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By Liza | Categories: Consulting, Recruitment advice | No Comments
Who’s been trying to hire someone recently?
I was at the BNI breakfast last week and one of our business colleagues mentioned that they had someone work for them for 27 years.
27 years!!!
That kind of loyalty is so rare nowadays.
Despite what you read in the media, our experience is that there are still skills shortages. If you’re in a small to medium business you know what we’re talking about. We’re not talking basic skills. We’re talking the type of skills that will drive your business forward, and the type of person who is happy to come along for your often bumpy ride.
So if you’re a small but growing business, how do you attract those types of skills? Where do you find someone who will stick around? How do you understand what you can offer, or as they say in HR marketing: “your employee value proposition?”
Here are a few things to think about:
- Why do people leave your company?
- What do your current employees like about your company?
- What do your current employees dislike about your company?
- What defines a high performer over a lower performer?
- What would your employees say about you if you were not in the room?
- What skills do you need to take your business to the next level?
- What do you offer as an employer that nobody else does?
- What are your competitors offering?
If you can clearly identify who you are, what you offer and how you stand out in the market place, plus have a strong sense of the skills you need to complement your own, it’s easy for everyone to sing from the same song-sheet – so to speak.
Once you have that consistent vision, finding the people to fit and to stick around becomes a whole lot easier.
Why are we telling you this?
In our experience this is an area where business falls down. If you would like help in workforce planning, and in defining what is unique about you, please give our workforce management solutions team a call. (02) 8221 0553.
In 1997, I founded Enigma HR with the philosophy: “be ethical; be professional; be friendly and serve my clients well.” We specialise in insurance and accounting placements and have been assisting professionals in this industry for over 20 years.
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By Karalyn | Categories: Accounting Jobs Sydney, Career advice, Insurance Jobs Sydney | No Comments
Last year the Macquarie Dictionary’s word of the year was “Googleganger.”
Do you know what this means?
A Googleganger is a person with the same name as oneself, whose online references are mixed with one’s own among search results for one’s name.
My Googleganger is a gnome rescuer. In 2009 my rescue operations made headlines in the Penrith Press.
As people post, re-tweet, and share all over the place, you can’t have complete control over how you appear on Google. So it’s advisable Google stalking your Googleganger every so often. You never know who might pop up.
If your Googleganger has some unpleasant habits, here’s a really quick fix.
LinkedIn has a high Google ranking. Therefore your profile reference should appear in a Google search. Go into LinkedIn and check that your headline appears in searches. Include a line about what makes you unique. For ideas take a look at this post by LinkHumans on creative LinkedIn headlines.
When it comes to your good name, there are many things to be mindful of on social media. I’d tell you about these but I’m busy reading the speech my Googleganger made at annual dinner of the Blue Mountains Rotary Club in 2008.
It’s a cracker.
By Liza | Categories: Consulting | No Comments
If you are like most businesses you are head down concentrating on what it takes to grow your business in one of the most unpredictable economic cycles we’ve faced. Or you probably think that HR is something that you need to think about once you have your business systems in place.
If this sounds like you, we urge you to stop. Here are some things you must think about if you don’t think you need HR.
You may be exposing yourself to large fines.
Take for example the recent changes to the OH&S laws. These laws are now more complicated and more stringent. Under the new Act (now called the WHS Act) corporations face fines of up to $3 million per offence, while individuals face fines of $600,000 or 5 years in jail. Read here for more information.
You may be exposing yourself to litigation.
There have been a number of changes to the Fair Work Act and minimum terms and conditions with the National Employment Standards. Did you know for example that you no longer need to give three warnings in order for a dismissal to be considered fair? Most people we speak to do not know this and are using outdated procedures and paperwork to manage their staff. Read here for more information.
Your workplace may be making people “sick.”
Ok we know this sounds a little harsh, but your workplace practices could actually be causing your staff to be disengaged, or indeed to be taking “sickies” when they are not actually sick. This issue is complicated to manage. Read here for more information.
Your administrative processes are costing you time and money.
Payroll and personnel files can be voluminous. Without a centralised point for paperwork you may not be paying people correctly according to workplace awards and legislation. This is what usually happens when files live in different parts of an organisation.
You may be missing out on a whole host of benefits.
Your staff could be more engaged, loyal, promote your brand and help you achieve the growth your business deserves.
This is where HR can really add value. They can help you identify what makes your business unique, the values that have made you successful and work with you in developing recruitment, training and performance management systems to help you replicate that culture that will drive your business forward.
We call all this workforce management solutions. We provide tailored solutions as you need them.
Why not give us a call?
The bottom line is that we are confident we can add to the bottom line of your business.
(02) 8221 0553.
In 1997, I founded Enigma HR with the philosophy: “be ethical; be professional; be friendly and serve my clients well.” We specialise in insurance and accounting placements and have been assisting professionals in this industry for over 20 years.
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By Liza | Categories: Accounting Jobs Sydney, Career advice, Recruitment | No Comments
If you’ve hooked in to Linkedin this week you would have seen this provocative piece pop up as a headline article.
Here’s what recruiters look at in the six seconds they look at your resume.
It shows a study of a scientific technique called “eye tracking.” Researchers from the website the Ladders tracked the eye movements of 30 professional recruiters during a 10-week period to “record and analyze where and how long someone focuses when digesting a piece of information or completing a task.”
It shows that we focus on your name, current title and company, current position start and end dates, previous title and company, previous position start and end dates, and education.
So is this all true?
Well, partly.
We’d like to discuss a few things around the way we review resumes.
Along with your experience we are just as interested in the impact that you have made in each of these roles, and how that relates to the role we are recruiting.
One thing that bugs us is that people consistently confuse their responsibilities with their achievements. Your responsibilities are the tasks you complete. Your achievements relate to the impact you have had when you complete those tasks, or when you have gone above and beyond your job description.
No matter how good your experience is, if you have a sloppy resume with funny fonts, strange spacing and limited or inappropriate detail, we may well question your communication skills and your grasp of technology. These are fundamental skills all employers need.
Do keep in mind that we are time poor.
If we are faced with a pile of hundreds of resumes we are going to give your resume the quick once over. So all the relevant information must be easy to read and catch our eye. Keep your heading simple and bold and space out your information so it’s easy for us to read.
We strongly suggest that you take your resume writing seriously. The Ladders study showed that clear layout that made it easier for a yes/no decision. You don’t want to be the person who is a yes for that role, but a no because we cannot find the pertinent points on your resume.
If you are confused in any way at all about the job advertisement, or if you want us to spend time reviewing your application, call us. That’s why we put our number on the advertisement.
(02) 8221 0553.
In 1997, I founded Enigma HR with the philosophy: “be ethical; be professional; be friendly and serve my clients well.” We specialise in insurance and accounting placements and have been assisting professionals in this industry for over 20 years.
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By Liza | Categories: Consulting, Recruitment advice | No Comments
Every day we hear reports about issues with social media.
Employees bullying, stalking and harassing other employees; staff making inappropriate comments online about your workplace; people who use Facebook too much during work hours; employees tweeting confidential information and disputes over who owns LinkedIn contacts gathered in the name of business development.
If it seems like an ever shifting minefield, it is.
The way people use social media changes as new sites emerge.
Who knew about Pinterest and Google Plus a year ago?
Not only are new sites an issue, but social media changes as the crowd determines how the platform is used. Think how quickly the fad for planking took off fuelled by posting photos on Facebook. Many people posted photos of planking in the workplace, creating a whole other set of workplace safety issues.
Some of these issues can be difficult to deal with.
Social media moves so fast. The law is lagging behind.
This person was sacked for a rant on Facebook.
In this case the decision of the company was upheld.
This person was reinstated by Fair Work Australia after his employer tried sack him over comments on a Facebook page.
Do you have a social media policy? If so how would yours stand up in this instance?
It’s up to you to have your social policies in place.
Enigma HR Workforce Management Solutions team can help you develop sound social media and HR policies. Give us a call on (02) 8221 0553
In 1997, I founded Enigma HR with the philosophy: “be ethical; be professional; be friendly and serve my clients well.” We specialise in insurance and accounting placements and have been assisting professionals in this industry for over 20 years.
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By Liza | Categories: Consulting | No Comments
Call us the Grinches who stole Christmas, but sometimes we call Christmas the cranky season rather than the festive season. The city is busier than usual. People are all in a hurry. All those deadlines that have been lurking on the bottom of the to-do list for months all suddenly pop up as equally urgent. The holiday you’ve been saving up all year, can’t come soon enough.
Have we just made you crankier as well?
It’s about to get worse.
Does this sound familiar?
“Start your New Year, with a new career?” You’ll see the less creative career copywriters use this line to entice your newly holidayed staff across to their organisation. One of the reasons people want to kick start the New Year with a new career is their last performance review – or in some cases lack of them.
If you are about to run these reviews, or you have never run a review, these tips will help get you started.
1) Have one. It seems that any conversation is better than no conversation – not that we’d encourage you to berate your staff. Read this post on how damaging it is to ignore your staff.
2) Plan the meeting in advance, and don’t reschedule it. If you reschedule, that sends a very strong message that these are not important. Planning the meeting in advance allows your employees to prepare as well.
3) Give specific feedback – nothing vague. There are a few reasons for this.
Firstly, most employees, no matter how well they have performed throughout the year, will be apprehensive about a performance review. This means people may not process information you provide as quickly as they do normally.
Secondly, be also aware that very few people are self-aware. So you’ll tend to get people who underrate their performance, or overrate their performance.
If you relate feedback to a specific project, incident or series of them, then people can actually process that information and better understand the impact of their behaviour, either positive or negative.
4) Involve your employee in the discussion.
As a reviewer, this is difficult, but essential. But if you are wanting people to improve, or keep doing the things that they are doing – then you need to start from the mutual understanding of where things are at. A good question to ask is “how would you rate your performance in this area?”
Many successful organisations make reviews a two-way process. This is one reason why.
5) Make notes and keep your promises.
Actions speak louder than words. If people know you plan to do something concrete about their career development in the new year, then logic says they’ll be less likely to want to move.
Need help with your performance reviews?
Our experience interviewing job-seekers in the new year suggest that these are a real issue with many organisations.
If you’d like the Christmas Grinch to leave your staff alone in the new year, call our Workforce Management Solutions team now on (02) 8221 0553.
In 1997, I founded Enigma HR with the philosophy: “be ethical; be professional; be friendly and serve my clients well.” We specialise in insurance and accounting placements and have been assisting professionals in this industry for over 20 years.
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By Liza | Categories: Consulting, Insurance and accounting job market | No Comments
Why do your best people leave you?
The reasons will surprise you – especially if you are a company that does not have any formal feedback mechanisms in place.
They say people join companies and leave managers. We talk to a lot of people when they are looking to leave their jobs. While we’ve found this to be generally true, we thought we’d explore some research to dig deeper behind what makes people unhappy at work.
Here’s what we found…
1) You have ignored their development – paying no attention to your staff is actually worse than negative attention.
This is interesting. It seems the impact of paying no attention to your staff is greater than paying negative attention. Read this assertion from Tom Rath and Jim Harter – the authors of “Well Being – The Five Essential Elements.”
“The most disengaged group of workers we have ever studied are those who have a manager who is simply not paying attention.
If your manager ignores you, there is a 40% chance you will be actively disengaged or filled with hostility about your job. If your manager is at least paying you attention – even if he is focussing on your weaknesses – then the chances of you being actively disengaged go down to 22%
If your manager is primarily focussing on your strengths, the chance of your being actively disengaged is just 1%.”
2) You didn’t have them at hello – you neglected them during the critical first 120 days of their employment
According to employee attachment expert, Anthony Sork – the first 120 days of your new employee’s employment are critical to whether they bond with you as a manager, and your organisation. By this we mean whether they feel security, trust and value, acceptance and belonging. There are 20 different drivers to your employees’ attachment that you’ll need to consider. These include the professionalism of the recruitment process, the time of the recruitment process, right through to communication around your company’s values. Read this piece for what you might inadvertently be doing wrong to breach your employee’s trust from day one: and this on how you can tell if your employees are secure.
3) They are happy with their salary, then they find out what other people are earning.
People are weird when it comes to money. You may have made them an offer. They accepted, and in your mind the deal is done.
Not so fast…
If that person thinks they’re earning less than their peers (not necessarily their workplace peers), then that seems to present a problem.
Again, the authors of the Well Being book have some interesting observations:
“Consider the following two scenarios, and assuming the same purchasing power in both, which one would you choose?
A: An annual income of $50,000, while people around you earn $25,000 a year
B: An annual income of $100,000 while people around you earn $200,000 a year
Using a classic economic model, everyone should choose an income over $100,000 over $50,000. Instead nearly half the people presented with these options pick the lower salary of $50,000 a year.
They chose to make half the income as long as it is double the income of their peers.”
4) You ignored their request for change, until it was too late
Counter offers do not work.
In our experience by the time an unhappy employee marches into your office and hands over the resignation letter, it’s already too late. You will have had plenty of chances to rectify the situation. Ignore them at your peril. Read this earlier post on why this is so.
5) You’ve neglected to think about the impact of your employee’s friends and family
While you may know that people’s happiness depends on the happiness of others with whom they are connected, you may not know by just how much.
According to this research by James H Fowler and Nicholas A Christakis, the chances of you being happy increase by 15% if a direct connection in your social network is happy.
What’s interesting about this study is that your friends’ friends can actually influence your happiness. If a friend of your direct connection is happy, then the odds of you being happy increase as well. You don’t even need to know that person or have contact with that person to be influenced.
While mindful of employee’s privacy, from a management point of view a good question to ask is “is everything all right with you outside of work?”
So what do we make of all of this?
You need to be proactive in managing your teams’ employment experience. As we said earlier, the impact of paying no attention is profound.
Are you confident about your retention strategies?
For a comprehensive assessment, call our Workforce Management Solutions team now on (02) 8221 0553.
In 1997, I founded Enigma HR with the philosophy: “be ethical; be professional; be friendly and serve my clients well.” We specialise in insurance and accounting placements and have been assisting professionals in this industry for over 20 years.
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By Karalyn | Categories: Recruitment advice | No Comments
Ok, here at EnigmaHR we want to tell it like it is.
Can throwing a bucket full of money at a departing employee really keep them? Intuitively we don’t think so. Our experience tells us the same thing. It takes a lot to leave a company, even if it’s one you dislike.
If an employee is genuine about moving on, and not just on a fishing expedition for more cash, a counter offer may well come too late. If you’re a manager and they are in your office with a letter, they are probably both logically and emotionally detached from your company. Your employee has gone through a long and hard thought process both around resigning and around the pluses and minuses of a new job.
We’ve found one of the main reasons people leave jobs voluntarily is that in some sense their trust has been broken. That trust may be about many things. For example – the promise the company delivered in the way they said they would treat them; a promise a company made about career opportunities; or a promise a company made about the possibilities of a job.
Counter offers that are just financial may only work as a short term lure, if an employer does not work hard to tackle any underlying issues, or the most important motivation around why people resign.
The other reason we’ve found that counter offers fail is that (shock horrors) employees are not always honest when they say why they are leaving. Resigning, even from a bad job, can be hard work, particularly if people are emotional, or do not want to open up a discussion around their dissatisfaction. To say it’s the money, is an easy out in this scenario.
If you’re an employer and tempted to make a counter offer there are things to think about. Firstly there’s the impact on your other employees. If they haven’t boasted about their conquest down at the pub, there will be a few people that your exiting employee has confided in discreetly, no matter how carefully worded your confidentiality clause around salary is written. Word will get out that this person has just talked themselves into a big pay rise.
So what’s the latest on what it takes for people to be truly satisfied in their roles?
People describe cash as the hygiene factor – something that you notice when it’s not there. So if you’re not earning enough money, struggling to pay the bills or satisfy your basic needs, it can be a cause of huge dissatisfaction. However, if you do have enough money, beyond the initial rush of a nice big fat pay increase, then other things start to play a part.
Things we’ve found to be big motivations to stay at a job are really just the fundamentals of good people management. Employees feel safe. The feel respected. They believe the company cares about them. They feel listened to. They have the amount of autonomy in their roles that is right for them.
