Matching the Right People to the Right Jobs

Your workforce's skills change over time, and so does your business. Getting the right people into the right jobs is key to your company's growth Who's on the bus? To management guru and best-selling author Jim Collins, this is the most important question business owners need to ask themselves. The bus is your company, and getting the right people is crucial to success—more important, even, than your strategy.

So how would you answer? And what do you do if you've got the wrong people on the bus? Or the right people doing the wrong things? Kevin Rees, president of New York-based translation company LanguageWorks, had a great team on his bus—until he didn't. Rees started LanguageWorks in 1993 by hiring friends and acquaintances. "I was looking for anyone I could entice to stick with me," he says. "I was a first-time entrepreneur, had little in the way of credentials, and I was undercapitalized." But as LanguageWorks was growing into a $10 million, 45-person company, Rees worried his staff didn't have the management abilities he was looking for. Between 2001 and 2006, six people from the company's early days were let go or left. Those departures ended a few friendships. Says Rees: "It was incredibly traumatic."

There are a host of reasons a once-solid—or even star—employee may no longer be right for your company. A topflight salesperson who gets promoted to be head of sales might be a lousy manager. A jack-of-all-trades could get restless if asked to focus on one area. And employees who thrive in a startup environment may chafe when asked to follow the rules and procedures of a larger company.

However much you may dread doing so, these issues need to be tackled head on. Cornell University associate professor Christopher Collins, in a study with Bradenton (Fla.)-based human resources firm Gevity, found that managing employees is one of the top three things that keep business owners awake at night. And he says that while many entrepreneurs are visionaries or innovators, they can feel challenged managing talent.

Where Rees ended up—without a big chunk of his startup team—isn't always the best answer. You owe it to your company and your staff to try to find out exactly why a certain employee may not be up to par. Then you've got to decide how much you really want to keep the person and see if his performance problems can be fixed. You may be surprised by how willing employees are to work with you, and how open they'll be about which tasks suit them and which do not. Here are five strategies to get the right people into the right jobs.

TALK IT OUT

When Vickie Pullins and Jackie Frazier founded their Hurricane (W. Va.)-based speech pathology company, LinguaCare Associates, in 1990, they were confident they could work well together. They'd been friends since meeting in college almost 20 years earlier. But as the company grew, they started to feel overwhelmed. It wasn't until 2006 that they brought in S.K. Miller, a coach with Margate (N.J.)-based Collaborative Strategies, for some outside perspective.
Miller asked the partners four questions: What are you good at? What are you not good at? What do you love about your job? What do you really dislike about it? Soon Pullins and Frazier had hired an administrative assistant to pick up the paperwork that was weighing them down. Pullins now focuses on long-term strategy, while Frazier handles the bulk of the personnel and management issues. The two became so much more productive that they decided to extend the analysis to all the employees at their $1.3 million company. With a shortage of speech pathologists nationwide, particularly in West Virginia, Pullins says LinguaCare can ill afford to let a qualified person leave or to allow anyone in the company to be underemployed.

The results of those four simple questions were just as eye-opening the second time around. Kristy Stowers, who was working for LinguaCare in a rehabilitation center, had been consistently unable to hit her target of five hours of patient work a day. After the evaluation, Pullins and Frazier discovered that Stowers was up against some internal problems at that particular rehab center, including too few patients. Yet Stowers thought she had strong organizational skills and an ability to manage big projects.

So when Stowers moved on to the next contract, with a large medical center, Pullins and Frazier had her manage two other workers. Stowers has thrived, even initiating some new screening protocols. "She has become somewhat of a visionary leader," Pullins says. "We are so surprised." Stowers is pleased, too. "This facility is more fast-paced," she says. "I'm always busy and I feel more productive." Pullins says the company now plans to reevaluate the 18-person staff on a regular basis: "We need to ask every couple of years whether we are tapping into our people's gifts and interests."

BRING IN A PRO

Pullins and Frazier did fine by chatting with their employees themselves. But sometimes it takes a third party to lead these conversations, especially if you suspect workers will be reluctant to discuss their own or others' shortcomings with the boss.

Dan Kopman knew he needed help. Kopman is the co-founder and chief executive officer of Saint Louis Brewery in Missouri, which runs two breweries and two restaurants with 90 full-time and 60 part-time workers. Saint Louis' revenues have more than doubled since 2003, to about $8.5 million. But it has also had some growing pains. For about a year, the six workers at the main brewing operation had been complaining about frequent last-minute schedule changes, and some clients were confused about how much lead time was needed for orders. Things were running "fine when we were producing 10,000 barrels a year," says Kopman. But as the company hit the 20,000-barrel mark, "we needed to be more organized."

Part of the problem was that the head of brewery operations, Jim "Otto" Ottolini, had too much to do. "Otto has a degree in French literature, so he's the natural person to be head of engineering," jokes Kopman. But after joining the company in 1992, Ottolini learned quickly, overseeing the construction of the new brewing facility from 2001 to 2003, managing it once it came online and taking a course at the University of Wisconsin at Madison to improve his technical knowledge of beermaking. Kopman had been trying to get Ottolini to delegate more effectively for two years, but it hadn't happened. And Kopman didn't want to install another layer of management.

Last fall, Kopman asked Marvis Meyers, vice-president of training at the nonprofit AAIM Management Assn., of which Kopman is a member, for help. Meyers spent a few days interviewing the brewery employees, including Ottolini. "She allowed people to speak their minds and they felt comfortable talking to her in part because she was from the outside," says Kopman. During those conversations, everyone agreed that Ottolini needed to delegate more, and, unlike Kopman, none of the brewery staff had a problem with establishing another layer of management. They said they wouldn't mind if some from their ranks were promoted to assist Ottolini. Says Ottolini: "Dan involved me in this process. I was a partner in figuring out [what had to change]. I didn't feel like I was being scrutinized, but that our process was being scrutinized."

So Kopman created two new positions, both reporting to Ottolini. One person oversees production planning; the other manages packaging. The brewery team was unanimous in choosing who should be promoted to those jobs. "We didn't want to break up the cohesiveness of the group by creating some rigid structure," Kopman says. "But we found the change didn't bother the group the way we thought it would." And while there are still issues that need to be worked out, Kopman says, "We are producing and shipping more beer with fewer mistakes. I see light at the end of the tunnel."

TAKE A TEST

When an employee issue stems from a clash in work styles, personality tests can help bridge the gap. Rees of LanguageWorks realized early in 2007 that while his right-hand manager, vice-president Christine Muller, was extremely talented, her work performance wasn't all that he wanted. Rees arranged for the two to take an assessment called the Predictive Index. He and Muller spent about 15 minutes taking the test online. They each went through a long list of adjectives—descriptors such as "dynamic," "demanding," and "persevering"—and checked off those that applied to them. A consultant then helped interpret the results. The test showed that Rees often makes decisions even with incomplete information, and that he's perfectly comfortable doing so. Muller, on the other hand, wants clear and concrete directions before acting. That knowledge makes Rees a better manager and Muller a better co-worker. Rees says he gives Muller clearer direction, and that her work is much better and her morale higher as a result. For her part, Muller says, "The way we work together is much more natural. I can read him much better now."

BE A MENTOR

Sometimes it's not the company that changes—it's the industry. Such was the case when Leon "Chip" Marrano III took over the $50 million, 27-person Marson Contracting in Bronx, N.Y., from his father.

Marrano says general contractors such as his used to control all aspects of a job, including the hiring of subcontractors. Now many developers prefer to pay construction firms a straight management fee, then collaborate on everything from design to subcontractor selection. Financial information, once closely guarded by the construction company, is now shared openly with developers. But Marson's chief estimator, Anthony Bochichio, had been with the company since 1960 and was well-schooled in the old ways of doing things, including keeping financial information confidential.

Marrano took advantage of the good relationship he'd built with Bochichio. He let him know that everyone had to change how they operated, and he made it clear he valued Bochichio's experience and wanted him to stay with the company. Then Marrano began bringing Bochichio to preconstruction meetings with architects and developers to familiarize him with the new rules of the game. Together, Marrano and Bochichio would contribute their suggestions for bringing costs down without sacrificing quality. It's worked: Marrano says Bochichio has been "great at adapting." Bochichio says he always had a good relationship with Marrano, but that "things are even better now and more open between us." And Marson found that clients really appreciated Bochichio's expertise, so Bochichio is now a regular participant in preconstruction planning.

MAKE A TOUGH CALL

Coaching isn't always as successful as it was for Marson. In such cases, business owners face some tough decisions.

Kenny Sayes, owner of Sayes Office Supplies, based in Alexandria, La., didn't realize he had issues with any of his employees until clients started to complain. Some of his customers were putting in requests for photocopier repairs but were not getting responses. When Sayes looked more closely at his copier operation, he saw weak cash flow. He soon found that some bills weren't being put through, which was Daniel Littleton's responsibility.

In 2007, after sales at Sayes' 34-person, $7 million company jumped 25%, Sayes had promoted Littleton. Littleton had been hired to link customers' copiers to their computer equipment; now he would also be dispatching other technicians and handling invoicing. When clients began to complain, Sayes asked Littleton to keep a notebook recording exactly what he had to do each day, what he got done, and what was still outstanding.

Sayes checked the notebook every few days and sat down with Littleton and other employees when there were problems. Within a month it became clear Littleton was not following through on some required tasks. "It was like baby-sitting," Sayes recalls of the fact-finding. "But I had to do it."

Sayes says he worked closely with Littleton to improve his performance and made it clear the bills needed to be up to date in two weeks. Littleton says he told Sayes repeatedly that he was overworked. And he says some of his time was still taken up going out on service calls. Littleton says: "There were not enough hours in the day for a single person to do what he wanted." Sayes says Littleton was going out on just a few calls and that the workload was not excessive.

A month went by, and the backlog remained. Eventually Sayes demoted Littleton back to his original position. Littleton quit shortly thereafter and says his replacement doesn't have as many job responsibilities as he did, a claim Sayes disputes. But things are now running smoothly. "She knows the job better than I do," Littleton says of the new hire. A sure sign that he matched the right person to the right job.

Adapt or Die

On Wednesday April 2 of this year an article ran in the Atlanta Business Chronicle with the headline “CEO, CFO turnover jumps in first quarter.” This article made the comparison 1st Q to Q, ‘07 to ’08 and was derived from a report by Liberum, a management change research firm. The data showed a 19 percent jump in CEO turnover and a 21 percent jump in CFO turnover. Overall, the article said other “C-level” jobs turned over at only 5 percent. Moreover, the report said in March ’08 alone, CFO’s turned over at an alarming rate of 41 percent as compared to March ‘07.

This may not come as a great surprise to many considering that there were several factors present in the business environment that made 1Q 2008 challenging. Consider these:

• A downturn in corporate performance overall
• Increased business complexity due to a difficult economy and the intricacies of Globalization
• Intensifying competition both domestically and probably more importantly, internationally
• Shareholder dissatisfaction with diminishing returns
• General market instability
• The sub-prime credit crises
  

OK, I agree. This is very logical and makes sense due to the fact that in most companies the CEO and/or CFO are accountable for broad company shortfalls, especially associated with things more strategic in nature.

Subsequently, on May 22, I read an article in the Atlanta Journal Constitution about a speech ex-Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina gave to a group of executives where she said “adapt or die”! Then I really got it!

Turnover of a CEO and/or a CFO is clearly an indication of a company that did not achieve what it was expected to achieve. Whether it be financial results, share price, market share or other measurements of progress, growth, and success, the bottom line is that when the leader leaves or is removed, the entire company is almost certainly off course. Sure, people retire - but when turnover rises so dramatically, negative factors are likely in play. While the six items listed above were obviously large contributors, they were just factors that contributed to a bigger problem. I suspect the main reason for the sudden and precipitous increase in turnover relates more to a failure of leadership and the failure of that leadership to adapt, to change and to plan ahead and was simply amplified by the six items listed above.

It is human nature that when things are going well to stay the course and to bask in the glory of your current success. When business is going smoothly it’s a great time to hit the golf course or take your family on an extended vacation. I remember when I was a CEO I actually began to feel a little nervous when things seemed to go “on cruise control” and all was running smoothly. I never could understand the uneasy feeling I was having. Results were good, I was paying my shareholders dividends that exceeded expectations, the plan was being met and life was rosy. Ms. Fiorina addresses what I was feeling when she said “To make good decisions, business leaders must look beyond quarterly reports and trailing indicators and focus on customer service, the pace of innovation in their industry, the diversity of their work force and client bases, and ethics.” In other words, don’t sit back basking in your success, rather look forward and use your success as a platform to move to the next level and clearly determine what that next level needs to be. The best time to plan for the worst time is when it seems as if things are well under control. That is when a leader can show real leadership - by looking forward and anticipating the next step before it is even necessary.

There is no doubt that much of the increase in turnover for CEO’s and CFO’s referenced in the report resulted from the six factors listed. However, the deeper cause is the failure of business leaders, over the last several years when the overall business environment was relatively stable, to look forward and anticipate the changing global market place. They failed to anticipate where the company needed to be at a future point in time within that changing marketplace and to develop the plan it needed to navigate the company through the change. Is it a failure of planning? Partly yes, and I am still surprised at how many companies do not have business plans that relate to reality and use changeable, living documents that are designed to provide some quantifiable answers to hard questions asked by managers that should always be asking “what if” and “if I did this, what would happen.” Planning is a key component of leadership, one that allows questions to be asked whose answers can lead the company to adopt the strategies and tactics needed to meet new and different challenges.

“Adapt or die” - where looking forward rather than backward, planning rather than sitting still and providing real leadership rather than passive acceptance of the status quo differentiates the successful from the unsuccessful. A failure of many to look forward and anticipate the magnitude of change and the potential of a worse case scenario would help explain the sudden rise in turnover at the most senior levels. That failure of vision is a failure to lead.

Finding the right talent and the right leaders to lead during the toughest of times in a difficult marketplace remains the most important ingredient of a successful company, even when things are running smoothly. Leadership ability is probably the single most difficult skill to “ferret out” during the interviewing and screening process. Business skills can be evidenced by actual results and quantifiable data but that doesn’t always translate to leadership. Leadership reveals itself when things are tough. Unfortunately many companies realize their lack of leadership only after the company is in trouble. When circumstances turn difficult you can only hope that it is not too late to find a new and better leader to change the direction, vision and plan of the company in order to turn it around. Or, you can make sure you have the right leadership in place before trouble strikes, leaders that will “adapt and thrive”!

So What Have You Done on Flexible Work Weeks?

Back on June 5th, I posted an article on flexible work weeks and that companies should begin to consider such alternatives for their employees. Well it has been a month since I wrote that article and as of today the latest Challenger Gray & Christmas survey indicates that 57% of US companies are helping their employees with the current gas crisis. In addition, it took the State of Utah to lead the nation in going to a 4X10 work week that will save their State employees hundreds of dollars a month and hopefully not impact the quality of service. In addition 6% of all workers in Portland Oregon use bikes as their main mode of transportation getting to and from work and that is expected to increase by 30% this year.

Well, what have you done lately? If you want to retain your employee base you better consider real quick alternatives to off-set the cost of commuting. As those of you know who live in metropolitan Atlanta, GA traffic is a real "nightmare". So consider the following:

• flex time from the standard 8-5 or 9-5 work week
• consider going 4 days a week, 10 hours a day
• provide bike racks for bikers
• gas off-sets much like Chrysler has done
• expand the homeworker network
• set up satellite offices after you have done a scatter chart to see where people live that makes sense for then to shorten their commute
• subsidize car pooling if their is no state provision, and make parking available for them as well as an additional benefit
• van pooling (check with your state)
• subsidize commuter rail or public transportation (I did this back in the 80's in the Boston area before it was vogue, although for different reasons, it was location, not gas prices)

So, all I can tell you is get on the ball if you haven't already. This is where human resources should be leading the charge and providing ideas to their CEOs and managers.

I would like your opinion on this so please email me at wgstevens2@gmail.com

Get Your Employees Excited About Sustainability

Happy employees can be energized by more than casual Fridays and chocolate donut Mondays. Your company’s sustainability initiatives can be a source of pride for your employees—if they’re invested in those projects.

Consider these statistics: The 2007 Cone Consumer Environmental Survey reported that 77 percent of Americans consider a company’s environmental reputation when choosing an employer. But a Harris Interactive study released in early 2008 showed that only 21 percent of U.S. workers consider their employer to be “green.”

With nearly a third of U.S. consumers cynical of businesses promoting their green credentials, internal communications leaders have their work cut out for them if they are to rally the workforce. Fortunately, there are some proven methods for getting employees up to speed—and invested in—corporate sustainability programs.

Involve Employees from the Beginning

Employees who have input into a company’s sustainability goals are more likely to stay on board and see them realized. In The Sustainability Advantage, author Bob Willard conducted surveys that showed 20 percent of employees would not leave their employer if they were attracted to the company’s sustainability initiatives. The most efficient way to ensure employees are attracted to your initiatives is to allow them to help create the initiatives in the first place.

Senior management certainly needs to drive the dialogue about sustainability. However, don’t neglect the insights that the employee base can bring to the table. Include them in the dialogue about how the company can be more sustainable. Set up workplace committees with the goals of creating a greener work environment. Build a new section of your Intranet devoted to gathering input from employees.

A major printing company, whose name we can’t divulge, set a goal to reduce its waste by 20 percent over five years. Its executive team naturally focused on finding ways to streamline its printing operations to reduce paper waste. However, when the internal communications team reached out to all employees through a series of brainstorms, it was a receptionist who pointed out the number of individual lunches delivered to the office every day created a significant amount of food packaging waste. By investing in a small café and encouraging employees to do lunch buffet style, the printer reduced twice as much waste as it did by streamlining its printing operations.

Make it Real

For many employees at the grassroots level, corporate sustainability initiatives can seem highly abstract and esoteric. It’s hard for the individual worker to figure out her role when the company web site says that a key goal is reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 15 percent.
The success of a company’s sustainability initiatives lies in the ability of its employees to contribute to those vague targets. You won’t hit energy use goals if your employees are leaving their office lights on all night and running space heaters under their desks. Look for ways to bring corporate goals down to individual levels. Recruit some employees to role play every day scenarios that show how employees can be more eco-friendly, record them and then use them as a series of vignettes during staff meetings. Write a top 10 tip-sheet highlighting ways that employees can contribute. If you have an employee newsletter, create a column where an employee is interviewed about what he or she is doing for the environment around the workplace.

Don’t neglect to reinforce results with your employees, either. If your company has sustainability goals, hopefully they are tracking those goals and recording the progress, so you can share that information with your workers. If you can get progress data for each business unit, that’s even better. Employee investment—and morale—will rise when they see the results of their hard work.

Give Tools for Personal Lives

After having the opportunity to attend a Wal-Mart employee rally, Amanda Little wrote about the impact Wal-Mart’s green initiatives are having on employee morale.

Nearly 50 percent of Wal-Mart employees have signed up for the company’s personal sustainability project, which encourages employees to live more sustainable lives by educating them on ways to conserve resources and reduce energy consumption at home.

If a Wal-Mart sized workforce can be mobilized into action through sustainability initiatives, the same opportunity is there for any workforce.

Wal-Mart’s example offers an important insight. Increasing the morale of your workforce requires more than bulletins on the Intranet, internal employee newsletters or pep rally-esque staff meetings.
Get your employees thinking about sustainability in their own lives. Many internal communications departments work in tandem with Human Resources to provide employees with information about healthier lifestyles. Take a similar approach to educate employees about eco-friendly lifestyles. It may not make sense for your company to follow Wal-Mart’s approach with a personal sustainability project, but be sure to offer your employees tools and resources to help them practice sustainability outside of the office.

Ambassadors Inside and Out

Sustainability initiatives are great for the planet and great for boosting workplace morale. By following these best practices, you can start to bring your employees on board with corporate goals. Engaging employees up front, showing them how they can make a contribution, and giving them the tools to make sustainability a part of their own lives will help turn them into more satisfied workers and great ambassadors for your company.

By Josiah McClellan from the SHRM Website dated 7/1/08.Josiah McClellan, APR, is a vice president at Porter Novelli. He can be reached at josiah.mcclellan@porternovelli.com.