Month: November 2011

As you can tell from the title, this is Part II of my previous blog on the subject.

In our search for qualified people, we need to look beyond the direct hiring application and see if there are other qualities or experiences that a new person might bring to the company even if they need to be trained to do the specific job. Once trained they will more than complement the company workforce; they will enhance it. This can be accomplished by Human Resources screening, or simply by seeking certain qualities–success indicators and provide company training to provide specific job training.

It seems we do the opposite in looking for the perfect job fit, then we add in company fit factor and expect immediate success. In fact, in Training and Development we often try to bring out or discover the same success qualities in those already on staff–those hired long ago under different circumstances. Why not look at some employees (we already do for key employees like CEOs or Presidents) as having “more” –as in that more than what the job calls for–special talents we may be able to use in the future? Workers actually appreciate someone noticing they have other talents than what specifically they were hired for. Just ask them.

I’m sure many a qualified worker has gone through what I did nearly 25 years ago. I was a well-trained and educated public affairs officer with an excellent record, a master’s degree with post-graduate journalism courses, award-winning writing samples, and increasingly responsible service. There was only one problem: My experience was in the military. The fact it was considered the “least military” of the services and the most professional in the field of public affairs made no difference.

I had left the service early so I wasn’t even of retiring age (which can be late 30s in the military) so I was hardly an old man. I felt I was infinitely more qualified than many coming fresh out of school, but other factors made it difficult. There were other issues as well, and they made sense–even to me, but it still didn’t help the fact I needed a job and I was well-qualified.

1. The global misconception that anyone involved in the military cannot relate to the civilian world of business.
2. For those who might hire the military, they looked for women with less experience to fill the expected managerial void for women. Of course it came with a glass ceiling, but a woman could make it to the top of the public affairs or public relations game.
3. Or, hiring a retired public affairs officer willing to take less money because he or she was, in fact, retired already with benefits.

The exceptions I believe can be compelling–especially if you fit into one of these categories.

1. Companies and other organizations benefit, in some cases–by hiring military “brats,” who have been around world and understand diversity and cultural differences, who know how talk with people and show respect. Those I have met and worked with have a global sense of reality and they do understand people and cultural diversity better than most.
2. There are, of course, some technical areas you could argue don’t make a direct correlation, i.e., the Beltway Bandits–those in high tech or high security positions who can make that immediate transition to government contractors.

I would maintain we need to look beyond direct application and see if there are other qualities or experiences that may complement the company. Don’t we promote that as trainers: that outside experience can be beneficial?

Here I was impressively qualified having been an officer in public affairs, personally briefed a president and vice-president and a host of other VIPs, taught at the prestigious Air Force Academy and ran the tour program inside Cheyenne Mountain. So, after the service, off I went to write the Great American Novel at home and work at Sun Glass Hut just to get out of the house.

As attractive as that situation seemed at the time, financially I’d much rather had a real job. I did get an offer teaching at my alma mater for a third of what I had made as an Air Force captain–and that position was temporary. My welcome to the real world, I guess.

However, life’s priorities being what they were at that time, at the time I felt I could give up my military career. As far as I was concerned I had held some interesting jobs and what was left to do career-wise could easily be rather routine in comparison. Of course my goal had been to keep the marriage together, but it wasn’t meant to be either.

Now, financially ill and without a job, I found circumstances favored retired public affairs officers since they didn’t demand as much money to live on, and younger female public affairs or public relations professionals were preferred. I cost too much as middle management and didn’t have any extra advantageous like checking an HR special box.

It was, of course, one solution for employers to address topic of the day–the glass ceiling was by hiring a woman for the jump–even one less qualified; the field is about 50/50 or it used to be. I don’t know what the figures are today, but even so it was perceived in many ways like training today–a function that isn’t critical to company operations. I think we understand better these days.

I found two avenues of employment, besides retail and other sales options, that welcomed diversity and where a military background was not scorned so much: government and education. No real complaint there, just reality. I found my way into government actually by using my Reserve commission to land a job as an Air Reserve Technician–basically a full-time Reservist. A caretaker of sorts, but a decent job, combining civil service and military, complete with uniform. Less pay, but nothing to quibble about in those days.

This led to working for the Federal government without the uniform, a job I found interesting at times but lacking in creativity opportunity; I retired from it anyway, but I felt my potential was wasted. It could have been I just didn’t have the right job either, but nobody ever tried to determine how my other talents could be put to use unless I initiated it and made it happen. Not everyone does that or should do that if a company is wise and thoughtful about its hiring and training process.

It’s about survival for company and individual alike, but here is the cautionary tale: look at all the possibilities. Another cliché: don’t leap before you look. While employers can choose from the obvious best, don’t forget that hidden among them may be someone not so obvious who can bring the company something new and different. Different in today’s world can be mean success.

I’m sure my tale of woe is not without a story behind the story that the companies tell; I can only tell it from my perspective. I don’t know any expert in HR who will tell you to dress like an individual and tout the reasons you are unlike the company you are applying for. All the advice points to make sure you fill out the application to say exactly what the company wants you to say or you’ll be eliminated. The only way to get something else in there that someone may or may not notice is risky for the applicant. Just as the company is playing it safe so is the applicant who has more to lose personally.

It just seems to make sense looking early for diversity and individual differences/talents that may prove useful. HR can do it, too, if they have the people. Trainers can always train the company way. While they can refine talent, and they can help identify it. And they can train a company how to manage and get the best resources from that talent.

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For more resources about training, see the Training library.

Enough grousing on my end. The Cave Man strikes a second time on this topic. Check out my website and my eBook, The Cave Man Guide to Training and Development. In these places I look at training and development from a little different perspective. You’ll find more of What I Say under that category. I even review plays. Imagine that! Times change and perspective needs to follow.

Hope you found something useful in my grousing commentary. Happy training.

My workers are complaining they have too much to do and too little time to do it. I know we are short two staff people but we are under a hiring freeze. Also I feel, that with economy the way it is, they should be putting in 110%. What can I do?

Some people can be very productive when they’re under pressure and are juggling multiple tasks with tight deadlines. But project loads, that are consistently unmanageable, can lead to burnout and the associated problems of reduced employee morale, high turnover, and increased inefficiencies and mistakes. You, as a manager, need to do more than acknowledge they are stretched too thin; you need to come up with viable solutions.

1. First, talk to staff.
Get a realistic handle on the situation. How do employees view their responsibilities? Are unrealistic deadlines impacting the quality of their work or level of job satisfaction? Perceptions may vary from person to person.
2. Ask for activity reports.
Review each employee’s tasks to determine which projects are taking the most time. Make sure the most critical initiatives are getting the majority of resources.
3. Reward smart work habits.
Someone who is putting in long hours may be working hard, but is he or she also managing time wisely? Clarify your expectations with employees, and take steps to recognize teamwork, innovative ideas and problem-solving skills.
4. Get help.
Bringing in temporary staff to assist during periods of peak activity or for special projects can alleviate some of the burden on full-time workers.
5. Keep your door open.
Maintain an environment in which employees are not afraid to ask for help when workloads become too heavy. Be willing to reallocate resources as needed.
6. Finally, feed the lighter side.
Bring in food, cartoons, motivational sayings and fun activities often go a long way in letting your staff know you care.

Management Success Tip:

Lead by example. Sometimes you need to show employees that everyone has to pull their weight including you. Stay late with your team; make the coffee when the pot is empty; participate in the fun events. And most important celebrate successes, large and small. Those who have a good time together work better together.

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It seems no one wants to hire an exemplary person, but someone just to do the job. By “exemplary” I mean someone who has more than the obvious talent, education or experience for the job. It’s definitely easier to train an new employee to do the company job, than to discover hidden talents of an already established employee; if they had them, why didn’t they exhibit them up to this point. What’s harder is getting an employer to see how a potential employee solves problems, works well with others, leads a team to accomplish a creative task, or come up with fresh new ideas unless we look at his or her record or at least the resume.

I understand that companies are afraid to invest more than they have to in this economy, but it comes down to a series of clichés and euphemisms. “You get what you pay for.” “Why have a fancy shake when you can have plain milk?” “Hamburger, when you can have steak?”

Enough clichés, but hiring the staid, perfect fit seems to be the latest trend. Businesses are afraid to explore people options fully, and it may be up to us through leadership training or employee training to show companies and other organizations what they can be missing–potential creativity, new ideas, new methods.

Today we are told by the Human Resource experts that people tend to have several careers these days instead of one. In fact, many have several jobs and multitask unbelievably well. For some of those folks, getting a single, well-paying job is not going to happen since they’ve been…well, too diverse. Since when is being too diverse a problem?

All the geniuses I’ve ever heard of who went on to do great things in pretty much any field have been diverse in their experience. I could spend the entire blog making a list. So can you. Think of someone who has done “great” things, not just made a lot of money, but made a great contribution to society and you’ll find someone who has been around.

I’ve been in the job market more than 30 years and grant you, my resume shows a lot of experience and its varied. I think I did that before it was fashionable. Perhaps my special talent is that I’m pretty adaptable. I’m also not talking about a string of unrelated jobs, which doesn’t help when looking for a job. My jobs were all very related to communication; however, employers get very specific. Companies I talked to (if I got a response at all) didn’t want a talented communicator–not someone who adapted communication creatively all the time. Or, was it the military thing? No, they needed someone without training who had been doing the same job before. Or, so it seemed. Could it be the creative talent others saw in me and rewarded me with numerous, high-visibility projects was my downfall? Should it have been?

It seems we want just what we want and no more. We don’t want to invest to see beyond the obvious to find someone who might have potentially more valuable to offer the company in the long run. It’s a short-term business decision, but one that could be missing tremendous opportunity for a little investment. If you are a hiring manager: have you not hired someone who was outstanding on paper, and could have been easily trained for the job at hand, but the instruction came down that “no, we need someone now?” No training necessary. It could be a rush to mediocrity.

Just look at the specific job descriptions. Sometimes an organization is just following the regulations and it already has someone in mind for a position. It’s not really being competitive, but hundreds have wasted time applying–especially in this economy. I understand weeding out the ones who aren’t even close, but when a job is already locked, it doesn’t seem fair to waste the time of someone looking for a real opportunity.

Hiring the handicap or socially-economically disadvantaged may be the greatest diversity tool in business. It forced employers to look beyond the perfect fit–even at companies like IBM where people jokingly referred to being able to spot an IBM by his clothes and haircut alone. Diversity does go beyond the obvious and we’re foolish when we don’t see the hidden talents of our people.

What if we trainers through activities and testing could determine someone has much desired character traits for success? What if we could identify other talents a person has besides an ability to do the job? Wait, we can do that! What about exercises that demonstrate a person’s problem-solving ability, or the ability to think fast on their feet, or communicate the company’s needs to the max?

So, we already can and do those things–or at least we used to. Problem is: especially with the larger companies, we are looking only to fill a specific job and we have hundreds, sometimes more, applicants who have varying degrees of specificity or have less ability than that and barely reach the bar.

My experience in getting a job after the Air Force was totally different, but in some ways still showed the stereotype of hiring around a budget or for the wrong reasons may not always be in the company’s best interest. Of course, anyone could argue, the decision they made at the time was the right one. It just seems a waste of talent and energy.

Stay tuned for Part II coming soon…if it’s not already here.

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For more resources about training, see the Training library.

Enough grousing on my end. The Cave Man strikes again. By the way, I’m debating on a new name for my company. Cave Man Training and Communication, or Training Smarts–after my Acting Smarts company, which I’m setting aside to focus on training and development. What do you think? Check out my website and my eBook, The Cave Man Guide to Training and Development. In these places I look at training and development from a little different perspective. You’ll find more of What I Say under that category. I even review plays. Imagine that! Times change and perspective needs to follow.

Hope you found something useful in my grousing commentary. Happy training.