InnerActive Consulting – Insights » hiring systems and processes

How to Manage Fast Changing Times

One of the quickest questions to come up (no pun intended) during planning sessions or personal coaching sessions is – How do I/we manage this in a Fast Changing Environment? Well, this is a good question and will occur more often since fast-changing environments is becoming the norm. Increasingly change is becoming the number focal point for every organization and every leader.

These dynamic times require dynamic solutions including processes, people, systems and culture (a leader driven factor). The key is to develop an attitude that change is good for us. The more effective we are at developing a sense of optimistism in responding to the situations, thinking in terms of opportunities rather than threats.

Here is a list of key elements or how to’s to increase the success rate for change… Continue reading ‘How to Manage Fast Changing Times’ »

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Posted by Voss Graham on August 26, 2009 at 4:30 am under Change Management.
Tags: Communication, Fast changing times, Focus on Short term Actions, hiring systems and processes, Strategic vision, Technology, Topgrading
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With So Many Candiates Available, Still Making Hiring Mistakes?

First of all, you’re not alone! However, the question remains: Why are we unable to make great hiring decisions? The answer is simple: BIAS. Attracting candidates is easy today. Screening out all of the unqualified to discover a superior performer is the real challenge. This challenge also means we must look at the job objectively and eliminate any biases that keep us from selecting the best candidate.

We all see the world from our own viewpoint. This viewpoint is influenced by how we value experience, knowledge, economics, aesthetics, altruism, power and tradition. When we are confronted by a person who sees the world differently, our views could be called biases. Neither right or wrong, nor good or bad, biases are simply a reflection of our personal viewpoint. Oftentimes, this personal viewpoint is unknowingly injected into the hiring process even when it is not relevant to a specific position or to the organization itself. When this happens, it creates a barrier, preventing us from selecting truly superior performers.

Today we have laws that keep us from acting on our biases as they relate to gender, age and nationality, but there are still biases that get in the way. Many people are also unknowingly biased on experience, education and intelligence, and this keeps them from selecting superior performers. In addition, people bring much more to the job, including their passion, beliefs, personal skills and behaviors. Perhaps one of the most important personal skills is that of personal accountability, and most companies do not have an awareness of its importance, nor do they have a way to measure it.

Determining the ideal candidate for a position can prove to be not only the most frustrating part of the hiring process, but also the most difficult. Each person involved in the hiring process will have his or her own idea of what skill set, experience and education is required for the position. Job descriptions begin to assist recruiters, internal and external, in narrowing down the resume requirements. Meanwhile, the personal skills, behavioral style, attitude and motivations of the ideal candidate tend to be undefined and left up to the interviewer. This type of hiring process becomes subjective, rather than objective, and leaves all involved parties frustrated and with less than desirable results.

Typical hiring processes allow for little preparation time on the front end, with more time allotted for interviewing. This often results in a partially or even completely wrong hire, which, in turn, contributes to significant managerial time loss. By turning the process around, you will save time and energy, and improve your hiring decisions, therefore improving your bottom-line.

After years in the staffing industry and making internal hires, our Strategic Business Partner created the Ideal Candidate Form. This form, along with the patented job benchmarking process, has allowed us to achieve a 92% retention rate on the people placed using this process. Eliminating bias is the key to successful hiring. The only way to achieve this is through an objective process that looks at all aspects of the ideal candidate.

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Posted by J Block on July 21, 2009 at 10:43 am under Hiring, Selection and Retention.
Tags: BIAS, hiring systems and processes, Ideal Candidate Form, selection process
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Benchmark the Job Rather than the People

When reading some new information about our hiring and selection process, I was reminded that when benchmarking performance in the hiring and selection process -

“You Must Benchmark the Job Rather than the People in the Job.”

This is a very important factor for three reasons:

Legal Foundation – a Job Benchmark takes out any bias and focuses strictly upon the job and the traits necessary for the job to perform at higher levels. If you have benchmarks for all the jobs using the same process and used this tool to compare to a common talent assessment, then you have a legally clean system that can be defended or even thrown out of court for lack of bias.
Quality of the Current Team – This is tough for some leaders to deal with, yet, it is more common than most would believe. I have experienced this in the review and evaluation of a Fortune 100′s sales team. They were evaluating the sales team for a complete restructure of the sales organization. When we analyzed the data, the evidence showed the quality of the entire team was low (which had contributed to the decline in sales over the past three years) – so a benchmark of their top performers could have established an B or C level benchmark for future selection. This company needed more “A” players to remain in on the playing field of top performing companies. Their brand name was the only thing carrying the majority of the sales teams performance.
Objectivity – One of the key points for using a job or position benchmark is to eliminate bias or personality from the selection process. It also is the starting point for putting objectivity back in the subjective process of hiring and selection. When there is no check system that uses a proven objective scoring or measurement of traits needed for a job or position to be successful, you will be fooled by people in the interview process.

Does this type of process or system work? Well, yes it does. Our research partner has been following the success of using an assessment based hiring process with the focus on job or position benchmarking. Their data indicates that 92 percent of the people placed in jobs using the patented job benchmark to talent report system are still in their position after a one year. This compares with placement agencies record of 20 to 50 replacement rates.

This improvement in placement and retention rates will have a significant return on investment in your company. If you want to learn about this hiring system, contact Voss Graham at 901-757-4434 and we will discuss how this system can improve your bottom line.

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Posted by Voss Graham on July 8, 2009 at 5:47 am under Hiring, Selection and Retention.
Tags: employee retention, hiring and selection, hiring systems and processes, job benchmarking
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How do You Value Talent Management Processes?

Beyond salary and sales, there are many important aspects of talent management that are often not tied to the bottom line. Yet, “dollarizing” the value of talent management initiatives is vital to bottom-line analysis. Whether you are placing a value or cost on your current status, or calculating the ROI of your next talent management strategy, metrics that assess the monetary value will help you see the true effect on the bottom-line.

Bottom Line Statistics
Knowing the bottom line results of talent challenges will help you implement strategies with a proven ROI that you can see on your balance sheet. Find out how much you already know by asking yourself questions like:
•    What is disengagement costing the bottom line?
•    What was the ROI on your last training? What can be expected of future training?
•    How are your team-building initiatives impacting your bottom line?
•    What was the cost of your last bad hire?
•    What is your overall turnover percentage? How is it related to tenure?

In a study on over three million employees, Gallup found that over 70% of Americans who go to work are not engaged. This means businesses may be operating at significantly less than full capacity, a loss that could cost millions a year.
•    What is employee disengagement costing your company? Several thousands, millions, more?
•    How can you calculate this cost?
•    How does it compare to the investment of a proactive approach to increasing engagement?

With tightening budgets and a focus on cost-saving strategies, businesses worldwide are making drastic labor cuts. But is that always the right move? A recent study analyzed the savings resulting from changes in general and administrative functions and found that 75% of the savings came from strategies focused on restructuring and redesigning, while only 25% was from reducing.
•    Would you, too, save three times as much on your bottom line by investing in your people and processes?
•    Is the slash and burn approach actually costing you more?
•    What would the ROI be if you restructured and redesigned your workforce?

As business associates who want to make a difference in the bottom line, we might find advice in Aristotle’s quote by remembering to assess, in money, the value of talent management initiatives so we know its true worth. How else can we place fair value on the investment in people? After all, they are a company’s biggest asset.

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Posted by Voss Graham on March 31, 2009 at 5:19 am under Hiring, Selection and Retention.
Tags: Business Acumen, hiring systems and processes, ROI, Talent Management, Work Engagement
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R & D Key to Top Talent in Organizations

Yes, you read the title correctly. R & D is the key to getting Top Talent in your organization. Research and Development is only half right with my version of R & D. The new version of R & D is Recruit and Develop. I borrowed this term from college football. During the major recruiting event of the year ( First Wednesday in the month of February), several coaches were talking about the dual importance of getting the “best” prospects to sign on – yet, it was the coaches responsibility to Develop the talent during their tenure on campus.

What a great analogy for all organizations to follow. First, recruit the “best” potential people for your company. And second, Develop the talent to the next level of performance and productivity. Interestingly, this seems to fit the methods used by the top companies. You know the ones that are ranked in both “Best Place to Work” and the “Top Performing Companies” lists. Continue reading ‘R & D Key to Top Talent in Organizations’ »

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Posted by Voss Graham on February 11, 2009 at 4:43 am under Hiring, Selection and Retention.
Tags: hiring and selection, hiring systems and processes, job benchmarking, Personal Development
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Let the Job Talk in the Hiring Process

How offer are you hiring people without truly understanding the REQUIREMENTS for SUCCESS of job? The most common tool used in the hiring process is the job description followed closely by the Behavioral Interview Question sheet. Yet, do both of these tools have a direct connection to the actual job position?

My experience assisting clients in the hiring and selection process shows a lack of direct connection between the tools and the job. How can this be? Simple. The job description is based upon activities and task to be done according to some formula used by human resources and a department manager. Usually, outcomes and specific performance traits needed in the job are overlooked. Even the behavioral interview questions are based upon some universal “good” or common value system for the organization that again misses the target of the specific traits needed for a job to perform at high levels.

So how can this function be improved? Let the job talk using a “Job Performance Benchmark.” This type of benchmark will identify the traits necessary for success and pinpoints the priorities needed for high levels of performance. It even provides a list of behavioral based questions to ask candidates relative to these performance based elements of the job.

How simple can that be? Continue reading ‘Let the Job Talk in the Hiring Process’ »

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Posted by Voss Graham on December 10, 2008 at 6:03 am under Hiring, Selection and Retention.
Tags: high performance, hiring and selection, hiring people, hiring systems and processes, job benchmarking
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Posts tagged ‘hiring systems and processes’

How to Manage Fast Changing Times

With So Many Candiates Available, Still Making Hiring Mistakes?

Benchmark the Job Rather than the People

How do You Value Talent Management Processes?

R & D Key to Top Talent in Organizations

Let the Job Talk in the Hiring Process

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