Showing posts with label HR tools. Show all posts
Showing posts with label HR tools. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 24, 2015
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Internal Blogging
Besides stay interviews, internal blogging is an excellent communication platform to increase performance and retention.
Internal blogging encourages business conversations, team building, project management, knowledge sharing, cross-shift communications, and provides a window of opportunity to learn what employees think about their company*.
Companies that support internal blogging have seen improvements in their products, processes, and quality of service as a result of employees being more communicative, more involved, and more outwardly focused. Other benefits of internal blogging include:
• Employees enjoy their work more,
• Employees connect more with people outside their teams, and
• Employees share and receive information on a whole in a new scale.
Furthermore, the best employee blogs allow for open brainstorming and problem-solving and thereby improve efficiency across the organization.
For these reasons, internal blogging has a great potential to become another “HR best practice”. However, before your organization can deploy internal blogging, it must be considered either this framework is appropriate given your organizational circumstances.
* Wright, Jeremy (2006). Blog Marketing. New York: McGraw Hill.
Internal blogging encourages business conversations, team building, project management, knowledge sharing, cross-shift communications, and provides a window of opportunity to learn what employees think about their company*.
Companies that support internal blogging have seen improvements in their products, processes, and quality of service as a result of employees being more communicative, more involved, and more outwardly focused. Other benefits of internal blogging include:
• Employees enjoy their work more,
• Employees connect more with people outside their teams, and
• Employees share and receive information on a whole in a new scale.
Furthermore, the best employee blogs allow for open brainstorming and problem-solving and thereby improve efficiency across the organization.
For these reasons, internal blogging has a great potential to become another “HR best practice”. However, before your organization can deploy internal blogging, it must be considered either this framework is appropriate given your organizational circumstances.
* Wright, Jeremy (2006). Blog Marketing. New York: McGraw Hill.
Monday, March 10, 2008
Stay Interviews (Part II)
Following up on my earlier post on the role of stay interviews, a question emerged on Xing’s “Human Resources in China” forum as to the difference between the stay interview and the suggestion box.
What the stay interview and the suggestion box have in common is that both tools seek out opinions of a company’s workforce during the actual employment phase and not after and toward the very end of an employment period as an exit interview does. Furthermore, both tools also require an action plan for implementing findings or suggestions to be effective.
As to the differences, the suggestion box is definitely a more efficient way to receive employee feedback since it does not require as many resources of both the interviewee (time and productivity costs) and interviewer (e.g. consultancy fees).
Most importantly however, the stay interview and the suggestion box differ in terms of their underlining objective. The suggestion box is not specifically a HR tool and is an outlet open for comments about business, business processes, customer relationships, etc. But, the stay interview is an individual-centric HR tool; it is about the employee’s well-being, development, and their perception of the employer.
Notably, suggestions can also be requested in a stay interview (What would you do differently here?) but rather in respect to the way the company manages its people than the business as a whole. After all, asking employees to provide suggestions engages them in solving organizational problems and helps to generates support for change initiatives.
What the stay interview and the suggestion box have in common is that both tools seek out opinions of a company’s workforce during the actual employment phase and not after and toward the very end of an employment period as an exit interview does. Furthermore, both tools also require an action plan for implementing findings or suggestions to be effective.
As to the differences, the suggestion box is definitely a more efficient way to receive employee feedback since it does not require as many resources of both the interviewee (time and productivity costs) and interviewer (e.g. consultancy fees).
Most importantly however, the stay interview and the suggestion box differ in terms of their underlining objective. The suggestion box is not specifically a HR tool and is an outlet open for comments about business, business processes, customer relationships, etc. But, the stay interview is an individual-centric HR tool; it is about the employee’s well-being, development, and their perception of the employer.
Notably, suggestions can also be requested in a stay interview (What would you do differently here?) but rather in respect to the way the company manages its people than the business as a whole. After all, asking employees to provide suggestions engages them in solving organizational problems and helps to generates support for change initiatives.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Cultural Fit
Cultural fit is the congruence between individual and organizational values.
Nevertheless, the concept of cultural fit is ambiguous because the choices of values are limited and organizational cultures are rooted in relatively similar if not the same values.
For example, accountability, integrity, and creativity are among the favorite values articulated by companies of different sizes and in different industries. But, companies can go differently about them in every day situations. Regarding accountability, one company can develop a very rigorous performance management system while the other still tolerates low performers and has no processes in place for exiting them. In respect to integrity, this particular value can be non-negotiable for some companies while perfectly negotiable for others. Additionally, creativity can be differently celebrated and practiced differently at various companies.
In fact, companies do not differ so much in the selection of values but in terms of how they cultivate values and are able to impact conditions where they flourish. Similarly, sometimes the values individuals think they embrace (ideal values they should have because of outside influence such as family, religion, or employer) are actually different from those they live (actual values).
Thus, when determining cultural fit, there are two useful tests to run in order to identify peoples’ actual values:
• Calendar test - How much time do you spend each week trying to acquire or increase this value?
• Checkbook test - How much money do you spend each week trying to acquire or increase this value?
The same questions apply of course to companies as well.
Importantly, prerequisites to success for assessing cultural fit are a solid self-awareness of employees and candidates and a sound company’s own organizational awareness.
Nevertheless, the concept of cultural fit is ambiguous because the choices of values are limited and organizational cultures are rooted in relatively similar if not the same values.
For example, accountability, integrity, and creativity are among the favorite values articulated by companies of different sizes and in different industries. But, companies can go differently about them in every day situations. Regarding accountability, one company can develop a very rigorous performance management system while the other still tolerates low performers and has no processes in place for exiting them. In respect to integrity, this particular value can be non-negotiable for some companies while perfectly negotiable for others. Additionally, creativity can be differently celebrated and practiced differently at various companies.
In fact, companies do not differ so much in the selection of values but in terms of how they cultivate values and are able to impact conditions where they flourish. Similarly, sometimes the values individuals think they embrace (ideal values they should have because of outside influence such as family, religion, or employer) are actually different from those they live (actual values).
Thus, when determining cultural fit, there are two useful tests to run in order to identify peoples’ actual values:
• Calendar test - How much time do you spend each week trying to acquire or increase this value?
• Checkbook test - How much money do you spend each week trying to acquire or increase this value?
The same questions apply of course to companies as well.
Importantly, prerequisites to success for assessing cultural fit are a solid self-awareness of employees and candidates and a sound company’s own organizational awareness.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Personal Impact Map
The rise of job branding clearly shows that companies are unable to communicate to their employees how each and every one of them creates value.
Thus, only a few employees can share bottom-line accomplishments like increased revenues, decreased costs, increased prices, increased product/service quality (so that it leads to one of the previous three) or efficiency improvements (better, faster, cheaper) during their tenure.
The vast majority of the workforce does not even believe they make a difference let alone their performance or lack thereof can have an impact on the company’s profits. As a result, when applying for a new job, many applicants have difficulties specifying their achievements.
Managers should start changing this reality by helping employees develop a personal impact map. Together with HR professionals, they should undertake job redesign to create positive benefits, better outcomes, or further progress toward employee career goals.
As a result, each employee will understand how specific activities that he or she performs contribute to the organization’s vision. They will also better recognize their accomplishments.
Lastly, job branding and personal impact mapping can act as catalysts for meaningful and purposeful jobs across the board.
Thus, only a few employees can share bottom-line accomplishments like increased revenues, decreased costs, increased prices, increased product/service quality (so that it leads to one of the previous three) or efficiency improvements (better, faster, cheaper) during their tenure.
The vast majority of the workforce does not even believe they make a difference let alone their performance or lack thereof can have an impact on the company’s profits. As a result, when applying for a new job, many applicants have difficulties specifying their achievements.
Managers should start changing this reality by helping employees develop a personal impact map. Together with HR professionals, they should undertake job redesign to create positive benefits, better outcomes, or further progress toward employee career goals.
As a result, each employee will understand how specific activities that he or she performs contribute to the organization’s vision. They will also better recognize their accomplishments.
Lastly, job branding and personal impact mapping can act as catalysts for meaningful and purposeful jobs across the board.
Friday, January 4, 2008
Stay Interviews
A stay interview is one of the tools for HR professionals as they manage the shift from a tactical to strategic approach.
Tracking and reporting turnover rates and causes after the fact is a tactical approach whereas alerting managers in advance about which employees are likely to quit and recommending effective retention tools is a strategic approach.
Designed and administered properly, stay interviews can provide warning signals and help to identify issues and problems at an early stage. Conducted with new hires, the stay interview may allow an employer to discover workplace issues particularly visible to novices before they too “go native” in the new company. However, prerequisites for success include:
• Conducting interviews on a regular basis,
• Asking open-ended questions, and
• in similar fashion to the “suggestion-box”, creating an action plan and implementing it in a timely manner.
When analyzing stay interviews, it is important to isolate the results of high-performers, especially those in key positions or “at risk” individuals. You must also analyze your low performers to find out what keeps them in your company!
On another hand, stay interviews allow employees to evaluate the employer’s performance and communicate what is important for them to maintain a high quality work life. It should be expected that this feedback loop will become more and more critical as employees shift to Free Agents (professionals who invest their human capital with the expectation of getting a return on their investment in the form of new experiences that can be added to their work portfolio).
Stay interview questions may be found here.
Tracking and reporting turnover rates and causes after the fact is a tactical approach whereas alerting managers in advance about which employees are likely to quit and recommending effective retention tools is a strategic approach.
Designed and administered properly, stay interviews can provide warning signals and help to identify issues and problems at an early stage. Conducted with new hires, the stay interview may allow an employer to discover workplace issues particularly visible to novices before they too “go native” in the new company. However, prerequisites for success include:
• Conducting interviews on a regular basis,
• Asking open-ended questions, and
• in similar fashion to the “suggestion-box”, creating an action plan and implementing it in a timely manner.
When analyzing stay interviews, it is important to isolate the results of high-performers, especially those in key positions or “at risk” individuals. You must also analyze your low performers to find out what keeps them in your company!
On another hand, stay interviews allow employees to evaluate the employer’s performance and communicate what is important for them to maintain a high quality work life. It should be expected that this feedback loop will become more and more critical as employees shift to Free Agents (professionals who invest their human capital with the expectation of getting a return on their investment in the form of new experiences that can be added to their work portfolio).
Stay interview questions may be found here.
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