Posts Tagged ‘manager’

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Make All Your Employees Talent Scouts

Sunday, July 17th, 2011

Today’s intellectual (thinking) workplace has redefined what we need from our employees. Employees no longer complete rote tasks; today’s service workplace now requires employees to think their way through constantly changing customer situations to provide responses that are customized and personalized. This means today’s employees must think in particular ways to be consistently effective, to inspire customer loyalty, and to drive profitability.

An organization’s most significant asset is the intellectual capital of their employees – how they think, invent, create and respond. Therefore, every organization needs employees who are the right fit for the job – employees who have the right talents, skills and experience – they connect to customers and drive results. This makes the sourcing and selection process both more critical and more difficult.

No longer will most any employee be able to do any job. Fit matters. And to find employees who fit the role, the organization now needs a greater list of candidates to select from – to ensure the attributes needed to drive performance exist within the candidate. This focus on fit now requires a fuller pipeline of viable candidates. And one of the greatest ways to fill the talent pipeline is to use your workforce’s connections and sourcing ability.

Consider the following ways to use your workforce to identify, find and recruit A-level (the right fit) employees:

1. Clearly identify the talent profile of for each role (this should identify the talents, skills and experience needed to be effective in the role). Share this information with all employees. Now employees know the attributes needed to be effective in each role.

2. Have all employees take a talent assessment, to be better aware of their natural abilities (talents and strengths) and to become familiar with the nomenclature of talents. Having a common language of talents allows the organization to better define, discuss and understand what attributes are key for each role, and what attributes must be sourced.

3. Provide talent scout business cards to all employees; these cards have the employees’ name and “Talent Scout” as their role. Coach employees to give cards to those people they see in their normal day who exhibit the talents and attitudes needed in company roles. Invite these people to find out more about the company. This starts to fill the talent pipeline so that when openings do happen, the organization has already started to source good fit candidates.

4. Have employees talk about open company roles to their (social and professional) networks.

No longer can management be solely responsible for sourcing all talent. Employees see and talk to (talented) people all day. They are connected to personal and professional networks. Be sure they know what attributes encourage great “fit” in each role and send them out to the world to scout for (the right) talent.

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When the Boss is Away, The Employees Take Charge

Wednesday, June 8th, 2011

Yeah, right. More likely, when the boss is away, employees goof off. It doesn’t have to be like this. Let me share a quick story with you.

A client of mine travels extensively. He couldn’t always do this. There was a time when he was too concerned to leave because he didn’t have a team capable of handling the business in his absence. They would goof off and do as little as possible. So he never left. And the business suffered.

So here is what I worked on to help him get out of the office and get focused on adding greater value to his business:

1. We defined the performance attributes of every job (what attributes are necessary for an employee to be successful in the job). This gave us a clear picture of which jobs had people who were a good fit, and those who were not adding any value. We first realigned existing staff – right people in the right jobs.

2. We then reviewed the now “open” jobs (open because we didn’t have anyone in the organization who had the right success attributes for the jobs) and sourced candidates from the large amount of unemployed talent (because of the recession). The clarity of knowing what we specifically needed, coupled with a larger job candidate supply, allowed for successful hiring. Time consuming but critical for the success of the company.

3. With the right people in the right roles, we then created clear daily performance expectations that defined what needed to be done but allowed employees to develop how to complete the work. This inspired employee ownership; they became more emotionally connected to their work and workplace. And with the right employees in the right roles, they welcomed the ability to do their work in their best way.

With the right employees in the right roles, so much more work gets done. Employees who are in roles that play to their talents, strengths and passions, feel more capable and competent. They like what they do. They feel part of a family. This kind of employees doesn’t goof off when the boss is away.

I present more of this process in the book Fire Up! Your Employees and Smoke Your Competition.

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Are You In Constant Contact?

Saturday, January 15th, 2011

You just don’t know what your employees and customers are thinking if you don’t stay in constant contact with them; you need what they know to be successful and to drive greater results. And staying in touch is good, but staying in constant contact is better.

In an earlier blog post, author Seth Godin suggested that we end the annual reviews, big sales meetings and other large events, and instead, move to “frequent cheap communication” – that is, constant meaningful contact.

Let’s see the value of this in the workplace.

Constant contact (communication) with employees provides:
1. A venue for providing feedback to reward exceptional performance and to correct problem performance.
2. A connection to employees’ ideas, social connections and thoughts to drive business opportunities.
3. The ability to relate to employees as people – that critical personal connection that drives loyalty and inspires performance.

Constant contact with customers provides:
1. The venue to ask meaningful questions about service levels, needs, values and expectations.
2. The ability to assess new products, services and ideas before they are fully invested in or initiated.
3. The ability to relate to customers as people – that critical personal connection that inspires loyalty.

Remember that communication is the method to move today’s enormous amounts of information. It is less effective if delayed until a major event. It is most effective in the personal one-on-one connection that happens regularly, clearly and intentionally.

Is it a requirement of your culture to stay connected to your customers?

Is it part of your management and leadership style to stay connected to your employees?

In today’s instant information age, check in on the frequency that you stay in touch. Constantly ask what your employees and customers think. Then get good at listening and using what they tell you.

For more information on connecting to and inspiring employees, check out Fire Up! Your Employees and Smoke Your Competition, and other tools at www.LiveFiredUp.com.

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So, What Are You Good At?

Sunday, October 24th, 2010

I hate to be the one to tell you but you are not great at everything. That is just how it works.

But even though you aren’t great at everything, you are great at some things. Find those and build them into your job and you excel. Find those and you have the potential to move from good to great.

Today’s best performance happens (supported by Gallup, Marcus Buckingham, Daniel Pink, Seth Godin) when an employee is both good at what the job requires and likes doing it. This means today’s managers must function more as “engage-and-inspire” coaches than “command-and-control” sergeants. They must get better at building strong relationships to know their employees’ talents, values and interests, to find ways to activate their emotional connection to their work. And it all starts with a clear understanding of what employees are good at – because great performance can never happen if employees do not feel capable and competent.

I am working with an organization that is in the process of changing its hiring process away from using standard job descriptions requiring candidates to have similar work experience. Remember, just because an employee has done a job before does not ensure the employee was both good at the job and liked doing it – both now required for exceptional performance. Instead, this organization now uses a Talent Matrix, a summary of the key talents, team talents and core skills that will encourage success in the role. They look for people are are naturally capable and interested in the responsibilities of the job. From this information they can better advertize what they need, source candidates that are a better fit and more successfully hire higher performing people.

At a time when employees are now more in front of customers (and therefore constantly building or destroying your brand), hiring the right employee is now the most critical component of activating sustainable and exceptional performance. This requires finding employees who are capable, competent and passionate about the responsibilities of the job. When these employees are hired, they are good at and interested in doing exceptional things for customers, which actives customer loyalty and strong results.

Call to action:
Do you know how to hire in an intellectual age? Do you know the attributes that will make an employee successful in each role?

Resources to get you where you need to be:
Check out Awesomely Simple by John Spence and my book, Fire Up! Your Employees and Smoke Your Competition. Contact me if you need my help to learn how to attract and hire the right employees.

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