How are your HR hiring practices? Friday Funny.

So what are your hiring practices like -  

Do you look for the cheapest option/person available at the time of hire? 

Do you assume that you can 'fix' someone or school them?

Do you even speak the same language?  Management language? Sense of humour language?

Do you let employees know what is expected of them?

How do you correct employees if they are doing it wrong?

And if you do hire someone what options do you have to get rid of them if they don't work out?

Remember - if you pay peanuts, you'll get monkeys! 

Human Capital Management

PeopleStreme.com have made this awesome video and posted it onto You Tube.  I have put it here and will add my contribution further down the page.

What value do you place on your work?  What value is placed on you?  Do you rate yourself or not?

Conversely - What value do you place on others work?  What value do you place on others?  How do you measure that value and is that measure relevant or accurate?

Here are a few facts of life as far as organisation's go -

• Size matters.  The bigger the organisation the less they know about you.  What happens is the more layers in an organisation the more removed you will be from the central services.
• Front Line Managers matter! The relationship between you and your direct manager is always the most important relationship you will have.  This is true if you are the cleaner all the way through to if you are a Director of the Board.  You must work with your boss!
• The HR Department matters!  Admitted in most organisations the only time you most people will interact with HR is when they are hired or if they are fired.  But it doesn't have to be that way!  Go out of yur way to meet the staff and make sure they remember who you are (for the right reasons of course).  It pays to make friends and keep them for as long as you can.
• The skills and abilities of your staff matter!  Update them!  Watch your staff.  Learn from them.  Be open to having your staff tell you where they think what sklls they need to work on and develop.  If you disagree you can help steer them in a better direction.  Create an audit or questionaire to work through at appraisal time to help lead and guide your discussions about where peoples skills are at.
• Coaching matters!  The best time to coach someone is when they are reflecting and considering their performance.  If your manager doesn'tdo this for you - tell them or look for another manager.

PunkRockHR posted a great piece on employee engagement a few days ago which ties in nicely with this post.  Head over there and check it out - WARNING: it will provoke a response.

People who are paid to do work will do a better job when they feel valued, understood and have the freedom to do what they have to in a way that makes sense to them (while adding value to the organisation).

Beware - Too Much Knowledge

Having a star performer employee is great. Having two or more is fantastic!

What you need to watch out for though is sometime's the knowledge of the business can be held by only one or two people.

So what happen's when those people go or holiday? Does the business come to a standstill?

Be careful not to let too much knowledge be stored up in particular invdividuals. rather work as much as you can to ensure the knowledge is spread around.

Just in case.

Talent - what do you do with it?

Every employee you have and person you know has a particular talent and tons of potential. The key is to figure out - what is that talent and how do you make the most of it?

Talented people generally are on the move (either upwards or sideways) and think they know where they are going. What you need as a manager to do is to provide a balance between untried ambition and actual skill. Provide a balance between new challenges and the development of new skills as well as the refinement and strengthening of current skills. Getting the balance between the two is hard - but the results are also very rewarding both for your business and the person concerned.

The other idea is to make every employee a CEO of something. Make them completely responsible for an idea or project. Give them a budget, authority and the right amount of support to make it happen.

Talented employees also need feedback and reflection time. The reviewing of KPI's and goals is a powerful motivator. Keep the KPI's short and aggressive. By doing this you, the manager, keeps close to the talent and you can gauge their growth. Where growth is quick - you can set higher targets and more complex problems. Where growth is slower - this provides a good time for both you and the talent to catch a breather before proceeding.

Note - not all talent is under 30! Some of the most talented people you have are over 30, settled into their jobs and are quite possibly bored. the mission is to identify them, lure them out of their secure place and unleash their hidden skills on the world!

KPI's for improved performance

Setting Key Performance Indicators and Targets for those who report to you works. Through having a discussion with the person you can define goals and targets for them to reach over a certain period of time.

KPI's are generally used for two things - ironing out small areas of inefficiency or business growth.

I like to set no more than 4 targets for my reports. Any less that and they become too easy, any more than that and the chances of being able to achieve them reduce exponentially according to the increase in targets listed.

Another thing I like to do is set a mixture of soft and hard targets. That is some targets are based on physical actions and outcomes, whereas soft targets deal with relationships and things that can't be measured physically.

Ongoing feedback and communication is vital and important but doesn't provide the necessary formal layout that an appraisal and KPI does. By defining goals and targets (and reviewing them quarterly) you can empower your reports to achieve more.

Groups vs Teams

People who work near each other (in an office etc.) can be either - a team or a group.

Whats the difference?

Team - a set of people, completing the same or similar tasks, in a close proximity to each other. Have overlapping work requirements and similar task knowledge is shared by all the group.

Group - a set of people, completing different tasks, within a work environment. Specialised work knowledge is required and one person completes their own set tasks.

Both groups require strong leaders, however each group will need to be led differently.

Teams - can be led in a more relational manner. Decisions tend to be more democratic and everyone hears what is going on together at the same time. This occurs more in new and smaller size workplaces.

Team goals and outcomes are set by the team.

Groups - can be led more in a one-to-one way. Decisions are made by the leader and the individual and then the rest of the group are told.

Individuals are held to account for their personal goals and performance outcomes.

This is one area that I have struggled to understand. In my memory no-one has ever explained the difference or the need to lead in different ways. It was such a relief for me to figure this out! My management style and focus - just went to another level!

Check out - Leadership Development Coaching for this interesting article on leading teams and groups.

Grow Your Own Leaders

Dr Emma Parry from the Cranfield University School of Management published a research paper that found - company's who invest into their own staff to create leaders and unleash their employees potential do better.

Here are a few interesting points of view of the managers interviewed from the published paper:

• it is better to grow your own employees than hire in,
• developing your own staff is a cheaper option than hiring in,
• staff retention and motivation increase when current employees are nurtured,
• it is a cheaper option to nurture your own employees.

(Source: Nurturing Talent, A Research Project by Dr Emma Parry, October 2008).

Staff development is one of the key areas for businesses to become strong, maintain their position and to move on and grow.

Another finding was that internal candidates may not always be the best choice though.

My personal view is -

• When a middle management sized position becomes open - it is best to promote from within. Keep the knowledge and experience and move it up.
• When a specialised or senior management position opens up - it is better to recruit from external sources.

External persons bring fresh perspective, new energy and different motivations.

Staff Rewards

If a person in your team does well - thank them.

Thanks can be given through a variety of different ways.

• Say thanks,
• Buy a gift,
• Give the person a day off,
• Give the person more responsibilities (not more work),
• Acknowledge the person in front of their peers.

One tool to help you decide what the appropriate method are the 5 love languages. Devised by Dr Garry Chapman the languages are broken down into five categories - words, time, gifts, acts of service, touch.

I thoroughly recommend all persons look into these!

"To educate yourself for the feeling of gratitude means to take nothing for granted, but to always seek out and value the kind that will stand behind the action. Nothing that is done for you is a matter of course. Everything originates in a will for the good, which is directed at you. Train yourself never to put off the word or action for the expression of gratitude." Albert Schweitzer

Performance Appraisals

It is important that employees get feedback on how they are doing. Performance appraisals are an effective way for people to understand where they are at in terms of reaching, completing and executing -

• Organisational goals
• Business unit goals, and also
• Their own personal goals.

Here are a few pointers for managers to think about when carrying out an appraisal -

1. Prepare.
2. Make time.
3. Shut out distractions and interruptions.
4. Listen, listen, listen.
5. Have some open questions ready preapared.
6. Make the time constructive.
7. Criticism can be hard to swallow - so be careful how you present it.