KeenHire Blog by Margaret Graziano

Does Your Recovery Strategy Include a Talent Management Strategy?

If the reports are true and employee disengagement is on the rise, when 25% of your Key Contributors, Mission Critical players and Next level leaders become the departed, who will take their place? 

What systems are you putting in place to have the departing knowledge and skills effectively transferred to the impending replacements?  What retention strategies are you implementing to avoid loosing the 25%?

Experts who have studied the global economic situation, America’s long awaited recovery, workforce statistics and workplace psychology fear that in many organizations employees are ill equipped to carry out new business strategies that will be critical to a companies ability to compete and thrive in a global economy.

Business and Human Capital pundits hypothesize that in a recession-altered workplace, employees are often adrift, without well-defined roles and accountability or managers who have a grasp on how to actually execute the business leaders key strategies and metrics.

Many of the nations largest companies have or are implementing new ways of attracting and recruiting the best talent for key contributor roles, stimulating their ongoing engagement and amplifying their reasons for staying.  If the largest companies are doing this with a vengeance the smaller, mid sized and newer, mission driven, socially responsible companies need to take note and get in action.

Some popular initiatives that I have seen with KeenHire's Recruitment Process In-sourcing and Talent Management Process In-sourcing customers are:

1.    Making Organizational Development & effective Recruitment a priority
2.    Altering the objectives, roles and accountability of HR Management
3.    Hiring the right people who shared common values and purpose
4.    Establishing an on-line employment presence flaunting their EVP
5.    Reducing Executive compensation before reducing employee comp
6.    Sending daily motivational positive messages
7.    Providing employee development, mentoring and coaching for hi-po’s
8.    Creating On-boarding programs that stimulate early engagement & bonding
9.    Making rewards personable and customized
10.  Building relationship strategies into management
11.  Implementing a top grading culture


There is no better feeling in the world than when a high potential employee recognizes the value of a program that Keen implements. I have had the privilege to work on several organizational development, recruitment and talent management projects where the mission critical, key contributor and next level leaders were positively impacted by the initiatives we implemented.  It is a great feeling to find someone a job; it is a very powerful experience to elevate his or her career and impact.

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.

2010 Goal Setting and Accountability

It is January 26th, Have you Set your 2010 Goals and Action Plans yet?

Here is a quick overview of the process that Keen Coaching utilizes with our Emerging and Executive Leaders. 

1. List 2009 Successes - Celebrate, pat yourself on the back, kiss the mirror, get a hug, give a hug

2. List 2009 Resentments, In-completions and Disappointments - then say what you need to say, burn them, laugh at them, but get over it.

3. List your 100 Life Goals 

4. Look 5 years old and imagine your life as the masterpiece you want. What are you doing? Where are you living? What is your bank balance? How does it feel? Create Affirmations for each area of life that is important to you, be very descriptive of how life looks, feels and is in the future that you create. 

5. Create a 1-2 page 2010 Plan - Business & Personal Goals in the areas of life that are important to you. For me it is Fitness,Family, Fun, Financial, Love Life, Work - not in that order. Chose what your overarching area of concentration for 2010 is going to be. Chose the Values that you will use to monitor your behavior. Set dates to each goal. Make them measurable.  Add some ZIP and ZAP to the goals. Loose 10 lbs gets old and boring, like washing the toilets. Looking fabulous and sexy in the speedo is a bit more enticing. 

6. Create a monthly habits chart - things you will do that bring out the best in your. Drink lots of water, do Yoga, meditate, Say thank you, etc. Download MonthlyHabitschart

7. Create a monthly score sheet for your goals so you can track your progress.

8. Create a Weekly Activity Tracking Sheet Download WeeklyGoalTracking2010

9.Use a daily 6 Most Inspired Actions worksheet to keep yourself attached to the weekly, monthly and annual goal.

10. Create a HOT, Fun, Inspiring Vision Board  -See  Above..... :)

11. Engage  buddy you can count on to schedule weekly accountability calls with you, have a consequence for blowing the call.

2010 - Your Time To Ascend !

7 Easy Steps To Becoming An Employer Of Choice

Step 1 – Establish Your Employee Value Proposition

 

Tie your employment brand with your business strategy. Understand why people want to work for your organization and develop a program that attracts more ideal candidates through your doors.

 

Recommended Reading: Attracting Perfect Customers: The Power of Strategic Synchronicity, by Stacey Hall and Jan Brogniez.  

 

 

Step 2 – Establish a 'Cracker Jack' Candidate Sourcing Strategy

 

Do the work to find out where your ideal candidates are right now. Where do they hang out? What do they read? What do they do for fun?

 

Include Social Media tools, this means be a proactive social media presence. Have a credible, passionate, authentic person from your company talk to your ideal audience all the time, whether you are hiring or not. Provide value.  Keep ideal candidates coming back for more, get them on your web site, create reasons for website and social media stickiness.

 

Be a talent scout. Enroll your team into scouting for additional contributors and mission critical players. Reward your people for quality recommendations.

 

Hire the right recruitment talent.  Select your partners as wisely as you select your teammates. There are a ton of ‘recruitment’ alternatives in the marketplace. Choose a partner who is committed to your end game and will do a great job surfacing, selecting and assisting you in on-boarding top tier people for your organization.

 

Step 3- Conduct a Role Analysis – Let the job talk.

Define performance criteria before you start searching. Sit down and work through the KPI’s, Core functions and specific Selection Criteria with the key stakeholders impacted by the success or failure of the hire. Predetermine the “who” in who you need to hire. What values do they honor? What is their work ethic? For that matter, what are their ethics? What are the non-negotiable competencies, behaviors and emotional intelligence levels required in the role?

 

Recommended reading: The Truth About Managing People and Nothing but the Truth. Stephen Robbins.

 

Step 4- Establish a hiring process that holds your hiring team accountable for selecting the best and eliminating the rest.

 

Create a process and choose to stick to it. All to often a great process is defined and then a decision maker meets someone who strikes their fancy yet clearly does not meet the selection metrics required. The decision maker calls the shots, ignores the very process they implemented and pulls the trigger only to discover that a slick talker with a good story has bamboozled them into paying way to much money for way too little in return.

 

Step 5 – Begin amplifying the employment brand during the hiring process.

Talent Strategy 3.0 - Vail Colorado December 14 & 15

About the Program

With a rocky economy, hot new emerging industries on the rise, three generations in the workforce, Sr. level leaders on the verge of retirement/re alignment and a sea of recruiting alternatives knocking at our clients’ doors, it is time to start thinking about how we as an industry are going to align ourselves as strategic business partners rather than as transactional service providers. As the economy begins to recover it is imperative that you brand your firm as the human capital provider of choice.

The Society of Human Resource Management reports that 6 of the top 10 Workplace Trends are directly related to talent acquisition, selection & retention.

The number 1 trend to most likely have a major impact on the workplace is workforce retention, and the most critical HR function effecting business strategy is Staffing/Employment and Recruiting.

The above issues are not separate -they are looked at as Talent Management and there is no other group of people on the planet better equipped to empower corporations to solve these problems than people like us, top tier staffing & search professionals who work on the front lines of talent acquisition, every day.

The KeenHire™ Human Capital Strategic Consulting Series empowers search & staffing professionals to take a new look at search and staffing - a look from the shoes of an employer. Strategically speaking, retention begins with selection and effective workforce planning and we as an industry have everything to do with ensuring that the placements we make that need to, have a place in the succession plan.

Join us for this provocative, insightful and fun program that delves into the corporate strategic talent issues and highlights innovative solutions you can provide to solve them. Let’s face it, now more than ever your clients have recruiting alternatives. There is off shoring, in-sourcing, RPO and on line systems that streamline the work of recruiting. Even large global HR consulting firms are trying to cash in by getting into the recruiting game. Your ability to grow is directly contingent on your ability to adapt to the changing market as well as on your ability to meet and exceed your clients increasing needs.

Astute recruiters and search professionals are looking down the path for what they can do to offer a deeper level of service and provide holistic solutions to their clients human capital needs and therefore differentiate themselves from the sea of recruiting options available to their clients. In the past you had to be good on a daily basis to keep your clients coming back for more, NOW…..you have to be great and you have to commit to their end game, or someone else will.

Course Outcomes

Empower yourself in understanding and responding to corporate retention issues, dispel the myths and uncover critical issues affecting your customers’ ability to attract and keep the right people.

You gain hands on experience in uncovering the real Cost of unwanted Employee Turnover and the impact that it has on your customers’ companies ability to achieve its strategic objectives.

You gain competence and capacity to impact your customers’ recruiting and hiring efficacy.

You learn a strategic approach to assessing your customers’ REAL human capital needs, proactive workforce planning and a comprehensive approach for implementing a 3 –step top grading approach that positions you to build your customers’ organization with high performers in key roles.

You leave the workshop with an array of bolt on and augmented talent management strategies that meet the needs of leaders, managers and the multitude of front line customer facing and operational impact staff in your clients’ workforce.

You walk away with the power and prowess to influence the Talent Mindset throughout your entire customer base.

To register call 1-888-533-6447

$1299.00 per person

What They’re Saying

"This course was by far well worth more than the cost I paid to be here". Karen Richards-Fidelis Bio Pharma, Dallas Texas.

“I am pleased to recommend Margaret Graziano as a foremost authority in personnel recruitment, assessment, selection, and retention. I have paid to attend training and certification events with Margaret as the leader, and feel that the value was exceptional. Beyond her incredible knowledge of the aforementioned subjects, she brings a sincere passion to the training, and presents useable information in such a way that it is actually useful in a real-life setting. She cares about the people she works with and truly wants to advance our industry by helping others thrive as “true professionals”. Her training has helped me in my professional development, and the development of my organization. I believe that even if you are a “master” in this business, you can certainly increase your personal productivity and profits from her training, speaking, and the products offered by her company, KeenHire.

Ed Keil, CPC, CERS, Owner, Reliance Recruiting
hired Margaret as a Consultant/Coach/Trainer in 2006 , and hired Margaret more than once

“Margaret Graziano has proven to be one of the torchbearers of progressive Human Resource/Human Capital initiatives. Her insight to what Corporate America wants and needs in order to help their company grow and prosper is truly leading edge and spot on. She has wowed her contemporaries with her "Keen" insight to the marketplace and has produced products and services which will revolutionize our industry. If anyone has any questions about Margaret's ability, just let me know. There is no one better equipped to assist you with Talent Acquisition and Talent Management issues for your firm. Do yourself a favor and get her involved with identifying and helping you solve these HR issues.” October 21, 2008
Jeff Wilson, CERS, CPC , Managing Partner/Owner , Key Corporate Services, LLC

Hard Won Staffing Lessons And Where We Go from Here

 

Although staffing employment traditionally is a leading indicator of recovery, professional recruiters today look forward with caution. This recession feels different -- not just a slowdown, but a disruption of the way business has been done.   As you formulate a strategic plan for 2010, ask yourself: "Can I afford a return to business-as-usual?"  Monster spoke to leaders in staffing whose hard-won wisdom points to a better future.

Staffing Solutions that Innovate

Dan Boersma of Laguna Source in Laguna Beach, CA specializes in finding talent for pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device makers. He's managed the downturn with a three-part strategy of client service, industry knowledge and old-fashioned hustle.

"In this recession, you're working twice as hard to make three quarters as much money," Dan asserts. "The big positive is you have a little bit of free time, to say, 'Hey, we have some time on our hands, what can we do that's going to help us long-term?'"

Talent shortages in his niche have helped, but as even successful companies try to do more with less, Dan finds he has to narrow his focus to develop deeper relationships with clients. This is the time to listen, to learn more about coming technologies and the skills needed to harness them, and to build trust.

Dan and his team watch for announcements on venture funding and company earnings that signal staffing opportunities. Press releases and news articles are obvious conversation-starters with potential clients. Less obvious is Dan's observation that his best currently-employed candidates are more reluctant to move to a new employer. They need reassurance that a medical technology firm, for example, will have staying power. Whether positive or negative, industry developments point to hidden corners where top talent and new prospects on both sides of the recruitment equation are open to change. Dan says, "If a company's doing layoffs, I want to be the first to talk to their people."

And then there's plain old bearing down in tough times. "In a downturn, recruiters tend to get down on themselves and the business," Dan says. "It's easy to blame things on a bad economy, but we get here early, stay late, work on weekends…staying aggressive like this has just kept us going."

Service, research, and hard work deliver. It's a simple plan, and it works for Laguna Source.

Rethinking Staffing Services

Margaret (Margo) Graziano of KeenHire in San Jose is taking the reinvention route; she believes that the fundamentals of staffing have shifted, and the future belongs to those who broaden their services.

Margo has moved her Talent Management Division from "getting people into chairs" to a form of human capital management consulting. KeenHire's clients, also caught in the disruptions of the Great Recession, face many hiring complications that boil down to doing more with less. They profit from expertise she's developed across the entire talent acquisition timeline, such as:



Risk Mitigation
"Clients are asking us to help them not hire the wrong people, because they can't afford to make mistakes," says Margo. Staffing can't just supply candidates and hope it works out (or blame a bad hire on a client's managers). Risk mitigation means helping a client design teams. What's the right mix of talents for a new initiative or product? How should the team work? Can the company adapt, and how?

It also means retention. "We see a lot more effort and money being spent on keeping the good people," observes Margo.

Hiring Improvements
Job descriptions can be a vise, squeezing the wrong person into a job because she happens to have the right skills. Margo counters this problem by assessing people well beyond skills. "I look carefully at the people who are already doing well in the job and build what we call a 'DNA thumbprint' of what the ideal candidate looks like -- not their resume but their values, beliefs, competencies and behaviors. We actually find and staff organizational development professionals, industrial psychologists, training and development people, HR, talent management people, talent acquisition, full-time and contract recruiters."

Human Resource Management
Human capital consulting from staffing companies can add value to processes like onboarding, top-grading and retention strategies. Once the staffing company has supplied great talent, it can help the client hold onto those people. This is more service, and while it reduces churn (and -- let's admit it here -- churn can make short-term profits for staffing companies) it deepens customer attachment and creates new services to sell.

"It goes beyond the hiring moment," Margo concludes. "We work with companies to help them develop coaching programs and training and development programs for their high potential people."

Where Staffing Goes from Here

As you plan for 2010, consider these likelihoods:

1) Staffing will see a resurgence but not a return to business as usual. The collapse of whole business areas and re-alignment of money (think automotive and health care, for two examples) means that client needs will change.

2) The super-candidate syndrome will continue. Margo Graziano suggests that staffing lead the conversation away from "Super Resume" to "Super Candidate" by finding greater alignment in values and capabilities than single skills.

3) There is no substitute for persistence and hard work, especially with your most creative employees. Open your business to their suggestions. Experiment. Be aggressive. Learn and change.

Great practitioners of staffing recognize a tectonic shift brought by such a brutal recession. Companies big and small will have to do more with less. Even as business picks up, the opportunity to lead change -- for your clients and your business -- is too exciting to miss.

By Doug Hardy: Monster Staff Writer

Hiring and Retaining Difference Makers

It's no secret that a major driver of corporate success is putting the right person in the right role the first time.  In fact, statistics from the Harvard Business Review and other leading human resources thought leaders indicate that as much as 60%-85% of the retention problems many companies face are directly related to defects in the hiring process.  To properly reverse this trend, hiring authorities in high touch, high tech markets must be able to benchmark the role; that is, to develop a complete understanding of the job itself, and the skills, experience, traits, values and motivations necessary for success.  Once complete, a systematic process for behavioral interviewing and talent selection must be employed to identify, select, on board and retain true difference makers. 

What is a difference maker?
A difference maker is someone who is willing and able to fill all aspects of the role with confidence, one who consistently delivers on objectives, and who leads her team to peak performance.  In many cases a difference maker shakes things up, brings forth change, demands results and at times, is not the most popular person on the team.  They hit their targets, and inspire their teams to do the same.

Difference makers are motivated.  Difference makers tell the truth, they don’t cover up mistakes, and they are completely accountable for what works and what doesn’t.  They take responsibility.  Proactive, solution-oriented leaders, difference makers take action.  Their values align with those of the organization, and these values drive day to day behaviors that pursue excellence.

High Tech. High Touch. Sales Management Hiring.

An expert from Recruitingblogs.com. Peter Marinilli - Boston, Mass.

Sales recruiting is a unique profession because of the wide array of innate traits and learned skills required to be successful. It can be a difficult field to get into, and even more difficult to excel and last at, because of certain requirements that simply cannot be taught. This also makes it a very competitive field, which means you have a lot of options when choosing a sales management recruiter.

However, if you’re not used to working directly in the recruitment field in can be difficult to know what to look for when shopping around for different firms. Recruiting sales people can take time, and you don’t want a recruiter to rush a potential hire, but you don’t want to waste time either. When you start looking at upper level positions and need a sales management recruiter, the stakes are higher and the process can quickly become more complicated.

Recruiting sales people for entry or mid-level positions is different than recruiting for sales management; a recruiter looking for senior positions needs to put a lot more time and effort into finding the right candidate(s) because of the nature of the position. This is true in every industry; the higher up the position, the more skills and experience are required, which means fewer applicants meet the necessary requirements.

Question…Does HR Have Any Real Say In Who Should Get The Job?

Answer. Good Point. The reality is that the recruiting profession has much to do with why things operate the way they do in HR. Companies spent billions of dollars utilizing our services and there were /are too many people in the industry looking to turn a quick buck so now we have the HR Wall to block us from making the difference that the true professionals are on the planet to make. 

Ultimately the hiring decision needs to be the Sr. Manager and the Key Stake Holders in the department. The people held accountable for performance.

What needs to happen for companies to win the battle for talent is that they need to invest the money in training their leaders-Sr Management as well as line supervisors in the talent selection process.

Since I got into the higher end of Recruiting Consulting side of the business it is ever apparent to me that most managers – regardless of their level are not 100% clear on the accountabilities of their subordinates from a key performance indicator stand point. Additionally they are not 100% aware of how their employees’ performance directly or indirectly impacts the total performance of the company. If they were held accountable for understanding this cause and effect relationship they would do a better job of hiring because they would be forced to identify players who could produce the results and furthermore they would need to get better at defining their real needs.