Want a Fired-Up Workforce? Try This!

 

What if I told you that the company you are at today is the company you would retire from? Would you laugh? Look at me sideways? Raise an eyebrow? Probably. Why? Well, because many people throughout the course of their careers, are looking less for a long-term employer and more for the next best thing. If this was a dating column, we’d call this the “shiny object syndrome.” While slightly different, the same fundamental rules apply. You are offered a relationship, it’s good for a while, both parties are happy, but  after a while things start to get mundane, routine, stale, and the opportunity next door starts to look a little better. New and unexplored territory is now the currency du jour.

While many employers fight tirelessly to keep employees committed for the long-haul, others have understood that the desire to change careers is not going to be quenched by throwing extra benefits at employees, and for some companies, the best resolutions is to actually not fight this phenomenon, but to embrace it.

I am going to conclude my series on the LinkedIn Talent Connect seminar this post because it will be inclusive of my final take away, which is condensed into elements specifically contained in The Alliance: Managing Talent in the Networked Age.

Before I dig into this philosophy, I honesty have to commend Reid Hoffman, Ben Casnocha and Chris Yeh for their work on this book. It is not only insightful, but I think a brave, potentially controversial, and necessary phenomenon that has been underexplored until now. While I believe companies have taken bit-part concepts to make steps toward this effort, I had yet to see this information presented in a way that is easily applicable to a variety of organizations.

When I finished my Master’s of Science in Human Resources in December 2012, my final research was on Gen Y employees. As a Gen X-er and Digital Immigrant, I knew that in order to make change in my lifetime, I would have to spend a great deal of time understanding ideas that were not native to me, but made perfect sense to up and coming talent. I would not only have to engage with talent of my own generation, but I would have to be adaptable to the trends of talent who at some point will be 20, 30, or 40 years junior to me. In my extensive research, finding real solutions posed to be a bit of a challenge. Everything reported appeared to be based on emerging trends, but no one was talking so much about how to solve the problem. The question of how to retain employees spending fewer years at a company was often left unanswered, and the problem remained because it seemed like no one was offering solutions, they were only offering band-aids.

The Alliance is not a band-aid; however, I genuinely believe that this is a solution for the talent conundrum. Instead of fighting the battle against longevity, it proposes accepting it to maximize the time an employee is with your company by giving them meaningful projects for a designated period of time. At LinkedIn these periods are defined as “tours of duty” and can last for varying lengths of time depending on the role and the individual.

While it may be a novel concept to consider a “tour of duty” as a method superior to the benefits of a long-term employee, let’s unpack what this really means in terms of benefits.

1.       Relationship

A tour of duty is not just employment; it is a relationship, and more importantly, a partnership that a company can establish with someone for a lifetime. When employment in a traditional company ends, there is often resentment from one or both parties. Perhaps Jane A is disgruntled that she didn’t get the promotion offered, so she leaves your company unhappy. In a “tour of duty” Jane would have agreed to a specific timeframe for her current role, accomplished those goals, and once those goals were met, she could then decide to enlist for another tour, or with the support of her company, find a tour with another organization. Upon leaving the company Jane is not disgruntled, but rather she is a success story of your reputation as both an employer, and an ambassador (read: marketer) of your service or product. 

2.       Engagement

A tour of duty is ultimately an experience where employees will be highly engaged for a period of time because at the outset of the alliance, they sit down with their manager to discuss not only the company’s goals, plans and vision, but what the employee’s goals, plans and vision are as well. The company’s goals are achieved while the employee simultaneously develops professionally; a win-win situation for both parties.

3.       Production

As a company, employing nothing but engaged employees, excited to come to work and create the best possible product will send your production through the roof. If you work in a traditional environment, stop and look around right now. How many people are around you who are really excited about what they are doing? How many people are dead weight, doing their jobs to get to Friday? Imagine if you could replace each of those individuals with a vibrant employee, daily committed to achieving their absolute best in that role? What if every one of your employees took ownership of their role, and had the freedom to improve processes? Do you things might start to look differently? I think they would.

While what I’m sharing might cause some skepticism if your company is not particularly adaptable to new and cutting edge ideas, let me encourage you to continue to explore ways you can start networking with others in your industry that have made the change. When I started working in my present organization, I reached out to an individual who was a bit more experience using the same ATS we used. He worked for another company and had no financial gain in helping my team, but he was open, shared with us, and as a result, we created a great professional relationship. What I have found is that within the Talent Acquisition community, people want to help others. We’ve all been in a company with fewer resources, and we’ve all just been starting out, praying someone would just throw us a bone.

If anything I’ve written thus far is connecting with you, then please visit www.thealliancenetwork.com,  get the book, or at least visit youtube.com where you can see a load of videos from the LinkedIn Talent Connect 2014 San Francisco.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this information, as always please feel free to reach out and keep exploring!

Stop Coming to Work Drunk

I love the title of this blog-post because I find it a great piece to publish the day after Halloween. Before I frighten anyone, or mislead you to believe that it’s a common (or acceptable) practice to come to work drunk, I should provide the disclaimer that I do not mean physically coming to work drunk, but rather, the cognitive function that happens in your brain when you are sleep deprived.

The keynote speaker for the LinkedIn Talent Connect 2014 event in San Francisco was Arianna Huffington. For those who may be unfamiliar, Huffington is founder of The Huffington Post, and not only is she an incredibly talented writer and journalist, but she has started an important conversation about avoiding burnout in the workplace.

After the 2013 Lean In empowerment movement, women are becoming increasingly more passionate about pursuing engaging work that both accommodates their personal lives and enables them to advance. While we are instructed to “lean in” by Sheryl Sandberg, Huffington counter-instructs “leaning back” to avoid burning-out.  This does not mean that she is proposing that men or women should be less engaged in their work. However, she is saying that people need to do a better job taking care of their health and not sacrificing important things, like sleep, for working at a reckless pace, working late into the night, and not taking time to rest.

Now, back to coming to work drunk. Huffington shared that scientific evidence now shows that in terms of cognitive performance sleep deprivation has the same impact as coming to work drunk. She shared in her speech, “I had dinner recently with a man who bragged ‘I had 4 hours of sleep the night before.’ I wanted to say, if you had slept 5 this dinner would have been a lot more interesting.” Huffington continued to draw parallels between the importance of sleep and clear decision making. I have included a graphic from Harvard Business Review, above, that shows the relationship between performance and alcohol consumption, and performance and sleep deprivation (additional links below).

She continued with examples when leaders, like Bill Clinton, admitted to making terrible mistakes while operating on sub-optimal amounts of sleep. She provided examples of hard working Talent Acquisition professionals with aging requisitions, desperate to find their perfect candidate (very relatable).  She confessed that her own worst hiring decisions were made when she did not have enough rest. When we are not well-rested, we “shut up the intuition, that voice that is telling us things about the red flags that may not be in the resume, that may not be in what the candidate is saying, but that you know, in that sense that we call intuition, that goes beyond our rational brain that something is not quite right, that is not the right fit. Every time I have overruled that part of my mind I have made a mistake.”

As a Talent Acquisition professional I can absolutely relate to these examples. But, I don’t think that you have to be in my field to take away a good lesson from this talk. Many of us have been overworked, burdened with more to do than time in our day. Instead of working longer, what if we made the best of our productive time, instead? What would happen if we prioritized self-care and sleep?

I imagine you are saying you don’t have time to sleep a full seven or eight hours per night. I get it, I have felt that way, too. Several months ago I decided to give it a shot, though. I read Huffington’s book, Thrive, this past summer, and when I decided to give myself the gift of a full night’s rest, I realized that I woke up refreshed and productive. When I sat down in the morning, I accomplished more work in less time than when I was dragging myself in after a sleep-deprived night. I would encourage others to also try this practice. I know that we all have a lot of work to do, and creating a consistent sleeping pattern does take time, but it also provides a bounty of rewards for increased productivity, creativity and clear cognitive function.

Check back tomorrow for Take Away #5 from LinkedIn Talent Connect San Francisco 2014.

To view Arianna Huffinton's keynote speech Click Here

For additional information on performance related to sleep deprivation and drinking, Click Here and Here

 

LinkedIn Talent Connect Take Away #2: Maximize Recruiting Programs

As a Talent Acquisition Professional (aka “Recruiter”), one of the most frustrating things I face is when a hiring manager brings in a candidate from an agency, and when the candidate shows up for the interview they run into a former co-worker. Of course the hiring manager adores the candidate; they get along well with the team, and pass the assessments with flying colors. The company, now, is then doling out 25% of the candidate’s salary when, instead, we could have paid that an employee a referral fee.
 Now don’t get me wrong, I am stoked to have the new addition to the team, but I always feel a little defeated when we use an agency when we could have acquired the same individual through other means.  

Yesterday I wrote a blog about my #1 Big Take away from the LinkedIn Talent Connect conference, so as promised, here is my second big take away from Talent Connect: Tips to Maximize Recruiting Programs. One of the break-out sessions I attended was called Relationships Matter: Develop a Productive Employee Referral Program. The panel was facilitated by Kara Yarnot of Meritage Talent Solutions and included contributions from Teresa Keeler of Owens Corning, Becky Mohr of SapientNitro, Julie Barker of Appirio and Jennifer Rice of Cisco.

The information provided by this group was very informative, and whether your company is getting started with an Employee Referral Program, or you are hoping to be the introducer of some innovative ways to switch-up your plan, I think the following information is beneficial. Below, in no particular order, were some great ideas I took away, and thought I would share with you.

1.       Use Technology to Connect with Talent by Leveraging Employee Contacts: There are several platforms in existence now (I am posting the list and links below)  that will pick up key words in your job, match them to the LinkedIn profiles of people connected to your employees, and recommend that the employee refer the candidate. Your employees have to opt-in to this, so it is not for everyone, but would certainly be a helpful way to avoid the frustrating situation I explained above.

2.       Non-Employee Referral Programs: People who do business with your company (customers, vendors, and even competitors) all know great people. Vendors typically get to know your company culture very well. What if you incentivized them for making a referral? Great idea, just be sure to check with your finance department first.

3.       Recruiting is Everyone’s Job: While Talent Acquisition teams can do their best to source candidates, identify quality talent, and post jobs on every site imaginable, there are interactions that every hiring manager has on a day-to-day basis with people in the public. I remember when I lived in San Diego and was hiring entry-level talent; I would always keep my eye out to see who was really good at what they were doing. I frequently handed out my business card to counter-people, wait staff, and pretty much everyone who I met who I could see as a potential fit for my company. Was it my job to do guerilla recruiting? Not exactly, but I like to think I’m somewhat of a talent hound, and so anywhere I go I keep my eyes open. Encourage your managers to do the same. Their next customer service or entry-level employee may be someone they are already having interactions with every day, they just have to keep their eyes out.

4.       Open Communication to Referral and Referrer: Many times when I communicate with candidates who have been referred I will circle back with the referrer so they know I made the connection. Even if someone is not a fit for a particular role, but they were referred from an employee I will send them a personal message. Just because they are not qualified for a role doesn’t mean that something else won’t be a fit for them in the future. Communicate openly and build the relationship, so there is an opportunity for future conversations.

5.       Recruiting on the Company Scorecard: While this approach varied by company, the key take away was that managers were informed about new or hard-to-fill positions. By including Talent Acquisition in the manager’s meeting, teams are able to contribute additional ideas for sourcing talent and sharing jobs, and finding the candidate became a collaborative effort.

 

Check back tomorrow for take away #3 from LinkedIn Talent Connect.

For more information on Employee Referral Systems visit:

GooodJob

Choozer

RolePoint

Careerify

Referral Link

Zao

Zalp

EmployeeReferrals.com

Simppler

LinkedIn Talent Connect Takeaway #1

Have you ever been to an industry or professional event, convinced that you were going to network, learn, get inspired, and grow, only to return home after days away feeling like you sat in a week-long sales pitch? I know I have, so when I decided to attend the 2014 LinkedIn Talent Connect, I was both excited, yet skeptical. Since I'd never previously attended a LinkedIn event I wasn't quite sure what to expect, so I thought I would share my experience.

To give you some background information for those who may be unaware, LinkedIn is not only a great social networking tool for maintaining relationships with former co-workers and contacts, but it is also a great place to connect with other professionals in your industry and career field. In my field, Talent Acquisition, LinkedIn is a great partner because I can post jobs, reach out to people interested in new opportunities, and help build my personal and company brand.

For the last several years, LinkedIn has invited Talent Acquisition professionals across the nation (and now the world) to participate in an inspiring event that educates those of us committed to finding and retaining talent. They bring in leaders in the HR/TA field to share best practices, tell stories of overcoming corporate challenges, and most importantly inspire those of us who work within this practice area.

I found this 3-day event to be engaging, entertaining, educational and informative, but instead of just tweeting "Great event" to Jeff Weiner, I figured I'd break it down to share what I learned in 10 great take-aways. Each day over the next 10 days I will share 1 big take-away from the event to share with you.

 

Takeaway # 1: Rock My Profile

One of the great things about this event is that in addition to the keynotes and breakout sessions, there were resources to help with things like improving your own LinkedIn profile (including a space for new headshots, and a team of LI professionals to show you how to zhoosh up your headlines, summaries, etc).

While I consider myself a pretty robust LinkedIn user, I still wanted to sit down and learn about what I could do to improve.

#1: Headshot- Since I already had a decent headshot this wasn’t an issue for me, but for those of you who think of LinkedIn as more of a social networking site than a professional networking site, you may want to reconsider the pic of yourself in a sombrero, unless of course you work at Chevy’s (or are hoping to be recruited by Chevy's, perhaps).

#2: Headline- This is an area where I needed some help. I used to just write up my job title and call it good. But after reviewing my profile with a LI pro, I realized that it was redundant to have my job title as my headline because it was already listed below. Instead, my pro recommended that I change my headline to inform people of why I would be reaching out to them. Now they know: Connecting with Top Performing Talent! Maybe if you are a job seeker, your headline would be something that highlights your most recent, notable accomplishment in your current role. The headline should concisely capture the attention of someone quickly reviewing your profile, but specific enough that someone looking for your skills would know they've found their match!

#3: Summary– My summary used to be a vague list of skills I used in my job, but now I have it updated and broken into 3 specific parts:

• My Story: This tells people where I came from and how I got to where I am today.
• Present: These are things that I am working on now, and in general really interesting bits about what is happening at my current company. For example, I mentioned that our current VP of Human Resources just got recognized as one of the North Bay Business Journals’ 40 Under 40 Executives.
• My Mission: This section should include your goals, mission, and what you are trying to accomplish. I updated mine to include a link to my blog: www.highgearcareer.blogspot.com and a video about working at my company.

While you may not be able to get tailored advice from simply reading this article, LinkedIn has a robust YouTube channel with not only all the sessions from Talent Connect, but yes, also videos on how you can Rock Your Profile: http://youtu.be/Ep2nq_oRYLI

I thought this particular offering because not only are people like me and you interested in how to present ourselves online, but now I can share this information with you all as well.

Check back tomorrow for my second big takeaway from LinkedIn Talent Connect.