Authentic Resourcing Blog

Seth Godin, the Marketing author and commentator has an interesting post on his blog about the selection process he went through to hire summer interns.

He was able to use Face Book as a way of simulating the same approach many firms go through during the screeing and assesment centre process with interns. It was completely free and, from what i can see, involved little work on his part other than just observing the behaviours of the individuals in the online groups before making some quick assesments.

He could quickly see which individuals took on leadership roles, which one were the followers and which ones he describes as the ‘game show’ contestants.  

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I’m not much of a follower of American politics and so haven’t really been keeping a close tab on this years election campaign. Also, if I’m honest, I find the lengthy US election process a little confusing and so haven’t followed the election press much at all.

But regardless of this, one of the aspects of the current election which I have been following is the Barock Obama campaign. Not because I’m a supporter or anything – but because it seems to be a very ‘different’ election campaign to the ones i have witnessed in the past – either in the US or in the UK.

Regardless of where you sit politically, his campaign team have created a unique brand around Obama which has no doubt contributed to their success to date.

On this point, I have just read an excellent post on the ERE blog by Cheryl Hardy from Talent Hook titled “5 Things Barrack Obama’s Campaign Proves About Your Recruitment Brand”

She details the 5 lesson’s from Obarma’s campaign which translate directly into your own recruitment and employee brand.

Namely:

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I was recently asked “What would you say is the one real key to finding and keeping people?” After thinking for a moment,

My response was: “Inspirational Leadership.”

Why?

Well a business of any size and shape can develop attractive compensation plans, have impressive talent management strategies and hire the best recruiters and head hunters in town - but without the right leaders in place these initiatives will always be diluted.

Inspirational leaders in any field - business, sport, politics - draw in great people to work with them through their own magnetism. Strategies and policies can attract people - but it’s the quality of the leaders that ensures people are committed the business.

So what are the qualities that make these leaders stand out? And how can this help you recruit and retain the right people?

Here are 7 tips given by people much wiser than myself on the subject of leadership:

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Performance management is the process through which your business sets, measures and reviews the objectives and performance of your people.

As such, it should form a key part of any employee retention strategy.  

Undertaken consistently, effective performance management will help you retain the right people, improve their performance and the overall performance of your business.

Conversely – the failure to performance manage your team can result in losing your best people, keeping the wrong type of people and the consequent stagnation of your business.

But what does this all mean within the context of your business?

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“Sital, I will back you on every decision you make whilst dealing with an unhappy customer – even if we lose them. But only if you have handled them in the right manner.

They may go away being unhappy with your decision – but they should always leave feeling they were listened to, dealt with professionally and fairly. That’s the way we can profit from every complaint”

This is a quote from my first manager at the start of my career with the UK retailer Marks & Spencer (M&S).

When I joined M&S as a graduate management trainee in 1993, my first few weeks involved being indoctrinated with the M&S philosophy on customer service.

One point that was constantly drummed into us was to “profit from every complaint“ and “profit from every lost customer.”

This is very relevant to the way you handle resignations.

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Most businesses at some point struggle to deal with under performing or ‘problem’ staff members.

By “problem,” I mean anything from persistent absence and lateness, right the way through to a bad attitude or not achieving the job requirements to the correct standards.

Their failure to manage these issues effectively often directly impacts on their ability to both engage and retain talented people.

When I examine these situations it is often a self inflicted problem which the business leaders and owners have created themselves.

Either…

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When it comes to inducting new employees into your business you only get one chance.

Get it wrong and you have started to sow the seeds of doubt in the mind of your new starter in the first few weeks.

Get it right and it will make a huge difference to how the person settles in. Without being perfectionist, the key is to make sure that every new starter feels excited and positive that they have made the right choice in joining your business.

The way to do this is to:

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 I came across this video of Malcolm Gladwell talking about the problems of hiring the right people.

The author of ‘Tipping Point’ and ‘Blink’ cites hiring practices within professional sport, teaching and the legal profession to highlight how so many industries today have a mismatch between the criteria set out during the hiring process and the demands of a role. A mismatch which effectively leads to hiring the wrong people

Interestingly, as a recruiter, I have increasingly found my own judgment and subjective indicators become far better indicators for a successful hire than many of the objective measures such as assessment centres and competency based interviews. These tools are useful – but not as useful as they were in the past. 

I thought it was just me – but as Gladwell points out, it’s more to do with the changing work place.

He argues that the sheer increase in complexity in the modern workplace means that there is inevitably increased uncertainty in the hiring process – an uncertainty which cannot always be managed with measured objective assesments.

But instead, organisations should focus more on subjective, human measures.

All which comes down to an increase in the quality of the people involved in the recruitment process rather than just the assessment process used.

If you have some time, click here - it’s an interesting talk.