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Impact99 – November 7th – Will you be there?

Impact99 is like a fresh new breeze in the HR community. The focus of the event is HR and Social Media, two topics I’m pretty pumped up about. When looking at social media within an HR context, it is often focused on parameters, guidelines, and policies around the use (or abuse) of social media in the workplace. And this conference is focused on looking at social media as something to be embraced by HR and business and as a tool for engaging employees. It is interesting to note that several of the speakers, sponsors, and guest panelists are colleagues I had already connected with on Twitter, so it will also be very nice to meet them and network IRL (in real life)!

There is a fantastic speaker lineup and an impactful and participative day planned including “HR Trailblazer Speed Learning Pods.“  The key note speaker is Sidneyeve Matrix. Besides having a pretty awesome name, Sidneyeve is a Queen’s University professor and eCommunications strategy and design consultant at MatrixMediaFX! I first heard about Sidneyeve from my son who had taken one of her courses. Knowing my involvement with Twitter he recommended that I “follow” her. Then this summer, I went to an orientation session at the university with my daughter, where I had the opportunity to hear Sidneyeve speak. After her motivating address to the students, I had a huge lump in my throat and goosebumps thinking about the wonderful journey my youngest child was about to experience and the knowledge she would gain.  

It’s never too late to continue to grow and learn. Whether you are new to social media or not, continue the learning journey by attending Impact99! The event organizers, Christine McLeod and Jeff Waldman, say that Impact99 is for HR Trailblazers. I like the sound of that, don’t you? If you are interested, register soon. I hope to see fellow HR colleagues and business leaders there and I’m looking forward to meeting some of my fellow Twitterers at the event which, by the way, is being held at the beautiful Evergreen Brick Works  location in Toronto!

Best regards, Joanne Royce, HR Trailblazer

Stats show that more moms are flocking to Facebook. Is that surprizing? Not when you consider the timeless saying, “Do you know where your kids are?” Well, they are on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+, and they are texting instead of phoning home. My kids signed up for Facebook in the early days, so I signed up for an account because I wanted to learn about it. Would my kids be safe? How could I help them realize that there is no such thing as privacy online? Would they know what to share and what not to share with the world? Would they recognize that their online social presence tells a story about who they are as individuals? I needed to understand Facebook before I could do all of that. My son told me point blank:   

“Old people aren’t on Facebook, Mom. So why are you on it?”

I laughed, but I didn’t cancel Facebook. When my son was in Grade 11, I was surprized when he invited me to be his Facebook “friend.” It was nice, but I didn’t realize how special it was until I started speaking to other moms and my Sheridan College students. Apparently it isn’t a common occurence. I was an FB “friend,” but I was still a mom. I bit my tongue about the little things and provided feedback when I thought it was important. During my son’s first year at University, I worried about the big change, but he looked so happy with his shaved head, purple skin, and purple jacket. Kids don’t phone home anymore. Instead they text and they are online. I’m happy to jump in with both feet (or thumbs).

The mind works in mysterious ways because I thought, if more moms are on Facebook then why aren’t more businesses on social networks where customers and top talent choose to be?

Over 17 million Canadians are on social networks, with 50% visiting a social media site about once a week and 35% visiting every day! Facebook has over 750 million users worldwide. LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, have continued to grow. Yet only 1 in 5 Canadian companies post and monitor social media discussions regularly. Posting and monitoring are thought to be the pillars of effective social media use. (Katie Delahaye Paine, CEO, KDPaine & Partners). The reasons for not embracing social media ranged from a lack of resources to the thought that it was a waste of energy and time.

What do you think? Is your organization taking the leap to embrace social media and social networking like moms are flocking to Facebook? Share your comments.

Best regards, Joanne Royce

P.S. If you need help developing social media and social networking strategies, to support your people, find future talent,and build company brand, contact us.

In my volunteer role as Programs and Mentoring Director with the HRPA Halton Chapter, I was fortunate to book Rob Catalano, from Achievers (formerly iloverewards) to speak to our dedicated group of HR professionals this week. He spoke about 2012 Trends in Recognition: Using Recognition to Drive Employee Engagement. His presentation was impactful, inspiring and engaging.  Here are a few highlights:

Make sure recognition is specific, meaningful, and timely.

What gets recognized gets repeated.

Make it quick, easy, and fun to recognize performers.

Recognize results not presence.

Three Trends in Recognition

1.  Peer recognition: People want recognition not just from their managers, but from their peers, especially Gen X and Gen Y.  Recognition that is top-down only is not the best process to engage employees.

2.  Results based recognition – Don’t fund recognition programs based only on years of service when the average tenure of employees is now 1.8 years.  People will leave before they reach years of service milestones, especially if results are not recognized. Design recognition programs based on results.

3. Social recognition™ - This concept means the ability to take company recognition and share it easily on social networks like Facebook & LinkedIn.  Rather than be afraid that a company’s top talent will be “raided” HR needs to embrace this concept because it helps build individual and COMPANY brand as a great place to work.

Features of the NEW recognition program

Give me feedback – people are actively seeking feedback so build a program that makes it easy to give and receive feedback based on what it takes to succeed.

Gamification – employees (especially Gen X and Gen Y) enjoy earning points or badges, like in on-line games, or Scouts and Brownies, as recognition for specific performance results and behaviour. It makes it fun to achieve.

Portability – company recognition is portable so it can streamed to personal profiles on LinkedIn, Facebook, and personal profile websites, helping build individual and company brand.

Employee predictability – recognition highlights the top performers and is an early warning sign for low performers.  Low performers may ultimately leave because it becomes obvious they are under performing.

How to build a recognition culture and program

1.  Ask employees – “Are you engaged?”

2.  Involve employees in the development of the program.

3.  Get executive buy in by using data, such as employee engagement surveys, and stats on employee engagement and the bottom line.

4.  Identify the core competencies and behaviours that are critical success indicators for the company.

5.  Just do it.  Build a recognition rhythm based on results.

6.  Train everyone on the competencies, desired results and behaviour based on performance (not popularity) and how to give and receive recognition that is meaningful, specific, and timely.

7.  Make the program simple, instantaneous, fun, and flexible with choice.

So what kind of recognition program do you have in place at your organization?  Are you recognizing employees for showing up on the job, or are you recognizing your top performers based on results and behaviours that result in success?   If you need help building a results based recognition culture that engages the hearts and minds of employees contact us now.

Best regards, Joanne Royce

P.S.  What do you think about trends in recognition? Provide your insight and thoughts in the comments sections.

Last week’s blog post was about “What not to do when looking for a job.”  But on the other side of the coin, many candidates have told me stories about bad recruiting practices. They also tell their friends and families and they tell others, ultimately damaging the corporate brand. If you are looking to be an employer of choice, then make sure your recruiters and hiring managers are enhancing the company image rather than tearing it down.

What not to do when recruiting talent

Do Not …

1. Tell a candidate that you will call them on a specific day and then not call them.

2. Reject all candidates because your expectations are unreasonable or the candidate is not a clone of you.

3. Make judgements and assumptions because a candidate went to a specific university or looks like a person from the past that did or didn’t work out.

4. Keep a candidate waiting in the reception area when you’ve set a time for an interview or waiting for an offer once you’ve made your hiring decision.

5. Make the candidate travel back and forth for multiple individual interviews instead of a panel interview or SKYPE interviews especially when the candidate has a distance to travel.

6. Bully or lecture a candidate by criticizing his/her resume, answers and appearance, or talk about all your achievements instead of letting the candidate reveal his/her achievements, strengths, and interests.

7. Sugar coat and “oversell” the job or exaggerate the culture of the organization.

8. Tweet that you are about to extend a job offer to “Name the candidate.”

9. Ask a candidate, “Why are you stuttering?”

10. Look at only the skills and knowledge, and forget to screen the candidate on fit with the team and culture so they are set up for failure from the start.

While reading through the list, did anything shock you! Unfortunately, there are bad practices and downright rudeness evident in some recruiting practices today. If you are wanting to be an employer of choice make sure you have best practice recruiting in place.

Call us if you to need to train and develop your recruiting and management team so they can Hire the Best and build company brand and a great place to work at the same time.  And if you have any good or bad recruiter stories, please share them.

Best regards, Joanne Royce

P.S. The person who asked a candidate the question in #9, also needs AODA training!