Posts Tagged ‘Workplace’

Podcast: Creating a Flourishing Workplace!


Many organizations find themselves spinning their wheels in work cultures filled with toxicity, dysfunction, conflict, and fear. Unengaged employees drag down productivity, and ineffective management undermines morale. How can we create workplaces where people don’t just struggle to get through the day but instead thrive and love what they do and where they work?

Al Lopus, cofounder and Board Chair of Best Christian Workplaces, has studied hundreds of organizations to discover eight key drivers in companies with healthy cultures and engaged employees. He gathers best practices from across a range of companies and ministries to demonstrate how people at all levels can work together to accomplish work that matters. Principles and real-life examples provide concrete ways that organizations can flourish by building fantastic teams, cultivating life-giving work, attracting, and retaining outstanding talent, and much more.

Road To Flourishing: Eight Keys to Boost Employee Engagement and Well-Being. “This is a book for leaders of every kind of Christian-run organization, and even Christian leaders in secular organizations can benefit greatly from these principles. They have been proven in churches, parachurch ministries, mission organizations, publishers, media organizations, schools, city missions, conference centers, and a host of Christian-owned for-profit businesses in all sorts of industries. You’ll hear hard-earned lessons and penetrating insights from leaders in many of these sectors that the Best Christian Workplaces Institute has been privileged to work with and learn from.

Concerned about the HR programs at your organization? The benefits of having a trusted partner to guide you and your team to excellence are invaluable. Contact us today. You—and your employees—will be glad you did.

Rise with us by implementing our high-performance remote human-resource programs to help find great people! E-mail us here.

Mark A. Griffin is president and founder of In HIS Name HR LLC. Connect with him on LinkedIn and Twitter

Subscribe to the Podcast!

Labor Issues IHN HR

3 Labor Law Issues that Can Destroy Your Organization


Are you complying with all the proper state and federal labor laws? 

If not, it could cost you everything.

In large corporations, an entire human resources (HR) department navigates the complex minefield of federal and state labor laws. Most small organizations think of HR as an afterthought, or HR responsibilities like hiring, benefits, compliance, and payroll falls to a few people who aren’t properly trained. This can be a pricey mistake. Laws concerning overtime, unlawful termination, and equal rights are just a few areas that trip up organizations, big and small, all the time.

Labor laws fill volumes and are quite complex. Plus, labor laws vary from state to state! Even Walmart ran into trouble recently and incurred $4.83 million dollars in back wages, penalties, and fines for violating The Fair Labor Standards Act. The mistake? Managers were misclassified and not appropriately compensated for overtime work. Unlawful termination is another problem that has cost organizations like UPS, Carmike Cinemas, and Dial Corporation dearly. Yes, it’s tricky. Do you know the laws?

It gets worse—the government is ramping up efforts to check up on organizations and crack down. The Obama administration has allotted $25 million for the sole purpose of investigating those misclassified as “independent contractors,” hoping to reclaim lost tax revenue and pad the IRS’s coffers. Be smart. Remember that stiff penalties and lawyer fees can decimate your organization. Are your workers properly classified?

Stay legal and remember these 3 key points:

 Child labor, non-resident labor, and equal rights legislation are the three areas where small organizations most often fail to comply.

• Both state and federal labor information is free and available online.

• Outsourcing with an HR professional firm can save your organization a lot of time and money.

Most organizations with fewer than 100 people benefit from outsourcing labor law compliance and other human resource tasks to HR professionals. The alternative is risky: employees are often uninformed about and under-trained in labor law compliance. Look out! Federal fines could be in store for you. In addition, HR often falls outside an employee’s main job focus, so getting it wrong or spending valuable time away from primary tasks can cripple productivity in a small organization. Get the right person trained or on your team to comply with labor laws.

Regrettably, staying legal has never been more difficult or important.

Make sure to get the help you need right away.

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 Mark Griffin is President and Founder at In His Name HR LLC. He has over 25 years of HR experience. Learn more about Mark’s journey in HR by watching this short video. In addition you can also follow him on FacebookTwitter and LinkedIn.

Are you a Union employer? Do you need help with labor relations? We have helped for profit organizations navigate these relationships for years. Learn more how we can help you here.

The Crucial Upside of Workplace Friction In HIS Name HR LLC

The Crucial Upside of Workplace Friction


Every workplace has friction—that’s the simple truth. Anytime you have a few people working together on something, differences surface that create drag. We shouldn’t be surprised when conflict or tensions arise. Instead, we should be prepared and have some tactics on hand to facilitate a cooperative working environment and healthier relationships. Friction has a bona fide upside.

In my decades of work in the field of Human Resources, I’ve learned that 3 major things have the potential to create workplace conflicts:

  • Inadequate communication
  • Lack of emotional control
  • Indefinite goals and boundaries

Here’s an example of all three creating a common situation of friction:

Project X must be finished in two months. The lower level manager fails to set legible parameters on a project when expectations and roles are not defined for the work. As the manager delegates the project, too much is left to speculation. Co-workers attempt to complete the work, but soon run into interpersonal problems as different ideas emerge. Frustration increases, tempers flare, morale sinks, and passive aggressive sabotage and gossip start. In other words, gridlock. A few team members inform the manager; however, by then, emotion is driving the situation. Decision-making is maligned and communication continues to falter. The project is tanking.

What to do?

A lot of repair work is needed to get things back on track and keep the project moving forward. First—and this is important—ditch email as a resolution tool. A sit-down, face-to-face meeting is necessary, and a concise description of roles and responsibilities must be presented. But a few other things are invaluable, too.

It’s important to reestablish a healthy culture with the team and ensure acceptable behaviormoving forward. This shouldn’t be done by lecturing. It shouldn’t be expressed in an exasperated tone either. Rather, make sure you conduct your meeting by modeling respect and integrity. Assume the best in your co-workers and back it up with words and actions that make it clear. Graciousness and amiability should preside, not hostility and annoyance.

Get the Right “Game Face” On.? Prepare yourself. Your “game face” must be a commitment to the greater good plus good faith efforts to buoy the environment and create a better working situation. It’s crucial to find common ground. This can be done with a simple and sincere reference to everyone wanting to do well, or a mention of some of your company’s most important values, or by outlining the basic goals of the project. It may be wisest to use a bit of each.

Conflict = Opportunity for Improvement.? It’s normal to dislike friction. Just remember, excellent organizations and great leaders have a habit of transforming conflict and tensions into occasions that make things work more smoothly, efficiently, and improve the positive bonds between employees. Don’t shrink from this opportunity. Instead of dreading conflict or becoming paralyzed by it, realize that conflicts can harvest new ideas and innovation—not just in how your company works, but also in how co-workers connect with each other.

Grace, empathy, forgiveness, cooperation, and better listening can be the result. If you treasure-hunt in the situation and invite that same positive attitude from your employees during conflict, better times are ahead.

Are you having a hard time navigating your career? If you need coaching, find more information here. We also help college students as they navigate career selection and graduation. We can help them with wise choices. We have the resources to assist those executives in need. With our many years in Human Resources and Organizational development we have the skilled coaches to help you succeed. Don’t go it alone!

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Mark A. Griffin is president and founder of In HIS Name HR LLC. Connect with him on LinkedIn and Twitter

 

 

Top 4 reasons Talented People Quit Their Jobs

The Top 4 Reasons Talented People Quit Their Jobs, +1


Over my 25 plus-year career in human resources, I’ve noticed that while people will endure fewer amenities and less pay, there are four reasons skillful workers will leave for another job.

(1) No opportunity – When employees sense no potential for career progress, or leaders are unaware that advancement is important, employees look elsewhere for better options.

(2) Not knowing the dollar value of their benefits – Pay and benefits is a topic often avoided in many workplaces. Many organizations, however, offer competitive pay and often benefits that cost thousands of dollars, and employees haven’t a clue. (Think PTO, like legal holidays, sick days, and vacation days; life insurance, long-term disability (LTD), and short-term disability (STD) programs; health insurance, including vision and dental; and wellness programs.) The costs of all these programs add up. When organizations take the time to periodically make employees aware of the total cost of all the benefits at their disposal, employees gain a greater appreciation how much value they receive in their job.

(3) Feeling unappreciated – When employees receive little or no gratitude or acknowledgment for their contributions, it feels demoralizing — no wonder they seek more rewarding work elsewhere. The biggest surprise? Many times, during exit interviews, departing employees disclose that a simple, verbal “thank you” would have made all the difference. However, in many organizations, too often managers fail to do even that.

(4) Sheer Boredom – Without savvy leaders or a solid idea of the big picture, employees don’t see concrete, interesting ways to contribute, outside of the ordinary scope of their jobs. Things grow tedious and employees hunt for new challenges to make work feel more meaningful.

So, while you might think your employees only want higher pay and a corner office, or that the trend among employees is to feel “entitled,” the truth is that the best employees are satisfied with simpler, more basic and fundamental management approaches—and a better explanation of the benefits they currently have.

Be thoughtful — find out what motivates your employees! This simple investment will ensure improved worker retention, enhanced overall morale, and increased company loyalty. And isn’t that what you really want?

Action Steps
What can you do as an employer right now to keep your best employees? Consider asking them. That’s right. Simply spending time with employees in focus groups and roundtable discussions can help you to help them by making basic changes to ensure you keep your greatest asset happy and encouraged.

One more thing…What’s the Top Reason People Quit?

This 2017 Inc. magazine article reveals that the primary reason employees quit is:

People leave managers, not companies.

Marcel Schwantes, while researching the topic of turnover, found that 50% of employees left their job “to get away from their manager to improve their overall life at some point in their career.”

Keep in mind that as a new generation of workers comes of age, the issue of turnover will continue to grow. Many employees now look at their lives differently than workers did 20 and 30 years ago. Most value relationships above all else, and when a manager starts stealing their joy, they won’t hesitate to look for work elsewhere.

The workplace ladder is simply not as important to young workers today as in prior generations. Many are talented and capable, but will invariably choose a desirable manager over monetary or organizational rewards.

If you are concerned about retaining talented employees while also saving time and money in hiring and training costs, remember these top 4 reasons and the new trend that makes talented people quit. It could make keeping the great people you need a lot easier than you thought.

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Mark Griffin is founder and President at In His Name HR LLC. He has over 25 years of HR experience. Follow Mark on FacebookTwitter and LinkedIn.

 

Managing Benefit Programs Effectively

Effectively Manage Benefit Programs


Effectively Manage Benefit Programs

COVID-19 is surging, and more lockdowns are looming. It’s all too easy for us to become overwhelmed with worries about friends and relatives—and when things might hopefully return to normal—in times of crisis. Even during trying times—or perhaps even more so—your HR department is still called upon to manage your employees’ needs swiftly and accurately.

HR executives tend to juggle more than their fair share of business concerns. Payroll systems, in particular, can be complicated and time-consuming to manage, which is why executives look to outsource to more cost-efficient payroll services.

Employee Benefits: An HR Executive’s Top Priority

Employee benefits, an indirect form of salary, are a vital consideration when it comes to how and why a company attracts and retains the best employees. No wonder HR executives focus on the benefits that their companies offer, compared to others in the same or similar businesses. For instance, there is little in the way of public medical and dental benefits in the United States. Consequently, these two factors are among the most significant considerations when a prospective employee is looking at a company. The importance of salary negotiation benefits is liable to be in front of the line, right after the salary itself.

While many candidates fresh out of college or rising from lower echelon positions tend to focus on salary, this is not so for candidates eligible for more senior positions. More than salary, the seasoned professional is focused on the indirect pay, the benefits. And benefits mean more than health and dental. Senior employees typically look for vacation/personal time, stock options, pensions and 401(k) matching, family leave, and the like, which means the HR department must find a way to keep track of their benefits package in a manner both efficient and scalable.

Reasonable HR Benefits

Two categories of employee benefits exist in the United States: benefits required by law, and optional benefits offered by an employer. Legally required benefits include company-sponsored savings programs, such as employee contributions to a 401(k) with a percentage of funds contributed by the company; medical and dental insurance; unemployment insurance; Social Security contributions, and more, while company-specific benefits may include such perks as tuition assistance, profit sharing, paid sick leave, and stock option plans, just to name a few.

Depending on the organization’s size and the benefits portfolio, keeping up with such a wide range of concerns can be daunting for larger corporations, but equally challenging for small companies.

HR Management Best Practices

Best practices should not be confused with HR activities, such as payroll, attendance, training, and so on.  No, best practices involve the overall strategy of the HR department. It should also be noted that there tend to be two schools of thought on best practices. The first, the “best fit” approach, seeks to align human resource policies with the larger overall strategy of the business being supported. The second, the “best practices” approach, posits a universal set of HR practices that any company can use to achieve business excellence.

Leaving aside the best fit school of thought, the current line of thinking on best practices is that it should be employee intensive. This thinking means an organization can excel if: a) it works to ensure job security, b) it offers fair compensation, c) it offers continuing education and training, and d) it ensures that anyone in the organization easily obtains pertinent company information.  (This list is by no means definitive.)

Executives Who Manage Benefits Effectively

Effectively managing HR benefits involves effectively managing such HR activities as these, and more:

  • Payroll
  • Yearly employee surveys
  • Planning, design, and implementing benefit changes
  • Maintaining benefit information
  • Staying abreast of state, federal, and international laws
  • Monitoring compliance with government regulations

HR Management Systems

There are many HR management services available to businesses today, but not all are equal. Some are simply specialists in one field, like payroll services, while others may offer comprehensive services yet ultimately lack the depth and expertise that the client requires. An effective HR management service will have a specific target for their expertise. Instead of a one-size-fits-all approach, effective service will specialize in small or medium-sized business support. A reputation for integrity and service is a hallmark of the best HR management services.

Effective Benefits Management Systems

Effective benefit management systems simplify complex processes and procedures, are easy to use, and are cost-effective. There is no sense in outsourcing if the service cost is greater than the current organizational overhead. Moreover, they offer an efficient method for managing mission-critical factors such as:

  • State, federal, and international law compliance
  • Monitoring employee turnover
  • Locating the appropriate talent for your needs
  • Leadership training
  • Employee training
  • Benefit management
  • Payroll services

An Expert to Help You Through the Labyrinth

In HIS Name HR is an innovative, reliable HR management service designed for small and medium-sized companies. Comprehensive in our approach and focused on our customers’ needs, In HIS Name HR offers full-spectrum support for your small or medium-sized concern.

We can help you navigate health and benefits brokers’ intricacies, current regulations, and increase workplace productivity. Among our other areas of expertise are recruitment, how to find and retain the best people, and compliance with employee benefits law to ensure that state and federal requirements for employee protection are in place. We also specialize in employee-benefits design, the best benefits packages available for the money, and organizational development to keep your business on the right course.

Regardless of whether you are a small or medium-sized firm, HR management in the modern business environment is a challenge. Even the largest companies find adequate HR solutions time consuming and, frequently, not aligned with the organization’s objective. In HIS Name HR helps our customers to assist in their HR processes and encourage an agile and productive business. We offer leadership training, business coaching, and organizational coaching, all at an incredibly affordable price.

With In HIS Name HR, you no longer have to negotiate the labyrinth alone.

 

 

Integrate - Creating Successful Training and Development

Integrate — Creating Successful Training and Development


Integrate — Creating Successful Training and Development

In our final example of integration of MVVs into HR practices, we will explore Training and Development (T&D). In the past 25 years, I have watched T&D dwindle to an almost nonexistent state in most companies. I could write a book on the impact of not investing in the development of your people, but you might find it boring. It is what it is, and it won’t change all that soon, unfortunately. But, as leaders of organizations, we must decide how we are going to right ourselves and guide our employees to work in alignment with our Missions, strive for our Visions and operate within our organizational Values.

Here are a few steps you can take to ensure you are addressing the T&D needs of your organization without going overboard:

  • Discover what is needed
  • Define what needs to be addressed
  • Seek the resources to accomplish the T&D
  • Initiate the T&D
  • Follow up to ensure it was worth the investment

Discover what is needed

Do some basic fact-finding and discover the gaps within your organization. Simply going through a job description review project can help you discover what skills and abilities are lacking in your team. Summarize these by category and you will start to discover trends across your organization. Take it even further and include a development aspect to your performance review process, and document what development is needed by each of your employees. When you couple this with rewriting your company’s job descriptions, you will take it to a greater, more desirable level of detail.

Define what needs to be addressed

Without a good outline of what gap(s) needs to be closed, you have the potential to be scattered all over the place. Take the list of items that you captured during your assessment stage and better define what is needed. Employees stating they need ‘communication training” is, frankly, too broad. Do they need public speaking classes? Would they benefit from e-mail etiquette guidelines? Or is it interpersonal conflict resolution training that is needed? Just saying we need “communication training” paints in overly broad strokes.

Seek the resources to accomplish the T&D

 I am not generally an advocate of online training. While it may be good for some, I do not believe it is effective for the majority of employees. My experiences have demonstrated that people learn when there is real interaction. There is more than one way to develop and train an employee. For years, it has been customary to send people to seminars. That just does not happen much anymore.

Think outside the box.

A few years back, I was supporting a company that tragically allowed many immigrants to work without the benefit of English as a Second Language training for several years. When I discovered this, I was frankly outraged that these folks were never given the resources to better themselves. When the gap was discovered, I identified a resource, hiring a gentleman who had recently returned from Asia and who had been immersed in this same immigrant culture. He developed a curriculum to deliver and help these folks speak English for less than $1,500. Now, that is what building a ‘Kingdom Minded” organization is about. Ignoring the needs of your employees is not.

Follow up to ensure it was worth the investment

Another creative solution to a problem such as this is tasking an employee to become a trainer within an organization to deliver a topic that is relevant to the need that was discovered. One organization was lacking financial management skills within the company’s leadership. The American Management Association’s program, Finance for Non-Financial Managers, was delivered by an HR leader. Doing it in this fashion saved the company tens of thousands of dollars by avoiding sending managers out to seminars and also allowing the customization of the materials. 

Was it worth the investment? The CEO said it was. 

The CEO in this case witnessed an increase in the attention to detail of certain executives, an embrace of principles not so easily understood before, but it also gave him insight as to who were the “A” players versus who were the “C” players.

You’re probably wondering by now how this all fits into the integration of your organization’s Training and Development and its relation to the MVVs of the organization. I believe it dovetails, such as in the example of the Asian immigrant employees.

 When you honor your employees by developing them, they will honor you.

When you honor your employees by training them, they will honor you. And when God is reflected in your heart and the way you respect your employees by not only paying them correctly and protecting them with benefits, but truly caring about their development, your employees will see Christ in you.

So don’t look the other way when it comes to T&D. Your employees will see you in a whole different way.

We value your contribution.  What training and development programs have you worked with that were successful?  Why were they successful?

Integrate - Performance Reviews for Success

Integrate — Performance Reviews for Success


Integrate — Performance Reviews for Success

Probably one of the least liked HR processes of all organizations is the dreaded performance review. However, it does not have to be that way. Performance reviews should be beneficial not only to the organization but to the employee.

Key components to a successful process include:

  • Built-in commitment to your MVV
  • Shared goals and objectives throughout the organization
  • Employee ownership of career and job performance
  • Simplistic but meaningful processes
  • Solid guidelines and commitment from senior leadership.

Commitment to your MVV

If you want your Team to fulfill your Company’s Mission reach your Vision and operate within your Values, you must build these into the Performance Review process. When you do, it shows the organization that leadership believes in the MVV so much that they have included it in the measurement of employment performance. Ensure your goals and objectives are aligned with your Missionand Vision; if they are not, you must question why they are in place. Most organizations that we support appreciate us walking them through a simple Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) analysis to help develop goals for the organization. In the area of Values, always build your values and other important values into the behavior section of the Performance review form; we will discuss behaviors in more detail later in this chapter.

Shared goals and objectives

In high performing organizations, including those that I have worked for, have all had Performance Review processes that were aligned to shared goals and objectives through the organization. Typically the scenario worked like this: The CEO would develop four to six goals and objectives that would then be approved or renegotiated by the board of directors. Those goals would then cascade through the organization all the way down to, for example, the third-shift sanitation employee at the plant in Arkansas. The employees would then align what they needed to accomplish within their scope of authority against the goals of the person(s) above them.

The review process primarily focuses on annual goals, and very little on the mundane aspects of day to day work that is reflective of what the job description dictates. The daily work should be accomplished, and, if not, the employee should be managed through disciplinary procedures.

Employee ownership 

I have had the experience of employees approaching me earlier in my career at the end of the performance review cycle. Oftentimes, their approach was because they never had met with their managers even one time during the course of the performance cycle.

Make no mistake: they are at fault as much as their inept management. 

Employees must take ownership of their careers, their development and their performance. Those who do not simply will not survive in this economy. Part of ensuring that they take ownership, and helping them to understand it, is ensuring that the process is clearly defined, i.e., that the employee is obliged to prepare performance form materials, and be proactive in scheduling a performance review meeting with their manager if the manager is not. If the manager still fails to meet with them, the employee has an obligation to go to HR or, absent HR, the manager’s superior. Doing nothing should never be an option. 

Simplistic but meaningful processes

Twelve-page forms and manuals that exceed sixty pages will just not work. Ensure your process includes easily understood documentation, and a review form that does not exceed a good resume length, that is, two pages. Keep the form limited to four to six operational goals and three to five behavior-based goals.

Never have a process that is void of behavioral objectives. 

I have had the misfortune to work with several teams that insisted upon only production-related goals. They killed each other in the process to achieve them, and, when challenged,  they would always say that they were not being measured on niceness, but solely on how many widgets they made! Balance your performance scorecard, and you will have better results. 

Solid guidelines and commitment from senior leadership 

When we describe “solid” guidelines, we mean guidelines that are not created in a vacuum, by one person high on a mountaintop. Guidelines should be developed by a cross-functional group of employees from a variety of areas within the company. This brings a rich blend of thoughts and experiences to the table.

Regrettably, most of the HR people that I have worked with during my career are just not capable of coming up with such solid guidelines without assistance.

It is a sad statement to make regarding my profession, but I gave up defending much of the deficiencies I discovered years ago.

Senior Leadership must buy into the process and support it. If they don’t, it is doomed to certain failure.

Years ago, I worked for a company in which, no matter how hard the CEO worked on convincing the president of a particular division to manage the performance review process, this president would balk. The division president’s lack of commitment transcended the organization. The process became a joke, and no one nurtured it. I look back at the company now and wonder if things could have turned out differently. They have closed half of their plants, and shed several thousand employees. It might be a stretch to link this to lack of leadership in embracing a performance review process, but I do believe that, if Innovation was a top goal for the years heading into the downturn, that company could conceivably have created new products to sustain employment for those who were laid off. Sad, but this is often the case. Managers: stay committed!

What has been your experience with performance review systems? Do you like them? Hate them? We would like to know. Please leave us a few comments to broaden our knowledge. Thank you.

Integrate - Developing World Class Recruitment Strategies

Integrate-Developing World Class Recruitment Strategies


Perhaps one of the most difficult aspects of managing organizations is the act of recruitment. It is not necessarily difficult only on the candidates; it’s also difficult on organizations as well. Even though we are living in tumultuous business times, with real unemployment exceeding 10 percent in almost every city in our nation, recruitment is still a challenge for a variety of reasons, including but not limited to:

  • Lack of skilled candidates
  • Wounded and hurt applicants lacking trust of any organization
  • Having too many candidates to choose from makes it difficult to know where to      begin
  • Salary  expectation alignment; many candidates are accustomed to more

These are all hurdles to climb over but organizations that have a well thought out process and strategy will prevail in hiring the best candidates to accelerate the performance of the organization. The entire process of building a “Kingdom Minded” company revolves around including your Mission Vision and Values into every HR practice as practicable. The recruitment process is not excluded.

In developing your strategy, you should weave into the process several concepts that will help recruit the best candidates to help you manage within your Mission, reach your Vision, and operate within your Values. Your process should include:

  1. Networking your vacancies to trusted sources
  2. Using employee referral systems to increase your candidate pool
  3. Use consistent hiring methodology when recruiting candidates
  4. Always include your MVV in the recruitment process

Networking. Most companies, because of turnover within their HR department, or a lack of HR professionals within the company, do not have a formalized network to which they can announce vacancies. This is a concerning drawback to the process. Organizations should consistently mine for talent and the community should be aware of the organization and have a general idea of what they do and what their hiring patterns are. Organizations should spend time marketing themselves as a great place to work; this is also and effective form of marketing to potential customers. People want to buy products and services from organizations that treat their employees well. Start networking with churches, Christian colleges, LinkedIn groups, alumni associations, nonprofit executives, mission organizations, seminaries — the list could go on forever! The problem is that many organizations do not create such a network list. Network today; it will pay dividends in years to come.

Employee Referral Systems  Nine out of ten companies I meet with do not have either a formal or informal employee referral systems for candidates. If they do have one, it is stale and not yielding any results. This is unfortunate, because people want to work with people who match the company culture, and know how and want to get the job done. Reinvent this program or develop it if you don’t have one. The easiest way to do so is to bring together a cross section of employees for half an hour and ask them straight out: would you refer your friends to work here? If not, why not? And what do we need to do to make this an environment that you would want to refer them to? Delve into what the referral reward should be in the program. Some miserly HR folks suggest one to two hundred-dollar bonuses. Considering a Monster board ad is three hundred dollars, not to mention the hassle of screening 10 to 20 candidates to get to one good candidate, don’t you think this is a bit stingy? Reward your people!

Consistent Hiring Methodology  Lack of a consistent hiring methodology will get you burned. Getting an EEOC or Human Relations commission charge becomes not an “if” proposition but a “when.” But, stepping outside of the legal concerns, why not take the high road right off, and ensure your practice is beyond reproach? When recruiting, always have a job description, always have interview evaluation sheets, and always have decent but not copious notes of the candidate selection meeting when all interviewers give input. I have experienced some embarrassing situations at all levels of the organization where a document to support hiring or not hiring candidates didn’t even exist. If you don’t have this in place, make sure you keep your checkbook handy. You will need it.

And, finally, include your MVV in your process. You see, when candidates see this, they are intrigued, especially when the presenter presents it in a way that is exciting.

Candidates love to see people with passion and energy around their Mission.

Organizations have lost their mojo. Show candidates your passion! Most people want to work for a company that has direction. They are tired of the lack of leadership in government, in corporate America, and their local schools. The last thing they want to do is join a company that is weak and non-directional. Show them your passion through your MVV!

Explain to each candidate your Values, where they came from and why you have them. Let them know that you are a company founded on Christian principles. Most often the reaction I get from candidates when they hear this is, “Wow! Finally a place that might treat me with dignity and respect.”

Don’t worry about offending anyone. You are not pushing your values onto them; you are simply demonstrating what they are. I have had candidates say that they are not Christians, but that working for a company like ours would help them understand Christianity better. Exposing people to Christ — that is what we all desire.. That is the work God really wants us to focus on.

What have been your experiences in recruitment? Are there any best practices you would like to share? Be a difference maker today. Please contribute to the community and help others learn from your experiences. Thank you.

 

Give Your Employees a Hope and a Future

Give Your Employees a Hope and a Future


Jeremiah 29:11(NIV)  11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you,  plans to give you hope and a future.”

I believe that, in today’s tumultuous times, we must remain diligent in our obligations as Christian leaders.  Now, more than ever, Christian leaders must acknowledge that employees want, need and crave an environment in which they can be not only productive but trust that their leadership is attempting to provide them and their family stability, a “hope and a future.”

We must remain diligent in our obligations as Christian leaders.

So what about you? What are you doing to demonstrate to your employees that you are setting the foundation for tomorrow’s growth?  Are you giving them hope and a future?  If you do this, if you honor your employees by properly managing your organization and lighting a path to their future, you will be creating a “Kingdom Minded” organization.”

What have you witnessed in your workplace that has created a culture of creativity, inclusiveness and productivity?  Please share your thoughts and help our community learn from your experiences.

We’re Always Here for You In HIS Name HR LLC

We’re Always Here for You


Times are scary, for sure. We are now in the middle of a pandemic, and for many of you reading this, you are understandably concerned that your organization may well not make it through. Many share those feelings. You’re not alone. And we’re here to help.

A number of organizations, on the other hand, are confident that they will continue to prosper.  For organizations to be successful, they must face the pandemic crisis head on and at the same time focus on high-performance human resources (HR) practices.  Now, more than ever, your employees need hope and a future, and they desire and require strong leadership to get them there.  Now is not the time to falter and flounder.

In HIS Name HR is approaching its 10th year.  We have a national presence and the technology to help implement high-performance HR programs from a distance.  Using tools such as Skype, Zoom, and FaceTime, we continue to guide organizations to success.

What we can do for you right now:

  • Develop and help implement remote-employee strategies
  • Provide outplacement services
  • Executive coaching
  • Performance management development

These are unprecedented times, with considerable uncertainty, both now and in the future. Never before has supportive Christian leadership in the workplace been more important.

Thanks to our efforts, our clients realize considerable gains in productivity, employee satisfaction, and reduction in hiring time within weeks of our partnership.  We are the leading company for human resources (HR) outsourcing & HR consulting services from a Christian perspective. We offer support in all aspects of HR compliance and program development.

Does your organization need HR help, whether due to COVID-19 or simply concerning normal business practices? If so, don’t panic. We are here. We can help.

If you’re struggling with the current pandemic crisis, and what it means for your organization and your employees, and need someone to listen to your concerns who can help, contact us today.

 

 Contact Us In HIS Name HR LLC