We received a great question from one of our clients that we did not immediately know the answer to: “Do personality tests work?”  This question puzzled us so we decided to do what most of us do with a puzzle, go to the internet. The search for information yielded some interesting results that I want to share with you. One very surprising result was the number of hits for pages created on “how to beat a personality test”.

This month’s CIO letter will review the pros and cons of Pre-Employment Testing.

Pre-Employment Testing, as the name implies, refers to all the testing that is done prior to delivering an employment offer. This includes personality, drug, aptitude, intelligence & emotion quotient testing; and criminal background, education and reference checks.

We found significant amounts of misleading and biased information regarding Pre-Employment Testing online. Organizations who sell these services produce most of the information on the subject. There are hundreds of different types of pre-employment assessments ranging from honesty & integrity tests to management evaluations that measure career competency. There are also clinically oriented psychological profile tests and assessments, which are diagnostic in nature.

We can’t cover all areas of Pre-Employment Testing in this letter as the subject is so expansive. Instead, the areas we will cover are aptitude, intelligence, personality and a behavioural testing. On the surface, this type of screening appears to valid; take your top people (the employees you most want to replicate), look at their test scores and use those to build a baseline or ideal profile. Use this profile to create a candidate filter.

However, when you step back to look at highly successful individuals, use will note they possess great diversity of profiles and personalities. Just look at successful CEOs and their varied personalities.  Jack Welsh and Steve Jobs are both viewed without dispute as successful yet their profiles and approaches are very different.  Screening using these methods may eliminate the next Steve or Jack because an individual like them won’t fit precisely into a mould. This would be a tragic loss for any company.

Research has shown that cognitive aptitude tests are much more accurate predictors of job performance than other widely used employee selection techniques. For example, a comprehensive evaluation of peer-reviewed studies regarding the predictive validity of various selection techniques concluded that aptitude tests are twice as predictive as job interviews, three times as predictive as experience, and four times as predictive as education level.

Behavioural testing provides for a more predictable outcome when screening applicants for employment when used in conjunction with behavioural interviewing techniques. By using validated employment tests and assessment tools, a company can add objectivity, especially regarding management evaluations, and remove unintentional bias.

Job fit is very important and many companies use behavioural interview questions to match the candidate with the job. You want to know that a management candidate has good communication and interpersonal skills, but you also want to know about their overall leadership skills and management potential. What about the candidate’s customer service skills, his sales skills or his emotional intelligence? Doesn’t the interviewer have enough to focus on without going into so much detail in the short time allocated to complete the interview? Well, that is the whole point behind the use of pre-employment assessments.

Most of the articles that you have probably read pertain to the use of psychological profile testing and assessment. There is a major difference between non-invasive pre-employment testing assessments and clinically oriented psychological testing assessments. Most of the assessment instruments involved in litigation are “restricted use,” meaning psychological assessments that generally should not be used in the business environment.

Personality tests are least accurate since they only measure different attitudes about items. A general attitude about something is not able to predict accurately how a person will react to various business situations. These tests cannot predict behaviour because behaviour is context sensitive. People act differently in different environments. For example, in a support role when there is a backlog of issues people will react differently on a sunny Friday afternoon in the summer than they will on a rainy Monday morning in the middle of winter.

There is an attempt to associate success with specific personality types. In fact, personality requirements are different for different jobs. Rarely do any of the tests customize their recommendations by job type or environment. It is simply, “this person may (or may not) succeed.” In actuality, people are not as cut and dry. Furthermore, there are generational changes that occur over time. Thus, if an organization uses the same profile for 10 years the predictability may drop.

About 65% of all employers use some sort of pre-employment screening. Organizations must review their testing annually and determine what success looks like in using testing. Many of our clients swear by them while others have mixed results. So to answer our question: “Do Personality Tests Work?”, there is no definitive conclusion , but rather it boils down to a company’s decision.  If  your organization uses this type of testing, the key is not to rely on the test as the sole screening criteria to hire a candidate, but rather as an additional tool in the hiring toolbox.

Most people in the technology industry are generally considered smart, and highly skilled in math, logic and problem solving. However, these highly developed technical skills usually come at the expense of their interpersonal skills. IT managers are not immune to this imbalance and spend little time to improve these under developed skills. Making matters worse, we recognize and promote based on results and reward for performance. The consequence is that managers spend 95% of their time focusing on measurable items and pay little attention to the emotions of their staff. This is not because managers don’t like people or don’t care, but few of them have little idea what employees really want from a boss.

“But that warm fuzzy is what HR does. I do delivery,” is the common retort.  True, but employees do not leave a job because HR did not give them enough hugs. The old adage holds true; people join companies but leave managers. Surveys show individuals quit for 5 main reasons: pay, management, career advancement, benefits and other. Many of these can be influenced by management. We can reduce turnover simply by understanding your staff’s desires.

The following CIO letter will shed some light on what matters most to workers.  The results from a survey of 500 employees by the Lore International Institute over a 2 year period shows some interesting insight and some pretty basic things we can all improve on.  Here are the findings:

More than 90% of employees want honesty and integrity from their managers. An equal number desire fairness across all staff and for management to hold everyone accountable to the same standards.  Furthermore, just over 75% indicated they sought after trust, respect, dependability, collaboration and appreciation.  But only 14% wanted interesting conversations from their manager and only 3% wanted them to be a friend.

These requirements seem easy to roll out but can be difficult to sustain. We, as managers, will revert to our natural personalities.  So what else can be done? Fortunately, Randstad surveyed 6000 people throughout North America giving more insight. What will make them happy?

Based on these results, here are 6 suggestions to improve employee satisfaction and lower turn-over:

Make the work space look better; get rid of office clutter (cables, computer equipment, books, files, etc.), get some plants, find local schools for art, replace lighting with full spectrum light bulbs and use creative ways to make the environment better.

1. Try to hire local; the closer staff live to the office and the shorter the commute will increase loyalty and happiness.
2. Find ways to allow people to work from home on occasion.
3. Establish flexible work hours when possible, sometimes four day work weeks would make sense.
4. Look for ways to give more self-direction to your staff.
5. Have an off-site staff bonding session to promote team work; it can be as simple as a soccer or baseball game in the park.

Lastly, here are 4 things you should say on a regular basis:

“How can I help?” This statement will aid you in determining impediments your staff face in performing at their best.

1. “Great job on…” Any praise is welcome by everyone. We all crave appreciation and receiving it can be more motivating to staff than anything else.
2. “Can I have your thoughts on…?” Engaging your staff in decisions and discussion will make them feel part of the solution and not just a cog in the wheel.
3. “Thank you.” Two words that can never be over used. Using them more often is not simply for common courtesy, but as a way of connecting and showing appreciation for a job well done.

Try some of these ten pointers; you may find them to be successful in helping you to reduce your turn-over. We advise not to try all of them since you might find some cynicism from your team, especially the younger members.

We have come through some pretty wrought economic period, many have coined it the Great Recession. Most of the 1^st world fared far worse than Canada like the US, Ireland, UK, Iceland and Greece to name a few. The impact we faced here was significantly shorter and less deep. The Canadian job market has now recovered all the positions we lost during the recession. As with most economic slowdowns, the end is marked by a large wave employee turnover. Most companies are just starting to grow again, consequently many companies are caught flat-footed by this turn-over and they see many of their great people leave. This CIO letter is to outline what is happening with the labour force and how to manage through it.

Where does this turn-over come from?

Recessions create some interesting dynamics in the labour market. There are 4 main forces that influence people:

1. Employee layoffs – during a recession companies stop hiring and then slowly start their lay-offs, initially the C players are cut, then as the recession takes hold, under-utilized resources and over paid resources and finally entire departments and companies are released.
2. Staff Stasis – with lack of jobs and lay-offs, people stop looking for work and with a fear of unemployment, they tolerate much more to keep their pay check. The result is employees do whatever it takes to keep working.
3. Contractor Convert to Full time – a slower economy produces less project work thus creates less work for contractors. These workers react in a predicable manor by taking full time positions at lower pay.
4. Under-employment expands – with higher unemployment; people take any work to pay bills. Often taking positions they are over-qualified for, outside their career path and most likely at much lower salaries than they earned at their previous position.

These main crosscurrents result very little voluntary employee turn-over during a recession. While companies benefit with lower voluntary turnover during the slow down, the downside of this stability is a pent-up demand for a change in employment.  As soon as the layoffs stop and companies begin to hire again, people dust off their resume and start cruising the job boards.  This causes a problem for companies. If a company has 1,000 employee and they need to grow by 10%, but their turnover has increased from 5% to 15%. This requires hiring over 200 additional people than you hired the year prior. That adds a substantial unexpected cost to an organization.

The latest survey from Right Management confirmed we have now entered this phase of the business cycle. They surveyed 1400 people and found 84 percent planned to look for jobs in 2011, up from 60 percent last year.

Why do people leave?

Interestingly, the reasons for leaving are very stable and have a similar pattern post recession as that prior to the recession.  In a survey from Salary.com here the top reasons:

Some of these issues are difficult to resolve, but fortunately you can do things to improve some areas. One way to determine underlying issues is to take employee satisfaction survey for your team. You may find some gold nuggets that you can use to increase job satisfaction. This improvement will lead to productivity improvements and reduced turnover. Other good advice is to just listen to your employees and observing changes in behaviours. These are very good at determining employee happiness.

Some of the reasons for turn-over can be traced back to the initial recruitment. For example, commute times impact 4% of a person’s decision to leave. Our advice to our clients when recruiting people is that 60% of their hiring decisions should be on personality fit.  Understanding a candidate’s career aspirations and motivations up front will reduce the possibly of their leaving because of career or boredom. Also, don’t over promise or over sell the job, you need to be realistic and honest about the duties and career growth.

Some minor improvements to understanding your team better and improving your hiring processes will help your organization manage through this turnover period.

Are your meetings lousy?

Over 1.1 million meetings occur every day in Canada.  Yet, we all complain endlessly about them even though our careers are immersed in them. The average professional spends 5.6 hours in meetings. This does not include preparation time or time spending scheduling the meeting.

In a study conducted by Doodle, it found the average professional 64% of those surveyed spent more than 5 hours per week coordinating meetings. However, the average person only spends half an hour preparing for a meeting. Basically, the part of a person’s job that takes 25% of their time, they only invest 30 minutes to organize. Unfortunately, people confuse organizing meetings with planning.

The results of poor meeting planning is: meetings are longer; less efficient; generate fewer results; require more meetings; create frustration at all staff levels; create conflict in meetings; other people dominate the meeting; and cost organizations billions of dollars each year in otherwise productive employee work time

It is was no wonder most professionals who meet on a regular basis admit to daydreaming (91%), missing meetings (96%) or missing parts of meetings (95%) and a large percentage (73%) say they have brought other work to meetings and 39% say they have dozed during meetings. If most people are getting little value from meetings, why do we keep subjecting ourselves to meetings?

This CIO letter is looking to stop this insanity. Here is a list of action items one can use today to make your meetings better.

1. Plan for the meeting.

A safe rule of thumb is to spend an equal amount of time preparing as the meeting is long. If you are expecting the meeting to be an hour long then the planning should be an hour long.  Detail the agenda and share with the attendees prior to the date and silicate feedback and input.

1. Why are you having the meeting?

Begin your planning by determining what the purpose of the meeting. What do you expect the result of the meeting? This goal of the meeting needs to communicate to the attendees both prior to the meeting and at the beginning of the meeting.

1. Take notes.

There is nothing worse than have a meeting and have some great insights but a day later, no one remembers. Designate someone to take notes and distribute a meeting summary including action items with designated responsibilities.

1. Plan for the meeting.

A safe rule of thumb is to spend an equal amount of time preparing as the meeting is long. If you are expecting the meeting to be an hour long then the planning should be an hour long.  Items to be prepared beforehand are:  agenda, hand-outs, decisions to be made presentation material and action items.

1. Who must attend

Some people like to have an audience. But an office meeting is not the place or the time to practice toastmasters. Build a list of those how must be there and should be there.  Send the invite to those who must be there and make it optional for those how should be there. Let them determine if they must be there.

1. Accountability

During every good meeting, great ideas come out and items need to be acted on. However, if no one is assigned a task or there is no method of follow-up, then the time and money invested in at meeting was lost. Have a schedule and timeline for follow-up.

1. Attendee interaction

If you have every attended a seminar or lecture, you know how great these people are at putting to sleep or daydreaming. To avoid this syndrome, get the people involved, present their thought and opinions. Engaging the audience will make it more interesting and get more buy in.

Simply by trying one of these items, you will improve on your meetings. And in the end is that not why you read this article? Like most things, you must make changes slowing and by making one a habit to ensure that action becomes effective.

Barry Johnston

VP Operations

What could possibly be a ¼ million dollar expense yet go unnoticed by Accounting?  Employee Turnover (ETO) is the answer.  If you are like me, you have a hard time believing ETO can cost an organization this much.  Well, I took out my slide-rule and crunched the numbers. After a critical review, the result I came to was in fact a number higher than $250K. This CIO letter will help you understand ETO and give you some pointers on reducing it.

Just what is employee turn-over and how is it calculated?  Employee turnover occurs when employees leave voluntarily and the position must be re-hired for. The ratio is used by HR and management to compare year over year within an organization and compares their numbers against an industry average. Typically used as a proxy for organizational effectiveness. It can also be used to indicate a company’s success with hiring and retention practises.

After years of working with this ratio, it has proven to me to be one of the most costly and seemingly intractable human resource challenges confronting organizations. Turnover affects the bottom line, whether you see it or not. Turnover is a silent but effective profit killer. The ratio is calculated by dividing the number of people who voluntarily leave during a year by the total number of employees.  For example, if your department has 100 employees and 10 people leave, your turn-over rate is 10%.

In Canada the average ETO in all industries ranges from 10%-16%.  In the U.S., from 2000 to 2008, the average turnover rate was 13.3%. However, rates vary widely over different job sectors. For example, Utilities industry turnover is 6.5% whereas healthcare is 15.5%. The Technology industry is in the middle at 10.8%.

Improving employee retention can have a significant positive impact on an organization. The Harvard Business Review reports that a mere 5% increase in employee retention results in a 10% decrease in costs, while productivity increases from 25% to 65%. Before we can start to manage these costs we need to be aware of what they are.  Some obvious costs come quickly to mind, but there are also numerous others you may never have considered that can have a serious impact on your bottom line.

Here is a breakdown of costs:

Separation process costs: costs related to the time and expense required to exit an employee from the Organization. It typically includes: exit interview cost, cost of administrative issues related to separation and cost of separation pay if applicable. Plus all the IT costs like security, keys, computers, files, phones that are required after the person leaves.

Recruitment cost: cost of sourcing, interviewing and hiring expenses of the replacement. It may include advertising expenses, agency fees, interview costs, cost of tests or exams and the difference between the new and separated employee’s annual compensation.

Training and orientation costs: are those related to the on-boarding process of a new employee and the training expenses occurred when getting new recruits up to speed.

Finally lost productivity costs: Typically includes costs of additional overtime, cost of additional temporary employee, cost of lost customers or profits, cost of lower productivity because of the negative feeling remaining employees may harbour and cost of additional employee leaves related to the termination.

Here is some math: Assume the average time to replace is 10 weeks, training is 10 week to full productivity and average separation cost is 2 weeks. Then an employee earning $52,000 per year will have about $22,000 in lost productivity. Assume a team of 50 employees has an ETO of 10% will result in losing 5 employees – total cost is $110,000. The cost of recruitment typically is ½ year’s salary. When you add all these costs you arrive at $242,000 for only 5 employees per year. Change a few variables and the cost can be as high as 150% of an employee’s salary.

Lowering turnover can be tackled from 2 sides: Your current employees, and Hiring new employees:

Current Employees

1.  Manage workload

• Make sure your team is not over taxed. Stay late a few nights to see who is constantly staying late to get work done.

2.  Recognize good performance

• Rewarding and recognizing people for doing good work lets them know they are appreciated. Tangible and intangible rewards are a great way to show management appreciation for workers who excel.

3.  Training and promoting from within

• Always a great policy to improve staff productively and will also increase moral and employee loyalty.

4.  Listen

• Listening gives your employees a sense of empowerment. They understand they are not alone and powerless when you listen. But you have to genuinely listen.

5.  Exit interviews

• Learn why they are leaving so you can prevent the same problem from reoccurring.

6.  Monitor total compensation

• Make sure your organization compensates staff at market rates.

Hiring

1.  Contract to Hire

• Try before you buy.  This allows both you and candidates to ensure there is a fit.

2.  Personality screening

• Match your company profile with your target hiring group, not just skills but also for personalities.

3.  Team interviewing

• Group interviews allowing the team to buy in and support hires.

4.  Tenure Bonuses

• Offering bonuses to staff for staying with the company over a set period can help employee get over hurdles. Recognizing anniversaries with a simple reward makes the employees proud of their tenure.

Employee turn-over is never a cause and effect but more about system feedback. Changing a high turn-over environment is not easy but small changes can have huge benefits.

Everything you don’t have, someone else owns it.

And when you own something, you rarely part with it easily. This is where negotiations begin. Whether it is service, product or time we all go through negotiation to acquire any resource.  We negotiate for everything we do, even when we pay the sticker price.

Before we start it is important to understand what negotiation is “Negotiation is a dialogue intended to resolve disputes, to produce an agreement upon courses of action, to bargain for individual or collective advantage, or to craft outcomes to satisfy various interests. It is the primary method of alternative dispute resolution.”

Since we do it so often, why are we not good at it? There are multiple hypotheses’, we don’t realize we are negotiating until we are half way through, we are impatient, we don’t like conflict, or we are greedy. Although, the true reason are not great at negotiation is we don’t plan.

1. Start with the end in mind

Most people just think about what they want. A good negotiator will map out all the wants and desires for all parties involved.  Start building a negotiating plan with noting all the people involved and describing their roles and their goals.

2. Prepare agreeable points

Work on getting the low hanging fruit in your basket.  What are the items both parties can agree on right away? Sometimes there is a negotiation to determine the time and place to negotiate. Even in the most difficult negotiations can find something to agree on. If you spend time determining what these are and start with those items first. The entire discussion will be better when you have some early agreement and yes.

3. Always trade for something

Part of negotiation is to give and take. The other party will ask for things from you. Some of these points you may not have considered and are not significant to you. Even so, make sure you get something in return that is of value to you. Never give anything up for free.  If you are negotiating with a person or organization you plan to have future negotiations with, use those future events as part of the bargaining.

4. Aim high

If you don’t ask you don’t get. The best negotiators always believe there is a successful outcome and expect more than they need. Starting at an extreme position  is a proven strategy for higher results.  Setting high goals will become a self-fulling prophecy and deliver higher than average results. The trick is not to set them so high the other part will no even try to negotiate.

5. Listen

This skill is the most talked about but the least used skill known to man-kind. Too often we try so hard to get our own opinion or point across we stop listening or don’t hear what the other person said. Ordinary conversations emerge on a deeper level, as do our relationships. In negotiations, when we listen, we create the skill in others by acting as a model for positive and effective communication.  Also by listening, observing behaviour and body language, and being attentive, you add context to the words spoken. Potentially you will pick up “tells”, a subtle but detectable change in a player’s behaviour or demeanour that gives clues to that player’s assessment of his hand.

6. Have a Plan B

Some negotiation geeks will call this BATNA, the negotiation theory, the best alternative to a negotiated agreement  is the course of action that will be taken one group or person if negotiations fail and an agreement cannot be reached. Knowing what your best alternative is gives you an advantage if you face an unsuccessful negotiation. Without a fall-back position, you are left with no alternative but to negotiate until a deal is reached, even if that agreement is unacceptable.

Negotiation is not a event but a process. There is no substitute for preparing and planning. If you follow this pointer, your negotiation skills will improve.

Sitting down at the dinner table with my son preparing for his pending spelling test sparked a debate in our house. “Dad, my iPod and computer has spell check, so why do I need to learn this.” With great confidence I answered, “… because not every application has spell check.” After a glare he got back to the task at hand. Later that night, the question hung in my head and I started to think about what spelling is. I concluded: spelling is a standardization of the way we communicate in written word. The reason for learning spelling is to make one a better communicator.

Twitter, chat and texting are throwing grammar and spelling out the window, yet our kids can communicate and plan their lives with ease. Even in emails we use the term ‘LOL’ and everyone knows what we are saying. Digital communication seems to be less about spelling and more about understanding each other clearly. The most searched words at the web site dictionary.com are effect and affect, obviously not for spelling but for definition. With more ways to communicate than ever before, are our relationships any better?

In a Duke University study, researchers found that from 1985 to 2004, the percentage of people who said that there was no one with whom they discussed important matters tripled to 25%; the same study found that overall, Americans had one-third fewer friends and confidants than they did two decades ago. Another recent study, by researchers at the University of Michigan, found that college students today have significantly less empathy than students of generations past did.

It appears our relationships are being impacted by these new ways to correspond; however, communication is still crucial to our success as humans. Unfortunately, digital communication is not going away so how do we communicate better to strengthen our relationships? This month’s CIO letter focuses on achieving just that, better communication.  Here are 7 strategies to improve your skills:

1. Use Face-to-face meetings – In the world of telecommuting, video conferencing and on-line meetings, face-to-face is happening less and less often. Yet, meeting someone in person is the best way to exchange ideas and thoughts. A new study from Harvard Medical School found that when we collaborate remotely, our work may have less of an impact. Face to face meetings increases trust and allows for stronger bonds and relationships. Non verbal communication is an intricate part of conveying thoughts and opinions which is best done face-to-face.
2. Think before you speak – With anything, the more you prepare for a meeting or communication event the smoother it will go and more likely it is to have a positive outcome. Write down as many ways you can think of to be a better communicator. Getting mentally set to communicate better is imperative.
3. Cut bureaucracy in all communications – The more people you have involved in a decision or review process, the more watered down and less effective it will be. Have you ever tried to get consensus with a group of 5 or more on picking a colour or name? As a manager, especially senior management, you have an obligation to reduce the complexity of internal and external communications. You can appoint someone to review internal communications and instruct them to slash as much bureaucracy and complexity as possible.
4. Something positive – Don’t forget the tried and true method for criticizing someone: positive statement first, then a negative statement followed by a positive one. Studies have found that the negative or criticism is handled better by a person when delivered in this manner of surrounding negative with positive.
5. Add “No reply necessary” to emails – When you do not require a response, tell the recipients.  We waste hours a year writing “You’re welcome” and “Thank you” emails. Be effective and be happy.
6. Listen – Get to know your people better. Find out what makes them happy. Show them that you hear what they’re saying. Make them feel heard. Great communication is a about knowing when to speak and knowing when to listen. It’s a two way process.
7. One or Two word emails – Stop sending short one line emails. Few words can create lots of confusion and often require more emails to clarify, and worse can cause poor or wrong reactions. For example, you are looking for help with a tough decision. You send an email, “Currently we are losing money on our operations; we could lower salaries or lay people off. What are your thoughts?” and the response from the CEO is, “yes go ahead.” What do you do?

The importance of effective listening skills for employees and managers cannot be overemphasized. Everything done in the workplace involves two-way communication: speaking and listening. Two-way communication is critical in the way that it can impact efficiency and effectiveness. Taking small steps will improve communication and ultimately make your job easier. And yes, spelling in school will never go away and with 2,000 new words added to the dictionary this year, there is no shortage of words to learn.

But does bromance really belong in Webster?

Most people in the technology industry are generally considered smart, and highly skilled in math, logic and problem solving. However, these highly developed technical skills usually come at the expense of their interpersonal skills. IT managers are not immune to this imbalance and spend little time to improve these under developed skills. Making matters worse, we recognize and promote based on results and reward for performance. The consequence is that managers spend 95% of their time focusing on measurable items and pay little attention to the emotions of their staff. This is not because managers don’t like people or don’t care, but few of them have little idea what employees really want from a boss.

“But that warm fuzzy is what HR does. I do delivery,” is the common retort.  True, but employees do not leave a job because HR did not give them enough hugs. The old adage holds true; people join companies but leave managers. Surveys show individuals quit for 5 main reasons: pay, management, career advancement, benefits and other. Many of these can be influenced by management. We can reduce turnover simply by understanding your staff’s desires.

The following CIO letter will shed some light on what matters most to workers.  The results from a survey of 500 employees by the Lore International Institute over a 2 year period shows some interesting insight and some pretty basic things we can all improve on.  Here are the findings:

More than 90% of employees want honesty and integrity from their managers. An equal number desire fairness across all staff and for management to hold everyone accountable to the same standards.  Furthermore, just over 75% indicated they sought after trust, respect, dependability, collaboration and appreciation.  But only 14% wanted interesting conversations from their manager and only 3% wanted them to be a friend.

These requirements seem easy to roll out but can be difficult to sustain. We, as managers, will revert to our natural personalities.  So what else can be done? Fortunately, Randstad surveyed 6000 people throughout North America giving more insight. What will make them happy?

• Job Flexibility – 72%.
• Liking the team they work with - 71%.
• Pleasant work environment - 68%.
• Workplace is an easy commute – 68%.
• Challenging work – 65%.
• Job security – 65%.
• Ability to work independently – 59%.
• Opportunity for advancement – 55%.

Based on these results, here are 6 suggestions to improve employee satisfaction and lower turn-over:

1. Make the work space look better; get rid of office clutter (cables, computer equipment, books, files, etc.), get some plants, find local schools for art, replace lighting with full spectrum light bulbs and use creative ways to make the environment better.
2. Try to hire local; the closer staff live to the office and the shorter the commute will increase loyalty and happiness.
3. Find ways to allow people to work from home on occasion.
4. Establish flexible work hours when possible, sometimes four day work weeks would make sense.
5. Look for ways to give more self-direction to your staff.
6. Have an off-site staff bonding session to promote team work; it can be as simple as a soccer or baseball game in the park.

Lastly, here are 4 things you should say on a regular basis:

1. “How can I help?” This statement will aid you in determining impediments your staff face in performing at their best.
2. “Great job on…” Any praise is welcome by everyone. We all crave appreciation and receiving it can be more motivating to staff than anything else.
3. “Can I have your thoughts on…?” Engaging your staff in decisions and discussion will make them feel part of the solution and not just a cog in the wheel.
4. “Thank you.” Two words that can never be over used. Using them more often is not simply for common courtesy, but as a way of connecting and showing appreciation for a job well done.

Try some of these ten pointers; you may find them to be successful in helping you to reduce your turn-over. We advise not to try all of them since you might find some cynicism from your team, especially the younger members.

If you are like most managers, interviewing is not your favourite task in the world. As a result, many managers avoid the topic. Yet, for something people dislike so much, it is one of the most important tasks a manager must execute. Hiring great people is critical to a company’s success. In a survey, Grant Thornton reviewed 1000 companies in the UK and found companies with the highest growth placed ‘having the best people’ as the most important factor contributing to their company’s growth.

Even more surprising is in another study, only 8% of corporations in the US have any formal interview training program for hiring managers. When was the last time you had interview training from HR?  Since hiring is a task that comes around infrequently, once or twice every six months for most managers, are motivated to invest the time in training.

In absence of formal training the one thing we suggest you can do to improve your interviewing skill is: prepare. Spend 15 minutes before the meeting reviewing the job description, jointing down some questions to ask and think about what information you need that is not in the resume. Interview can be easier than you think but like every successful meeting it all starts with a well orchestrated plan. And if nothing else, please at least read the resume before the interview.

Still need some help? Here are some interview questions that may give some inspiration to step your interview game up.

1. Tell me why I should not hire you?

Probably one of the toughest question to ask and slightly unfair.  Answers are ripe with pit holes and can really throw a candidate off.  This question is designed to test their ability to think on their feet. The best answers are ones that take an apparent negative and make it positive.  Recommended not to start your interview with this question.

2. Rate yourself on a scale of one to ten.

Yikes, who wants to answer this one? If you give yourself a 6, then you are showing a lack of self confidence and may not hire you. On the other hand, if you think you’re a 10, you maybe labelled as unmanageable and miserably egotistical. The safest response is the middle ground lies between 8 and 9. This says they are confident, capable, and hard-working, but they know there is always room for improvement.

3. Everyone takes home the occasion pen from the supply room. What is the most expensive thing you taken?

This is a great question to challenge someone’s moral compass. What makes this a tough question is it implies everyone steals from their employers and it is okay to do so. A person must be confident enough to challenge the first statement. Since the interview is usually stressful many people will let their guard and reveal the craziest things. Make sure you preface the question with the question with the initial statement; otherwise you are just accusing some of stealing.

4. Tell me about your greatest error in judgment.

A nice question to determine if your candidate is a model employee or if they have the ability to do the job correctly. The story they choose to tell in response should be unrelated to their previous jobs and should have occurred sometime in the distant past. Also they must be able to talk how they have grown and learned from this mistake. Choosing something recent and/or work related may highlight weaknesses and indicate incompetence.

5. What did you tell your boss get the time off to come to this interview?

Great question to start the interview. It may seem like an icebreaker question, but they are establishing they integrity. They either declare themselves a liar or said they had a doctor’s appointment. The only answer to this question is they are there on your own time, either using a vacation day or part of their lunch hour.

6. Your Manager gives you a large important project to complete by end of day and the president of the company asks you to clean up the office for an important client coming in what do you do?

This questions less about the answer given and more about the ability a person ability to make a decision they can justify.  It also gives insight to prioritize. The natural response for most people is to do as the president asks. The candidate will ask themselves ‘what answer does this person want to hear?’ It becomes a dilemma from candidate. Asking more questions to learn about the scenario better is a good sign.

7. Tell me about a situation you would be willing to take a pay cut?

Another killer question; are they a team player, would they take on for the team, and are they here only for the money? This question can lead many responses, but use it to drilling down to learn about their money motivations.

8. What is more important money or time off?

A simple question but one that will without fail will stump many candidates. If they answer the question, money then it will seem greedy and that they will leave at the first job offer that pays higher. Or if they time off then it would they may feel they would be perceived as a slacker. This is a trap question.

9. Have you ever been fired from a job?

Direct question few people are willing to ask directly. Use it sparingly. If the answer yes, do not jump to any conclusion, investigate more. There may be a good reason.

10.  Tell me about the job you hated the most

Using this question is only effective if the interviewer spends sometime understanding why and exploring what the person was doing. Dig deep on the specifics of the job duties. Do not take a one or two sentence answer.

Over the last decade worker productivity in Canada relative to the US has fallen from 90% of US rates during the 80’s to only 75% of that of the US. And this drop was before the advent of Facebook.  The easiest conclusion is that our employees are just producing less than our US counterparts, yet on the surface, no one in Canada believes our employees don’t work as hard. Why is this the case? No one really understands the problem, never mind how to find a solution. If we put 10 economists in a room to debate this issue, we would end up with countless different answers to countless different problems.

Every CEO talks about increasing productivity but just what the heck is it?  Most professors and economists use this basic formula to measure productivity:

Productivity = Real Value of the Output/Total labour input

Improving productivity is achieved by either increasing value of the output or by decreasing the total labour input. But it is easier said than done. One of the ways to do this is have your staff working at their optimum performance or peak performance. Many studies have been conducted in this subject.

A well respected expert studying peak performance, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, believes to achieve peak performance one must be in the ‘Flow’. He describes the essence of Flow as the state a person finds themselves in when the difficult is made to look easy, a complete absorption in the task at hand. He notes Flow can be achieved many times throughout the day, but it is not usually sustainable throughout an entire eight-hour day. His theory suggests that a manager needs to create the right conditions for Flow to happen:

1. The ability for people to use their signature strengths,
2. A clear set of goals,
3. Prompt feedback,
4. Challenges that stretch and mesh with the ability to meet them, and
5. A sense of control

This sounds great but this approach to productivity improvement leaves out intangible factors like creativity and imagination. Charlie Gilkey, a productivity specialist, redefines how productive is calculated through the following equation:

Productivity= (Creative Energy + Focus + Motivation + Aptitude + Ideal Time)/(Difficulty + Distractions)

So how does a manager go about effecting these factors? Here are 4 strange strategies to try to improve productivity based on studies:

1. Increase Office Temperature:

A study at Cornell University has found that office workers in a warm environment are more productive than they are in colder spaces. The study was conducted by Alan Hedge, who is a professor of design and environmental analysis. Nine office workstations were outfitted with sensors that sampled the air temperature every 15 minutes and monitored the amount of time the workers used the keyboard, and the amount of time spent correcting errors. The results are a little surprising. At 66 degrees Fahrenheit (18.8 degrees Celsius) workers typed 54 percent of the time and with a 25 percent error rate. When the temperature was raised to 77 degrees Fahrenheit (25 degrees Celsius), the workers were typing 100 percent of the time and with a paltry 10 percent error rate.

2. Let your staff surf the web during work hours:

Dr Brent Coker, professor at Melbourne University, says employees who surf the internet for leisure during working hours are more productive than those who don’t. A study of 300 office workers found 70 percent of people who use the internet at work engage in Workplace Internet Leisure Browsing (WILB). ‘People who do surf the internet for fun at work within a reasonable limit of less than 20 per cent of their total time in the office are more productive by about nine per cent than those who don’t,’ said Coker. ‘People need to zone out for a bit to get back their concentration. Think back to when you were in class listening to a lecture and after about 20 minutes your concentration probably went right down, yet after a break your concentration was restored and was the same in the workplace.’ Coker warns that excessive time spent surfing the internet could have the reverse effect.”

3. Buy some plants:

A study conducted in the Netherlands by Tøve Fjeld and the Winterswijk Tax Office on the effect of plants in the work place, found live plants in the office had a positive effect on work output. The most significant findings of the study included improvements in air quality, both measured and perceived by the employees and improvements in productivity. The study concluded, their productivity improved, especially in terms of efficiency; the strongest link was found with those working at computer terminals. The most explicit variables are the ratings assigned for quality of the working environment and well-being; loss of concentration dropped, i.e. concentration improved in the test group.

In another study conducted by the College of Agriculture at Washington State University (WSU) shows that live interior plants increase employee productivity and reduce stress. The study, published in the “Journal of Environmental Horticulture,” reports that productivity increased 12 percent when people performed tasks on a computer with plants, compared to people who performed the same task in a room without plants.

4. Shower Breaks:

As strange as it sounds, an 8 week study showed staff who took a break to shower at some point during the day found an overall boost in productivity and creativity of 42% and 33% respectively.  That’s the conclusion of a new study, which involved four businesses in an eight week study – a restaurant, an architect firm, an advertising agency and a lingerie company. (Since you have raised the office temperature, your staff may need more cleaning) Employees generally felt that they had done a better job during the showering phase, with a 16 per cent increase, and 23 per cent felt they were in a better mood.