it's ALL about the experience

A Casual Conversation with David Lee

At ERE's last conference in San Diego, Alise met David Lee, principal of Human Nature at Work which specializes in helping companies better motivate and engage their workforce.  David asked a few interesting questions.... here they are, along with Alise's responses. 

 

David:  You said something that I thought was very quote worthy in our conversation regarding some employers are afraid to find out what their employees are thinking because "what if we can't do anything about it" or other fears. I'd love to have you riff on that.

Alise:  I applaud all our clients who have actually applied financial resources and socio-emotional wherewithal to collect feedback from job seekers, employees, hiring managers, and interviewers about the quality and effectiveness of the hiring process.  In my view, those who are willing to solicit and listen to feedback are serious about improving their processes and bottom-line financial results. But the fact of the matter is that while it’s lovely to hear flattering feedback, it can be very uncomfortable to hear where we fall short in providing an enticing or even acceptable experience for job seekers. 

A couple years ago, I was in conversation with a large telecommunications company about the prospect of integrating candidate experience feedback to their metrics efforts.  I described how the feedback would be collected via an email solicitation and subsequent online feedback portal and how the results would allow the company to measure and improve overall recruitment performance, employer brand, targeted and diversity outreach efforts, and early employee engagement.  The gentleman with whom I was speaking listened intently and then responded, “We have a fair number of people who come through our recruitment process who are not happy with us, either because they didn’t get an interview or the job.  It doesn’t make sense to me that we would want to ‘prick the boil’ and ask them to tell us what they specifically liked or didn’t like about their experience with us.” 

Now, in my view, I think the company is seriously missing the point, to their own detriment.  In their case, the recruiting executive not only didn’t want to hear what the candidates had to say, he was concerned that inviting their feedback would only worsen their opinion of the company.  Our own experience of soliciting feedback, even from disgruntled job seekers, is that contrary to pricking the boil, we constantly see open-text comments from candidates indicating their appreciation that the company even solicited their feedback, that they found it refreshing that the company was interested in what they had to say about their experience, and that in being able to provide feedback it felt to the job seekers a little less like they had fallen into the proverbial “black hole.”  What a concept --  somebody was listening!  And further, early research and development research conducted prior to developing our candidate experience product told us that 53 percent of the 500 job seekers we surveyed said they would think more highly of a company if they asked their opinion, even if they didn’t get the job. 

Contrast this apathetic view with an organization that perhaps has a more serious problem.  Whereas the telecommunications company I’ve been talking about probably had the ability to conduct the candidate experience survey and respond to the results (if they were so inclined), another company I spoke with had neither option.  Chatting with a small software development company about our various enterprise feedback management products, the Recruiting Manager said dismally, “Oh, it all sounds amazing.  Really amazing.  But even if I did have the ability to spend money on surveys, we in Recruiting are powerless to do anything about the results. We have no budget, and whatever we did learn about how to improve our recruitment process would fall on deaf ears because our company executives don’t think we have to compete for talent.  They don’t understand that job seekers have a choice of where to work, even in this market, and that if we provide them a crumby recruiting experience they won’t want to work for our company.”  I thought to myself, “Humm, maybe it’s time for this poor woman to find a new employer!”  And not only will their candidates not want to work for the company, they will surely tell their friends and colleagues about the poor experience they had, which will ultimately further diminish this company’s prospects to hire in that community.

David:  Examples of clients (anonymous is fine) who discovered areas that could be improved upon, that they had no idea were issues.

Alise:  I’ll give examples from two different clients.  In order to understand the context of  the examples, let me say that our candidate experience product (Get Better Hires) collects self-reported demographic information from job seekers and feedback about four specific experiences a job seeker has with any one company:  applying for a job on the company’s career website, interviewing on site with hiring managers and other interviewers, receiving a formal offer containing pay and benefits information – whether or not it is accepted, and the experience of being on the job 90 days post hire.  In the case of one of our customers, a small healthcare organization in the Pacific Northwest, the interview part of the hiring process is completely handled by the hiring managers – the recruiting team does not get involved to schedule or release the results from the interviews.  It was a complete surprise to the recruiting director that of the four stages we score for satisfaction, the interview part received by far the lowest satisfaction scores among the four stages across all categories we survey.  With this data, she then had data to make a business case for change – either help the hiring managers improve the interview part of the process they owned or allow Recruiting to take it over and manage. 

Another example comes from a pharmaceutical company in the Northeast.  In their case, they knew at the outset of activating their candidate experience survey subscription that their selection and hiring process resulted in mainly a Caucasian male middle-aged workforce.  What they were surprised to learn in their results was that African Americans and Hispanics were quite pleased with the process, employer brand, and competitive differentiation and that they could leverage that satisfaction to hire a more diverse workforce.  Prior to this understanding, they just incorrectly assumed that their message was only attractive to white males.  Armed with new information, they came to understand their selection and hiring process somehow favored white males, a powerful realization to understand and ultimately change their workforce diversity dynamic.

David:  Other points you would like to make and examples of why it's important to tap into the "voice of the customer” (employee in this case).

Alise:  Two thoughts, both examples from two different customers, come to mind.  First, in early conversations with a healthcare organization in the Midwest, the Recruiting Director understood the power of leveraging candidate feedback and how opening a dialogue with job seekers would help her measure and improve her recruitment process, employer brand, and competitive differentiation.  What I was surprised to hear her say is, “You know, it occurs to me that even if I never do a thing with the feedback I get – I never implement any changes to improve our processes, the mere act of simply asking our candidates for their feedback puts us ahead of our competition. We’re showing them that we listen to them and care what they think.”  The second example from the healthcare organization in the Pacific Northwest I mentioned earlier comes from an open-text (qualitative) comment penned by one of their recent survey takers, as follows:  “(Organization Name) is known for its training and development of employees. The fact that even the application/recruiting process is being analyzed is telling - and impressive.”  The reason this comment is worth repeating is that when job seekers see how serious a company takes the quality of their recruitment process, employer brand, and competitive differentiation, the higher quality candidates they tend to attract and the more the quality candidates want to work for them.  And that’s a win/win every company strives for.

 

 

About Alise Cortez:  my day job is VP of Marketing & Sales at Improved Experience, where our mission is to capture the voice of experience one job search at a time for employees and empower employers with the metrics of engagement and retention. 

 

Technorati tags:  enterprise feedback,  survey.

 

Ya goin' to ERE in San Diego?

We're in the planning stages of making ready for our annual trek to the ERE conference in San Diego this Spring.  I was wondering who all we might find in attendance -- reply to this post and let us know if you plan to be there.

Just for starters in consideration for registering, there's this year's conference chair, Michael McNeal, VP of Talent Strategy and Acquisition for Intuit.  Who remembers hearing Michael speak at ERE Spring 2007 when he as the "Morning Guy" giving the presentation publicly chastised "Night Guy," his alter ego who had apparently made the former stay up way too late the night before consuming innumerable margaritas?!  Michael has a wealth of knowledge to share, and he's just an all-around good guy, too.  Some of my favorite speakers who will also be espousing their knowledge are Lou Adler, Aziz Chowdhury, Ben Gotkin, Cathy Henesey, Rodney Moses, Dr. John Sullivan, Kevin Wheeler, and Jeremy Eskenazi.  Can't miss 'em!

At our last ERE conference in Fall 2008, we had our usual blast!  We exhibited our booth for the first time.  And we made fast work of the all important socializing in the evening -- see the pictures of several of us dancing on the tables at Opa Taverna.  I mean, come on!    And hey, you know these photos really were snapped at ERE because I'm wearing my conference badge (what a dweeb!).  See you in San Diego next!

About Alise Cortez:  my day job is VP of Marketing & Sales at Improved Experience, where our mission is to capture the voice of experience one job search at a time for employees and empower employers with the metrics of engagement and retention. 

The Twilight Zone

Well, it's the start of a brand New Year, and Michael Maynard is back with yet another interesting and entertaining perspective, this time about the relevance of an old TV show and the current political fanfare. 

 

One of the guilty pleasures of the holiday season is to watch episodes of the original "The Twilight Zone."  It has been 50 years since the TV show was first broadcast (1959 - 1964).  The shows were in black and white -- I find the black and white makes the episodes more scary and ominous.  The backdrops and acting are frequently over the top and cheesy, but they just add to the overall suspense.  Writer and Producer Rod Serling's introductions were intense, melodramatic and pithy.  I was five-years-old at the time -- I was allowed to stay up late on Friday nights to watch the scarefest.  I became so scared that I couldn't sleep, but my fears weren't so consuming to prevent me from watching the Friday Night Fights and Make That Spare professional bowling show.

There were recurring fear-creating themes in the 156 episodes that were indicative of the time:  explosion of the atomic bomb, unknowns of outer space and replacement of humans by machines. An astrophysicist and a priest have discovered a long-dead world that has been emitting a signal for centuries, the town that agreed to a "cultural exchange" program with space aliens, and the girl who trades in her parents for new, mechanical ones.  Some of the shows involved timeless themes, such as the horrors of war, during the time of the  United States' increasing involvement in the Vietnam War.  One episode involved a National Guard tank crew seeing strange things while on war game maneuvers near the Little Bighorn battleground.

But there were more subtle continuing themes, such as the continued erosion of civilized culture.  A bibliophile bank teller has all the time he wants to read the classics in the post atom bomb world; a man's old radio plays programs from the past that only he can hear; a mediocre saxophone player becomes the best musician ever but can only play to an audience of one, himself.  Serling tried to show that the losses of culture to time, disinterest or machines causes the citizens of the world to be continually pulled farther apart, with little hope to be together again.

The similarities between the youthful, mediagenic President and First Family of that time to the President-in-Waiting and his family have been reported many times. There are lessons to be learned from the tragically short life and time in office of John Fitzgerald Kennedy as President that Barack Obama, or any newly appointed leader, should consider:

What's the mood?  Kennedy intuitively understood that the Russian successful launch of Sputnik had made the populace fearful about the future. The US allies were concerned about America's losing political and military standing throughout the world. What was needed were new and different programs that would restore the national and international confidence. The race to the moon and the creation of the Peace Corps were bold, decisive and needed re-engagement programs.

Use the power of symbolism - The symbolism of the New Frontier made the Peace Corp and moon exploration programs seem possible, even though both were untested to the scale of previous similar efforts. The United States was going to lead the world towards the New Frontiers of space and peaceful internationalism.

Admit your mistakes and cut your losses - Being talked into undertaking the Bay of Pigs by the urging of the rich, politically supportive Cuban expatriates was dumb, undertaking the Bay of Pigs without the needed planning was dumber.  While it was personally and politically difficult to pull out, it was the right decision.  Other than major military escalation, there was no possible win scenarios and the downside of this approach was potential nuclear war.

Don't flinch under pressure - The television drama, "The Guns of August," showed the pressures on the young and inexperienced president.  One wrong signal or misstep could potentially lead to the destruction of the world, a potential scenario that even the previous Presidents Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Harry Truman did not face.  Not only did Kennedy not flinch, but he also understood the USSR leader, Nikita Khruschev, faced similar personal and political demise as he did. That apparently small realization was integral to the Guns of August resolution.  Not only did Kennedy not flinch, but his actions were correctly interpreted by Khruschev as allowing both of them joint political face saving scenarios. What Kennedy did and did not do was extraordinary for any leader, not just an inexperienced one.

Who do you trust? John Kennedy had his team of the "best and brightest" Dean Rusk, Robert McNamara, McGeorge Bundy, and others, but his relationship with them was problematic due their being out of the loop in the decision to undertake the Bay of Pigs.  The options that were presented by these advisors were the traditional ones: use diplomacy, challenge the Soviet armada, find a Soviet proxy similar in importance as Cuba was to the US.  Kennedy turned to the person who knew him best, his brother Bobby, who would both emotionally support and mentally challenge him as the best advisors do during crisis.  It was unlikely that Rusk, McNamara, et al, would have come up with the naval blockade idea, but gaining their support of the blockade so that they would do their jobs accordingly was imperative.

Think outside the box - After obtaining the spy satellite pictures showing the Soviets building Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles silos in Cuba, all of the traditional responses to the threat may have led to an atomic war.  One conventional option, do nothing, would amount to appeasement and signal tacit acknowledgement to the Kremlin that the new, young United States leader could be bullied into submission.  Another conventional option, take out the missile silos by air was problematic because of the defensive anti-ballistic missiles used by the Kremlin to shoot down the planes would demonstrate the potential technological military power of the USSR to the world. The third conventional option, invasion of Cuba, would likely lead to World War III.  The unconventional option, use a naval blockade around Cuba, took the Russian leadership by surprise, and made them reconsider their estimate of the young President.

About Michael Maynard:  Michael is a free-lance journalist and management consultant.  As a freelance writer he has written for CEO and CIO magazines and other magazine and newspapers.  He was managing editor and featured columnist for Global Business Newsletter.  He was also a featured columnist for the Washington Post-Newsweek syndicate.  For more than 25 years, Michael has been President and Co-Founder of Azimuth Partners, a marketing and business development consultancy.  Michael is currently lending his consultant talents to Improved Experience, which helps employers use feedback to measure and manage competitive advantage, engagement, and retention. You can reach him at michael@improvedexperience.com.

 

Technorati tags:  John F Kennedy, Barak Obama, political lessons. 

Profile: Barbara Bissonnette

Another fresh perspective from Michael Maynard, this time about a condition most of us has heard of but know little about.  Interesting read, Michael, thanks.

 

Barbara Bissonnette looks like a model. She’s very pretty, tall and elegant, even while wearing jeans and a sweater. She walks gracefully as she approaches to introduce herself. Anyone could easily assume that she would be planning a holiday season black-tie party for her socialite friends, but they would be wrong.

Ms. Bissonnette is a business coach to adults having Asperger’s Syndrome. She is a principal at Forward Motion Coaching of West Boylston and Wellesley,  Ms. Bissonnette coaches adults with Asperger’s Syndrome on how to handle the demands of their work environment. She is one of the few coaches who specializes in helping adults with Asperger’s Syndrome with employment issues.

Asperger’s Syndrome (AS) is a neurobiological disorder which causes those afflicted to have difficulty with social interactions. The prevalence of Asperger’s is estimated at 1 in every 250 people in the United States.  Males outnumber females by a ratio of 4:1. People with Asperger’s are generally considered to be on the high-functioning end of the  autism spectrum. Asperger Syndrome is named after Austrian pediatrician Hans Asperger who, in 1944, described children in his practice who lacked nonverbal communication skills, demonstrated limited empathy with their peers, and were physically clumsy.

Bill Gates, Woody Allen, and Garrison Keillor are three of the many notable public figures who show symptoms of Asperger's Syndrome. There is evidence to suggest that Albert Einstein, Leonardo DaVinci and Isaac Newton suffered from the condition as well.

 

Most adults with AS are very intelligent, have superior memories for details and speak and write with a large vocabulary. They are honest to a fault, so you can trust what they say to you. They work very hard and have exceptional abilities to handle minute details. This is why you find them gravitating to certain professions like software engineering and accounting where attention to detail is important and they can work independently from others.

 

Individuals with Asperger’s Syndrome vary widely in their abilities and challenges. Some are awkward in their interactions with others, perhaps forgetting to make eye contact or to smile, or talking too loudly, softly or quickly. Others are charming and talkative but may ask too many questions or alienate others with blunt comments or social gaffes.

People with Asperger’s tend to miss most of the non-verbal communication that we take for granted. Imagine how hard it would be to communicate if you couldn’t tell whether someone’s facial expression or tone of voice was happy, sad, or mad. Or if you heard language very literally and thought, for example, that having a “bad hair day” at work was a grooming issue. Or if looking someone in the eye was distracting or painful. Imagine not understanding how to make small talk or casual conversation during a lunch break.

Organizing and prioritizing information can be challenging due difficulty assimilating information from various sources to see “the big picture.” People with Asperger’s tend to focus on the details and can find it hard to distinguish between relevant and irrelevant facts. Also there is a tendency to focus on one thing at a time and become overwhelmed with too many interruptions or multi-tasking.

 The literal-mindedness of people with Asperger’s can be unintentionally humorous. One young man was asked by an interviewer, “Why should I hire you instead of the other candidates?” He truthfully replied, “I don’t know how to answer that because I haven’t met the other candidates.”

Sometimes their honesty can get them into trouble. When asked during interviews what their weaknesses are, my clients have said things like, “I’m not a morning person,” and “My self-esteem is very low.” They made themselves stand out in the wrong way!

So why did this woman with the skills and abilities to become a senior executive become a coach for adults with Asperger’s Syndrome?

 

 “I had been working in industry, first as a Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Asset Alternatives, and then as a Marketing and Business Consultant. Although I was doing well in business, I was not being challenged. In 2006 while completing a graduate certificate in executive coaching from the Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology, I attended a workshop on coaching people with Asperger’s Syndrome. I was fascinated and realized that I had worked with a number of AS individuals during my corporate career. I wanted to give back my business experience to people who could really use it, and coaching these individuals does just that.

 

“I presented a workshop for the Asperger’s Association of New England in February of 2007 on the subject of employment that matches ones skills and it sold out in 3 days. Now I provide career development coaching for people with Asperger’s full time.” Ms. Bissonnette said.

 

“I also work with corporations to train human resources personnel and coach employees who have social, communication and organizational challenges. I think more and more companies will begin to realize that they have employees with AS or may begin hiring people who do. There are often inexpensive accommodations that can be made that enable people with Asperger’s Syndrome to be successful at their jobs.

 

 

About Michael Maynard:  Michael is a free-lance journalist and management consultant.  As a freelance writer he has written for CEO and CIO magazines and other magazine and newspapers.  He was managing editor and featured columnist for Global Business Newsletter.  He was also a featured columnist for the Washington Post-Newsweek syndicate.  For more than 25 years, Michael has been President and Co-Founder of Azimuth Partners, a marketing and business development consultancy.  Michael is currently lending his consultant talents to Improved Experience, which helps employers use feedback to measure and manage competitive advantage, engagement, and retention. You can reach him at michael@improvedexperience.com.

 

Somebody Has to Do This ... The Appeal of Dirty Jobs

Michael Maynard has dropped in for yet another interesting perspective, this time on Mike Rowe's Dirty Jobs TV Show.  If you haven't yet seen this program, it's definitely an entertaining and educational viewing experience worth a visit.

 

    Most wives and girlfriends would agree -- their man still has a little boy in him.  It doesn't matter how young or old, how educated or self-taught, or how rich or poor, the man has a little boy in him somewhere.  Usually he will find an activity that is fun and gets him dirty, like rearranging the landscaping, even when the landscaping doesn't need rearranging -- again.  Even after hours of this hard manual labor, the man will have a goofy grin on his face.  Remember this was the little boy who spent hours in his backyard digging a hole to China using a tablespoon.

    For us men, having a job that involves getting dirty, having fun and getting paid well in the process would be nirvana.  My last dirty job involved working in a lime quarry the summer before my senior year of college. I pounded away on the limestone until it broke or used a pneumatic jackhammer for the tougher-to-break rock.  I quickly found out that it was better to use as much of my physical labor as possible because the jackhammer was waist-high and the constant vibration caused other physical activities to malfunction at inopportune times.  This job was supposed to only be be dirty, not libido-lowering.

    After watching the Dirty Jobs TV show marathon during the Thanksgiving Day mini-vacation, my new hero is Mike Rowe, producer and star of this hour-long weekly Discovery Channel hit.  Mike Rowe is smart, urbane, funny and likeable.  He had the bright idea to show jobs that are hidden from the public, sometimes hazardous, but need to get done for every day life functions to occur. Somebody has to do this and Mike Rowe spotlights the jobs that those previously faceless workers perform.  Renovating a sick house, plucking out non-standard potato chips before being packaged, and any job involving getting rid of waste products, no job is too dirty for Mike Rowe.  I admit that part of my interest in this show is seeing a pretty boy, a man usually too good looking to be doing these grungy dirty jobs, putting on his coveralls, rolling up his sleeves and literally getting down and dirty.

    My favorite show in the Dirty Jobs marathon involved fertilizing turkey eggs, an appropriate job for the Thanksgiving holiday.  It seems that turkeys are none-too-bright, therefore cannot be relied upon to produce quantities of fertilized eggs on schedule by themselves.  No fertilized eggs?  Look forward to eating ham at future holiday feasts.  While most of the functions in the egg processing process can be automated, getting the most reluctant turkeys to do their should-be biological imperative is not so automatic.  These recalcitrants turkeys must be captured, put into their pen and have their reproductive organs stimulated so that the eggs are laid and later fertilized.  Mike Rowe found out how hard it as to capture a reluctant turkey and get the cob or hen to cooperate.  Afterwards, he had to orally operate a pipette to ensure proper non-mechanical egg fertilization.

    This week's (post-Thanksgiving Day) Dirty Jobs features maggot farming.  I'll watch the show but I don't want to know any of the details ahead of time.  This is one dirty job that I'm sure that the little boy in me doesn't want to get dirty doing.  That's why Mike Rowe is such a success.

About Michael Maynard:  Michael is a free-lance journalist and management consultant.  As a freelance writer he has written for CEO and CIO magazines and other magazine and newspapers.  He was managing editor and featured columnist for Global Business Newsletter.  He was also a featured columnist for the Washington Post-Newsweek syndicate.  For more than 25 years, Michael has been President and Co-Founder of Azimuth Partners, a marketing and business development consultancy.  Michael is currently lending his consultant talents to Improved Experience, which helps employers use feedback to measure and manage competitive advantage, engagement, and retention. You can reach him at michael@improvedexperience.com.

 

Technorati tags:  Mike Rowe,  dirty jobs,  employment, Thanksgiving turkey.