Recruitment - A Major Investment

SME companies want employees with excellent skills with a great attitude to work. It is as simple as that. They want employees who can help them to grow and improve their business, who can work on their own without too much checking and correction. Who have initiative and come up with simple ideas on how to improve their work and their output. They want employees who make things easier and not more difficult. And they are right. Life is difficult enough at the moment for SME companies and any assistance employees can give to make the life of the Owner/Manager easier is much appreciated. If only employees performed their job well that would be a great help. The truth is that getting it wrong and hiring the wrong candidate can be very costly and no company can afford this in these economic challenging times.

How do you get those employees with the right skills and attitude? One method is to look for them when you are recruiting for new staff members. The selection of new recruits is an important moment when you are deciding does this employee have the right skill set and the right attitude to work. Many SME managers miss that opportunity. Why? Because they haven’t really thought about what they are looking for. They haven’t identified the skills set and attitudes are which are required to be successful in their job. They are busy and just hope they will meet the right candidate at the interview. Well it takes more than that to be successful in recruiting new employees.

A HR consultant who specialises in SME companies can be very helpful in putting a recruitment process in place which solves your recruitment of new employees. At the end you have a process in place which delivers you the right candidates for the right investment while you have been trained on how to interview candidates and decide which are the best for your company. Campbell International can help you to organise your recruitment process and find those candidates which will help to develop your company.

Recruitment is a major investment in any company. The average industrial wages in Ireland is €36,000 and multiply that by 10 years. As you could expect that an employee would stay with you for at least 10 years and you are talking about a major investment of €360,000. A lot of Owners / Managers would seriously deliberate before making such an investment and look at it from all sides. Yet I know managers who would hire an employee in an afternoon without giving it much thought. Human Resources is a serious business which can develop your company into a serious player on the market. 

Ignoring human resources can fatally harm your company and send the company to the graveyard...

Turning Strategy into Great Performance

You have devised a great strategy for your company and all the indicators show that you should get a big return on investment. Yet when the year comes to end the results have brought not what the strategy suggested. What has happened? You spent so much time in getting the strategy right and now there is little to show for it. Unfortunately, this scenario is more common than you would think.

Companies only realise about 60% of their strategies potential because of defects and breakdowns in planning and execution. If you review the most common causes for the failure of strategic plans the findings are revealing and troubling.

Research into the strategy to performance gap published by the Harvard Business Review shows that virtually all companies surveyed struggled to produce the financial performance forecast in their long-range plans. Furthermore, the processes they used to develop plans and monitor performance make it difficult to determine whether the strategy to performance gap stems from poor planning, poor execution, both or neither. The biggest problems are: -

v  Companies rarely track performance against long-term plans – the research shows that less than 15% of companies compare the business results with the performance forecast, drill down to analyse why the performance was not achieved and take this information into account when making new plans.

v  Multiyear results rarely meet projections – This is demonstrated by a dynamic common to many companies. The 4 – year plan projects modest performance for the first year and a high rate of performance thereafter. Management meet its modest target for the first year and is recommended and prepares a new plan with a modest growth for the first year and a high rate of performance thereafter. The process is continued over the next years with only modest results over the projected years.

v  A lot of value is lost in translation – Given the poor quality of financial forecast in most strategic plans it is probably not surprising that most companies fail to realise the strategic potential value. What emerges from the research is sequence of events that goes something like this: strategies are approved but poorly communicated. This makes the translation of strategy into specific actions and resource plans all but impossible. The lower end of the organisation doesn’t know what they need to do and when they need to do it and as result the expected results don’t materialise. If no one is held responsible for the shortfall the cycle of underperformance gets repeated over and over again.

v  Performance bottlenecks are frequently invisible to top management – When plans are realistic and performance falls short, executives have few early warning signals. They have often no way of early detection whether actions were carried out as planned, resources were deployed on schedule, competitors responded as anticipated etc.  As result it is impossible to take corrective action on time.

v  The established gap fosters a culture of under performance – If the strategy underperformance becomes the norm over the years’ then commitment cease to be binding promises with real consequences. The organisation becomes less self – critical and less honest in its shortcomings. Consequently it loses its capacity to perform.

However, there is a way out as a number of high performance companies have dealt with above described problems. They have created clear links between planning and execution and raising the standards of both of them. There are seven rules to follow and these are: -

1. Keep it simple, make it concrete – Ensure that all staff member know the strategy and how it affects their day to day performance. Make certain that all employees know what they have to have delivered at the end of the year.

2. Debate assumptions not forecast – Strategies are often based on assumptions and to make them come true staff need to know what you are thinking in order to engage in the process. When they understand the fundamentals and performance drivers they understand what exactly is required and understand better how to deliver on the performance.

3. Use a rigorous framework, speak a common language – The specific framework a company uses to ground its strategic plans isn’t that important. What is critical is that the framework establishes a common language for dialogue between the management and employees one that strategy, marketing, finance and operations all understand and use!

4. Discuss resource deployment early – Companies can create more realistic forecast and more executable plans if they discuss up front the level and timing of critical resource deployments.

5. Clearly identify priorities – To deliver any strategy successfully managers must make thousands of tactical decisions and put them into action. Companies should agree on priorities, communicate relentlessly and hold managers accountable for executing against their commitments.

6. Continuously monitor performance – Continuous monitoring of performance is particularly important and proactively monitoring the primary drivers of performance. Putting the Key Performance Indicators on the agenda of every management meeting should ensure that all keep the eye on the ball.

7. Reward and develop execution capabilities – No list can be complete without a reminder that companies have to motivate and develop their staff, as at the end of the day no process can be any better than the people who have to make it work. This also includes development of staff members who have made it work.

The prize of closing the strategy to performance gap is huge – an increase of performance from 60% to 100%. However, the true benefit for companies who create tight links between their strategy, plans and performance is that will they experience a multiplier effect, as a result of their efforts they are willing and able to take on stretch commitments that inspire and transform companies.

Bullying, Harassment and Sexual Harassment

Some eight percent of the European workforces suffer from bullying and mobbing in the workplace. This causes European business to lose profit through absenteeism, staff turnover and on a personal level, leads to some three suicides per week in Belgium alone. In Ireland a survey carried out by SIPTU reported that 87 percent of those questioned indicated that they were aware of bullying behaviour taking place in their workplace. Almost 40 percent said that bullying was a regular occurrence in their workplace and young and inexperienced workers were the most vulnerable people to work place bullying.

The introduction of the Equality Acts expands the definition regarding Harassment, Bullying and Sexual Harassment and is forcing employers to take action to stop harassment in the workplace or face the consequences of possible litigation in the future and severe penalties.

The equality laws introduced over the last number of years place employers under obligations to ensure a safe and positive work environment for all employees. What was up to now considered by many as normal behaviour in the workplace should now seriously be re-examined.

All the equality legislation is coming from European Union Directives and has to be implemented into Irish law. The scope of these directives is to stop discrimination on grounds of gender, marital status, sexual orientation, religion, age, disability and specifically in Ireland membership of the travelling community.

Harassment is seen as a form of discrimination and Sexual Harassment is seen as a form of gender discrimination. The employer is responsible if the harassment takes place within the scope of the employment. This could mean the following: the harassed person is an employee; the harasser is an employee, the employer, client, customer or business contact. The employer is responsible for taking reasonable action to prevent the harassment from happening when the harassment took place where the employee is employed or it is related to the workplace.

The effects of harassment should be studied as well. If employees are treated differently than is the norm by other employees, for instance nobody talks to them, all avoid this person, then this could amount to discrimination and seen as harassment.  Once an employer has been notified regarding this behaviour then the employer should take action to solve the problem. Taking no action exposes the employer to serious risks of employee litigation.

The defence for employers against all these developments is to take harassment and bullying seriously and develop a positive culture in your workplace. The following actions should be taken: -

Ø  Develop policies stopping discrimination and harassment in the workplace

Ø  Develop a company code of practice regarding discrimination and harassment

Ø  Train key staff in handling discrimination and spotting harassment

Ø  Take reasonable steps when harassment occurs to stop it happening again

 

The most important thing an employer should do is to take harassment seriously and prevent it from happening.

There are also huge benefits for a company from this legislation. Companies can gain through more contented workforce, a better work climate, lower absenteeism and lower staff turnover. All these will contribute to the bottom line of a company.

Performance Essentials

You thought having a Performance Management System was the end of the exercise and all would be well after that! We are all interested in creating better performing companies, increased productivity, competiveness, value and your organisation reputation in the community. Having a performance system can be the start of a long, but very rewarding, path to improve your company’s performance. There are several elements which are not mentioned in a Performance Management System, but which have an important bearing on the performance of your company. I will highlight these issues, which are as important in any company’s Performance Management System: -

A.   Employees.

Employees are of major importance in any performance. Selecting the right employees is where performance management starts, as without the right employees no one is going to be successful.

Look out for employees who have a positive attitude towards work and life in general. Employees, who have a compelling reason to come to work, are more productive than employees who just come to work. Employees who believe and understand the company and believe in themselves will be more motivated to go the extra mile. Hire employees who can communicate your company’s message to clients and who will communicate, in a positive way, issues which they encounter on a day to day basis which need to be solved. Choose employees who are disciplined and will come to work every day and who stay focussed at work day after day; employees you can rely on. Recruit employees who can handle change, because if there is one certainty in business it is that all will change. Remember how quickly business has changed in the last number of years.  Select employees, who look after themselves, employees who take care of their general well-being. If your employee’s can’t look after themselves, why would you expect them to look after your interest?

B.   Teams

People who work as a team can achieve a multitude, compared to a group of individuals. But a team needs to have clear procedures and rules of what is expected of each group member in each given situation. They need to be trained how to act in a given situation and how to communicate effectively if something new happens in order to find a quick response to the issue at hand. The frustrating part of a team is that it is ever changing, once you think you have achieved the perfect team, circumstances will change and a new team effort is required. Teams need to keep working on themselves and renewing themselves. A quick team workshop will work only for so long and then will fade away. That’s when most managers say I tried it but it didn’t work...they don’t understand it is a never-ending effort!

C.    Supervisors

You can have the best ever Performance Management System and selected the best employees but if you don’t have pro-active supervisors who can communicate effectively with their staff and management it is all of no use. Supervisors need to be well- trained in how to give constructive feedback to their staff members. They need to be able to explain to your employees what is expected from them and how they can improve their performance. If you have supervisors and managers who can do that very well, you will only need a very simple Performance Management System, because this is the essence of good performance management.

D.   Organisations

Organisations need to have identified what they are about and need to have this well communicated to all staff members. They need to have identified a clear goal, why they exist, and a goal that everyone in the organisation understands. They need to have identified behaviour, which all staff members need to display on a daily basis, will make them successful. The organisation needs to have a strategy which will help them to achieve their goal in an ever changing environment. This strategy needs to be revised regularly, at least once a year in order to keep the whole organisation on track to solve your changing clients needs.

I have explained the essential ingredients for an organisation, which need to be put in place, next to a Performance Management System. I see too many organisations, which have only a paper Performance Management System, which will increase the bureaucracy of the organisation without the productivity. Keep the performance of your organisation alive and focus on the essential issues!

The Critical Recruitment of Excellent Staff

‘Take our twenty best people away, and I can tell you that Microsoft would become an unimportant company’ - Bill Gates, Chairman Microsoft.

In today’s lightning fast business environment the competition is smart, tough and coming from every direction. Those who succeed will do so because of the talent they put on the field. The problem: that critical talent is in short supply. As a result, recruitment has never had a more significant upside – or a more devastating downside! So how does a company do it right? The answer is hardly mysterious: The answer is commitment. The tools are out there – using them to achieve excellent results just takes time and focus. As time is a precious commodity these days you need to focus on recruitment, do it right the first time and do not take short cuts. They can save time occasionally but in the end they will cost you more time, money and your reputation. There are a number of actions that you and your company can take to improve the recruitment and selection process: -

• Make sure your interviewers are trained in selection interviews – knowing what questions to ask and how to go about asking them is essential – especially with all the legal traps regarding what you can and cannot ask.
• Learn and practise competency based selection interviews based on the criteria: Past performance is the best indicator of future performance.
• Draft a simple profile of the vacant position in order that all involved know what they are looking for and that the most important requirements are being taken care of.
• Know the culture of your company and identify the best candidates, who suit your culture and have the right attitude to progress your company.
• Involve fellow employees in the recruitment process as co-workers know what it takes to succeed in their area and furthermore they have to pick up the pieces if the wrong person is hired.
• Make sure your company is known to be a great place to work – otherwise you will fail to attract the right candidates and end up with the duds no one else would hire.
• Time your recruitment correctly – if you wish to recruit graduates for next year, now is the time to start the recruitment process because by the summer of ’07 the best candidates are already hired.
• Do not become over dependent on recruitment agencies make sure you are strongly involved in the process and if you are not happy with the offer on hand from the agency send them back! Don’t think this is not an important role for any CEO. Remember that Bill Gates spends 50% of his time on recruitment.
• Take your time to find the right candidate do not rush the interviews and selection process. A wrong choice will cost you more in time and money and you want to avoid the courts at all cost.

Finding the right people can make or break your company. The right people will drive your company forward and create the environment that determines success. Organise your process in such a way that you are in control of who gets hired and set clear criteria which a new recruit has to fulfil. The selection of new staff members is one of the most important business decisions a company will make. An average selection decision is an investment of at least €25,000 per annum each time and possibly more.  It is a costly game which you have to take very seriously to survive!