by Janine Nicole Dennis | Oct 1, 2013 | 1, Recruiting
If you have ever handled contracts- particularly HRIS contracts you are familiar with what a service level agreement entails. This is where the vendor lets you know what level of service you can expect from them for the duration of your contract.
It will outline things like how they will maintain your system, when they will be available for customer assistance- in essence, it is an agreement that lets you know how and when they will assist you, the customer.
Sometimes you like what is in the fine print and other times you feel like you neglected to properly read the fine print. There is so much variation in the way you will be treated as a customer- it can be daunting to set a threshold or standard as to what constitutes an adequate “service level”.
So what about candidates?
What about candidates? They are only the people that could be your next hire and in the long-term become an asset to your organization.
What if you decided to create a service level agreement for candidates? What would be your value proposition? How could candidates hold you accountable when you fall short of the agreement?
I personally think it is both fair and equitable for candidates to understand what they can expect from you during the application process. If they know what to expect, they can act accordingly. When there is no semblance of responsibility or obligation on the end of the employer- it just seems like a raw deal.
The candidate experience is a real thing. Employers need to assess what they have that is of value to the candidate and then you need to deliver. It’s not just about a message of grandeur- you actually have to practice what you preach.
That means if you say you value your candidates- you don’t post positions that don’t exist to hoard candidates and then throw them aside.
You make your website intuitve, mobile-optimized, searchable and easy to navigate. Your application process shouldn’t take people fifteen minutes to fill out. If you’re not the FBI or some government entity- it isn’t that serious. Know that you are losing candidates.
Value your candidates time. Don’t call them in for interviews only to have different people ask them about their resume. Make it worth their while- what sets your company apart from the competition? Discuss some issues you have that need to be resolved. In effect, stop wasting people’s time.
It’s being reported that record numbers of workers are either underemployed or leaving the workforce altogether. The reason why this is happening is because businesses aren’t upholding their end of the bargain. The jobs are fake, the intentions to employ you are misguided and rarely will you find someone on the other end of that job posting that wants to ensure you have the best candidate experience ever.
There is no standard and since it doesn’t exist many employers are a long way from delivering what progressive minds regard as a respectful and reasonable candidate experience.
I leave this post open to you the public to answer two questions:
1) Who is delivering stellar candidate experience?
2) What are your candidate horror stories?
Janine Truitt
The Aristocracy of HR
by Janine Nicole Dennis | Sep 18, 2013 | HR Technology Trends and Tips
We live in a world where every day we rely on sound, pictures, and videos to display data, give us instructions, deliver the news, and even stay in touch with our friends and family. According to Gartner, Inc., the world’s leading information technology research and advisory company, more than 25 percent of the content that workers view each day is dominated by pictures, video or audio. Already, video has even gained importance in recruiting, with graphics and videos displayed on employer’s career sites to provide a more engaging experience to jobseekers. Now, employers can offer the same type of engaging experience during the actual application and interviewing processes with video cover letters.
Recruiters should take advantage of this trend to reach candidates, who are already using and consuming video daily, to shorten the hiring process and find top talent. Video can give recruiters an advantage by providing a more holistic perspective on a candidate, in less time with fewer costs. By adding cutting-edge yet extremely simple-to-use technology in their recruitment process, employers can enhance their employment brand and stand out as an innovative and tech-savvy place to work.
Furthermore, video allows recruiters to evaluate qualities like the candidate’s verbal communication skills, energy level, and potential benefit to the company earlier in the hiring process. This is helpful particularly for entry-level positions, where the candidates may lack experience but have transferable skills and traits that may not translate on paper alone. Another example of a situation where video is particularly helpful is when an employer is hiring for positions that will utilize video technology on a regular basis. In today’s business world, customer service is a virtual experience, and tools like phone and video conferencing and utilized daily. Video cover letters will help companies hire employees who are comfortable with the medium for these customer service type positions. Rather than wasting time, money, and effort to schedule a phone screen or conduct an onsite interview, video can be used to quickly identify good-fit talent based on their displayed creativity, professional presentation, communication skills, and passion your company needs to succeed.
From the candidate perspective, recruiters are far more likely to watch a short video of you explaining why they’re the best candidate for the job than reading another cover letter. It is often easier for candidates to be expressive about past achievements when telling a story to a camera. Video is a quick way to allow candidates to stand out against their peers and be remembered by recruiters and hiring managers.
Given these advantages, video is quickly becoming essential to effective recruiting success. Organizations that do not start embracing the powerful tool risk being at a competitive disadvantage. Aberdeen’s talent acquisition research indicates that organizations were two or three times more likely to improve recruiting metrics (time to fill, cost per hire, hiring manager satisfaction) and business metrics (customer retention and customer satisfaction) after implementing video. Fifty-two percent of organizations improved the length of search, and 47 percent improved cost per hire, compared to 17 percent of organizations not using video. Clearly, it makes an impact, and organizations that implement this type of interviewing achieve ROI.
However, video can also understandably raise legal and practical considerations. Video in recruitment is compliant according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. As long as your organization has a policy about how they’re used, video cover letters are no more discriminatory than a face-to-face interview.
Overall, video cover letter can improve the efficiency of screening, recruiting and hiring potential candidates. Technology has certainly become an integral part of today’s hiring process. Are you ready for the next big thing in talent acquisition?
Meaghan Kacsmar is a Product Marketing Associate at iCIMS, a leading provider of innovative Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) talent acquisition solutions. iCIMS is an Inc. 500 and Software Satisfaction honoree focused on solving corporate business issues through the implementation of easy-to-use, scalable solutions that are backed by award-winning customer service. iCIMS’ Talent Platform, the industry’s premier candidate management solution, enables organizations to manage their entire talent acquisition lifecycle from sourcing, to recruiting, to onboarding all within a single web-based application. With more than 1,700 clients worldwide, iCIMS is one of the largest and fastest-growing talent acquisition system providers with offices in North America, UK, and China. To learn more about how iCIMS can help your organization, visit www.icims.com or view a free online demo of the iCIMS Talent Platform.
Janine Truitt
by Janine Nicole Dennis | Sep 16, 2013 | HR Technology Trends and Tips
I realize that this blog series is about HR technology trends and tips, but since my HR technology interests have to do with employee communication and education efforts, I’m going to dial things back a bit. Frankly, I think the future of HR communication tech is old-school.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m no Luddite, and I’ll be the first to tell you that all the new technology we have at our disposal makes our lives easier. Email, social media, asynchronous online educational platforms—every single bit of it is a modern miracle.
But here’s the “but.”
Advances in technology—especially those that affect how we communicate with employees—don’t mean a thing if they don’t help get your message across.
Technology is always changing and creating new opportunities, for sure, but the magic of good employee communication isn’t in the technology. The magic is when the words and images that do the communicating are simultaneously simple to understand and a delight to experience.
Shorter Is Always Best
No matter what you have to say or how you plan to say it, there’s always a way to do it with fewer words. Keeping your messages concise helps with comprehension, and makes whatever you have to say more approachable.
But short doesn’t necessarily refer to length. Sometimes, like with summary plan descriptions, for example, you must distribute a very large document. If that’s the case, break things down into digestible chunks. Make the lengthy content “shorter” by providing a simple, one-page overview of key highlights, and explain that the “fine print” goes into deeper details.
Keep It Conversational
Conversational doesn’t mean breezy. It doesn’t mean unprofessional. It means relaxed and easy to understand. Need to know if you’re communicating on a conversational level? Here’s a simple test—take a look at what you’re about to send out and compare it with the kind of language used in a traditional wedding invitation.
If your message sounds anything like this—“The honor of your presence is requested at the union of Ms. Mary Smith to Mr. Robert Jones on Saturday, the tenth of May, Two Thousand and Eight, at four o’clock in the afternoon”—then you’ve gone way, way too formal.
Things like passive voice (“is requested”), exotic/jargony language (“union” when “wedding” will do), and wonky sentence lengths (jamming two or three short ideas into one space), make things harder to understand. Besides, nobody talks that way.
It’s Not Always “Hammer Time”
Ever hear of Abraham Kaplan’s Law of the Instrument? The concept comes from The Conduct of Inquiry, Kaplan’s 1964 examination of behavior science, and can be formulated as follows: “Give a small boy a hammer, and he will find that everything he encounters needs pounding.”
Don’t be the kid with the new hammer. Sure, your department may have recently embraced a particular tool or mode of communication, but don’t forget about everything else in your toolbox. Always be thinking about the best ways to go about reaching your workforce (hint: there’s going to be more than one). Yes, some employees will respond best to the fancy stuff, but other others may be more enthusiastic about a photocopy taped to the lunch room fridge.
Push your messages through every available channel, because a single approach is unlikely to reach everyone. === Justyn Harkin writes about employee benefits and other HR topics for ALEX®, the Jellyvision Benefits Counselor. Available to over 1 million people across more than 90 organizations, ALEX takes the mystery out of complicated benefits details and gives employees personally relevant information they can use to select their best-fit plans.
Janine’s career spans eight years in HR and Recruitment. She has worked in pharmaceuticals, healthcare, staffing and now science R&D. Hundreds of candidates later and after several stints working in the trenches of HR; she founded “The Aristocracy of HR” blog in 2011. “The Aristocracy of HR” (TAOHR) is an HR blog that she created to discuss Talent Management triumphs, blunders, and best practices. A contributor for ERE.net, Smart Recruiters, and TIRA News, she is a globally recognized thought leader that isn’t afraid to tackle the obstacles and issues facing employers and employees alike. She has been quoted by Maternity.com and SHRM. Janine is well-known in the social HR community for her expertise and engagement in all things social. From guest hosting Twitter chats to webinars, she is proof that social media and HR can live happily ever after. Connect with her on LinkedIn and Google+. Check out the “The Aristocracy of HR” Facebook Page. Follow her tweets on Twitter @CzarinaofHR.
Janine Truitt
by Janine Nicole Dennis | Sep 13, 2013 | HR Technology Trends and Tips
All of the technology in the world cannot make up for the human connection. Human Resources was put in place to represent and support the people of the company – whether they are in the candidate process, or full-fledged employees. HR Tech continues to evolve, but it should not act as a replacement for human interaction, only a supplement.
The biggest development in the wake of evolving HR Technologies is a sense of community. In regards to hiring, there has been emergence of social software features within HR Tech such as the sharing of candidates and commenting on a colleague’s interview notes. Pick a technology that allows you to amplify personal interactions not limit them. A good tool is only great if it can reinforce the human interaction and help to build a sustainable community with people inside the office and out.
As an HR professional or recruiter, you cannot let technology diminish your interaction with candidates or employees to the “just another cog in the wheel” mentality. These people ARE people are should be treated as such.
Use a tool that lets you get to know you candidates and include your employees. This is better for your company because you can guarantee you’re hiring or working with people who want to be there. By emphasizing community as part of your hiring brand, you can build a talent pool of passive candidates for when more jobs open up. I believe in collaboration at every level. Pay attention to companies that foster this kind of collaboration. They are usually the companies that are consistently building new & amazing features. It’s a team mentality.
It is immediately important for HR Practitioners to know that candidates are expecting more. Talent Branding, employer branding, candidate experience – they are all buzzwords for a reason. It’s because they are real. I’m a young professional and my experience with HR has always been positive, and in general I’ve been lucky enough to have a majority of positive candidate experiences. However, I know the stereotypes. HR is an evil department lurking in the back of a business to destroy people’s professional happiness. Companies don’t respond to candidates because they just don’t care, right? Wrong. Not anymore, at least. Social Media allows HR to be up front and center. They can build a positive brand for themselves by not only empowering themselves to get involved in the conversation, but by engaging candidates and fellow employees. HR is in a unique position because they understand what is at the heart of the company- the people.
This trend of candidate acknowledgement is beyond important. Talent is the lifeblood of your company, and if you don’t pay attention or appeal to them- you can forget about attracting the candidates you need.
Smart technology vendors understand the importance of relationships and allowing for collaboration. You want HR Technology that allows for transparency, ease, and efficiency. That’s the first step, you have to find something that allows you to achieve your goals but also live up to the expectations of the candidates.
Hiring is social. HR is social. Humans are social.
“Lexie is the Community Manager at SmartRecruiters. After graduating with a degree in Anthropology and Communications from the University of Kansas she decided she never wanted to stop talking to people. She believes in creating great workplaces, developing talent, sharing knowledge and using social media for good.”
Janine Truitt
by Janine Nicole Dennis | Sep 11, 2013 | HR Technology Trends and Tips
High potentials and high performers are not synonymous. By confusing the two we have set ourselves up for failure. While not an easy problem to solve, technology provides an opportunity to create success in our organizations.
In any organization, employee development and career development are critical to an employee’s engagement. Prepared employees can smoothly transition into vacant leadership roles. Promoting from within means your “new hire” already knows the culture and how your company works, in addition to inspiring other employees to earn the next open spot.
Identifying the right candidate is not simple. According to the Corporate Leadership Council (CLC), nearly 40 percent of internal job moves made by people identified by their companies as “high potentials” end in failure. In order to ensure your leaders are part of the 60 percent, you need to correctly identify qualified employees and ensure they are invested in your organization.
This process takes a lot of assessment and interaction with the potential candidate, but technology is helping us out.
Identifying high potentials
It takes more than top sales numbers or killer performance ratings to take on the next leadership role. Performance is a good place to start, but when we stop at performance, we might promote people beyond their level of competence and turn a high-performing employee into an unsuccessful manager (or director, or VP). The CLC says only 29 percent of all high-performing employees have what it takes to excel at the next level of the organization.
So what more does it take? The CLC defines high potentials as employees that display ability, engagement, and the aspiration to succeed in more senior critical roles:
- Ability—The intellectual, technical, and emotional skills (innate and learned) to handle increasingly complex challenges
- Engagement—The level of personal connection and commitment the employee feels toward the firm and its mission
- Aspiration—The desire for recognition, advancement, and future rewards, and the degree to which the employee’s desires align with the company’s plans for him or her
Employees that are weak in or missing any one of these three traits are less likely to be successful when promoted. Only one percent of your organization likely fits this definition of a high potential, so when you do identify these key employees, tracking and encouraging their success is critical.
The engagement challenge
Of the three traits named by the CLC, organizations can have the largest impact on employee engagement. Top talent is heavily sought after, so avoid losing yours to the competition by nurturing connection and commitment.
- Make recognition a priority. If your organization does not make recognition a priority, it likely isn’t happening enough. Make sure all employees know their contributions are valued, especially when those contributions are having major business impact.
- Align individual goals to company goals. Connection to an organization starts with understanding the organization’s business strategy. When individual goals are tied to corporate goals, individual contributions are more meaningful and company goals are more important to the individual.
- Clearly communicate corporate values. Do your employees know what your organization stands for? Do you? Clearly articulating your organizational values—and living them—is critical to business success.
All together now
Technology cannot replace your HR and/or business leaders’ assessment of an employee’s potential. What technology can do is provide opportunities to track employee success and engagement and allow employees to share accomplishments. Technology is giving us opportunities to create a more consistent recognition experience—which is a key driver of employee engagement—as well as insight intowhich employees have the necessary attributes to be a high potential. Know who your true high potentials are, and give them the tools to be successful.
Sylvia Klarer is the Director of Client Engagement at Achievers. She has over 25 years of experience in Human Resources. Sylvia joined Achievers from Aon Hewitt where she was a Senior Associate in the Talent and Engagement consulting practice. Her focus was to help organizations improve employee engagement and as a result positively impact business results. She has also held senior HR roles at Ceridian, Honeywell (formerly Allied Signal), Ernst and Young, and Ontario Hydro.
Janine Truitt
by Janine Nicole Dennis | Aug 27, 2013 | Human Resources
Building a culture should be founded on the principles of inspiring your employees to work towards a central purpose, values and vision that give life to your business goals.
As you build your team, you should of course be mindful of those knowledge, skills, abilities and personal attributes that lend themselves to success in your organization. In fact, you must define it to be able to seek it out. However, once you define it and seek it out – what does your workforce makeup look like?
It is my experience, that although companies speak about multiple profiles of prospective hires that would be the ideal fit for their culture; they end up hiring one specific type of individual. In time, these people become conditioned to the “way” of the company and in effect “drink the Kool-Aid”. They are not in control of themselves – they think, speak and behave alike. Essentially, they have become a little too engaged in the company culture and as a result they are cultish too.
Too much engagement?
Yes, too much engagement is entirely possible. We know the issues that arise with disengaged employees and we know the benefits of an engaged employee. I’m talking about over engagement whereby the employees no longer think for themselves- where no one dares to challenge rules, policies or procedures no matter how ridiculous they are. It is a condition by which employees have been suckered into believing the company’s every word and no one can counter their beliefs.
CULTure much?
Cults are groups of people with evidence of extreme devotion to a person, place, thing, idea or movement. If we examine the darker side of cults, they usually have a leader that spoon feeds them bits and pieces of disjointed or erroneous information. Often times, these leaders instill fear to keep their followers loyal, fearful, and ignorant enough so they don’t stray. The followers hang on the cult leaders every word never questioning his or her intent or purpose.
Just like a cult, some companies prefer like-minded people to enter their circle of trust. As such, you may hear of diversity and inclusion for superficial purposes, but in practice it will be non-existent. Innovation or creativity are usually curse words in these companies so beware the usage of them.
In more damaging news, this CULTure will inevitably chew you up and spit up you out if you are different, a disruptor, mover and shaker or change influencer. It usually appears in the form of warnings and eventually if they don’t think you have been brow-beaten enough it will turn into bullying. What’s even worse is the HR departments in these companies have usually had a sip of the Kool-Aid as well and will do very little to alleviate the situation.
What is HR to do?
Here’s the disclaimer- I recognize that not all HR departments would condone this behavior in their companies. I’m not speaking about every HR department. However, it is clear that nothing like CULTure could go on unless our HR friends in the organization allowed it. I have personally experienced this and many of my HR colleagues have experienced working in companies with this cult-like behavior. That tells me that my “well-intentioned” HR brethren were purposely sleeping on the job so as to please senior management and/ or others engaged in this behavior.
We are in the pleasing game, but not at the expense of turnover, bullying and other workplace atrocities. In HR, if you see something, say something or at the very least probe and investigate any signs of issues or upticks in turnover. Additionally, I see HR as a company culture originator and catalyst-which means any culture built upon a singular mindset, group of people, etc. is limiting and isn’t likely to bode well for your recruitment, retention or succession efforts in the long-term. We are living in a hyper-connected world where dissatisfied employees like dissatisfied customers will expose you and your CULTure online and beyond.
If everyone in your company is starting to finish each other’s sentences or are skipping to the same beat- it may be time to shake things up, rethink and redefine what your company culture stands for.
Ask yourself are you building a culture or a CULTure?
Janine Truitt
by Janine Nicole Dennis | Aug 20, 2013 | Life
I’ve had enough! I love HR Technology- I really do! However, there are some vendors that aren’t keeping up with the times and it is costing employers candidates and cash which isn’t a good thing.
More than once or twice in the past year, I have been contacted by family, clients, and friends about issues they have experienced in trying to upload their resume-in an effort to apply for a position. They see a job, they like the job, they attempt to apply- only to see the little icon spinning and spinning- never letting the candidate get any further than the first screen.
The issue?
Browser support is the issue or the lack thereof. One notable ATS vendor who shall remain nameless- has an issue with keeping up with the times. They are a global company that claims to put all of this money in R&D and yet they are supporting old browsers that make their candidate gateway incompatible with the latest browsers. This- in turn, prevents candidates from applying for jobs. Where there are no alternatives but to apply through the ATS, the candidate is left with no choice but to move on to the next opportunity. This is shameful! It is in the realm of where HR people and job seekers alike get annoyed and ask how is the technology helping me?
Something as simple as browser support should be the last thing hindering a candidate from applying. I get the reasons why you wouldn’t support old browsers, but not supporting the latest browser upgrades is ridiculous. For people to apply to companies using this ATS, there are disclaimers and all sorts of other “B” and “C” plans to make the candidate aware of the issues and yet sometimes the candidate is left in the dark with no explanation as to why they can’t get through – which is even worse.
Last night, the angry candidate was my father. He has been unemployed for two years and is looking to find something soon. He went to the website of a community college in NYC for a Security Director position. He created his username and password and it remained spinning- never fully logging him in.
Of course, he calls me irate and wanting me to check to see what the issue is. I had to explain to him that is the same garbage ATS I use currently and that none of his current browsers are supported by the system.
His response…
“Why do these companies have to make it so difficult for candidates to apply? It is very frustrating when you trying to look for the job and the road to applying makes it impossible to be seen.”
We can talk about ATS being blackholes and poor implementation, but these are not the issues. This is where the system is a dud and it is costing companies candidates. It is very disconcerting that this vendor proposes all the ways in which this system will provide a return on investment- particularly in the form of the quality of candidates you will be able to attract; only to find out it is actually working against your recruitment efforts. That can’t be true-if the vendors R&D dollars don’t lead to positive customer outcomes.
Not convinced this is a serious issue?
Here are the ways this problem is undermining your recruitment efforts:
1) Candidates will blame you not the technology. Nagging issues like browser compatibility give candidates the impression that your company isn’t keeping up-to-date.
2) Using this system, you won’t even have the ability to track where candidates drop off to fix the issue. The lack of insight into how often this issue occurs and how many candidates you lose- leaves you at a disadvantage in terms of quantifying the impact it is having on your recruitment efforts.
3) From a branding perspective, candidates have more to say about their jobseeking experiences than ever before. If they have difficulty applying on your website, please be aware that it could be blasted on social media or written up in an angry blog post like this.
4) Candidates can’t apply to your positions from their desktop, an iPad, or their phone. If they are kind enough to try more than once and still can’t get through- you’re in major trouble.
5) Poor candidate experience = perception of poor work environment from a candidate’s perspective. If the candidate experience is difficult, lengthy, troublesome- the candidate is thinking this is how you run business as well. You just lost a potential hire.
It seems many vendors have gotten this right with the exception of this one. A great institution missed out on a stellar candidate last night and I’m not just saying that because he is my dad. It has been and continues to be difficult for people to get noticed in today’s economy. This is a terrible thing to do to people and a very poor way to start off a candidate/employer relationship.
To the vendor in question- you know who you are. Please fix this browser issue finally- it is long overdue and costing your customers candidates. You’re supposed to be helping businesses attract candidates not detract them.
Janine Truitt
by Janine Nicole Dennis | Aug 15, 2013 | 2, HR Innovation
I had the honor and privilege of attending a regional TEDx East NYC talk here in New York City on Tuesday evening. The talk was on trade and innovation. There were three accomplished speakers on the roster and a room of professionals from various industries, walks of life and of which were almost completely monochromatic figuratively and physically speaking.
I was one of two people of color in the room. None of which precluded me from taking in the experience and meeting people, but it was intriguing and a moment-of-reflection kind of occurrence.
The first speaker was Nathan Eagle, CEO of Jana. His work involves connecting major corporations to customer bases in emerging markets for the purposes of marketing their products and services. In exchange, for the customer opting in to share their demographic information along with consumer preferences- he reimburses them money for towards their mobile airtime in their currency. Since people in these emerging markets spend 10% of their daily wages on mobile usage it is a valuable incentive to receive money to defray the costs.
In essence, by implementing something as simple as redirecting how corporations capture and utilize consumer data- he is putting the control as to how it is shared in the consumer’s hands- and creating wealth for people in emerging markets.
He piloted this in Kenya and the first year he did this, he paid out of pocket to these consumers. You know what it cost him? $240 dollars was the cost to reimburse these consumers. That is a negligible amount of money on his part for something with profound economic and human impact.
I’ll come back to Nathan in a second, but let’s examine the next speaker, Timothy Wu. His talk was about a scarcity and surplus and what innovators need to know from a societal perspective about solving problems for a society conditioned by surplus.
In his talk, he suggested that we have been a society of scarcity for several centuries whereby many needs were unmet and the ultimate goal of citizens was to achieve more- whether that was a better life, more money or possessions. Tim went on to suggest that we are no longer a society of unmet needs. He purports that we now have the resources, the money, knowledge and all other things that generations of the past worked towards. His feeling is that we are now a post-scarcity society entering the era of surplus.
The era of surplus is comprised of the notion that we are in abundance of information, knowledge, resources, money and all basic needs are met or overly met. This being the case, Timothy made the case that today’s innovators will have to solve the problem of surplus in the variety that it presents itself.
I took that to mean that innovators will have to simplify what was made complex by previous generations in their pursuit of having more. Those businesses that can seemingly give people more time in the day or provide a service or product that makes a complex process easier will be widely sought after.
How does this connect with Nathan’s talk?
Nathan is the product of a post-scarcity society. He could easily cater to helping big corporations extrapolate big data that lead to sales and make his millions, but instead he has decided to create and distribute wealth in countries where post-scarcity is laughable, because for all intents and purposes- they are still living in the nightmare of scarcity. Timothy’s perspective of an overall post-scarcity society is superficially intriguing until you realize that it isn’t true for the majority for emerging countries farless first-world countries like the U.S.
Scarcity of proper education, adequate wages to sustain a family, and access to food supply is still in abundance during what may appear to be an era of surplus in the U.S and even globally. Essentially, we are at a point where we have everything and nothing at the same time. As a society, the goal has become achieving equilibrium, because neither the extreme of scarcity or surplus works for us as a whole.
The last speaker was Simon Winchester. He is a newly branded citizen of the U.S. and rather educated on the fundamental reasons why the U.S. is a great place to live. His anecdotes and historical references are too vast to recall here, but what resonated was his pride in our past, present and future as a global innovator. He loves the U.S. and presented it in a way that left me with a renewed sense of enlightenment and pride in our country.
In summary, it was an amazing event with mind-bending concepts. To circle back to my observation about the lack of diversity in the crowd- I must say this- you don’t begin to truly level the playing ground until knowledge is shared consistently and abundantly with everyone. I am unique in that my entire life has been spent in search of answers and learning and I was brought up to seek that out. People that don’t do what I do are not less important, intelligent or innovative- it simply comes down to not being made aware of possibilities. Information is hoarded and cloaked in our society and it is shared sparingly to restrict certain groups of people from knowing and becoming more. Having a discussion with those that are already “in-the-know” doesn’t begin to solve society’s issues of fair and equitable knowledge transfer. A part of me left there feeling like the depth and importance of this particular conversation was limited to 70 people that it doesn’t adversely affect or have an effect at all.
On the bright side of things, these gentleman are asking life’s fundamental and human questions, creating the answers and sharing it. It is rare and if many more did what they are doing- we could all agree that we are truly in an era of surplus.
I asked myself some questions based on what I heard and I have to soul search for the answers:
1) As an HR practitioner, entrepreneur and citizen, how can I find a way to create and distribute wealth? Wealth in my terms could mean money but it could be in many forms of currency ( i.e. knowledge)
2) Am I living in scarcity or surplus and if it is the latter- how do I find a common ground where I live in neither extreme?
3) I’m always eternally thankful for what I have, but how can I fully appreciate the resources that I have?
The answers to these questions are emerging in my head and I’m glad I attended theTEDx talk to start the conversation.
Janine Truitt
The Aristocracy of HR
by Janine Nicole Dennis | Jul 29, 2013 | Human Resources
While the economy seems to be on the mend, there are still many companies struggling to remain solvent. As such, companies that cannot find other ways to cutback are moving to layoff employees.
This is never an easy time for employer or employee. No one wins in these situations. The only upside is the business extends its lifeline at the expense of the employee’s jobs becoming obsolete.
There are ways to somewhat ensure that assumptions, gossip and miscommunications don’t make an already difficult situation worse- and that is to communicate truthfully and regularly. In business, we speak a lot about “being transparent”. This is one of those times where preaching about transparency will not help -you will have to act the part.
As a manager, you may not be able to divulge all that is being discussed regarding a pending layoff. However, once you start discussing the potential for layoffs and request that employees justify the necessity of every duty and task they perform- you are opening up a pandora’s box of worry.
Worry in turn becomes assumptions, and assumptions become gossip. All of which are catalysts to commiserating employees in the bathrooms and/or in the hallways- as their discussions lead to distrust of management and disenchantment with both the business and work.
Ask yourself this- what would you want to know if your boss said layoffs were coming and it could affect you? How important are the details of the layoff that you can’t be honest with your employees?
Let me remind you once again that you are managing adults. Adults have bills to pay and families to care for and in as much as any of them complain about their jobs- the fact is they need them. Communicating effectively during a layoff entails you being empathetic, truthful and timely.
Here are five tips for communicating during a layoff:
1) Call a meeting with your team when notifying them of a potential layoff situation. There is a time for e-mail and this is not one of them. This is a difficult message to deliver. Conducting a face-to-face meeting allows for an open discussion of the information being received and any concerns.
2) Be ready to answer questions that may be asked about how this will affect individuals. This will require you to take off your manager hat for a second and be a human that understands (to some extent) how this is affecting your staff.
3) If you aren’t sharing details, you aren’t sharing details. The worst thing you can do is to tell your team you have no further details on how cuts will affect them only for them to find out through the grapevine that there is more to know. The employee-boss relationship can be sticky. If you have been sworn to secrecy, don’t be caught voluntarily sharing information that hasn’t first been shared with those it affects- your staff.
4) Do not let long periods of time lapse in communicating updates to your team. Even if you haven’t heard anything new- it doesn’t preclude you from inquiring and reporting back to your staff. A layoff is a situation where any news is presumed bad news and no news is not good either. Keeping them up-to-date even when there is nothing to share will at least make your staff feel like you care enough to keep them updated.
5) Be truthful. If the plan is to cut 10% tell your staff that. It is all in the delivery. You can simply say- “senior management has called for a 10% across the board cut. This doesn’t mean that any of your jobs are in jeopardy per se, but we are evaluating all possibilities at this time. I know this is a difficult time for all of us and especially you, the employee. I need you all to continue to perform as you would normally and I will continue to keep you abreast of this situation. I am here to discuss any concerns you have individually.”
Who can argue with that kind of communication?
Many employee situations or dilemmas can be made easy with effective communication. Keep in mind, what really motivates the employee-employer relationship without making it solely about either side- can help you to humanize the way you interact with your employees and more specifically, during difficult times such as layoffs.
Janine Truitt
by Janine Nicole Dennis | Jul 11, 2013 | Human
HR Aristocrats, the time has come for your Czarina to take a break. At the top of the year I spoke a lot about “introspection and execution” (see here for that post) and I believe I have more than achieved that goal more than halfway into 2013.
When you are a one-woman act it all comes down to you- the articles, the guest posts, the editing, launching your business, following up on prospects etc. I have been doing this and much more in my quest for success since January.
That being said, I’m taking a break from the blog and social media for the next two weeks. There will be no instagramming, facebooking or awe-inspiring HR wisdom coming from this here blog. I need a moment to regroup and relax- which is something that has gotten away from me.
You may see a guest post or tweets if something I was already working on comes to fruition, but please be warned they will be Hootsuite produced and scheduled.
There’s a lot of talk about the effect of the 24/7 digital world we live in these days and how it is affecting our well-being. I won’t get deeper than that, but I will say- it is worth exploring how you are managing in a society where we are expected to be on all the time.
I’d say I will miss our weekly chats about all things HR, but I would be lying because I am really excited to do some regular and random things during this break. I do want to let you know that I appreciate all of the support, kind words and encouragement I get from you all. It means a lot to me and keeps me going and grinding.
I hope you all are enjoying your summer. See you in two weeks.
See below for some of my favorite blog posts for 2013 and things to look forward to.
Xoxo,
CzarinaofHR
Things to remember
Be on the lookout for my debut article as a contributor for ‘Performance I Create’ on Friday, July 26th. In case you missed it- here was my introduction. It is very NY.
Janine Truitt
