Cogniphany

Today we’re going to look at one or two of the most powerful tools in an HR executive’s arsenal. I have a hard time seeing these as two totally separate tools. It’s a bit like saying that a flat-head and a phillp’s-head screwdriver are completely different tools. They’re at least from the same family.

An RJP (Realistic Job Preview) is a selection device that you give to a person in the selection process that gives them an idea of the job that they’re trying out for. Many times (and especially so in this job climate), a recruit is really just interested in getting into the job. It’s a paycheck and it represents stability and the ability to provide for their family. That doesn’t mean that they’re not interested in doing a good job for you, but it’s not at the forefront of their mind.

The best RJPs are the ones where you let an employee come in and spend some time with an existing employee, and even let them do the job some. “This job requires the ability to lift 45 pounds over one’s head” doesn’t have quite the impact of actually lifting a customer’s purchase into their car in the August heat. An RJP is designed to give as realistic picture of the job as possible to the potential employee.

However, sometimes it’s just not feasible to have an employee work in the actual situation. A simulation is another possibility. If you’re unable to do that, videos work well, but there are important considerations there. Don’t use actors. Use your employees and let them be as candid as possible. If working in the heat wears on them, have them be truthful about it. You can also use a written RJP, but these should really be reserved as a supplement to another RJP or as a last resort.

A lot of times, companies think that they need to sell the job to an employee. But this attitude can really be counterproductive. When you’re selling a product to a consumer, that’s a different sort of relationship that you’re forging. The power differential isn’t in the same direction, so you need to make things look a little brighter and shinier than they might be. When you’re hiring someone for a job, that person needs to know that every day isn’t going to be roses and sunshine.

That’s how an ELP (Expectation Lowering Procedure) works. Researchers took a lead from the RJP literature and designed a study where they gave people a short presentation outlining how a lot of people come into new jobs with unrealistic expectations of how the new job will be. They didn’t give any specific information, just that explanation and some ideas of how one can enter into a new situation and have realistic expectations. The results of the study showed that those people entered into their new job performing better, and over time had significantly lower levels of turnover.

An RJP and an ELP impacts3 major areas and research has shown they’re really powerful in those areas.

• More trust for the employer – New employees are used to being “sold” on a new job. When you’re honest and up front with them, they appreciate it.
• Lower long-term turnover rates – When an employee knows what they’re getting into, they’re less likely to leave.
• Fewer rapid-term turnovers – RJPs allow people to more often self-select out of a new job, that’s why it’s critical that they’re given before an offer is made. After the offer is made, a person may feel unable to leave, or they’ll leave as soon as they realize the job isn’t for them.

Now that I’ve posted 10 ways that you can be a better leader, I’m going to change gears a little bit. This time I’m going to give you some behaviors to avoid and how to avoid them. A lot of these things are really easy to fall into, but if you keep up with them, they can be avoided.

So, now I’m going to tell you how to can become the worst leader possible, and in some cases (if you’re the boss) how you can make the worst leader possible.

1. Make sure that you think of yourself as completely different than, and if at all possible, better than your employees – I’ve seen this a number of times and it’s really disturbing to see. One job that I was at had a number of family members working in upper echelons of the company. This group of family members really started to think of themselves as though they were of a different class than their employees. After telling all of the employees that the company was losing so much money they couldn’t afford to give anyone pay increases, each of the executives showed up with brand new, very expensive cars. It didn’t take long for the employees to start performing worse, and theft of company property to increase. So, make sure that if you want to ruin things, start thinking of yourself as different and better than the people who work for you.

2. Have different rules for you and your employees - One thing that can happen (especially in industrial settings) is that your employees might be paid as hourly employees and you could be a salaried employee. If you really want to make sure that you can get your employees to rebel, if they’re scheduled to show up at 7 AM, be late a couple of times a week. You can also ocassionally take a late lunch every week. Employees don’t make the distinction between salary and hourly, so consequently, when you do this, you’ll insure that they feel like you believe point number 1, even if you don’t. Generally, I’ve found that employees will accept hard adherence to rules, as long as you’re just as rigorous yourself. But, if you try to enforce rules that you don’t follow yourself, then you’re going to get a lot of pushback.

3. Promote the wrong people for the wrong reasons - This can really take two forms. If you’re promoting someone into a leadership position, don’t think of it like it’s a form of reward. Too often, people who perform well in a line position are offered promotion into leadership without regard for what’s needed to be a good leader. When you do this, you could be setting a star employee up for failure. If you’re going to promote someone to a leadership position, make sure that they’re really management material. If they need help, make sure to train them to be a leader. Don’t just dump someone into management who’s never been a leader. The second form that this can take is with a supervisor who doesn’t want to lose a star performer. Change is never easy, but if if you won’t let someone advance, who really wants to because you don’t want to lose their productivity, you’re going to set yourself up for failure. Eventually, the employees who can’t get promoted will stop performing and those who see that the way to advancement is mediocrity will either perform at that level, or they’ll just move on to another company.

I really like small town newspapers. The big ones, like the New York Times and WSJ, are good for keeping up with world and national news and topics, but the little ones almost always end up with some gem of insight that shouldn’t be missed. I sometimes think of those larger papers and outlets as how you can feel the main pulse of the nation or the world, but if you want to see the details, you need to keep up with the smaller outlets.

That’s why I really end up liking little articles like this one from Binghamton, New York.

“Wanted: The good employee – Hiring and retaining quality employees is vital for success”

If you go read the article, you can find that smaller businesses worry about the same problems as larger businesses. Everything may be on a larger scale, but they’re still problems. And this little story presents good information about how to get good employees and use techniques that the big boys do.

Just because you’re a smaller business doesn’t mean that you can’t implement good evidence-based practices. If one of the problems that keep you up at night is how many employees that you’re losing to your competitors in their first year of employment, then use that to guide your hiring practices. As William Ritter says in this article, look for the red flags that will inevitably pop up in someone’s work history. Past performance is a very strong predictor of future performance. If you’re looking at a resume that shows a person stays at a job on average of at least two or three years, then you’re probably pretty safe assuming that they’re not going to job-hop.

While larger companies have realized the benefits of retaining quality employees and have enacted programs to do so, many small businesses don’t recognize the cost benefits of retaining current employees versus recruiting and training new workers, Ritter said.

“Some of the large companies have been doing these things for years,” Ritter said. “Small companies never seem to get around to it.”

The nature of our mobile society means employees will leave a job if they don’t feel valued, he said.

These are some very true words that even small businesses can embrace. One of the first jobs that I left, I left because the company didn’t understand this. No matter how many pieces of machinery they purchased, if they lost all of their skilled employees, they’d be crippled and lose their market positioning. In the end, that’s exactly what happened. They failed to keep the best people, and were bleeding all of their talent out into the market. So, in the end, their competitors gobbled them up,  even though the competitors were far smaller.

Just because your business is a small fish in the pond, there is no reason that you can’t use the same evidence-based practices that larger businesses do. Sometimes, that’s how smaller businesses become larger businesses.

Your people aren’t your greatest resource; they’re your only resource. Without them, your place of business becomes a storage facility, holding all of the equipment that does nothing without them.

“Our employees are our most important asset.”

Everyone, at some point in their careers, has heard some advanced representative of a company they’ve worked for utter these words. And, if you’re like most employees at most companies, you’ve groaned inwardly. Those words have become tinged with a negative reaction because many companies say them, put them on their website, and put them on slogans around the office. But when it comes time to actually put those words into action, they balk.

There are numerous reasons for companies stopping short of actually considering their employees to be their most valuable resource, but the effect is the point of this post. The inward groan I mentioned earlier has become almost automatic. In the wake of layoffs and jobs being moved to where cheaper labor can be found, there should be little surprise that the burden of proof for this value proposition is on the employer.

Actually treating employees as though they are your greatest asset takes a lot of work and money, and that’s why many companies fail to do so. For a lot of companies, it’s very hard to look beyond the next quarter, much less the following year, or the next decade. And it’s the long look into the future where the companies who do embrace the idea of employees being their greatest assets have the most impact. When they keep their eyes on the ball and don’t waver from it, they find great success.

If you want to see it in action, go take a look at Fortune’s list of top 100 companies to work for. Specifically, look at the top 10 companies in that list. These aren’t a bunch of philanthropic organizations that barely scrape by. At least half of them are brands that almost every person you encounter will recognize instantly. Every single one of them have yearly revenues that are well in excess of a billion dollars. Cisco Systems (#6 on the list), has conducted numerous buyouts and mergers over the last few years. Mergers and buyouts have been statistically terrible for many businesses, but Cisco has managed to be successful and be one of the best companies to work for.

It is possible to be successful and treat people as though they’re your greatest resource. It’s not easy, but it is the path to success.