Help your High Volume Managers Succeed

Have you ever seen a great working sheepdog? They are amazing. They dart back and forth guiding the sheep away from danger, to the location the farmer points out. Check out this video about sheepdogs. I found it while I was pondering the ups and downs of managing a high volume of employees. When a sheepdog is a puppy, they begin their training with the farmer; then they are exposed to the sheep. In the video I laughed out loud when the 5 month old puppy was first introduced to the sheep. The pup just went wild, chasing the sheep back and forth….intense, but not very productive. It was a sharp contrast to the skilled dog at the end of the video. The dog at the end guided the sheep, set boundaries for them and with the slightest move could manipulate the herd like a conductor. That dog brought the farmer measured, daily results.

Managing a large number of people requires a similar high level of skill. It requires perspective, emotional intelligence, decision-making abilities, vision, and the ability to delegate. In high volume environments, like call centers – it can be challenging to try to bring the corporate vision to every employee during the course of a workday. These environments can present additional challenges when the managers of some departments are new to managing. Their experience in the company may have been great, but they need leadership training. Like the sheepdog, a lot of new managers enter the job with pure adrenaline. They enthusiastically try to chase success or intimidate employees into cooperation, when simply setting the boundaries and guiding trained, well-informed employees would bring a lot more success.

Tools of the Trade

Train your Managers
Invest in your managers and prepare them for a leadership role with sound leadership, and management training. They will be able to solve a higher level of departmental problems before they have to approach leadership about an issue, saving production time and money.

Train your Employees
Teach each manager how to fully train their team at the front end of their on-boarding process. Invest in thorough training, training materials, and daily operations guides for the employees in each department. If you don’t have designated training specialists, and your budget is limited…find a way to get complete information to your employees.

Clearly define, in your training, your employees’ scope of decision-making authority. They will be able to interface with your clients with confidence, and when fully armed with information, can handle a majority of situations on their own. They will only contact managers in extreme situations, saving the manager time, and saving the company money. What would it be like if your managers could spend a larger part of their time planning for the future – setting new departmental goals and developing vision?

Share Company, Leadership, and Departmental Vision

Get your Managers on Board
Managing a large number of people can be stressful. Your managers need to be tapped into company vision. Share your company’s big-picture goals with each of your managers, and let them know how their department plays a role in the process. Transparency with internal leadership could give your managerial team a deeper buy-in to company aspirations…it can also help them engage their constituents.

Engage the Masses
Get your employees on board through the influence of their managers. The manager of each department has a great influence over the way your company is viewed as a whole. Let your managers know that it is important to have their employees understand, value and align with company goals. Set specific standards for this through arranging a 5-10 minute meeting between managers and employees once a week. (If you are in a call center or time-sensitive environment, you can stagger this time.) This time can be designated to let the employees know what the goals of the company are, where their department and specific role fit in, and what progress has been made to date. Give clear rewards for specific markers in their goals. Employee engagement is probably one of the highest deciding factors in production level. A recent survey revealed that 70% of American workers are disengaged. Yes, 70%. Don’t let your managers, your employees or your production levels be a part of this statistic.

The Rewards of Progress
Let your management team know when they are doing a good job. They are responsible for a large number of people, and ideally, they are finding ways to recognize their team every day. Recognize progress and daily accomplishments made by your managers, and make it public. Managers, too, need to know that they are valued and should be recognized when they are making a difference at work.

Direct managers have one of the highest levels of employee influence in an organization. They are the face of your corporation to your employees on a daily basis. Invest in their success, listen to and consider their ideas for change, and you will build a reputation for being a great place to work. The beginning of this recovery has been a busy time for many high volume employers. Managers are responsible for an increased number of employees in growing departments. Make sure your managers are prepared to lead with vision, guide with wisdom and succeed with their teams.

Michelle Cook, CPC, CTS is Vice President with Delta Dallas. You can reach her at mcook@deltadallas.com or 972-788-2300.

Volume. The mere mention of volume when it comes to hiring can produce sweaty palms in most hiring managers. When I think of doing anything in volume, an unforgettable picture comes to mind. I think of the “I Love Lucy” episode in which Ethel and Lucy go to work for a chocolate factory. They struggle to assemble the few chocolates they are given, and then their supervisor increases the quantity of chocolates they have to make. Eventually, they crash. They can’t handle the volume.

High-volume hiring is also intense. It can be challenging and overwhelming in any industry. To top that off, our present economy leaves little room for expensive mistakes when it comes to human capital decisions. No pressure.

Employers that hire high volumes of employees have specific challenges to face when it comes to hiring. One of the greatest concerns in a high volume environment is safe hiring. High Volume Employers (HVE’s) know that if they don’t take measures to conduct pre-employment screening and exercise due diligence in hiring, it is a statistical certainty that they are sitting ducks for expensive litigation, workplace violence, false claims, theft, embezzlement and economic loss. On the other hand…most HVE’s are facing budget restraints. A balance has to be met.

The Danger
Let’s look at the facts. Just one bad hire can cost a firm literally millions. Studies show that screening reveals criminal records for up to 10% of job applicants and at least one-third of all resumes contain material falsehoods. For food establishments, manufacturers, hotels and other businesses that have a national brand, one negative employee-caused event can result in significant damage to the company brand. Who has the time or the money for that?

The Cost
Large hourly employers face enormous financial and logistical challenges in implementing safe hiring programs. Screening large numbers of candidates can be expensive and time consuming. HVE’s tend to work in industries with large numbers of hourly, seasonal, temporary or contract workers and/or significant turnover. With that in mind, how can these employers protect themselves without breaking the bank?

The Balance
The answer is probably less complicated than it first appears. One way to bring costs down is to add weight to the front-end of the hiring process. Many firms make the mistake of believing that in order to show due diligence, they need to spend a great deal of money to perform background checks and criminal record research. It doesn’t have to be. Employers can train their hiring managers to weed out potential problems at the beginning of the process by implementing a thorough screening strategy that includes:

• a company-structured application
• a phone screen
• thorough behavioral interviews with at least two hiring managers
• in-house skills testing
• reference checks

By intensifying the front-end of the process, you can eliminate most candidates that could have been a problem, anyway. Only when the candidate has passed the front end of your process, do you need to perform a background check. You can save screening costs by only doing a background check on candidates you are ready to hire. Finally, be sure to keep several qualified candidates in your pipeline in case some of your final choices fall through.

All Aboard
The most important thing you can put into place for this strategy is a system. If you recall, Lucy and Ethel were pushed into a room with no training, and given no set strategy for getting the job done. They had the tools, but no instruction. Make sure that your entire hiring staff is on board with the new strategy and are trained to interpret applications and conduct interviews with high perception and efficiency.

Evaluate
After your system has been in place for 30-60 days, plan to evaluate the efficiency and efficacy of your program. Check and re-check attrition rates and causes, and begin to adjust your plan to improve in weak areas. Most importantly, communicate any changes to your plan quickly and clearly, company-wide. Let your hiring managers know that a portion of their compensation and advancement will be based on the attention they pay to the hiring process. Organizations typically thrive in areas that are measured, audited and rewarded.

We are heading into 2010, and everyone is looking forward to continued recovery. However, we have to prepare ourselves for the new expectations that accompany a downturn of the magnitude we have just experienced. Corporations are already beginning to hire again, but with the cost of turnover presenting at 1.5 times the salary for a position…we don’t have the time or the money for hiring mistakes. Now is the time to innovate new screening strategies with your team. The team you build now will be the team that evaluates and trains the new hires once this recovery speeds up. Prepare them for success.

Melissa Johnson is Assistant Vice President with Delta Dallas Call Center Staffing. Reach her at 972-788-2300 or mjohnson@deltadallas.com

Getting Good People to Stay

Employers have it easy right now. We are all working in a candidate-heavy market, so when a position opens up, we can select from a bevy of qualified candidates, picking only the cream of the crop for our teams. Terrific.

But what will happen as the recovery begins to speed up? How will employers keep the star players they were able to acquire in a down economy? What will keep our top-performers on board when companies begin to hire again? Will our core employees be wooed away with money? Time off? Reputation? (Gasp) Flex Time? Will they steal away our best and brightest with something we could have offered them? It’s something to think about.

This week I bought a copy of Love ’Em or Lose ’Em: Getting Good People to Stay by Beverly Kaye and Sharon Jordan-Evans. Their employee retention research was collected from 17,000 workers who have job longevity. The book is well-structured, easy to read, and created to help busy managers make a significant difference in lowering attrition rates. They give examples of both good and bad experiences when it comes to retention, lay out the ABC’s of 26 engagement strategies, and give you exercises to implement what you have read. (My personal favorite is the chapter for the letter J; Jerk: Don’t Be One, complete with a handy-dandy jerk assessment.)

Talent is Always In Demand
First, Kaye and Evans stress that managers need to cultivate a talent-focused mindset. Talent is a valuable asset in any economy, and this one is no different. Talent is the difference between a company that functions and a company that thrives. This quote from the book says it all:

“Disney paid $7+ billion for Pixar today (January 25, 2006). We already own the rights to several Pixar characters. Basically we paid $7 billion for the 400 brilliant, creative people who work there. You see, we all (our companies and us) have access to the same technology. We all have access to money. The only differentiator is the people. We paid $7 billion for the people, and what we hope they’ll be able to create for and with us in the future.” ~Disney Executive

Keep the Main Things the Main Things
Most people are interested in the same things. Respect, opportunity for growth, job satisfaction, connection, time with family, etc. We want the same things. They seem intrinsic to human needs in the workplace…why then do so many corporations get it wrong?

In my last job, I had the opportunity to visit Southwest Airlines during their Halloween celebration. It was amazing. Teams worked together to create the best decorations and costumes, and everyone was having fun. Aside from the festivities, let me tell you three things I noticed about their employees:

1. They were happy to be working for Southwest, and all were grateful for the opportunity they had been given at the company.
2. They identified with and worked toward company ideals and goals. They were tapped into the larger vision of Southwest Airlines and it showed.
3. All of the employees that I met, from security, to the dock workers, to the executive team exhibited a level of self-respect, respect for others, and respect for their work.

Tell Me What You Want, What You Really, Really Want. . .
The first step to valuing your employees is finding out what makes them feel valued. This book suggests that managers simply ASK their A-players, “What keeps you here?” Revolutionary. What? No high-level executives sitting in a conference room speculating about what they think will make their peasant population leap with joy? Nope. What would happen if we sat down with our top performers and asked them what makes them stay…or what would make them leave? It could be surprising.

“Our work, our relationships, and our lives succeed or fail one conversation at a time. While no single conversation is guaranteed to transform a company, a relationship or a life, any single conversation can”.
~ Susan Scott, author, Fierce Conversations: Achieving Success at Work and in Life, One Conversation at a Time

The information in Love ‘Em or Lose ’Em is deceptively simple. There are no magic predictive graphs inserted or abstract studies done by human resource professors in a psyche lab, but there are practical ideas and real-life examples that can help you ramp up your reputation for being a choice employer. The time to act on retention is now. Your top performers will be the foundation of your team as hiring speeds up in the coming year. Don’t lose your leaders…Value them. Engage them. Motivate them…Keep ’em.