Next Steps in Hiring

It all comes back to marketing.  We are stuck with bad processes, and we are comfortable with that.  Millions are spent on the choice of a name for a product or a company, but one of the most important concepts for our economy - Lean Theory - is saddled with a name that had little thought applied and is now causing problems.  Lots of negative implications, and little upside.

What should the new name be?  If we had a clean sheet of paper and wanted to rename the process of waste reduction and simplification, what would we call it?  I'm spending time today on this little problem - I need 3 people to respond to this with one idea each of a better name. 

If we rename it, and it is more effective, it will be worth it.  Time to quote Shakespeare...

Juliet:
"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet."

Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2)

These are times that get irritating when all of the pressures start to mount.  Our personal reserves vanish when we are under stress,  and now we are all poster children for acting snippy and crabby.

We all need to get the answer, and fast.  That's where Lean comes in. The whole point with Lean is making things simple, eliminating waste and getting better results, fast.  That is exactly what we all want, yet we often just add another layer of stuff on the top of a pile of earlier stuff.  Over time, it all just collapses from it's own weight.

In all of the work I do, I seldom see people who are willing to go back to a clean sheet of paper and start fresh.  The joy of Lean is looking at the pile of stuff that has built up over the years, and getting rid of the pile and doing it right for right now.

Let me repeat that - doing it right, for right now.

We need new answers and the questions are getting tricky.

Who has 'em?  Try the Lean Blog.  Better yet, read the entry on Why Lean Hates HR

My vision of the future is simple - back to basics in our organizations and families, our diets, and our life.  In the work I do in assessments and applicant tracking, I get a chance to change the world of the organizations in my life, which is truly wonderful. 

Beyond my family, my other passion is getting a new way of thinking into the organizations on this world.  If we make things simpler and better, good will come from it.

So, a question.  What will you change first?  I will be keeping you in the loop...

We need to adopt a better phrase than "Lean HR"

It's all in the packaging.  We are very sensitive to the words behind a concept.  Would you go to a marketing firm named "Red F"?  Ick.  Yet, they exist.  Click here to see how proud they are of their name. 

Years ago, RCA came up with a very expensive set of component electronics they named (at great expense) Dimensia.   It failed to get market share - somehow sounding like a psychological diagnosis was not helpful.

Which brings me back to Lean HR.  In the work that I do simplifying the hiring process, I am often frustrated by the concern that flickers across employee faces when the term Lean is mentioned.  This has gotten worse as the employment marketplace has gotten worse.

If I'm working on job fit or pre-hire assessments, fine.  But if I start talking Lean Theory, their imaginations jump into the "worry about my job" column and the project gets slowed down.  Making matters worse, there are times that when Lean works and the process becomes more efficient, there are extra workers that can be reassigned. 

Anyway, the purpose of my rant is to ask the community for a better term for Lean HR...what do YOU use?  What should we use?

In the work I do with Applicant Tracking and Assessments, I am in the front lines of Human Resources.

Sometimes it takes a surprise to cut through the fog.  Rather than words, a plant can speak volumes.  A dead plant can be better.

I am in a borrowed office.  Rummaging for copier paper, I found a mummified office plant that had died of thirst years ago.  It was big.  It was brown.  It was very dead.

Just as I found it, one of our clients was on the phone talking about how her employees were griping about the reduction in benefits that was happening because of the economy.  She loves our assessments and our applicant system, but has to cut back on some of the "perks" that people have grown accustomed to.

Rather than giving logical answers to the employees, I reccomend that she replace all of the greenery and cheerful flowers in her office with dessicated, dusty relics of plants that have met an untimely end.

That way, when someone comes to complain, they can be met with a shrug and a gesture to a very tangible reminder that things are different, and could be far worse...

I am not a very cynical person.  I really have a green thumb.  Just let me know if you would like my plant.  I'd be happy to deliver....

or, buy an applicant management system or some assessment tools, and I'll throw the plant in for free!

I'm personally sick and tired of headlines bemoaning the general gloomy economic outlook. What to do?  Simple.  Get back to basics.

We need to adhere to the fundamentals of life/business/etc.  Fundamentals begin with values (i.e. what is important to us?).  Values are the core of our being. They are what drives our behavior. If we don't know what is important to us and/or our business, then how are we going to survive?

The challenge is to identify our values (i.e. integrity, service, passion, harmony) and live by them.  Look for new employees that are in alignment with them.  Build an applicant tracking system that asks about values and attitudes.  Have pre-hire assessments measure values, not just skills and behaviors.  Have a Lean HR focus, so that high performers see a performance management system that works, and is fair and consistent.

Doing so will allow us to thrive in good times and bad.  And that will make all the difference.

Whoo, man.  The flood is coming.

First, let me stress that the more than 90 out of 100 people who want to work in this country are working.  Second, most organizations are surviving, and will make it into 2010 with their businesses intact.

That said, the flood is coming.  I just read the Bureau of Labor Statistics report on the subject, and it isn't pretty.  You can read it here.

"Among the unemployed, the number of job losers and persons who completed tem-
porary jobs increased by 547,000 to 8.2 million in March.  This group has nearly 
doubled in size over the past 12 months."  Yikes.

So...what?  It means that the businesses that are hiring are going to get flooded with applicants, and at a time when HR departments are slammed with too much compliance, employee relations and harassment stuff.  It means the hiring processes will be quickly overwhelmed, and two things will probably happen.

1 - The best candidates will be drowned in the clutter of all of the volume.  Lots of lost opportunities from hiring the first one that fits, rather than the best.

2 - The ability for people who are not a fit to sneak through and get hired is up - because the time to do a good screening job just isn't there.  If HR is overwhelmed and understaffed, then bad decisions can sneak through.

What to do?  Leverage your technology and raise the standards.  Implement a well-thought out talent acquisition strategy, use pre-employment assessments, and focus on metrics that indicate job fit.   Then you will have a process that supports good HR and can drive employee engagement.

Then you have a swimming chance against the coming flood...

I met with some Lean consultants this morning over coffee and eggs.  I opened my half of the conversation with the thought that, if a Lean initiative fails, the blame generally falls on the Human Resources.  They both blinked, thought, and agreed.  Conversely, HR can make a significant contribution to lean success.  Lean works if the people are aligned with the processes.

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.

I presented this morning on Employee Engagement to a great group of HR professionals.  The coffee was fresh, the coffee cake was tasty, and the issues were predictable.

"What metrics really work in today's business environment?"

We worked through what metrics they were using, and got into what metrics they SHOULD be using, and ended on how to measure and project the impact of good employee engagement.  We talked about Lean HR, about applicant tracking, and HR services that are aligned with the organization's vision.  All good.

As I drove away, I reflected on the wish of everyone in the room for a "silver bullet" that would fix tough employee relations issues and solve the talent management problems of the future. 

There is a great first step.  Train all of your managers in the skill of active listening.  If the managers start to listen better to their staff (or at least appear to) and if they can know more about their staff through the use of valid assessment tools, then the staff will feel well-managed and deliver the goods.  Whatever the goods are.

So, there you have it.  As an extrovert who does not like to listen, this is tough advice.  Just listen to it...the answer is out there.

Just saw some scary data from a global Engagement consultant.  There were several data points that predict either pain or opportunity, depending on your actions during the slowdown.

Scary things -

The percentage of highly disengaged employees has increased by more than 25% since 2007.  These are "hostile passengers" that are actively hurting you in productivity levels and quality, all of which translate to numbers that matter.

The decline in overall productivity is huge - 3 to 5 percent. 

There is a second "time bomb" with this.  The disengaged are itching to leave - and will leave when the economy starts picking up...which is exactly when you will want them as high performing employees.

The moral is simple.  Get your talent acquisition in place before the green flag is waved.  Use employee assessments to better manage the staff, and use fair and consistent methods, as a part of a Lean HR system, to keep the good ones engaged.

Then, engagement will work for you...and be a competitive advantage.

I was reading a resume for a client last week, and hit a phrase I had not seen before - "top to top selling".  Since I work in sales, I "got it", but others might not.  I realize that there have been several new words cropping up that were not there before...

Joining the Twitterverse
A "torch and pitchfork" group
Nanoblogging
WILB - Workforce Internet Leisure Blogging

...and so on.

Those of us that need to keep up (and we all do...) need a simple resource to look these words up.   That way, our performance management systems and Applicant Tracking Software can be capturing meaningful words, and we can guide better talent management decisions.  If we keep up with the words that are used, we can keep up with the people.

Here is a secret weapon - WordSpy.com.  I love it - you can quickly find out what it REALLY means.  The last one I came across on a tech resume was Ubicomp.  Huh? 

I looked it up.  It is short for ubiquitous computing.  And, now I'm current.  Word.

Working on a Applicant Tracking site this morning for a client, I realized how much I dislike job descriptions.  If the goal of a hiring system is to source and select high performers, job descriptions can work against you.

Top people don't need or want a job description to begin exploring an opportunity with an organization.  With good candidates going online, the objective of a job description should not be to pre-qualify the person, but rather to generate interest in the position and company.

A job description seldom does this.  It's the "buzz" that does - the marketing, the branding, the word on the street.  An opening page summarizing a group of jobs with some facts about the company values and attitudes is a good start. These pages should describe the company culture, the importance of high performing talent in the company, something about career opportunities and a few reasons why these open jobs are important to the company's future. By the way, these statements need to be true.

Once you interest a candidate in a class of jobs and the company, then you can begin a the dance of selecting and screening.  This is where good career personality tests and job performance metrics can come in - and pay off.

On job descriptions - less in the way of task and responsibility lists can produce better hires.  That is, after all, our goal, right?

Things that make you go "Hmmm...."

A call center announced that the planned closing of it's operation in Lafayette, Indiana was NOT going to happen, months after the first announcement.  They were able to make some budget changes and survive with the smaller crew, as 80 of the employees had resigned due to the coming closure.

The chatter at the end of the article was cynical - that this had always been planned, and that the move saved the organization from paying for severance for those 80 that quit.

I take a different view.  My experience has it that the high performers are the first to leave (because they CAN) and that the remaining employees are the mediocre and below, the ones that do not feel that they can get employment elsewhere.

All of these turnover statistics are misleading at a time of great stress (where we are now...) and most employees are hunkered down and biding their time.  When the turnaround comes (which it will) there will be a whole bunch of high quality people moving around.  Will the come to you, or move away?  Will they join you, or leave just when you need them?

That is what you should be working on - an inclusive culture that promotes high performance...

People who are thinking of installing an Applicant Tracking System (ATS)need to step back and think for a second.

An ATS is a system that is built to manage resume flow and gives the recruiters the ability to sort, sift and prioritise candidates on the basis of keyword searches.  Great  technology, perhaps… but built to speed up a flawed process.  The same hiring answer is arrived at, just faster.

What people should want is an Applicant Relationship Management system.   An ATS, if you will, that has ties to social networks and a database of interested people.   It would give the candidates a chance to interact in an uncommitted way with the company – register to get cool stuff and targeted communication – then give them a chance to get interviewed online when they are ready to do so.  Meanwhile, the company learns a huge amount about their various demographic target groups and gets a chance to grow relationships over time.  Then, good human capital management can start happening, with job fit and Lean HR principles in place.

That is when the front part of hiring gets really interesting, and high quality candidates start emerging from the sourcing process.  None of this has ties to the expensive world of the online job boards...which is why it is even more interesting.

Does anyone know of someone already doing this?  Let me know...

 

"The future is already here.  It's just applied unevenly"

Want a competitive advantage in HR?  Categorize your current recruiting efforts into one of these three groups to see your strategic progress versus your competition:

   1. Doing what everyone else is doing.  Safe, incremental changes.  These types of changes are not significant enough to allow an organization to keep up with the rapid changes taking place in the global employment marketplace. If you’re doing what everyone else is doing, you’re falling behind.

   2. Big steps.  Significant changes that take months to implement, such as a major ATS upgrade, rebuilding your career website, adding assessments or systemic training for managers. These are essential if you want to maintain your current position in the marketplace.

   3. Bigger steps.  These are changes and opportunities designed to increase an organization’s market share of top talent. This requires a rethinking of everything currently being done, including an employer re-branding effort and a reorganization of recruiting.

My advice?  While you need to be implementing lots of level 1 changes, you’re not going to see significant improvements unless you move to level 2 and 3, the major steps.  This is where you get real traction. Staying busy in level 1 might seem satisfying, but it won’t get you the competitive edge needed for 2010 and beyond.

Kick it up a notch and get ready for the future.  What are you doing to get ready?

People are under pressure, and wanting simple answers to complex questions.  A silver bullet, if you will.  In the past week, I have received several phone calls from prospects that have bothered me. 

I have set up employee assessment systems in a lot of different situations.  I know the amount of work needed to build a talent acquisition system that produces good job fit.  I have set up the feedback loops that are needed for a good Lean HR system.  All of this makes sense.

The problem often comes from the corner office.  It happens when the CEO or somebody on the senior team goes to a board retreat and falls in love with some particular assessment tool.  As this is often the first assessment tool that they have personal skills with, it becomes the window that they start looking through for all HR matters. 

As my grandfather said, "When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail."  When the CEO hears of other assessments that are different than the one they know, they push back.  The project stops.

There are more than 3000 assessment tools out there, all measuring different things.  Many are only suited for one or two specific tasks.  Many are not suited for organizational use at all, but are for clinical settings.  My task is to work backwards from the need, and recommend the tool for the job.  Not just the hammer.

So, if you are considering an assessment tool and someone in the "C-Suite" recommends an assessment that they know and love, go ahead and examine it, but be very careful about the validity and reliability of how it measures what you are looking for.

If you need help in selecting or with strategies on how to push back without getting fired, give me a call or ping me with an e-mail.  Part of my passion is finding the right tool for the right job fit.  Not just the hammer or the silver bullet....

Talent acquisition is changing.  A recent survey reveals that 43% of the companies polled are pulling their spending from Internet job boards and re-directing those resources to better showcase their brand to potential employment candidates. The shift away from job boards is a response to current market conditions, which have made more high-value candidates available to companies looking to capitalize on the market's turnaround with strategic hires. 

There is hope.  While the current business environment remains grim, optimism still dictates many of the respondents' near term hiring plans, with more than 30% planning to increase hiring during the second and third quarter of 2009: adding the fourth quarter raises that number to 41%.

Referrals are still the most popular avenue for sourcing jobs, but the companies polled indicate their Web site or career page as being the next most valuable vehicle for finding candidates. Job boards, while useful for generating a higher volume of resumes, are being criticized for not delivering qualified candidates, which are seen as the key for surviving the tough current economic climate and building future organizational strength.

There is another factor.  In the effort to build a Lean HR hiring process, I have been simplifying the hiring process and getting better results.  This is partially driven by creating new channels for sourcing by using RSS feeds and opt-in email channels, and ties to social networking.  These new channels - especially the RSS one - has big implications for the future.

If you can post for free on a RSS-enabled job board and get good results, why spend big dollars on a formal site that is focused on value?

Question - who has abandoned the big job boards, and why?

For extra credit, how have you tied your applicant tracking system to the new sources?

I am the crash test dummy of applicant tracking systems.  Before I talk with an organization about the quality of their new hires or their screening and assessment systems I check out their web site.  I read their mission statement.  I try to get a feel for what an applicant sees and feels from the most important chair - the applicant's seat.

Most of the systems may be efficient for the organization, but few systems do two very important things.  They seldom project the values and attitudes of the organization, and the almost never ask me anything beyond what a basic resume has on it.  In fact, most allow me to simple paste my resume into a box and move on.

Sadly, all of the technology and effort is used to speed up a flawed process, rather than using the opportunity to change the rules and get a better answer.

If you could change the outcome to your current application system, what would you want as a better result?  Better job fit?  Faster time to good job performance?  A lean HR process?  EEO reporting with a single click?

Social networking is requiring me to say "no" more than I prefer.  At the start, I was happy to add anyone who would have me.  Kind of like dating in Junior High.  With the current business climate, I have been getting requests from a large number of strangers. 

I'm saying "no" to the guy from Utah who is looking for a "new calling" and wants to be a part of my network.  No to a guy with a vaguely familiar name who, from what I can tell, is doing nothing but sending invitation requests to the world.  No to the intern with the perky picture who wants a few minutes of my time to demonstrate a knife set that she is going to be selling as a summer job.  Nothing about what I am interested in, like Lean HR, employee engagement or talent acquisition.

I am a nice guy.  Let me make it clear - I am accepting initiations from interesting people in my world, people that I can help in a reasonable way or people that are a part of my life. 

I am not a cranky isolationist, by nature.  In the work I do with hiring processes, applicant tracking and assessment work, I help organizations screen out applicants that are not a fit for their culture, and screen in those who will probably be high performers.  My clients say that they are having the same problem with their hiring - an overwhelming volume of applicants that do not care about the job description, only that they get in.

So, what have I learned?  Apply your rules of friendship to your in-box - accept those that will benefit from friendship, and will be of benefit to you.  For the others, don't dilute your time and just say "no"

There he was.  A nicely dressed man in a necktie on the main corner in town.  I couldn't tell the color of his suit because he was wearing a sandwich board that was almost as tall as he was, saying "Hire ME!"  He had his profession and his phone number on the sign, and he was waving at me with a hopeful sign as I drove by.

Wow.  I realized that these are strange times.  Even stranger, less than a day later, I got a call from a local journalist, doing a story about hiring in general, and about the guy in the sandwich board in particular.  "Had I seen him? "  Yes.  "What did I think?"  Hmm.

I said that I had two opinions.  First, he would probably be successful for a variety of reasons - that nobody else was doing it so he would stand out, that he was showing determination and a willingness to try new ideas, even if the concept of holding a sign in public is certainly 100 years older than the Internet.

Then, I said he was a shining example of how flawed and overloaded the current job search process is.  Organizations are overwhelmed by the sheer volume of applicants, and job seekers are willing to do WHATEVER it takes to get past the screening and get a job.  Any job.  He was certainly giving up on the Internet.

Savvy organizations are using this time to redo their core processes, putting in assessments and applicant tracking, using human resources software and talent management concepts to predict good job fit.

If not, when the economy turns (and it will) the organizations that did not focus on job fit will have their high performers leave and their mediocre people stay.  What you want is to have the high performers stay.   That requires good talent management.

I hope your filters and systems are in place, and that you will be rewarded by a sustainable culture of high performance.  And, if the guy in the sandwich board is reading this, call me.  I would be happy to help with your search.

New data and projections are in from all points - we're looking at a year at least of bumpy roads and grumpy people and the new reality is firmly here.  Widespread layoffs will include a continuation of reductions in our staffs - by that I mean HR - at the same time that needs and issues are climbing.  With stressed employees come higher employee relations demands, heavier use of EAP services, and (probably) higher medical utilization.  In all of this, we've got to stay productive.

There is no graceful way to automate the face to face part of HR.  We've got to be able to make more time to BE THERE for our people.  We can either stop doing background things (not likely) or better use technology to do the background work.

If you have technology that you have not implemented fully (and you probably do) now is the time.  If you have "grandfathered" processes, retire them.  Simpler is better.

Simply put, now is the time for LEAN Human Resources.  Now is the time for assessments as a tool for productivity and management development.  Now is the time for human resource planning to guide the future.

Now is the time.  What will you do to get ahead of the curve?