Take a Breath and Think
You deserve it, and your business may require it. By Ben Molenda, Human Capital Advisor, and Todd Downing, Managing Partner at BEST Human Capital & Advisory Group Are you tired of “Work From Home,” “COVID Procedures,” and “New Normal” articles? This one is different. Instead of being advised on how to do something, the goal here is to experience thought. “THINK” is what Thomas Watson Sr., the legendary founder of IBM, would tell his people, encouraging everybody to be thinkers, from the assembly line worker and engineer to the salesperson and office admin. It was what would bind the company together and become the cultural cornerstone of one of the world’s great companies. Despite the immense challenges thrust upon all businesses during the pandemic, the Green Industry has experienced positive, and some would say unprecedented, growth. Other industries have not fared as well and are just starting to recover. The stresses you have responded to in running your business with an uncertain future, proper COVID health protocols, plus the volume of business experienced or lost, have left many leaders feeling reactive. There has been considerably less time to focus on strategy as much as they would like. And – a bit exhausted. The pandemic has also created profound change and impact on the people who make up your organization. Strategic Human Resource planning is a vital component to successfully navigating this business evolution. We are all searching for solutions to protect, stabilize, and grow our businesses. But how do you define solutions when your time and energy have been dramatically stretched? A helpful first step is to identify what the Human Resource challenges or opportunities are that require problem-solving. To support leaders in identifying Human Resource solutions, ask yourself a few of these questions to flesh out potential areas that will require change. You can then begin formulating solutions to address these challenges. WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT Have you identified specific training or development investments to grow key employees? Are your employees cross-trained if a key individual leaves the team? Does each position have a career progression plan? Have you openly discussed it with the individual? Do you have silos between departments requiring increased collaboration? HIRING What are the current bottlenecks or challenges to your business, and what type of professional would you hire to solve these problems? Is your ongoing hiring process compliant with applicable employment law and producing the desired and necessary results for your organization? Are your HR-related marketing tools and company branding message aligned with the current strategic plan to attract the proper level of talent to drive these organizational directives? Do you have a positive company brand image on social media and sites such as Glassdoor to help attract top talent? TOTAL REWARDS – COMPENSATION & BENEFITS Have you updated or benchmarked your benefits and compensation packages lately? If yes, how frequently do you do so? Do you include perks like profit sharing, continual education, or health initiatives to better invest in your employees? What unique benefits do you offer that are attractive to potential new hires or increase retention? Is your compensation in line with your geographic region, cost of living, and other industries to attract top talent? HUMAN RESOURCE SYSTEMS & SOFTWARE Do you have an organized electronic system for classifying and holding all your employees’ documents? Do you have an up-to-date chain of command to report HR issues? Do you have the appropriate technology and tools to maximize efficiency and effectiveness? (i.e., HRIS, LMS, TS, ERP, and Payroll). Do these systems seamlessly integrate? Are your HR employees adequately trained on them? EMPLOYEE RELATIONS Are your employees truly engaged in the business or simply “punching the clock”? What is your retention rate or turnover rate? What type of leader would your employees communicate that you are? Has an appropriate investigatory process been put in place? Are your HR professionals trained to objectively implement such a process to resolve employee relations issues regardless of their severity or nature? HUMAN RESOURCE COMPLIANCE If your Human Resource policies and practices were audited, would you pass without a fine? Have current policies been recently reviewed and updated to conform to recent legislation, court cases, and executive orders? Especially revised regulations? Are Human Resource audits (internal and external) conducted regularly to ensure compliance with all employment laws? SUCCESSION & EXIT PLANNING When was the last time you took time away from your business as its owner or leader of a division? Are you able to take time away knowing you have a team to keep running the business profitably and efficiently? Do you know what you will do when you retire? Have you mapped internal succession paths, including your own, so you know where to recruit externally and where to develop internally? DIVERSITY Would your organization’s effectiveness benefit from someone with a different background, mindset, viewpoint, or values? Have you hired individuals from various backgrounds and educational backgrounds? Have you properly followed Equal Employment Opportunity Laws? Are you tracking appropriate diversity data regardless of whether you must file an annual report? OPERATIONS & PRODUCTION Are you struggling to achieve complete buy-in to LEAN principles or Health & Safety protocols? Do you have employee retention or engagement problems with your production team? Are current performance metrics or KPIs aligned with job expectations, job descriptions, and organizational outcomes? SALES & MARKETING Do you hire sales professionals based solely on knowing your product and customers, or have you taken time to identify and assess for successful sales or marketing behaviors? Have you worked with your sales, marketing, and production teams to understand and increase collaboration with one another relative to production capacity and sales growth? Are your customer-facing professionals a positive reflection of your company with customers and the industry? NEW PRODUCTS & MARKETS Do you have new products in the pipeline that will require hiring professionals with a unique skill set or knowledge? Have you identified new markets to enter that will require hiring professionals with the targeted industry knowledge? FINANCE
The Foundation of Everything
Take a step back and look at your company. Do the people seem genuine? Do you feel as though they are making significant progress in reaching the organization’s goals and ambitions? Do you believe in your people, your process, and your mission? How do you foster trust within your company, especially during a crisis like COVID-19? Trust has three foundational components, like a 3-legged stool. Each leg is essential and depends on the others to work together. If one leg breaks, everything collapses. The same goes for trust if one of the components begins to wobble— trust is in jeopardy. The three foundational pillars of trust are authenticity, logic, and empathy. Authenticity “A true leader is one who is humble enough to admit their mistakes.” – John Maxwell Did you ever experience being in a conversation at work and feeling that the person you were talking to was not being completely honest with you? Our human nature can quickly zone in and identify those not being real with us. To avoid a problem with authenticity, BE YOU – ALL THE TIME around EVERYONE – Voice your thoughts and opinions, respectfully. Pay less attention to what you think people want to hear and give more attention to what you need to say. For companies to emerge from this crisis successfully, all ideas need to be explored to reimagine and decide the best strategy. Leaders need to allow the office to be a safe place for everyone to speak when creating a culture of trust. A leader is not expected to know all the answers— welcome comments and ideas. Allowing an environment for fresh perspectives helps build an authentic team and ultimately leads to trust within the organization. Logic “When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but creatures of emotion.” – Dale Carnegie Most problems concerning logic are not about the quality of the logic, but about the ability to communicate the reasoning in a decision-making process. Likely, we all have sat in team meetings where one person dominates the time by taking us on a long journey through their experience and often is interrupted and never makes a definitive point. Many people like to tell a long story before getting to the point. To communicate logic clearly, start with your point in a crisp, clear sentence and then make your supporting statements. This approach allows for greater clarity and prevents you from being interrupted before making the critical point you needed to make. If everyone in an organization has clarity on the decisions, real progress can be made, and trust becomes foundational. Empathy “Empathy is simply listening, holding space, withholding judgment, emotionally connecting, and communicating that incredibly healing message of you’re not alone.” – Brené Brown Would your employees say that management is listening to them? Not just hear them, but attentively LISTEN. The best listeners provide eye contact and lean forward in the conversation with no distractions (put away the cell phone). Listening is critical for building empathy. For most companies, this is the leg that “wobbles” due to demanding schedules. However, during a pandemic, this is a critical time to listen. Each of us is experiencing this crisis differently. We are all facing unique circumstances and challenges. Listening to your team to better understand them and their situation fosters a healthier relationship to build trust. Trust is the foundation of everything we do. It can be earned and built. It can also wither and break. If a company develops and operates in a culture of trust and transparency among all stakeholders, it can make unprecedented progress in reaching its goals. With a foundation and culture of trust, companies experience better productivity, enhanced morale, lower staff turnover, ability to handle challenges, willingness to take risks, enhanced creativity, optimism, teamwork, higher client satisfaction, better company reputation, and higher profitability. Be real, start with your point, and know you are not alone. It works, trust us. Does your organization want to learn more about building a culture of trust that can help you to unprecedented growth? You’re not alone, and we are here to help. SOURCES: Unleashed: The Unapologetic Leader’s Guide to Empowering Everyone Around You, By Frances Frei and Anne Morriss (Authors) The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, By Patrick Lencioni (Author) The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, By John C. Maxwell (Author)
Succeeding in a Virtual Interview for Candidates
Tips you can use when being interviewed virtually. Thanks to the modern workforce enjoying the freedom of choosing their work hours and office settings and also the increased availability of telecommunication mediums, many organizations and individuals are relying on virtual meetings and interviews when exploring new candidates to join their company. Doing so can limit feelings of connection and develop uneasy feelings during an interview. However, when done correctly, virtual interviewing can establish solid rapport, increase the speed of the hiring schedule, and improve the onboarding experience. The following is a tutorial to make sure that you get the most out of your upcoming virtual interview. 1. Are you a procrastinator? No? Now is not the time to start. Get familiar with the software you will be utilizing. Test your speaker, microphone, and video. Make sure to close out of other applications to enhance the speed of your operating systems. Conduct a run-through with a peer to learn the program’s capabilities and gain feedback. If you do encounter issues where a glitch occurs and you can’t hear the response, be direct and honest. There could be a connection issue, so wait for the audio to resume and ask them to repeat what they said. It is essential to be upfront and obtain the answers necessary to make a thoughtful employment decision. 2. People like pretty Is it a coincidence that the Home & Garden Channel (HGTV) generates over $1B annually and is the fourth most-watched network behind three news outlets? Nope! People enjoy settings that make them feel a sense of comfort and organization. Refrain from overly distracting artwork, display items, and TV screens. If video conferencing from an office, that is great. If not, feel free to move things around to allow for a well-lit, neutral area. While preparing your environment, take note of where your fidget items are. Leave the stress ball in the drawer. Put the metronome in the closet. Make sure you silence notifications on your phone and the device that you are using for your interview. Your focus should be on the interviewer. As such, you should have notes and questions on the device you are using. Tip: This will allow you to maintain eye contact rather than looking down and reading from a notepad. 3. Look in the mirror When interviewing virtually, there is no checking in with the receptionist or lounging in the waiting room with other candidates. Before the call, take some time to remind yourself why you are interviewing for this role and organization. Look yourself in the mirror and get motivated. While doing so, make sure that you are well-groomed and well dressed— FROM HEAD TO TOE. Wearing a business appropriate top and sweatpants bottom is a dangerous game to play. Not only will you not be mentally stimulated wearing sweatpants, but it will also promote poor posture, and what if they ask you to stand up and show them the picture of you and your friends at the Grand Canyon up on the top shelf behind you? Nobody wants to see a half-dressed person in an interview. Enjoy the time you have with your interviewer and get to know them – they could be virtually interviewing many candidates that day. Separate yourself by following these tips and appropriately sending a thank you note of some kind promptly after the interview. Putting this tutorial into action may not have you walking out of the building in a blaze of glory, but it will bring a big smile to your face when you walk away from your camera. Click here for our Candidate Resource Center for more information and tips on resume writing, interview preparation, and more to help candidates on the next step of their career journey.
Conducting an Effective Virtual Interview
Tips you can use when interviewing candidates remotely. As today’s workforce moves from traditional offices to remote work, many businesses are adopting a new way of conducting interviews, and in some cases, even onboarding. While this trend is due in large part to the COVID-19 crisis, there are many positives to moving more of your interview process into a virtual format. Virtual interviews are a great way to work around scheduling conflicts or limit face to face interaction due to social distancing. Did you also know: Five minutes of live video interviewing is considered equal to a 200-question written assessment. Data is suggesting that video interviewing is six times faster and more productive than a phone interview. 93% of communication is non-verbal. 57% of candidates prefer live video interviews. (SOURCE: LinkedIn) We have compiled a few useful tips to help you navigate the process of conducting a virtual interview. 1. Test Your Tech Get familiar with the software you will be utilizing. Test your speaker, microphone, and video. Make sure to close out of other applications to enhance the speed of your operating systems. Conduct a run through with a peer to learn the program capabilities and gain feedback. If you do encounter issues where a glitch occurs and you can’t hear the response, be direct and honest. There could be a connection issue, so wait for the audio to resume and ask them to repeat what they said. It is essential to be upfront and obtain the answers necessary to make a thoughtful employment decision. 2. Create a Neutral Space For a professional atmosphere during the interview, it is vital to find a quiet place, free from distractions. Make sure you choose somewhere that people will not be wandering around in the background. Turn off or mute your phone and silence all notifications to give your full attention. An appropriate background should be neutral but not dull. You can still show some personality outside of a plain white wall by showcasing plants, bookshelves, or diplomas and awards behind you. Depending on the software, you can also choose or create a virtual background that is not distracting. 3. Lighting and Angles For a clear video, it is best to utilize natural lighting— facing you as much as possible. If the natural lighting is not possible, considering adding a lamp to your desk or a ring light to the top of your laptop. A well-lit subject exudes trust and friendliness. Have your computer placed above eye level and tilted slightly down. A quick fix is to use books to elevate your surface. This placement prevents the camera from being directed at your neck and nose and appears more natural like it would in a face to face conversation. As in a regular interview, sit up straight and make eye contact with the camera. Body language still matters to emanate a professional demeanor. 4. Keep Your Candidate Informed Notify your candidate ahead of time that the interview will be virtual. Send a calendar invite with a link to the software you will be using and instructions so they can practice ahead of time and test their tech. In the email, be sure to include who will be involved with the interview, their title, and the role they play so they can research ahead of time to prepare. This will allow candidates to become comfortable with the platform and ensure a smooth interview for both parties. 5. Showcase Your Culture During a virtual interview, candidates are not always able to view the office space and coworkers that they could be working with in the future. Consequently, it may be more difficult for a candidate to get a feel for the company culture. To showcase this, spend more time preparing a presentation to express the company’s mission and vision. You can also send the candidate employee testimonials and links to social media posts that capture the essence and spirit of your company. There are software and video options available for you to provide virtual tours of office and production facilities. This investment usually offers a healthy ROI and help you complete a hiring initiative from start to finish in a virtual format. 6. Remain Positive Virtual interviewing can be a first-time experience for you as well as the candidate, and there may be a few fumbles with the transition from in-person interviews to virtual. You are both working through this together and making the best out of the situation. Remain positive and express appreciation to the candidate. After this experience, you may find you enjoy virtual interviews more than other forms. Whether you use Teams, Zoom, Google Meet, FaceTime, or one of the many other video platforms, find the one that works best for your company and allows you to assess body language and professionalism. Virtual interviews also allow for more flexibility in scheduling across locations and time zones, which can help attract more qualified candidates from a broader region. Along with making the right employment decision in this new era of social distancing and stay in place, virtual meetings also have the benefit of lowering travel and venue costs, all of which are beneficial for your bottom line.
Your People and Planning for the Reset
There is an old African proverb called The Fable of the Lion and the Gazelle. To survive every day, the lion must catch the slowest gazelle. For the gazelle to survive, it must outrun the fastest lion. The message for both, “When the sun comes up, you’d better be running.” Regardless of industry and how positively or negatively positioned a company has been through the COVID-19 crisis, we face a new post-pandemic business normal to varying degrees. We defer to healthcare experts and government leaders as to timing, but as a business leader, you should be planning now for a successful restart of your company when the sun finally comes up. According to a recent article from McKinsey & Company, there are “five horizons” or 5 R’s that leaders and companies need to think about and act upon during this time and beyond: Resolve, Resilience, Return, Reimagination, and Reform. We are going through the Resolve and Resilience stages now (cutting costs, monitoring cash flow, retaining or transitioning employees, preparing to return, and planning to normalize operations). All of us have been inundated with content regarding the current situation. However, what about this new post-pandemic period applies to your people? As business leaders, our task is now to manage an efficient restart, a comeback in stages, and begin running toward a better future. The way to make that happen is to focus on your workforce through planning, communications, and deciding whom to bring back and when since it is your people who will determine the outcome. Planning for the Return In a recent survey by Fishbowl, 80% of workers across the country do not feel safe going back to work if their state were to reopen immediately. While the data varies by area, these are startling numbers that point out that there are still many unknowns relating to widespread testing and a vaccine. Regardless of the size of your company, you could also face litigation if any employment laws are broken. What is an employer to do? Returning after such an abrupt forced shutdown will be challenging, especially with a fearful and reluctant workforce. To overcome these hurdles, three areas of planning will be crucial: business and operational considerations, communications and timeline, and then a plan to return to the workplace. BUSINESS & OPERATIONAL CONSIDERATIONS Refer to plans that you may already have in place, such as your original business plan or strategic planning you may have engaged in before the pandemic to serve as a guide. Working with an HR consultant may help in developing Disaster Recovery and Infectious Disease Control Plans, as well as a plan for normalizing operations. Review your financials, develop a 13-week cash flow forecast, and determine your priorities by function and location. You may have previously had an annual 1-3-5 year plan for your business. Now, focus on a 30-60-90 day plan. If your HR Team has been working remotely, they will need to be one of the first back to the office to assist in staging the return of your workforce and ensuring compliance. COMMUNICATION & TIMELINE PLANNING Perhaps noted author, John Maxwell, put it best during a recent webinar addressing leadership during COVID-19: “The best thing we can do right now is not to do business, but just do relationships.” As a leader, continue to stay in touch with your people and keep them focused during this trying time. Communicating the return should be positive, but also respectful. In this phase, determine a timeline for bringing back teams in order of priority. Build a communication plan for employees returning onsite denoting the reasons why, work schedules, expectations, safety measures, and explore options for continued remote work if possible. While portions of your workforce may already be remote, or able to WFH, it will also be essential to address furloughed and laid-off employees. Each is a different category that requires a separate communication plan. Furloughed employees will be more accessible, as they never left your system. Laid-off employees you choose to bring back will have to be rehired, onboarded, and put back into your system. This period is also an excellent opportunity to top-grade your talent (more to follow). RETURN TO THE WORKPLACE & DAILY OPERATIONS Do you have the staffing to handle the process and administrative functions in your operation? This phase is where you can get detailed in terms of how your people will enter and exit the facility, temperature or other testing procedures (many mobile temperature check methods are available), having suitable PPE on hand, signs for social distancing, personal hygiene, and practices for overall facility cleanliness and sanitation. All are to reduce fear and meet new OSHA, CDC, and state requirements. Prior training and instruction on these new procedures will be crucial as your employees return. Reimagining the Future: Topgrading Your People The COVID-19 crisis will reveal problem areas in your business, but also opportunities to improve. Perhaps the most critical ingredient to a company’s success in this new era will be the people we surround ourselves with as we embark on this journey. Consequently, we have been provided a painful yet unique opportunity to improve the quality of talent driving our business forward. The wife of one of our BEST Stakeholders manages a retail store in a local mall. She had the unfortunate task of laying off her people during the shutdown, but she has kept in touch with her team and intends to bring most of them back when they reopen. However, there is one who will not be invited back due to poor performance and bad behavior. For others, she will promote and increase their hours when they reopen. She has been topgrading her people. Topgrading talent is an interviewing philosophy that seeks out the highest quality workforce by ensuring that acquisition and development focus on the most talented, well-rounded performers, as well as those with a cultural fit. Click here for a useful article on how to “Topgrade your people for post-pandemic success.” While this challenging time may appear to be an