The Fundamentals Of Effective Employee Satisfaction Mapping.

The Fundamentals Of Effective Employee Satisfaction Mapping.

Telecom, IT, ITES / BPO, FMCG, finance, automotive, pharma, retail, heavy machinery, petroleum and now even the most prestigious power sector. Irrespective of the industry domain you and your employer belong to, Millennium India is facing the highest employee turnover ever in the history of machine revolution. Employees are geared up to join any industry whether they have the related exposure in the past or not. The 30-35% score for ITES and Telecom, 15-20% for automotive and 5-10% now for oil and power sectors, the attrition has snatched away the sleep out of the eyes of HR managers and CEOs.

So, what next? Of course the HR heads and the plant managers need to take a call before they end up with all their top talent drained away by their next door competitor. Employees are getting sensitive and thin-skinned day by day. The trigger for the decision of hopping is as basic it could ever be. Tick off your subordinate even in an obvious tone; and be ready for a job posting to be done the very next day. The condition is even worse with the young generation. They start looking for a change on bad odour in the washroom or get irate on the security guard at the main gate who asked for frisking! Yet it’s factual. We have in our organisation recorded roughly 12% of left employees quoting frisking as a factor during their exit interviews.

Now how to get into the gravity of “What Employees Want”? There are three different ways that we follow at Sona:

1. EMPLOYEE SATISFACTION SURVEYS:

A proactive traditional method to map thesatisfaction of employees on pre-determined parameters mentioned in the survey sheet. At Sona the survey sheets are revised every year with fresh parameters based on the proposals from employees. The sampling process is based on the Control Grouping with Randomized Block Design of the non-conventional human characteristics. To know more and get into the process specifications, you may get in touch with the authors.

2. STAY INTERVIEWS:

Yet again a proactive tool, but virtually a non-conventional one. SI rises above the fundamental weakness of the ESS, the responses being on limited parameters. SI is an open one-to-one conversation with the new employees, ideally in the range of 18 to 36months of service at Sona. The voice is captured on blank sheet, later used for Language Processing to identify the parameters.

3. EXIT INTERVIEWS:

Exits are the reactive tool that comes into action after the employee has put in his papers. The long-established means to get into the insights of why employees are parting. Although Exits turn out to be a major malfunction when employees wish to save their goodwill with the employer and articulate fancy words in praise of the company, thus hiding out the real cause of their detachment.

Dedicated and faithful employees are the most significant factor in becoming an employer of choice, but it's no bolt from the blue that companies and organizations face significant challenges in mapping the levels of energy and engagement in their workforces. Factors such as a booming SENSEX of Indian economy is thus creating an environment where proficient employees who are discontented in their present situations can easily find a new place to "hang their hats." In fact in a study done by our 2007-08 internship batch students illustrate that only 21% of Indian employees feel fully committed to their employers and only 12% of them agree that their employers are wholly committed to them. It’s not at all surprising; still, the level of commitment amid employees and employers is directly linked to the level of satisfaction at a place where they are spending more than half of their lives.

The human psychology specialists lit a spark of hope to the HR Managers. It is vitally important to make out that all employees normally give signals or hints, those which need to be captured at the precise time. This means that attrition can be predicted through survey measurement. This gives employers an imperative window of opportunity to foresee and address talent loss within specific departments so as to change the environment that is causing employees to leave. When two people get into a relation, let’s say the marriage, trust and consideration of the needs and opinions of each other are being considered as prime traits that keep the commitment strong. At work, these qualities can be even more important than the value of monetary compensation and rewards - in fact, emotional rewards can actually have a larger impact than monetary rewards on overall employee satisfaction. You need to actually trace this satisfaction level.

Employee Satisfaction Surveys provide clear data picture for problem solving. If the ES Surveys are effectively monitored, they can actually identify critical problem areas and can help to devise the most optimal path to solutions. This information provides a road map and priority list for dealing with problems in all areas. However the priority in which problems are solved is not always decided by the ones employees feel worst about. Yet, ranking the issues puts some reason into the system of designing a PDCA plan for attacking employee problems. Also, the ES survey results provide a snapshot of employee attitude. Starting from this point the company can later identify, in an objective and scientific way, whether the company is making growth or slipping back. While monitoring a survey is not the only method of providing this benchmark, the information gained provides a background with which to interpret other essential data such as attrition information.

The following are few benefits of an Employee Satisfaction mapping process:

1. Employee’s standpoint:

Organizations attain a truthful sight of current policies and a more obvious rerspective of issues that are of top priority to employees than others, such as welfare measures, career development, and compensation benefits.

2. Increased Employee Loyalty:

By quantifying and analyzing employee attitudes and opinions, enterprises can identify problem areas and solutions to create a supportive work environment encouraging a motivated and loyal workforce.

3. Training Needs Assessment:

Employee Satisfaction Surveys aid in developing individual goals and career potential. With more insight into their opinions and attitudes, management can establish professional development initiatives.

4. Improved Customer Service:

Because motivated employees are critical to improved organizational initiatives, such as increasing customer satisfaction, enterprises that value and strive for greater employee satisfaction ultimately create higher customer satisfaction.

To conclude, wide-ranging Employee Satisfaction processes can be keys to a more motivated and loyal workforce leading to increased customer satisfaction and overall profitability of an enterprise.

Reference weblogs:
1. Passion HR
2. Groups.yahoo.com PassionHR
The Author
MR. HARI NAIR, a young Masters in Public, Personnel Management & Industrial Relations from Osmania University, did his Graduation in Commerce and has a Degree in Education Psychology & a Diploma in Journalism. Currently he is at the helm of affairs at Sona Koyo Steering Systems Ltd, Gurgaon as its Vice President – Human Resources.

Building a Learning Culture.

Building a Learning Culture

The phrase "learning culture" is used frequently by many in our field. Soon-to-be-published research on high-impact learning organizations shows that those that have fostered learning cultures achieve the highest business value. But what exactly is a learning culture? How do you know if your company has such a culture? And perhaps most importantly, how can you create one?

Performance-driven learning, which focuses on solving timely and urgent business problems, is typically the focus of most learning organizations. Ranging from training employees to using a new application to learning support for a new product rollout, performance-driven programs drive near-term, measurable business impact and potential competitive advantage.

The success of performance-driven programs depends on your organization's ability to:

1. Clearly diagnose the problem to be solved (performance consulting).

2. Understand the audience and its learning needs (needs analysis).

3. Build interesting and engaging content (content development).

4. Deploy and manage the program effectively (program management).

5. Implement new technology where needed (e-learning, simulations, games, etc.).

6. Measure results and find areas of improvement (metrics).

Most CLOs recognize the importance of continuously improving and updating processes and skills in these six areas. However, in order to create a true learning culture, learning organizations must give equal focus to learning that helps the company grow, adapt to change, cultivate employee talent, innovate and develop strong customer relationships. Programs in this category, which we categorize as talent-driven learning, go beyond skills development. Rather, they focus on key corporate competencies, select behaviors and attitudes.

Talent-driven learning solutions take many forms. A multi-tiered leadership development program (where almost 25 percent of corporate L&D dollars now get invested) is an archetypal example. Others include comprehensive, end-to-end sales training programs, as well as corporate-wide quality and process-improvement programs.

Talent-driven programs must be integrated with career development models and performance management in order to succeed. The programs take years to build and mature, demanding long-term investments and sustained executive commitment. Talent-driven initiatives generally result in intangible benefits, such as employee satisfaction and engagement, innovation and customer loyalty.

However, while such benefits are more difficult to quantify than those from straightforward, performance-driven programs, they have profound impact on a company's success in the long term.

The primary hallmark of a learning culture is an equal focus on both performance- and talent-driven learning. Learning cultures recognize the need for performance support and improvement, but also embrace individual and organizational learning as a component of business strategy.

The following are questions you can ask to assess your organization's learning culture:

a) Does your company have a formal employee development process coupled with its performance management processes?

b) Are formal coaching programs available for managers and supervisors to learn how to listen and develop employee performance?

c) Does your company accept that some new ideas will fail and, rather than "punishing" those who dare to innovate, recognize that such experiences can provide valuable learning?

d) Are there processes in place for employees to give suggestions and improvements? Is such feedback taken seriously?

e) Is the company attuned to market changes and customer input?

f) Does your company have experience with change and adaptation?

g) Does the company have the talent and processes in place to shift its business when required by market and/or competitive changes?

The bottom line is this: A learning culture is built through a symphony of business processes - driven by the executives all the way down the organization. Your role as a CLO is to conduct this symphony. You ensure that learning is balanced, that some programs drive immediate business results and others are investments in the future.

Data Point

Bersin & Associates research finds that performance consulting yields the highest business value out of all tasks a performance-driven learning function executes.

Reference:
Josh Bersin
[About the Author: Josh Bersin is the principal and founder of Bersin & Associates, with more than 25 years of experience in corporate solutions, training and e-learning.]

How to Plan a Meeting?

Running Your Own Meeting

Do you know the single biggest mistake most people make when planning a meeting? In this lesson, you'll learn how to arrange meetings that are effective, productive, and interesting.

Who to Invite and How to Write a Proper Meeting Announcement

Schedule the Meeting

According to Creighton and Adams (1998) in CyberMeetings, typical meeting agenda items are covered only about half the time (53 percent). In this mailer, you'll get tips on how to plan, announce, run, and follow up on an effective meeting.

How Long Should the Meeting Last?

The biggest mistake most people make when scheduling a meeting is miscalculating the amount of time needed for a successful meeting. Here are some tips when deciding on the length:

• Don't try to cram too many agenda topics into a 30-minute meeting. A good rule of thumb is no more than two topics per meeting. Adult education statistics show that it's not possible to keep an adult's attention for more than 30 minutes at a time. That's not to say the meeting shouldn't go longer than 30 minutes. But if it does, it had better be fast-paced and interesting.
• Don't get caught up in the 30-or-60 mindset. Many people will automatically allocate either 30 minutes or a full hour when scheduling a meeting simply because these quantities of time are common and expected. Don't feel pressured to fill an hour if you don't have an hour of issues to cover. If your meeting only needs 40 minutes, then only schedule 40 minutes.

Who Should Attend the Meeting?

In most meetings in corporate sector, in general, 20 percent of the people who are asked to attend have no real need to be present. That wastes the person's time and the company's resources.

• Only invite individuals whose attendance is absolutely necessary.
• If there's someone who should know what happened in the meeting, but whose attendance isn't absolutely necessary, send them a quick e-mail outlining the outcomes of the meeting.

Deciding the Agenda

• The best way to guarantee active and interested participation at a meeting is to include agenda items that are of great concern to the meeting attendees.
• When you send out the meeting invitation, ask attendees if they have any agenda item requests. That will allow you to include those items on the agenda.
• If someone has an agenda item that isn't directly related to the meeting topic, ask the attendee if you can hold a separate meeting in the future on that specific topic.

When and How to Send Meeting Invitations

• The nature of your meeting will dictate how you send the meeting invitation. For small, informal meetings the telephone will work fine. For larger meetings, you may want to consider e-mail or a memo.
• Send meeting invitations for in-house meetings at least one week in advance, when possible.
• Send meeting invitations for formal meetings two to four weeks in advance.

Note: If you must call a meeting sooner than a week's notice, follow up your e-mail or memo announcement with a phone call so the attendee can be informed as soon as possible.

Writing the Meeting Announcement

The meeting announcement should include several components:

• Place, date, and time of the meeting
• Meeting initiator -- your name
• Invited attendee -- your guest
• The SINGLE purpose of the meeting
• Each agenda item and time frames designated for each item
• Advanced preparation required by the attendees

Every meeting purpose statement should include a benefit to the attendees. People who receive meeting invitations should always be able to answer the question, "What's the benefit to me, personally, of attending?" If they can answer this question, you've done a good job of identifying who should attend and what the meeting will entail.

When participants have the agenda and access to background information before the meeting, it gives them sufficient time to prepare for any discussions or decisions that will occur during the meeting. When distributing the agenda, remind participants that it's their responsibility to come prepared to the meeting.

Who Sits Where?

• In most meetings today, it's acceptable to allow participants to sit where they want. However, you may want to reserve the seat next to you for your assistant. Also, if others will be contributing to the meeting, make sure they are seated close to the front of the room.
• Leave a few seats open near the exit to accommodate latecomers and those who need to leave a few minutes early.

A Company That Takes Its Meetings Seriously

Intel Corporation is an example of an organization that takes its meetings very seriously. Walk into any conference room at any Intel factory or office anywhere in the world and you will see a poster on the wall with a series of simple questions about the meetings that take place there:

• Do you know the purpose of this meeting?
• Do you have an agenda?
• Do you know your role?

Every new employee, from the most junior production worker to the highest-ranking executive, is required to take the company's course on effective meetings. For years, the course was taught by CEO Andy Grove, who believed that good meetings were such an important part of Intel's culture that it was worth his time to train all employees.


Handling Interruptions

When you're leading a meeting, there are basically four types of individuals who can spoil your meeting by incessant interruptions. Here is a list of each type and how to recognize them:

1. Monopolizers

• How to recognize them: They interrupt, often. They ramble and repeat. They do this because they enjoy hearing themselves speak.
• Tips for dealing with Monopolizers: Don't argue with them, but don't hesitate to confront them. Wait until they come up for air and interrupt them by name. Note the point they've made and immediately invite someone else to comment on the topic.

2. Distracters

• How to recognize them: They seek attention. To get it, they'll often bring up irrelevant topics that waste time.
• Tips for dealing with Distracters: Firmly halt Distracters, restate the meeting purpose, and ask them to answer a specific question to get them to focus on the main topic.

3. Snipers

• How to recognize them: They resort to stage-whispered, snide comments to challenge your authority by switching attention from you to them.
• Tips for dealing with Snipers: Shine the spotlight on them and bluntly ask them to share their comments with everyone. Most will be so embarrassed that they'll decline. This may sound like we are in school, but it works.

4. Skeptics

• How to recognize them: They criticize everything you or others say.
• Tips for dealing with Skeptics: If they become negative or critical during the meeting, let them know that you're looking for solutions, not criticism. Then ask them to contribute.

Demonstrating True Leadership in Meetings

Think about the group dynamics before and during the meeting. As a leader you need to recognize the various roles group members are taking, as well as about the kind of roles you are taking.

• Work for a balance between businesslike and a fun, casual environment. If you are perceived as too businesslike and task-oriented by others, you may have difficulty being accepted as a group member as well as a leader. Remember, what's important in a group setting is not what you think you are doing, but how others perceive and interpret what you are doing.
• Be responsible for limiting discussions and setting time parameters for various activities. When deciding how much time to spend on a certain issue, think about how complex the task should be, and how important it is to the group.
• Clarifying for others where the group is in terms of solving a problem or working through an issue. Leaders need to be reality testers -- they need to bring up points such as: "Are we spending too much time setting this schedule?" or "This is a major decision; perhaps we should spend more time thinking about it before we reach a consensus," and "Is the color of the poster really that important?"

When challenging the importance of a point or argument, think about respecting the person who is presenting the point. While their idea may not be worthwhile, they themselves, as members of the group, are certainly worthwhile. Also, be willing to put the group's needs above your own needs. For example, if you are totally bored but the group seems to be accomplishing something by further discussion, it's best to let it continue.

• Keep in mind that different types of meetings call for different styles of leadership. Meetings held just so members of a group can get together and catch up with each other can be much less formal and task-oriented than meetings called to handle a specific problem.
• Interrupt when you have to, but be nice about it. When you believe it's necessary to interrupt someone, wait until they have finished the sentence. Try to be considerate of that person's feelings; acknowledge that you are interrupting and explain the reason why, if possible.
• Good leaders are not monopolizers in meetings. Effective leaders are facilitators who allow others to participate as much as possible. You can accomplish this by encouraging others to offer input or ideas and by supporting them when they do, even if their ideas are not seen as excellent by the group. For example: "That doesn't look like a realistic option right now, Mr. Kashan, but I appreciate you suggesting it."
• Be consistent in enforcing procedures and limiting discussions, or be able to explain why exceptions are being made. Always think about the reasons for what you are doing; an effective leader is not arbitrary or capricious unless really necessary. For example, it might be okay to be arbitrary about setting a deadline for a project if the group cannot come to a consensus on it.
• Recognize and utilize other formal and informal leaders in the group. Respect their leadership and work with them rather than against them. In most cases, it's more important to work well as a group function than to repeated emphasize that that you're in charge. Watch out for "contrary" leaders; people who possess some leadership abilities but seem to be using these abilities against the better interests of the group.

Keeping the Meeting on Time

Out of respect for the commitment and sanity of everyone who attends, meetings should never run over the time allotted -- especially regularly scheduled meetings. Here are some tips to keep your meeting on schedule:

• If the session gets bogged down with an issue, schedule it for another meeting. If the meeting must conclude by taking an action or decision, then identify this early enough or reschedule accordingly.
• Tell all the participants before the meeting starts that it will go as long as necessary to reach the stated conclusion. Don't mislead people by minimizing the amount of work involved; that kind of trickery will only come back to haunt you.
• Have a timekeeper.

Basically, if you follow all the necessary preparation steps and keep to your meeting agenda and outline, you should be able to keep your meeting running on schedule and quite smoothly.

Meeting Etiquettes

Meeting Etiquette

Meetings are a place not only to get information, but also where people make judgments about each other. Learn how to make the meetings you attend work for you.

Ugh, Meetings

Mention an upcoming meeting to most employees and it may appear as if you asked them to clean the office toilets. How often have you heard variations of the following?

• "Aw, another waste of time."
• "Great. Another interruption. Now I'll have to stay late for sure."
• "They never say anything worthwhile."
• "I'll just take my work with me into the meeting."
• "Meetings are like soap operas; you can miss six months of them and still get the idea of what's going on."
• "Time to listen to the boss drone on again."

How We Spend Our Time in Meetings

According to a network MCI Conferencing White Paper, professionals who attend meetings on a regular basis admit to doing the following during meetings:

• Daydreaming (91%)
• Missing meetings (96%)
• Missing parts of meetings (95%)
• Bringing other work to meetings (73%)
• Dozing during meetings (39%)

Meetings Do Matter!

Meetings are a place not only to get information, but also where people make judgments about each other. Meetings are your stage to present yourself in a positive light. Don't miss out on that opportunity. It could make or break your career!

In the rest of this lesson you'll get tips for getting more from meetings, as well as making a good impression while you're there.

Meeting Behavior Basics

In order to really shine in business meetings, there are some behavior basics for meetings that will serve you well.

Making Your Entrance

• Enter decisively.
• Don't stand in the doorway.
• While standing, shake hands, and call people by their first names.
• Introduce yourself to those you don't know.
• If you are seated and introduced to someone new, stand up, smile, and shake hands.

Where to Sit

• Avoid sitting at either end of the table.
• Don't sit next to the chairperson or senior officer. That chair may be reserved for his or her aide or secretary.
• If you're not familiar with the seating arrangements, ask if it's okay to sit anywhere.

What Not to Do

• Don't fiddle -- leave paperclips unbent and don't bounce them.
• Don't doodle on a notepad. (People will start trying to see what you're doing. And this draws attention to the fact that you're not paying attention.)
• Don't chew gum or pop mints or candy into your mouth.
• PLEASE don't chew ice cubes!!!
• Don't ask for coffee or other refreshments unless they are being offered.
• If food and drinks are offered, clear your plate as soon as possible.
• Avoid letting your mind wander, no matter how boring the meeting may seem.

Pay Attention to Your Body Language

• Sit straight, both feet on the floor.
• Even though you're sitting straight, appear relaxed, and attentive.
• If you do cross your legs, cross them at the ankles.
• Don't cross your arms in front of you; it communicates resistance -- or even hostility.
• For men -- keep your jacket and tie on unless otherwise specified.

Speak Up!

There is nothing more aggravating in a meeting than not being able to hear the person who is speaking. Speaking too softly conveys that you believe what you're saying really has no merit. If you don't think it's important, why should the rest of the group?

Some other tips for speaking at meetings:

• Don't stand up, unless people routinely stand while speaking at such meetings or unless you're asked to stand up.
• Take a second to frame your thoughts. You don't have to start blurting out something the second you're called upon to speak.
• BLT -- Put the ‘bottom line on top’. Say the most important thing first.
• Be brief.
• Don't ramble.
• Don't repeat yourself.
• Use positive language.
• Never begin with an apology, e.g., "This might not work, but. . . ."
• Avoid confrontational language such as, "That idea won't work," or "That's completely irrelevant to the issue."
• Use "we." Whenever referring to your department, company, team, or a project group, always use the pronoun "we." If things are going well, it shows you're a real team player by sharing the glory. If things are going poorly, it takes the focus off you and spreads the responsibility around.
• Whatever you say, say it with authority. Use a confident tone.

The Cost of Unproductive Meetings



According to a network MCI Conferencing White Paper, most professionals attend a total of 61.8 meetings per month. Research from Nelson and Economy (Better Business Meetings) indicates that over 50 percent of this meeting time is wasted. Assuming each of these meetings is one hour long, professionals lose 31 hours per month in unproductive meetings, or approximately four work days.

Basic Rules and Etiquette for Business Meetings

These so-called "rules" are pretty basic. But someone ignores them at nearly every meeting. So here's a quick review of meeting basics:

• Be ready. Prepare ahead of time. Arrive with all the materials you think you may need: a report, pen, paper, notebook, or laptop computer.
• Keep the materials you need handy so people won't have to wait while you fish around for things.
• Always put your briefcase or purse on the floor next to you. NEVER put these on the conference table.
• Show up on time or a little early.
• If you do have to be late, let the meeting organizer know well before in time so a seat can be reserved for you in an area that won't cause too much disturbance when you do arrive.
• If you are late, apologize and give a reason. If you don't give a good reason, you'll generate resentment from the people who did arrive on time. Plus, if you fail to give a good reason, you're basically saying the meeting isn't important enough for you to show up on time.
• Decide ahead of time what you have to say about the issue at hand and prepare your remarks. Practice mentally a few times before you arrive at the meeting.
• Get a copy of Roberts Rules of Order and become familiar with it. You can find a summary version at http://www.robertsrules.org or find a copy at any library. Only the most formal meetings abide by these rules, but you may someday find yourself in such a meeting.

Handling Conflict and Objections During a Meeting

Whether it's resistance to your proposal or a heckler in the back of the room, conflict will inevitably arise if you attend enough meetings.

Some Common Meeting Disrupters -- And How to Handle Each Type

Every meeting seems to contain at least one of the following:

1. Side Talkers

These are the people who just can't seem to stop having side conversations with the other people at the table. To handle a side-talker:

• Complete your thought, look at the person, and pause until they stop talking.
  

2. Ramblers

Good grief! We've all been in meetings where the speaker just can't seem to get to the point. To move them along:

• Acknowledge the question, then use a CLOSED-ENDED (can only be answered with a yes or no) question to refocus the participant to the topic at hand.

EXAMPLE: "I liked your question, Mr. Saqib, about how this new marketing plan will impact the workload of the telesales center. Are you concerned about increased call volume or the added paperwork that the center will have to process with the anticipated increase in orders?"

3. Hecklers

Simply put, these are the rude people at the meeting. There's no other way to say it. You have several choices when managing a heckler:

• Ignore them.
• Redirect them by asking a question appropriate to the topic.
• Defer the problem to the group ("What does everyone else think about this?").
• Invite the person to a hallway discussion.

4. Challengers

There's one in every crowd. You know who they are. They're usually sitting in the back of the room, arms folded, hanging on your every word. Then, when the moment is right, they fire their verbal salvos at you. They'll raise their hand, and in their most authoritative voice say something like, "Isn't it true that . . . "

Challengers could have several purposes: (1) to reduce your credibility or (2) to increase their prestige in the eyes of the group. Either way, a challenger usually has a pretty fragile ego, so handle with care.

One option to handle a challenger is to say one of the following:

• "Help me understand what you mean, or where, specifically, you think this program will fail."
• "That's certainly one option. It's not the one we're recommending now, and I would be interested in hearing the benefits to your option. Could you write that up for me and put it on my desk? Then, I'll put that on the agenda for the next meeting."

5. Non-Participants

These are the people who sit there and say nothing. You don't know if they're on your side, if they think everything you're saying is bogus, or if they're just sleep-deprived.

To get a non-participant to participate, the best strategy is to ask them a question to get them involved. A simple "What do you think?" may be enough to initiate an interaction.

Nearly Half of the Work Week in Meetings!

A poll from GM Consultants surveying people in supervisory positions found that 30 percent spent an estimated 16 hours a week in meetings. The survey also uncovered some interesting facts about respondents, who reported they always did the following:

• Allow all attendees to participate (88%)
• Define a meeting's purposes (66%)
• Address each item on the agenda (62%)
• Assign follow-up action (59%)
• Record discussion (47%)
• Invite only essential personnel (46%)
• Write an agenda, with time frames (36%)
• Specify questions for each issue (12%)

71 percent of respondents were working in companies with annual sales of less than $10 million.

High Attrition Rate: A Big Challenge.

High Attrition Rate.

Defining attrition: "A reduction in the number of employees through retirement, resignation or death"

Defining Attrition rate: "the rate of shrinkage in size or number"

Introduction: In the best of worlds, employees would love their jobs, like their coworkers, work hard for their employers, get paid well for their work, have ample chances for advancement, and flexible schedules so they could attend to personal or family needs when necessary. And never leave.

But then there's the real world. And in the real world, employees, do leave, either because they want more money, hate the working conditions, hate their coworkers, want a change, or because their spouse gets a dream job in another state. So, what does all that turnover cost? And what employees are likely to have the highest turnover? Who is likely to stay the longest?

Background of article

The IT enabled services (BPO) industry is being looked upon as the next big employment generator (Nasscom predicts 1.1 million job requirement by the year 2008). It is however no easy task for an HR manager in this sector to bridge the ever increasing demand and supply gap of professionals. Unlike his software industry counterpart, the BPO HR manager is not only required to fulfill this responsibility, but also find the right kind of people who can keep pace with the unique work patterns in this industry. Adding to this is the issue of maintaining consistency in performance and keeping the motivation levels high, despite the monotonous work. The toughest concern for an HR manager is however the high attrition rate.

In India, the average attrition rate in the BPO sector is approximately 30-35 percent. It is true that this is far less than the prevalent attrition rate in the US market (around 70 percent), but the challenge continues to be greater considering the recent growth of the industry in the country. The US BPO sector is estimated to be somewhere around three decades old. Keeping low attrition levels is a major challenge as the demand outstrips the supply of good agents by a big margin. Further, the salary growth plan for each employee is not well defined. All this only encourages poaching by other companies who can offer a higher salary.

The much hyped "work for fun" tag normally associated with the industry has in fact backfired, as many individuals (mostly fresh graduates), take it as a pas-time job. Once they join the sector and understand its requirements, they are taken aback by the long working hours and later monotony of the job starts setting in. This is the reason for the high attrition rate as many individuals are not able to take the pressures of work.

The toughness of the job and timings is not adequately conveyed. Besides the induction and project training, not much investment has been done to evolve a "continuous training program" for the agents. Motivational training is still to evolve in this industry. But, in all this, it is the HR manager who is expected to straighten things out and help individuals adjust to the real world. I believe that the new entrant needs to be made aware of the realistic situation from day-one itself, with the training session conducted in the nights, so that they get accustomed to things right at the beginning.

The high percentage of females in the workforce (constituting 30-35 percent of the total), adds to the high attrition rate. Most women leave their job either after marriage or because of social pressures caused by irregular working hours in the industry. All this translates into huge losses for the company, which invests a lot of money in training them.

If a person leaves after the training it costs the company about Rs 60,000. For a 300-seater call centre facing the normal 30 percent attrition, this translates into Rs 60 lakh per annum. Many experts are of believe that all these challenges can turn out to be a real dampener in the growth of this industry. This only raises the responsibility of "finding the right candidate" and building a "conducive work environment", which will be beneficial for the organization. The need is for those individuals who can make a career out of this.

All this has induced the companies to take necessary steps, both internally and externally. Internally most HR managers are busy putting in efforts on the development of their employees, building innovative retention and motivational schemes (which was more money oriented so far) and making the environment livelier. Outside, the focus is on creating awareness through seminars and going to campuses for recruitment.

Major Worries for the Industry

• Reckless Start-ups - A vast majority of the 310 start-ups are headed for a dead-end (according to Nasscom). Their capacity utilization is less than one of the three shifts. Many of these companies that converted their empty basements and warehouses into BPO units or firms with $10 million-20 million VC funds that ran out of cash without creating anything more than white elephants. They have driven down prices to grab business, but have failed to deliver. They were always clueless about people, processes or technologies- the three key elements of the BPO business.
• Poor Infrastructure - The industry has more to worry about than just reckless start-ups. Primary among those is infrastructure. While telecom networks are state of the art, getting a connection still takes up to three months. Unreliable power supply is forcing units to create their own back-ups. Roads are bad and airports are in dire need of repairs and upgrades.
  • High Attrition - Another major problem is the high attrition and growth aspirations of the workforce. At least 60,000 of the 171,000 workforce change jobs every year. About 80% of them look for better leaders. Team leaders want to upgrade to supervisors, quality professionals or operations heads. The HR problem threatens to soon become grave. Good agents are becoming hard to find and with tardy infrastructure, big moves to the much talked about smaller towns will take longer. This means costs will rise making it difficult for small VC-funded companies to survive.

Attrition rates

US 42%
Australia 29%
Europe 24%
India 18%
Global Average 24%
* Source-Times News New York

Purpose of Writing this Article

Staff attrition (or turnover) and absenteeism represent significant costs to most organizations. It is odd, therefore, that many organizations neither measure such costs nor have targets or plans to reduce them. Many organizations appear to accept them as part of the cost of doing business - a sign of increasing job mobility and decreasing staff loyalty perhaps, a matter to be regretted but just 'one of those things.' They add a sum in their budgets for 'temp staff' and 'recruitment' and forget about it.

However, it seems to be one of the areas in which HR can make a difference - and one that can be measured in quantifiable, financial terms against targets.

An attrition rate in call (or contact) centres has become legendary. Indeed, the attrition rates in some Indian call centers now reach 80%. This is an extreme figure but the average attrition rates in Indian call centers are up around 30-40%.

However, it is interesting to note that the attrition rates in India - and the costs associated - are so high that they can override the benefits of lower wage costs. While wages in call centres in Indian are less than one-eighth of those in Northern Europe, it has been reported that Hewlett-Packard have found the cost per 'ticket' (the cost of processing a query) has doubled "due to the inability of the staff to resolve customer queries efficiently because of language barriers and inexperience." It is said that this increased cost has made HP's move from Ireland to India "completely pointless," and that it can never recover the (substantial) costs of the move. It is further reported that GE Capital has moved a call centre back to Australia "after staff attrition rates of 70% wiped away any potential cost savings."

The issue is not with the quality or education of the staff - and still less with the investment in technology. It is simply attrition - people do not stay long enough to be taught or to learn the job. The staff may be cheaper but if they cannot do the job, what's the point? Managing attrition is not just a 'nice thing to do' in Indian call centres. It is the route to their survival.

Far from accepting attrition rates as part of the cost of doing business, it is surely something that all organizations should address, and equally surely it is an area in which HR can take a lead - measure attrition, seek its causes, set out solutions and target performance.

Components to be taken into consideration, while calculating attrition rate

I request HR professionals not to drive their own formulas to calculate attrition rate. In terms of numbers, attrition rate means:

Total Number of Resigns per month (Whether voluntary or forced) divided by (Total Number of employees at the beginning of the month plus total number of new joinees minus total number of resignations) multiplied by 100.

If calculating in monetary terms, it includes the following:

Costs Due to a Person Leaving

1. Calculate the cost of the person(s) who fills in while the position is vacant. Calculate the cost of lost productivity at a minimum of 50% of the person's compensation and benefits cost for each week the position is vacant, even if there are people performing the work. Calculate the lost productivity at 100% if the position is completely vacant for any period of time.
2. Calculate the cost of conducting an exit interview to include the time of the person conducting the interview, the time of the person leaving, the administrative costs of stopping payroll, benefit deductions, benefit enrollments.
3. Calculate the cost of the manager who has to understand what work remains, and how to cover that work until a replacement is found.
4. Calculate the cost of training your company has invested in this employee who is leaving.
5. Calculate the impact on departmental productivity because the person is leaving. Who will pick up the work, whose work will suffer, what departmental deadlines will not be met or delivered late.
6. Calculate the cost of lost knowledge, skills and contacts that the person who is leaving is taking with them out of your door. Use a formula of 50% of the person's annual salary for one year of service, increasing each year of service by 10%.
7. Subtract the cost of the person who is leaving for the amount of time the position is vacant.
Recruitment Costs

1. The cost of advertisements; agency costs; employee referral costs; internet posting costs.
2. The cost of the internal recruiter's time to understand the position requirements, develop and implement a sourcing strategy, review candidates backgrounds, prepare for interviews, conduct interviews, prepare candidate assessments, conduct reference checks, make the employment offer and notify unsuccessful candidates. This can range from a minimum of 30 hours to over 100 hours per position.
3. Calculate the cost of the various candidate pre-employment tests to help assess a candidates' skills, abilities, aptitude, attitude, values and behaviors

Training Costs

1. Calculate the cost of orientation in terms of the new person's salary and the cost of the person who conducts the orientation. Also include the cost of orientation materials.
2. Calculate the cost of departmental training as the actual development and delivery cost plus the cost of the salary of the new employee. Note that the cost will be significantly higher for some positions such as sales representatives and call center agents who require 4 - 6 weeks or more of classroom training.
3. Calculate the cost of the person(s) who conduct the training.
4. Calculate the cost of various training materials needed including company or product manuals, computer or other technology equipment used in the delivery of training.

Lost Productivity Costs

As the new employee is learning the new job, the company policies and practices, etc. they are not fully productive. Use the following guidelines to calculate the cost of this lost productivity:
1. Upon completion of whatever training is provided, the employee is contributing at a 25% productivity level for the first 2 - 4 weeks. The cost therefore is 75% of the new employees full salary during that timeperiod.
2. During weeks 5 - 12, the employee is contributing at a 50% productivity level. The cost is therefore 50% of full salary during that timeperiod.
3. During weeks 13 - 20, the employee is contributing at a 75% productivity level. The cost is therefore 25% of full salary during that timeperiod.
4. Calculate the cost of mistakes the new employee makes during this elongated indoctrination period.

New Hire Costs

1. Calculate the cost of bring the new person on board including the cost to put the person on the payroll, establish computer and security passwords and identification cards, telephone hookups, cost of establishing email accounts, or leasing other equipment such as cell phones, automobiles.
2. Calculate the cost of a manager's time spent developing trust and building confidence in the new employee's work.

Lost Sales Costs

1. Calculate the revenue per employee by dividing total company revenue by the average number of employees in a given year. Whether an employee contributes directly or indirectly to the generation of revenue, their purpose is to provide some defined set of responsibilities that are necessary to the generation of revenue. Calculate the lost revenue by multiplying the number of weeks the position is vacant by the average weekly revenue per employee.

Conclusion:

It is clear that there are massive costs associated with attrition or turnover and, while some of these are not visible to the management reporting or budget system, they are none the less real. The 'rule of thumb' appears to be very inaccurate indeed and, while it depends upon the category of staff, it is probably better to estimate around 80% of salary as a truer rule of thumb - and this will be on the conservative side.

What does this mean? Well it means that if a company has 100 people doing a certain job paid 25,000 and that turnover or attrition is running at 10%, the cost of attrition is:

(Total staff x attrition rate %) x (annual salary x 80%)

• 100 staff at 10% attrition means 10 people leave and are replaced each year.
• A replacement cost of 80% of a salary of 25,000 means the cost of each replacement is 20,000.
• The cost of turnover is therefore 10 x 20,000 or 200,000 a year.
• The oncost to the overall salary bill is 8%.

(Saving 8% of salary costs would make the average HR manager a hero.)

Is the Looming Leadership Shortage Just a Big Fat Lie?

Is the Looming Leadership Shortage Just a Big Fat Lie?

If you've been exposed to any business media over the past year, you're no doubt aware of the impending global talent shortage. The story goes something like this: With millions of baby boomers retiring and fewer Gen Xers and Yers available to replace them, a crisis of biblical proportions is about to overwhelm us. Organizations will have to scramble and compete to find new talent - especially managers and executives - to replace the current crop, resulting in skyrocketing costs and potentially declining performance.

The numbers don't lie, at least according to various pundits, consultancies (including our own) and search firms. It is, they claim, going to be one of the biggest issues business must deal with in the next decade. And yet, like global warming, this "looming crisis" seems to be falling on the deaf ears of many of its potential victims - most of whom have done little more than express concern while frantically pumping the same old played-out talent pools they've been drawing from for years.

So what's the deal? Are organizations fiddling while Rome Inc. burns? Or are we experts just opportunistic Chicken Littles, terrorizing the business barnyard to make a few extra kernels in consulting and search fees?

The truth, as usual, lies somewhere in the middle: Yes, there is a potential leadership shortage looming on the horizon. A number of organizations we've worked with say they can't find enough talent to resupply their dwindling management ranks. But many of these same organizations could avert or at least minimize the issue if they stopped their hand-wringing and rethought their approach to selecting, developing and managing their talent.

Organizations need to start thinking of leadership talent as the dwindling natural resource it is. Rather than simply running around looking for additional supply, they need to rethink their approach to demand - the unique accountability requirements of key positions critical to running the business. They also need to revamp the "refinement" process - how they turn raw talent into successful leaders - and do a better job of conserving their resources.

No one would argue that you need to keep the proverbial talent pipeline full to decrease the odds of a shortage. But full of what? Traditionally, leadership potential has been viewed as a one-dimensional resource. Beyond some differences in technical skill and experience, a leader was a leader, no matter what the position. But over the past decade, as organizations have grown in complexity and size, many of these once-similar roles have become highly diverse, requiring diverse sets of skills and competencies.

Given that many organizations have overlooked or neglected this sea change, it's not surprising that a growing number of their managers and executives find themselves struggling and failing, and in the process inflicting great damage on themselves and their organizations.

It's not that these individuals can't be good leaders - many can. But they were selected as high potentials based on an antiquated, overly simplistic model of leadership. They aren't prepared for the complexity and scope of the roles in which they find themselves. In many cases, the roles have been significantly redefined by shifts in strategy and organizational configuration - but they don't realize the implications in terms of what they need to do differently.

Nowhere is this more obvious than at the highly visible top of the organizational food chain, where CEOs are crashing and burning in appalling numbers. As many of these once high-potential Prince and Princess Charmings have discovered, even though battle-tested and proven worthy in other lesser positions, one can no longer glibly assume the throne of organizational power and be guaranteed success.

Just ask one of these high-profile princes-turned-kings, Charles Prince, who had multiple crises during his troubled reign as Citigroup's CEO. Although highly respected as a corporate attorney, Prince's lack of operating experience raised a chorus of concern about his ability to lead such a large, complex organization, long before he resigned.

Or consider Kerrii Anderson, Wendy's top executive. Although the verdict is still out on her ability to turn around the struggling fast-food chain, her apparent lack of traction thus far has raised more than a few doubts. Shareholders and directors may be learning the hard way that just because a leader has been successful in one senior role - in this case CFO - it doesn't guarantee she or he will be successful as CEO.

In neither case has the problem been a lack of talent. Rather, it appears to have been a lack of alignment between the role and the abilities of the individual filling that role. Which is why organizations need worry less about the so-called dearth of leadership talent and focus more on better understanding the specific demands of today's highly varied leadership roles. Only after taking this critical step can they more precisely and accurately define the talent they require and align the two.

At that point, they can also refine their search for management of such talent, tapping alternative sources and tailoring development to the specific needs of the role and the individual. With this deeper understanding of their leadership needs, organizations often find they also can refine and modify their actual leadership structure, often eliminating redundant and outmoded roles, thus reducing their demand.

A note of caution, however: The precise, tailored approach to talent management we're recommending cannot be relegated to the traditional "supply side focused" search firms and HR departments that many organizations continue to turn to. It's not that these sources of expertise have dropped the ball. It's simply that talent has now become a critical business concern. And those responsible for setting the business context - the strategy, the operating requirements, the structure - that shapes tomorrow's executive and managerial positions must take the lead in defining their critical leadership needs. Only then can they turn to their partners in HR and search firms to help them assess, attract and develop talented individuals who can effectively fill these roles.

As for the "looming leadership crisis," that so-called "war for talent" that we keep hearing about: No doubt as the workforce shrinks, organizations will feel the pinch. But there's no need for a crisis or war as long as organizations reframe the issue - addressing leadership talent not in terms of simplistic skills, experience and past successes, but rather in the context of their business strategy, their required operating model, their resulting organizational structure, and the changing and emerging roles these dynamics are shaping.

Reference:
Ron Garonzik and Scott Spreier
[About the Authors: Ron Garonzik is vice president and a member of Hay Group Boston's Leadership Team. Scott Spreier is a senior consultant with Hay Group's McClelland Center for Research and Innovation.]

Channeling Communication Skills.

Channeling Communication Skills

When it comes to defining it as a competency, communication can be tricky. It's a characteristic that's apparently universally appreciated and desired, but it's not easy to pin down what makes for effective communication. Is it nuanced or straightforward? Specific of general? Deductive or poignant? Humorous or stern?

According to Ron Crossland, co-author of The Leadership Experience, author of The Leader's Voice and chairman of Bluepoint Leadership Development, organizational leaders face the challenge of grasping this generally valued yet seldom understood quality.

"Everyone 'gets' communication," he said. "Every executive gets this, but they find it difficult to find the time to immerse themselves in a study of their own communication patterns. What happens is they hear the ideas, but they get cosmetic fixes. Most of them don't do deep dives. Leaders think they've got the general context, which is where their bread and butter is - how they move constituents."

Crossland developed a formal framework that focuses on three primary channels of communication: facts, emotions and symbols. Facts pertain to data, direct observations and literal interpretations of things and events; emotions relate to stirring the range of sentiments people feel; and symbols refer to metaphors, analogies and other representative illustrations.

"These three channels apply to any leadership model in the world," he said. "They might not put it the way I do, with symbols, facts and emotions. A lot of people don't walk around with that model in their head. But once they hear it, they'll say, 'That's what I've been experiencing. I just didn't have a schematic.'"

In particular, the rise of "executive presence, as a sought-after attribute among leaders has brought about a fresh examination of communication styles.

"If you look at the root of executive presence, a huge component of that is the ability to communicate in the moment," Crossland explained. "Whether that's e-mail, a videoconferencing or a town-hall meeting, that presence is felt through how messages are communicated. That's especially true these days, when so much content is delivered virtually and long distance."

To illustrate his point, he cited a recent appearance Bill Gates made at a technology conference via streaming video that was projected onto a large screen. Even though the prerecorded speech delivered via a 22-foot tall image of Gates might seem like a case of the medium overwhelming the message, Crossland insisted this communication is fundamentally the same as any other.

"People will experience that visually and aurally, but most of the substance of it will be through those three channels," he said. "The better Gates is with [facts, emotions and symbols], the better he's going to come across."

Crossland argued that the weakest channel of communication among today's leaders is symbolic, although the emotional channel isn't used as often as it could be, either.

"Both the symbolic and emotional channels have atrophied compared to the factual channel," he said. "Most for-profits businesses exist in a tsunami of data. We speak in the factual channel; it's part and parcel of our lingo. In fact, if you can't do that well, you probably won't rise to a very high level of managerial responsibility. Unfortunately, we over-rely on that."

Therefore, learning executives should devise a more complete definition of communication as a competency when developing organizational leaders in this critical area. Also, Crossland said CLOs can contribute by modeling these behaviors themselves.

"I think, in many ways, people in the [chief learning officer] role have to be exemplars of so much in the organization, and communication is perhaps paramount among them."

Reference:
Brian Summerfield
[About the Author: Brian Summerfield is managing editor for Chief Learning Officer magazine.]

Best Practices in Mentoring.

Best Practices in Mentoring

Here are 12 steps for starting and managing a successful corporate mentoring program.

1. Plan your mentoring programs around your organization's HR strategic goals and outline the objectives for each program. Programs might support:

a) High potential career development;
b) Acclimating new employees;
c) Diversity relations;
d) Succession planning and/or
e) Pivotal employee retention.

2. Determine an appropriate budget which may be used for communication materials, kick-off and ongoing events, matching and administration software, mentor incentives and/or expense reimbursements.

3. Identify the employees to participate in the mentoring program(s). A program may be as small as 50 participants for a very specialized program or as large as the entire company for a general program.

4. Define the level of formality and the program rules for each of your mentoring programs. Programs may run from very informal with no rules to very formal with signed participant contracts. Program rules should include:

a) Length of mentorship (somewhere between 9 months and 18 months);
b) Required or suggested number of mentor-mentee meetings;
c) Maximum allowable job levels between mentor and mentee (generally no more than 2 levels);
d) Maximum number of mentees per mentor and
e) Eligibility to participate.

5. Plan your matching strategy and tactics. Allow for self-matching or some involvement by the mentees in the selection of his or her mentor. For programs with more than 100 participants the use of an online mentor matching software program or an in-house tool may be helpful.

6. Conduct a "Call for Mentors," which may range from nominations by senior managers for formal specialty programs to self-identification for general programs.

7. Publicize the program through multiple communication channels.

8. Find an executive preferably outside of the human resources department to champion the program. Look for someone who attributes his or her success to having had a great mentor.

9. Kick-off your mentoring program with pizzazz. Hold a luncheon or afternoon snack-filled meeting to discuss the roles and responsibilities of mentors and mentees and share past mentoring success stories.

10. Monitor and track participation in the mentoring program and continue to communicate success stories throughout the life of the program.

11. Measure the results of the program against the program objectives. Is the turnover rate of program participants lower than non-participants? Are those participating in the mentoring program being successfully promoted at higher rates than non-participants?

12. Clearly communicate the success to senior leaders inside and outside of HR.

Reference:
Beth N. Carvin
[About the Author: Beth N. Carvin is CEO & president of Nobscot Corp., a Honolulu-based company known for its exit interview management software. One of its products is Mentor Scout, a Web-based tool for facilitating mentoring programs, which was selected by Human Resource Executive magazine as one of the best HR products of 2007]

While HR Might Face Cuts, Talent Remains a Top Priority

While HR Might Face Cuts, Talent Remains a Top Priority

Facing rising gas, oil and food prices and a faltering economy, people across the nation are looking to cut costs wherever possible. Some turn to carpools, others to environmentally efficient appliances, others to bulk and discount shopping. When it comes to talent, organizations are no exception.

According to a new survey of more than 250 companies by the Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp), 88 percent of corporations plan to implement cost-cutting programs within a year. But rather than reducing head count, an overwhelming majority will first cut discretionary spending, improve efficiency or seek lower prices from vendors.

"[It's] the war for talent," said Kevin Oakes, CEO of i4cp. "A lot of organizations are very cognizant that their ability to attract new talent in the future is going to be limited, given all the demographic information and the retiring workforce. I think most of them are looking at other efficiency-based ways to trim costs, other than doing layoffs."

Indeed, 87 percent of companies surveyed said they were hoping to improve efficiency to a moderate, high or very high degree; 71 percent said they would cut discretionary spending to the same degree; and 65 percent said they would seek lower prices from vendors. Only 33 percent said they would reduce head counts.

Despite the good news for workers everywhere, however, talent managers could be in for some additional challenges. While more than a third of organizations surveyed said they would look to HR as a place to cut costs, 70 percent of them said they plan to engage employees more effectively as an alternative tactic for cost cutting. This means in the next year, HR professionals likely will need to figure out how to do more with less.

The upshot of this situation is it presents a prime opportunity for talent managers to prove their worth and business impact to senior executives.

"This is a great opportunity for talent managers to really trumpet what they're doing from an integrated talent management perspective," Oakes said. "The talent managers that are showing some kind of ROI to top-level management, those are the ones that are going to rise to the top. Any CEO asked by a shareholder at an annual meeting would say, 'Our people are our most important asset,' and the talent managers that become the sidekick to the CEO to help him or her implement that phrase become incredibly valuable to the company. The economy is helping talent managers and giving them the opportunity to showcase that."

Reference:
Agatha Gilmore
[About the Author: Agatha Gilmore is an associate editor for Talent Management magazine

The Elusive Connection - Recruitment & Retention

The Elusive Connection - Recruitment & Retention.

While recruitment and retention seem to be the inseparable twins of the human resources function , experts say that Human Resource leaders would do better if they treated the two distinctly..

Key learnings:

• Recruitment and Retention may sound like the inseparable twins of the human resources function.
• But in practice they are fundamentally different and therefore need to be practiced independently.

Recruitment and retention -the two most critical functions of the human resources department-- are almost always used interchangeably even by the most experienced HR practitioners making them sound like one single entity. Ask experts and they shrug as they really do not see the connection. Apart from the fact that both recruitment and retention come under the purview of the human resources function, there is no other direct connection between the two. But does it matter? What difference does it make if recruitment and retention are said in one breath when in practice they are done separately? Experts say that clubbing the two has a significant impact on the way organisations perceive and finally execute the two. Putting functions in their right place and giving them their due will help managers enhance both functional and individual productivity.

Definitions revisited

In order to understand the distinction between recruitment and retention, it is important to get the definitions right. By definition recruitment is a process that aims at luring potential talent employed elsewhere to come and join your organisation. The definition clearly omits cases of "internal recruiting". In fact experts say that the term "internal recruitment" is a misnomer since recruitment does not include job rotation or internal promotions or demotions. Movement of individuals within an employment does not amount to recruitment and hence , dedicating recruitment resources for filling up positions through internal talent pool is not justified.

Retention on the other hand is about already employed talent. It is about keeping the recruited talent by offering them the right set of motivators. In other words, retention is a process that is initiated after the employee becomes more productive and the employer wants to hold him for as long as he can. Thus the core of both recruitment and retention is diametrically opposite and therefore does not justify the unification of the functions.

Leveraging the distinction

The distinction between the functions is evident in their respective definitions. While recruitment focuses on external talent , retention focuses on internal talent. Thus accomplishing success on both these fronts calls for a different set of skills and approach. This implies that it is rather unfair to allocate both recruitment and retention functions to one person and expect stellar results , since both functions call for different sets of skills.

Despite the distinction, most organisations lump the two together and the justification for this may sound valid. However, that does not make a reason good enough to append the two. Most leaders claim that recruitment and retention are connected as good recruitments require little retention efforts. When recruitment managers make effective recruiting decisions, employee engagement and motivation tend to stay high for a significant period and the need for implementing retention strategies does not arise. While the logic may sound good, in practice there are problems that recruitment and recruiting managers encounter thereby nullifying the logic.

The most evident impediment in the recruitment -retention connection is that while we may argue that effective recruiting would take the burden off retention, in reality the picture is not as rosy. This is because recruitment and recruiting are dealt with at two different levels. While recruitment manager comes from HR and is involved in identifying, short- listing and initial screening of candidates , the final recruiting decision comes from the recruiting manager who is also the line manager. Hence, the recruitment managers do not have a definite say in recruiting decisions and therefore cannot use their discretion in getting the kind of talent they wish to bring in. This makes retention a rather imperative process , bringing in HR leaders at a point where recruiting managers feel that their talent pool needs to be replenished in terms of better benefits , pay and other motivating goodies.

There is another factor that renders the recruitment and retention connect invalid. While recruitment managers may try and get the best man in , the work style of recruiting managers /line managers may be so annoying and demoralising that even the most competent person may feel stifled and may want to quit. Holding such people is a great challenge since recruitment managers have virtually no control over the actions and mindsets of their line managers. Thus employee turnover because of line managers can hardly be attributed to ineffective recruitment practices.

Thus the onus of making both recruitment and retention work in the best interest of the organisation lies as much with HR managers as with line managers. Understanding this would help managers share the responsibility better and result in a more effective and productive human resources function.

Transform Talent With Deeper Skill Specialization.

Transform Talent With Deeper Skill Specialization

Most companies want one thing more than any other: to be a market leader. This can be achieved in several ways - being a low-cost provider, delivering a distinctive customer experience or through superior technologies, processes and products. But executives increasingly see workforce talent as the distinctive capability underpinning any winning corporate strategy.

A workforce with deeper skills in critical domain areas can drive high performance by innovating, improving processes and finding new ways to serve customers. But the HR and learning functions often are ill equipped to recruit or develop workforces with truly differentiated skills. To achieve that winning market differentiation, talent managers must mine and develop the distinctive knowledge and skills of their people and help them advance rapidly to higher levels of expertise.

Focus Learning Investments

The innovations and transformational initiatives that can redefine a company's competitive position likely will come from employees with deeper and more specialized skills. But a large percentage of learning investments often is directed at providing training to those learning a new skill or job. A disconnect exists between where learning investments are made and the types of learning that can produce a differentiated workforce capability.

Less than 30 percent of workplace performance is the result of applying lessons from a formal learning experience to a job goal, while some 70 percent is influenced by informal learning and factors in a worker's environment: feedback, coaching, leadership, incentives, clear work objectives and processes. Now, consider some 80 percent of a typical company's talent development budget is spent on formal learning, and only 20 percent on the informal learning that has been shown to have greater impact on workforce - and by extension - company performance.

This disconnect between programs and impact often is a shock to line managers looking for a training solution to workforce performance challenges. Mary Jo Burfeind, who leads learning and development for the subscriber services division of Health Care Service Corp., said her company's managers sometimes expect employees to come out of formal learning programs acting as self-sufficient and independent problem solvers, but that is rarely the case.

"The training that our claims and customer service people receive, for example, is really about getting them to a level of basic proficiency," Burfeind said.

Moving those same employees from the basics to a level where they act independently or coach others requires that they continuously learn on the job, receive coaching, learn from their experiences and talk to their peers. Unfortunately, given the constraints under which many operate, learning organizations may struggle to figure out how to encourage deeper specialization. However, it can be worth it to explore potential solutions.

"As employees grow and develop, and as their jobs become more complex, it really is as if they've graduated," Burfeind said. "We don't see them again except on occasion. The learning organization is less actively involved in their development. It's really during those years when a degree of directed development activity can have the most effect on their individual performance and on the impact they make on the company. So we're working to take advantage of that dynamic by planning more targeted learning activities for incumbents."

The Path to Specialization

Health Care Service Corp. devised a new approach to workforce enablement- beyond formal learning - that could advance people more quickly on a path to specialization. First, the organization had to think more rigorously about skills progression for a given job or role. Specifically, what does it mean to achieve deeper skills, and how do you know when a person has attained new levels of capability?

The specifics will vary. Some business skills will be nearly universal across workforces, while others will vary depending on whether the person is managing an ERP systems integration project, a complex HR outsourcing deal or a consulting program in CRM or sales. However, it is possible to construct a general, consistent viewpoint of the progression people make as their skills in an area deepen and become more specialized.

When a person begins a new job, takes on a new role or learns a new work domain, he or she may go through numerous levels on the developmental path. At the novice stage, employees begin with minimal understanding of their performance goals or how they are supposed to reach them. Mistakes are common. Through a combination of training and practice, they rise to a level of proficiency. At that point, they understand what they are doing and, for the most part, why - but often their performance is inefficient and may require a great deal of oversight. Workers who advance to the independent stage can be productive with minimal guidance from a supervisor.

When employees attain the advanced and expert levels, they are no longer simply following set paths. Further, they may occasionally reinvent those paths, creating ideas for new products and services and devising business strategies with the potential to redefine an industry along the way.

The Right Kinds of Enablers

Formal learning is an important piece on the development path toward specialization and deeper expertise, but it is limited in its ability to create experts. To advance workers beyond proficiency to advanced or expert status in a particular domain, companies should consider creating programs in two additional areas:

1. Guided experience: Feedback and guidance, both reinforcing and corrective, that one receives from a coach and/or mentor, or in other ways in the course of performing job tasks.

2.Collaboration: Learning that occurs in the process of completing tasks as part of a team.

Jim Demme, program manager for the Learning Center at Grainger, a leading distributor of facilities and maintenance supplies, said both formal and experiential learning opportunities are important because, taken together, they more faithfully reflect the real work environment. In Grainger's case, a combination of enablers helped sales and service employees develop more specialized capabilities.

"We can sit our people down in a classroom, but until they actually go on-site to a customer's location and implement one of our solutions, it's all theoretical to them," Demme said. "When we teach employees in the classroom about inventory management systems, for example, we can tell them they'll be going into the customer's tool crib to help get things organized. But the employee's visualization of what that tool crib looks like will be quite different from the real environment at the customer's location. They have to experience it."

That's why Demme and his learning colleagues are direct and purposeful about the on-the-job experiences and guidance employees need on top of formal training.

"(Only with those experiences) will they ever be able to say, 'Now I understand the steps in solving not just this one problem but any similar type of problem,'" he explained. "And that's when we can say they've achieved the kind of independent and advanced performance status we need from them so they can better serve our customers."

Creating a Specialization Road Map

With a stronger sense of what skill specialization means for any given domain and how one can accurately judge if and when someone has attained the various levels, learning can design specific activities and programs within three enablers: formal learning, guided experience and collaboration. That detailed design becomes a specialization road map for a particular job, skill or domain.

This road map is a real, working document. It's a matrix plotting the multiple levels of the development path to specialization against the three types of enabler, with specific examples of what is to happen at each stage to advance an employee to the next level.

For example, if sponsoring executives want to help experienced manager-level employee who already possess strong project management skills, deepen those skills to cope with today's complex work environment, a development project may bring workforces in different geographies together to work with complex handoffs in multiple phases.

The specialization road map in this case would include details such as having proficient project managers participate in community-of-practice meetings each month or asking those at an advanced level to serve as mentors to their less experienced colleagues. The ultimate road map might include a chart of 40 to 50 specific activities plotted against the path to specialization.

Specificity is critical. In general, the effectiveness of a specialization road map - or any program that seeks to create a more specialized, deeply skilled workforce - is dependent on how precise and purposeful it is.

But a distinctive talent capability is easier to conceptualize than it is to operationalize. Many learning organizations tie roles, job definitions and metrics primarily to formal training. When today's business executives look for help creating competitive differentiation in workforce talent, however, HR and learning executives need to be ready with a rigorous set of programs and processes to create more advanced-level employees, capable of game-changing innovations that can achieve and sustain high performance.

Reference:
Don Vanthournout and Maeve Lucas
[About the Authors: Don Vanthournout is Accenture's chief learning officer and the author of Return on Learning: Training for High Performance at Accenture. Maeve Lucas is a senior manager with Accenture Education.]

Bearing Blame.

Bearing Blame

It's my contention that the failure of Human Resource professionals at Bear Stearns to move beyond the traditional business partner role to become true business leaders was a primary cause for the firm's failure.

Whenever a prominent firm fails as dramatically as Bear Stearns did recently, it should make everyone wonder what caused the failure and ask themselves, ''Could it happen at my firm?'' As HR professionals, you should also be wondering what role HR played in the collapse. It's my contention that the failure of HR professionals at Bear Stearns to move beyond the traditional business partner role to become true business leaders was a primary cause for the firm's failure.

Following any major business collapse (some might even argue after every minor one too), it's important for all involved to conduct a failure analysis in order to determine the contributing factors at work. Obviously, market forces could have played a role with Bear Stearns, but given that a majority of its competitors have managed to avoid collapse, it is safe to assume that market forces were not the cause. A second external factor to consider is predatory actions by competing banks, but that doesn't seem to be a key contributor either at this point. With market forces and predatory actions by competitors ruled out, attention should turn inward.

The collapse at Bear Stearns was a companywide failure, not that of a single business unit, so attention should focus primarily on factors that span the organization. The failure wasn't caused by faulty computer equipment or a software glitch, so technology isn't to blame. Bear Stearns enjoyed a fabulous reputation, attracting some of the best investors and talent. The firm had been profitable for over 80 years, so marketing and a shortage of resources were not the cause.

The final internal factor to consider is failure of the firm's employees and the people processes that governed them. In a quest for more profit, Bear Stearns' employees took too many risks. When such failures arise, one must blame not only the individuals involved, but also those who designed the management systems-the processes and policies - that allowed the extraordinary risks to play out.

In looking at possible management system contributors, the first area of focus should be the performance management and performance measurement systems. Bear Stearns dealt heavily in the extraordinarily risky field of financial derivatives. Given the significant risk, HR had a fiduciary responsibility to monitor employee performance even more precisely than would be expected at most firms.

The firm is also known for targeting candidates who had a predisposition toward taking unnecessary risks, known internally as PSDs: individuals who were poor, smart and had a deep desire to become rich. This type of hiring, coupled with a reward system that provided major incentives for extraordinary return, almost guarantees a disaster unless you have designed sufficient performance management and performance measurement systems that monitor when employees stretch beyond the boundaries of sanity. In the same light, if the hiring, compensation and training systems don't automatically ''adjust'' as market conditions change (dictating the need to take fewer risks), employees will continue to take risks based on historical expectations.

Certainly there were financial processes and software that played an important role in assessing financial risks, but it's important to remember that 100 percent of those processes and limits were designed and set by people. The fact is that other firms facing the same problems had employees and people management processes that successfully adjusted to meet the changing business environment.

If you analyze similar failures at Enron and the French Bank Societe Generale (with $7 billion in losses by a single trader), you'll find similar HR-process causes. Employees learn that it's OK to take extraordinary risks because the employee training process, performance metrics and incentive systems drive them in that direction. There is no effective counterbalance because the ethics, punishment and whistle-blower systems are toothless-they have little actual effect on employee behavior.

Given the scope of this failure and its contributing causes, it's only logical that Bear Stearns chief human resource officer Pamela Kimmet and her staff should share the criticism surrounding the firm's downfall. They are responsible for maintaining shareholder value. Instead of being an effective business leader, HR at Bear Stearns spent significant effort working on a companywide weight-loss program and becoming certified in HR. Shame on them, and shame on you if you don't learn a valuable lesson from their failure!

Reference:
John Sullivan
[About the Author: John Sullivan is a professor of management at San Francisco State University, where he has taught for more than 30 years.]

Four Pillars of Managing Performance

The Four Pillars of Managing Performance

It is an increasingly acknowledged fact that a company's human capital is its most valuable and sustainable competitive asset. But an organization's appreciation of its talent can't stop with this basic understanding. It is essential for organizations to proactively employ effective performance management systems that focus on both individuals and groups.

Some of the most important performance measurement systems are those that focus on groups or teams that are responsible for a particular business process, customer or geographical area. In many respects, the same principles that apply to measuring individual performance are appropriate to appraise team performance. It is critical the team as a whole be assessed on its performance and capability levels.

Talent management and employee development are critical to determine an organization's performance potential, but the ability to manage performance often is the major differentiator between organizations that produce adequate results and those that truly excel.

Executives responsible for designing an effective performance management system need to focus on accomplishing four things:

1. Define and agree on what performance the organization needs.
2. Guide the development of individuals so they have the skills and knowledge needed to perform effectively.
3. Motivate individuals to perform effectively.
4. Provide data about the condition of the organization's human capital.

With these four pillars firmly in place, managers can successfully manage performance, ultimately influencing the company's bottom line and overall success.

Pillar One: Defining Performance

Determining what needs to be done and how to do it is the bedrock of a performance management system. Without this definition, it is nearly impossible to develop and motivate individuals, and then channel their performance to support the organization's business strategy.

Every performance management system should explicitly identify objectives and how these will be measured once complete. Since many knowledge-based organizations don't have bureaucratic control structures and detailed job descriptions, thorough performance management systems are necessary to avoid confusion about what each employee should do and what constitutes individual and overall effective performance.

A perfect example is Best Buy's Results-Only Work Environment program that allows employees in participating departments to work virtually anywhere at anytime, as long as they successfully complete their assignments on time. At first, this program created an obstacle for managers who preferred supervising work in progress and lending assistance along the way. To help smooth the transition into its new management approach, Best Buy trained its managers how to set performance expectations and measure performance even when they cannot observe and manage the work of employees in person. The retail giant's resulting high performance levels were realized in part because it made an effort to set clear expectations for employees.

A performance management system also must help employees gain the skills and knowledge necessary to perform effectively. The first step in the process is to identify existing competencies. Without knowing this, managers cannot fully realize the type of performance employees are capable of. Identifying competencies also shows how individual workers can contribute to the organizational talent strategy, how much training is required and what kind of hiring is necessary.

This basic groundwork is especially important when business strategies experience difficulties. With this information readily accessible, managers can quickly and easily diagnose the root of the problem. For example, perhaps the skill sets of employees are not properly aligned with existing business needs. To solve this may require a simple shift in which employees are charged with executing the strategy, or perhaps the strategy itself needs to be changed.

Skills assessments can help employees understand which skills they need and help managers create a development and reward plan to facilitate employees acquiring those skills. Assessments also can help upper-level management evaluate its leadership abilities.

Michael Dell, founder of Dell computers, realized the importance of a skills assessment firsthand. Through the results of a survey asking employees to evaluate him as an executive, Dell found he was viewed as impersonal and emotionally detached from the workforce. As a result, he met with his top management team and admitted he is very shy and can appear aloof and unapproachable. Dell promised every manager in the company he would change, and he kept reminders around his office to continually reinforce his commitment.

This sent a message that performance improvement is expected and should be standard operating procedure for everyone in the organization -- the CEO included.

Pillar Three: Manage Motivation

Motivation is the capstone to performance. The most skilled individuals in an organization tend to perform at high levels and exceed expectations only if they are properly motivated. High levels of motivation require directly linking success to employee-valued rewards.

When discussing motivation, it is important to distinguish between internal and external rewards. Internal rewards can be personal feelings of competency, achievement and self-esteem. External rewards are tangible things employees value, such as praise from a manager or a salary increase.

In order for individuals to realize internal rewards, they need performance feedback. Sometimes their performance results are obvious. In other cases, workers can only see the impact of their behavior on work when the organization provides constructive feedback.

External rewards should be large enough so employees feel their efforts are worthwhile, appreciated and are helping the organization fulfill its mission. Thus, performance management systems need to be designed so appropriate rewards are given to individuals according to their performance.

When managers set goals, they need to keep in mind the difficulty of the goal is a key determinant of performance. When goals are set too low, individuals settle for low levels of performance; conversely, when goals are set too high, people give up because they do not believe they can succeed or they cheat to give the impression of success. Goals that are achievable but challenging should be the objective as they are the most motivating and produce the highest levels of performance.

An essential factor in effective performance measurement and management is immediate feedback. All too often, this major piece is missing from organizations' efforts to manage their employees' performance. Too many managers wait until the annual appraisal to give employees feedback. The importance of ongoing, immediate feedback is captured by the typical employee comment: "It does me no good to learn now what I did wrong eight months ago."

Information from individuals' skills assessments needs to become a matter of record in the organization. The best way to do this is to have an intranet-based system that profiles each individual in the organization, including information about their knowledge, competencies, performance goals, development objectives and work histories.

SAS, a privately owned software company, has an extensive skills database to help managers analyze the fit between the organization's present skills and the skills it will need in the future. This helps them manage change as well as assess how likely it is SAS can make specific changes.

A Crucial Challenge That Pays Off

Having an effective performance management approach is clearly not simple, but it is necessary. It requires that as number of pieces come together to create a cohesive system to direct and motivate individuals, teams and organizations to perform effectively, while being supported by comprehensive information and reward systems.

If an organization depends on talent for its competitive edge, an effective performance management system for all employee levels is not optional - it is a must.

Reference:
Edward E. Lawler III
[About the Author: Edward E. Lawler III is a professor of business and director of the Center for Effective Organizations at the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California and author of more than 40 books including Talent: Making People Your Competitive Advantage.]

Employer Brand is Critical to Retention and Engagement.

Why Employer Brand is Critical to Retention and Engagement

Recent Trends related to talent shortages, globalization and offshoring, not to mention the economic slowdown, have ensured that talent managers are focused on engaging and retaining their current talent pools. To ensure top talent stays where it should - within your organization - talent managers must consider how to create a positive employee experience as a piece of an employer's overall brand.

The Importance of the Employee Experience

The bigger the consumer brand, the more likely it is that an organization will attract top candidates, at least in the initial recruiting stages. However, your company brand is only as good as the employee's experience of that brand promise. If the consumer brand is strong but the employer brand is weak, an employee may feel deceived or undervalued and think, "This company is not what they portray to the public," or "they are not committed to their people." Neither is a good message to send to potential or existing talent.

The employee experience starts with an employee's first interaction with an organization. That first impression may extend far beyond company offerings in position, salary and benefits. Today's workforce is equally concerned with opportunities for career advancement, rewards and recognition, management style and company culture. Together these blend to make up the employer value proposition and employer brand, that impact the employee experience and, ultimately, the hire's decision to join and remain with an organization.

"Early-stage companies must put their best foot forward to attract top talent, as they don't necessarily have a visible consumer brand," said Blake Wolff, COO of Astadia Inc., a management consulting and on-demand technology solutions company. "Once new hires have joined the organization, the employer should reinforce the brand promise with an environment of open, honest communication and a well-developed career development program."

Connect Employer and Company Brand

One leading high technology organization has a mission to foster highly customer-centric employees. Its mission to deliver superior customer service and satisfaction is reinforced throughout the recruiting process. This mission drives the branding and messaging for all its online recruiting campaigns. Resulting candidates are deemed a good fit for a position if they demonstrate proven customer-centric knowledge and skills. By ensuring their new hires' skills and prior experience match core company culture, the organization is setting a strong framework for success.

But the importance of brand doesn't stop at the recruiting process. Financial services firms are known to support formal career tracks for their talent in order to create the right kind of employee experience. Many have received the "Best Company to Work For" label that aids brand building because employees like to know that an organization is committed to employees' long-term growth and development. Companies that incorporate this commitment into their employer brand and message will have an advantage because the employer brand validates why top candidates came to the organization in the first place.

"A thoughtful employer brand can be just as valuable as a well-executed consumer brand," said Gordon Rudow, CEO of San Francisco-based Bonfire Communications, an agency that specializes in building company brands. "Just as a good consumer brand inspires trust and loyalty, so does a strong employer brand help attract, engage and retain the best people and harness their performance."

Many talent managers partner with the marketing department to help build an effective employer brand. It makes sense to leverage the expertise of marketers that spend their days building brands and running programs to attract and retain customers. They know a customer today is not necessarily a customer tomorrow, and HR and business leaders can apply marketing concepts to their recruiting and branding efforts to build a competitive edge.

Employer Brand, On-Boarding and Company Performance

On the first day of work, an employee is exposed to a company's values, mission, culture and attitudes. This usually happens during the employee on-boarding process. The new employee soaks in the company atmosphere via provided materials, messages from colleagues and communications from HR and business leaders.

Imagine an employee who has a negative first impression because the company mission is unclear, on-boarding instructions or product materials are inconsistent or colleagues are complaining. Given those mixed messages, that person may wonder about the viability of the company and may not commit fully to the organization or his or her new role.

Then imagine an employee arrives for the first day of employment and finds a solid company message on the organizational culture and mission. Colleagues are upbeat, and company product and service information is clearly and consistently presented. This employee likely would be more excited to be part of that team than the former. Further, the employee presented with positive, consistent employer brand message is more likely to refer a skilled peer to the organization.

"A new hire's on-boarding is only the beginning of the overall employee experience," Rudow said. "That initial interaction is reinforced by a series of touch points around the company's mission, vision and values, learned through the attitudes and behaviors of colleagues and executives. Those touch points become the foundation of an employer brand."

On-boarding programs are a perfect opportunity to reinforce the employer brand and generate a positive employee experience. For example, a leading media organization has a comprehensive way to help new hires get acclimated quickly and get them excited about the company and its brand. Each employee goes through a formal online on-boarding program in which they hear the company mission from the CEO, learn about the company culture and history, and learn about its core products and value propositions. They receive buddies or mentors to guide them on their career paths.

The company's focus on the employee experience via a formal on-boarding program has had a high impact on engagement and performance. Employees know how to do their jobs, are clear on company values and messaging, and feel part of a greater purpose. Activities and messages are delivered through a Web-based on-boarding application that standardizes how the information is delivered and also manages activities such as shadowing a manager or attending a specific course or seminar to help them grow in their roles.

On-boarding programs also are an opportunity to set expectations around performance and establish employee guidelines for a successful working relationship with the organization. Astadia connects company strategic objectives to employee actions immediately. During the first day of employee orientation, an Astadia executive reviews the company's strategic objectives and outlines the importance of aligning them with individual objectives and tasks. Then the annual employee review process measures individual objectives success and how that success impacts the company's strategic objectives.

A company's strategic objectives and mission should be clearly communicated early and on a continual basis throughout the employee life cycle because they make up the core components that drive the employer brand.

Happy Employees Can Be Great Brand Ambassadors

Imagine a happy new hire has been working for the organization for a couple of months. Now imagine this employee in front of a potential customer, partner or other influencer. If this individual shares the vision, mission and can clearly articulate the value of the organization's products or services, he or she is a strong ambassador for the company brand.

"All too often, companies overlook the role their people can play as frontline champions of their brand," Rudow said. "But the more these companies develop their external brand, the more they realize the value of starting from the inside out."

Companies need to continually align employee knowledge, the corporate mission and brand messaging. If an organization is launching a new product or service, make sure employees are appropriately trained to speak about that product or service.

"Our client's perception of our brand is based on the actions, statements and successes of our team," Wolff said. "With consultants deployed globally, we work constantly to increase the consistency and impact of our internal messaging to drive positive external branding. Mentoring during an employee's first few months at Astadia has not only positively affected performance, but also has significantly helped in getting employee buy-in and engagement in regards to employer brand."

Solicit employee input regularly to see if the organization fulfills the employee brand promise. This can be done through annual employee engagement surveys, or through more frequent, informal surveys. Feedback received will help the company ensure it is investing in the programs that matter most to its talent.

Further, company brand and experience can and should extend out to an organization's network of partners, resellers and distributors. Just as internal employees are brand and company advocates, a company's trusted network of indirect sales channels should be, too. Many organizations use extended enterprise training solutions to share best practices, vision, mission and brand with their partners.

For remote partners, Web-based systems can facilitate knowledge sharing and collaboration of brand and related materials. Many organizations also request partners be certified on their ability to deliver consistent brand messaging.

Beyond Employer Brand

Companies spend billions every year on their consumer brands to attract new customers and open new markets. These vast sums are meant to entice the consumer to buy and continue buying throughout the product and company life cycle.

Leading organizations may suffer if their employees don't understand or can't articulate company value to the marketplace. Formal employer brand programs will help attract, retain and motivate top talent in a market in which the talent pool is shrinking and recruiting costs are growing.

Reference:
Julie Norquist Roy
[About the Author: Julie Norquist Roy is director of marketing for Cornerstone OnDemand.]

Transparency Key to Sustain Employee Performance During Recession

Transparency Key to Sustain Employee Performance During Recession

In the midst of the current recession, prices for food, gas and most everything else are steadily rising. Employee performance, engagement and organizational loyalty, on the other hand, are likely to decrease.

Employers would do well to pay close attention to feelings of insecurity and the resulting performance disruptions that can occur during an economic slump, said Manny Avramidis, senior vice president global human resources at the American Management Association.

"Obviously it depends on the industry and the business that you're in, but usually during an economic downturn, most businesses aren't performing up to their potential," he said. "Employees are more concerned about their future employment and their personal well-being than they are about getting the job at hand done, which can often lead to quality and production issues."

To combat these workplace or work-quality issues, Avramidis said employers can be more proactive in creating a transparent work culture, one that promotes and maintains clear and consistent communication throughout the organization. Every employee should know exactly where they stand, as well as where the business stands, and what the organization's strategy will be to get through the economic downturn.

"Once the strategy is shared, you would hope that management and individual employees or contributors are able to engage and be part of the solution, whether it means creating new products or services or different products that perform better during an economic downturn, tightening belts, managing expenses a little more carefully - whatever it takes," Avramidis explained.

Taking the time to create clear, consistent communication that leads to organizational transparency will promote employee trust and loyalty during rough times and sustain these feelings once the economic situation improves.

"The organization has to be careful not to damage relationships with their employees, customers or shareholders, or whoever the interested party is in an economic downturn, because that's very hard to overcome afterwards," Avramidis said.

Once talent managers lay their business cards on the table, Avramidis said it's an ideal time to either retrain or show continued interest in employee development so, once through the economic downturn, the organization is positioned to come out stronger than ever on the other end.

"Even though unemployment is up and the economy is struggling, unemployment is at about 5, 5.1 percent, which is still extremely low," he said. "When it comes to unemployment of qualified talent, it's a lot lower. We can't ignore that, and we certainly don't to come out of this economic down turn in a situation where all of our strong talent is looking to leave because they didn't like the way we treated them during the downtime."

In an effort to facilitate transparency, some organizations even publicize worse-case scenarios, which Avramidis said can help alleviate some of employees' insecurities. These might include worse-case scenarios for the business, as well as potential employee separation - what they would be entitled to from a severance, outplacement and training standpoint.

"Good talent is still very hard to come by," he said. "Baby boomers are still going to be retiring in larger numbers than what they're doing today and the very near future. We'll still have the same talent shortage during this economic downturn as we will after it."

Reference:
Kellye Whitney
[About the Author: Kellye Whitney is managing editor for Talent Management magazine.]

The Upside-Down Training Cake.

The Upside-Down Training Cake

I'll bet you want your organization's investment in training to pay off in better performance, more quickly. Well, there is a way to reduce the time to proficiency - let them eat upside-down cake!

Please indulge me for a minute by thinking of training as an upside-down cake. This kind of cake has delicious fruit on the bottom of the cake pan and then the rest of the cake is layered on top of it. When an upside-down cake is served, it is turned (you guessed it) upside down - so the fruit is on the top. That's how training should be served - beginning with the job task (the fruit) and then getting the supporting content (the rest of the cake) as needed to complete the task.

The typical training program doesn't turn the cake upside down. Trainees have to get through the rest of the cake (content) before they get to the delicious fruit (the job task). But what if your designers and developers turned the traditional learning model upside down? Instead of presenting a bunch of information sequentially, they start with a realistic job task or problem and then build in the relevant content as it's needed, just in time, at the teachable moment. By turning training on its head, your training investment can result in faster attainment of proficiency on the job - especially with relatively complex tasks like sales, customer service, system usage and technical skills.

Hungry to find out why this is so? Read on...

Motivation to Learn

When training begins with a case, scenario or simulation (after a very brief overview), trainees are more motivated to learn than when they are presented with a lot of content up front. As they work through cases, trainees are faced with decision points, moments where the learner thinks "Hmmm, what should I do?"

At those points - the "teachable moments" - trainees are motivated to learn, because they need the information to complete the task at hand. This "upside-down cake" approach is motivating because most trainees are goal-directed learners. If you give them a meaningful problem to solve that is relevant to their work, they're going to be much more motivated to get the information they need to solve it than if they are given that information first, before they really understand how they will use it. It is harder to pay attention and make sense of content that is not taught in context.

The learning-while-doing approach also is motivating because trainees experience firsthand how the content is related to their jobs. This is more motivating than just being told the standard WIIFM ("What's in it for me?") - "Believe me, you'll find that this content I'm presenting will eventually be useful to you, later, when we do an application exercise. Really, I mean it. It's in your interest to stay awake."

Retention and Transfer

Even more importantly, serving your training feast upside-down improves retention and transfer to the job. Trainees retain the information they get at the teachable moment because they use it immediately in the scenario. (If you use it, you don't lose it.)

Most importantly, they are able to transfer what they have learned to the job because by getting information at the teachable moment, trainees create a mental link between the information and how it is used on the job. This means the information will be "indexed" in trainees' minds, so it is easier to retrieve when needed in real life. Just start trainees out with the fruit (scenario) on top and then they can take a forkful of the cake (content) as they go. This is true learning while doing.

Cognitive Roots

While it is tempting to think that this approach was developed by Emeril and his colleagues on the Food Channel, it is actually based on research by cognitive scientists over the past 30 years on how people develop expertise. People develop expertise through experience. They learn by working through real problems getting feedback on what they do, and reflecting on it. For any moderately to very complex job, whether it is sales, customer service, using computer systems, or technical decision-making, people learn best by doing - but "doing" in a specific way.

Start with the problem: First, give a brief overview (the operative word here is "brief"), then set up a series of case studies, simulations or OJT tasks. Begin with a simple case, then build to more and more complex cases as the learners gain competence and confidence. By the time they're done working through a very systematic set of cases, they've already started having experiences in a simulated or training environment. When they're actually on the job, they've already had the basic experiences that moved them well along the continuum toward expertise. The upside-down cake training gives them a jump start, reducing the time it takes to become proficient on the job.

Costs

But what about the costs? Aren't upside-down cakes more expensive and time-consuming to make than regular cakes? Development of this type of training might be a little bit more time-consuming (working with SMEs to create meaningful cases.) But, it doesn't have to be expensive. To make upside-down cake training, you can simply take the training that you're doing now, which usually involves presenting information and then having some sort of application exercise afterwards, and turn it upside down. Just set up the case/situation first and then use that a context for presenting the content information at teachable moments.

When looking at the investment in training, some may assume that the cost of training is the cost of developing and implementing the training program. However, the real cost, at an organizational level, is related to how quickly learners develop proficient job performance after training - how fast they come up to speed in complex jobs. These costs are substantial, but are rarely measured. We all know they exist, and they can be quite large. These costs show up as:

a) Sub-par productivity.
b) Mistakes
c) Dissatisfied customers
d) Time spent getting help from others
e) Manager's time reviewing and correcting work
f) Attrition of people who feel overwhelmed by their jobs

The return on investment in terms of reduction in the time to proficiency can be huge, making the training investment worthwhile. For example, in one large organization, it took one and a half to three years for their entry-level employees to become proficient. They are now implementing a case-based curriculum that has reduced time to proficiency in the pilot test. By getting people up to speed more quickly, there can be a huge savings in terms of productivity.

With that kind of savings, you can have your upside-down cake - and eat it too!


Reference:
Marty Rosenheck, Ph.D., CPT
[About the Author: Marty Rosenheck, Ph.D., CPT, is vice president of design and development at Cedar Interactive.

Why are you still in your Old Job?

“What’s wrong with you? You are with the same Organisation for 3 years. You will soon be called a fossil.”--Employee comment, ITES industry.

“I plan to work here until I retire.” This was a statement in our Great Place to Work Institute’s employee survey, which is popularly known as the Trust Index survey.

Our experience in India over the last few years convinced us that this is a wrong statement for the survey in India. The best employers would all have high positive scores in most areas, except this one. In fact, this statement had the lowest score, even for the Top 25 Great Places to Work.

There is an old adage. If you can’t improve your employee scores, change the survey! About a year back, after a great deal of debate, the statement was changed in our survey. Today, we have a statement that says, “I plan to work here for a long time.” Only now, have the scores gone up for this statement.

Much has been written about the talent shortage in India and why people do not stay for a long time, let alone till retirement. Most good companies analyse exit interview data to find out why people leave.

I spent a good part of last month visiting four Organisations to find out why people stay. The Organisations vary from ITES to hospitality to consulting to brand services. The only thing common were the profile of employees. While the Organisations and the employees by themselves can be called a convenient sample, the employees had one thing in common.

Almost all employees interviewed were less than 30 years, with a majority being less than 25 years of age. Considering that more than 50 per cent of our population is less than 25 years in age, the focus group discussions I did might have some significance. I asked one common question to all. “What makes you stay in this Organisation?” Here is what I found.

1. Compensation

While none of the Organisations were in the top quartile in their industry on pay,
compensation was a key driver not just in deciding to leave, but in deciding to stay as well.

As one employee put it-“Give us money or give us a life.” The only consolation for Organisations is that regardless of compensation levels there is a wide variance in retention levels in various teams, which to some extent may be attributed to the difference in the nature of work and the leadership style of the manager, amongst other factors.

2. Personal Convenience

Employees who have stayed longer have quoted personal convenience with respect to
location, transport, shift timings and security etc as influencing factors. Ease of access to workplace and pick up and drop near their home is an influencer in their decision to stay.

Importance of personal convenience seemed to be inversely proportional to the skill level/complexity of the job. Employees in jobs that call for a higher level of expertise seem to be less worried about personal convenience. For example, employees in the creative department of a brand services firm would rate the “Creative culture” as more important than personal convenience.

3. Learning and Exposure

This is perhaps one of the biggest drivers for the new generation. In all the four
Organisations a large component of learning came from working with clients, and meeting their requirements. There was also a pegging order for various
departments/processes/projects with some perceived to be better learning opportunities than others. In fact some of the above departments/ processes seem to have a stronger employer brand than the Organisation’s employer brand. For example, employees do not join Organisation X, but they join the marketing department of Organisation X. The challenge for many Organisations in some new economy industries with their division of labour is to sustain the learning curve after the first one year. Unlike the Apprenticeship models of the past, in most Organisations, learning comes from the job/ process or the client, rather than the supervisor.

Some common tools used by Organisations to enhance learning and exposure were internal job postings, training programmes, certification courses, and global exposure.

4. Career Growth

Career growth (read rapid promotions) is the single biggest reason for staying back for those employees who have got rapid promotions. There are significant social pressures to quit, on employees who do not get rapid promotions. In three of these Organisations employees gave examples of fulfilling career growth inspite of not having requisite technical qualifications, e.g. housekeeping person heading sales or a matriculate doing design production work.

The high growth of many organizations poses serious challenges with systems, processes and infrastructure forever lagging behind. However, high growth is also what enables many Organisations to give rapid promotions, which subsequently becomes a stated and expected need. If you are riding the high growth tiger, you will find it difficult to dismount.

5. Freedom and Empowerment

“One of our guests was unhappy with something in one of our restaurants. Our Associate (entry level employee) offered him our most expensive champagne on the house! When senior management came to know about it she was publicly ……. applauded!” Employees in this hotel know that customer service is not a poster in the Training room. This hotel has used Freedom and Empowerment not only to drive customer service, but also to build employee engagement. Talk about killing two birds with one stone!

6. Camaraderie

Most employees, who have stayed a long time, talked about getting into a “comfort zone” with managers showing a high degree of flexibility towards personal and work life issues. It is common for employees to swap shifts between themselves, use flexi time informally when required and shift to more convenient shifts for specific period of time e.g. before taking maternity leave or after coming back from maternity leave.

Interestingly, while there were many examples of supportive bosses, there were not many examples of leaders inspiring employees to remain with the Organisation or to give their best.

In a recent interview in Economic Times, Nandita Gurjar, VP HR of Infosys BPO was
quoted as saying, “ Many top level and mid level employees have started hopping as many as 2-3 companies in a year. And these are the same people who once counseled entry level employees towards loyalty and persuaded them to stay put. At the end of it all entry level employees realize it is a hoax.”

In my days in manufacturing in the past it was not uncommon to have middle managers with high levels of integrity (Doing what they say). Today in the new age economy, this is a challenge with respect to retention. A manager can hardly inspire her team members to stay, if she is applying elsewhere.

7. Stability and Job Security

Interestingly, even in an industry teeming with employment opportunities, stability of the Organisation and by implication, job security, emerged as a key motivator for many employees. Employees gave examples of an entire process being taken out of the
Organisation, but all employees being relocated to other processes of their choice.
While employees are no longer willing to commit staying for a long time, they nevertheless appreciate Organisations which offer stability and better security. If this is a factor in retention, Organisations should be able to make it a core part of their deal to employees, particularly in growth phase. Unfortunately, employees are no longer willing to believe that organizations will protect their jobs during any down turn, unless an Organisation has a track record of doing so.

8. Work- Life Balance

Interestingly, in many of the groups interviewed I found a small, but distinct group of employees who are willing to be reconciled with lower growth provided they get the work life balance they are seeking. Apart from obvious categories like double income families with child rearing responsibilities, some young people want more time to pursue their interests apart from work. This is, however, not a major trend, yet.

Reference:
P.Bhattacharya
The author is CEO of The Great Place to Work® Institute, India. Views expressed are personal.

Creating Personal Mission Statement

The Five-Step Plan for Creating Personal Mission Statement

A large percentage of companies, including most of the Fortune 500, have corporate mission statements. Mission statements are designed to provide direction and thrust to an organization, an enduring statement of purpose. A mission statement acts as an invisible hand that guides the people in the organization. A mission statement explains the organization's reason for being, and answers the question, "What business are we in?"

A personal mission statement is a bit different from a company mission statement, but the fundamental principles are the same. Writing a personal mission statement offers the opportunity to establish what's important and perhaps make a decision to stick to it before we even start a career. Or it enables us to chart a new course when we're at a career crossroads. Steven Covey (in First Things First) refers to developing a mission statement as "connecting with your own unique purpose and the profound satisfaction that comes from fulfilling it."

A personal mission statement helps job-seekers identify their core values and beliefs. Michael Goodman (in The Potato Chip Difference: How to Apply Leading Edge Marketing Strategies to Landing the Job You Want) states that a personal mission statement is "an articulation of what you're all about and what success looks like to you." A personal mission statement also allows job-seekers to identify companies that have similar values and beliefs and helps them better assess the costs and benefits of any new career opportunity.

The biggest problem most job-seekers face is not in wanting to have a personal mission statement, but actually writing it. So, to help you get started on your personal mission statement, here is a five-step mission-building process. Take as much time on each step as you need -- and remember to dig deeply to develop a mission statement that is both authentic and honest. And to help you better see the process, we've included an example of one job-seeker's process in developing her mission statement.

Steps Toward Personal Mission Statement Development

Step 1:

Identify Past Successes. Spend some time identifying four or five examples where you have had personal success in recent years. These successes could be at work, in your community, at home, etc. Write them down.

Try to identify whether there is a common theme -- or themes -- to these examples. Write them down.

Step 2:

Identify Core Values. Develop a list of attributes that you believe identify who you are and what your priorities are. The list can be as long as you need.

Once your list is complete, see if you can narrow your values to five or six most important values.

Finally, see if you can choose the one value that is most important to you.

Step 3:

Identify Contributions. Make a list of the ways you could make a difference. In an ideal situation, how could you contribute best to:'

• the world in general
• your family
• your employer or future employers
• your friends
• your community

Step 4:

Identify Goals. Spend some time thinking about your priorities in life and the goals you have for yourself.

Make a list of your personal goals, perhaps in the short-term (up to three years) and the long-term (beyond three years).

Step 5:

Write Mission Statement. Based on the first four steps and a better understanding of yourself, begin writing your personal mission statement.

Sample Personal Mission Statement Development

1. Past success:

1. developed new product features for stagnant product
2. part of team that developed new positioning statement for product
3. helped child's school with fundraiser that was wildly successful
4. increased turnout for the opening of a new local theater company

Themes: S

Successes all relate to creative problem solving and execution of a solution.

2. Core values:

• Hard-working
• Industrious
• Creativity
• Problem-Solving
• Decision-maker
• Friendly
• Outgoing
• Positive
• Family-oriented
• Honest
• Intelligent
• Compassionate
• Spiritual
• Analytical
• Passionate
• Contemplative

Most important values:

• Problem-Solving
• Creativity
• Analytical
• Compassionate
• Decision-maker
• Positive

Most important value:

• Creativity

3. Identify Contributions:

• The world in general: develop products and services that help people achieve what they want in life. To have a lasting impact on the way people live their lives.
• My family: to be a leader in terms of personal outlook, compassion for others, and maintaining an ethical code; to be a good mother and a loving wife; to leave the world a better place for my children and their children.
• My employer or future employers: to lead by example and demonstrate how innovative and problem-solving products can be both successful in terms of solving a problem and successful in terms of profitability and revenue generation for the organization.
• My friends: to always have a hand held out for my friends; for them to know they can always come to me with any problem.
  my community: to use my talents in such a way as to give back to my community.

4. Identify Goals:

Short-term: To continue my career with a progressive employer that allows me to use my skills, talent, and values to achieve success for the firm.

Long-term: To develop other outlets for my talents and develop a longer-term plan for diversifying my life and achieving both professional and personal success.

5. Mission Statement:

To live life completely, honestly, and compassionately, with a healthy dose of realism mixed with the imagination and dreams that all things are possible if one sets their mind to finding an answer.

Final Thoughts
A personal mission statement, is of course personal… but if you want to truly see whether you have been honest in developing your personal mission statement, I suggest sharing the results of this process with one or more people who are close to you. Ask for their feedback.

Finally, remember that a mission statement is not meant to be written once and blasted into stone. You should set aside some time annually to review your career, job, goals, and mission statement -- and make adjustments as necessary.

And for more ideas on creating a personal mission statement, read one of our other articles, Using a Personal Mission Statement to Chart Your Career Course, which includes links to other mission-building exercises.

You should also consider reading some of these sample mission statements... they may help inspire you.

Questions about some of the terminology used in this article? Get more information (definitions and links) on key college, career, and job-search terms by going to our Job-Seeker's Glossary of Job-Hunting Terms.

Reference:
Randall S. Hansen, Ph.D.
Dr. Randall S. Hansen is founder of Quintessential Careers, one of the oldest and most comprehensive career development sites on the Web, as well CEO of EmpoweringSites.com. He is also founder of MyCollegeSuccessStory.com and EnhanceMyVocabulary.com. He is publisher of Quintessential Careers Press, including the Quintessential Careers electronic newsletter, QuintZine. Dr. Hansen is also a published author, with several books, chapters in books, and hundreds of articles. He's often quoted in the media and conducts empowering workshops around the country. Finally, Dr. Hansen is also an educator, having taught at the college level for more than 15 years. Visit his personal Website or reach him by email at randall(at)quintcareers.com.

Nonverbal Cues Aids Employee Engagement

Sensitivity to Nonverbal Cues Aids Employee Engagement

Sometimes all it takes is a much-publicized case of "he said, she said" to highlight the powerful effects of nonverbal cues and to demonstrate the link between masterful soft skills and employee engagement.

It all started during a Village Board meeting in the rural community of Island Lake, Ill. After a heated exchange over village finances, two trustees alleged that resident Greg Kachka, a retired mail carrier and disabled Vietnam War veteran, pointed his finger menacingly at them while wearing a T-shirt that read: "Don't Move. If You Run, You'll Only Die Tired."

Kachka, however, claimed he was simply trying to draw attention to one of the trustees after she allegedly make sarcastic facial expressions to mock him for asking questions. Kachka faces two counts of disorderly conduct, and if convicted, could get up to 30 days in jail, two years of probation and a $1,500 fine.

Jarring and unfortunate in many respects, the Island Lake T-shirt debacle is an extreme example of nonverbal communication gone bad. This is a particularly important issue in organizations, where any and all forms of communication, particularly on the part of leaders, have a substantial impact on workforce performance. After all, "employee engagement is a direct reflection of how employees feel about their relationship with the boss," according to Gerard H. Seijts and Dan Crim in a 2006 article in the Ivey Business Journal.

Yet, oftentimes people in positions of power can be insensitive to how they come across, resulting in hurt, angry or uncomfortable feelings among employees, said Robert Dipboye, an industrial and organizational psychologist and professor at the University of Central Florida.

"They don't realize the impact that small behaviors, [such as] the way they say, 'Good morning,' has on those around them," he said. "[Conversely], those in subordinate positions are often highly sensitive, for good reasons. The person in power has to be aware that they're being watched, and everything they do is having an impact, even though they may just want to be casual and informal and spontaneous."

While soft-skills grooming for leaders can help, there must be some discussion of how nonverbal cues, such as hand gestures, facial expressions, clothing and even the objects in their offices, can make an impression on workers.

"I've seen men, for instance, put posters in their office or have screen savers that are sexually suggestive without any sensitivity to the impact that has on the women in the workplace," Dipboye said.

It might not legally be deemed harassment, but the net effect can be a disengaged workforce. The solution, Dipboye said, is moderation, and for organizations to make a point of grooming leaders to be aware of their nonverbal cues. In some cases, leaders might need to curb their natural tendencies to avoid an unintended nonverbal message.

"Like a lot of things, you can have too little and you can have too much," Dipboye said. "It's sort of like a Goldilocks effect. [For example, with hand gestures], if you go too far, then you're perceived as unstable, erratic, emotional. However, on the other hand, if you don't use gestures at all, you're seen as weird or introverted, withdrawn. Most of the research shows it's sort of curvilinear - up to a point it's good."

Reference:
Agatha Gilmore
[About the Author: Agatha Gilmore is an associate editor for Talent Management magazine.]