IntegraBlog

Coaching Managers for Success

by: Wendy Floyd | Senior Recruiter
The partnerships that you’ve built with your line of business managers are starting to pay off. Your success in sourcing the ideal candidate, screening them for the position and preparing them for the line of business interview has increased. So at this point in order to continue seeing the fruits of your labor, you will need to identify coaching opportunities. Coaching relationships simply forge a foundation for the success you want. What outcome does every recruiter desire from his or her line of business interview? A hire!

Some of the benefits of coaching include:
• Commitment - to recruiting partnership
• Clarity – clearer understanding of expectations and goals
• Cooperation –synergy becomes a way of doing business
• Decisiveness – quicker and better decision result in better quality of actions
• Energy – interviewing process and candidates are dealt with more effectively

Do your line of business managers think that you have a file drawer of resumes just waiting for a call? If so, educate and coach your managers. Educate your managers about the caliber of candidates you recruit for their open positions. Qualified, top performing candidates don’t expect to receive the same treatment average candidates receive. They’re valuable, have a competitive edge and know their worth. Additionally, this will help managers understand the effort that goes into turning a prospect into a candidate and ensures that managers appreciate your pool of A-level candidates.

Our managers appreciate us! Why? Recruiting professionals at Integra are confident in their ability to attract A-level candidates. Our innovative three to one guarantee provides assurance to our line of business managers that they will make a hire in three candidates or less. Now…how’s that for a commitment!

Benefits of Hiring Employees that "Fit"

by: Renee Boatwright | VP of Recruiting
Once you start to hire, manage and fire employees based on corporate culture, you will start to recognize and experience substantial benefits. It may take longer for some organizations to recognize these benefits, but you should start to experience reduction in employee turnover and increase in employee morale. By reducing employee turnover and increasing employee morale you’ll find that you’ve created a work environment where employees enjoy being at work. If employees enjoy being at work, they are more likely to interact with their co-workers, clients and business partners in a positive, engaging manner. Not only should the state of the work environment improve, but managers and business owners should start noticing benefits in their bottom line! All the more reason to conserve your organization’s culture!!

In 2006 a Cornell University study found that small businesses that followed the culture fit approach experienced 22% more revenue growth and 23% more profit growth compared to companies that did not follow the culture fit approach. The study also found that companies that followed the culture fit approach experienced 67% less employee turnover compared to the companies that did not follow the culture fit approach. Wow! The 323 companies that were tested in this study hired employees based on culture fit and skill set as opposed to skill set only. The companies that were tested trusted their employees to manage themselves rather than enacting strict controls. They also created a “family-like” environment rather than motivating employees solely by money.

At Integra we believe that working as a team has made us individually and collectively more successful. We meet as a team every day to discuss challenges and possible solutions. It is amazing how beneficial advice can be that is given by an outsider who isn’t “consumed” with the problem. The information that we share with our team may not benefit us individually today, but the act will be reciprocated either tomorrow or the next day and will come full circle time and again. Our open, positive, encouraging, fun culture has caused us to be collectively successful, which is a benefit to our employees, our company, our clients and our business partners.

Effective Interview Tips

by: Yin Lo | Client Relationship Manager
Once you’ve phone-screened and qualified a candidate, the next step would be to invite the candidate in for a more formal face-to-face interview.  Interviewing styles and techniques will differ depending on the employer and the position requirements. 

Many companies follow a standardized interview sheet with questions such as “What were your previous responsibilities and duties? or “What do you consider are your strengths and weaknesses?”  This format may be helpful when determining skill set; however, it can be a bit deceiving because candidates expect the standardized questions and prepare standardized answers.  It also lacks real-life situations that produce action-reaction results.  Below are some tips on how to construct a more effective interview:

Tip #1:  Be Flexible

As the Interviewer, you will have to be flexible with the type of questions you ask. The more probing and questioning you do, the more information you’re bound to find out.  There’s nothing wrong with using an interview sheet as a guide but make sure you tailor your interview questions from there depending on a candidate’s answer.  This will help you focus on some main questions but allow enough leeway to dig deeper!

Tip #2: Use Situational Interviewing

Situational interviewing is another popular interview method.  These types of questions may include “Describe a time when…” or “How did you handle…”.  These questions help probe into an individual’s thought-process or more directly, how they may handle a certain situation.  It’s effective because you can easily determine whether an individual possesses real-life experiences and how they approached and resolved the situation.

Tip #3: Use Behavioral Interviewing

Recently some companies have started to utilize behavioral interviewing.  This form of interviewing requires candidates to think fast and apply their knowledge, skills, and personality to their responses.  Behavioral interviewing strays away from typical questions and actually puts candidates in real-life situations.  This differs from situational interviewing because you are not asking candidates to describe a situation but instead put them in the situation.  For example, you may have a candidate perform a function that may be required on-the-job (i.e. placing a call t to a client), or you may test their personality by putting them in a stressful situation and observing their actions.  Though this method can be very effective, you should be careful to choose appropriate behavioral interviewing that applies to their position.  The last thing you want to do is overwhelm or scare away a strong candidate!  This is a newer form of interviewing and it allows individuals to react instead of recite.

Each position within a company will require a different set of skills, personality, and ability.  By catering your interview to fit the job duties and functions, it will help you better select the top candidates amongst your pool of viable candidates.  I recommend utilizing a little bit of each method!

Retain Top Talent in 2008

by: Michelle Fish | CEO
It’s New Year’s resolution time again and one of the top resolutions people often make is to “find a new job” in the upcoming year.  For HR professionals and recruiters this is both an opportunity and a challenge.  It means that there will be a larger pool of interested, highly skilled professionals available to choose from, but it also means that your top talent could be one of them.   Therefore, it’s important to take the time now to re-examine your employee retention strategy.

In addition to keeping recruiting and training costs down, employee retention has a direct correlation with heightened productivity.  As customer service often suffers when a company experiences turnover, employee tenure will have a direct effect on your company’s profitability.  So how do you retain your superstars in 2008?  Here are my top tips:

1. Create a Culture of Open Communication

Employees are more apt to stay with a company if they feel like they play a critical role in the firm’s success.  Share your company’s annual business plan with staff and get them excited about your goals for the upcoming year.  Hold regular team meetings to provide a forum where staff can share their accomplishments, learn from each other, and stay aligned.  Give managers access to financial information so that they feel accountable and can take ownership over projects. At Integra we have an open door policy so that employees know that they can come to anyone at anytime with anything; including me as CEO.

2. Recognize and Celebrate Employee Success

It sounds rather simple, but make sure that your top performers know that you appreciate them.  It’s easy for managers to get caught up in the urgent tasks of the day and let recognition opportunities pass them by.  A popular reason employees start job hunting is because they don’t feel like their contributions are important or valued.  Take the time to acknowledge a job well done whether it’s through a simple “great job” or a more formal employee award program.

3. Provide Opportunities for Growth and Development

Top talent will not stand still for long; encourage this ambition by providing out-of-office opportunities for growth.  Support employees to go back to school for continuing education or to attend industry specific conferences and workshops for further training.  Employees value these types of programs as it shows that you have a genuine interest in their personal and professional development.]

Keep these tips in mind and you’re sure to create a workplace environment where top performers want to stay and thrive!

How do you Retain Gen Y at your Organization? Just Talk to Them!

by: Joanna Gammon | Client Relationship Manager
They're ambitious, they're demanding and they question everything…they’re Generation Y! As a follow up to my post, Generation Y: How to Attract and Retain the New Twenty-Something Professional, I am going to expand on the third recommendation which is "Talk to Them!"

In today’s workplace, it is common to see 50-year olds working right beside 20-year olds. Some of these freshly minted college graduates are even overseeing employees old enough to be their parents, maybe even grandparents. New entrants into the workforce are changing careers faster than college students changing majors. These frequent changes create frustration for employers, with many wondering how it’s possible to retain these young and talented high performers.

"Generation Y is much less likely to respond to the traditional command-and-control type of management still popular in much of today's workforce," says Jordan Kaplan, an associate managerial science professor at Long Island University-Brooklyn in New York. "They've grown up questioning their parents, and now they're questioning their employers.

First and foremost, as an employer, you need to take the appropriate managerial steps in order to train, lead, and develop this generation. Once you have found a comfortable leadership/communication style, you need to implement it on a daily, weekly, monthly basis – whatever works best for your corporate environment.

At Integra, we hold weekly Monday morning meetings. All employees attend, including our CEO, COO, and Accounting Manager. We go around the room and each share 1 professional story and 1 personal story from the past week. It is a great way to catch each other up not only with business matters but also outside activities. I realize that many companies are too large for the whole company to meet and therefore should break into smaller groups of approximately 15-20 people. The meeting should last no more than 30-45 minutes. In addition, on Tuesday thru Thursday we meet in small group for a quick 10 minute catch up on the most recent business affairs. I also meet one-on-one with my manager once a month for a review. During this evaluation session we talk about my activities, goal planning, new ideas, etc. Integra also has an open door policy…our CEO and COO are included in this policy!

What Gen Yer’s want is for you to tell them TODAY how they are doing; not tomorrow, and certainly not one year from now. They want you to personally train them in certain areas and help develop them so that they can be as effective as possible within the organization. They desire interaction and communication with higher level executives. If you want to retain a Generation Y employee, just talk to them!