KeenHire Blog by Margaret Graziano

Recent Survey Indicates HUGE Amount of Disengaged Employees

Santa Monica, Calif., April 29, 2010 – Escalating demands of the American workplace – from staff cuts and tighter budgets to increasingly difficult workloads – have created an environment where employees don’t feel they are valued appropriately by executives and superiors.  However, a new survey of 584 working Americans conducted by Kelton Research and sponsored by learning and talent management solutions provider Cornerstone On Demand reveals that employers are overlooking simple solutions to improve employee morale and loyalty – and reduce the risk of losing employees as the economy improves.
 
Nearly three in five (56 percent) employed Americans say that aside from compensation and benefits, being appreciated would motivate them to stay in their current position – even more so than an opportunity to advance their career (46 percent).
 
Additionally, more working women than men (62 percent vs. 50 percent) feel that, aside from money and benefits, being appreciated would make them stay put.  Yet, 54 percent of working Americans say that their colleagues appreciate them more than their supervisors or company executives.

While the economy may have made it difficult for employers to reward their workers with raises and additional benefits, they need to embrace other ways of showing appreciation. Employers also need to take note that while they are in survival mode their employees are looking out the window at what is next for them.

  “American workers simply want to be empowered to do a good job and be recognized for their contributions,” said Adam Miller, president and CEO of Cornerstone OnDemand.  “If companies don’t clearly communicate how employees can contribute to organizational goals and provide adequate training and performance feedback, they risk losing their best people as the economy improves.  This kind of turnover is costly and can dull a company’s competitive edge.”

 
Eye on the Future
Companies seeking to avoid excessive turnover as the economy recovers need to close the communication gap and empower employees to perform well in their roles.  The survey found that in the last six months:
 
    •    Over two in three (68 percent) employed Americans gripe they haven’t received useful feedback from their supervisors
    •     Over four in five (82 percent) employed Americans have not established their career goals with their superiors 

    •    More than half (53 percent) of working Americans haven’t felt they have a clear understanding of how their role contributes to company objectives 

    •    One in four (25 percent) Americans with jobs have been given new duties or responsibilities at work that are outside of their skill set
 
In this particular study, the chances are 95 in 100 that a survey result does not vary, plus or minus, by more than 3.1 percentage points from the result that would be obtained if interviews had been conducted with all persons in the universe represented by the sample.
 
To view the complete results of the survey, please visit: http://www.cornerstoneondemand.com/employee-satisfaction-survey-valuation-loyalty-appreciation-and-communication-stats
 

About KeenHire Talent Management. KeenHire TM offers a HCRI certified training program (16 credit hours) on developing a Talent Strategy. The Course is about being an Employer of Choice. For more information about this course Download EmployerofChoice-TS3.0

To register click here KeenHire Talent Management is a reseller for Cornerstone on Demand.

About Cornerstone OnDemand
. Cornerstone OnDemand empowers people around the world with on-demand, integrated learning and talent management software and services for connecting, developing and performing in the workplace. 

Assessments-Know What You Are Buying Going In

 Media from the Wall Street Journal to CNN, and CEOs with whom I’ve spoken, agree that one of the top strategic initiatives of many companies is hiring not only new talent, but also the right talent. It is forecast that by 2012, we will be fully engaged in a high-level leadership and knowledge worker talent shortage.

Given the diminishing available talent pool, and the compelling messages about offshore, lower-skilled labor and processes, I predict that the pendulum will swing and companies will re-recognize the need to invest in hiring and retaining key people. This will allow companies to leverage their opportunities to innovate, compete and achieve their corporate objectives. But where will this talent come from?

 The impetus for this talent “shortage” is that growth-oriented companies are demanding more of their workforce, and are unwavering in their desire to attract and hire “difference makers.” Companies committed to winning the war for talent will not only have to create an environment that fosters growth, development and challenge, but will also need to implement systems and operating practices that maximize their ability to attract and retain the best. 

Given the amount of effort and money that will be budgeted to create extraordinary retention programs, these same companies will need to evaluate and improve their internal hiring practices so that only winners get in the door. In today’s competitive talent market, with candidates demanding top salaries, companies have the right to know what they are getting, and have the right to expect a return on investment with each hire. That’s where assessments can have a huge impact.

Another major consideration affecting the use of assessments, or assessment service companies, is the need to analyze the cost of a bad hire. Besides salary, taxes and benefits, there are an immense number of hidden costs when a company hires someone who does not succeed. 

 COMPARING COST OF TURNOVER TO COST OF ASSESSMENT PROGRAMS

 Company XYZ has 200 employees, of which 40 are sales/execs and 160 are hourly. They are planning to expand by 10%, or 20 people, during the upcoming year.

EXECUTIVE/PROFESSIONAL SALES If turnover for the sales/execs is 15%, then XYZ Co has turned over 6 people (40 x 15%). If the average sales/exec earns $80K, then based on DOL figures, the turnover cost for that group is 6 x $100K ($80K x 125% = $100K).	TOTAL COST OF TURNOVER                 $600,000	TOTAL COST OF ASSESSMENTS
With an average test cost of $300, the cost for assessing all new exec/sales candidates would be $300 x 6 tests.		$1800
HOURLY EMPLOYEES If turnover for the hourlies is 30%, then XYZ Co turnover is 48 jobs. With the average turnover cost at $6500 for an hourly, the turnover cost for this group is 48 x $6500.	$312,000
With an average test cost of $180, the cost for testing all new hourly hires would be 48 x $180.		$8640
PROJECTED EXPANSION Projected 10% or 4 exec/sales positions		$1440
Projected 10% or 16 hourly positions		$3456
	$912,000	LESS THAN $15,400

 

 

 

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Recruitment Process In Sourcing versus Outsourcing – What is the difference?

The focus of this article is about Recruitment Process Outsourcing versus Recruitment Process In Sourcing.

Many companies are looking for alternative solutions to getting work done for less money.  When I first read the book the World is Flat, I was freaked out to say the least. If Thomas Friedman is accurate, I thought, the business that provided me a healthy income for almost 23 years would soon become a thing of the past.   I needed to shift my focus and I needed to do it before the change was upon me.  Since 2005, when my book group of recruiters and technology professionals gathered to discuss the potentials impacts that the world being flat on the recruiting and staffing industry much has changed.  Between Off Shoring, Outsourcing and Technology companies have plenty of options and resources to increase their output while being much more operationally efficient and profitable.

As far as Outsourcing, Hundreds of name brand corporations that I know of have set up offices off shore in Costa Rica, Thailand, India and the Philippines.  Other companies are taking advantage of outsourcing and utilizing lower cost resource centers in the U.S. such as El Paso and Detroit; as well as several cities in Utah, Iowa and Nebraska.  Progressive and responsive companies are outsourcing everything from general accounting functions, interpreting & analyzing reports, data management, routine call center & data processing operations, architectural design, elements of software support and development as well as elements of the recruitment process.  Furthermore, there are entire businesses (BPO) set up to completely outsource non core business functions such as recruiting, data processing, software development, network administration and accounting. The theory is, when a company capitalizes on their core functions and stays focused on delivering excellence in their area of specialty they dominate the competition. 

In the recruitment industry one of the big industry game changers is RPO, Recruitment Process Outsourcing.  This type business process outsourcing completely removes the recruitment function from the corporation and gives 100% of the accountability to an outside resource. Companies are offered better, faster and less expensive recruiting on a mass scale.  While old school staffers say this is not working, the black box report on RPO informs us that 90% of all companies using the services of an RPO are very happy to extremely happy.  The deal with RPO is for it to be cost effective and efficient there needs to be a certain amount of openings and the company must be committed to outsourcing and to let the RPO lead the way in best practices.

Technology progress has brought many savings that we experience daily to state organizations, banking, the entertainment industry, and in my world recruitment. It started with ATMs, Tollbooths and Movie theaters and then before I knew what was happening there the progress was in my front yard, impacting my industry and my business. Some people complain about technology stealing jobs and replacing humans, as a business owner, and a 25-year veteran in the recruitment industry I say hurrah!  If technology can replace menial tasks, can make our teams more productive and aid us to deliver service better, faster and cheaper then bring it on.

In my business, my team used to scour the internet looking for resumes, hour upon hours of time, high value time, searching for qualified resumes; now I can chose to utilize a technology or off shore resource to accomplish this and when I am working with the right recruitment professional, they relish in the opportunity to spend their time on higher level impact recruitment functions.

So what about In Sourcing?

Many companies have established recruitment as a strategic function and a core component of their business strategy. They have fundamentally linked the quality and effectiveness of their talent pool to their ability to progress faster than the competition and deliver a higher level of service to their valuable customer base.  In these cases these companies do not believe that outsourcing such a crucial function is a sensible way to achieve their goals.  They prefer to bring best practices and leading experts in the recruitment and talent management field into their company on an as needed basis. They utilize these experts to train, coach and direct their internal human capital efforts when they need and how they need it.  In my experience companies that have hired KeenHire Talent Management as their (RPI) Recruitment Process In Sourcing and Talent Management In Sourcing (TMPI) provider choose us because we bring the expertise in the areas recruitment technology and assessment selection, candidate sourcing and recruitment functions as well as programming and resources for employee retention and next level & emerging leader development.

The type of companies most likely to utilize recruitment in sourcing are companies that are on their way up; they could be in an emerging market, a start up or a company whose corporate headquarters are located in another country.  One thing these companies have in common is they have specific growth plans and are committed to building their organization with the best talent they can secure.

 

Let’s face it whether you are a commercial staffing or recruitment firm, a single recruitment provider or a recruitment department it makes sense to outsource, off shore or bring systems and technology to specific aspects of your recruitment process as anything you can do to maximize your efficiency and profitability is a mandatory business requirement. Similarly a business leader of a company on your way up, the right answer for you might be to bring the best possible resources inside on an as needed basis and only pay for what you need, when you need it.

 

 

 

 

 

Employment Retention begins with Effective Recruitment & Selection

It however does not end there.

 

When I started the KeenHire recruitment process in sourcing adventure it was my mission to transform the Recruiting and Staffing industry, to raise our industry's level of influence, contribution and effectiveness. I was quite surprised by the high volume of recruiters, mostly 3^rd party and contract, that met KeenHire’s mission with a strong resistance and in some cases an outright defiance. 

With hindsight being 2020, I understand the concern that Recruitment professionals would have for being held accountable for the employee retention of people as they have no power or control once the offer is accepted.  Furthermore, I get the frustration one feels when the recruitment function has no influence over new hire on boarding and 1^st year performance management.

Innovative companies are aware and awake to the fact that employee retention certainly begins with appropriate recruitment and new hire selection, what’s new is that they are integrating specific retention based talent management functions with the recruitment process and impacting the whole talent life cycle.  Progressive talent mindset companies are implementing customized on boarding programs, tailored employee development models, succession planning and laser focused performance management systems into the picture. The best companies educate and train their recruiters, including the 3^rd party and contract recruitment resources to work inside their long-term talent strategy.  In these leading companies, the Recruitment and Employee selection process is built and managed with the end in mind.

At KeenHire we experience just as many customers that hire us to implement employee retention strategies as for recruitment process in sourcing. The most common call to action we receive is everyone comes to us to impact their ability to attract and select the right people for their organization.  

What most emerging and start up companies are surprised by is that selecting the right hires is only the beginning. When a company works hard to get the right people on the bus they must understand that great people expect to work for great organizations and great managers.  If you hire an A player and surround them with C and D employment and talent management practices you are asking for unwanted turn over. 

When your management team does not posses effective employee engagement knowledge and does not fundamentally understand how to get the best out of people and leverage their strengths, you experience unwanted turnover. When your management team believes that their employees need to focus on their current role and not where they can go in the future, the employees, specifically the high performers, slowly loose their passion and engagement in the role and the firm, and hence the result is unwanted turnover.

When a company wants to impact their ability to hire the best people, they must also consider the needed improvements they need to make on their management team, in specific functions and processes within the talent management life cycle.

As the employment marketplace heats up, particularly for high impact knowledge workers such as Sales and Engineers, companies choosing to compete through

the quality of their workforce must learn to dance with and appeal to their employees’ motivations from day one.  Leading companies competing for mission critical, key contributor and next level leadership talent need to get in the hearts and heads of their people, understand what make them tick, match them with the right manager, create a vision of the future from day one, have systems and structures in place to cause on going engagement and build effective, customized performance management and employee development programs that maximize their people’s strengths. 

Yes, this is a tall order, which is why companies like KeenHire Talent Management exist. We help our customers maximize their return on their people investments by installing customized world-class hiring and employment selection processes and by implementing leading talent management systems, processes and people. 

 

 

 

 

What Really Grinds My Gears? Recruitment Versus Selection

 

Composed by: Stephanie Marberry, PhD 

You know what really grinds my gears?…Lindsay Lohan….just kidding!The focus of this discussion is on the difference in the distinction between recruitment and selection. Some of you may say there is no difference, some of you may say that they are completely different processes, and the rest of you may say who the heck cares!

 

The truth is that some terminology resonates better with business professionals than others. Certain words, like recruiter, carry a particular stigma because there is a certain perception that the recruitment industry does not add value. In my world this is not always the case, some of my best clients are recruiters and my partner for the past 2.5 years owned her own staffing firm and was a recruiter! Where the distinction exists is when recruiters incorporate selection into the hiring process. However, I have witnessed that no one really understands what the term selection means and why it is different from the recruiting process.

There is a distinct difference between the way companies define recruitment. What I have heard from senior executives, and hiring managers is that recruitment by a 3rd party is a process where people or resumes are thrown at them without any regard to quality or fit. This is not always the case but somehow this is the perception that exists. I have even heard the term head hunters, which creates even more of a negative connotation implying that anyone is fair game!!!! When we talk about 3^rd party recruiters I do think one bad apple has spoiled the bunch. The 3^rd party recruiters that I have been working with are actively looking to incorporate selection into their process in order to become a true partner with their clients.

So what’s the real difference between recruitment and selection besides the fact that one word carries bad rap? When I teach on the topic of Industrial-Organizational Psychology there is not much emphasis placed on the science or strategy behind recruitment. In fact there are only a few pages dedicated to a discussion on recruitment in most textbooks. Recruitment is defined as a process to increase the pool of job applicants that meet the organization’s legal and social obligations thereby also increasing the success rate of the selection process. In the classroom I discuss various ways to source candidates and the effect that specific messages or people might have on the candidate’s first impression of the company. So the strategy surrounds different ways to find and attract the most candidates for the job and company.

What is emphasized in the world of Industrial Psychology is the idea of personnel or human resource selection. Human Resource selection involves a scientific process that begins with the development of a selection program which includes a full job analysis where the tasks, resources, work environment, and performance measures that characterize the job are defined.  The creation of a selection program also involves the identification of worker characteristics required (i.e., knowledge, skills, and abilities), the development of various assessment devices (e.g., tests, interviews, personality and behavioral measures), and the validation of these devices (e.g., does the measure predict performance on the job). In the end the selection process should allow a company to systematically collect and combine information from valid selection instruments to make hiring decisions that result in top performers to drive the company’s efficiency and effectiveness. Companies can even take this one step further by evaluating and monitoring their selection process through a utility analysis or with other ROI forms of measurement (i.e., turnover, profitability, satisfaction, engagement).

As a consultant for KeenHire I find myself involved in both recruitment and selection and I see that they are highly inter-related (you can’t have one without the other!). So why does this gap have to exist where recruitment is offered separately from selection? These are distinct terms but they should not be offered independently. Further, selection is the necessary piece in making the right hire and if is not conducted appropriately it can lead to negative outcomes. Both corporations and recruiters who are not incorporating a selection system into their hiring process need to look at what it is costing them. For corporations it might be wasted time, money and resources hiring and developing an employee who is not the right fit and does not make any impact on the job. For recruiters it might be lost business due to less expensive alternatives that deliver the same results because they do not offer anything different than the competition.

So is it truly a lack of awareness about the distinction between recruitment and selection or is there some other reason why selection is under-utilized? I am still struggling to find the appropriate answer to this question but in any event, it grinds my gears!!!