Yearly Archives: 2013

LinkedIn is a high performance talent recruiting solution

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The web has changed how we communicate, stay in touch with family and friends, sell products, purchase goods and now the way we recruit and retain employees. A firm no longer needs to hire an expensive headhunter or recruitment firm to identify and attract top talent. Anyone with a LinkedIn profile can find potential candidates through their network of contacts.

LinkedIn is capitalizing on the power of their network of 238 million registered users to offer more advanced talent tools that can help any size organization mine for the talent they need to grow their company.  Linkedin presentation on Recruiter

Today I attended a presentation by LinkedIn on their corporate Recruiter talent solution.  This tool or solution is not something you just add as a premium paid service to your existing free account. It is a much more complete solution in that it not only provides the power to tap into the vast database of information available from the profiles of users, but it includes what seems to be customized consulting services provided by a team of highly knowledgeable account  managers and support staff.

With the Recruiter solution from LinkedIn you can locate anyone throughout the vast network of LinkedIn who has the skills and experience you seek and then approach them directly. But LinkedIn claims that how to approach people and how to make your company appealing to people who are not actually seeking a change is an art that a company needs to understand. This is where the LinkedIn consulting services that are part of this corporate Recruiter package provides attractive value to any organization looking to adjust to the new way of attracting top talent.

According to research, the younger generation of talent are very mobile in terms of employment and are interested in change if it provides challenging and interesting work. This means that the hiring organization needs to appear to be exciting to them, not just the job itself.

Because of the ongoing war for talent in hard to fill positions, LinkedIn says that talent hungry competitive organizations must learn how to brand themselves better to attract the skilled workforce they require. They compare the recruiting component of these organizations to the sales function. Top sales and marketing people are always selling their company, product and services and recruiters must start thinking the same way to make their organization stand out.

LinkedIn does not provide pricing for the Recruiter platform and solutions, but claim they need to do a needs analysis to determine the investment required for a particular organization.

Stephen Goldberg

Interview with Pina Di Girolamo, certified human resources professional consultant

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An interview with certified human resources professional consultant Pina DiGirolamo on the law for pay equity in Quebec, employee training and Bill 90 and also employee manuals. Pina talks about how companies can benefit from implementing these practices well in their businesses and also the requirements of the law for pay equity and training. Pina can be contacted through her company website at http://actagestionis.com/

Une entrevue avec certifié ressources humaines consultant Pina DiGirolamo sur l’équité salariale au Québec, la formation des employés et aussi de manuels de l’employé. Pina raconte comment les entreprises peuvent bénéficier de la mise en œuvre de ces pratiques correctement dans leurs entreprises et aussi les exigences de la loi pour l’équité salariale et de formation. Pina peut être contacté via le site Web de la société à http://actagestionis.com/

How to improve business results interview with consultant Tom Merson

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In this video interview, small business consultant Tom Merson explains and gives examples of how small business can grow their businesses in today’s digital economy.

Tom talks about one of his clients, a local cleaning company, who he helped save money on Yellow Page advertising without losing any sales.

He also tells about a swimming pool retailer in the mid US who increased their sales by $1 million in 18 months by using social media, while reducing advertising spending by over $100,000. This was taken from a case study produced by Hubspot and can be accessed by clicking on the image below. Tom Merson can be reached at contact@tommerson.ca or visit his website at Tommerson.ca

Stephen Goldberg

How to clarify performance expectations for improved employee engagement and productivity

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Clarifying performance expectations of employees can have a huge impact on employee engagement and productivity. I like to compare this to sports because all the players and coaches know and understand clearly the rules of the game and the factors that constitute to success or failure. The key indicators of performance are constantly being measured and fed back to the players and coaches.

But in organizations this is not always the case and often people do not know if they are succeeding and meeting their bosses expectations. Even if they are told when something is not right or needs improvement this does not mean that expectations of successful performance are clear.

Setting clear expectations does not have to be a long and arduous exercise. The important thing is to get started and communicate the expectations to those concerned.

Start with a good job description
You can begin  the process of clarifying expectations by write a good job description. Refer to my previous blog and video that covers this and also download a job description template and a sample job description..

Identify high payoff activities
From the job description put a star next to the most important tasks. These are often referred to as high payoff activities.  These can then be defined as performance standards or expectations.

Define the performance standard or expectation
In my example job description, I wrote a task for preparing PowerPoint presentations. An example performance standard for this task could be;
PowerPoint presentations are aesthetically pleasing and use a well balanced color scheme that reflects our company branding. The presentations communicate the message dynamically using 70-80% images or graphics and words are at least 24 pts or larger.  This gives a pretty clear picture of what is expected but can be further enhanced with the measurement method.

Choose a measurement method
A way of measuring each standard must be determined. When establishing a performance standard for the PowerPoint presentation example, it is recommended to use an example such as a previous PowerPoint presentation or choose an external reference source that meets the criteria.

Some performance standards are easier than others to define and measure. For example measuring the prospecting activity of a salesperson might be fairly simple to measure using a CRM software but the task of relationship building might be more difficult. However make measuring of performance as simple and easy as possible otherwise this could stand in the way of actually clarifying expectations.

Track and feedback
It is also important to provide regular feedback of performance against the standards or expectations. This could be statistical in the case of prospecting activities or through discussion and examination of the work output for the PowerPoint example. Either way, it is important to meet regularly with the employee to discuss their performance against the established standards. This way communication improves and the employee gets to clarify any questions or possible misunderstandings. These meetings also provide an opportunity to set performance improvement goals for below standard performance but also to raise the bar on well performed tasks. How can the employee bring their PowerPoint presentation designs to the next level? How can the salesperson get better results from their prospecting activities?

Thus these performance review or appraisal meetings should occur at least once a quarter or even once a month. I the case of new employees it might even be once  a week for the first three months. A simple form can be designed to keep track of each review meeting and add notes..

Be committed
Committing to this simple process will greatly benefit the employee, their boss and the organization. It will also help teamwork as each person will know what is expected of their teammates. In a future article and video I will cover how to provide proper feedback to  employees during these sessions.

Stephen Goldberg