Category: Human Resources

We know HR. Read our Human Resources blog archives for stories and best practices from our work with real clients and personal experiences in the world of HR.

  • 4 Ways to Help Change Happen When Change is Hard

    4 Ways to Help Change Happen When Change is Hard

    “For anything to change, someone has to start acting differently.”

    from Switch by Chip and Dan Heath

    Change is all around us.  In our personal and professional lives, just when we might get to used to something, it changes.  Many of the most life-altering personal changes that we choose like marriage and children we tend to embrace and get excited about.  We put ourselves in these situations of change.

    At work, though, changes often occur, and we didn’t prompt them. They are unsettling and hard.

    We work a lot with clients helping them manage change.  In addition, when we are asked to come in to do training, whatever type it is, it is usually because the organization wants some type of change to occur.

    So how do we help people through change?  I think the first thing to do is acknowledge that change is exhausting and then build strategies to help people avoid or overcome that exhaustion.  As stated in Switch by Chip and Dan Heath, “Change is hard because people wear themselves out….What looks like laziness is often exhaustion.”

     

    Here are four ways to help fight that exhaustion to make change easier.

    1. Limit your choices.  Much has been written about highly successful people who always wear the same clothes and/or always eat the same things, day after day.  Take, for example, Steve Jobs and the standard uniform he wore:  black turtleneck and jeans. Or Nick Saban and his supposed diet of a Little Debbie Oatmeal Cream Pie every morning for breakfast.  Why is this helpful?  Because if you don’t have to think about these things, it leaves you more mental energy to think about more important things.  Some practical things to do in limiting your choices:
    • Subscribe to services to limit your choices:  You may not want to eat an oatmeal pie every morning or wear the same thing every day.  Subscription-based services can help you limit your choices and also infuse variety in them. For example, meal services where meals are delivered to your door can be a good idea. What you eat is pre-chosen after you answer a few questions about preferences. These are saved and used to chart your weekly meals and you don’t have to think about your grocery list or if you forgot the key ingredient.  It is all right there. Subscriptions to clothing boxes (Trunk Club is my favorite), automatic reordering through Amazon, and other similar places can also help you cut the thinking out of everyday choices to help store up your mental reserves for more important things.
    • Set your three big to-dos for the day:  Your choices of to-dos are probably massive each day. Multiply that by weeks, months and years and it is a whole lot to wrap your mind around.  But, if you sit down each day (or week) and list the three things that are most important to get done that day, you are inadvertently limiting your choices of chasing multiple to-do rabbits.  I’m using Michael Hyatt’s FullFocus Planner to help me to do this.  Although some of the planners are overkill, I really like the set-up that prompts you to set three big rocks each day.  These should stem from the goals you set at the beginning of each quarter in the front of the planner.
    1. Scale the good.  Focus less on the bad.   Our minds are wired to problem solve.  While this is often a good thing, constant problem-solving mode zaps our energy and leads to fatigue.  To combat this mental default, sit down each week on your own or with your team and determine one thing that went right last week.   Use that to then focus your energy for the week of replicating that right instead of finding and fixing the wrong. Oftentimes this indirectly gets rid of a lot of problems.

    As it is stated in Switch, “Ask yourself, ‘What is the ratio of the time I spend solving problems to the time I spend scaling successes?’ We need to switch from archeological problem solving to bright-spot evangelizing.”

    1. Start behaving as though things are the new normal. I heard a clinical psychologist speak at a conference earlier in the week.   He described an activity he does with people who have come to him for marriage counseling.  In this, he asks the couple, what do people do in a happy marriage?  He said it takes a bit to get them actually listing behaviors, but when they get on this track, they list things like: they say I love you, go on dates, have sex, call to check in during the day, send flowers, cook each other meals, etc… You get the picture.  Then he tells them to pick one of these things and do it.  So, he makes them declare Thursday night date night (or hey, sex night) and asks them to commit to that.   He says, “Don’t try to be in love, just do what people in love do.”

    This obviously is tied to focusing on the good, not the bad as stated in number two, but it goes beyond that in building upon number one by not thinking about it. Just do it.  It builds in our automated sense to create habits, thus diminishing mental fatigue.

    1. Create change scripts.  If you are leading a change with a group of people, we find creating change scripts for communicating the changes to be very helpful.   We’ve created a format that outlines how to do this based on the way people process information. For example, most people start with the what when communicating change instead of the why, which immediately triggers the wrong part of the brain- hello panic- and then no one listens to the rest of what you have to say.

    You walk through filling in the blanks based on the outline, so it is designed to help limit the exhaustion and often paralysis that can come from thinking, “How on earth do I tell people this?”

    It also helps people stay on the same script, limiting confusion and assumptions that make change management harder than it has to be. If you’re interested in talking to us about this, reach out to us.

     

    Change is hard, but if you can limit the fatigue that comes from daily life that is compounded by the change process, you can help yourself and others navigate change more successfully.

    How do you keep your energy at a level at a place that allows you to navigate change effectively?

  • Improving Your Time to Hire

    Improving Your Time to Hire

    According to the 2017 Talent Acquisition Benchmarking Report published by SHRM, the average time to hire in 2016 was 36 days. With the job market exceeding the talent pool right now, candidates are harder to find, and when companies do find them, they have to move fast or risk losing them to the competition.

    How can organizations streamline their hiring process while still ensuring that they are recruiting top talent?

    1. Assess your current process. A great way to do this is through a SWOT analysis. What is your organization doing well and what are you struggling with? What opportunities are you missing out on and what external threats are impacting your ability to expedite your hiring process? Once you’ve assessed your current process, you’ll be able to determine where changes or improvements are needed.
    2. Document your process. A tool that we use for our clients is a process documentation flowchart. It outlines what resources are needed to successfully complete the process, who is involved in each step, and what the possible outcomes are at each step.
    3. Provide training to those involved. Your process document is useless if you don’t provide training to those involved, so schedule time to train your leadership on what the process is, what their responsibilities within that process are, and provide them the tools they need to successfully execute their part. Also set expectations with the leadership. If you submit a candidate to a hiring manager, let them know you’d like feedback within 1-2 business days. Then follow up if you don’t get that feedback within the time frame set. If you do this consistently, it will become a habit for those managers.
    4. Make sure your hiring process is easy. Just as candidates don’t want the application process to be cumbersome, once they get past that first hurdle, they want to see that ease of process continued during the interview phase. If your interview process includes skills tests or requires samples of work, make those tasks easy. I have a client that requires developer candidates to take a coding test. In order to complete the test, candidates are sent a link to a third-party web host service where they can log in to the test and take it at their convenience versus having to do so in person at the office. If your interview process requires interviews with multiple hiring managers, consider scheduling them back-to-back on the same day or doing panel interviews.
    5. Show candidates that you value them. According to a 2017 study by CareerBuilder, 78% of candidates say that their overall experience during the hiring process is an indication of how the company values its people. A great way to show candidates that you value them is to make sure they understand your hiring process, communicate with them throughout that process, and don’t drag it out any longer than necessary.

    If you take these steps and you’re still struggling to fill positions, you may need to re-evaluate your job posting or the recruiting sources you’re utilizing.

    What can your organization do to decrease time to hire in this tight candidate market?

  • What You Should Title Your Job Posting

    What You Should Title Your Job Posting

    The job market is hot right now.  As mentioned in a previous post about targeting passive candidates, there are more job openings now than there are people to fill them.

    So how do you get a candidate’s attention for your job when you post it?  Obviously, some things to consider are where you post it (and hopefully you aren’t just posting and praying) and how you are advertising/boosting your post within those sites.

    But one thing we often neglect to consider is the actual title we place on the job when we post it.  Most often, we just pull the job title that is on the internal job description, but that title may or may not reflect what people are actually searching for in the market.

    So, to make the best decision about your job posting title:

    1. Make a list of the various titles you think would fit the job.  For example, Coder, Programmer, Developer, and Software Engineer could potentially all be a title on the list for a job that requires someone to perform computer programming.  Also, make a list of various qualifiers that may need to go in front of the keyword of the job title.  For instance, in this case, you may also need to use words like “Full Stack,” “Front End”,  “Java”, “Python” based on what specific skills/experience you need for the opening.

     

    1. Next, search for all these job titles you’ve come up with in the job posting board(s) of your choice by your geographic area. What brings up the highest volume of postings? Volume could indicate more people are searching for those keywords, thus more potential applicants.  Or it could indicate that you wouldn’t get noticed by applicants, and therefore fewer applicants because the list is so saturated.  In general, though, you want to be using a job title that will resonate with what candidates are searching for.

     

    1. Taking this information, you then need to do some testing. Take what you believe to be the top two job titles based on your search in number two, and post the same job posting with the two different titles on the same job board. Track the number of hits and applicants you get.  Which one performs better?

     

    1. It is a quality over quantity game. Even though you may get more applicants from posting a job one way does not mean that you are getting more quality applicants by posting it a certain way.  So, do an initial screening to see if the candidates are qualified for your opening to see which title is better.   For example, posting the job title “Developer” may get you a lot of applicants, but may not get you the level of skill you need. However, posting as “Full Stack Developer” or “Python Developer” or even posting as “Software Engineer” may get you the right quality of applicants.  That is why you have to test different titles and see what yields you the best results.

     

    1. In addition to tracking quality in the initial screening, track your quality over time. After you’ve made a hire, is it really a quality hire?  Obviously, there are a variety of factors that affect the quality of hire, but one could simply be the job title of the opening they were for which they were selected.  This is because your job title should reflect the reality of the position and steer people who have the knowledge, skills, and abilities that are a match for an opening.  For example, we have one client where “code monkeys” as they call them are not a good fit for their organization because the reality of the positions they have is that people need to not just know how to code but be able to more aptly be a “Full Stack Developer.”

     

    Making sure the job title reflects what the position really is as well as what will draw attention in the marketplace for the right applicants are the critical factors in determining what to “call” a job when you post it.

    How do you determine if you are posting a position with the right title?

     

     

  • How Neuroscience Is and Will Revolutionize HR

    How Neuroscience Is and Will Revolutionize HR

     

    In December of 2014, my then four-year-old son started having seizures. After three of them occurred in a short period of time, we went to see a pediatric neurologist who first did an electroencephalogram (EEG) to begin to identify the cause of the seizures so we could determine a course of treatment.

    Utilizing this technology as well as other techniques, she put our son on a medicine that has controlled his seizures. He hasn’t had one in over a year, and we are thankful for the doctors, the scientific discoveries and the technology that made this a reality.

    Neuroscience has long been connected to understanding neurological disorders like seizures. It is also frequently used for explaining behavior, specifically behaviors tied to clinical diagnosis. However, neuroscience is beginning to infiltrate the workplace giving us the ability to use brain science for talent assessment. The EEG used to understand my son’s seizures is now being utilized to understand a variety of talent management questions, as Dario Nardi points on in his article “Your Brain at Work” in HR Magazine.

    As we move forward into the future of behavioral assessment in the workplace, I believe neurological assessment will begin to gain ground to complement, and maybe even take the place of what is most commonly used now- the self-report assessment.

    Why? Well, because it’s more honest. Self-reports are just that- self-reported. Monitoring brain activity points to a more objective approach to understand who we are and why we behave the way we do. Because of this, brain based assessments can help:

    • Create self- awareness in employees to aid in the understanding of who we are (personality) and why we behave the way we do.
    • Improve team building & talent placement by helping individuals and companies understand how to better work together.  This will help companies answer the question, is there enough cognitive diversity on our team?
    • Build better training programs through customized learning. Neuroscience can help us understand how individuals learn best and cater training and development to personalized needs.

    Whereas brain science and the technology related to it is exciting to see in the talent assessment industry for the same reasons it is valuable in medicine- it aids in diagnosis which aids in better decision making- my family’s example also points to the need for caution in utilizing the technology.

    When we went back last month with our son for his yearly EEG, the results still showed a “discharge”, as the doctor referred to it, in the left hemisphere of his brain. She explained to us that it was happening very infrequently, but because it was still present, there is a likelihood that if he were taken off the medicine, the seizures would begin to reoccur. Knowing that this area of the brain is tied to language, I asked her if we should be concerned about any issues in his language development. She said no. Given the amount of frequency seen, she said, it would have to be occurring 20-30% more than it is in order for there to be concerns about his language development.

    This example points to why I’d be hesitant to utilize the technology (and you see I did not list it above) in selection because of the potential discrimination issues.  It could lead to discrimination in hiring against individuals (like my son, who does have a diagnosis of epilepsy) based on factors that are not tied to an individual’s ability to perform the essential functions of the job. I would hate for someone who isn’t as knowledgeable in the science to see “discharge” on someone like my son’s EEG and assume has language issues, when he in fact does not.   However, given a multiple-hurdles approach to assessment, EEGs could one day be a valuable selection tool as well, just as they are used as one technique among many to determine the best course of medical action.

    So for all you talent development professionals out there or those aspiring to be, take more science classes. No field, even HR, is immune to the need for a strong STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) education.

    How do you see neuroscience shaping human resources? Does it excite you or scare you?

    Like this post? You may also like:

    The Psychology Behind Why People Support Certain Presidential Candidates

    and

    Use Your Brain- Both Sides

  • 7 Steps to Implement a Realistic Job Preview

    7 Steps to Implement a Realistic Job Preview

    Last week  we discussed why it’s important to do a realistic job preview.  So how exactly do you do it? Internships and co-op programs are long-term realistic job previews. This set up can provide a company with an opportunity to screen candidates without a making a permanent hiring commitment, but it may take too long.  For tips on starting a job shadowing program, click here.

    In the absence of setting up an internship or co-op program, you can do a realistic job preview in a day or a week. The ultimate goal is to simulate the work and the work environment in a way that helps you assess their fit and ability to perform the work and allows them to decide if the opportunity is the right fit for them.

    Steps to Implement Realistic Job Preview

    1. Select a set of work that this person would be doing if hired. This should be real work, things the company needs to get done anyway. You are just assigning this work to this person for the time period you’ve selected.
    2. To protect any proprietary information, since you are assigning them real work, get them to sign a confidentiality agreement.
    3. Give them the basic information and knowledge to success, but don’t show them how to do everything. Provide them with any basic internal knowledge they need to get the work done and introduce them to people that they will need to work with or through to get the tasks done.
    4. Bring them into the office (or if the work is virtual, let them work virtually) and give them the amount of time you think would be needed to complete the work to get it done.
    5. Let them go and do the work.
    6. Pay them the rate they would be getting paid for the amount of time they worked.  This adds to the realistic nature of the exercise.
    7. Assess how well they did the work, how needy they are in relying on others to get the work done and how well they interacted with others in getting the work done. Ask those they interacted with what they think. Creating a rubric of key criteria that corresponds with a scoring mechanism is a good idea. This helps to eliminate subjectivity and allows for better comparison across candidates.

    Because a realistic job preview is somewhat involved, we suggest doing it towards the end of the process with your top 2-4 candidates.

    Have you ever done a realistic job preview? How did it help you make a better hiring decision?