Articles and Insights
Six Ways to Keep Your Office Competitive
February 22, 2012
With companies frequently complaining there aren’t enough skilled individuals to fill their positions, it’s becoming increasingly important for them to stay competitive when recruiting. One way to do that is for them to position themselves as a company that is incorporating key changes that keep employees satisfied and engaged in the office.
Recently, Sodexo, a leading provider of integrated food and facilities management services in North America, published a report outlining ways to keep your office competitive. Here are six ways to improve working conditions that will keep present employees from leaving while attracting new employees to join you:
1. Acknowledge employees’ excellent efforts with awards (monetary or non-monetary) that make them feel special. This is far more effective than granting them extra vacation time or other standard benefits.
2. Emphasize performance, not productivity. It’s not how many hours employees work, but how effectively they work and surpass expectations.
3. Deploy more resources to improve the look and feel of the office. A nice office is a happy office. Especially when it is designed to cut down on interruptions to the flow of work.
4. Provide health perks such as wellness programs, onsite dining, and gyms. Such programs keep employees healthier and more productive.
5. Maintain diversity in the workplace. And by diversity, this doesn’t necessarily mean race, culture, or gender but also embracing those with rich and varied backgrounds.
6. Offer employees flexible schedules and flexible places from which to do their work. Balancing work and life has become more important than ever.
The happy and engaged office of the future is here today. Are you ready to have your staff and job candidates work in it?
Job Satisfaction and Your Boss
February 20, 2012
While the employment rate has seen improvement lately, it is no secret that many of those with jobs are not satisfied with their current position. Recently, BusinessInsider.com featured an infographic outlining job satisfaction and the various factors behind it. Overall, roughly three out of five employees are satisfied with work, while the other two are either dissatisfied or neutral. In general, the older and more income one makes, the more satisfied he or she is with their current position.
Intuitively, this isn’t surprising. But what may catch some off-guard is the ranking of factors responsible for the most job misery. This ranking reveals that after compensation (or lack thereof), an employee’s boss is the second biggest source of job dissatisfaction.
And what do bosses do that leaves their subordinates dissatisfied in their jobs? It turns out that those whose bosses have taken credit for their ideas are over three times more likely to be dissatisfied in their job. And those whose bosses have asked them to change their vacation plans are more than two times as likely to be dissatisfied in their job.
But this is only part of the picture. So what else explains why bosses are such a key factor in one’s job dissatisfaction? For many of the same reasons that most romantic relationships fall apart: Bad bosses can be controlling, unappreciative, emotionally draining, and abusive. And just as a poor fit is at the core of any romantic breakup, so, too, is it the force behind job dissatisfaction. Which is why it is so important to work for a company where your personality is a good match for your boss and the company’s corporate culture.
Have you filled out your JobSync profile yet? Working with JobSync could just bring you job satisfaction a lot sooner than you think. Besides, who wants to wait until they’re older or better compensated to be happier in their job?
How to Handle a Layoff
February 16, 2012
Recently announced improvements in the job market have been counterbalanced by news that Pepsi, American Arilines, and Kraft plan to lay off over 20,000 employees between the three companies. It’s a sober reminder that layoffs can happen any time and at any company. And it is also a call to be ready should you become the victim of a layoff.
If you are the recent victim of a layoff or strongly suspect one is in your very near future, career coach Caroline Ceniza-Levine can help. In a recent blog piece for Forbes.com, she lays out 10 steps for handling a layoff. These 10 measures include:
1. Remain professional to others. Be respectful and courteous. Your former company has enough to worry about at the moment, and there’s no reason to add to their misery. Especially if you expect a supportive reference from them in the future.
2. Stay positive to yourself. If the self-pity train is leaving the station, don’t race after it. Focus on the adversity you’ve overcome in the past and concentrate on what you do well to boost your self-esteem.
3. Negotiate your package and end date. Before you sign any severance package, make sure you conduct thoughtful negotiations and understand everything, especially with respect to your end date, insurance coverage, retirement account, and paid time off that you’ve accrued.
4. Consider lateral transfers, both permanent and temporary. Keep an open mind about your company’s sister divisions that might be hiring and see if your employer is open to your consulting for them.
5. Prepare your story to explain what happened. Put together a concise and truthful explanation of what happened at your company for future employers, and make sure it matches what your supervisor or other references would say about your leaving the company.
6. Collect contact info for when you leave. Obtain your colleagues’ permanent contact info. They may be on the chopping block next. And if not, they are an important component of your references and network.
7. Leave on a positive note with your manager, colleagues and HR. Exit your company gracefully. Last impressions should be good impressions, regardless of how fellow employees felt about you.
8. Take time to assess and reflect. Losing a job is like a breakup. And being laid off is like being dumped. No one expects you to jump immediately back into the dating pool, and you similarly shouldn’t rush to start job hunting. Take some time to clear your head and take care of yourself.
9. Run the numbers on your cash situation. In all likelihood, it’s going to take at least three months to find a job, and probably a lot longer. Figure out how much cash you have to get you through this period, and if it’s not enough, start thinking of part-time work you can do to shore up your finances.
10. Launch a proactive, thoughtful job search. Take a breath… Do you want a job in your current industry, or do you want to switch positions and industries altogether? Don’t spray your resume. Think about what job you would make a good fit for.
We think there is one other thing you should definitely do if you haven’t done so already: Fill out a JobSync profile. It takes little time and will help put you back on the road to finding a job that is a good fit for you!
Employers That Balance a Work/Life Flexibility Environment Will Win the Talent War
February 15, 2012
In a previous blog, we noted that Generation Y is more concerned with balancing work and life, and the sooner employers recognize and respect this need, the more effectively they will be able to recruit and incorporate such employees into their companies.
Allison O’Kelly, the founder and CEO of Mom Corps., a staffing agency that helps employers tap women and men who want flexibility instead of a traditional workplace, reminds us that such a need is not only prevalent in Generation Y but also in mid- to executive-level professionals who are significantly older.
In an interview on fastcompany.com, O’Kelly discusses how companies that "…employ a healthy and robust work/life flexibility environment – not one just on paper – will win the talent war." And she feels those who think work/life flexibility is a perk and not a strategic imperative are putting themselves at a competitive disadvantage. Incorporating a flexible work culture is not difficult, and O’Kelly recommends the following:
1. Ask employees their opinion. Chances are they won’t be asking for much.
2. Define regular office hours for both in the office and off-site. This can reduce anxiety around flextime for managers who know they can plan around such times to physically see their team.
3. Review company compensation models and policies to reflect flexible work options.
Make sure that employees who participate are not unfairly and unintentionally penalized.
4. Don’t just offer the program to employees, encourage it. When you’re talking about a culture or mindset shift, it has to be championed from the top. And championed consistently.
5. Promote flexible work programs externally as well as internally. Promoting such programs to the outside world is a powerful recruitment tool for potential new employees.
6. Be completely transparent with your workforce. When launching a test of flexibility, make it clear that it is a test to avoid morale issues in the future if you decide to change course.
7. Be aware that if you are broaching the subject of flex options, there may be no turning back. Given this dynamic, make sure you are committed on some level.
So flex your flexible work culture muscle to prospective candidates. And feel free to do it at the office or at home!
Seeing Through Deception in Interviews
February 14, 2012
We all know how inefficient the interview and selection processes are for finding the best fitting candidates for positions. Aside from the huge numbers of resumes that pour in for a single position, studies have shown that candidates who are attractive, eloquent, charming, and tall have a distinct advantage over those who are less so, even if they are much poorer matches for a position. Despite how well known these problems are, interviewers fall prey to these factors time and time again, much to the detriment and cost of their companies.
Recently, Berkeley business professor Don Moore touched on these issues in a recent blog for Forbes.com. In his MBA leadership class, Moore proved how poorly people judge the performance potential of others by having every student interview two other students in the same class and predict who would perform better on an upcoming exam. Only 56% guessed correctly, only slightly better than a random coin flip.
And Moore’s solution to make the interviewing process more objective? Administer intelligence tests. Moore contends that intelligence test are the best judge of mental ability, and he maintains that research has shown that mental ability is the best indicator of job performance. To complement such tests, he also feels they should be paired with a well-structured interview where candidates are scored by their responses.
At JobSync, while we think that mental ability is important, it hardly tells the whole picture of candidate fit. Just because someone has the mental ability to perform a job doesn’t mean that their personality and temperament will fit at the company nor provide any indicator of how well they will collaborate with others. As we often point out, research has shown that 89% of mis-hires result a from lack of interpersonal fit, not skills or aptitude. And while structured interviews that are scored also seem like a good idea, they seem predisposed – at least to some extent – to the same kind of bias that afflicts general interviewing. To learn more about how we match candidates to job opportunities, take a look at our research or contact us at info@jobsync.com.
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