Recruitment – Page 2 – HR Industry Interviews

Interviews from the A Better HR Business podcast

Category: Recruitment (Page 2 of 3)

The Employment Contract Process Explained (HR Infographic)

In today’s HRwisdom Blog post, we are sharing our HR infographic on the employment contract process.

Whilst we share many document templates to use in your organisation, it is important to remember the process that supports the use of the employment documents.

Getting the hiring process correct means fewer problems down the track should things take a turn for the worse.

A proper hiring contract process also enhances your standing as an efficient, effective and professional employer.

Employment Contract ProcessThe diagram called ‘The Right Way To Create Employment Contracts’ explains:

  • What to cover
  • When to get legal advice
  • How to discuss the contract with the prospective employee.
  • The review and general administration process.

To view a large version of the management infographic, just click on the picture on the left.

As always, feel free to share this with colleagues and friends.

Employment Contract Assistance Video

HRwisdom

How To Calculate Employee Turnover

The impact of understanding how to calculate employee turnover is one of the key issues addressed in a free guide available for instant download at HRwisdom.com.au now.

In the new “The HRwisdom Community Employee Attraction & Retention Guide,” sixteen expert employee management practitioners from all areas of the human resources field offer their best employee attraction & retention advice.

How to calculate employee turnover rate is a question sometimes asked by members of the HRwisdom community.

How to calculate employee turnover?

The employee turnover rate or staff turnover rate is simply a percentage of employee leavers versus the standard headcount over a given period of time.

How To Calculate Employee TurnoverHow to calculate employee turnover: take the number of employees leaving, divide that by the average total number of employees, and then multiply the outcome by 100 (to give you a percentage).

The number of employees leaving and the total number of employees are usually measured over a year or sometimes month by month.

So, if on average your business or department had 190 employees last month and 43 employees left last month, you’re left trying to sort out an employee turnover rate of around 23%.

This is one of the issues addressed in the new free guide available for instant download on the HRwisdom free employee retention guide page now.

In the new “The HRwisdom Community Employee Attraction & Retention Guide,” sixteen expert employee management practitioners from all areas of the human resources field offer their best employee attraction & retention advice.

For instant download of the comprehensive free “HRwisdom Community Employee Attraction & Retention Guide,” click here now: Free HR Guide.

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The Attributes of the Best Employees

What are the attributes of the best employees within organisations?

The attributes of the best employeesToday’s HRwisdom posting comes from HRwisdom expert contributor, Drew Davies.

For over sixteen years Drew has been involved in business training, coaching and mentoring programs to leaders at all levels across all industry sectors.

HRwisdom asked Drew about his thoughts on what attributes should be considered when promoting employees within the organisation.

Over to Drew to explain the attributes of the best employees . . .

[dropcap]A[/dropcap] number of years ago I was working with a large timber company on a Quality Assurance project. I found myself having a meal with the Human Resources Manager and the Production Manager and over a fine bottle of red wine we had a discussion about what criteria we use when looking to promote people within an organisation.

Management over the years have looked to the old tried (but not necessarily true) indicators when promoting people from within and organisation, ie:

  • Length of service
  • Can they do the job
  • Level of expertise.

While these may be important, I would like to argue that they are not necessarily particularly accurate indicators of a person’s suitability to take on a supervisory, team leader or management role.

This article is the first in a series that will explore the myths and realities of this exercise which can at times be both frustrating and rewarding…

I believe that the first attribute that should be considered when looking at promoting a person in any organisation is their ATTITUDE.

It was Tom Blandi a French literary theorist and author who in 1907 wrote “Our attitudes control our lives. Attitudes are a secret power working twenty-four hours a day, for good or bad. It is of paramount importance that we know how to harness and control this great force”.

A person’s attitude to work, life, family, friends, the world and others gives those around them an insight into why they do the things they do, and ultimately their character. How they treat their workmates, how they treat you (if you are their boss), and how they respond to their customers and clients. What do they say about your organisation? What sort of words do they use when describing the business?…is it “I”, “they” and “them” or “we” and “us”.

I am not saying that what we should look for is the “Yes” woman or man… someone who agrees out of fear, or some misguided “warm and fuzzy” response. Rather there is a respect and genuineness that sets them apart from their colleagues. They think through the issues and offer balanced and well thought out responses. What I am saying is that by watching a persons attitude will give you a rare insight into what is really important to this individual…and as we all know…attitude rubs off. If this person is going to lead a team, then they need to be someone whose attitude is not changed and blown around by the circumstances they find themselves in. Rather they exhibit one that in spite of what is going on around them they continue moving forward. Their attitude acts as a stabilizer in the “cut and thrust” of modern business practice.

Zig Ziglar well known author and motivational speaker writes “Of all the attitudes we can acquire, surely the attitude of gratitude is the most important and by far the most life-changing.” Interesting and thought provoking words.

If the candidate has the right attitude, then a lot of the other qualities we will be talking about over the next issues will fall into place. The wrong attitude will block them.

Words like humility, self control, gratitude, stickability come to mind. Perhaps a useful exercise for you would be to write down what sort of attitudes would you look for in person who will take a supervisory, team leader or management role… Once you have done that think about what that person would look like if they did not exhibit those qualities. What does the opposite behaviour look like? Could you work with someone who exhibited that opposite behaviour?

To close let me leave with you this quote from Harry F Banks (I cannot find anything about him, but the quote makes sense) “For success, attitude is equally as important as ability.”

Drew Davies

Drew’s passion is to encourage and challenge people to discover and reach for their potential, not just in business but in their whole lives.

For over sixteen years Drew has been involved in business training, coaching and mentoring programs to leaders at all levels across all industry sectors.

You can contact Drew via HRwisdom or by visiting: www.drewdavies.com.au.

HRwisdom

Managing Generation Y In The Workplace

Managing Generation Y In The Workplace

Today’s HRwisdom Blog looks at managing Gen Y staff and comes thanks to HRwisdom expert contributor, Robert Watson.

Over to Robert . . .

Weekend papers regularly feature stories about “Generation Y” – the group of people born between about 1979 and 1999.

Managing Generation Y In The WorkplaceOnce a group attains a label, it follows that writers compile the quirkiest features of that group and turn it into literary entertainment.

However, being a business manager you have probably seen some of these people applying for jobs and perhaps you have even employed some and noticed that they are somehow “different” to your regular workers.

So, it will help employers if they can have an understanding of the characteristics of Gen Y.

Gen Y are commonly described as:

  • Very confident of themselves
  • Impatient
  • Quick to learn
  • Positive about the future, and
  • Spending significant amounts of time socialising using computers and mobile phones (and you thought they were wasting time!).

What if you are recruiting Gen Y people?

Unlike their parents, Gen Y don’t look in the newspaper waiting for job vacancies to appear each Saturday. No, they actively use search engines on the internet to spot advertisements and have them automatically sent by RSS feed to their mobile phones. Gen Y can literally send in their CV one minute after the job ad has been posted.

As an employer, you should be using the internet as your primary method of advertising vacancies.

Having said that, it can be smart to use a two-pronged approach.

First, place a small newspaper ad which shows your company name (brand), the job title, a reference to the more comprehensive internet ad and just enough words to excite Mum and Dad into telling their son or daughter.

Second, your internet ad (or website) should contain details to excite the potential Gen Y applicant:

  • Use fresh and bright colour so that your vacancy looks different from the bland text-only ads
  • Show photos or a video of your existing employees smiling at work (an informal but free method of recognising your best employees!)
  • Talk about growth and exciting future developments because Gen Ys want to see that your business is not stagnant
  • Mention technology where appropriate, and
  • You still need a basic description of what the work entails, remembering, however, Gen Y will be wanting to see if your workplace looks like an interesting and fun place to be. As an example, do school kids join fast food outlets because they want to cook 1000 burger patties in a shift? No! They join because they want to be part of a fun-loving team of young people.

What if your business already has Gen Ys?

With Gen Y, be aware that their loyalty to anything is often fragile. If they don’t like your workplace, they will leave and then start looking for other work (although we’ll wait and see what impact the global financial downturn has upon this characteristic). In contrast, the older generations would hang on in a lousy job until they had secured another job.

To a large extent, you need to entertain the Gen Ys, and there is a way to do this which will tap into their impatience and their need for fast-paced learning.

Consider setting up a Learning Log which is a plan of all the topics needed to be mastered before a person can be considered for the next position. Although the topics might be broad, the individual sub-topics will be small and very quick to learn. Training policies help plan for such learning.

An Example: A Supermarket Business

Level 1 Check-Out Operation

  • Opening the register
  • Greeting the customer
  • Operating the conveyor, scanning and packing bags
  • Transactions – Cash, Credit cards, EFT, Cheque
  • Failed scans and Sale items
  • Shutdown and Balancing the till

Level 2 Front End Supervision

  • All aspects of Check-Out Operation, plus
  • Accessing the safe
  • Handling returns
  • Responsible sale of cigarettes
  • Dealing with abusive customers
  • Confronting suspected shoplifters
  • Emergency evacuation drill coordination
  • Rostering of staff.

In the past, a business might train all of these things in a single four hour session of mostly theory.

However, with Gen Y you would use a staged approach, with separate lessons over a period of time. Each mini-lesson would have a small amount of theory, then a walk-through of the appropriate Standard Operating Procedure and, finally, an appropriate number of hours doing the activity under the watchful eye of your most experienced supervisor.

Short, sharp lessons building up towards the end point makes for a program which engages the Gen Y employee.

The Bottom Line:

Rather than shaking your head in frustration at Gen Ys, your challenge is to tap into their many strengths so that your business can ride the fast wave into the future.

HRwisdom

Just For Fun – How To Welcome New Staff From Overseas

At HRwisdom, we talk a lot about being proactive and taking positive steps to ensure a motivated and high-performing workforce.

How To Welcome New Staff From OverseasToday, just for fun, we’re sharing one option you may wish to consider.

No doubt about it – this method is guaranteed to ensure you have sky high employee engagement levels – it just might take a little more planning (and rehearsing) than usual.

If you do any international recruitment and you’re worried about employee turnover and the associated costs . . .

This is one fun example of how to welcome new staff from overseas.

Remember to share it with friends and colleagues.

Video On How To Welcome New Staff From Overseas


Feel free to share this.

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New HR Infographic On The Right Way To Create Employment Contracts

Recently, here on the HRwisdom Facebook Page, we shared a new HR infographic explaining the right way to create employment contracts.

The new HR infographic explains the key elements to ensuring that you have a good employment contract development process in place. Tweet This Infographic New HR Infographic - How To Create Employment Contracts

The picture quickly outlines aspects such as:

  • Drafting your employment contract.
  • Understanding minimum entitlements.
  • Legal advice on social media and other tricky areas.
  • How to explain the contract to your new employee.
  • The employee contract review process.
  • Documenting the agreement.

The diagram is a very handy guide for any organisation trying to ensure that there are no hiring contract issues down the track.

Interested? Jump over to the HRwisdom Facebook Page now to see the new HR infographic.

For more workforce management information, watch the following HR video:


Local Workplace Law Advice For Employers

HRwisdom

 

HR Video On The Benefits Of Building A Diverse Workforce

Today HRwisdom is sharing an HR video on the benefits of building a diverse workforce.

Diverse WorkforceWith an ageing population, skills shortages of the past will return but with greater intensity.

Many business managers and human resources professionals will recall the great difficulties involved in recruiting during the last economic boom.

Small business owners regularly complained about being squeezed out of the labour market by a shortage of suitable staff that they could reasonably afford to hire.

One of the ways that the Federal Government is trying to address this issue is to encourage employers to become more open in their recruitment search and to take on a more varied work group.

One particular video highlights the fact that there are significant productivity and cost benefits involved with hiring a more diverse workforce. Tweet this fact

The video is a case study which looks at the advantages that hiring a diverse labour force can bring for Australian businesses. David Miao from Woolworths and Dominic Calabro from Catholic Homes discuss the topc and share their experiences.

Some of the discussion you’ll hear includes:

“Some employers think that people with disability and older workers will be less productive than co-workers but in fact, they take less sick days and have been rated higher in productivity, flexibility and attendance.”

“Some employers think that diversity won’t fit into their workplace with their customers, but in fact, diverse workforces have a positive influence on workplace culture and can increase customer loyalty.”

“Some employers think that people with disability and mature age workers will be more prone to accidents. In fact, the opposite is true.”

“In effect, the numbers don’t stack up. We’ve got an ageing workforce. We’re employing a more diverse workforce, yet our incidents WorkCover claims have continued to decrease.”

“Employers can be concerned that they don’t have the time or money to diversify their workforce, but in fact, employers may be eligible for a range of support from the Australian Government.”

Let’s hear some of the thoughts shared on the video . . .

HR Video on Building A Diverse Workforce

As always, feel free to share this with your colleagues.

HRwisdom

Top 10 Interview Questions With Answers – Q10

Employers often ask us at HRwisdom for good interview questions to select good candidates.

We have gone one better.

Robert WatsonThanks to long time HRwisdom Community contributor, Robert Watson, we have come up with a Top 10 List of Interview Questions to ask at job interviews.

However, rather than just give you some excellent questions to ask, Robert also gives you the type of answer you want to hear back from your ideal candidate.

And believe us when we say that Robert knows what he is talking about.

Although he started out as an engineer and quality systems expert, Robert also had many years in the HR field perfecting recruitment & selection systems for a variety of businesses.

Robert even did extensive travel overseas for the express purpose of studying world’s best practice for establishing greenfields (brand new) business operations in Australia – this included how to hire people for their skills, knowledge and attributes (and not just the stuff listed on their CVs).

Download the free HRwisdom Employee Attraction & Retention Guide Now

So far we’ve seen:

  1. Good Interview Question 1
  2. Good Interview Question 2
  3. Good Interview Question 3
  4. Good Interview Question 4
  5. Good Interview Question 5
  6. Good Interview Question 6
  7. Good Interview Question 7
  8. Good Interview Question 8
  9. Good Interview Question 9

Let’s look at the last question . . .

 

Good Interview Question 10

Q10. Why do you want to work in our Business?

WhGood Interview Questions from www.HRwisdom.com.auy do you want to work in our business is a deceptively simple question, but the answers that candidates give you will tell you something about their attitude towards learning in particular.

The better candidates are the ones who are curious about the world and try to dig out information and research things.

 

Preferred Interview Answer – What You Want To Hear

When you ask the question “Why do you want to work in our business?” most people will probably give you an answer which guesses what your products or perhaps they do know what your products are.

A better answer would be something where the candidate might reveal a bit about the history of your company or how many sites you’ve got around the country or where you’re located or head office or something like that.

It’s only a little thing but my estimate is that about one in ten candidates will do that research and if they’re already researching and finding out information about your company before they’re employed with you, chances are that after you employ them, they will always be on the look out for information about how they fit in to the business and what opportunities are out there for them and if you invite them to come along to some training, they’ll invariably say yes because they have this thirst for knowledge.

So always listen behind the question to the underlying attitude.

 

Want More Good Interview Questions Right Now?

Stay tuned for the next question in our Top 10 Interview Questions With Answers series.

  • Want to get a copy of all the questions and answers in one document?
  • Like to know Robert’s thinking behind these questions and how they fit into the overall interview process?

You can download the full document right now.

Top 10 Interview Questions With Answers You Want To Hear 

HRwisdom

Top 10 Interview Questions With Answers – Q9 – 2

Employers often ask us at HRwisdom for good interview questions to select good candidates.

We have gone one better.

Robert WatsonThanks to long time HRwisdom Community contributor, Robert Watson, we have come up with a Top 10 List of Interview Questions to ask at job interviews.

However, rather than just give you some excellent questions to ask, Robert also gives you the type of answer you want to hear back from your ideal candidate.

And believe us when we say that Robert knows what he is talking about.

Although he started out as an engineer and quality systems expert, Robert also had many years in the HR field perfecting recruitment & selection systems for a variety of businesses.

Robert even did extensive travel overseas for the express purpose of studying world’s best practice for establishing greenfields (brand new) business operations in Australia – this included how to hire people for their skills, knowledge and attributes (and not just the stuff listed on their CVs).

Download the free HRwisdom Employee Attraction & Retention Guide Now

Get your free international money transfer with this special HRwisdom code: https://www.currencyfair.com/?channel=RCFL11

So far we’ve seen:

  1. Good Interview Question 1
  2. Good Interview Question 2
  3. Good Interview Question 3
  4. Good Interview Question 4
  5. Good Interview Question 5
  6. Good Interview Question 6
  7. Good Interview Question 7
  8. Good Interview Question 8

Let’s look at the ninth question . . .

 

Good Interview Question 9

Q9. Tell us about a time when a customer’s deadline couldn’t be met. How did you break the news to the customer?

Good Interview Questions from www.HRwisdom.com.auDelivering bad news to a customer is a very difficult thing to do.  So listen carefully to the applicant’s answer to this question.  It will give you insight into their attitude towards customers.

 

Preferred Interview Answer – What You Want To Hear

A good answer would be if they said that they had to deliver this bad news and they decided to drive out and tell the customer face to face.  That’s obviously a better way to deliver bad news than just send an email for instance.

So listen behind the question to the attitude that the applicant has towards the customer and also, see if the were able to come up with some creative ways of delivering the bad news.

For instance, did they look for the previous ten orders and see that they’ve delivered nine orders ahead of schedule and this was the first one that was going to be behind schedule or something like that.

If they’ve got some sense of being able to balance the bad news with some good news, something like that.

 

Want More Good Interview Questions Right Now?

Stay tuned for the next question in our Top 10 Interview Questions With Answers series.

  • Can’t wait to see the rest of the questions and answers?
  • Like to know Robert’s thinking behind these questions and how they fit into the overall interview process?

You can download the full document via our HRwisdom Facebook page right now.

Just sign-in or join using the Free HR Resources tab – it’s free and available now at: www.Facebook.com/HRwisdom

By the way, we’d love it if you Like, Share or Tweet this blog post.

HRwisdom

Top 10 Interview Questions With Answers – Q9

Employers often ask us at HRwisdom for good interview questions to select good candidates.

We have gone one better.

Robert WatsonThanks to long time HRwisdom Community contributor, Robert Watson, we have come up with a Top 10 List of Interview Questions to ask at job interviews.

However, rather than just give you some excellent questions to ask, Robert also gives you the type of answer you want to hear back from your ideal candidate.

And believe us when we say that Robert knows what he is talking about.

Although he started out as an engineer and quality systems expert, Robert also had many years in the HR field perfecting recruitment & selection systems for a variety of businesses.

Robert even did extensive travel overseas for the express purpose of studying world’s best practice for establishing greenfields (brand new) business operations in Australia – this included how to hire people for their skills, knowledge and attributes (and not just the stuff listed on their CVs).

Download the free HRwisdom Employee Attraction & Retention Guide Now

So far we’ve seen:

  1. Good Interview Question 1
  2. Good Interview Question 2
  3. Good Interview Question 3
  4. Good Interview Question 4
  5. Good Interview Question 5
  6. Good Interview Question 6
  7. Good Interview Question 7
  8. Good Interview Question 8

Let’s look at the ninth question . . .

 

Good Interview Question 9

Q9. Tell us about a time when a customer’s deadline couldn’t be met. How did you break the news to the customer?

Good Interview Questions from www.HRwisdom.com.auDelivering bad news to a customer is a very difficult thing to do.

So listen carefully to the applicant’s answer to this question.  It will give you insight into their attitude towards customers.

 

Preferred Interview Answer – What You Want To Hear

For instance, a good answer would be if they said that they had to deliver this bad news and they decided to drive out and tell the customer face to face.  That’s obviously a better way to deliver bad news than just send an email for instance.

So listen behind the question to the attitude that the applicant has towards the customer and also, see if the were able to come up with some creative ways of delivering the bad news.

For instance, did they look for the previous ten orders and see that they’ve delivered nine orders ahead of schedule and this was the first one that was going to be behind schedule or something like that.

If they’ve got some sense of being able to balance the bad news with some good news, something like that.

 

Want More Good Interview Questions Right Now?

Stay tuned for the last question in our Top 10 Interview Questions With Answers series.

  • Can’t wait to see the rest of the questions and answers?
  • Like to know Robert’s thinking behind these questions and how they fit into the overall interview process?

You can download the full document right now.

[sociallocker id=”4428″]Top 10 Interview Questions With Answers You Want To Hear[/sociallocker]

Alternatively, sign-in or join using the Free HR Resources tab – it’s free and available now at: www.Facebook.com/HRwisdom

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