At a breakfast last week I was fortunate to hear Gail Kelly speak of the insights and lessons learned from building St George Bank into the high growth, hugely successful organisation it is today. The very next day she announed she was moving to head up Westpac - to work her magic there on a much bigger beast.

But back to St George… Gail identified 5 lessons that underpinned the company’s success:

1. Strong disciplines
2. Right people in the right roles
3. Paying attention to culture and values
4. Customer Advocacy (so much more than customer satisfaction), and
5. Appreciating that the journey takes time

The two points she reiterated constantly as being fundamental to success came from Lessons 2 and 3.

Firstly - companies must focus on getting the wrong people off the bus. People wwho are technically competent, but had the wrong attitude - were quickly dealt with. People who weren’t team players, or who were political - were quickly dealt with. For me this was a timely reminder that dealing with performance issues proactively can be the difference between a great company and a good one. In my experience this is one are where leaders and companies fail (strong word I know). People are left in roles way too long, leaving competent employees to wonder why they should bother trying.

Secondly, leaders were required to - and did - role model the company’s values and behaviours. At St George, actions spoke far more loudly than words. The leaders did not expect anyone to behave in ways that they themselves wouldn’t. It was

“Do as I do”, not “Do as I say.”

Here are some direct quotes from Gail about her style taken from the ABC News website:

“I’m passionate about customers, I’m passionate about customer service, I’m an energetic person and I’m very determined,” she said.”I’m going to bring all those attributes to Westpac when I arrive.”

The 51-year-old mother of four will become the first female chief executive officer of a top 20 Australian company.It is an achievement she is well aware of.

“Unquestionably I would be a role model and that’s a very privileged position to be in,” she said.

“The extent to which I’m able to encourage and support other women to take the opportunities that come their way, and have the confidence to believe themselves and back themselves, I’m truly delighted to do that.”

Mrs Kelly says having children taught her the importance of balancing work with other parts of life.

“I really am a huge believer in work-life balance,” she said.

“I’m a big believer in the importance of creating flexibility within the workplace. “That requires not only policies but it also requires practices, the way management and people interact with each other within the workplace.

The Older Worker/Younger Boss phenomenon

Almost 30% of workers surveyed by networking site Linkme.com.au are not happy taking orders from a bosses often a generation younger than they are. Given that the younger boss/older employee dynamic will continue to grow as older workers stay longer in the workforce, this has implications on how companies manage the issues and differences between the two generations.

Recruiters Beware…..

70% of applicants exaggerate their skills and experience when applying for jobs, according to a study by recruiter Robert Half. Not surprisingly, managers don’t trust their CV’s. The areas most considered suspicious by managers were:

• the real content/responsibilities of previous roles (75%)
• reported management skills (72%) and
• technical skills (61%)

Most companies reported trusting their own judgement rather than relying on information in the CV.

Innovative Approach to getting Employees to take their Annual Leave….

GE Money are now offering a fifth week of leave as an incentive for employees that take their 4 weeks annual leave in the year it falls due. The program -called “Take It” - aims to address the work/life balance issue and improve employee productivity. From the company’s perspective, it reduces the balance sheet liability and encourages people to change their behaviour and plan their leave well in advance. Pretty cool idea, huh?

Standards go up for Employer of Choice for Women…..

Businesses seeking an Employer of Choice for Women citation in 2008 (from the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace) will need to provide paid maternity leave and part-time working arrangements for senior managers. They will also need to demonstrate that:

• the pay-equity gap between men and women is less than 17% (the national average)
• at least 27% of managers are women, and
• a minimum 6 weeks paid maternity leave is offered after 12 months service

I have been travelling a lot recently - hence the big gap between posts - so I’ve become intimately more involved with our local airline policies. It seems to me, as a customer, that the airlines don’t go out of their way to help you out if you need to change your flights. Even when you make those changes well in advance:

• you don’t get your money back - it’s a credit
• sometimes you can’t change the destination (which is a real bugger)
• you can’t change the name on the flight (also a major bugger)

I believe the concept of flexibility has a lot of merit in all businesses today. If we offer our people the flexibility they are looking for, in the areas they want it, then they’ll tick with us for longer. Whther that flexibility be around hours worked, location, benefits, tpe of work, reward, or any other component. The ability to be flexible is a source of competitive advantage.

How many companies out there are behaving like these airlines - where the flexibility is so limited, that you only fly with them because there is no other choice. Our employees have plenty of choice - and they aren’t afraid to exercise it!

Some of the most popular flexible practices are:

• Flexible working hours
• Part-time work
• Job sharing
• Flexible working year
• Working from home
• Part year employment
• Career breaks
• Purchased leave
• Phased retirement

Providing options such as these help employees feel more valued and sometimes (thought not always) more connected to the organisation. And if you’re wondering what’s in it for the employer…..they can reduce their turnover and recruitment costs, continue to engage the talents of ageing workers (I hate that expression - is there a better one?), improve morale and promote diversity.

Hear hear….

Today’s paper had an article on the continuing evolution of the human race. It seems we continue to change and adapt to our surroundings. Some notable examples are:

• the emergence of lactose tolerance in cattleherding people of northern Europe
• resistance to various diseases, and
• changes to our metabolism based largely on dietary changes (all that sugar and white flour is having an impact…)

It struck me that our ability to adapt is played out in many ways, and particularly in the workforce.

When we enter the workforce there are many expectations placed upon us:

• you should work hard for your employer
• you should try and get on with people
• the interests of the company are greater than your own
• achievement of tasks and goals is paramount
• you should want to grow and develop yourself
• you will be rewarded for your effort

This environment is quite different from the many other environments we find ourselves in - the family unit, one’s social environment, our exercising environment….

In my work I come across many people who profess to being a totally different person in their work environment - harder, tougher, more direct (ok - shorter….) more task focused, less concerned about people’s feelings and so on.

There are two schools of thought on this. One that says if you are wearing a different mask at work, then you are not being “you”. And that the difference between some of the most successful and great leaders is their ability to be themselves and share that with the people around them (Jim Collins - Good to Great, for example).

The second school of thought says it’s natural for us to behave differently at work. The expectations of our employer, other employee’s behaviour and workplace culture are powerful forces, and we adapt in ways that we believe will give us our greatest chance of success in that environment.

I believe that to be the case, and yet I spend my days helping people see that adapting their behaviour to fit in with agressive or defensive behavioural norms does not neccessarily contribute to the greater good!

From my experience individuals can stand out in organisations in two very different ways:

1. for being highly adaptive and exceptionally successful at meeting expectations, behaving in “accepted ways”, and fitting in culturally, or
2. for bucking that trend, staying true to themselves, and being seen as someone who is highly effective withoutbeing consumed by other people’s expectations.

I don’t have the equivocal answer. I think some people will have more success with one strategy than the other - and most of us probably fall somewhere in the middle - adapting our behaviour depending on specific situations.

If you have a view - I’d love to hear it.

EQ that is…

Just a quick update on new statistics from my friends at TalentSmart, who do great things with EQ assessment and research.

There are 4 Emotional intelligemce skill sets:

1. Self Awareness
2. Self Management
3. Social Awareness and
4. Relationship Management

A worldwide study of 500,000 people did reveal significant differences between the sexes:

It turns out that men and women have equal abilities in the Self Awareness Skill set. That is, we can grasp and identify our emotions as they arise, and

“can grasp their significance across time and situation”.

The genders have an equal ability, but men choose to use theirs less frequently (hmmm).

However as for the other 3 skills: self management, relationship management and social awareness……..women outscored men in all three.

The largest difference was in Relationship Management, with almost a 10% difference between the sexes. Taking all factors into acccount, the female gender had an overall average EQ score around 77% and males around 71%.

With EQ accounting for something like 58% of job performance, it’s worth paying attention to. On the TalentSmart website you can test your EQ online for a very reasonable sum. Try it!

As an aside, I am planning to become accredited in EQ shortly, so if you’re thinking about working with it in your business and want some information, drop me a line.

It’s damn hard to get good people right now. The skills shortage is biting, plus everybody else seems to be getting better at the retention stuff.

What to do when the traditional sources of candidates (newspapers and recruitment websites) aren’t providing enough candidates for your vacant jobs?

Check out this new website: www.jobbountyhunter.com.au

It marries the concept of referrals with technology. So employers can place their job ads on there, and people can recommend their friends or families who might be suitable. If you make a recommendation, and that person is subsequently hired, you actually get paid a “bounty” - sort of like a finders fee - for your efforts.

Pretty cool

There’s research out there now to support the idea that people who are personally referrred into companies - by those who already work there, or friends - are more engaged and stay longer. If you can. you definitely want these people on your payroll.

Worth checking out as a new source of candidates if the usual ones aren’t working for you.

More survey results - this time from our friends at Drake International - who surveyed several hundred people right across Australia in February 2007. The results provide some insight for all employers struggling to get good people in the door, and then keep them.

What attracts people to companies in the first place?

• 89% - training and development opportunities (I know it sounds corny, but what I really want is to learn and develop)
• 86% - remuneration (ok - the money’s still pretty important to me)
• 77% - the promise of an enjoyable place to work (please let me have a half decent manager and don’t make me work with assholes)
• 75% - up front salary advertising (please let me know the salary range before I actually apply for the job!)
• 72% - flexible hours (I want to leave early sometimes - but I’ll make it up to you)
• 72% a straightforward application process (don’t make me dance through unnecessary hoops - I’ll just go somewhere else)

Apparently one public sector authority reported a 30% rise in applications after it removed the written component.

What makes employees stay with a company ? (from the same study)

• 34% - the work itself (don’t make me do the most god-awful boring work for more than half the time)
• 31% - good leadership (please invest some money into developing your leaders so they have some vague interest in doing more than barking orders at me)
• 29% - relationships with immediate supervisors (above comments apply, plus it would be great if there were a decent human being)
• 28% - recognition (it’d be nice if, every now and then, someone told me I was doing an OK job)
• 26% - remuneration (show me the money!)

And in case you were wondering….

What makes people leave?

• poor management (did you get the message yet?)
• unsatisfactory remuneration
• issues with immediate supervisors
• limited work/life balance
• unmet expectations

Whe I read the results of this study, I had to share them quickly with you all.

Chandler and McLeod and the Australian Human Resources Institute surveyed 2186 job candidates and 436 HR professionals and found:

“a deap seated cynicism about the Employer of Choice label that companies attach to themselves”.

The study’s main findings have to make you ask whether going through the process of attaining EOC status (and it’s a long and hard road) is worthwhile for anything other than PR:

• More than half said they rarely took any notice of a company’s claims to be an Employer of Choice (EOC)
• And yet more than 93% of employers believe being an Employer of Choice is key to attracting candidates.
• 24% had worked for an EOC company that hadn’t lived up to it’s promises
• 25% had been penalised for trying to access the touted EOC benefits, such as flexible hours, training and career development, and
• 26% claimed to know co-workers who had experinced similar treatment

There really is nothing more damaging for a company’s culture and the engagement of it’s people than promises that are made but not kept. So all you EOC hopeful companies out there - you’ll need to do the walking after you’ve finished doing all the talking!

It seems the statistics indicate that corporate loyalty is dwindling fast. The latest labour mobility stats say we are switching jobs at a greater rate than ever before.

The ABS study found that of employees who had been with their employer for 1 year or more, those in the 24-36 age bracket were most likely to have changed jobs in the past 12 months. 30% for men and a whopping 38% for women.

The impacts of are many:

1. ongoing recruitment costs
2. training of new employees
3. lost knowledge
4. lost productivity as we cope with numbers 1 and 2
5. decrease in the coherence of teams

Re-affirming anecdotal evidence and other studies, the driver seems to be the changing expectations of younger people in the workforce. University leavers these days apparently believe they are entitled to more senior or experienced roles than they are actually qualified for.

Whether that’s true or not, the implications for employers are clear. You’d better be good at developing strategies to engage and retain your people, or your organisation will feel it financially, culturally and through productivity.

I know I bang on about recognition a lot. If I haven’t done it in this blog yet - well stay tuned….I’ve decided to make it a theme for the month. We’ll cover strategies, tips and kinds of recognition that contribute to successful outcomes.

The truth is, there’s a significant proportion of managers out there who don’t get it’s value (let alone the fact that it costs almost nothing to do and is therefore, also a no-brainer of a strategy - but I won’t go there).

The research is clear: there is a direct correlation between recognition and employee performance and productivity.

So it makes good sense to provide consistent recognition. In fact, doing so is a vital responsibility of a manager. In the simplest of language, when efforts are recognised, people feel valued and satisfaction grows.

And you always get more of the things you recognise.

So what constitutes a successful recognition strategy or program?

According to Recognition Professionals International (an actual organisation dedicated to promoting the value of Recogniton in organsations), a comprehensive program includes three components that promote:

Day to Day Recognition - frequent, ongoing, and informal. It may include simple praise or thanks, awards, celebrations and thank you notes. All employees are eligible for this kind of recognition, supporting the process up, down and across the organisation.

Informal Recognition - singles out individuals or teams for progress toward milestones, achieving goals or projects completed. Celebrations may include low cost mementos or refreshments as a way to celebrate achievements or outstanding positive behavior. It is less structured than Formal Recognition and reaches a larger percentage of the employee population.

Formal Recognition - a structured program with defined processes and criteria that link to company values and goals. This kind of recognition usually includes a nomination and selection process, and public recognition of the successful nominees.

Recognition works best when it is tailored (more on that in the next post). I’d be interested - what kinds of recognition are used in your company?

I ran a workshop yesterday with a Leadership team I have been working with on and off for a year or so. Yesterday’s topic is an age-old favourite:

How to give constructive feedback to employees

This team had let performance issues go for far too long. They had employees they were continuing to counsel (formally, mind you- with letters on file) for periods of years. Each time the employee would do just enough to get through that particular issue, before reverting over time to the unwanted behaviours and actions.

So instead of coaching them on being less harsh, we spent most of the session discussing and practicing how to be direct, send a message that gets heard, and hold their employees accountable. Let’s face it, not every human being is reasonable. Sometimes we spend way too much time trying to be positive and encouraging, when really we need to recognise that this employee will never perform to the standard we want.

Here are my top 8 tips for having conversations with employees who have been playing the system…..

1. Write down the key messages you want to deliver before you go into the meeting. Chances are - if your employee has been down this path before - they know what to expect. Your preparation will be what determines how successful you are this time around. Perhaps you haven’t been clear in previous meetings, or you tried to talk about so many things that your message was diluted. Writing your messages down will help you stay on track.
2. Decide what outcome you want from the meeting. Are you looking for acknowledgement and commitment to action? Is it a formal warning? Do you want them to agree to performance standards? Whatever it is, be clear before you walk in about what you want when you walk out.
3. Be concise and don’t waffle on. It’s like we feel we need to keep explaining ourselves in great detail. Remember, this employee has been playing the system for a while. This is not news to them -it’s potentialy just another opportunity for them to ignore you (or pretend to listen and then not follow through). In my workshop, I asked the team to condense their explanation of the issue into 3 sentences, and then shut up. This created a much stronger message, and they felt more in control.
4. Make sure they take ownership of the issue. Easier said than done sometimes, but there are a couple of strategies you can use when people are in denial, or unresponsive. Ask lots of “you” questions - What are you going to do to address this? When will you commit to doing this? What are you prepared to do? Leave I, me and we out of it!
5. If they still refuse to own the issue, you take over and outline the consequences. If they still refuse to be accountable, let them know that you will take ownership, and what the consequences of this are. Consequences are up to you of course. What I have had success with in the past is letting the employee know that this meeting is the first of 3 formal warnings. The last 2 warnings will occur over the next 2 weeks, after which their employment will be ended if improvements are not demonstrated. I also add the rider that if they come up to scratch, and then perform poorly again later, that this will end the employment realtionship immediately. Set clear expectations about consequences, and stick to them.
6. Use silence effectively. After you’ve asked your “you” questions - zip it! Sit there and wait for them to respond. Don’t try and fill the silence if they don’t. Most times they will get uncomfortable before you.
7. Do what you say. If you set an expectation of following up or having another meeting - do it. Always try and set actual dates and times rather than leaving things open-ended.
8. Be prepared to handle an emotional reaction. You probably know if the employee is going to get angry, tearful, or hotly deny any wrongdoing. Part of your preparation is how you will deal with that. The REM model is a useful framework (reflective listening, empathy and moving on). Confusing empathy with sympathy will get you into more hot water, so don’t go there!

Don’t misunderstand me - I wouldn’t recommend this approach the first, second or even third time you were dealing with a performance issue. This is only in those cases where the behaviour has been going on for a long time, and the time for coaching is over.

If you go and talk to any recruiter, they will tell you all about the bias we unconsciously introduce into interview situations. There’s a simple reality about interviews - we are human, and humans are subjective. No matter how much we protest otherwise - and rightly or wrongly - we carry with us some assumptions about different types of people. (Thank heavans recruiters can put aside their basic humanness and recruit for us in totally objective ways…..)

But is it really bias, or are we basing our decisions on something more fundamental? Many of use would refer to it as “gut feel” or “intuition”.

I had cause to ponder this again recently when I was asked to present some material on recruiting to a group of start-up business owners. I thought it was about time I updated my knowledge. (Ok -I actually thought: “Damn - do I still know anything about recruiting?”)

A little time on Google revealed some interesting studies.

In a massive study conducted by John and Rhonda Hunter at The University of Michigan on the “Validity and Utility of Alternative Predictors of Job Performance”, the usefulness of the job interview in accurately predicting later success on the job was analysed. The surprising finding:

The typical interview increases the likelihood of choosing the best candidate by less than 2%.

In other words, if you just “flipped” a coin you would be correct 50% of the time. If you added an interview you would only be right 52% of the time.

Hmmm.

How about this story. Some eminent psychologists at Harvard University (Nalini Ambady and co.) wanted to check out whether interviewees who had been coached to act ingratiatingly towards the interviewer (copying their gestures and posture etc) would rate better in the interview than those who hadn’t been coached. The interviewers were trained for 6 weeks in all manner of objective interviewing techniques. As it turns out, ingratiating behaviour gets you nowhere.

Then an even more aspiring psychologist at the University of Toledo (Frank Bernieri) decided to use the same footage from those interviews to look at whether “the handshake was everything”. They got people off the street to watch only the greeting component of each interview (15 seconds in total), and got them to rate the candidates on the same criteria as the original interviewers.

Against all expectations, the ratings were very similar to those of the interviewers.

“On nine out of the eleven traits the applicants were being judged on, the observers significantly predicted the outcome of the interview,” Bernieri says. “The strength of the correlations was extraordinary.”

Apparently, human beings don’t need to know someone in order to believe that they know someone.

Bernieri and Ambady believe that the power of first impressions suggests human beings have a particular kind of pre-rational ability for making searching judgments about others. What we are picking up in that first instant would seem to be something quite basic about a person’s character, because what we conclude after two seconds is pretty much the same as what we conclude after twenty minutes.

And in fact - if we are asked to apply rational thought, such as filling out a formal, detailed questionnaire, of the sort designed to give the most thorough and unbiased account of an interview - we often achieve a result that’s the same, or less effective. Thinking, it seems, gets in the way.

So where does all this leave the tried and tested interview in the recruitment process. Well I think it means we should consciously recognise and articulate our first impressions. Then we should spend time working out whether the person has the skills to do the job. Other studies clearly show that skills are the strongest predictor of job performance - ahead of values, attitudes and behaviours.

And next time I go for an interview- it’s the firm handshake, eye-contact and warm inviting smile that I’m going to practice.