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Are your employees looking for a new job?

So you may be thinking that your employees are happy and even if they’re not, they wouldn’t be thinking about leaving in this economy right?

While there are still millions of people unemployed, it is not stopping those who are employed from looking for better opportunities.  In fact, with the rise in “Unemployment Discrimination” some employers who are hiring will pay more attention to an employed applicant than an unemployed applicant. This new practice is wrong but gives employed applicants’ preferential treatment in the interview process and a greater likelihood of gaining employment with another company, maybe even your competition.

Did you know that nearly 70 % of organizations report having difficulties in replacing staff and one in four of new hires will leave within 6 months? Couple these challenges with employees who feel over worked underpaid and underappreciated and you have disenfranchised employees who are prepared to walk the first good opportunity they get.

So what can you do to retain your employees and minimize the costs of high turnover?

It all starts with hiring the right person.

·    Making sure the candidate is a good fit before the first day of work is critical. It all starts with sourcing candidates from the right place. While Monster and CareerBuilder have always been the staple go to, branch out and explore LinkedIn, niche job boards that pertain specifically to the job function you are recruiting for and don’t under estimate the power of your network. A quick email to your network could result in a referral that is a perfect match.

·    Use the interview as your opportunity to get to know the “real” candidate.  Every time you sit down with a candidate, they put on their interview face . When the candidate has on their interview face they tell you everything you want to hear. They have memorized the job posting, researched good answers to common questions and smile the entire time with great eye contact. To get beyond the interview face combine a structured interview process with behavioral based questions. Set clear company expectations and position requirements. Incorporate more than one hiring manager and don’t hesitate to have follow-up interviews to clarify any concerns.

·    Don’t rush the hire and neglect conducting proper due diligence. We encourage companies to conduct background screenings, always check references and verify the candidates background. Taking this step should be combined with all the information obtained through the interview process to aid you in making the hiring decision.

·    Make it a great start. Once the position has been offered and the first day has been set, start the new hire off on the right foot. A new employee orientation can go a long way in setting the tone for your new employee.  Make them feel welcomed and a part of the team. Training from day one helps build the foundation for a successful relationship.

So you have a great team now how do you keep them?

·    Make employees feel valued.  Create a culture that embraces and celebrates your employees and their accomplishments.  Train, mentor and develop your team from top down. Reinforce your employee’s value through recognition and make your organization the place your employees enjoy coming every day.

·    Provide feedback and opportunity for growth. Incorporate a performance management process that hold employees accountable, provides feedback and promote from within giving opportunity for growth.

·    Build trust and confidence in the leadership team.  Live and breathe your mission, vision and brand!  Employees have to trust their leaders and believe that they have the competence and passion to grow the business.  Inspire your employees to be the best they can be and follow that mantra in everything that you do.

It is no secret that happy employees are one of the most important components of your brand strategy.  Remember if you recruit the best person for the job and nurture them as employees you can create a great place to work and your business will thrive. 

About us:

Complete Concepts Consulting is a human resources consultancy specializing in compliance for small to mid-sized businesses. We offer a non-conventional approach to human resources management to meet the unique needs of small to mid-sized businesses. Our HR methodology has been proven to reduce costs and mitigate risks for our clients.

Contact Us:
Stephen Polutnik
Director, Client Services
spolutnik@completeconceptsconsulting.com
(773) 294-0010

What's keeping you up at night?

The age old question that almost every business owner or CEO is asked "What keeps you up at night," has got me thinking. It's 2:34 am on a Tuesday morning and I am up with my mind on growing my business. Asking myself, what’s our competitive edge? What can we offer our target market that no one else does? How do we market it and get our message out?

These are all questions that you may be asking yourself.

What keeps you up at night?

•  Company growth 
•  Managing employees
•  Being a step ahead of your competition 
•  Evolving your business to meet the demands of the changing economy
•  Or one of the many other complex issues business leaders are facing!

Complete Concepts Consulting was birthed out of the notion that business leaders are taxed with so many issues that keep them up at night and managing employees should not be one of them.

We are a cut above the rest offering HR In-sourcing to the companies that need it most, small to mid-sized businesses.

So you are probably thinking to yourself, what is HR In-sourcing, she must mean HR Outsourcing? The answer is no, I mean HR In-sourcing.

So what is HR In-sourcing? 

HR In-sourcing is the best way to describe our full service HR Consulting Methodology. We function as your in-house HR team for a fraction of the cost of staffing one. What differentiates us is we incorporate HR compliance with non-conventional HR practices to meet the unique need of your business. We work within your organization fostering your company's culture and beliefs and pushing forward you goals. We are on-site working with you from strategic level executive planning through day to day administration and everything in between.

We bring you over 25 years of combined HR and customer service experience; knowledge and most importantly we deliver results that save you money and helps you mitigate risk. Our client first philosophy makes meeting your needs our top priority!

To learn more, contact:

Stephen Polutnik

Director, Client Services

SPolutnik@completeconceptsconsulting.com

(773) 294-0010

What's your plan for Succession?

When Steve Jobs recently retired from Apple, it got a lot of companies thinking about their executive successors. Lucky for Apple its new CEO Tim Cook has been with the company for a long time and had already been standing in as CEO with Steve Jobs absences.

What would you do if you were unable to manage your business or if your best manager left the company?

Here are a few tips that can help so that your management successor is ready when you need them:

       1. Identify

Measure the performance of your employees to help you identify your top talent.  This is an objective way of determining the right employees to include in your succession plan for future management positions.

2.   Development

Other than planning who should succeed, develop your staff so that they will be prepared to succeed. Anything can happen between today and tomorrow so be prepared.

3.   Measure outcomes

Keep track of your employees’ successes. Whether they treated a customer well, or they innovated a product; keeping track of their big and small success helps you evaluate your succession plan easier. 

4.   Keep it simple

Usually companies keep adding exclusive complex assessment criteria to the succession planning process in an effort to improve the quality of the assessment. What they forget is that succession planning is a process, so it doesn’t have to be perfect but improve with time.

5.   Stay Realistic

Always be able to distinguish good leaders from good performers.  Usually while choosing successors we tend to look at our best performer. This is good, because we all know that a good leader should also be a good performer. However, the makeup of a good leader is multifaceted. Focus on your best performer(s) and choose someone who can balance both roles.  

One final point to remember is “Only give the promise of succession if there is a realistic chance of its happening!”

Contributing Writer:

Eugenia Tibamanya

Client Services Intern

Complete Concepts Consulting

About us: Complete Concepts Consulting is a human resources consultancy specializing in compliance for small to mid-sized businesses. We offer a non-conventional approach to human resources management to meet the unique needs of small to mid-sized businesses. Our HR methodology has been proven to reduce costs and mitigate risks for our clients.

For more information contact:
Stephen Polutnik
Director of Client Services
spolutnik@completeconceptsconsulting.com

Sources
http://blogs.hbr.org/goldsmith/2009/05/change_succession_planning_to.html
http://hbr.org/