Business and Customers Archives

How Your Small Business Can Attract and Retain Top Talent

June 19, 2017 by Sharlyn Lauby Leave a Comment

(Editor’s Note: Today’s post is sponsored by Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company (MassMutual), a leading provider of insurance, annuities, retirement plans, and other employee benefits. They were recently recognized by the Ethisphere Institute as a 2017 World’s Most Ethical Company. Many congratulations to them. Enjoy the post!)

All businesses face the same challenges. From an operational perspective, every business deals with maintaining product quality, customer service, marketing, technology, and cash flow. Plus, a whole lot more. It’s the same with people issues. Every business is faced with recruiting challenges, employee morale and engagement, retention, training, etc.

As someone who has worked for big businesses and now owns a small one, I feel like we do everything large companies do. We budget, plan, and strategize like any business. However, I know that sometimes it feels like big corporations can fix challenges by throwing money at their problems. Big companies can have more resources at their disposal. It’s true. Some big companies have more resources and they choose to spend those resources to address issues. That doesn’t change the difficulty of the issue. But it can often mean the solution is more readily available.

The Advantages of Being a Small Business

However, when I start thinking about the advantages big businesses have, I’m also reminded of the reasons that we chose to keep our company small. According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, there are 28 million small businesses in America, and they account for 54 percent of all U.S. sales. Small businesses provide 55 percent of all jobs and 66 percent of all net new jobs since the 1970s. And small businesses are growing. Since 1982, the number of small businesses in the U.S. has grown 49 percent.

There are plenty of reasons to start a small business and keep it that way.

Small Business Concerns about Employee Loyalty

I recently got my hands on the MassMutual Business Owner Perspectives Study. It’s a very interesting read worth checking out. While the study covers issues like business valuation and transitioning ownership, I immediately homed in on the section about employee loyalty. Because even though business valuation and transitioning ownership are important, employee loyalty was ranked the number one issue facing small businesses (81 percent).

Interesting, eh? The very same thing that’s keeping the Fortune 100 up at night is disrupting the sleep of small business owners. The question becomes, how can a small company retain employees? In my experience, employees leave for two reasons.

Reason #1 – Their manager.

Employees want to feel that their manager is there to support them. That means managers should set expectations, teach employees what they need to be successful, offer regular coaching and feedback, and give recognition for excellent work.

Small businesses have an advantage in this area because it’s easy for employees to get noticed in the organization. There are fewer organizational layers and employees can build stronger relationships with people at every level of the company. Also, employees can potentially learn more because they are exposed to all aspects of the business, not simply the department they work in.

Reason #2 – Their job.

Employees want to do interesting work. I’ve often heard employees at small companies say they feel more connected to the mission of the organization because they can directly see how their role impacts the bottom-line.

Employees also want to be paid fairly and competitively. This includes their benefits and perks package.

Small businesses can have an advantage here because they don’t typically have all the policies and procedures that larger companies do. So, things that employees like such as casual dress codes, flexible schedules, and working from home could be possible. And many of these things have a low cost attached to them. That’s not to say that big companies aren’t adopting them too – they are. But small businesses often have the agility to quickly expand upon them. They can identify employee wants and needs and adapt their offerings accordingly.

The key for small business owners is understanding what their employees want and developing a plan of action to make it happen. Just because Google employees have a foosball table doesn’t mean your employees want one.

Get Some Creative Inspiration from Others

When faced with a challenge, I’ve always thought one of the best places to start is by getting some creative inspiration from others. Think of it as benchmarking or best practices.

MassMutual is hosting a realBUSINESS™ webinar focused on “How to Overcome the Top Challenges Small Business Owners Face” on Tuesday, June 20, 2017 at 1:00 p.m. Eastern. The highlight of the webinar will be a live question and answer period with small business owners. It’s the perfect opportunity to find out what others are doing. I do understand you might already have plans for Tuesday. If that’s the case, sign up anyway and get the recording.

The webinar is one in a series of realBUSINESS™ webinars for small business owners. You can find more on the MassMutual YouTube channel.

Small businesses can attract and retain top talentClick To Tweet

Small business owners have real advantages that they need to leverage when it comes to attracting and retaining the best talent. There are lots of people who would prefer to work for a small company. Take advantage of the opportunity! Your employees (and future employees) will thank you for it.

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Don’t Overthink Your Data – Friday Distraction

June 9, 2017 by Sharlyn Lauby Leave a Comment

The purpose of collecting data is to take some action using the data. And, taking action is often one of the most challenging steps in any type of data collection process. Obviously, it doesn’t make sense to collect data and not do anything with it. Taking action is implied. The data might help us make a decision, notice a trend, or monitor our effectiveness.

But when we get lots of data, it can be tempting to spend ridiculous amounts of time studying it. Today’s Time Well Spent from our friends at Kronos is a reminder that sometimes technology can help us analyze the data. So, we don’t need to overthink it.

To avoid overthinking the data (sometimes known as “analysis paralysis”), consider these three things:

Have a target in mind. I often think that this step isn’t given enough attention. There’s a reason that the data is being collected in the first place. It might be to understand where the best recruiting sources can be found. Or how to schedule employee coverage that meets customer needs. Before getting into the weeds with data, understand the goal of collecting the data.

Realize you might never have all the data. Alas, as much as we love technology and its capabilities, we need to cut technology some slack. Technology is only as good as the data we give it. Which means, if we give our systems incomplete information, we should expect incomplete data analysis. The good news is that we can identify these empty pockets of data and figure out how to fill them.

Be okay with making a wrong decision. I’ve worked with a couple of people in my career who thought the way to never make a wrong decision was by never making a decision. Simply not true. One of my favorite quotes from John F. Kennedy says it best. “There are risks and costs to action. But they are far less than the long-range risks of comfortable inaction.”

Data brings tremendous value to business. But only if we do something with it. Overthinking the data can stop individuals and organizations from moving forward.

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Organizations Need to Expect Turnover

June 4, 2017 by Sharlyn Lauby 3 Comments

Organizations are focused on retention. And that’s a good thing. Obviously, turnover is expensive – both in terms of cost and knowledge loss.

However, it’s unrealistic to think that turnover won’t exist. So, organizations need to think about what amount of turnover is going to be acceptable. Employees are going to stay for a few years and then move on. Employees are going to retire. All of that is okay. All turnover isn’t bad turnover. But there are a few things that are important to remember about turnover:

Former employees are a reflection of your organization. People take their employee experience with them for the rest of their professional lives. Organizations have to decide if they are going to let a person take a good or not-so-good experience with them.

People are asked about their careers all the time. When they get asked, the response can be focused on the challenging work, the learning environment, and the collegiate teams OR it can be a curt “it was fine”. We both know what the latter means. The way a person views their employee experience has an impact on other things.

Former employees might want to come back – either in a full-time or freelancer capacity. Individuals might find that the grass isn’t always greener at another organization. They might also spend a few years acquiring skills that they couldn’t get inside the organization and be in a great position to boomerang back.

Organizations can also find themselves in the position of needing a niche skill that a former employee was tremendously good at. The former employee might be willing to do some work for the company on the side. Employees aren’t going to be receptive to returning – even in a freelancer role – if they had a poor employee experience.

Former employees can refer candidates and customers. If an individual has a poor employee experience, I believe they will hesitate to tell their friends to apply for work with the company. It’s similar to customer referrals. I don’t tell my friends to eat at restaurants where I’ve had a bad meal. Why would I tell one of my friends to apply someplace where I’ve been treated poorly?!

Surveys show that a poor customer experience has an impact on the business. It seems logical that a poor employee experience will do the same thing.

I don’t know that any of these concepts are new. Former employees have always had the ability to talk about their past employers and refer others. But I do believe the emphasis on the value of the relationship is changing. In the past, maybe organizations didn’t focus on it as much. But now, with unemployment being low and the challenges finding qualified candidates, it’s time to realize the relationship cannot be ignored. In fact, it’s quite the contrary.

Organizations need to realize that the employee/employer relationship lasts well beyond the time that the employee works for the company. They need to think about it and strategize about it in ways similar to the candidate experience. The employee experience is important and has an impact on the bottom-line. Not only when the employee is working for the company, but for years after.

Image captured by Sharlyn Lauby after speaking at the Learning and Development League 2016 Annual Conference in Delhi, India

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Nursing Professionals Want Engagement and Work Life Balance

May 30, 2017 by Sharlyn Lauby Leave a Comment

(Editor’s Note: Today’s post is brought to you by our friends at Kronos, a leading provider of workforce management and human capital management cloud solutions. For the third consecutive year, Forbes has named Kronos one of America’s Top 15 Places to Work in technology. Congratulations to Kronos! Enjoy the post.)

While this blog tends to talk about employees in general, we have shared in the past some insights about specific industries such as restaurants and public service. Today we’re going to talk about health care. Specifically, nursing. Because nursing affects everyone.

Earlier this month was National Nurses Week, which we’ve written about before. Kronos recently conducted a survey of nursing professionals titled “Employee Engagement in Nursing” to find out how they handle the on-the-job stress. The results are interesting and noteworthy.

Nurses are Committed to Their Profession

The survey results indicated that 90 percent of nurses are satisfied with the work they do. That’s really good news. I think we all realize nursing is a difficult job. And keep in mind there are two types of nursing jobs. The first is the one we traditionally think of in hospitals and doctor’s offices. The other is in corporate settings and other non-hospital employers.

The downside of a nurse’s tremendous commitment to their work is stress and burnout. The survey shared a few of the reasons that nurses are fatigued on the job:

Increased shifts and workload (60%)
Skipping meals and breaks (42%)
Not being able to leave work on time (21%)

Add to those findings that 44 percent of nurses say their manager doesn’t know how tired they are and 43 percent hide how tired they are from their managers. Not good. Managers aren’t able to help alleviate stress and fatigue when they don’t know it exists.

This dynamic of managers not knowing that their employees are tired and stressed should make hospitals very concerned. More than eighty percent (80%) of registered nurses would consider jobs outside of a hospital because it offers better work-life balance.

Four Ways Organizations Can Engage Nurses

Organizations that employ nurses need to consider adding programs and policies that will reduce stress and fatigue in the workplace. Four suggestions that surfaced in the survey are:

Improved Scheduling. This includes shift swaps, self-scheduling, and flexible shift lengths between eight and 12 hours. More than half (55 percent) of nurses surveyed said that gaining more control over their schedules would be the top factor to reducing work fatigue.

More rest breaks. Organizations need to make sure that they are properly staffed so nurses can take breaks. In addition, managers need to make sure that employees actually take their breaks. It might not seem like a 10- or 15- minute break is much, but research has shown taking breaks makes employees happier and more productive.

Wellness programs. Employee wellness is a business issue. Today’s wellness programs include features like nap rooms, Uber/Lyft rides when employees work late, and counseling. And if you’re wondering about the return-on-investment, a Mercer study cites a correlation between wellness programs and bottom-line performance.

Better employee-manager relations. Managers touch each of the first three things – scheduling, breaks, and wellness. While we’re not implying that managers are to blame, organizations need to create an environment where managers are empowered to handle these issues without question.

It’s Time to Care for Caregivers

The good news is that nurses are satisfied and inspired by their career choice. Given today’s labor market, organizations understand the challenge in recruiting and retaining such dedication.

We need to care for our caregivers!Click To Tweet

Susan Reese, DNP, MBA, RN, CPHIMS, director of Kronos’ healthcare practice group, summed the survey findings up perfectly. “What this survey shows us is that it’s time to care for the caregivers. It also confirms what we instinctively know – nurses are compassionate, hardworking professionals who love what they do. This is the crux of employee engagement and it’s hard to achieve if employees are fatigued. Nurses today want more control over their schedules along with additional breaks, health and wellness programs, and better overtime management. These benefits will ultimately help nurses, patients, and hospitals.”

Hospitals and health systems need to invest more in nurturing and retaining nurses. It’s time to engage them by increasing their emotional commitment toward their employers’ goals. Because when nurses are engaged and healthy, everyone wins.

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Logic Is Not Always Linear – Friday Distraction

May 26, 2017 by Sharlyn Lauby Leave a Comment

(Editor’s Note: Today’s post is brought to you by our friends at Kronos, a leading provider of workforce management and human capital management cloud solutions. The company was named of the 2017 Best Workplaces for Giving Back by Fortune Magazine. Congrats to the Kronos team! Enjoy the post.)

I like to think of myself as a logical person. One of the definitions of logical is “(of an action, development, decision, etc.) natural or sensible given the circumstances.” Notice it didn’t include linear. Something can be logical and not necessarily linear.

An example is PowerPoint versus Prezi. Both provide users with the ability to create digital presentations. PowerPoint does it in a linear fashion. Prezi in a non-linear one. But that doesn’t mean a presentation created on Prezi isn’t logical.

I was reminded of the importance of logic when I saw today’s Time Well Spent from our friends at Kronos. Going from Point A to Point B isn’t always linear.

When organizations are trying to connect the dots, they have several tools at their disposal.

People. Sometimes we need to step away from challenges to see the logic or the connection. Sometimes we need co-workers to help us see the pattern or a different way of thinking. Each of us must be willing to say, “I don’t see it.” Or “Help me see it.” It takes self-awareness and trusting relationships with the rest of the team.

Technology. This is one of those moments where technology can be our best friend. Technology is about logic. Organizations need to be willing to use technology to help them see trends and themes. However, I would add that technology needs people to recognize the need for tech and to use it effectively. Great technology used badly isn’t going to provide accuracy and efficiency.

Data. Speaking of accuracy and efficiency, for technology to play its role, it needs good data. We’ve all heard that old phrase “garbage in, garbage out”. It applies here too. People need to know good data when they see it. Otherwise, they could make decisions based on false assumptions. And that’s not logical.

Organizations should use their people, technology, and data to make sensible decisions. Logical decisions. Because logical decisions are easy to explain and understand. When everyone is on the same page, and working toward the same goal, the company is able to accomplish its strategy.

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How to Find Bottlenecks In Your Talent Acquisition Process

May 25, 2017 by Sharlyn Lauby 2 Comments

Being able to deal with constraints is an important part of business. Constraints are stages of a process that causes the entire process to slow down, be less effective, or stop completely. In the book “The Goal”, Dr. Eliyahu Goldratt outlines The Theory of Constraints as well as how to identify and manage them successfully. It’s a good read that HR pros should have in their library.

A logical first step in successfully dealing with constraints is identifying them. We know in problem-solving that, if you only deal with a symptom then you never really fix the problem. Same applies here. It’s about getting to the root cause of the constraint. Take talent acquisition as an example. When the talent acquisition process is broken, everybody knows it. And in my experience, everyone blames everything on recruiting being broken.

“We can’t finish the project on time because we don’t have enough employees.”

“We can’t deliver good customer service because we don’t have the right employees.”

“I really need to fire Leonard, but if I do I’ll never find his replacement.”

Problems (or constraints, bottlenecks etc.) in recruiting isn’t something to ignore because finding top talent is essential to the business. The question becomes, how do you identify the constraint?

Let’s continue using the recruitment example and focus specifically on resumes and applications. Since talent acquisition is a process that involves multiple people: human resources, hiring manager, payroll, and possibly other individuals, we can start with an analysis of how the process works. Does your organization who is responsible for each part? When it comes to resumes and applications:

Who should spend the most time reviewing resumes? Should it be the hiring manager? Or HR?
What does each person involved in the hiring process actually do with a candidate’s resume? More importantly, what should they be doing?
Does each person know their role and responsibility? Do they know what the other members of the recruiting team are responsible for?
Is each person capable of successfully completing their role in the process?

In order to identify the potential constraint with applications and resumes, these questions must be answered. Organizations need to know that the process they’ve designed on a white board is the process that actually happens. They need to know that each person involved in the process knows their role and is capable of doing it. And that each person knows their role in the context of the other people involved in the process.

To minimize constraints, organizations might want to consider making investments in developing high-performance recruiting teams. Many companies invest in team building for departments. Sometimes in team development for project teams. According to Dr. Eduardo Salas, companies that invest in team training can see as much as a 20 percent increase in team performance. Recruiting teams are the group tasked with identifying and selecting the individuals who will service customers, create the next company innovation, and become the future leadership. It only makes sense to create a development initiative for this team.

Find the bottlenecks in your talent acquisition processClick To Tweet

Which brings us back to constraints. Is it possible that, if a company asked themselves those four questions, they would find the source of their constraint? Once the constraint is identified, then it can be appropriately managed. Here are three action steps that could correct the bottleneck:

Role reinforcement. Make sure each person who has a role in the process knows their tasks and accepts responsibility for their completion.
Training. Any individual who needs skill development should be provided the opportunity to become proficient.
Process communication. To make sure that steps in the process are not being duplicated or accidently forgotten, the process can be communicated to all stakeholders.

If organizations want to hire the best talent, they have to create effective processes and troubleshoot those processes to keep them the best they can possibly be. It starts with the recruiting team.

Image of Sharlyn Lauby captured while speaking at the Flora Icelandic HR Management Conference in Reykjavik, Iceland

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INTERVIEW: Dave Ulrich on How To Win the War for Talent

May 21, 2017 by Sharlyn Lauby 1 Comment

The term “war for talent” was first used in 2001 in a Harvard Business Press book by the same name. It refers to a competitive landscape in recruiting and retention. Given the recent shift to a candidate-driven market and other indicators like low unemployment, the use of war for talent seems very appropriate.

Dave Ulrich and his colleagues have a new book out on the topic titled “Victory Through Organization: Why the War for Talent is Failing Your Company and What You Can Do About It”. I feel like he needs no introduction in the HR world. But that just wouldn’t be proper. Dr. Ulrich is the Rensis Likert Professor at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan and a partner at The RBL Group, a consulting firm focused on helping organizations and leaders deliver value.

I had the chance to chat with him a few years ago about the future of the HR profession. And I’m delighted he agreed to talk with me about his new book and the war for talent.

Dr. Ulrich, the very first sentence in your new book says, “HR is not about HR. HR begins and ends with the business.” On one level, I get it. But isn’t that just another ‘seat at the table’ reference?

[Ulrich] The metaphor of ‘getting a seat at the table’ is about HR having access to and influence on business results. This aspiration becomes somewhat trite unless and until HR actually contributes to business results. In our research with 32,000 people in 1,400 businesses (with 22 global regional partners), we found that the competencies required to get to the table are different from the competencies required to deliver real business value.

Getting invited to business discussions (seat at the table metaphor) comes when HR professionals are credible activists. But, once invited, HR professionals have to deliver value to key stakeholders both inside (employees, line managers) and outside (customers, investors) the company. Stakeholder value to those outside the company increases when HR professionals are strategic positioners. Then, to deliver real business value, HR professionals need to be paradox navigators. Gaining the seat is not necessarily delivering once in the dialogue.

Who should own the war for talent and why?

[Ulrich] We are quite clear that line managers are the ‘owners’ of talent. They are ultimately responsible and accountable. Qualified HR professionals are architects who create the systems and anthropologists who recognize the context. (Editor’s note: I wholeheartedly agree that HR pros are the architects of work).

The book shares an HR competency model with three core drivers: credible activist, strategic positioner, and paradox navigator. Over the years, we’ve both seen all the articles about “this is what HR needs to do”, etc. How do HR professionals know the best advice to follow?

[Ulrich] In the HR field (like other fields), there are a lot of opinions, generally based on good intent and personal experience. While each person’s experience is unique and valuable, it is useful to rely on large data sets to see trends individuals might miss. HR pros recognize and accept data based decision making to ensure that their personal experiences culminate in real success. In addition, we are convinced that it is NOT just the HR competencies, but their impact on key outcomes of personal effectiveness, stakeholder value, and business results. HR pros should use their personal judgment as informed by rigorous theory and research.

Where do you see the role of technology in human resources?

[Ulrich] We have identified four stages of HR technology in delivering value. We have proposed an HR technology audit as each of these stages enables HR to use technology to increase value.

Stage 1 is efficiency and technology enables more cost efficiency delivery of HR services.
Stage 2 is innovation and HR technology allows for innovation in staffing, training, performance management, rewards, and communication. Much of the machine learning, automation, and robotics exists to create such innovation.
Stage 3 is information and technology helps organizations source and act on external data that informs choices.
Stage 4 is connection and technology connects people to each other inside and suppliers, customers, and investors outside and connects people to their organizations.

Dave Ulrich: how to win the war for talentClick To Tweet

IMHO, the challenges of finding and keeping talent aren’t going away anytime soon. If HR could only do one thing that would have the fastest impact, what would it be?

[Ulrich] Talent continues to be a real challenge for organizations. We have seen that many organizations have learned where and how to source talent, bring talent on board, reward and motivate talent, and retain the best talent.

We believe that many of the top employees have enormous choice over where they work, and leading organizations are working to help employees find meaning and purpose from work (see Why of Work). In addition, our research convincingly found that the quality of the organization (however labeled … the systems, teams, processes, or capabilities) has 4 times the impact on business results as talent! This means that HR professionals should be at least as concerned about the technical competencies of the individuals as the social and cultural fit in the organization. Talent matters, but organization matters more.

My thanks to Dr. Ulrich for giving us a sneak peek into his new book, “Victory Through Organization”. If you want to read more, download chapter one (FREE!)

It’s no surprise that attracting, engaging, and retaining talent is a key initiative for organizations. This challenge – the war for talent – places a lot of pressure on human resources. We need to be tech-savvy, process-driven coaches for the business. While it’s a tall order, it’s also a great opportunity for HR to bring business value to the organization.

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