On-boarding – More Than Just a Good Idea

September 8, 2010 — admin

TTI People Energizing People Newsletter June 15, 2010

Forward-thinking companies are taking on-boarding of new employees seriously, because it’s one of the best ideas to be refined in recent years. A superior on-boarding process initiates success in two areas: retention and performance. However, reaping the rewards of a comprehensive on-boarding program requires that you absolutely must make sure you use a selection system that only allows you to hire people who truly fit the job and the corporate culture. Imagine the consequences if you mistakenly hired an inferior performer and then implemented a process that will make sure they don’t quit!

A proper selection process starts with identifying subject matter experts (SMEs) who really understand the job in question. The SME’s first task is to identify the key accountabilities for the job. This process requires a facilitator to assure that key accountabilities are real and void of any individual biases. If the job could talk, it would identify the key accountabilities objectively and without bias.

Key accountabilities do a better job of demonstrating the reason the job exists than old-style job descriptions do, and they are a much more clear way to identify expectations to an employee, too. Once a manager sees how effectively they communicate the job to a new employee, they will see how obsolete job descriptions have become. In fact, since key accountabilities make it easy to recognize the skills, behavior, knowledge and motivators required to accomplish the job results, they make it easier to hire and train for superior performance, too.

This process empowers a company to define the ideal candidate for the job, including:
Education
Certifications
Experience
Ideal behavior, skills and intrinsic motivators

With a process in place to promote longevity within your company, you can once again address an on-boarding system. The best practice is to have the new employee complete all payroll, insurance, and company policy information prior to the actual start date. The new employee’s work station must be ready on Day 1, with equipment such as their desk, chair, computer and phone in place. As much as possible, the work station should be prepared with access to the initial set up information they will need for tools such as voice mail, computer log in, and phone and email distribution lists. This assures that you get your new employee off to a positive and fast start, and the first day can be spent focused on establishing a foundation for performance.

The key components of the on-boarding process for their first day will be:

Introduction to management and colleagues
Manager and new employee discussion:
Key job accountabilities
Skills and behavior required by the job
Corporate culture
New employee’s current skills and any skills that must be developed to do the job
How best to communicate and manage the new employee
Creating and prioritizing a personalized development plan
A plan to hold the new employee accountable for building necessary skills
Assign a mentor to the new employee to assist the on-boarding process
Schedule a meeting between the new employee and senior management

This on-boarding process was developed and refined over a period of years. It not only ensures a company’s ability to select and keep superior performers, it also contributes to attracting top talent by helping to brand the company as the best place to work in its city or industry. Over a 24-month period, tracking the use of this system demonstrated impressive results: it filled 96% of open positions and retained 98% of those hired and on-boarded with this process.

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Employment Myths Busted

August 25, 2010 — admin

TTI People Energizing People Newsletter August 17, 2010

In case you haven’t noticed, a lot of what we used to know even two years ago isn’t necessarily true in today’s changed business climate. How many outdated ideas do you have about the employment world? Read each question in bold to decide if you think it’s true or false before reading the answer below.

1. Employees always leave managers, not jobs. Wrong. Employees leave jobs even when they like and respect their manager because the fit between their talents, interests and skills isn’t good enough to give them quality of life on the job. In fact, struggling in a job where you spend Sunday night dreading going to work on Monday morning is a dead giveaway of a poor job fit. All jobs have a unique profile of distinct skills, attitudes and behaviors that are required for best performance, just as people have their own unique profile, too. When a person is matched to a job that requires the combination of behaviors, skills and attitudes that come naturally to them, achieving superior performance isn’t a struggle, it’s a challenge they can win.

2. Our superior performing employees may secretly be waiting for the economy to open up more jobs, so they can find another job with more money and opportunity than we can offer them right now. In the present economy with budgets so tight that raises and incentives have been cut almost across the board, employee surveys show that this is absolutely true. But it doesn’t  mean you can’t deepen your superior performers’ bond to your company. Savvy employers are investing in professional development that helps them develop talent from within. By doing this, they help current employees improve their performance now, while preparing them for upcoming leadership roles. People understand that budgets are tight right now, but when they see their company’s willingness to develop their skills, they recognize it as a vote of confidence in their potential and their value to the organization. Nothing says “We’ll give you a raise when we can” like investing in an employee’s career development now.

3. If my company asks me to take an assessment, it must mean they think I’m not good enough to do my job and they want an excuse to fire me. If you said that nothing could be further from the truth, you’re right. Just as employees are slow to leave a good job right now, employers are realizing that it’s much more cost effective to mine the talent they already have rather than to start from scratch with someone new. Using assessment reports is a strategy that smart companies are using to build bench strength so they are ready when business picks up. If your employer has asked you to take an assessment, congratulations! You’ve been identified as an employee with high potential to become a superior performer or next-generation manager.

4. Behavioral and values assessments are NOT like personality tests. If you agree with this statement, you’re right. Behavior and values assessments are statistically validated ways to see what a person’s natural style is for communicating on the job, how they like to manage their workflow, how they respond to a changing work environment, and what aspects of the job can make it deeply satisfying beyond the paycheck. Using assessment reports to identify a person’s strengths is a great way to make sure the company is deploying an employee in the right job to play to their strengths and develop more.

5. Managing other people to achieve peak performance is only possible if you’re a really accomplished, experienced manager with a long track record of success, or a manager with too much time on your hands. If you recognized this thought as so outdated that it’s last millennium, you’re right. In the age of research validated job benchmarks and assessments, it’s possible to pinpoint exactly what a person’s workplace strengths and weaknesses are. Smart companies are using the latest technology, available online, to not only generate an assessment they can review with the employee, but to ‘prescribe’ professional development modules that the employee can use anywhere they have access to the internet. Managers can review performance goals and contribute suggestions online, too, without having to micromanage either performance or professional development.

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LeBron James: A Lesson in Gen Y Employee Retention

July 21, 2010 — admin

“Reprinted with permission from  Ira Wolfe  and Success Performance Solutions. Copyright 2010 Ira S Wolfe.”– The Total View Newsletter 7/14/2010

The assumption that NBA superstar LeBron James would demonstrate blind loyalty to his hometown Cleveland Cavaliers should have surprised no one if they had been paying attention to the world views of different generations.

While Baby Boomer and Veteran workers placed a high value on undying loyalty to the organization, Generation Y (born 1980-2000) are looking for opportunity, mobility, and work-life balance. One survey, released in 2004 by Harris Interactive, found that only 47% of those 18 to 34 years old “really care about the fate” of the enterprise for which they work. That compares with 64% of those 55 and older. In other words, younger workers don’t see themselves sticking around in any one place too long.

Ironically they don’t see themselves as disloyal. Loyalty for Generation Y, sometimes called Millennials, feel loyalty is as much as spiritual thing as it is physical.

A recent analysis by Princeton economist Henry Farber shows that the percentage of private-sector male workers who’ve been with the same employer for at least 10 years fell from 50% in 1973 to just 35% in 2006, and the proportion of those with 20-year tenures dropped from 35% to 20% over the same period.

The erosion in loyalty is not the fault of Generation Y alone. Greedy corporations, widespread outsourcing, and wholesale layoffs have soured almost every generation toward blind loyalty to the business enterprise.

In his book, “The Trophy Kids Grow Up: How the Millennial Generation Is Shaking Up the Workplace,” Ron Alsop cites a study in which two-thirds of 18- to 28-year-olds said they plan to “surf” from one job to the next. And 44%, he reports, go so far as to say that they’d renege after having accepted a job if a better offer came along.

The over-hyped LeBron James saga is over but how it played out should serve as a wake-up for every executive and business owner. Throwing buckets of money and lavish benefits may still work when acquiring top talent but it’s no longer enough to retain high-potential and high-performing young workers.

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Is Your Employee Turnover Rate Acceptable?

July 8, 2010 — admin

“Reprinted with permission from Ira S Wolfe and Success Performance Solutions. Copyright 2010 Ira S Wolfe.” –The Total View Newsletter 7/7/2010

Employee turnover is inevitable. But it’s stupid decisions leading to employee turnover that is eating up the profits of businesses.

A glaring example of management drinking its own Kool-Aid is something I call “industry-average syndrome,” where managers accept turnover as normal because it’s near or slightly under the industry average. My mother used to reprimand me when I got in trouble with friends by asking, “if your friends jumped off a bridge, would you follow?” Apparently many employers heard that same message too. Unfortunately, rather doing a little critical thinking, they are literally jumping off the bridge when it comes to managing employee turnover.

It’s a sure thing that workers will come and go for reasons ranging from unpredictable life choices to avoidable stupid hiring decisions. There will always be turnover. But using the industry average as your standard is a copout and a very bad practice. That thinking might have worked when margins were high and it was easy to raise prices, but it’s unacceptable if you want to stay in business today.

Employee turnover should be treated like a cancer, not the common cold. The cost of turnover is staggering. The effort and sales needed to recoup these costs can be devastating.

Management has no one to blame but itself in many cases.

Research studies have consistently shown that turnover in North America ranges between 25-30% on average. With estimates for the true cost of turnover ranging from 25% for entry level jobs to 250% or more of annual salary for senior management, it’s not rocket science to realize that this can’t continue. These averages deceive management and suck time away from projects, resources and profits to reinvest for growth and innovation.

In a recent study by the Canadian Grocery Human Resource Council (CGHRC), participants reported an overall employee turnover rate of 38.7%, with an average voluntary turnover rate of 31.7%. The study concluded that turnover should be defined as “an expense without an invoice.”

Additional research by the Canadian Food Industry Council (CFIC) found that the cost of turnover; finding, interviewing, training and equipping a new hire; is at minimum $1,500 per frontline employee.

Now $1,500 may not really sound like a lot of money until you factor in that nearly four out of every 10 new employees leave for whatever reason. To put that $1,500 figure into perspective, consider what it takes for one store to recover that cost: If a store’s net margin is 1.5-3%, the store has to sell $60,000 worth of groceries to recover the cost of losing a single employee!

If that doesn’t give management pause for thought, what will?

The first step in reining in runaway labor costs is to calculate what your cost of turnover is in the first place. In other words, for every employee you need to replace, what does it cost you to recruit, hire and train a replacement? I’d then take it one step further: how many sales does it take to recover those costs?

Take a few minutes to figure out what it costs you every time an employee goes home and doesn’t return…and how hard you have to work to recover this expense without an invoice.

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Why Rewarding Employee Loyalty Can Be A Mistake

June 30, 2010 — admin

“Reprinted with permission from Ira S Wolfe and Success Performance Solutions. Copyright 2010 Ira S Wolfe.” – The Total View Newsletter 6/23/10 (Source: Workforce Trends)

Which is better: employee retention or loyalty? The answer isn’t as obvious as one might think.

Over the past two weeks I’ve overheard the following remarks from disgruntled, long-term employees:

1.  “All the owners care about is the money.”
2. “They’ll never pay me what I deserve anyway.”
3. “No one understands how miserable my life is except the people I work with.”
4. “I’d walk out right now, but I need the health benefits. Besides I only have 12 more years until retirement.”

How would like to have these employee interacting with your customers on a daily basis? It happens every day and many employers don’t do a thing about it. Why? Because often these are the same employees who show up day-after-day, month-after-month, year-after-year. They are rewarded and recognized for perfect attendance and dependability and yet hate their jobs. I’ve even heard them described as “loyal.” That’s a big mistake. Employee negativity is such a downer.

Several years ago, I was introduced to the Quality of Motivation Theory. It turned out to be one of the most valuable tools I have in assessing individuals and company cultures. The Theory explains the positive and counterproductive motivational skills that people use every day.

Essentially, positive skills help you gain long-term benefit and satisfaction while counter-productive motivational skills provide short-term outcomes and long-term negative consequences. When applied to the workplace, counterproductive motivational skills expose the overlooked chasm between long-term employee retention and loyalty. The specific counterproductive skill that holds the key to why dissatisfied people who hate their jobs keep coming back is self-martyrance.

The emotion driving the self-martyr is hopelessness. The effect that the self-martyr has on personal and company morale is devastating. Understanding counter-productive behavior sheds a whole new light on how rewarding the wrong employee for loyalty can have a damaging impact on the retention of top performer employees.

Self martyring employees believe every employer is out to take advantage of them. They ask, “why should I bother looking elsewhere? Every company, job, and boss is the same.” They stay put not because they are good loyal employees but because they blame their unhappy existence on everyone else. They lack the ambition to change and yet are recognized for their loyalty. What effect do you think this has on other motivated, ambitious employees? If you’ve ever had to work with people like this who felt “stuck,” you’ll recognize what I’m talking about.  How long did you last?

Ironically, self martyrs who hate their jobs often belong to a clique of employees just like them. They all feel the same about work and life in general. These friends support their notions that life is a bitch and everyone is out to get them. Unfortunately if they quit, they would have to break into a clique or train their new co-workers why the little guy gets the short stick every time. Starting all over in a new job in a new place is just too difficult. These self-martyring employees are likely to stay until he or she wins the lottery or receives a one-way invitation to the unemployment lines.

Self-martyrance is also like an aphrodisiac. It has a powerful pull. Even the motivated and engaged employee during difficult times succumbs to the peer pressure: “Maybe they’re right. Who am I to think I can make a difference. Look, these employees have been here a long time and look how they’re treated.” Many of us have been sucked into this sinkhole of hopelessness only to one day wake up and extract ourselves from the pit.

That’s exactly what happens when a company mistakes self-martyrance for loyalty: martyrs stay and top performers leave. The loss of key productive employees may be the result of your retention policies and recognition programs. Ironically, your most loyal employee may be the one who just walked out the door.

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Employers Are Concerned About Top Talent Leaving Their Organizations

June 3, 2010 — admin

As the recession eases and companies begin to add to strained staffs, employers are also taking action to retain existing top talent at their organizations. According to a new CareerBuilder survey, nearly one-third (32 percent) of employers are concerned about losing their high performing workers in the second quarter, while one-third (33 percent) of workers said it is likely they will start looking for a new job when the economy picks up. As a result, employers are turning to a variety of different retention strategies to hold onto those workers and their valuable intellectual capital. The survey was conducted between February 10 and March 2, 2010 among more than 2,700 employers and 4,800 workers.

Increased workloads, longer hours and fewer resources related to the recession may be contributing to higher job dissatisfaction. Looking at key factors that influence job satisfaction and company loyalty, workers reported the following:

  • Pay: Nearly one-third (32 percent) of workers said they are dissatisfied with their pay, up from 29 percent during the same period last year.
  • Work/life balance: Nearly one-quarter (22 percent) of workers said they are dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with their work/life balance, up from 20 percent last year.
  • Career progress: Twenty-seven percent of workers are dissatisfied with the career advancement opportunities provided by their current employers, up from 24 percent last year.

Of workers who have their sights set on making a career move, they shared the attributes they will be primarily looking for in a new employer in addition to competitive pay and benefits. Good career advancement opportunities (60 percent) and good work culture (57 percent) topped the list. These were followed by:

  • Company’s financial stability and growth potential (52 percent);
  • Training and learning opportunities (47 percent);
  • Less stressful work environment (45 percent);
  • Flexible work arrangements (43 percent);
  • Sense of ownership in their position, that they can make a difference (42 percent); and
  • Camaraderie, more family-like work environment (34 percent).

“Many employers were forced to make unpopular, though necessary decisions during the recession in terms of adjustments in headcount, pay and overall strategy,” said Jason Ferrara, vice president of corporate marketing for CareerBuilder. “As the economy improves and resources are reinstated, companies are employing different ways to repair and enhance the employee experience and strengthen morale.”

Employers are implementing different measures to help hold onto top talent and reduce turnover. Offering more flexible work arrangements, investing more in training and promising future raises or promotions topped the list. More performance-based incentives such as trips and bonuses and providing a higher title without a higher salary also ranked in the top five.

Source: Career Builder.com & CCH Employment NetNews May 24th 2010 .

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Why Recession-Driven Job Cuts Were Long Overdue

April 22, 2010 — admin

“Reprinted with permission from Ira S Wolfe and Success Performance Solutions. Copyright 2010 Ira S Wolfe.” – The Total View Newsletter 4.14.2010

For almost two decade beginning with the “War for Talent” paper released by consulting firm McKinsey and Company, a shortage of skilled workers has been forecast. This crisis is by no means unexpected. Beginning in 2001 and accelerated by the Great Recession, job creation models were shattered. Outsourcing and automation became a fact-of-life for many organizations. Many businesses resisted change, hanging onto processes and people that were inefficient, unproductive and costly.

Many people ignored the warnings. Others challenged the logic. They argued that the Baby Boomers would retire, tech-savvy Millennials would replace them, and improvements in education and training would turn any shortage of skilled workers from a disruptive gap into a productive bond.

Well, the Boomers aren’t retiring just yet. The Millennials are unemployed. Gen X aren’t advancing up the career ladder. Education is desperately attempting to play catch-up with fewer and fewer resources and dollars. And workforce training is just plain underfunded, underutilized, and just too bureaucratic to retool more than 100 million workers with the skills they need quickly … and desperately.

The recession changed all that. It’s like the recession justified a business cleansing – wholesale layoffs, plant closings and outsourcing for the sake of avoiding bankruptcy or closing a business entirely. “Many businesses took the recession as an opportunity to clean house and raise quality,” says Mustafa Kapadia, an outsourcing advisor with EchoPoint Consulting. “The political and moral sting and backlash from replacing five people with one piece of software or equipment and outsourcing entire departments abated, at least temporarily, under the veil of business survival. Employees weren’t sacrificed for the sake of a few extra bucks on the bottom line but for survival and sustainability.”

What happened in 2008-2009 should have happened voluntarily in many businesses years ago. The recession just provided the excuse.

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Do good customer service skills start with DISC?

April 13, 2010 — admin

“Reprinted with permission from Ira S Wolfe and Success Performance Solutions. Copyright 2010 Ira S Wolfe.” –The Total View Newsletter June 24, 2009

By way of example, let’s look at four responses to a customer complaint. Each scenario represents one of the four behavioral styles identified through DISC. Remember DISC? It’s the “universal language” of communication and assessed through CriteriaOne DISC. As you read, picture in your mind each scenario. Recognize the participants? Remember, each employee believes the response given the appropriate one. We start with style D, the assertive employee.

“Just tell me the problem and I’ll take care of it right now,” says the employee with a high “D” behavioral style. No beating around the bush. On the plus side, high D employees listen to the complaint and quickly offer a solution. This person is perfect when customer service means getting to the point, fixing the problem, and moving on to the next customer. Bear in mind that assertive behavioral type employees are impatient and relationship building is secondary to fixing the problem. Never put an employee who exhibits high “D” behavior across the counter from the customer who wants to vent. If you do, this customer service representative may cut-off the customer mid-rant. An explanation may come across as an excuse, with an apology that seems insincere. “Oh yeh, I’m sorry too” sounds more like one more thing on the checklist even if the intentions are straight from the heart. Remember, DISC is a language and two-thirds of the population hear an abrupt “tell me what you want me to do to the fix your problem” as cold and un-empathetic.

Let’s move on to the “I” behavioral type. “I” represents the influencer. This customer service representative offers explanations, over and over again. It’s next to impossible for a customer, who is lucky to get a word in edgewise, to vent. The influencer offers assurances, often not knowing if the promises can be fulfilled. Influencers measure results by good intentions. They trade on creating relationships, sharing personal information as a routine part of a customer service call. When the conversation winds down, the Influencer may have to ask a customer to restate the problem. “I’m sorry, what was your problem again?” she says. “I have had so much fun talking; I forgot to write it down.” As an employer, you have to make a choice. Do you want customer service staff to satisfy customer complaints or make friends with disgruntled customers? “I” behavioral types often are the naturals at communicating but the least likely to track the details and follow through, without a conscious effort to do so. Apologies sound like, “I can’t believe this happened to you too. I had the very same problem.” High I’s generally tell stories about themselves, hoping that company relieves the misery of customer dissatisfaction.

Next is the “S” behavioral type, born to serve mankind, or so it appears. This person gets energy from cooperation. She is easy going, reserved, and listens well; a behavioral style most compatible with customers who need to vent. The “S” behavioral type employee easily builds endorsement, making it comfortable for an unhappy customer to speak freely. “Have we (note “we”, not “I”) successfully resolved your problem?”, asks the high “S” behavioral type employee. This person gets energy from bringing closure to what she starts, so follow-up is a natural extension of a service call. However, this behavioral style is exhausted by confrontation and may go to great lengths to avoid any type of conflict. An irate, demanding, verging-on-hysteria customer eventually gets to the high “S” customer service representative who simply wants to resolve the problem and close the file. Open projects and unattended files in the inbox frustrate a high “S” employee. Apologies from the high S appear the most sincere and honest when they say “I really wish this never happened and I’ll do whatever I can to make this right.” And most people believe them, too.

Finally, we get to the “C” behavioral type, as identified by CriteriaOne DISC. High “C” behavioral type employees are evaluators. They need to understand everything about everything. The employee with this behavioral style makes sure the problem never happens again. He provides a minutely detailed product history including product evolution and repair record. This customer service representative believes failure to read directions is the root cause of most problems. Skeptical to the core, the high “C” employee goes through instructions line-by-line to rule out operator error. He may ask a complaining customer to answer detailed questions to ensure that he gets all the facts. Because accuracy is important, questions must be answered in order. This customer service representative wants to assign blame, although it’s important that the right person (who may be the customer) or department be identified as the culprit. The high “C” behavioral type offers an apology after identifying the problem’s cause and only if one is warranted. If an apology is offered, expect conditions and contingencies, and assurances couched with “there really are no guarantees in life.” When you are finished complaining to the high C agent, you’re comfortable the company has the whole story but not sure anything will change.

So, what is the best behavioral style for customer service? The simple answer is the best style is SITUATIONAL. Flexibility is the essential core competency required from customer service employees. Interpersonal skills, listening skills, emotional stability, organization, and follow through are important, too. Good analytical and root cause analysis skills don’t hurt either. The key is the best customer service employees intuitively understand which skills to apply at the right time and with the right intensity. That’s how personality tests can help a manager determine which employees are the best natural customer service fit, if they will be motivated by helping people and solving problems, and how they will relate to different customer styles.

How crucial is putting the right people in customer service jobs? You tell me. More than half of all dissatisfied customers decide against doing business with the company again. Ninety percent admit to complaining about the experience to friends, family, neighbors and anyone else willing to listen.

The take home lesson for business owners is that dissatisfied customers WILL vent. It’s up to the employer then to choose the listener – will it be to an employee or another customer or prospect?

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Are You Hiring the Wrong People? 5 Steps to Picking Winners

April 5, 2010 — admin

by Jay Forte Monday Mar 8, 2010 & seen on www.bizmore.com

It is a difficult and personally troubling lesson when you hire someone you feel to be a good employee and are soon disappointed by the performance and the inability to live up to your expectations.

I was involved with a client last week who was struggling with this situation. She was a very capable corporate controller and was promoted to vice president of finance. In order to continue to making a significant difference in her company, she needed a strong replacement for herself — a new controller. She hired who she felt to be a good choice and over the following six months was consistently disappointed with most every aspect of this employee’s performance, attitude and effort. Though this employee could handle the daily skills, the overall attitude, focus on exceptional results, organization, efficiency and innovation were not part of her thinking — her talents. The new controller was not a good fit for this role. My client was more upset by how she could have made such a poor hiring decision.

We assessed the situation and determined the following problems in the way the employee was hired:

1. Skills and experience were used as exclusive criteria to identify viable candidates; the employee had done a similar job before in a similar work environment. There was no outside verification of the impact or the success the employee had in the other role.

2. An assessment of performance talents, attributes, attitude and passion for the work was not completed; the organization was not clear who would be a good “fit” — both in the role and in the workplace culture.

3. Performance expectations for the role were not created or reviewed with the applicant to corroborate expectations or fit at the outset.
I find most organizations continue to use this outdated and ineffective hiring process, resulting in average or low-productivity employees. And though there is a glut of unemployed talent in the market, a poor hiring process will still yield poor hiring results.

We modified the process to search for a new employee, knowing the current employee would need to be released. I introduced this new process:

1. The creation of the Talent Matrix (one of the Fire Up! Process worksheets I present in my book, Fire Up! Your Employees and Smoke Your Competition). This worksheet defines the performance talents (needed to be effective in the role), the team talents (what is needed to be effective in the particular workplace) and the skills and experience that will encourage great performance for the role; this can be done for every role in the organization to clearly define the attributes needed to be successful in each role.

2. Once completed, the Talent Matrix clearly defines the attributes needed to create a clear and precise employment ad. This improves the ability to define performance attributes and expectations, improving the ability to source the right employees.

3. Once candidates are sourced, use talent-based phone and face-to-face interview questions — questions designed to elicit candidates’ first reactions about situations (these indicate their talents and attitudes) – to see how they would react to situations they will encounter in the particular workplace. This is the truest assessment of candidate fit and role effectiveness.

4. Previous work experience is used to assess and to corroborate the existence of the required talents — to assess whether they used these talents in other work or roles.

5. Work histories are reviewed to determine the degree of value creation the candidate created in other work or roles.

The result is a clearer selection of better candidates and ultimately a candidate who not only has many of the core skills, but also has the attitude, focus and talents to fit in to this the particular workplace culture. The hiring of the right employee — for the right reasons — will now allow this VP Finance to focus on her larger role instead of constantly stepping back in to the controller role to do the work the miscast employee could not do. The candidate responses have been exceptional and significantly different from her earlier process.

Sometimes we don’t know our approach is outdated. Hiring today is not best done on skills and experience. It is in creating a profile of a high performing employee for the role — and what talents, skills, experience and passions the ideal employee will have. Talents and passions now lead performance. Rule them out and you will hire employees who do just enough. Rule them in and you hire employees who impress you with their performance. Things have changed. Has your hiring approach?

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Is a Surplus of Jobs and a Shortage of Workers Really Possible?

March 29, 2010 — admin

“Reprinted with permission from Ira S Wolfe and Success Performance Solutions. Copyright 2010 Ira S Wolfe.” – The Total View Newsletter March 24, 2010

It is if a report just released this week has any validity. (This of course wouldn’t break my heart either since I’ve been writing about this for over 10 years, including 3 books.)

The report, “After the Recovery: Help Needed — The Coming Labor Shortage and How People in Encore Careers Can Help Solve it” says that by 2018, with an expected return to healthy economic growth but no change in current labor force participation rates or immigration rates, “it may come as something of a surprise that within less than a decade, the United States may face exactly the opposite problem – not enough workers to fill expected job openings.”

If the research of Barry Bluestone and Mark Melnik holds up, there could be at least 5 million potential job vacancies in the United States, nearly half of them (2.4 million) in social sector jobs in education, health care, government and nonprofit organizations. The loss in total output could limit the growth of needed services and cost the economy as much as $3 trillion over the five-year period beginning in 2018.

Unfortunately even I find several assumptions troublesome. The first point of contention is “if the baby boom generation retires from the labor force at the same rate and age as current older workers, the baby bust generation (Generation X) that follows will likely be too small to fill many of the projected new jobs.”

I agree 100 percent with their statement that Generation X will be too small to fill all the shoes and seats of retiring Baby Boomers. That’s not opinion – it’s fact.

I disagree with the premise that Baby Boomers will retire at the same rate and age as current older workers.  We’ve already seen a significant number of Baby Boomers postpone retirement. With an insatiable need to stay active plus decimated retirement funds and many mortgages under water, retirement just isn’t in the cards for many Baby Boomers. In fact, delayed retirement is creating unemployment collateral damage, something I’ve called the “gray ceiling.”

Two other scenarios also shoot a few holes in this study. By 2018, the oldest members of Generation Y (also called the Millennials) will be in their mid 30s. The younger members will have graduated high school. With the largest generation in U.S. history in the workforce, quantity of workers won’t be a problem. It will be quality.

The Millennials are also the most socially conscious generation since their grandparents and great-grandparents, the Veteran Generation (born before 1946). Filling jobs in the social and government sectors will be like a hand fitting a glove. To the dismay of the skeptical baby bust generation, the optimistic Millennials will begin to leapfrog their workforce predecessors.

And last but not least, technology will continue to automate many functions reducing the number of jobs required to get work done.  The jobs that will be available will require an ability to use the latest technology, adapt quickly, and work in a variety of work environments. Despite a never-say-die Baby Boomer attitude, the oldest Baby Boomers will be 73 years old.  Do you really think the generation that will stretch our health care systems to the max can also deliver the care?

As one of those older Baby Boomers, I’m the first to say I’m no better prepared and ready to retire than I am to sit on a rocker on my front porch.  I believe millions of my cohorts feel the same way.  There will be jobs for these experienced workers to fill, but the question will be if they will be qualified to fill the jobs that are being created and if the jobs that do exist will be rewarding enough to keep Baby Boomers working.

In my opinion, we are headed for a time when we will have both high unemployment and job vacancies – a mismatch between available jobs and the number of people skilled enough to fill them.

According to U.S. Department of Labor data, 62% of all U.S. jobs in 2010 will require higher skill levels. While 97 million people will be needed, only 43 million Americans will have the educational qualifications for these jobs. Businesses will try to make up the difference by using the failing talent safety valves discussed earlier. On the other hand, 38% of all U.S. jobs in 2010 will still be low-pay/low-skill and require 61 million workers. About 115 million Americans will be competing for these jobs.

In looking forward toward recruiting and retaining employees, it will be imperative to understand and appreciate the disconnect between high unemployment and the ability to fill jobs in a timely manner with the right people.

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