An Open Letter to Our Leadership Team

To the other members of the Leadership Team,

You guys aren’t right in the head. Well, some people would say that, anyway.

See, you are not like most companies. You think differently. You frame decision-making with two separate (but related) lenses: customers and employees. That’s so uncommon that I just had to let you know how much I appreciate it.

Also, I just wanted to say a quick “thank you” for all of your support. In many companies, HR is looked at as a hurdle to “real” work getting accomplished. It’s an afterthought at best and complete avoidance at worst.

My peers in the HR profession are constantly fighting and clawing to earn recognition for their efforts and gain influence at the senior level of their organizations.

And I don’t have that problem.

See, when we filter the majority of our decisions through “how does this affect our people,” that puts HR at the forefront of what we do. And, if I had to guess, that’s one of the keys to our continued success these past five years.

We have warts, just like any organization. Yes, sometimes I have to remind the team of that focus and I’ve had to push a little in the past to avoid policies and practices that could damage our relationships with our staff, but those interactions are infrequent and innocuous.

My teammates in contracts, accounting, and management all share the same goals. We take the time to work together to define those every year and hold each other accountable. We take action and get results.

We have a “musketeer mentality,” as I once heard someone put it. We’re all for one, and one for all. We don’t ignore things that need doing simply because “that’s not my area.”

We know that if someone stumbles, we all feel the pain. So we work together to head off potential issues, address problems as they arise, and fight the ever-present pull of mediocrity. 

I get to come in here every day and do what I love. Many people can’t say that in other organizations. This has been an amazing experience for me so far, and I’m excited to learn what tomorrow, next week, and next year will bring.

Keep up the great work. I’ll try to keep up.

Your HR guy,

Ben Eubanks

Improving Hires in Two Easy Steps

Today we have a guest post from Mary Ila Ward, a local HR/OD ninja. Enjoy!

Put first things first:  2 Steps to Improve Hiring

Ben had a great post this week about defining corporate culture.   Incorporating corporate values and culture is so important in making hiring decisions. I'm currently helping a client review and revise their selection procedures.  One of the things that I've noticed in helping them is that their job dimensions, and therefore the criteria they use to select people, have never been connected to their corporate values.

Any time I engage in a client project, I seek to link what we are doing with their strategic mission and values, so it was imperative for us to help them link job dimensions to value dimensions.  Here's how you do it…

2 Steps to Improve Your Hiring Process:

  1. Know what the job requires and what tasks are involved for the job.   In HR or I/O speak, do a job analysis. I know this sounds like a no brainer, but you'd be surprised at how many companies have position descriptions, but do not review them regularly and do not analyze the job to make sure what they are requiring is even accurate.  This requires an actual observation of someone doing the job.

I advocate, like Ben does, picking a superstar and documenting key characteristics they exhibit as well as the skills they have that make them a superstar.  However, I've found a lot of value in looking at a low (you're just about to show them the door type) performer and an average performer for comparison purposes.  This has really helped me define several key dimensions.

 An Example

With this client, I saw a huge contrast in the way the low and high performer handled complex, stressful issues.   The high performer had a sense of urgency, but a sense of calmness with that urgency in fixing the problems.   The calmness came in rationally deciding what caused the problem, which aided in fixing it so that it wouldn't happen again. The low perform, on the other hand, exhibited almost neurosis panic when something went wrong.  He had a sense of urgency, but combined with the panic, it made things completely worse instead of better.  He could not tell you why the problem happened, and did not want to understand what caused it.  You can see how this dimension could be defined more accurately than just a sense of urgency in order to make a wise hiring decision.

 

  1. Match job requirements to corporate values or culture.  If you haven't defined your corporate values or culture, then follow Ben's step to do so this week.  If you already have, examine your job requirements against your values.   By and large, your job requirements should be an easy match to value dimensions.  If they aren't, you may need to add more values or eliminate selection requirements from your list.

 An Example

One corporate value my client has defined is “Courage”.  This value is defined in several ways, but one thing that sticks out to me in this definition is “be responsive and flexible”, and “do the right thing”.   Another is “Ownership” defined as “be proud of your work”, “be responsible for your actions,” “operate with a ‘can do' attitude”.  I love this value!  You can see how we defined the job dimension described above to tie to these values:

  • Ability to alter one's behavior in a calm manner in order to respond to unforeseen problems (courage).
  • Desire to understand why equipment or machinery has caused manufacturing issues and the ability to respond appropriately in a prompt manner (ownership).

What job requirements do you have that are tied to your corporate values or culture?

mary ila wardAbout Horizon Point Consulting, Inc.: Horizon Point Consulting, Incorporated’s mission is to provide career, leadership and workforce coaching and consulting that leads to a passionate and productive workforce.

Mary Ila's passion is helping others create and maintain passion in the workplace.   To learn more, visit the company's website at: http://horizonpointconsulting.com or connect with her on LinkedIn.

The Secret of Teams (Book Review)

The Secret of Teams: What Great Teams Know and Do by Mark Miller

the-secret-of-teamsI recently finished reading the secret of teams, and my head is reeling. Every one of us work on a number of teams, and the concepts in this book can help us to achieve greater success within each of those team environments.

What I liked

Normally I throw in a bunch of text here, but today I thought I would drop in a video review. Enjoy! Continue reading →

News, Updates, and Fun Stuff

I hope you guys enjoyed the video series last week. I had a blast, and I’m looking forward to doing it again and delving into other hot topics. This week is going to be a bit different. I have some news, updates, a contest (~$3k in prizes), and my first ever full audience survey. It’s going to be a busy week, but it’s going to be a lot of fun. Let’s jump right in.

Kind of a big deal

I have never done an overarching audience survey, and it’s time to change that. While I sometimes focus on requests from the audience, I think I should be more purposeful with that. I’d also like to have an idea of who is reading this thing–are you all newbies? Are you all experienced pros? Are you all stalkers? I want to serve you guys better, and to do that I need to ask a few questions. Nothing too personal, just your job, general location, what you like/hate, etc. I read every response I receive in every survey–it takes a time commitment, but it also helps me to learn how to best help each of you with the content and tools that I produce.

I will be sending out the survey link on Wednesday morning to all email subscribers. 

Tied into the survey is a contest. I have approximately $3,000 worth of goodies to share with you guys, and I am thrilled about that. The catch: you have to be a subscriber and you have to do the survey.  Not too tough, right? If you are not already on the email list, click here to join the list and get email updates to the blog.

Is ten minutes of your time worth the chance of winning a prize? I thought so. Continue reading →

Unique Corporate Culture Ideas (Video)

Having a unique corporate culture, as I have said previously, can be a strategic differentiator for your organization. But the thing is, there’s no “one size fits all” culture. Some will draw you in like a magnet, and others will repel you. There’s no “good or bad” really, it’s just different. In this video I talk about why you should be okay that some people hate your culture.

This week I’ll be running a series of videos on culture topics, from defining culture to leveraging it in the hiring process and more. I’m a culture junkie and believe that organizations that use it well can differentiate themselves from the competition. It’s a strategic competitive advantage. Use it well. 

 Other videos in this series:

  1. Defining corporate culture
  2. Hiring for culture fit
  3. Using culture for hiring discrimination Continue reading →

Transitioning to an HR Career #nextchat

Yesterday I joined the “transitioning to an HR career” #nextchat on Twitter. It’s basically a discussion held on Twitter where people talk about a specific topic, and yesterday i was all about how to prepare for and break into a career in HR.

transitioning to an HR career.There was plenty of great discussion among the dozens of participants, but sometimes you just can’t fit all of your thoughts into the 140-character limit of Twitter. Below I’ve dropped in the questions and how I would have responded with a little more space. I love talking about this stuff and think it’s very valuable for the entry level (or soon-to-be-entry-level) HR pros.

Key question to kick it off: Why do I want a career in HR?

This question was thrown out early in the discussion and wasn’t even one of the prepared questions. However, I think it’s the key to the rest of the discussion about transitioning to an HR career. So many people think “Hey, I like people. Maybe I’ll do that HR thing.”

And it’s a tragedy. Continue reading →

Culture as a Type of Hiring Discrimination (Video)

Today I’m going to dispel the myth that culture is a form of hiring discrimination. Well, I’ll actually prove that it’s true, but in a different way than most people would expect. I use culture to discriminate against candidates  in every interview for every job we post. I look at how we do things, what attributes we find valuable in a candidate, and how well the person fits into those categories. In the video below I explain this in more detail.

This week I’ll be running a series of videos on culture topics, from defining culture to leveraging it in the hiring process and more. I’m a culture junkie and believe that organizations that use it well can differentiate themselves from the competition. It’s a strategic competitive advantage. Use it well. Other videos in this series:

  1. Defining corporate culture
  2. Hiring for culture fit
  3. Unique corporate culture ideas Continue reading →