KeenHire Blog by Margaret Graziano

Workforce Performance Management - A Must For Progressive Companies!

Workforce Performance Management, how does a company maximize their return on their people investments?  If you read my blog you know my first rule of thumb is to hire people who can naturally produce the results you expect with minimal coaching. Trying to fix a performance problem with a person who is not engaged, under-qualified, or whom lacks the inspiration and motivation to do the work is an utter waste of time and gives managers an ulcer just thinking about it. If you want a high performing team, I recommend follow these guidelines.

1. Define Your Role by Expected Outcomes

2. Hire people who are RIGHT for the job, the company and who want to produce the results

3. Clarify Expectations early and often -during the recruitment process, in the on-boarding process and quarterly. Integrate individual performance with company performance so people can see and feel how what they do or do not do impacts the organization.

4. Have the Employee Measure, Track and Report results to the Manager (take the monkey off the Managers back- Ken Blanchard, One Minute Manger)

5. Create Awareness and Consciousness in the employee's mind

6. Communicate and Give Feedback-Recognize Positive Behaviors, Steps, Milestones, Effort and Execution towards Outcomes

7. Correct the Opposite and Remember to Separate the 'Person's Identity' from their Performance

Often, Workforce Performance Management conversations are dreaded by Managers, after interviewing and coaching several hundred people who hold the responsibility of managing others I have discovered that the issue is lack of training in this area. Utilizing a comprehensive software that tracks performance, teaches the Mangers to have empowering conversations and coaches the employee on how to accept responsibility for their performance without making it mean they are broken or wrong makes a world of difference.

Dr. Stephanie Marberry teaches Industrial organizational psychology at Argosy University and Workforce Performance Management is a major component of her curriculum. In 2009 Stephanie conducted an all industry software evaluation of performance management providers, the results were incredible, educational and inspiring. The good news is there are several programs to choose from, the bad news is it takes TIME, KNOWLEDGE and RESOURCES.

If you would like to ask Stephanie questions about her research LinkIn to her, email her or give her a call @ 312-618-3252.

Recruitment Process Management

Every company is charged with the assignment of doing more with less. The movement to create efficiencies in every component of running a business has lead to a huge movement of outsourcing everything from office administration, technology, recruitment and manufacturing to accounting, supply chain, staffing and in some cases customer service.  Many of the largest companies in America have been among the first to explore Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) for some it is the best thing that they have ever tried, for others the results have been disastrous.

In the area of business that I specialize in I have been researching the RPO movement. Recruitment Process Outsourcing, is about removing the recruitment and staffing function from inside the company and having an outside vendor manage, execute and deliver people on an as needed basis. The choice to RPO has for the most part been about price, economies of scale and efficiency.  The most popular roles that I have read about RPO filling is call center, front line banking, customer service, retail, and medical.

Some user reports say this is the most efficient way for a National or Global organization to staff, others say their quality of hires has declined, unwanted turnover has increased and candidates are left with an ill feeling about the companies employment brand. 

What I have learned for sure is that RPO is not for every company; a company has to have certain staffing objectives that make an RPO offering appealing.

Just because RPO might not be the right answer for your company does not mean that there is not work to do to create an efficient, effective and highly successful recruitment function within your organization.  After all, your company is only as good as the people inside and an ineffective, inefficient recruitment process is a barrier between you and your next level of talent.

Over 10 years ago, when I owned Alliance HR Network, one of my mentors asked me for our operational quality ratio of interviews to hires. I did not have the number. He then asked me how many candidates we had to talk to, to generate a live interview, I did not have that number either. I began to see that my lack of managing those important numbers was in the way of me running an efficient recruiting operation and that was costing me money.

Efficiency

The journey was a painful one, back then we were interviewing 10 people to place 1 and we had to talk to 100 to interview 10. That meant that 90% of our time did not result in generating revenue. I began to understand more and more about lean manufacturing, operational excellence and performance ratios.  I chose to enroll in a certification program in organizational development and in that 12 month program I learned a great deal about why companies lay so many people off in recessionary times. 

I decided to go to work on my own company looking for ways to bring operational excellence, improve productivity, lower costs and continue to deliver a high quality of service.  What I learned and implemented was the impetus for the making of KeenHire. 

My team and I went to work on our business processes, we analyzed performance ratios in each of our core functions and worked on eliminating tasks that were irrelevant to effectiveness. We incorporated time saving technology that allowed team members to focus on high impact functions. We created a system for candidate intake that dropped our ratio from 10:1 to 3:1.  

Effectiveness

Considering quality was what my company was known for I knew I had to find a way to stand behind that claim beyond in words. This is what lead me to implementing behavioral interviewing and 'fit' assessments into our hiring and selection process. This not only aided us in the validation of the candidates we submitted, it save us thousands of man hours. It became much easier to select the best and eliminate the rest and was instrumental in my ability to quickly ramp up new hires. Our recruiters were making placements within 2 weeks on a desk, because I was hiring the right people and giving them a great process to follow. 

Our customers were delighted with the amount of data we had on each candidate we were representing. The real benefit was when our customers requested we manage the complete staffing of entire department, leadership and launch teams. The implementation of this conscious-hiring process not only saved us money and time, it was directly responsible for an uptick in work, sales and profitability.

Whether your company chooses to run recruitment from the inside or the outside it is up to you to manage performance in 3 key areas.  In no particular order, ensuring high quality hires, managing efficient recruitment processes and delivering a high quality of service to all of the stakeholders is critical to maximizing your return on your people investment and imperative to being an Employer of Choice.

How Can You Improve Performance Metrics and Employee Productivity?

A study of the Corporate Executive Board found that since the recession began, managers have become less effective at defining employees roles and accountability. Before the recession, only 60% of employees said their managers did an okay job of effectively communicating expectations, since the recession that number has dropped to 45%, which considering is quite low.  Before, Front Line and HR Managers told employees how they fit in to the overall strategy and market share objectives, now they tell employees to get to work and be grateful they have a job.  Ouch…….that is pretty short sighted thinking.

The highly interesting part of this is that when employees understand how what they do fits into the overall strategy of the business and the achievement of their corporate objectives productivity can increase by 10% at a minimum. Ten percent of ten employees equates to an additional headcount.

When I lead my Maximize Your People ROI workshop and keynotes I speak a great deal about Jim Collins’ call to action, “Put the right people on the Bus”.  Five years ago I learned two provocative processes for assessing, evaluating & validating job specifications, at Keen we call these Benchmarking and Role Analysis.  Both of these tie Organizational Development and Recruitment processes together and drastically improve hiring metrics and recruiting success rates.

If you want to attract more of the best, you first have to truly understand why some of your employees are high performers. Is it coincidence, dumb luck or a lot of hard work when a key manager assembles a team of high performers?  Or is it a calculated and well-executed strategy?

Experts say that building a high performance work-group does not happen by anything other than a well defined, executed recruitment plan and selection hiring process. High performing teams are not created by accident.  There is always a plan of attack that attracts people with solid competencies, required behaviors, complimentary traits, and shared values.  Companies like HP create programs for this by assessing their top performers and understanding what drives their performance; aspects like competencies, motivators, behaviors, values, work style, and emotional intelligence.  They then build a hiring model that vets candidates with similar winning formulas.

This is what KeenHire refers to as benchmarking.  The Keen team has assessed over 1000 high performers conducted over 200 corporate benchmarks since our launch.  In one company alone, we saved the employer over $1,000,000.00 in poor hiring costs  Download Keenhireclarknatcasestudy because they stopped hiring people who they thought would fit and they started hiring people they knew would fit.  This new age Talent Management stuff really works!

Conducting a Role Analysis on positions that you are filling whether through an internal promotion or a new hire impacts not only your ability to put the right person on the bus, it effects your companies ability to improve workforce production and engagement. When your employees know that you chose them because they had the natural ability to do the job in a way that amplifies the companies mission and vision and they know what is expected as well as how these accomplishments impact the big picture; they are awake and aware to exactly what you are counting on them to achieve on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual basis they are much more likely to achieve it. 

The Bottom Line is if you want a more productive, engaged workforce hire the right people for jobs they are well equipped to do, make sure they know what you expect from them and then encourage them to use their natural talents and abilities to get the job done.

If you have professional HR Management, Contract Recruitment staff or In Sourced Recruitment consultants on your team make sure they are trained in these critical hiring selection programs and strategies; if you do not and you need to go outside to Recruiting services require these service providers to offer solutions that enable you to hit your hiring and retention metrics. 

Retention: Will Your Key Contributors Be There When You Really Need them?

Even though Human Resource Executive’s Magazine is geared towards HR Management professionals, the January 2010 issue is excellent reading for any leader concerned with Talent Management.  The cover story is about the necessity of Re-Engaging of Mission Critical, Key contributor and next level leadership talent. The most pressing post recession issues for leaders will be to provide highly engaged worker with the ability to execute new business strategies.

HRE reports that as the nation heads for an economic recovery, HR leaders at some of America’s largest companies will have to focus their attention on securing and keeping the talent capable of executing new post recession business strategies and metrics. 

Isn’t that what we have been saying all along?

KeenHire Talent Strategy 3.0 program not only delves into the changing demographics effecting the US workforce and the companies employing it, we also dig deep into the continual stream of issues surrounding and effecting employee engagement, organizational design, recruitment, and talent retention.  The course is quite content heavy however because of the group interaction the journey is barrel of fun!

The Washington based Executive Board reports that the number of disengaged workers has doubled during the recession of 2009 and 2010; even more disturbing many high potentials, workers who very possibly hold the key to a companies ability to press through the rebound are waiting with baited breath for a headhunters call. When the call comes, these highly valuable contributors will not only take it, they will leap at the chance to escape the last few years of misery.  Actually another report by the same organization indicates that nearly ¼ of all high potentials are already looking for a new job and beyond that one in ten of the broader workforce is actively on the hunt for a new job.

In Peter Drucker's 5 New realities and 8 Business Strategies he speaks about Business Leaders being willing to see the truth even when it hurts. To ensure you are not running in front of the truck and scrambling for Talent Management and Recruitment solutions, the time for planning how your firm will handle these changing workforce realities is now.