Insights to Growth, Author at Insights to Growth

The Importance of Job Descriptions and Job Postings

October 14, 2020 by Insights to Growth Leave a Comment

Attract a Good Fit for the Position

Have you hired an employee that matches the job posting perfectly, but they turn out to be the wrong fit 90 days later?

When hiring, it’s common for managers to use the top job description they come across. They post it, attract candidates, and make a hiring decision as soon as a likely candidate walks through the door.

However, these candidates will more than likely end up as turn-over. Why?

I believe that over 50% of turn-over can be avoided by better defining responsibilities, required skills, and ideal behaviors in the job posting itself.

If you didn’t take the time to think through the average day this person goes through, then you probably didn’t hold a stake holder meeting with the employees who will interface with this person. This should all be considered when writing the job description.

We also need to consider the changes our company/industry/environment have undergone, which entails that our “next receptionist” be different from the previous one.

Find the Right Fit for the Company

We have to use the right bait for the fish we want! We only want certain types of fishes to be attracted to our job posting instead of simply casting a wide net.

If you’re looking to hire a receptionist for example, then you want someone who is naturally friendly, flexible, and comfortable with being the “face” of your company. They should be able to instinctively follow up on emails and phone calls while being helpful to the rest of the team.

After thinking through their daily responsibilities, it’s important to pull together the stakeholders for each role. Together, you should discuss the role in-depth and look critically at how specific in the job posting needs to be.

Post the agreed upon job description and interview candidates that respond. I recommend you ask about 2-3 questions to identify candidates that are attracted to the role. Here are two examples:

Do you enjoy an environment that keeps you guessing?
Are you the go-to-person that your friends come to, to organize a party?

This allows you to attract certain fish and repel the others. I hope this helps, and I would love to hear of creative ways that you write a job description and posting to eliminate candidates that aren’t a good fit. Let’s talk!

How effective is your communication with your direct reports?

October 7, 2020 by Insights to Growth 1 Comment

Even when we have 1:1 meetings, staff meetings, and real-time pinging through Slack and other instant messenger tools, I’ve never met an employee who said, “my leader over communicates to me.”

People generally believe that there’s more information to know. In fact, the statistics are pretty scary:

60% of companies don’t have a long-term strategy for their internal communications (Workforce).
74% of employees feel they are missing out on company information and news (Trade Press Services).
72% of employees don’t have a full understanding of the company’s strategy (IBM).
86% of employees and executives cite lack of collaboration or ineffective communication for workplace failures (Salesforce).
33% of employees said a lack of open, honest communication has the most negative impact on employee morale (Recruiter).

A direct reports’ need for information and communication increases during time of change and turmoil whether internally or externally driven.

Like any personal relationship, our work relationships thrive or die on our ability to communicate clearly, establish trust, and create a welcoming environment for questions.

To dig further into a manager’s role and the importance of their connection to employees, I found the book by Jim Clifton and Jim Harter, It’s the Manager: Gallup finds the quality of managers and team leaders is the single biggest factor in your organization’s long-term success, to have substantial research and insights.

Effective communication with our direct reports is a top priority if we want highly engaged team members. I would enjoy knowing what you find to be helpful in communicating with your direct reports. Get in touch!

Do you have a hiring bias for industry knowledge?

September 29, 2020 by Insights to Growth Leave a Comment

If so, then is your hiring bias founded on facts or can you teach industry knowledge in a short amount of time?

The Challenge

I challenge my clients to look at this, because when you limit yourself to candidates with “X” amount of experience in your industry, you really shrink the available pool of candidates.

I understand that there are truly places where you must know the industry because of regulations, compliance, certifications, or laws, but there are many cases where you might be able to find great candidates and train them. A great resource to understand this bias and many more can be found in Howard Ross’ book Everyday Bias.

The Advantages

Think of the advantages of being able to train a person “fresh” and being able to put your organization’s spin on the industry, so the person starts with a clean slate and without baggage from prior organizations.

We know from Peter Drucker that “Culture eats strategy for breakfast” so really, what you want to do is hire for talent, skills, and interest. If the industry knowledge can be taught, then you should focus on culture fit though talent. One of my favorite books is Bet on Talent: How to Create a Remarkable Culture That Wins the Hearts of Customers by Dee Ann Turner.

My Insights

In the past, I was asked to lead a sales team that was in the green industry. The company had historically hired people who had experience in horticulture, agriculture, or viniculture for sales roles. They were convinced that the person must have green industry experience, but the turn-over for the sales role was 40-50% annually.

Why? Well, people who like plants and grapes generally are not people lovers, they are plant lovers. So instead, we determined what skills and talent were for these roles. Once we made a change, we had top sales performers who came from teaching, hospitality, retail, property management and more. This shift was caused by hiring for talent and training for industry.

I believe that we need to seriously take a look at the advantage of attracting talent with transferable skills from outside our industries and rid ourselves from any hiring bias we may have. We can increase our candidate pool and the chance of finding the BEST talent for the role.

Have you had any success with going outside of your industry? Share your story in the comments below or get in touch with me for further support.