How to Attract and Retain Top Talent

The supply of talent is low. The demand for talent is high. Nationally unemployment is at 5.5% and locally here in Indianapolis we have a rate of 4.3%. Wage pressures are forcing employers to increase rates to remain competitive.

Here are three ways to attract and retain top talent given the current employment landscape.

1. Pay for Performance – Increase wages without increasing costs. Link employee effort to performance and results. Not unusual for sales people, CEOs, etc – why not expand this to your hourly workforce to allow employees the opportunity to earn more. This will help reduce turnover and improve productivity.

2. Employee Engagement – Provide workplace flexibility, real-time feedback, coaching and mentoring, a job that aligns with their personal values, and create a "cool" work environment. This can be accomplished even if you operate a warehouse, work inside a dental office, or staff up a call center. Feeling connected with work does matter, try being a culture that happens to have a company. 

3. Employee Recognition – Several studies note that money or compensation is not always the best motivator. While I would disagree for hourly employees – engage your workforce with Employee of the month, spot awards for safety or work activities that exhibit company culture, and breakfast with the CEO, etc.

Don't Search for Jobs - Target Employers

Are you tired of searching for a job for the past few months? The problem is that you’re looking rather than targeting. I would tell anyone who’s been out of work for two or three months should pick five targets — the places where you want to go work.

Once you have a list of employers, research each one and its competitors, looking for problems and opportunities. Brainstorm for ideas and solutions, which you can turn into a white paper or a Prezi presentation. Then, tap your network to arrange meetings with executives at your target employers, where you can deliver your findings. Also explore your base of contacts on LinkedIn and leverage those contacts that have inroads to those specific employers.

The moment you sit across from an executive and discuss the profits or productivity you can increase for their company, you are transformed. You change from being a job seeker, which is a position of weakness, into a problem solver, a position of strength. In fact, you may never go on another job interview again. Instead, you’ll be having business meetings with executives who are eager to hear your ideas.

Employers are people, too. And while most don’t like to be sold on the idea of hiring more staff, they still love to buy. Point out — specifically — that you can produce $1.00 in profits for every 35 cents you’re paid in wages, for example. When you do this, you’re selling money at a discount.

Now, what employer wouldn’t want to buy that?

(Excerpt taken from Jeffrey Gitomer on job search tips)

How Employers View Your Online Presence

Having a strong online presence is important for a job search. It’s more than likely a potential employer is going to “Google” your profile to see what they can find on Facebook and LinkedIn. Here’s five tips to creating the right perception in an online world.

1. Posting personal crap. Don’t raise a “red flag” to employers for constantly posting (rants, funny videos, etc.) every hour onto your Facebook page. Employers will see this as a distraction cutting into work time. By the way, I’m not talking about power users who understand how to leverage social media for their business or job function.
2. Build up endorsements on LinkedIn. If 99+ people endorse you for “finance”, it’s fair to say you're competent in this field. 
3. Username: If your Twitter handle is inappropriate or a little too cutesy (iLuvFluffyKittens), change it. 
4. Showcase your past accomplishments. Putting up published research papers, company projects, volunteering services, and certifications online allows recruiters to have a clearer picture of your competence. 
5. Keep learning. New technology, new tactics and new information are always coming. Invest in yourself and your blog, personal brand, and stay on top of new trends.

The Rise of Insight Selling

The new sales environment favors creative and adaptable sellers who challenge customers with disruptive insights into their business—and offer unexpected solutions.

Great article written by Matthew Dixon in the HBR, well worth the read, especially for any business owners or sales leaders.

https://hbr.org/2013/11/dismantling-the-sales-machine

The 2 Things You Must Do In Every Job Search

During a passive or active job search people often approach their network the wrong way.

We're all familiar with the classic distinction between strong ties and weak ties. Strong ties are your closest friends and weak ties are your acquaintances. Most of us when we need help go to strong ties because its comfortable to reach out. Often times weak ties are more helpful than strong ties because strong ties have redundant information. Strong ties know all the same people and information as you. But acquaintances can open up new information within different circles of friends. There's evidence that supports that you're 58% more likely to get a job from a weak tie than a strong tie.

The other way to improve your chances of finding a new job is make your network powerful by reaching out to a dormant tie. These are the people you used to know in the last 3 to 5 years (past colleague, former college roommate, etc.) The dormant ties have been meeting different people and learning new things over the past few years that will help open up new opportunities, plus its more comfortable to reach out to these ties because you have that shared experience or common history. And its certainly a lot easier to reconnect than starting a new connection from scratch.

Bottom line, most of us could do a better job of reaching out to those weak and dormant ties during the job search. 

Insight taken from the best selling book "Give and Take" by Adam Grant. A must read for every business professional.

Ask More of Yourself

I am grateful for the birth of our new born son, Sebastián Mateo. And I'm certainly thankful to have finished the MBA program at Notre Dame with my wife this May. The growth was certainly worth getting uncomfortable.

Be Anti-Social (Media)

Social media is a great way to stay engaged, but it's also a great way to not get other things done. How many of you check your FB, Twitter, and LinkedIn accounts every hour? I'm now trying to set limits for my social media use, setting specific times of the day to check updates. By scheduling social time, you’re actively managing your online life, not compulsively checking in on auto pilot.