Читать книгу Making Perfect - Teri Ann Lindeberg - Страница 9

This was a question where I was expecting everyone to ask for a promotion.

OVERLOADED

“Too many now”…”I have enough on my plate now”…”I have a lot to learn still”…

Fair enough. I do believe that staying focused on present responsibilities, what you are currently doing, and being successful at it, can be a positive thing under certain circumstances.

Employees want:

• Nothing at all sometimes.

NEW SERVICES

“Help with out-staffing – new services creation”…”Out-placement is difficult to get going in this crisis, out-staffing is a new option too and I hope this works”…

I appreciate people that want to develop the company and have creative ideas, as this is how my mind thinks as well. Out-placement (formal job assistance for departing staff that companies sometimes have) was something we did start and sold as a service to companies and individuals, and it was a “feel-good” service during hard times for a lot of people.

Out-staffing (the hosting/transfer of a portion of a company’s payroll to another legal entity) was something we went on to create and by one of the managers quoted above. We are developing this as client demand dictates (semi-actively as it is not our core business) and have several clients already.

Employees want:

• To help create, launch and manage new services.

MOTIVATING STAFF

“I worked in consulting before and I have the skills to motivate people to work long hard hours (while having fun), now Consultants skip updates frequently and do not put priority on my vacancies sometimes, also I love the way Maks works, lots of communication – he is a really smart guy”…

I am all for working long, hard hours as this is something I often do myself. Furthermore, I just really enjoy working. However, many people just do not share this drive to the same degree, and I understand that, so I let the first part of the comment ride. Consultants skipping updates on a frequent basis is not acceptable as this is part of the job that places us a few levels above our competition. The Consultant that is not putting occasional priority on vacancies is something that also needs to be looking into, and a note was made to watch Maks, as it is possible he could develop into a top performer for us.

Employees want:

• To utilize what they feel are their own natural talents and skills; and

• To be given the authority to help others perform better.

SELL – IF SOMEONE WERE DOING THE ACTUAL SELLING FOR ME

“Doing what I can do but could do more cold calling and could do more and better if someone was doing the cold calling for me and the BD [Business Development] team”…

The job is the job. If we had to hire a new sales team to get clients for the current sales team – then we would have to either reduce salaries or put profitability at risk, or both. The top BD performers make good money and there are no caps on earnings. We eventually parted ways with this person as he simply was not “sales material”.

Employees want:

• As much assistance as they can get, in order to do their job as best they can; and

• An easier ride, on occasion, at the same salary level.

COLD CALLING

“More cold calling”

This was music to my ears. I think my heart may have even skipped a beat.

Employees want:

• To try harder, and to work harder.

CREATE RESEARCH REPORTS

“I can create industry research; I like it, it is interesting and I come from a higher education background”…”Research, statistics, analysis, critical thinking, IT, can prepare full blown studies”…”Harder to sell right now but would be willing to make market analysis for PR”…

I was pleased to hear this and think it could be very useful for the company. I made notes on everyone interested in doing this.

Employees want:

• To try and help the company in different way, at times.

TRAINING

“I am very strong in conducting sales, I am ready to train all in sales and to share my skills”…”Trainings, anything to help develop the company”…”I can help with training new staff as I was a professional trainer”…”I teach at University in management and HR, and I can teach Staffwell on this”…

This was also great to hear. This is a very easy suggestion to accommodate and it would be highly useful in the development of the team. I made notes on everyone interested in conducting training sessions for the team.

Employees want:

• To train others at what they are good at, and have expertise in; and

• To share their knowledge for the benefit of the company.

HELP MANAGEMENT TO MANAGE

“Help the management to identify what the Directors and Consultants need, want to be the leader in my sectors but do not want to manage, I do not dream about the Commercial Director role, I want to be client-facing, I do like managing my sector team though and want to keep this in place”…

It is very satisfying to hear that some people love the exact role they are in. I also made a note that this person would like to assist management in their role and, as this would motivate him and he is a solid senior performer, we can create opportunities for him to do this.

Employees want:

• To be close to management;

• To help management; and

• Not always to have career aspirations in management.

MANAGEMENT

“I love to manage and build teams, but not to sell, but I can develop sales, I would like to develop the Consultants team to do more and go after top level clients and candidates, to make the team more assertive, to cold call to top level people”…”I believe I have a lot to offer in a sales-oriented leadership role and I believe my career to date supports this, we have discussed this in the past”…”I am an experienced Consultant and would love team leader responsibilities, to train new people and to mentor them”…

Two of the people quoted above were our two top performing business development Directors. They were asking for more and I felt they deserved it. Promoting these two people is something that I took into very serious consideration. In the case of our Commercial Director, she had already stated she was overloaded and it was clear to me that she was.

Employees want:

• To occasionally move into managerial roles (TL: when they are ready, desire it, and deserve it).

KEY ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT (KAM)

“I have already taken on an additional sector, but would also like KAM, more client work, but not the sales part of it”…”KAM for some companies –to provide more services to the clients and to be a Director to some clients”…”KAM, BD should focus on sales only and I should focus on dealing with clients and solving clients issues and negotiating with clients and I will even create a proposal and present it to you on it –this will help bring more revenue from the clients we have”…

This issue had been brought up before. Some Consultants want to be assigned a Director role as well, without having to do sales and cold calling. This does not exactly work for me. There is a reason we deliberately separated the two roles: in order to create a system of checks and balances for the client that, in the process, provides, I believe, a superior client service.

Once a week, the Directors monitor progress made by the Consultants, and then provide an update to the client. At the same time, the Directors check if there are any issues that the client may have about internal matters or with our work.

Having just explained my views on a combined role, I did listen to the comments and took into consideration what was desired: primarily, that the Consultant’s team would like to introduce an official Key Account Manager role and title. This would create the most senior role within the team of Recruitment Consultants. While having some reservations, I decided that I needed to take this issue seriously, and to work with our management team to come up with a potential solution whereby we could continue to provide our customers with same, if not better, quality of service.

Employees want:

• To work more with clients;

• To help clients more; and

• To give clients better service.

BETTER CLIENT SERVICE

“I always try to do the best, and try to provide the best service to clients and candidates”…

My reaction: wonderful.

Employees want:

• To give clients better service.

MENTOR

“Mentor”…”I can also be a coach or mentor for new staff”…

This was great to hear and I noted this person’s interest.

Employees want:

• To mentor staff in areas in which they have expertise.

HELPING THE TEAM

“Helping other departments when people are on holiday”…

I thought this was a good response as well, and I noted this person’s interest in doing this.

This was a topic that I decided I needed to look into further, in terms of policies and other areas covered in our Operations Manual. This is because it is crucial to our business that clients receive a seamless approach when we render services to them, and that full coverage is always in place when our team members are absent, for example, on holiday or are ill.

Of course we do this now and have in the past, but it brought to my mind whether any of this had actually been formalized.

Employees want:

• To help the company, and other team members, by covering for them when they are on holiday or are ill.

LANGUAGE SKILLS

“Speaking French to clients and candidates, but not comfortable as a full-time focus as it is a little rusty”…

The Consultant replying here is willing to help, which is good. However, in this particular case, I thought we had to take a pass, as I felt her confidence level and abilities were insufficient.

Employees want:

• To help the company by using their foreign language skills.

COMBINATION ROLE

“Business development – doing more of it; Stas was a good example of a good recruiter and negotiator and attracted some of his own clients, he got to know all the candidates in his sector and I want to do this too; to become an expert Consultant and BD in my sector or other sectors, plus KAM and I want to be seen as a star and perfect mentor to be looked up to, to be a universal person and a future goal is to get an MBA at a Western business school”…”I want more responsibility to take on BD too, a combined role”…”I was given the opportunity to work in an additional sector and I acted as the client’s Consultant and Director”…”I work well with clients and would also be interested in BD for my sector”…”I now try to do research to help the Consultants, I just started and I like it”…”I now have a lot of work and a lot of planned work, but think I can develop clients by going to PR/marketing/advertising conferences as I am a good negotiator, and to be involved with the website and new things”…

I was very happy to hear that many within our recruitment team also wanted to try their hand at sales – in order to help the company and to develop themselves. I have always provided this opportunity to everyone and was pleased that some felt they were ready.

Nonetheless, the reality is that some of the people above who mentioned this to me never summoned the nerve to actually dive in and do it, as they were encouraged to do. Instead, they just kept to their standard work that they had always been doing and chose to remain in their comfort zone. Having said that, I do believe that there is nothing wrong with employees staying within the confines of their assigned work (i.e., to the status quo). This is because the way in which our Directors and Consultants presently work is equally important to the success of our business.

I am pleased to note that one of our Consultants, who did indeed follow-through on her ambitions to take on a combined role, has really done a fantastic job in helping to develop and maintain a very strong industry practice group for us. We encouraged and supported her efforts along the way and we have all benefited from the success that has come from it.

Employees want:

• To take on more.

BETTER RESULTS

“I could do more if the Directors brought more retained, exclusive searches”…”My sector is very slow right now so I will go after in-house positions and focus on another sector and get the Directors to call into their clients for in-house positions I can close, and get our PR person to search for new vacancies and get the Consultant I work with to help me input candidates I have interviewed”…”Maybe close different vacancies in more lucrative areas”…”Contact ex-candidates and find out where they are right now and try to get them as clients as it might be easier for me to do this than BD”…”I can find leads from candidates I interview”…

This was great to hear: employees with concrete ideas and plans on how to get more business in difficult market times. Many of these strategies were successfully employed.

One of our success stories within this topic has been our legal sector team. Most of our recruitment work prior to the 2008 crisis was on behalf of law firms operating in the market. As many of our legal firm clients decreased, or even curtailed, hiring in 2009-2010, we instead re-directed, with great success, our energy on locating and placing openings for lawyers at corporations within industry sectors.

Within law firms, we focused on placing Partners capable of creating a valid business plan and bringing a book of business and team members with them. This also proved successful for us.

Our incumbent legal sector business, along with a focus on the two new angles within our legal recruitment sector, enabled us to more than double our results in this sector.

Employees want:

• More clients on a retained and exclusive basis; and

• To try a variety of strategies to enhance their success, as well as that of the company.

NOTHING

“I am quite satisfied with my role right now”…

This person left us within a month.

Employees want:

• Nothing sometimes, which could also be a red flag.

SPECIALIZE

“I really like executive search projects, preparing reports, etc. and I had two major ones that I closed successfully”… “I am an accountant in my soul so I would like to stay in that and keep improving and moving higher”

There was nothing to act upon here. It was just nice to know that some people really liked what they were doing.

Employees want:

• To focus in areas they enjoy and are good at.

NEW ROLE

“I like my job but would also like to try being a Consultant or Director, but know my English is not great”…”Our former HR [Human Resources person] offered me, as an idea, a Consultant’s role as a career growth area, so maybe I could do research for a sector team and eventually become a Consultant”…

Indeed, both of the people commented above are good in the roles they have and would, potentially, be good as Consultants as well. I noted their desires and committed to speak to our management team about them for future consideration.

Employees want:

• To change roles on occasion (TL: and if they are a good employee it can potentially be beneficial for everyone).