Employee Retention Process and Your Marriage...

By Sanjeev Himachali
For me, weekend is a time to think and be creative. So, this weekend, I got the idea of linking "Employee Retention Process" with "Successful Marriage". First I thought that people will laugh and may give nasty comments, but I don't think that there is any harm in sharing the idea. Let me ask two questions to you:

1.       It is whose responsibility to retain "good employees" and work on "Retention Process"; The Department Head, the HR Department or the Management?
2.       When the retention process actually starts?

Do you know, "Retention Process" is related to "Successful Marriage"? The relation of "Employer-Employee" is like a marriage.
Sourcing and Selecting the Candidate - Wooing the Girl

Retention doesn't start from the day person join your organization. Retention starts from the "Interview Process".

1.       The way you carry the interview
2.       The practices and processes you use to interview candidates
3.       The selection tools that you use
4.       The communication processes that you adept to interact with the candidate
5.       The steps involved in the selection process
6.        Number of hours you made this person to wait
7.       Time you take to issue the offer letter
8.       Hassles and problems you create to give the offer and appointment letter
9.       You need to convince the person as what your company is having that others are not having?
10.    What is your competitive edge? What type of future or growth that person will get if he decides to join your company?

Each of these factors decides the time this person will stay with your organization.

Read the complete article at: http://sanjeevhimachali.blogspot.com/2006/11/employee-retention-process-and-your.html

Orientation and Induction – Your Engagement

Now, it means that the girl has said YES to you, is interested in you and now you are engaged

After sourcing and selection process the next important thing that might affect the "Retention Process" is the Orientation Process (It generally continues for 30 days). Remember, you are still in courtship.

1.       The way you welcome your new employee.
2.       The way his team members treat him.
3.       The information you provide to him.
4.       Which senior managers interact with him?
5.       Setting the clear expectations.
6.       Criteria to measure the performance; in brief, job description, KRA's; Performance Criteria; Performance Management System; Performance Evaluation; Reward System; Career Planning
In total, the comfort level that you extent to this person.

Just like your engagement, where it is important to decide as what is expected from each other.

1.       If both of them will work or not
2.       If both are working then how they will share the household responsibilities...who will take care of cooking, cleaning, washing; who will take care of kids, their homework, their school commitments, who will keep the track of their growth in school; who will take care of grocery and other day-to-day expenses; who will take decisions related to other investments, house, car, holidays etc
3.       What is expected and what are the things to be avoided?
4.       If both are working...then they should not have any other commitment for the weekend.
5.       If they will be staying in a joint family or separately


Read the complete article at: http://sanjeevhimachali.blogspot.com/2006/11/employee-retention-process-and-your.html
On Job - Now you are married

Now, at last you got married and have decided to stay together for the rest of your life. Getting married doesn't assure you that you will have a successful marriage. You have probation period, which in companies is usually for 6 months to one year and in married life is 5 years. If you have been successfully married for 5 years and the ship of your marriage is smoothly sailing in the ocean of life then it will take something like Tsunami to happen to rock you ship.

Similarly, if an employee has successfully spent 5 years in your organization then it should take something really big to happen to break that relation.

1.       Breach of trust
2.       Bankruptcy
3.       Enormously huge salary package or a jump of 2-3 level in designation, ill-health.

Resignation, Exit Interview - Divorce

You tried your best to compromise for mutual growth, adjusts with each other but then thought that the things will not work and you should better go in different direction. Now, that the thought of "Divorce" has already crossed the mind of your partner...now that your employee has already decided to leave the organization and you are sitting across the table for exit interview. You can hardly do anything to change his mind but you can still make an attempt. Things have reached to this level...it means that you have not done enough. There was no growth in the organization but there is a chance, though very bleak...to save this relation.

Read the complete article at: http://sanjeevhimachali.blogspot.com/2006/11/employee-retention-process-and-your.html

HR Department - Your in-laws

1.       HR Department can give you infrastructure, facilities to ensure that you give you best.
2.       They can make employee friendly policies, processes and procedures to ensure that you grow in the organization...as a person, as a professional.
3.        They can appreciate your work.
4.       They can ensure proper communication process; make sure that you are heard.
5.        They can give regular feedback, appreciation and recognition.
6.       They can give training to your boss; give coaching to your boss, if his management style is not good.

Conclusion

Just look at the employer-employee relation in this perspective. Your boss is your spouse. Your Team Members are your in-laws. Other Colleagues in the organization are your relatives. Doesn't matter what others talk about you...it is important what your boss...your spouse think and talk about you. Before making cordial relation with your relatives...it is important to have positive relations with your team-members. As you know people don't leave organizations...they leave bosses. Similarly, if marriage is not working...people go for divorce because their partners are not good. No one go for divorce because of the reason that their in-laws are not good...or their relatives don't like them.

Think about it and share your comments and feedback.

Have a great day and take good care of yourself.

Composed by: Sanjeev Himachali
LinkedIn Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/sanjeevhimachali
Emails: sanjeev.himachali@gmail.com; ss_himachali@yahoo.com
Twitter: sanjeevhimachali
BLOGS: www.sanjeevhimachali.com and http://sanjeevhimachali.blogspot.com/

No Deal Day - An initiative against price rise in REAL ESTATE

• Over Inflated Price   • Delayed possession   • Mismatch in promised specifications   • Missing Basic Amenities   • Illegal construction   • Contracts protecting only developers  Click on the NO DEAL DAY below and voice your opinions / grievances / solutions and  we on your behalf will put them across to the President of MCHI,  the apex industry body for concrete solutions.  Today, the “common man”, suffers majorly because of inaction from  the Government authorities coupled with high-handedness shown  by a certain section of builders. For the same purpose, Purple Swarms will be carrying out a token  protest called as the “No Deal Day” on the 11th of December 2010.  For this particular day, every citizen of Mumbai is urged to avoid  closing any real estate deal with the builder directly to support your helplessness. To read some of the proceedings of the No Deal Day in the media please click on the link below.   http://www.mid-day.com              |   http://www.mid-day.com       http://epaper.timesofindia.com   |  http://hindustantimes.com/ About Us Purple Swarms is a Simple but novel Purchase Department working only for a very  exclusive set of accomplished individuals. While our esteemed members have an unfair  advantage over the rest when it comes to buying almost any product/service, other individuals haggle around and settle for nominal walk-in discounts. Purple Swarms members  smartly get significantly EXTRA with just one phone call to their dedicated Purchase manager.

Safal K Mehta

Manager - Business Development

Mobile: +91 93231 08609

UNIQ Consumer Services Private Limited

Corporate Office: 4th Floor, God Gift Tower, Hill Road, Bandra (West), Mumbai - 400 050

Board Line: +91 22 3215 3272 | Fax: +91 22 2642 5460 | Website: www.purpleswarms.com

DISCLAIMER:   This email communication may contain privileged and confidential information and is intended for the use of the addressee only. If you are not an intended recipient you are requested not to reproduce, copy, disseminate or in any manner distribute this email  communication as the same is strictly prohibited. If you have received this email in error, please notify the sender immediately by return e-mail and delete the communication sent in error. Email communications cannot be guaranteed to be secure and error free and UNIQ Consumer Services Private Limited is not liable for any errors in the email communication or for the proper, timely and complete transmission thereof.

Twelve Virtues of Rationality

The first virtue is curiosity. A burning itch to know is higher than a solemn vow to pursue truth. To feel the burning itch of curiosity requires both that you be ignorant, and that you desire to relinquish your ignorance. If in your heart you believe you already know, or if in your heart you do not wish to know, then your questioning will be purposeless and your skills without direction. Curiosity seeks to annihilate itself; there is no curiosity that does not want an answer. The glory of glorious mystery is to be solved, after which it ceases to be mystery. Be wary of those who speak of being open-minded and modestly confess their ignorance. There is a time to confess your ignorance and a time to relinquish your ignorance.

The second virtue is relinquishment. P. C. Hodgell said: “That which can be destroyed by the truth should be.” Do not flinch from experiences that might destroy your beliefs. The thought you cannot think controls you more than thoughts you speak aloud. Submit yourself to ordeals and test yourself in fire. Relinquish the emotion which rests upon a mistaken belief, and seek to feel fully that emotion which fits the facts. If the iron approaches your face, and you believe it is hot, and it is cool, the Way opposes your fear. If the iron approaches your face, and you believe it is cool, and it is hot, the Way opposes your calm. Evaluate your beliefs first and then arrive at your emotions. Let yourself say: “If the iron is hot, I desire to believe it is hot, and if it is cool, I desire to believe it is cool.” Beware lest you become attached to beliefs you may not want.

The third virtue is lightness. Let the winds of evidence blow you about as though you are a leaf, with no direction of your own. Beware lest you fight a rearguard retreat against the evidence, grudgingly conceding each foot of ground only when forced, feeling cheated. Surrender to the truth as quickly as you can. Do this the instant you realize what you are resisting; the instant you can see from which quarter the winds of evidence are blowing against you. Be faithless to your cause and betray it to a stronger enemy. If you regard evidence as a constraint and seek to free yourself, you sell yourself into the chains of your whims. For you cannot make a true map of a city by sitting in your bedroom with your eyes shut and drawing lines upon paper according to impulse. You must walk through the city and draw lines on paper that correspond to what you see. If, seeing the city unclearly, you think that you can shift a line just a little to the right, just a little to the left, according to your caprice, this is just the same mistake.

The fourth virtue is evenness. One who wishes to believe says, “Does the evidence permit me to believe?” One who wishes to disbelieve asks, “Does the evidence force me to believe?” Beware lest you place huge burdens of proof only on propositions you dislike, and then defend yourself by saying: “But it is good to be skeptical.” If you attend only to favorable evidence, picking and choosing from your gathered data, then the more data you gather, the less you know. If you are selective about which arguments you inspect for flaws, or how hard you inspect for flaws, then every flaw you learn how to detect makes you that much stupider. If you first write at the bottom of a sheet of paper, “And therefore, the sky is green!”, it does not matter what arguments you write above it afterward; the conclusion is already written, and it is already correct or already wrong. To be clever in argument is not rationality but rationalization. Intelligence, to be useful, must be used for something other than defeating itself. Listen to hypotheses as they plead their cases before you, but remember that you are not a hypothesis, you are the judge. Therefore do not seek to argue for one side or another, for if you knew your destination, you would already be there.

The fifth virtue is argument. Those who wish to fail must first prevent their friends from helping them. Those who smile wisely and say: “I will not argue” remove themselves from help, and withdraw from the communal effort. In argument strive for exact honesty, for the sake of others and also yourself: The part of yourself that distorts what you say to others also distorts your own thoughts. Do not believe you do others a favor if you accept their arguments; the favor is to you. Do not think that fairness to all sides means balancing yourself evenly between positions; truth is not handed out in equal portions before the start of a debate. You cannot move forward on factual questions by fighting with fists or insults. Seek a test that lets reality judge between you.

The sixth virtue is empiricism. The roots of knowledge are in observation and its fruit is prediction. What tree grows without roots? What tree nourishes us without fruit? If a tree falls in a forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound? One says, “Yes it does, for it makes vibrations in the air.” Another says, “No it does not, for there is no auditory processing in any brain.” Though they argue, one saying “Yes”, and one saying “No”, the two do not anticipate any different experience of the forest. Do not ask which beliefs to profess, but which experiences to anticipate. Always know which difference of experience you argue about. Do not let the argument wander and become about something else, such as someone’s virtue as a rationalist. Jerry Cleaver said: “What does you in is not failure to apply some high-level, intricate, complicated technique. It’s overlooking the basics. Not keeping your eye on the ball.” Do not be blinded by words. When words are subtracted, anticipation remains.

The seventh virtue is simplicity. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry said: “Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” Simplicity is virtuous in belief, design, planning, and justification. When you profess a huge belief with many details, each additional detail is another chance for the belief to be wrong. Each specification adds to your burden; if you can lighten your burden you must do so. There is no straw that lacks the power to break your back. Of artifacts it is said: The most reliable gear is the one that is designed out of the machine. Of plans: A tangled web breaks. A chain of a thousand links will arrive at a correct conclusion if every step is correct, but if one step is wrong it may carry you anywhere. In mathematics a mountain of good deeds cannot atone for a single sin. Therefore, be careful on every step.

The eighth virtue is humility. To be humble is to take specific actions in anticipation of your own errors. To confess your fallibility and then do nothing about it is not humble; it is boasting of your modesty. Who are most humble? Those who most skillfully prepare for the deepest and most catastrophic errors in their own beliefs and plans. Because this world contains many whose grasp of rationality is abysmal, beginning students of rationality win arguments and acquire an exaggerated view of their own abilities. But it is useless to be superior: Life is not graded on a curve. The best physicist in ancient Greece could not calculate the path of a falling apple. There is no guarantee that adequacy is possible given your hardest effort; therefore spare no thought for whether others are doing worse. If you compare yourself to others you will not see the biases that all humans share. To be human is to make ten thousand errors. No one in this world achieves perfection.

The ninth virtue is perfectionism. The more errors you correct in yourself, the more you notice. As your mind becomes more silent, you hear more noise. When you notice an error in yourself, this signals your readiness to seek advancement to the next level. If you tolerate the error rather than correcting it, you will not advance to the next level and you will not gain the skill to notice new errors. In every art, if you do not seek perfection you will halt before taking your first steps. If perfection is impossible that is no excuse for not trying. Hold yourself to the highest standard you can imagine, and look for one still higher. Do not be content with the answer that is almost right; seek one that is exactly right.

The tenth virtue is precision. One comes and says: The quantity is between 1 and 100. Another says: the quantity is between 40 and 50. If the quantity is 42 they are both correct, but the second prediction was more useful and exposed itself to a stricter test. What is true of one apple may not be true of another apple; thus more can be said about a single apple than about all the apples in the world. The narrowest statements slice deepest, the cutting edge of the blade. As with the map, so too with the art of mapmaking: The Way is a precise Art. Do not walk to the truth, but dance. On each and every step of that dance your foot comes down in exactly the right spot. Each piece of evidence shifts your beliefs by exactly the right amount, neither more nor less. What is exactly the right amount? To calculate this you must study probability theory. Even if you cannot do the math, knowing that the math exists tells you that the dance step is precise and has no room in it for your whims.

The eleventh virtue is scholarship. Study many sciences and absorb their power as your own. Each field that you consume makes you larger. If you swallow enough sciences the gaps between them will diminish and your knowledge will become a unified whole. If you are gluttonous you will become vaster than mountains. It is especially important to eat math and science which impinges upon rationality: Evolutionary psychology, heuristics and biases, social psychology, probability theory, decision theory. But these cannot be the only fields you study. The Art must have a purpose other than itself, or it collapses into infinite recursion.

Before these eleven virtues is a virtue which is nameless.

Miyamoto Musashi wrote, in The Book of Five Rings:

“The primary thing when you take a sword in your hands is your intention to cut the enemy, whatever the means. Whenever you parry, hit, spring, strike or touch the enemy’s cutting sword, you must cut the enemy in the same movement. It is essential to attain this. If you think only of hitting, springing, striking or touching the enemy, you will not be able actually to cut him. More than anything, you must be thinking of carrying your movement through to cutting him.”

Every step of your reasoning must cut through to the correct answer in the same movement. More than anything, you must think of carrying your map through to reflecting the territory.

If you fail to achieve a correct answer, it is futile to protest that you acted with propriety.

How can you improve your conception of rationality? Not by saying to yourself, “It is my duty to be rational.” By this you only enshrine your mistaken conception. Perhaps your conception of rationality is that it is rational to believe the words of the Great Teacher, and the Great Teacher says, “The sky is green,” and you look up at the sky and see blue. If you think: “It may look like the sky is blue, but rationality is to believe the words of the Great Teacher,” you lose a chance to discover your mistake.

Do not ask whether it is “the Way” to do this or that. Ask whether the sky is blue or green. If you speak overmuch of the Way you will not attain it.

You may try to name the highest principle with names such as “the map that reflects the territory” or “experience of success and failure” or “Bayesian decision theory”. But perhaps you describe incorrectly the nameless virtue. How will you discover your mistake? Not by comparing your description to itself, but by comparing it to that which you did not name.

If for many years you practice the techniques and submit yourself to strict constraints, it may be that you will glimpse the center. Then you will see how all techniques are one technique, and you will move correctly without feeling constrained. Musashi wrote: “When you appreciate the power of nature, knowing the rhythm of any situation, you will be able to hit the enemy naturally and strike naturally. All this is the Way of the Void.”

These then are twelve virtues of rationality:

Curiosity, relinquishment, lightness, evenness, argument, empiricism, simplicity, humility, perfectionism, precision, scholarship, and the void.

10 Powerful Tips To Build Stronger Teams

By Ronnie Caplan
http://TeamBuilding.LeagueOfRock.com

1) Music-Based Team Building is an extremely powerful tool that ensures YOUR BRAND IS EMBODIED FROM THE INSIDE OUT by employees, weaving across and through personal interactions, corporate culture, communications, products and services.

2) MUSIC IS COMMUNICATION, not just of ideas, but of feelings and emotions. Each and every participant gets caught up in the action, by relating to the music and joining together in a truly engaging process. By combining musical elements with the business at hand, we take the edge off hard work, allowing your constituents to breathe and feel and gain and truly desire to participate.

3) The powerful energy your team is caught up in with The League Of Rock translates into creativity and enthusiasm. This event will EMPOWER EVERYONE TO BUY INTO NEW STRATEGIES, while stimulating them to communicate with each other and your clients.

4) Collective music making encourages social cohesion at a basic level, stimulating the brain to “warm up” so that everyone is prepared to LEARN MORE EFFECTIVELY.

5) The League Of Rock CULTIVATES EFFECTIVE LEADERSHIP SKILLS, as participants utilize influence, initiative and management authority, learned through our barrier-breaking, music-based approach.

6) MUSIC STRENGTHENS THE BOND between team members, making it easier for them to achieve common goals. We use music to add more excitement, and raise the energy levels of your people in a fun, thoroughly enjoyable environment.

7) The League Of Rock's program ensures your team members are motivated, and encouraged to PERFORM WITH A SENSE OF COMMITMENT.

8) The League Of Rock utilizes music-based methods that foster and develop employees to THINK QUICKLY AND CREATIVELY on their feet. Your team members will learn to take the unexpected in stride, by recognizing creative connections and bringing imaginative expression to their efforts.

9) The League Of Rock is a POWERFUL, SYNCHRONIZED TEAM which engages that engages with your team - The team is comprised of celebrity, innovation, high level entertainment, event execution, marketing and communications expertise.

10) The League Of Rock DELIVERS TANGIBLE RESULTS with stronger leader-team connections, effective collaboration and communication, dynamic creativity and motivation.

Rediscovering the art of selling

Even after researching products on their own, many customers still enter stores undecided about what to buy. For retailers, that’s an opportunity.

OCTOBER 2010 • Josh Leibowitz

Source: Retail Practice

In This Article

• Interactive: Secrets of making the sale

• About the author

Retailers as far back as the legendary pioneer Marshall Field once focused intensely on clinching sales once customers walked into stores. But recently, the industry has been missing opportunities to make sales. New technologies, extensive retailer Web sites, mobile-shopping tools, and in-store Internet kiosks have separated customers from sales associates. Content to let consumers research products independently, many retailers have been reducing in-store sales staff and eliminating commission-based models. This approach has resulted in lower costs, but it has also reduced incentives for those left on the floor to make sales.

Many retailers assume that customers walk into stores for purely transactional purposes: they know what they want and just need to buy it. Yet McKinsey research indicates that as many as 40 percent of customers remain open to persuasion once they enter a store,¹ despite undertaking extensive product research, reading online reviews, and comparing prices on their own. Retailers that fail to have knowledgeable staff on hand to help customers make decisions, or even to create arresting in-store visual marketing materials, are losing sale after potential sale. More than ever, retailers need a sales-driven mind-set focused on having the right number of sales staff; ensuring those staff are knowledgeable, well-trained, and motivated to sell; and providing the right in-store experience for customers.

Bolstering the sales staff

Many retail executives argue they can’t afford to provide high-value sales help. Simple arithmetic suggests they can’t afford not to. It’s true that adding frontline staff that can sell effectively is costly and takes time, and we’re not suggesting a return to an old-fashioned, expensive, labor-intensive sales system. But there’s a powerful and straightforward business case for investing in frontline sales staff: when done correctly, adding salespeople offers one of the more attractive payback opportunities in retail.

Consider the case of home electronics sold through discount stores—the ultimate self-help format, where consumers typically undertake product comparisons independently before ultimately going to a store to make a purchase. With an average selling price of $200 and an average gross margin of 10 percent, or $20 per sale, the cost of hiring a good salesperson is recouped by selling just one additional product per hour on the floor. When the profit margin from up-selling or cross-selling accessories is added, just one additional sale every two hours is needed. At one self-help apparel company, for example, providing extra sales assistance during select hours increased the conversion rate by 1.5 to 2 times, driving fitting-room use 37 percent higher and recouping the cost of the extra human help within an average of 10 to 15 minutes during normal selling hours.

Building the right frontline sales force

Watch skilled salespeople at work and you soon realize that while selling is an art that can be approached in a variety of ways, it boils down to four basic steps: open, ask for needs, demonstrate, and close. Surprisingly few frontline sales associates know these steps well, and fewer do all four consistently. At one retailer, for example, we found that associates failed to ask to close the sale 86 percent of the time. Having staff that understand and enjoy the sales process is paramount, and that means attracting the right employees, training them effectively, and rewarding them appropriately.

Effective sellers share common traits: they are motivated by helping customers, have extroverted personalities, and are passionate about their work. Our research indicates that, at most, 45 percent of frontline employees across multiple retailing sectors have the personality and attributes to be effective sellers (for examples of right and wrong behaviors in frontline sales, see the interactive, “Secrets of making the sale”).² Retailers need to redesign the way they hire and deploy staff into selling roles to attract employees with the personality and attributes required to succeed. In addition, we found that few retailers provide training with the specificity and quality to effectively support sales associates in their mission to sell more. That leaves even natural salespeople often unable to answer basic questions about their products from potential customers who are increasingly informed (in some categories, more than 75 percent appear in the store having done extensive independent research).

Secrets of making the sale

Frontline sales staff can win or lose sales through their interactions with the customers.

Improving the in-store experience

Better visual merchandising can make a big difference in helping consumers make certain buying decisions, accelerating the payback on frontline staff. Consider one self-help retailer that simplified its point-of-sale signage for digital cameras to make comparing products easier for both consumers and sales staff. Rather than using technological jargon such as megapixels and zoom sizes, the retailer instead used “photo-enlargement sizes” and “distance to picture object.” Memory cards emphasized the number of photographs a card could hold, rather than describing them in gigabytes. Because sales staff could use the visual displays as a way to sell products to customers without having to memorize technical details, they were more confident and achieved more sales per hour.

Examining the way consumers make decisions also makes a difference. At one leading personal-bath-care chain, for example, executives realized that people preferred to shop by “scent” rather than “function”—they preferred all vanilla products in one area, rather than all shampoos in one area and all soaps in another. Reorganizing the entire merchandising layout from a function-based to a scent-based display resulted in increased category sales, as customers bought multiple products with the same scent, rather than just one. It was a simple but effective change reflecting how consumers actually shop. Paying attention to these kinds of customer behaviors remains invaluable, despite the unprecedented access to product information, reviews, and prices that consumers have online.

About the Author

Josh Leibowitz is a principal in McKinsey’s Miami office.

One Size Fits One

by Owen J. Sullivan   Employees today want individualized career options. If management doesn't provide them, workers are going to take their knowledge and skills elsewhere.   Employees are taking more control over how, when and where they work. Consider the sizeable growth in virtual workplaces. Employees who have greater control over their work have higher levels of engagement. And higher employee engagement directly correlates to a positive improvement in the bottom line.   Yet employees are exhibiting signs of pent-up frustration about how they have been treated throughout the downturn. While employers may have taken necessary steps to streamline operations remain viable, it appears employees have felt sidelined in the process. The result is a disconnected and unhappy workforce.   In a recent study of 900 workers in North America, Right Management found that 60 percent were dissatisfied with their present jobs and seeking new opportunities, while 27 percent were networking and updating their resumes. These insights provide a barometer for employee engagement.   Meanwhile, recent research conducted by Manpower found that 76 percent of organizations say flexible work arrangements boost employee morale, and 64 percent believe these policies increase retention. The bottom line is that employees today want more options.   There are three main reasons for the increasing demand for more options:   1. Personal economic security: Successful individuals have experienced sustained prosperity and have secured more affluent economic futures.   2. Dramatic changes in social norms: In many societies, social norms have been altered to accommodate or even encourage individuals to expand their life priorities beyond their career.   3. Ubiquity of communication and information technologies: New technologies are making it easy to accomplish the same work from anywhere at any time.   Further, employees indicate that they want:   a) Flexibility in how and where work gets done - meaning the ability to perform jobs where, when and how they want.   b) Flexibility in how work is compensated - meaning the organization takes a holistic approach to compensation, with valued compensation ranging from more money to more time off or more time to be innovative at work.   c) Diversity with career choices - meaning having accomplishments defined beyond the traditional measures of career success, with expectations of employers to accommodate and encourage life priorities outside of work.   d) More options to learn and grow - meaning continued and varied career development opportunities that help them contribute in ways that are meaningful to both the employer and the individuals.   Choices for the Knowledge Worker   The most highly skilled workers are mobile in any economy. People are attracted to career development opportunities, work-life balance and companies with perceived innovative cultures. If management doesn't provide employees with these opportunities, workers are going to take their knowledge and skills elsewhere. Employees today can change jobs because they can and want to, not because they have to.   The implications of not paying attention and not taking action now will cost businesses dearly. Not stemming the potential loss of high-value talent can result in:   a) Lower productivity as workers focus on job searches rather than on current performance.   b) Lost business opportunities, which result not only in lower profitability but also in negatively affected customer retention.   c) Unwanted turnover, which costs an average of 1.5 times the departing individual's salary, time applied to rehiring and on-boarding.   d) Loss of intellectual capital as it walks out the door, along with the irretrievable investments made while the individuals were employed.   e) Erosion of the workforce fabric impacting the dynamics of the organization' s culture: the loss of the unique personality, history and values the individual imparts.   And yet it doesn't have to be this way. Leaders of all levels: Be forewarned. The time is now to take action by building and implementing a talent strategy that is aligned with the business strategy.   Talent Strategy Best Practices   Lack of a formal talent strategy is the No. 1 impediment to executing business plans. Learning officers must apply the same rigor used to create an overall business strategy to develop a workforce strategy that:   1. Articulates a comprehensive vision of where the company wants to go, what unique value it delivers what it wants to accomplish.   2. Organizes work structures to unleash the knowledge, innovation and creativity of every employee in order to achieve that vision.   3. Examines, understands and delivers what employees want from their employers and work environments.   When designing a workforce strategy, you must first understand how complex trends and shifting business realities will impact your organization - now and in the future. This then allows you to identify the right people for the right jobs, build the necessary leadership competencies and skills, and develop and retain your best talent.   To do just that, CLOs should take the following five-step approach:   1. Inventory current talent and identify future needs. Every organization has a strategy, but not all have people with the competencies to execute it. Create competency models and success profiles to align business goals with the talent needed to achieve them. Modeling identifies the knowledge, skills, abilities, experiences, motivations andpersonality traits on organization' s workforce must develop to realize present and future strategic goals and enhance company agility, innovation, engagement and retention.   2. Align the workforce strategy with the business. A well-articulated strategy provides a sustainable, proactive process to execute strategic imperatives and build internal understanding. Identify employee and workforce issues impeding strategy implementation. Prioritize workforce management strategies and align them with broader strategic goals. Keep in mind that once the strategy is communicated, it will often necessitate change. To avoid a change in direction that results in going off in all directions, the organization must maintain its focus. Managing change in a volatile business environment that seems ever more volatile is an increasingly pressing leadership challenge - which leads us to step three.   3. Develop leaders and build a pipeline. Investing in leadership development will ensure a steady flow of available talent to continue to grow the company over time. Build leadership capacity that is both deep and wide. Additionally, succession management can ensure a smooth, seamless transition from one leader to the next. A growing number of company boards and executives today are viewing succession management as a mandatory business process, encompassing all levels within the organization to ensure deep bench strength.   4. Further, make sure to develop leaders who understand the importance of ensuring all employees know what is expected of them. Establish performance goals and guide leaders to provide continuous feedback and coaching to their direct reports. Employees perform best when their efforts are linked to the organization' s strategy. Ongoing performance management should include career discussions that ensure alignment of an individual's performance and goals with strategic objectives and measurable business results.   5. Focus on retention and engagement. Leaders need to clearly and effectively articulate business strategy, vision, mission and purpose to the entire workforce. A workforce that understands the organization' s strategy is better able to execute it.   6. An engaged workforce is far more productive than a disengaged workforce and displays much higher retention rates. Improve retention and engagement by helping employees understand the significance of their roles and how they directly participate in achieving the company's business objectives and performance goals.   7. Invest in career development. Helping talented employees develop their careers offers forward-looking organizations a powerful engine for driving workforce engagement, retention and productivity. It also builds its reputation as an employer of choice and strengthens its ability to retain and attract top talent. Tap into employees to understand their individual motivators, skills and interests, and match these with business priorities.   How Are Companies Responding?   What are companies doing to address the rise of individual choice, and how are they building solutions into to their talent strategies? Let's consider the following example from Procter & Gamble (P&G).   P&G was experiencing growing retention issues, particularly for employees who had been in the same role for about two years. Employee engagement was trending downward for the second year in a row. Recently, there had been downsizing in the top and bottom levels of the organization, which meant that horizontal career growth opportunities had decreased significantly, resulting in an unprecedented increase in lateral movement across the company.   P&G learning leaders wanted to create an organizational shift so that employees could be more proactive and successful in managing their own careers. They implemented a career management program that included assessments, workshops and individual, one-on-one coaching. The program provided employees with career management tools to engage in self-discovery of their career-related issues and to translate data into pragmatic career plans.   To date, this program has been implemented divisionwide to several hundred employees in North America, the United Kingdom, Switzerland and China. P&G reports that the attrition rate of those who participated in the program is less than half the company average, yielding an ROI of more than 200 percent.   The Impact of Customization and Flexibility   Individuals have diverse work preferences, needs and expectations. Companies need work practices and employee experiences that will attract and engage the best talent - those who are loyal, committed and take pride in their work and the organization. Individuals want to take greater ownership of their careers and development. Investing in developing talent from within, rather than hiring from outside the organization, will achieve greater employee engagement by ensuring work remains challenging and meaningful. Aligning the skills and capabilities of individuals with the overarching business strategy satisfies employees' need to make a difference and contribute to the company's overall success.   Customization and flexibility are essential to attract and retain high-value talent. We need flexible developmental policies and processes that address the unique needs, preferences and expectations of individual workers. Employer brand and reputation will become increasingly important, as will demonstrating organizational values tied to broader social issues. The purpose of the organization and each employee's role within it needs to be meaningful.   To meet the demand of today's skilled workers, leaders need to:   1. Provide leadership and strategy. They must clearly define and communicate the strategy, align it with the company's mission and illustrate its overall impact on society.   2. Create a collaborative, flexible and innovative work culture. The work culture needs to leverage new technologies and move forward team-based and outcome-oriented processes.   3. Understand and utilize levers of engagement. Each of your employees is unique. Understand what engages them, their life priorities and their challenges. Create work practices that meet them where they are in life.   Building the workforce that is needed both now and in the future will be a key success factor. And once you have the right people in the right roles, you must keep them engaged. One size does not fit all.     [About the Author: Owen J. Sullivan is executive vice president of Manpower Inc and CEO of Right Management, Jefferson Wells and Manpower Professional. ]

Is Business a Foreign Language for HR?

by Susan R. Meisinger

"Knowing the business" is not the same as understanding "the language of business," contends Meisinger in her latest column on whether the next generation of HR executives will have the skills needed to navigate tomorrow's business environment.
 

Every year, the National Academy of Human Resources (NAHR) holds a banquet to induct new Fellows, individuals who have been recognized by their peers for their contributions to the profession. While the black-tie affair in New York City is always memorable, the meeting of the Fellows prior to the dinner is even better. During the meeting, this group of respected, thoughtful and experienced HR executives engages in a frank and open discussion about the profession and issues that confront it.

One of the topics for discussion at the meeting in November was the next generation of HR executives - how to find the best and the brightest students today and introduce them to a challenging, exciting and rewarding profession in human resource management. While more and more entrants into the profession have a degree or concentration in HR management, there are many more HR professionals who "end up" in HR, and as a result, lack critical knowledge of the field. Another concern frequently raised by HR executives is the challenge of up-skilling their HR staff to better enable them to operate in a global environment of rapid change and constant ambiguity.

The challenge to HR leaders isn't new - it's just more pronounced because of the pending exit of the baby boomers and the recent economic downturn, which has forced most HR executives to assess, and reassess, their teams. Over the years there's been a great deal of research done on HR competencies at successful organizations. Doesn't every generation of leaders wonder if the next generation will be up to the task?

A theme that permeates any discussion of the future of the profession is the critical importance of an HR professional' s ability to speak "the language of business." Yet some of the competency research results seems confusing. According to Dave Ulrich, "we have consistently found that knowing business is not as highly ranked as a predictor of HR effectiveness. " Much more important in determining an HR executive's effectiveness is whether the individual is viewed as a "credible activist" - someone who offers a point of view, takes a position, and challenges assumptions. They practice HR with an attitude, and are able to influence others.

So why do HR executives and other business executives always zero in on the importance of business expertise? Ulrich's take, with which I agree, is that knowing business (finance, marketing, operations) is the ante, or ticket, of admission. Without this knowledge, HR won't be included in key business discussions where they could provide a point of view, take a position, or challenge an assumption. And, if invited, they won't be asked to stay. Unfortunately, many in HR limit their own opportunities because their expertise is too narrow.

Today, most HR professionals will take the time to understand why or how the business manufactures a product, or the nature and quality of a service that's being provided. But understanding the language of business, to me, includes understanding the financials of an organization. It's not just understanding the impact of a business decision on the budget, but understanding the impact of the decision on the very value of the enterprise.

If business knowledge is a ticket of admission, HR executives need to ensure that their HR leaders of the future are armed and ready and, at a minimum, have some background in finance and accounting. It's not an easy challenge, since so many in the profession have totally unrelated degrees, and most HR-degree programs focus on just HR coursework. Even the PHR and SPHR certification exams, while including some knowledge requirements pertaining to business, are exams designed to measure the grasp of a body of HR knowledge.

It will require that HR executives ask for more detailed information on the knowledge and background of candidates: Did they ever have an opportunity to focus on finance and accounting in their academic or professional careers? If not, HR executives need to be willing to provide the opportunity to do so. Without it, the HR professional will never be a credible activist in their organization.

This doesn't in any way diminish the importance of the HR knowledge required to be a successful HR executive. It, too, is a ticket of admission. It highlights the breadth of knowledge required for a career in HR management. It requires both HR and business expertise.

A grasp of the HR body of knowledge provides HR professionals with a road map for the direction they may need to take in their organization. But a grasp of finance and accounting provides them with knowledge of the topography underneath the road map. This combination ensures they will pick the best path forward for their organization.

About the Author: Susan R. Meisinger, former president and CEO of the Society for Human Resource Management, is an author, speaker and consultant on human resource management. She is on the board of directors of the National Academy of Human Resources.

10 Tips to Impress HR

By Jessica Stillman

The interview process nearly always includes a sit down with human resources as well as your potential future boss and colleagues. The folks in HR don’t know the most about the day-to-day requirements of the position being filled and they’re unlikely to have to deal with whoever gets the gig on a daily basis, so what exactly are they looking for and how do they determine whether you’ve made the cut? Recently, opinionated blogger and experienced HR pro Laurie Ruettimann gives us job-hunting schmoes a break and offers a peak inside the mind of HR on her blog Punk Rock HR. Her ten tips are a must read for any job-hunter looking to wow human resources in an interview, and is particularly valuable for those new to the interview game.

• Never badmouth anything or anyone. This applies to your former employer, coworkers, or Osama bin Laden. We’re trying to screen out whiners and troublemakers. I don’t care if your last supervisor was a tyrant. Be kind and magnanimous about everything and everyone.
• Make sure your appearance is in order. Fair or not, you are judged based you based on how you look. Check your fly and make sure your eyebrows are smooth.
• Don’t smoke on the day of the interview. We can smell it. We don’t like it. There is an unconscious bias against smokers, and let’s face it, you have a reputation for being lazy. Smokers are more expensive to insure, too. Why would we want you on the payroll? Help me help you. Don’t smoke.
• Don’t be too aggressive and tell us how awesome you are. You’re here, aren’t you? A little humility, and some self-deprecating comments, will go along way with HR professionals. Trust me.
• Don’t tell us your life story. We hate it when you confuse HR with your mother, your therapist, or your best friend.
• Don’t expect us to have a timeline for the interview process. We have no idea how long it will take to fill the position. Ideally, we want to fill the opening tomorrow so we can get back to online shopping. Realistically, it will probably take a few months.
• Be prepared to talk about your strengths and weaknesses. Don’t ever tell us that you struggle to delegate. You care too much. You take on too much responsibility. An interview is a conversation, not a bad eHarmony profile. Show some self-awareness.
• When you take us through your resume, don’t gloss over the mistakes. We like it when you stop and tell us about an experience that taught you something. It shows character. Address your flaws outright and tell us how you learned something.
• Compliment us. Seriously. We are human beings, too. Scan our offices and look for awards, photos, or something noteworthy. Make a connection. This is what salespeople do, and it works. We will remember your praise.
• Make it easy for us to hire you. When you give us examples during the interview process, frame those examples in a way that relates to the job description, the issues in the industry, or the company’s mission. Be relevant and you will be remembered.

My personal favorite is the warning against speaking like a bad personal ad incarnated. What’s yours?