Category: Recruitment (Page 1 of 3)

Is This The Most Bizarre Interview Process Ever? [Funny Video]

December 7, 2014 / HRwisdom

Click to download

At HRwisdom we’ve covered a lot of ground when it comes to getting the best out of your people.

We’ve examined world-leading employee engagement practices through to the best (and worst) ways to terminate employment.

We’re fairly comfortable when it comes to exploring new approaches to HR best practice.

So we thought . . .

Below is a wonderful, short video on a completely bizarre and slightly extravagant employee selection process.

We don’t want to give a way too much so, click play and roll camera . . .

The Most Bizarre Interview Process Ever?

How does your company’s selection process?

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Pros And Cons Of Zero Hour Contracts

September 16, 2013 / HRwisdom

Pros And Cons Of Zero Hour Contracts

HRwisdom looks at workforce-related issues around the world.

Today, HRwisdom contributor Joe Errington looks at the pros and cons of zero hour contracts in the UK.

Don’t forget to access all the latest free HRwisdom resources and special gifts – just click here.

Over to Joe . . .

Zero Hour Contracts Examined

New research claims that one million British workers are employed on zero hours contracts. Under these, they are not guaranteed hours and are only paid for the work they put in. Is this a fair system though? What are the benefits and drawbacks? Is there a better solution for businesses?

A zero hour contract is essentially a formal agreement of casual employment. As the name suggests, employees are given a proper contract but with no set hours. In difficult times, it is useful for employers to have this kind of flexibility, but it can be open to abuse.

Retailer Sports Direct has found itself thrown into the stoplight again following the revelations that 90% of its staff are employed this way. With many workers at Sports Direct’s beck and call, not knowing from one day to the next whether they will be working, many have been quick to point the finger and accuse them of exploitation.

So are workers being exploited, or is this an essential means of fighting unemployment? Here are the main arguments for and against the zero hour contract.

Flexibility

Zero hours contracts allow small and mediums sized companies to cope with varying demand. In consumer facing industries, you cannot know for sure how busy you will be tomorrow, and zero hour contracts are a way of reducing overheads and minimising risk.

It is this kind of flexibility that kept many people in jobs during the worst of the recession. Where full time contracts would have required redundancies, zero hours allows employers to shave a little time off everyone’s workload, reducing the wage bill without any drastic measures.

Motivation

Both employers and employees will relay their frustrations at lazy or unmotivated colleagues. In the same way that a zero hour is open to abuse from employers, full-time contracts can be abused by employees.

Unproductive workers cost companies thousands, and heap more pressure on their colleagues. As a result, many employers are reluctant to offer staff a full-time contract unless they are 100% sure they are right for the job. Another way which zero hour contracts help to minimise risk.

Better Than Casual

Most UK companies will need to employ casual labour at some point; whilst technically illegal, this is necessary and should be tolerated to a point.

The casual labour market costs the government millions in unpaid tax though. Zero hour contracts are a way of bringing this back above ground, recouping money for the government and helping to protect worker’s rights.

Exploitative

In times of economic hardship, more people are willing to take any job available to them. Many unscrupulous employers know this and use zero hours contracts as a way of reducing costs at the expense of their employees.

By employing people this way, they can get around many employee’s benefits which we now take for granted. Sick pay, holidays and pensions are all avoided, affecting the financial security of many workers.

Damages Economy

Workers who do not feel financially secure are less likely to spend money. The decision to buy a home for example, will be put back for a few more years, hindering our economic growth.

With the lack of quality, secure jobs available, there is little incentive for people to get back to work. Although living off benefits is not ideal, it is much more stable than a job with no guaranteed hours.

The Solution

Employers, unions and the government need to come together to reach an agreement that is in everyone’s best interests. There are ways in which a company can stay flexible, without compromising job security.

Flexible hours contracts allow employers tailor their rotas to meet varying demand, while at the same time offering their staff a guaranteed income. For smaller businesses, or those affected by seasonal changes, this can be an ideal way of reducing risk for both their employees and themselves.

For larger organisations, outsourcing peripheral parts of their business may be the answer. Specialist facilities management services can take care of tasks such as cleaning, catering and security, allowing companies to offload the risk and focus on their core functions.

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Joe Errington is a marketing executive for MITIE, a strategic outsourcing company who specialise in facilities management.

Australian 457 Temporary Work Visa Controversy [Watch The 30 Second Video]

August 27, 2013 / HRwisdom

Australian 457 Temporary Work Visa Controversy [Watch The 30 Second Video]

Skilled migration to Australia and employer-sponsored work visas is an area that can become a political battleground when politics gets involved.

With the federal election campaign in full swing, the Australian 457 temporary work visa debate continues to rage.

The powerful construction union, the CFMEU, is continuing its million dollar anti-457 employer-sponsored work visa campaign.

HRwisdom previously shared an entertaining video produced by the union movement for a previous election campaign.

This CFMEU campaign features the anti-457 work visa video shown below.

Need answers to any of your questions about individual or employment-related Australian visas?

You can get them for free from a migration expert thanks to HRwisdom.

For free migration visa advice, click here: Australian visa advice.

Australian 457 Temporary Work Visa Video

The CFMEU’s anti-temporary work visa video in Australia:

Remember, to get free migration visa advice for individuals and employers, click here: Australian visa advice.

The Temporary Work (Skilled) visa (subclass 457) allows skilled workers to come to Australia and work for an approved business for up to four years. The employee must be sponsored by an approved business. A business can sponsor someone for this visa if they cannot find an Australian citizen or permanent resident to do the skilled work. The person can be in or outside Australia when the application gets lodged.

According to the Australian Government, the person must meet several criteria:

Be nominated to work in an approved occupation on the Skilled Occupation Lists (Formerly Known as Form 1121i)
Meet the skill requirements for the nominated occupation
Meet registration and licensing obligations
Speak vocational English
Have been nominated by an approved business.

Free Australian 457 Temporary Work Visa Advice

Have your questions answered regarding all Australian visa types.

For free workplace visa advice, click here: Australian visa advice.

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Value Chain Analysis For Business Growth

How To Measure HR And Display Business Metrics [Plus A Brain Teaser For You]

June 7, 2013 / HRwisdom

At HRwisdom, we talk a lot about how to measure HR and how to get the best out of your workforce using effective business targets and measures.

In one of our many free employer briefings (’15 Ways To Manage Your Employees During Uncertain Times’) we suggest the following:

Clearly identify the most important business measures (KPIs = Key Performance Indicators) that will keep your business afloat during challenging times. The critical measure of ‘Break-Even’ is a good start and you could then add other measures such as ‘Widgets Sold Per Month’ or ‘Cost Per Unit’ as appropriate. Publish these three or four measures everywhere in the form of very basic charts that any passerby can understand at a glance. These charts should, at a minimum, be above every water cooler or in every lunchroom and they should be updated daily to emphasise their importance. Discuss the results at every opportunity.
Apply performance-based pay, incentives, or bonuses to every job. Note that these can be non-financial incentives. Ideally, all incentives should be results of pre-determined outcomes linked to the business’s key performance indicators. Celebrate small and big wins and use these celebrations to focus staff on doing the things that have the biggest impact on your key measures.

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Bizarre – Why Did They Fire This Punctual, Top Performing Employee?

How To Manage Redundancies Without Destroying All Staff Goodwill [Audio Interview]

How To Measure HR Performance and Business Performance?

In the extracts above, we described some of the ways you can measure the performance of your human resources and of your business overall.

However, we often get asked about how best to display this information?

After all, some business measures can be quite tricky to communicate to the workforce so how can we display this on paper so everyone can understand easier?

In today’s HRwisdom blog post on how to measure HR, we’re sharing some valuable information from an industry expert on how to display these business and HR metrics in the most effective and convincing manner.

This time, however, the resource is a little different and, hopefully, a little fun for you.

The resource comes courtesy of Stephen Few. Stephen consults to industry and teaches in the MBA program at the University of California, Berkeley.

Stephen is a regular visitor to Australia to run his leading-edge training and share his Graph Design IQ Test.

An HR Brain Teaser For You

Think you know the best way to share performance results with your staff?

To test your HR metrics and business performance display knowledge, click here.

We’d love it if you shared this with your friends and colleagues (you can use the social media buttons below).

Enjoy!

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How Do I Find Employees Using Word Of Mouth Recruiting?

March 25, 2013 / HRwisdom

Some business owners and HR professionals sometimes wonder: How do I find employees by using word-of-mouth recruiting?

Today, we’re turning to HRwisdom contributor Dunya Carter for some advice.

Over to Dunya . . .

How Do I Find Employees Using Word Of Mouth Recruiting?

Transforming an Old Model: Word-of-Mouth Recruiting

The world may be immersed in social media, but the most satisfying interactions online are more about personal connections than they are about technology. People want to feel connected to other people. Why not use that need for connectedness to boost your recruiting strategy through word-of-mouth?

Strategies for Word-of-Mouth Recruiting

Offer referral bonuses. Pay or otherwise reward your workers for referring qualified candidates. Gamification can make it competitive and fun. You can reward workers at the time of the referral and again when new hires have proven themselves. Engaging workers in the recruiting process increases morale and and employee loyalty. Good workers want to work with others who will do a good job, so they are likely to refer people who are a good match for your company.

Support professional networking. Encouraging employees’ memberships in professional organizations is a win-win in any organization. Employees refresh and revitalize their knowledge about your profession at professional meetings while making personal connections with possible recruits for your business.

Encourage using social media for recruitment and networking. People pay less attention to your business’s social media activities than they do to their friends’ social media postings. So reward your employees for posting job ads or company marketing on their social media pages. That might mean that information about your engineering firm is tucked between cute baby pictures and George Takei’s memes, but that might be the perfect spot to catch some interest. It’s just schmoozing in a digital age.

Transform the career fair. Don’t just send your recruiters to these events. Take your best and most positive employees along to talk to people face-to-face about what it’s really like to work in your company. Add a kiosk with employee testimonial videos and you will entice even more job-seekers to stop at your booth.

Support word-of-mouth recruiting. If you want your employees to help recruit for your company, you have to make sure that they have a positive message to spread. Your organization needs to have a positive feel, and you need to make sure that they know enough about the company–not just their own department–to talk about it knowledgeably. What people tell others about the company and the culture can’t really be controlled, so be sure that there are lots of positive things going on that you want to have spread to future recruits and give them resources like a career site to share. Your employees can post a link to the site or direct their friends to the site to help keep the message of your brand unified.

Benefits and Drawbacks to Word-of-Mouth Recruiting

The most talented job-seekers will be comparing a variety of workplace options. People consult with their friends when learning about an organization, and word-of-mouth can make your company more attractive to highly skilled candidates. However, word-of-mouth recruiting can also backfire on you if your workplace is not a great one for employees. If your organizational culture is in a negative place right now, work on building morale before you start building a word-of-mouth recruiting program.

Relying too heavily on word-of-mouth recruiting will limit your applicant pool, which can be a problem. If you lack diversity in your company, you will find that referrals tend to merely add to the homogeneity. However, if you have some diversity in your company already, you can build on that strength through this recruiting strategy.

Overall, building a corporate culture to support word-of-mouth recruiting is good for your company. A positive organizational culture makes employees more loyal and productive and gives them a persuasive message to share with the world. Employees that are active professionally stay up-to-date on innovations and activities outside your company, enhancing your core mission. In general, word-of-mouth recruiting is an excellent asset to add to a company’s recruiting toolbox.

Dunya Carter is a Brisbane-based marketing and HR consultant and blogger. She is currently working for Ochre Recruitment, a leading Australian medical recruitment agency. She contributed articles to many international HR industry websites and blogs including The Fordyce Letter, College Recruiter, Colleague and others. Get in touch with Dunya via Twitter.

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Conducting An Interview To Avoid The Dud Hire

March 8, 2013 / HRwisdom

Today we’re looking at the art of conducting an interview to avoid hiring the wrong person.

Regular HRwisdom contributor Weng Chio Fan is sharing an extract from an interesting article on this issue.

Over to Weng . . .

Conducting An Interview To Avoid The Dud Hire

Hiring the right people is the first HR priority for all business.

Not only is bringing in the wrong person costly, the negative energy that they can bring will probably spread across your team and can affect internal and external customers.

So, taking the wrong person on board is probably the last thing you want to do.

Although we can never be error free, there are ways to avoid repeated hiring mistakes.

Here are some key hiring mistakes to avoid as seen by industry commentator Jeff Haden:

1. You ignore the total package.

Every employee has to follow company rules and guidelines, whether formal or unwritten. Still, some people can’t… or just won’t.

The skilled engineer with an incredible track record of designing new products while berating support and admin staff won’t immediately turn over a new interpersonal leaf just because you hired him.

Instead: Decide whether you’ll accept the total package. If you desperately need engineering skills you might decide to live with the proven engineering superstar’s diva behaviour.

Always assume that if compromises need to be made then you will need to be the one who makes them. If you aren’t willing to accommodate or compromise, pass.

2. You hire for skills and ignore attitude.

Skills and knowledge are worthless when they aren’t put to use. Experience, no matter how vast, is useless when it is not shared with others.

Think of it this way: The smaller your business the more likely you are to be an expert in your field; transferring those skills to others is relatively easy. But you can’t train enthusiasm, a solid work ethic, and great interpersonal skills–and those traits can matter a lot more than any skills a candidate brings.

Instead: When in doubt, hire for attitude. You can train almost any skill, but it’s nearly impossible to train attitude. See the candidate who lacks certain hard skills as a cause for concern, but see the candidate who lacks interpersonal skills and enthusiasm as a giant red flag.

3. You sell your business too hard.

You absolutely need employees who want to work for you. But never try too hard to sell a candidate on your company.

Good candidates have done their homework. They know whether your company is a good fit for them.

Plus, selling too hard skews the employee/employer relationship from the start. An employee grateful for an opportunity approaches her first days at work much differently than an employee who feels she is doing you a favour by joining your team.

Instead: Describe the position, describe your company, answer questions, be factual and forthright, let your natural enthusiasm show through, and let the candidate make an informed decision. Never sell too hard, even if you’re desperate. Trust that the right candidate will recognize the right opportunity.

Conclusion

By avoiding these mistakes, you can definitely increase your chances of hiring the right person for your organisation. To see more hiring mistakes, click to see the full article by Jeff.

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How To Motivate Staff [Excellent Video Presentation]

February 27, 2013 / HRwisdom

This excellent video presentation will help you answer the question:

How To Motivate Staff?

Dan Pink gave this insightful talk on TED on the topic of work motivation.

By the way, in case you don’t know, TED is an inspiring ongoing conference which allows the world’s top thinkers and doers of all stripes such as Bill Gates, Bill Clinton and Jamie Oliver to share their ideas and experiences with the rest of the world.

This one TED video clip has reached more than 5 million views. It provides a very refreshing perspective on how to understand the role of incentives in work motivation.

Have you accessed your free employer resources yet? Use the form over to the right-hand side now.

Here’s the official introduction to the talk:

Career analyst Dan Pink examines the puzzle of motivation, starting with a fact that social scientists know but most managers don’t: Traditional rewards aren’t always as effective as we think. Listen for illuminating stories – and maybe, a way forward. Bidding adieu to his last “real job” as Al Gore’s speechwriter, Dan Pink went freelance to spark a right-brain revolution in the career marketplace.’

How To Motivate Staff

Take a look at the presentation now.

If you think there are some interesting ideas raised in the talk, Like It or share it with friends and colleagues by using the social media sharing buttons below.

Feel free to Like or share this presentation with friends and colleagues (just use the social media sharing buttons below).

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Change In Organisational Culture – Here’s Where It’s Needed Most

February 8, 2013 / HRwisdom

Today, HRwisdom is sharing an interesting article on a place that is in desperate need of change in organisational culture.

This place has the ability to drive us all a little crazy at times.

The article is from one of the most influential business thinkers of this era, Seth Godin.

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Seth shares powerful observations of the modern airport which he suggests is an organisation we should try to avoid when it comes to developing our own company culture.

Change In Organisational Culture

Here are some of Seth Godin’s observations of an airport and how these blunders can positively help your organisation when you apply the lessons:

You never see the CEO or whoever is the person in charge of the airport. If the person at the top seems not to care, it will reflect down to the lowest level of the organization and it will definitely show on the service.
Problems persist because organizations defend their territories instead of finding ways to solve the problem. Someone blames someone and the blaming goes on and on. Things change only when the user’s problem is the driver of behavior.
Airports see customers as fleeting people. They are here today and gone tomorrow. New customers will come everyday.
An anxiety-filled system is what airports create. They assume customers care more of their money than their anxiety. They try to make as many flights as they can to increase profit thereby spares, downtime, or resilience are neglected.
There are mostly bad surprises, never heard of any good one yet.
There seems to be no connections whatever in airports. No one feels particularly welcome.
Airport system seems to be so industrialized that personal expression seems to be taboo.”

By carefully considering these observations, you will surely find a way to improve your company culture.

To read the full article by Seth Godin and see more of his interesting observations, go to: Eleven Things Organisations Can Learn From Airports

Remember, you can always share this article to your colleagues.

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Staff Turnover Strategy – Top 100 Employers Part 1

February 5, 2013 / HRwisdom

Staff Turnover Strategy – Top 100 Employers Part 1

Avoiding unnecessary staff turnover is a deliberate strategy used by the top companies in the world. They do this to keep their skills, knowledge and expertise in-house without having to constantly slow down to bring new people up to speed.

The Fortune Magazine’s list of the 100 Best Companies To Work For In America makes for very interesting reading.

NOTE: You’ll pick up many great ideas to help you become on of the Best Companies To Work For in the new HRwisdom Community Employee Attraction & Retention Guide. The Guide has sixteen employee management expert practitioners from all areas of the human resources field offering their best employee attraction & retention advice.

For instant download of the comprehensive free “HRwisdom Community Employee Attraction & Retention Guide,” click on Reduce Staff Turnover now.

In this HRwisdom post we’re bringing you the rankings 91 – 100 of the Fortune Magazine 100 Best Companies to Work in America.

91 DONNELLY Holland, Mich. The glass company, not the printing company. Celebrated for Scanlon Plan, which rewards employees for productivity gains. Also has unique equity structure, which has employees electing representatives to equity committees with the power to address issues of policy and practice–even pay.
92 W.W. GRAINGER Lincolnshire, Ill. Sells hardware supplies through a network of 350 retail stores and a huge catalogue operation. Their 1.3 million business customers range from small building contractors to General Motors. Boasts of a “Cadillac profit-sharing plan,” in which company puts into your account the equivalent of 15% to 20% of your annual pay.
93 ALAGASCO Birmingham, Ala. Only utility on our list–largest unit of publicly traded Energen Corp.– supplies natural gas to more than 400,000 homes and businesses in central and northern Alabama. Company recently offered $500 prize to employees for an idea to address a diversity problem in their area. Turnover less than 5%. No layoffs in 25 years.
94 APOGEE Minneapolis They make windows, replace windshields, and put up curtain walls for buildings. It’s a company populated, as one employee put it, by “good, small-town, Midwestern people.” Employees get profit-sharing checks every quarter. Great feeling of camaraderie. Employees encouraged to think of new ways to do things.
95 SHELL OIL Houston U.S. wing of world’s largest oil company initiated in the mid-1990s a process it called transformation. Goal: Move responsibility down to lower levels. Shell has rich benefits capped by company-paid pensions, plus a pretax savings plan under which company kicks in 10% of your pay annually no matter what you contribute.
96 ALLIEDSIGNAL Morristown, N.J. Since taking helm in 1991, Lawrence A. Bossidy has infused a sense of purpose. Mandated 40 hours of training a year for every employee. Headquarters has on-site child care, fitness center, and other amenities. One of best 401(k) plans around: After five years company matches employee contributions 100% up to 8% of pay.
97 TENNANT Minneapolis Biggest U.S. maker of industrial floor sweepers and scrubbers believes in the old-fashioned pat on the back. That-a-way stickers plastered on everybody’s work station. Strong support network for women managers has paid off: No. 2 in the company is a woman, a rarity in manufacturing.
98 MERRILL LYNCH New York Wall Street’s biggest employer added 6,000 jobs in the past two years. Great training programs; tuition reimbursement up to $8,000 a year. Merrill is a Boy Scout company, scandal-free. One employee put it this way: “When times are good, Merrill Lynch is a great place to work; when times are bad, it is the only place to work.”
99 ACIPCO Birmingham, Ala. Makes cast-iron pipe for water and sewer systems. Founder willed company to workers when he died in 1924, and it still operates as an employee trust with four of 12 members of board of directors elected by employees. Superb, fully accredited, on-site medical clinic with eight full-time doctors and five full-time dentists.
100 GLAXO WELLCOME Research Triangle Park, N.C. British drug company–ranked No. 1 in world, based on sales–lures talent to its North Carolina facilities with glittering array of benefits: two on-site child-care centers plus support for five other centers, seven on-site fitness centers, six medical clinics, 13 paid holidays, 100% match up to 6% of pay in 401(k) plan.

Want More Ideas?

Remember, you’ll pick up many great ideas to help you become on of the Best Companies To Work For in the new HRwisdom Community Employee Attraction & Retention Guide. The Guide has sixteen employee management expert practitioners from all areas of the human resources field offering their best employee attraction & retention advice.

For instant download of the comprehensive free “HRwisdom Community Employee Attraction & Retention Guide,” click on Reduce Staff Turnover now.

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Controversial Presentation On A New Employment Model – Microworking

February 1, 2013 / HRwisdom

In today’s HRwisdom Blog, we are sharing a controversial video presentation which deals with a proposed new employment model – microworking.

Plenty of people need jobs with very flexible hours — but it’s difficult for those people to connect with the employers who need them. Wingham Rowan is working on that. He explains how the same technology that powers modern financial markets can help employers book workers for slivers of time.

Wingham Rowan is the founder of social business Slivers-of-Time, which runs online markets for microworking and micro-volunteering.

There has been heated discussion around this presentation.

New Employment Model – Microworking

Here is the original presentation.

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