Perks Matter

I have no clue how many surveys have been run in the just the past 5-10 years on the subject of what happens as the employment market turns from one favoring the buyers vs. one where the sellers have the leverage.

While we are not there yet, "barring injury" as they say, overall we seem slowly but surely (thank goodness) to be headed in that direction. I know, I know, that could change by dinner time, but I still prefer to think of it in positive terms.

As this happens, organizations might want to dust off some of those surveys and remind themselves that after bucks and benefits, what matters, especially to the GenXers (and indeed) lots of Boomers as well.

In the stats that have come across my desk in recent years, one "perk" that keeps coming up again and again and is usually at or near the top of the list is work schedule flexibility.  That stat by itself comes as no surprise.  What does make me scratch my head, however, is that many bosses still think that "by the book" structure is still what makes the world go round.

Any company or manager on the planet who has not yet gotten the word that as our economy has continued to gain traction the GenXers (and yes, a good percentage of the Boomers as well) are starting to vote with their feet in a big way must not have their EKG machines turned on.

Here at galactic headquarters we see these things manifesting themselves in any number of ways as the senior-level executives who make up our community report to us on what is often an hourly basis things like: people "landing" at a significantly higher rate; new members who report their status as "currently employed and thinking about making a change" to name a couple. They are, of course, responding to what they see in terms of the increased demand (e.g. our postings from recruiters year over year continue to be up.

So my question is this: If all those who say they are making a change because they want to find a work environment and/or a culture that is more in tune with their "wants," to what degree do they "get it?" Do they "get it" enough to really work to transform the cultures of the organizations to which they are going so that they meet the real needs of those already there and as part of which and as members of the executive team, they will be trying to recruit and retain?

If one examines the behavior of organizations in the past as they have attempted to adapt to the changing values of differing generations, it explains all too clearly why when it is a seller’s market that retention is always a big time issue. And the "war for talent" stats notwithstanding, it ain't just about numbers of warm bodies available.

There is in all this, it seems to me, both lesson and "learning." The companies who have not made addressing retention issues a strategic priority must be made up of people who believe the old saying: "History is something that happens to other people."

It would be my hope that in today's environment where we have the chance to apply both lessons and "learnings" that companies will be more inclined to view it as Alphonse De Lamartine put it: "History teaches everything including the future."

Where's Our Boy Donny Q. When We Need Him?

I need some help! Probably not the best way to start this post as it begs the question of "so tell me something I don't know."

Anyone who knows me would probably say this isn't a question of Dave needing help, we have known him long enough to know that he is well beyond that at this stage!

As true as I know that is, at least at this point, that’s not the kind of help I had in mind.

My need comes from something that has been bothering me for a long time, indeed it was something I had thought about even well before ExecuNet's founding some 23 years ago, but for now, I'll just stick to recent history.

If you follow ExecuNet at all, then you might be aware that around this time every year for the past 19 we have published the results of a survey we do called The Executive Job Market Intelligence Report (EJMIR). 

This year's report is, as they say, coming off the presses as we speak, and if there is any "perk" that comes with being the founder of something it is that you get a "sneak peek" at stuff before it goes public.

So I had my "sneak peek" and there is some really interesting stuff as there always is, and given that we are coming out of a very tough couple of years, the data for 2011 will be gone over with a fine tooth comb for sure, so stay tuned.

I am under penalty of being cut off from my latte lite for a month if I reveal anything before our members get their copies next week, but when I read the report, I felt I could raise this issue since it is something that has been part of EJMIR every year and has bugged me for so long.

So, here's the deal: One of the questions that the survey has posed every year to both the recruiting as well as the HR communities is for them to rank what they feel are the most sought-after executive characteristics.

Each year three things have always topped the list: industry specific experience; functional expertise, and leadership skills, and while there were a number of other things on the list, these three were always way ahead of everything else.

So, when you have 19 straight years of the same result it is kind of hard to argue with the notion that obviously companies think these are pretty important, and if the employers thought these important, then it’s no surprise that the recruiters followed suit. It all seemed to make reasonable sense.

If I was going to hire someone for sure I would want them to be competent in their functional area, understand the industry segment and to have "leadership skills."

But here's what bothers me and where I need someone, as Rachel Maddow says, to "talk me down."

Functional expertise I get, and leadership skills are a whole other ballgame.

My hang up is on industry specific experience. If it is so damn important then why do we keep trying to back fill openings that become vacant because the last incumbent was carried out on his shield with another person who "must have" industry specific experience?

Point being, if this characteristic was so critical to success, then one would think that we should not experience the turnover that we do.

All of which leads me to the feeling that while the survey data show the three characteristics I have mentioned here as being so closely aligned that there is no statistical difference between them - in other words they are essentially equally important in the eyes of the more than 3,100+ who responded - that the real "make or break" characteristic is leadership skills or as many respondents put it this year "...the ability to build and lead high performance teams."

So my convoluted logic says I really don't think that functional expertise or industry specific experience are the "show stoppers" - sure they play a role, but they don't hold the proverbial candle to leadership skills, and I just don't understand how the three can be seen as equally important.

So, if the real deal is around leadership skills, then through the wonders of modern technology we’ve got it made. All we have to do is ID "leadership skills" and we’re golden on the hiring front, right?

With that in mind and as a public service to my fellow travellers on the leadership quest, you’ll be relieved to know the answer lies somewhere in the 37,500,000 hits I got on Bing when I asked for "leadership skills" or to make it less time intensive since we all have other things to do as well, the same ask on Google narrowed things down to only 17,200,000.

Now that we have that "solved" we can move on to the next problem - once we have found the leaders, how do we keep 'em because as this year's EJMIR will show, if this an issue that you think has gone away, there’s a bridge in Brooklyn that's on sale and that you are going to have a hard time passing up!

This Just In

By now, I would guess that the article that was in the New York Times
a couple of weeks ago that went by the catchy and attention grabbing headline of  Google's Quest to Build a Better Boss has probably been passed around every HR department in the continental U.S. along with as Walter Winchell used to say "...and all the ships at sea."

In addition to that, after they read it, there are probably a lot of pretty big-name consulting firms that are wringing their hands thinking that their cover has been blown, and that their 2011 revenue forecasts are going to go down in flames because an icon organization has discovered for itself something that has been known to anyone who is been in the working world since time began had discovered after a couple of weeks on the job - i.e. at the end of the day when someone decides to leave it is more likely that they are leaving because of their boss then anything else.

If for some reason you were so totally absorbed in March madness that you actually did not read this piece, for anyone who's interested in what retention is really all about its well worth the 10 minutes or so to check it out.

On the off chance that you don't have the 10 minutes or you don't want to read it because you figure Google has done it to us yet once again and I don't dare, you can breathe easier because after thousands of hours of data gathering in an effort to determine what really does make managers better, they have come to the earth shattering conclusion that among other things, demonstrating genuine interest in the people who work for you is like really important.  It's enough to leave one speechless in amazement.

So as I said, if you don't have time to read all, here are a couple of CliffNotes from the article:

People typically leave a company for one of three reasons, or a combination of them.

The first is that they don’t feel a connection to the mission of the company, or sense that their work matters.

The second is that they don’t really like or respect their co-workers.

The third is they have a terrible boss — and this was the biggest variable.

Google, where performance reviews are done quarterly, rather than annually, saw huge swings in the ratings that employees gave to their bosses, and this was the biggest variable.  

Armed with these shocking data I can now understand why the picture of Google's head of People Operations Laszlo Bock (see above) shows him "recovering".  After all, it had to have taken some time for him to absorb such a profound revelation.

The list of what in today's vernacular might be termed "best practices" reads as the article says "...like a whiteboard gag from an episode of “The Office.”  An apt description for sure.

Okay, I know that the cynicism is beginning to pile up here at a fairly rapid pace, but I really can't seem to help myself.

To be honest, as I have reflected on this for the past couple of weeks I've been trying to figure out if there really was any kind of a redeeming "learning" or take away from the work that Google did.

I'm not sure there is other than it's nice to have confirmed yet once again that what is commonly referred to as the Golden Rule has been and continues to be the key driver of what makes each of us decide to stay or leave.

So there you have it!  Keep this in mind and you can save your company some big time bucks on consulting fees, and if you're a manager, yourself a lot of grief.

Hiring Roulette

Among the all-time debates with no answers such as: nature or nurture; chicken or egg and of course DiMaggio or Mays there remains the nagging one of hiring or retention.

What is tougher, making a good hiring decision or retaining "A" players once you find them? These are issues that probably have been studied, surveyed, poked and prodded by more organizations than have sworn off applicant matching systems, attitude surveys and exit interviews combined, but that doesn't mean that we don't keep on looking for the answers even though much of the time the results in the real world make us think that our resident guru is Monty Python rather than McKinsey.

But undaunted, we keep trying, and even though the study will be a year old come October, the Corporate Executive Board and more specifically the Recruiting Roundtable which is a subsidiary of CEB released the results of a significant study last October which they say was the first of its kind in that they tried to actually identify the key reasons why more than 50% of the hiring organizations or the new hires themselves regret the decisions they made.

When one thinks of the time, energy and money that is focused on the issues of hiring and retention, this is not a number that generates optimisim on either side of the debate.

In any case and for sure, the issue is certainly not going to be solved here, but nonetheless I thought the study was of sufficent interest to share in the event there were those who might not have seen it or like me, had forgotten about it as we are wont to do. Even so, the data has lost none of its importance to any one of us who sit on either side of the desk:

The study details several contributing factors, including that 40% of new hires report the information they received about the job when they were applying was less than accurate. Overall, only half the time will organizations and new hires achieve a win-win outcome where both agree that they made the right decision.

"Given the high cost of early career turnover, organizations cannot afford to make the wrong hiring decisions," says Senior Director Donna L. Weiss. To save millions, the Roundtable aims to help organizations reach that win-win outcome closer to 100% of the time. After analyzing data from more than 8,500 hiring managers and 19,000 of their most recent hires, the Roundtable identified three important reasons organization fail to consistently hire high quality candidates:

(1) they over-rely on candidates describing themselves rather than having them demonstrate what they can do,

(2) they don't follow a consistent, evidence-based selection decision process and

(3) they fail to provide the candidate with enough information and 'experience' about what the job is really like.

Based on detailed quantitative analysis and over 100 interviews, the Roundtable has identified 10 key strategies that organizations can deploy to improve their selection processes.

One recommended approach is to move beyond the traditional selection process to include an experiential component to the process. Weiss adds, "By providing candidates with an experience that is either 'on-the-job' or that is key to job success, organizations can better observe a candidate's capabilities and a candidate can get a better sense of what the job is really like. This is one way to drive to more win-win outcomes."

If you felt the information in the study was interesting and/or helpful, on Friday, August 21st at 1:00 p.m Eastern, you might also want to consider joining Leah Haunz Johnson who is the Senior Director of the Corporate Leadership Council of CEB’s Human Resources Practice. Leah is going to be the featured presenter on an ExecuNet Webinar called: Motivation vs. Malaise: Driving Engagement in a Troubled Economy

About the Recruiting Roundtable

The Recruiting Roundtable provides research, training, and tools to help recruiting executives and their teams make decisions that achieve the highest return on their investments. Roundtable services address key recruiting challenges in areas such as recruiting strategy, sourcing, candidate assessment, diversity management, employment branding, onboarding, outsourcing, metrics, workforce planning, among others. Additional information on the Recruiting Roundtable can be found here.

About the Corporate Executive Board

The Corporate Executive Board (NASDAQ: EXBD) provides analysis and authoritative guidance to the world's most successful organizations. With a member network of over 80% of the Fortune 500, the Corporate Executive Board delivers indispensable resources for timely decision-making on all issues related to strategy, operations and general management. For more information you can click here.

I have purposely left the information on both the Recruiting Roundtable as well as CEB here in case some readers might be becoming aware of one or both for the first time. If you operate in or care about hiring and/or retention space either from the corporate side or the staffing industry side these are sources for thought leadership that merit your continued attention.

So What Else Is New?

At some point last year I saw a report on a study that was conducted by Towers Perrin and which was reported by a Canadian newspaper. I thought it was pretty interesting despite the paper's understandable focus on the the study's stats as they related to Canada.

As I sometimes do, I saved the article and put it in what my wife likes to call "a nice safe place" which translated means I forgot about it and when I remembered it, I couldn't find it or remember where I put it.

Over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend I stumbled across it again, and while the world economy today is vastly different than when this study was done (over a year ago) the basic "learnings" as they relate to employee retention still I think remain on very solid ground. Indeed, with the layoffs, etc., that we are seeing in the current environment, the retention of "A" players is even more important.

No matter what the environment, there is great truth to the notion that people (read employers) will always be willing to pay a premium for quality.

Here are some headlines in terms of what the study had to say:

Despite people's strong desire to become 'engaged' in their work, meaning they're willing to go the extra mile to help their company succeed, only 23% in Canada (vs 21% globally) are currently engaged at work. Of serious concern for management and investors, 32% of Canadian employees are partly to fully 'disengaged'. This highlights a significant gap - which Towers Perrin has dubbed the "engagement gap" - between the discretionary effort that people actually want to invest and companies' effectiveness at tapping into this effort to enhance business performance.

The study found that companies with the highest levels of employee engagement achieve better financial results and are more successful in retaining their most valued employees than companies with lower levels of engagement.

The study clearly demonstrates that the engagement gap poses an array of business risks. For instance, more than 80% of engaged employees believe they can and do contribute to the quality of products and services and to customer satisfaction. But only half as many of the disengaged share that view. Interestingly, the study reveals that Canadians embrace a more optimistic approach to their working life, with a slightly higher learning orientation compared to the global norms. For instance, 69% (versus 58% globally) stated they tend to invest time and effort beyond what is required, and 90% (versus 84% globally) said they enjoy challenging work that allows them to learn new skills.

"You can't hire or buy an engaged workforce - only leadership can build it," concludes Aselstine. "While employees want to invest more of themselves to help their employers, our study clearly concludes the onus to tap into this productivity reservoir lies with management's ability to cultivate an engaged and fully productive workforce. However, there is no 'one size fits all' solution.

So what else is new?

Additional detail about the Towers Perrin Global Workforce Study is available at www.towersperrin.com/gws.

Work-Life Balance: Not Just a Phrase Anymore

Work-life balance has been getting a lot of ink in recent times, and a tough job market nothwithstanding, it looks like it is going to continue to get plenty more.

I saw some "early return" stats the other day that came from a survey (still in progress so far as I know) sponsored by the AESC (Association of Executive Search Consultants). For those who may not know, AESC is a well known and long established association made up retained executive search firms.

Essentially, the survey is gathering data that would compare preferences and priorities of senior executives in the context of initiatives being implemented by Corporate HR teams and line managers.

Some of the highlights they have reported thus far:

52% of senior executives feel that they have not achieved a satisfactory work-life balance.

84% say work-life balance considerations are critical in their decision to join or remain with an employer.

65% of executives find a flexible daily work schedule to be the most valuable aspect of a work-life balance program.

54% say work hours have increased during the past 5 years.

51% are less willing to take a job that involves heavy business travel as compared to 5 years ago.

Obviously they are interested in having as many participants as they can round up, so if you would like to contribute to the data being gathered, just click here and it only takes about 10 minutes or so to participate.

I also think that if you invest the time to take the survey, you also will get a copy of the full report once it is ready and which would provide the perspectives of both executives as well as the HR world.

I have to say, that in looking over these early headlines and looking back over our own data collected in this year's Executive Job Market Intelligence Report, our survey participants would seem to be in the same ballpark as AESC's.

When we asked such questions as: Why executives accept offers for new gig and/or stay where they are, items such as "improved work/life balance were certainly on the list as was travel/commute considerations, and the company providing flexible work arrangements.

On the flip side when we asked about dissatisfacation, we were not surprised to see people talking about the lack of work/life balance, length of commute, etc.

Coming or going, for sure this is no longer an issue or subject of conjecture by the John Naisbitt's of the world and executives and the organizations they work for along with the recruiters who place them are going to have to adapt, particularly in the tight talent market we are in and likely to rermain in for the next several years.

Easy Come Easy Go?

Easy come, easy go - a phrase most of us have heard all our lives, and there are a number of situations where I suppose it might apply, but when it comes to hiring and retaining talent these days, it is not something most companies want and certainly don't want to encourage.

Yet, if you look at the numbers from any number of sources, including ExecuNet's, the time that employees remain at the same company keeps dropping. Last year in our Executive Job Market Intelligence Report respondents reported they were with their last company an average of 3.4 years. This year's survey dropped to 3.2, and when we asked about industry, this year they said it was 4.2 and that is down from 5.0 in 2005.

The point being that when you come across companies that are doing really innovative stuff that goes well beyond the lip service paid by all too many organizations, it gets your attention for sure.

Bill Taylor is probably a name that is known to many readers, especially if you are a fan of FastCompany. He was a co-founder of the magazine along with Alan Webber. Bill is also the author of a business must read called Mavericks at Work. Taylor also blogs for Harvard Business Publishing.

In a recent post, he waxes ecstatic (as well he should have) over what he found when he went to visit the online shoe superpower Zappos. I am not going to spoil the article for you by parroting back all of the neat stuff they do there, besides, Taylor says it far better than I could anyway.

I will, however, share one tid bit that will give you some idea of the degree to which the company works to make sure that those they hire really want to stay and are as customer service obsessive as the company culture dictates.

The company like many others has an extensive training program for new employees, but about a week into theirs, Zappos offers any new employee $1,000 if they wish to leave the program. Some do, but the company feels that by offering this sort of "bribe" it helps them to retain those who really do "get it." Cool move.

This practice also, I think, does something else. It helps to deliver the message that they want their employees to really feel they are not just a part of the enterprise, but a really important part, and while obviously loyalty to any organization is an accumulation of many factors, including old standbys like compensation and benefits, but step #1 is people need to feel valued.

Retaining Gen X and Gen Y

Employees have long recognized the rewards of volunteering; the chance to share their skills and expertise with those who really need it is always a fulfilling experience, and certainly providing the ways and means for employees to participate in such activities is not new, but I do think these activities are getting more attention as it starts to feel like we might be getting to the tipping point on issues like global warming, energy conservation, etc.

According to a recent article reported by The Associated Press entitled Companies See Volunteering as a Benefit, organizations are more actively granting employees the time they need to volunteer. Some are even creating company organized volunteering opportunities.

Moreover, companies are finding that they can link these volunteer programs to their overall business objectives. The article, for example, notes how employees of dog food maker Pedigree can volunteer at animal shelters as part of that company’s program. Organizations are also using volunteering as an employee retention strategy, since it undoubtedly improves company morale. It’s also an initiative in which members of our current multi-generational workforce share an interest.

In the article, David Eisner, chief executive of the Corporation for National and Community Service, notes how the younger members of the workforce use volunteering to help achieve their desired work-life balance. At the same time, older workers just enjoy the opportunity to serve their communities.

Volunteering is a positive action for both companies and their employees. Yet, we also can’t forget that the true beneficiaries, of course, are the recipients of this good will.

Sounds like the proverbial win-win to me.

Deciding Who Leads: How Executive Recruiters Drive, Direct and Disrupt the Global Search for Leadership Talent

If this sounds like it ought to be the title of a book, it's because it is.

Ever since I had known that Joe McCool (a name that is known to almost anyone who follows the executive recruiting world) was going to write a book, I was wondering how I could say something about it here without it sounding too self-serving inasmuch as Joe is a Senior Contributing Editor with ExecuNet.

My worries were answered, as they often are by Robyn Greenspan our Editor-in-Chief who in our Executive Insider newsletter that was published today featured an interview that she did with Joe. In it, she does a far better job than I ever could in giving readers a 10,000 foot view of just a few of the subjects Joe covers in this first book on the executive search industry published since 1986. Here's what she had to say and Joe's responses:

Would I be featuring this book if the author, Joe McCool, was not a trusted colleague and friend? Absolutely, because executives who recruit will find it fascinating and insightful, and executives who work with recruiters to achieve their own career goals will be enlightened to learn the inside scoop. In this Q&A, Joe and I talk about how executives can use the messages in Deciding Who Leads: How Executive Recruiters Drive, Direct & Disrupt the Global Search for Leadership Talent [Davies-Black, 2008] to their advantage.

Robyn Greenspan (RG): Why should executives read this book? What will they learn about executive recruiting that will help their own career plans?

Joseph Daniel McCool (JDM): I believe it offers today's executives a lot of perspective about how their career plans might eventually marry with the organizational leadership agenda of a new employer. I think executives will come away from the book with a fresh view of the role so-called "executive headhunters" play in management recruiting and also about how the process is still plagued by dysfunction. I hope it also informs their own interactions with executive recruiters and offers some rationale for why they should enter the career courtship process with their eyes wide open and with the utmost discretion, since it usually only proves successful for one or maybe two of the dozens of executives who might be contacted during the course of any search assignment.

RG: What's the most significant change you discovered in the executive recruiting business in the period since John Byrne's book, The Headhunters, was published in 1986?

JDM: Actually, the thing I was most struck by was just how little has changed since Byrne's 1986 assessment of the executive recruiting business and the state of corporate management succession. Perceptions about executive recruiters haven't moved one iota since his book was published, although it is important to point out that the practice of executive search has really been institutionalized across corporate America. The bottom line is that many companies need to start getting smart about management succession and become better consumers of the executive search business. The status quo isn't serving the best interests of employer organizations or of executive job candidates, and Deciding Who Leads really identifies the kind of sophistication employers and executive candidates need to bring to the process.

RG: You make a strong case as to why on-boarding is essential for executive success in a new position. What should a newly hired executive do to get acclimated if their recruiter or new employer does not offer on-boarding assistance?

JDM: I think smart executives are insisting on some form of performance feedback relatively early on in their tenure in a new leadership role, so they'll have some actionable intelligence to plot a course correction if they got off on the wrong foot or failed to make a really positive first impression. The fact is that management churn costs companies a lot of money, and failure in a new role can have dire consequences for any executive from a career advancement point of view. Organizations need lifelong learners in key executive roles, and I believe today's best leaders are those who will be willing to learn from their new environment and learn how their performance is perceived within it.