How to Hire & Inspire the Right Workforce in 2015

How to Hire and Inspire the
Right Workforce
Tom Morley, President, Snowflake Llc

www.highroadsolution.com
Today’s Content Leader
Tom Morley
President, Snowflake LLC
• Strategy, organization, and people
subject matter expert
• 17 years consulting to leaders in all
sectors, US and abroad
• Twitter: @snowflakellc

The Challenge, Simplified
InspireHireIdentify
Right
• Different world, different resources
• People = Strategy’s limiting factor
• Fit is as important as skills
• New and existing staff have to be inspired

Inspiring the Workforce
InspireHireIdentify
If you can’t keep your best people inspired,
there’s no point in hiring them.
• They won’t deliver what you want
• They’ll get frustrated
• They’ll take you down with them

Motivated vs. Inspired
The motivated individual:
• Primarily driven by objectives
• Will do what it takes, including change
The inspired employee is motivated, plus:
• Primarily driven by the mission
• Confident in ability to make impact
• Enthusiastic champion of the brand
• Constantly looking for ways to improve
• Collaborating with and inspiring others

What Motivates?
• Emotion
• Values
• History
----------------------------
• Compensation
• Incentives
• Status
• Opportunity

What Inspires?
• Influence
• Direction
• Participation
• Independence
• Interaction
• Presentation
• Recognition

How You Can Inspire
• Impact – Expectations, demonstration
• Direction – Strategy, transparency, milestones
• Independence – Trust, macro-management
• Interaction –
– Quality – Hiring, development, “boundarylessness”
– Opportunity – Meetings, events, work groups
• Participation – Roles, projects, inclusion
• Visibility – Responsibilities, forums
• Recognition – Incentives, publicity

Unscientific M-I Life Cycle
Unmotivated
Maxed
Out
Up to
Speed
Results
Time
Effects

Losing Inspiration – Causes
Inspiration wanes when people:
• Don’t see how what they do makes a difference
• Feel abandoned by managers
• Think they’re not trusted
• Don’t respect managers or colleagues
• Feel consistently ignored or stifled
• Don’t know what others are doing
• Aren’t recognized for contributions

Losing Inspiration – Effects
“Lost inspiration”…worse than “never inspired”:
• Good employees get frustrated, “check out”
• Like inspiration, disaffection is infectious
• Service delivery – and brand image – suffer
• Eventually, the best employees leave
• Short- and long-term employer brand effects

Inspiring the “Wrong” People
Given a mandate, the “wrong” people will
be quickly frustrated and sow discontent.
• Criticize but don’t give constructive ideas
• Under-informed, but act as experts
• Constantly do things their own way
• Disrespectful to managers and colleagues
• Overzealous and won’t pick their battles
• Inaccurately represent the brand

For Consideration
“Great [organizations] don’t hire skilled
people and motivate them, they hire already
motivated people and inspire them… unless
you give motivated people something to believe
in, they will motivate themselves to find a new
job and you’ll be stuck with whoever’s left.”

Inspiration Takeaways
Five lessons you should learn:
1. Hire the “right” people
2. Prepare the ground
3. Channel energies
4. Attend to the conditions
5. Weed out the unmotivated

Hiring Who You Want
InspireHireIdentify
If you can’t hire people the people you want
in your organization, who you do hire:
• Won’t be able to do what you need
• Probably won’t last long…
• …but long enough to disrupt culture

Hiring’s Most Basic Elements
• Engage target populations
– Geography, demographics, industries, degrees, etc.
• Attract qualified individuals
– For specific defined jobs
• Convert interest into actual hires
– The people you determine are “most right”
• On-board new employees
– Arguably, last stage – completes the hire

Isn’t “Personnel” Responsible?
• Human Resources (HR), managers, and staff
all have responsibilities
– Need for an integrated approach – no “hand-offs”
– You’re recruiting with every interaction
– The interview is a key hiring tool
• Recruiters need to be specialists
– Consultants to you
– Knowledgeable of the business
• Consider outsourcing portions

Engaging Target Populations
• Develop “latent interest” relationships
– Broad – Informational campaigns or events
– Focused – Individual, direct outreach
– In-bound – Forum to exchange information
• Be honest
– Highlight the “selling points” for the targets
– Include key challenges
• You’re feeding off delivery
– Consistency with the “product” story
– Mirror member/prospect interactions

Attracting the Interest You Want
• Use what they’re using
• Encourage self-selection, but don’t exclude the
people you’re after
– Job announcements are critical
– Build on latent interest
– Give them a place to go for information
• Find them, and let them find you
• Highlight the appealing factors

Emphasizing the Appeal
• Four main categories to draw from
– Compensation
– Development
– Intangibles
– Conditionals
• Different combinations for different groups
• Remember what inspires
• Make sure you can deliver!

Converting to the Hire You Want
• Knowledgeable recruiters!
– Candidate finders
– Screening net
– Initial impression
• Transition relationship
• Interview process
– You’re selling you, they’re selling them
– Involve multiple levels of staff
– Case studies and simulations
• Close the deal

Hiring “Fails”
What if you don’t get the people you want?
• Cost of “doing it over”
• “Wrong” people
– Tendency to settle, without a plan
– What you asked may not be what you wanted
• Downstream cost of attrition and replacement
– Inability to meet expectations
– Can apply to employee and organization

For Consideration
What’s this “people you want” stuff? I thought
you were going to tell us where to find, how to
hire, and how to inspire the “right” people? Is
that universal, or something we have to define?

Hiring Takeaways
Five lessons to learn about hiring
• Every interaction is a sales pitch
• It pays to be accurate and honest
• Build relationships throughout the process
• You can’t hire “right” if you don’t define “right”
• If you define “right”, you’ll know where to look

Defining Who’s “Right” for You
InspireHireIdentify
If you don’t take the time to correctly define
who’s “right” for your organization, you’ll:
• Hire the wrong people
• Inspire the wrong people
• Start a lasting cycle of mediocrity, at best

Who are the “Right” People
• Some general characteristics
– Can do the work as you’ve defined it
– Fit your existing culture, or consistent with changes
– Are affordable and the best use of resources
– Are motivated – or inspired – by what you offer
• Different for every organization, e.g.:
– Size, budget
– Culture, flexibility
– Management capacity
– Type of work
– Time in the organization’s “life”

Skills
Defining and Organizing Work
WorkStrategy
Key Roles
Levels

Environment Parameters
What are the conditions?
• Budget
• Culture
• Work Rules
• Management Capacity
• Facilities
• Infrastructure
• Image

First Cut
Who’s “Right” for the Jobs?
Profile, e.g.:
- Knowledge
- Experience
- Attributes
- Pay Range
- Interests
- Objectives
Conditions
Labor Market
(Internal and
External) In Context
Culture

Do the “Right” People Exist?
Profile, e.g.:
- Knowledge
- Experience
- Attributes
- Pay Range
- Interests
- Objectives
Conditions
Labor Market
(Internal and
External)
Limiting Factors
- Skills
- Money
- Location
- Flexibilities
- Incentives
- Ambitions
- Other
Labor Market
Analysis

Addressing Limiting Factors
There are many potential options
• Pay more – beware of impacts
• Change conditions
• Expand labor market
• Hire down and train – look internally
• Reallocate responsibilities and skills to other jobs
• Outsource part of the work
• Offload the entire role
• Consider partnerships
• Reassess your strategy

For Consideration
Is it always possible for you to hire the “right”
person for a position you’re seeking to fill?

For Consideration
Can you turn the less-than-ideal “best
available” candidate into the “right” person?

What About Who We Have?
How to deal with existing staff
• Inclusion
– Are they “right” or “wrong” for your future?
• Hard decisions
– What’s best for both?
– Voluntary vs. involuntary separation
– Outplacement services
– Maintaining a connection

Takeaways – Defining “Right”
Six things to remember about the “right” people
• Strategy drives skills, but it’s not always possible
• Time and effort to define is worth the investment
• Profile the entire ideal employee
• You may need to change to attract the “right” people
• Consider associated impacts of specific decisions
• Existing staff are opportunities, challenges

Hiring and Inspiring
the “Right People”

Summary – Key Takeaways
The least you should remember…
• Hire to inspire
• Inspiring is a continuous process
• Make sure you can evaluate
• Hiring “right” requires knowing “right”
• Remember organizational context
• Take the time to define
• It starts with the strategy

More Information
Resources
Get the people you need: Learn how creative, labor market-aligned, need-
based resourcing can help you overcome your hiring problems
www.snowflakellc.com/resources/#insights
Discussion
info@snowflakellc.com
www.snowflakellc.com/contact
+1.540.931.9943

How to Hire & Inspire the Right Workforce in 2015

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