tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-47304166497002336622024-03-18T21:13:29.302-07:00HiringSmart. The BlogKnow Your People. Know Your Edge.HiringSmarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02439494769415865894noreply@blogger.comBlogger77125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4730416649700233662.post-54326771310129285772010-12-21T11:51:00.000-08:002010-12-22T05:45:10.251-08:00Do you ever wonder why we don't support résumés in your hiring process?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjl-vLxaH3-i3x1jSge2pIOjTfkAD-oZkUOlgdAl-neqDpKatJizdh8Xb14TzOlKMYdPRkdY8NXiP-rMrrvBl55mBwTn9u8QvHeLAX8WW0sJxSDdrSvuX5w9UgXGX8XrogQTjoF2Ve4EBw/s1600/resumesaredead.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 139px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjl-vLxaH3-i3x1jSge2pIOjTfkAD-oZkUOlgdAl-neqDpKatJizdh8Xb14TzOlKMYdPRkdY8NXiP-rMrrvBl55mBwTn9u8QvHeLAX8WW0sJxSDdrSvuX5w9UgXGX8XrogQTjoF2Ve4EBw/s200/resumesaredead.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5553228191325524530" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:180%;"><br />It's because the person you gave the job to, probably stopped working when they finished writing the résumé</span><span style="font-size:180%;">. 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mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} </style> <![endif]--><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153);font-family:inherit;font-size:130%;" >Professional CV Writing that Generates Results</span><br /></div><span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153);font-family:inherit;font-size:100%;" >You are an experienced, mid-career professional or manager looking for advancement or a career change and need an expertly crafted resume to portray your overall career development. Your resume should show strong leadership or technical skills, a dynamic ability to solve business issues, and a set of administrative and communication skills.<br />In today's competitive landscape, you must offer a portfolio of key strengths that will overcome new challenges in any type of environment. In fact, the candidate who gets the job is not always the most qualified; rather, the candidate with the best presentation will get hired.<span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);" class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br />We know what employers want, and in the hands of our expert writers, your resume becomes a powerful marketing tool that skillfully conveys the nuances and details necessary to reaching your goals.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);font-size:180%;" ><a href="http://www.hiringsmart.com/">Find Out More About Us</a></span><div class="blogger-post-footer">www.HiringSmart.ca</div>HiringSmarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02439494769415865894noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4730416649700233662.post-82301047490683207372010-12-21T11:43:00.000-08:002010-12-21T11:51:04.080-08:00The Second Biggest Threat To Business<p>In a survey of 850 executives, two-thirds said that their organization’s inability to attract and keep the best people is the <strong><em>second </em></strong>biggest threat to their business. The biggest threat is competition.</p> <p>Wait a minute! If your organization consistently had the ability to attract and keep the best people wouldn’t this give you a competitive edge and support solving problem number one?</p> <p>The <em>only </em>way to compete is with the best people, try some of these ideas to manage and keep the best:</p><p><a href="http://hiringsmart.ca/gs/knowledge_base/secondthreat">Click Here to Find Out How to Stop the Threat</a><br /></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">www.HiringSmart.ca</div>HiringSmarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02439494769415865894noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4730416649700233662.post-74300944075395878632010-12-01T05:51:00.000-08:002010-12-01T06:12:51.557-08:00Can you beat the 80/20 Sales Rule? We can....Most everyone has heard of, or experienced the 80/20 rule - 80% of the sales come from 20% of the salespeople. For businesses with 5 or more salespeople, it is very common to discover that the top producer generates 3 or 4 times the production of the bottom producer, and it is pretty obvious that it would be desirable to have more top producers! For businesses with only 1 or 2 salespeople, it's even more critical that these positions be filled with top producers.<br /><br />While few experienced sales managers doubt the "rule", equally few know what causes it or how to fix it. A study begun in 1997 and finished in 1999, then re-validated in 2000 and 2001 attempted to explain this phenomenon and came to some interesting conclusions.<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.hiringsmart.ca/gs/knowledge_base/improvingsales"><span style="font-size:130%;color:#ff0000;">Find out what we learned...</span></a><div class="blogger-post-footer">www.HiringSmart.ca</div>HiringSmarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02439494769415865894noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4730416649700233662.post-50397243747009968822010-11-30T07:12:00.000-08:002010-11-30T10:42:01.660-08:00Our Fit First Philosophy<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dyCZ5SMo-GIY9mCvuXgcdCFOUDWEXhm0bQycC9vYQLq8hSdIYjNKxy0JY53ia0NrBBeD7SO90T0RFF5JytFXA' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe><div class="blogger-post-footer">www.HiringSmart.ca</div>HiringSmarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02439494769415865894noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4730416649700233662.post-1575183428347428982010-11-19T05:25:00.000-08:002010-11-19T05:27:38.185-08:00The Four Aspects of Job Fit<p>We had the opportunity not too long ago to run a nice little ‘live experiment’, testing the validity of the fit-first approach that is embedded into the core of the HiringSmart methodology.</p> <p>This opportunity was presented to us in the form of an invitation to lead a full-day program for a group of nearly 50 HR Professionals at HRPAO’s offices in Toronto.</p> <p>The title of the session had something to do with ‘new approaches to recruitment and selection’, which of course we had no difficulty addressing for eight hours. While we had to tread a fine line between presenting innovative ideas and shameless self-promotion (you may appreciate what a challenge that is for one of us), we did manage to build in some exercises that allowed the audience to actually experience the difference between the conventional résumé-based approach and the fit-based first interview we offer.</p> <p>Of course, we had much debate in the room over the importance of the résumé and the cover letter. We’ve made up so many rules and conventions about what ought/ought not to be in a CV that we’ve lost sight of the fact that most people don’t even write their own, and the degree of ‘embellishment’ renders it next to useless as a reliable tool on which to base the decision of whom to see and whom to set aside. Oh, and God forbid there’s a typo! [We’ve yet to find any correlation between spelling skills and retention or performance in any role (except perhaps copy editor)]… which brings us back to the whole conversation about “best candidate or best performer?”.</p> <p>In spite of the overwhelming defence of the status quo, this group of seasoned HR pros presented us with a golden opportunity to test the fit-first approach… so we devised a diabolical plan and wove it discreetly into our workshop. We ran it in two parts, mid-morning and early afternoon, so people were less likely to game the exercise.</p> <p>Our simple assertion was this: Reliance on résumés as the admission ticket actually forces bad choices about which candidates to admit into your pipeline and which to exclude. Our research proves conclusively that there’s nothing in the résumé that is in any way predictive of quality of hire, how good a performer they will be, or how long the candidate will stay.</p> <p>But we had to let the pros in the room form their own conclusion…</p> <p>Here’s how we built up the exercise. We dug through our database to come up with six candidates who had applied for a particular Customer Service Manager position with one of our clients. We were able to obtain both the résumés the candidates had been using at the time and the online interview they completed for the role (and yes, of course we changed the names and personal data). There was, of course, some variation in the content and sophistication of the résumés, and while one or two contained minor grammatical or spelling errors, we hadn’t doctored them up. This was a live experiment.</p> <h2><span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">Round One</span></h2> <p>We had participants form small groups of 5-6. Each team was handed the position description for the CSM role and six résumés. The assignment was to review the documentation and, using their best judgment based on their years of experience, identify the top three candidates whom they would advance to the interview stage. Participants were instructed to form their own conclusions first, then share their decisions within the group and come to a group consensus.</p> <p>It would be charitable to say the process was ugly. Everything was fine until participants had to share and justify their individual rankings. The room became very loud, tension mounted, and we ended up having to intervene after 25 minutes to force group decisions.</p> <p>We captured the results on a flipchart (see table below); they truly were all over the map, with very little agreement either within groups or between groups. Everyone, it seems, had a different perspective on how to weigh information in the CV and reconcile it against the position description. Nevertheless, <strong>Candidates 1, 2</strong> and<strong> 5</strong> received the nod to advance to an interview from more than half the room.</p><p><a href="http://www.hiringsmart.ca/gs/knowledge_base/pepsitastetest/1/">Click Here to see Round Two</a><br /></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">www.HiringSmart.ca</div>HiringSmarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02439494769415865894noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4730416649700233662.post-58669599186442343372010-11-16T09:55:00.000-08:002010-11-16T10:13:58.513-08:00Applying The Fit Philosophy<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dyaJk-08qpgmvyd7RxsPvvHTKPkYpa2YTweVvwtIDkKaqh1ux9TMFTuY3DQ2SRIx3iNYqTIfYo7o_a27hE8qw' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe><div class="blogger-post-footer">www.HiringSmart.ca</div>HiringSmarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02439494769415865894noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4730416649700233662.post-13285924583093355842010-11-02T07:00:00.000-07:002010-11-02T07:12:08.642-07:00A Message to Business Owners and Executives<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dw6dWKsTw6LMfVzxyyPS6z9OLG8MFWz8JGgMNe-Gojs_XdZfr7vSzua_lwOp0vbQPCLyc3-g5jf206NEIZ-rw' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe><div class="blogger-post-footer">www.HiringSmart.ca</div>HiringSmarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02439494769415865894noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4730416649700233662.post-25236407986296340892010-10-29T07:09:00.000-07:002010-10-29T10:04:40.980-07:00How to Lie on your Resume (and get away with it)<span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">Taken From:</span><br /><span style="font-size:78%;"><a style="FONT-FAMILY: arial" href="http://www.jakeludington.com/life/2009/how-to-lie-on-your-resume-and-get-away-with-it/">http://www.jakeludington.com/life/2009/how-to-lie-on-your-resume-and-get-away-with-it/</a><br /></span>(Editor's note: <span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:georgia;">Yes this is a real blog... We couldn't have made this up if we tried)</span> </span><br /><br />Comment posted by: <cite id="dsq-cite-84124993" class="dsq-comment-cite"><span id="dsq-author-user-84124993">Macho Man<br /></span></cite><blockquote style="FONT-STYLE: italic">"If information can’t be verified, than go ahead and lie. Also (this is very important) look at what the job is asking for, i.e., skills, experience, and so on. I bolded the most important qualities the boss is looking for from a recent job posting: Strong financial background and expert proficiency with all Microsoft Suite applications - Excel, Word etc. Best qualified candidate will be a self-motivated, multi-tasking guru, able to work independently but definitely a team player... Attention to detail is a MUST So, it says self-motivated, try to come up with an example from your past employment that will show the boss that you are self-motivated. Do this for each key word in the job posting. This is the main point, so listen carefully, give the boss what he or she wants. They have a particular person in mind, so try to be that person. Just think about it, and remember, GIVE THE BOSS WHAT HE OR SHE WANTS AND FOCUS ON THE KEY WORDS! <div style="TEXT-ALIGN: left"><br /></div><span style="font-size:0;"></span><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: center"><a href="http://www.hiringsmart.ca/a_case_for_change"><span style="font-size:180%;">A Case For Change</span></a><span style="font-size:180%;"><br /></span></div></blockquote><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic"></span><div class="blogger-post-footer">www.HiringSmart.ca</div>HiringSmarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02439494769415865894noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4730416649700233662.post-35217999992992218612010-05-24T06:52:00.000-07:002010-05-24T07:54:49.973-07:00Understanding The Steps of The HiringSmart ProcessIn any organization, it’s a given that the collective knowledge, skills and experience of the people who work there are important building blocks to the organization’s success… but fit is the master key that unlocks all that potential and becomes the catalyst that converts it into performance.If the fit’s not right, nothing happens quite right.<br /><br /><br /><br />The HiringSmart process has been designed specifically to allow both organizations and job seekers to make their decisions on the basis of fit. The better the fit, the more committed and productive the employee will be, and the longer they are likely to stay.<br /><br /><p></p><p><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dzIlF5cKSpNsStzerBjx5TZr2-27FhPl61n_vfMv9-UwAf5pFdUFUB0zXbVc6B1XLSY7TEG9JXdxpSzZob7_A' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></p><p> </p><p>For our library of vidoes <a href="http://hiringsmart.ca/flash">click here</a></p><p> </p><div class="blogger-post-footer">www.HiringSmart.ca</div>HiringSmarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02439494769415865894noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4730416649700233662.post-50082729180057750582010-05-16T05:26:00.000-07:002010-05-16T05:32:31.096-07:00The Key to untapped Productivity is not more Process Improvement<div>A guest article by Michael Lee Stallard and Jason Pankau<br /><br />Declining workforce productivity continues to dominate the headlines in the business press, particularly in Canada. Between that unsettling trend and a strengthening dollar, Canadian business is at serious risk of becoming even more uncompetitive, especially against US exports.<br />When it comes to engineering ways to improve productivity, most leaders place a heavy emphasis on achieving task excellence. With metrics and programs such as Six Sigma, Lean, and benchmarking, the quality of our work has certainly gone up.<br /><br />The problem is that focusing on task excellence alone is not enough. Failure to establish and maintain relationship excellence ultimately sabotages task excellence.<br /><br />Our research has identified a tangible force in organizations that we describe as “connection.” It is a bond based on shared identity, empathy, and understanding. In most organizations, the "insiders"—people with power and influence, those in management, and those employees who are recognized as “stars”—feel connected to one another and to the business. However, the vast majority of employees do not share that feeling.<br /><br />Over time, these un-connected employees stop caring, stop giving their best efforts, stop aligning their behavior with organizational goals, and stop fully communicating.<br />When people feel disconnected, "knowledge traps" abound.<br /><br />Knowledge Traps show up as silo behavior, personal rivalries, and other forms of relationship failure that impede the flow of knowledge and information. A disconnected employee who has information that is contrary to management’s view or the consensus view tends not to take the risk of sharing it. When this occurs, decision makers do not have the information required to make optimal decisions and poor decision making and poor organizational performance can result.<br /><br />If knowledge traps are the cholesterol of organizations, “connection” is the Statin drug that breaks up knowledge traps, restores "knowledge flow," fosters relationship excellence, and keeps both the social and business environment healthy.<br /><br />Connection is especially critical during the difficult times we face today. It helps employees pull together through the tough times rather than retreat into a state of relational isolation, fear, distrust, and finger pointing that sabotages performance.<br /><br />There is evidence across many fields of research that confirm the positive benefits of connection and here are just two from the scientific arena:<br /><br />Neuroscience research has established that when stress rises, levels of the stress hormone cortisol rise in the human bloodstream and this biological change can make human beings behave in a reactionary or irrational way. We have seen many examples of these reported in recent years.Feelings of connection reduce cortisol levels to help individuals remain calm and rational, even during stressful periods. Neuroscience research has also shown that feelings of connection boost hormones including dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin that make us feel more energetic, more confident, and more trusting of those around us.<br /><br />From the field of psychiatry, we learn that psychiatrists see a steady and growing stream of people from the business world. These patients commonly report experiencing feelings of boredom and emptiness, and they don’t know why. Many begin to self-medicate by seeking thrills that range from taking excessive business risks or sexual risks, to numbing the pain with substance abuse.<br /><br />Professor Manfred F.R. Kets de Vries at INSEAD has also recognized this pattern in his research of CEOs (which goes to show that the dangers of disconnection extend to the C-Suite too). Psychiatrists treat these disconnected individuals by helping them bring more human connection into their lives.<br /><br />The Corporate Executive Board’s 2004 study of 50,000 individuals worldwide established that employees who feel more engaged and connected are 20 percent more productive than the average employee. Just imagine the cumulative effect of an additional day of productivity per week over the course of an individual’s career.<br /><br />The link between our work and HiringSmart is simple: Connection is all about fit – fit with the manager, the role, the team, and the organization. You can’t have one without the other. Connection moves people to give their best efforts and align their behavior with organizational goals. It engenders loyalty and increases productivity, innovation, and overall performance.<br /><br />Knowing that, it is completely irrational for any organization not to be very intentional about creating cultures of connection. Being intentional about developing task excellence and the relationship excellence that comes from connection is the key to unlocking large reserves of untapped productivity and corporate potential.</div><div> </div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6yA-bfaYPUa4A1_ERCUc2oreFGepewmQCLiyfZURfeOtyQi1F-_bizlkczOJIc2sccbzHKadK7uHbisiPonX-HCgNfG0k1IvfgEb0I-Aly45nbjEC8pXSw2vrroiPXfL-qGqa7KTg1oQ/s1600/Fired+Up.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 98px; HEIGHT: 150px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5471844303267385810" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6yA-bfaYPUa4A1_ERCUc2oreFGepewmQCLiyfZURfeOtyQi1F-_bizlkczOJIc2sccbzHKadK7uHbisiPonX-HCgNfG0k1IvfgEb0I-Aly45nbjEC8pXSw2vrroiPXfL-qGqa7KTg1oQ/s200/Fired+Up.jpg" /></a><br /><div></div><br /><div><br />Michael Lee Stallard and Jason Pankau are co-founders and partners of E Pluribus Partners, a leadership training and development firm. They are co-authors of the best-selling book Fired Up or Burned Out: How to Reignite Your Team’s Passion, Creativity and Productivity.For additional information: <a href="http://www.michaelleestallard.com./" target="_blank">http://www.michaelleestallard.com./</a></div><div class="blogger-post-footer">www.HiringSmart.ca</div>HiringSmarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02439494769415865894noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4730416649700233662.post-57785617676475483872010-05-02T05:46:00.000-07:002010-05-02T05:49:19.266-07:00What is Turnover Costing You?<p><strong>What is your organization's Cost of Turnover? Find out at our <a href="http://www.hiringsmart.ca/Turnover_Calculator" target="_blank">Cost of Turnover Calculator</a><a href="http://www.hiringsmart.ca/Turnover_Calculator">.</a></strong></p> <p>Employee turnover is a huge, almost incalculable, drain to the health and vitality of any business. The direct costs of attraction, selection, hiring and training are sobering enough… but when you layer on the indirect costs that include the additional strain on existing employees of running understaffed, and consider the additional strain on service delivery, the damage to relationships with customers and others… the toll mounts quickly.<br /><br />Clients and prospects often ask us to build a case for the merits of HiringSmart on the basis of the impact to the P&L of reducing turnover. It’s a bit of a trap, for several reasons.</p> <ul><li><strong>One</strong>, turnover is often a bit of a red herring – and we often find that turnover spikes early on in our work, as people who should never have been hired in the first place decide to move on. </li><li><strong>Two</strong>, it’s a trailing indicator, the symptom of other problems. You can’t fix turnover by addressing ‘turnover’; you need to be willing to address the root cause. </li><li><strong>Three</strong>, it’s hard for us not to appear self-serving when our math turns up large, almost inconceivable numbers (and a matching ROI).</li></ul> <p><br />Our preferred approach has been to invite them to calculate the cost… but even then, there’s been lots of guessing and second-guessing, with little real buy-in.<br />We were overjoyed to find this resource on the web. It’s a compilation of other people’s research into the matter, which I’m always more comfortable reading. At the bottom, you’ll find a calculator that allows you to get a sense of what turnover might be costing your organization!</p> <p><strong>What is your organization's Cost of Turnover? Find out at our <a href="http://www.hiringsmart.ca/Turnover_Calculator">Cost of Turnover Calculator</a><a href="http://www.hiringsmart.ca/Turnover_Calculator">.</a></strong></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">www.HiringSmart.ca</div>HiringSmarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02439494769415865894noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4730416649700233662.post-50483056032975691662010-04-25T14:26:00.000-07:002010-04-25T14:28:17.362-07:00What is Turnover Costing You?Employee Turnover. We all deal with it to some extent, although some industries suffer more than others. Think hospitality and the service sector. And we all lose money because of it. But what are the actual stats? Brace yourself – you may be in for a bit of a shock.<br /><br />The average cost across independent research findings show that a departing $8/hour employee is $9,523. And the average cost of a departing $80K salaried manager is a whopping $108,963. These losses are tied into the inevitable expenses wrapped up in having to hire new employees.<br /><br />With the widespread, and we believe, well-founded fear that there will be a surge in employee departures as the economy strengthens, it might be a good time to really assess how much that turnover is going to cost you. Currently, this trend is more pronounced in the States but is beginning to be echoed in Canada as well. Employees who feel they were not treated well during the recession may start looking for greener pastures in droves and that could cost you.<br /><br />Consider this information, compiled by Bill Bliss of Bliss and Associates, Inc. Bliss has created a comprehensive checklist of items to include when calculating the cost of turnover in any organization. He breaks it down into various categories that include the following, often hidden, costs.<br /><br />1. Recruitment Costs can include:<br /><br />■money spent on advertisements, internet postings, or agencies/recruiters<br />■administrative costs of handling, processing, and responding to the average number of resumes<br />■costs for hiring department to conduct interviews and reference checks<br />2. Training Costs can include:<br /><br />■orientation materials and time for both new employee and employer trainer<br />■supervisory time spent in assigning, explaining, and reviewing work assignments and output (this is an ongoing cost for at least the first two months)<br />■the loss of funds invested in training the departing employee, plus the money you'll need to further invest in the new employee<br />3. Loss of Productivity Costs can include:<br /><br />■the impact on departmental productivity (who will pick up the work, whose work will suffer, what departmental deadlines will not be met or delivered late)<br />■after their period of training, the employee contributes at a 25% productivity level for the first 2-4 weeks; a 50% productivity level for the next 5-12 weeks; and a 75% productivity level for the next 13-20 weeks<br />■co-workers and supervisory lost productivity due to their time spent on bringing the new employee "up to speed"<br />■mistakes the new employee makes during this elongated indoctrination period<br />4. New Hire Costs can include:<br /><br />■administrative costs to add new employee to payroll, establish computer and security passwords and identification cards, print business cards, internal and external publicity announcements, telephone and email accounts, or leasing of equipment.<br /><br />Surprising, isn't it? Bliss estimates these costs usually total 150% of the employees annual compensation figure and will reach as high as 250% for managerial and sales positions. Assuming an average employee salary of $50,000 per year for any given organization and estimating the cost of turnover at 150% of that salary, the cost of turnover is then $75,000 per employee who leaves the company. For a mid-sized company of 250 employees who has a 10% annual rate of turnover, the annual cost is just a hair under $2 million.<br /><br />And these are only the direct costs of employee turnover.<br /><br />Other, more indirect costs, include damage to your brand and reputation, the loss of customers, declining employee engagement and morale, and decreased sales.<br /><br />While there are many reasons why employees leave workplaces, there are proactive measures that employers can take to retain their workforce. Here at HiringSmart, we believe that a key to retention is "fit" – ensuring that new employees fit with the job, fit with the manager, fit with the team, and fit with the organization.<br /><br />If the spectre of employees walking out the door and taking their expertise, your customers, and your money frightens you, you might want to consider a new paradigm for hiring that keeps employees happy, engaged, and productive.<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.HiringSmart.ca</div>HiringSmarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02439494769415865894noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4730416649700233662.post-42526312185132457072010-04-17T07:04:00.000-07:002010-04-17T07:06:52.765-07:00You Attract What You Tolerate<p>There’s been a steady flow of reports in the media for the last month, focused on how Canada is lagging behind the world in productivity. In the US, reports are sounding the alarm about a jobless recovery, and how we seem to be getting along just fine, thank you, with ten million or more unemployed. <br /><br />Both streams of thought are reflections of different aspects of the same reality: this is the new normal… and in business, <em>survival depends on</em> <em>devising better ways of doing things than we’ve</em> <em>ever done them before</em>. We’ve often spoken of the <em>Birds of a Feather</em> theory, particularly as it relates to engagement and building high performance, <em>highly productive</em> organisations. That axiom applies here.<br /><br />I'm not arguing against diversity. Diversity of experience, ideas and viewpoints is every bit as critical to the health and competitiveness of an organization as it is to a society. That’s not what I’m talking about. But it is important to acknowledge that, fundamentally, people will always prefer to be with others who share their standards of performance (top performers hang out with other top performers), their <em>personal values</em> (the same things matter to them), their<em> interests</em> (they are motivated by similar things), and their <em>cognitive ability</em> (they learn, process information, and communicate in similar patterns). None of that has a thing to do with diversity.<br /><br />Leaders at every level need to pay attention to community of interest when they are staffing departments and teams. It’s a critical component of fit, which is itself a prerequisite to engagement, which is a predictor of business outcomes. You simply can’t have a high-performance organization without a cohesive, engaged workforce with a shared commitment to superior outcomes.<br /><br />There’s a tough lesson in this for many: whether you’re intentional about it or nor, this <em>birds of a feather</em> thing is either driving or limiting your business, determining your financial potential, and deciding how your brand is perceived by your customers.<br /><br />In environments where mediocrity is tolerated, where poor-to-middling performance is ignored or excused for any reason, those characteristics quickly become entrenched. People whose standards and capabilities are higher than those of the lowest performer will do one of two things over time – relax their standards and settle for performing just better than the bottom of the pack or they will look elsewhere for people who share their standards.<br /><br />Poor performers will recognise a safe harbour; good performers will become disillusioned and leave.<br /><br />If you tolerate and excuse mediocrity, you’ll get more of it. If you accept ‘average’ as okay, you’ll get lots of average (and in so doing leave a lot of money on the table). And if you accept nothing but the best from your people, you will create a magnet for the best talent in the market. Attraction and retention challenges will be a thing of the past.<br /><br />You attract what you tolerate. If your business results aren’t what you’d like, or if things aren’t running as smoothly as they should… maybe it’s time to raise the bar and do a little research. Look closely at those employees with the qualities you want for your organisation. Learn how to recognise the same characteristics in the recruitment of new employees.</p> <p>For more information on this topic<a href="http://hiringsmart.ca/flash/highcostofaverage"> </a><a href="http://hiringsmart.ca/flash/highcostofaverage">click here.</a></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">www.HiringSmart.ca</div>HiringSmarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02439494769415865894noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4730416649700233662.post-49809860382520132122010-04-11T05:43:00.000-07:002010-04-11T05:46:40.182-07:00Happy Employees are not Necessarily Productive Employees<p>An Argument for Measuring What Matters<br /><br />The AP ran an <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/id/34700568" target="_blank">article</a> recently that raises some interesting questions. The title shouts out <em>Americans’ Job Satisfaction Falls to Record Low.</em> In case you’re wondering, yes that is among Americans who are working.</p> <p>This article is interesting and a little confusing… and here’s the problem: while we intuitively want to believe that happy employees are a good thing and that no good employer would be happy with dissatisfied employees, there is no – zero – correlation between employee happiness and business performance. Hundreds of studies over the years have tried to find one, and failed. Happy, satisfied employees are not more productive; in fact, there tends to be a negative correlation… some level of dissatisfaction with the status quo fuels passion and drive. It creates a gap between where we are and where we want to be that impels us forward.<br /><br />On the other hand, there is a direct and well documented correlation between engaged employees and business outcomes. Engagement is the measure of how committed employees are, and how attached they are to delivering the team’s goals and objectives. It stands to reason that the more engaged the group, the higher the business unit’s performance and profitability.<br /><br />We attended a presentation by the Corporate Leadership Council a few months back… their research (along with that of just about every leading consulting firm in the last decade) confirms the primacy of Engagement as a leading indicator of business performance.</p> <p>Simply stated, it is engagement and not happiness or satisfaction that sets the stage for sustained high performance.<br /><br />Interestingly, CLC’s research showed a precipitous decline in employee engagement overall globally in the quarter leading up to the market crash in 2008.<br /><br />We always talk about engagement as a predictor of business performance in the context of an individual business unit or department… and of course there were other forces at play leading up to the crash. But it does raise the tantalizing question: to what extent was the crash either caused or exacerbated by the lowest levels of workforce engagement ever recorded?<br /><br />There are clear, tangible, no-nonsense ways to build the engagement of your workforce, and it’s not about better meals in the staff cafeteria and more paid time off<a href="http://hiringsmart.ca/kyp_products/Engagement">. </a><a href="http://hiringsmart.ca/kyp_products/Engagement">Click here </a>for more.</p> <p>Learn more about our Partners at Engagient, visit their website <a href="http://engagient.com/" target="_blank">Click Here</a></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">www.HiringSmart.ca</div>HiringSmarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02439494769415865894noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4730416649700233662.post-63361940947038881982010-04-04T05:25:00.000-07:002010-04-04T05:56:54.761-07:00You Don't Control Your Brand, Your People DoScott Deming is a very successful, very highly rated speaker and author on the subject of customer service and emotional branding. One of his blogs was passed on to us recently; it’s a cute and thought-provoking story about a coffee-stained cup. Notice your first reaction to the story as you read it. It might be to condemn the employee’s low standards. But was it the employee’s fault?<br /><br />She was probably told that the stains were hard to remove. Perhaps by the person who washes the dishes in the kitchen, perhaps even by a supervisor or fellow employee. She believed that was the “honest” answer. She wasn’t responsible for the stain. Someone else was responsible and she was just telling it like it is.<br /><br />We must remember that those who speak for us can ruin our reputation no matter how lofty our goals, no matter how good our product, no matter how hard we work. And no matter how good their intentions are.<br /><br />Your business has more than one distinct brand. You have a public brand, a product brand, a partner brand, an investor’s brand, an employment brand and more. The way your employees and other stakeholders perceive your business is not the same as the public perception.<br /><br />Scott’s angle is that something as simple as the condition of a cup can enhance or damage your brand. But the story could just as well be about a person – an employee, yours or mine – and how they represent us in each “moment of truth”, in each and every interaction they have in the course of a day, whether they are on duty or off.<br /><br />We can’t assume that just because they are reliable, hard workers that they understand our brand or care to represent it well. How comfortable are you in placing your reputation – and your income security – in the hands of each and every one of your employees? Maybe it’s time for a cleaner cup.<br /><br /><strong><em>Here’s Scott’s take:Perception is Reality<br /></em></strong><br /><em>I was recently staying in a top level hotel - part of a very well known chain. The overall stay was nice. The room was nice, the people were nice, everything was nice - then I went to the restaurant for breakfast. As I waited for the waitress, I noticed the coffee mug in front of me was very dirty on the inside. I switched it for a clean one on the other side of the table. The waitress approached me and asked if I would like coffee and I told her I would. I handed her the dirty cup saying - “You might want to send this back through the dishwasher. It’s quite dirty.” She said - “Oh, it’s not dirty. It’s just stained. Everyone thinks it’s dirty. You just can’t get the stains off after so many cups of coffee.” Then she put the cup back on the table!<br /><br />I called the hotel chain’s corporate headquarters and told them this story. I told them about Perceptual Reality. Here’s what I mean. Even though the cup is literally clean, it’s still very dirty. Why? Because that’s the way I and many others perceive it. Here’s another dangerous slope this high-end hotel is now slipping on. The restaurant is independently owned, leasing space from the hotel. However, in my mind and the minds of others, this is a “Hotel” issue. The “Hotel” is dirty. The ”Hotel” doesn’t care if they serve food and drinks in dirty cups and plates. The “Hotel” doesn’t care enough about their customers to clean their kitchenware. The “Hotel” brand is being damaged. Not the restaurant.<br /><br />What would it cost to throw this cup away and replace it with a new one? A couple of bucks? What will it cost if their reputation gets tarnished and potential overnight quests, or corporate conference planners decide against this hotel and others associated with it because of dirty restaurants? What would it cost if I blogged this story and gave you the “Hotel’s” name? It would cost a lot more than replacing a “stained” coffee cup.<br /><br />There are a couple of lessons to be learned here. First, know what your customers or clients are thinking. How do they perceive you and your service? You may perceive it one way, but I guarantee you - they are perceiving it a different way. Use their perception as reality, not yours. Second, if you use outside vendors or suppliers to serve your customers, keep them tightly within your brand strategy, brand integrity and service commitment. Anything “they” do is a reflection on “YOU.”<br /></em><br />Perception is reality. When you’re dealing with the public, the public’s perception always wins.<br />The hotel headquarters is now contacting this particular location and hopefully remedying the situation.<br /><br />You can comment on this blog and others by going to Scott’s <a href="http://www.scottdemingesp.com/" target="_blank">website</a> and<a href="http://www.scottdemingesp.com/blog" target="_blank"> blog page</a>.<br /><br />For more about aligning your people with your brand watch our <a href="http://www.hiringsmart.ca/flash/Message_Business_Owners" target="_blank">HiringSmart Video</a><div class="blogger-post-footer">www.HiringSmart.ca</div>HiringSmarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02439494769415865894noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4730416649700233662.post-65699620649877327222010-03-28T03:30:00.000-07:002010-03-28T03:41:16.468-07:00HR Metrics - Getting Your Department to the Next Base<p>One of our key themes this year is that when it comes to people and organizational performance, it's critical to measure what matters. Helen Luketic is one of the leading thinkers on the subject of HR Metrics in Canada; she is Manager of HR Metrics and Research at BC HRMA, and she heads a brilliant and innovative benchmarking initiative throughout the province. This is the first in a series of articles we will publish over the course of the year. While Helen freely admits there still remains a disturbing absence of 'quality' metrics, there's still value to measuring and reporting other factors.<br /><br /><b>HR Metrics - Getting Your Department to the Next Base</b><br /><br />What's more important: being known as someone who can hit a ball, or being known as someone who can score a run?<br /><br />My friend Simon is a big baseball lover. He's constantly telling me things about the sport that I don't really understand, seeing as I'm not a fan. But, not long ago he showed me that baseball and HR are not all that different. He told me the story about Theo Epstein who became the GM of the Boston Red Sox and helped them win their first World Series title in 2004, after 86 years of going without.<br /><br />Epstein used something called sabremetrics to create a winning team based on some key player statistics. Sabremetrics is the analysis of baseball through statistics. For example, analysis shows that batting average is meaningless in predicting whether a player is a good one. Instead, a stat called "on base percentage" can tell you whether or not a player is likely to score a run and therefore win games. In sum, if you choose a player with good results for all the right stats, you'll have a winning team.<br /><br />Let's now apply this thinking to our world. It's been widely documented that HR metrics are important and that HR needs to start measuring itself to prove it's relevant and should continue existing within the organization. Now that you're convinced to do it, you're probably wondering:</p><ul><li>how to measure HR? </li><li>how do you analyze the results? </li><li>what do you do when the results are worse (or better) than your gut told you</li></ul><p><br /><b>Step 1</b><br />Determine what's important to the organization- is it effectiveness, efficiency, or some combination of both? Typically, HR will need to be as efficient as possible, but some organizations are willing to invest more to be effective. What is the balance or weighting for your organization? Imagine a scale, with efficiency on one end and effectiveness on the other. Is that scale perfectly balanced or does one side of the scale tip further down than the other? Assign a percentage based on the importance of either. If efficiency and effectiveness are equally important, your weighting will be 50/50 and you'll know you'll need to equally focus on effectiveness and efficiency metrics.<br /><br /><b>Step 2</b><br />Consider including effectiveness and efficiency metrics. Remember, you want to show the business you're adding value, so you'll want to stick to metrics that can be linked to the bottom line. Consider the following:</p><p>Effectiveness*<br /></p><ul><li>Human Capital Return on Investment </li><li>Profit per FTE </li><li>Cost of voluntary turnover </li><li>Customer satisfaction rating Efficiency</li><li>HR FTE Ratio / HR Headcount Ratio </li><li>HR Cost per FTE / HR Cost per Employee Labour Cost Revenue percentage</li></ul><b>Step 3</b><br />Start collecting the data at regular intervals (monthly or quarterly) for at least a year. The point being that in a year you'll figure out what needs fixing or scrapping. Think of it as throwing spaghetti at the wall - if it sticks it's done and if it doesn't, keep cooking. Also, after that year you'll get a feel for what the "norm" is and have an internal benchmark.<br /><br /><b>Step 4</b><br />Get benchmarking. Yes, benchmarking is considered by some a questionable exercise because each of our organizations is so unique that it cannot be compared even to the competitors. Here's the clincher about why your executives will always ask you for the benchmark regardless of your opposing opinion; it's not all about figuring out if you have the "right" number or whether or not your organization is doing well or "badly". Instead, benchmarking is about learning the current trends and whether or not your organization is trending in the same way as the rest of the world. For example, if you're seeing turnover increase and so is the competition, and even the rest of B.C., you know that it's highly unlikely that the organization has a unique retention issue.<br /><br /><b>Step 5</b><br />Create a target range for your department that takes into account the internal and external benchmark, and your corporate strategy. Monitor your results against the target. You can make it as easy as colour coding where green is within the range; yellow is slightly out of the range and where red is much (far) out of range.<br /><br /><b>Step 6</b><br />Tell your story effectively. Start by developing a scorecard and analysis template. Your template should always include a cheat sheet so everyone can easily translate the metrics. For example, you might want to describe that Labour Cost Revenue percentage tells you how much compensation spend it takes for the organization to make one dollar in revenue and that it's preferable that this metric stays flat or decreases over time.<br /><br />Your template should also have a pattern for responses. For example, if the results are within target range, you will want to highlight the work you're doing to keep it there and other challenges you're experiencing. Also be sure to include any threats you see on the horizon.<br />If the targets are in the yellow or red range, you'll want to describe why you're on alert, what you're doing to bring things back on track and your target date of when executives can start to see results on your action plan. The metric results shouldn't be a surprise to anyone because you've been warning everyone all along, courtesy of your new communication tool, the scorecard.<br /><br /><b>Step 7</b><br />Now you're ready to play ball.<br /><br />*BC HRMA members can email <a href="mailto:research@bchrma.org">research@bchrma.org</a> to learn more about these metrics and obtain a copy of the standard formulas.<br /><br />About the Author:<br />Helen Luketic is the winner of the 2007/2008 Rising Star award for her significant contribution to the developing field of HR measurement. Helen is focused on sharing this knowledge with HRMA members through a range of activities and services.<br />Contact: <a href="mailto:HLuketic@bchrma.org">HLuketic@bchrma.org</a><div class="blogger-post-footer">www.HiringSmart.ca</div>HiringSmarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02439494769415865894noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4730416649700233662.post-31897467182379870762010-03-19T05:17:00.000-07:002010-03-19T10:54:27.193-07:00Are Your Candidates Engaged?If the candidate’s not engaged, the employee never will be.<br /><br />The axiom seems self-evident, doesn’t it?After all, we don’t value that which comes too easily. It’s a quirk of human nature. If we don’t have to work even a little bit for something, we take it for granted. This applies in all aspects of life, including when we are looking for work.<br /><br />A certain amount of desire is critical to good matchmaking. It fuels the chase and builds commitment – not just to the consummation of the deal, but to making the relationship work in the long term.The principle of engagement is the same, regardless of the market – you’ll need fewer people if you hire those who’ve taken the time to do a little due diligence of their own, who are willing to invest a little time and effort in declaring their candidacy. If they have joined you for the right reasons, they are going to be less likely to leave for frivolous reasons.<br /><br />If the axiom is so self-evident, then why have we made such a mess of things?In the rush to build systems that supposedly make it easier both for employers to search through vast résumé databases, and for candidates to find the next, better opportunity… we have succeeded in commoditising both talent and work.<br /><br />Recruiters and the systems they use are designed to check each candidate’s pedigree against a set checklist of criteria in the posting specs, each time asking themselves, “based on their education, credentials and experience, can this person likely do the job?” We’ve created enormous databases and elaborate search engines, the logic being ‘the more résumés I see, the more likely I am to find a candidate who can do the job’. Not the right candidate, necessarily, but one who will satisfy the specs on paper. We are admitting people into the talent pipeline and filtering them out on the basis of information that has no bearing whatsoever on retention, performance, or how engaged they are likely to be as an employee.<br /><br />Candidates, for their part, have their own tactics for ‘marketing’ themselves in order to make it through the usual screens and filters. It’s also a numbers game for them; we have taught our employees through the school of hard knocks that survival requires the adoption of a ‘free agent’ mindset. Most have learned the hard way not to entrust their best interests to anyone else and, as we saw in the last boom, many very average performers had adopted a ‘mercenary mindset’, repeatedly selling and reselling their skills to the next higher bidder.<br /><br />In both cases, the rules of the ‘game’ , if you will, are clearly established. The candidate’s objective is to always have their résumé ‘out there’ and to ‘win’ by receiving a range of offers from which to cherry pick; the recruiter’s is to screen and disqualify contenders, but ultimately to close the search and get the open requisition off their desk.<br /><br />All too often, neither side gives due reflection to whether or not it’s the right candidate or the right job.In this transactional approach, much has suffered over time. For too many, work is nothing more than a means to an end, something one puts up with to meet another need. Both sides of the supply/demand equation lament the absence of loyalty. Relationships are shallow. Work is less rewarding. Stress and conflict are at an all-time high. Productivity, morale, esprit de corps, even organizational depth are at an all-time low.<br /><br />Both sides are feeling ripped off, and as a result we face an epidemic of disengagement whose cost to lives – not to mention the economy – is staggering.<br /><br />If you want an engaged employee, you need to engage the candidate.Just stop it. Stop relying on traditional means to find people. Think about it – a job hunter can visit Monster or Workopolis and spam their résumés out to 25 employers over lunch, and still have time for a sandwich.<br /><br />Systems like CareerBuilder and others will actually send their CV to employers they have never even heard of! You’re getting a raft of names of people who may only marginally meet your specs, but who are totally uncommitted to you as a prospective employer.Stop going out of your way to make it easy for candidates to get into your hopper. One-click resume attachment allows them to play the numbers game and get on with their day. It doesn’t help you.<br /><br />Stop using education, work history and (God help me) keyword searches as the primary means of filtering people in. That methodology is busted.Perhaps most important, be careful about how you present yourself and your opportunity. Candidates are adept at finding out the truth; in fact they probably know more about what your people are saying about you than you do.<br /><br />What should you start doing? Start filtering candidates in on the basis of the four critical aspects of fit first, then on the basis of skills and experience. That will require you to do away with the résumé, or at least move it to the side and look at other factors first. Factors that are predictors of retention, performance and engagement. Watch our<a href="http://www.hiringsmart.ca/a_case_for_change"> "A Case For Change" </a>VideoStart asking different questions. Ask candidates questions that will reveal their underlying attitudes and preferences in areas critical to their success, and use those as the admission tickets that determine whether the candidate should advance or not.Our clients have learned that when they adopt a Fit First Philosophy, everything changes.<br /><br />Allow the candidate to be the first to opt in.We need to trust that, presented with the opportunity, candidates are a pretty good judge of what’s right for them, and what’s not. Very few will consciously invest time in pursuing job or a situation that presents a poor fit.This is where current thinking around employment branding is so critical.<br /><br />The standard thinking has taken a dramatic turn in the last few years. Gone are the days when polished marketing materials and glowing claims had any appeal; in fact, the opposite is now true: those traditional approaches raise suspicion and doubt, and can actually be talent-repellent. Truth, transparency, respect, openness and authenticity are the new hallmarks of successful employment branding.<br /><br />The most successful organizations are those that lead with frank information about what it’s like to work there and to be successful. Many have a series of ‘man in the cubicle’ interviews of real employees, unscripted and unrehearsed, saying in their own words why they joined the company, what works well and not so well from their perspective and, more importantly, why they keep coming back every Monday. Others offer blogs, live chat with existing employees, and other features that allow candidates to obtain meaningful, live information about the employment experience.<br /><br />This approach ultimately conveys respect and gives candidates the opportunity to be the first to opt in or out on the basis of fit.In this way, candidates become engaged early… setting the stage for a well informed, engaged and productive employee.<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.HiringSmart.ca</div>HiringSmarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02439494769415865894noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4730416649700233662.post-34952622334506027902009-12-30T05:48:00.000-08:002010-03-19T10:54:03.801-07:00Articles We Would Like To Share<div>Part of our mission at HiringSmart is to be support tool and filter for all things interesting on the web. In our search for HiringSmart thinkers we have come across three interesting articles all published recently at <a href="http://www.ere.net/">www.ere.net</a> </div>
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<br /><div><a href="http://www.ere.net/2009/09/21/determining-the-correct-source-of-hire-the-first-step-in-recruiting-excellence/">Determining The Correct Source of Hiring: The First Step in Recruiting Excellence</a></div>
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<br /><div><a href="http://www.ere.net/2009/12/01/improving-interviews-by-using-forced-choice-questions-to-replace-yes-no-questions/">Improving Interviews by Using Forced Choice Questions to Replace Yes/No Questions</a></div>
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<br /><div><a href="http://www.ere.net/2004/08/30/a-pre-interview-questionnaire-for-improving-candidate-screening/">A Pre-interview Questionnaire For Improving Candidate Screening</a></div>
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<br /><div>All the best in 2010 from SmartStuff at HiringSmart</div>
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<br /><div> </div><div class="blogger-post-footer">www.HiringSmart.ca</div>HiringSmarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02439494769415865894noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4730416649700233662.post-1753420560267529752009-12-15T02:09:00.000-08:002009-12-15T02:13:01.941-08:00It's How You Learn - Not what you knowThey are all good at what they do. With training and experience, these stars have become masters of what it is they do. Whatever IT is, IT is done well. Now you want to reward them with a move to management to supervise and mentor other stars.Why is it that some people can make the leap from being the “doer” of the work to the leader of the other doers and some can’t?<br /><br />The answer lies in the prefontal cortex of their brain - the part directly behind the forehead - the centre of reasoning, problem solving, personality, social interactions and planning.Findings published in the August issue of Personality and Social Psychology showed that those who do exceptionally well on tests assessing thinking skills of the prefontal cortex consistently obtain high ratings of managerial competence from their supervisors.Good executive function allows people to manipulate many ideas simultaneously, plan for the future, avoid impulsive actions and to react thoughtfully to novel situations, according to researchers from three major Canadian and US universities.We include an evaluation of thinking style in the HiringSmart Process by using the Profile XT. It gives insight into the potential Executive Function of the candidate, and becomes a tool that enhances a person’s ability to work with each member of the oganization.<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.HiringSmart.ca</div>HiringSmarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02439494769415865894noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4730416649700233662.post-11757131912092049222009-12-07T03:35:00.000-08:002009-12-07T03:37:54.198-08:00Hired The Right Fit - Now What?An Article by Cheryl Smith, Founder of Our Coach<br /><br />If coaching in the workplace didn’t exist, we’d need to invent it.<br /><br />Think about that. Over the last decade, the way people interact with their work and their employers has altered greatly. Empowerment, continuous change, greater emphasis on leadership and teamwork, and the need for flexibility have all created a workplace where coaching is not only the smart way to manage people — it’s perhaps the only way that works.<br /><br />It no longer makes sense to command and control people when they themselves are responsible for their results. Nor can job-specific training and rigid procedures help people cope with shifting career requirements. A coach approach to managing in the workplace prepares people to make the most of their skills and aptitudes, to recognize the opportunities that best suit their talents, and moves them from motivation to action.<br /><br />Coaching is sometimes confused with consulting. A consultant provides skills and/or resources to help the client do what they do more effectively. Conversely, manager-coaches help their direct reports acquire these assets themselves so they become better equipped, more resilient, more “employ-able.” In a consulting relationship, the consultant does the work and takes responsibility for the result: in coaching, the coachee is responsible for their own outcomes.<br /><br /><strong>The Manager as Coach</strong><br />A prevailing myth is that workplace coaching requires a horde of external coaches or coach-consultants working alongside management. There may be situations in which this is necessary — rapid, tumultuous change, for example — but for most organizations, getting managers to incorporate coaching into their skill set is what works best. Coaching builds on traditional management skills, adding components that encourage personal growth and development, leading to breakthrough performance. It’s become a core management competency in the modern organization.<br /><br />How do managers acquire these skills? They can learn directly from a coach-mentor or they can take a coach training workshop. Coaching is a comprehensive approach to managing people and it requires a complete re-think of workplace relationships. A hands-on clinic is usually the best way to learn and practice coaching skills.<br /><br />A word of caution; while many managers think they engage in coaching already, their understanding often comes from the sports world. Although there are many concepts in common, it’s the differences that create confusion and form the distinction between the sports field and the workplace. For example, the sports coach is seen as the expert who likely played the game once and knows the ins and outs of how to play. Whereas the leader-coach is likely not an expert in every job position, but rather knows what outcomes are needed from each player. Coaching in the workplace is not about knowing the answers, but about knowing what questions to ask to support team members to create their own game plans.<br /><br />Over the years I have worked with leaders in many different countries who believed that coaching is really telling others what to do, how to do it and then sending them on their way with a pat on the back and a you-can-do-it positive attitude. This point of view quickly changes once we start to explore the foundational principles coaching is based on. The first principle I put forward is this: coaching is based on the belief that people hold their own answers within.<br /><br />Embracing this principle then allows managers to make the paradigm shift needed to fully engage in coaching, vs. simply telling, or being the source of all solutions. Once we get to that place, then the work begins on the skills needed to be an effective organizational coach. Before fully embracing this principle, someone always asks the obvious question: “What if “they”[coachee] really don’t know?” Good question. How would you reply?<br />Think of coaching along a continuum where the focus shifts from you (the coach) to me (the coachee). In between the coach wears many hats, from manager, mentor, consultant, teacher or trainer. But always returns to the coachee for the commitment or action steps. For example, a manager may teach a direct report how to initiate a procedure or take responsibility for a project. And then return to a coaching question to support the individual to be successful in taking on the new responsibility.<br /><br />Remembering the first principle of coaching allows the leader to change the nature of the conversation to one that promotes self discovery, solutions and commitments. An effective leader-coach needs to build a repertoire of powerful, open, discovery questions. When you let go of being the source of all solutions, it frees up the conversation to be exploratory and developmental. You could even call coaching the true meaning of empowerment in the workplace.<br /><br />Marilyn Duggan, director of human resources for Methanex Corporation, has been encouraging managers to develop coaching skills for years. “I think coaching is the key to getting the best from people,” she says. “Coaching helps overcome the disconnect that often happens between people.”<br /><br />One of the benefits of the coach approach is that managers are better equipped to delegate. Delegation through coaching is about “getting things done through people,” says Duggan. “Not telling, but helping them discover. They feel better, and you can delegate confidently—confident that they’ll come back to seek support.”<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.HiringSmart.ca</div>HiringSmarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02439494769415865894noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4730416649700233662.post-46398166631406640132009-12-04T03:06:00.000-08:002009-12-04T03:14:14.541-08:00Dalhousie Student Union and HiringSmart<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRYSrFeWb_fLiwMC2oWO4VqOneOw1hcq_0aUl8U4vE3owhRMe5i3a5AJqEIcTcxCnsem7SzxCx0DxfG-h2WGlDHTkI7m-XPJAD2mQoYN4Y_pETwNycL_5Qqks7qMwuCX3YyV8XrBzWV80/s1600-h/dalstudentjob3(1).jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5411337409113705842" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 129px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 200px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRYSrFeWb_fLiwMC2oWO4VqOneOw1hcq_0aUl8U4vE3owhRMe5i3a5AJqEIcTcxCnsem7SzxCx0DxfG-h2WGlDHTkI7m-XPJAD2mQoYN4Y_pETwNycL_5Qqks7qMwuCX3YyV8XrBzWV80/s200/dalstudentjob3(1).jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div><br /><br /><div><strong>DalStudentJobs.ca<br /><br /></strong>The Dalhousie University Student Union has a challenge. They have jobs on campus that need to be filled. The rumour on campus among the students was that to get the best jobs you had to know someone. Subsequently, many jobs were short staffed because they could not get enough students to apply.<br /><br />Adding to the challenge: students have other work options. Although the Student Union has a mandate that only allows them to hire currently registered students at the university, the students can work off campus or not work at all. The Student Union has to compete with other employers for the desired students without having access to th<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicKZzyPoP9sT90auSOvIAY4AAvV3i0dl4VrJFQgHzsLuV-iyVw6Mw4BuKQ1E4usdHmah51ht17UYTG8MvhfOe619yHjoNcIixg74Fof6ASt-yCDrdNIQvR7zjCkAbNTuWKfKI1UXi0aAA/s1600-h/dalstudentjob2(1).jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5411336820740984482" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 129px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 200px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicKZzyPoP9sT90auSOvIAY4AAvV3i0dl4VrJFQgHzsLuV-iyVw6Mw4BuKQ1E4usdHmah51ht17UYTG8MvhfOe619yHjoNcIixg74Fof6ASt-yCDrdNIQvR7zjCkAbNTuWKfKI1UXi0aAA/s200/dalstudentjob2(1).jpg" border="0" /></a>e young people off campus.<br /><br /><strong>Getting The Message Out</strong><br /><br /><br /><div>Dalhousie University Student Union has partnered with HiringSmart and set up <a href="http://datstudentjobs.ca/" target="_blank">DalStudentJobs.ca </a>as a central recruitment centre on the Internet. The first wave of activity was to get the message out to the students that the website existed.</div><br /><br /><br /><div><br />A poster campaign was launched throughout the spring exam period. <a href="http://www.dalstudentjobs.ca/">DalStudentJobs.ca </a>appeared in the campus newspaper, electronic information boards and other high traffic locations around campus. Links were placed at <a href="http://careerservicescentre.dal.ca/" target="_blank">Career Services </a>and other websites that students visit. Finally, the existing student employees were encouraged to communicate through facebook, instant messaging and other tools.<br /><br /><strong>Selection is More Than Who You Know<br /></strong><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdSd-Sp3bNoYgvf3VORQPmkg2UmJ0wbTkqcdwDWJykpIlxj7oQvA1MaidA_rhzW2akCIBLf0aJFePFGCRIkcZtM0tI44d4yj1OfyGOiMVuUwuoX-haD138_Gij9uhaF6mlXHchnDxyrtQ/s1600-h/dalstudentjob1(1).jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5411336669180014482" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 129px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 200px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdSd-Sp3bNoYgvf3VORQPmkg2UmJ0wbTkqcdwDWJykpIlxj7oQvA1MaidA_rhzW2akCIBLf0aJFePFGCRIkcZtM0tI44d4yj1OfyGOiMVuUwuoX-haD138_Gij9uhaF6mlXHchnDxyrtQ/s200/dalstudentjob1(1).jpg" border="0" /></a>When the Student Union was using the traditional resume system to select which students to hire they all looked the same. They should have! They all were at the same university, they were all taking the same courses on how to write a resume, they all had limited work experience (less than in past years) and they all had scheduling issues with class time and exam/assignment requirements.</div><br /><br /><br /><div><br />Now they are looking at information that does vary by student. The critical information that gets a person through the first stage of the HiringSmart process at the Dalhousie University Student Union is a candidate's attitude towards types of work, types of supervision, co-workers and then availability. The days of hiring someone because they can work Monday at 3PM are over. With all the new applicants who are now completing the online interviews, recruiters and managers can be more selective improving the qualtiy of service provided to campus while reducing turnover and frustrations of the managers.</div><br /><br /><div>Thanks to this new approach recruitment no longer needs to be completed by the end of April when the students leave campus for the summer. Communication is open all summer long. Students can complete their on-line interview whenever they want and the Student Union has the tools to communicate with them all summer reducing the stress at the end of August when everyone comes back and expect the services on campus to be fully functioning.</div><br /><br /><br /><div></div></div></div><div class="blogger-post-footer">www.HiringSmart.ca</div>HiringSmarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02439494769415865894noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4730416649700233662.post-79751535105513612482009-12-02T01:57:00.000-08:002009-12-02T02:03:31.885-08:00How To Keep Your Best Employees EngagedImagine two doors in your organization. One is labelled ‘Entrance’; this is where recruiting happens. This is where you bring the right people into your organization. <br /><br />Most companies direct lots of resources at managing the ‘Entrance’ door. Behind this door are all the activities related to finding and onboarding the very best candidates for your organization. <br /><br />The other door is labelled ‘Exit’. Most companies devote almost no management attention to the factors that send people to the ‘Exit’ door.<br /><br />How do you keep talent from leaving, or from disengaging but staying? How do you arrange things so that talent doesn’t think that the grass might be greener somewhere else?<br /><br />There are two kinds of workplace engagement. Macro-engagement is what organizations can do, by way of policies and practices, to create engaging employment experiences. Micro-engagement is what individual managers can do, whether the organization is being helpful or not. <br /><br />Here are the elements of employee engagement. They each have macro and micro aspects.<br /><br /><strong>Communicate the big picture.</strong> Help employees to understand how what they do every day connects to something bigger, usually outside the organization. Companies can promote this through mission and vision statements, and by publishing and openly discussing company values and their behavioural expressions or competencies. In <a href="http://www.gettingengaged.ca/" target="_blank">Employee Engagement,</a> I walk front line employees through a process that helps them to indentify the meaning in their jobs. This helps them to rise above the dozens of ‘whats’ of their roles and connect to ‘why’ in a way that is meaningful to them.<br /><br /><strong>Implement flexible working conditions.</strong> Employees increasingly want flexibility in where they work, and when and how they get their work done. Technology enables this. Feeing tied to a desk during ‘face time’ hours is disengaging. Employees appreciate being able to occasionally be somewhere else during regular business hours. They don’t mind working at odd hours, but they do mind micro-managing. If you cut them some slack around this, their engagement will increase.<br /><br /><strong>Promote individual learning.</strong> Employees understand that to thrive in today’s workplaces they need to remain current, and constantly increase their knowledge and skills – their employability. This is not a nice to have. Around fifteen years ago organizations began to teach employees that, while they didn’t own their jobs, they did own their careers, and employees learned this lesson very well. Employees expect help with training, education, and a variety of challenging and interesting assignments.<br /><br /><strong>Differentiate performance.</strong> High performers will not work alongside people who are performing below standard. Have you ever been in this situation? One or more of your co-workers was not meeting performance standards, and management wasn’t doing anything about it. Performance ratings were not differentiated; people received the same ratings regardless of performance. Do you remember how that felt? It’s likely your engagement – and your performance – suffered at least a little.<br /><br />Remember that head hunters are regularly wooing your top performers; talent is a product that they can move quickly. If your best people are bored or don’t feel recognised, or if they feel their coworkers are dragging them down, the grass will start to look greener somewhere else. Speaking of recognition . . .<br /><br /><strong>Recognize achievements.</strong> It never ceases to amaze me that some managers – too many – seem congenitally unable to say ‘thank you’ when someone accomplishes something. The number one reason why employees resign is that they didn’t feel that their contributions were recognized. Ignoring the superior contributions of key employees is akin to escorting them to the ‘Exit’ door and holding it open for them.<br /><br /><strong>Listen.</strong> Listening is a skill. Hearing is not; if our hearing equipment works, we can hear. But we’re not born with listening equipment; listening has to be learned. We all know what it’s like not to be listened to. If this happens at work, and you leave a meeting with your manager thinking that you weren’t really being listened to, you experience feelings of disengagement. If you feel that you actually were listened to, that contributes to feelings of engagement. Which feelings do you want your key employees to be experiencing when the head hunter calls?<br /><br /><strong>Coach.</strong> The role of a coach is to bring out performance in employees. It’s usually referred to as a discovery process, but I prefer to call it an uncovery process. What the coach does is uncover the potential in the employee’s performance and actualize it. You know that when you’re on the receiving end of skilled coaching, and you hit the ‘aha!’ moment in your learning and/or performance, what an engaging experience that is.<br /><br />These are the elements that make the “Exit’ door look unattractive. All the skills in the world marshalled at the ‘Entrance’ door will be in vain if the ‘Exit’ door is wide open and no one is guarding it.<br /><br /><em>Tim Rutledge, Ph. D. is President of Mattanie Consulting. He is the author of </em><a href="http://www.gettingengaged.ca/" target="_blank"><em>Getting Engaged: The New Workplace Loyalty,</em></a><em> Mattanie Press, 2005, 2009, </em><a href="http://www.gettingengaged.ca/"><em>www.gettingengaged.ca</em></a><em> and </em><a href="http://www.gettothepointbooks.com/" target="_blank"><em>Employee Engagement; Get To The Point Books</em></a><em>, Dallas, 2009</em><div class="blogger-post-footer">www.HiringSmart.ca</div>HiringSmarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02439494769415865894noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4730416649700233662.post-8857430073383611312009-09-01T04:41:00.000-07:002009-09-01T04:44:40.757-07:00A New Lesson in Resilienceby Jan van der Hoop<br /><br /><br />I had a conversation earlier today that still has me feeling a little unsettled seven hours later. It was with a kid. A young woman, really, of 26 whose career is just starting to blossom. It’s dawning on me that anyone more than 20 years my junior will always be a ‘kid’ in my mind regardless their age. I’m also learning that I need to be careful what else I attach to that label.<br /><br /><br />Jackie, this kid I was speaking with, is on a spectacular roll. She started and owns several multimillion dollar businesses. She has the ear of the most senior people in the largest, most successful and sexiest technology companies. She rattles off Google, Facebook and Microsoft, and a dozen others less known to Luddites like me… and counts them all as clients. A ‘who’s who’ of business elites serve as her mentors.<br /><br /><br />Which of her businesses get most of her attention right now? She brokers talent. She takes the very best and brightest students and grads (TOTTs, she calls them – Top of The Top) from Waterloo and the half-dozen very best software engineering schools around the world and helps them find the right job. Let’s put it in perspective: these TOTTs each have around sixty offers to choose from. They earn $80K in a work term. Their starting salaries are north of $250K. These children, not the jobs, are the hot commodity.<br /><br /><br />So why is the conversation still ringing in my ears? I’m not sure yet; I’m still working it out. I think it has to do with my own resilience. I had my perception of everything I thought I knew ‘altered’ a little.<br /><br /><br />For the last five years, my business partner and I have been “out there”, pushing the envelope with lots of leaders in the business community. We’ve been missionaries of sorts, railing against the status quo which is so badly broken, and working hard with organizations to change at a fundamental level how they attract, select and engage people. We’ve been constructively contrarian and controversial by choice… and of course in so doing we’ve built a loyal following and turned a whole bunch of people off with our own brand of inconvenient truth. Both outcomes suit us just fine; we’re happy to work only with those who like us.<br /><br /><br />What rattled me this morning is the sudden realization that all those things we’ve been preaching from way out on a limb are true. Not only are they true… we’ve actually been very conservative and mild in our ‘radical’ message to the business community. In a nutshell, you can summarise our core positioning as follows… the conventional, résumé-based approach to selection is actually an enormous barrier to talent and to the organization’s ability to achieve its business imperatives. The prerequisite to sustained high performance in any organization is an engaged, focused and committed workforce. The prerequisite to engagement is to ensure that the four critical aspects of fit are right. In this model, fit with the manager, with the job, with the team and with the organization are the leading indicators; business performance follows.<br /><br /><br />The notion of dropping the résumé and using candidate fit as the primary admission ticket is revolutionary… but we take our courage from the knowledge that we can back it up with numerous case studies and testimonials from clients. And on occasions when we’ve felt especially emboldened, we’ve even made the dire prediction that ‘some day in the future’, organizations that don’t staff on that basis will find themselves uncompetitive. I think we might have even wagged our finger at audiences once or twice for emphasis. People over forty can do that and get away with it.<br /><br />Twenty minutes into the conversation with Jackie, it occurred to me: I’ve worried occasionally about speaking to the world from too far out on the limb. Worried that my claims and predictions about the pre-eminence of fit were too fantastic, too unbelievable. It turns out that I’ve actually been too conservative.<br /><br /><br />These young Gen X, Gen Y and Gen Z wunderkind that Jackie places are all about fit… and the stakes are high. The companies they go to have no choice but to break the mould to accommodate them. Their managers need to be highly adaptive in figuring out how to set them up in such a way as to engage them and harness their genius. The old rules and conventions about ‘work’ and ‘employment’ simply can’t apply, or the asset is lost.<br /><br /><br />In the tech sector, only the companies who are adaptive and who place the highest premium on fit are able to attract the very best talent and secure their return on the investment; the rest simply don’t get access to the talent stream and cannot compete. The right stewardship of the right talent is the biggest competitive advantage.<br /><br /><br />It is no different in your business or mine. The stakes are just as high; things just don’t unfold at the same crazy pace as they do in Jackie’s world. Or is it that they do, and we just don’t see it?<br />Time for me to edge a little further out on that limb. And the next time an HR manager tries to justify why a Gen Y candidate should be passed up cuz theres a typo in the covr letter (lol), I’ll LMAO and make a point of introducing them and their CEO to Jackie.<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.HiringSmart.ca</div>HiringSmarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02439494769415865894noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4730416649700233662.post-77125124478773079802009-07-06T06:26:00.001-07:002009-07-06T06:28:43.216-07:00The Elephant in the HR RoomCommentary by Bill VanGorder<br /><br />When the federal government’s Human Resources Council for the Voluntary/Non-Profit Sector presented a draft of the new “HR Standards for the Sector” to a meeting of senior executives of not-for-profit organizations, HR professionals who work for some larger NFPs and HR consultants to charities and associations last week, I was disappointed but not surprised to see that three key issues were not being addressed. They had missed the elephant in the HR room.<br /><br />1. Associations and charities should always assess candidates to determine whether or not the prospective employee will have the critical aspects of FIT – fit with the job, fit with the manager, fit with the team and fit with the organization. It is not enough to rely on skills, education and previous work experience. These are not accurate predictors of performance. Good “fit” is much more than cultural fit and diversity.<br /><br />2. Increasingly, supervisors are being expected to coach their team members; however there must be a standard to assure that supervisors are supplied with good tools and adequate training for as coaches. It is not a skill automatically processed by most managers.<br /><br />3. Finally, not-for-profits must have a hiring system that helps them learn from the process and provides insight into what aspects contributed to successful hires (and which did the opposite) so that changes can be made to improve the process for future hires.<br /><br />Charities, associations and other not-for-profits are being severely challenged to improve their workforce planning in theses turbulent times. Demands for their services are growing and finances are tighter than they have been for decades.<br /><br />Wouldn’t it make sense to apply all the tools available to make sure the right people are in the right jobs to provide the level of service and results that is being demanded?<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.HiringSmart.ca</div>HiringSmarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02439494769415865894noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4730416649700233662.post-62073095336128525712009-06-28T05:11:00.000-07:002009-06-28T05:48:37.160-07:00White Collar ProductivityNow there is a title that you do not hear much conversation about. When we talk productivity, you typically picture the line worker or production staff and the amount of output they create. We remember how in 1970 it took ninety five men five days to unload a ship full of timber and today it is eight men one day thanks to new tools, equipment and techniques. Now that is productivity improvement.<br /><br /><br /><br />But times have changed. ninety+ per cent of us, even those working in so-called manufacturing companies work at white collar jobs. Over the summer we are going to explore this topic, present other people's opinions and share our own observations on this topic.<br /><br /><br /><br />Here is idea #1;<br /><br /><br /><br /><strong>If you manage by budgets, you will not notice the problem. </strong><br /><br /><br /><br />Think about it. If you are measuring success because you are "on budget" and the budget covers a 30% waste in productivity from the white collar positions you will never notice that you have a productivity issue. Take a look around you at work. Do you see any payroll dollars going to zero return on investment?<br /><br /><br />have you been to meetings where they were not organized and nothing got accomplished? How much payroll was in that room?<br /><br /><br /><br />Do you have co-workers who are disengaged at work, producing little or no added value? They are really easy to pick out. When they are not there, no one notices that something is not getting done.<br /><br /><br /><br />Find yourself working a project that were assigned that does not add any value to anyone?<br /><br /><br /><br />Are you carrying a sales person on your team that consistently does not deliver?<br /><br /><br /><br />All these things can be going on, but the budget line for payroll says you are on plan. The only time that these numbers get a second look is when the bottom profit number is not on plan. Profit plan hides sins, but it also limits what the potential of that profit can be.<br /><br />What to figure out what white collar productivty issues are costing your organization?<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sd4oQ46laDE&feature=channel_page"> Watch this short video</a> that will walk you through an exercise for you and your CFO to complete.<br /><br /><br /><br />Looking forward to hearing more about your observations of white collar productivity issues.<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.HiringSmart.ca</div>HiringSmarthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02439494769415865894noreply@blogger.com0