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Recruiting Digest: An Army of Entrepreneurs

Tuesday, July 12th, 2011

The following contains excerpts from Jennifer Prosek’s article An Army of Entrepreneurs:

“What businesses need to succeed now is their own army of entrepreneurs – an internal force of committed, creative employees. With the army strategy, employees are empowered to develop an owner’s mindset and take initiative.

80% of Americans would like to be the owner of a successful small business, compared to only 14% who desire to become the CEO of a Fortune 500 company.

A major tenet of the army philosophy is that with the right training, resources and encouragement, everyone can become more entrepreneurial.

To create their own army of entrepreneurs, companies can follow these four guidelines:
- Establish and nurture culture: Culture isn’t optional. To truly build an army of entrepreneurs, companies must have the right practices and outlook. The four elements of a core culture include authenticity, commitment to people, commitment to the business and continuous effort.

- Create a nudge: a nudge is a harmless bit of engineering that attracts people’s attention and alters their behavior in a positive way, without actually requiring anyone to do anything at all.

- Teach employees the business: While many business are focused on teaching employees the skills they need to do their jobs, an army approach is focused on teaching the business: how it makes money, where clients come from, why they stay or go, and other big-picture issues.

- Maintain momentum: inertia is the enemy; there are three key components to keeping the energy alive: compensation, morale, and communication”

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The Link to High Performance

Monday, July 11th, 2011

The following contains excerpts from Jan Brockway’s article The Link to High Performance:

“It should hardly come as a surprise that the employees who go above and beyond – who invest that discretionary effort – are among the most engaged.

It’s very difficult to have profit without engagement…and that engagement, once established, can see a company through leaner times and help to build it back up.

In fact, given the strong link between poor performance and disengagement, a good place to start might be the 15% who are disengaged but staying put! When companies are busy and the job market favors employees, remember that your engaged employees are watching you. You need to keep them engaged without hauling dead weight.

Employee satisfaction is an outcome, not a goal. You may bolster engagement by offering good salaries and benefits, but ultimately the goal is high performance, not satisfied employees. The last thing that anyone wants is a staff populated with satisfied underperformers.

Help employees understand why they are important to the company and give regular feedback. The result is higher engagement as well as higher performance.

Make sure that goals are measurable. Specific goals have a greater chance of being accomplished than a general goal.

Having goals and achievements in a system not only improves communication around performance but also enables organizations to foster better collaboration and align goals across the organization.”

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Job Posting Best Practices – Think Like a Job Seeker

Wednesday, July 6th, 2011

According to Monster.com, here are some tips to think like a job seeker:

“Every job posting is different, but a good first step in creating any job posting is to understand the search behavior of the candidates you want to attract.

Currently employed candidates and those looking for highly specialized positions tend to use more filters and more specific criteria in their searches, in an effort to minimize the amount of time they spend sifting through jobs that aren’t exactly what they’re seeking.

Unemployed candidates and those seeking positions that don’t require specific experience tend to search using fewer criteria, and will frequently enter a location as the only criterion. They have more time to browse long lists of positions, viewing every position that interests them.

Once they do find your job, it’s important that your posting provides the information they need to be able to make the decision to apply. Job seekers see location, company quality and security, corporate culture, duties/responsibilities, work environment, schedule/hours, and salary as most important pieces of criteria when they are deciding whether or not to apply for a job.

You should also think about providing information such as special sign-on advantages, perks, bonuses after completing licenses, etc. that will make your postings stand out.”

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The Science of 360s

Monday, June 27th, 2011

The following is excerpted from a Marc Effron’s article The Science of 360s:

As talent professionals, we faithfully believe that 360 feedback will help managers change their behaviors or at least increase their motivation to change. Unfortunately, those expectations are completely unrealistic.

Feedback does not lead to change. Research says that feedback often creates negative emotional reactions that inhibit change and, in one-third of cases, actually worsens performance.

Research says that when confronted with that perception gap, we will diligently try to excuse it or explain its cause. We aren’t resisting feedback; we’re experiencing what’s called cognitive dissonance. Our mind works hard to preserve our carefully developed self-image. When feedback conflicts with that image or could cast us in a negative light, the natural reaction is to reject it.

Comparison to norms isn’t helpful. We respond best when given information about only our behaviors, not when those behaviors are compared to others.

To make 360s work, we need to find the simplest science-based way to help managers change their behaviors.
- Focus on the vital few: Help managers quickly understand their two or three priorities for change by clearly stating these in the report’s first few pages.

- Don’t rate them; tell them how to change: Include direct statements of exactly how to change that behavior.

- Don’t include normative data or self-ratings: Don’t let your curiosity about how you compare to others get in the way of actually changing their behaviors.

- Use transparency to drive accountability: Using data is actually the most powerful way to drive accountability for change.

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Ways to Save Time on Nonselling Activities

Friday, June 10th, 2011

Excerpts from Homer Smith’s article Time to Spend:

The following are 8 tips for ways to save time on nonselling activities:

01.) Keep office routine to a minimum. Do paperwork before and after the best selling hours.

02.) Keep the number and length of refreshment breaks to a minimum. Keep meals a reasonable length.

03.) Avoid slow starts in the morning and early quitting in the afternoon.

04.) Avoid the impulse to stop selling when the weather is good or bad, when sales are off, or when you have made a good sale.

05.) Avoid personal business during the prime selling time.

06.) Watch customer service. Some is essential, but avoid the nonessential service or work that can be turned over to someone else.

07.) Learn to say no. Refuse jobs that reduce your selling time without adding to your sales success.

08.) Make time for your personal life, but budget the time you spend on outside activities, home and family, and your job. Give each one its fair share of your time.

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