This Patient Account Specialist has a passion for good old customer service. Fully qualified as a National Certified Insurance Coding Specialist, HIPPA Certified and Epic trained, this Top Talent also worked themselves towards an Associate of Arts Degree in both Medical Insurance and Billing, and Medical Assisting. Well loved by their co-workers and clientele alike, their compassionate demeanor helped to pacify anxious patients on a regular basis. Scoring 95% on the Customer Service assessment, 82% on Medical Office Skills, and 80% on MS Excel, this candidate is as great on paper as their references say they are. Don’t miss out on this rare opportunity; call us today to book your interview!

Ref #: OR005354

This Top Talent is a unique blend of talent and wit. Previous employers were beaming when they spoke about this individual, recounting how they took it upon themselves to work on new creative ways of getting the job done more efficiently. With 5 years of progressive on-the-job training in AutoCad, and an Associate of Arts degree in Drafting Technology, this laid-back (and yet extremely productive) candidate displayed exceptional scores on their assessments, with 90% on Blue Print Basics, 83% on Auto Cad 2010, and 84% on Mechanical Reasoning. Add this highly qualified Mechanical Designer to your arsenal today, call to book your interview!

Ref #: OR005383

With an accomplished two decades of progressive work in the Machinist field, this knowledgeable Top Talent is a has their CNC Employment Skills Training Certification, and worked as a Fabrications Technician in their last position. In addition to their CES Network Administrator Certificate, their high scores on their assessments are a reflection of their comprehension, (Lathe Operator – 94%, Basic CNC – 86%, Mechanical Reasoning – 80%). Past employers reported their appreciation of this candidate’s meticulous nature, and their ability to read blueprints and schematics, prepare programs, and set up operation and tooling sheets. Book your interview with this all-star today!

Ref #: OR005381

This Certified Relocation Professional boasts more than a decade of experience in the Mortgage and Relocations industry, and a degree in Business Management and Business Applications. A high scorer on their assessments (with 82% on EEOC Compliance, 90% on Investment Management, and 88% on Title Insurance Knowledge), this Top Talent has an ample repertoire of business artillery at their fingertips. A past employer reported that while working for them, this individual increased and closed contracts by 20% and created a Policy and Procedures Manual. Make this highly respected candidate a part of your team today, call to book your interview!

Ref#: OR005384

Investment in employee retention has always been a vital tactic for organizations interested in conserving their best employees. With Millennials accounting for the fastest growing segment of the workforce, companies are competing to secure, and maintain, this newly available talent. Considering each generation’s unique desires and attitudes, (and the fact that most organizations are staffed with Baby Boomers, Gen X, and Gen Y), when it comes to the subject of employee retention, there are a plethora of views on how best to go about it. In this blog, I will be covering the importance and validity of the Exit Interview.

The primary aim of the Exit Interview is to get an unadulterated account of the reasons for an employee’s departure, on the basis that their constructive criticism will in turn benefit the organization as a whole. This enables the employer to supplement their transfer of knowledge from the past employee, onto their successor— a transfer that may not be possible if the ex-employee is not encouraged to speak their mind without fear of penalty. Many employers avoid the use of Exit Interviews because they are not practiced as religiously as the traditional Preliminary Interview, considering the initialization of it is no easy feat. Besides the obvious reasons companies don’t attempt to make Exit Interviews the norm, (the fuzzy nature of the results, and the time and effort being put into someone who has clearly chosen to move on), the main issue is probably that corporations have an unspoken urge to avoid exposure to negative criticism. All things aside, Exit Interviews are beneficial to both parties, allowing the employee to depart on a positive note, with mutual respect, a chance to speak their mind, and an opportunity to provide the company with constructive feedback. The adage “treat people well on your way up, because you might meet them on the way down” applies just the same on your way out.

When planning an Exit Interview strategy, tailor the following questions to your needs, or to the needs unique to the particular employee’s situation:

• What is your main reason for leaving?
• What could have been done early on to prevent the situation developing/provide a basis for you to stay with us?
• How would you have preferred the situation(s) to have been handled?
• How do you feel about the organization?
• What has been good/enjoyable/satisfying for you in your time with us?
• What has been frustrating/difficult/upsetting to you in your time with us?
• What extra responsibility would you have welcomed that you were not given?
• What training would you have liked or needed that you did not get, and what effect would this have had?
• How well do think your training and development needs were assessed and met?
• What training and development that you had did you find most helpful and enjoyable?
• What can you say about communications within the organization/your department?
• What would you say about how you were motivated, and how that could have been improved?
• What things did the organization or management do to make your job more difficult/frustrating/non-productive?
• What can the organization do to retain its best people (and not lose any more like you)?
• What (if you are happy to say who your new employer will be) are they offering that we are not?

The more dignity and respect you treat the individual with, the better outcome you’ll achieve. People want to leave jobs on a positive note, and as much as this process directly benefits the company, the employee is sure to understand the advantage it brings to them. Your current employees will be thrilled with the time and sincerity you put into this practice. This will immediately affect your corporate culture, and in the long run, your employee retention.

Understand the job.
Admittedly, we as managers do not fully comprehend the nitty-gritty details of every single role in our companies. So if you’re lucky enough to have a top performer in the job already, take the opportunity to learn from them. Observe their behavior, and utilize their peer’s knowledge of their strong suits. What are some unique characteristics that make them successful at their job? The answers will help you step your game up, and set the bar high. Get this one down pat, and the rest is cake.

Standardize your hiring process.
Tradition can often stand the test of time. But, when it comes to interviews, times have changed. Now more than ever, we have incredible new assessment and interview tools at our fingertips, designed to give us more reliable results than the conventional interview provides. Unfortunately, no single assessment or personality test can determine whether or not someone will be right for a position. You’ll need to find the perfect blend of assessments to reflect your needs. After a bit of inevitable trial and error, the payoff will be worth it; research shows that using several methods will weed out the weaker links, leaving you with the best employees. Think of the process as a checklist: start with an adequate number of candidates, do background checks, administer standardized assessments, and lastly, execute structured interviews.

Hire for Today’s Needs and Tomorrow’s Vision.
While a new hire has to make economic sense for today’s tasks, it is important not to lose sight of your company’s long-term goals. Perhaps a more profitable choice may be an employee who has the ability to expand within the company, move laterally, and fill in the gaps of knowledge and skill sets that exist within your team. This individual may not be the most qualified on paper, but maybe they bare similar characteristics to some of the successful predecessors in the position, or have the capacity to develop and mature within their role.

There are an infinite number of factors to take into account when searching for a valuable new team member. Every company’s hiring process is different, and unfortunately no one method works universally. Access to a plethora of valuable assessment tools that can easily be tailored to suit your needs is just a click away. The Personnel Department offers it all! Don’t be afraid to step outside of your comfort zone in search of assistance. Cast tradition aside just this one time, and modernize your strategy. Why not let us lend you a hand?

The impact of Social Media on our everyday lives has definitely increased since the creation of websites the likes of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Youtube. As our hunger for the instant transfer of information grows, businesses will be forced to rethink and revise some of their outdated policies surrounding this ever expanding phenomenon.

Using Facebook as a means of free self-promotion for your company can unleash a world of possibilities. Businesses are able to solidify their rapport with clients now more than ever by creating their own public pages. Consider how quickly you learn about a person by adding them as a Facebook friend and reading their updates. Now, translate that into the advantage of allowing potential clients to access your company’s information in the same forum that they are probably already using on a regular basis. Whether it’s Tweets on Twitter, or updates on Facebook, be aware that it’s only what you make it. The more you update, the more people will be likely to subscribe, resulting in a greater depth of exposure to the exciting new developments within your company. If you have more than one person updating your pages, be sure that all parties have a comprehensive grasp of the company’s voice, because without a universal voice, the brand’s message may become blurred to readers.

Van Belleghem, a marketing professor at the Vlerick Management School in Belgium said, “Employees have become the media of that company, and they share how they view that company. That was impossible 10 years ago. The consequence for HR is that their company culture becomes one of the most important marketing strategies.” Summed up, your employees’ word of mouth is your publicity. If you wouldn’t consider yourself as a technological-guru, ponder using the younger more tech-savvy employees in your company to your advantage. Since there’s a good chance they grew up around these kinds of things, you may be able to tap into a great reserve of knowledge, which could be of value to your brand from a marketing standpoint.

If it is in your company’s policy to allow employees to access Social Media websites at work, you’ll need to set clear guidelines in order to avoid putting your brand’s name in jeopardy. Keeping up team morale is a sure-fire way to maintain a professional image online. People who love their jobs want to talk about them, and Social Media is the perfect means of getting their praise for your brand out to the world. Allowing your employees to Tweet, blog or update their statuses online with genuine excitement for their assignments can convey a message to onlookers that the people who work for you strive to aid in the company’s success, and perhaps more importantly, enjoy working for you. Be mindful of the need for guidelines surrounding privacy policies, information regarding hush-hush projects should not be revealed on websites that are open to the public, where rival companies may be snooping. Employees should be urged to speak in the first person when posting anything regarding the

company, to make it clear that the post is the view of the employee and not of the brand as a whole. In addition, employees should be reminded to conduct themselves online as they would in person, respectfully and professionally. It should be clear to them that slanderous remarks or anything that may reflect poorly on the brand will not be permitted, and that action will be taken to reprimand the individual responsible.

We’ve established that Social Media in the workplace can be a great asset to virtually any company. User-friendly, easily accessible and customizable in all kinds of ways, these websites were designed to make our lives easier. Learning how to mediate them and tailor their uses to best fit our companies is the biggest challenge. A clear set of guidelines highlighting the do’s and don’ts of online conduct for your employees is sure to make a drastic difference in the long run.

If you’re in HR, you’ve likely heard of the ‘Peter Principle’. For those who don’t know, put simply it states that in a hierarchy “every employee tends to rise to their level of incompetence”. This means that eventually even the best employee will, by virtue of their own limitations, be promoted into a position where they can no longer succeed in their responsibilities.

Anecdotally the ‘Peter Principle’ often goes hand-in-hand with the concept of ‘managing up’, whereby subordinates have to find creative ways to accommodate for the shortcomings of their superiors who have been promoted to the point of incompetence. Purportedly this concept of how hierarchies inevitably work has been around for ages, but the current business environment may be undergoing a change to this stayed hierarchical model.
Two factors are contributing to this imminent reorganization and as an HR Manager you’ll need to be on top of these developments, not only for your sake but for the sake of your employees and your organization.

The first factor is the economic recession and the mildly anemic recovery world markets are experiencing as a consequence. Individuals, organizations and companies are still open for business, but pressure to perform and the costs of mistakes have rarely been higher. With such a narrow margin for error, organizations can ill afford to have incompetent or inefficient employees in key positions.

This situation is further complicated by the imminent wave of Baby Boomers about to join the ranks of retirement communities around the world. Those poised to fill their shoes, coined Generation X, leave a substantial footprint behind; notably, one that the oncoming generation of Millennials does not number enough to fill.

The addition of Millenials to the mix further compounds the situation; the newest generation of employees will be filling the entry-level and middle-management positions left behind by advancing Generation X-ers. This is significant because the Millennial’s Generational Profile highlights technological aptitude, collaborative work environments, high expectations and mutual accountability as some of the key qualities of the latest generation. This creates a situation where positions filled with inefficient and incompetent employees will be starkly contrasted against the rest of the staff roster; ‘managing up’ will no longer be sufficient.

Millennials expect to have access to their superiors in a fashion that is not often seen in pyramidal hierarchical organizations. This impending culture shock between Generation X and the Millenials is not a foregone conclusion and much can be done to offset the impact ripples within a company.

Take a lesson from organization-savvy car manufacturers like Toyota who broke down the Henry Ford production line in favour of small teams of interchangeable engineers who were fully trained on all aspects of manufacturing a vehicle. This dispersal of knowledge creates a network of employees capable of bridging any gap and fosters the collaborative environment that Millennials are purported to favour.

By shifting the structure away from a pyramid to one that increases the possibility of lateral movement within a company, and most importantly presents that as a positive shift, employees can acquire new skills, improve their existing ones and leave behind tasks that they are ill-suited to perform.

Certainly, the idea of a lateral promotion is neither new nor revolutionary, but in light of the current business environment and the imminent arrival of a new generation of employees, ‘sideways’ may have to be the new ‘up’.

There are a number of reports that provide compelling evidence to suggest that America is currently experiencing a skill shortage. Without entering into a debate on the particulars, there are certain fundamental facts that are difficult to dispute.

1. The Baby Boomer generation is aging rapidly and the next generation is ill-equipped, numerically, logistically and skillfully, to fill those shoes. There simply aren’t enough of them.
2. It is not just an issue of labour shortage but also a shortage of people ‘in the system’. With the economic downturn and collapse of global markets, see the crisis in the Eurozone for example, rates of enrolment at Universities are slowing as are rates of certification for skilled trades.
3. The current generation of employable, skilled workers have developed some hefty expectations about rate of compensation and stability of the job market, informed by the perceived booming success of past generations. A recent study showed that most post-secondary graduates expect to be making over $70,000/year and be debt-free within 5 years of graduating; a considerable feat even in better economic environments. This break with reality has not been addressed and all anyone seems to be able to do is watch with morbid fascination as this current generation speeds towards a drastic shift in their expectations of compensation and employment.

These observations aren’t the whole story though. The reality is that the contemporary business world is shifting in real time around all of us. While it is true that the past few years have been difficult, it is also true that forecasts for 2012 suggest an increase in business through innovative new, and yet old, business practices. Where companies have historically relied on certification and development through external institutions to produce highly skilled workers to employ, the new breed of employee may need to be built, in many cases from the ground up.

As employers cast a net, in search of candidates with the perfect qualifications, the shortage of skilled workers is broadening the criteria for a successful hire. Increasingly, companies faced with a job vacancy are selecting candidates that can grow and learn within their role. Increased resources are being spent on internal education systems to further develop employees.

These internal development systems, first implemented out of need as a result of skill shortages, have become valuable as employee retention programs; as employees fostered through these systems appear to have a greater sense of loyalty or commitment to their company. What this means is that it is no longer about finding the “right candidate” but about finding the candidate with the “right potential”.

Notably, this perspective is not merely a positive thinking “silver lining” in the face of a purportedly severe skill shortage, it is also acknowledgement of the realities of the new business environment that the past few years have committed us all to. The lesson to be learned is how to cultivate, curate and commit your staff to your company through internal development incentives. Allow an employee to grow within a role and they will produce better results.

Storytelling serves a variety of functions in our society. As children, we are taught morals through cautionary fairy tales (don’t accept candy from old women in the woods, make sure your grandmother isn’t secretly a wolf in disguise); as consumers, we are sold products through advertising campaigns that utilize storytelling and other methods to create a sense of desire (this cologne will make you better looking, you need this new car); as citizens, we are told stories about candidates that exhibit their competence and strength of character that provide compelling reasons to vote for them (they fought in a war, they are a family person).

Yet, despite these myriad examples, storytelling is often a hard sell in the world of business management, typically accompanied by eye-rolling and skepticism. What most managers fail to realize is that storytelling is a powerful leadership tool, whose skilled use can engage employees and create a more successful corporate culture. The big question is…how?

Functionally, storytelling serves as a way to disseminate information that bypasses the human tendency to resist being told what to do and instead drive straight to the emotional core of an individual. By engaging the listener’s imagination, whether through an amusing anecdote or thought provoking parable, storytelling connects the issue at hand with the emotions of the listener, effectively sidestepping the analytical portion of the mind.

Stephen Denning wrote an excellent article called “Telling Tales”, published in the Harvard Business Review, which talks about storytelling as a management tool. Denning identifies seven objectives and the type of story required to achieve them.

• Sparking Action
• Communicating Who You Are
• Transmitting Values
• Fostering Collaboration
• Taming the Grapevine
• Sharing Knowledge
• Leading People Into the Future

If you’re hoping to spark action, you must tell a story of how change was successfully implemented in the past but leave out unnecessary details, allowing space for the audience to think about the possibilities in their own circumstance and get excited about the opportunities.

If you’re hoping to foster collaboration you must tell a story about a situation the listener is familiar with, prompting them to share their own stories or insight in a way that builds off one another.

If you’re hoping to transmit values tell a hypothetical story wherein the values to be discussed are grappled with. This provides space for contemplation and consideration on behalf of the listener.

In all the examples provided by Denning the same principle is at work; the use of a story to transmit an idea, value or concept in a way that creates space for the listener to imagine the outcome and make the story theirs. This transference helps to create a communal vision of the direction required by the company and creates an environment where all the individuals are pulling in the same direction and feel like they are part of the story as it unfolds.

The next time you have to usher in change in your company, think about the way you deliver the message to your employees. By using the power of storytelling, you can connect your presentation to the very core of your employees, motivating them to be part of your story.