Many HR professionals don’t realize the on-boarding process begins when a candidate applies for a position or is sourced by a recruiter and not on an employee’s first day. These first interactions between the candidate and your organization set the tone for how they perceive your employer brand.  It’s vital to get off on the right foot!  Two important factors contributing to on-boarding during the hiring process:  the length of time it takes from a candidate’s initial application until an offer/rejection is made and how informed the candidate felt during this time.  To help effectively on-board employees, the hiring process must be as quick and painless as possible. If candidates wait forever for an interview or job offer, their level of engagement will start to drop off before they’ve even entered your organization.  Just as important, candidates must feel special and “chosen” to maximize their engagement.  Newly hired employees will not feel this way if they sat by the phone pondering the status of their application.  It’s detrimental to your organization’s retention efforts if new employees show up with a negative impression even before first day.  Therefore, it’s imperative to evaluate your hiring process in order to properly on-board your new hires.

To enable an optimal hiring process, your organization may already have an arsenal of metrics to evaluate recruitment staff. Most typically, companies look at metrics only in terms of how they impact the bottom line.  It’s important to realize these metrics also indicate a candidate’s experience in the hiring process.  Both recruiters and hiring managers need to be held accountable for how long it takes to fill an open position.  By establishing base-line metrics for both recruiters and hiring managers, they will be incentivized to streamline the process, becoming more efficient at sourcing, pre-screening, interviewing and hiring qualified employees.

HR professionals often rely on days-to-fill as their metric of choice for measuring recruiters’ and hiring managers’ performance alike.  However, days-to-fill is too generic a metric. There are too many factors outside of both recruiters’ and hiring managers’ control for the days-to-fill metric to properly identify sticking points within the hiring process.  For recruiters, variables outside their control include: hiring managers dragging their feet in terms of interviewing, making a decision and offering the position.  Hiring managers are not able to control if recruiters adequately source candidates, present them in a timely manner and effectively pre-screen the candidate.   

To further evaluate and assess bottlenecks within the hiring process, break the process down into phases and hold recruiters and hiring managers accountable for the phase in which they are most crucial.  Recruiters should be held responsible for the time it takes for them to present a candidate to the hiring manager.  In holding recruiters to a baseline “time-to-present-candidate” metric, it alleviates many of the factors that are out of their control and truly measures their performance. The time-to-present metric accounts for recruiters’ abilities -- such as the time it takes to source a candidate and how quickly they are able to pre-screen.  In a perfect world, recruiters would always select and present only the utmost qualified applicants to their hiring manager.  However, we don’t live in a perfect world so it is also important to establish a baseline “quality-of-candidate-presented” metric for recruiters.  This prevents recruiters from artificially decreasing the time-to-present-candidate by advancing ill-qualified candidates to the next step in the hiring process.  Also consider establishing a baseline “number-of-candidates-presented” metric.  This will discourage recruiters from bogging down hiring managers with an onslaught of mediocre candidates and help ensure only the best and brightest advance.

Hiring Managers should be held accountable for the time it takes for them to present an offer or reject the candidate after they’re presented by the recruiter.  Establishing a baseline “time-to-present-decision” metric for hiring managers will incentivize them to set aside time to interview candidates in a timely manner and make filling their open position a top priority.  This will also encourage them to come to a decision as to whether the candidate got the job or not in a timelier manner.

However, it’s important to realize that evaluating the hiring process can’t end with just quantitative data.  Monitoring the time-to-present candidate and time-to-present decision metrics will provide useful insight along with other baseline quantitative metrics. Adding qualitative data will help you gain a broader, more accurate picture of the hiring process as a whole.  Remember, it’s essential to keep candidates well informed during the pre-employment phase (not to mention the entire employment life cycle) to most effectively on-board them.  Survey newly hired employees and ask them to evaluate their recruiter and hiring manager based on their communication during the hiring process, how the process could be improved and how your organization compares with that of your competitors.  By honing in and optimizing your hiring process, you’re paving the way to properly on-boarding employees and extending their tenure as well as having them recommend your organization to colleagues and friends.

We're about a month removed from the holidays, and regardless of how you celebrate the season, one thing that seems to be a common theme is the expectation of a sense of joy or happiness. For some, this may happen thanks to their connection to certain religious beliefs. For others, it may be more secular and/or consumer-oriented. Or perhaps some combination of both. In my case, it tends to be very superficial – the exchanging of gifts (usually at the exchange counter).

Assuming that most of us went through the season with a similar experience and set of expectations as I mentioned above (oh, how my heart soared when I received a pair of electric ear muffs, the Partridge Family Greatest Hits CD, and my very own Garden Weasel), one would expect that whatever level of happiness we felt at the moment, we must still be experiencing.

Same thing with the phenomena known as the vacation. We plan, anticipate, and run off to some ideal destination, near or far, and then, when that vacation has come to an end, we bask in the afterglow for days and weeks on end.

Except that isn't the case at all. A few days after the holidays, or after the conclusion of our vacation, our level of euphoria, excitement, or contentment simply dissipates. In the aftermath, it all seems downright fleeting. Oh misery! Oh despair! Oh that-really-sucks!

However, experience shows that in the same way we don't stay at those heights, our psyche doesn't allow us to stay at those depths either.

And that's the point of the Hedonic Treadmill. According to the theory of hedonic adaptation, we will always return to our standard level of happiness, regardless of what positive or negative events may transpire. The treadmill analogy was developed by Michael Eysenck, a British psychology researcher who compared the pursuit of happiness to a person running on a treadmill. You have to keep working just to stay in the same place.

Now think about that in context with the employment experience. You start a new job. Everything is wonderful. You're happy about your new circumstances, the compensation, the benefits, even the local restaurants. But hedonic theory tells us that this employment contentment will level off. And when it does, we find ourselves back to the level of happiness on this new job that we had at our old job. Oh, the irony!

If we accept this as true, or even only relatively true, then how can we expect employee engagement or satisfaction or whatever measure we want to use, to improve when the employment experience is relatively static? Answer: we can't.

That means we need to design a new type of experience. One that is dynamic, introducing new ideas, programs, and policies on a regular basis in order to achieve a more fulfilling experience for employees.

Next time: how to accomplish that little task.

r

I'm a big fan of Wayne Gretzky, in fact, he’s one of my heroes. He’s arguably the greatest hockey player of all time, and certainly the most prolific scorer, in part because he always went where the puck was going, not where the puck had been. At TMP Worldwide, we consistently strive to ensure that we are leading our clients where the talent is going, not where the talent has been. For the past 17 years, TMP Worldwide has worked diligently to ensure that our clients are ahead of the recruiting curve. Today, being ahead of the curve means making sure that our clients are harnessing the power of Web 2.0 to activate their brands and build branded experiences that will help them attract top talent.

Since 2004, when Tim O’Reilly coined the term “Web 2.0,” there has been significant confusion about what that term actually means. Some people want to know where they can “download” Web 2.0, others think it is limited to emerging social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. In fact, Web 2.0 is a much larger and more powerful concept that refers to new principles of design and development centered on user desires and behaviors. Web 2.0 tools and technologies - also known as the “participatory web” - have empowered individuals and given them the opportunity to have their voices heard. From book reviews on Amazon.com and travel tips on TripAdvisor to insights on work experiences, company cultures, and employer brands on sites like Vault.com, JobVent.com, and GlassDoor.com, individuals now have a way to participate in conversations that previously they were only able to observe or share with a close-knit circle. The Internet has allowed conversations to spread - at light speed - around the globe and be heard by millions within minutes. With participation comes influence: individuals’ opinions and reviews have the power to change the behavior of other individuals. A bad review on Amazon or TripAdvisor causes other users to pass on buying a book, eating at a restaurant or staying in a hotel. A bad review of a company’s culture could stop a user from applying for a job.

With the explosion of social networking options, individual voices are joined together in conversations and dialogues via Twitter, Facebook, Hi5, Orkut, and an ever-expanding universe of sites and tools, exponentially increasing the reach of the individual. People have been given the power to share through the use of YouTube (think of it as a free television broadcasting tool), RSS feeds (think of them as syndicated newspaper columns), and podcasting (think of them as radio stations) to name just a few outlets.

Lev Grossman, in his 2006 TIME Magazine cover story naming “You” as Person of the Year said of Web 2.0:

"It's a story about community and collaboration on a scale never seen before. It's about the cosmic compendium of knowledge Wikipedia and the million-channel people's network YouTube and the online metropolis MySpace. It's about the many wresting power from the few and helping one another for nothing and how that will not only change the world, but also change the way the world changes."

TMP Worldwide was one of the first agencies to truly understand its clients’ need to harness the power of the Web 2.0 revolution. The thought-leaders in TMP’s Innovation Lab grasped the idea that people trust people and by enabling people to interact with each other, by allowing them to begin dialogues and conversations, organizations could truly leverage the participatory nature of Web 2.0 and their own employer brand evangelists to influence candidates in a positive way. Central to Web 2.0 are the ideas of authenticity, transparency, and trust. Today, there is an inverse relationship between control and trust: Companies must give up some control in order to gain the trust of their current employees and their candidates.

Companies that first listen to, and then participate in, the conversations around their brands have the power to influence public opinion and this has a direct and obvious effect on that company’s ability to attract talent. Companies that don’t participate run the risk of having their brand hijacked by outsiders who can then exert influence over the applicant pool. Companies need to understand that if they don’t define their own employer brands, someone else will.

TMP Worldwide’s work with Web 2.0 ideas began with message boards and chat rooms and quickly evolved. We were the first agency to develop a full, in-world recruiting event within the SecondLife virtual world, allowing candidates to interact with companies and with each other. We pioneered the development of a Facebook widget called “Work With Me” which allows companies to power their employee referral programs with the largest, fastest growing social network. We were an innovator with the use of Twitter to share career information and job postings - catapulting Verizon’s Twitter-feed from launch to a place on the “Top 50 Employers Using Twitter” rankings in just two months. We were early adopters of mobile technology, leveraging Bluetooth and SMS messaging as well as QR tags and image recognition. We are deeply involved with and engaged in the use of Web 2.0 tools across multiple industry verticals and are often called upon to provide expertise at public events such as the Conference Board, the Social Media Summit, and SHRM to name just a few. All of our work in this area has been designed to fit strategically into a customized, overarching and integrated employment communications plan as well as to deliver demonstrable return-on-investment for each of our clients. 

As we move toward the next iteration of Web 2.0 - whether it is called Web 2.1 or Web 3.0 - we will continue to ensure that we position our clients at the forefront of emerging technologies. We see the next evolutionary step in this process being “brand activation” - a process that is less about new technology per se, and more about using technology to create immersion and engagement. Using Facebook as an example, we believe that it is no longer about simply having a Facebook page, it is about what you do with a Facebook page.

We believe that the next iteration of Web 2.0 is about the convergence of immersive media - mobile, video, photo, etc. - with employer brand and that these media will become delivery vehicles for participatory brand experiences. Our vision is to leverage these Web 2.0 channels to create engaging brand experiences that our clients’ target audiences will want to share with others. In this way, we will combine the viral aspects of social media with the experiential facets of emerging technologies, allowing our audiences to participate in conversations with people they trust.

We also know that the gateway to social media and shared experiences is through search engines. People start their web experiences more often than not on a search engine - usually Google. Because social media is highly visible to, and indexed by, search engines, if we build atomized and ubiquitous Web 2.0 experiences - Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, MySpace, etc. - search engines will find them and make them discoverable by candidates. Thus, Web 2.0 and search are inextricably linked and must be thought of as vital components of a truly integrated digital strategy. 

Yes, I am proud of the agency and our legacy of innovation. Yes, I have been a bit boastful, but it is with a didactic purpose. Candidate behaviors have changed. Now employer behaviors must change. Employers need to embrace new tools and technologies, new media options and new paradigms of candidate engagement. It is no longer enough for employers to pick and choose from the pieces of Web 2.0. Creating a successful digital recruiting strategy is no longer about ‘or,’ it’s about ‘and.’ It is about determining the best way to weave all of the Web 2.0 components together to form a truly integrated digital strategy. 

As I said at the top, companies must go where the talent is going, not where the talent has been.

Let me know what you think.

Want to know more? Reach out to me and join the conversation.

Twitter - @99GR81
Facebook – www.facebook.com/99GR81
LinkedIn – www.linkedin.com/in/stevenzehrlich

SZE

You’ve certainly seen Best Places to Work lists in business magazines like Fortune, and maybe in the niche publications that publish their own rankings for narrower constituencies. What you might not know is that Washington’s Partnership for Public Service regularly produces a similar government-wide ranking of federal departments and agencies (http://data.bestplacestowork.org/bptw/index).

It’s all based on what a couple hundred thousand government workers tell the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) in its bi-annual survey. The Partnership, in concert with American University's Institute for the Study of Public Policy Implementation (ISPPI) and The Hay Group--and with support from TMP Government--collates and submits OPM’s independently gathered results to strict statistical analysis. The outcome is a detailed side-by-side comparison of how federal organizations rate with their own employees across a range of criteria, from teamwork to training to perceived leadership competencies. The rankings also compare OPM’s employee responses—again agency by agency--by demographic segments, including gender, ethnicity, and age.

A benchmarking tool for agencies. If you’re looking for insight into your agency’s authentic employment value proposition, this compilation is a remarkable source, provided you’re willing to spend some time exploring its capabilities.

Both OPM’s own survey report (www.fhcs.opm.gov/) and the Partnership/ISPPI rankings allow you to see how your agency measures up in the eyes of your own workforce. But the Partnership/ISPPI compilation makes it easy to compare your results directly with those of virtually every other government agency. What’s more, the Best Places comparisons provide you with a statistically sound benchmarking tool for improving or refining key attributes in your own workplace culture. It can help immeasurably in refining your programs for employee engagement, inclusion, organizational development, succession planning, retention, and a host of other human capital focal points.

And when it comes to recruiting, is there a more resonant and authentic jumping off point for your agency’s employment brand than the characteristics where your own workforce tells you that you excel?

A resource for job seekers. For the federal job seeker, these rankings are indispensable, cutting through the recruiting noise to core workplace characteristics. While this certainly should not be the only comparative tool a candidate uses, it does represent a marvelous starting point and useful set of job search benchmarks for federal candidates at all levels of experience.

So...which agencies are the leaders of the pack? I leave that to you to discover. If you’re serious about how your team’s collective view of your workplace stacks up against other agencies, go here: http://data.bestplacestowork.org/bptw/index.