What The Black Hole is Costing You! It’s Staggering!

  

Your Corporate Strategy:  It Just Doesn’t Matter?       Part 18

Having already covered business can ill afford $2Trillion in churn and training costs in the preceding part 6, the additional unknown costs of “Black Hole” recruiting policies really points to some extraordinary issues.

1.      Neither the company nor HR recognize, track or treat the problem

2.      They don’t investigate  and determine the true and whole cost of churn

3.      The company blames HR by cutting budgets, people and programs

4.      More than likely HR/Talent/People Departments don’t comprehend the extent of the            problem.

5.      No one recognizes it effects on sales, costs and profits.

6.      If HR/People/Talent Departments know the facts they cannot or do not represent their    positions well.

7.      HR/People/Talent Departments are profit disengaged or were never engaged.

In the most basic terms possible: 

When the Black Hole application or hiring process tick customers off so much they will never again buy your product or services it reduces sales:

 Is this acceptable?  What would most companies do to quickly raise net profits by 5%, 2% or ½ %?  This increases the $2Trillion churn cost because no one apparently understands and tracks the negative impacts of ridiculous recruiting and hiring practices on sales and profits.

There may be some start up expense for this change...but with a return!  The exciting and tantalizing number is:  Instead of a continuous small incremental erosion of sales and profits (our example of a 5% sales decrease at the bottom line) positive application programs produce a 1/4% to 1/2% or more sales increase!  In our example the net profit swing could approach 10+%!  These are not small numbers!  Most importantly, these can be tracked to insure what you change creates value. 

These costs to your company are mind numbing!  Do you know how your application/hiring process is treating your customers?  However, losing sales and profits from the employment application side due to bad recruitment/acquisition/hiring processes is only part of the story.  Although generalized estimates vary by industry, the additional hard and soft expense costs of hiring and/or replacing an employee can amount to 3X the position’s base wage.   Actual hiring costs are incurred throughout all management levels and hiring authorities within a company.  

Worse, the longer the hiring process takes, the higher the costs.  As previously discussed, this increases the very real possibility high value candidates will not wait for a disjointed, prolonged and non-communicated hiring decision.  While the prolonged hiring process drones on, who’s performing the functions the position is supposed to perform? More money is being lost!  This is today’s norm.  

If you are interested in other reasons the process is broken check out some of My People Thoughts at:

http://johnspeoplethoughts.blogspot.com/2011/09/black-hole-swallows-everything.html

Next: Why not begin with some simple steps (solutions)?

Can We Fix the Broken External Links - The Black Hole Your Customers See?

Your Corporate Strategy:  It Just Doesn’t Matter?    Part 17

Millions of job seekers, active or passive, tell of the communication problems with a prospective employer, HR or recruiter.   While companies and HR watch every penny and utilize new and helpful technical tools to handle the time, cost and drudgery of regulatory and employment record keeping requirements, they have lost the people signal.   They have also become profit disconnected.  They have become poorer at their originally designed purpose… Companies/HR/Recruiters have become disconnected from entire groups and generations of candidates and employees. 

Jon Hyman writes of this in his “putting the human back in human resources” blog.   He also discusses this idea in detail in his latest book, "The Employer Bill of Rights: A Mangers Guide to Workplace Law" 
http://www.workforce.com/article/20130116/BLOGS07/130119964/putting-the-human-back-in-human-resources-redux

AND

"The Golden Rule of employment relations”.      http://www.ohioemployerlawblog.com/2008/01/golden-rule-of-employment-relations.html

These should be required reading for C-leadership, HR/Talent/People departments and required material for most PHR and/or SPHR certification testing.  Thank you, Jon.

Despite all the slick tools available, few HR departments or recruiters ever set up a warm auto-response thanking the job seeker for applying for a position and thinking of them.  Even LinkedIn members responding to LinkedIn job/search announcements may not be thanked or have their profile viewed. Unfortunately, it is the "Thank You", or any response at all, that is the exception, not the rule.

Many, if not most, employment inquiries come from your own employee referrals, customers, their family or friends.  This non-responsiveness and totally avoidable negativity establishes a company relationship that drives customers away!  What could be worse than ignoring a customer??? 

 

Candidates report a total lack of employer contact or a hiring processes taking 3-6 months or longer! Employers regularly lose key candidates they actually want and need because candidates take another position during, or are totally turned off by, the process length.  Candidates feel if this is the hiring process, what is it like to work there?  This also leads to the perception there are not enough qualified candidates, because candidates won’t apply where their networks say they are mistreated or invisible.

Remember, “After… six weeks of interviews for an entry-level… position [s]he was finally offered the job.  There’s just one catch.  More than two months later… They still haven’t given me my start date.” !!!!!!!!!  Or, recently:  “had an interview with a prospective new employer…. at which point they formally offered me the job….. and I was given a new employee packet….. After I accepted the position we both agreed to start in two weeks in order to work out a two week notice with my current employer. ….About 20 minutes after leaving my now former employer my new employer calls me telling me there is going to be a hold up in when I can start because business is slow, maybe a few weeks at most….”!!!!!!  This person never started with this despicable company.

http://careerhorizons.wordpress.com/2013/04/05/evil-stupid-or-busy-why-dont-employers-respond/#comments

Why aren’t the millions of active and passive applicants treated as a valued customer?  Why aren’t companies rewarding applicants, creating loyalty, repeat business, brand recognition, image and sales when they are already in the door and on your website?  What would be the comparable cost to attract customers to your business, product’s, service’s or store’s site and get their undivided attention for up to ½ hour or longer?  Ask your marketing department.

Next:  What The Black Hole is Costing You! It’s Staggering!

Why Do We Have Ridiculous Recruiting Results (the new 3Rs)?

Your Corporate Strategy:  It Just Doesn’t Matter?     Part 16

In late 2013 I asked the recruiting manager of a mega-retailer, during a lengthy advertised search for a higher level HR position, “If there is lack of feedback within your own HR Department…..how do you know how you’re doing?... How can you improve the candidate hire to candidate referral to the hiring manager success rate (metric)?....How do the candidates, probably your customers, feel about the process….?”   The reply was,”…It can be extremely frustrating to network with potential high caliber employees and have nothing to share with them.  Of course, metrics go out the window.”

To this I would refer to number 4 on Lou Adler’s previous list, “Define Quality of Hire before the person’s hired.”  Get direct feedback on how you doing because, “It’s surprising that HR still relies on the dogma of hiring practices 100 years old, and still believes that a 62% interviewing accuracy rate is acceptable.”

This reinforces the fact the link between Recruiting and the Doing (the hiring manager) is broken.  This is just another part of the many disconnected organizational processes.  It points to another of many examples of how far we have to go after losing our way for so long.  How frustrating must it be to try and do your very best and not have a process in place to get simple required feedback (grade)?

No matter how high in the company the hiring person might be, no feedback means no improvement. Worse, this manager didn’t feel empowered to solicit feedback within their own HR Department!!!!  Imagine how it must work outside their own department! Whether internally or externally recruiting, feedback is essential to good hiring practices.

Not long ago I talked to a recruiter who volunteered they were talking to every candidate who had applied for a higher level executive position - 120 candidates!  What???!!!!  Per Lou Adler, “Never interview more than four people for any job. If you need to see more than four people, something’s wrong. So figure out what's wrong before interviewing more candidates.”  The magic number is 4-5 candidates, and has been for a very long time within a well-defined and fully company integrated recruiting/acquisition program.  If you want to improve Talent Acquisition/Recruiting performance do the upfront work first then get feedback to reduce the interview to hire ratios by purposely interviewing fewer people.

In a recent New York times article by Catherine Rampell - Jobs to Fill, Employers Wait for Perfection,

“… for a large majority of positions where candidates are plentiful, the bigger problem seems to be a sort of hiring paralysis.”  For one candidate, “After about six weeks of interviews for an entry-level administrative position at a talent agency, he got some good news: in mid-December, he was finally offered the job.  There’s just one catch.  More than two months later… They still haven’t given me my start date.” !!!!!!!!!

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/jobs-fill-employers-wait-perfection-190422709.html

Additionally, in INC.’s “Hiring Only the Best? Big Mistake” , David Wexler’s article, Freshbooks' Vice President of Human Relations, should completely drain the enthusiasm from any misguided company or HR philosophy of “recruiting only the best” - a major contributor to the 3 Rs (Ridiculous Recruiting Results). 

If you are interested in other reasons why this process is broken you can check out some of my People Thoughts blog points I call the Black Hole at:

http://johnspeoplethoughts.blogspot.com/2011/09/black-hole-swallows-everything.html

Next:  Can we fix the broken external links - The Black hole your customers see

Can we fix the broken internal hiring links? The Black Hole your employees see.

Your Corporate Strategy:  It Just Doesn’t Matter?      Part 15

If you and your company think the current hiring and employment status quo is acceptable, you have lost the game before you ever begin.   As Lou Adler recently wrote, as amore immediate business solution regarding a Bill Gates article, “HR Recruiting – Stuck in a Time Warp” (current practices 3),

1. Stop using skills and experience-based job descriptions

2. Measure the hiring manager’s ability to attract, develop and retain top people.  If talent is #1 this should be every hiring manager’s number one performance objective.

3. Never interview more than four people for any job.  If you need to see more than four people, something is wrong.

4. Define Quality of Hire before the person’s hired.

https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20130130005035-15454-bill-gates-and-is-hr-recruiting-stuck-in-a-time-warp

Thank you Lou.  I would add employers have forgotten how and why to hire.

In a recent SHRM article, “Employers, New Employees Question Hiring Decisions”, “Half of new employees surveyed reported they are experiencing buyer’s remorse after accepting a recent job offer….. And they are not alone: With one in eight (14%) new workers employed during a 12-month period having proved to be a bad hire, many employers …are questioning whether they have made wise hiring decisions, according to the study.”

Part of the reason for this uncertainty is the failure of the hiring process to paint a realistic picture of the job, department and company. Painting a rosy picture or pulling a bait-and-switch once they’re on the job will just mean you’ll fill that position again in six to 12 months.”

  

http://www.shrm.org/hrdisciplines/staffingmanagement/Articles/Pages/Employers-Employees-Question-Hiring-Decisions.aspx

Remember “accurate” job descriptions are necessary. The hiring manager and internal recruiter must schedule a meeting time. Focus on listing what the new hire will successfully achieve in the first year before there is any discussion of candidate requirements; then list minimal technical requirements and the personal attributes needed to be successful.  

You will likely discover that there is a far wider array of backgrounds that fit your position than you did prior to the meeting. The final position description should place more emphasis on what the new hire will do versus just a laundry list of candidate requirements. In fact, make sure you are displaying the minimum requirements so you don’t exclude potential game changers from the candidate pool. 

Finally, if you use an Applicant Tracking System (ATS), the parameters, keys words and phrases must change to match these new broader minimums and expanding the parameters for skills and generational norms.  Some last thoughts on the ever present ATS:  Most ATS cannot read tables, text boxes and headers/footers! This means the Microsoft Word Templates many use to format a resume!  These will not pass through the system!   Finally, unless you manage your ATS job key words and phrases your ATS, the Talent/People/HR Departments and the Employer may be using discriminatory recruiting practices….and a leading cause of the 3 Rs (Ridiculous Recruiting Results)… a subject for another discussion.

Next:  Why do we have Ridiculous Recruiting Results (the new 3Rs)?

TRAIN, BUT TRAIN WHAT?

Your Corporate Strategy:  It Just Doesn’t Matter?     Part 14

As Steven Pascoff, of ELI, recently wrote in his blog:
"we should choose learning content and delivery systems after answering questions along the following lines:

·      Why is learning being delivered? ….What is the most effective way to reach learners?

·      What is it that we are trying to teach: is it knowledge which is most important, or are we trying         to integrate knowledge with on the job application?

·      Do we have a “hungry audience” or one which is not especially interested in our subject matter         and possibly antagonistic to key concepts?

·      How important is it that what is taught is applied and sustained beyond initial delivery for         ongoing impact?

·      No matter what delivery method we use, what will be our strategy for keeping our learning alive         and vibrant?

http://www.eliinc.com/blog/bid/171898/Credentialing-Competency-and-MOOCs

Thank you, Steven! 

The answers to these questions bring us right back to developing, executing and implementing strategy.  Failures occur within training and development (Talent Management and Development) for the same reasons any strategy fails; lack of or poor data and input, bad or poor management, lack of buy in from the top and, above all, failure to have a positive employee culture rewarding learning in place.

People want to feel valued and recognized for contributing to, and being a valued part of, their organization People want a path ahead.   People want communication(s).  People are looking for the “whole package”.  People want to work with people they like.  People want to be treated with respect, caring and kindness, but most people want to BE valued and communicated with, not to.

As Dr. Tony Miller recently said in a LinkedIn comment, “Published research [over many decades] shows that talented employee’s main reason for leaving is because of lack of recognition. This is because they are taken for granted by line management. How to improve this?  Get…. managers to spend more time with them, when they have done a great job say so - it’s so easy, but not for many managers. It’s rare talented people leave just for more pay - another myth busted.”

Susan R. Meisinger said in A Lesson on Generational Differences,”let’s make sure we’re not …lose[ing] sight of a critical point: workers of all generations have much more in common.”; and, “All generations rank "opportunities to use skills/abilities as an important aspect of job satisfaction. Employees of all ages care about job security, and compensation and pay [and communication].”

http://www.hreonline.com/HRE/view/story.jhtml?id=534354994

In case you haven't read the SHRM 2012 Employee Job Satisfaction and Engagement report and some statistics in conflict with many other studied, you can have all 88 pages of it here:

http://www.shrm.org/LegalIssues/StateandLocalResources/StateandLocalStatutesandRegulations/Documents/12-0537%202012_JobSatisfaction_FNL_online.pdf

Next:  Can we fix the broken internal hiring links…. The Black Hole your employees see?

Can the Gaps in the Employer - Employee Perception be closed?

Your Corporate Strategy:  It Just Doesn’t Matter?     Part 13

I am re-posting this as a way of re-setting the stage for the rest of "Strategy Doesn't Matter?". The next installment, "Train, but Train What", will follow next week.

A previously quoted Forbes talent retention article, by Mike Myatt, echoed a great number of past surveys and studies:

“When examining the talent at any organization look at the culture, not the rhetoric – look at the results, not the commentary about potential despite some of the delusional perspective in the corner office, when we interview their employees, here’s what they tell us:

·      More than 30% believe they’ll be working someplace else inside of 12 months. 

·      More than 40% don’t respect the person they report to.

·      More than 50% say they have different values than their employer.

·      More than 60% don’t feel their career goals are aligned with the plans their employers have for them.

·      More than 70% don’t feel appreciated or valued by their employer.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/mikemyatt/2012/12/13/10-reasons-your-top-talent-will-leave-you/

Mike Myatt also said,
“How can we resolve these gaps in perception?

·      Thorough communication and manager training!

·        Even the best intended HR programs (and strategy) fall flat without proper communication.

·        Often times our employees aren’t fully aware of all the organization is doing for them or how much the organization is spending on programs.

·         Moreover, all the communication in the world won’t offset a [poor and/or] poorly informed manager.

·         Managers need to be trained not only on understanding and evangelizing (advertising) the company message, but also on bringing concerns back to HR so employee issues can be addressed.”

The first step in forming a successful strategy is knowing, not assuming.  Investigate and gather the

facts. A strategy vision without implementation knowledge and communication is doomed. A

strategy anchored in knowledge, faithfully executed and communicated will become the new cultural

norm. 

What is your current norm?

Next:  Train, but train what?

Can the Employee – Employer Disconnect be Solved?

Your Corporate Strategy:  It Just Doesn’t Matter?       Part 12

It is all about being disconnected from what you and your organization think, believe or want to believe and what actually exists within your company or organization.  A June 2012 white paper on a Kenexa survey (an IBM RPO Company), produced these results: 

Engaged
69 percent of employers believe employees are engaged, while only 34 percent of employees claim to be. Engagement means different things to different people. For employers, engagement can be represented by employee productivity, attendance and development. For employees, engagement may be more about feelings than actions.

Recommend Us!
81 percent of HR professionals think employees would recommend the organization to a friend. Only 38 percent actually would. If your employees aren’t fully engaged, they might consider leaving the organization. Bringing a friend into an organization that you aren’t fully engaged with might affect a personal relationship—a risk many aren’t willing to take.

Fair Benefits
71 percent of HR professionals think the organization has fair benefits while only 48 percent of employees agree with this statement. Communication is key for employees to understand their benefits package and how much the organization spends on their benefits, particularly when it comes to health care. Employees might only notice when they pay more out of pocket for benefits, when in reality both employees and employers are sharing a growing cost.

Compensation
53 percent of HR professionals think they provide fair compensation compared to only 30 percent of employees. After a few years of tight budgets, organizations are starting to give reasonable increases, but not yet at pre-recession levels. Focus on key employees to ensure top talent is compensated fairly. 

Retention
83 percent of HR professionals think their employees plan to stay for the next year.  [Only] 41 percent of employees agree with this statement. With engagement low and belief that compensation and benefits aren’t fair, it should come as no surprise that employees aren’t committed to their organization. Moreover, through the recession, many employees stayed with their organization out of a need for security. Now that organizations are hiring again, loyalty starts to waver.

http://www.kenexa.com/Portals/0/Downloads/Employee%20Attitudes%20and%20Engagement.pdf

Note:  Making certain you are paying competitive wages means 50% of the companies are paying more and you’ll only be average.  As Chuck Csizmar covers in Compensation Café, “Competitive Pay Is Not Enough”.

Next: Can the gaps in the employer – employee perception be closed?