Читать книгу Making Perfect - Teri Ann Lindeberg - Страница 8

The first two questions confirmed what we were good at, while this question began to tell me what we needed to look after, and or fix and improve.

UNEXPECTED TURNOVER

“Last summer when a few of our experienced team left us, and then having to explain to others what was happening and why and our future, but this is normal for companies”…”Departure of our GM [General Manager] and other people, really liked our GM as a manager – losing him was the most difficult”…”Turnover of experienced people – but good is that it was my idea to return Polina to Staffwell as I spoke to the GM about it”…”I cried when our GM left, he was the heart of the company, maybe I am too emotional”…

It is always hard when good people, sometimes unexpectedly, leave the company. Some of our staff did not have the years of experience to understand why it happens, and it can be difficult for management to explain it and, at the same time, boost morale.

In one instance, we were very fortunate that the key people who left us in the Summer of 2007, to either start their own companies or join others, had all failed in their new endeavors within a 12-month period after leaving us. As they say, the grass is not always greener on the other side.

Personally, I have always managed unexpected turnover very well. This is due to many years of experience and my firm belief that there are always better people to hire in their place. I have always seen employee turnover as an opportunity for a better start.

Losing our GM was hard for me as well because we were quite close, achieved a lot together and had and still have a lot of respect for one another. However, it was also the right time to part ways, and he did a good hand over, and we kept the door open.

Bringing back Polina, who was one of our Senior Consultants on our recruitment team in Moscow, was definitely a good move for us, as she is very strong and talented. She left to join a competitor and realized, within 6 months of leaving us, that we really were the best company on the market to work for. It is always risky to bring someone back into the company. However, in this case, it was a risk well worth taking and one that paid off.

Employees want:

• To minimize unexpected turnover of good people.

STAFF REDUCTIONS

“Staff reductions because I trained and hired them, but everyone understood it was due to the economy”…”Staff down-sizing”…”Redundancy period as it was visible as many seats were empty – but now all is OK”…”Beginning of crisis was very busy with changes of staff”…”Reduction of staff and second wave of reductions”…”People writing this is my last day letters”…”Crisis/redundancies as nobody knew what tomorrow would bring for themselves and colleagues”…”Reduction of colleagues because we were great friends with them – but have no doubt we will grow again”… “Need to improve high stress due to fears of being fired; need to create more stability”

Redundancies impact everyone: both the people leaving and the people staying. We were fortunate to have a sensitive and supportive management group and team in place. We did what we could to motivate and boost morale and knew we would get through it over time.

There is always a risk in allowing departing staff to write “goodbye letters” to the team they are leaving. These letters may depress the people who receive them. However, not allowing a departing employee to say their goodbyes could have an alternative reaction, and team members could wind up feeling that the management of the company is insensitive to those leaving. This is especially true in our company, where the people are, in general, close to one another and are, overall, quite often endearing and heartfelt toward one another.

Employees want:

• A stable economy that does not negatively impact the status quo;

• An office with filled seats and not one strewn with half empty workstations;

• To avoid receiving and reading goodbye letters from colleagues who have been made redundant and are leaving the company due to purely economic reasons (as this is a real downer to remaining staff who are likely friends with these people and may worry about their fate and chances in successfully finding new employment), and

• To feel stability.

TOUGH ECONOMY

“Frustrating is hard work and little results right now, even candidates declining offers”…”The crisis – hard to cold call and lots of ‘No’ responses and slow sales”…”Started with the company at the beginning of the crisis and it was hard to get it going”…”Did not make bonus, thought I could but had 2 cancelled invoices so I lost earning an extra $5,000”

Recruitment is typically hit very hard during times of major economic contraction. We were not different – our revenue decreased 80% and we had to fight and claw to get every little bit of work we did get.

I had to personally cover the financial costs of most of the team we retained during this last downturn, as well as all of the operational expenses. I was happy to do it as long as an effort was put forward by the team and they worked their hardest. Unfortunately, we did have to let go of a few people who, for whatever reason, after a while just refused to even try, and further decided to stop making the obligatory calls to clients. Even if cold calling was not their talent, it needed to be done and those that soldiered through survived and are now thriving again.

Employees want:

• Robust economic conditions and not downturns nor, especially, economic crises.

CORPORATE CORRUPTION

“Our former pharmaceutical/medical Consultant/Director stealing from the company –morals are very important to me”…

On occasion, every company discovers a bad apple in the bunch. In our case, it was our former Pharmaceutical Consultant whom, we discovered, had convinced a few small, local pharmaceutical and medical companies to pay our fees directly into her own personal bank account. We learned about this through the candidates she had placed with them while she was working for us, and unfortunately, we only found out about it as she was leaving us for another recruitment/search firm.

What really annoyed me about this was that, during one of my “Tea with Teri” interviews, a Senior Consultant who had worked in the same room with her, told me that for a period of one year before she left, she (the Pharmaceutical Consultant) had continually complained about the company. I asked him, “Well, why didn’t you tell someone about it (me or anyone in management) as we could have gotten rid of her a year ago and saved whatever time and financial loss we had now incurred”? He had no answer; maybe it had never crossed his mind, or it had but he just felt he could never act upon it.

This prompted me to make a note about revising our operations manual, induction and on-going trainings to request that everyone be observant about any employee who appears disgruntled with the company, or with anyone within it, and to report such to me or someone else in management. This would obviously help us to identify much sooner anyone whom we should be closely monitoring.

This particular pharmaceutical sector recruiter, who stole from us, was let go two years later from the competing recruitment firm she joined. We were unable to recover any of the money she stole from us, but she will always carry the worst reference from us, should any company ever call me about her performance. Again, most companies discover, on occasion, a bad apple in the cart – and she was ours.

Employees want:

• To work with people that have high morals and values; and

• Companies to more closely check staff for possible corruption, and to immediately fire those they find engaged in it (TL: I confess that I may be mind-reading here but feel confident that this is wanted).

INTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS

“To make direct communication channels with certain people – Consultants are tough: tough to motivate them and to get them to communicate”…”Some Consultants are challenging”…”Communication between offices is not as good as it could be, and some of the Directors in the other office keep some positions from us”…

This was a current issue at the time, which we could fix on an individual basis and company-wide. In our business it is important that there is strong communication within offices and between offices. This is an area that should continually be examined.

Based on these replies, I made a note to organize trainings on communication skills for the teams and management in both offices, and to look into the problem of “hoarding” recruitment projects between offices. I also recognized that our operations manual needed to be updated to address both of these concerns, with new policies and rules of working conduct.

Finally, I made a note to organize scheduled conference calls (either phone or Skype) between the management of the offices and between the Consultants and Directors’ groups in both offices.

Employees want:

• Improved communication with those they are not communicating well with;

• Fair play: a share of work if it is supposed to be shared;

• Shared information between offices and departments; and

• Focused work and less drama between colleagues.

LANGUAGE SKILLS

“The level of my English”…

This was a good employee and if helping her to improve her English would make her happy (and would obviously benefit the company to some degree) then I thought we should look into that.

English is by far the most popular global business language and it is ubiquitous in our business in Russia. It is quite widely used by many of our clients, especially foreign companies, that require correspondence, both written and verbal, be conducted in English.

Employees want:

• To speak, read and write more proficiently in English, in order to better communicate with foreigners; both colleagues and clients, alike.

THE OFFICE

“The office space is average, things need fixing”…”Everything promised came true; no problems – only thing is that Staffwell never moved office – but I think this is a good thing”

The epic and long debate about the office: do we move from our fantastic location, albeit in a somewhat run-down historic building, or stay where we are?

We have been in the same office now for 9 years and have expanded in the building over time: we started with one half of a floor but then expanded to occupy almost two full floors. The building is old and dated and so are the management and staff operating it. Most of us have a love-hate relationship with it. We love the charm and nostalgia, but we also desire the new and modern.

Moving would cost a lot of money in terms of relocation and real estate agency fees, as well as renovation costs, rent and deposits. While I acknowledged their comments, seeing as we were in the midst of a major economic down-turn, I ultimately felt that moving was something we should look into only after the market had recovered and our business was stronger.

I recognize that office space does matter to people and if things need fixing then we need to try to fix them – and if we can make the office better than average then we should try.

Employees want:

• A great new, modern office in an ideal location; and

• Things that are broken in the office to be fixed.

THE WORK

“Cold calling”…”To cover projects in many spheres in the beginning – advise not to have generalist recruiters when they start”…”Start-up of the department as the two who left the company left a big mess”…”Do not like split situations in the company as every time it is a conflict situation and relationships are not good after – I had a bad situation with another Consultant and the tension is still there and feel I was not treated fairly and did not like the behavior of the other Consultant”…”Candidate behavior when there are counter-offers, because it is difficult to influence the process”…”At the beginning it was splits, they were very unfair”…”Assumptions – when you are sure the candidate will be the one but sometimes the reality is different”…”Moving from legal to FMCG [Fast Moving Consumer Goods] – as it was unexpected and done abruptly, I knew nothing about FMCG but got great training and love the team there – it is a much less complicated sector, it is much harder to interview lawyers”

I was really pleased to hear this feedback as perfecting our work and operations is extremely important.

There are many aspects to recruitment. Foremost, we are a sales organization: to clients we sell our recruitment services, and to candidates we sell the job opportunities our clients engage us to fill. Accordingly, we must be highly skilled at finding, screening and interviewing people suitable for the roles proffered by our clients. This requires that we keep high standards in report writing, simultaneously managing numerous multi-faceted projects, and continuously updating databases and CRM systems.

Our priority is to serve our clients and candidates with whom we work. Internally, it is crucial we serve each other, as recruitment involves a lot of project work and working together in pairs or teams is the norm.

To stay the best at what we do, we must always look for ways in which to improve our operations and how we work. These comments are very telling and they show specific opportunities for us to improve upon.

I made immediate notes to consider focusing our new recruiters in one area until they get good at it and learn the business, to look into the fairness of the splits and our systems, and to create a more thoughtful and considerate process when moving people from one department to another (i.e., get their “buy-in” well ahead of time).

Cold calling, candidate issues and difficult interviews are all part of the job for our Directors and Consultants. It is what it is and they are either good at it and enjoy it, or they do not. The best we can do in this situation is to offer more specialized trainings in these areas to make our team more comfortable when handling these aspects of the job.

Employees want:

• To start a job by focusing in one area;

• The company to check that everyone is actively updating the databases – regularly and accurately (so that all company information is securely stored);

• More moderation and fairness on fee splits between colleagues;

• Companies (in this case from recruitment companies) to never counter-offer their resigning employees (TL: wishful thinking, but highly unlikely); and

• More involvement in decision making and the process of moving from one departmental role to another.

MANAGEMENT

“The only real problem has been my relationship with the former GM, I tried very hard to improve it but for whatever reason did not manage to do so – I am pleased, however, that I managed to get through what was, at times, the most difficult part of my career to date”…”Our former Commercial Director was crude in meetings”…

I was relieved to hear that these were the only two issues people had with regard to management, within this question, as I was aware of both of them. Our former GM, for some reason, did not like one of our top Directors. Even though both were expats and of the same nationality, our GM just did not like the Director. I suppose that they were just two different people and, sometimes, it really is as simple as that. I am so glad our Senior Director, who mentioned this, did not leave the company in spite of all the tension he endured. He stayed, was loyal and I really appreciate that.

Regarding the former (expat) Commercial Director, he was a somewhat experienced hire, whom we had to let go after 6 months due to poor performance –achieving only around 10% of tasked job responsibilities. His employment ended following a major argument with our GM, who then asked my permission to dismiss him – a request I immediately granted. Subsequently, we found out that he was trying to pitch one of our new clients (brought in by another Director on the team) a million dollar project where all invoices were to be directed into his personal bank account – all the while being employed by us. He was our second bad apple in the cart.

Fortunately, we were able to stop this action in the proposal stage and our client completely shut him down. We were awarded the business and the client (a global bank with extremely high ethics) eventually became one of our best customers, in terms of revenue, in the following years.

Employees want:

• To be liked, listened to, valued and respected by their management;

• To be treated fairly by management; to be treated as all are treated; and

• To not have disrespectful, crude nor rude people managing them, working with them, or for them.

CHANGE

“Unexpected changes, maybe it is good or not good – but knows this is growth (compensation plan structures)”…

This comment referred to when we changed the compensation plan for our front office team (Directors and Consultants) a few years ago. What is important to note here is that, although this happened several years ago, this person still remembers it, and is still affected by it.

Change can really impact some people more than others. Some people need more attention than others during periods of change, such as deeper explanations and time for questions and answers. I made a note to keep this in mind for this particular person, and for the entire team, in general. I feel that it is always better to explain more, rather than less, and that it is important to allow more time, for those that need it, to understand changes that are occurring.

Employees want:

• Less abrupt changes (i.e., more time and explanation in order to adapt).

GOSSIP

“Gossip spreading about the company selling or folding”…

Since its inception 12 years ago, Staffwell has never even been close to folding and shutting its doors. In fact, up until the time of the recent down-turn, we booked solid and steady growth, in terms of client base, staff, revenue and profitability. Unfortunately, in our case (as with many others), it is often the people that have left us (not coincidentally, those that did not achieve the success they had expected in their new job), that have spread false rumors – most likely out of spite.

With regard to a sale of the company, since 2002 we have been, on occasion, solicited by companies interested in investing or purchasing Staffwell. We may eventually sell the company but, if we do, it will be to the benefit of everyone working for the company at the time, as well as those that join and stay in the interim, and those who stay on after any such transaction.

This is something that should be included in the operations manual and be updated on an annual basis. Namely, that if an employee hears gossip that affects them, they should go right to the top (i.e., me) and ask about it, as I am as honest, open, and straight-forward as they get.

From my side, I decided that I can and will address and update these topics with company staff more often.

Employees want:

• Less false, destructive gossip spreading around the office; and

• To know the truth (TL: advice – go straight to the source or to the top).

PROBATION PERIOD

“Start date, as there is a lot to learn quickly”…

I believe that the probation period should be the most arduous time of an employment term. That is, if workers are doing what they are supposed to do during this period. The harder one works during the first three months at a new job, the faster they will get up to speed in their role and the faster they will reach high levels of expertise and success in the company.

My advice to everyone is to always work your absolute hardest at the beginning of every new job you take on. Make it through probation period successfully and be seen by those you work with, and for, as a potential rising star, and then continue to work hard to become, and remain, one of the stars.

Employees want:

• An easy ride sometimes (TL: but I feel that hard work leading to faster success is far more rewarding).

TIME MANAGEMENT

“Nothing except getting here on time – but I know I need to do this”…

Timeliness is really important to me. We have given people flex (flexible) hours where appropriate, but they must show up on time for whatever confirmed hours of work have been agreed upon. It can really annoy others working around someone who does not show up on time for their scheduled work hours and it sets a bad example for everyone else working around them.

Employees want:

• To sleep in (TL: but I don’t let them!).