Recruit, Inspire & Retain |
May 2007 |
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Ideas for “Marketing” and
Providing “Customer Service” to Current and Potential Employees
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TRAINING
SYSTEMS,
INC.
Great Training for Great Employees |
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FUN DAYS TO CELEBRATE
MAY SPECIAL DAYS
May is...
Better Sleep Month
Hamburger Month
Barbeque Month
Older Americans Month
Photo Month
Salad Month
Strawberry Month
(Take a photo of you having a BBQ hamburger & strawberry salad with an
older American, then take a nap)
May 1-7 – Get Happy Week
May 6-12 – Nurses Week, Teacher Appreciation Week, & Pet Week
May 13-19 – Christian Family Week & Reading is Fun Week
May 20-26 – Friends Week
May 1 – Chocolate Parfait Day & Plant A Flower Day
May 2 – Be Kind to Smelly People Day (just stand downwind)
May 3 – National Day of Prayer, Raspberry Popover Day, & Cinco De Mayo in
Texas
(Wait, isn’t that the 5th of May? Texans, what’s goin’ on?)
May 4 – Orange Juice Day
May 5 – Chocolate Custard Day, Hoagie Day, Scrapbook Day, & the actual Cinco
De Mayo
May 6 – No Diet Day
May 9 – Tear Tags Off Your Mattress Day
May 10 – Clean Up Your Room Day
May 11 – Chair Day
May 12 – Kite Day & Nutty Fudge Day
May 13 – Mother’s Day & Frog Jumping Day (Take your mom frog jumping —
she’ll love that!)
May 14 – Dance Like a Chicken Day & Clean Up Your Street Day
May 15 – International Day of Families Day, Clergy Day, & Chocolate Chip Day
May 17 – Rubber Band Day
May 19 – Plant Something Day
May 26 – Cherry Dessert Day
May 28 – Memorial Day
TRAINING SYSTEMS, INC.
for ideas on how to celebrate any of these days.
11 Challenges Facing Hiring Managers
After working with and learning from some of the most successful
companies in the world for over 20 years, About Recruiting Inc. has seen
several challenges facing hiring managers and those people on the
interviewing team:
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Most
companies lack a formal sourcing strategy and end up hiring the
best of the bunch rather than THE BEST. Top talent needs to
first be found. In a robust economy or tight labor market, many
of the best people are working. In other words, they are passive
candidates that need to be located. |
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The
wording in typical job descriptions limits the number of
qualified people who will apply for the position. Rather than
looking at what people are exceptional at, abilities and talents
that are instinctive, many companies make their hiring decisions
based on what people have learned, acquired and experienced to
date. Because the essence of people is not what they have
learned, acquired and experienced, hiring based on those limited
aspects will bring limited results. |
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Most companies only list the "necessary" skills, experience and knowledge required without appealing to the real reasons top talent accept new offers. | |
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Too many
companies erroneously discard top candidates because they do not
have ALL the skills, experience and knowledge listed on the job
description. These companies are more focused on processes and
procedures and less on the end result. |
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Hiring
based on emotional biases is common practice. Whenever a hiring
decision is based on a subjective element like an emotional
bias, the interviewing process becomes tainted. |
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When an emotional bias is favorable to hiring the candidate, the interviewer often starts selling the company to the candidate. | |
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Lengthy
job descriptions are posted listing desirable skills, knowledge
and experience required for the role paying little to no
attention to natural abilities and the outcome expected of the
job. Someone with all the skills, knowledge and experience does
not guarantee a world-class job performance. |
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The placement of job advertisements often reaches average candidates shopping for another job, not top talent seeking a progressive career move. | |
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Hiring
managers and people on the interviewing team often have
conflicting information about what the job entails. This is
especially true if the focus of the job description is on
learned skills, experience and knowledge, and not on performance
outcomes. |
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The hiring team does not often follow the structure of the interviewing questions and if they do, they do not know what to do with the results. | |
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When it comes time to offer the person a position, hiring managers seem to have little experience negotiating the remuneration package or in dealing with counteroffers. |
About Recruiting Inc. has documented a three-step process to recruitment that, if followed, is guaranteed to help locate top talent and hire only the best each and every time!
by Sharon Cornwall
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tips on recruiting great employees from
TRAINING
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 Have
a recruitment, inspiration, training, or retention idea or question? Ask by
clicking the question mark, and we’ll post your idea or question (and the
answer) in Answers & Ideas
on Recruiting, Inspiring, Training, & Retaining Great Employees at
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Making Excuses
One night 4 MBA students were out partying till late and didn’t study for the test which was scheduled for the next day. In the morning, they thought of a plan. They made themselves look as dirty and weird as thy could with grease and dirt. They then went up to the dean and said that they had gone out to a wedding last night and on their return a tire burst, and they had to push the car all the way back and they were in no condition to appear for the test.
The dean was a just person, so he said that they could take the test in 3 days. They said they would be ready by that time. On the 3rd day, they appeared before the dean. The dean said that this was a special condition test.
All 4 were required to sit in separate classrooms for the test. They all agreed as they had prepared well in the last 3 days. The test consisted of 2 questions worth a total of 100 points.
Q1. Write down your name. (2 points)
Q2. Which tire burst? (98 points)
From Bipin Gopinath Mayekar, Prasanna HRD Private Limited
**TOOL
BOX**
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Love those COLORFUL QUOTE POSTERS
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* Purchasers @ The Collaborate ‘07 Conference Bookstore *
Schneider |
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Email
us with what you’re reading & a sentence or 2 about why you’re reading it
or what you learned from it (can be fiction or non-fiction).
TRAINING
SYSTEMS, INC.
Associate Roz Trieber is reading:
5
Dysfunctions of A Team
by Patrick Lencioni
His book is incredible as is the Field Guide that accompanies it. The activities suggested are excellent to identify appropriate people for different positions on a team. The text is incredibly logical and practical.
You
Don’t Have To Have A Title To Be A Leader
by Mark Sanborn
This book emphasizes the fact that everyone who is accountable esponsible is in fact a leader and influences many. He also is quite pragmatic about how to follow 6 Leadership principles and be successful.
The
7 Measures of Success
by ASAE and the Center for Leadership
This book is the result of a study that compared remarkable sustaining profitable non-profit associations with those that were not considered remarkable. Characteristics of a remarkable association are explicitly defined and described. Facilitators and trainers can apply much of this information to the many non-profit clients they service.
Inspire Staff With A Breather Once A Year
We have had an annual "Mystery Fun Day" for 2 years here at Northside Christian Church; only the Executive Pastor, Executive Secretary, and myself create the day. Top Secret; not even the Sr. Pastor knows what we are going to do.
1st Year – Safety Day Testing
(big ruse)
I told our staff we were having a mandatory Safety Meeting and they had to be here by 8:00 a.m. that morning. We got the entire staff together for breakfast; we rented 15 passenger vans and took them to the first location.
Hearing "Test"
We had breakfast at Denny’s and I put a "Bible" character name tag on
the back of each employee. The rule was this "you could ask questions of
others to get hints of who you were". For example; am I in the OT or the NT,
man or female, etc.? It was a total hoot. I made the youth pastor Jezebel.
The place was buzzing with excitement and I laughed my head off.
Agility "Test"
There is a family game park called "Boomers’; we purchased passes for
everyone. We spent two hours climbing rock walls, playing laser tag; video
games, golf and water games. It was a total hoot; everyone was age 12 all
over again. The competition was fierce on the racecourse….
Visual "Test"
We went to a rated "G" movie, and stuffed ourselves with soda, popcorn
and candy. After the movie we went to get ice cream. People are still
talking about this day; now we look forward to it annually.
2nd
Year – The Great Race (We filmed at each location; it was hysterical)
We ordered shirts and split the staff into teams (we purposefully put people together that did not work together). We had custom made shirts with a racing theme and purchased goofy trophy (see the picture of Darlene; she was on the losing team so she got the turkey award). We spent a lot of time coming up with "clues" to each destination. Teams were given 5 minutes to get into their cars and line up at the parking lot. We had summer interns that were told where the "locations" were that morning and given explicit instructions to monitor each activity at each location:
Location #1
We had a "racing course" with pylons; the vehicle was a heavy duty John
Deer bicycle that the guys could fit on. As each team arrived they had to
ride the course and tag the next team member. At the conclusion of the relay
they were given the hint to the next location.
Location #2
The 2nd "hint" was in Spanish (a very nasty thing to do to a group where
no one speaks Spanish!) They were stopping people on the street, Mexican Resturants, etc. trying to get someone to translate the note. The ultimate
location was a Spanish Language station on the South West side of town (our
town has several Spanish Language Stations). When they arrived they had to
complete one of two "hula hoop" exercises.
Exercise #1
Group gets in a circle and puts their two index fingers out. "Together" (this is the tough part) they are to lower the hula hoop without it lifting off anyone’s finger.
Exercise #2
Everyone in the team must successfully "keep the hula hoop" up in motion
for 2 minutes.
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Added Bonus — Cool PR for our organization The TV station put our people on the news because they thought it was hysterical; we had our Pastors and staff doing these exercises on the sidewalk in front of the TV station. |
Location #3
Back to "Boomers" the family game park we went to last year (a very, very
popular option). This year we just paid for the racing cars; school was in
session so it was hysterical to see our "grown-ups" patiently waiting among
little kids for their ride on the racing car.
Last location: Woodward Park
We had a reserved spot for our group; we decorated it with a racing them.
We hired a D.J. who played different themes for each team as they arrived;
the winning team theme song was "Rocky"; the last group had some ridiculous
song that reminded me of a turtle. We had a full BBQ catered, dessert, and
we had an awards ceremony for the winning team and the last team. At this
event we also recognized any employees that were celebrating a 5, 10 , etc.
year anniversary. We give them gift certificates based on years of service.
Thanks, Carol Lerma, for sharing these great ideas with us
and inspiring
us all to do the same with our staff!
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TRAINING
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Learn More. Waste Less Time
Rush Hour?
It's the morning rush hour in north Atlanta. I'm on my way to help a
client improve their ability to deliver projects successfully. Today’s
bumper-to-bumper traffic makes my 5 mile hop a 50 minute journey. Looking at
the blank stares on the drivers inching along the highway with me, it's
clear this delay is just business as usual.
My hometown of Chicago serves up plenty of traffic challenges so the issue isn't one of surprise. What strikes me today is how easily we put up with wasted time. Whether it's the daily crawl commuting to and from work, the mind-numbing anguish of directionless meetings, or the needless time re-working the fallout of a poorly planned project, our days are filled with wasted time.
Traffic School
A few years ago I had a fascinating interview with one of my heroes: Zig
Ziglar. He talked about using commute times as Automobile University,
quoting a University of Southern California study that found 12,000 miles of
metropolitan area driving a year for three years afforded enough time to
learn the equivalent of two years of college education.
If you have an MP3 player and you’re not intentionally listening to podcasts, electronic books, or other resources focused on areas you want to develop, you’re missing an easy way to take advantage of Zig’s idea. The iPod has changed my personal development strategy, not because of the seemingly endless amount music onboard as much as the learning I get any time I’m on the road, working out, or have other time available to absorb more learning.
Are you enrolled in Automobile University? Are you using your MP3 player to better use your time?
eLearning
I’m doing more e-learning. I have found I can maximize my training time
and dollar by choosing online options for selected topics I want to grow in.
And I can do it without the time and cost of getting on a plane or driving
in that traffic!. If you haven’t tried e-learning lately, I highly suggest
you add it to your professional development strategy.
Taking Action
Speaking of traffic jams and personal development, check out our new
e-learning release on managing conflict (Beyond a Rock & a Hard Place
,
b
y
Associate, Andy Kaufman
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tips on training great employees from
TRAINING
SYSTEMS.
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**TOOL BOX**
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Staff Need to See Your Strategic Plan Being Implemented
If you involve staff (or not) in developing a strategic plan, but they never see it being implements, get to participate in implementing it, or it isn’t even being implemented, you are missing not only the benefits your organization gets from implementing the great, forward moving strategies, BUT you lose a wonderful retention technique!
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"Organizations don’t fail for lack of vision or talent. They
fail for lack of execution." — T.J. Rodgers, CEO of Cypress Semiconductors |
Mike Femlee, The Prouty Project, has a wonderful idea:
Michael Mankins and Richard Steele wrote a great article published in
the Harvard Business Review
recently entitled, "Turning Great
Strategy into Great Performance". They interviewed senior executives from
197 companies worldwide with sales exceeding $500 million and learned that
despite differences in product markets and geographies, they shared many of
the same concerns over planning and execution. Their survey indicated that,
on average, most strategies deliver only 63% of their potential financial
performance. On a grading scale, this is a "D" at best.
The Top 3 Reasons:
Inadequate or unavailable resources.
Poorly
communicated strategy.
Actions
required to execute strategies are not clearly defined.
lockquoteObviously, this performance would not be acceptable to your Board of Directors, your senior leaders or your shareholders. Then, why is it happening? And, more importantly, why are you continuing to let this happen?
The Reality Check
This is where we believe many strategic planning processes fail. Simply
stated, you can miss the opportunity to "brutally" evaluate the
reasonableness of your plan in the context of existing systems, structure,
people, culture, and processes. Without a "Brutal" assessment of each of
these factors, no wonder you don’t deliver the financial results you
forecast. The cold, harsh reality is that you never really had a chance.
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Here are 3 guaranteed ways to fine-tine your "strategic"
intuitions:
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Challenge your Board of Directors or members of your Advisory
Council in a no-holds barred evaluation of your strategic plan.
It’s not about patting you on the back for your brilliance.
Rather, challenge them to help you sniff out the blind spots and
the fallacies in your logic. |
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Share your plan with 35 "contrarians" (an eclectic mix of
employees not on the senior leadership team) and ask them what
they like about your plan. More importantly, ask them what they
don’t like and what changes they would make if they were wearing
the CEO hat. |
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Ask a group of 3-5 CEOs from different industries to weigh in on your strategic plan. They don’t have any skin in the game and can be brutally honest in their assessment of your plan. Chances are, they’ve tried many of the strategies you believe will help move your organization forward. Listen well to their insights and perspectives and react accordingly. |
Do you have the courage to embark on these types of reality checks? Do so, and I’m convinced you will better position your organization to execute its strategic plan. No question, you’re responsible for the execution of your plan. The actual tactics will be delegated but the responsibility and accountability are clearly yours. So, make sure you perform your reality checks early and often and put the missing piece(s), staff, back into your strategic planning.
Adapted from article by Mike Femlee, The Prouty Project
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tips on retaining great employees from
TRAINING
SYSTEMS.
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May 8-10, 2007
Fourth Annual Leadership and Women of Color Conference
, Cobb Galleria
Centre, Atlanta, GA,
http://www.spelmanwomenofcolorconf.com/home/index.aspx
June 22-24, 2007
HUMOR Project’s The Positive Power of Humor & Creativity Conference,
Silver Bay, NY,
June 24-27, 2007
SHRM’s 59th Annual Conference & Exposition
, Las Vegas, NV,
June 25-27, 2007
Training Director’s Forum Leadership Summit
, Sheraton Wild Horse Pass
Resort & Spa, Phoenix, AZ,
July 29-31, 2007
World Future 2007: Fostering Hope and Vision for the 21st
Century,
Hilton Minneapolis and Towers Hotel, Minneapolis, Minnesota,
October 10-12, 2007
HR Technology Conference
, Navy Pier, Chicago, IL, http://www.HRtechnologyconference.com
Take Pride T-Shirts
(http://www.takepride.com)
was founded by a group of friends who all share the belief that the more
difficult the mission facing our military, the more deserving they are of
our thanks and support. Each unique shirt design provides a glimpse into the
life of a different US Service member who served in Iraq or Afghanistan and
is hand silk-screened. The message of the shirts isn’t political, it's about
acknowledging, celebrating, and taking pride in the spirit of young
Americans who despite facing an extremely difficult job and unpleasant
conditions, nonetheless strive to do their job well. Take Pride gives at
least 20% of profits to charities and causes that assist combat veterans of
Iraq and Afghanistan.
Are your shelves full of books you’ve
already read?
Join
http://www.novelaction.com,
an online book-exchange store. Select books from their site, and send in an
equal number of books in exchange.
Set a reminder to visit
http://www.thebreastcancersite.com
daily and click this button to help underprivileged women get mammograms.
VolunteerMatch.org
helps you find
organizations in your area that spark your interest in volunteering.
Global Volunteers (
http://www.globalvolunteers.org)
You can:
select
by type of work project
select
by country and date
select
by service program conditions
select
by cost
RECYCLING
Recycle yogurt containers and old toothbrushes!
Recycline’ Preserve partnered with Stonyfield Farm and is recycling yogurt
containers into toothbrush handles. Old toothbrushes are used to make
plastic lumber for picnic tables. Go to
http://www.recycline.com
for details.
Responsibly Dispose of Your Old Electronics
Donate
Old Cell Phones
911 Cell Phone Bank provide free emergency cell phones to needful people
through partnerships with law enforcement organizations,
http://www.911CellPhoneBank.com
Recycle
PCs, cell phones, printers, CDs diskettes, etc., with GreenDisk.
For
$29.95, they send a 70-pound-capacity box.When it’s full, you download
postage from their website and ship it back. Your “junk” then goes to
workshops for the disabled and are refurbished.
http://www.greendisk.com
Donate
PCs
to National Cristina Foundation,
http://www.cristina.org;
Goodwill,
www.goodwill.org,
Salvation Army,
www.satruck.com/MakeDonation.asp.
Recycle
PCs and other computer products
at Hewlett Packard and Dell. See their
websites for details.
Several
other places to recycle old PCs
:
www.plugintoscycling.org,
www.earth911.org,
www.eiae.org.
Find
local Electronics recyclers
at
http://www.earth911.org
and
http://www.ebay.com/rethink
EASY TO BE GREEN!
K
www.eartheasy.com has great tips on green cleaning.K www.greendimes.com & www.41pounds.org will help you get off junk mail lists.
K www.thegreenguide.com has tips on every facet of green living.
K www.energystar.gov gives advice on replacing old light bulbs w/energy efficient bulbs.
K www.eere.energy.gov/greenpower provides comprehensive "green power" info.
K www.globalwarming.org urges the use of recycled paper.
K www.arborday.org helps you plant trees to save the environment.
WWW.TRAININGSYS.COM
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Copyright 2007
TRAINING
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INC.
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RECRUIT, INSPIRE & RETAIN
contains links to websites operated by
organizations other than
TRAINING SYSTEMS, INC.
These links are for your convenience and we assume
no responsibility for the content or operations of those sites.
RECRUIT, INSPIRE & RETAIN
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published 12 times/year. Editor: Carolyn B. Thompson, Data Entry: Patti Lowczyk (Lowczyk Secretarial), HTML: Debbie Daw (http://www.helpquestdomains.com). Visit us at http://www.trainingsys.com soon!
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