Focusing on Youth in Hiring is Hurting Your Organizational Health
In the Fall of 1984, Ronald Reagan, at the time the oldest U.S. President in history, was in a fight for re-election. In his first debate with youthful challenger Walter Mondale, he appeared tired and lacking energy. Many began to question his stamina for the job. In the second debate, he was asked a question about his age and being able to function in tough circumstances and in a crisis. Without hesitation, Reagan said the lines that we wish would be used more by older candidates seeking a job today: “Not at all… and I want you to know that also I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience.” He never looked back and won re-election in a landslide. Underlying the humor of Reagan’s response (even Mondale laughed at the time) is the truth in his words. Do we, and organizations in general, consciously and/or subconsciously choose “youth and inexperience” over “experience and wisdom” to our detriment and even to the detriment of the younger employees we onboard? Are we missing training, coaching, mentoring, and even reverse mentoring opportunities that would ultimately lower turnover and benefit the entire organization? Is it time to rethink age in hiring, especially in the current “candidate’s market,” and get away from the misconceptions and perceived costs of hiring older workers and focus on the benefits? In Search of Experience and Wisdom “Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.” – Mark Twain Most can agree that experience and wisdom are good things, but there are clearly also times when age and health can lead to poor performance. On the flip side, performance in younger employees could be just as impacted by a lack of training (investment in your personnel), mentoring, and coaching, which could lead to increased turnover and impact the future of your entire organization. We recently placed a 61-year-old candidate into a client who simply couldn’t ignore the fact that she would make the entire department better. Instead of age being a negative, this particular person’s depth of work and life experience, high energy, and continual learning mindset, as well as the fact that she had been a coach and mentor to several in the same field for decades, became a major positive. She didn’t need training— she was going to become the trainer. The client saw that this was a resource that many of his Millennials could tap into, and concerns over age and longevity in the position were overcome. Too often as business leaders, we look for “shiny and new” over “tried and true.” On the flip side, the disdain that many in the Baby Boomers and Gen Xers have for Millennials (and vice versa) is not a new phenomenon. Saying that Millennials are more prone to leaving jobs and switching companies than previous generations is misleading. They leave jobs because they are young and new to the workforce, and there was probably little in the way of training investment, coaching, and mentoring to keep them there and get them through the rough patches. According to Pew Research and a study they did comparing Millennials to Gen Xers, the percentage of 18-to-35-year-old employees who stayed with their employers for 13 months or more was 63.4% for Millennials in 2016 and 59.9% for Gen Xers in 2000. In addition, the percentage of these same groups who had been with their employers for 5 years or more was 22% for Millennials in 2016 and 21.8% for Gen Xers in 2000. It is easy to form generalizations about generations and blame the Millennials for leaving because they do not “have a strong work ethic.” It is also envy, and we have all been there. Ask an all-star major league baseball player from the 70s or 80s if he wouldn’t want the salary of even the most mediocre ballplayer today? What about Millennials just entering the workforce out of college? According to Mike Brown and the “The Class of 2018 Career Report” conducted by LendEDU, 41.3% had already found a job, and of those, only 37% envision staying at that same job for over 3 years. 28% of those who had found a job envisioned staying at their job for up to 3 years, while 25% thought they would last 6 months to a year, and 10% said they would leave as soon as something better came along (click here for the full study at LendEDU). The research indicates that younger workers are leaving your company, not because they are “Millennials.” They are leaving because they don’t see the career path and opportunity they’re looking for, and they may indeed have higher expectations, or they simply need guidance. They may have been thrown into a position without proper onboarding or training and are learning simply by making mistakes, which can be soul-crushing. In a recent Udemy “Workplace Boredom Report,” 46% of employees are looking to leave their companies because of a lack of opportunity to learn new skills. This is when a more experienced and wise counterpart can provide the training, skills, career/life guidance, coaching, and patience that can help them learn the position, see their fit within the company, adapt to the culture, and see a future. Do you have a mentoring program? There is a wealth of company, industry, and subject knowledge in older workers that Millennials can tap into and that employers should value. Programs that enable knowledge transfer and connect younger and older workers have been found to have a high return on investment because of the impact they have on increasing retention rates, promotions, and overall employee satisfaction. There is also a benefit in reverse mentoring in which older executives are paired and mentored in turn by younger employees on technology, social media, and trends. After all, what organization couldn’t benefit from a free exchange of ideas, wisdom, and engagement between employees in different generations?
Ethical v. Corporate Culture: Companies Sending Mixed Messages Impede their Own Growth Opportunities
Ethical culture? What’s that? Most people are familiar with corporate culture, often referred to simply as “culture,” but there are actually two cultures that impact the organization. Korn Ferry, in their February 2016 report Real World Leadership: Create an Engaging Culture for Greater Impact defines culture as, “…the values, beliefs, and behaviors that determine how people perform and interact with each other every day.” Corporate culture is often referred to by many simply as, “the way things are done around here.” But fewer are familiar with the term Ethical Culture. This is the espoused mission, vision, and values of the organization and is expanded upon in a well-defined Code of Business Conduct. When searching for a new job, conducting your company research, or when trying to make the right ethical decision when faced with a significant problem or issue to resolve, these statements by the company should be a sterling guide for candidates and employees alike as to what kind of organization they may be joining and how to proceed. Organizations whose ethical and corporate cultures are aligned are often characterized as those that, “say what they do and do what they say,” or, “keep their promises and honor their commitments.” Unfortunately, what a company says (ethical culture) and what a company does (corporate culture) are far too often two entirely different things. Even Towers Watson, in a March 2016 article titled Sustainably Engaged: The Impact of a Values-Driven Company Culture acknowledges that “Most large companies have stated values, but it’s unclear how consistently these values guide behavior.” This may give us some insight as to why, in the Towers Watson 2014 Global Workforce Study, when responding to the question of “What does it take to get and keep talent in 2014?” as it relates to the attraction drivers for candidates, “…an organization’s mission/vision/values does not appear on the employee list.” Could it be that employees and candidates get it – that there is a difference between what a company says and what it does? Could this be why there is such emphasis on the use of Glassdoor.com, Careerbliss.com, Vault.com and many other websites that provide a chance to review a company, what it’s like to work there, the interview process, and salary offers by candidates during the career search process? Real people providing real reviews – perhaps more accurately, or at least more bluntly, than any internal survey. Employers place a lot of stock in candidate fit when making employment decisions. It is important for companies to make the right decision, but in this candidate driven market, it is equally important for the candidate (external or internal) to apply to the right company or department. Unfortunately, with the disconnect that happens between ethical and corporate culture, this is truly a challenging task for candidates, employees, and employers. Cultural fit is not limited to hiring the right candidate for an open position, it influences nearly all employment decisions to one degree or another. If there is a disconnect between our ethical culture and our corporate culture, we must ask some very important questions: How does that impact the quality of our employment decisions? What risk exposure does this cause the company? How does this impact engagement, retention, and recruitment? In fact, a disconnect between the ethical and corporate cultures can have significant consequences for an organization: undesirable turnover, decreased overall retention, decreased engagement, decreased employee performance, increased rates of misconduct, and lack of innovation for continued growth just to name a few. Unless the organization works diligently to monitor and keep the two in alignment, the consequences may go largely unnoticed. The organization will end up chasing rabbit holes, putting forth a lot of effort in the wrong places and never truly solving the problem. Take a closer look at your retention, engagement, turnover, performance, top line revenue, and bottom line profits. If you think they are good, how much better could they be if there was better alignment between the ethical and corporate cultures? If they are poor, try realigning the two cultures. Like much of what we do in Human Resources, it is nearly impossible to prove a negative – the lawsuit that never happened, the turnover that was prevented, the government fines that were avoided. However, make no mistake, alignment between the ethical and corporate cultures of organizations have a huge impact on morale, engagement, performance, retention, and a whole lot more. When conducting your gap analysis, be sure to review any exit interviews that you perform (and if you don’t conduct any exit interviews, it may be time to start). This will provide some good feedback as to what caused the individuals to leave the organization. For terminations, it is important to review paper trails to see if the decisions that were made truly align with the ethical culture. Compare the situations with your Code of Business Conduct. Review the company values. Did the decision to terminate align with the code of conduct and company values? Was there any other alternative to termination that could have been implemented? Did the employee who resigned cite any actions or behaviors by subordinates, peers, or management that contradict our ethical culture? If yes, is this an isolated case or is this identified gap indicative of the actual corporate culture and a larger problem? Another place to look is the internet. Act as if you were an external candidate and researching your own company online to see if you would be a good fit. Check out the websites mentioned above and see what others – current and past employees – are saying about the company. Is there a gap between the culture they describe and the ethical culture? Is that an exception or is it indicative of the actual corporate culture? Towers Watson’s 2012 Global Workforce Study identified the top five drivers of sustainable engagement. Leadership was the top driver, and in the behaviors and actions that matter to employees were: Is effective at growing the business Shows sincere
The Training Paradox: How We Rationalize a Failure to Drive Engagement
Competition vs. Synergy. Which is it? Does training hold production back or does it lead to increased production? This is a common issue at nearly every company. “We don’t have time to train our people now, we have to meet the production results.” How often have we heard this, and said this, at our companies? Every organization struggles with engagement issues. Many business leaders have this utopian idea that we can get our workforce, should get our workforce, to 100% engagement and nothing less will do. Regardless of your belief, what is undoubtedly possible is that organizations can improve the engagement level from where it is today to something higher in the future. But how do we do this, and what is the best way? There are many paths on the journey to increased engagement. The first question, before you begin the journey, is to ask, “What is the outcome I desire by increasing the engagement?” Again, there may be many answers. Almost assuredly, there will be a combination rather than only one to meet the needs of any organization. In those desired outcomes is almost assuredly an increase in key performance indicators (KPIs): production output, quality output, or both. The Hidden Truth The single most important thing that an organization can do to improve engagement is to invest in and implement the training of its people. Here is the crux of the issue… Intuitively, we all understand that it is important to train our people. However, when it comes to meeting the results to which we are all held accountable, training is among the first actions that we resist with the rationalization that, “I don’t have time to train, I have to meet my production expectations. Training will just slow us down and make us miss our timeline or production levels.” So, if we rationalize away the investment in training, how can we meet the outcomes we desire: production increases? I am sure we would be amazed at the most common solution that occurs to nearly all organizations— Recruit trained talent! Unfortunately, though this was a pretty good response at the bottom of the recent recession, when the talent needed by so many companies was unemployed and readily available, today, as with most economic circumstances, this is far more challenging, outside of a spot position here or there, than such a flippant solution would suggest. In addition, when you hire outside the organization as opposed to promoting from within (which an organization might have done if it had the talent it needed) or training the current workforce, how do you think the employees feel? The Message Training Sends Numerous studies over the last decade indicate that employees want to know their company cares about them. Employees want to feel like they belong, that they have a future and a career path. So, when employees see that the positions they want are handed over to outside talent, and they remain in their roles with no professional growth opportunities available to them at their employer, how engaged do you think that workforce becomes? What happens to turnover, retention, succession planning, and production? Add to the mix the fact that, as part of strategic planning, more organizations are developing powerful and energizing mission, vision, and value statements and propositions to focus the organization on a common purpose — a shared vision, if you will. When you review enough of these values espoused by organizations, employee satisfaction or something similar, signifying how an organization cares for its people, is in almost every one of them. But, when the actions of the organization contradict these statements because they don’t adequately invest in and implement the training and development of their people, what message is actually sent to the employees, and what is the impact on their engagement? “The company lies!” “Management will say anything to get what they want and does not really care about you!” “We are just cogs in a wheel.” “Employees are just numbers.” Does this sound familiar? Does this sound like an engaged workforce to you? Training and development is critical. As the Baby Boomer generation exits and Millennials enter, how will knowledge transfer happen without training? How will succession planning happen without training and professional development? Isn’t it easier and less costly to the organization to recruit entry level than to recruit middle and upper level skilled and management positions? And when your teams receive the training and professional development, what impact does that have on the attainment of your objectives— improved production and/or quality? Training and development of your people needs to be a strong component of the organization. Nothing an organization does says it cares about their people more than when they invest in them through training and development. It should not, and cannot, replace the need to recruit. Sometimes the time it takes to get an employee to the skill level needed immediately is far too long, and in that situation external recruitment will be required. But this should be the exception and not the rule. Further, external recruitment is always going to be important to bring in new ideas and innovation to an organization, but it cannot replace the need to train and develop the current workforce. Recruitment does not drive engagement. Parties, prizes, recognition are all important components of driving engagement in many organizations, but they are short lived. Only training and development provides the long term and lasting rise in employee engagement, and with it the attainment of desired production results. Do drive the engagement of your people through training and development. Avoid rationalizing it away. You will be amazed at the long-term production results achieved. If your company is ready to strategically address, improve, and invest in the hiring of the most important part of any company – its people— please contact us today!
Organizational Success? It’s the People
Jeff Bezos, the wildly successful Founder and CEO of Amazon.com, recently shared his “three-step formula for success” with INC magazine. According to Mr. Bezos, “Success is going to require talented experts, a beginner’s mind, and a long-term orientation.” His first and most important tenet: “Surround yourself with the right people. If you’re going to accomplish great things, you need a team of great people.” Unfortunately, the reality today in most organizations and leadership mindsets is far different from Mr. Bezos’s, and likely the reason he keeps on winning. We have sat with leaders of companies of all sizes, industries, and demographics to listen to their hiring and human resource needs. An integral first step of this process is to gain a 360-degree understanding of their business and culture. These leaders share and show their innovative products, mind-blowing services, new equipment, new software initiatives, new buildings, forward-thinking R&D, and more with great pride and passion. However, what we find time-and-again is the most important part of a company’s success – its people – are not shown off with this same excitement or even worse – grumbled about. Their 80/20 Rule: 80% of their energy and investment in “things” and only 20% in the right people and talent that are critical to driving their success. We hear you Jeff, but look at my shiny new toy! The conversation then turns to the reason we are meeting: hiring a strong performer. Yet the leader or hiring manager is hesitant to do so. They want to pay below market and demand unrealistic productivity results in too short of a time span. They then complain about being burned in the past with new hires and want others to do this for FREE as “contingency” headhunters. Wow! This is a major disconnect. You just showed off your shiny new and expensive “toys.” You beam with pride at your new building and all of the high-level consultants you paid to help you with these capital expenditures or process decisions, and all the potential results these fancy “things” can potentially do for the company. Yet, you now want to hire a critical role that turns that investment into profit as inexpensively as possible? We are not talking about just paying below industry compensation. We are referring just as much to the process of hiring that person, the continued professional investment in that person you are prepared to make, or even taking time to properly transition a new professional into the organization. The “people” part can get messy We get it. People are the most mercurial part of a company, and our personal lives, for that matter. They have a mind of their own. I can control my machine or software, but I can’t control the day-to-day decisions of my employees. I can’t just build them or set my “specs” into them and walk away (robots and AI aren’t there yet). Now I have to manage (note the keyword should be “lead”) their motivations, behaviors and actions constantly. People are a lot of work. We’re not sure how to put the question to leaders or hiring managers more bluntly than this: Why do you try to get the best professionals to fit your company and culture on the cheap, but you will pay through the nose for a capital expenditure? Why are you taking time out of your busy schedule to talk with us, but you want us to “consult” and run the process for free until you “might” hire someone we present? You pay your software or your capital expenditure/process consultant hourly rates of $150-$500. You are paying your lawyer $600-700 an hour for legal advice. You may be paying your own executive coach $750+ an hour. Yet you are not going to invest in the process of hiring the best cohesive professional(s) to help your company win? Again – we get it. The “people” part of a company is a challenge, and it can be messy. But all the more reason to properly invest in them from the very beginning of the hiring process. What to do? Now that we have identified some of the problems with this approach— here are some proven solutions we see working today… Invest in qualified professionals who partner with you to lead your hiring processes. You get what you pay for. What quality level of hiring advisory do you think you are going to receive back by throwing contingency recruiting firms at an important hire, while all the while doing all you can to hire someone using your overworked internal team to identify that hire properly? Hire a professional executive recruiting advisor NOT a “headhunter” or contingency recruiter. Know who and what your company is and stands for. You cannot begin to fit a person into a company unless you are fully self-aware the of positives AND negatives of your company and culture. Identify more than a job description for the role. A job description is important, but it only provides the semantics and bare minimums. Take the extra time with your Retained Executive Recruiting Advisor to clearly identify at least (3) metrics or Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) of what that person must achieve in their first year of employment. Be sure to make them reasonable. A qualified advisor will know how to help you do this. Be transparent in the process. No company is perfect, and no person is either. Be proud of your strengths and communicate how you achieved them. However, do not BOAST or oversell them to candidates. Be equally proud of your shortcomings and share them with humility when interviewing a candidate. After all, if you were perfect, you wouldn’t need them to address these challenges. Don’t blindside them when they are on board by NOT telling them where the skeletons are during the process. Have a real Transition Plan. Don’t refer to onboarding or transition as “babysitting.” Or say, “That’s why I am paying that person— they can figure it out.” An Onboard or Transition
Employee Retention Issues? How to Keep Your BEST (Part 2)
Part 2 of 2-Part Series on the Important and Timely Issue of Employee Retention In Part 1 of Employee Retention Issues you took that long hard look in the mirror and realized you have a serious employee retention problem, and more than likely it is your fault as a leader. Just as you realize this, your bad employee retention dream becomes a nightmare. Your best salesperson resigns out of the blue. In a blink of the eye what you finally identified as a top strategic concern is now a raging fire you need to put out, even though you have a busy schedule and other initiatives underway. Now you not only have to find a replacement for this talented employee, which is incredibly difficult when skilled professionals of this caliber are currently in high demand, but you also have to temper the impact their departure will have on the rest of your team— who may be already exploring other career options. Whenever someone walks out the door, people notice, especially when they are good. Morale takes a hit, and it will push those not already looking for a way out to begin doing so. This is exactly why employee retention and job satisfaction should be placed at the top of your priorities list, and why finding unbiased professional advisory to do this so is critical. Why do I need an unbiased and independent advisor? Have you ever walked into the same room many times without seeing that someone left trash on the floor? Have you failed to notice that your significant other or a daily coworker got a haircut? These oversights are natural for us all. We get too close to our daily environment to see it objectively or with clear eyes. You may have extremely bright HR leaders on your team, but they may also be too close to the situation to provide the objectivity and tough honesty necessary to define retention strategies. Remember, you have already identified leadership as the culprit. Now asking that current leadership to figure out the answers treads on egos, fear of telling you your wrong, or concern of losing face with other employees. What retention strategies do I look for with an advisor? Before identifying a strategy with an advisor, you will be asked to begin looking at things from the employee’s point of view. It is imperative that you get out of your own way! All professionals are different with unique sets of behaviors, desires and goals. Yes, employees want to know they are being properly compensated at or above market rates. More importantly, employees want to feel they are appreciated and treated fairly. They want to be challenged and excited by their job. They then want the autonomy to do it. Provide full transparency to your advisor(s) in every area of the employer-employee relationship within your company. Only in approaching the situation in such an open and honest manner will you be able to embrace the key strategies that will improve your organization’s employee retention and boost employee morale. How? The BEST Employee Retention Process An effective employee retention program addresses all of these concerns and beyond. In fact, your efforts should start with the HIRING PROCESS… HIRE: Your recruiting and interviewing process sets the tone for an employee’s tenure at the company. Provide full transparency to candidates about the pros AND cons of your company, culture, products and their role. Clearly identify the role expectations with specific metrics they will be held accountable for. Doing so dramatically lessens the potential of a new employee feeling disenchanted that they were sold a “bill of goods” when being caught by surprise by something that should have been shared up front. TRAIN: Onboarding — Every new hire should be set up for success from the first day of work through 90 days and beyond. Develop an onboarding process where new employees learn about the job, the culture, how to contribute and thrive. Create an environment that fosters ongoing discussions, goals, and opportunities to address questions and issues. Having something as simple as their business cards and workstation ready is a small way to show your commitment to their success. Mentorship — Pairing a new employee with a mentor will increase their ability to learn the ropes from a veteran with a wealth of resources and experience. Reverse mentoring is equally as beneficial in this process as the new hire offers a fresh viewpoint to an experienced staff. Training and Development — Ask each of your direct reports about their short- and long-term goals to determine how you can help achieve them and invest in appropriate professional growth opportunities for employees. MOTIVATE: Communication and Feedback — Keeping open lines of communication is essential for employee retention. Your direct reports should feel that they can come to you with ANYTHING, and likewise, they expect you to be honest with them about improvements they need to make in their own performance. YOU need to connect with your people and not vice versa proactively! Work-life Balance — What message is your company culture sending? Burnout is very real. A healthy work-life balance is essential, and people need to know that management not only understands the importance butalso supports it. Dealing with Change —If your company is going through a merger, layoffs, or other big changes, keep your entire team informed as much as you can to avoid feeding the rumor mill. Getting out in front of it and accentuating the positive will keep morale and motivation strong. Promote Teamwork —Foster a culture of collaboration that accommodates individuals’ working styles and lets their talents shine. Clarify team objectives, business goals, roles, and inspire everyone to contribute ideas and solutions. REWARD: Employee Compensation — It is essential in this competitive labor market for companies to offer attractive compensation packages. That includes salaries, of course, but also bonuses, paid time-off, health benefits, retirement plans and all the other perks that can distinguish one workplace from another. Recognition and Rewards Systems: Make it a