the next generation of recruiting

5 years of Millennial research yielding tens of thousands of responses and 1 comprehensive conclusion:  we are in a recruiting revolution.  The Millennial generation has brought burden and benefit to every aspect of business, including recruiting.  Technology has driven change and challenge in every aspect of business, including recruiting.  Competition has intensified pressure and purpose in every aspect of business, including recruiting.  While the term "revolution" can be read as cliche, what recruiting as a facet and a function is experiencing is certainly faster and more frenetic than what would be described as the typical evolutionary forces of business.  Generational preferences related to culture, compensation, and leadership are radically different for Milllennials than for Xers and Boomers.  Technology's impact on attracting and acquiring talent makes obsolete strategies and tactics that aren't even years old.  All the while, the war waging among market leaders for talent makes everything seem that much more urgent.  The Next Generation of Recruiting teaches how to personalize our approach to the preferences of the Millennial generation, realize the full potential and limitations of technology's' role in recruiting, and actualize our vision of a diverse and dedicated workforce.  Everything from job descriptions, to attracting interested and qualified applicants, to evaluating candidates, to selection and orientation is covered as part of a complete program for modernizing the recruiting process. 

the next generation of training

Once considered a burden, training is now viewed as a benefit in recruiting and retaining the best talent.  Historically training brought most of its criticism upon itself.  Programs were largely outdated, monotonous, boring, and, at best, neutral in impact.  The cost of doing it, in many cases, actually outweighed the cost of avoiding it.  But something began to change as Millennials made their preference for personal and professional development a priority in many organizations.  It was realized that people got better when the training got better.  It was realized that training became embraced when it became engaging. The truth is that training is one of the only functions in an organization that can simultaneously increase performance and decrease turnover. This is why so many industry leaders are now doubling down on L&D. Through working with hundreds of trainers, professors, instructors, and coaches, we've been able to study the methods and mechanisms of some of the best developers of talent in the world. We've used these findings to modernize the design and delivery of onboarding and ongoing training. Our approach is to engineer training events and regimens for our clients that are deployable within their financial and human resource capabilities, measurable in impact on the organization, and enjoyable for participants. The Next Generation of Training teaches how to invest in improvement in a way that makes the cost look minimal in the shadow of its impact.

finding the right fit

"Fit" is one of the biggest business buzzwords these days...like "disruption", "innovation", and "analytics"...and like those terms, there is real value in "Fit" when we look deeper than a flashy definition and ubiquitous application.  Fit is simple:  do you know what capabilities and characteristics are required to be successful in a role and how to source the person that has them.  And Fit is complicated: the required combination of capabilities and characteristics is often changing based on the goals of the role and the environment around it.  Further, finding the person with the right combination is subject to all the challenges of attracting and acquiring talent. But even with its simplicity and its complexities, the fact is that Fit is the most fundamental principle in recruiting and retaining the right people.  Fit is our target, our specification, our pursuit, our visualization of the perfect person for a position. Once we define and refine the position's specification, then we efficiently search for the person who meets the spec.  Don't misunderstand Finding the Right Fit as a topic that teaches how to write a good job description.  The program goes much deeper by exposing the audience to a "Fitness Test" that enables those involved in the search to calibrate the Fit to the company's culture, gain buy-in from those in the organization who are receiving who is being recruited,  and ultimately connecting the candidate's expectations with what the candidate will experience upon arrival.  

employee engagement

Employee Engagement is the extent to which employees are connected to their organization and willing to put discretionary effort into their work.  We can break that down to make it even simpler:  Employee Engagement is the extent of an employee's effort to exceed expectations.  Most of your team isn't engaged enough to endeavor beyond your expectations.  They hit goals, then they stop.  They fulfill requirements, then they rest.  They deliver on a job description, then they disconnect.  And why shouldn't they?  What is the organization doing to promote the pursuit of full potential?  Engagement measures an employee's motivation to do more than the minimum requirement.  So if there is no motivation then why should there be engagement?  The most powerful part of this equation is the lost performance that lies beyond the barrier of expectation.  How much more could the employee achieve?  How much more could the team contribute?  You can't know and you won't know until you measure their current level of engagement.  And once you do know then you'll be motivated to maximize their engagement.  Employee Engagement is an integrated program that measures current employee engagement and then guides leadership through a personalized plan that elevates engagement to ultimately capture the full potential of performance. 

skills equity

We recruit.  We train.  We motivate.  We manage. Occasionally, we coach.  Often, we evaluate. But do we ever transform?  Do we ever really transform a person into the professional that they could be?  Do we ever grow someone into the professional they should be?  Can we ever fully capitalize on their capabilities? One of the few undeniable principles of modern leadership is that individual growth gets institutional gain. By growing people, we grow profit. Yet very little time and effort is spent developing our people. We categorize them into "high performers" and "poor performers" as if their existence can be explained with a single evaluation. A "high performer" almost always performs poorly at one facet of their responsibilities. A "poor performer" almost certainly shows promise at one function of their role. The high performer is rewarded and left alone for their potential to plateau. The poor performer is marginalized before it is realized that they are one small behavior change away from realizing their full potential. Skills Equity teaches us how to identify the skills that are essential to success in a role, assess each individual's current level of competency at each skill, then advance the level of competency of each skill.  That's how individual growth gets institutional gain.  

successful socialization

So much time and energy is invested in the recruiting and training of our teams, and rightfully so.  But then it seems that we just let go and let nature take its course...nature can be cruel. We've got to get more invested in how we introduce and integrate individuals into the people, processes, and purpose that are already in place.  Socialization is the integration of individuals into a functioning group. And it has more influence on a team's performance than talent or tactics. Socialization is occurring right now on every team and in every territory, in every plant and on every project, in every office and throughout the entire organization. Successful Socialization is connective and cohesive...it focuses the team and allows it to function. Everyone Adopts an Institutional Identity and Adapts to Individual Identities. Performance is prioritized and we all connect to a common cause. Unsuccessful Socialization is divisive and disruptive....it distracts and causes dysfunction. The group coalesces around trivial traits and becomes tribal. Individuals are marginalized and innovation is minimized. We lose our most talented people before we ever get the chance to lead them. The topic Successful Socialization helps us avoid the stagnation that stalls growth by creating a culture that welcomes new people and ideas while not compromising core values.