Use the HR Matrix - to Balance and Align Your People Department.

Your Corporate Strategy:  It Just Doesn’t Matter?      Part 22

The HR Matrix gives you more information than an HR audit.

The HR Matrix suits most organizations better than “benchmarking.”

The HR Matrix helps you define what being a business partner really means.

If you are growing, your People Departments are going through known growth phases.  What you are experiencing is so normal it has distinct known phases!  Unfortunately, most leadership and/or HR are not trained and do not realize there are defined stages.  While you evolve from crawling or clawing your way along to walking and then jogging to running, wouldn’t it be nice to have a simple tool to help your People/Talent Management departments evaluate where it is and what it needs to do next?

Pricilla Claman, co-founder of Career Strategies in Boston, has a simple free tool, “The HR Matrix”.   USE IT! Designed by Lloyd Baird of Boston U and Ilam Meshoulam of Tel Aviv University, I have recommended and utilized it for years.  It may be the simplest and best HR departmental assessment tool you will ever have.  It is manual with no software to lease or buy and works with any budget.  With modification its works in and for other departments, but don’t tell Pricilla that.

Go to her site (link below) and then to free resources and download the 2-part tool (Transition Growth Phases and the Matrix), instructions and sample interpretations.  If there are problems, let me know and I will get  them to you (need email address) and let Priscilla know the link isn't working.

http://www.career-strategies.com/pages/hrPubs.html

Thanks for your knowledge, input, wisdom, kindness and willingness to help, Priscilla.

Next:  Why Are C-level Roles So Crucial To Culture?

Does Your People Department’s Structure Need Changing?

Your Corporate Strategy:  It Just Doesn’t Matter?       Part 21

For those who have helped build an organization from the ground up, or having come aboard during a growth or downsizing cycle, the greatest challenge is recognizing and meeting the demands they place on the company and the People Department’s resources.  Most newer and/or smaller organizations seldom have the luxury of forecasting and planning how to do this…. As a lifelong HR/People/Talent practitioner I have an exceptional amount of experience in reaction versus planned management.  J

I recognize the regular LinkedIn discussion pleas for assistance, agonizing over the newest problems and solutions from current HR workers and leaders….the endless questions regarding or recommendations on how to do this or that.  It is daunting to those doing this for the first time.   I have asked many of the same questions of myself, many times.   Having overseen major change both ways, forecasted and planned is the clear winner!  However, I have to admit, setting growth in motion and scrambling like hell to keep up is a thrilling experience not easily matched in one’s entire career.

I also think we need to reassess what the PHR or SPHR certifications teach HR/People Department practitioners.  These certifications are basically history lessons instead of practical Human Resources/People Services Department guidelines and training.  If these certifications were providing practical and reality based training maybe HR wouldn’t be failing to protect their people and employers from an employment law violation rate of 70-90%!!!  However, this is a discussion for another time.

During growth the difference between a one person HR/Personnel/People/Talent department and a two person department is an easy transition.  Growing from 1 or 2 people to 6, 8, 10 or many dozens is enormous.  The older simple processes no longer work, or at least without major modifications.  This growth means many more people and management now have to learn and be trained on more consistently interpreted company culture, policies, procedures, interactions, hiring, discipline, onboarding, systems, management hierarchy, dispute and people problem resolutions and on and on.  In fact every phase of company growth has unique demands and requirements for HR/People Departments as they mature

Next:  Use the HR Matrix  - to Balance and Align Your People Department.  

Rather Than Reinvent, Why Not Borrow and Use It?

Your Corporate Strategy:  It Just Doesn’t Matter?       Part 20

The previous discussion concerning the 24 hour commitment also appears to be a perfect example of “the more things change the more they echo the past”.   In a recent Forbes post, “Why Management Is Broken - And Why It Matters”, Gary Hamel, outlines what needs to happen with management and why.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=K3-_IY66tpI

Gary Hamel’s states 20th Century management required training agriculture workers as robotic factory workers.  Real robots may do some of that work today, but robot training psychology, teaching and performance is still being used and the norm.  Many companies use data/metrics as the sole criteria for grading an employee’s worth. This is the type of robot mentality people truly hate, especially when they aren’t told how it works.  The number of people unknowingly graded by data is hard to estimate but represents a huge check mark in the anti-people policies and culture column.

Secondly, other than the new industries mentioned in Gary Hamel’s presentation, the approach and solutions are not new!  He has updated them to make them more relatable to newer more globally dispersed, culturally diverse and technically advanced organizations.  Positive employment practices have disappeared along with the slow erosion of legal employment compliance.  However, they are the same tried and true positive employee culture practices great employers have utilized for decades.  The primary difference is very few HR practitioners today have personally learned or experienced them.

Gary Hamel is turning his silver (experience and wisdom) into gold (tried and true practical solutions to current catastrophic people policies and practices).  They work because people have changed very little. Every employment satisfaction survey has produced the same results for decades.  To those newer and less experienced HR/People practitioners and companies these solutions are new only because they have no experience or knowledge using them.  They disappeared as main stream somewhere along the way.

Ex-Apple and now former Penney’s CTO, Daniel Walker, has been practicing since 1974.  There are still many wise and very accomplished People/Talent leaders plying their skills in the HR/Talent/People world.  Their wisdom, experience and knowledge was once mainstream, but is now the fringe.  Their solutions to today’s people culture problems are practical, useful and proven common knowledge to them. You need to utilize their wisdom in your organization by borrowing it, using it and incorporating what works.

One final note concerns the police/cop role many companies place on their HR/People/Talent Department, especially by top leadership.  Without a trusted, open, neutral and safe place for employees to vent and get help, your people will go elsewhere.   This type of organizational culture becomes one of us (management and rule) versus them (the employee).  If the People Department becomes the enforcer, the company’s ability to have a neutral safe house, trusted by employees, enabling a secure pipeline and window into problems for what’s really going on slams shut.  This is where most organizations find themselves today – untrusted!

Next: Does Your People Department’s Structure Need Changing?

Why Not Begin With Simple Engagement Steps (solutions)?

Your Corporate Strategy:  It Just Doesn’t Matter?      Part 19

I believe major key factors are being overlooked or ignored in what is required of management. We are missing something in the rapidly changing competitive business world and the company to employee interaction dynamic.  It can’t simply be just poor culture, poor management and lack of training.   A far bigger change has taken place.  A new, positive and people engaged management culture is required.

One of the first changes I undertook in my first HR leadership role was how employee complaints, problems and questions were handled.  We implemented the 24 hour commitment.  ANY employee question, complaint or problem would be resolved to THEIR (the employee’s) satisfaction within 24 hours.  Even if a mutually agreeable solution wasn’t yet available, the person was personally contacted and told of the progress regarding their issue, with firm follow up dates(s).  If they were still unsatisfied, we personally moved the issue up if we couldn’t resolve it.

Why?? As the key company ambassador to our customers, we wanted a culture that valued and required employee input, thoughts and communications.  No manager or leader sitting in a cubical or office has a more intimate knowledge of the customer than those dealing with the customer directly. They deserved the opportunity to have their concerns listened to and addressed…quickly.  It didn’t matter what type of issue – paycheck, schedule, transportation, personality conflicts, personal issues, policies, etc.  If we didn’t know what the problems were, how could we address them?

Happily, we also found these open communications had greater than hoped for consequences.  The 24 hour commitment resulted in far more positive ideas, inquiries and problem solutions than actual issues by a 3 or 4 to 1 ratio!!!  Open communication brought trust, being a valued part of the organization, a safe place to vent or relate very personal issues including those related to legal and employment.

 

Today I recognize it as freely offering that thing most highly valued by most, our time and concern.  Today’s technology allows this same action to be a simple variation on the trouble ticket.  It is up to you to devote your time and concern to solving the issues.  This is only one relatively free/no cost example of developing and fostering an employee friendly culture.

The 24 hour commitment cost little.  It paid big returns!  We heard of issues quickly, including poor or ill-advised management, and they were solved quickly!  Leadership gained far more.  Our own people had many of the solutions to, or at least paved a path to solving, the challenges growing companies seek. 

Next: Rather Than Reinvent, Why Not Borrow and Use It?

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