Stop trying to find needle in haystack, use a magnet instead!

Let’s start with a question, what is the most important asset of an organization? Which one is the master key that can unlock the tremendous potential of a company? Your business idea maybe very unique, you may have great investors lined up, you have state of the art technology BUT to manage all these you also need the best employees. This is what makes human capital the epitome of business success. Once the right set of self driven employees are on board, all other pieces of puzzle like infrastructure, financial capital, technology etc. will fit together perfectly. Recruitment efforts will become conspicuous for CEOs who have understood this aspect. Rather than just filling the position, they will be ready to spend weeks and months to make sure that they have selected the right candidate.

The beginning of a new life - Baby as a metaphor

The growth of the company can be compared to growth stages of a baby. Once an organisation is ‘born’, first few years will be a struggle phase but in retrospect, it is also a stage where immense learning happens. During this time, you need strong people around you. It is important to have employees who love challenging work, have a thirst for knowledge and are self motivated. Such employees should also realize that work can be unstructured and many of the functions, processes, structures, chain of command etc. are still evolving. This is like how an infant needs to be surrounded by parents and family members who are strong and wouldn't give up no matter how hard things are.

The visionaries of the company would want to instill certain values and norms across the organization, much like how parents teach their kids about morals. As company is growing, you would also want like minded people with shared qualities of compassion, fairness, equality etc. to associate with you. This gives birth to “Corporate Culture”. Parents want their kids to play with other kids who have similar values. Similarly, the only way to retain company’s culture is to hire people who have similar drive when it comes to innovation, learning, digital transformation, risk taking and growth orientation.

The challenges faced by an organization are never ending exactly like the parenting conundrums. Even when the baby is self sufficient there will come challenges during the teenage years (aka change management and resistance), then college years (continuous learning/change in technology), finding job (expansions/opportunities), relationship mistakes (with partners, vendors suppliers, agencies),  parenting (mentoring/coaching), wrong investments etc. During these challenging situations, it is imperative to have the right set of employees in the organization. Now the question is how to hire such folks?

Conscious HiringⓇ

Hiring the best talent is easier said than done. Few decades ago, most people were satisfied with a decent salary and some savings kept aside in form of pension and retirement benefits. The need of today's workforce is so different from each other that you cannot take a one size fits all approach. Every aspects like compensation, benefits, job responsibility, working hours etc. has to be tailor made to the extent that each employee would feel that he/ she is special. In spite of all these efforts, attraction and retention of talent is still one of the main challenges faced by companies. This is where value based employee selection system like Conscious HiringⓇ* comes in handy. According to Magi Graziano, CEO, KeenAlignment the cost of hire and even the cost of mis-hire and unexpected employee turnover can be calculated in advance. She will be talking more about this system in the concurrent session on Consicious Hiring at the SHRM 2019 Annual conference.

How to hire GenY workforce

A much asked question by young professionals is “What do I get in return?”. 30 years ago finding a job that pays well used to be a nightmare even for talented people. But now even the final semester college students have multiple job offers in hand with high compensation. When it comes to experienced professionals, one click on Linkedin and their inbox will be flooded with job ads and messages from recruiters. Out of all messages and chaos, how do you get the right candidate to apply for the position in your company? Take a walk along the exhibitor hall at SHRM 2019 Annual Conference and Exposition to find the answer to this question. You can discuss your hiring challenges with representatives from companies like:-

Lucas Group - Executive recruitment search firm (Booth #2408)

Appleone -Hiring made Human (Booth #2306)

TextRecruit - Candidate engagement by recruiting through text message (Booth #1928)

Hiring a wrong person can lead to loss of time and money. When a wrong person is hired, precious time will be wasted for conflict resolution, delay in projects, policy formulation, clarifications, finding replacement etc. The challenge doesn't stop once the right candidate has joined the company, it continues throughout the life-cycle of the employee. Finding the right candidate from the millions of job applicants is like trying to find needle in a haystack. Companies such as Lucas Group, Appleone and Textrecruit can help you to become the magnet that attracts the right talent.

Alone in a crowd - The workplace loneliness and its impacts

I remember the first time I met her. She started off as an intern and within 3 months she was hired to join our team full time. That's how good she was! Over a period of 4 years we became best friends. She was my ride to office, my coffee break buddy, lunch partner, after office snack pal...the list goes on. She was my pillar of support and we would talk to each other about our personal life,work frustrations, incidents with colleagues/managers, suggestions/advice for work issues...there isn't anything that we haven't talked about I guess. Year 2016 changed everything, I was pregnant with my daughter and she had to move to Dubai to join her husband. It was time to say goodbye with hope that our paths would cross again. We were happy for each other as both of us were entering new phases of life. But the days after she left is when I truly felt the workplace loneliness. I felt so alone, suddenly I don't have a coffee break buddy and I started drinking coffee at my desk. Work became dull all of a sudden, people became uninteresting, jokes were not funny without having someone else to laugh with you. Fortunately, I started my maternity leave within a month. But those 30 days were really difficult. 

A recent study has shown that 40% of adults in America report feeling lonely. The term called 'Workplace loneliness' has become a topic of discussion in the corporate world. In fact there is a session on 'Workplace Loneliness is Killing Us' by Stuart Chittenden - Founder and Principal of Squish Talks at upcoming SHRM Annual Conference and Exposition 2019.

Workplace loneliness is not something that has occurred in a fortnight. This epidemic has been slowly rising and following factors have contributed to its growth :-

• Technology : With advancement of technology, it is easy to connect with anyone, anytime, anywhere. The advent of Social Media has changed the game of social interactions, networking and even dating. Atop of all this, people tend to forget that in real life they are not meeting any of their friends. Its all messages, emails, chats and hours of browsing. The actual human touch is missing and loneliness slowly creeps in.
• Change in jobs : Years ago, there lived a generation who used to work for the same employer till their retirement. Coworkers were closer than family relatives and deep friendships flourished at the office. People were teary eyed at retirement /farewell parties. And today, the average time an employee would stay at same company is less than two years. It becomes extremely difficult to have a meaningful relation in such a fast paced life. 
• Flexible work options : With changes in technology and digital transformation, employees are given flexibility to choose work hours. Work from home option is a life saver when commutation takes hours. For added flexibility, there is always option to work as a freelancer and choose projects based on preference. Even at office or during commutation, people normally wear headphones which gives a feeling that the person doesn't want to be disturbed and hence not approachable.

How to overcome workplace loneliness?

There is a reason why Employee Engagement is considered a crucial indicator in workplace surveys. It gives tons of insights into Emotional Intelligence and emotional well-being of the employees. More and more companies are coming with focused efforts like mentioned below to engage employees and to mitigate workplace loneliness.

• Interest clubs : One of the most effective way to battle loneliness is to be part of an interest club. It gives a sense of belonging and it also helps to nurture the passion/hobbies of employees. Various clubs for Sports, dance, music, fitness, photography, literature, travel etc can be formed within the company to bring together like-minded people.

• Manager's role : Manager has a huge influence and plays an important role in the emotional well-being of an employee. Occasional team lunch/outing, an outdoor activity or even travelling together for business trips can make lots of difference. Also, extra effort must be taken to connect with employees working remotely. Make sure to have non work related conversation with team members. 

• Working in silos : Collaborative work is a key to business success. Even though open office lay out and open door policy exists, employees still work in invisible silos with less interactions with others. By promoting collaboration, better business outcome can be achieved and workplace loneliness can be reduced. it is a win-win for all.

We are underestimating the power of human emotions when the social contact part is neglected. An article in CNN Business summarizes that lonely employees have

• lower job performances,

• be less committed to the company,

• seem less approachable by coworkers 

We need human connections more than we think and it holds true irrespective of gender, religion, culture, ethnicity and designation (yes, CEOs feel lonely too). Building meaningful human relations helps to nurture Emotional Intelligence (EQ) which in turn influences your relationship with others.

Writing this blog made me think about the episode from the famous TV show Friends where Phoebe talks to Earl the supply manager who wants to kill himself because of workplace loneliness (S07 EP13). We all laughed about Phoebe's predicament but on a serious note Earl in that episode is the epitome of what workplace loneliness can do to a person.

P.S : Nivi Mariam Oommen (my friend I mentioned in the beginning of this blog) is presently working with Danzas at Dubai. We still have contacts with each other and I have a feeling that this is one of the friendships which is gonna last a life time.                                            

Employee separation - The postmortem and what it teaches us

"Of all talent-management processes, a strategic exit interview program—one that is designed to yield ongoing, long-term benefits—may be one of the most powerful yet least understood" - Harvard Business Review

As a HR specialist, one of the role assigned to me was Employee Separation. This is a process which gave me a completely different perspective on talent management. My colleagues used to say it is ironic that employee separation process is conducted by the same person who takes care of employee on-boarding. To me it felt like a responsible thing to do to say goodbye in the right way since I was the first to welcome them to the company, like completion of a cycle.

My Boss was very particular about separation process and would dedicate time to meticulously go through the notes on exit interview, in fact we used to have meeting scheduled exclusively to discuss the exit interview of each of the employee. It was like a postmortem process. Most of the cases, the treating doctors would know what had happened to the patient. But in some cases, there can be underlying and unexplained reasons which will be revealed only by careful dissection and deeper analysis.The immediate manager (i.e treating doctor) can provide meaningful insight into the employee's life at work. Combine this with the data from exit procedures and you will get a clearer picture on what exactly has happened. Needless to say, this information is a powerful retention weapon in your arsenal. Here is how you can wield this weapon :-

• Feedback source : It can be guaranteed that the feedback provided by the employee on notice period will be honest. They will be frank and bold. They will have a clear idea on what is going on internally since they have been with the company for some time. Care must be taken to ensure that the feedback is shared with the right person and meaningful action is taken to prevent resignations due to similar reasons.

• Evaluation of company policies and procedures : Do you want to know what the employees actually think about the new Work from home policy or dress-code policy? Best option is to ask the employee in notice period. You will be surprised to find that the answer could be different from the anonymous internal survey you conducted. Handled well, employee off-boarding can be an excellent resource to understand how employees feel about the company culture, policies and procedures. It can also throw insight into how your competition is faring on various aspects including compensation, leave/vacation policy and other benefits.

• Management style: A very common answer for the reason for exit is "got better offer". But if you dig deeper, it will be clear that money alone is not the reason why one choose to leave the company. Employees leave their bosses, not the company. Most of the times, the precise reason can be identified from an exit interview. Following questions can be pointers for the separation discussion :-
• Was the employee given opportunities for learning? Was necessary training given to perform the job?
• Was the job challenging ?
• Were there any conflicts and how it was handled?
• Did the employee feel recognized and rewarded at work?
• Was timely performance feedback given?
• Did the company meet employee's expectation?
• Did he/she feel overly stressed at work?
• Was there micromanagement?
• Was there a lack of guidance?

• Invite suggestions and ideas: An employee once told me that he would have considered staying back if the exit interview was conducted earlier and not on the last week of his notice period. It was such eye opening remark which led us to set an internal timeline to conduct the exit interview within 7 working days of resignation date (notice period was 60 days). This is just one example. Employees have given suggestions on how to improve the training session, how to engage employees more effectively and even project ideas for training fresh graduates. Exiting employees can give awesome suggestions if asked nicely. Its all about how you treat them. Treat them respect and dignity, show that their opinions matter even if they are leaving. Keep in mind that they have been with the company for a while and has a better idea of what is happening on the floor than you. 

Ex-employees are your brand ambassadors. Their separation process should be so smooth that they cannot stop talking positively about your company where ever they go. In fact they should feel like coming back to the company sooner than later (if rehire is an option). Remember, your future candidate might be the new colleague of your ex-employee.