn, this directly predicted financial performance. 

Here is the real key: They built an “empirical model that says unless you have a trained, literate, motivated, competent work force, and give them decision-making authority, you don't get satisfied customers no matter how good the merchandise is. The right work force creates customer satisfaction, and that produces superior financial performance.” (http://www.cfornell.es/resources/articles/sears.pdf)

Your chances of keeping these most valuable human assets begin with selecting the best ones in the first place. That means using the best applicant tracking tools, assessments for job fit and making the onboarding process as seamless and informative as possible. Visit: www.exacthire.com and learn how we can help you produce superior financial performance.

SHRM did a survey of employees to determine what was important to them. The rating used a 4-point scale to indicate what was “very unimportant” (that’s a 1) to them or “very important” (that’s a 4).

The percentages below indicate how many people gave the item a 4, meaning “very important.”

The 601 full- or part-time employees were randomly selected from a U.S.population.

63%  Job security 
60%  Benefits
57% Compensation/Pay
55% Opportunity to use skills/abilities
54% Feeling safe in the work environment 
52% Relationship with the immediate supervisor 
52% Management recognition of employee job performance
51% Communication between employees and senior management 
50% The work itself
47% Autonomy and independence 
46% Flexibility to balance life and work issues
45% Meaningfulness of job
45% Overall corporate culture 
42% Relationships with co-workers
39% Contribution of work to organization’s business goals
35% Job-specific training
34% Variety of work 
32% Career advancement opportunities 
31% Organization’s commitment to corporate social responsibility 
30% Organization’s commitment to professional development 
29% Paid training and tuition reimbursement programs  
22% Career development opportunities
17% Organization’s commitment to a “green” workplace 

Besides the expected answers that relate to pay and benefits, notice how high the rankings are for how they feel about their job and their supervisors.

The key here is not only hiring people that have Job Fit but also making sure you have the right supervisors in place.

When it comes to Job Fit, Job Performance and feedback for HR Management--we'd like to hear what your issues are.  We would like the opportunity to help you imrprove your organization.  Check us out at www.exacthire.com

Every now and then, a conference turns out to be special – both good content and a good audience coming together to make the time worthwhile. That was certainly true at the recent IAHSA conference. We had a great standing-room-only session, with great, thoughtful remarks with ideas both from me and from the audience.

There were several requests for copies of my presentation, and you can click here for the download. While you’re here on my blog, go ahead and subscribe for more updates!

Again, thank you for your interest, and as an audience, you were the best I've had as a presenter. You made my work easy.  I appreciated the open discussion around challenges in using assessments, applicant tracking, and how to build a high performing culture.

I look forward to being of help in the future!!

So, which HR practices are helpers of lean success?

First is how performance is calculated, communicated and tied to incentives. Too often, staff go home not knowing (or caring) whether or not they accomplished their goals.

Next is team development. An organization that is based on individual performance will struggle to get the team behaviors needed for lean success.

Then, clarify roles and responsibilities.  The job description for a supervisor are different than those of an engineer.

Then, communicate. A lean communication plan must go beyond posters and newsletters into walking the talk and reminding everyone of their success.  When you feel you are over communicating, you have it about right.

Finally, celebrate success.   A lot of repetitive hard work follows.  Before enlightenment, there is chopping wood and carrying water.  After enlightenment, there is still chopping wood and carrying water.  It's an old saying, but it applies.

Over communicate, celebrate, and clarify roles.  Get Human Resources on board, using assessment tools, good HR Management, Human Resources software and a focus on job fit.

Then, and only then, will your Lean initiative survive over time.