Closure - An Important aspect of Talent Acquisition Process

Look at the image above for 5 seconds.

Now, analyse what your mind was at while looking at the incomplete circle - Was it trying to make the ends meet or join? I am sure, most of us would get the ends meet. This is what psychologists call 'Closure' and human brains are wired to attain closure.

Recently, I came across individuals and bright ones for that matter who didn’t have very high opinion of some of the very good and known brands to work for.  The reason – “Apply, Apply but no Reply”. Many organizations, I know of, have a very good hiring process for the chosen ones or for individuals who swim across various stages of the selection process. The candidates definitely have a feel-good experience and they talk highly about it. However, not many organizations have a pleasant way of showing the red signal.

Organizations world-wide spend a great deal on ‘Employer Branding’ exercise in an attempt to lure the best available in the talent market. Even with available metrics it is extremely difficult for the organizations to justify the cost-benefit of these dollars. As many would put it – “We have high online virality of our company updates” or “We are the most talked about” or “We are the most searched for”. However, living with these incomplete notions and defining employer branding only till that is flawed. Each and every touch point matters while creating and leaving an impression.

The big question to ask is “How many of us have a feel good experience for the applicants throughout our hiring process?” Closure is an important part of human nature. We all desire closure and don’t want to have dangling situations. The dangling aspects act like a baggage and constantly nag our mind. I am sure each one of us early in our careers would have sent our resumes or emails asking on a probable opening/vacancy at a particular organization. Our reactions to revert and non-reverts would have been at the opposite ends of the ‘feel-good’ continuum; sometimes leaving a bitter feeling and at other times feeling courteous towards the organization.

A revert or a reply for closure may seem pithy and we may not pay much attention but to the applicant it may leave a pleasant impression and who knows your Talent Acquisition team may be bombarded with referrals by the non-selected candidates. Your TAT may create opportunities galore, creating a large pool of candidates.

A small action may reap huge benefits. Just Think. So have you mandated a closure for each application received by your TAT? If not, what are you waiting for?

Visit us at www.mayiconsult.com 

Leading the Culture of Accomplishment

Any good thought or idea is only half done till it is worked upon to deliver results. It becomes important for

HR professionals to facilitate interventions, provide tools and most importantly entice early adopters to gain acceptance and propagate the ideology to others. For a certain ideology to become a prominent element of the organizational culture, behaviors and activities aligning to the ideology ought to be rewarded. Continuous and later periodic interventions need to be planned and executed for the same. This draws from the theory of conditioning.

HR leaders and practitioners can device a number of

-          Procedures

-          Tools

Here are a few I propose:

a)      Personalized Portal: Each organization I believe must have an accomplishment portal for its employees with features such as

a.       Activities to accomplish

b.      Professional/Personal?

c.       Timeline – Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly, Half Yearly & Yearly

d.      Resources

e.       How?

f.       Make visible to other members?

g.       Seek help within the organization?

h.      Status – Red, Green & Yellow

The activities are made visible both to the individual as well his/her reporting manager. HR thereby has a database of all such activities the individual members wish to accomplish. These can help identify improvement areas, design developmental plans, succession planning, aid talent management, performance management, plan OD interventions and thereby retention.

b)      Accomplishment Boards: A bulletin board where the accomplishment stories get published. Accomplishments – irrespective of magnitude; individual, team or organization get published encouraging others to follow suit and motivate the accomplishers.

c)      Rewarding Group/Cross-team accomplishments: A culture of collective accomplishment goes a long way in building trust and collaboration within the organization. Rewarding group accomplishment also encourages thinking beyond and above self.

d)      My Champ: In one of the organizations, I worked, we launched this initiative where any individual in the organization could recognize fellow colleague who has in any manner helped accomplish a task/activity.

e)      Make it part of the performance management process: Organizational accomplishments need to drill down to management and then individual level making way through the goal setting process.

These action items can create the right climate for the organization to tread the path of accomplishment. 

Culture of Accomplishment - Deciding and Executing what Matters

This one stems from the several exit interviews, employee interactions and experiences of self and others. I have written this post more as a concept paper than an article.

The Problem:

High attrition, disengaged and disgruntled employees, low employee morale and thereby low productivity are issues that have plagued most of the organizations globally. The result is increased intrinsic and extrinsic cost for the organizations resulting in leaner bottom lines. Any action on cutting down costs results in a Catch 22 situation for the companies.

In a recent report released by SilkRoad, a HR software solutions provider, 86% of the employers struggle to create and maintain workforce engagement. In another article on ‘loyalty360.org’, ‘Measurement’ is termed as a weakness of employee engagement programs in terms of longevity and effectiveness. In the FORBES list of top 5 reasons for quitting jobs in 2013, stability, work-life balance and RESPECT have found mention. Two very important points can be deduced from all these articles, research papers and other literature on employee engagement and factors influencing employee longevity and effectiveness:

         1. The factors molding employee engagement are evolving.

         2. The premise on which employee engagement programs are based is flawed.

A Bigger Picture:

The only thing that is with the organization throughout its lifecycle and strongly influences its existence is its culture. Culture may get contaminated, invaded and normalized over the organization’s existence; however it exists. Culture is lasting; programs are not. Culture is what drives behavior, exchanges, morale and sets an unwritten agenda of how things are to be done and what is expected out of employees. It also strongly impacts the feelings, moods and emotional bursts that an employee may experience. Culture also channels the loyalty and longevity of the employees.

In my view which has crystallized with my experiences and those of others, culture has to be all encompassing and should stand for the values of the organization. A lot has been said and written about the culture of ‘Achievement’. However, there is very little mention of accomplishment in the organizational culture context. Elizabeth Curry, facilitator of the Sunshine State Library Leadership Institute makes mention of the following prominent cultures in her workshops:

1. Power Culture
2. Achievement Culture
3. Role Culture
4. Support Culture 

Curry states that one of above four cultures is prominent in the organizations while the rest though exist are not dominant. McClelland’s human needs motivation theory speaks of –

n(P) – Need for Power

n(A) – Need for Achievement

n(Af) – Need for Affiliation

My view of a culture emanating ‘accomplishment’ is the one in which all four – power, achievement, role, support are equally dominant and mutually interact with each other to collectively enhance the beauties of each culture thereby snowballing the overall positive impact on the organization.

Y Accomplishment:

“There’s nothing like seeing your own potential come to fruition and realizing your worth and intelligence as a human being”, quotes Mirella, a blogger in one of the blog posts. Besides, accomplishment caters to individualistic notions of accomplishment and thereby helps customize interventions to enhance individual accomplishments. A child’s sense of accomplishment may be very different from that of an adult. Even amongst children, the sense of accomplishment for a child playing soccer may be different from that of a studious kid. The beauty is even amongst soccer playing kids; sense of accomplishment for a goal keeper may be different from the one playing forward or center back. Same is the case with our employees in the organization and for that matter the employees in the same department or same team or subgroup. The other truly enticing quality of accomplishment is its inherent ability to sprout happiness within an individual.

The sense of accomplishment has longevity and also boosts your motivation to continue with your march – continuous accomplishment or path of new glory. Accomplishment can also be considered the pinnacle of an individual’s state of mind and heart.

In organizations, our employees may quit or may be disengaged or disgruntled citing reasons of insufficient compensation, opportunities, challenges, growth or even plain need for change or beat monotony. Understanding their sense of accomplishments helps the HR folks design, customize and drive interventions in the organizations. This also helps identify how individual strengths can be leveraged to deliver to the business strategy of the organization besides having happy employees at work. It is however important for HR folks to align individual accomplishments to the overall accomplishment of the organization. The organization’s sense of accomplishment may lie in earning revenues for its stakeholders, give back to the society, stand by environmental causes or just keeping all its primary and secondary stakeholders happy.

Culture of accomplishment goes a long way in helping us introspect on what example we wish to set for ourselves and others around. Also, deciding on what really matters and doing that.

 
I shall discuss on the tools and processes of enabling our employees in the next post. Till then, the point to ponder - Do we consider ourselves accomplished? 

Are your HR folks deemed Approachable?

One of the 'must-do', challenging and yet important activity of HR function is -  planning for employee separation. I am sure many of my fellow HR folks would resonate with this sentiment. On one such occasion, as a process mandate, I was having an exit discussion with an employee who had decided to part ways with the organization. While the insights out of an exit interview are key to identifying and analyzing problem areas, this one was an 'eye-opener' and literally shook me up. The discussion had just begun with the employee reasoning the decision to move when tears filled her beaming eyes. The words echoed - 

"My prominent reason to move has been the 'non-recognition of effort' and 'constant nagging' by my manager."

My immediate inquiry was - "Why didn't you get in touch with the HR folks earlier?"

To this the reply was - "I was not sure if HR could help."

This made me brood over - 

1. The management cliched - "Employees leave managers and not organizations."

2. Daring Question - "Do your employees rest trust and consider the HR department approachable/dependable?"

My immediate next action was to ensure that I meet each member of the organization's BU I was handling personally and know their sentiments while inculcating the feeling of trust. This was followed by an anonymous 'Employee Delight Survey' to garner each project manager's feedback and any otherwise with-held views that the members may have.While, this may not always be feasible, meeting in small groups and conversing with your employees can definitely help.

Technology while is a great enabler, the communication that HR folks these days have with their employees is mostly over emails. Emails don't build confidence nor do they make you more approachable by the employees. The personal touch cannot be imbibed while sending 'mass-mailers'. Building trust is important for us as HR folks to be deemed approachable and most importantly providing solutions will restore that faith for recurring connect. The first step to HR process improvement and enhancing experience for employees at work place shall begin with 'earning' their confidence. I did take a step and am striving - How about you?