Workplace of Choice

The resume looks great, the prescreening phone conversation went well and now it’s time to meet the candidate face to face.  Often times, the interviewer has less than an hour to make their determination on a candidate, so the questions must be effective in getting the information necessary to make an educated decision about a candidate’s qualifications and potential success in a position.  Sounds easy, but figuring out what those questions are, is not as easy as it may sound.

Behavioral Interviewing is an interview technique that relies on questions around how the candidate behaved in previous situations.  The idea is that past behavior is a predictor of future success.  Experience has shown that people are more likely to repeat behavior, rather than change, so by understanding what has happened in the past one can somewhat predict the future.  By implementing behavioral interviewing techniques, companies often find a decrease in employee turnover, as they are able to hire qualified employees for the positions with a better fit. 

Behavioral interview questions are open ended and force the candidate to talk about what they did in certain past situations verses how they might respond in the future.  When asking traditional questions, the candidate is able to form an answer they think the interviewer wants to hear or how they’d like to perform, if given the chance.  Behavioral questions, however, direct them to talk about what actually happened and to give a specific example of a past situation.  Any interview will be a combination of behavioral based and traditional interview questions.  Traditional interview questions allow the interviewer to assess experience as written on the resume, clarify skills and ask basic questions.  The combination of both types of interview questions will result in a good assessment of the skills, experience and fit for the position.

In order to conduct an effective behavioral interview, the interviewee must prepare in advanced.  The resume, job description and any other collateral information should be carefully reviewed.   Determining specific skills and behavioral traits necessary to be successful in the job is imperative.  Once you’ve identified those skills and behaviors, you can begin designing your questions that will help you assess if the candidate possesses those skills and behaviors.

What are you favorite behavioral interview questions?

A recent study, Profit at the Bottom of the Ladder, by Jody Heymann has found something that many Human Resources professionals have known for years, the more you invest in your employees, the harder they work. It seems simple, right?  But yet, it’s always been a challenge to quantify this relationship. This study gives actual financial statistics as to why it is important to invest in employees, the very proof we’ve been looking for.

The study explains how many companies invest mostly in their higher level employees but that employers should invest in all of their employees.  Often times employers think that investing in lower level employees is a waste of time and effort because they’re not as committed as higher level employees and may soon leave the company.  On the contrary, this study proves that employee productivity can be significantly increased, employee turnover reduced and other costs cut by investing in all employees. For example, Xerox Europe started to “offer training and career tracks to line workers [which] led to lower turnover and easier recruitment, and served to make employees more efficient while they were with the company.” Normally, in the call center industry, turnover rates are extremely high but Xerox was able to promote 20% of their entry-level employees over a one-year period. Another great example is Autoliv Australia, a company that makes auto parts. They changed their leave and vacation/PTO policy to be more flexible for all employees which made their turnover rate fall from 20% to 3%.

Investing in your employees can give your company a huge return. How do you invest in your employees?

Is your workforce engaged?  Employee engagement is the new HR buzzword connecting the workforce to the company’s productivity and employee productivity.  According to a recent HR Magazine article $350B is the estimated annual cost of disengaged workers for U.S. businesses.  Clearly, employers cannot afford to have unengaged employees who have “checked out” only putting in time but not passion or energy into their work.  Employee engagement is a key link to customer satisfaction, company reputation and overall stakeholder value. 

So how do you tap into your employee’s engagement level?  Consider how you currently empower, develop, recognize and reward your employees.  Are there opportunities for your employees to be a partner in executing your mission and business strategy?  Do you reward those who take personal responsibility in getting results to increase the profitability and growth of your business?  Now, more than ever, is the time to focus on your employees as they are the key to your future success.   Without employee engagement, your company mission and values and business strategy are just an idea.  The employees make it real and are the driver of business success in today’s competitive marketplace. 

In order to measure your employee’s commitment, motivation, sense of purpose and passion for their work and the company, consider confidentially administering an employment engagement survey.  Employees will appreciate the fact that you value their opinions and you may uncover some real gems to fully engage your team!

According to a recent article from the Bureau of National Affairs, family responsibilities discrimination suits are on the rise, a 400% increase over the last decade.  More importantly, the cases that have been filed have had a 50% success rate and several cases have been awarded over $10 million dollars. Family Responsibilities Discrimination (FRD) encompasses pregnancy discrimination, discriminatory conduct aimed at mothers or fathers, and discrimination directed at workers with family caregiving responsibilities.  The Center for Work Life Law recently completed a study, the Family Responsibilities Discrimination Litigation Update 2010.  In this study, the most frequent FRD cases include pregnancy and maternity leave issues.  In addition, a wide range of discriminatory conduct by employers was cited in the study including: termination, pregnancy discrimination, failure to promote, unlawful disparate treatment of a female caregiver versus a male caregiver, hostile work environment, unlawful caregiver stereotyping, unlawful gender role stereotyping of women, discrimination against women of color, and retaliation.

So what does this mean for your organization?   Given this data and increasing litigious climate around family responsibilities, employers must really take a good look at their Work/Life policies, Leave of Absence policies, and reflect on management’s views of family responsibilities.  Organizations not only need to have the right policies in place for employees, but managers need training on how these policies apply, training on how to handle various situations that arise with employees and their work schedules, training on how to utilize employees with flexible work arrangements in order to accomplish all of their goals, performance management training, coaching employees guidance, and management 101 training for new managers.  Managers should understand their organization’s policies so they can make decisions based on what is a business necessity, rather than make a decision based on a bias they may have around an employee.

Work/Life policies must include procedures that outline everything from flexible work arrangements, hours of work, Family Leave policies (even if the organization does not qualify for the FMLA), and Maternity/Paternity leave policies that not only work for female employees but also work for male employees.  Many states are pushing for a balanced policy for both sexes.  In addition, employers should consider that their “best practices” include a ban against family responsibilities bias, as well as workplace anti-discrimination policies. 

All in all, employers who may think they promote policies that offer flexibility and fairness to their workforce really need to ensure they are delivered in the same consistent and fair manner for each employee and that managers are properly trained to implement those policies.  Inconsistency and unwritten expectations can cause employees to feel their manager or the organization is unfair, which in turn, can lead to trouble and possible litigation for the organization. 

Before I started writing this article, I looked up the definition of “Orientation.”  In Wikipedia there are over 15 different definitions of orientation, which just goes to show you that when it comes to New Hire Employee Orientation it’s likely there are just as many, if not more, ways companies go about orienting their new employees.  There is no “one size fits all” way to orient new employees; however, doing it wrong can leave a lasting bad first impression.   Before setting out to develop your new hire orientation (we HR professionals refer to it as “Onboarding”), think about the goals of your program: 

• Are you hoping to simply relay the necessary policy and procedural information and employee benefits or are your goals loftier aimed at integrating the new hire into the organization and educating them about the company mission and values? 
• How do you want the new hire to perceive the Company? 
• How much time do you have to deliver the information?  An hour, a day?  Can you pull new hires together at a later date to continue their orientation?
• Logistically, when will orientation be delivered and by who? 
• What information does the new hire need to know up front to do their job?
• What information can wait and be given at a later date, in an effort to avoid information overload?
• How much do you want new employees to learn about other areas of the Company, not necessarily just their job function?
• Are there legal requirements to information new hires need to receive based on their job (for example, Right to Know Training)?
• Do you have a mentor program in place and how does that integrate into the Onboarding program?

 Putting thought and time into developing a quality Onboarding program that fits the needs, values and culture of your organization will go a long way towards employee retention and success on the job.