by Janine Nicole Dennis | Oct 12, 2012 | Human Resources
I have sat through my share of classes on emotional intelligence, the power of gaining buy-in etc. In every class, the speaker has ninja-like skills in the art of negotiation and getting stakeholders to buy-in, advocate and support your initiatives. It all sounds reasonable and even exciting. That is, until you leave the test kitchen that is the classroom and return to your place of work.
In theory and often times in practice you can successfully employ methods to facilitate your efforts of gaining buy-in from your stakeholders. However, what happens when your co-workers and/or colleagues are just not that into you or your ideas? The answer is nothing. Sometimes people just don’t like you. By virtue of them not liking you they are completely unwilling to hear or rally behind your ideas.
In my experience, you can bring all the major players to the table to reach a consensus and/or try to move an initiative forward with the best of intentions and practices; but alas there is always someone that takes great pride in opposing you and your initiative goes nowhere. What do you do? Do you pine away for a miracle to happen by way of a change of heart or do you accept that this person will never rally around you?
The answer here is yes. In business, you always have to be prepared for opponents or naysayers. These opponents are stakeholders that just have it in for you. They will never like you or your ideas. As a matter of fact, it isn’t just you that they loathe; it is any new idea. You can read a gazillion books on stakeholders and the art of team dynamics, but none of that will get those opponents/naysayers on your side. For that reason, you must always be ready to refocus your energy on the ones that will back you up inevitably. You will have to make an executive call and build a coalition to rally around you and move your initiatives forward.
By building a coalition, you are not shutting all of your stakeholders out and throwing up your hands. Instead, you are making sure things keep moving forward by getting a subsection of the stakeholders to rally around your efforts. The key to a successful coalition is credibility. Each player in your coalition must view you as having credibility. There may be other things that your stakeholders require before putting their support behind you; but credibility is of the utmost importance. Your stakeholders need to know that you know what you’re doing and that you are capable of doing what you say you will.
Here are three tips on building credibility with your coalition:
1) Minimize the perceived risk involved with your initiative. By doing this you anticipate any concerns your coalition may have and create answers that placate those concerns by giving a realistic description of the risks and opportunities involved with proceeding with your initiative.
2) Know your stuff. Develop your message. That is know what you’re talking about. Be ready to provide statistics and any other data to support your initiative.
3) Set goals and hold your coalition accountable for meeting deadlines.There needs to be a focus for your coalition. This is why you set strategic goals and milestones to keep the focus. Lack of focus means the coalition and you get sidetracked and nothing gets accomplished.
In business, there are very few instances where you win everyone over with your savvy ideas and initiatives. Professionals must always be prepared to explain,bargain, defend and advocate for their ideas. Don’t take it personal that they don’t like your ideas; instead be smart enough to identify your allies and neutral stakeholders. Get them on your side and see your initiatives thrive.
by Janine Nicole Dennis | Oct 2, 2012 | Human Resources
Hey Everyone! I’m hosting a webinar courtesy of ERE.net and Jobvite on recruiter branding. You’re probably saying what is “recruiter branding”? For those of you that read my tweets and articles you have probably noticed that I like to make up my own terms and/or create new hybrid buzz words.
Recruiter branding is simply the identity that a recruiter creates in an effort to build a presence, gain credibility, and present a value proposition to the candidates and/or clients they work with.
It is abundantly clear that the “post and pray” and/or job board days have met its maker. It is also clear that recruiters can no longer hide behind the employment brand and rely on that to help them get their jobs done. The age of social media is upon us. Candidates are getting savvy. They will see a job posting and try to find out who the recruiter is behind the job before they research the company for tidbits about how they do business.That means that the recruiter’s brand not the employment brand could affect the candidate’s decision to submit an application to your company.
As such, your online identity and brand as a recruiter becomes extremely important to both your success and the success of the business.
If you are losing your way in this recruitment space or you want to improve by adding some new methods to your toolbox- this is a webinar you won’t want to miss.
Who’s better than you? You just got a snapshot of what I will be covering in the webinar. Want more…see the learning objectives for the webinar below and join meon Wednesday, 10/17 at 2pm.
In this webinar you will learn:
- What is a “recruiter brand”?
- Why is having a “recruiter brand” important?
- What does it mean to build a “consistent and transparent brand”?
- How various social media outlets can facilitate recruiter branding
Oh and I am counting on all of you to chat this up on Twitter and the back channel the day of the webinar via TweetChat, SeeSawMe or any other social media platform you utilize. The hashtag is #SoMerecruit. I look forward to speaking with you all virtually.
Register Here
by Janine Nicole Dennis | Oct 2, 2012 | Life
I had to jump on this immediately. During the debates tonight, the master brand manager behind @KitchenAidUSA responded to President Obama’s story about his grandmother with this tweet:
I’m sorry but what kind of idiot are you that this tweet seemed reasonable? Not only is it insensitive and disrespectful, but it completely undermines your brand Kitchen Aid. I’m no marketing guru, but I do know that you never want self-inflicted nuisance variables like this undermining your brand and/or the confidence customers have in your brand.
What’s even better is a nicely packaged pr statement follows this jewel in an effort to do some damage control. Unfortunately, 140 characters does not give you nearly enough space to adequately apologize. In addition, what happened here? Did the person that sent the tweet in the first place effectively send out the pr apology or was that another representative chiming in on the same account? Confusing and ridiculous all at once would describe this debacle.
Nothing much in the way of HR coming from me on this-except, a firm warning and/or termination for this egregious error is probably likely. Oh and sensitivity,social media, and common sense training are probably in order as well. If I was the employee that had this lapse in judgment- I would be praying that tomorrow takes its time getting here.
In all fairness to the genius tweeter this is in no way different from people that don’t think before they speak. For those that have this affliction- a word of advice- think, pause for a few moments and think again before you tweet.
Stay tuned to the conclusion of this debacle.
P.S. Kitchen Aid I still love my professional mixer and make masterful pastries because of it. Love your brand, but do get the social media stuff together.
by Janine Nicole Dennis | Sep 26, 2012 | Life
There is a new frontier and it is the applicant tracking system. For those of you that have been following the world of applicant tracking systems lately you know that there’s been some merging and acquiring. Life as the applicant system vendors knew it has changed. One by one companies like Taleo and SuccessFactors are being gobbled up and regurgitated as newly packaged entities. Freedom from the big “b” that is the bottomline is no more. They are now a part of something bigger and customers, critics, and onlookers alike are all wondering one thing- will their value propositions live on?
They all have put out nicely crafted PR statements saying that this new push to combine technology powers is a plus and the combination of the two companies will allow them to bring even more value to the customer-yadda…yadda…yadda. While it may be true that these vendors will continue on valiantly; they cannot fault those that remain a bit cynical about the whole ordeal. Of primary interest is the partnership. Who were the two companies before they merged and how will the flaws of each impact the customer experience going forward? The answer is none of us knows and customers are sitting ducks for the moment. In time there will be reports of gains or losses (however that pans out) but for now it is unchartered territory for all involved.
There’s no doubt that big dollars thrown around lead to a perception that it’s all about the bottomline, market share and making money. The challenge that ATS vendors have ahead of them is proving us all wrong and keeping up the same value propositions if not improving those offerings now that they are bigger and allegedly better.
While it is a happy time for all of these companies (Kenexa being the latest to be gobbled up), it is a time of vulnerability for everyone involved. ATS vendors need to be more vigilant than ever in reassuring their customers that these M&A’s are good for the product. In addition, they must be diligent in making sure that they are meeting and exceeding the service levels they provided prior to the acquisition. Any service or value infraction could cost them customers.
ATS and/or Talent Management platforms were given life to streamline HR processes and make the lives of those in the hiring function easier. The reality of a changing landscape of technology facilitated by mergers and acquisitions is daunting. Before M&A’s became a commonplace, these systems were imperfect and in some cases viewed as a burden rather than a valued added tool. There’s no better time than now to bring out the heavy artillery and show us techies that all of this change is laying the groundwork for an exciting future in HR Technology and not just a mad rush to gain market share in the Saas space. After all some will argue that it all comes down to the almighty “cloud”. The allure of the technology is certainly due in part to a fascination with the almighty “cloud” but it’s also the strut of the ATS that is all the buzz. The ATS space is something to watch. It is becoming increasingly profitable and those that had no interest in this business a decade ago have a renewed outlook on the entire industry.
Whether it is ATS, CRM, or virtual learning, there are a lot of things to be excited about in the HR Technology space. The future of HR tech is exciting but yet ominous. It is on the cutting edge, but still with inherent flaws. We can only be optimistic and broad minded in our thinking and assume that what’s to come is a hell of a lot better than where we have been.
In parting, I say to the ATS vendors and HR Technology companies may the force be with you as you explore life, liberty and the pursuit Saas. Here’s to the Futurism of HR Technology!
by Janine Nicole Dennis | Sep 23, 2012 | Life
Yesterday I attended an event in New York City given by Triberr. The event was #TribeUpNYC (take a look at the hashtag or my timeline for that day to check out some of the tweets from the event). This event was flippin awesome. I mean really awesome. First off, this was the first event I have attended as a blogger so I don’t have anything to compare this to. However, I am usually happy at any event that is intimate and you can chat it up with real, like-minded, and smart individuals like yourself. Let me tell you that in this department this event did not disappoint at all. Everyone I met was warm, inviting and refreshingly blunt about what it takes to be successful as a blogger.
The event was from 1pm-6pm. They split the day in two. The first half was comprised of mini presentations all focused on four important aspects of blogging: your influence, your brand, blog marketing and how to get paid doing it. We talked SEO, HEO and even FEO. I’m sure you all know the first, but what is HEO and FEO you ask. Well HEO is “Human Engine Optimization” as described by Dino Dogan that gave the Mythbusters presentation. HEO essentially is understanding the motivations of humans cultivating relationships via social media and then bringing it home through real life interaction. As bloggers, we have to constantly reinforce the human aspect of what we do.
FEO is my own little acronym and it stands for “follower engagement optimization”. This idea came to me as I listened to Robert Moore from Internet Media Labsdiscuss the importance of engaging with your followers and creating brand advocates.
We talked the mechanics and intelligence behind Triberr and got the scoop straight from the CEO and one half of the brains behind Triberr, Dan Cristo. After that it was time for some about three hours of networking and it was a blast.
This was just free time spent over wine, beer and tapas discussing the focus of our individual blogs.Sharing best practices, coordinating business partnerships, and making the social to IRL connection were just some of the highlights of the day.
In conclusion, I learned, I connected, I promoted my brand, and I made some new friends and potential business partners in the interim. Triberr is dedicated to facilitating the progression of blogging as an industry thereby creating legitimate jobs and wealth via doing what we all love and that is writing. According to Dan Cristo, Triberr’s main goal is to “treat bloggers like celebrities.” To that I say kudos to him and his team, because I definitely felt like a celebrity at this event.
I already left a note for my tribe about the event. If you aren’t already on Triberr and you’re a blogger I suggest you check it out. The website is www.triberr.com. Many thanks to Dino Dogan, Dan Cristo, and Internet Media Labs for a great event. See you all next year! ; )
