ExecMOJO

Keeping Leadership Talent Engaged – Start With Hiring and Onboarding

Low employee engagement and the millions of dollars that this is costing U.S. companies each year continue to be a challenge for executive teams everywhere.  Given a transient workforce, it is up to companies to hire and onboard leaders well, develop the talent and utilize it well while the leader is with the company and help employees leave well when they exit a company.  Starting with hiring and onboarding gives leaders a great start to what can be a mutually beneficial relationship.

There are three things that can be done easily in the hiring and onboarding process to improve the level of employee engagement from Day One.

1.    Work from a position that recognizes the transient nature of the workforce.

Suzanne Rey asserts that “the days of the loyal twenty-year employee are gone…most people will have at least 10 jobs in their lifetime” (source: press release for “Secrets from a Body Broker”).  Yet, it seems that most companies are still hiring and engaging employees as if it is the employee that would be the lucky one to work for their company.  It is critical that the company and the recruiter (internal or external) partner to ensure that the sourcing and recruiting processes are adequately focused on the needs of  “hot talent” – from things as simple as scheduling interviews that are convenient for candidates to the time it takes to come to consensus around which candidate will be offered the job. One of the regretful things that happens more frequently these days is having a hiring manager lose out on the “best’ candidate because he/she couldn’t be interviewed until several weeks from the initial contact.

2.    Ensure that employer brand and culture are transparently reflected throughout the recruiting process.

Hiring well is critical to the employee/employer relationship.  Part of this is making sure that the company accurately reflects itself and its culture during the hiring process.  As a retained executive search consultant, I continue to challenge myself to provide an unbiased view of the employer brand to the client and invest the time to adequately understand the culture/subcultures of the company.  With this understanding, my partners and I can align the process to ensure that it adequately reflects the promise that the company is making to the potential new employee.  So many leaders fail in the first year of starting a new company because they underestimate the impact of a mismatch in culture and values.  Although most candidates say that they can work for anyone, that doesn’t translate to the ability to navigate in unfamiliar cultural waters.

3.    Align expectations with new leaders.

Misaligned expectations are one of the major sources of failure for new leaders in their first year with a new company.  To avoid this, two things need to be in place (1) alignment within the executive team of the expectations of a new leader and (2) alignment and agreement between the hiring manager and the new leader.  We have developed a process that facilitates this alignment.  However, this is an area that can be quite intimidating to executives when they don’t have all the answers.  After all…if it was easy…everybody would be doing it!

-          Sue Schaefer, Partner, JivaroCXO

Employer Branding to Empower Recruiting and Retention

Every company has an employer brand.  The employer brand is essentially the reputation that is perceived by customers and current/potential employees of what it’s like to work at a particular company.  It is uniquely different than, but critically connected to, the customer brand.  Every company has the opportunity to shape their employer brand and create a differentiated perception of their company to ultimately attract and retain the “right” talent to execute business strategies.

Focusing on employer branding is becoming more important because the (1) the talent pool is shrinking and (2) competition for talent is intensifying.

·         According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, by 2010, 10M U.S. jobs will go unfilled and by 2022, 30M U.S. jobs will go unfilled.

·         If Baby Boomer leave the workforce when they are retirement eligible, there aren’t enough Gen Xers to replace them.

In today’s workforce, people have many job opportunities to explore and the best performers have a number of options available to them at all times.  So, how does a company begin to compete for the best performers needed in their business?  Simply stated, although not simply implemented, the answer is through employer branding that is targeted to the employees they need today and in the future.

There is a continuum of options available to build an effective employer brand.  Which options are chosen are highly dependent upon the level of executive involvement in the process and the openness of the leadership team to look at the difference between (1) candidate perception and reality and (2) the current vs. aspirational view of company culture.  At a minimum, the company can begin by realigning the recruitment process so that it transparently reflects the culture of the company.  The experience that candidates have in the recruiting process shapes potential employees’ and, in some cases, customers’ perceptions of the employer brand.  Optimally, the executive leadership invests the time and resources to identify, cultivate and communicate the employer brand needed to attract the right talent to the organization. 

No matter where the company starts, the best thing to do is get started…get focused…and begin to look at candidates as a type of customer.  Candidates have specific needs that have to be addressed just like the consumers of your products/services have needs that need to be addressed.  We all know that the one who meets the customer needs the best usually wins!

Sue Schaefer, Partner, JivaroCXO

Keeping Talent Engaged

It seems like everywhere I turn lately, there is an article, conference or report addressing the issue of low employee engagement or employee dissatisfaction and the millions of dollars that this is costing U.S. companies each year. I participated in a TeleForum by Patricia Wheeler of The Levin Group, entitled “Keeping Talent Engaged…Successfully” (www.thelevingroup.com).   She provided a very pragmatic approach to improving employee engagement and challenged each participant to finding ways to personally improve the situation.

Given a transient workforce, Ms. Wheeler asserts that it is up to companies to ensure that they use employee talent well while they are with the company, find ways to develop and grow employees and help them leave well when they exit the company.  She also describe what leaders, mid-managers and HR/OD professionals can do to improve employee engagement as well as steps that can be taken immediately to improve employee engagement  The second step is the “hire honestly” and effectively bring new leaders onboard.

After outlining how to get started, her call to action for participants was:  What are you going to do to keep people more engaged at your company (or the companies you serve)?  This got me thinking…as a retained executive recruiter, what am I doing to keep the people I serve - clients and new leaders - engaged?  I can honestly say there are three things I am doing:

1.   Working from a position that recognizes the transient nature of the workforce

Patricia started her teleconference describing today’s workforce as more mobile and expecting to have multiple corporate experiences. Suzanne Rey further asserts that “the days of the loyal twenty-year employee are gone…most people will have at least 10 jobs in their lifetime”. (source: press release for “Secrets from a Body Broker” )  Yet, it seems that most companies are still hiring and engaging employees as if it is the employee that would be the lucky one to work for their company.  In my opinion, the company and the recruiter need to partner together to ensure that the sourcing and recruiting processes are adequately focused on the needs of  “hot talent” – from things as simple as scheduling interviews that are convenient for candidates to the time it takes to come to consensus around which candidate will be offered the job. One of the regretful things that happens more frequently these days is having a hiring manager lose out on the “best’ candidate because he/she couldn’t be interviewed by “everyone” until next month.

2.   Partnering with my clients to accurately reflect their culture throughout the recruiting process.

In her TeleForum, Patricia suggests that “hiring well” is critical to the employee/employer relationship.  Part of this is making sure that the company accurately reflects itself and its culture during the hiring process.  As a retained recruiter, I am challenging myself to provide an unbiased view of the employer brand to the client and invest the time to adequately understand the culture/subcultures of the company.  With this understanding, my partners and I can align the process to ensure that it adequately reflects the promise that the company is making to the potential new employee.  So many leaders fail in the first year of starting a new company because they underestimate the impact of a mismatch in culture and values.  Although most candidates say that they can work for anyone, that doesn’t translate to the ability to navigate in unfamiliar cultural waters.

3.      Helping employers align expectations with new leaders

Misaligned expectations are one of the major sources of failure for new leaders in their first year with a new company.  To avoid this, two things need to be in place (1) alignment within the leadership team of the expectations of a new leader and (2) alignment and agreement between the hiring manager and the new leader.  I feel confident that our JivaroCXO process facilitates this alignment.  However, this is an area that can be quite intimidating to executives when they don’t have all the answers.  After all…if it was easy…everybody would be doing it!

-          Sue Schaefer, JivaroCXO

Executive Onboarding: What, Why and How

I had an opportunity to be a guest on Tom Floyd’s Voice America Business radio show, Insight on Coaching, a few weeks ago  (http://www.modavox.com/VoiceAmericaBusiness 5/14/07 Coaching and New Employees: Shortening the Onramp to Productivity).  The show focused on the onboarding process and how executive coaching is being used to facilitate the process.

Tom first explored what onboarding is and why it is such a hot topic right now.  Onboarding is viewed as the set of activities used to support an employee when they start a new position/company.  Companies are investing more in onboarding programs primarily because they are becoming more and more challenged with retaining talent and helping people become more productive sooner in their positions.  Relative to retention, one statistic sited was that 50% of employees are planning on looking for a new opportunity outside of their companies within the next year (source: BusinessWire).  And, some experts believe this could be low.  The reasons people are leaving their companies was surprising to me.  More and more, employees are leaving not because of their supervisor, but because of the company.  Employees are continually challenged with doing more with less and employers concurrently have been able to “get away with” being less nurturing to careers and people. 

So, as a component of many retention initiatives, companies are investing in onboarding programs to help employees acclimate to the culture easier and become productive.  Studies continue to demonstrate that the better the onboarding process, the higher the level of employee engagement and retention.

While onboarding programs are better and more widely used, it still appears to me that most companies are using a “one size fits all” approach to design their programs.  I believe that with a little customization, companies could get a much bigger bang for their investment dollar, especially at the executive leadership level of organizations.  To customize the programs for executives, I look at why executives tend to fail in their new jobs.  Specifically, executives tend to fail in a new position for three main reasons:

1. Lack of clarity around expectations of the new executive and for the position itself.
2. Inability to adjust their personal work style to how work gets done in the new organization.
3. Inability to use the political acumen already gained in their career.

Executive coaching can help significantly in each of these areas to assure the leader has a good start in the new organization, potentially saving the company millions of dollars and lots of organizational headaches. I believe the most significant time investment is ensuring proper alignment of expectations among the CEO, peers and subordinates of the new executive.  Such a simple statement…but not so simple to do.  Providing a new leader with insight into how works get done can dramatically impact his/her success – especially in the first 90 days!

-- Sue Schaefer, Partner, JivaroCXO