Blog Posts

11 Things You Need to Know About Generation Z

Generation Z

Millennials, Millennials, Millennials.  Very much in line with Millennials’ insatiable desire for recognition, it seems like the last ten years of articles, videos, and speeches, were all about Millennials. As the first surge of Generation Z enters the workplace, organizations may be surprised at how different they are from Millennials (also known as Generation Y).  Organizations, human resource leaders, and managers will need to learn about, and fully understand, this unique generation especially since they may be the solution to the never-ending talent attraction and talent retention challenge.  Thus, employers will need to also adapt and bring ...

The 7 Characteristics of a Great Recruiter

recruiter characteristics

Last month we polled nearly 130,000 HR/OD/Talent Management/Senior Executives about the top traits of a great job recruiter.  We thought it would be extremely valuable to identify recruiter characteristics, since 86% of staffing firms feel they are doing a good job recruiting, yet only 60% of job candidates report having a positive experience during the recruiting process.1 The results are in and the top recruiter characteristics are listed below in the order most frequently cited by respondents: They have great listening skills. The highest-performing and most effective recruiters harness the power of careful listening, which far better ensures ...

6 Easy Ways to Engage Salespeople

Engage Salespeople

Last week I conducted a Leadership Development workshop for a large Fortune 500 company on the East Coast. The workshop centered on the very hot topic of how to successfully engage a sales force and reap the benefits of that engagement. The sales managers and salespeople attending the event left on a real high, fully ready to take their game to a whole new level. The data and tips related to salespeople engagement are especially important given that: - Salespeople are more engaged than non-salespeople (23% fully engaged versus 13% for non-salespeople). Yet, salespeople are much more likely to be ...

7 Telltale Signs You Hired the Wrong Employee

Hired the Wrong Employee

According to a 2016 survey by CareerBuilder, more than half of American companies said a bad hiring decision had negatively impacted their business this year. Many company leaders cited associated challenges such as lost revenue, poor productivity, lower employee morale, and strained client relations. Furthermore, 27 percent said a single bad hire had cost them over $50,000.1 Needless to say, this is not only a critical mistake to building a world-class culture of employee engagement, but it also adversely affects revenue and profitability outcomes in a serious way. So here are the 7 most glaring signs that you hired ...

8 Tips for Awesome Onboarding

onboarding

I was recently honored to conduct a SHRM webinar sponsored by Jellyvision called The 8 Tips for Awesome Onboarding. With 5,000 registrants, it was one of the most well attended webinars in SHRM history. I was also excited to learn that attendee feedback ranked high enough to place us in the top 5% of all webinars. Thanks to everyone who logged in to watch! If you missed it, you can watch the archive here. (If you don’t have a SHRM membership, you can sign up for free.) I thought I would share with you and your team some of ...

What Employee Engagement Means to Recruiters & The Staffing Industry

Recruitment

Hundreds of millions of dollars are spent with recruiters and staffing firms each year by companies trying to attract top talent to empty positions. The obvious hope on the companies’ part is that the recruiters will find the perfect person for the position and that the new hire remains fully engaged in the years to come. A natural question posed by the people holding the purse strings for recruiting is: Are we getting our money’s worth? I was invited to do a keynote presentation at the 25th Annual Staffing Industry Analysts Executive Forum later this month to answer that exact ...

Hiring Right – Fine Tuning Your Recruiting Efforts to Avoid Mis-Hires

Recruiting and Hiring

The report card on hiring in North America is pretty poor and indicates that too many organizations are simply filling positions with “bodies,” as opposed to applying meticulous screening to avoid hiring the wrong people in the first place. As revealed in my New York Times Best Seller, Building a Magnetic Culture, 59% of all new hires are gone before the one-year tenure mark. As a result, these organizations encounter the significant costs of re-recruiting and re-hiring. All best-in-class organizations (defined as top 10% on employee engagement) have detailed processes for hiring and vetting candidates that applied detailed scrutiny. Simply ...

Fuel50 Guest Post: The Three Truths of Agile Recruitment

Fuel50 Logo

The silver bullet, the magic cure, the rock star employee who will magically solve your business woes. Myths, all myths, and dangerous ones at that, that easily gain traction when the blind start leading the blind through the murky waters of talent acquisition and management! The three truths of agile recruitment: #1 Any employee is only as good as the environment in which they must operate (and the opportunities they are given). #2 It’s a question of alignment; the right career experience, for the right person at the right time. #3 It’s very possible to turn an A player into ...

The Non-Negotiable List – 20 Red Flags For Interviews

non-negotiable list

If you ever interview job candidates, you need a Non-Negotiable List. This list is used during the interview process to help identify “warning signs” that candidates aren’t a good fit for the organization or position. When a candidate shows one of these warning signs, he or she or they is/are no longer considered as a potential hire. We used a Non-Negotiable List quite effectively at my old company, curbing our turnover by over 90% in one year. The genesis of the list were the many occasions where on the heels of a new employee not working out (fired or ...

“Re-Casting” Employees into the Right Role

Miss Betty

The following passage is from my New York Times Best Seller Building a Magnetic Culture: RECOGNIZING TALENT - MISS BETTY’S STORY She is more than just a greeter to patients and guests at Ochsner Health System in New Orleans, Louisiana; she is Miss Betty, an always smiling, forever cheerful, burst of positivity and enthusiasm. The Louisiana hospital group first recognized Miss Betty’s positive attitude and ability to connect with patients and their families when she started working as a housekeeper 30 years ago. She was in that position for many years, but Senior Leaders thought her people skills could be ...

Four Characteristics of the Best Virtual Employees

Working from home

Let’s face it. If you’re at the office right now, you would probably rather be at home. Turns out, so would most of your coworkers. A recent survey showed that 70 percent of people would rather work from home than spend time at an office. That number increases to 81 percent for people 35-44 years old.(1) This isn’t to say there’s anything wrong with cubicles or “modern” open floor plans… OK, maybe that’s exactly what I’m saying. No matter how nice an office is, home will probably always be nicer. (There’s a reason why “the comfort of your ...