Mar/Apr HR Insights

HR INSIGHTS
J U LY / A U G U S T 2 0 1 5
Magazine
f ro m t h e e ye s o f i n d u st ry l e a d e r s
It’s Time for
HR PROS
MARKETING
HATS
to Put on Their
In This Issue
Will Big Data Make
Interviews Obsolete?
Engaging an Older Workforce
Don’t Ignore These 4
Recruiting Trends
A Bully of a Boss Is Bad News
for the Entire Team
& More
FROM YOUR PARTNERS
W H E R E V E R YO U FI N D YO U R S E L F D U R I N G T H E S E D O G DAY S O F S U M M E R as
you flip through these pages—sitting at your desk in an air-conditioned office, relaxing
on a tropical beach, or meeting a colleague for lunch, for example—we are confident
that this issue of Accrue Partners HR Insights will give you plenty of great ideas to carry
you into the second half of 2015.
In this issue’s feature article, “It’s Time for HR Pros to Put on Their Marketing Hats,”
Charles Coy writes, “Although HR pros have been told for some time to adopt a marketing mindset, only now do they actually have the tools to start following that advice.
By using data-driven insights and inbound strategies, HR leaders can build long-term
relationships with potential candidates—whether they’re looking for a job today or a
year from now.” Rather than start from scratch, Coy suggests, HR should borrow a few
strategies from the marketing folks.
Mike McKerns echoes that theme in “Increasing Unsolicited Referrals in HR,” describing
how the strategies that bring lucrative sales referrals can also help HR departments and
staffing firms win high-quality employee referrals.
With 2016 on the horizon, you’ll definitely want to keep your eye out for any upcoming
regulatory changes that will go into effect in the new year. In “Balancing ACA Compliance, Coverage Options, and Cost Containment in 2016,” J. Marshall Dye offers an
overview of some of the ways employers can comply with the Affordable Care Act, such
as minimum essential coverage plans and minimum value plans and advises organizations on how to prepare for new regulations
coming next year.
As you mull over what the future holds for your
organization, we at Accrue Partners are here
to help you identify the optimal goals for your
organization—and advise you on strategies for
reaching them. Whether you already have specific questions in mind or want to explore some
vague possibilities, we’d love to chat with you!
Best Regards,
BUILDING PEOPLE,
COMPANIES AND CAREERS
Patty Comer & Amy Pack
Principal Partners of AccruePartners
2
J U LY / A U G U S T 2 0 1 5
Accounting & Finance + Information
Technology + Engineering + Financial
Services + Human Resources + Office +
Marketing + National Recruiting Center
FEATURES
4Cover Story
It’s Time for HR Pros to Put on Their Marketing Hats
by Charles Coy
7Balancing ACA Compliance, Coverage Options, and Cost
Containment in 2016
by J. Marshall Dye
10A Bully of a Boss Is Bad News for the Entire Team
By Ravi Mikkelsen
DEPARTMENTS
4
Workforce Management
12 W
ill Big Data Make Interviews Obsolete?
By Ira S. Wolfe
14 D on’t Ignore These 4 Recruiting Trends
By Callie Apt
16 E ngaging an Older Workforce
By Valerie Grubb
Learning & Development
18 M ake Corporate Learning Resemble the Online Shopping
Experience
By Sharlyn Lauby
Leadership
20 W
hat HR Can Learn from Effective Sales Proposals
By Stephanie Reyes
10
Ask the Expert
21 Designing Assessments
By Strategic Human Resources, Inc.
Water Cooler Chronicles
22 Increasing Unsolicited Referrals in HR
By Mike McKerns
Recipe of the Month
22 A Summer Staple, Redux:
Potato Salad Niçoise
18
16
HR INSIGHTS
3
HR INSIGHTS
f ro m the eyes of ind u s t r y l e a d e r s
Publisher & EDITORIAL DIRECTORS
Mamu Media, LLC
Editor in Chief
Mike McKerns
Managing Editor
Addy Fillman
Contributing Editor
Associate Editor
Lindsay Brockway
director of Sales Robert S. Herbein III
Marsha Brofka-Berends
Contributing Writers
Callie Apt
Charles Coy
J. Marshall Dye
Valerie Grubb
Sharlyn Lauby
Ravi Mikkelsen
Stephanie Reyes
Strategic Human Resources, Inc.
Ira S. Wolfe
Design
The Office of Kristian Bjørnard
It’s Time for
HR PROS
MARKETING
HATS
to Put on Their
BY CHARLES COY
4
J U LY / A U G U S T 2 0 1 5
Companies are racing to build
conversations around their brands by
investing in content marketing and
bolstering their social media presence.
But brand-building efforts aren’t
limited to the marketing department:
HR, too, can engage in organic
marketing—and reap its benefits.
Recruitment used to be a one-way conversation. Companies blasted job postings and controlled the conversation
when viable candidates applied. Today, that approach is going out the window, says Marvin Smith, talent community
strategist at Lockheed Martin. “We’re starting to change
this transactional nature of talent acquisition to more of a
nurturing, relationship-building approach.”
Although HR pros have been told for some time to adopt
a marketing mindset, only now do they actually have the
tools to start following that advice. By using data-driven
insights and inbound strategies, HR leaders can build longterm relationships with potential candidates—whether
they’re looking for a job today or a year from now.
HR INSIGHTS
5
New research on job posting messaging underscores the need for recruiters to add some
marketing finesse to their tactics. A recent
study 1 in the Journal of Business and Psychology found that online job postings that
focused on the upsides an employer could offer delivered both higher quality candidates
and more candidates than postings with flat
job descriptions. Similarly, the study found
that ads featuring “needs-fit” content (things
that the organization can offer, such as work
autonomy and career advancement) performed nearly three times as well as others
with “demands-abilities” language (wording
that describes what skills the employer is
looking for).
But job postings are just a small piece
of the puzzle, says Shannon Smedstad,
employment brand director at CEB, an advisory company based in Arlington, Virginia.
“Savvy recruiters and talent-acquisition teams
are using more data-driven insights in order
to approach their recruitment strategy,” she
says. The two data points she considers most
important are where talent originates and
where the highest quality hires are found.
“Understanding where people and top talent
come from can really help you reallocate
your budget resources; it can help you allocate your time resources,” Smedstad says.
1Joseph A. Schmidt Derek S. Chapman, and David A.
Jones. 2015. “Does Emphasizing Different Types of
Person-Environment Fit in Online Job Ads Influence
Application Behavior and Applicant Quality? Evidence
from a Field Experiment.” Journal of Business and Psychology, 30(2), 267–282.
6
J U LY / A U G U S T 2 0 1 5
Marketing departments depend on CRM
systems and automation platforms (such as
HubSpot and Marketo) to gather this kind of
data about their customers and act on it. “We
think about a pipeline or a funnel. How do
we have people come into that funnel, and
how do we keep them in orbit when they’re
not ready to buy?” Smith says. People in the
HR talent pipeline aren’t buying goods or
services, but they might be in the market for
a new career.
Marketing has shifted from “spray-andpray” tactics that involve mass distribution
of messages over a short time period to longterm relationship-building with potential
customers so that the brand is top of mind if
and when they make a purchase. These longterm relationships are what Smith and his
colleagues want to achieve in recruitment.
For example, he built an online community
called Military Connect for Lockheed Martin that features relevant professional advice
and networking opportunities for veterans
and military personnel considering the transition to civilian life. The underlying strategy
is essentially a content marketing approach,
in which companies use the community to
share and discuss brand-relevant (but not
sales-y) information with their audiences.
Rather than start from scratch, why not
adapt marketing strategies from the people
who know them best? “If your marketing
team is doing marketing well, you’ve got a
gold mine there,” suggest Smedstad. “You
can just ask somebody to have coffee with
you and talk about marketing concepts or
your company’s brand or the company’s
positioning.” Although Smedstad has no
professional marketing background, she’s
learned some tricks of the trade by talking
with marketing professionals and networking with peers online.
For Smith, the Holy Grail of “HR
marketing” is the ability to connect all the
dots around potential hires. Right now, he
feels frustrated when his team lacks vital
information (such as someone’s e-mail address). Soon, he says, we’ll see platforms that
not only capture holistic information about
candidates, but automate some of the process
around engaging them for extended periods
of time. “We’re beginning to realize that we
have to have a relationship with those folks,
that we’re going to need over the next 10 to
20 years, or it’s not going to work out for us
very well.”
Charles Coy is the senior director of analyst and
community relations at Cornerstone. Responsible
for evangelizing about Cornerstone’s innovation
in talent management technology solutions, he is
interested in the ways that technology can affect how
organizations evaluate, motivate, and value their employees. He can be reached via Twitter at @oleskoo.
Balancing ACA
Compliance, Coverage
Options, and Cost
Containment in 2016
BY J. MARSHALL DYE
As we pass the midpoint of 2015, thousands of
organizations across America are still adjusting
to the dramatic changes brought on by the highly
complex and ever-changing Patient Protection
and Affordable Care Act (ACA), the most
sweeping healthcare legislation in our country’s
history. With half a year under our collective
belts since employer mandates took effect,
both organizations that use staffing companies
and the staffing firms themselves are still
sorting through changes to health and benefit
plans, pondering the impact of new rules and
regulations, and preparing for expanded reporting
requirements, higher costs, and unpredictable
participation levels.
But the entire system could be turned upside down this
summer when the United States Supreme Court hands
down a decision on King v. Burwell. (As of this writing, a
decision had not yet been announced.) If the plaintiffs,
who argue that the ACA allows for subsidies to be granted
only on state-run (and on not federal) exchanges, win their
case, some experts predict that as many as five million
Americans who obtained coverage through federal exchanges could lose their tax credits and, potentially, their
health insurance coverage in dozens of states.
More ominously, as the administratively burdensome
ACA caps insurers’ administrative expenses while requiring benefits to be uncapped, major medical plans across
the country are now experiencing significant rate increases
this renewal season. These mandated regulations are expected to result in unsustainable pressure on private major
medical plans operating outside of government-subsidized
exchanges. The certainty of unacceptable rate increases
will force many companies to relinquish their group plans
and allow their employees to obtain affordable (and potentially subsidized) coverage at exchanges.
HR INSIGHTS
7
ACA REQUIREMENTS: A QUICK REFRESHER
All employers (both your organization and your staffing firm) are
subject to “employer shared responsibility” (also known as “pay or
play”) requirements that became effective on January 1, 2015. The
requirements apply to all “applicable large employers,” defined as
those with 100 or more full-time and full-time-equivalent employees
in 2014. In 2016 that threshold drops to employers with more than 50
such employees during 2015, thus significantly expanding the number
of affected firms.
Employers are ACA compliant if they elect to “pay” the tax
penalty and not offer their employees minimum essential coverage
or minimum value coverage that meets the minimum standards of
the ACA. In 2016 these large employers will be subject to a non–taxdeductible excise tax if at least one full-time employee qualifies for
subsidized coverage from a public health insurance exchange. Under
what is termed the “pay option,” employers that do not offer minimum essential coverage (MEC) to at least 95% (up from 70% in 2015)
of full-time employees and their dependent children under age 26 will
be assessed a monthly excise tax of up to $2,000 annually, multiplied
by the number of the employer’s full-time employees (excluding the
first 80).
Employers are also ACA compliant if they “play” by offering an
employee-paid minimum essential coverage (MEC) plan, which is an
ACA-compliant, ERISA-qualified, employer-sponsored plan covering
63 preventive and wellness services. Completely voluntary with no
employer contribution required, self-funded MEC plans eliminate
the $2,000 (A) tax, but leave open the possibility of the $3,000 (B)
tax being assessed for full-time temporary associates who apply for
and receive a federal subsidy. Covered services may include screening
for medical conditions, counseling, vaccinations for children, and
certain supplements; some MEC plans pay 100% of preventive and
wellness services as required by the ACA. Employees who enroll in
an MEC preventative and wellness plan are ineligible to receive a subsidy at a government exchange. Employees who decline to enroll in an
MEC offering are eligible to go to the exchange and receive a subsidy
to purchase comprehensive major medical insurance.
8
J U LY / A U G U S T 2 0 1 5
Lastly, employers are also ACA compliant if they “play” by offering a minimum value (MV) plan. Minimum value is defined as major
medical insurance that achieves an actuarial value of at least 60%.
An MV plan must include the 63 ERISA-qualified preventive and
wellness services constituting MEC, as well as unlimited benefits for
inpatient and outpatient services, including services by physicians
and mid-level practitioners, hospital and emergency visits, pharmacy
items, and laboratory and imaging tests.
In 2016 MV plans must include full in-patient hospitalization
coverage. These benefits must have no annual or lifetime maximum.
(First-generation MV plans that initially met the 60% actuarial value
requirement without inpatient benefits are grandfathered for 2015. At
the end of 2014 such plans were deemed as no longer meeting minimum value requirements.) An MV plan must also be affordable to
the employee, with the ACA stipulating that the employee portion of
the cost of an MV plan cannot exceed 9.5% of his or her income (thus
leaving the employer responsible for the majority of the plan cost).
Offering an MV plan eliminates both the employer mandated
$2,000 (A) tax and the $3,000 (B) tax. Companies that offer an MV
plan render their employees ineligible to receive a subsidy at a government exchange, whether or not the employees enroll in the employersponsored MV plan. Plans purchased at the exchanges with subsidies
can cost an employee as little as 2% of his or her income. Subsidies for
family coverage purchased at the exchange can be significant.
Whether they “pay” or “play,” companies have a huge financial
stake in strategically deciding how they will ensure ACA compliance,
provide coverage options to valued employees, and still manage the
cost to their organization.
THE COMPLEXITIES OF ADMINISTRATION AND REPORTING
For many organizations and their staffing firms, the handling of
enrollment, administration, and reporting presents the greatest
difficulties in managing an ACA-compliant program. The reporting
challenge for a staffing firm is real: with an average annual employee
turnover rate of 400%, a staffing firm has four times the number
of employees to track and report on in a 12-month period than a
non-staffing company of equal size. With crushing IRS penalties for
noncompliance, the staffing company must engage competent service
providers to assist in managing data required by the ACA.
Into this breach have stepped such organizations as Equifax and
Insurance Applications Group, which have introduced new technologies to streamline enrollment, simplify look-back measurements, and
facilitate essential reporting needed to ensure ACA compliance and
avoid penalties. The best of these solutions provide a suite of capabilities that streamline and simplify administration and reporting for
firms. Such capabilities may include cost-evaluation tools, variablehour estimators, administrative tools, employee portals, enrollment
engines to manage acceptances and declines, comprehensive reporting capabilities, and even an “audit log” to map processes, integrate
systems, and document ACA compliance.
NEW BENEFIT PLAN OPTIONS EMERGING
Major national companies have stepped forward with enhancements to such existing product offerings as fixed indemnity plans,
MEC wellness and preventive plans, and MV plans that, in varying
combinations, may provide compliance and cost control as well. Yet
as companies begin to examine their benefit offerings for 2016 to
ensure ACA compliance and cost control and to provide coverage
options to workers—and as the deadlines for 2016 renewals rapidly
approach—exciting new benefit plan options are emerging. Among
the most exciting new developments are bronze-level MV plans that
are fully ACA-compliant, eliminate both employer (A) and (B) taxes,
and include full in-patient hospitalization coverage.
SERVICE MAKES A DIFFERENCE
In late 2014, in an effort to avoid ACA penalties, thousands of organizations waited until the eleventh hour to select plans, resulting in an
unprecedented surge of implementations in extremely compressed
periods. Reflecting on their experiences during that time, smart
employers are considering benefits providers who have added support
staff and expanded training to answer questions and process claims.
These employers are also asking tough questions about how to judge
the service delivery of benefits providers.
As you consider your plans, inquire about what service metrics a
provider monitors and how it has performed on those metrics. As key
indicators of the provider’s offerings, look for positive trends in such
areas as rate of first-call resolution of an employee’s inquiry, average
speed to answer calls, percentage of claims processed within 14 days,
and growth rate in total calls received. If your benefits partner will
not or can not provide such figures (or doesn’t monitor such critical
metrics at all), consider expanding your search until you find a partner who can give you this information.
Striking the right balance between providing acceptable and
attractive benefit coverage options while controlling costs—and
ensuring ACA compliance—will not be easy in 2016, but solutions
are emerging. As you consider changes to your health and benefit
plans, contemplate ever-shifting rules and regulations, and prepare
for expanded reporting requirements, tailor your strategy wisely.
Now more than ever, it’s critical to partner with staffing providers
that understand the staffing industry and the regulatory environment,
and have a documented track record of performance.
J. Marshall “Jay” Dye is the president and CEO of Insurance Applications Group
and Essential StaffCARE, the largest provider of ACA-compliant health plans
and supplemental employee benefits to the staffing industry. He is a third-generation leader in the employee benefits insurance industry and an award-winning
member of the National Association of Health Underwriters. He can be reached
at info@iagbenefits.com.
THE IMPORTANCE OF OFFERING A FIXED-INDEMNITY PLAN WITH YOUR
ACA OFFERING
Fixed-indemnity plans have long been a staple of the staffing industry
as a way to help employees who may be unable to afford the high premiums, deductibles, and copays of traditional major medical insurance plans. The best such plans feature no deductibles, no copays, and
no clauses that place limits based on preexisting conditions; provide
coverage for doctor office visits and prescriptions; and are designed
to cover the majority of an average employee’s day-to-day medical
expenses.
Such plans are designated “excepted” benefits, do not affect an employee’s ability to receive ACA subsidies, and do not constitute minimum essential or minimum value coverage. They do, however, play
a very important role in the new world of the ACA and the future of
employer-sponsored benefit plans. These plans provide day-one coverage of basic healthcare needs, filling the gaps of high-deductible and
high-out-of-pocket plans obtained from exchanges or an employer.
HR INSIGHTS
9
A
OF A
BULLY BOSS
ENTIRE %
TEAM
@
*
IS BAD NEWS FOR THE
The saying “People join companies and leave bosses”
holds more truth than ever before, with over 50% of
today’s job seekers planning to leave their current
jobs sometime this year because of their bosses.
Psychological and mental abuse is one type of negative
behavior that some bad bosses engage in, and because
of the power imbalance inherent to the boss-employee
relationship this bullying can have particularly nasty
consequences in the workplace. Just as a cold can
spread silently from one person to another, the toxic
effects of one person’s bullying can spread through a
team and quickly cause it to fall apart.
10
J U LY / A U G U S T 2 0 1 5
A bullied employee definitely shows signs
of disengagement and lower productivity. But
those impacts aren’t limited to one person. A
recent study 1 conducted by researchers at
Michigan State University and the University
of Western Australia showed how these negative work effects are transmitted and mutated
throughout the rest of the team, thus leading
to greater intra-team conflict. In an interview2
published in MSU Today, the lead investigator, Crystal Farh, commented on the results
(which were based on analyses of 51 teams in
10 companies in China and a laboratory study
involving close to 300 people in the USA): “It’s
not just about individual victims now. It’s about
creating a context where everybody suffers,
regardless of whether you were individually
abused or not.”
© alphaspirit / BigStock
BY RAVI MIKKELSEN
%
&
*
!
@ & *@
# %* !&
%
@
%
#
#
IMPACTS OF ABUSE AND A HOSTILE WORK ENVIRONMENT
Fahr’s team found that nonabused members of a team modeled their
behavior after their boss’s actions and began treating one another
poorly, with the boss’s target bearing the brunt of the extra abuse.
Fahr explains, “Teams characterized by relationship conflict . . . are
hostile toward other members, mistreat them, speak to them rudely,
and experience negative emotions toward them.”3 A dysfunctional
team may be the result of the employees having their own behavioral
conflicts, or it may be the result of the team leader abusing one or
more team members. Finding out the source of the dysfunction can
help companies provide more positive and more productive work
environments and create longer-tenured employees in the process.
Another important cause of employee stress and conflict is that it’s
human nature to let the interests of “the team” override our personal
moral compasses. This tendency is evident in the nasty and often
violent clashes between fans of opposing sports teams, supporters
of political parties, and members of ethnic and religious groups, for
example. You may think, “But those are different situations. In business, we’re working toward a common goal.” To that I would respond,
“When we’re truly working toward a common goal, then there won’t be
any of these conflicts.”
Like every other collection of humans, a business becomes a tribe,
a close-knit community of employees. When competition is directed
outward (e.g., the rivalry between Apple and Google), the employees
within one group help each other in order to protect “us” from “them.”
But when competition is internal—between departments or between
members of a single team, for example—the employees fight among
themselves, thus hurting the company as a whole.
To better understand this behavior, scientists at Carnegie Mellon
University; the University of California, Berkeley; and MIT have
been looking at the functioning of the brain when a person self-identifies as either an individual or as a member of a team.4 Testing the hypothesis that people “lose touch” with themselves and their personal
moral values when part of a group, the researchers found that brain
activity decreased when people engaged in competitive behavior in
groups (as opposed to individually). In an MIT press release,5 Mina
Cikara, the lead author of the study, explains some of their findings:
This process alone does not account for intergroup conflict: Groups also promote anonymity, diminish personal
responsibility, and encourage reframing harmful actions as
“necessary for the greater good.” Still, these results suggest
that at least in some cases, explicitly reflecting on one’s own
personal moral standards may help to attenuate the influence of “mob mentality.’”
THE BOSS SETS THE BAR FOR THE TEAM
Good leaders will see the devolution of the group into such mob
behavior and work to correct it. Bully bosses, on the other hand, will
exacerbate the problem by supporting their favorites and further
abusing the employees they dislike. From the CEO down through
each layer of management, every leader sets the tone for how the individuals beneath him or her will behave and is ultimately responsible
for the atmosphere in which people work. A boss sets an example—
whether it’s good or bad—for the entire team.
Take a close look at your organization. Have any employees
complained of verbal or emotional abuse from their superiors? If you
are working with those colleagues to help them cope with the abuse,
that’s great. But don’t forget that before anyone can truly recover
from a bully boss, you’ll need to do more than provide a sympathetic
ear. In addition to addressing the boss’s conduct, you’ll also need to
rehabilitate the entire team so that they do not continue any of the
counterproductive behaviors they learned from the bully.
Ravi Mikkelsen is the CEO and cofounder of jobFig (www.jobfig.com), an HRfocused behavioral analytics startup in San Francisco. A lifelong entrepreneur
and nomad, he has been involved with startups in three countries on two continents and has lived in nine different cities.
1.Crystal I. C. Fahr and Zhijun Chen. 2014. “Beyond the Individual Victim: Multilevel
Consequences of Abusive Supervision in Teams.” Journal of Applied Psychology. 99(6),
1075–1095.
2.2014. “Abusive Leadership Affects Entire Team.” MSU Today. msutoday.msu.edu/
news/2014/abusive-leadership-infects-entire-team/.
3.2014. “Abusive Leadership Affects Entire Team.” MSU Today. msutoday.msu.edu/
news/2014/abusive-leadership-infects-entire-team/.
4.M. Cikara, A.C. Jenkins, N. Dufour, and R. Saxe. 2014. “Reduced Self-Referential Neural
Response during Intergroup Competition Predicts Competitor Harm,” NeuroImage.
96(2014), 36–43.
5.Anne Trafton. 2014. “When Good People Do Bad Things.” MIT News.
newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/when-good-people-do-bad-things-0612.
HR INSIGHTS 11
WORKFORCE
MANAGEMENT
Will Big Data Make
Interviews Obsolete?
BY IRA S. WOLFE
Once upon a time, hiring the right
employee was a relatively easy and
inexpensive process, requiring only a
job application and a quick interview.
Attitudes were fairly predictable,
replacements cost a dime a dozen, and
the cost of doing business easily absorbed
hiring mistakes.
Today, however, hiring is more complicated, thanks to bigger risks
and more complex (and constantly changing) jobs. Attitudes toward
work vary tremendously from generation to generation. And the cost
of making a hiring mistake falls right to the bottom line.
Most companies still rely on interviews and reference checks as
predictive tools. But using them for hiring is like trying to douse a
burning building with a garden hose: both are woefully inadequate
for the job.
ALL INTERVIEWERS ARE BIASED
In a recent Fast Company article, psychologist Heidi Grant Halvorson
pointed out, “Everyone [must] get past the idea that only blatant racists, misogynists, and homophobes are biased. If you have a brain, you
are biased. End of story.”1
Even if a manager is a skilled interviewer, he or she is susceptible
to personal bias about gender, skin color, age, hairstyles, tattoos—
nearly anything you can see or hear. That’s just human nature.
Most of us try our best to block out bias, but it’s impossible to do so
completely.
THERE’S NO GOLD STANDARD FOR INTERVIEWS
The criteria for successful hiring interviews are rarely tracked,
because few people conduct interviews exactly the same way. Even
when managers use the same questions, personal styles affect how
they ask them and how they hear the responses. Based on only the
interview, it is impossible to track what makes one candidate more
successful than the next. The interview is just too subjective, and
when it’s the primary selection tool most companies have no clue how
or why a manager selects one candidate and rejects another.
12
J U LY / A U G U S T 2 0 1 5
People in Office ©iStock.com/mediaphotos
1Heidi Grant Halvorson. 2015. “How to Recognize (and Overcome) Your Unconscious Biases in Hiring.” Fast Company. www.fastcompany.com/3043074/
how-to-thwart-your-unconscious-biases-when-hiring-a-diverse-team.
Hiring then becomes a crapshoot. Each recruiter and hiring manager
has a different baseline, and each hiring event recreates the wheel.
With the lack of a universal standard, it is nearly impossible to replicate success.
CANDIDATES AREN’T CAUGHT OFF GUARD
In addition to manager bias and personal style, the candidate also
has a part in the interview equation. Most candidates put in a fair
amount of time and effort preparing for the hiring process. For example, it’s not unreasonable to assume that a candidate has practiced
and polished her interview performance, possibly with help from
career coaches. (Or that a candidate’s resume has been exhaustively
reviewed by others and his cover letter ghostwritten. )
The amount of time a candidate invests in preparing for an
interview is typically far more than what most managers imagine. For
many managers, an interview is just another meeting or disruption
in their busy schedules, and they want to get through it as quickly as
possible so they can move on to “more important” things (such as
working on a budget or putting out the next fire). But for candidates,
the interview is a make-or-break moment they have rehearsed in their
heads countless times.
HOW BIG DATA CAN BEAT THE ANTIQUATED INTERVIEW
Fortunately, big data offers some relief for these hiring issues. Preemployment testing, in which large databases of candidate information are analyzed, can fill information gaps and neutralize personal
biases. Through sophisticated algorithms that can analyze patterns
and trends from thousands of people and sift through combinations
of data for predictive trends that an individual couldn’t catch, preemployment tests add objective and predictive metrics to the sea of
subjectivity upon which managers now base hiring decisions.
With access to big data available to almost anyone who wants
it, the playing field for talent is almost level. Managers can figure
out what makes top performers tick, why mediocre performers miss
expectations, where the good talent is hiding, and how to attract the
best employees.
Locating future talent and figuring out how to attract and retain
it is an endless journey. By exploring the possibilities of big data, a
company can take another step toward achieving those goals.
Ira S. Wolfe is a nationally recognized thought leader in talent management and
an expert in pre-employment assessment testing, workforce trends, and social
media. Wolfe is president of Success Performance Solutions (www.succcessperformancesolutions.com), a pre-employment and leadership testing firm he
founded in 1996. He is the author of several books, including Geeks, Geezers, and
Googlization; The Perfect Labor Storm 2.0; and Understanding Business Values and
Motivators. He can be reached at iwolfe@super-solutions.com.
HR INSIGHTS 13
WORKFORCE
MANAGEMENT
DON’T IGNORE THESE
RECRUITING TRENDS
BY CALLIE APT
4
Over a decade ago, I took my first corporate job:
a summer internship in the HR department of
a large government contractor. In that position
(which was my first exposure to the recruiting
process), I helped recruiters with the laborious
task of reviewing and scanning hundreds of
paper resumes to be recorded in the company’s
applicant tracking system. I also hand delivered
resumes to various hiring managers.
Thanks to technological advances, the days of printed paper CVs, resumes,
and job classifieds are long gone. Although the foundations of recruiting remain
unchanged, new strategies emerge each day. Whether you’re a manager looking to
add a few people to your team or a human resources professional looking to grow
your organization’s recruiting pipeline, you’ll want to take careful note of these
four current trends in recruiting.
R
HT E USE IS KEY
CE
N
E
I
R
E
E XP
1
1. The user experience is key. We’ve all been
there before: you spend half an hour manually cutting and pasting your resume into an
online application, only to lose all of your
work and have to start over. When that happens, many applicants quit the whole process
in annoyance—and that could be a missed
opportunity for organizations. According
to a 2012 Career Builder survey,1 42% of
candidates who have a negative application
experience say they would never consider
employment at that company again.
You can get more from applicants by
asking less of them. For example, instead
of creating an arduous online application
process that is as painful as filing a tax return,
consider incorporating one-click application
capabilities. Also, ask candidates and colleagues for their opinions on the recruiting
process. By finding out what your candidates
are thinking, you can continually fine tune
your processes and create a user experience
that attracts top talent.
1CareerBuilder. 2013. “Seventy-Five Percent of Workers Who Applied to Jobs Through Various Venues in the Last Year
Didn’t Hear Back From Employers, CareerBuilder Survey Finds.” CareerBuilder.
www.careerbuilder.com/share/aboutus/pressreleasesdetail.aspx?sd=2%2F20%2F2013&id=pr740&ed=12%2F31%2F2013.
14
J U LY / A U G U S T 2 0 1 5
2LinkedIn. 2014. 2015 Global Recruiting Trends. business.linkedin.com/content/dam/business/talent-solutions/global/
en_US/c/pdfs/recruiting-trends-global-linkedin-2015.pdf.
3Meghan M. Biro. 2014. “Smart Recruiting Strategy Drives Relationships and Conversation.” Forbes. 3 August.
www.forbes.com/sites/meghanbiro/2014/08/03/smart-recruiting-strategy-drives-relationships-and-conversation/.
G
N
I
T
I
U
R
EC M
R
E
L
I
B
M O IN S T R E A
IS M A
G
N
I
T
I
U
CR
E
R
E
V
I
PASS ATTERS
M
ON T
I
T
I
N
G
CO P TALEN
E
R
D
N
G A TAIN—TO
N
I
D
R
A
REW T—AND RE
AC 4
R
T
T
A
HE L P
3
2
2. Mobile recruiting is mainstream. The
shift from online recruiting to mobile
recruiting is just as significant as the shift
from print classifieds to online job postings.
(This isn’t surprising, considering that the
average person checks his or her phone about
150 times per day!) In fact, more than half of
all candidates searching for jobs do so from
their mobile devices, so companies would
do well to keep those potential employees
in mind. Just as a bad mobile experience can
deter shoppers from giving their business to
a particular retailer, a bad mobile experience
can also deter job seekers from applying to a
particular organization.
So consider optimizing your mobile
career portal: make it possible to schedule
interviews through the site, post videos
that feature your corporate culture and
brand, and allow candidates to video-chat
and interview with recruiters. “We predict
that mobile recruiting will continue to rise,
especially because Millennials are expected
to make up 40% of the workforce by 2020,”
said Anji Nilsson, manager of recruiting at
O.C. Tanner.
3. Passive recruiting matters. According
to LinkedIn’s 2015 Global Recruiting Trends
report,2 75% of global professionals consider
themselves “passive”: they aren’t actively
looking or applying and don’t become interested until someone contacts them about
an opportunity. A recent article in Forbes
pointed out, “Surveys have shown that over
93% of the top performers in their field do not
find a job through a job posting; instead they
are referred by someone they know, such as a
friend or networking contact.”3 Consider, too,
that passive talent is often less likely to need
skill development, because those individuals have the desire and ability to get up and
running quickly. These two data points
underscore the importance of having a passive recruiting strategy. Yet just over half of
global companies currently recruit passive
candidates, which means that some of the
best candidates out there remain untapped.
Passive recruiting can be as simple as
getting to know people on Twitter or reading and commenting on their blog content.
Social platforms such as LinkedIn (the
fastest growing global source of hire) have
features that allow recruiters to reach out to
passive candidates and invite referrals from
their own connections. Hiring expert Lou
Adler, best-selling author of the Performance-Based Hiring series, says that the two
key elements of coming up with a passive
recruiting strategy are finding out how the
best candidates get their positions and then
finding out how the best recruiters find and
hire those candidates.
4. Rewards and recognition help attract—
and retain—top talent. Numerous surveys
have shown that job seekers and employees
consistently rank “appreciation for my work”
at or near the top of the list of attributes
they seek in their jobs. It’s so important, in
fact, that is it usually tops “attractive salary.”
Recognition is no longer just a nice workplace perk—it’s now a mandatory retention
strategy.
The ability to find top talent is arguably a
company’s best competitive advantage—and
one of HR’s greatest challenges. Creating a
great candidate user experience, investing in
mobile recruiting, adding a passive recruiting strategy, and leveraging employee recognition can take your recruitment strategies to
the next level.
As O.C. Tanner’s strategic proposal manager, Callie
Apt is passionate about crafting winning proposal
strategies. She enjoys collaborating with diverse
teams in sales, marketing, and product development to put forward solutions that help her clients
celebrate great work. She can be reached at
Callie.Apt@octanner.com.
This article was originally published on O.C. Tanner’s blog,
‘a’ Magazine (www.amagazinedaily.com).
HR INSIGHTS 15
WORKFORCE
MANAGEMENT
ENGAGING AN
OLDER WORKFORCE
BY VALERIE GRUBB
A great deal has been written on how
companies need to prepare for the
knowledge exodus as Baby Boomers retire
in droves. However, the reality is that
Boomers aren’t retiring in the numbers
originally expected. Instead, older workers
are the fastest-growing demographic in the
workforce!
In recent years, the average retirement age has steadily been creeping up, and Baby Boomers are expected to push it even higher. A recent
Gallup Poll 1 indicated that 24% of Boomers plan to retire at age 65, with
another 49% expecting to retire at 66 or older. Further supporting this
trend are statistics from the U.S. Labor Department that indicate that
by 2020, 25.2% of the labor force will be age 55 and over (up from 11.9% in
1990).2
What does that mean for companies? Baby Boomers will continue
to work alongside their current Generation X and Millennial colleagues
and will still be around when Generation Z joins the workforce. Senior
leaders, managers, and HR professionals need to be prepared to manage
a workforce spanning four generations with wildly different ideas about
work ethic, work/life balance, and long-term career goals, among many
other issues.
ADAPTING TO AN AGING WORKFORCE
When managing workers of any age, it’s important to understand their
motivations and what rewards they value. After all, “you get what you
reward,” as the old saying goes. While younger workers may be gunning
to get that next big promotion as quickly as possible, older workers (more
than other age groups) typically prioritize an environment in which
they’re valued and respected for their knowledge and experience. Older
workers often also value a more flexible work environment that requires
fewer hours but includes more vacation time and maintains their benefits.
(The latter is particularly important to employees near retirement who
aren’t yet eligible for Medicare).
16
J U LY / A U G U S T 2 0 1 5
For example, realizing that about 50% of its 18,000 employees would
be over 50 by the year 2020 (today that age group makes up about 25% of
the workforce), in 2007 German automaker BMW sought advice from
the workers on one manufacturing line and numerous “technical experts”
on how to redesign the factory floor for an aging workforce.
In all, BMW’s “Today for Tomorrow” project led to 70 changes.
They included laying new floors, outfitting workers with special
shoes, installing easier-to-read computer screens, letting laborers sit instead of stand, and piping in more daylight.3
Eventually these and other changes spread through the entire company. By adapting the workplace for an aging demographic, BMW has
figured out how to keep its experienced—but aging—workforce around
longer, thereby preventing productivity drops caused by en masse
retirement.
Phased retirement is another strategy that organizations can use to
manage the loss of older workers. In 2013 the U.S. Office of Personnel
Management introduced a phased retirement program in which employees
work half the number of full-time hours (while still earning retirement
benefits) and spend 20% of their time mentoring junior employees. This
gradual approach to phasing out workers ensures the continuity of business operations and reduces training expenses associated with bringing
new employees up to speed. Private companies (such as San Diego–based
Scripps Health, Cinergy, and MITRE Corporation), too, are slowly adopting their own phased retirement programs.
Companies are also implementing policies that provide the perks
that older workers desire in order to keep those workers around longer.
The Snowbird Program at CVS Caremark, for example, lets employees
transfer to stores in other regions on a seasonal basis. Through this
program, older employees who would otherwise have retired get to spend
the winter months in warmer climates (a big reason for retirement) while
still staying with the company.
Organizations are increasingly recognizing the need to implement
programs to keep their older workers on board longer. A 2010 survey of
HR professionals conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management in conjunction with AARP found that 60% of their organizations had programs designed to keep older workers around (and that
many of the companies that lacked such programs anticipated putting
some in place).
Employer Str ategies
Percentage
currently using
Percentage who
anticipate using
Offering part-time positions
Hiring retirees as consultants or
temporary workers
Offering flexible work arrangements for
older workers
Encouraging employees to work past
traditional retirement age
Providing training to upgrade skills
Instituting phased retirement
Providing opportunities to transfer jobs
with reduced pay and responsibilities
Establishing alternative career tracks
© iStock.com/Aleutie
Based on slide 16 of Society for Human Resource Management and AARP. 2010.
SHRM-AARP Strategic Workforce Planning Poll.
www.shrm.org/research/surveyfindings/articles/pages/shrmaarpstrategicworkforceplanning.aspx.
As these examples demonstrate, organizations can provide numerous
options for their aging employees other than an abrupt departure. Just as
many HR professionals learned when dealing with Millennials, engaging
older workers in a conversation about their needs is the critical first step
toward meeting the needs of this demographic. After all, when it comes to
motivation and engagement, one size never fits all.
MANAGING PERCEPTIONS
In addition to offering programs to attract and retain older workers, it’s
important for HR departments to facilitate smooth interactions among
the generations. Encouraging employees to ditch blanket generalizations
is a good first step. HR can also take several other specific actions.
Training
In this case, training must go both ways: younger managers can learn how to
motivate and engage older workers, and more seasoned employees can learn
how best to approach a supervisor who is younger than them. As you design
your training programs, keep the following in mind:
·· It is a common misconception among new managers that they must
know all the answers from the moment they’re promoted. Teach your
junior managers that it’s okay (and expected) for them to consult
with their employees. With that information in hand, a manager’s job
is to set priorities and goals, then engage employees of all ages on how
to reach those goals. Encourage junior managers to seek guidance
from senior employees (who may have insight on what works in the
organization’s culture) and take advantage of their knowledge and
experience to learn and to make better decisions!
·· With older workers, don’t ignore the elephant in the room: have an
open discussion about how, regardless of anyone’s age, it can be hard
for someone to work for a manager who knows less than he or she
does. Teach senior employees how to approach a less seasoned manager to offer suggestions without threatening that person’s authority
or making him or her feel unqualified to lead.
Accommodation of Different Learning Styles
Boomers ushered in the era of fax machines, whereas Millenials grew
up with the Internet. Each generation’s experience with technology
can shape its different learning styles. So be sure to build training that
accommodates multiple learning methods, including in-person, online,
and self-paced programs.
Reverse Mentoring
When most of us think of mentoring, we typically picture a senior executive helping a more junior employee. This arrangement certainly has its
benefits, particularly if an older team member is interested in transitioning to fewer hours. However, reverse mentoring, in which a junior team
member helps a more seasoned employee, can enable older workers to
learn the latest trends or technology they need to know to stay current.
In any mentoring relationship, be sure to set goals, identify measurable
outcomes, and celebrate achievements.
Multiple communication methods
Using multiple communication methods is smart business within any
team. When big age gaps among team members exist, however, sending
messages via several platforms can be especially useful for making sure
that everyone gets the same message. IMs, texts, e-mail, written memos—use them all to ensure that you reach all teams via their preferred
communication methods.
SUMMARY
Each generation brings a unique set of skills into the office. Fostering an
environment of open communication with understanding and respect
for those differences will go a long way toward strengthening a company’s ability to remain competitive in the marketplace. The Baby Boomers
are here to stay for a while, alongside their successors. So don’t just watch
this scenario play out on its own—take action now! A workforce strategy
that addresses the presence of aging employees head-on can demonstrate
how age diversity (with the differences and similarities it brings) can
create stronger companies.
Valerie Grubb of Val Grubb & Associates Ltd. (www.valgrubbandassociates.com)
is an innovative and visionary operations leader with an exceptional ability to zero
in on the systems, processes, and personnel issues that can hamper a company’s
growth. Grubb regularly consults for mid-range companies wishing to expand and
larger companies seeking efficiencies in back-office operations. Her expertise and
vibrant style are also in constant demand for corporate training classes and seminars. She can be reached at vgrubb@valgrubbandassociates.com.
1Jim Harter and Sangeeta Agrawal. 2014. “Many Baby Boomers Reluctant to Retire.” Gallup.
www.gallup.com/poll/166952/baby-boomers-reluctant-retire.aspx.
2Mitra Toosi. 2012. “Labor Force Projections to 2020: A More Slowly Growing Workforce.”
Monthly Labor Review. January, pp. 43–64. www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2012/01/art3full.pdf.
3Isabelle de Pommereau. 2012. “How BMW Reinvents the Factory for Older Workers.”
The Christan Science Monitor. 2 September 2012.
www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2012/0902/How-BMW-reinvents-the-factory-for-older-workers.
HR INSIGHTS 17
LEARNING &
DEVELOPMENT
Make Corporate Learning
Resemble the Online Shopping Experience
BY SHARLYN LAUBY
At the spring 2015 symposium held by Chief Learning Officer
magazine, I attended a panel discussion about creating and sustaining
a culture of learning. As the panelists (who included global leaders in
talent and learning from Qualcomm, Hilton Worldwide, Procter and
Gamble, the Vanguard Group, and ADP) described their organizations’
approaches to learning, it occurred to me that their words echoed
some of what I hear from marketing executives about getting
customers to buy products and services.
1
In today’s business world, we say that the buying experience
must be customer-centric in order for a purchase to happen
and that the customer experience is key. The same approach
applies to learning, too: in order for corporate learning to be
engaging, it needs to be learner-driven. That might not sound
very revolutionary, but the reality is we don’t always design
training that way—even when we know we should and want to
do so. Sometimes the objective or the budget drives the design,
instead of the learner determining the form of the training.
So how can we put the learner at the center of learning?
Here are five ideas inspired by when I heard during that panel
discussion:
Give employees a single source for learning.
People like to be able to go to one place to find
everything they need. (That’s why so many
shoppers just go straight to Amazon.) When
one company discovered that its employees
were searching Google for answers to their
questions, management decided to employ a
similar “one-stop shopping” strategy for learning by giving employees access to a variety
of training options (e.g., in-house learning
programs, off-the-shelf learning programs,
MOOCs, etc.) housed in a single location.
2
18
J U LY / A U G U S T 2 0 1 5
Let employees see training evaluations.
Just as shoppers look at reviews when researching a purchase, employees should be
able to see workshop ratings when deciding
which programs to attend. Adopting this
policy is a bold move that makes learning
designers and facilitators more accountable.
3
Treat all training (even compliance training) as voluntary. Employees should understand what information is essential for them to
do their jobs effectively, and there should be
no need to coerce them into attending training. When all training is voluntary, designers
must make learning compelling, because if a
program doesn’t deliver on its description, the
employees will leave.
4
5
Provide employees with systems that have
great search capabilities. There’s nothing
more frustrating than being unable to find
something on a website because the site
is slow and clunky or its search function
is inadequate. Now more than ever, user
experience is key, and websites and apps
need to be intuitive. Want to improve your
user experience? Ask ten of your employees
to find a certain program in your learningmanagement system, watch how they search
for it, and make changes based on what you
observe.
Embrace mobile and create an internal app
store. I love that some of the apps I use not
only tell me how to use them most effectively
but also recommend other apps I can use in
concert with theirs. Help employees maximize their productivity by pointing them to
mobile apps that will benefit them. (Be sure to
give them choices: many people like Evernote, but plenty of others prefer OneNote, for
example.) And ask power users to share tips
and tricks.
If you want people to buy your product or service, you need
to give them what they need. Now it’s time to apply that same
philosophy to corporate learning. If you want your employees
to engage with training (or with anything, for that matter),
they need to drive the learning experience.
© okea / veer.com
Sharlyn Lauby is the author of HR Bartender (www.hrbartender.com), a
friendly place to discuss workplace issues. When not tending bar, she is
president of ITM Group, Inc., which specializes in training solutions to
help clients retain and engage talent. She can be contacted on Twitter at
@HRBartender.
HR INSIGHTS 19
LEADERSHIP
What HR Can Learn from
Effective Sales Proposals
BY STEPHANIE REYES
It demonstrates to
prospective clients that
you fully understand the
issues they’re facing
and that you “get” what
matters to them.
An effective sales proposal has the
following characteristics:
It provides
supporting evidence
and a clear rationale
that can serve as
justification for the
prospect’s decision to
commit.
Most importantly, an effective sales proposal reflects
the challenges and needs of the prospective client and
focuses on overcoming those challenges and satisfying
those needs. To be successful, the proposed solution
should help the prospect solve problems, achieve objectives, and look good to the rest of the organization. A
good proposal doesn’t just list the features of the products and services being offered and it never attempts to
force a prospect to buy.
So what do effective sales proposals have to do with
HR? Aside from the fact that the actions and influence of
HR have a direct impact on the way staff treat customers,
the HR function itself involves a lot of persuasion. HR
must
·· persuade employees to follow policies, complete
training, and resolve differences;
·· persuade managers to complete performance reviews
on time, provide appropriate feedback to team members, and address performance molehills before they
become mountains; and
·· persuade executives to incorporate HR planning
at a strategic level, support leadership and other
employee development initiatives, and provide an
adequate budget to fund competitive and discretionary compensation.
20
If HR professionals learned to incorporate the fundamentals of sales proposals in communications with the
people they’re seeking to persuade, they might overcome
some of the resistance they commonly face. For example, consider what happens when the word “employee”
replaces the word “customer” in the following guidelines
for writing an effective sales proposal:
It persuades the
prospective client that
you have the expertise,
competence, and support
to deliver an optimal
solution effectively and
professionally.
·· Clearly demonstrate the employee’s perspective in
your solution.
·· Address your employee’s issues and concerns and
provide clear solutions for each.
·· Cite your employee’s name and needs frequently
[throughout the proposal].
·· Mention the employee before you mention your organization in paragraphs and sentences.
·· Focus on the benefit to the employee rather than on
the many great features of your solution.
Not every HR interaction involves persuasion. Sometimes, HR must simply communicate policies and enforce rules. But as Mary Poppins would say, “A spoonful
of sugar helps the medicine go down.” In much the same
way, the art of persuasion and a few basic sales proposal
techniques can help elevate some of HR’s challenging
conversations to win-win propositions.
Good salespeople understand that potential customers are people first and that, as the old saying goes,
“people don’t care how much you know until they know
how much you care.” Effective HR practitioners know
that employees, too, are people first and become adept
at persuading others by understanding their needs and
focusing on what matters to them.
Stephanie Reyes writes for TribeHR, a NetSuite company, the first
truly social human resources management software. Its easy-to-use
tools are used by businesses worldwide, allowing companies to
focus more on what they do best and less on things that get in the
way. For more information, visit www.tribehr.com.
hand & marker: ©iStock.com/kyoshino
ASK THE EXPERT
DE SIGNING
ASSE SSMENTS
INC.
BY STRATEGI C HUM AN RESO URCE S,
Q.My company is in the chemical manufacturing industry, and
the different jobs involve many processes (e.g., checking
temperatures and pressures, evaluating the raw materials
used). I would like to design an assessment to measure the
ability of technicians and other workers to handle those
tasks. How do I determine what competencies are required
for each task and design such an assessment?
—
A.The creation and implementation of any type of assessment that
involves job competencies must include the following steps:
1. Observe and record how the best employees in each job category do the work.
2. Based on the information gained from your observations,
identify and clearly define the key competencies (e.g., problem
solving, communication).
3. To ensure that the identifications and definitions are accurate,
have some of the relevant employees and supervisors review
the competencies.
4. Once the competencies are identified and defined, develop
assessment simulations that replicate the work being done. To
pilot the center or assist in the development of the assessments,
choose employees who already have the competencies.
5. Schedule trainees or potential employees to go through the
assessments.
6. Track the results by measuring employees’ knowledge before
and after they take the assessments. Does the assessment system seem to be working? Do you need to make any changes to
it? Does the system promote or produce any bias or discrimination??
Depending on your location, you may need to conduct a number of pilot studies and analyses of the results to ensure that using
the assessments for hiring or promotion decisions has no legal
ramifications. Remember to be consistent in your use of the assessments. Don’t pick and choose whom you will ask to take them;
instead, chose a stage of the employment process where everyone
must do them.
Strategic Human Resources, Inc., is a national full-service HR-management firm
based in Cincinnati, Ohio. Its president and founder, Robin Throckmorton, can
be reached at Robin@strategichrinc.com.
HR INSIGHTS 21
A SUMMER STAPLE, REDUX
WATER COOLER CHRONICLES:
INCREASING UNSOLICITED
REFERRALS IN HR
BY MIKE MCKERNS
The arrival of summer heralds the return of the outdoor dining season. Whether you’re
grilling on the back deck, picnicking in a park, or gathering with friends for a poolside
potluck, you’ll want a delicious dish that makes a great impression but doesn’t wilt in the
heat. Enter the classic summer dish known as the potato salad!
If you grew up eating only mayonnaise-based potato salads, summer is a great time to
expand your repertoire with this vinaigrette-based version. Just a bit of time in the kitchen
yields a tasty dish that travels well (picnic, anyone?), works as a terrific side for grilled
fare, and is hearty enough to serve as a main course all by itself.
© arenacreative / BigStock
Last spring I had a conversation with a colleague about the Holy
Grail of marketing success: the unsolicited referral. Our discussion focused on the importance of those referrals in marketing
and business development. But when putting together this
issue, with its feature article about how HR needs to adopt some
marketing strategies, I realized that the same principles that lead
to unsolicited referrals in marketing can also be employed in the
talent and recruiting fields.
In any field (whether it’s sales and business development or
HR), developing the following areas will directly affect how
often you receive unsolicited referrals.
·· Culture. This is where it all starts. If you want your employees to become your recruiters, you need to make sure
that they view the company as much more than a job or a
paycheck. By building a culture that encourages fun, hard
work, and common goals, you also build a strong culture that
fosters employee loyalty and commitment.
·· Pride. Now more than ever, your employees want to be
able to tie their company and the work they do to a greater
good. If you’re having a tough time making that connection
between your people and the positive impact of their work,
forget about what your company makes or does and focus
instead on what you and your employees can do for the
community.
What you’ll need:
3 large potatoes, scrubbed and
unpeeled
1 ½ cups of fresh green beans,
trimmed
1 large tomato, cut into wedges
1 red pepper, julienned
2 hard-boiled eggs, quartered
For good reason, this list contains absolutely no mention of
a referral bonus: unsolicited referrals have nothing to do with
money. And although financial incentives do a great job of
increasing the quantity of referrals, increasing the payout has no
effect on the quality of referrals you receive. If you keep your focus on the quality of your efforts, you’ll build a strong reputation
that will bring even more unsolicited referrals your way.
Mike McKerns, SPHR, is the editor in chief of HR Insights and cofounder of
Mamu Media LLC. He can be reached at editor@mamumediallc.com.
22
POTATO SALAD NIÇOISE
·· Process. Have you ever referred a friend for a job, then
didn’t get any status updates from the recruiter until you
followed up on the referral yourself? (When I found myself
in that situation, I vowed never to send another friend into
that company’s referral black hole!) If your employees are
referring potential candidates, having an established process
in place to communicate the status to the referring employee
on a weekly basis is essential if you want to keep those referrals coming. Also, communicating to the referrer why you’re
not considering his or her contact will help increase the quality of the referrals you receive from that referrer in the future.
J U LY / A U G U S T 2 0 1 5
Water: ©iStock.com/Grafissimo
Yield: 6 servings
Time: 30 minutes
NUTRITIONAL INFO PER SERVING:
Calories: 388 cal
Fat: 22 g
Dietary fiber: 10 g
Sugars: 3g
Protein: 8g
4 artichoke hearts, halved
12 black olives
1 Tb capers
2 Tb white vinegar
2 tsp mustard
2 Tb finely chopped shallots
½ cup extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper
Directions:
1. Cut the potatoes into ½-inch cubes, then cook them in 2 quarts of boiling
(and salted) water until they are fully cooked but still firm (about 15
minutes). Drain them and let them cool.
2. While the potatoes cook, blanche the green beans in a second pot of
boiling (and salted) water until they are just barely cooked but still bright
green and very firm (about 3 or 4 minutes), then drain them and let them
cool.
3. In a large serving bowl, combine the potatoes, green beans, tomato, red
pepper, eggs, artichoke hearts, black olives, and capers.
4. In a small bowl, whisk together the vinegar, mustard, and shallots.
Then add the olive oil, whisking constantly until the vinaigrette is fully
emulsified.
5. Pour the vinaigrette over the other ingredients, stirring gently until
everything is well combined. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Innovative Leaders
in Staffing & Executive Search
BUILDING PEOPLE,
COMPANIES AND CAREERS.
ACCOUNTING & FINANCE | INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY | ENGINEERING
FINANCIAL SERVICES | HUMAN RESOURCES | OFFICE | MARKETING
CALL US TODAY TO FIND YOUR IDEAL CANDIDATE OR CAREER.
704.632.9955
|
www.accruepartners.com
GROWING WITH OUR
CLIENTS IS WHAT
WE ARE ALL ABOUT!
EXPAND. GROW. REACH FURTHER.
Headquartered in Charlotte, NC, AccruePartners has rapidly grown from a local Charlotte company to
a national organization – delivering Staffing and Executive Search solutions to clients across the United
States. With an entrepreneurial framework to respond more effectively and the bandwidth to deliver on
a national level, AccruePartners consistently competes and delivers as a Tier 1 vendor against publicly
traded billion dollar staffing companies. It is the persistence of the “AccruePartners Business Systems”
that has delivered unparalleled success in recruitment, as well as outstanding results in client delivery.
VISIT WWW.ACCRUEPARTNERS.COM/NRC TO LEARN MORE!
704.632.9955
1000 West Morehead, Suite 200
Charlotte, North Carolina 28208
www.accruepartners.com