Tag Archives: Culture

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.

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 →

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 →

Hiring for Culture Fit (Video)

Okay, so we discussed how to define it, so now how do you go about hiring for culture fit? As long as you’re following the steps properly and not just randomly making up questions, then it’s pretty simple to do. In today’s video I discuss how to develop specific questions tailored to your core values. Hiring for culture fit doesn’t have to be difficult, you just need to take the time up front to make sure you’re doing the right things.

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. Unique corporate culture ideas
  3. Using culture for hiring discrimination Continue reading →

Defining Corporate Culture (Video)

Today we’re going to discuss one of the methods I use for defining corporate culture. If you’ve never taken the time to define what it means at your organization, I think you’ll find the exercise interesting and potentially valuable.

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. Hiring for culture fit
  2. Unique corporate culture ideas
  3. Using culture for hiring discrimination Continue reading →

Weird Interview Questions are a Fad, Not a Strategy

weird interview questionsWeird interview questions don’t work. I had to say it. See, someone pitched the 25 weird interview questions article at Glassdoor to me, but that’s not my thing. See, I actually think that asking job-relevant questions will get you more mileage than “What is your favorite song?” And if you’ve been here long, you know I care more about culture fit than about job qualifications in some cases. So why am I against these types of questions? Because they don’t work. I think I said that already, right?

What weird interview questions really measure

All these sorts of things really measure is a candidate’s willingness to answer dumb questions. It doesn’t assess culture fit. I’ll say it again: asking someone how many manhole covers are in San Francisco is not a measure of culture fit. It is not a measure of how they will do the job they are interviewing for. It wastes their time and yours.

Assessing culture fit without the weird interview questions

If you really I want to assess culture fit with interview questions then follow this two step process:

  1. define your core values
  2. ask questions that focus on those aspects

And that’s it.

Using core values to develop interview questions

For example one of our core values is honesty and integrity through open communications. To assess the person’s fit with that sort of core value I will ask them how they handle difficult conversations with coworkers. I will include behavioral questions to assess previous situations where they had to be open and honest, even if it hurt at the time. Here’s another example: another one of our core values is unequivocal excellence. For that I could ask the person how they further themselves outside the workplace or how they pursue excellence in other areas of their life (asking what sports they play and then following up with a “how do you handle x situation in those events” works just as well as asking someone about a specific work task. You are looking for specific behaviors, not what sports they like. It’s a cover for what you are truly trying to understand about the person. Asking them what sort of dog they would like to be is irrelevant and insulting. Want to ask them something to see how they think? Define a problem that simulates one that you experience commonly in the organization, then get them to walk you verbally through the steps of how they would solve it. That short exercise will tell you more about the person’s potential fit for the opening than any number of questions about animals, vegetation, etc. Want to learn about a candidate? Ask real questions with real purpose. 

Vendor Management Guidelines-Leveraging Corporate Culture

Vendor management guidelines? What? Isn’t this an HR/recruiting/leadership blog?

Well, yes. Yes, it is.

However, all of us have to deal with vendors, consultants, and other service providers at some point in our careers. I’ve been talking with our own Contracts/Subcontracts management pro at work, and we were discussing ways to help our vendors understand what we need from them. No, you don’t have to create a 50 page set of vendor management guidelines and rules to force them to align with your every desire (good luck with that if you try).

So the question remains. How can you communicate the importance of your core values and what matters to your organization in a way that your vendors, consultants, and suppliers understand and want to partner and support your goals? We talk about all that and more in this video.

Subscribers click through to view.

Communicating vendor management guidelines in a friendly way

(source link on YouTube)

So, what do you think? Are a set of vendor management guidelines in order, or would we be able to carefully and intentionally share our core values, culture, and interests in a way that helps to develop a strong partnership with our external resources?