Reflecting on her work, she shared her ideas of how she could have pushed the organization forward in the past year.  She could have saved the organization both time and money through selection and development projects that she already knows her company needs.  However, before she could get to more strategic changes, she would get bogged down in day-to-day competing priorities, such as corporate objectives, regional objectives, and HR questions.

We’ve all had the experience that as one crisis or project is coming to a close, there’s always a couple more cropping up.  As a result, the good ideas, the long-term project, or the employees’ developmental needs sometimes get pushed to the back burner, or are jammed into a one-day meeting.  My friend loves working at an agile and hard-driving company, but she confided that she rarely has the ability to sit down and focus on projects due to her workload.  As with most of us, she has to do more than ever but with less support, and is already working 10+ hour days and on her Blackberry after work.

How do you balance your workload?  One of the things that ECI specializes in is doing the “heavy lifting” on Talent Management projects and initiatives.  By developing flexible/custom Talent Management tools and systems, we allow our clients to manage their day-to-day responsibilities, while we work on projects in the background.  This allows for a best-of-both-worlds scenario, where our clients can make an impact with new Talent Management strategies, while still managing the everyday priorities.

Organizational culture can be defined as the shared beliefs, values, perceptions and expectations of individuals within an organization. For example, the manner of communication, normative behaviors and policies are just a few aspects of organizational culture. More important than the definition, however, are the outcomes of culture. Organizational culture has been linked to financial performance, employee satisfaction and customer satisfaction. Furthermore, culture is associated with innovation, creativity and has been strongly tied to organizational behavior.

One of the many examples of success stemming from a highly innovative organizational culture is Southwest Airlines. Over the past few decades, they have been able to remain profitable in a competitive industry primarily due to their emphasis on developing their organizational culture.

Therefore, it is critical that management periodically examine the consequences of the culture that is being infused into the organization. Bear in mind that this does not mean a measurement of the organizational culture must be taken, but rather an active fostering of development and ensures it matches the overall values and mission of the organization.

Also to note, there is no “right” or “wrong” culture. Rather, the industry, organizational climate and desired outcomes can shape the culture.  When the culture is aligned with organizational values, this sets a firm and proper foundation on which success can be built. Organizational culture can be portrayed in many different ways. What are some of the ways organizational culture is demonstrated in your company?

If you have low performers in need of development, the ECI Behavioral Insight^® can provide targeted areas of development against traits that are linked to success in that role.   ECI can also help teams perform better together by understanding each other’s style.  Further, we can help you ensure that employees are maximizing their potential through individual and team development, 360° feedback tools and/or custom Competency Assessment centers.  Moreover, as your company grows or as marketplaces change, job descriptions and core competencies can shift, leaving employees without a clear direction and vision to work towards.  ECI has the experience and ability to help your organization by developing updated core competencies and job descriptions which align to the organization’s new goals and culture.   After all, ensuring your employees understand their roles and how to grow within your company helps protect your most important asset from turnover, poor job fit, burnout, and low performance!

On a personal note, I have attempted training for a marathon several times over the past few years.  I tried to take any short-cuts I could find.  I would scour the internet looking for the latest and greatest training supplements, exercises and routines.  Time and again I would try various training guides and exercises, only to injure myself and not be able to participate in the race.  However, this year, I have taken the long-term approach and found a training program that fits my needs and have had great results.  While my marathon is still two months away, I am right on track with my training.  And no injuries yet!

This training process has really taught me to take my time and put in the work on the front-end to achieve my goal.  The same principle applies in the business world.  Unfortunately, there is not a quick fix that can help you solve your people issues.  Every organization has people issues and some have more than others.  We have found you can add tools to help manage and develop employees, while establishing clear organization objectives and goals to minimize the negative impact to the business.

Companies can achieve outstanding results and increase employee productivity by taking the long-term approach. In fact, some of the most recognizable and trusted organizations in the world follow that future-focused thought process.  We have found that we can help our clients succeed by providing them with the tools and solutions that they need.  From there, they need to do the work, be consistent, and follow the process that leads to success.  If they try to push things too hard or veer off course, we can be there, like a good coach, to help them get back on track.  If you feel pressure pushing you to take short-cuts to get to your end goal, just remember the childhood parable of the Tortoise and the Hare – slow and steady wins the race!

What are some of the best success stories that you have heard?  How do you stay focused on long-term results while following a plan?

Employee motivation is well researched, and various theories have been presented for many years. From early theories such as the Hierarchy of Needs to the more modern S.M.A.R.T. system of goal-setting, many ways to motivate employees have been proposed. However, at the end of the day, what truly motivates you?

The lure of money surely works for many. However, as the early theorist Herzberg notes, money is likely to motivate you and prevent you from being dissatisfied at work, and may not necessarily lead to you gain job satisfaction. As such, there are other aspects of the workplace that can motivate individuals. For a salesperson, overcoming the challenge of convincing a client to purchase a product can be just as motivating as the monetary aspect of the sale itself. Furthermore, an employee in an entry level position can be motivated by the opportunity to learn new information and begin a new career, regardless of the compensation associated with the position. A research team can be driven by the excitement surrounding the development of a new pharmaceutical product.

On the other hand, well-paid employees could have little or no desire to work if they have hostile managers or very poor working conditions. Additionally, if personal goals such as career advancement, good work-life balance and recognition are not attained on the job, the likelihood of an employee being motivated, despite a big pay-day, is reduced. Therefore, it is important that employers are aware of the driving forces within their employees to keep them motivated to perform at the highest level.

What are your thoughts on the topic of employee motivation? Is money the only driving force in the workplace?

One easy answer is to have individuals simply work independently. However, in today’s work environment this is not likely, maybe even impossible. One of the keys to successful team management is gaining an understanding of each team member. That is, learning about team and individual behavioral tendencies, similarities and differences of each individual can open the door increased team efficiency. For example, a team leader that knows of a member that is not assertive and rarely speaks up in meetings can speak to him/her after the meeting has concluded. If the team leader was not aware of this trait, the team runs the risk of neglecting worthwhile input.

Just as helpful is if team members know their own tendencies which they can modify as they see fit. An individual who is very outgoing and is aware of this can sometimes refrain from socializing too often in meetings and place emphasis on the task at hand. However, if he or she was not aware of this, the team stands to lose valuable time. Sometimes it’s easy to determine the behavioral characteristics simply from direct observation. However, individuals possess a variety of behavioral traits and tendencies, each of which are present in varying degrees.

ECI has developed Team Analysis Sessions and Reports allow leaders to gather practical, objective information on their staff to maximize overall team productivity and effectiveness. Managers will gain a greater understanding of how individuals tend to approach work, how to capitalize on the opportunities that a diversity of style present, and how to avoid unnecessary conflicts or disagreements when working with others who possess a different style. Using this tool is one way to garner good insight into team characteristics. What are some of the ways that you manage varying personalities? What do you think are some of the most effective ways to do this?

One of our main printers was having some issues and when we contacted customer support, however, they seemed to be giving us the run-around.  It seemed to us that this company did not really value our business, because of the lack of good support and follow-through from the customer service representatives.

Our issues with this company in this particular situation could have been minimized if we would have dealt with a more effective Customer Service Person.  The reasons we were so displeased were based on their lack of communication skills, follow-through and the inability to effectively understand/resolve our problem.

What could have been done better to solve our problems?  I think the most critical issue that we had was the lack of follow-through.  Multiple times the support person told us that they would call back or email us within 15-20 minutes, and we would not hear from them for hours.  I don’t mind if you are unable solve our problem right away, but at least give us a realistic timeline or call back and say that you are still working to resolve the issue.  If they would have been able to clearly communicate what they needed to do to resolve the problem and followed through when they said they would, we would have been much happier at the end of the day.

Making sure that your Customer Service People have the ability to communicate and understand customer issues is a large portion of keeping customers happy.  If the Customer Service people continually “drop the ball” and don’t follow through on their promises, it leaves a bad taste in the customer’s mouth.  These are pretty simple problems to solve, but I am amazed at how many customer service/support people really lack these behaviors.

What are your thoughts on Customer Service Behaviors?

That question brought me back to when I was younger and mother used to ask me a question that I’m sure everyone has heard at some point in their lives.  “If all your friends were jumping off a bridge, would you jump too?”  I can still here her asking it, but being the adventurous child that I was, my answer was always “YES”.  I’m sure that there are people out there that said “no”, but by no means was I one of them.  Looking back now, I know that I did not have enough information to answer her question properly.  If she was asking me if I would jump off the Golden Gate Bridge the answer is “no” (unless I would have a parachute, then it would be maybe).  If she was asking me if I would jump off of a bridge that is over a stream that is deep enough and doesn’t really have a current, I would say yes.  I have learned enough to avoid answering questions that I don’t have enough information about.  Maybe that is the problem; people do not have enough information to make an educated decision about using a behavioral assessment for selection.

We speak with prospective clients every day and most of them are interested in using an assessment.  The odd thing is that something seems to hold them back.  Maybe they don’t quite believe in using assessments or maybe since they can’t touch our product every day they don’t see the value in using it.  When I see how much money and time companies lose because of turnover and having employee misalignment, it honestly scares me.  Most of the companies that we speak to could easily cut their turnover in half by using a valid assessment that has been customized for their company/role.  Does this cost money?  Yes, but we know that the cost of implementing our system is far less that the cost of turnover or lost production.

Back to the question, “why isn’t everyone doing this”.  I’m not really sure, but I certainly would like to know.  With the recent economy, you would think that companies want to run as efficiently as possible.  Having unnecessary turnover or misaligned employees greatly affects organizational efficiency in a negative way.  The best way to get the most out of your workforce is to hire the right people and retain them.  It is much easier to hire and train someone that “fits” your culture than to try and get someone who doesn’t “fit” to be a top performer.  Think of it this way, do you want to put a square peg in a round hole or a square hole?

It is highly important to have a structured process regardless of the size of your company.  However, the importance grows exponentially as the size of your sales force increases.  Think about it, the more people you have and are looking to hire, the more opportunity there is for variation of style to affect the end result.   Adding structure to your process will help you minimize the effect of the varied styles and preferences of interviewers you have.  This is important because the interview in and of itself is a subjective process and this subjectivity can reduce the effectiveness.  When we reduce the effectiveness of our interview, we reduce the quality of our hire.

The salesperson is one whom we can presuppose will interview with more panache than most other positions.  Therefore, we should step up our questions to ensure we gather the best possible content from them.  If they are truly a salesperson, they will easily sell us on their merits, regardless of whether they are a fit for our organization or the role we’re interviewing for.

Behavioral event interview questions as a part of a structured interview process should be based on specific instances you want to see performed on the job.  Therefore, compiling a list of basic tenets that are important for the role in advance of interviewing is and excellent practice.  Then, simply base the questions off of those tenets.

Structuring the questions is easy.  All good behavioral event interview questions include 3 basic components:

1. Situation/Task – here the interviewee should be requested to provide a situation.  This can be either hypothetical or an actual past experience
2. Action – here the interviewee is requested to provide the action they took in the situation.  This provides the interviewer with a view into how the interviewee behaves
3. Result – here the interviewer is interested in  seeing what actual results the candidate has achieved

For example, if you’re interviewing a sales representative for your organization a good question would be: “Please describe your optimal sales call.  What does such a conversation look like?  What questions did/would you ask?  What would/did you achieve as a result of this conversation?”  A candidate’s response to this question would provide you with their sales style.  Do they prefer a challenging customer?  Do they prefer a friendly customer?  Do they prefer a quick sale?  You will also see what type of results they are looking for from their interactions.  You will gain insight into the types of conversations they are prepared to have.  You will begin to see a great deal into the potential fit they have to the role you want to fill.

Remember, a good sales person will sell themselves well and therefore they are likely to look good in an interview.  It is important that you be prepared with good questions that will help you to dive deeper into how they will perform for your organization.  After all, first impressions are lasting, but they do not tell us all we need to know, particularly when we are talking about the risk of a bad hire!

I would say that creating an organization specific talent management system is an investment, but I am biased because I have seen the value that it provides.   I would say that it costs more to not know if you have the right talent management process in place.  This rings true now more than ever.  Most companies are trying to achieve the same, or even greater results, with fewer people.  If you are trying to get more out of less, you better have the “right” people on board or it will never work.

That is why it is worth the investment to discover what skills and behaviors are necessary for success in your organization.  While others might try to “wing it” and end up replacing people that aren’t the right “fit”, you can significantly increase business results by having the “right” people.  On average, studies show that a new hire who doesn’t work out will cost you at least $60,000.  That doesn’t even take into account the possible business that you might have lost due to having the wrong person in the role.

At the end of the day, every company has to decide whether they want to invest in a targeted talent management system or whether they feel that it costs too much.  I would choose to invest, because it leads to greater business results and organizational efficiency.  Having a targeted talent management system is like having a great GPS system to hire and develop the best people.  With it, you can find exactly what you are looking for… without it, you may or may not find the “right” person.