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A selection of Must-Read HR Management Articles 04/2019

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Wow, another week is over. Here is another collection of the best HR articles I have found during the last seven days. It is my fourth article. It means that the next one will be a little anniversary. Also, it will be published in February (I kept my new year resolution to last).

This time, the key topics are:

  • Show Passion;
  • Talent Acquisition;
  • Social Media.

Happy Reading!

These 4 Words in Your Next Interview Will Help You Land the Job

Are you looking for a new job? Do you know what you should say that the recruiter stops looking for other candidates?

You should say just 4 words:

“I love my work.”

Yeah, you should not talk that you are interested in advancing your career. You should not talk about a new opportunity and a new challenge. You should just say that you really love your job.

When candidates articulate that they love the work they do, it signals that they’re motivated intrinsically, by an inner drive to contribute and create.

It indicates that you are not motivated by the compensation package or any other perks you receive. You are internally driven by meaning. It tends to last.

5 Points the Boardroom Wants to See from the Talent Acquisition Function

Human Resources has its seat in the board room. However, it still needs to find ways how to promote most appealing HR topics, so they also become hot topics of the leadership team. They do not want Human Resources to become a hot topic they need to solve urgently. They look for the assurance that HR Managers keep everything under control.

When talking about Talent Acquisition (or recruitment and staffing in general), the leadership team looks for assurance in the following areas:

  • Governance;
  • Management Information;
  • ROI;
  • Process Excellence;
  • Forecasting.

Human Resources usually forgets to implement a strict Governance Policy. It merely says, who can make a decision and how the decision should be documented. It also splits Roles and Responsibilities across different people in an organization. When speaking about hiring new employees, we usually talk about a lot of money spent. A great Governance Framework helps.

Most HR Managers are not great in managing processes. We do not like to design them because we deal with people. They do not follow process maps, they just come with issues, challenges, and great proposals. They do not read the process before they apply. They only come. However, high volume hiring must be well organized. You have to keep track of all job openings, identify issues and manage everyone involved in the procedure. Process Excellence is a must, and make sure that the leadership team knows about it.

Forecasting is a critical success factor. Nobody is interested in the past. Everyone wants to understand what will happen in the following quarter. Should they worry about it? Or should they be calm because nothing challenging will happen?

Why Social Media Has Failed Recruiting

Social Media Hype is over; they look more like fallen stars at the moment. The biggest platforms enjoyed several data privacy scandals, and they have consistent issues with violence and fake news promotion. They had the terrible year 2018.

In 2019, those platforms will sharply focus on data protection and stopping fake and the hate news. Facebook and Twitter need to make sure that they protect customers and their privacy. They will have to fight the trust of customers back (if possible). Maybe, they will not regain the confidence of the audience again, and they will disappear like MySpace and many others.

You find more about the latest development here and here. By the way, it also raises a considerable data privacy challenge for Human Resources. Employees start to ask how we take care of their personal data. Who has access to data? Who makes sure that data are secure and accessible just to those ones granted?

However, what is the status of social media recruiting?

There was always a small issue – they are not a hiring tool, and they have never intended to be a one. Social Media platforms are about the brand. The stronger the brand you have, the more you are loved and followed. It is a simple law of social media. This simple law is valid also for social media hiring; no flood of CV happens if nobody follows you.

Together with social media, Employer Brand was re-born. Again, the stronger the voice on the job market, the more job resumes the business receives. Facebook and Twitter are not tools for hiring new employees; they just amplify sound and bold messages.

Rethinking social recruiting begins with rethinking the basics. It is about building a strong employer brand and high social awareness. It means that you design and implement a solid content strategy. You define a clear vision what topics the business will cover. You just execute the plan, and people will start following you. If you are lucky, they will share your posts with friends to amplify your impact. When changing the job, people will actively look for openings at businesses they know.

This is how social hiring works today. You build a strong presence in online media, and candidates look for you.

A selection of Must-Read HR Management Articles 03/2019

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Hooray, this is the third edition of my choice of most appealing HR articles published last week. Sure, they are appealing to me, but they usually help me to realize that there are specific components I should think of at work.

As people are returning from their winter vacations, the number of published articles starts to grow steadily. It is great because I have so many pieces to choose from.

This week is about turnover (yup, again), dramatic shifts in talent management, sustainable recruitment costs, and corporate culture. I see them also as priorities for 2019. Also, these are the topics that drive the competitive advantage of Human Resources.

Best HR Management Articles 2019/03
Best HR Management Articles 2019/03

Being unique to employees and candidates, that is what matters in 2019. They help to distinguish our institution from the rest on the market. They help us win the best talents.

So, happy reading! The next selection will come on Saturday.

Do Managers Influence Employee Turnover?

Employee turnover damages and undermines the competitiveness of the business, and it is also highly costly. Surprisingly, most firms do not have a precise calculation of turnover costs. If they would acknowledge the real costs of turnover, they put turnover on a monthly Board Agenda immediately.

Our challenge is that we usually do not understand why employees leave the company. We ask them, or they fill in an online questionnaire, and they typically express two reasons to go. First, they received a better job offer. Second, they leave because of their manager.

There is a problem with the first reason. When you look for the new job actively, you always find a better offer. Always, there is a company that offers you a better compensation package. This firm calculates in all the investments, your skills, and advanced competencies. It does not have to repeat the investment. It can also check your track record. It can take the risk of offering a better pay package.

The second reason to leave is more tricky. Managers have a high impact on teams. Their proactivity or inactivity drives the most important decisions of employees. An employee is always voting in mind if the risk should be taken or not. In some circumstances, the employee determines that the potential career advancement gain is higher than the risk of failure.

The article summarized the results of the study when the researchers went through two managerial influence tactics. They studied both “downward influence” and “inspirational appeal.” Most managers tend to use just one approach, and researchers were observing, which one influence employee turnover more. It is interesting reading, and maybe you will find out you should upgrade skills of your line managers.

The value of Talent Ecosystem

Talent Management is a value-added HR process because it is an essential component in a much broader succession planning procedure. Most HR Organizations consider talent management and acquisition as a strategic one.

In Human Resources, we believe and trust that it protects our best talents against competitors. The well-crafted process continually identifies best high potential employees in the workforce, and it offers a wide variety of developmental activities. However, does this approach still work?

The war for talent has been an HR hot topic for many years. Honestly, most businesses still lose positions in this war. They invest huge money into the development of employees. On the other hand, they do not win a higher employee engagement and lower turnover rates. Employees still leave to find a better place to work. There is something wrong in the matrix.

Human Resources needs to take a holistic approach. By connecting all relevant HR processes, it can design a wholly new system. It needs to bring a new way of thinking and hiring into the organization.

To bring a new recruitment strategy is not sufficient; it needs to be replaced by the broader and well-interconnected umbrella. The HR team has to design, approve and implement a new talent management strategy.

We enjoy the most competitive marketplace in modern Western history, and we have to learn how to act on the employee market, not the employer one.

Newcomers to the market look for different values and motivators. They do not look for life-long employment; they look for part-time contracts and project-based jobs.

They expect full flexibility from employers. However, organizations are not flexible and agile enough, so far.

How to Recruit Top Talent on Budget

A creative recruitment strategy is the best way how the small or start-up organization can compete with the large multinational businesses in the current job market. Small companies and start-ups usually struggle to meet staffing needs. They still miss an appealing brand name, and a tight budget still limits their employer brand investments. Plus, they also carry higher employment risks than the large and mature businesses.

When it comes to recruitment, we still think the old fashioned way. We consider just traditional full-time employment. Today, we cannot rigidly hire only full-time staff. Do you know that there is an attractive new pool of talents? There is an attractive market niche of freelance employees.

A freelance employee does not require an expensive commitment from the company. They do not need much; they usually ask just a small space and timely payment of invoices.

They understand there are certain risks that both parties carry. They can leave sooner than expected; the company can finish the contract sooner than expected.

Also, freelancers are usually a part of the strong informal network. They can recommend anyone from the community when they cannot accept another assignment. They can spread your good brand name if the first one is satisfied.

There are also other cost-saving opportunities in the recruitment process. Today, you can run the process almost entirely online and digitally. You do not need to do interviews in a person; you can use Skype or any other video-conferencing tool available.

Also, you can save much time by building a great career section on the company website that covers all the basic and advanced potential questions of job candidates and applicants. You can publish your calendar, and you can leave candidates to schedule job interview meetings.

The five most significant HR learnings from 2018

We are still just a few weeks into a new year. We can consider that we are only at the beginning of new uncovered and hidden challenges. Also, it means we can always reflect on the most important learnings from 2018.

Everyone can choose a different set of personal HR learnings, but I like the following list.

Diversity and fair pay still matter. We talk about diverse teams, fairness and equal opportunities for years, and we have not achieved the results yet. In Great Britain, most companies pay men better than women. We know that because the government made it a regulatory requirement to analyze earning on a yearly basis. So, it is a fact.

It is not just a difference in base pay, which makes it even worse. Organizations usually pay higher bonuses to men. You can argue about higher base pay, but you cannot explain higher bonuses so easy.

Another important reflection is about the flexible working arrangements. They are not considered as a nice extra by employees. They demand them as a standard and non-negotiable item in the employer value proposition.

On the other hand, as the number of freelancers grows, there will be a focus to provide them with the necessary employment law protection.

There are other trends, so go and read The 5 Biggest HR learnings from 2018.

Does your organization live the Culture you say you want

Corporate culture is a competitive advantage. Your competitors can copy a product, but they cannot replicate your workforce. On the other hand, our values and behavior are a hot topic discussion in Human Resources.

However, it should be a hot topic for the executive leadership team, as well. Culture is comprised of both an organization’s values and the people who bring those values to life.

However, there is a question. Are we fully committed? Do we live the culture we say we have? Do we have an alignment between what we say and what we do?

It is always important to make a step back and analyze our current status. Maybe, we claim that we have a fair pay policy, and we can find out that we have a large number of exceptions. Interestingly, no one can remember why this particular one exception was granted and approved.

In reality, we designed a system that looks perfect on paper, but as a result, we have implemented an unfair pay policy. We do not know about it, but employees feel it.

Culture is not just about values; it is also about employee experience. If employees see and feel a conflict between values and reality, they will never trust HR and the leadership team. We then need to go back to basics and repair what is wrong.

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