Are Wrong Mindsets Ruining Your Recruitment Efforts?

I believe so. I think there are some old mindsets that affect our hiring efforts adversely. What are these?

They won't say it outright but many managers still think that finding the right candidate is largely a matter of intuition, hence they are disinterested with getting trained to interview candidates and make hiring decisions based on clearly established criteria or merits. Please don't get me wrong here. I believe in the power of intuition specially when a person have shown intuitive power. But what if one's supposed intuition is wrong most of the time? Shouldn't that manager have better basis for making decisions? I personally believe that intuition should come after well grounded bases are satisfied. I believe managers should get training on this. After all, their hiring decisions will make their lives easier... Or harder.

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Is longer experience better? My answer is maybe, not always. When you hard-code years of experience in your hiring criteria, you miss out on brilliant young talents who do not meet your experience requirement. You lose these talents to companies who bother to look at young talents and are not encumbered by years of experience criteria. It's true, experience is the best teacher but we don't learn as much and as fast. People with the right talent for the job always learn exponentially more than those who just happen to be in the job longer.

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Are good talents easy to come by? No, they're not. I am emphasizing this because I don't think a lot of managers realize this, hence they continue to be inflexible and hard-nosed about their hiring methods. I've seen evidence of this too many times. Some managers won't reconsider if a candidate requests for a reschedule. They won't go out of their way to meet a candidate outside of office hours or in a more convenient location because said candidate is too busy with current work. The thing is most great candidates are not even exploring. They are happily engaged and have to be attracted to move from their current employ to yours. Guess who can afford to accommodate your every scheduling whim, those who have been out of a job and have been job hunting for the last six months and are not getting employed. While we are on this topic, let me add that good candidates, if they are available, secure new jobs quite quickly, if your recruitment process is too slow, there's good chance you can't catch 'em. Think about this now, will you?

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And finally, the recruiters' dilemma. Well, not necessarily the last of old mindsets that should be taken away from our recruitment psyche. I'm sure there are more. But let me end with this one now. I observed that recruitment departments often enjoy too much or too little power. In some companies, managers want as little to do with recruitment as possible, hence, the recruitment department makes most if not all hiring decisions. On the other hand, some companies look at their recruitment department as order takers and fulfillers. They are in charge, but then again, they are not in charge. They can't make the requesting managers give them enough information about the vacancy, their recommendations if they ever make any are not considered and they are made to wait too long for availabilities and decisions. Because of these problems, recruiters either catch the wrong fish or lose a big catch. I believe that recruitment is too important a task not to be shared by the stake holders. It is too important not to be studied and come up with the best possible approach. After all recruitment is gate keeping. We all know the dangers of letting the wrong people in and missing the opportunity to invite the right people in.

Your Compensation, Recruitment and Training Strategies

Being recruiters give us, in ExeQserve an opportunity to see how a company pays its employees affect how it attracts (or fail to) new employees. Pay definitely has an effect on retention but we'll save that for another post. For now, I'd like to share what we see as we help companies fill their needs for talent.

First, let me narrow down our focus to a specific component of your compensation philosophy and that is the decision on whether you will pay above what the market offers, at par or below. It may be obvious that the decision you make will have an impact on attracting talents hence, we propose that you realign your recruitment and training strategy to match your decision on how to pay your employees. Here are our recommendations:

If you decide to pay above what the market offers, then that's great because that is the quickest way to hire the most sought-after talents with awesome accomplishments and experience. Match your compensation with a good working culture and you'll have candidates lining up for interview. Not all companies can afford to do this. I can also imagine with horror if companies try to out-price each other because it will drive up pay rates to unreasonable levels. There are, as a matter of fact already some positions specially in the IT industry where people are paid absurdly high salaries.

If you pay at par with the market, you should know that it will be difficult to place people who are paid the same (or more). You should therefore look for people who are paid lower than what you are willing to give so they will accept your offer. This are people who are probably next in line and ready to move to the next level in their careers.

If you can't compete with the market, you should prepare to train people who have the aptitude but not enough skills or those who have some skills but do not have as much experience as the ones being paid high in the market. When you do this, you do not only save on compensation, you also help the industry by developing people who will eventually feed the industry. You should also expect that after sometime, your employees will bid you farewell, thanking you for all the experience because by then, they'll be ready to move on. Having a program for developing new talents, you shouldn't be worried.

This is not always the case. Some companies want to have their cakes and eat 'em too. They don't want to train, they expect to hire highly experienced candidates and they offer low pay. As a result, they take too long to hire and the ones they hire leave when they realize they're real market value.

Compensation is an important leverage in attracting talents. However, not all companies can compete owing to economics and all other considerations. When you can't compete with the leading companies in terms of compensation, I believe it is but right to adjust your recruitment and training and strategy.

Bachelor of Science in Human Resource Management and Why Psychology Doesn't Cut it Anymore.

I was interviewing prospective on-the-job trainees in the past week and what I observed, led me to post this blog. Most of the applicants were taking up BS or AB Psychology. I asked all of the applicants this question. Why look for an OJT in HR or in an HR company like ours? The answers struck me and made me realize that if HR practice is to blossom fully in the Philippines, we need to take it more seriously in an academic sense and start encouraging universities/colleges to develop a curriculum that is tailor fitted for human resource management and/or development.

Going back to my question, the applicants told me they want to see how the psychological concepts and theories are applied in the industrial settings. I reflected on the answer and asked my self how much psychology is needed to work in or run a human resources department? The answer I got is this; the psychology needed in order to work in or run a human resource department is just as much as the psychology needed to work in or run any department or organization. This is not to say that Psychology is unimportant to Human Resource Management. I believe it is important in any field of management. I've been looking at prospectuses these last few days and I find very little opportunity for management students to study human and organizational behavior. Human and Organizational Behavior! Those are  the most complex things to manage in this world and there's little opportunity to learn it!

Well aside from the psychology of it, there a few more things that prospective human resource practitioners need to learn that are not or hardly being taught in their course. If they are to hit the ground running when they land a job in the corporate world, they need to know a thing or two about recruitment, about compensation and benefits management, about training, about employee or industrial relation, they need to understand better the concepts of business management. They need to understand government regulations that impact on human resource management. They need to learn how to write policies. They need to learn how to apply the labor code. They need to know the transactional as well as the strategic side of human resource management.

If human resource management in this country is to progress, I believe we should take it more seriously and put together programs to get people who want to enter the practice some decent preparation. I call on colleges to follow the lead of those who develop their BS in Human Resource Management Curriculum. With a solid program that teaches students to really learn how to manage the companies' human resources.

Why I Dislike Across the Board Wage Increases

The wage board recently approved an across-the-board  wage increase (ATBWI) of PHP22.00/day for those who are working in the National Capital Region. When this is implemented, the minimum daily wage will increase to 404 from 382.

This is of course just me venting my frustration in this what I think is a futile exercise. I have every reason to comply with this law in my company when it is implemented. I just want to make clear that I am not complaining about the additional amount that I have to pay my people, I am more concerned about the impact... or in another way the lack of beneficial impact of this move. Before you start thinking that I am a descendant of Scrooge, let me share my opinion.

First, ATBWI's do not improve the lot of those of who receive it. Why, because what follow mandated wage increases are increases in prices of commodities which tend to offset whatever salary increment they gain. It gets worse for those who work in companies that cannot afford the new salary because they end up cutting cost which almost always include reducing manpower. I wonder how many small companies who cannot afford the new salary fold up because of decisions like this?

2nd, the reason why companies have to look into increasing the price of their products or reducing cost is because salary increases like this do  very little to improve productivity. It does not improve profitability hence, companies who need to stay afloat need to find a way to finance the additional cost of operation.

3rd, there is still a gaping hole in the system that allow small companies who can afford to give more than the minimum mandated pay but choose not to because the law that exempt small companies who might not be able to afford the standard pay also exempt them from paying. Just look at some gas stations out there who do not pay their employees the amount they deserve while the owners of the business continue to enjoy the good life. I say fix the law first to make sure that these opportunists cannot getaway with hoodwinking their employees.

4th, because of all the reasons I mentioned above, I believe that ATBWI's are vicious cycle starters (or accelerators?). Why, because it works on messing the pie rather than producing larger pies. Another thing is a lot of the workers don't see the pie or suspect that the pie they are looking at is an illusion, so everything gets really messed up.

And this what I believe is my most important reason for disliking salary increases is because there is a better option that with proper support from the government, will benefit the employees, their companies and the economy. This my friends is GAIN SHARING, the implementation of policies and guidelines that will provide employees with sizable amount of extra income depending on how much they contribute in terms of productivity, cost savings and other metrics that impact on revenue and profit. I've seen good companies implement something like this where their employees can take home much, much more than what the mandated salary increase is offering. I believe this is better because it encourage people to be better at what they do, to put more into their work and improve on their quality. It helps the organizations they belong to because it increases the size of the pie, hence there is more for sharing. It improves the economy because people can buy more. That is also because companies are not forced to increase the prices of products and services, hence people can afford them. It does not only improve the economy, it also improves the mindset of the people. We can think in terms of abundance rather than in scarcity as what this concept of ATBWI is offering us.

In order to make this happen, I believe our business leaders and the government should work together in hammering some kind of law or guidelines that will encourage employers to take this path. Government can give tax relief to companies that comply with the guidelines. They can even use the same principle of getting more by giving more. What I mean is if companies share more gains, they get more tax relief or something. (I'm not sure about the terminologies I'm using here as I'm clearly going out of my area of competence.) 

I believe it's time to come up with a new approach to our people's income problems. Our leaders from the government, the companies and the labor need to come up with a new solution. History have shown us this one of across the board salary increases do not work to improve our situation. They are temporary  pain relievers that hide the real cause of  the pain. Let's consider all sorts of gain sharing, from incentives, performance bonuses and profit sharing that come out of people's productivity and companies profit. It's more healthy, more exciting and more meaningful if you ask me.

Team Building is Environment Building

If you are a leader and you want teamwork, I suggest that you consider creating an environment that fosters it. How and why? Here are some suggestions:

Breakdown communication barriers between you and your team. Create an environment where they will feel free to go to you to address an issue, ask questions or disagree with what you want to do. My point is people will disagree with you whether you are aware of it or not. If you are unaware, you will not be able to address the disagreement. When things are unclear or if team members' resentment go unaddressed, it damages their commitment. When communication channels are open, members are able to address issues. They get to have the needed clarity and they are able to buy in to goals and strategies. Two important factors are necessary to make this happen. These are trust and rules of engagement. Go to your team and answer these simple questions together:

• How are we going to build trust in this team?
• what should be our rules for communication so that we can address what ever issues get in the way of our performance?

The first one improves trust, the other one establishes rules of engagement.

Create opportunity for collaboration. Some managers say they want teamwork but give very little opportunity for it. Meeting are mostly about them giving a rundown of what need to be done or staff reporting accomplishments to the manager. If you want to encourage collaboration, come down with questions or challenge for them to think about and solve as a team like how do we improve last month's performance or how do we manage cost without hurting quality, etc. Form quality circles or performance improvement teams and let people flex their mental muscles. When people get used to sharing ideas, you will be amazed at the amount of ideas and information you can use.

Establish Meritocracy and accountability. Reinforce delivery of results and call people's attention on bad performance and behavior. Mediocrity breeds more mediocrity. It multiplies. It also drives away good performance. It's like a communicable malaise that spreads swiftly in your organization.  Create a set of norms for calling each others attention. Do not exclude yourself because your mistakes as a leader will have the most impact on the team. When you exempt yourself from getting feedback, you lose a great deal of opportunity to improve as a leader.

Literally create an environment that fosters teamwork. I mean look at how your office is set up. does it allow for people to access each other and engage in discussions and information sharing? Even sitting arrangements can impact on how people collaborate. Review your current setup and change it so that people will find it convenient to really work with each other. If you ask me, too much walls between each other makes it easier for people to jump to conclusions about motives rather than clarify issues.

Make your vision visual... audible as well. Make sure people are constantly reminded of why they're there. Remind them that amidst the different roles is a common set of goals. That as one team, they should consistently work with each other and not against each other.

Building a team takes more than one day of camping out. While those things help jump-start the process, without leaders who create the right environment for teamwork to flourish, they'd be complete waste of time.

ExeQserve can help you get on your way towards building a great team environment. Click here for more info.

If you have ideas that will help build a strong team environment, I would appreciate hearing it. Please share it in the comment section below.