In This Issue:
National Distinguished Candidate Conference,
Using Green Employee Programs to Retain Key Talent,
Cutting Work Hours Without Cutting Staff,
Strategic Interview Styles
National Distinguished Candidate Conference
Mark your Calendar for our National Distinguished Candidate Conference, to be held in Atlanta, GA on September 14 - 15!
Don’t miss the opportunity to interview those candidates that have distinguished themselves in performance, potential, and experience.
Distinguished candidates include
• Top 10% of Junior Military Officers
• Service Academy Graduates
• Candidates with an MBA
• Candidates that have consistently ranked well above their peers in their professional evaluations
• Candidates that are open to geographic location and focused on beginning their civilian career in Leadership Development Programs, Engineering, Operations Management, and Sales
Using Green Employee Programs to Retain Key Talent
Given the current economic situation, observers wonder if companies will be putting their green initiatives on hold. But savvy executives are moving ahead with these programs for many reasons, one of the most important being retaining and recruiting employees. Green initiatives can help recruit and retain key talent in these trying markets.
Employees are more loyal to companies that do the right thing and transparently communicate about their environmental plans. Below are a few critical steps to creating a successful program.
1. Enlist employees help to develop your strategy. Starting with employee input is important to engaging employees and sparking enthusiasm.
2. Clearly communicate the goals and priorities of your environmental program. Employees want to participate in your efforts, so in order to coordinate and focus them, they need to understand the vision.
3. Develop organizational structure. Environmental issues range from sourcing, purchasing, marketing, product design and manufacturing. Developing a structure with cross-functional teams with clear mandates will ensure that issues are addressed across the board.
4. Educate employees and provide programs both inside and outside the workplace. One example would be to participate in a home-efficiency class that helps employees reduce the energy use in their homes. Measure progress and recognize accomplishments. As with other business initiatives, measuring progress allows companies to identify and reward employee contributions and accomplishments. This type of recognition program can help motivate employees to contribute to your company’s environmental efforts.
Successfully engaging employees in developing your environmental strategy will have clear benefits to your bottom line by helping to retain and recruit key talent.
Cutting Work Hours Without Cutting Staff
Instead of laying off workers during the Great Depression, window maker Pella had its employees wash and rewash windows it could not sell. Today, companies like FedEx, Dell and Motorola are adopting similar tactics to keep jobs.
Vermont based Rhino Foods recently sent 15 factory workers to nearby lip balm manufacturer Autumn Harp for a week to help handle the holiday rush. The employees were paid by Rhino, who then invoiced its neighbor. President Ted Castle is looking to adopt a similar approach with salaried managers, too. "It's a lot easier to just do the layoff," says Castle. "But in the long term, it's not easier for the business."
Human resource managers across the U.S. report they are now spending more time coming up with alternatives to layoffs vs. 6 months ago. Peter Cappelli, director of the Center for Human Resources at the Wharton School of Business, notes that a 5% salary cut costs less than a 5% layoff because there are no severance payments.
Companies across the U.S. are adopting alternative strategies rather than cutting their workforce, resulting in saving money and talent.
Interviews are an incredibly important part of the hiring process. If poorly executed, they can repel good candidates, and make terrible candidates seem like good fits for positions. Most interviewers have never taken a class nor are they educated in the 4 key strategic interviewing styles. Learning these techniques (and using them!) will help reveal candidates’ true strengths, weaknesses and personalities.
Relaxed Interviewing
This technique requires a very relaxed environment. Greet the candidate and start a casual conversation. While sitting, position yourself in an obvious relaxed position and ask questions in a calm voice. You may also consider doing the interview outside on a nice day. The comfortable environment and style of asking questions helps the candidate feel comfortable and often results in a better dialogue.
Intimidating Interview
With this style, you intentionally create an intimidating atmosphere by position yourself at the opposite end of a large table or desk, using bright florescent lighting and raising your chair higher than the candidate’s. The goal is to create the image of an “all business” interview. In this style, it is best to start out with extremely difficult and uncomfortable questions. The style is effective in evaluating a candidate’s ability to handle stress, overcome hostile communications, and work under pressure.
“Friend” Interviewing
A third style gives you the option to have a friendly, current employee interview the candidate. They should approach the candidate as a friend and future co-worker. Some candidates are good at putting on the perfect “interview” face, but this style serves to bring out their true nature. If done right, this strategy should get the candidate relaxed enough to reveal character traits that would have been otherwise guarded.
Panel Interviewing
When using this style, you can create a team of several members, each having a different interviewing style. The team can then ask questions freely from a pre-planned list. The goal is to expose the candidate to a variety of questions and personalities and will show how they react to diversity. After the interview, hold an open debate about the pros and cons of each candidate. While a consensus may not be reached among the group, the discussion will help identify the best candidates.
