Culture eats Strategy for Breakfast; and Processes for Lunch and Dinner

Most people see recruitment as a necessary means to an end and perceive the process with a clear starting point (the internal hiring need) and a clear end (the hired candidate). However, in contrary to popular believe, recruitment is a never-ending process. In previous blog I have already explained why recruitment does not stop after you have found the right candidate. But what if you are already stuck before that stage? What if the perfect candidate never seems to show up? In this blog I will discuss 6 tips which help you to find your future candidate and transform your recruitment operations into a continuously developing process.  

Knowing yourself is important to know what you want

Firstly, we are going to start with the basics. Whenever you are looking out for people, you need to make sure that you know what you as a company stand for. In this sense you need to have a thought-out vision and mission of what you aim to achieve with your company. Furthermore, you need to know what kind of internal culture you have and what values are shared in this culture. This is important because most people nowadays are not convinced by just a pure salary raise anymore. Most people are motivated by companies with whom they can identify with and who share their personal values. Now that you have identified your vision, mission, culture and values, it is time to work with them, which brings us to the second tip.  

Translate and communicate your message

Now that your vision, mission, culture and values are set up, it is important to display them. First and foremost, you should of course display this on your website and LinkedIn, but besides that there are also other target group focussed forums. You can think of websites, conventions or breakfast seminars which your potential candidates often visit. Don’t be afraid to be creative, in this sense it is better to be too active than too passive. Have you ever heard of guerrilla marketing? Well, that just might catch the attention of your future employee, against often budget friendly costs. Besides this, your recruiters also need to be well-trained in understanding, translating and identifying your own vision, mission, culture and values. It is therefore important that they work together with staff from your marketing department to gain those skills and to set up the right messaging towards your potential candidates. Furthermore, they are also the ones that need to identify the candidates whose values align with your own.  

Expand your network and nurture candidates

Another thing that you can start to do tomorrow is to get in touch with different recruiters or HR employees from other companies and start making them part of your network to increase the possibilities of a referral. Go to conventions, breakfast seminars and conferences to get in touch with them. In this sense it is important to know that a strong way to expand your network is to do favours for others before you can reap the rewards. This might sound like you are getting more work on your hands, but who knows; what may seem like an impossible profile for somebody else, might just be floating around in your talent pool. When talking about talent pools it is also important to remember to nurture the candidates who you have not hired. An applicant with the wrong profile for a previous vacancy might be the perfect candidate for a new vacancy. You should therefore regularly nurture their excitement for your company and go through your talent pool to see if you can find that hidden gem that you might forgot about. One way to continuously increase your talent pool is to open up ongoing vacancies where people can list their open application.  

Promotion and internal hiring boards

Did you just lose an incredible manager/team leader/senior team member and are you wondering how you will ever fill his or her position? Perhaps an internal promotion is a possibility. Maybe one of the team members is ready to step up and, if he or she is provided with training, be your new amazing superstar. Internal promotion has three advantages over external hiring: it’s cheaper, it’s faster, and the candidate already knows your company/product. Of course, the fact remains that there will be a gap in the team if you promote one of its members, but this, in most cases, is an easier recruitment than the incredible superstar that you lost. If the team members are not an option or if there is not even a team to speak of in the first place, then internal hiring boards could be an option. Internal hiring boards are basically vacancy boards of internal vacancies that not have been externally published yet and where only internal employees can apply for. A lot of managers are cautious for this, because they fear that their best employees might leave their department and they say that this is just a way of moving the problem. I would argue that this is the wrong way of thinking. Firstly, yes, your employee might move from your department, and yes, that moves the problem to your department. However, you should always realize that people are looking for ways to develop themselves, so letting them develop themselves within the company benefits the company as a whole. Again, it might be easier to find somebody for the new gap in your department as it is to find for the gap your company is experiencing right now (there is most likely a very valid reason that somebody is reading this blog right now). Furthermore, I would argue that this shows your employees that there will always be possibilities to develop themselves, which can motivate them to stay instead of leaving for a possibility to develop themselves at another company.  

Internal training and development

Continuing on the previous note, it is important to plan out what your employees are capable of right now and where they want to be in five to ten years. In this sense development plans should be one of the key priorities for any HR department. Firstly, because it simply keeps your employees happy and loyal if they have a sense of development and, secondly, because you can prepare and train them for the more specific and hard-to-fill vacancies which are upcoming in the future. This again intertwines with the first point, that you should know who you are as a company and strategically plan ahead for the future. So organisational charts need to be drawn up, both from the present and where you expect to be. Then you need to identify who can fill the potential upcoming (senior) positions and what he or she needs, in terms of training, to be able to fulfil that position. Actively be engaged with your employees and take them with you on this journey of development. The backend developer of today can be your architect of tomorrow.  

There is a truth in numbers

As with most things in life, there is a certain truth in numbers. The bigger your pool of candidates, the larger the odds that the right candidate is in there. In this sense it might be a good idea to try quantity over quality and expand the parameters that you’ve got from the hiring manager. When you are searching for people the pool of potential candidates increases if you decrease the hiring manager’s requirements. Maybe the candidate does not require a full five years of experience? Maybe experience in a related industry can be equivalent to experience in your own industry? Maybe managing twenty people requires the same type of management skills as it does when managing ten? Try to send through some candidates and resumes with the expanded parameters and see what works for your individual vacancy. It is in this sense also the recruiter’s job to push back a bit on the requirements of the hiring manager, because too often we see that hiring managers are looking for a unicorn that is fluent in five languages, has four degrees, and more than twenty years of experience in the industry. The reality is that unicorns do not exist, but it is our job to show them that and to come with a viable alternative.  

In conclusion

When looking out for your future candidates you should start with the basics and have a good story on who you are as a company and what you are trying to achieve. Then you need to get your message out there, both through online and conventional ways; be creative! After that you need to work with your network, most predominantly: expand it. Find ways to get in touch with fellow HR colleagues in the field and see if you can use their network. Furthermore, don’t forget about internal hiring and promoting your employees, and last, but not least, try to push back on the requirements for the profile and expand the parameters of your search to get a bigger pool of potential candidates.    

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Times are changing, not the products, not the machines, but our human capital is our unique selling point. So why then is the most important function in a company not occupied by a HR-professional?

In this blog I want to open a new discussion. The highest functions in companies are often occupied with professionals who often have their specialization in a certain occupation, these are often specialities in: sales, productivity, the product itself, and sometimes even finances.

However, it is very rare that we see an HR professional on the highest seat of a company (read: never). Why is that? I would argue that HR has the most important role in a company in the 21st century and therefore it only seems natural that somebody with HR-affinity holds the highest office.  

The highest office – a brief history

Historically the highest functions in previous societies were either ranked by ‘birth right’ or age. A prince was born to be a king and a farmer’s son was born to be a farmer. Additionally, the elder brother (because in those times we are not even talking about equality between genders) often held the highest regard in the family.

When we transformed from a feudal society to a capitalist society our order of who holds the highest function and why also changed. Birth right and age made place for private property and capital. In the beginning of our capitalist society, it was the people who were most skilled in their profession (artisans, craftsmen and guildsmen) who held the highest offices in their organizations.

With the industrial revolution in full force, these professionals had to make place for the people who knew most about machines and production. After the second world war these mass-producing professionals had to make place for productivity professionals. Average output and efficiency became the drive of many companies to outperform the competition.

Shortly thereafter the golden age of capitalism required professionals who knew how to handle flows of money. The highest occupation became related to financial specialization. Fast forwarding to current day, the highest office is often related to specialization in terms of sales, productivity, the product itself or finance. CEO positions are, more often than not, occupied by somebody who has a technical skill.

What is important?

Let’s do a recap, what have we had so far; we picked our leaders based upon: birth right, age, artisanry, skills related to production, productivity, finance, sales and the product itself. Are we missing something? Well, I believe we do.

Now in the 21st century human capital seems to be the most important asset for most companies. The people who walk in our hallways, sell and produce our products, facilitate finance, logistics and purchasing, it’s the people who are the beating heart of an organisation. They are our unique selling points. That has not gone unnoticed. More and more companies are busy trying to retain and develop their talent, and more and more companies are started to provide the means of doing so. Especially in niche industries, any industry remotely dealing with software and industries which require specific skills (I think this captures our entire economy), employers know how important it is to retain and develop their talent.

From this I can only conclude one thing, the most important focus of our companies now should be the people working in them. This means that we need leaders and CEO’s who not only understand HR, but who are also proficient in the HR world.

Shifting focus

Why would you go through the trouble of finding a CEO who has a focus on HR? Why do we require such emphasis? Well, because every time before us also required change and new ideas based upon what was important at that time. Now we entered the era wherein the most important part of our company is based on our people and their, often irreplaceable, talents. Society is focussed on letting each and everybody develop their talent to maximise our output. Schools, universities, training centres, they all know the importance of a development focussed approach. Therefore, it is time that companies adopt the same focus, which requires the same type of leaders.

It is therefore important that our future CEOs not just understand a recruitment process, but that they are able to build up an entire talent acquisition strategy. That they are not only able to see the value of teambuilding exercises, but that they understand how to shape and create cultural change. That they are not only concerned with training their employees to stay up to date with technologies, but that they can shape trajectory and development plans to provide opportunities for growth.

In short, it does not suffice anymore that our leaders know and do the basics. It is time that HR takes its rightful place in the centre of a company whose main unique selling point is its people. It is time that we accept that the centre stage of our time belongs to HR and development, but that also means that it is time for our HR professionals to step up to the plate. It is not enough to stand in line and to ‘offer service when asked’, HR departments need to transform themselves from administrators to proactive managers.

We need to find value which we can contribute to our employers. Find cultural problems and solve them, develop training and development strategies and empower our co-workers to be co-champions. It is only by doing so that HR will be lifted to strategic importance and that we get leaders who understand and are proficient in the realm of HR.

In conclusion

For me it is only clear that the next generation of new leaders has a background in HR. We are broadly agreeing that our human capital is in the widest sense the most important aspect of our company. We are recruiting, coaching, training and developing our employees, but to truly stand out for our employees, HR needs to be lifted to strategic importance. Therefore, I believe that we need leaders who understand this importance and have the capabilities to do so.

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“Quiet quitting” – it seems to be the latest within HR fashion. What is it and why are we talking about it?

First off all, I think the term “quiet quitting” is wrong and bad. People are not silently leaving office buildings to stop working or quitting their jobs in complete silence – that is not at all what this is about. Quiet quitting is the idea that people are not going “above and beyond” their paygrade anymore and just do the work they are paid for.

Let’s be real. Why should an employee do more than they are paid for? An employee agreement is just that: you pay somebody to do their job. Nothing more, nothing less. That means: not answering emails on a holiday, not working outside office hours, and not staying late to finish that project.

So, if there is anything I want you to take away from this post, then this is it: let’s stop talking about “quiet quitting” and start talking about “disengaging”, because that is what it is. People are still doing their jobs, but they are slowly become disengaged and unmotivated to “go above and beyond”.

Why more and more people start to quit quietly?

Now you might ask: Why? Why is this happening? The internet seems to be split up between two reasons: 1) Employees are drastically re-evaluating their work-life balance, or 2) bad leadership has undervalued and demotivated employees. Whatever the reasoning behind it, its implications are truly important. Disengaged employees will perform less than engaged employees, impacting the performance of your company overall.

Before we jump into solutions for a “problem” we do need to consider whether somebody became disengaged because of re-evaluating the balance in their worklife, or because of bad leadership and demotivation. If somebody wants to revaluate the balance in their worklife, there is maybe nothing you could (or should) do. Your employee will do their job, but according to the parameters that you have set in the contract – and that is it.

If somebody became disengaged because of bad leadership or demotivation, then there are opportunities to re-engage your employees. So, let’s move on to the interesting stuff: how to re-engage employees!

What can we do?

At this point, if you still expect your employees to go above and beyond without them getting anything in return you should not be surprised that your employees get disengaged or unmotivated. And why should they? You are offering nothing in return. The good news is there are solutions. The bad news is that those solutions will require effort.

If you are a boss, manager, or leader whose employees are slowly disengaging, there are ways to turn this process around. How? By re-engaging with your disengaged employees. Here are 5 ways to do that:

1. Asking the tough questions

On a daily basis, walk around the office and stop by or call one colleague and blatantly ask them: “What are we not talking about here at work? What can we improve?” This is a powerful way of directly asking somebody to vent some frustrations and let them be a key part of an improvement process that they see as problematic.

You might discover some unique opportunities while engaging one employee at a time. There are ways to make this into a scalable process as well for larger companies.

2. Inspiration and daily work

Remind people of your vision, your mission, your morning-star. Connect meetings to the abstract level of your purpose. We are here to make money, yes, but there is more to it. “Today we are doing A, B, C, which will allow our clients to do D, E, and F – which will improve the lives of/the world/the environment” – you get the drill. People need inspiration to stay engaged. Continuously.

3. Allowing engagement

A lot of managers expect a top-down management structure where employees simply accept the strategy, take on their tasks as instructed, and are fully engaged into everything they do. Now this is a prime example of having you cake and eating it. You can’t have it both. You’ll have to choose. Either you choose a management structure where you want to impose your will, strategy, structure, and tasks – but also accept disengaged employees, OR you involve your employees with decision making processes around structure, strategy, and their tasks to get them engaged.

4. Development, perspective, and incentive

One way of engaging disengaged employees is by giving them a clear-cut “carrot” to re-engage. You can do this by giving them the perspective of development. That either may be a promotion, an education or training (paid for by the company), or a wider set of responsibilities.

Now I know that this is a bit of a sensitive topic, but you can do that through a bit of good-old performance management. Does that mean measuring every datapoint you have from when somebody clocks in to how fast they type emails? No of course not, this is not the 20th century anymore. But you can set up a couple of KPI’s that reflect a concrete goal and subsequent reward.

5. Improve leadership

Sometimes it is hard to admit, but if you can’t point out the problem in the room – then maybe you are the problem in the room. During your times you meet 1-to-1 with your employees, try to ask what you can improve about your leadership style. Ask your employees what you can improve or what they miss in your leadership today. Sometimes your employees require different ways of leadership than what you are offering today – maybe more directive, maybe more guidance, or maybe more freedom and individual responsibility.

In conclusion

“Quite quitting” is a bogus term that is simply incorrect. People are reconsidering what they want in life and can become disengaged at work because of a multitude of reasons. If they are simply reconsidering their work life balance, then there is little you could (or should) do. If they are becoming disengaged because of bad leadership or demotivation, then there are things you can do. If you need help:

1. asking the tough questions
2. connecting your vision and mission to your daily work
3. identifying where you can involve your employees more
4. developing incentive programs
5. improving your leadership capacity

Then get in touch with us and see what we can do for you!