Best Practices

Why Interviews Fail – Managing for Retention

The best possible recruiting plans are useless if good candidates are being lost because of problems during the interviewing process. Outlined here are eleven ways interviews fail—and steps you can take to improve the selection process.

Wanting More

Remember the scene from Oliver Twist where the master of the orphanage was outraged when Oliver, new to the orphanage, asked for more soup? During a recession, it’s easy for hiring managers to imagine that both candidates and employees should be happy with whatever they are offered since a surplus of candidates may appear to create an employer’s market. But as an employer, you need to be aware of the potential surprises that accompany that line of reasoning, because like Oliver Twist, workers today want more!

Effective Performance Review Can Help Retain Employees

I get a lot of requests to speak on how to recruit and retain employees.* There are a lot of creative things companies can do. But one of the smartest strategies is right under managers’ noses, and many companies ignore it or under emphasize it. That strategy is to use the performance review as a tool to create a stronger bond between the employee and the manager.

Top Ten Traits Employers Want in a Candidate

Can anyone list the top ten traits that employers want in an employee? Numerous articles have been written on the subject, and none of them agree! Here’s a combined listing of what many of these articles claim are the top ten:

Increasing Our Focus on Retention

For six years, Tony was a loyal, hardworking employee who gave his all for the company’s benefit. John, the CEO, valued Tony greatly and gave him increased responsibilities, greater pay, a higher position title, and a company stock option. When making business projections, John included Tony as a key contributor to future growth.

Your Staffing Firm: Adversary or Partner?

Burt was frustrated again. His company, Alpine Industries, had an increasing problem with employee turnover, and it was costing them big. Now they urgently needed another employee, and Sue in HR hadn’t had any luck finding the right candidate. Burt really didn’t want to have to cough up a contingency fee, but finally, out of desperation, he called Pete at ABC Staffing Agency . . .

Pointing the Way to Job Success: Designing Effective Orientation Programs

It’s a fact: those who don’t start right don’t tend to stick around long. And high turnover means you must find new people all over again. What’s more, turnover takes a high toll on the morale of those who do stay behind. This article is a good reminder about what to include in an effective orientation program so that staff members who are properly trained and welcomed at the beginning of their careers feel good about their choice of employer, fit in quickly with colleagues, and readily contribute new ideas.

Taming the Difficult Employee

Difficult employees are a huge drain on an organization in terms of wasted time, reduced productivity, greater inefficiency, increased employee turnover and—in extreme cases—customer loss. Employees who work with difficult coworkers suffer from low morale, a declining commitment to their work, decreased job satisfaction and greater levels of stress and frustration. Read on to learn what motivates difficult employees, and how you can effectively manage them.

Selecting Winners – Part 2

Six Steps to Selecting a High Performance Employee This article is the second in a two-part series

Selecting Winners – Part 1

What constitutes a good employee – a real “winner”? Many people think there’s one profile for a position or one set of criteria cast in stone: “This is a winner.” But that’s just not the case. Winners are unique to your organization. Here are six steps to selecting a high-performance employee.

An Introduction to Human Resource Management

With employee loyalty at an all-time low, really savvy companies recognize that people have never been more important to business success than they are today. One very practical means of emphasizing and maintaining our people as a valued resource is to establish, as most organizations have, a function known as human resources management to represent the best interests of our employees and thereby of management as well.

Introductory Thoughts on Strategy in an Organization

What is strategy? Gerry Johnson and Kevan Scholes in “Exploring Corporate Strategy” define strategy as follows:

“Strategy is the direction and scope of an organization over the long-term which achieves advantage for the organization through its configuration of resources within a challenging environment, to meet the needs of the marketplace and to fulfill stakeholder expectations.” This practical article contains an overview of how strategy can be adopted and implemented within your organization to give you a competitive edge.