Horizon Point Consulting

Author: Mary Ila Ward

  • The Job Market is Tight Again- What’s Your Strategy?

    The Job Market is Tight Again- What’s Your Strategy?

     

     

    job

    Although the great recession of 2008-2009 is still a fixture in many peoples’ minds, the job market has changed substantially since those recession years.   I’m hearing more HR pros and business leaders complain about not being able to source and hire quality talent in a broader set of areas than usual.   We aren’t just complaining about the need for computer programmers and skilled tradespersons anymore.

    According to the latest BLS Report on job openings and labor turnover,  “Job openings have trended upward since their series low in July 2009, and have surpassed the prerecession peak (April 2007). In July 2016, there were 5.9 million job openings.”  If you don’t think it has happened yet, you’re wrong- job seekers, or those not so active but passive job candidates that we really want, are back in the driver’s seat.

    Given this information, there are three things you can do:

    1. Lower your expectations and hire to those lowered standards
    2. Lure the best talent in by upping your pay rates above the competition
    3. Develop your internal talent to be prepared to fill the jobs now and for the future

     

    What I see most often happening in a talent crunch is companies looking externally instead of internally to address the problem, yet they don’t lower their expectations or raise their pay.  Then we get the definition of insanity, which is doing the same thing you’ve always done and expecting different results.

    Look internally to address your talent shortage woes.  This puts the investment you’ve already made in hiring to better use and it should even motivate your millennials as well as others to stay with you because you are invested in their growth.

    How do you keep labor market trends from causing problems for you and your organization?

     

     

     

  • Leaders, Take your Meetings on the Road

    Leaders, Take your Meetings on the Road

    Week 5

    Week 5 Mileage: 32

    Long Run Distance:  14

     

    When you are training for a marathon, you spend a lot of time with the people you are training with.  Thirty-two miles for us this week equaled about three to three and half hours together on the road.

    You would think we would run (no pun intended) out of things to talk about.

    But we don’t.

    Whether it is talking about the weather (when on earth is this heat going to let up??), talking about sports (college football kicked off last week in case you missed it), politics and culture (Colin Kaepernick not standing up for the national anthem led to a lively discussion) or talking about funny things kids did or said, I find running generates discussion that leads to problem solving and ideas generation. 

    Other the last week of runs, I can think of a least three good ideas that arose from our conversations. We also talked our way through solving a variety of problems for each other, or at least providing varying perspectives on them that could lead to better problem resolution.

    As a leader, problem solving and idea generation is critical to innovating and therefore surviving in business.  Most of this comes through cultivating an environment and mindset that allows for fluid thought to take place. And research shows that simply moving helps generate a natural flow of thinking and conversation that leads to creativity. 

    So the next time you need to have a meeting don’t get everyone around the conference table.   Get outdoors, on the road or trail and start walking or running and talking.

     

    Like this post? You may also want to check out:

    Guide to Walking Meetings

    7 Powerful Reasons to Take Your Next Meeting for a Walk

    Harvard Business Review: How to do Walking Meetings Right

  • Millennials Don’t Feel Entitled to Your Job,They Want You to Help Them Chart Their Career

    Millennials Don’t Feel Entitled to Your Job,They Want You to Help Them Chart Their Career

    The generation of participation trophies, therefore, the generation of entitlement.  Therefore, the group that thinks their degree, or maybe just the mere fact that they breathe, entitles them to the CEO seat 18 months in.  You’ve heard it all.   And if they don’t get that CEO seat, by the way, well they are also a generation of job hoppers.

    But when you talk to most millennials (myself included), you’ll find that they don’t want or expect to have the top job 18 months in, but they may want it at some point in their life.  And isn’t that a good thing?  Goes against another stereotype of the generation- lazy.

    They do, however, want you to help them know what it takes to get there.  And before that, they want you to actually take an interest in what they want out of their career. They want you to be a career agent, a mentor, a people manager, which means giving them the assignments and experiences that will help them reach their dreams.

    And guess what, this just isn’t true of millennials; it’s true of all generations.  It just seems more pronounced with millennials because they have a longer career runway to plan for and manage.

    Rajeev Behera, CEO of Reflektive, summarized this need for leaders to be career agents as a guest on HR Happy Hour 255- Modernizing Performance Management.  One of the hosts, Trish McFarlane, asked Rajeev, “What does a good people manager look like?” Click through to about 11 minutes into the podcast if you want to hear what he had to say, but the gist of it is this:

    “What I think is the difference between a team leader and a real people manager is the people manager actually knows what an employee wants to do in their career and coaches them to become, to get to that point in their career. So career development and helping out on skills and giving projects to them so they can improve on those skills to get them to where they want to be is what a great people manager does…The ones that you remember and that made a real imprint on you are the ones that spent the time with you.”

    Rajeev points to what makes a good manager.  Really he is pointing to what distinguishes a manager from a leader.  This obviously matters because it makes a “real imprint” on people.

    But does is matter in terms of business results?

    Take what Google found through their googlegeist survey given to employees (check out Work Rules for the details on this).   The best managers did  5 to 18 percent better on a dozen of their employee survey “googlegeist” dimensions when compared to those that were the worst.  The top things that made those managers significantly better dealt with career:  “Career decisions were made fairly” and “Their personal career objectives could be met”, and their manager was a “helpful advocate and counselor.”

    So if you feel threatened that a millennial or anyone else for that matter is gunning for your job without deserving it, be a good boss and coach them on how to get there.  But first, ask them what it is they actually want out of their career.  Besides the fact that this is just the right thing to do, it makes you more valuable too.  Go make more leaders.

     

    Like this post? You may also like:

    Millennials at Work: Five Stereotypes- and Why They are (Mostly) Wrong

    Myths About Millennials: Tips for Managers about Retaining Millennials

     

    And if you’re in North Alabama on September 13 or 14, or in Memphis, Tennessee, September 15, come learn how to be a career agent:

    September 13- NASHRM Workshop

    September 14- TVC-SHRM Luncheon

    September 15- Tennessee SHRM Conference

  • How Millennials Like to Work and Run  

    How Millennials Like to Work and Run  

    Week 4

    Week 4 Mileage: 31

    Long Run Distance:  13

     

    I don’t just run to run, and I don’t just work to work.

    I run for the health benefits, which is probably the most common reason cited to run, but I also run for the social camaraderie,  for good conversations, and for the endorphins and productivity it produces. I’m sure there are more reasons, but for now, that will do. Oh, and because it provides good ideas for blog posts.

    I work, as many primarily do, in order to provide for my family along with my husband. But I also work to try to make a difference in people’s lives, for the social interaction, and if I’m honest with myself, to try to prove or justify my worth.  And it also provides for good blogging content.

    In reality though, I could combine my list for running and working into one, because I talk about work when I run and a talk about running when I work.  Many of the reasons overlap or are one in the same, and they all roll into how and why I do life the way I do.

    I happen to, also, (just barely) be a millennial. One of the stand-out features and values you will see in the literature about my generation is the need and desire for work-life balance, or what I would prefer to call work-life integration.

    In a Runner’s World article and another corresponding article in the print version of the magazine, a study about what millennial runners want emphasized the surge in millennials gravitating towards the half-marathon distance. Making up 43% of the running population, millennials run primarily as a way to stay fit, not primarily to compete, and as a way to do fun too with pre and post race parties and travel destinations. The half marathon distance is the perfect one to train well, have fun, and not let running take over your life. The Disney Princess race is cited as drawing the most attention for millennials, for all of these reasons. The article concludes by saying, “Here’s a plan for anyone who wants to train for 13.1 like a millennial- running without giving up other activities you love.”

    And just like millennials don’t want to sacrifice other parts of their life in order to be able to run and race, they also don’t want to sacrifice and segregate for the sake of work.

    Work isn’t and shouldn’t be stand-alone activity and running isn’t either.  It’s a way to incorporate and integrate.

    Here are some ideas for creating an integrated culture in the work place to help spark not only millennials’ engagement, but also your entire workforce:

    • Offer and make community service opportunities a part of work.
    • Set-up a mechanism for interest groups to form. Who knows, a running group may emerge.
    • Offer flexibility in scheduling in order for employees to structure their day that allows for integration of other life activities.
    • Larger employers offer one-stop services on-site like fitness centers, daycares, cafes and even dry cleaning and massage services on site.  For more on this and how it can be justified with the business bottom line, check out Work Rules!  for insights from inside Google.
    • And quite simply and most importantly, hire and train leaders who are focused on seeing employees first as people, with lives in and outside of work.  This promotes leaders to ask and care about people’s whole lives.

    You don’t necessarily have to create a princess race to draw engagement, but all of these things, if done right, lead to more engagement in the workplace, which has been tied time and time again to better results.

    What leads to more engagement for you in the workplace and in life?

     

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  • A Final Word on How to Create an Innovative Organization

    A Final Word on How to Create an Innovative Organization

    I’ve been focused over the past couple of months writing about how to create innovation in the workplace.  Really, being an innovation leader comes down to one simple question:

    Do you believe people are fundamentally good?

    Because if you do, you are led to:

    So, do you believe people are fundamentally good?

    Innovate or die.

     

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    Leading through Expectations and Empathy

    3 Questions for Balancing Empathy and Expectations as a Leader