Building Virtual Capacity

There’s a technological revolution taking hold across the globe which has the power to change where, when and how we work - enabling organizations to be more agile and innovative. It’s fueling a growth in virtual workers, which is also being supported by many businesses as a way to reduce costs, increase employee engagement and empower individuals to have greater flexibility in how they accomplish work.

According to recent studies, virtual companies - companies that use technology to link a geographically dispersed staff - are showing an increase of 8% to 15% in productivity. Key to that gain in productivity is the virtual company's workforce. As McKinsey reports, boosting productivity of knowledge workers and virtual employees is not a one size fits all approach.

How these workers interact with colleagues plays a large part in their success. We’re moving to a social business model that stresses our ability to communicate and collaborate effectively, not just in personal interactions but also in virtual interactions. Virtual interactions can be tricky – often, there are no visual clues for guidance and it requires a stronger emphasis on good communication and self-management skills. Basically, working virtually requires a different set of behaviors and motivations.

As this pool of mobile talent continues to grow for many organizations, assessments can play a practical role in evaluating whether employees have the right behaviors and are motivated to be successful in working virtually, or identifying gaps that might impede their success. Good assessments will help identify a potential employees’ adaptability, autonomy, decisiveness, dependability, stress tolerance and resourcefulness. In short, whether or not a person will be successful as a virtual worker.

Are you assessing the behaviors needed for your employees to succeed in an increasingly virtual and social working environment?

In Pursuit of Excellence

A recent HR discussion forum question came my way, asking: “Why is it so difficult to find an excellent employee? Why are there so many mediocre performers?” Based on my experience, the root cause here lays not so much with employees as it does with the organization lacking the ability and infrastructure to identify skills, competencies and attitudes that will align with the company's unique cultures.

Let’s face it, thanks to the recession the current pool of available talent is rich with experience and expertise. Yet some firms struggle to hire the best people despite high unemployment. Many hiring managers continue to search for ways to attract and hire candidates who will fit their organization’s culture and thrive in their dynamic environments.

The challenge stems from five key recruitment steps that may be deficient and hindering the process. It’s not so much about what the candidates are lacking; it’s more about what the process is missing. If you are struggling to find excellent candidates, consider whether your process is lacking:

1. A definitive success profile that captures the right knowledge, skills, culture fit, abilities and experiences as a benchmark to hire against.

2. A good sourcing strategy. Perhaps you’re looking in the wrong places for qualified people or haven’t created a compelling employer brand to attract the best people.

3. A solid evaluation system that can assess for the required elements of the success profile.

4. A consistent and accurate rating of candidates against the success profile. (For instance, how much delegation ability is good enough or how proficient does this person need to be in a specific skill? And are we all assessing this person the same way by rating the person by the same criteria?)

5. A systematic process to transfer information captured in the hiring process into a meaningful application in the on-boarding process? (For instance, if we know a candidate is good in one area and weak in another, then let’s craft an on-boarding plan that leverages strengths and accelerates development around weaknesses.)

The difficulty finding suitable workers limits the economy’s ability to grow. It’s a difficulty that needs to be overcome. There is great talent available. A well structured hiring process will help you find the ones who will take your company to the next level.

How many excellent people do you have in your organization?

Are you fit for the team?

Research reported on the ERE tells us that nearly one-in-two new hires are classified as failures within 18 months. How do you know if a candidate will be a good cultural fit with your team? The question of “fit” when interviewing candidates is one of the most critical components in making a hiring decision.

The key is to ask questions at relate directly to their experience in other positions or situations. Use questions to learn more about how a person responds under stress, interacts with others and handles change. The goal centers on getting concrete data to validate your hiring decision.

The candidate should be talking about 80% of the interview time. Try not to prompt the candidate with the answers you would like to hear. If you learn something that concerns you, ask for more details and examples. If possible, have more than one person interview the candidate to get another perspective.

Some sample questions include:

--What are three things you like about the companies you have worked for in the past? And what three things didn’t you like?
--Who was your best boss? Why? Who was your worst boss? Why?
--Tell me about the accomplishment you are most proud of in a recent job. Describe the kind of work environment that helped you be successful.
--Describe a problem situation with a co-worker that you experienced. How did the situation get resolved?
--Describe an example of when you were part of a team that reached its goal. What role did you play and why was the team successful?
--If I talked to your peers from your last position, what would they would say are your strengths or areas for development?

There are numerous examples on Monty Python or The Office for lessons on what NOT to do during interviews.

And as a final word of advice, always interview your final list of candidates a second time; you can probe concerns and avoid decisions made on first impressions.

Looking Beyond the Obvious

As the talent mismatch widens, employer’s need new mindsets for sourcing candidates. Look beyond the obvious supplies of talent and consider hiring candidates who fit with your culture and train for specific skills that are teachable to fulfill the requirements of the role.

To fill large and systemic talent gaps, expand the pool of available candidates and consider:

Internal role changes
The best source of new talent may already reside in your organization. Redeploy existing talent to new roles and locations. People are willing to move geographies yet employers are still learning how to capitalize on this trend. Consider redeploying existing talent before laying them off. As many as 18% of outplaced candidates are rehired by their past employer.

Consider skills transfers
Some industries are cutting their workforces, while others are growing faster than the talent supply. Consider the talent available in low-growth industries that can migrate to new fields. Review the Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Projections 2008-2018 to see where the growth is and where the shrinkage is to come from. Some of these people may have highly valued skills – such as those in sales, finance and management – that can easily be transferred to a new industry. Be opportunistic in response to significant changes in local labor markets, such as businesses closing or relocating and leaving capable people behind. According to Human Capital Management, nearly half (47%) of jobseekers change industries to land a new role.

You can’t change what is happening relative to external trends or today’s economic reality. But you can change your workforce strategies in order to respond to those trends and position your company to effectively meet these challenges and beat the competition.

How Fit Are Your Next Employees?

The changing nature of work and the dwindling size of the traditional talent pool are converging – leaving companies searching in new ways to meet the demand for the skills required in today’s economy.

Employers need to redefine the parameters of their search for talent and focus on new priorities. Essentially, hire employees for their potential to fit within your culture and team and invest in developing the specific skills needed to perform on the job. Manpower calls this Teachable Fit – a new approach for easing the talent mismatch.

The premise works as follows: When employers can’t find candidates with the full range of skills needed for particular positions, they can recruit candidates, perhaps from outside their industries, who possess adjacent skills with an eye toward filling the gaps in their capabilities. It’s important to understand how fillable those gaps are – both in terms of technical skills and candidate mindsets – and at what cost. We know from Right Management research that as many as one-in-three employers are looking for a good motivational fit compared to only about one-in-ten who are looking for specific technical skills or relevant experience.

From a CEO perspective, it is important to assess where you are today and where you want to be – before you can even start to build the bridge between the talent strategy and the business strategy. Assessing talent enables you to evaluate your current workforce and forecast future needs; the resulting gap analysis provides a roadmap for sourcing, onboarding, developing and accelerating talent, and aligning performance with your business direction.

Today’s talent mismatch will continue to intensify. That means more competition for available qualified people, against a backdrop of what Talent Management reports as higher turnover and as many as one-in-four high-performers walking out the door. Employers need to think differently about how they fill the talent needs now and in the future. They must look beyond the usual places for candidates and consider those who are best positioned with their skills and personalities to benefit from training and development.

Check back tomorrow for the third in Owen's four-part series on Teachable Fit and how to expand your talent pool.

Why you should do a gap analysis before a restructuring

Employees are reporting that their workloads have increased due to restructuring at their company, according to research from Right Management. What’s less clear, however, is whether employees have the necessary skills to take over the work of laid-off colleagues.

According to the research, 79% of employees feel their workloads are heavier. The feeling is especially acute at large organizations, where 68% of employees believe their work demands have grown “a lot”. Right Management analyzed responses from more than 800 people throughout North America.

How can organizations make sure that remaining employees can handle their new responsibilities? The answer is first to conduct a gap analysis of work requirements to understand what holes need to be filled and pinpoint the best individuals on staff to fill those gaps. Once that’s determined, the logical response might mean anything from reassigning roles and developing internal competencies to bringing in contingent workers or consultants or simply eliminating the work. Managers also will need to discuss with employees what changes they can expect in their roles and responsibilities and how their work contributes to the goals of the organization, as well as helping to prioritize assignments.

The bottom line: By doing a gap analysis, companies can establish a better alignment between talent and business strategy. And by providing employees with the guidance and training they need, organizations can ensure that employees are set up to succeed.

Hiring practices gone bad

It’s been quite some time since I’ve witnessed such poor advice on hiring practices as cited in a recent CNNMoney article on Out-of-work job applicants told unemployed need not apply. Let’s revisit the fundamentals: Most unemployed people do not lose jobs for performance-related issues!

The reality, based on our own research and some 30 years of experience in helping the unemployed, is that more than one-in-two people lose their jobs because they are impacted by a downsizing. Mergers, restructures, divestitures and plant closings frequently result in the need for organizations to let people go. According to the article, the myth is being perpetuated that most employees get laid off for performance issues. This is simply untrue.

If you’re sensing I’m a little cranky, it’s because I am. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 4 in 10 (6.1 million people) have been jobless for 27 weeks or more – by far the highest proportion of long-term unemployment on record, with data back to 1948. Most of these out-of-work people were laid off for the reasons cited above. It is naïve to exclude the unemployed when trying to fill positions for needed talent. If some employers are dumbing down the unemployed to this level, you can only imagine the negative values with which they treat their own employees. Most will likely want to jump ship at the first opportunity.

The reality is that unemployed people do get jobs. And frequently, they are even rehired by their past employers. We also know that most source their new opportunities through networking (and, thankfully, not from the narrowly focused so-called staffing “experts” quoted in the above-referenced article). And the real kicker is that most of the outplaced job seekers we work with land new jobs at the same or higher salary as they held in their previous positions.

In an environment where there is a fundamental disconnect between the skills companies require and the skills employees offer is widening, can you really afford to discount half of the available talent out there to fill your open positions?

Do you know Pat Tangent?

I’d like to introduce you to Pat Tangent. You may already know Pat. Pat likely works just down the hall from you. Pat Tangent is a furious multitasker whose lack of focus on any single thing for any length of time sends Pat off in various directions at a constant and frenetic pace. The result: hard to know. Is Pat’s ability to multitask beneficial or detrimental to performance? The answer is vital for leaders to understand!!

As T+D reports, 75% of people believe they multitask at work. Further research cited in The New York Times found that the consumption of media (such as email and TV) has exploded – adding to the gravitation away from being able to focus on one task at a time. These days people consume three times as much information each day as they did 50 years ago. They are constantly shifting their attention. Computer users at work change windows or check email or other programs nearly 37 times an hour.

Being able to complete one task quickly and then move onto the next item is a result of heightened concentration, not superior intellect. (Play a game testing how well you switch between tasks.)

It takes a mix of skills to get it right. Some people have a natural tendency toward, high need for and find satisfaction in great task variety. While others are just the opposite. Knowing who has a preference for each condition can really help employers to hire and develop the right people for the roles that demand a lot of variety and for those that don’t. This is the value of using assessments. Placing a high task variety person in a low task variety role can have detrimental effects on productivity and performance. The reverse is also true. Either mismatch can result in frustration by the individual and low engagement.

Utilize assessments to hire for the right mix so the Pat Tangents of the world (and Pat’s polar opposites) can thrive and deliver.

Workforce strategy: looking to the future

The speed of change, created by advances in technology, means that jobs are evolving at a breakneck pace. And that has significant implications both for organizations and individuals.

An urgent issue relates to addressing vital questions about future workforce needs: What skills and abilities will be necessary for success that are not in play now? How do you assess the current talent pool for the skills that will be required in the future? What is the best approach: to hire from the outside or to build competencies internally? Or, should you move to a temporary staffing solution?

As organizations struggle with these questions, individual employees also face a world in which many jobs are becoming extinct, while new ones are appearing to take their place. They must address a different challenge: finding ways to adapt and grow, to embrace these changes and turn them into opportunities.

For organizations, the solution lies in understanding which type of skills and abilities will be required as driven by workforce trends like demographic changes, technology use, increasing market sophistication and other forces. Then creating a process ensuring they have the right people in the right roles – and that their talent strategy supports their current business goals and future business strategy. For individual employees, it’s the chance to look ahead to the future, rather than at the door that’s closed behind.

In either case, the ability to create a plan for addressing rapid workforce change will mean the difference between success or failure in the market.

Establishing a Culture of Distributed Leadership

Dan is guest blogging for Talent@Work and is the author of the award winning leadership development blog “Great Leadership”.

In a recent article in The Washington Post, Deborah Ancona, a professor of management at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, wrote about a concept called “distributed leadership”.

She used the term to respond to a reader’s question: “How can a senior leader encourage junior leaders to act and make decisions when they find themselves without specific guidance? How can a junior leader know when it’s right to take charge?”

Distributed leadership is basically just what it sounds like – pushing leadership, or in most cases, the freedom to act, to others. Think of it as the opposite of “command and control”.

Based on a quick Google search, the term shows up most in the academic environment. However, Deborah does a nice job advocating the concept with historical and current examples that can readily apply to the corporate environment. She cites John Buford, a Union cavalry officer during the American Civil War, and a local leader in Haiti who took matters into their own hands rather then waiting for orders from above.

Distributed leadership sounds to me a lot like empowerment, one of the leading corporate buzzwords of the 90s, as well as delegation, a term that dates back to the 1600s. The desire for autonomy, freedom, and responsibility is not something that generation X or Y has brought to the workforce – it’s a basic human desire that leaders need to leverage.

Unfortunately, just like we all have a basic need for recognition and belonging, managers and organizations will often take a deceptively easy concept and still somehow manage to screw it up.

What does it take to “let go” as a leader? Building on the points made in the Deborah’s articles, the following conditions need to be in place:

1. The right managers.
Managers have to be willing to let go of what may have gotten them promoted in the first place – being the expert, solving problems, and making decisions. Some managers learn the importance of letting go the hard way – though overwork, burn-out, under-performing and dissatisfied teams, and failed relationships. Others – those with strong leadership potential – are more naturally inclined to manage that way. It’s the hard-core, autocratic micro-managers that will struggle with it the most and most likely either resist letting go or do it in a way that could make things even worse.

In order to establish a culture of distributed leadership, you’ll need to either hire leaders with a track record of being willing and able to let go effectively, or teach managers that are wiling to but don’t know how.

2. The right employees.
To quote Spider-Man's Uncle Ben, “With great power comes great responsibility”. Not everybody is ready to assume great responsibility. There are some that would prefer to be told what to do. Then again, laying a responsibility on an employee that isn’t ready is another recipe for disaster.

Again, it goes back to hiring profiles, assessment, and development. Look for employees that have a track record of seeking out new and bigger responsibilities, that can handle ambiguity, and with strong problem solving and decision making skills.

In order to get someone ready to take on really big decisions, a leader has to start grooming them by giving them little decisions that gradually get bigger. Using Situational Leadership can help you determine when it’s time to provide a heavy dose of direction and when it’s time to let go.

3. The right organizational structure and systems.
A relatively flat, decentralized organizational structure, where there are fewer management layers and managers have broad spans of control promote distributed leadership. Increasing a manager’s number of direct reports makes it harder to micromanage them.

Organizations that practice distributed leadership build processes that embed leadership into the system – rather than allowing only a few at the top to lead.

4. Clear direction and values.Without a rock-solid vision, mission, goals, and values, distributed leadership can turn into distributed anarchy and chaos. Managers at companies like Johnson & Johnson, Google, Southwest Airlines, and Wal-Mart have lots of local autonomy but make decisions within a very clear set of boundaries.

While the term “distributed leadership” may be relatively new addition to the corporate buzz-word dictionary, it seems that there may be valuable lessons from what we’ve already learned how to do: good old-fashioned empowerment and delegation.
__________

Check out Dan McCarthy's award winning leadership development blog “Great Leadership”. Michael Haid, Senior Vice President for Global Solutions at Right Management, is today's guest blogger, contributing another article on hiring for cultural fit - part of a series on assessing talent.

Topics for Dan's blog are based on over 20 years of experience as a practitioner in the field of leadership development. He is currently the Manager of Leadership and Management Development at a Fortune "Great Place to Work", "Training Top 125", and "High Impact Learning" (HILO 80) company.

Previous experience includes management positions in leadership development, human resources, and training for a global Fortune 100 company, and Director of HRD for a public utility.

Dan is a member of the SmartBlog on Workforce SmartBrief on Workforce Advisory Board, and an influential voice in talent management social media.

Indispensable Employees: Promoting from Within

“You are seen as an absolute expert in your area.” “We don’t know of anyone else in the company who can do what you do.” Comments like this sound great right? Could be that you have been siloed into your current role. Management doesn’t want to think about moving or promoting you because you’ve just become too good at what you’re doing now…so maybe that’s not so good.

Leaders expect their direct reports to perform well. But, it’s not uncommon that when employees are really good at their jobs, their supervisors don’t want to lose them — and drag their heels when it comes to giving them the career opportunities they deserve — ultimately to the detriment of the organization and the individual.

Why? Managers may not be aware of all of the benefits of promoting from within but, instead, focus on the risks such a loss would have on their own teams.

The antidote is twofold. First, a promote-from-within culture that celebrates giving appropriate recognition to top-quality performance – and rewards for managers who promote employees is required. Second, a disciplined process of identification, evaluation and development for those with the ability, desire and commitment to grow or be promoted needs to be established.

What are some of the benefits? Current employees are often terrific candidates because they are a good cultural fit for the organization and have already demonstrated success. This allows them to become effective in new roles much more quickly than someone hired externally. Individuals that are given an opportunity to contribute at a higher level are more likely to stay when put on an accelerated career path.

To address the leader who is reluctant to let top talent get away from their team, make leaders part of the process, encourage mentoring, collaboration and knowledge sharing. Leaders should also be assessed on the basis of how well they groom and promote direct reports.

In an increasingly competitive landscape, your people are your most valuable assets. Ultimately, investing in and advancing the careers of your own people will help create a vibrant culture that encourages employees not only to reach their full potential, but to contribute their utmost to organizational goals and performance.

Use of Assessments on the Rise: A Bellwether of Economic Conditions

The use of assessments for very specific purposes seems to be increasing — and that could be a lead indicator of economic improvement, especially if some of those industries occupy a position closer to the front of the supply chain.

Generally, assessment usage is a bellwether of economic conditions. When companies are hiring, they have more of a need for these evaluations. What we’ve noticed is an increase in the use of assessments both for bringing new employees on board, as well as for targeted leader acceleration — a way to predict which employees to invest in going forward.

At the same time, it’s not business as usual, indicating that economic recovery is not likely to be widespread anytime soon. Many companies are looking for either new employees to hire or current employees to develop and promote who possess very specific skill sets — “needles in haystacks”, so to speak. And the right assessments help employers identify the overabundance of less-qualified candidates quickly so they can zero in on those people with hard-to-find characteristics and high demand skills sets.

But, using assessments in this manner requires forethought. Success requires a thorough understanding of a variety of factors, including the skills and beahavioral traits the job requires, as well as the cultural fit between job candidate and organization. Additionally, companies need to determine not just what they need — but how to recognize the most appropriate candidate for the position.

Wise organizations have learned to focus on the future. Companies should make sure that assessments are targeted at longer-term, not just current, needs. What’s more, to maximize effectiveness, they need to integrate as much assessment data — both organizational and individual — as possible.

All indications are that certain industries are beginning to look for the skilled talent they need to fuel brighter economic conditions ahead, but doing so in a much smarter way this time around.

Remember: Used correctly, assessments can help companies tackle the challenges they face now — and prepare for those they’ll have to address in the future.

New Leaders Require Due Diligence

Why do so many organizations spend more time researching office equipment (or a new paper supplier or phone system) than they do identifying leaders that will be put into critical roles? Organizations don’t have the luxury of time, resources and money to get their new leaders up to speed and fully contributing. The ability of a new or recently promoted leader to smoothly transition into a new or expanded role is not assured. In fact, more than 40% of new leaders fail to meet expectations. With so many new leaders derailing, how can any organization hope to achieve business objectives? The costs are substantial: from direct replacement costs to lost opportunity costs to poor morale. Simply put, effective leadership can ultimately make or break a company’s ability to grow and compete.

How do you accelerate the on-boarding process and substantially improve success rates? The best place to start: put the right people into leadership roles from the get go. Each new leader is an investment. Like any investment, you want to carefully assess and evaluate before making a commitment. Assessing for competencies that drive success in your organization is one way to ensure you are making a wise investment. Our own research shows that as many as 50% of organizations do not have a model for identifying and developing the leadership competencies needed to drive results.

Do your new leaders have the knowledge, skills, abilities and characteristics needed to perform a particular role within your organization? If you haven’t taken the steps to assess for the human drivers of successful organizational performance, you could find yourself fighting a difficult and costly battle. In the long term it is far more cost effective and will deliver a far greater return on investment to create a sustainable leader profile up front than to spend time selecting a new office coffee dispenser. Get it right from the start.