Posts Tagged ‘motivation’

Are You a Top 12% HR Organization?

Friday, January 20th, 2012

HR Departments in the Top 12% know how to translate and integrate talent challenges to the overall business strategies of the business.

The other 88% of HR organizations? Still spend majority of their time on reactive activities and being bogged down.

Top HR organizations make a point of understanding the business challenges facing each Department. With the help of the management teams in each Department they structure onboarding and retention strategies, training, compensation, coaching and the motivational steps to keep the best employees.

Aberdeen Group ran a survey of 1300 business leaders. 6 of business leaders Top 10 challenges are work force related.

HR organizations at the top not only understand the business challenges of each Department, they also identify how to measure the ROI of all HR initiatives. Measurement drives the performance of any organization.

HR must continually be challenged, and challenge themselves to understand and measure the contributions from their efforts. When it comes to staffing, that means understanding the skill sets the organization is going to need going forward. Often those skills are different than exist now. Then HR needs to anticipate and recruit in advance.

The days of reactive HR Departments is rapidly ending. Reactive HR organizations will find their services sub-contracted out. Pro-active HR organizations that measure the impact of their performance on ROI will be in demand…and those HR people will finally start to get the respect and pay they deserve.

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Top 3 Performance Evaluation Questions

Sunday, April 18th, 2010

The objective of a performance evaluation is to boost the employees motivation and to learn ways to improve your business.

Hopefully the following are already part of your performance evaluation process. If so, congratulations. Your are in the Top 5% when it comes to effective performance evaluations.

  1. Ask your employees what the top three goals are for the business. Many times employees can’t answer that question. Your employees can’t be on the same page unless they understand the goals. Often we assume everyone understands the goals to achieve our mission.
  2. Next, ask employees how they would take business away from your company if they were competing with you. This gives employees the chance to identify any weaknesses the company has. Managers are often surprised how quickly employees can identify weaknesses or shortcomings, especially hourly employees.
  3. See if employees can identify “business changers.” Ideas that can make a significant difference in how you conduct business. Ask employees what they would change to take your business to the next level. What they would do if they could change anything. Your objective to to help employees think of ways to do your business differently. Another way to ask the question is to ask them what parts of their job drives them nuts. Follow-up question of course is what they would do to fix it.

We are all busy. It’s easy to just concentrate on immediate performance when giving an evaluation. Many managers view performance evaluations as “unpleasant” or “a waste of time, the employee already knows how they are doing and where they stand.”

Human Resources Departments need to remind managers of the objective of the performance evaluation is to improve employee motivation and improve the business.

How does HR make that happen? Add a Standard of Performance that states each manager needs to gain one idea per employee on how to make the company better. Then, when you send them an email on the date of their next performance evaluation remind them to ask the employee of ideas on how the business can be made better. Don’t assume they remember. Like all of us, your managers have a lot on their minds. It’s easy for details to slip. Especially on portions of their jobs they don’t do often.

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Posted in Finance, Leadership, Recruiting & Training, Tom's Take, Your Career | No Comments »

Find the Best, Not the Rest

Friday, March 12th, 2010

We’ve all heard the phrase, but how do we apply it when it comes to our recruiting efforts?

Who are the “best?”

People who currently have the skills needed to fill the job you have open. Individuals who exhibit the behaviors and motivation level to make an immediate contribution.

Are these people currently working?

There’s a 99% chance these people are currently working…in jobs they consider at least “Ok.” Most of these people are not actively looking…yet. They will listen.

70% of employees indicate they are willing to consider new jobs.

As the economy starts to improve, more and more employees are starting to “test” the employment markets. Most of us have had a tough go the last couple of years, small raises, little or no bonuses, reduced benefits, longer work hours, or more stress from additional responsibilities.

Keep your best, hire the rest.

How do you keep your best employees if you can’t pay them what the market says they are worth? Give them special assignments. Compliment them when appropriate. Learn their career interests and help them achieve them, even if it means they will leave you sometime. (If this is the case, they are going to leave. Far better to help them and be “in the loop” than to be surprised.) Most employers are surprised to find their employees have interests outside their jobs that are very important. Often just giving them the flexible schedule so they can pursue those goals will keep them working for you, even if they receive an offer for more money.

Most employees feel they are under-paid and that their talents are not appreciated. Of course they will listen to opportunities to make more money. Give more frequent small raises. Or reward special effort with a small monetary reward, even if it’s just a $25 gift certificate. Or work out a trade out with a competitor in another locale, close by for a weekend stay. Let your best employees know you are thinking of them.

Who are your best employees? Your Top 40%.

How do you hire the best?

  • Forget what you want to know about the candidate. Tell them what they want to know. Your objective is to attract great candidates. Once you have attracted them you can identify how to hire them.
  • Great candidate’s are looking for jobs that will advance their careers by giving them additional skills and responsibilities.
  • Once great candidates have applied, start the phone interview, or in-person interview by telling them how the successful candidate can grow with your property/company. Get them excited about your job opportunity.
  • Now start asking the questions you want to know about the candidate.

    • This will be a great opportunity to hire great employees if…

    Employers are ready to pay a little more than planned and are ready to offer opportunities to advance. Offer the best, to hire the best.

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