CareerCurve™

Many years ago, job hopping was viewed as the first red flag on a resume.  Those resumes that showed multiple jobs over the previous 5-10 years were instantly moved to the “not interested right now” pile.  If no solid candidates were in the rest of the pile the resume might get a second look, but for the most part that resume was considered out of the running. 

But with the current economy, has this changed?  It seems as though it should.   There is even information out there that suggests that hiring a job hopper could be good for the employer .

There are many reasons why job hopping does not necessarily mean the candidate is a risk.  Here are a few to consider:

• Many companies are moving to more contract and temporary employees in order to save money, particularly on benefits.  Contracts may not have been renewed or the employee was brought in on a short term basis for project work from the start.

• Many candidates were laid off in the last couple years but unlike years past, this does not necessarily mean it was due to poor performance.  When corporations are laying off hundreds, it is not realistic to believe that all those affected were poor performers.

• With the economy shifting so dramatically in the past few years many companies restructured significantly.  Candidates may have been affected by these changes in strategy a everyone tried to tighten up.

• With all the other changes in organization and acquisitions, a lot of bosses were afraid of losing their jobs.  They may have sold a complete turnaround to their bosses as an attempt to retain their own employment.  The result could be that the job itself changed considerably and the employee was no longer a fit for the organization.

• Candidates affected by organizational changes may have taken other jobs just to pay their bills.  The news about unemployment was not good and the mindset for a few years seemed to be that you better take any job just to have one, since there were so few out there.  The luxury of looking for the perfect fit was pushed aside for quite a while and candidates have been in survival mode. 

If the job hopping was due to some of the reasons above and was essentially out of the employee’s control,  isn’t it possible a job hopper would make the perfect employee?  Doesn’t it stand to reason that some of these candidates are seeking loyalty, security, and stability?

I’ve been reading an interesting conversation on LinkedIn regarding the differences between talent and competency.  What are the differences and what is more important when building a team? 

In my opinion, talent is something innate – a particular strength or instinct that can’t be learned, at least not easily.  It is almost a certain mindset or way of looking at things.  A competency is more task-related – an ability one possesses that has been learned, studied, or practiced, and ultimately mastered.  How easily this was accomplished probably has a lot to do with the level of talent.  Do you agree? 

When searching for great employees, which matters more?  Does it depend on the type of job?  When interviewing, what tools do you use to evaluate the difference?  Does is matter whether or not there is potential growth opportunity, and if so, do you seek candidates with competencies if there is not much growth potential and those with talent if you’re hoping to expand their role?  Would you hire someone who can get the job done but may not have other talents your company could use to grow?  Or do you specifically seek employees who can not only get the job done, but bring more to the table?

In my mind, a competency can be taught (and learned) but a talent is a little something extra that should be encouraged and cultivated.  I would think this is where you get your “star” employees.  Is it a coincidence too, that people tend to be good at the things they love?  Is talent then related to passion and how does this fit in with recruiting great employees?  If an employee has a passion and talent for something, wouldn’t you imagine that they would be more motivated, engaged and generally happier doing their job?  And doesn’t this minimize some of the concerns HR has to address with the employees thereby making your job easier?  Couldn’t you also assume competency?

What do you think?  Please share your thoughts in the comments.

I keep seeing discussions surrounding the medicinal use of marijuana.  This got me thinking that this would have a profound effect on Human Resource departments.  According to this site (which, by the way, is interesting – it lists the pros and cons of various issues) there are currently 15 states that have enacted legislation making it legal to use medical marijuana and 6 more with legislation pending.  If passed, that means that close to half the country will have made medical marijuana usage legal.  What will that do to your company’s current policies and practices?  At the very least HR will need to be educated thoroughly on the differences between state and federal laws and how be compliant with all, even though many of these laws are still in direct conflict with one another.

Assuming the employees who require medical marijuana are following the letter of the law, there are still some the questions that arise for you:

What do you do about employees who are on call if they use it outside of the workplace?  Can they still perform that function?

How long will the effects last if an employee uses it in the evening or off work hours? How could you know when they used it last and what risks might be associated with that?

Will you be required to allow ingestion during work hours if this is deemed necessary for the employee to function?  What about the ADA?  If the employee is considered disabled there are many things your company must do in order to ensure no discrimination.  Does a disability treated this way qualify here?

As a result of the above, are you more likely to suffer legal consequences or a rise in discrimination suits?

Is the employee required to tell you or can he/she choose not to mention it?  What if they test positive and then offer the explanation?

Speaking of drug tests, what does this do to your drug testing programs?  Or your safety programs?  Or your employee performance programs, for that matter?

How much responsibility will fall on you for the employee who uses medical marijuana as well as the rest of your workforce who works alongside him/her?  There are laws in place that require you to impose a safe and healthy work environment.  How does this tie in with that?

One thing is certain, this subject creates a whole lot of controversy and for you, it means another subject with a lot of gray area that will necessitate research on your part.  How to find and use loopholes, how to remain compliant, how to protect your organization as well as the people who work there, are all issues that will have to be addressed if you live in a state that allows the use of medical marijuana.

Today I wanted to write a quick and personal post thanking all of you for your support, comments and feedback and wishing you good fortune and happiness for the coming year. Getting involved with social media and blogging since March has meant that this year has been a huge learning experience and a lot of fun! To say I had no idea what to expect from this year would be an understatement – what an experience! There are so many of you who have been so positive and encouraging, it is overwhelming. Hearing how social media can help develop relationships and then witnessing it happen has been amazing. I only hope that I have been successful in providing value and assisting all of you wherever possible.

I hope you are all as excited as I am for 2011! I will continue to do my best to help all of you, both with content and support. Please have a fun and safe New Year’s Eve and do not hesitate to let me know if I can be of assistance to you in the coming year.

In my last post, I suggested taking a step back and evaluating your employees’ duties before you worry about showing them they are valued to keep them engaged and motivated.  Many of my posts allude to a mentality that goes back to the basics, or simplifies what you are trying to accomplish.  I kept thinking about a post written by fellow blogger Cathy Miller who has an entire blog designed around the idea of keeping things simple.  In particular, my mind goes back to this segment of Cathy’s post and how you can implement this internally to make better communication with your workforce a business goal:

Orchestrating Communication

Developing a business communication strategy lays the groundwork for evaluation.

If you did not have one for this year, create a strategy for next year.

Here is a 10-step outline for creating your communication strategy.

1. Create your vision statement - where do you want to end up with your business?
2. Identify your customer – who will be the target for your communication?
3. Define your objectives – do you want to create leads? educate? announce a new product or service?
4. Establish your budget – this step is one many small businesses skip – it is essential for the next step.
5. Select your communication vehicles - what combination is the most effective for objectives and budget? e.g., social media, white papers, case studies, industry articles
6. Assign roles and responsibilities – who does the writing? who manages the process?
7. Develop your message strategy – what problem are you trying to solve for customers? how are you different? what is your call to action?
8. Develop a timeline – what is the frequency for communication? any new product/service rollout?
9. Establish benchmarks – what are the specific measurements for success? e.g., Leads, visibility/awareness of your business, sales, customer satisfaction
10. Create a contingency process - what happens if a communication strategy is not working? How do you troubleshoot?

Imagine you are using these steps to enhance communication with your workforce, your internal customers.    If you take these concepts and alter the ultimate goal slightly, this strategy could have a big impact on your role and organization.

Everyone knows the economic woes of the last couple years have had a huge impact on organizations, individuals, and sometimes entire industries. Over and over in this blog you’ve seen recommendations, discussions, and articles about one the biggest HR challenges of our time – keeping employees engaged, motivated and interested in staying with your company. There is much debate about how much time, money and effort should be extended to employees to accomplish these goals.

Recently, I was re-reading one of my favorite books of all time called The 100 Simple Secrets of Happy People by PH.D David Niven. I came across the chapter called “If you can’t reach your goals, your goals will hurt you.” This made me think of how helpful this basic idea could be if used by HR to evaluate your workforce.

Considering the recent down-sizings and re-organizations that have taken place, how many of your employees have been asked to take on extra functions at work? There are many articles written on this topic, most of them focusing on ways to let your employees know that you value their contributions. But what about backing it up a bit and evaluating whether or not what you’ve asked them to accomplish is attainable and matches the skill set they possess?

There is a study by Pavot, Fujita, and Deiner from way back in 1997 that I think still holds true today. It is entitled, “The Relation Between Self-Aspect Congruence, Personality and Subjective Well-Being.” One of the findings concludes that if a person’s goals are in-congruent with their abilities, the likelihood of dissatisfaction quadruples. That’s right – quadruples!  The goals themselves ultimately contribute to disappointment and disagreeableness.

Maybe before tons of effort is expended on thanking your employees, a good first step would be to evaluate whether the business goals are congruent with the individual. Do the new demands match the employees’ abilities? Now that the employee has been doing his/her best to manage the new responsibilities for a while, can you see where he/she struggles or excels? Could you shuffle some of the new functions between employees who have different strengths?

Any goal in life both, personally or professionally, should be assessed and updated periodically to ensure it is realistic. A new year is on its way and with it may come a good time to take a hard look at the specific duties you’ve asked your employees to take on. If you can make sure that what your company needs matches what your individual employees are capable of as closely as possible, you are one step closer to a satisfied and engaged workforce. THEN you can figure out how to show they are valued.

Is motivating unmotivated employees up to you?  And further, is this an effective performance management strategy?  Was the unmotivated employee a bad hire or was he/she a top performer and then became unmotivated?

HR is becoming more and more responsible for keeping their employees motivated at work.  But can you really succeed at this in the long run?

There are all kinds of recommendations and solutions to motivate employees such as incentives, coaching, disciplinary action, and counseling.  I’ve read of those who feel that this is a waste of time and money because you cannot motivate the unmotivated for any length of time. Period.  They are very black and white and blame it on a bad hire.  The wrong questions were asked, the employee was adept at interviewing and HR missed the most important aspects of the employee’s personality that would’ve told them this was not going to be a motivated employee; therefore, offering the above listed programs to the employee is throwing good money after bad.  Those with this stance also state that to increase performance management you need to cut ties quickly and stop taking responsibility for an employee’s lack of motivation.  By providing assistance you are giving the employee a scapegoat and he/she can now blame you for being unmotivated.  Admit it was a square peg/ round hole scenario, fire them and move on.  High performers always perform and don’t need to be motivated – they are motivated from within.

Can it really be that simple?  Is it that cut and dried?  I think there is a more effective path to performance management.  The first thing necessary is getting an understanding of why this employee lacks motivation.  Was he/she like this from day one?  (If yes, maybe the above isn’t so far off and you should reevaluate your hiring practices.)  If not, what happened?  Is there a problem with the team or manager?  Are there personal issues?  Has the employee exceeded expectations but received very little in the way of acknowledgement?  Have you provided support for the employee both professionally and personally?

Yes, high performers tend to be motivated from within and perform well despite all kinds of circumstances.  But that doesn’t mean a high performer can’t become de-motivated, and is not worth the time or energy to motivate.  Performance management tools are valuable. At a minimum they allow you to communicate with your employees, which ultimately helps determine the answers to most employee problems.  As I’ve said before, if you will listen, people will tell you what they want.

Those who are internally motivated can still become less so if the culture, environment and support are not there.  The best HR can do is focus on creating an environment that will optimize performance.  The level to which it succeeds is largely up to the employee, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t bother or are wasting money.

Recruiting is an important piece of HR and hiring inexperienced recruiters could be having a big impact on your business.  A good recruiter does a lot more than ask a few generic interview questions, match up key words between a resume and a job description, and comment on whether the candidate presented well in the interview. 

Employees are the most valuable asset in any organization so doesn’t it make sense that your most highly qualified and expert talent is in the recruiting area? 

If you are a company that values creativity with employees who think outside the box, bring a different perspective to the table, and are problem solvers you should assess your recruiters.  Do your recruiters have a lot of experience?  Do they have solid business acumen?  Have they been well trained and do they use statistics and science or do they rely on instinct and operate on the surface level of filling jobs, such as matching key words?

Many times, companies say one thing and do another.  If you want to attract top talent and give your organization a competitive advantage you must be sure the people doing your hiring are of the highest level of talent themselves.   

Do your recruiters sit down with the hiring managers to understand in depth what the position entails?  Do they make recommendations that encompass not only technical expertise and previous experience but also the more difficult to identify soft skills? Do they consider strategic corporate goals when interviewing and discuss business objective such as performance management and succession planning? 

Good recruiters may be more important than you realize.  The more talented they are the more talented your staff will be and ultimately, the more productive and profitable your company will be overall.

I came across an interesting quote the other day from David Fairhurst, chief people officer at McDonald’s.  He said, “The more you give your people transferable skills, the less they want to transfer.”

Have you ever approached Career Training and Development in this way?  Now these things are more important than ever.  Many organizations have had to reallocate job responsibilities due to cutbacks so providing training is crucial just to get the job done productively.  But beyond that, this is a great engagement tool!  This is more important than ever as one of the biggest HR concerns is losing top talent.

In this day and age, there is as definite lack of loyalty both on the part of employers as well as employees.  It is incredibly rare to find employees who believe they will work for an organization for decades or have found their home, but ironically, offering employees options to move on tends to increase the likelihood that they will stay.  Why?

Career development and training keep employees focuses on internal opportunities.  It also makes them feel heard and valued as an individual with needs, one of the top job motivators.  It develops trust that there are growth opportunities and their potential to advance is recognized.  Investing in employees’ futures can remove the mindset that an employee would prefer to get a new job rather than deal with issues or concerns in their present role.  In short, it builds a sense of loyalty – if you do for them, they want to do for you.  It also increases their interest in going to work each day.  Being excited about the job equals engagement and engaged people want to stay.  They are also far more productive and will be a genuine benefit to your organization.

Think about this quote by Walter Chrysler.  ““I feel sorry for the person who can’t get genuinely excited about his work. Not only will he never be satisfied, but he will never achieve anything worthwhile.”  Don’t you want your employees achieving worthwhile things for your business?

How do approach training and career development?  Do you have the mindset that you need your employees to learn things just to help the company or do you approach it as a way to view your top talent as people with needs?  Do these things fall under the category of retention tools in your organization?

You’re the PERFECT candidate for a job. You follow the directions to the letter in order to submit your application and resume for the role. You get a ding letter 15 minutes after you complete it. Why?

Applicant Tracking Systems are set up to centralize all responses to an opening and narrow the candidate pool into something more manageable for HR. If you believe you are a great fit for the job, don’t let an automatically generated rejection letter stop you. Here are some things to know about what you’re dealing with.

-  Most of these are set up to sort by keywords. Candidates are usually lumped into categories such as eligible, ineligible, or decisional. The category tends to be determined by the percentage of words or phrases your resume hits that the company has entered as criteria.

ADVICE: Read the job posting carefully, look on the company website and do your research. Use as many of the exact same words or phrases that they use on the listing and within their site.

-  Many times the posting is set up for a particular applicant. When a company has a great candidate that they know they want to hire, they still have to put up a posting for that applicant to complete in order to be compliant with corporate procedure. But doing this means it is seen by others (like you). What does this mean to you? There is a very high likelihood in this case that no one is even seeing your resume. You will automatically receive a rejection letter because the system is set up to reject everyone else but the person the posting was created for.

ADVICE: If you really want to work there and believe you are a good fit, Fed Ex your resume to a hiring manager in your area or a top person at the company. HR is only following the instructions of the hiring manager on that particular position, but it doesn’t mean you won’t catch the eye for that job or a different opening you haven’t seen if you try a different route. Start with the top down. If the President wants you in for an interview it really doesn’t matter what the ATS or HR group thinks, you are going to get an interview.

-Although this is technology and technology is limited in what it can do (the old garbage in, garbage out scenario) you still need to use it. If a listing or posting tells you to complete an application online, do it. The company has a protocol they follow and you have to play along.

ADVICE: Don’t get too creative in an effort to bypass the system. You may feel you’re getting further in the short term but ultimately, you’re going to end up there. You might as well cooperate right out of the gate. That being said, don’t let it end with your online submission. Use all the creativity you can to get in the door after you’ve complied with their wishes.

- Applicant Tracking Systems are a necessary tool for HR but the bottom line is it is still more who you know than what you know that’s going to get you a job.

THE BEST ADVICE:  Network. Try to know people in the organization, try to get introduced to the right people, call the hiring managers or decision makers in your department, be personal, and stand out! It is far easier to get a blessing and then deal with the ATS, than it is to get dinged by the ATS and then try to point out how perfect you are for the job to a stranger who hears the same from many other candidates.