Mobile Recruiting

Okay so today's topic is mobile recruiting... Thank you Anna. :)


According to many bloggers and recruitment studies performed over the last few years, Mobile Recruiting is the next wave of recruitment technology that employers must understand and utilize in order to stay ahead of their competitors when it comes to employee recruitment. You’ll be left behind if you don’t go mobile. PEW Internet states the mobile device will be the primary connection tool to the internet for most people in the world in 2020.


I’m sure you can think of a time when you or a colleague wanted to look something up and quickly took out the Blackberry (Or CrackBerry as I lovingly refer to it) went to google or bing and found what you needed. CareerBuilder, Monster and many other large Job Board sites now have mobile apps that candidates can use to manage their resumes and job applications online.
What are some examples of these Apps?
According to The Talent Buzz the top apps in 2010 were:
1. CareerBliss (Free) – Powered by CareerBliss.com, this app contains helpful information on company reviews, salaries, job searching, interviewing tips, and more from current and former employees. (Wonder what they are saying about your company?)


2. Good Job – ($2.99) – Keep your job search organized with all activities related to your job search. With the Good Job app, you can track jobs from multiple sites, contacts, tasks, interview schedules and much more.


3. LinkUp (Free) – From LinkUp.com this is a company direct job search engine, and only lists jobs that are found on company and employer websites.


4. Real-Time Jobs (Free) – Not just for twitter users, real-time jobs was released at the end of 2010. This app enables job seekers to attach an online resume, social media profile, and video to job offers that have been posted on twitter.


5. Job Compass (Free) – One of the highest rated job search apps, Job Compass searches through millions of jobs across the U.S. You can also plot them on a map in relation to your current position, in addition to applying online.


6. Resume Pro ($2.99) – Create a PDF resume on your phone with Resume PRO by inputting personal and professional information. You can preview your resume and email as a PDF to yourself or someone else. There’s also a generic cover letter you can include when sending your resume.


7. BeamMe CV and Resume Sender ($5.99) – With this app you can have a business card and professional resume ready at all times. Upload your resume and create your own vCard using the app and BeamMe will let you easily send them to any phone number (including non-smartphones), or email address.


8. Interview Pro ($1.99) – This app will help in prepping for the next interview. You can search by skills, review related questions, and areas to focus on.


9. LinkedIn (Free) – The LinkedIn app allows you to leverage power of your professional network on-the-go.


10. The Hire Syndicate (Free) – is the only recruiter split placement community that enables recruiters to collaborate with networks of trusted recruiters and share placements used real time and mobile recruiting technology.


11. AutoSearch ($4.99) – Offers recruiters the ability to scour the internet for top prospective candidates and leads without spending hours on dozens of individual sites or forming complicated Boolean search strings.
Are you on-top of the latest and greatest Mobile Recruiting technology? Have you used SMS or Google Talk or other like products to communicate with applicants?






More to come…

What is the real benefit in employee development?

What is the real benefit in employee development?

If you have ever partnered with operational leaders before you know that they truly want to know what the effect on their bottom line is, meaning how is it going to impact their area financially.  It’s important that we focus on the positive financial impact that having a solid well developed employee development program can truly have.

So let’s look at this logically, what are the benefits of a strong program:

1.      Creating a pool of readily available and acclimatized promotional ready employees.

2.      Enhancing the company’s ability to adopt and use advances in technology because of a knowledgeable staff.

3.      Building a more effective and highly motivated team, this allows the company to be more competitive within their industry.

4.      It helps to reduce turnover, because employee engagement increases which lessens the increasing cost of turnover.

5.      Increases overall efficiency.

There is an excellent article by William G. Bliss, “Cost of Employee Turnover” which I have included below.

COST OF EMPLOYEE TURNOVER
by William G. Bliss

The following is a comprehensive checklist of items to include when calculating the cost of turnover in any organization. To determine the costs, have the hourly and weekly cost of fully loaded payroll costs (i.e. salary plus benefits) of the vacant position, the management staff, the recruitment staff and others as outlined below.

It should be noted that the costs of time and lost productivity are no less important or real than the costs associated with paying cash to vendors for services such as advertising or temporary staff. These are all very real costs to the employer.

These calculations will easily reach 150% of the employees annual compensation figure. The cost will be significantly higher (200% to 250% of annual compensation) for managerial and sales positions.

To put this into perspective, let's assume the average salary of employees in a given company is $50,000 per year. Taking the cost of turnover at 150% of salary, the cost of turnover is then $75,000 per employee who leaves the company. For the mid-sized company of 1,000 employees who has a 10% annual rate of turnover, the annual cost of turnover is $7.5 million!

Do you know any CEO who would not want to add $7.5 million to their revenue? And, by the way, most of that figure would be carried over to the profit line as well. What about the company with 10,000 employees? The cost of turnover equals $75 million!

Here is the list:

Costs Due to a Person Leaving

1. Calculate the cost of the person(s) who fills in while the position is vacant. This can be either the cost of a temporary or the cost of existing employees performing the vacant job as well as their own. Include the cost at overtime rates.
2. Calculate the cost of lost productivity at a minimum of 50% of the person's compensation and benefits cost for each week the position is vacant, even if there are people performing the work. Calculate the lost productivity at 100% if the position is completely vacant for any period of time.
3. Calculate the cost of conducting an exit interview to include the time of the person conducting the interview, the time of the person leaving, the administrative costs of stopping payroll, benefit deductions, benefit enrollments, COBRA notification and administration, and the cost of the various forms needed to process a resigning employee.
4. Calculate the cost of the manager who has to understand what work remains, and how to cover that work until a replacement is found. Calculate the cost of the manager who conducts their own version of the employee exit interview.
5. Calculate the cost of training your company has invested in this employee who is leaving. Include internal training, external programs and external academic education. Include licenses or certifications the company has helped the employee obtain to do their job effectively.
6. Calculate the impact on departmental productivity because the person is leaving. Who will pick up the work, whose work will suffer, what departmental deadlines will not be met or delivered late. Calculate the cost of department staff discussing their reactions to the vacancy.
7. Calculate the cost of severance and benefits continuation provided to employees who are leaving that are eligible for coverage under these programs.
8. Calculate the cost of lost knowledge, skills and contacts that the person who is leaving is taking with them out of your door. Use a formula of 50% of the person's annual salary for one year of service, increasing each year of service by 10%.
9. Calculate the cost impact of unemployment insurance premiums as well as the time spent to prepare for an unemployment hearing, or the cost paid to a third party to handle the unemployment claim process on your behalf.
10. Calculate the cost of loosing customers that the employee is going to take with them, or the amount it will cost you to retain the customers of the sales person, or customer service representative who leaves.
11. Subtract the cost of the person who is leaving for the amount of time the position is vacant.

Recruitment Costs

1. The cost of advertisements (from a $200.00 classified to a $5,000.00 or more display advertisement); agency costs at 20 - 30% of annual compensation; employee referral costs of $500.00 - $2,000.00 or more; internet posting costs of $300.00 - $500.00 per listing.
2. The cost of the internal recruiter's time to understand the position requirements, develop and implement a sourcing strategy, review candidates backgrounds, prepare for interviews, conduct interviews, prepare candidate assessments, conduct reference checks, make the employment offer and notify unsuccessful candidates. This can range from a minimum of 30 hours to over 100 hours per position.
3. Calculate the cost of a recruiter's assistant who will spend 20 or more hours in basic level review of resumes, developing candidate interview schedules and making any travel arrangements for out of town candidates.
4. The cost of the hiring department (immediate supervisor, next level manager, peers and other people on the selection list) time to review and explain position requirements, review candidates background, conduct interviews, discuss their assessments and select a finalist. Also include their time to do their own sourcing of candidates from networks, contacts and other referrals. This can take upwards of 100 hours of total time.
5. Calculate the administrative cost of handling, processing and responding to the average number of resumes considered for each opening at $1.50 per resume.
6. Calculate the number of hours spend by the internal recruiter interviewing internal candidates along with the cost of those internal candidates to be away from their jobs while interviewing.
7. Calculate the cost of drug screens, educational and criminal background checks and other reference checks, especially if these tasks are outsourced. Don't forget to calculate the number of times these are done per open position as some companies conduct this process for the final 2 or 3 candidates.
8. Calculate the cost of the various candidate pre-employment tests to help assess a candidates' skills, abilities, aptitude, attitude, values and behaviors.

Training Costs

1. Calculate the cost of orientation in terms of the new person's salary and the cost of the person who conducts the orientation. Also include the cost of orientation materials.
2. Calculate the cost of departmental training as the actual development and delivery cost plus the cost of the salary of the new employee. Note that the cost will be significantly higher for some positions such as sales representatives and call center agents who require 4 - 6 weeks or more of classroom training.
3. Calculate the cost of the person(s) who conduct the training.
4. Calculate the cost of various training materials needed including company or product manuals, computer or other technology equipment used in the delivery of training.
5. Calculate the cost of supervisory time spent in assigning, explaining and reviewing work assignments and output. This represents lost productivity of the supervisor. Consider the amount of time spent at 7 hours per week for at least 8 weeks.

Lost Productivity Costs

As the new employee is learning the new job, the company policies and practices, etc. they are not fully productive. Use the following guidelines to calculate the cost of this lost productivity:

1. Upon completion of whatever training is provided, the employee is contributing at a 25% productivity level for the first 2 - 4 weeks. The cost therefore is 75% of the new employees full salary during that timeperiod.
2. During weeks 5 - 12, the employee is contributing at a 50% productivity level. The cost is therefore 50% of full salary during that timeperiod.
3. During weeks 13 - 20, the employee is contributing at a 75% productivity level. The cost is therefore 25% of full salary during that timeperiod.
4. Calculate the cost of coworkers and supervisory lost productivity due to their time spent on bringing the new employee "up to speed."
5. Calculate the cost of mistakes the new employee makes during this elongated indoctrination period.
6. Calculate the cost of lost department productivity caused by a departing member of management who is no longer available to guide and direct the remaining staff.
7. Calculate the impact cost on the completion or delivery of a critical project where the departing employee is a key participant.
8. Calculate the cost of reduced productivity of a manager or director who looses a key staff member, such as an assistant, who handled a great deal of routine, administrative tasks that the manager will now have to handle.

New Hire Costs

1. Calculate the cost of bring the new person on board including the cost to put the person on the payroll, establish computer and security passwords and identification cards, business cards, internal and external publicity announcements, telephone hookups, cost of establishing email accounts, costs of establishing credit card accounts, or leasing other equipment such as cell phones, automobiles, pagers.
2. Calculate the cost of a manager's time spent developing trust and building confidence in the new employee's work.

Lost Sales Costs

1. For sales staff, divide the budgeted revenue per sales territory into weekly amounts and multiply that amount for each week the territory is vacant, including training time. Also use the lost productivity calculations above to calculate the lost sales until the sales representative is fully productive. Can also be used for telemarketing and inside sales representatives.
2. For non-sales staff, calculate the revenue per employee by dividing total company revenue by the average number of employees in a given year. Whether an employee contributes directly or indirectly to the generation of revenue, their purpose is to provide some defined set of responsibilities that are necessary to the generation of revenue. Calculate the lost revenue by multiplying the number of weeks the position is vacant by the average weekly revenue per employee.

Calculating and adding all these costs, given our original example of the $50,000 person can easily reach $75,000 to replace them. As you can see, the costs and impact associated with an employee who leaves the company can be quite significant. This is not to say that all turnover should be eliminated. However, given the high cost and impact on running a business, a well thought-out program designed to retain employees may easily pay for itself in a very short period of time.

What is my point?

That an organization that truly invests in their employee’s, and spends responsibly on employee development programs, will greatly benefit from the expense.  That’s it in a nutshell… If employees don’t feel cared for by their employer they won’t stay.

I can speak to this from personal experience as I have been with my employer for 10 Years this coming Monday, and would not have stayed for so long if I didn’t feel they cared about my success and development.

Recruitment 101

Okay so... what is the #1 thing NOT TO DO when recruiting in the same city for multiple positions for an extended amount of time?

Can't guess?  Well, I believe the number 1 thing that will greatly limit your candidate pool in a single area/city is not responding to candidates.  I know, I know, we all receive 100's of resumes per open position, but I can not express how vitally important it is to communicate with candidates.  It leaves a bad taste in their mouth, and they tend to spread it if they feel ignored.

Just my 2 cents worth. :)

More to come...

Yes Feedback Is Actually A GOOD Tool

Over the last few years we have been working with leaders to improve their feedback skills.  It's important that, as HR Professionals, we have a good understanding of the most effective way to create and communicate feedback to employees. 

THE BASICS:

1. "If it's not in writing, it NEVER happened" Now, this does not mean that feedback has to be in a formatted letter with a signature line, etc...  It can be in a letter, email, hand written note, but it HAS to be in writing for it to be truly meaningful for the employee.  \
2. Feedback comes in two varieties... Positive Feedback and Redirective/Developmental Feedback.  (Notice I didn't use the"Negative" word)  Truly we should look at employee moral like a bank, you can only withdraw as much as you put in.  What does this mean?  It means that you have to provide MORE positive feedback than redirective.  Now of course I am not saying to make things up, but it's important to have your leaders finding their employees doing something right and praising them for it.  It will help to build the employees confidence, and make them feel strong (Thank you Marcus Buckingham). 
3. Okay, so now you know that you need to give feedback in writing and it should be positive or redirective, what's next?  Good feedback had 4 parts:
1. What are they doing well, or why are they valuable?
2. What is the issue, or what are they not doing well?
3. How they should do it, and what are your expectations for the future.
4. What happens if it happens again.  This is an important piece that should really only be used when the manager says they will not be okay if the mistake or issue reoccurs. 
4. Now we have created good written feedback, what is the next step?  Well, I always ask the Manager how the conversation went with the employee when they asked them about the issue.  :)  It's important that we always understand the employee's opinion of why the mistake was made or why the issue occurred.  If we are not inspecting what we expect than we may be missing valuable information that will help to resolve the issue. 
5. Last but not least, the Manager must take ownership for the feedback and the message contained.  No, it likely was not a "Corporate" decision, it was the Manager's decision that they needed to provide that employee with the needed information and direction in order to be successful.  Employee's don't know what they don't know, and what I mean by this is that we can't expect them to understand our expectations if we haven't shared them. :)

These are my thoughts for now, but I will have more on feedback (because it is one of the most important tools in our toolbox) soon.

The Role of an Employee Advocate

One of the most difficult pieces of Human Resources is understanding how to effectively be an “Employee Advocate” while still considering the needs of the business.  It’s a paradox of some sorts when you are trying to assist an employee and still maintain what is best for business, as they don’t always coincide. 

I’ve done a bit of research have found that the over aching theme of advice on the topic are the following “Main Tasks”. (www.hrmadvice.com)

·         Conducting regular opinion surveys among employees

·         Providing feedback from the organization to the top and line management

·         Providing the development opportunities for their employees to help them to keep their value for the organization.

·         Assistance to employees to understand and benefit from the changes in the organization and to help employees through any risk of lay off.

·         Honest communication to the employees about the new business initiatives and the impact on employees.

·         Support building and developing the Corporate Culture.

I have found another blog that I like New HR for HR “Similar to the way organizations consult with their HR departments, “HR for HR” is a term used in some organizations as the area where internal HR staff may turn to when they need advice, counsel or mentoring.  NewHRforHR.com is a site dedicated to further the understanding of HR’s unique consultative approach, strategic focus, and people-oriented business alignment.”  

I really like this one post I’ve found that relates to today’s topic.  It’s called “Two sides of a coin or a double-edged sword?: HR’s dual role purpose”.  If you would like to read it, you can find it here http://newhrforhr.com/2010/02/two-sides-of-a-coin-or-a-double-edge-sword-hrs-dual-role-purpose/

More to come…

HR 2.0 - For Every Generation

It’s interesting that when you perform a Google search for HR 2.0, most of what appears is minimally 2 years old.  Web technologies are NOT standing still.  If we are not constantly looking at what’s new now, and what our potential candidate base is using then we are going to fall behind and not be as competitive in the slowly emerging job market.  Today’s candidate (in my opinion) wants more money with more flexible hours, this seems strange that people want more for less but in my experience it’s true.  So how do we attract the BEST candidates in the future job market where ideal candidates will be demanding and selective? 

Sure, in today’s economy it’s not difficult to generate 100 candidates for every available position, but in the not so far away future this will DRASTICALLY change.  We may still receive 100 candidates, but only a small percentage will fit all of the “Must Have” requirements for the position.  The only way to be head of this change is to embrace, understand, and use the latest and greatest Web technologies. 

TOP Web 2.0 Sites for Today

·         LinkedIn.com – A must have for any professional level recruitment

·         Facebook.com – Important to have a Company presence on this, and have a way to interact with candidates that DOES NOT include your personal FaceBook page… that could be a disaster. 

·         Twitter – A bit more difficult to use, but it is still important to have a presence, and use this to point potential candidates to either your LinkedIn or FaceBook.  (Super Secret Tip… You can have all of these automatically update each other so that you only have to update 1 status)

·         RSS Feeds – Yes Still Important, while this may be a bit of an older technology.

·         Yammer – More of an internal business social network, but something to keep an eye on as it grows.

·         Blogs – Yes, since you are reading my Blog, you understand that Blogs are imperative to look at.  Some of my favorite are:

o   Jon Ingham’s Strategic HCM Blog – Thoughts on moving from HR to HR 2.0 and HCM

o   Fist Full of Talent

o   And Many More!!! 

More to come. J

Habitat for Humanity of Huron Valley

Habitat for Humanity of Huron Valley

Growing Non-Profit in Washtenaw County!!

Strange Website

So I found this website while I was trying to research new recruitment sites, etc…  It is strange… It states that it is a site born from a coffee encounter of 2 friends… one an HR Manager and the other a Technical writer.  However, there aren’t any actual stories (that I can find) published on the site… http://www.hrtales.com/index.html   Are they writing a book?

A Whole New World

Being an "HR Business Partner" is quite interesting! We have the opportunity to partner with our operational decision makers like never before and feel (even more) that we are able to make a real difference for our employee's. It's a significant change within the Human Resources field. While it is what many HR professionals have been striving for and in some cases accomplishing for decades, now we have a real chance to have a perverbial "seat at the table", and help our partners to gain a true understanding of what an asset their HR partner can truly be.