KeenHire Blog by Margaret Graziano

Hiring Better 101

Hiring better people starts with a mindset. In an ever changing world, adapting to new technologies and reevaluation of current systems should always be in consideration. Specifically, the staffing industry is riding a wave of social media correspondence as well as introducing new ideas within the hiring process as a concept. The days of "resume-interview-hire" are over and the power of behavioral interviewing, benchmarking, role analysis, succession planning, and leadership development have shot to the forefront of the industry. For a successful company, incorporating these concepts into your current hiring process can only improve your results and drastically impact your bottom line in a positive way.

Recruitment: Why Change is Good

Global employment is changing rapidly. Within the last 20 years, we've witnessed highs and lows that have redefined the way talent is acquired, assessed, and implemented into the various business environments of the modern world. This change has been a result of global events, government regulations, and a changing economic climate that has demanded efficiency. Not only is this change revolutionizing the recruitment and hiring process, but is benefiting both recruiters and growing companies alike.

Choosing To Win During A War For Talent

By: John Kurzatkowski.

I currently work with Margaret at KeenHire as a Sr. Recruitment Consultant, and wanted to share with you a bit more about how to win in the midst of a war for talent. 

As the business-news media competes for our attention by flashing information on the impending talent shortage, some of us listen with a keen ear while others turn to more urgent, pressing issues. After 22+ years in the human resources business, I don’t need the media to tell me there is going to be a problem; I already feel it in my bones, similar to how my grandfather used to know it was going to rain by his knees aching. When your business is the business of finding talent you are the first to feel ANY inkling of change in the marketplace. Although I may feel like I run a best-in-class business, and I may have evidence that I know how to skin the cat better than the competitor, KeenHire is all the more faced with the challenge of locating new talent for myself and my clients in a diminishing talent pool marketplace. 

KeenAds: An Account Executive In Silcon Valley

Account Executive/ New Business

Change the Game in Recruitment & Talent Management! 

You pride yourself your ability to build and maintain relationships and bring leading edge solutions to your customer base. You enjoy the selling and business development process and prefer for someone else to manage the details of fulfillment, service delivery and day-to-day administration. An ideal situation for you is one that provides residual income opportunity and gives you the freedom to go get new business while your account base and bank account grows.

You are an innovative, driven, successful professional with strong business–to-business sales experience and a deep Silicon Valley decision maker contact list. Your tenacity and drive rewards you with a strong income and a steady stream of new customers.  Your strategic selling ability makes you well poised to sell to the C suite and deliver high impact business solutions.

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 for the right price is imperative to their success.

You are looking for a high impact sales role. You are keen on selling customer centric, high value, customizable solutions. You chose to utilize your natural talents and play to your strengths while generating a long-term residual revenue stream.

You are well aware that the game of business is forever changed. You are very clear that when you do not offer a differentiated value proposition, a deeper level of service, and a more effective solution that is strategically priced; then someone else will.

In the next 5 years 90% of companies report they need to improve and expand their recruitment and retention programs to compete for the best talent. Many companies state they are ill equipped to manage their expected growth, mitigate their risk in hiring, reduce unwanted turnover and compete for the best U.S. talent for key contributor, mission critical and leadership talent.

KeenHire Talent Management is Growing and needs the right person in Silicon Valley to open doors and close deals. We provide recruitment & talent management process in-sourcing (the people, systems & tools) for companies expanding or shifting their workforce; where making & keeping the right hire effects profitability, customer engagement and retention. Our customers currently do not have the internal capacity or desire to implement or manage effective spike hiring, selection, on-boarding & retention programs.

If you are called to respond to this opportunity, please check out our web site – www.keenhire.com, and the keenhire blog – blog.keenhire.com and let us know in your phone interview why you believe we are a good match for one another.

To Apply click here

 

Lets Talk Retention

According to Noah Webster, "Retention is the act or power of keeping or retaining. Corporately, retention is the power to keep employees actively engaged and committed to being an integral part of the organization."

Webster separates employee retention from standard retention. However, I have read about, seen and experienced a direct correlation of employee retention with stock price and EBITA. When a company does a great job of hiring the right people and then they do a great job of retaining them, they maximize their ability to secure and retain market-share. The businesses that have cracked the code on recruitment and talent management hold on to customers longer, are in a position to proactively solve their customers’ problems, and have the ability to be on the leading edge in offering new and innovative solutions to their customers because of a steady stream of new knowledge and solid relationships. The correlation between employee retention and profitability makes perfect sense.

Impacting your company’s ability to retain your key contributors, mission-critical players and next-level leaders begins with you understanding where people are at from a  of view.

It is important to note that today’s workplace psychological state is at an all-time low—peopleare too discouraged to go the extra mile; they are waiting for the other shoe to drop. The workforce of 2010 is mistrustful and skeptical. The top issues affecting workplace psychology and employee engagement are “warm chair attrition,” when the body shows up but the mind and heart have been left at home, and “corporate cocooning,” when the mature, highly experienced worker is hoarding information, afraid to share with or train others for fear of being replaced. Yet another is young working parents choosing their families first. Many in this group opt for working at home or only going to the office part-time. A great many people in this demographic are looking for “life/work navigation,” as they have seen firsthand how putting the job first and family second is crippling, un-fulfilling and littered with false rewards. One thing for sure is that in most situations and for most of your workforce: Corporate Loyalty Is Dead.

Competitive, astute employees are adopting a free-agent mentality and building their own relationships outside the company with vendors, customers and ex-employees so they are always ahead of the networking curve. Additionally these mission critical players, key contributors, and highly sought after next-level leaders are constantly improving their skill set so when the ax falls, they have opportunities lined up and waiting.

Recently HR Executive magazine conducted an engagement survey with hundreds of high-performing high potentials from all over the nation, and what they published was somewhat surprising, to say the least. Their study reported that 45% of all internal “candidates” within anorganization’s promotion pipeline are currently looking to leave the organization.

In another survey, conducted by Harris Poll and CareerBuilder, the results were just as compelling:

• 41% of employees are not satisfied with their jobs
• 46% say their workload has increased
• 33% feel they’re at a dead end at their current job
• 78% believe they are coping with “burnout”
• 56% are not glad they chose to work for their current employer
• 63% believe their top management does not display integrity and morality.

Any company that values the power of their human capital, believes that their people are their competitive advantage, is aware of the cost of replacing a great employee, and does not have a progressive talent strategy in place should be nervous. If you are not, take a look at this chart. It makes a great visual. Think about if your company lost their best salesperson to the competition. These days even your ironclad non-compete would most likely only slow them down. They might not call on your customers, but they can take their brain and everything they learned while in your operation and use it against you.

The problem is a big one and a strategic, systemic one at that. Not having enough knowledge-workers leads to longer development times, lower sales coming into the organization, fragmented customer service, a reduction in innovation and, eventually, lost customers. Hiring the wrong people because you are in a “rush” leads to more unwanted turnover, and that turnover comes at a high cost. Not knowing what makes your people tick leads to an incubation of the “free agent mentality.” The bottom line: the demographic and psycho-graphic challenges facing our companies cannot be avoided or ignored. Furthermore, the cost of doing nothing far outweighs the cost of being proactive and creating high-impact solutions that affect your bottom-line profitability and stakeholder equity.

Your company must decide if people are your competitive advantage, and if they are, you must strategically cause a corporate transformation, adopt a talent mindset and lead the way. Once you adopt and engage the rest of the leadership and management team in the talent mindset,you need to develop a people, or better said, talent strategy that lives and breathes throughout the organization.

Applying the Win/Win principle to the “War” for Talent

As the business-news media competes for our attention by flashing information on the impending talent shortage, some of us listen with a keen ear while others turn to more urgent, pressing issues. After 22+ years in the human resources business, I don’t need the media to tell me there is going to be a problem; I already feel it in my bones, similar to how my grandfather used to know it was going to rain by his knees aching. When your business is the business of finding talent you are the first to feel ANY inkling of change in the marketplace. Although I may feel like I run a best-in-class business, and I may have evidence that I know how to skin the cat better than the competitor, KeenHire is all the more faced with the challenge of locating new talent for myself and my clients in a diminishing talent pool marketplace.

The looming & ‘impending’ talent shortage seems to be creeping up right from under us. KeenHire has more specified search requests than we have had in 5 years. As companies proactively deal with succession planning and building bench strength, we are seeing salaries going up, qualifications becoming more stringent, and expected outcomes for the candidates showing up as more measurable as well as difference making. All this with less people to chose from makes for a very competitive market place for employers and candidates alike.

So how does a company who has ambitious goals compete for talent in the midst of a WAR for it?

You could outsource. You could offshore. You could take on employing the at-home passive work force, like Jet Blue and Southwest. You could take on hiring the flexible work force, students, retirees and parents. You could home grow your talent, become a farm club of sorts, which many of my clients are doing very successfully. You could pay large retainers and then wait while the search firm does the searching. You could develop your company as an employer of choice where 'win/win' is the norm; where people feel they are not just serving your corporation's needs, but their needs are getting fulfilled as well.

It's Soon Time For The Dreaded Annual Performance Reviews!

I can see every Manager I know wincing with anticipation. No one likes to give performance reviews. Why is that?

Some say it is because there are no clear cut performance metrics and the review process is a time for the Manager to share his or her opinion about the employee's performance, however the Manager's opinion is rarely measured against a key performance indicator and the key performance indicators are rarely connected to the companies overall objectives. 

Others say it is because most Human Beings avoid conflict at all costs; and the performance review is a time of conflict.

And then there are some retired executives that I know that say the source of the avoidance of performance reviews and key performance indicators is the lack of accountability in our society.

I have to agree with all three theories.

Most employees I speak with resent having a Manager who knows little or nothing about what it takes to do their job evaluating their performance. Most employee's I speak with would rather be measured against standardized operating performance metrics, high performing on the job behaviors and goal attainment. They say when they know what right looks like and they know how to get there, as well as what they need to do better to achieve the results faster, they feel they are set up to win.

Seems to me that open communication, beginning with the end in mind and speaking about bottom line specific performance outcomes would have everyone winning.

The following questions are generic questions pulled from several of our performance management and employee self evaluation forms.

What ultimately are you accountable for?

Define your core responsibilities in your job? 

What behaviors do you emphasize to get your job done?

What aspects of your job really jazz you?

What job functions would you like do more often?

If you could off load an aspect of your job that you are not thrilled with, what would that be?

In what function do you feel that your talents and abilities and strengths could be utilized at the company?

What resources do you need from us to get your job done better?

Where do you want training? How would that training impact your job? 

Where would you like to take your career in the next 2-3 years?

When are you operating at your maximum effectiveness? Tell me about that.

This is just a start and remember it is not just the words that come out of your mouth, it is who you are being when you are saying those words. As my first coach in business used to say, "It's never about the message, it is always about the messenger." There is something to that.

Best of Success,

Margaret

 

 

20.9% Increase In Demand For Temporary Workers

Labor Forecast Predicts Increase in Demand

In 2010 Fourth Quarter

 

- - Industry Consulting Firm G. Palmer & Associates’ Quarterly Forecast

Assists in Previewing Near-Term Hiring Patterns - -

 

Newport Beach, Calif., October 18, 2010 — Demand for temporary workers in the United States is expected to increase 20.9% on a seasonally adjusted basis for the 2010 fourth quarter when compared with the same period in 2009, according to the Palmer Forecast™, released today.

 

The Palmer Forecast™ indicated a 20.3% increase in temporary help for the just-ended 2010 third quarter, which actually came in higher than anticipated, at a 21.6% increase, reflecting stronger than expected GDP growth, along with slightly larger gains in labor productivity.

 

 

“Following recent trends, our 2010 fourth-quarter forecast shows continued steady improvement and indicates another increase in demand for temporary workers, marking the fourth-consecutive quarter of year-over-year increases,” said Greg Palmer, founder and chief executive officer of G. Palmer & Associates, an Orange County, California-based staffing industry consulting firm.  “It is clear that the flexible labor markets are showing signs of improvement, when compared with both historical sequential and year-over-year trends.

 

“Nevertheless, it is important to be cognizant that consumer spending remains sluggish, the real estate and construction sector is still depressed in many markets, and many state and local governments continue make additional job cuts. This all adds up to measured optimism and continued uncertainty,” Palmer added.

 

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported that seasonally adjusted temp jobs grew 23.4% year-over-year in September. Temp jobs, seasonally adjusted, were up 3.4% sequentially from August.  Palmer said, “This trend is an encouraging sign of a rebound in the flexible labor markets, since historically the August-to-September increase has been much lower, and September was the 11th out of the last 12 months of consecutive positive seasonally gains.”  September’s increase added to the creation of 217,000 temp jobs since the beginning of the year.

The commonly referred to unemployment rate (U3) held steady at 9.6% in September. The Labor Department report also indicated that 95,000 non-farm jobs were lost in September, of which 77, 000 were temp government census jobs, and 76,000 were other local and state government positions.  It was also reported that 64,000 private sector jobs were created, with the bulk being service-related.  

“The positive direction of sequential increases in temporary help, were offset by September’s negative overall non-farm numbers,” Palmer said. “Temporary help, which typically is the first job category to improve at the beginning of an economic expansion, continues to see gains. However, the non-farm jobs are seeing less-than-anticipated positive movement versus previous recoveries.  We are also expecting continued unevenness in certain categories, such as industrial staffing.  Certain sectors within healthcare and IT are expected to continue to demonstrate strong year-over-year gains in the 2010 fourth quarter, while professional staffing and direct hire, both of which historically lag, are expected to remain somewhat softer.”

Palmer said the high unemployment rates during this recession continue to have far-reaching effects across a broad spectrum of workers.  As reported by the BLS, workers with college degrees experienced a slight decrease in their unemployment rate in June to 4.4 % from 4.5% in August.  The unemployment rate for workers with less than high school degrees during the same period increased to 15.4% in September from 14.1% in August. The U6 unemployment rate, which tracks those who are unemployed, as well as those who are underemployed and are working part-time for economic reasons, was down slightly at 16.5%.  The U6 rate is considered the rate that most broadly depicts those most affected by the downturn, and measures the rate of discouraged workers. Palmer added, “The breakdown of the stubbornly high unemployment rate continues to reflect the much talked about skills gap found in available workers and their current skills, versus the required skills necessary for today’s increasing technical and skills-based positions.”

 

The next few quarters…

 

“We still expect the unemployment rate to remain high for the foreseeable future,” Palmer said. “At the same time, we believe that temp help job losses reached the bottom in the third quarter of 2009, as evidenced by the gains since then.  We expect the positive trend will continue, but with the recently reported downward revisions in GDP growth, we believe future rates of growth will be uneven.  There continues to be uncertainty in private sector hiring decisions, and this typically bodes well for temp staffing, as evidenced with 36% of jobs created this year (217,000) being  temp positions—an especially eye-opening statistic when considering the temp sector only accounts for 1.6% of the average daily work force.”

 

 

The Palmer Forecast™ is based, in part, on BLS and other key indicators. The model was initially developed by The A. Gary Anderson Center for Economic Research at Chapman University and serves as an indicator of economic activity. Companies that employ temporary staff use the forecast as a guide to navigate through fluctuating economic conditions in managing their workforce to meet business demands.

About G. Palmer & Associates

G. Palmer & Associates, founded in 2006, advises companies in the human capital sector with sales, operations and margin enhancement, and to explore strategic alternatives for increasing shareholder value.  Founder Greg Palmer has served on the board of the American Staffing Association and was president and chief executive officer of RemedyTemp, Inc., one of the nation’s largest temporary staffing companies, prior to its sale in June 2006.  For more information, visit www.GPalmerandAssociates.com.

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

Acing the HR Interview

Join Margaret Graziano and the Northern California Human Resource Association this Friday at 10:00 a.m. for a fabulous, informative and inspiring presentation specifically geared towards Human Resources professionals on Acing the HR Interview. 

 Whether you are an HR Consultant, Recruiter, HR Strategist, Benefits Manager, Strategic Business Partner, VP of HR, CPO, in Talent Acquisition, Talent Management or an Executive Search consultant the game of Human Resources and everything tied to it has changed.

Smart companies are adding roles such as Chief People Officer and giving that role the complete responsibility for maximizing the company's returns on their people investments. These key roles are created to own the processes and results for recruitment, employee retention, employee engagement, training and development, performance management, succession planning and more. Other firms are adding roles such as Director Talent Acquisition, VP of Talent  Management and Employee Retention Specialist.

Given the only true differentiation any company really has is in the people they employ to create, deliver and manage their service, "People" Management has become a strategic issue.   

 

The current state of the economic rebound, globalization, competition, price wars and emerging industries are just some of the compelling issues facing companies; add in the mass amount of people looking to retire and the 15.3% fewer workers available for the next generation of leaders and do not forget the millennial generation who have a ton to offer yet no business or people savvy and you have a perfect talent management storm. This storm creates an abundance of opportunities for strategic and business minded Human Resource industry professionals. 

If you are up for the game, the next 10 years is the prime time for you to make your impact and leave your legacy. If you are exceptional at what you do, have a strong work ethic, think like a business person, have a healthy mix of concern for people and profitability and are willing to continue your education and stay ahead of the curve, there are no limits on what you can accomplish.

Margaret Graziano's Acing the Interview presentation enables you to evaluate your talents and strengths and target them towards business that needs what you offer.  It delves into what you need to know about yourself and things you ought to consider before putting yourself in front of opportunities. The presentation digs into what and how the employers think when they are interviewing you, it teaches you how to communicate to your buyer (the employer).

Additionally and most importantly, the presentation gives you the tools to knock the socks off of the companies you are interviewing with.  Join us this Friday from 10:00-11:30. Register now!