The HR department is just as central to company success as any other. Accounting, product development, marketing, sales, and IT all have a place at the table. But when HR managers experience a need or a crisis, they often have trouble making their voices heard among executive decision makers. Why does this happen? What leverage do these other departments tend to have that we don’t have? The answer is simple: numbers.

Unlike most other departments, HR challenges and goals aren’t always easy to quantify. That’s because we deal in a currency of human beings and human capital, and it goes against our nature to distill human needs, value, and problems into straightforward metrics. A high turnover problem, for example, may require budget resources to resolve. But it can be hard to make this case to upper management without putting a number on the problem first.

So how can you gather metrics that allow executives to make sense of the challenges you face? And among these varied data streams, which ones matter the most to company success?

Metrics and Hiring
 
When you decide to quantify “successful hiring”, what does your company focus on most? If speed matters, measure the time it takes to fill each position and look for cost effective ways to reduce that number. But keep in mind the fast/cheap/good paradox. Almost every resource it takes to run a business—including employees—can be obtained fast, at a low cost, or with high value. And as the saying goes, you can have any two of these, but you can’t have all three.

If “good” hires are the goal, define those terms. Are good hires employees who last more than a year? More than five years? Consider handing surveys to managers of new hires and ask how they rate the success of each hire after one, three and five years. If “cheap” hires are the most valuable, how can you target undervalued candidates with high upside potential? And once they’re onboard, how can you get the most productivity from these workers while keeping salary costs under control?

Metrics and Retention

Hiring isn’t the only element of staffing that can be quantified and measured. In order to measure and control retention, you’ll need to find ways to put numbers on worker satisfaction. You’ll also need to quantify how your company stacks up against the competition in terms of salary data, workplace culture, perks, and opportunities for advancement.

Start by distributing surveys at least once a year among your teams, and balance this survey data against that of thoughtfully designed exit interviews. Make sure you draw as much information as possible out of departing employees, and find ways to crunch their reviews into meaningful data points that can be used to generate change. For more information on how to do this, reach out the Des Moines staffing and HR experts at The Palmer Group.

In some ways, there’s no such thing as a completely valueless interview. No matter what questions a manager asks, the interview gives her a chance to chat with the applicant and glean both tangible and intangible information about what he’d be like to work with and how motivated he is to please and impress.

But interviews are like any other aspect of business operations: reaching your destination is only part of the goal. You also want to reach that destination in a way that’s efficient, cost effective, fast and risk free. You don’t just want a candidate who will keep a chair warm and not turn into an expensive mistake. You want a candidate with the specific skill sets the position demands, and a candidate who cares as much about your business as you do.

To that end, it’s time to cut the fat and skip the interview questions that are merely “good.” Rebuild your interview script from the ground up by starting with the most important question any efficient manager can ask: “Describe your most important accomplishment in this role/this industry.”

Why is this One Question so Valuable?

This question forms the foundation of the rest of your twenty minute session with the candidate.  Use this as a starting point, and help the candidate flesh out a detailed twenty-minute response by asking the following supporting questions:

1. How did you find yourself facing this task or project?
2. Why were you chosen instead of someone else?
3. What was your first step, second step, etc, and how did you formulate this plan?
4. Did you need to enlist the help of others, and if so, how did this go?
5. Did your team encounter any interpersonal problems on the way? How were they solved?
6. What personal challenges did you face?
7. What team challenges did you face?
8. Was your project ultimately successful? If not, what did you learn and how did the experience make you proud?
9. If the project was a success, what did you learn from the process and to what do you credit the success?
10. If you could tackle this project again, what would you do differently?

Wrap your interview tightly around one key incident, and you’ll help your candidate tell the story of his or her professional life. You’ll gain a strong sense of who she is as a protagonist, where her strengths lie, and how she’ll leverage her unique contributions to support her next employer.

Best of all, you’ll clear an efficient path to your goal: identifying the candidate best suited to this position. For more guidance on how to keep your interview process focused, lean, and meaningful, reach out the Des Moines staffing experts at the Palmer Group.

If you think online reviews don’t have any impact on the future of your business, think again. Most studies show that more than 60 percent of consumers turn to the internet and consult reviews before making major purchasing decisions, and 50 percent of the U.S. population search for online reviews before conducting a transaction with a local business for the first time. If you’re concerned about the way reviews impact your business—and you should be—keep these considerations in mind.

Dealing with Online Reviews

1. First, find out what’s out there. The most popular online review sites (in order) are Yelp, Google Places, and Citysearch. If you aren’t already checking these sites and periodically running Google searches of your company name, start now. 

2. Second, get out in front of customer complaints before they find their way online. Do this by making it very, very easy for customers to complain to you in person and have their problems resolved. Provide customer satisfaction surveys after every job you perform, and offer easy access to customer complaint forms, both in paper and on your website. When customers register a complaint in person, make sure your employees are trained to respond by listening carefully and handling the problem quickly and effectively.

3. Never become defensive or dismissive of a customer complaint. You may as well just ask the angry customer to head online and trash your company publically. No matter what you can or can’t do to set things right, listen hard and take the issue seriously.

4. Reach out to a complaining customer immediately and privately by phone or email. Try not to get drawn into public arguments.

5. Stay on good terms with your local competitors. This is an easy way to avoid online turf wars and spam reviews.

6. Don’t be tempted to post fake positive reviews of your own business. This rarely plays out as planned, and it’s easier for online visitors to spot a fake review than you may think. The same applies to posting reviews on behalf of a client or customer. And it should go without saying, but never post a fake negative review of a local competitor (see item 5).

7. Get help. Reach out to a professional digital marketing firm and let them take responsibility for the online aspects of your business. When you put your brand, your search engine rankings, and your online reputation in the hands of professionals, you can turn your full attention back to running your company.   

Need help finding a marketing firm that can boost your online reputation? Are you looking for frontline employees who can put a great face on your business and build strong relationships with your customers and clients? Turn to the Des Moines staffing pros at the Palmer Group. We’ll connect you with team and resources you need to take your growing company to the next level.

When payroll budgets are tight and the future looks uncertain, sometimes a hiring freeze represents a viable cost cutting measure and a company’s only path to survival. But this move can be hard to explain to existing employees who were counting on the promise of additional hands to help manage accounts and process orders. And the fear and anxiety employees may feel about the situation can easily undermine daily productivity, and can even send valuable workers running for job boards and dusting off their resumes.

So what can you do to make sure a hiring freeze actually adds value and increases your collective odds of survival, instead of making a bad situation worse? And how can you accomplish more work (or at least the same amount) when employees are distracted and vital support positions are standing unoccupied? Keep these tips in mind.

Control and mitigate uncertainty

This is where your basic PR and messaging skills will come into play. When calming rattled nerves, nothing works better than a tightly controlled message, and nothing supports a tightly controlled message like old fashioned empathy and diplomacy. Anticipate your employees concerns and get ahead of them, don’t wait for employees to bring them to your attention.

Enlist employee involvement and commitment to a shared goal

Provide your teams with a sense of control over the situation by including them in decision making processes and shared goals. Don’t think of managers and employees as “us” and “them”. Bring everyone onto the same team. Inspire your workers, include yourself among them, and keep their attention focused on specific business targets related to profitability and revenue.

Lead by calm, focused example

If you settle in, put the drama of the hiring freeze behind you, and turn your attention to the goals and work at hand, your teams will be more likely to follow suit. If you harp in the subject relentlessly, provide official daily updates when you have no new information to offer, or behave in way that seems gloomy or anxious, your staff will probably give in to distraction and idling. (For example, avoid talking about future deadlines and projects as if they may never materialize. Commit to your December publication, release, or rollout date, even the company may not exist by then.)

Be very clear about new individual goals and realigned positions

Since a hiring freeze often means adjustments to employee roles and responsibilities, make sure these adjustments are clear. If workers will be taking on new projects or relying on new skill sets, make sure they get the training and guidance they need to be successful. Do so even if these new roles are expected to be temporary.

The Des Moines staffing and business management experts at the Palmer Group can help you keep your team focused and committed while riding out a rough patch. Contact our office and arrange a consultation to learn more.

While your business may be slowly rebounding from the rough patches of the last few years, it’s possible you’re still facing budget limitations that keep you from handing out big bonuses. And you may not be able to lavish your top performers with the monetary gifts and other incentives they probably deserve. But that doesn’t mean you have to give up on incentives entirely. Consider a few simple and effective ways to thank your top employees for all they do. Inexpensive gestures like these will let them know they’re appreciated without breaking the bank.

Focus on employee-manager relationships

If you put some extra effort and pressure into relationship-building between employees and their direct supervisors, you’ll notice the difference. And so will they. Instead of a big check, try a pair of concert tickets to a popular show. And instead of just choosing “a popular show”, let your managers choose a band or play they know a specific employee has been wanting to see. 

Give the gift of time
 
These days, employees lead very busy lives that extend far beyond their jobs. Priorities are more complex than they were generations ago, and time is often worth more than gold. Give high performing employees an unexpected day off. Or reward a victory by letting the entire team leave early on Fridays for a month.

Reward top performers with opportunity

There are few things more satisfying than an exciting and appropriate opportunity for advancement. A statement like “We’ve been watching you grow, we’re impressed with your last project, and we’d like to see you take the following step up…” can make employees feel appreciated like nothing else. Reward top performers by clearing a path for them in a direction that matches their goals.

Pile on the small gestures

Order lunch for your teams now and then. Have a bouquet of thank you flowers placed on a talented employee’s desk. Be generous with sincere and specific verbal thanks. Treat your entire team with tickets to a minor league baseball game. Take everyone out for ice cream on a Friday afternoon. These gestures might seem small, but if they’re frequent, personal, and well meant, you can cultivate loyalty among your staff and keep them onboard, even during lean times.

For more ways to reward your staff without jeopardizing your ability to make payroll, reach out the Des Moines staffing and small business management experts at the Palmer Group.

If you’re still clinging to the old school idea that fun in the workplace equates to frivolity and wasted time, reconsider. And look around. How many of your employees are under the age of 35? Probably more than a few. And how many of your employees, regardless of their age, are disengaged, watching the clock and struggling to get along with their managers and coworkers? Giving these employees a reason to laugh and a reason to connect socially with their peers won’t hurt your productivity. In fact, it might save your company. Here are few tips that can help you bring some life and levity into your workplace culture.

Build Engagement: Liven up Your Office

1. Consider establishing a regular weekly happy hour at a local bar or restaurant. Choose the venue carefully. It should be easy to access, clean, friendly, and welcoming. The more often you encourage happy hour gatherings, the less ceremonial they’ll become, and the more your employees will begin to relax, join the scene, and come and go at their leisure.

2. Encourage friendships and outside connections. Sponsor and encourage non-work activities, like Saturday volunteering, picnics, and ski weekends.  Don’t work too hard to please everyone—while some events might not appeal to employees with children and others may not work for those who live far away, don’t naysay. Just keep the ideas coming. If an employee abstains from one event, he can participate in the next one without missing anything.

3. Encourage a culture of conversation, honesty, and open feedback. In a thriving workplace, conversation and chatter are a constant, low-grade background noise. People express their feelings and ideas without hesitation or fear, they trust each other, doors are open, and feedback is constant and free. Make sure your workplace culture fits this model. Don’t perpetuate a climate of risk aversion, mistrust, and passive aggressive silence.

4. Value relationships, and make sure your upper managers value them as well. Healthy, growing companies recognize that human relationships don’t just affect the bottom line, they are the bottom line. Happy, well-balanced employees are the heartbeat and engine of your company. Don’t ignore their well-being or treat it like fluff.

For more tips on engaging your employees and adding some fun to your workplace, reach out to the Des Moines staffing and retention experts at the Palmer Group.

What are some of the key differences between a hard worker and a workaholic? Here are a few tendencies that separate healthy commitment from unhealthy compulsivity:

1. A hard worker shows up every day, but when showing up isn’t possible, she demonstrates flexibility and takes the situation in stride. A workaholic will come in to the office despite illness, deep snow, and other life priorities, no matter how important they may be. 

2. A hard worker also plays hard. When it’s time to change gears, she’s as invested in her tailgate party, card game, violin recital, shopping trip, or beach weekend as she is in her job. The workaholic views these things as distractions.

3. The hard worker ignores her phone when she’s at the table with friends and family. The workaholic can’t leave her phone alone.

4. The hard worker takes yearly vacations. The workaholic doesn’t.

5. The hard worker is healthy and well-adjusted person with an active inner life, an active social life, and diverse interests. The workaholic is an unhappy person with frequent health problems, a limited social life, and few interests outside of work.

As a manager, guess which of these two people will be more productive in your workplace? If you guessed the hard worker, you’re correct. Workaholism benefits nobody, including the company to which the workaholic is so obsessively dedicated. While you encourage your employees to show commitment to your enterprise, watch out for signs that suggest an unhealthy absence of work-life balance. If you don’t, expect an increase in sick days and stress-related morale problems, and a decrease in innovation, teamwork, clear thinking, and flexibility.

If you see signs of workaholism creeping into your workplace culture, take these steps:

1. Actively reach out to identified workaholics. Chat with them in private and ask politely about the state of their health and personal lives. Listen closely to the answers, and if help is warranted, offer it without waiting to be asked.

2. Workaholics often need to be ordered, not invited, to take breaks and vacations. If necessary, deliver instructions to stay home or take time off in the guise of an official command. If something feels like work, or an order given by a boss, workaholics are more likely to comply.

3. Try not to support workaholics with a false sense of heroism. A toxic culture is one that encourages employees to come in when they’re sick, or to engage in cutthroat competition with their own teammates. If you see this kind of obsessive or competitive atmosphere taking hold in your workplace, put a stop to it. Start by setting a personal example. 

Don’t let workaholism drain morale and undermine productivity in your office. Reach out to the staffing experts at the Palmer Group for tips and guidance that can help you keep your employees not just busy, but also happy, healthy, flexible, innovative, and engaged.

Your prize candidate has been standing out from the crowd from day one. Her resume was exceptional, her cover letter was fluid and concise, and her interview knocked the socks off the hiring team and sealed the deal. But fast forward a month later, and she’s gone. What happened between that moment and this one that caused her to make waves on her first day…with another company?

If simple mistakes are causing your best candidates to get away, then by all means, find out what these mistakes are and fix them. Your people are your most valuable form of capital, and hiring losses can have a powerful impact on your bottom line. Don’t let them happen over and over again. Keep a few tips in mind.

Close the Deal with Great Candidates Before They Get Away

1. Find work-arounds to get past bureaucratic issues. Maybe the HR employee responsible for signing the formal offer is on vacation, and maybe she won’t be back for two weeks. If so, don’t let the process stall until her return. Make sure HR knows that this candidate is a keeper and her background check and offer letter are a top priority. Move the work through another channel.

2. Show respect. If you aren’t yet ready to put together an official offer, or one of your key decision makers will be unavailable for a few days, don’t simply leave the candidate in silence. Reach out, explain the delay, and give her an unofficial timeline.

3. Keep a multi-stage screening process in motion. If the hiring decision requires three rounds of interviews, plus a work sample, plus a reference check, don’t let weeks go by in between each of these milestones.

4. Keep communication channels open. If you’ve left one aspect of the decision in the hands of HR, the hiring manager, or the department head, check in on a regular basis and stay updated regarding this person’s thoughts.

Great candidates don’t stop moving, and they don’t put a job search on hold while they wait to hear back from one employer. If you like what you see, take action. Try to view things from the candidate’s perspective and recognize that she’s just as interested in getting off the job market as you are in filling your position. For additional guidance and specific questions about the hiring process, reach out to the Des Moines Staffing experts at the Palmer Group.

Before you decide to launch an unpaid (or low paid) internship program in your workplace, it’s a good idea to ask yourself one important question: Why? What do you expect to get out of the process? A stronger foothold for your business? A way to give back to your community? Or both? Or something else altogether? Internship programs can be rewarding for both the intern and employer, but they can also lead to confusing relationships, mismatched expectations, and bad memories. The best way to launch an internship program is to start by clarifying your goals. When you’ve done this and you’re ready to move forward, keep a few considerations in mind.
 
Interns are Not Employees

Interns are usually college students or recent grads in their early twenties. They don’t yet have the experience they need to impress potential employers, and at the same time, their lack of experience means they have little to offer to most companies and can’t yet be trusted with much responsibility. An internship helps these young people cover the gap between academia and working life, and in exchange, the companies who provide this service receive an opportunity to help and inspire a young person who shows an interest in the business. Other than a feeling of altruism and a potential source of trusted employees in the future, companies have little to gain from this relationship.

But employers don’t always see things this way, and they make this mistake at their peril. Remember: an unpaid intern is not a source of free labor. If someone on the worksite is being paid less than the legal minimum wage, that person is not an employee. She should not be saddled with expectations, she should not be handed important responsibilities, and her presence should be understood as entirely voluntary. Everything she offers an employer places the employer in her debt. Move forward with your intern program only if you fully understand all the legal and ethical implications of this arrangement.

Structuring an Internship

Once you understand the nature of the intern relationship, structure your program carefully. Give interns low-responsibility tasks that expose them to as many aspects of the business as possible, and listen closely to determine their areas of interest. Allow them to see how the office and the business are run without allowing them to interfere, slow productivity, or cause potential harm. Keep these four important goals in mind. The intern should:

1. Get a sense of what the workplace looks, feels, and sounds like
2. Learn how the business model works and how the company makes money
3. Meet professionals in the business and get to know them personally
4. Have exposure to the expectations that will be placed upon them once they land their first jobs.

Make sure your interns are given a daily schedule which allows them to gain maximum exposure the items above without wasting their time. Also, make sure all interns are assigned to specific contact person who can provide information and answer their questions as needed. For specific guidance as you move forward with your internship program, reach out to the Des Moines staffing and employment experts at the Palmer Group.

If your job is a constant source of stress, or if you don’t feel you’re gaining the rewards, the advancement, or the sense of satisfaction that you need from your professional life, your list of New Year’s resolutions this year may have a strong work-related theme. But is it the right theme? And are your goals and resolutions actually ready to take your career where it needs to go? Here are a few things to keep in mind as you move forward.

Stay Put or Move On

If your list contains goal after goal related to trying harder, working longer hours, investing more, sacrificing more, and finally earning that promotion that you’ve been denied (twice), it may be time for a fresh approach. Throwing more energy into an uphill battle may be the answer, and a little more patience and elbow grease might be just enough to turn things around. But if your list is heavily weighed down with resolutions like these, it may be time to start looking for fulfillment, success and satisfaction elsewhere. This job may have its pros and cons, but if the list of cons is getting too long and it’s becoming a herculean task to simply get the basic respect and advancement you need, start scanning the market landscape and looking for better opportunities.

A New List of Resolutions

This means scrapping your current list of New Year’s resolutions. Instead of items like “try to finally achieve quota this year” or “finally figure out how to be heard in meetings”, try a new list. Think about where you’d like to be in a year. Form a clear picture of what you’d like to accomplish. To bring this vision to life, where will you need to be in six months? How about three months? Clarify a single long term goal, and then start breaking that goal down into smaller, more manageable projects.

By mid-January, you should have a plan of action and a polished, edited resume in hand. By February, you’ll have had lunch with at least five of your mentors and professional contacts. By March, you should be scanning job boards and applying daily for new positions. Figure out where you need to go, then start taking steps to get there.

Need some extra help and guidance to get your job search off the ground? Contact the Des Moines staffing professionals at the Palmer Group. We have the industry contacts, experience, and resources you need to move your career forward. Call our office and arrange a consultation today.