Auz Burger

TALENT ACQUISITION – ATTRACT TO FILL The future importance of HUMAN Capital According to a study by Mckinsey, forty-five percent45% of humanized activities in the workplace can already be accomplished by technology automation. The traditional working environment is rapidly changing from man to machine, and will have a tremendous impact on workforce operations, productivity, and profit. ("Where machines could replace humans—and where they can’t (yet)." Michael Chui, Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 James Manyika and Mehdi Miremadi, Jul. 2016) (Mckinsey Quarterly, Study) Formatted: Underline Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Ellyn Shook, Chief Leadership and Human Resources Officer, at Accenture once stated: “Paradoxically, the truly human skills, from leadership to creativity, will remain highly relevant and winning organizations will strike the right balance – leveraging the best of technology to elevate, not eliminate their people.” ("CEOs Must Start a Skills Revolution to Unlock the Potential of the Digital Age, According Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 to New Research from Accenture Strategy." Accenture, Jan. 2017) (Ellen Shook, Interview) Field Code Changed Formatted: Hyperlink, Font: Open Sans, 11 pt, Bold, Font color: Accent 2 We may safely assume that 50% of our global corporate realm would still be represented by Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 employees of the Homo Sapiens kind variety, and not the robotic type, continuing into at least Formatted: Font color: Accent 2 the next century. Human cCapital may influence corporate sustainability in one of two ways: either an invaluable asset to organizational prosperity, or a debilitating liability to organizational growth, depending on the effectiveness and efficiency of Talent talent Acquisition acquisition strategy execution. Calculating the Hidden Costs “While the costs of hiring employees such as recruiting, onboarding and orientation are visible, it is often the hidden costs that most companies never take into consideration.” ("Cost of Turnover Calculator." Drake International).(Cost of Turnover Calculator, Drake International). Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Field Code Changed Formatted: Hyperlink, Font: (Default) Open Sans, 11 pt, Bold, Font color: Accent 2, Pattern: Clear Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 High staff turnover rates and increased attrition percentages are most often directly related to incorrect hiring decisions made in the past. Incorrect Hires The number one hidden expense factor impacting most significantly on your bottom line is hiring the wrong employee. This video by Drake International offers an excellent calculation in determining the costs of “hiring wrong.”. ("Drake Cost of Turnover Calculator." DrakeAustralia, Aug. 2014) (Drake International, Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Video) Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Field Code Changed While recruiters are scrambling to replace candidates for these positions, the underlying causes of turnover are never addressed. Formatted: Hyperlink, Font: (Default) Open Sans, 11 pt, Bold, Font color: Accent 2, Pattern: Clear Open Vacancy Costs “The DHI-DFH Mean Vacancy Duration measure, found the average job vacancy duration of Professional and Business Services jobs to be 26.1 working days in 2016. In May, technology jobs remained open for 25.6 working days.” (DHI Hiring Indicators, Report) Commented [AB1]: Link doesn’t work. The real cost of open vacancies, has a tremendous impact on profit and loss figures, diminishing overall return on investment (ROI) to a large extent, which often transpires completely unnoticed by the various cost centerres of the company. The annoyance of losing out on a suitable potential employee for a current role is by far not the worst consequence of a lengthy hiring process. Even more noteworthy, is the combined quantifiable daily cost of every unfilled role in the organization: Image source: ("What Is Your Slow Hiring Process Costing Your Business?" G&A Partners) G&A Partners Trickle Down Costs “In his article Calculating the Cost of a Vacant Position, HR guru Dr Sullivan’s calculations take into consideration the trickle-down effect that vacancies have on the rest of the Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Field Code Changed Formatted: Hyperlink, Font: (Default) Open Sans, 11 pt, Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 organization. Don’t be fooled into believing that open positions cost you only some overtime. The truth is, vacancies can expose your organization to unforeseen and unacceptable expenses.”. ("The Cost of Vacant Positions." Patrick Ropella, Apr. 2008) (Patrick Ropella, Article) The figure below provides a summary of such “trickle effect” costs: Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Hyperlink, Font: Open Sans, 11 pt, Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Field Code Changed Image source: ("The Cost of Vacant Positions." Patrick Ropella, Apr. 2008)Smart Resource Toolbox Formatted: Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font color: Accent 2 Whether you are a corporate Fortune 500 Multinational, a Medium medium Sized sized Ffirm, or a Formatted: Font color: Accent 2 hip and happening Startstart-Up up, making the correct hiring decisions timeously, based on Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 importance and not urgency, is crucial to eradicating hidden costs and improve profit gains. Formatted: English (United States) The Changing Landscape of Recruitment “In a recent survey by Deloitte, only 20% feel that HR can adequately plan for the company’s future talent needs.” ("Welcome To The New Era Of Human Resources." Jared Lindzon, May 2015) (Jarod Lindzon, Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Article) Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Environmental Scanning Before jumping into the hiring processes of sourcing, screening, shortlisting and interviewing, Talent Practitioners should proverbially “slow things down to speed them up.”. Pause for a moment to assess the ever-changing environment of recruitment, before engaging in rash Formatted: Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 decision making regarding talent acquisition strategies and hiring execution plans. Plan of Action Furthermore, carefully consider these changes and the level of impact they may impart onto your organizational ecosystem. Now only decide whether incremental adaptation or a complete make-over is required. Cognitive Recruiting “Savvy recruiters will continue to embrace new TA technologies and hone their relationshipbuilding skills. Indeed, this is the promise of cognitive recruiting. As AI and other technologies take over the basic, time-consuming tasks of sourcing candidates, human jobs will shift. A recruiter in this new world can add value by building psychological and emotional connections with candidates and constantly strengthening the employment brand.” ("Talent acquisition: Enter the cognitive recruiter." Michael Stephan, David Brown and Robin Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Erickson, Feb. 2017) (Deloitte Insights, Report) Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 A synopsis of Old School practices vs New Age trends: Image source: ("Talent acquisition: Enter the cognitive recruiter." Michael Stephan, David Brown and Robin Erickson, Feb. 2017) Deloitte University Press From Talent Seeker to Talent Magnet Formatted: Font: 8 pt, No underline Formatted: Font: 8 pt Formatted: Font: 8 pt, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: 8 pt, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: 8 pt, Font color: Accent 2 The recruitment sphere right now is overwhelmed with a continuous flow of trend innovations, and buzzwords, like Embedded Talent Acquisition, Modular Recruitment Software, Right Sourcing and Data-Driven Recruitment are at the top of the agenda in many HR strategy meetings. However, the age-old talent acquisition conundrum remains: Finding the right candidate, at the right time, at the right price, with the right motivation for moving to your company. Shifting the focus from the activity of “finding” to rather a strategy of “attracting” will result in transcending from Talent Seeker to Talent Magnet. Herein lies the true solution to competitive talent acquisition practices. Talent magnetism is achieved by establishing Employment Branding and creating Candidate Experience initiatives. Employment Branding “We’re all aware of the advancing technologies and shifting corporate trends, and with this evolution brings more transparency making your company a glass house to candidates. Formatted: Font: 8 pt Formatted: Font: 8 pt, No underline, Font color: Auto Tackling employment branding doesn’t have to be overwhelming!” ("Employment branding: a business imperative." Wilson HCG) (WilsonHCG, Article) Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Utilize the following six categories as the foundation for your employer branding strategy: Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Image source: ("Employment branding: a business imperative." Wilson HCG) Wilson GCG, Employment Formatted: Font: 9 pt Brand Cheat Sheet Formatted: Font: 9 pt Formatted: Font: 9 pt A jJack of all trades, is a Master master of none! Prioritize the most critical areas of improvement, and commence with those which will have the largest “return on effort.”. Continue to progressively build upon each improvement result until all six categories render positive outcomes. Employment Branding is a continuous “work in progress,” and not a “once-off tactic.””. “We found that within our 2017 Employment Branding Report, organizations in the Top 100 performed significantly better in all categories as compared to those organizations ranked in the Bottom 100. This affirms that having a proactive employment branding strategy is a clear differentiator.” ("2017 fortune 500: top 100 employment brands report." Wilson HCG, 2017) (Wilson CGC, White Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Paper) Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Candidate Experience “Design thinking—or lack of it—can make a huge difference in how companies are perceived. Take recruiting. The Talent Board found that more than half the candidates who find the job application experience difficult develop a negative impression of the company’s products and services.” ("Design thinking: Crafting the employee experience." Josh Bersin, Marc Solow and Nicky Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Wakefield, Feb. 2016) (Deloitte Insights, Article) Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Creating a Candidate Experience that is positive, unique and exciting will most definitely Formatted: Font color: Accent 2 spike a company’s attraction rates to rise above the competition as an Employer of Choice. “If you don’t recruit with candidate experience as a priority, you can resign yourself to missing out on the best candidates. That’s because they’ll be lured away by the competition that is paying attention to communicating with candidates, making it easy for them to apply for their jobs, and offering opportunities to interact with people in their company.” (Andrew Greenberg, Article) Commented [AB2]: Link doesn’t work. Tear a page from the book (or rather the cloud platform) of pioneering companies perfecting Candidate Experience campaigns currently. The links below delivers refreshing content and case studies regarding strategies on implementing stellar Candidate Experience mechanisms. Unilever Zappos Deloitte Google Formaposte General Electric UK GCHQ McDonalds Domino’s Pizza Goldman Sachs The Purpose of Talent Acquisition today “New recruitment trends? I’m hoping for innovation without tech! What I mean by this is getting to grips with process, rather than the current trend of FOMO (fear of missing out) and hence using every bit you can lay your hands to source talent.” ("13 Recruitment Trends You MUST Know for 2017." Undercover Recruiter, 2017) (Lisa Jones, Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Commentary) Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Revamping sourcing methodologies, adapting to new generation recruitment strategies or Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 acquiring a state of the art integrated applicant tracking system optimized to measure and predict every HR Metric (accept except for perhaps what employees would be wearing tomorrow), is completely obsolete without understanding the new purpose of Talent Acquisition in the organizational ecosystem. Q: “What on earth are you here for?” A: To build successful organizations by hiring the right candidate, at the right time, at the right price and retaining them. HIRE RIGHT, BEFORE YOU OFFER WRONG The job advertisement is running on the company’s career page, ; 3rd third party agencies are presenting the vacancy to their networks, ; the recruitment team is mining the in-house talent pools, ; and various social media platforms are now displaying the funky, new age job description geared to attract the best of the best. Are you ready for WHAT’S NEXT?????? Hiring - Screening “In the CIPD's Resourcing and Talent Planning survey, almost three-quarters (73 percent) of employers surveyed said they had seen a rise in the number of applications from people who are clearly not equipped to perform in the advertised role. The upshot is that HR professionals are wasting valuable time looking through their applications.” ("Resourcing and Talent Planning 2017." CIPD, 2017) (CIPD, Report) Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 It is the silence before the storm, and you need to be prepared for what is about to engulf your Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 very organized inbox: A tsunami of eager candidates, awaiting your instant feedback regarding Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 the progress of their applications. You have just entered the screening stage of the Hiring Process... .brace yourself! “How much time does your company or recruiting team spend sifting through resumes? Is the amount of time and cost justifiable/acceptable? Could the time spent on resume sifting (often inappropriate applications) be better used in other areas of the hiring process to improve quality and job satisfaction?” ("Too Many Applicants? 5 Innovative Ways to Screen Out The Masses." Kazim Ladimeji, Jun. Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 2013) (Kazim Ladimejdi, Article) Formatted: Font color: Accent 2 The technology disruption evident in applicant tracking, sourcing, screening and assessment Formatted: Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 tools have more than doubled in the last three years, according to the Deloitte Insights Human Capital Trends for 2017 report. ("Talent acquisition: Enter the cognitive recruiter." Michael Stephan, David Brown and Robin Erickson, Feb. 2017) (Deloitte Insights, Report) Formatted: Pattern: Clear (White) However, oOn the flip side though, these increased levels of applications through such efficient sourcing channels, has unfortunately resulted in a considerable decline in hiring effectiveness, as depicted by the image below. Image source: ("Escaping the recruitment black hole." Ingeus)Ingeus, The Black hole of Recruitment Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Identifying the “best from the rest”, during the initial screening process is critical to a successful hiring process, .and Tthe following tools have proven to be most effective in encouraging the “cream of the crop” to rise to the top of the resume stack. Suitability Tools Using algorithm-based tools optimized to assess candidate suitability in relation to the specific requirements of the position (Education, Location, Years of Experience and Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Functionality Capabilities), will automate the first level of screening with zero input or effort required from the recruiter team. “An algorithm scans those applications -- 275,400 in all so far -- to surface candidates who meet a given role's requirements. The software weeds out more than half of the pool, according to Unilever spokeswoman Joelle Hutcheon.” ("In Unilever's radical hiring experiment, resumes are out, algorithms are in." Kelsey Gee, Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Jun. 2017) Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 (Dow Jones Newswires, Unilever Article) Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font color: Accent 2 Elimination Tools Following the initial exclusion above, a further tactic proving that has proven to be beneficial to effective screening is the implementation of elimination tools, aligned to the specific hiring goals of the organization. “When linked to the company’s hiring goals, the model successfully identified those candidates most likely to be hired and automatically passed them on to the next stage of the recruiting process. Those least likely to be hired were automatically rejected. With a clearer field, expert recruiters were freer to focus on the remaining candidates to find the right fit. The savings associated with the automation of this step, which encompassed more than 55 percent of the résumés, delivered a 500 percent return on investment.” ("People analytics reveals three things HR may be getting wrong." Henri de Romrée, Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Bruce Fecheyr-Lippens and Bill Schaninger, Jul. 2016) (Mckinsey, Report) Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Hurdles to test Commitment The purpose of including obstacles (try-out activities) in screening procedures, as a compulsory requirement in the application process, will assist in determining real candidate interest and commitment to the role beforehand, as opposed to after the fact when time and resources have already been spent via on shortlisting and interview activities. “Candidates for software engineering positions at Zulily receive a take-home assessment that helps determine how well they write code, says Bill French, head of talent acquisition. Applicants for other positions face alternate types of evaluation. For instance, merchandising candidates are required to pass a retail math test, Formatted: Font color: Accent 2 demonstrating that they have a basic understanding of arithmetic, profits and losses, inventory management, and return on investment. Analytics assessments are given to candidates vying for some jobs in marketing and operations.” ("Putting Pre-Employment Tryouts to the Test." Geri Coleman Tucker, Oct. 2016) Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 (Geri Coleman Tucker, Article, HR Magazine) Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Hurdles to test Competence “The test-first approach makes sense for several reasons. Evidence suggests that many more applicants today—by some estimates, nearly 50%—embellish their CVs, reducing the utility of résumés as initial screening tools.” ("When Hiring, First Test, and Then Interview." John Bateson, Jochen Wirtzm Eugene Burke Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 and Carly Vaughan, Nov. 2013) (Harvard Business Review, Article) Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font color: Accent 2 Image source: ("Pre-Hire Assessment Science Revealed: Value for Employers, Value for Candidates." Josh Bersin, Apr. 2013) Bersin by Deloitte, A Process Model for Assessment When incorporating the above guidelines as part of the screening process upfront, the choice of whether to continue an application to the stage of shortlisting, is automatically made by artificial intelligence, and candidates failing to complete the try-out or perform successfully during the trial tests, will be removed from the process automatically. Formatted: Font: 7.5 pt Formatted: Font: 7.5 pt, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: 7.5 pt, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: 7.5 pt, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: 7.5 pt Formatted: Font: Not Bold Hiring - Shortlisting The shortlisting process is where the first real “human” resource activity should be taking place, whereby recruiters and talent specialists are physically viewing applications and making decisions on whether to shortlist or not. Getting the basics right A resume with grammatical errors, font inconsistencies, formatting irregularities, date discrepancies and vague explanations of duties, should be red-flagged immediately. Learn to read between the lines! Aline Lerner, Co-Founder of interviewing.io conducted a research exercise in 2016, where data was assimilated to display which factors are pre-dispositioned to impact positively on hiring results. One of her data sets investigated the influence of CV errors in overall successful hires made at a company called TrialPay. “about About 87% of people who got offers made 2 or fewer mistakes.” ("Lessons from a year’s worth of hiring data." Aline Lerner, Jul. 2016) (Aline Lerner, Study) Formatted: Font: 10 pt, Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: 10 pt, Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font color: Accent 2 Image source: ("Lessons from a year’s worth of hiring data." Aline Lerner, Jul. 2016) FreeCodeCamp, CV Errors vs Offer Comparison Formatted: Font: 9 pt, No underline, Font color: Auto Formatted: Font: 9 pt Formatted: Font: 9 pt The world we live in has evolved into an instant smart environmen,t and in this digital era: there is an “app” or a “bot” for anything and everything, including free spell checkers, grammar programs, online cv CV editors and resume templates. Recruiters should follow Formatted: Font: 9 pt Formatted: Font: 9 pt Formatted: Font: 9 pt a zero-tolerance approach towards sub-par resumes. The Initial Candidate Conversation “When you're hiring, you can spend a lot of time interviewing job candidates who don't meet your needs before you interview one who does. One way to speed up your search is to use the phone screen interview. A candidate's answers to key phone screening interview questions can allow you to speedily identify the most promising candidates.” ("The Best Phone Screen Interview Questions." Robert Half, May 2017) (Robert Half, Article) Formatted: Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font color: Accent 2 Establishing a candidate’s primary reasons for moving, is vital when conducting the telephonic screening conversations. Use the CLAMPS Model to determine underlying motivations. Formatted: Font color: Accent 2 Image source: ("Career change motivators." The Hill Group)Hill Group, CLAMPS Hiring - Interviewing The interview went so well, and but now you’ve discovered you employed a candidate from hell! Unfortunately, there is no guarantee that the person who signed your offer, will be a great asset to your company. Predictive analytics about human behaviour is the talk of the town in recruitment right now, but the truth is: No level of AI (artificial intelligence) probability modelling techniques or HI (human intelligence) gut feel impressions can forecast hiring success (or failure) in the end. The debate between structured interview purists and unstructured interview advocates remains a much- discussed topic in the talent industry, although these days the structured interview format is highly prescribed by behavioural specialists, and yet fiercely resisted by hiring managers. Formatted: Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font color: Accent 2 Structured vs Unstructured Structured interviews provide an “apples to apples” comparison regarding prospective candidate suitability, but does little to accomplish rapport with applicants on a personal level. These interviews may provide insight into WHAT the person can do, but not WHO the person is. Unstructured interviews, on the other hand, offers an rather “apples to oranges” assessment, which addresses personality type and culture fit, but introduces bias decision making as candidates may be hired because the interviewer relates to them, instead of being offered based on their skills and competencies. Image source: (Adapted from “Beyond the Job Interview.”) The most forthcoming solution to the interview conundrum is perhaps to incorporate both Formatted: Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Default Paragraph Font, Font: (Default) Open Sans, 11 pt, Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold techniques during the interview event: Follow a scientific format coupled with scenario Commented [AB3]: Link doesn’t work. based questions and social assessment techniques. Formatted: Default Paragraph Font, Font: (Default) Open Sans, 11 pt, Not Bold, Font color: Black Job Profile and Candidate Traits A wallflower personality would be unsuitable for a sales manager role, just as the extroverted energizer bunny would not fit well into a number- crunching, back- office environment. “Candidates can get extremely good at interviewing. Everyone that knows the game is to appear very motivated and energetic. They get asked the same routine questions in similar interview circumstances.” ("How to Determine Motivation in a Job Interview." Kristi Hedges, Feb. 2013) (Kristi Hedges, Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Forbes Article) Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Job Profiling should always co-insidecoincide with the corresponding Personality Traits, Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 required to perform at an optimal level in a specific role. Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 “Some of the long-held ideas about how to conduct interviews are no longer accurate. For example, there’s no such thing as a surprise interview question anymore. With sites like Glassdoor.com, candidates can identify each of your likely interview questions and expected answers ahead of time. With that information, candidates now routinely prepare and video their practice interviews to the point where their responses are universally impressive, if not genuine or accurate.” ("7 Rules for Job Interview Questions That Result in Great Hires." John Sullivan, Feb. 2016) Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 (John Sullivan, Harvard Business Review) Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 An abundant supply of information, offering suggested personality traits questions to ask during interviews, are is available with a simple Google search. As a result, the over-supply of content regarding this subject may be quite overwhelming. To start off with some sort ofa foundation point, the adapted version of the Big Five Personality Traits Model comes highly recommended by talent experts, and can be used to create customized interview questions relevant to the job profile requirements. Image source: ("The Big Five Personality Traits Model and Test." The Mind Tools Content Team)Mindtools, Formatted: Font color: Accent 2 Hierarchical Representation of Personality Traits Formatted: Font color: Accent 2 Hiring – Design Thinking Formatted: Font color: Accent 2 When in doubt, just follow the leaders. The organizations discussed below are highly acclaimed influencers to a global transformation in global hiring practices: Formatted: Font: Bold Unilever with Digital Gamification for Graduate Applications “While the process is in its early stages, Unilever recruiters are reporting significant improvements in the hiring process. Under the old system, recruiters screened six candidates to put one through the process; now recruiters are screening two candidates to put one through all the four steps.” (Unilever 4 Step Hiring Process, Commentary) Commented [AB4]: Link doesn’t work. ATC with Chatbot Interviewing “The more innovative ideas and solutions are centered around cognitive technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine-to-machine learning, robotic process automation, natural language processing, predictive algorithms, and self-learning. Chatbots are becoming popular, including the recently launched Olivia, which guides candidates through an application process with sequenced questions.” ("Chat Bot Interviews Recruiter, Recruiter Gets Smitten." ATC Events & Media, Nov. 2016) (ATC Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Chatbots, Commentary) Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 SAP with Video Games & Cartoons for instant Candidate Screening Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 “If you’re a candidate and you apply for a graduate role at SAP, you’ll get back a two-tothree-page assessment report of whether you’re the right fit for us and whether you’re the right person for that role. The candidate’s reaction should be: “Wow. I’ve had instant feedback. I’ve got a two to three-page report I can look at.” Boom! That’s surely the candidate experience that people should aspire to. Even though they got a ‘no,’ that's more preferable than sitting on a database hoping a recruiter will call them in six months’ time.” ("Interview: How SAP is Using Cartoons, Video Games and More to Change Recruiting Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Standards." Richard George, Sept. 2016) (SAP changing Recruitment Standards, Interview) Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Hilton Group with Video Interviewing “Hilton used a video interviewing platform to cut its recruiting cycle from six weeks to just five days. Video interviewing can reduce pre-hire assessment questions from 200 to just 5 and raises the possibility of one-interview hires.” Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 ("HireVue Honors IBM, Hilton Worldwide, Vodafone and Ten Other Customers with 3rd Annual Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 'Digital Disruptor' Awards." HireVue, Jun. 2016) (PR Newswire, Article) Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Conducting successful hiring practices in the Fourth Industrial Revolution era is no simple feat. Be Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 mindful that the focus of hiring is not a sprint to the finish line of immediately securing exceptional candidates, but rather a marathon of tactical adaptation to continuously bring aboard top talent into the organization. ENGAGE TO RETAIN “You spend more time working than doing anything else in life. It’s not right that the experience of work, even at some of the best employers, should be so demotivating and dehumanizing.” ("Insights from inside google that will transform how you live and lead." Laszlo Bock, 2015)Laszlo Formatted: Font color: Accent 2 Bock, Work Rules! Formatted: Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font color: Accent 2 The Organizational Audience Today’s organizations are reminiscent of multigenerational employee compositions. A study compiled by the Harvard Business Review back in 2009, predicted our global workplace representation to include all five generations by 2015. What a crystal ball moment that was! For the first time in history, we are dealing with a global workforce represented by all five generations: Traditionalists, Baby Boomers, Generation X, Millennials, and Nexters In results published by a Deloitte Human Capital Survey of 2014: executives rated “retention and engagement as the second biggest human capital challenge they face (after leadership).” This report was issued three years ago, and one may wonder whetherit may appear that new age principles of design thinking, pertaining to retention and engagement, haves in fact revolutionized HR strategies to overcome this challenge. Upon further investigation, the answer is, unfortunately, a NO. Cultivating employee engagement still, ranks under the top 3 three significant challenges of business today. (For the most recent reports and survey statistics from credible primary data sources, the following link provides further in-depth metrics compiled from a variety of studies during 2017.) “Companies used to invest heavily in employees with the intention of keeping them for decades and seeing them grow and contribute for the foreseeable future. Today, because employees change jobs more rapidly, employers must provide development more quickly, move people more regularly, provide continuous cycles of promotion, and give employees more tools to manage their own careers.” ("Engagement: Always on." David Brown, Josh Bersin, Will Gosling and Nathan Sloan, Feb. 2016) Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 (Deloitte Insights, Article) Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Retention Comprehension Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 A study by (Hagel et al.), “Beyond Employee Retention”, cautioned against a retention- focused narrative of holding onto employees: “Companies should shift from strategies to hold people here, to attracting and engaging people through measures that build commitment, align employee goals and experience with corporate purpose, and provide engaging work and a culture of development and growth.” In lieu of this advisory statement, HR professionals must first distinguish between the concepts of Employee Retention and Employee Engagement, by considering academic definitions thereof. Employee Retention defined “Employee retention is the overall strategy or ability of an organization to retain its best employees and hence maintain a lower turnover.” ("Employee Retention." MBASkool.com) (MBASkool.com, Conceptual Analysis) Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 "Retention is a voluntary move by an organization to create an environment which engages Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 employees for a long-term Chaminade (2007 cited in Chibowa et al. 2010). According to Samuel and Chipunza (2009), the most important purpose of retention is to look for ways to prevent the capable workers from quitting the organization as this could have a negative effect on productivity and profitability. The view that the main purpose of retention is primarily for organizational gains is similarly viewed by Humphreys et al. (2009), who in describing the concept, place the focus of retention in terms of some notion of adequacy or sufficiency of length of service, which can be measured in terms of a return on the costs of investment associated with training and recruitment” ("An Effectiveness of Human Resource Management Practices on Employee Retention." Ata Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 ul Mustafa, Sara Masood and Abeera Athar) (Mustafa et al., Research Paper) Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Employee Engagement Defined Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 “The transactional exchange between employees and their organization is such that the organization satisfies the needs of participants, who in turn reciprocate by developing feelings of ownership and a corresponding sense of responsibility.” ("Psychological Ownership: Theoretical Extensions, Measurement, and Relation to Work Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Outcomes." James B. Avey, Bruce Avolio, Craig Crossley and Fred Luthans, 2009) (James B. Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Avey, Article) Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 “For the past two decades, employee engagement has been a topic of interest both in the Formatted: Font: Bold academic literature and among managers. Initially, it was thought of as personal Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 engagement with the organization and indicated that an employee’s focus was on the performance of assigned tasks. Over the years, several definitions have emerged. Some researchers focused on worker burnout; the idea is that employees who are not experiencing burnout are engaged. Others went beyond burnout and fatigue to focus on the basic needs at a workplace, noting that if employees are engaged, then they are positive about their work being meaningful, their workplace being safe and the availability of sufficient resources for completing tasks. Still, others explored the emotional side of work and provided a comprehensive definition that focused on the cognitive, emotional and behavioural components associated with an individual’s performance.” ("Measuring the Benefits of Employee Engagement." V. Kumar and Anita Pansari, 2015) (MIT Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Sloan, Management Review) Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 From the definitions above, the difference and correlation between Engagement and Retention becomes more evident: Employee Engagement is the driving force, with Employee Retention being the resultant outcome. “Employee engagement and retention today means understanding an empowered workforce’s desire for flexibility, creativity, and purpose. Under the evolving social contract between employer and employee, workers become “volunteers” to be re-engaged and re-recruited each day.” ("Engagement: Always on." David Brown, Josh Bersin, Will Gosling and Nathan Sloan, Feb. 2016) (Brown, Bersin et al., Article) In a nutshell: An engaged employee will more than likely be a retained employee. “People who loved their workplaces were 94% more likely to perform better and 95% more likely to stay at their organization.” Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 ("BPI most loved workplace 2017." Best Practice Institute, 2017) (Best Practice Institute, White Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Paper) Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Image source: ("BPI most loved workplace 2017." Best Practice Institute, 2017) Best Practice Institute, Most Formatted: Font: 9 pt Loved Workplaces Survey Formatted: Font: 9 pt Trending on Engagement: The Consumerization of HR The organizational employee has now transitioned from being a worker or internal service Formatted: Font: 9 pt Formatted: Font: 9 pt Formatted: Indent: Left: 0", First line: 0" Formatted: Font: 9 pt, Bold provider FOR the company, to becoming an in-house consumer expecting a service offering FROM the company. Creating an Employee Experience An exciting school of thought taken from the Marketing & Sales spheres of business is currently advocated, whereby customer experience initiatives are projected onto employee engagement principles, with the aim of designing sustainable employee experiences. “The essence of the “workplace as an experience” is where all the elements of work—the physical, the emotional, the intellectual, the virtual, and the aspirational—are carefully orchestrated to inspire employees.” ("The Future Of Work: Airbnb CHRO Becomes Chief Employee Experience Officer." Jeanne Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Meister, Jul. 2015) (Jeanne Meister, Article) Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 MOOC’s to transform Corporate Learning & Development Disruptive times call for desperate measures, and Digital Learning is widely regarded as the Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 logical replacement to traditional face to face training and classroom learning. The global academic realm has been benefitting from Massive, Open, Online Courses (MOOC’s) for many years now, and similar learning gains can be accomplished by implementing these into Continuous Professional Development strategies. “In a recent Future Workplace survey, completed by 195 corporate learning and HR professionals, 70 percent of respondents said they saw opportunities to integrate MOOCs into their own company’s learning programs.” ("How MOOCs Will Revolutionize Corporate Learning And Development." Jeanne Meister, Aug. 2013) (Jeanne Meister, Article) Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 . Increased Workplace Flexibility It is time to void the traditional belief of that 09:00 a.m. to 17:005 p.m. equals employee productivity and drive.! “A survey by ConnectSolutions finds 39% of those work remotely report 77% greater productivity while working off-site and 42% of remote workers feel they’re just as connected with colleagues as if they had been working on-premises.” ("CoSo Cloud Survey Shows Working Remotely Benefits Employers and Employees." CoSo, Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Feb. 2015) (ConnectSolutions, Survey) Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 It is GAME ON for Everyone! Contrary to the popular narrative of soon to bethat soon organizations will be dominated by Millennials domination, organizations are still required to cater for to the other generational composites, forming part of company headcount figures. Jeanne Meister suggests “that gamification inside the workplace was migrating from a few isolated pilots to a new way to recruit, engage and recognize high performing employees. In fact, Brian Burke, Vice President of Gartner, estimates “‘employee focused gamification applications now exceed customer focused gamification applications.’” Prior to deciding what trend innovations to follow, or which are best to implement, it is important to understand the underlying drivers of employee engagement. Drivers of Employee Engagement “Almost everything that happens at work has a direct impact on employees’ commitment to their work: how they are coached and evaluated; the work environment and the tools with which they work; their opportunities to grow and develop; and, of course, their relationships with managers and peers.” ("Engagement: Always on." David Brown, Josh Bersin, Will Gosling and Nathan Sloan, Feb. 2016) (Deloitte Insights, Article) Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Image source:, ("The employee experience: Culture, engagement, and beyond." Josh Bersin, Jason Flynn, Art Mazor and Veronica Melian, Feb. 2017)Deloitte Insights, Article Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Meaningful Work Employee engagement increases when the perception of an employee’s purpose within the organization is clarified, coupled with tangible results regarding the effect their actions have on others. “In a study by Wrzesniewski of custodians working in an academic hospital who, for no extra pay, took it upon themselves to comfort patients and their families, and to help professional staff with patient care. The custodians stated that this extra, unpaid work was the aspect of their jobs that motivated them the most.” ("Barry Schwartz’s ‘Practical Wisdom.’" Barry Schwartz, Dec. 2012) (Barry Schwartz, Interview)  Where to start.... right now? Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 “Whether adding to their existing corporate social responsibility programming or starting from scratch, an organization can benefit from learning what is important to its employees. Corporate social responsibility can be a key driver of meaningful work and a defining factor of a purpose-driven organization.” ("The Power of Purpose: How Organizations are Making Work More Meaningful." Alison Alexander, 2016) (Alison Alexander, Research Paper) Hands-On Management Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Adapting management practices to encourage employee engagement should not entail so-called carrot and sticks tactics immersed in dictator styles of micro management. “Yet many core management and HR practices (bonuses, pay for performance, merit raises, performance ratings, potential ratings, high-potential lists, economic consequences for not reaching goals) are based on the idea that people work harder and produce more output in exchange for money and positional power.” ("HR for Humans: How behavioral economics can reinvent HR." Jim Guszcza, Josh Bersin and Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Jeff Schwartz, Jan. 2016) (Deloitte Review Issue 18, Article) Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 A hands-off approach on the other hand, would also not cultivate increased levels of Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 emotional connectedness and or worker satisfaction levels either. “But, says author and speaker Bruce Tulgan, the biggest myth of employee empowerment is that people do their best work when you leave them alone. People do their best work when they have guidance, direction, support and coaching from a more experienced person.,” ("A Fine Employee Engagement Line: Managers, Are You Too Hands Off?" Brenda Smyth, Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Aug. 2016) (NST Insights, Article) Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2  Where to start.... right now? “We have a great initiative here called ‘’Toolbox Meetings’’. These 10-minute gatherings take place every morning without fail, in all divisions and across all locations in the group. Every single employee is involved here, and communication channels are therefore opened from top to bottom, resulting in expectations being clarified, employees feeling purposefully engaged and able to embrace the vision of the company together as a united front, leaving no room for confusion or fear of unknowns. Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 ("Small efforts to render big results: Engage, Incorporate, Retain." Liezl Schoeman) (Shailesh Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Sharma, Interview) Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 A Positive Work Environment Depending on glamourizing the importance of titles, duties and money as a method to establish or improve employee engagement is a sure- fire tactic to cause the just the opposite. “The third principle of behavioural economics is that Humans, unlike textbook Econs, are motivated by factors other than economic self-interest. We also value peer recognition, respect, freedom to contribute, and the sense of self-esteem—not just a bigger paycheck.” ("HR for Humans: How behavioral economics can reinvent HR." Jim Guszcza, Josh Bersin and Jeff Schwartz, Jan. 2016) Deloitte Insights, Article) “Design thinking casts HR in a new role. It transforms HR from a process developer to an Formatted: Indent: Left: 0.25" experience architect. It empowers HR to reimagine every aspect of work: the physical environment; how people meet and interact; how managers spend their time; and how companies select, train, engage and evaluate people. One CHRO calls herself the chief employee experience officer, which effectively summarizes this powerful new mandate.” ("Design thinking: Crafting the employee experience." Josh Bersin, Marc Solow and Nicky Wakefield, Feb. 2016) (Deloitte Insights, Article)  Where to start.... right now? “Managing diversity will remain a challenge, regardless of similarity or variety in personality profiles and cognitive types. In some instances, the commonality of English as a second language can bring people together and bridge the gap of differences in culture or religion. Very often small efforts like having a beer and a good chat at informal company gatherings does the trick.” ("Sustainable Talent Management: A balancing act of Innovation & Tradition." Liezl Schoeman) (Imran Esmael, Interview) Growth Opportunities Employee expectations around growth often revolve around two key areas: Mastery and Autonomy. Mastery: “Some organizations make active efforts to inculcate a learning culture. For example, Google holds a celebrated TechTalks series attracting prominent thinkers to share Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 leading-edge thinking with its community. Deloitte Consulting LLP holds an annual data science summit at which the firm’s data scientists can bond with, and learn from, each other. Beyond the economic efficiency of self-training rather than paying for external trainers, enabling employees to gain recognition as teachers who are masters of their domains is a powerful motivator.” ("HR for Humans: How behavioral economics can reinvent HR." Jim Guszcza, Josh Bersin and Jeff Schwartz, Jan. 2016) (Deloitte Insights, Article) Autonomy: “Give people opportunity for creativity and innovation in their jobs. Google’s Gmail and AdSense are credited to the company’s to “20% time” program, in which employees were allowed a day each week to work on side projects.” ("The truth about Google's famous '20% time' policy." Jillian D'Onfro, Apr. 2015)(Business Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Insider, Article) Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2  Where to start.... right now? Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 The reinvention of training strategies to support employee aspirations of Mastery and Autonomy may significantly satisfy their expectations for growth and actualization; even in a multigenerational workforce. Finding the sweet spot of commonalities in generation learning preferences is the first step in creating a universally beneficial training environment within the organization. Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Image Source: ("Targeting different generations." Steve Corbett, 2008)Corbett, S (2008. Targeting different Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 generations in B. Hoffman (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Educational Technology Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Trust in Leadership “Emotional bonds at work matter. They impact employees’ overall well -being, engagement and the bottom line. Emotional bonds are ultimately what makes our work meaningful. We know this from our experience and research is confirming the importance of leaders creating bonds of trust.” ("To improve employee engagement, focus on building bonds of trust, not external Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 incentives." Todd Hall, Jan. 2016) (Dr Todd Hall, Research Commentary) Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Creating these bonds of trust between employees and managers is easier said than done. Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 The all too familiar mindset of “us against them” is still toxifying toxic to many a company Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 culture these days. Rather than engaging in elaborately formalized activities to enforce trust, a few small informal efforts may render extraordinary results.  Where to start.... right now? “’Weekly sessions are scheduled which I call “conversations with the CEO’” where I interact with employees on ground level, and we can discuss anything and everything during these conversations, their challenges, problematic issues, ideas, solutions and strategies for themselves or their teams. Since I have been holding these CEO conversations, I have come to realize that half of what was transpiring in my organization, never used to reach my desk. Now, I have my ear on the ground and the information gained is very valuable to me in order to steer this ship in the right direction.” (“Interview.” Franz Gertze, Interview) Commented [AB5]: Missing link. Incremental to Irresistible The Japanese refer to a sustained series of actions as Kaizen: a long-term approach to work that systematically seeks to achieve small incremental changes in processes to improve efficiency and quality. “Perhaps the biggest challenge for HR in leading engagement programs is shifting from a transactional, once-a-year mindset, to an always on, continuous listening approach to monitoring engagement.” ("Engagement: Always on." David Brown, Josh Bersin, Will Gosling and Nathan Sloan, Feb. 2016) (Deloitte Insights Article) Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 The bricks and mortar platforms of New York’s Broadway, Sydney’s Opera House, The Royal Albert Hall in London and the Russian Bolshoi Theatre, all have a single contributing factor attributing to their world-renowned status: Continuously producing shows, plays, and events, which fully engage and captivate their audiences time and time again. The HR Platform in business today should aim to accomplish just that: ENGAGE and CAPTIVATE the Employee Audience with consistent, uninterrupted efforts to change, improve and reinvent retention outcomes for the benefit of both the organization and its workforce. TEAM BUILDING The ability to build an effective team is only growing in importance. Researchers at Deloitte have found that the traditional hierarchal structure of companies has evolved to “a network of teams.” This shift in functional structure has an impact on most of the main issues that companies face, such as innovation and employee engagement. ("New Research Shows Why Focus On Teams, Not Just Leaders, Is Key To Business Performance." Josh Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Bersin, Mar. 2016) (Forbes, New Research Shows… ) Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Image source: ("New Research Shows Why Focus On Teams, Not Just Leaders, Is Key To Business Formatted: Left Performance." Josh Bersin, Mar. 2016) Forbes Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Companies must learn how to create, as well as manage and sustain, effective teams in order to thrive in workplaces rapidly changing due to this shift to team-centric structure, new technology, increased age range in the workforce, and other disruptors. Managing Multi-Generational Teams The World Health Organization projects that men and women who are now healthy at 60 will be physically capable of working until they are 74 and 77, respectively. This expansion of age range in the workforce presents the potential for five generations to work together. These generations include: ● Traditionalists, born prior to 1946 ● Baby Boomers, born between 1946 and 1964 ● Gen X, born between 1965 and 1976 ● Millennials, born between 1977 and 1997 ● Gen 2020, born after 1997 ("Are You Ready to Manage Five Generations of Workers?" Jeanne C. Meister and Karie Willyerd, Oct. 2009)(HBR, Are You Ready To Manage Five Generations of Workers?) Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Field Code Changed Formatted: Hyperlink, Font: (Default) Open Sans, Bold, Font color: Accent 2, Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font color: Dark Gray, Do not check spelling or grammar, Not Highlight Formatted: Font: (Default) Calibri, Font color: Dark Gray, English (United States), Do not check spelling or grammar Formatted: Font color: Dark Gray, Do not check spelling or grammar, Not Highlight Image source: ("Are You Ready to Manage Five Generations of Workers?" Jeanne C. Meister and Karie Willyerd, Oct. 2009)HBR Formatted: Font: 9 pt Formatted: Font: 9 pt Formatted: Left “While it may seem daunting to manage someone much older than you, try taking a cue from the military. The U.S. Marine Corps routinely puts 22-year-old lieutenants in charge of 45-year-old Formatted: Font: 9 pt Formatted: Font: 9 pt sergeants, notes Cappelli. “‘The mindset is to make that person your partner and involve them in Formatted: Font: 9 pt, Not Italic, Font color: Dark Gray, Do not check spelling or grammar everything you do. You’re still the boss and the one making the decisions, but you should hear them Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 out.’” A collaborative approach works well when managing workers who are in their 20s, too. “‘They are used to discussion and engagement because that’s what they had in the college environment,” ,’ Cappelli says. Help your employees make the transition from school to the workplace by encouraging debate.” ("Managing People from 5 Generations." Rebecca Knight, Sept. 2014) (HBR: Managing Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 People…) Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font color: Accent 2 Put yourself in the shoes of members of another generation in order to understand their motivations and needs in the workplace. “’Just as you would research a new product or service, you need to study the demographics of your current workforce and the projected demographics of your future workforce to determine what they want out of their jobs as these things are different generation to generation,” ,’ says Meister. If your company conducts an annual survey of vision and values, Meister suggests adding new questions to the mix, such as queries about your employees’ preferred communication style and planned professional paths. Then “‘use that information to look critically at your human resources and business strategies. Figure out: What matters to different sets of employees? What can you do [to attract younger or more experienced workers]? It’s a low cost way to get a pulse on generational career issues,” ,’ says Meister… “When it comes to inspiring and incentivizing employees who are much older or much younger than Formatted: Space After: 0 pt you, it helps to think like an anthropologist. “‘Consider where your employees are in their lives and what their needs are,” ,’ says Meister. Younger people, for instance, typically don’t have many outside obligations; work- wise, they are motivated by new experiences and opportunities. Employees in their Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 30s and 40s, on the other hand, often have children and mortgages and are in need of flexibility as well as “‘money and advancement” ’ says Cappelli. Workers at the end of their careers “‘are probably not as interested in training, but they do want interesting work and work-life balance,” ,’ he says. “‘Understanding the characteristics around these predictable life paths will help you figure out how best to [divvy up] work assignments and also the best ways to manage and motivate your team.”” .’” ("Managing People from 5 Generations." Rebecca Knight, Sept. 2014) (HBR: Managing People…) Multi-generational teams provide the opportunity for unique mentoring experiences. “Reverse or reciprocal mentoring programs, which pair younger workers with seasoned executives to work on Commented [AB6]: Based on the sturcture of these two paragraphs, and the use of quotation marks at the end, I think this is all a block quote. I can’t verify it in the source article, it’s one that requires a subscription to access. Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 specific business objectives, usually involving technology, are increasingly prevalent in many offices. “‘The younger person — who grew up with the internet — teaches the older person about the power of social media to drive business results,” ,’ says Meister. Meanwhile, the more experienced employee shares institutional knowledge with the younger worker. Mixed-age work teams are another way to promote cross-generational mentoring. “‘Studies show that colleagues learn more from each other than they do from formal training, which is why it is so important to establish a culture of coaching across age groups,’” says Meister. In mixed-age teams, mentoring relationships develop more naturally, adds Cappelli. ‘“Older folks are more likely to fall into a mentor role and help the young employees,’” he says. Meanwhile, young people often find it easier to take advice from an experienced worker than from one of their peers “‘because they’re not competing in the same way,” ’ he says.” ("Managing People from 5 Generations." Rebecca Knight, Sept. 2014) (HBR: Managing People…) Creating Diverse and Interdisciplinary Teams Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 “High-performing teams include members with a balance of skills. Every individual doesn’t have to possess superlative technical and social skills, but the team overall needs a healthy dose of both. Diversity in knowledge, views, and perspectives, as well as in age, gender, and race, can help teams be more creative and avoid groupthink.” ("The Secrets of Great Teamwork." Martine Haas and Mark Mortensen, Jun. 2016)(HBR, The Secrets…) Formatted: Font: Bold, Not Italic, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Not Italic, Font color: Accent 2 Multiple studies, including one from the Vienna University of Economics and Business, suggest that increased diversity in teams can lead to increased creativity. They found that cultural diversity can lead to some losses due to “task conflict and decreased social integration” but can lead to gains by means of “increased creativity and satisfaction.” The group also found that “the effects are almost identical for Formatted: Font: Bold, Not Italic, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Not Italic, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 both levels and types of cultural diversity.” ("Unraveling the effects of cultural diversity in teams: A meta-analysis of research on multicultural Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 work groups." Günter K. Stahl, Martha L. Maznevski, Andreas Voigt and Karsten Jonsen, 2009) Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 (Journal of International Business Studies, Unraveling the effects of cultural diversity in teams) Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 “if If you’re not making room for the unexpected meeting of minds, you could be missing out on the next big breakthrough. Visionary leaders understand this. They set up the creative, collaborative environments that foster crossovers and the innovations that come from them. Research has validated this approach. A study by Martin Ruef, a professor at Duke University, found that horizontal networks of individuals with a diversity of expertise were three times more likely to innovate than uniform vertical networks.” ("Innovation Springs from the Unexpected Meeting of Minds." Beth Comstock, Mar. 2016) (HBR, Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Innovation Springs From…) Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 To craft this sort of interdisciplinary team, look for individuals that not only have expertise in their field, but also have interest in other fields and have open- minded attitudes when participating in discussions. Leaders of these diverse teams must understand the context of each distinctive background of team members and remain engaged to successfully coordinate and facilitate a cohesive, creative environment. Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 “To operate within an interdisciplinary environment, an individual needs to have strengths in two dimensions—the “‘T-shaped” ’ person. On the vertical axis, every member of the team needs to possess a depth of skill that allows him or her to make tangible contributions to the outcome. The top of the “‘T” ’ is where the design thinker is made. It’s about empathy for people and for disciplines beyond one’s own. It tends to be expressed as openness, curiosity, optimism, a tendency toward learning through doing, and experimentation.” ("Design Thinking for Social Innovation." Tim Brown and Jocelyn Wyatt, Jul. 2010) (IDEO, Design Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Thinking for Social Innovation) Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 “As the team members’ fields become less and less similar, however, the average value of the team’s innovations falls while the variation in value around that average increases: You see more failures, but Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 you also see occasional breakthroughs of unusually high value (as pictured on the right side of the chart). The pairing of less-aligned disciplines, such as economics and psychology, is risky (but potentially higher yielding) because their underlying assumptions are so different… What does this imply about innovation strategy? Most important, it suggests that it’s possible to manipulate the makeup of an innovation team to achieve a desired balance between risk and reward. And if you do choose the risky strategy of assembling a highly diverse innovation team, there are ways to maximize the chance of a breakthrough while minimizing the number of failures. Regardless of how far apart or misaligned the team members’ disciplines may be, the more established and well-understood the fields you bring together, the greater the chance of good innovations and the lower the chance of poor ones… Another way to reduce the chance of failures, my research suggests, is to bring together people with deep, rather than broad, expertise in their respective disciplines—no matter how distantly related their fields. Such experts are often the most reluctant to collaborate across disciplines, but they’re also the most capable of seeing potentially valuable creative synergies between fields because of their thorough understanding of the assumptions and phenomena in their areas of expertise. A multidisciplinary team with broad but shallow expertise may identify a wider array of potential opportunities than a team of deep experts, but the likelihood of practical synergies will be relatively low.” ("Perfecting Cross-Pollination." Lee Fleming, Sept. 2004) (HBR, Perfecting Cross-Pollination) Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Image source: ("Perfecting Cross-Pollination." Lee Fleming, Sept. 2004) HBR Formatted: Left, Indent: Left: 0.5", First line: 0.5" Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 “In a world where cross-functional and interdisciplinary teams are not only increasingly the norm but looked to as a source, in their very diversity of perspectives and experiences, of original thinking and innovative work, the challenge for leaders is to recognize and yoke together such differences successfully. Just as leaders need to mindful, attentive and sensitive to the different communication and leadership expectations and norms existing across geographic borders, in other words, so they should be attuned to the attitudes, perspectives, and expectations about working together brought by different kinds of creative professionals and practitioners… “Effectively combining differing technical expertise, aesthetic preferences, and mental models has long been at the heart of creative business. The tension – for some, a paradox – between the chaos of creativity and the order of business or management has not only been a challenge to be overcome but a source of the ‘creative friction’ (to use Michael Eisner’s words) needed to generate fresh ideas… it is not only a matter of recognizing and coordinating different skills or knowledge or perspectives in developing creative solutions to business challenges. Rather, the deeper task and responsibility of leadership is to understand that individuals with apparently different professional skills or technical expertise have often developed through very different experiences. Their conceptions of what teamwork is, what successful outcomes or IP rights should be, how creativity relates to business, indeed their beliefs about and attitudes toward authority and the free market and are all also potentially distinctive. Ultimately, the mental models and what management scholar Tarun Khanna calls the ‘contextual intelligence’ of those approaching creative work from different professional perspectives Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 warrants closer and sustained engagement by leaders.” ("The Other Cross-Cultural Leadership Is Creative Collaboration." David Slocum, Sept. 2014) (Forbes, Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 The Other Cross Cultural Leadership) Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Resource: Kim Scott, former Apple and Google executive, explains what conversations bosses should have with their employees to create the perfect team (video): http://www.businessinsider.com/kim-scott- Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 radical-candor-apple-google-career-jobs-careers-boss-2017-3 Encouraging a Cohesive, Collaborative Environment “Be consistent and open in your communication. If people are kept in the dark about what’s going on, they will make up their own version and it won’t be a positive one. Instead of avoiding, minimizing or trying to hide a negative situation, tell it like it is. Trust that staff will understand and appreciate being informed. Not disclosing will only breed mistrust, suspicion, and fear.” (Fast Company: 5 Ways) Commented [AB7]: Link doesn’t work. Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 “The most successful, memorable team-building events are ones that don’t feel like a day at the office. Activities that overtly aim to draw in leadership lessons or practical takeaways are less powerful. Spending time together, sharing an experience, or working towards a common goal allows bonding to happen more organically and far more effectively. It turns out that happiness and learning are tied very closely together. Trying new things with your staff can generate good vibes among employees, which in turn benefits the business itself. Choosing something unique and slightly outside of people’s comfort zones can encourage them to come together in new ways… Most team-building falls flat because it’s a one-time activity - done and then forgotten. It’s key to find ways to keep the excitement Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 going. The challenge is creating opportunities for people to connect and interact in meaningful ways, outside of regular meetings or presentations.” ("Why Team Building Is The Most Important Investment You'll Make." Brian Scudamore, Mar. 2016) Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 (Forbes: Why Team Building…) Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 “’Trusting strangers is hard. Calling a group a team doesn’t make them one. In my 40 years as a CEO and coach, I have seen effective teams and ineffective groups (often labeled a team). The difference is that Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 real teams members feel safe because they know and trust one another. Groups, not so much. Getting acquainted in a safe environment is essential to building effective teams.’” - Judy Nelson ” Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 ("14 Things Your Team-Building Activity Needs To Succeed." Forbes Coaches Council, Mar. 2017) Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 (Forbes: 14 Things...) Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 “At the start of 2016 Google announced that it had discovered the secret ingredients for the perfect Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 team. After years of analyzing interviews and data from more than 100 teams, it found that the drivers Formatted: Font color: Accent 2 of effective team performance are the group’s average level of emotional intelligence and a high Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 degree of communication between members. Google’s recipe of being nice and joining in makes Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 perfect sense (and is hardly counterintuitive). Scientific evidence… indicates quite clearly that Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 individuals’ personalities play a significant role in determining team performance. In particular, personality affects: ● What role you have within the team ● How you interact with the rest of the team ● Whether your values (core beliefs) align with the team’s “Importantly, the above processes concern the psychological factors (rather than the technical skills) Formatted: Space After: 0 pt underlying both individual and team performance. These psychological factors are the main determinants of whether people work together well.” ("Great Teams Are About Personalities, Not Just Skills." Dave Winsborough and Tomas ChamorroPremuzic, Jan. 2017) (HBR: Great Teams…) Personality inventories based on psychology can be used to determine teammate and leadership qualities: Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 ● Myers-Briggs Type Indicator Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 ● DiSC profile Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 “If you want to get something done, put a powerful person on your team. If you want to ruin the team, in order to get more done, put one or two more powerful people on the team. Productivity will decrease. This is the conclusion of a recent study by two academics at the University of California Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Berkeley Haas School of Business, and reported by Shankar Vedantam on NPR’s Morning Edition. This Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 research, conducted by Angus Hildreth and Cameron Anderson, shows that when more than one Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 powerful person is on the team, competition between the powerful leads to dysfunction. Each one is jockeying to be in charge… The piece on NPR offered some solutions. One is to allow less dominant individuals on a team to work out the details before the powerful people become involved. For example, let the staffers do the work of framing objectives. Doing this will jump-start the project and give the powerful individuals something to build upon.” ("Team Building: Let The Big Dogs Bark First." John Baldoni, Jan. 2017) (Forbes: Let the Big Dogs…) Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 "Collaboration" might sound like a great thing — everyone pools their knowledge and skills to help a company succeed. But researchers say there's a dark side to collaboration: The more valuable you are to the company, the more demands get placed on you, until eventually you burn out and quit. Researchers call it "‘success syndrome." .’ The worst part is that managers can be completely oblivious to how overloaded their employees are becoming. In some cases, they might not even know that their Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Space After: 0 pt Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 employees are fielding requests from other people and departments. Senior leaders can help resolve this issue by re-evaluating group meetings and deciding if everyone's input is really required. They can also show the most burdened people how to prioritize requests and say "‘no" ’ when necessary… But don't think that eliminating collaboration completely will solve any problems. A 2015 EY survey found Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 that one of the top five reasons workers quit is that their work environment doesn't encourage collaboration between coworkers. Worldwide, 71% of people cited this issue as a factor in leaving; in the US, the number dropped to 66%.” ("7 real reasons why your employees are quitting." Shana Lebowitz, May 2016) (Business Insider: Real Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Reasons...) Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Motivating Employees Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Making employees feel appreciated contributes significantly to their motivation. When an individual feels valued, and recognizes concrete relevance and meaning in the project, he or she is more likely to work as a positive team member and deliver successful results. “To motivate your employees, start by sharing context about the work you’re asking them to do. Formatted: Space After: 0 pt What are we doing as an organization and as a team? Why are we doing it? Who benefits from our work and how? What does success look like for our team and for each employee? What role does each employee play in delivering on that promise? Employees are motivated when their work has relevance. When you ask anything significant of team members, they will undoubtedly encounter roadblocks and challenges along the path to success. Recognize that challenges can materially impact motivation. Be proactive in identifying and addressing them… Employees are motivated when they can make progress without unnecessary interruption and undue burdens. As tempting as it is to try to influence employee satisfaction with the use of carrots and sticks, it isn’t necessary for sustained motivation. Far more powerful is your commitment to recognizing and acknowledging contributions so that employees feel appreciated and valued. Leaders consistently underestimate the power of acknowledgment to bring forth employees’ best efforts.” ("Motivating Employees Is Not About Carrots or Sticks." Lisa Lai, Jun. 2017) Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 (HBR: Motivating Employees…) Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 “’Aligned incentives are the only true way to ensure everyone on a team is working toward a Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 common goal. Framing the strategy in multiple ways ensures each stakeholder has a clear, personal Formatted: Space After: 0 pt understanding of how working together benefits himself and the team. This technique allows you to motivate the team to accomplish amazing things.’” - Ross Resnick, Roaming Hunger” ("14 Highly Effective Ways to Motivate Employees." Ilya Pozin, Nov. 2015) (Inc: 14 Highly Effective…) Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 “Barbara Fredrickson at the University of North Carolina has found that positive emotions like trust, Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 curiosity, confidence, and inspiration broaden the mind and help us build psychological, social, and Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 physical resources. We become more open-minded, resilient, motivated, and persistent when we feel safe. Humor increases, as does solution-finding and divergent thinking — the cognitive process underlying creativity. When the workplace feels challenging but not threatening, teams can sustain the broaden-and-build mode. Oxytocin levels in our brains rise, eliciting trust and trust-making behavior.” Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 ("High-Performing Teams Need Psychological Safety. Here’s How to Create It." Laura Delizonna, Aug. Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 2017) (HBR: High Performing Teams…) Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font color: Accent 2 “One of the biggest efforts to quantify what makes teams work together comes at Alphabet Inc.’s Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 GOOGL -0.13% Google. Its People Operations department crunches data to answer questions such as Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 whether a team’s productivity was correlated to how often its members socialized outside the office Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 (not necessarily). Google also found that the best teams created a culture of “‘psychological safety,” ,’ meaning team members could share thoughts, ideas and concerns without fear of ridicule or punishment. The analytics team also looks at issues not directly related to teamwork, such as the optimal length for paid maternity leave. (Longer leaves generally result in lower attrition rates for new mothers.) “In studying workplace teams that have tangible markers of success, such as sales teams, researchers have found that the most successful groups share some characteristics, Mr. Pentland says. They are: 1) Each member of the team is engaged. That means everyone talks and listens in roughly equal measure and that they talk with everyone, not just a manager. 2) There are a diversity of ideas, and everyone is willing to consider new ideas. This can be measured through surveys, as well as the tone of voice people use. 3) Everyone is setting goals for a project. “‘You need everyone exploring slightly different things, but going in the same direction,” ,’ Mr. [Alex] Pentland [, who runs the nonprofit Human Dynamics Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology] says.” ("In Search of a Perfect Team at Work." Stu Woo, Apr. 2017) (WSJ: In Search…) Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Determine whether your workplace is challenging in a non-threatening way, by taking the Team Learning and Psychological Safety Survey: http://www.midss.org/content/team-learning-andpsychological-safety-survey Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Recognition and Rewards “It’s a proven fact that rewards are a powerful motivator for corporate learners. They don't even have Formatted: Space After: 0 pt to be tangible incentives, such as gift cards or monetary rewards. Earning eLearning badges, points, or Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 progressing through levels can be enough to pique their interest. Therefore, gamification and serious Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 games are prominent corporate eLearning trends. eLearning games give employees the rare opportunity Formatted: Font color: Accent 2 to learn information without even realizing it. They are able to compete with peers and level up while absorbing the key takeaways. Just remember that game mechanics are there to support the prime learning objectives. Ultimately, they should trigger intrinsic motivation and foster an emotional Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 connection to further enhance the benefits.” Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 ("8 Corporate eLearning Trends For 2017." Christoforos Pappas, May 2017) (Elearning: 2017 Trends) Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 “...half of respondents in a 2013 CareerBuilder survey said that increasing employee recognition — in the form of awards, cash prizes, and company trips — is one way to prompt employees to stay with a company.” ("7 real reasons why your employees are quitting." Shana Lebowitz, May 2016) (Business Insider: Real Reasons...) In Forbes, Renato Libric - entrepreneur, investor, and founder and CEO at Bouxtie Inc. and FlexAwards lists some concrete actions and explains how they can build a culture of employee recognition: “…if you see an employee going above and beyond, thank them. Say how much you appreciate their work and how it’s not going unnoticed… a little positive reinforcement is always a good thing. Not to mention, this may cause some friendly competition within the workplace. “When it comes time for the holidays or a birthday, if your organization permits gifts to your employees, make it personal… “Take the time to sit down with each of your employees, assess where they hope to end up in the long run, and then attempt to put them in positions to succeed in getting there. There’s nothing better than a happy, home-grown team you’ve trained as they've worked their way up the ranks… “You don’t want to work where people are talking behind everyone’s backs and trying to get to the bottom of what’s really happening in the company. Be upfront with what is going on. Make your team feel like a family. If you’re open and honest with your employees, in turn, they will trust you and will feel like equals, no matter their position on the ladder. Formatted: Font: Bold Formatted: Font: Bold Formatted: Font: Bold Formatted: Space After: 0 pt Formatted: Pattern: Clear Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2, Not Highlight “If you want to empower your employees, hand them a little more responsibility. Let them make important decisions in regard to the company. It’ll build your team members' confidence when you recognize and trust their expertise. “Make a habit of taking someone new each week to grab a cup of joe. Take a few minutes to sit and chat with them and non-work related topics. Have they seen any good movies? How long have they lived in town for? Do they have any recommendations for good restaurants? Leveling the playing field will help them realize they aren’t just an employee.” (Forbes, Seven Ways to Build a Culture of Employee Recognition) Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Commented [AB8]: Link doesn’t work. Remote Team Members Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 According to Gallup, 43% of U.S. employees work remotely in some capacity. The study found that working remotely part-time, but not full-time, is the sweet spot that balances freedom with workplace engagement. ”“Those who work remotely some of the time are more engaged and report a more positive workplace experience than those who never work remotely. However, one group of remote workers is not experiencing this boost in engagement: those who work remotely 100% of the time. Although fully remote workers are more likely to say they have the opportunity to do what they do best, these employees have lost connections to their organizations that could increase their performance. According to Gallup's research, employees who work remotely 100% of the time are the least engaged of all remote workers. This directly affects an organization's retention, productivity, customer experience and, ultimately, profitability. ” Commented [AB9]: There’s no source. Formatted: Space Before: 14 pt “When an employee is in the same office as their manager, it's easier for the manager to see and recognize that team member's successes. When they are in different locations, however, there are few natural moments to see, let alone praise, good work. What's more, some employees don't always share their successes since it can be seen as bragging about themselves. Sometimes managers simply aren't aware of what is occurring and what employees are most proud of. Most managers we work with don't want to take up too much of their or the employee's time, so they keep their "quick connects" focused on what needs to get accomplished. But this simply isn't enough to keep an employee engaged and performing. To increase the frequency of these important conversations, both the manager and the employee need to be more intentional about connecting and sharing. ● Compared with employees who spend at least some time in the office, fully remote workers are 30% less likely to strongly agree that they have talked with their manager about steps to reach their goals in the past six months. Regardless of remote status, "career growth opportunities" is the No. 1 reason employees leave their company. If companies want to retain their remote workforce, they must take action to quickly correct this mistake. ● One tactic companies can use is to rethink their internal job postings. The problem with most job postings is that they only reveal jobs that need to be filled. Employees don't need to only see what is available; they need to see what is possible to achieve within the company. Being in an office can more naturally expose workers to people in their organization performing different functions or holding different positions. These natural exchanges and visual cues can spark feelings of hope and growth as employees envision their future with the company. In contrast, remote workers are less likely to find those same organic exchanges. ● Our research shows that the optimal amount of time to work remotely each week is three to four days. Spending all of your time at the office or all of your time away leads to the lowest employee engagement. Human beings need connection -- not only to their coworkers, but also to the organization. Fully remote workers do not get that opportunity to connect, which can make them feel isolated and disconnected. While it is often impractical to bring remote workers into the office with any frequency, organizations and managers need to find ways to connect these employees to their teams and the company.” Developing Leaders “In the book Mastering Leadership, data collected over the last 13 years by The Leadership Circle Organization includes reports on more than 60,000 C-suite and senior-level leaders in more than 10,000 organizations across 171 countries. This data reveals that 75% of some of the world’s best leaders lead from what is called a “reactive” mind—a mind that is critical, distant, controlling, arrogant, and autocratic. Sadder still, this body of research indicates that 5% still lead from an egocentric level of Commented [AB10]: I’m pretty sure this is all a single quote, but it’s unclear if it is. There’s no source anywhere in the quote. Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 mind—the developmental equivalent of a toddler. Currently, only 20% have matured to a “creative” mind, one focused on caring connection, integrity, courageous authenticity, and community concern. What I find most exciting is research done by Bill Adams and Bob Anderson at the Leadership Circle Organization demonstrate that those who lead from a creative level of mind also achieve greater business success.” ("Leadership Development: The Path To Becoming Our Highest Self." Susanne Biro, Jun. 2017) (Forbes: Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Leadership Development) Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 “In a new global survey of 7,500 global leaders by Korn Ferry, executives identified accelerating innovation and improving profitability among the top three business priorities in their organizations. Yet these same executives questioned whether their current leadership is up to the challenge: Only 17 percent of those surveyed were confident their organizations have the right leadership to deliver on their strategic business plans. Faced with this challenge, executives listed the need to develop leaders who can drive strategic change as the most important leadership development priority for their organizations. But another challenge emerged: Survey respondents said they were unhappy with their current leadership development plans. More than 50 percent of executives ranked their leadership development ROI as “‘fair” ’ to “‘very poor.” .’ These organizations said that if they could start over, they would retain only half of their current leadership development approach. “The first report in Korn Ferry’s “‘Real World Leadership” ’ global report series makes four recommendations for leadership strategy: ● “‘Connect leadership strategy with business strategy: Organizations need to identify the kinds of leaders required to execute their strategies and then build their development/recruiting approaches around those profiles. Part of that exercise is to include a greater variety of voices and perspectives in the leadership pipeline. ● Embed change throughout the organization: The entire organization needs to be enlisted in change initiatives. Effective and significant organizational change and growth happen only when a large number of people collectively align and engage. ● Make leadership development programs contextual and relevant: Organizations should orient programs around current business and strategic issues. This will generate engagement and fresh approaches to business challenges. Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 ● Encourage a sense of purpose and mission: Individuals and organizations are far more motivated and energized when they are connected to a higher purpose or feel they are providing a service to the world, their customers, and their community.” ● ("How to Develop Leaders Who Can Drive Strategic Change." Korn Ferry, Mar. 2017) (HBR: How to Develop Leaders…) “Coaching is another element of the leadership development agenda that has evolved. Historically having a coach was seen as a negative, an intermediary getting involved to fix a problem. Now many Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: List Paragraph, Indent: Left: 1", No bullets or numbering Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Black Formatted: Font: Bold leaders seek out not just mentors but dedicated coaches — and many are reporting that they have more than one external coach who has followed them from company to company, providing perspective and a “‘safe” ’ place for dialogue. What’s next on the horizon for coaching as a leadership development practice? Performance or Life coaches with real technical expertise. Performance coaches are internal resources that are not in the leader’s hierarchy but have insight into the organization and see the leader in action. Life coaches are typically external to the organization and are called upon as a trusted confidant and advisor when needed. Both are there to hash through ambiguity, discuss concerns, test assumptions and be reminded of his or her own development pathway.” ("As Work Changes, Leadership Development Has to Keep Up." Ravin Jesuthasan and Marie S. Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Holmstrom, Oct. 2016) (HBR: As Work Changes…) Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 In Business Insider, Marcel Schwantes lists four research-proven traits of managers that have highperforming employees: ● “They are radically honest. When you're authentic and vulnerable with your employees, they are more than likely to reciprocate and gain your trust. ● They are supportive. Great leaders support their people by showing an interest in their people's jobs and career aspirations. They look into the future to create learning and development opportunities. They find out what motivates their best people by getting to know each tribe member's desires that will drive them. This is about emotional engagement… When leaders show that they care about their employees as human beings and support their employees' future career choices, it helps employees feel more confident in their position and career path, whether it means moving up or moving on. ● They recognize the talents and strengths of their tribe. Clifton states that “‘employees' strengths never stop growing throughout their career — particularly when they have Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 talented managers who build unique development strategies around their individual, innate talents, and who make sure they are always in roles where they get to use those strengths every day.” .’ People love to use their unique talents and gifts. The best leaders will leverage close relationships with employees by finding out what their strengths are, and bringing out the best in their employees. In fact, when managers help employees develop through their strengths and natural talents, they are more than twice as likely to engage their team members. ● They display empathy. Global training giant Development Dimensions International (DDI) has studied leadership for 46 years. The firm assessed over 15,000 leaders from more than 300 organizations across 20 industries and 18 countries to determine which conversational skills have the greatest impact on overall performance. While skills such as "‘encouraging involvement of others" ’ and "‘recognizing accomplishments" ’ are important, empathy — yes, empathy — rose to the top as the most critical driver of overall performance: specifically, the ability to listen and respond with empathy.” Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 ("Decades of research shows most people quit their job for the same reason — but Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 employers don't realize." Marcel Schwantes, Jun. 2017) (Business Insider: Most Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 people…) Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Formatted: Font color: Accent 2 Resources: Kim Scott, former Apple and Google executive, explains the “Radical Candor” leadership style she explores in her book: http://www.businessinsider.com/radical-candor-kim-scott-most-effective- Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 leadership-style-2017-3 In Fast Company, author Gwen Moran lists five indicators to help you think through your skill sets: Fast Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Company: How to Spot Your Own Strengths and Weaknesses Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) OpenCourseware contains open coursework, podcasts, Formatted: Font: Bold, Font color: Accent 2 books, blogs, and others resources information about leadership development for free.