Talent Management: taking a holistic approach to address market challenges

By Deanna Lanoway, Executive Consultant

Changes to the Canadian employment landscape have been on the horizon for years and today are becoming a reality that businesses must manage.

Before the pandemic, we knew that by 2028 — just five years from now — 40% of Canada’s workforce population would be over 55 years. In 2008 that number was 31% (Employment & Social Development Canada, Canadian Occupational Projection System, 2019 Projections, Macroeconomic Outlook for 2019-2028).

We also knew that lower birth rates and an ageing population meant Canada’s continued growth would need to be powered by immigration. 

Then the pandemic happened and shifted demographic trends that were already significant, causing finding talent to be a leading business concern in 2022 (Stats Canada).

Our conversations with employers last year were focused on retention, including a focus on flexibility and rewards, however, ensuring your organization has enough skilled employees in this environment is a multi-faceted problem, so there won’t be a single solution.

When reading Harvard Business Review in January, we came across the article “Rethinking Your Employee Value Proposition” by Mark Mortensen and Amy C. Edmonson.

The authors highlighted the challenges employers face in deciding what actions to take when they said, “Leaders need to address the factors holistically to ensure that a focus on one doesn’t undermine another.”

HR leaders have been spinning to respond to the rapid changes in workplace priorities of late. To stabilize the availability of suitable workers for the future, your organization needs a systematic approach and a proactive plan, so you’re not always trying to respond to current fires.

Enter talent management.

Research examining the success of talent management has shown that the most successful firms tie talent management to their strategic priorities (Pamela Bethke-Langenegger, Philippe Mahler, and Bruno Staffelbach, Effectiveness of talent management strategies).

Organizations with a talent management strategy recognize that every aspect of the employee lifecycle impacts their ability to be fully staffed, productive, and proactive. HR leaders should ideally have input into the strategic priorities.

By ensuring they understand the labour market, HR leaders can inform the organization about things like where to expand and balancing revenue opportunities with the availability of talent.

What is talent management?

Talent management is a bit of an amorphous concept. We feel it includes the systematic approach to the following:

• Attracting strong talent through employer brand and recruiting techniques.
• Holistically identifying skills and aptitudes of employees.
• Developing employee skills and competencies to meet their goals and the future objectives of the organization.
• Determining how to best engage and reward employees to ensure productivity and a sense of belonging.
• Retaining employees for an optimal period and deploying them through the organization in a way that provides the best value to the organization and keeps the employees the happiest.
• Providing career development opportunities.
• Providing an appropriate departure — whether that be an alumni program to keep your employer brand strong or flexible retirement options.

Talent management is really bringing several strategies together to support your organization and looking towards the future.

When you look at innovative firms, you see that product development is always forward-thinking. While the organizations may still respond to market trends, the strongest ones are leading the market and planning their offerings years before the market. Talent management offers organizations the same approach but instead, you are addressing one of the leading challenges that companies face today.

Looking to the future

The Canadian talent market will continue to change and challenge businesses. To attract and retain top talent, organizations must create inclusive and meaningful employee and work experiences. Organizations should consider taking a holistic, proactive approach to ensure priorities don’t compete, as Mortensen and Edmonson suggest. Top leaders in people and culture need to be at the table when strategy is being discussed and HR leaders should be willing to broaden their perspective from current challenges to the entire employee environment.

For support managing your talent needs, connect with People First HR. We focus on developing and nurturing deep, long-term relationships with clients by collaborating with our teams to bring the right industry, insight and knowledge to create customized solutions that allow your organization to thrive.

We’d love to learn about your organization’s unique people strategy and goals, to discover how we can best partner to support you.

Contact People First HR

How creating a job evaluation tool can support internal equity and retention at your organization

By Emily Toth, HR Consultant

Salary is a significant aspect of compensation. People, rightly so, want to be paid a fair wage for the work they do and the skills they offer. It seems like a simple concept — pay your employees fairly for what they do. However, if there is no structure around pay decisions, inconsistent practices can cause feelings of confusion, inequity, and more.

A job evaluation tool helps to provide a structure to base pay decisions while supporting transparent decision-making and internal equity.

What is a job evaluation tool?

Job evaluation is a piece of a total rewards program strategy which aids in eliminating bias when making pay decisions and promoting internal equity. Job evaluation reduces subjectivity and enables leaders to make rational, consistent, and transparent decisions about roles.

A job evaluation tool helps organizations create a job worth hierarchy structured around their values, culture, and business strategy, which can support transparency, career progression and succession planning conversations. 

How to create a job evaluation tool?

When creating a job evaluation tool, there are a few things to remember:

• The tool you implement needs to be clear, easy to administer, and updatable to reflect changes in org structure or business strategy.
• You need to follow compensation best practices when building the tool.
• Depending on the types of jobs in your organization and your level of comfort with administration, you may consider creating multiple tools to reflect the unique aspects of a specific job family/function.

When it comes to creating a job evaluation tool that meets your organization’s needs, there are several approaches you can use. People First HR specializes in the Point Factor Method of job evaluation, which “breaks down jobs into compensable factors identified during a job analysis. Points are assigned to the factors, and a pay structure is established for the position.” (SHRM)

Advantages of the point factor approach

• Easy to evaluate new or revised jobs
• Compensable factors can be tailored to your organization’s needs
• Differences in degrees between jobs are apparent
• Responsive to pay equity laws

Compensable factors

Compensable factors fall into four different categories:

• Skill
• Effort
• Responsibility
• Working conditions

Typical compensable factors frequently included in job evaluation tool development are:

• education,
• experience,
• mental or physical effort,
• independent judgment,
• impact of decision-making,
• travel requirements, and
• adverse working conditions.

The factors your organization selects must be reflected in all jobs the tool is meant to evaluate.

Job worth hierarchy

From the job evaluation process, you will create a job worth hierarchy, which lists the jobs in your organization from the highest weighted to the least weighted.

Keep in mind, the job worth hierarchy is not a reflection of individual worth. Leaders need to remember this and communicate it to staff. Job evaluation looks at positions independent from the person fulfilling the role. Using a job evaluation process ensures objectivity and removes subjectivity/bias from pay decisions.

Transparency to support career planning and succession planning

A job evaluation tool and job worth hierarchy provide clear steps for an employee to follow to achieve their next career step, which in turn helps an organization retain talent.

To keep employees engaged, competitive compensation needs to be a priority. Compensation plays a major role in employee retention. It’s critical to do the research and work — both internally and externally — to ensure that your employees are competitively compensated.

Compensation is about more than wages. If you want to leverage compensation to improve employee retention, you need to look at all the elements of your employee compensation structure and make changes and improvements as necessary.

How job evaluation tools support internal equity

Equity is a buzzword impacting organizations across industries right now. Employees are looking for equity in their organization. Whether or not an organization is deemed equitable can affect candidate attraction and retention efforts.

Depending on the level of transparency your organization is comfortable with, a job evaluation tool (inclusive of the compensable factors and degrees associated) and job worth hierarchy can be shared with employees.

Sharing this information allows your organization to assert that you offer equal pay for work of equal value. The information can also reduce inaccurate conversations and speculation around pay decisions.

Tips for creating a job evaluation tool

Ready to start making structured and equitable pay decisions? Before you get started, we suggest:

• Ensuring business and compensation strategies are current,
• Creating/updating your compensation philosophy, and
• Reviewing and updating job descriptions to include:
  • Job purpose
  • Reporting relationships
  • Responsibilities
  • Tasks
  • Education/designation minimum requirements
  • Experience minimum requirements

Ps. If your job descriptions are outdated or you don’t have a template for job descriptions you are confident in, contact us! People First HR can support the development of job information questionnaires, reviewing employee feedback, consulting with leadership on job purpose, and writing effective job descriptions.

Benefit from structured pay decisions

Every organization can benefit from making structured and consistent pay decisions.

To set your organization, and employees, up for success, contact us for strategic advice and support based on our extensive practical experience developing total rewards solutions.

Our consulting team strengthens your organization by providing customized total rewards solutions that align with your strategy and stakeholder interests.  

Contact People First HR

Making a good first impression during your recruitment process

When you think about first impressions during the recruitment process, it’s easy to create a list of things that a candidate needs to do — dress professionally, make eye contact, arrive on time, spell check your resume, etc. It’s just as important for employers to make a good first impression — especially in a competitive recruitment market.

“From the moment that a potential employee engages with your organization, you provide them with a story of the type of relationship you will have with them. Will your story be about trust, inclusivity, and engagement? How you interact with candidates is important and the little things matter.”

– Shari Loewen, Manager, HR @ Your Service

Everything a candidate sees from and about your organization during the recruitment process influences their impression of the company and your employer brand.

Just like going to buy a new car, there are multiple touch points that will help you form an opinion and decide whether or not to make the purchase (or take the job). You’re going to do some research online first to learn about the car and its features. Then you may go to your chosen dealership for a test drive and gather more information. If things go well, you purchase the car and (depending on availability) you drive off with your new ride.

There is a chance at any of these touchpoints of things going offside.

• The way the car is written about online might not be enticing.
• During the test drive, the car might not feel like the right fit.
• You might have a poor interaction with someone at the dealership.
• After driving the vehicle for a bit, you might realize it does not fill the promises of the car you read about online.

Replace car with job and dealership with your company and we are back to talking about the hiring process.

Planning your recruitment strategy to ensure the touchpoints with your company are well thought out will make the process more efficient and leave candidates with a good feeling about your organization.

Make the best first impression possible with these tips!

Timelines

Tip: Provide clear communications around hiring timelines. Candidates suffer from inevitable self-doubt while waiting for feedback from their interview. Being clear about hiring timelines can help to alleviate this.

Once you’ve shared timelines, commit to providing the candidate feedback in a reasonable timeframe. This can make the impression that you stick to your word and that your organization respects timelines.

“The transparency and contact that People First HR had with me throughout the process was very helpful,” shared Ainsley LaCroix, HR Consultant. “I had multiple phone calls with the recruiter and each time I was told what I could expect and where things were at in the process. It helped calm my nerves and gave me a feel-good feeling. It’s not often employers are transparent with their recruiting, and it was a positive experience for me with People First.”

Interviewing

“An employer can make a strong first impression by being prepared for the interview.”

– Tara Gousseau, Associate Recruiter Team Lead.

Tip: Review the resume beforehand, be prepared with relevant questions, be respectful of the candidates’ time (show up on time, utilize the time wisely), and be prepared to answer the candidates’ questions.

A candidate’s impression of you is going to be made during the interview process. It’s important to be and stay engaged — just like you’d expect the candidate to be. Make eye contact, show that you are interested in them and their interests, and work through the questions you have set, while trying to be as fluid and flexible as possible.

Also keep in mind that a candidate may be nervous. Attending an interview is a big commitment, so show appreciation and empathy to them.

Being open about candidate’s opportunities

“Talk about opportunities to enhance the employee experience. Applicants are often interested in project work outside of their day-to-day duties and other meaningful work.”

– Karin Pooley, VP Senior Management & Executive Search.

Tip: Talking about programs and opportunities that your organization offers to enhance the employee experience can both make a candidate more excited about the role and your organization in general.

Support for creating a good first impression

A lot goes into a recruitment strategy from understanding the ideal candidate for the role and creating the job posting to interviewing candidates. Don’t let this time and effort be a waste.

Remember to:

• Consider your employer brand and the touch points candidates will have with your company
• Be transparent with timelines
• Prepare for each interview
• Talk about candidates’ futures with your organization

For support with hiring or with creating recruitment strategies, contact us! We offer full-service recruitment services, as well as training on recruitment strategies that support businesses of all sizes. 

Why experience matters when selecting a workplace investigation partner

By Deanna Lanoway, Executive HR Consultant

Every Canadian employee has the right to feel connected, safe, and comfortable at work. Not only is it the right thing to do, and the basis of Respectful Workplace policies and legislation in Canada, but it is also integral to productivity and making Canadian organizations competitive.

When employers learn of a situation that has impacted that feeling of safety and connection, resolving it with compassion and an eye to the future is critical for the workplace culture and their legal responsibility. Ideally, complaints and concerns are resolved informally, but when they cannot be, an investigation needs to happen. Choosing the right partner for your organization is vital to restoring organizational health.

Why you need a good partner to conduct workplace investigations

Thankfully, the need for investigations is uncommon in most workplaces. However, this also means they are an unfamiliar process for you and your organization to navigate. This is one of the main reasons employers bring in a third-party partner to conduct the investigation.

Working with a partner brings experience to the situation, which helps you minimize legal risk.

A good partner will:

• Recognize what go could sideways
• Draw on their experience and specialized training
• Minimize disruption to your organization
• Maintain a high level of confidentiality

In addition to experience, bringing in a neutral third party to conduct the investigation eliminates any potential conflicts of interest and can lead to better resolutions.

Ensures employee comfort

Employees participating in an investigation often feel a level of risk as they discuss the situation, whether they were directly involved or a witness. With a third party, employees tend to open up more, as they are speaking to someone who is only looking at what is in the scope of the investigation and is not part of the organization. Nothing an employee shares with the investigation partner can be held over their heads for the future of their career.

Removes conflict of interest

An investigation partner also removes the risk of a conflict of interest with organization reporting structures. In some organizations, reporting structures make it impossible to avoid at least the appearance of a conflict of interest. In smaller organizations, for example, HR will often report to a COO or CFO. Emotions run high during investigations, and employees may feel it is unfair for someone aligned with one area of the organization to be making decisions in an investigation. Federally regulated employers are required to ensure there are no reporting relationships that create a conflict with the investigator.

Selecting your investigation partner

The best time to choose an investigation partner is when you don’t need one.

Establishing a list of approved investigators and sharing it with your Health and Safety committee is best practice for all employers and one way that federally regulated employers can meet their requirements.

Partnering with People First HR for workplace investigations

At People First HR, our main concern is to conduct a thorough investigation that will ensure the health of your organization when the process is complete. We work with organizations and employees to come to a resolution that gets the workplace back to a healthy and safe place.

By working with People First, you will get a partner who:

• Is fully trained in conducting investigations
• Understands the need to commence investigations quickly and complete them in a timely manner
• Completes dozens of investigations each year across private and public sectors and federal and provincial jurisdictions
• Works across Canada with experience from BC to New Brunswick
• Has a defined process that is up to date with current legislation

Trained consultants

As mentioned above, the need for investigations is rare, so choosing a partner that offers trained and experienced consultants is vital.

People First has a team of consultants specially trained in conducting workplace investigations who follow our defined process. They also continue to add to their skillset with professional development in areas most relevant to their areas of expertise. These specialized courses may include conflict resolution, handling challenging witnesses, cultural competence, trauma-informed practice, or diversity and inclusion.

This vast experience means you’ll be working with a consultant who knows how to expertly handle an investigation, and how to work with the employees involved in a compassionate and caring way.

Investigation timelines

Taking the appropriate time for an investigation is part of our process. Each situation we encounter is unique, making the timeline for each investigation different. We feel it’s important to give the parties involved time to say what they need, so they feel heard and are not rushed.

Maintaining workplace health and safety at your organization

Working through an investigation, and finding a resolution, is about maintaining a healthy workplace for all employees.

While we hope that you don’t need a workplace investigation partner in the future, if you happen to, remember to choose a partner with proven experience that provides consultants trained to conduct investigations in your area.

To learn more about partnering with People First HR on investigations, contact us.

8 HR practices to keep top of mind in 2023

As we enter a new year, sometimes it feels like we should be able to open a new book and start fresh on January 1. But life doesn’t function that way — projects continue, work keeps moving forward, and unexpected changes are often just around the corner.

While you likely have projects mapped out for 2023, and work continuing from the fall, there are a few HR practices and projects we think you should keep top-of-mind through this coming year.

Disability Management

Disability management provides a coordinated effort to support an employee who is experiencing a mental health or physical medical condition or injury that impacts their ability to perform their role.

Disability Management provides an opportunity for the employee, employer, the union (if applicable) and their employee’s health care provider to work together so the employee can be successful in the workplace, while balancing the needs of the employer. This may include:

• Writing the employee’s health care provider to understand any restrictions or limitations that may impact their ability to perform their role
• Providing an accommodation that meets their restrictions and limitations,
• Facilitating a return to work, and/or
• Applying for short-term or long-term disability benefits.

The process should consider the needs of the employee, the organization, and legal obligations.

It is HR best practice to have a pro-active disability management policy and process in place to support employees in a structured, respectful way.

Accommodation

It may surprise you to learn that the need for workplace accommodations is a frequent occurrence, and one that’s rising in many industries.

Whether due to illness, family changes, or other factors, your employees may request temporary or permanent accommodations.

As an employer, you have a duty to accommodate up to the point of undue hardship. In many cases, accommodations are reasonable, fair, and promote a healthy work culture and fosters employee retention and inclusion.

Examples of accommodations

• Person with anxiety – An accommodation may look like an employee working in a hybrid work arrangement, or the employer providing a quiet space for the employee to go to so that they can take care of themselves.  
• Employee returning from surgery or illness – An accommodation may look like modified duties for a period, modified hours, or to restructure the job entirely.
• Family related accommodation – An employee is caring for a family member may require flexibility for when they start and end work.

When accommodation is needed, you should work with the employee’s medical provider to understand the restrictions and limitation so that an appropriate accommodation can be developed. Failing to provide a reasonable accommodation, violates your employers’ obligations under the Employment Standards Code.

The Right to Disconnect 

The right to disconnect supports the concept that workers should be able to disconnect from workplace communications channels outside of working hours to ensure a balance between work and their personal life.

By March 1, 2023, employers in Ontario with 25 or more employees will be required to have a written policy. 

Electronic Monitoring

Electronic Monitoring policies are about transparency.

As of October 2022, Ontario employers must create and maintain an electronic monitoring policy.

The law does not prohibit electronic monitoring, but employers must tell employees if they are being electronically monitored. In addition, if employees are being electronically monitored, employers must provide employees with information regarding the scope of the monitoring and the purposes for which the information can be used.

Hybrid Work

Hybrid work continues to be a valuable practice for 2023. Last year, Ladders predicted 25% of all jobs in North America would be remote by the end of 2022 and that number is expected to continue to rise through 2023.

Organizations that offer a hybrid work model can provide a better work-life balance to their employees and possibly use it to attract new talent. This drives productivity and employee engagement and decrease the overhead costs of an employer.

Stay Interviews

Staff retention is going to continue to be a focus for many employers and stay interviews can be a useful tool to support this. A stay interview provides the opportunity for an employee to share what they value and appreciate about the workplace, as well as what are some challenges they may be experiencing. Stay Interviews provide insight into employees satisfaction and engagement, increases trust, and provides the opportunity to reduce staff turnover.

Exit interviews can be a great way to collect feedback about why an employee is leaving, but that feedback can come too late to retain the staff.

To retain employees, consider holding stay interviews to find out what your top talent like about their roles and the company, and what is keeping them there. You can proactively use this information to support retention efforts.

Pay equity programs (Federal legislation)

The federal government passed the Pay Equity Act which came into effect on August 31, 2021. The Act mandates federally regulated workplaces with ten or more employees to establish a pay equity plan to ensure equal pay to men and women doing work of equal value.

Pay equity programs are going to be top of mind throughout 2023, as federally legislated employers are required to have a formal plan in place by September 2024.

Even if you aren’t federally regulated, reviewing your compensation program, and testing its compliance to pay equity can benefit any organization. Creating a compensation program that is based in best practices ensures objectivity and fairness, and promotes a healthy workplace.

Change Management

Organizations must constantly evolve and adapt to meet a variety of challenges — from changes in technology or the rise of new competitors to a shift in laws, regulations, or underlying economic trends. To support employees and your organization through these challenges, it’s important to have good change management practices in place.

Change management is the process of guiding organizational change to fruition, from the earliest stages of conception and preparation, through implementation and, finally, to resolution. The purpose of change management is to implement strategies for effecting change, controlling change, and helping people to adapt to change. This may include company culture, internal processes, underlying technology or infrastructure, corporate hierarchy, or another critical aspect.

HR support through 2023

We wish your employees and organization a healthy and successful year.

We are here to support you with your HR needs. If your plans change or you find you need assistance with these or other HR projects on your list, call People First HR. Our consultants are here to partner with you to support your employees and organization.

Talent Attraction Trends to Inform your Recruiting Strategy

People are the heart of any organization. They keep an organization moving toward a common goal, support its mission, vision, and values, and keep each other motivated along the way. This is why attracting top talent to join your team is so important.

Hiring new talent has been a challenge over the past couple of years. Looking forward to 2023, here are a few tips you can add to your recruitment strategy to attract, engage, and retain top talent.

Part 1: Attention to Detail on Job Postings

“A poorly or inaccurately written job posting could unintentionally be preventing the exact candidate you are seeking from ever entering your hiring funnel,” wrote Kristin Barry, Gallup.

When looking for a new hire, it’s important to craft a job post that will entice the right kind of talent and properly represent your organization. Job postings should address top motivators for individuals looking for work.

Consider covering the following points on your organization’s postings.

Remote and hybrid work

In December 2021, Ladders predicted 25% of all jobs in North America would be remote by the end of 2022. That number is expected to continue to rise through 2023.

If remote or hybrid work is available for a position, be sure to include it in the job posting, as flexible work arrangements can be a major selling point of your organization over a competitor.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)

Focusing on DEI is not just the right step because it shows you are an accepting and progressive organization. An organization focused on DEI can be a draw for exceptional talent. As well, there are many studies to prove organizations that anchor their recruitment program with clear DEI practices are more effective.

Career development within your organization

A LinkedIn Workplace Learning Report states 94% of surveyed employees said they would stay at a job longer if they had opportunities for career development offered to them. Highlighting how people have grown or moved within your organization is a way to demonstrate longevity and development opportunities to potential employees, should they choose a career with your organization.

Compensation

Making a position’s compensation clear, including highlighting the type of compensation package you offer (benefits, bonus, commission, etc.) or including a salary range on the job posting is a practice on the rise.

Salary transparency is trending up and being in front of this trend may save you trouble in the future. In 2022, California passed a law to increase salary transparency on job listings. This may be the first of many governments making similar changes.

“Compensation is one of many motivators that influence a job seeker’s decision when considering taking on a new role,” says Emily Toth, HR Consultant at People First HR. “However, if the compensation rate is not assessed as ‘competitive,’ job seekers may not look past the number to see what other offerings the organization provides. Ensuring that your organization is confident that their compensation rates are competitive within their defined labour market (sector, industry, size, geographic region) is imperative to ensure that you are able to attract and retain quality employees.”

Part 2: Employer branding

By the time you are interviewing, candidates will already have formed an opinion about your organization — thanks to social media, the company website, the job posting, their own network, and the interactions they had with employees leading up to the interview.

Well before the interview phase, it’s vital to consider your employer brand. TalentLyft reported that “83% of employers say that employer brand plays a significant role in their ability to hire talent.”

Through the job posting and any interactions a candidate has with your organization, ensure you are communicating what makes your organization unique and how joining the company can benefit them and their career.

“Leaders who use their power to invest and build a premium employment brand continue to attract top talent to their brand, even in difficult times,” said Barry, Gallup.

How you market your brand can heavily impact your recruitment efforts.

Part 3: Interviewing  

Job seekers have seen your job posting and applied, and you have interviews lined up with the top candidates. Prior to the first interview, you need to have a plan to align the first impression made online with the in-person impression to draw in your top pick.

“An employer can make a strong first impression by being prepared for the interview,” says Tara Gousseau, Senior Consultant & Associate Recruiter Team Lead at People First HR. “Review the resume beforehand, be prepared with relevant behavioural questions, be respectful of the candidates’ time (show up on time, utilize the time wisely), and be prepared to answer the candidates’ questions.”

Preparing your interview questions in advance will help to keep you on track and focused on your ‘must haves’ and ‘nice to haves’ for the role. Behavioural questions will help to draw out hands-on experience and provide insight into how the candidate approaches their work and interacts with peers and leadership.

Part 4: The Goal = Retention

Developing and enhancing retention strategies will be a key focus for 2023, as organizations look to retain the top talent they have worked hard to recruit. There are key factors to consider when building your retention strategy.

(For a deeper look at the importance of employee engagement in regard to retention, see Dr. Thomas Hammond’s article on Understanding Engagement.)

Onboarding

You may not think of onboarding as part of a recruitment strategy, but it is a necessary step to ensure you retain the employees you worked hard to find.

“Recruitment efforts are optimized by strong onboarding programs that result in engaged employees who feel a strong connection with the team and are much less likely to leave,” says Ed Gapate, Senior HR Consultant at People First HR. “Overall, it is less costly to invest in onboarding a current employee than it is to find and hire a new one, so it is wise to treat onboarding as a priority and not just a routine orientation.”

Without proper onboarding your new employee may end up feeling a lack of connection to your organization, making all your recruitment efforts a waste if your new employee decides they made the wrong decision for their career.

Research by Gallup found that “70% of employees who had exceptional onboarding experiences say they have ‘the best possible job.’ These employees are also 2.6 times as likely to be extremely satisfied with their workplace — and consequently, far more likely to stay.”

Looking forward

Being aware of recruiting trends, and having a strong recruitment process in place, can help you attract strong talent. As you move into 2023, make sure to keep these tips in mind:

• Ensure your job postings are well thought out and up to date
• Keep your employer branding clear and consistent, demonstrating value to candidates
• Prepare for interviews to support a solid first impression
• Make sure your recruiting efforts build toward a great retention strategy

If you are interested in learning more about how People First HR can support your recruitment efforts, connect with us to learn more.

Source links:

https://www.theladders.com/press/25-of-all-professional-jobs-in-north-america-will-be-remote-by-end-of-next-year

https://www.gallup.com/workplace/353096/practical-tips-leaders-better-onboarding-process.aspx

https://www.gallup.com/workplace/317867/leaders-control-employment-brand.aspx

https://www.gallup.com/workplace/321638/recruit-top-talent-rethink-job-postings.aspx

https://www.talentlyft.com/en/resources/what-is-employer-brand

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Five benefits of providing departing employees with career transition support.

Career Management

Events across the entire employee life cycle can influence the employee experience, from the recruitment process to the day an employee leaves your organization. While much focus and effort go into supporting a positive employee experience during the recruitment, onboarding, and employment phase, organizations often overlook the departure process.

There are many reasons why an organization and an employee will part ways. If handled poorly, the exiting process could negatively impact your organization’s brand reputation, culture, and the morale of remaining employees. There is also an increased risk of litigation. 

Organizations dealing with layoffs face a trickier situation. Leadership needs to manage the experience for departing employees, leaders or managers delivering the layoff news, and remaining employees. 

Career transition services are one way to help departing employees manage the change and find new employment while supporting the employee experience for all parties involved. 

Let’s explore some of the benefits of providing career transition support.  

Protected brand reputation

Employees who receive career transition support are more likely to make positive comments about their former employer, helping maintain your organization’s brand reputation. This is especially important today given the labour shortage and the competition for talent.

Positive employee relations

Often during times of transition, the focus is on the departing individual. You may forget to think about how the news may affect the remaining employees. Learning that a colleague has lost their job can cause stress and uncertainty, which may impact performance. Career transition consultants can help guide you through delivering the message to the remaining employees to help the team feel safe and secure, especially for group notifications.

Providing transition services also shows your remaining employees that the organization cares about its staff. It can reinforce that if they find themselves in the same situation in the future, they will be treated with the same respect and dignity.

Employee closure and support

Access to support through the transition and job search helps shorten the disruption to an affected employee’s personal life and quickly brings closure.

With career transition services, a consultant can check in with the individual later in the day to ensure they are doing okay. The consultant will talk to the individual about the emotions they may be experiencing, helping them to refocus and move forward.

“The program was good but what made it valuable for me was my HR consultant… My consultant restored my confidence that was lost over these past few challenging years personally and professionally. I was gifted with such a wonderful person. We became fast friends over our mutual love for helping those in need and the wonderful world of personal development. I am grateful for having been a part of this program!”

– Career transition program participant

Risk management

A career transition program can also reduce the risks to your organization. Lawyers reviewing the severance package of a departing employee typically look more favourably on severance packages that include career transition support. This can lead to less negotiation or mitigate requests for additional severance.

Support for leaders through the notification process

Letting someone go is never an easy decision or conversation. For some, this may be the first time notifying an employee of job loss, and for others who’ve already had the experience, it might make them feel stressed and anxious to do it again. With career transition services, a consultant is with you every step of the way. As you make decisions around the process, your consultant will help ensure you feel comfortable and confident with the messaging and logistics for the notification meeting. Your well-being and mental health are just as important during this process.

“The overall service from start to finish was excellent. The consultants showed empathy and compassion for the employees, as they assisted and guided them through something that was so difficult and showed them that there was a light at the end of the tunnel. I have a huge amount of trust and confidence in People First HR’s career transition consultants. They listened to me and always did the right thing and always accommodated our requests – no matter what.”

– Client organization HR representative

Support for career transitions

How an individual is treated as they leave an organization is a vital part of the employee experience. Whether it’s an employee-led exit or due to downsizing or layoffs, how an employee leaves can have ripple effects across your organization.

For support with career transitions or other important people and culture needs, contact People First HR. We look forward to learning about your unique needs and finding a solution that works for your organization.

Contact People First HR

Forget quiet quitting. Engagement is what you should be really worried about.

Strategic HR Consulting

The not-so-new phenomenon of quiet quitting was the hot topic of the summer. Our social newsfeeds were filled with posts debating this latest take on how the world of work continues to change.

Although the chatter was highly entertaining, we see quiet quitting as a fresh take on an existing concept — employee engagement, or the lack thereof.

Understanding engagement

Employee engagement has been a topic of interest within management and HR for some time. A quick online search produces a variety of articles highlighting the importance of engagement, methods to measure it, and every expert’s top five tips to increase employee engagement.

This is not surprising given that executives and business leaders consistently rate employee engagement as key to organizational performance. Moreover, employee engagement has been linked to job satisfaction, job performance, talent retention, reduced absenteeism, increased customer satisfaction and loyalty, innovation, and profitability. Strategically, an engaged workforce creates a unique set of internal capabilities that are valuable, rare, and hard to imitate — the building blocks of competitive advantage.

Although there is no universal definition, it is generally accepted that employee engagement is multidimensional, consisting of cognitive, affective, and behavioural components operating on a spectrum from high to low engagement. In essence, engagement represents the extent to which employees identify with, belong, and commit to the organization, are enthusiastic and experience positive emotions, and are motivated to expend discretionary effort to help others and improve performance.

Employee engagement is not a one-way street — It is an outcome that is highly influenced by factors within an organization.

Engagement is not a one-way street. Leaders can’t place the responsibility to be engaged solely on employees. And vice versa. Really, engagement is an outcome highly influenced by factors within the organization.

These factors (typically referred to as drivers) target individual, operational, and strategic levels within the organization. Specific areas of measurement often include:

• meaning and values alignment,
• communication,
• management practices that enable performance,
• quality relationships,
• a supportive and humane environment,
• feedback and recognition, and
• a focus on learning and development.

Together these drivers influence levels of employee engagement for good or bad. If the drivers are not aligned or are in deficit, employee engagement will likely decline, performance will deteriorate, and the twitter-verse will be chirping with more quiet quitting hashtags.

At this point, it is worth noting that despite the benefits associated with high levels of employee engagement, some research suggests most employees can be considered disengaged, meaning they are relatively happy in their role but are content to do the minimum. Although this may present a challenge, it is also an opportunity for organizations to evaluate how well they are facilitating the necessary conditions for employee engagement and performance.

Steps to building engagement.

Employee engagement is above and beyond basic loyalty and satisfaction. It is the combination of cognitive, affective, and behavioural factors that are linked to individual and organizational performance.

Step 1: Create a Deliberate and Systematic Process

Developing a deliberate and systematic process to assess levels of engagement and key drivers is the first step to building engagement. (People First HR can help with this…)

Frequently, organizations implement some form of a survey on a bi-annual or annual cycle. However, the tools used to measure engagement are often inconsistent, measuring a wide range of factors between years. Although some form of touchpoint is better than not seeking any feedback, an inconsistent measure does not facilitate an effective or coherent approach to developing employee engagement.

Consider:

• Implementing a consistent measure of employee engagement and key drivers that enables tracking changes and trends over time.
• Creating an employee voice program that is planned across the year and cycle of the organization. This may include a yearly engagement survey, but also brief and regular pulses to assess emerging trends or focus groups to deep dive into important topics.
• Linking business outcomes to engagement, such as sales revenue, customer experience, and employee retention.

Step two: Leverage the data collected

Understanding trends over time, areas of strength and weakness, as well as key underlying factors enable the organization to target change efforts at the individual, operational and strategic levels. It is crucial that information is not gathered and left to collect dust. Distrust and indifference can develop if nothing ever happens with the information collected.

Consider:

• Using analyses that go beyond the calculation of high or low scores. Identify the factors that have the greatest influence on engagement and use them to your advantage.
• Develop a plan to distribute and communicate results and recommendations promptly.
• Focus on enhancing the areas that have the greatest impact and greatest room for improvement. Also, build on your high-impact strengths and understand what contributes to your secret sauce.  
• Including employees in the change process to increase meaning, alignment, and credibility.

Get back to the fundamentals of employee engagement

Whether it is quiet quitting, joyful joining, or some other creative alliteration, it all comes back to the fundamentals of employee engagement. Building and sustaining an environment that facilitates engagement is an interactive process between employers and employees that enhances the desire to belong to and perform in the workplace but can create that highly valuable internal resource that is hard to imitate.

If you are interested in learning more about employee engagement, how to measure it, and how to enhance it, contact us.

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Leveraging career coaching to support leadership development

Career Management

Can you imagine a time in your life when you would use a coach? For many people, a sports coach or a personal trainer will come to mind. Professional athletes use coaches to support their development, facilitate effective team communication and dynamics, and excel in a competitive environment. The coach’s role is to inspire and enable its athletes to grow, develop competencies, and support the team in achieving a goal. For these same reasons, organizations and their leaders can benefit from coaching.

What is coaching?

John Whitmore, the author of Coaching for Performance, says, “coaching focuses on future possibilities, not past mistakes.”

By focusing on the positive aspects of a situation, we can create environments for growth mindsets to flourish, enabling us to identify future possibilities and progress towards the desired outcome.

Imagine this scenario: a manager comes to you for advice on how to move a project forward when the project team doesn’t agree on the next steps. As their leader, you have two options for helping them:

Coaching is defined as a partnership between a qualified coach and an individual client sponsored by the organization. The coach facilitates the individual’s thinking, learning, and development to help bridge the gap between where they are now and what they must do to get where they need to be.

How can organizations leverage coaching?

Over the last couple of years, the pandemic has impacted organizations and leaders. Workers have more flexibility than they experienced pre-pandemic, reshaping how people work. Remote work is also a new norm. Many employees are reluctant to return to pre-pandemic ways, leaving companies and their leaders to mitigate the impacts on their workforce and bottom line. Trends like the Great Resignation, quiet quitting, or the rise of independent workers have left organizations and leaders with talent engagement and retention challenges.

To work through these challenges McKinsey & Companyfound that leaders of resilient organizations invested in coaching and recognition programs.

Organizations count on leadership to align employee engagement, commitment, and productivity with business strategies and path-forward plans. To support leadership in achieving these objectives and to foster a culture of coaching, organizations should consider providing executive coaching and training on how to hold effective career coaching conversations.

Executive coaching

Employees are not leaving organizations; they are leaving leaders. Investing in leadership development through executive coaching can serve your leaders and organization well, with a significant return on the investment. The ICF reportsa 70% increase in individual performance, a 50% increase in team performance and a 48% increase in organizational performance on the benefits of investing in executive coaching. 

But what is executive coaching?

Executive coaching, sometimes called leadership coaching, positions leaders and senior managers for future success by equipping them with the skills and tools to lead teams through change and maximize performance. It encompasses the definition of coaching — a partnership between a qualified coach (executive or leadership coach) and an individual client (the leader) and is sponsored by the organization.

More than that, executive coaching aims to enhance leadership or management performance and inspire continued development. Coaching is often customized to the individual and provides an in-depth understanding that facilitates self-awareness, learning, and development to help leaders get unstuck and lead effectively.

When an organization experience high turnover and reduced productivity, leaders are expected to facilitate positive change. Executive coaching is a proven method for supporting leadership and management development that contributes to a psychologically safe and engaging environment for everyone.

Career coaching

Leaders can leverage career coaching through career conversations to engage employees and support organizational development. Career conversationsare a tool to help leaders identify employee career aspirations and create development plans to support individuals who wish to advance their career goals.

Holding career conversations is critical to engage employees and supporting organizational development. Gallupsuggests that leaders can increase team engagement and productivity by providing more meaningful feedback and support.

Holding effective career conversationsis a strategic way to do this. Having a successful career conversation can take some practice. As a leader, you can be the one to initiate the conversation and help keep it going, but at the end of the day, the employee must be the one willing to stay motivated to keep it focused. If leaders, managers and employees are unfamiliar with career coaching conversations, consider providing them training or support to hold them effectively.

Benefits of investing in leadership development

When organizations invest in leadership development initiatives, like executive coaching and career conversations, they create systems that support growth and development. They keep leaders focused, inspired, and empowered to achieve goals, overcome challenges, and effectively lead people through organizational and career-related change. The trickle-down effect of implementing leadership development programs within your organization can transform your culture from a dependency hierarchy to one that fosters growth and interdependent mindsets that embrace learning and accountability at the individual and team levels.

If you are interested in learning more about how People First HR can support your leaders executive coaching and career conversations, connect with us to learn more.

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Succession Planning: Why Organizations Cannot Afford to Get It Wrong

Strategic HR Consulting

Many organizations have been struggling to find the talent and skillsets needed to fill open roles. These challenges are not going away anytime soon, with workers aged 55 and older steadily exiting the Canadian workforce and a lack of younger workers to replace them (CBC News). This shortage of required experience, combined with higher turnover, highlights the importance of succession planning. 

Succession planning is vital to organizational success. It helps businesses prepare for future leadership vacancies and talent needs by developing a qualified pool of talent to fill critical positions, all while growing institutional knowledge. This practice helps business continuity and enables businesses to grow their workforce from within, building leadership skills, knowledge, and values that are important to their organization. 

Poorly managed succession planning can also cause employee turnover, which brings added costs from lost productivity and recruitment. Turnover costs can range from 20% of the annual salary for mid-level employees to 213% for C-suite employees (Psychometrics).

Succession Planning 101:
How to disaster-proof your organization

With the risks of having no succession plan being so costly, creating one should be a priority for every organization. But where to start?

Why create a succession plan?

First, let’s recap the benefits of succession planning: 

• Minimizes disruption created by change, expected or otherwise
• Minimizes the impact of cultural misfits
• Ensures organizational talent is identified on an ongoing basis
• Places a spotlight on skill gap vulnerabilities to take corrective action
• Maintains and grows institutional knowledge
• Inspires engagement and retention through talent development
• Builds leadership capacity within the organization
• Provides a significant competitive advantage for organizations that are doing it

Who needs to do it?

Every business should consider its succession plans. This practice may be even more critical in smaller organizations where every team member is vital to success, and losing valued talent may be more disruptive.

How to start succession planning?

Assessing workforce needs

The first step in succession planning is to assess the workforce needs. This process includes reviewing the corporate strategic plan, current and future goals and objectives, and any planned changes to existing programs and services. The information you gather will enable leaders to identify key positions and skill sets critical to success. It helps paint the picture of all the roles to include in the succession planning process.

Often CEO and executive leadership positions are identified as part of this process. Looking beyond the top level of the organization will help you determine if any highly specialized or critical positions would pose a risk to the organization if left vacant.

Also, keep in mind that filling positions from within often creates a domino effect, leaving vacancies where staff have moved from. You will need to consider those areas and roles as well.  

Other data you should review when assessing current and future vacancy risks include workforce demographics, retirement forecasts and turnover rates. 

Identify role/position requirements

The next step is to outline what success looks like for the critical positions you have identified. 

This includes aspects such as the key competencies, leadership style, and experience required. It is important to note that requirements may differ going forward, and it is a good idea to review what changes in position expectations should be considered. For example, since the pandemic, leading virtual teams is a skill set that has emerged for many leaders.

Talent Assessment

Many organizations use tools to assess high-potential talent and identify strengths and development needs. 

Assessments often used in this process focus on identified leadership competencies, including psychometric assessments that assess aspects important to leadership effectiveness, such as emotional intelligence. 

Organizations will commonly use 360-degree formats to gain a full circle view of how a leader sees themselves while gathering feedback from their manager, peers, direct reports, or others they work with. 360s help an individual understand how people they interact with see them.  

When it comes to succession planning, these assessments can help candidates identify where they need to focus in order to prepare to be a potential successor for a particular position. 

Understanding the strengths and development needs of your organization’s talent is also helpful in focusing development efforts.

Career Conversations

Career conversations are a valuable tool to incorporate into the succession planning process. 

According to research by Gallup, 61% of workers surveyed said that upskilling opportunities are a reason to stay at their job (SHRM). 

Career conversations are a way for leaders to identify their employees’ career aspirations and then create development plans to support individuals who wish to advance their career goals. These honest conversations and the support that follows help to retain and engage employees by showing them they are valued members of the team.

Holding an effective career conversation can take some practice. If leaders are unfamiliar with career conversations, consider providing them training or support to do this effectively.

Development 

Development plans can help turn feedback into action by outlining the key actions individuals will take, as well as identifying any support or resources required to progress on their development goals. 

Providing opportunities for people to develop will help prepare candidates for succession opportunities. Leadership development programs and leadership coaching are common development methods. Cross-training and lateral movements can also be effective in developing needed skill sets and on-the-job learning. You can also use mentorship opportunities for more seasoned employees to transfer knowledge.

Succession planning and action plans

Looking at your main succession planning roles, you need to assess how many potential candidates there are for each position and how prepared everyone is to move into those roles. This process enables leaders to understand where there are talent gaps that they need to address.

It is also good to examine whether any risks have been identified as part of this process. For example, if you have a candidate rated as ‘ready now’, how do you keep them engaged and retain them until they could potentially fill a vacant position?

Your organization should review succession plans on an ongoing basis to assess whether there are any changes to consider. Questions to consider include:

• Are there any changes to strategy? 
• Are there any potential new roles or opportunities? 
• Have employees changed their career preferences? 
• Are the action plans on track?

Key factors for successful implementation

For a successful succession plan, the leadership team should own the planning process – not HR. There needs to be support from the top and clear accountabilities of participants and leaders in the process. 

Other key factors include: 

• Succession planning should be aligned with the overall talent management strategy and other HR programs and processes, such as using performance management ratings to identify talent and tying it into career development programs and learning and development opportunities.
• Organizations should focus on developing leadership competencies in all employees to build organizational capacity. 
• Talent at all levels of the organization should be identified to see who can be developed and funnelled into the succession planning program.
• Don’t just say it, do it – Execute succession plans and highlight success stories to motivate your workforce.

Regardless of size, all organizations should focus on identifying and preparing talent to address their current and future needs. Succession planning is vital to ensure that you are planning for the workforce of tomorrow, today.

Start your succession plan today

With the high costs associated with a lack of a plan and the increasing retirement numbers, now is the time to invest in a succession strategy. Contact People First for support getting started. 

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