10 Tips For Reducing Employee Turnover

by Heather Huhman on May 17, 2013, 11:20 AM  |  1 Comment in Share 246

Many people agree turnover is a growing issue, particularly as hiring picks up.

But what are most organizations doing about it, aside from implementing some short-term solutions when they discover it’s a problem?

Reducing employee turnover actually starts with the hiring process — but there are important management aspects to consider as well. Here’s what several experts had to say about the issue:

During the hiring process

Use video interviews and social media to hire for fit. Employee turnover is a big, and expensive, problem for many companies. To reduce turnover, it’s important to look for candidates who will fit into the company culture with ease. Using video interviews and social media interaction, you can judge cultural fit more quickly now than ever before. A highly skilled candidate is great, but to avoid turnover you’ll also need a candidate who will love working for your company long-term. – Josh Tolan, Spark Hire

Look at all aspects of candidates. Although this sounds simple, the fact is, many employers don’t look at all aspects of a candidate, such as how they’d fit in with a team or if their values align with the company’s. When you evaluate all aspects of a candidate, you’ll chose the right employees. In turn, this will reduce turnover because, in conjunction with performing well, employees will want to be there. – Alan Carniol, Interview Success Formula

Make cultural fit top experience when hiring. Increasing employee retention will mean improving hiring efforts. Employers should focus their efforts on acquiring candidates who are not just skilled for the position, but are also a strong cultural fit for the company. Behavior-based screening and interviewing will help to make best long-term hires. – Nathan Parcells, InternMatch

Retaining current employees

Invest in your staff. This does not just refer to compensation, which is vital to retaining top talent, but also spending the time to mentor, train and advance your staff. The reason that most people quit is out of frustration with the status quo, and lack of future development. The trick is to communicate with your staff from the onset

and set clear goals that you review with them at least twice a year. Then create an environment where new ideas are encouraged, good work is rewarded and people are allowed to stretch themselves to take on new roles and responsibilities. – Lynn Dixon, Hourly.com

People management and balance reduces turnovers. It’s about people management. It’s about managing their expectations, their motivations, their problems, and even their joys. Instead of asking “how hard will you work for our company”, ask people what they will do to balance their work/home life. Balanced, contented employees will be productive, successful, and loyal. – Clara Lippert Glenn,The Oxford Princeton Programme

Collect input on how the company should be run. Ask your employees what they think! Everyone is a knowledge worker today, and everyone should have input in how their part of the organization can or should be run. Let the command and control hierarchical decision-making die a fast death. – Shirley Engelmeier, InclusionINC

Provide regular feedback. Engage in weekly feedback sessions. Employees are hungry for feedback that makes them better. Setting up weekly keep-doing, start-doing, stop-doing sessions is fast and effective at making the the employee feel valued and heard. — David James Singh, Kira Talent

Identify and offer unusual employee benefits. For many companies, standard employees benefit programs are not always given the fanfare that they deserve. But by offering programs that might be a bit out of the ordinary — such as pet insurance, Health Savings Accounts, Job-Sharing Days, etc. — an employee’s appreciation and attachment to a company may grow. – Jason Pinto, CBG Benefits

Create meaningful employee experiences. Philips undertook extensive research in 2012 to understand the motivators and insights behind what today’s graduates and professionals want from their careers. The findings confirm that employees want more than a paycheck from their job. Engagement levels rise when employees feel empowered to apply what matters to them to everything they work on and with an employer whose mission aligns to their personal values. Encourage people to apply what makes them great as people to the outcomes they are driving and they’ll want to get out of bed in the morning to contribute to their employers’ success. – Russell Schramm, Philips

Open the lines of communication. Ask your employees what they want. Take what they say and implement it. Not every suggestion will be viable, but it’s important for them to know you value you them individually, that their voices are heard. Open communication can also give you advanced warning if someone is unhappy and thinking about leaving so that you can address the issue. – Bethany Perkins, Software Advice

What do you think? What else can employers do to reduce turnover and retain top employees?

Heather R. Huhman is the founder and president of Come Recommended , a content marketing and digital PR consultancy for organizations with products that target job seekers and/or employers. Contact her at heather@comerecommended.com .

An Effective Company Culture: It Only Happens When Everybody Owns It

by Derek Irvine on May 14, 2013, 7:09 AM  |  0 Comments in Share 241

Culture. I write about it all the time, yet I never seem to unpack all the myriad facets of culture.

Just think about all the different ways the word itself can be used:

A “cultured” person – one who carefully monitors their own behaviors so that they align with the best expectations of the environment they are in.

Cultured pearls – a thing of beauty created by human intervention into a natural process.

Ethnic or geographic culture – the traditions, behaviors and even expectations of a people group as defined over a very long period of time.

Company culture – “the way we do things around here.”

A 20-30% difference in corporate performance

I think that last one is lazy phrasing for a profound idea.

Indeed, company culture is far more than an idea. It is perhaps the combination of my three prior definitions. It is certainly shaped by human intervention and influenced by traditions and behaviors of the many over time. And yet it is the daily, individual choices about personal behaviors and actions that can dramatically (and subtly) shift a company’s culture quite quickly.

Culture became top of mind for me again this week after reading this post in the Harvard Business Review (HBR) Blog. Author John Coleman unpacks the six different key factors of culture (Vision, Values, Practices, People, Narrative, Place) with which I agree wholeheartedly. Company culture is all of things and can be changed at the drop of a hat if any one of these things is changed in a demonstrable way.

Yet it’s the statistic right in his opening paragraph that grabs my attention most. (The stat comes from this article):

Effective culture can account for 20-30 percent of the differential in corporate performance when compared with ‘culturally unremarkable’ competitors.”

How are you enabling employees?

“Effective” culture – that’s a key driving factor in corporate success. John Coleman’s key factors of Vision, Values, Practices, People, Narrative and Place are indeed the forces behind an effective culture.

But do not make the mistake of putting the creation of an effective culture on the shoulders of leadership alone. We all – all employees within an organization – own the company’s culture. Every person’s actions that reflect the values (or don’t) and contribute to achieving the mission (or hinder it) shape the culture in a new way every day.

The more important question for leaders is: How are you enabling every employee to own the culture and impact it on a daily basis? What are you doing to ensure every employees knows the vision, understands the values, and knows what “practice” they can implement in their own work to achieve it?

Do you know how to do this in your own role? If not, what would you need to do so?

You can find more from Derek Irvine on his Recognize This!   blog. Derek Irvine is Vice President, Client Strategy & Consulting Service at Globoforce, a global provider of strategic employee recognition and reward programs. In his role as a thought leader for employee recognition at Globoforce, Derek helps clients set a higher ambition for global, strategic employee recognition, leading consultative workshops and strategy setting meetings with such organizations as Avnet, Celestica, Dow Chemical, Intuit, KPMG, Logica, P&G, Symantec, and Thompson Reuters. Contact him at irvine@globoforce.com.

12 Interview Questions That Will Reveal the Very Best Candidates

by Dr. John Sullivan on Apr 2, 2013, 8:10 AM  |  86 Comments in Share 2,315

If you’re not getting exceptional hires, it may be because your traditional interview process is simply not designed to excite them.

Instead of dwelling on the past, a superior alternative is to ask them to solve real problems, and to demonstrate that they are forward-looking and that they have solutions for the future.

Top candidates routinely dislike standard interviews because they find them tedious and predictable. Most interviews are simply not designed to allow a top candidate to show off their capabilities, ideas, and innovation.

As a result, if you are recruiting for a mission-critical job that requires an exceptional hire, you simply cannot afford to bore top candidates with standard interview questions.

The weakness in interview questions

Everyone who has done any reading about interview accuracy already knows that they are typically one of the weakest assessment devices for hiring. In fact my own research has uncovered no less than 30 different problems with standard interviews (see 20 more problems here), and more than 50 different alternatives to standard interviews.

One of the weaknesses is that the interview questions that are typically used focus on historical situations that occurred at another firm. But what you need to know is how this individual will perform now at your firm. That requires getting them to demonstrate how they will solve the problems that they will face in your job.

Most typical questions have already been anticipated and practiced for by the interviewee to the point that their answers are not authentic. So if you’re going to interview top professionals, here are 12 questions to select from that I have found will quickly reveal which one of your exceptional applicants is the very best.

The 12 questions I have provided here are broken into four distinct categories. In this article, they are presented as interview questions, but they can also be provided in a questionnaire format, which can give candidates more time to think, while simultaneously saving some of a hiring manager’s valuable time.

A – Questions relating to identifying, solving real problems

These questions are known as content questions, and they are usually determined to be valid because they actually reflect the content of the job. In addition, they allow the candidate to show off their skills in problems solving. If you agree that the best hires are those who can first identify problems accurately and then are able to solve them, these questions can be effective.

The following three questions work best if you pre-test them on a current top performer to ensure that they can quickly understand the problem and that they can in a short period of time outline a solution to it.

1. How will you identify problems and opportunities on the job? “The best new hires rapidly seek to identify problems that must be quickly addressed in their new job. So, please walk us through the steps of the process that you will actually use during your first weeks to identify the most important current issues/problems, as well as any possible positive opportunities in your new job.”

2. Can you identify the likely problems in this process? “Our employees should be able to quickly identify problems in our existing processes, systems, or products. So please look over this outline of one of our processes and identify the top three areas or points where you predict that serious problems are likely to occur?” (Hand them a single page showing an existing process or system related to this job that you already know to have flaws).

3. Solve a real problem that you will face. “Because we need to know your capability for solving the actual problems you will face in this job, we would like to see how you will go about solving a real problem. “Please walk us through the broad steps that you would take in order to solve this problem that will be on your desk on your first day.” (Then hand them a half sheet with bullet points outlining the existing problem).

B – Questions that show you are forward looking

If your firm operates in a fast-evolving environment, you will need employees who are forward looking and who anticipate and plan for the future. These questions can tell you if your candidate meets those requirements.

4. Forecast the evolution of this job. “Because our jobs constantly change and evolve, being forward-looking is critical if you are to be successful. So please project or forecast at least five different ways that the job you are applying for will likely change and evolve over the next three years as a result of business changes, technology changes, and a faster, more innovative environment.”

5. Forecast the evolution of this industry. “Because we operate in a fast-changing industry, our employees should be forward-looking, and anticipate and plan ahead for those industry changes. So, please tell us how often you sit down and focus on the future of our industry? Next, please forecast and project five trends in our industry and forecast how the top firms will likely have to change over the next three to five years as a result of these business changes, new technology, and the need for increased speed and innovation.”

C – Questions about a candidate’s ability to innovate, adapt, learn

Many times our best hires are those who are rapid continuous learners, those who are adaptable, and those who can innovate. If you want to assess these factors, consider asking these questions.

6. Show us how you would be a continuous learning expert. “Rapid learning is essential in our fast moving company and industry. So please select an important subject matter area in this job where you will need to continuously be on the bleeding edge of knowledge. Then show us in some detail how you will initially learn and then maintain your expert status.” (Alternatively you can ask how they maintained their expert status in their current job).

7. Show us your adaptability when dramatic change is required. “In the fast changing, chaotic, and volatile environment we operate under, everyone and every process should be adaptable. So please show us how you would adapt to this situation that may occur in this job (provide them with a possible major change that requires adaptivity in this job) by walking us through the steps of how you would adapt to it.” (Alternatively you can ask, “Please show us a situation in your current job during the last year that required you to change rapidly and adapt with a completely different approach. Tell us the name of the situation that required this significant adaptiveness and then walk us through the steps of how you and your team successfully adapted.”)

8. Show us how you will innovate. “Our firm is focused on innovation, so we need to know if each new hire has the capability of innovating. So please select a single important area in this job and walk us through the steps as to how you might innovate in that area during your first year?” (As an alternative, you can ask them to select an area in their previous job and then to walk through the steps on how that innovation was created and implemented, and what their role was in each step.)

D – Help us better understand you

Some interview questions that relate to individuals’ competencies or preferences can be improved by requiring the candidate to rank their answers from most important to least important. In order to ensure that you successfully “sell” a top candidate, the most valuable question covers the decision factors that they will use to accept this job.

Other questions where ranked answers are superior in revealing their preferences involve their motivators, their strengths, and the best ways to manage them.

9. List and rank your job acceptance factors. “We know that you have choices, so if we make you an offer, we obviously want it to meet your needs. And that requires knowing what factors that you will use (i.e. pay, job duties, fit with your manager, levels of responsibility, etc.) to determine if  ’our job’ is the right job for you. So if you had a choice between two offers for your next job, please list the top five factors that you would use to evaluate and accept the superior job opportunity. Please list them in their descending order of importance to you.”

10. List and rank your job motivators. “We want to ensure that we provide every employee with the right set of motivators. So please list the top five factors that you have found that best motivate you on the job. Please list them in their descending order of importance to you.”

11. Tell us the most effective approaches for managing you. “We want to ensure that every new employee has the best chance of succeeding. You can help us to reach that goal by highlighting the most effective ways to manage you. For each of these how to manage you factors (i.e. feedback, rewards, closeness of supervision, communications approach, and leadership style preference), please explain to us the most effective approach for optimizing your performance.”

12. List and rank the capabilities that you bring to this job. “It’s important to fully understand the strengths of each new hire and how they match the requirements for the job. So, given the

four important categories of knowledge, experience, education, and skills, can you please list in descending order what you have found to be your strongest five capabilities that will make you a top performer in the job?” (As an option, if you are concerned about weaknesses, you can also add this question: “Based on past manager assessments, 360s, and appraisals, what is the top job-related area where you need to improve the most, and what actions are you taking to improve in that area?”)

Final thoughts

Hiring managers should be aware that thanks to social media, interview questions are now easily available to the public. That means that if you work for a major firm,  candidates can now find the actual interview questions (and the best answers) that were previously asked by hiring managers in any job family at your firm on websites like Glassdoor.

So if you rely on typical interview questions, you will likely get fully rehearsed answers.

In contrast, the questions I have provided here are designed to make rehearsing more difficult. They work best on sophisticated professionals who know how to identify and solve problems. But don’t be surprised that if you ask these in-depth questions to an average candidate, they will respond with a blank look.

Obviously asking good questions is only the first part of the assessment equation; you must also prepare a range of answers from great to weak for each question, so that you know in advance when you hear a great answer. I have developed and used each of these questions professionally over several decades so I can vouch for their effectiveness.

If you use them, you will find like I have that top performers and professionals prefer these types of questions over the mundane “tell-me-about-yourself” questions that they normally get. Whether you use my questions or develop your own, these types of questions are superior because they are focused on 1) real problems, 2) this job, and 3) your firm.

Dr. John Sullivan is a well-known teacher, author, and HR thought leader. He is a frequent speaker and advisor to Fortune 500 and Silicon Valley firms. Formerly the chief talent officer for Agilent Technologies (the 43,000-employee HP spin-off), he is now a professor of management at San Francisco State University. An expert on recruiting and staffing, he was dubbed the "Michael Jordan of Hiring" by Fast Company magazine. Contact him at johns@sfsu.edu.