I read an article once, years ago, that highlighted an executive from the United States said that if they had a choice between performance review and a paper cut they would opt for the paper cut every time. I think this sums the process up for the majority of people.

What I really want to discuss is whether you think your organisation has a culture of giving feedback. By this, I don't mean once or twice a year. I mean on a day to day basis.

So, what I want you to do at the moment is to forget about the six-monthly or yearly performance review and close your eyes and imagine the following. Imagine that your employees:

• understand what type of behaviour is expected in the workplace;
• understand how the work they do impacts organisational performance;
• understand what is to be delivered;
• understand when it has to be delivered;
• understand the quality the work is to be delivered in;
• are comfortable in going to managers to discuss issues knowing that they will be supported;
• know they will be recognised for their achievements;
• can discuss career aspirations and what support can be given to help;
• are spoken to about their strengths and how these strengths can be used more;
• are spoken to about where they may need to develop further;
• are spoken to about the work that they like to do or would like to do; and
• are able to provide upward feedback to help managers strengthen or develop their leadership skills.

Imagine what type of organisation you could have if the above happened as a matter of business-as-usual? You would hope it would be an organisation that is achieving its business goals.

Really, when you think about giving feedback, it is about good continuous communication.

Maybe my next article should be about why people dislike giving feedback?

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Generation-Y has been described as fickle, self-focused and transient. Anecdotally, managers say that they are demanding, impatient, difficult to manage and difficult to retain. Sounds like a disaster in the making for employers!

It is not all bad news, though. Listed below are some really good reasons why you should employ Generation-Y workers:

• they are the most educated-minded generation in history;
• they are more optimistic about life;
• they are generally socially aware;
• they are tolerant and accepting of cultural differences;
• they are technically savvy and will use this skill to find smarter ways of working; and
• they know how to find information and use this to generate new ideas.

So how do you get the best out of Generation-Y?

The things that matter most to Gen-Y workers are, or should be, things that also matter to you as an employer.

They want their job to have a purpose, be fun and they want to feel that what they do counts. They want to be closely mentored, be given constructive feedback and to be given opportunities to gain new skills. As they have a low boredom threshold they are always keen to undertake new challenges and new experiences.

Eric Chester an author of nine books for and about youth, outlines the following eight strategies for managing and motivating Generation-Y:

Let them know that what they do matters.

Tell them the truth - don't try to pull the wool over their eyes.

In order to get buy in, explain the why of what you re asking them to do and tell them what's in it for them.

Learn their language - communicate in terms they understand.

Be on the lookout for "rewarding opportunities".

Praise them in public - make them a star.

Make the workplace fun.

Model behaviour - don't expect one thing out of them that you don't and won't deliver yourself. Be the example.

Not surprisingly, these tips, while especially effective with Gen-Y workers, apply equally to your entire staff; it's just that the Gen-Yers expect these behaviours. Older workers might be surprised by them.

One little extra tip for you to think about, if you learn how to motivate and train Generation-Y, you will earn their undying loyalty.

This post appeared in the Hippo Jobs Newsletter last week. Hippo is a recruitment agency that targets young Australians and visitors from overseas who want casual or part-time work.

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• What is staff turnover costing your organisation? (2)
• Is there really a generation gap? (4)
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Better, Faster: streamlining recruitment in the APS cites the APS State of the Service Employee Survey 2005/2006 saying:

more than one in four employees agreed that recruitment processes are difficult for candidates outside the APS to understand

more than one third perceived that the recruitment processes of their agency do not allow for recruitment to be completed in a timely manner.

about one in three employees perceived that the recruitment processes of their current agency do not enable their agency to attract the best candidates

over one third believed that their agency’s recruitment processes are too demanding of candidates

Recruitment in the APS is guided by certain minimum standards. One of these standards is that APS agencies will run an open, competitive selection process based on merit. This is based on an assessment of a person’s ability to do the job; avoiding patronage, favouritism and unjustified discrimination.

I can understand why the State of the Service Employee Survey received the results it did.  In some agencies, the APS recruitment process can be overly long due to the emphasis on the merit process. Another reason for the long process is that line managers have responsibility in drafting the role description and selection criteria and conducting the recruitment process . Line managers are already busy and do not have a lot of time to actually focus on recruitment and generally they are not experts in role design, marketing and recruitment.

Recruitment is not just about advertising, going through applications and interviewing. The essential components of  recruitment are strategy, attraction, candidate relationship management, technology, services and process. In today's employment market where talent is becoming scarce and organisations are competing for people who are already employed, candidate care is critical.

HR areas in APS agencies need to stop focusing on the process of recruitment and use technology to do this. They should be focusing their energy in supporting, educating and training line managers on recruitment strategy, attraction and candidate management.

There has been quite a few publications which have been developed to assist APS agencies in streamlining recruitment processes. Some of these are:

• Get it Right—a recruitment kit for managers;
• MAC 7 Report - Reducing Red Tape in the APS;
• Better, Faster: streamlining recruitment in the APS; and
  
• ANAO Audit Report No.31  2007–08 - Management of Recruitment in the Australian Public Service.

I read an interesting article from Dr John Sullivan, Top 10 Indications That You Are a Dinosaur (Old-School) Recruiter! After reading this I think the APS has a long way to go to get past "Old School" recruitment.

When will the revolution start I wonder?

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The biggest challenge for organisations over the next 20 to 40 years is attracting and retaining skilled workers. Australia's oldest baby boomers are now 63 and ready to retire. The ageing workforce is growing and we will not have enough people to replace them. Not only that, organisations are at risk of losing a career's worth of knowledge.

In response to this organisations should be attempting to extend the working careers of mature age employees. Organisations will need to be able to attract, retain and develop the right people. To be able to build attraction and retention strategies an organisation must first identify:

• the critical roles to deliver current work as well as any future work;
• what skills and knowledge are required in these roles;
• the people in these roles  and what their career intentions are;
• talented people from outside the business and how they can attract them;
• what development is required to ensure employees are skilled and ready to deliver new business; and
• its ageing workforce and the implications of this such as retirement, career planning, flexible working arrangements and succession management.

Some mature age attraction and retention strategies that organisations can look at are:

• flexible working options (reduced hours, job sharing, additional leave for caring purposes, etc.);
• training and development;
• having mature age workers as mentors to younger staff;
• having younger staff mentor mature age workers on new technology;
• establish a contact list for short term employment and projects for workers who have retired; and
• establish an alumni for mentoring and networking opportunities for workers who have retired .

As part of my assignment I also had to give a presentation and I thought I should share it outside of the classroom.

| View | Upload your own

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...staff turnover in Australia has increased by more than five per cent as the continuing skills shortage and the aging population puts people management practices under pressure.

The cost to Australian organisations of the increased turnover has been estimated at $20 billion.

This figure is based on Australian Bureau of Statistics data. That data puts the average Australian salary at $55,660.80 pa, the workforce of 10.6 million, assumes the cost of replacing an employee is 75 per cent of the role's salary and puts turnover rate at an average of 18.5 per cent across all organisations.

When I read this article I started to think of what might happen in the future... is the skills shortage going to become worse due to the increase in the aging workforce, fewer people coming into the workforce, people currently in the workforce looking for work overseas and of course, developing countries such as China and India draining resources for their own burgeoning workforce needs?

Organisations focus on their employer brand and on attracting people to come and work for them. It is now time to start to look at how to retain people.

But you do not want to retain just anybody.

Organisations need to start to think about what their core business is and what type of person they need to help them deliver their business. What skills, capability and attitude can an organisation not afford to lose?

So here are some questions to get you thinking:

• Does your organisation monitor how much staff turnover is costing?
• Does your organisation have the tools to identify employees who have the right skills mix to deliver the business?
• Would your organisation know what skills will be required in the future and where to find these skills?
• Does your organisation have retention strategies?
• Does your organisation conduct exit interviews to gain intelligence of why employees leave?

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Over the last few weeks I have been reading a book called Retiring the Generation Gap: How Employees Young and Old Can Find Common Solution. Based on research regarding intergenerational conflict, how different generations really are, and what workplaces can do reduce conflicts among people of different generations, it is based on US research conducted over seven years. 

The main point I learnt from this book is that all generations have similar values; they just express them differently. It also highlighted that if you are party to a conflict that appears to be about generation-based values differences it is most likely that the conflict is between individuals and that it has nothing to do with their generation and the conflict is about difference in behaviour rather than about a fundamental values difference.

The research from this book highlighted that top ten values for all generations were:

• Family (72%)
• Integrity (65%)
• Achievement (48%)
• Love (48%)
• Competence (47%)
• Happiness (46%)
• Self-respect (45%)
• Wisdom (45%)
• Balance (39%)
• Responsibility (38%) [1]

I know that this is US research, but I wonder how different it would be in Australia?

What do you think?

1. Retiring the Generation Gap: How employees young and old can find common ground, Deal, J., 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Inc., p15

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To create a culture of innovation you need to foster an environment where employees are encouraged to explore, to learn, to extend themselves, to fail and to be able to suggest ideas without the fear of being judged. This sounds so simple but in reality it just does not happen!

Think of a time when you have been in a meeting where a suggestion has been made and instead of the group extending on the idea, somebody shoots it down in flames. Or a suggestion is made to management but no feedback is given... it somehow got lost in that management black hole. Depending on how resilient the person is, they may make a few more suggestions, but in the end people eventually stop trying to suggest ideas, become unmotivated and may even start looking for work elsewhere. In the end this is not good for business. Your organisation may even have innovation as one of its values, but if employees are experiencing the things I discussed, then innovation will not grow.

Innovation and Imagination at Work by the Australian Institute of Management states seven barriers to delivering innovation and ten factors for success.

Seven barriers to delivering innovation:

1. Underestimating what is required
2. Inadequate formal systems
3. Inadequate resources for the change process
4. Insufficient front-line input
5. Lack of knowledge management
6. Inadequate governance
7. Inadequate strategic planning

Ten success factors for building an innovative environment:

1. Ensuring commitment of the leadership team
2. Ensuring adequate management capability
3. Incorporating systematic innovation
4. Identifying key skills gaps
5. Using the front-line as a business driver
6. Building adequate infrastructure
7. Implementing formal structures and systems
8. Developing capabilities
9. Developing accountability
10. Ensuring organisational continuity

Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to encourage the team you are in to look at the work they do, how it impacts the business and to make suggestions on improvements. Give employees time to research and explore what other organisations are doing. Encourage them to network outside of the team. This could be with other people within the organisation, with clients and with other people outside of the organisation in similar professions. This will help them expand their knowledge and encourage different thinking.

Further reading:

• Leader to Leader Institute
• Thought Leaders Forum - Peter Drucker
• Society for Organizational Learning
• Innovation Network
• The Doblin Innovation Discipline Model
  
• Making ideas happen

Here is a great presentation from Tara Hunt from Citizen Agency on fostering creative teams.

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The first was that I wanted to personally try to make a difference; even if it was a small one, to show a child that life can be better and that they can choose how they can live their life. When I came home from the conference I spoke to my family about what we could do to make a difference in at least one child's life. We set on the path of becoming respite foster carers and for the last two and a half years have cared for two children for three days every month. This for us is very rewarding as we have seen the changes in behaviour and growth of these two children.

The second was a comment from another person in the crowd when we were walking out of the room which was, "What did this have to do with HR?" You may be thinking the same thing. Let me give you my perspective on why this has everything to do with HR and the organisation you are working for.

Research on welfare dependency in families shows there is an increased probability that children from homes receiving welfare will also be dependent on welfare. That means that these children are likely to become unemployed or work in unskilled jobs. These are children that if they had the right type of influences during their schooling years may become one of your prospective employees.

I find that when it comes to recruitment and talking to managers they are focussed on the people they want now and not in the future years. With shortages in the labour market, arising from demographic shifts and from a lack of people with the skills required for available jobs, HR has to start influencing management that they should also be thinking and influencing their prospective employees coming into the Market in the next five to ten years and beyond.

My thought is that organisations should start influencing from the early years of school. This could be achieved by providing a framework for the current employees to volunteer to mentor, tutor, talk to children about the work they do and the choices they made and basically becoming part of the school community. Organisations could provide scholarships for children or they could partner with not-for-profit organisations such as The Beacon Foundation, Barnardos or The Smith Family. There can be positive outcomes for organisations engaging in Corporate Social Responsibility programs particularly in increasing the Employer Brand. There would also be positives for the community and the economy such as having children leave high school with the confidence to make decisions regarding their future; either in further education, training or employment.

If you are interested in further reading on this subject, you might find the following material useful:

• Beacon Foundation DVD on programs helping high school children
• FaCSIA Report - Australian Social Policy 2006
• ABS Australian Social Trends, 2005
• ABS Australian Social Trends, 2004
• Fault Lines Exposed: Advantage and Disadvantage Across Australia's Settlement System

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Work/life balance is becoming increasingly important to employees; their reasons for this are dependent on what is happening in their life. For example, you could have someone who wishes to care for their aging parents, a divorced parent wanting to spend quality time with their children, someone who wants to study or even somebody who loves to go surfing when the surf is good. Each particular example would require a different flexible working approach.

With a growing skills shortage and the aging workforce, organisations are starting to see flexible working practices as a way to attract and retain their employees. Organisations are finding that introducing flexible working options provide the following advantages:

• Becoming an employer of choice and realising the employee value proposition
• Reduced absenteeism
• Reduced attrition
• Improved productivity
• Reduced stress levels and improved morale and commitment
• Potential for improved occupational health and safety records

These days flexible working practices are not only about part-time work. Organisations are offering various flexible working practices such as:

• Compressed working week
• Flexitime
• Job sharing
• Telework or home based work
• Rostered days off
• Shorter work days
• Phased retirement
• Paid maternity, paternity, grandparents, carers, volunteering, cultural, study and bereavement leave
• On site or near site childcare (I have been lucky to experience this and I visited my daughter during breaks)
• Sabbaticals

However, I have found that creating policies on flexible working practices is not enough. You need to also have a culture and systems which support flexible working practices. For example, there is no use having a home telecommuting policy if your IT systems do not support it.

Another issue is the unwritten ground rules, i.e. even though there is a policy on flexible working practices there is the culture of "that is not how things are done around here". I call this unwritten rule the 'presenteeism culture', i.e. managers and colleagues who believe they need to see you to believe you are working. For me this also highlights that there is very little trust within a team. Managers and colleagues should be focusing on performance and actually empowering their staff, not focusing on attendance and supervision.

Some sites you may find useful are:

• Welcome to Work and Family
• Sensis Insights Teleworking Report
• Hudson - HR Insight

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Dr Babara Griffin, from the University of Western Sydney, has recently studied the impact of bad manners in the workplace. Dr Griffin used data from Hewitt Associates' Best Employer Survey of more than 54,000 employees from 179 organisations across Australia and New Zealand. From this data she found that one in five employees experience a significant incident of bad manners at work once a month.

Bullying has a large impact on employee engagement including whether an employee will stay in an organisation, will speak positively about the organisation and more importantly whether the employee will go that extra mile when needed. Bullying also causes psychological distress and poor physical health. Bullying not only impacts the person being bullied but other people who see this occurring in the workplace, as well as family and friends.

I have started to read the The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t. There is an example in the book of one bully costing an organisation US$160000; 60% of recovery was deducted from his year-end bonus. The cost represented the time spent by others in dealing with the bully and assisting victims, counseling sessions, recruiting and inducting new people (due to attrition) and training. This amount could have been higher if a person being bullied decided to sue the organisation for psychological distress.

Imagine you have a number of bullies in your organisation... What this is costing and what is the impact on your employer brand?

In the book Bob Sutton suggests ten steps to enforcing the No Asshole Rule. These are:

1. Say the rule, write it down and act on it.
2. Assholes will hire other assholes therefore ensure you have civilized people interviewing.
3. Get rid of assholes fast.
4. Treat certified assholes as incompetent employees. Do not reward them if they are doing extraordinarily well but persistently bully others.
5. Power breeds nastiness.
6. Embrace the power-performance paradox but do everything you can do downplay and reduce status differences.
7. Manage moments - not just practices, policies and systems.
8. Model and teach constructive confrontation.
9. Adopt the one asshole rule (apparently when there are rare occasions of bad behaviour it reminds people how not to behave).
10. The bottom line - link big policies to small decencies.

So, what can you do? Ensure you have bullying and harassment policies, but more importantly ensure everyone in your organisation is expected and does walk the talk. If they don't then do something about it. Taking a stand against bullying requires strong leadership from everyone in the organisation from the CEO down.

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