KeenHire Blog by Margaret Graziano

The Retention Issue: How To Assess Candidates, Perfect Selection and Retain Top Talent

According To Noah Webster, retention is the act or power of keeping or retaining, but Corporately, retention is the power to keep employees actively engaged and committed to being an integral part of the organization. So what is retention like in this day in age? Are employers on the same page as their employees when it comes to effective performance and talent management?

According to the SHRM Workplace Forecast of 2011, our workplace trends are directly related to talent acquisition, selection & retention. All of these being consecutive to one another and going hand in hand with creating a successful business.

A recent survey on employee performance and retention conducted by Express Employment Professionals, one of the nation's largest privately held staffing companies, found that employers are more disconnected than ever from their workforce. Express' survey revealed that 77 percent of leaders say retention was not a problem or only a slight problem in 2011, while 91 percent of employees said they are willing to switch jobs. These extreme figures should be waking up the employers of our nation, and creating a call to action that something’s not right.

With Employee turn over in the US at 16.4 percent what is there to do? How do you shift your talent management, selection and retention in a way that that increases your profit, your employee satisfaction and turnover?

First of all strong leadership is imperative right now in order to enhance your management operating style, implementing accountability systems, while building and developing high-performance teams.

Talent acquisition can only be beat one way: putting the right people in the right roles. How do we do that? By perfecting selection. Selection can be managed with internally, with a 3^rd party recruiter or using both. Whichever your company decides to go with you must ensure that their skills, personality, and values align with the job and the company. Developing Interview strategies that include pre-established critical screening questions, an in-depth career history review and custom built behavioral interview models prevent the unhealthy corporate impact as well as the high cost of a mis-hire.

Over all the corporate response must be to link employee performance and its impact on the organization’s business goals. Doing this will keep employees goals align with the company’s, creating increasing accomplishment and happier on track employees.

So try something different, create a new hiring process, change the way you interview and beef up your leadership training and finally retain the talent you need. 

To learn more about retention, talent management and see how to create a conscious hiring process, visit us at keenhire.com. We equip companies with systems, processes and people to hire & retain with clarity and insight.

By: Emily Eastman

Cutting Edge Talent Analyst Position Now Open! San Jose

You are a full life cycle recruiter who loves what you do! You experience yourself as a person who operates with a high level of integrity, and you want to work in an environment that rewards your high quality standards and precise candidate recommendations. You are an analytical and service-minded professional with a solid and stable work history, 5 years of expertise in recruiting, and 3 years of selection-based hiring and recruitment process efficiency. You have well defined organizational and planning skills and a strong desire to make a difference for people in their careers, lives, and workplaces. 

As a KeenHire Talent Analyst you are a key staff person responsible for quality assurance and for delivering in Top Grading and Recruitment initiatives on time and within budget. 

You pride yourself on your solution-oriented behavior; your critical thinking skills and your excellent follow up and follow through as well as your highly effective talent evaluation and matching skills. You enjoy a highly productive, fast paced work environment where you have to juggle multiple priorities daily to meet your customer and candidates’ needs. You thrive in a role where you are the ultimate quality assurance person responsible for making an organizational impact, achieving quality standards and strengthening customer relationships. 

We are KeenHire Talent Management; we provide the next generation of recruitment and retention solutions to growing organizations where hiring the RIGHT mission critical, key contributor and leadership talent for the right roles is imperative to their success. We are growing and need the right person to work as an integral part of our team and act as a key contributor in this very important Recruitment, Project Management and QA role.

The ideal opportunity for you is one that you are challenged at every day, where you get to continually learn new concepts, skills and processes and one that allows you to work with a team of committed individuals who are out to make a difference and shift what is possible in the workplace.

You enjoy working in an upbeat, inspiring office with a committed team. You are excited about the monthly opportunity to travel and grow your career. The ideal role for you for you allows you to play to your strengths, be a ‘go to’ team member add value and make a difference for your customers and peers. 

Job Requirements 

• 5+ years full cycle recruiting
• 3 yrs selection-based hiring and recruitment process efficiency 
• Excellent phone voice
• Persuasive communicator
• highly attuned analytical skills
• MS Office

Get excited about a career with KeenHire! Click HERE to apply now!

Recruiting As A Career

You are considering employment in one of the fastest growing industries in business today. The Recruitment and HR Consulting industry is challenging and rewarding and solves real business issues such as workforce scalability, organizational effectiveness, operational efficiency, corporate profitability and market expansion. 

You are considering employment in an extremely competitive industry, one where only the strong, ethical and top tier Recruitment and HR consultants thrive.

Successful consultants have a driving force of internal motivation.  They come in early and stay late.  The first five years in the Recruitment and HR consulting industry requires intense learning. Effective HR and Recruitment consultants bring mastery in learning, focus and intensity.  Focus and intensity is determining what actions you need to take and what there is to do and then actively doing it.  Winning HR and Recruitment consultants produce the results they promise in the time frame they promise. 

Most importantly, triumphant HR and Recruitment consultants have a strong sense of urgency and serve customers in the time frame allotted.  Robust Recruitment and HR consultants have an innate ability to read people, to listen intently and facilitate a quality match between the right candidate, the right role and the right company.

Exceptional recruitment and HR consultants are known as honest, forthright business people who have a strong code of ethics. Self-assured Recruitment and HR consultants realize that mistakes happen and they learn the lesson the 1^st time, fail forward and quickly turn the problem into a solution.

Every successful expert in any field from professional athlete and musician to computer inventor and sales person invests a minimum of 10,000 hours perfecting their area of discipline and recruiting is no different. A flourishing Recruitment and HR consultant is constantly evaluating their performance, they celebrate and diagnose their success and autopsy their failures as well as use their lessons learned as grist for the mill. Any recruitment consultant that is effective, successful and fulfilled after their two first years in the business typically chooses Recruitment and HR Consulting as their life’s work.

Welcome you to the best industry on the planet!  Expect to make an impact every day. Expect to earn a salary commensurate with the results you produce. Expect to change lives, businesses and expect to be thoroughly engaged and fulfilled every day!

 

Margaret Graziano

Founder, KeenHire Talent Management

KeenHire Recruiter Certification Training - November 11, 2010

Performance Based Hiring Model Certification Training Agenda 11.11.10-11.13.10

THURSDAY AFTERNOON – Margaret Graziano

1:00-1:40         Montage, KeenHire Story, Charter  

1:40-2:10         Business Case

2:10-3:15         KeenHire Business Model Presentation

3:15-4:30         Conscious Hiring Presentation

4:30-5:00         Download 26step Conscious Hiring Process

5:00-6:00         Keen Case Studies (Duncan, Discovery, Clark, Les Mills)

6:00                  Social

7:00                  Dinner – Thea, San Jose  

FRIDAY MORNING – Margaret Graziano

8:00-9:30          Benchmarking/Role Analysis Overview

9:45-10:45        KPI Role Play

10:45-11:15      Task Analysis

11:15-11:45      Cluster Tasks

11:45-12:30      Selection Criteria (working lunch)

FRIDAY AFTERNOON -  Dr. Stephanie Marberry

1:00-2:15         Assessments & Behavioral Interviews - Why are they keys to hiring success?

2:30-4:00         Assessment Presentation

4:00-6:00         Introduction to Behavioral Interviewing Presentation and Software

6:00                  Social

7:00                  Dinner – Maggianos, San Jose  

SATURDAY MORNING – Dr. Stephanie Marberry

8:00-9:30         Behavioral Movies

9:30-10:00       Matrix Ranking

10:00-10:30     Pick Questions & Overview of Keentip and scoring (recruiter)

10:30-11:00     Mock Interview Role Play I

11:00-11:30     Mock Interview Role Play II

11:30-12:00     Rapid Recall

MANUALS & RESOURCE MATERIAL

• 26 Step Process
• Behavioral Interview

SUPPORTING DOCUMENTS

• 26 step overview (in manual)
• Sample Assessments (KeenClues, TriMetrix, Achiever)
• Behavioral Scan
• Training documents for sending and pulling assessments

 

 

Poaching- Recruitment Market 2010 -The War For Talent Is On

By Sharon L. Florentine

 

Poaching. Logic would have predicted the high unemployment rate would have put an end, at least temporarily, to the practice of recruiters and hiring companies competing for each other’s employees. Logic would be wrong, said a number of recruiters and hiring experts who spoke to TheLadders.

High unemployment has simply created more competition for employed candidates. “Our clients want the candidates who are currently working for their competitors,” said one Texas-based executive search professional who wished to remain anonymous. “They feel that these folks are obviously valuable since they haven’t been laid off, and they’d rather hire them than a candidate who may have been unemployed for some time and who they see as undesirable.”

As a result, executive search firms are under increasing pressure to poach employees and are forced to hone their skills at dislodging candidates from employment, which became harder to do during the recession that bred a desire among employees for job security above all other entitlements.

It’s usually about more than just a higher salary, said the recruiter from Texas. These ‘poachees’ are offered greater upward mobility, the opportunity to work on new products and up-and-coming projects, a better work-life balance, educational opportunities, etc.

When it comes to poaching, most executive recruiters practice a two-step tactic to dislodge the employee, the recruiter said. The executive search firm plants the seeds of doubt about leaving safe employment for a better opportunity and the hiring company (usually a human resources manager or hiring manager) picks a ripe candidate when they’re ready. It’s a bit of salesmanship, he said.

“We have to plant the seed of doubt, and then the hiring manager has to close the deal. In partnership with our hiring manager, we put on our salesperson hat, and we go to work finding out what we have to offer to incite those folks to move out of their current job.”

Once the candidate is sufficiently intrigued, and the seeds of doubt are planted, the recruiter said, the hiring manager or human resources manager at the client is responsible for closing the deal and making good on what the recruiter has promised.

“If we’ve accomplished what we set out to do, then by the second interview, these candidates are starting to think, ‘Maybe I’ve been too focused on this company (or job or career path).

Improve Your Bottom Line. Hire Smarter.

The fundamental goal of the KeenHire 5 Pillar Conscious Hiring™ and candidate selection process is to hire the right candidate for the right job in a company that values a candidates’ unique contribution.  An effective hiring process takes into consideration the strategic reason for the positions existence as well as the candidate’s individual work style, behaviors, motivation, and core competencies. The end result is a solid hire that performs in the role and produces the key performance metrics. 

While employee training and development are mandatory facets of a solid Talent Management Strategy, the results of such programs are almost always insufficient when created outside of an effective and efficient hiring process.  Any company committed to long term organizational success must build a hiring process that closes the performance management gap. We have all heard Jim Collin’s mantra, “Hire the right people, give them the right tools, get out of their way and let them perform”.  Creating, implementing & systematically utilizing a Conscious Hiring process for your business that hones in on the key elements to your organization’s long-term success is a critical element of your human resources strategy.

Our 5 Pillar Conscious Hiring and Selection Process™ defines and quantifies your company’s corporate culture and work environment, the role’s key performance indicators, the ideal candidate’s work style, attitudes, behaviors, competencies, motivations and values.  KeenHire’s Conscious Hiring process begins with strategic organizational workforce planning and company discovery and results in improved return on hiring investment, corporate profitability, workforce productivity and overall organizational effectiveness.

Keen’s recruitment, selection and hiring program takes the recruiting process and breaks it down into five specific pillars, each focusing on different element of the recruitment function; beginning with organizational workforce planning, then key contributor benchmarking and role analysis, then candidate sourcing, then selecting, and finally on-boarding. Creating a Conscious Hiring and Recruitment process is essential to the health and organizational effectiveness of any organization committed to serving and retaining customers.

Vice President Human Resources

YOU WILL LEAD THE TALENT MANAGEMENT CHARGE FOR EFFECTIVELY SCALING

THIS PEOPLE CENTRIC ORGANIZATION.

WORK AT HOME - 60%

TRAVEL WITH EXECUTIVE TEAM - 40%

Make your impact with one of the most successful, high profile Business Process Outsourcing firms in the U.S. and Canada!

VIPdesk has a strong track record of excellence with many high profile customers, is poised as a future 50 and has been an Inc 500 recipient for 3 years running. VIPdesk needs your expertise to scale.

 

Your strategies for High Volume Recruitment, Distance Learning and Employee Development, and keen Performance Management are keys to your success.

You are a high impact player in the Talent Management field. You have scaled a strategic human resources function from 1000 to 5,000+ employees.  You have expertise in implementing highly effective and scalable Retention, Training & Development, On Boarding, Performance Management and Recruitment programs for a customer-facing workforce.

The VIPdesk team are specialists in finding the right people with the right skills that improve our customers’ brand experience. Our team members provide a premium customer experience, build brand loyalty and drive results. We have over 800  customer care professionals (Concierges and Brand Ambassadors) in our 100% home-based workforce and are projecting 200% growth over the next 5 years.

You are a strategic minded, innovative and results oriented leader with a dynamic track record of success and a passion to be an integral member of a mission driven team.  You have an exceptional competency for developing Distance-learning programs through LMS and executing game changing people processes, systems and initiatives. Your ability to inspire and coach business leaders and managers through organizational change and growing cycles is exceptional.

VIPdesk is the award-winning pioneer of home-based virtual customer care solutions for global brand leaders committed to enhancing their brand experience. Serving over 40 client programs and 10 million customers, VIPdesk specializes in delivering Concierge Programs, Customer Care Services, and loyalty programs for national brand leaders in the travel, auto, financial services, and retail industries. You are excited about driving a positive culture in support of VIPdesk’s core values.

You are the ideal candidate if you posses a solid track record of success in high profile staffing for the retail or hospitality industries, have a strong business and human resources knowledge base, are actively engaged in staying ahead of the curve, have 7+ years in a HR leadership role.

You must have been instrumental in scaling a people centric organization and posses strong expertise in implementing full scope, best practice Talent Management solutions. 

To Apply : http://keenhire.sayhired.com/ci/apply.shp?which=837-1140-1413

40% of All High Performers Are Looking To Leave Their Jobs

Are your Managers at the top of their game?
 
How would you rate your employee productivity?
Are your managers capable of hiring and keeping the right people? 
Does your company have a Talent Strategy and is it linked to your business strategy?

If customer acquisition and retention important to your business, your success is contingent on the people selling and delivering your service.  If profitability and efficiency is important to your operational success than employee engagement, performance management and selecting the right people for the right jobs are critical elements to your people strategy.  
 
KeenHire Talent Management's Talent Strategy 3.0 and the National Association of Personnel Services brings to you an unprecedented opportunity to build and develop your people strategy. Our Certification program covers every aspect of building a high performance Talent Strategy; including Employee Brand Proposition, Sourcing, Selection, On Boarding, Training & Development, Retention, Succession Planning and more.
 
KeenHire & NAPS certificate in Employee Retention teaches professional Staffing, HR, Recruitment and Talent Management professionals to effectively and efficiently execute high impact people systems and processes that leverage your companies profitability.

The certification program walks you through the compelling labor issues effecting all levels of knowledge based, customer centric businesses.  Your team comes back to work with specific talent management initiatives and a plan for evaluating your company's 2012 workforce readiness plan.
 
Join NAPS and KeenHire for 2 extremely powerful days in St. Louis and be instrumental in shifting the impact people make in your organization.
 
By taking this course through the National Association of Personnel Services you save $300.00 of the normal $1299.00 registration.
 
CLICK HERE to register - the class is limited to 20 -  or call our NAPS HQ now!

Certification in Employee Retention 
Distinctions for being an Employer of Choice
**HRCI credits earned towards PHR, SPHR, GPHR re-certification. 16 credits.  
 
The National Association of Personnel Services, KeenHire and the Human Resources Certification Institute recognize the strategic human capital issues facing U.S. companies today, and this is why we collaboratively bring to you this extraordinary 2 day course. This certification course lays the foundation for you to build an effective talent strategy, one that catapults your company in front of the competition for people, for customers and for market-share.

The dates of the Certification Program are September 28th and 29th, 2010.
 
What you see above is workforce 2015. With fewer people available and interested in full-time jobs, and a sheer diminishing population, US companies will experience all time shortages of full time key contributor, mission critical knowledge and customer facing workers.
 
How will companies who need people in specific roles to develop product, solve problems and take care of their customers meet this unique challenge?

Put yourself in the position to have answers and solutions to these strategic business challenges all companies need to deal with.  Being certified in Employee
Retention gives you an advantage and gives your company an internal best practices provider.  Register now and be ahead of the curve.

CLICK HERE  - each class is limited to 20 -  or call our HQ now! 

TUESDAY AND WEDNESDAY - September 28th and 29th
 
Email Margo for more detail on Talent Management products, services and packages


Raise Your Employees Level of Impact & Effectiveness
with KeenHire's Personal Training and Development workshops:

1. Emerging Leaders Coaching Program and Manager Training is for people who have strong natural talent, desire and capabilities to be leaders within an organization. KeenHire's Emerging Leader and New Manager training program is ideal for individual contributors in Operations, Sales, Engineering, Service, HR and Finance transitioning to Management and Leadership positions. Click Here for course overview.

2. Success Factor-Maximize Your Effectiveness. What would be possible if your employees brought strategic personal empowerment distinctions and a daily dose of discipline to their professional life? When your employees personal goals and values are congruent with the company's mission and vision employee productivity and loyalty soars. When employees are working for more than their paycheck employee engagement and productivity improves. When employees feel integrated into the company and that there is a bright future for them they take personal pride in delivering exceptional customer service. KeenHire's 6 week Success Factor coaching program is for high potential key contributors whose Managers want to groom for higher levels of responsibility.
Click Here for course overview.

3. Strategic Selling for Recruitment, Staffing and Talent Managment Professionals- This course starts October 4, 2010 and runs for 6 weeks on Monday mornings. 

No money or time for training? Visit the KeenHire on line store and purchase staffing, recruitment and management tools, workbooks, scripts, manuals, assessments, CD's, DVD's, books and more all designed to leverage your company as an Employer of Choice.
 
 Follow keenmargo on twitter and get discounts on training and products

Choose Your Executive Search Firm Wisely

In Today’s competitive climate for talent many companies are counting on

HR Executive Search professionals to be their field talent scouts. It makes perfect sense that progressive talent minded organizations would require a top notch Executive HR Search partner to augment their internal Corporate Talent Acquisition team.

 

Whether you are building your Internal Talent Acquisition team or hunting for the right Executive Search partner it is important that you ask some fundamental talent acquisition questions; such as:

 

1.     What is your Role Analysis process?

2.     What is your talent mining process?

3.     Where do you find your candidates?

4.     What percentages of hires are generated from which sources; job boards, social media, corporate talent mining and existing databases?  

5.     What is your hiring process?

6.     How do you validate the candidates you recommend are the right candidates for our roles?

7.     What is your on boarding program? 

 

At KeenHire, our teams of tenured Executive Search, HR and Recruitment partners are each skilled in segmented niches and stages of Executive Recruitment and Employee Selection.  Every Keen partner has been working in the HR, Executive Search, Talent Mining and Employee Selection field for a minimum of a decade and has a long list of successful projects, programs and customer references. Segmenting the Executive Search process allows for highly skilled people to focus on their areas of proficiency increases our throughput and effectiveness which brings you highly qualified candidates who match your criteria, faster.

 

We approach building your team strategically and deploy expert level Talent Mining and a Conscious Hiring process in every HR Executive Search project we accept. 

At KeenHire Talent Management, our Executive Search model begins with a complete Organizational Culture and Role Analysis.  We diligently follow Stephen Covey’s philosophy of begin with the end in mind.  We work with your organization to understand your Organization’s direction, values, competitive advantages, objectives and challenges.

 

Once we know who you are, where you are going and what your barriers are to getting there, we help you discern what competencies, behaviors, beliefs, values and emotional intelligence levels your leadership team must possess walking in the door.  Our proprietary Role Analysis process has been utilized in over 100 companies and is the foundation of all of our Executive HR Search projects. This process has successfully led our founders in placing over 2500 business leaders.

 

KeenHire’s team of highly skilled Talent Acquisition, HR and Executive Search professionals are certified in our Conscious Hiring process, the benefit to you is that each and every candidate presented to your company is fully vetted and benchmarked against the Role Analysis.  We only present candidate with the right behaviors, competencies, values and emotional ability to do the job, in the right way for the right period of time.

 

In most Executive Search operations the founders have deep domain expertise in the firms area of specialty. At KeenHire, we too have deep domain expertise in our field of Human Resources, Talent Acquisition, Talent Management, Executive Search and Organizational Development.  We have worked in these areas for over a quarter of a century.  What makes us different is our commitment.  Keen’s brand, unique selling proposition and core differentiators are all driven from our founders expertise with Top Grading principles and building Good to Great companies.  We built our business with outside in strategic thinking. We built our business to help you scale your organization and achieve your goals. 

 

 

Do You Want to Profile Performance or Predict It?

A Commentary from Previsor on the Risks of Profiling in the use of Pre-Employment Psychometric Assessment Tools in building a Conscious Hiring Process. 

Overview
This commentary describes the profiling approach to using pre-employment psychometric assessments, compares it to the predictive approach to using assessments, and then contrasts these two very different approaches. It then describes the dramatically different results derived from an analysis in which the two methods were compared side-by-side in the selection process for a given organization. At KeenHire, we use both approaches in tandem to deliver the best hiring process to our customers. The Key is in the Role Analysis (referred to as job analysis in this article).

What is Profiling and How Does it Compare to the Predictive Model?
The profiling approach involves assessing a small group of employees that have been identified by the organization as high-performers, and using the resulting test scores to determine how to evaluate job candidates. Candidates whose assessment scores more closely resemble the scores obtained by the high-performers are judged to be better “fits” for the role, and are forecasted to be better hires. A predictive approach, by contrast, involves identifying job-relevant traits based on an in-depth job analysis, and selecting those candidates who earn higher scores on measures of those traits.

Seven Problems with the Profiling Approach to Assessment
Most assessment experts do not advocate using a profiling approach, even though it would be easy for them to implement, due to seven major problems with profiling. These are summarized below.

#1: The "Ceiling Effect" Problem
The scores obtained by the high-performing employees asked to complete the assessment define the ceiling—the maximum possible score that can be obtained on the assessment. This means that it is actually impossible to identify a candidate who is a better fit for the position than current high-performers. The high performers used to develop the model don’t just represent “desirable,” they represent “the best imaginable. ”The profiling model has no answer for the question, “If a candidate came along who was an even better fit for the position than your current high performers, how would you know?”

#2: The Not Enough Data Problem
The profiling approach relies on a large number of conclusions and decisions made on the basis of a very small amount of data. Profiling assumes that the test scores obtained from a handful of employees produces information that will be consistent with and generalizable to job candidates. But the unfortunate reality is that small data samples are very rarely conclusive. Models built on the basis of test scores from five people, or even fifteen people, are very unlikely to be accurate. They may not even be close, and can even lead to false conclusions. At KeenHire, we measure the actual on the job performance of every participant in the job benchmark study. If the on the job results are not exceptional, we encourage our customers to exclude that participant from the study.

#3: The (Non)Essential Trait Problem
Profiling is more likely to incorrectly identify unimportant traits as job-relevant, or overlook traits that are essential to job success. This is because the profiling approach is based on a few individuals and their traits, not on how relevant those traits are to the job demands or requirements. Maybe the handful of assessed employees just happen to share traits that are not actually job relevant. Maybe they differ on traits that are job relevant because one or two of them have learned to compensate for a limitation in one area with particular strengths in others. Maybe the traits common to the top-performers who were tested are the same traits possessed by weaker performers—but since weaker performers were not assessed as part of the approach, there is no way to know. Any of these possibilities would result in a profiling model that has no value in identifying future high performers.

#4: The “Over-Cloning” Problem
Profiling emphasizes similarities without any regard to whether or not they are important similarities. For example, if the profile is created based on a ten-scale personality instrument, but only four of those scales are actually relevant for success in the position, the organization is needlessly forcing consistency and uniformity in six areas. Good, high-potential candidates may be passed over because they are not sufficiently similar to current employees in areas that have no bearing on their likelihood of success. At KeenHire, our process begins with an Organizational Development approach. We work diligently to build a balanced organization by first digging deep into who the organization is, we seek to understand the current corporate culture, the desired culture, the strategic objectives and goals as well as the barriers to achievement.  We then assess and evaluate the Executive team,the mission critical and key contributors. We look for what is working, what is not and what is missing, the presence of which would make a difference. Only after we have a full picture of the current state and the desired future state do we make recommendations.  No one with any level of discernment or sanity really wants the "Stepford" culture. Most companies simply do not understand how to build a high performance culture. That is where we come in and make the difference.