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Organizational Hiring / Policy and Procedure Overkill! (2 in a series on hiring)

NEW PROBLEM NEW RULE

Picture this.  A small local business has a total of 25 employees.  One of those employees is consistently late to work.  The boss has mentioned it a few times, but nothing changes.  One morning the employee comes in late on a particularly bad day for the boss.  The boss has had enough.  She orders a time clock for the office, and writes a new policy that everyone must clock in and out.  A few weeks later the boss notices a customer standing around waiting for help.  Another employee, who should be assisting the customer, is distracted because she’s on her Facebook account.  The irritated boss writes another new policy.  Employees are no longer allowed to go on any social networking sites while at work. 

This scenario points out a very common habit; rather than deal with an employee problem, the boss writes a new policy and expects the problem to be resolved.  With each new policy, your star employees are further punished and left wondering why the policy is needed.  Over time, this habit leads to restrictive environments and rule books that are too large to memorize.

Organizational values can help.  If you hire, fire, train, reward and communicate towards defined strategic values, restrictive and detailed rules are no longer needed.  The “right way” is known without the rule book.  Here’s an example.  Let’s say that ambition is one of your core business values.  One of the ways you’ve defined this to employees is by stating that everyone is expected to practice exceptional time management skills.  You explain the “why” behind this.  It’s discussed in interviews and new employee orientations.  It’s listed on job descriptions.  Employees are rewarded for exceptional time management practices, and training to improve this skill set is provided.  When an employee consistently comes to work late, you don’t need a new restrictive rule or a time clock.  They are not meeting the expectation, made very clear, of exceptional time management.   They are not adhering to the core value of ambition.  Now deal with it.  Similarly, when an employee’s time on Facebook leaves a customer standing around with no help, that’s not practicing exceptional time management either.  You don’t need a new rule; you just need to deal with the problem.  An added benefit is that employees are more willing to accept expectations that are tied to values, than they are to accept a constantly growing rule book brought on by unresolved problems.

Organizational Hiring / Make Three Right Turns - The Right People! The Right Way! The Right Results! (1 in a series on hiring)

Minimum Qualifications: Helpful or Harmful?

I was reading through some job descriptions recently written by a client, and the idea for a blog posting came to me.  It’s an exciting topic; minimum qualifications.  Yeah, sounds boring, but I’ll keep this short and hopefully make you think carefully before your next recruitment efforts.

When we create job descriptions, we so often just make up some minimum qualifications such as requiring two years experience or a college degree.  I realize that for some jobs, there are legal and safety reasons for requiring certain educational and experience backgrounds.  I’m not talking about those positions.  I’m talking about those jobs where success is highly related to having certain attitudes, natural talents, or personality characteristics, rather than a very specific background.  If you can get someone who likes to learn, who is enthusiastic, and whose values fit in well with your organization, you often can train them to do their specific job duties.  I’d rather hire someone whose attitude is great and who can learn needed skills, than someone who has learned specific skills yet has a lousy attitude.  My point is that if you haphazardly define minimum qualifications, without careful evaluation, you may greatly reduce your best applicant pool, and may end up focusing your attention on the wrong things during interviews.

Here’s an example.  Colleen Barrett just recently retired from Southwest Airlines.  She was the President.  She never attended college.  Have you ever seen an executive position advertised, for a multi-billion dollar corporation, that didn’t require AT LEAST a Bachelor’s Degree?  Colleen learned everything she knew with on-the-job experience.  She loved to learn and had the right values and attitude.

To find out what it really takes to be successful in a certain job, talk to someone who already is.  Better yet, have them help you do the interviews.  Minimum qualifications are important; just make sure they are truly related to job success.

www.workforceechoes.com 

Organizational Values (4 in a series)

Moving Together In The Right Direction

Our last three blog postings have been about organizational values.  Before I switch to another subject, I think it’s important to make one more point about values.  Organizational values define the “right way” for how things should be done in your workplace.  With any goal, there is the “right way” to do things and the “right results” to achieve.  We have all worked with people who do what they are asked to do, but perform in a manner that ends up being destructive to the organization.  For example, consider the sales person who bad mouths other sales team members with the goal of making all of the sales on his own.  He ends up having a high sales volume, the “right results,” but his methods were not the “right way.”  When only the results are made clear, and values are not well defined, people will use whatever behaviors work for them to achieve the goal.  This can create an unengaged work environment and a bad reputation for your company.

TEAM: Together We Achieve More! 

Behaviorally-based value systems take the "wiggle room" out of interpreting the “right way.” Once organizational values are defined, expected behaviors to display those values are also outlined.  For example, we value collaboration and therefore expect all team members to consider others’ ideas, and to have drafts and finished products reviewed by at least one other team member. These expected behaviors are communicated to all team members.  Team members can use a variety of methods to achieve goals, as long as they stick to behaviors that fall in line with our value of collaboration. 

It’s just as important to build a great reputation for your organization as it is to work towards defined sales or productivity goals.  A solid reputation is built when all employees understand and adhere to expected behaviors that communicate organizational values.  The “right way” must be understood.

Organizational Values (3 in a series on values)

ORGANIC VS. STRATEGIC VALUES

By Jeff Sullivan

Whether or not you choose to create a strategic well communicated set of values, your organization will make decisions and take action on a set of values.  Absent a deliberate plan, these values will grow organically and most likely represent the personal values of the people who can help or hurt you the most.  In larger organizations this can mean that you have competing sets of values that are at odds with one another, creating a serious distraction and wasting valuable resources.  For example, if an employee knows that the CEO values “no mistakes” but her direct supervisor values “creative ideas” she will often find herself in conflict between the “sure bet” way to no mistakes versus taking a risk and trying something new.  Similarly, if the direct supervisor values high profit margins but an employee’s major client values integrity, the two values may at times collide, and the employee will not know the “right thing to do.”  Successful organizations run a single value system imbedded into all of its people practices.  These well communicated and integrated values serve to reduce distractions and conflict and make decision-making easier.

Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple Computer, put it well.  “The only thing that works is management by values.  Find people who are competent and really bright, but more importantly, people who care exactly about the same things you care about.”

Organizational Values (2 in a series on values)

  

What exactly are values?  Values are the core set of principles that drive your decisions and behavior.  They are "valuable" in the sense that they are an important compass for us as we cycle through life.  A well understood value system becomes most valuable in ambiguous circumstances--times when you cannot find the answer in a book, the Internet or the law.  I'm talking about situations that compel you to make a judgment call in unfamiliar territory.  When you are experiencing something for the first time, you don’t have past experience to rely on in making a decision.  Values are the guide.  These same issues exist within organizations as well.  Having a deliberate and clear set of organizational values is essential for success in the world we operate in today.

As a manager you have two choices.  You can attempt to write a policy and procedure manual that covers what to do in every possible situation, or you can integrate values into your people practices and rely on employees to make “good” choices based on those values.  The first alternative is all too often tried, but always fails.  Employees can’t memorize volumes of policy and procedure and often end up feeling as if they can’t move without checking the policy manual first.  They can however learn expected behaviors as they relate to clear organizational values.  The most successful organizations have followed this path leading to a values based and well-known organizational culture.

                                                                                              By Jeff Sullivan

Organizational Values (1 in a series on values)

Values Determine Behavior

Do you ever step back, look at your life, the decisions you've made and the things that you have done and wonder why?  Why do you consistently follow a pattern when reacting to the world around you?  If you did step back, you would likely see certain patterns. Fear of certain things, the tendency to gravitate to similar types of people, or always avoiding certain situations, are examples of behavior patterns.  Mostly likely, you are using your own set of personal values to guide your behavior.  Your values are formed by the environment you grew up within--parents, teachers, significant events etc.  These events and experiences lead to certain beliefs which then serve to form your values. 

Organizations behave similarly. Whether an organization has declared values or not, values WILL determine behavior in all organizations.  Successful organizations have a set of strategic values integrated into all people practices.  This forms the foundation for the business ecosystem.  Values impact how employees behave and respond to customers, what goals are set and reached, what policies and procedures are followed, how managers treat employees, and how employees treat each other.  Just watch behavior.  You can also determine an organization’s values by finding out where time and money are spent.  Organizational leaders have a choice: allow any old values to naturally grow, or create, communicate and integrate strategic values that purposefully move the organization forward.  What values are controlling behavior in YOUR organization?