Best Practices for Hiring and Inspiring the Right Workforce Tom Morley, President, Snowflake Llc
Best Practices for Hiring and
Inspiring the Right WorkforceTom Morley, President, Snowflake Llc
www.highroadsolution.com
Today’s Content Leader
Tom MorleyPresident, Snowflake LLC
• Strategy, organization, and people subject matter expert
• 17 years consulting to leaders in all sectors, US and abroad
• Twitter: @snowflakellc
www.highroadsolution.com
The “right” people
A Simple Workforce Challenge
InspireHireIdentify
• A changing world calls for different resources
• People are a limiting factor for strategy
• It’s hard to hire the people you need
• Today’s challenges require inspired solutions
www.highroadsolution.com
How to Hire and Inspire “Right”
Key takeaways from last week’s webinar
• It starts with a strategy
• Know your requirements
• “Right” is “realistic”
• Flexibility expands opportunities
• You can hire for inspiration
• Recognition is critical
• Inspiring is a process
www.highroadsolution.com
Best Practices: Identifying
Use role “personas” or profiles to define the types of people you want (and don’t want) for your key roles
• Personality
• Aptitude
• Knowledge
• Experience
• Motivations
• Compensation
Profiling
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Profiles can help you determine whether those people are accessible in the labor market
• Who they are
• Starting level of interest
• How to recognize them
• How to reach them
• What they need to hear
• How to identify pretenders
Best Practices: Identifying Profiling
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If they don’t exist in the labor market, profiles can help you find out why, so you can adjust your approach
• Want more compensation
• Incompatible styles
• Used to different norms
• Divergent interests
• Don’t match skill needs
• Not the right experience
Best Practices: Identifying Profiling
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Why take the time to build profiles and “test” them in your target labor pool?
• Save time and money searching
• Increase recognition
• Focus recruiting resources
• Enhance ability to attract
• Reduce the risk of bad hires
• Optimize workforce cost-effectiveness
Best Practices: Identifying Profiling
www.highroadsolution.com
Spend time building up your employer brand to attract interest, even when you’re not actively hiring
• Association mission
• Industry recognition
• Innovations
• Participation
• Work environment
• Other profile interests
Best Practices: Hiring Branding
www.highroadsolution.com
Effective branding builds an image that makes people want to work for you, even if not immediately
• Coordinated efforts
• Continuous presence
• Clarity of identity
• Consistency
• Honest representations
• “Blanket” + targeted
Best Practices: Hiring Branding
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Now is a good time to focus on your employer brand, especially if you can get ahead of the “digital curve”
• Candidate pool has changed
• New entrants into the labor market
• Competition is increasing but not saturated
• Key demographic wants to make an impact
• You have something others don’t
• “Cutting edge” sells
Best Practices: Hiring Branding
www.highroadsolution.com
Why is it worth taking the time to invest in building up your employer brand and image?
• It’s been shown to be effective
• The “right” talent is limited
• People will come to you
• You don’t have to “buy” to hire “right”
• You’re more likely to “hire inspired”
• It has a cascading effect
Best Practices: Hiring Branding
www.highroadsolution.com
Use detailed, accurate job descriptions when posting (or linking to) job announcements
• What you want people to do
• How they’ll do it (methods, tools)
• What they need to know, and why
• Performance expectations
• Work environment and culture
• Other descriptive factors
Best Practices: Hiring Describing
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A good, thorough job description helps to attract the “right” candidates, and weed out the “wrong” ones
• Envision performing tasks
• Willing to take on expectations?
• Fit within the culture
• Acceptability of employment conditions
• Ability to grow in job
• Confirmation of employer brand
Best Practices: Hiring Describing
www.highroadsolution.com
If not done effectively (e.g., incomplete, inaccurate, or overstated), job descriptions create major challenges
• May get flooded with applications
• May attract the “wrong” people
• The “right” candidates may self-select out
• Can set false expectations for new hires
• “Inspired” can quickly become demoralized
• Reputation sticks
Best Practices: Hiring Describing
www.highroadsolution.com
Why spend the time developing detailed descriptions and ensuring that they’re accurate?
• Reinforces brand
• Assists recruiters
• Better candidates
• Easier to evaluate
• No misunderstandings
• Lasting impression
Best Practices: Hiring Describing
www.highroadsolution.com
Evaluate candidates in real-life settings to get a better sense of how they think, and how they fit
• Profile-driven
• Interactive
• Inclusive
• Intensive
• Knowledge
• Attributes
Best Practices: Hiring Evaluating
www.highroadsolution.com
Well-constructed, well-run case studies, simulations, etc. enable you to see candidates “in action”
• Reflective of a real-life challenge
• Sufficient information
• As ambiguous as the environment
• Need for preparation
• Scripted roles, with latitude
• Clarity on what’s being evaluated
Best Practices: Hiring Evaluating
www.highroadsolution.com
Using case studies, simulations, etc. can backfire if not carefully orchestrated and executed
• Can’t show everything important
• Candidates can “read between the lines”
• Word can get out
• Reliant on participants
• Confusion creates an image
• Legal risks in construction, execution
Best Practices: Hiring Evaluating
www.highroadsolution.com
Using case studies, simulations, etc. can backfire if not carefully orchestrated and executed
• Displays “red flags”
• Shows employer and candidate
• Offers multiple perspectives
• Builds camaraderie pre-hire
• Gives meaning to selection
• Can energize those hired
Best Practices: Hiring Evaluating
www.highroadsolution.com
Incorporate a well-designed on-boarding experience to transition from “new hire” to “inspired employee”
• Welcoming
• Preparing
• Equipping
• Integrating
• Immersing
• Supporting
Best Practices: Hiring On-boarding
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An effective on-boarding process bridges the gap from acceptance through full integration into the workplace
• Engages before “Day One”
• Covers the “essentials”
• Provides everything the employee needs
• Establishes important relationships
• Transfers critical knowledge for full participation
• Doesn’t end after “orientation”
Best Practices: Hiring On-boarding
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Organizations that do not have, or have inadequate, on-boarding programs miss key opportunities
• Fail to establish a connection
• Inhibit new hires from participating
• Leave employees “out on their own”
• Implicitly communicate apathy
• Pass up a key chance to inspire
Best Practices: Hiring On-boarding
www.highroadsolution.com
Why spend money and take time away from work to engage employees in a rigorous on-boarding process?
• Positively identifies with brand and mission
• Exponential increase in initial productivity
• Efforts align with objectives
• Enhanced teamwork
• Early course correction
• Less likely to leave prematurely
Best Practices: Hiring On-boarding
www.highroadsolution.com
Take performance management seriously, establishing a system that connects, guides, and differentiates
• Aligned goals
• Individual interests
• On-going dialogue
• Set milestones
• Transparency and fairness
• Rewards and remediation
• Trained managers
Best Practices: Inspiring Connecting
www.highroadsolution.com
A sound performance management system enables managers to manage, and employees to connect
• Setting goals that progressively build to outcomes
• Demonstrating how mission cascades to individual
• Committing to supporting aligned interests
• Meeting frequently, regularly plus interim checks
• Reconciling individual, department, enterprise
• Delivering on incentives and consequences
Best Practices: Inspiring Connecting
www.highroadsolution.com
Employees of organizations without good performance management are less engaged, and less productive
• Don’t see how they impact outcomes
• Don’t feel “part of the solution”
• Find it harder to correct course early
• Can’t adapt to changing conditions
• Become demotivated
• May see themselves as “ambushed”
Best Practices: Inspiring Connecting
www.highroadsolution.com
Why should you spend time and energy developing and maintaining a performance management system?
• Key tool for inspiring
• Reduces risk
• Provides flexibility
• Encourages internal cohesion
• Improves outcomes
• Enables correction and detachment
Best Practices: Inspiring Connecting
www.highroadsolution.com
Keep employees engaged by providing meaningful forums for information-sharing
• Vertical and horizontal
• Open and honest
• Frequent
• Well-orchestrated
• Educational
• Entertaining
Best Practices: Inspiring Interacting
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Effective information-sharing is on-going, informative, and engaging, and can be inspirational
• Regular executive briefings with honest information
• Frequent manager-team meetings
• Peer-to-peer communication opportunities
• Cross-department exchanges
• Team-building activities
• Multiple media, informative content
Best Practices: Inspiring Interacting
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Organizations that don’t share information effectively, and/or don’t encourage interaction, suffer greatly
• Employees lose connection to strategy, direction
• Best practices and lessons learned aren’t shared
• Innovation is stifled
• Meetings are demotivating burdens
• People can’t adapt their approaches
• More likely to act as individuals, not teams
Best Practices: Inspiring Interacting
www.highroadsolution.com
Why should you make the effort to share information, and provide opportunities for staff to do the same?
• Builds trust
• Continuous improvement
• Encourages teamwork
• Develops connection
• Improves morale and productivity
• Inspires people
Best Practices: Inspiring Interacting
www.highroadsolution.com
Organizations use a variety of methods that have been shown effective in identifying, hiring, and inspiring
• Outsourcing to specialized recruiters• Human Resources upgrades• Job shadowing and mentoring• Off-site organization, department events• Executive panel discussions (open Q and A)• Rotating opportunities to represent organization• “Cookies and content”, “brown bags”, etc.• Communities of practice• Public (internal and external) recognition
Best Practices: Other
www.highroadsolution.com
More Information
Learn more about best practices and how they might apply to your organization
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