Managers: Be Upfront with Staff to Build Workplace Resilience

Anew pandemic-related study found that workplace resilience—how employees respond to obstacles—is developed when managers and senior leadership keep employees informed about organizational challenges and the near-term future of the business.

Workplace engagement expert Marcus Buckingham, head of the ADP Research Institute, surveyed 26,500

employees from 25 countries in June to understand the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the workplace. Buckingham revealed results of the study at the HR Technology Conference and Exposition held virtually Oct. 27-30.

The main conclusions were that workers' resilience levels around the world are low— just 17 percent of workers overall from the surveyed countries were shown to be highly resilient—but resilience increases with direct, personal experience with the coronavirus.

"We humans do better psychologically when we deal with reality head-on," Buckingham said. "We do not need senior leadership to sugarcoat things and pretend that things will go back to normal. People need facts, not blithe reassurance. Their well-being is preserved, not diminished, when they can see the reality of the situation and respond to it, rather than when it is hidden from them or unknown."

He added that the realization should be eye-opening for managers. Mollifying employees or being vague about what is happening during a crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic "will not make them feel better," he said. "When people know what is happening, they can build resilience, overcome fear and access their capacity."

The ADP Research Institute came up with a series of questions to measure resilience at work, including questions about autonomy, the ability to compartmentalize, the ability to find strength in work, optimism about the future, and whether or not managers and senior leaders are trusted. Survey participants were also asked how they had personally been affected by COVID-19, what workplace changes they had experienced and which of those changes they thought would become permanent.

"We were able to calculate which employees are highly resilient—demonstrating agency and the ability to compartmentalize, while feeling psychological safety and demonstrating trust in their leaders' ability to anticipate the future, communicate and follow through on commitments," Buckingham said.

His prediction going into the project was that the respondents from countries that had responded most effectively to the pandemic, such as Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan, would display the most resilience, while workers from countries more severely impacted by the virus like Brazil, India and the United States would show comparatively lower levels of resilience.

"To my surprise, this thesis did not hold up," he said. The countries with the highest percentage of highly resilient employees were India (32 percent), Saudi Arabia (26 percent) and the United Arab Emirates (24 percent), followed by the United States (16 percent).

The countries with the lowest percentage of highly resilient employees were South Korea, Sweden and Taiwan (all with 8 percent).

The data showed that there was no statistically significant difference in resilience based on factors such as gender or age. But one variant factor made a big difference—more direct experience with COVID-19 led to higher resilience.

If someone responded that he or she had had COVID-19, cared for a loved one with the virus, or knew a friend or work colleague with it, that individual was three times more likely to be highly resilient than someone who didn't. If the respondent answered "yes" to all the COVID-19 impact questions, he or she was four times more likely to be highly resilient.

Experiencing workplace changes and disruptions, such as the use of protective gear, sudden remote work, and layoffs or furloughs, also led to high resilience.

"Workers who experienced at least five changes at work were 13 times more likely to be highly resilient," Buckingham said.

The experience of change also influenced expectations for the future of work. The more changes workers experienced, the more likely they were to predict that such changes would become permanent.

The study also found that while employee engagement and resilience are related, they are independent of one another. "You can be highly resilient but not very engaged, and very engaged but not very resilient," he said.

There's one thing managers can do to build both engagement and resilience, Buckingham added: "If things are changing quickly, like the year we just experienced with COVID-19, an antidote to that is frequent check-ins. Ask your employees at least weekly, 'What are you working on?' and 'How can I help you?' "

SOURCE: Maurer, R. (11 November 2020) "Managers: Be Upfront with Staff to Build Workplace Resilience" (WeB Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/news/hr-news/pages/managers-be-upfront-with-staff-to-build-workplace-resilience.aspx


Recruitment Research: A New Way to Find Top Talent

Many HR leaders and hiring managers want what is best for their organization. Prior to the year 2020 starting, a main and common goal was to attract and retain the top talent in their industries. Read this blog post to learn more.


Attracting and retaining top talent was the prevailing crisis for company leaders and HR heading into 2020. That was before a deadly virus wreaked havoc on the nation's economy and the unemployment rate went from a historic low to the highest since the Great Depression. COVID-19 has left millions of Americans out of work, yet some companies are still in a hiring mode. The challenge for hiring managers now is that they must wade through mounds of resumes to find the perfect candidate, and they must do it with a much smaller recruitment budget.

"For many companies, revenues are down, but there are still critical positions to fill," said Kathleen Duffy, president and CEO of Duffy Group, Inc., a global sourcing and recruitment firm based in Phoenix. What may come as a surprise is that some jobs are still tough to fill, she said.

Before the health crisis, companies addressed the talent shortfall by stockpiling high-demand workers with specific skill sets, even if there were no jobs available for them. This included a large percentage of hiring managers—about 77 percent—who hired for positions that did not exist a year earlier, according to research by Korn Ferry.

"Whether in traditional industries such as home health care or technology, or emerging fields like baby tech, CBD products or selfie services, there still don't seem to be enough qualified candidates to go around," Duffy said.

One way to combat the problem is for hiring managers to re-evaluate how they recruit candidates. That means considering approaches beyond adding more in-house recruiters, as well as contracting for retained and contingency searches. One often-overlooked alternative that has emerged in the last decade is recruitment research.

Recruitment Research Defined

An offshoot of the executive search industry, recruitment research is a multistep methodology that targets desired candidates and connects them with employers using a flexible pricing model.

"The process is equal parts detective and skilled salesperson," Duffy said. "It begins with taking a deep dive into the company and its business, and ends with a list of interested, qualified candidates."

At the core of the process is strategy, according to Marcia Mintz, CEO of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Metropolitan Phoenix. When Mintz was hired to lead the organization four years ago, she had two key positions to fill immediately. "I needed to see a diverse pool of candidates with fundraising and staff coaching experience," she said.

Because the internal environment of Boys & Girls Clubs was changing, it was imperative to find leaders who not only had the skills to do the job, but whose personalities would fit into the new culture. The recruitment team leveraged its network to identify passive candidates at top local competitors and nonprofits in other parts of the nation, Mintz said.

"Ultimately, the process helped us increase the scope and quality of candidates while providing a highly cost-efficient alternative to traditional recruitment," she said.

The Building Blocks

Part art and part science, recruitment research entails some key steps. The foundation is a sourcing strategy, which includes an in-depth situation assessment to understand the culture and personality of the hiring company, along with the job's requirements, responsibilities and specific skill set needed. Using a comprehensive intake form, the recruitment team collects data about the company's recruiting targets, geographic preferences, salary and compensation levels, communication expectations, and industry-specific vernacular.

Next comes name generation. Armed with information from the hiring manager and others, the recruiter can identify candidates whose backgrounds, education and experiences dovetail with their company's needs. This is accomplished using a variety of methods, from cold-calling and Internet tools to probing professional organizations, trade shows and chambers of commerce. The goal is to find not only people who are looking for new careers but also those passive candidates who may not be looking at all.

"It's important to think outside of the box," said Victoria McCoy, former executive vice president of organizational strategy at the global information technology company Cyberscout in Cranston, R.I. "That means knowing where the best talent is working today, whether it is at one of your competitors or in another role at your company."

List in hand, the recruitment team is then ready to contact and prequalify candidates as part of the recruitment candidate vetting. Duffy said it is important to create sizzle around why potential hires should consider the opportunity. "In addition to courting the candidate, this is also the time to ask some all-important questions, including their interest in relocating to a particular area, if they have the right education and experience, and if they have a genuine interest in the job the client is trying to fill," she said.

Duffy's firm may search as many as 100 candidates for one position and then present the top three to five most qualified and fully screened candidates for interviews. These candidates are typically seen within 15 days of the start of the search. That's important, given that recruitment research takes a different approach to finding top talent, using a model based on billable hours, much like a CPA or an attorney.

The final step—presentation and reporting—gives hiring leaders a recap of the results and a database of all candidates for the open position that they can keep on hand for future searches.

Recruitment research isn't limited to outside recruitment firms. Internal company hiring managers have the institutional knowledge to use recruitment research effectively as well.

"They should apply the same elements of the process, starting by learning all they can about the company or the business unit for which they are hiring," Duffy said. "And they should put themselves in the candidate's shoes to create a story that will pique interest in the position and differentiate their company from competitors."

Whether internally, externally or as a collaboration, recruitment research can be a cost-effective, efficient approach to helping companies find their next new hire.

SOURCE: Magruder, J. (01 July 2020) "Recruitment Research: A New Way to Find Top Talent" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/talent-acquisition/pages/recruitment-research-a-new-way-to-find-top-talent.aspx


3 tips for a successful virtual internship program

The coronavirus pandemic has created many disruptions for the workforce and many workplaces. Another disruption that has been caused has been a disruption in career development that is gained through internship programs. Read this blog post to learn more.


The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted all manner of talent development and acquisition activities, including internship programs.

Talent acquisition software firm Yello found in an April survey of college students that more than one-third (35%) of those who had accepted internship offers had seen their internships canceled, while 24% said their internships would be virtual. A separate April poll of employers by the National Association of Colleges and Employers found 22% of employers revoked offers to interns but that generally, "employers are adapting their summer 2020 internship programs by moving as much programming to a virtual space as possible."

Indeed, a number of larger employers have announced in recent months an intent to move internships to virtual status, similar to other roles. Microsoft, which was set to host 4,000 interns this summer, announced its shift to a virtual program in April. Kathleen Hogan, the company's executive vice president and chief people officer, previously said that students would be encouraged to "co-create their summer experience" while the program would also help shape the company's broader virtual employee experience.

Below are three ways employers can enhance their virtual internships.

#1: Choose accessible tech tools

In the scramble to move operations remote, employers have likely settled on solutions for video chat, team communication, presentations and other organizational functions. But it's important that these tools are available and accessible to interns, Bo Goliber, Head of Philanthropy at marketing agency Fingerpaint, told HR Dive in an email.

"We have some tools that work best for smaller, internal meetings, and others that we use for our clients," said Goliber, who is the creator and manager of Fingerpaint's internship program. "Our interns have access to anything our full-time staff would be using."

Shared software can enable interns to work in company systems using their own computers. That's the approach taken by Fannie Mae this summer: The mortgage financing company's nearly 140 interns use programs like Microsoft Teams, Whiteboard and Cisco Webex, Teresa Green, vice president of talent acquisition programs, told HR Dive in an interview. To keep in touch with team members, Fannie Mae's interns also have access to Yammer, a social networking service, as well as a dedicated Microsoft Teams site.

#2: Ensure equity

Even before the pandemic, employers considered a variety of factors, including manager reviews, when assessing interns' performances. In a virtual environment, managers at Fannie Mae work with interns to develop summer work plans that outline an intern's tasks and target skills to be developed and later used as the basis for evaluations, Green said. The company is also collecting feedback from other team members on their interactions with interns.

At Fingerpaint, both managers and interns fill out evaluation forms with questions that focus on areas including communication, presentation, performance and overall skills, Goliber said. The company schedules additional check-ins with teams, managers and the internships facilitators at each of its individual offices.

"Our expectations for both interns and managers remain high, and we ensure proper training to navigate through any possible challenges that may arise from being virtual," Goliber added.

The issue of compensation has been one of concern for recent graduates as they endure the pandemic. Previous research cited in a 2019 analysis by researchers at the Stanford University Institute for Economic Policy Research showed that college graduates who started their working lives during a recession earned less for at least 10 to 15 years than those who graduated during more prosperous years. As COVID-19 impacts interns, some companies have publicly stated their intent to pay interns through the pandemic, sometimes regardless of delayed start dates.

Neither Fingerpaint nor Fannie Mae are changing the ways their interns are compensated this year, Goliber and Green said. In fact, Fannie Mae is also continuing to offer payments to interns for summer housing and commuting costs that have been offered in previous years. "We still honored that, because they made some of those investments already and we didn't want to put them at a disadvantage," Green added.

Fingerpaint has not wavered from the compensation promised to interns in the company's offer letters sent back in February, Goliber said: "Because the capabilities and expectations of our interns did not change, we believe the interns should be paid for their talent and work, no matter where they are physically performing it."

#3: Keep traditions and culture alive

Experience has been a key point of focus for HR departments as employees remain socially distanced, and Fannie Mae has extended this focus to internships by creating "business mentors," a new internal role, according to Green. Business mentors work with interns on building relationships, connecting them with other employees and identifying mentorship opportunities.

The initiative is in part meant to provide a replacement for the lack of "casual collisions," or chance interactions, interns might otherwise have with other employees in a normal office setting, Green said. Fannie Mae interns have connections with their managers, "but we knew they needed more than that," she added. "We needed to create another way to engage with them and show them other areas across the company."

Virtual meetings have replaced coffee runs and lunches for many employers, but interns should have the opportunity to participate as well, Goliber said, which is why Fingerpaint designates times for virtual meetings that allow interns to connect. "We want to ensure everyone feels seen and heard — not only as an intern team, but also as individuals," she added.

Employers should also plan to keep annual traditions alive, however small. Fannie Mae interns will still receive t-shirts, Green said, but they also have the opportunity to participate in virtual community service events. The company confirmed to HR Dive that its interns will participate in a virtual event with the nonprofit Love for the Elderly, collecting homemade cards and mailing them to global older adult communities.

SOURCE: Golden, R. (30 June 2020) "3 tips for a successful virtual internship program" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.hrdive.com/news/3-tips-for-a-successful-virtual-internship-program/580803/


How Managers Are Handling Performance Reviews During COVID-19

With many employees working from home during this coronavirus pandemic, many HR managers are facing unknown challenges in supervising employees and implementing performance reviews from afar. Read this blog post from SHRM to learn more.


As millions of Americans work remotely during the coronavirus pandemic, managers unaccustomed to supervising employees from afar face challenges in evaluating performance and providing good feedback.

"Most of the components of our performance reviews have been discarded during the coronavirus crisis," said Mike Falahee, chief executive officer at Marygrove Awning Co. in Livonia, Mich. "After all, how can we review someone who can't do their job the way they're accustomed to doing it?"

Shifting Tactics

No doubt, many company leaders share that sentiment as the world of work has changed swiftly in the past eight weeks. In that time, many companies have shifted to remote-only operations.

According to a Gallup survey, the percentage of workers who say their employer offered them flextime or remote-work options grew from 39 percent in mid-March to 57 percent by early April.

Additionally, 62 percent of employed Americans say they've "worked from home during the crisis, a number that has doubled since mid-March," according to Gallup.

Company leaders and managers say several strategies—some that were in place before the virus, some that are new—have helped them measure workforce production in the age of COVID-19.

Kerry Norman is vice president of talent solutions at CHG Software in Salt Lake City. Several years ago, CHG decided to ditch its traditional annual performance reviews for front-line employees.

"We found that it was ineffective for several reasons," Norman said. "First, it was a look backward, so it didn't help improve future performance. Second, it wasn't an effective measurement tool because assessments varied so greatly from one leader to the next. Third, it was disengaging for employees. It felt more like a judgment than a motivational tool."

Now the company focuses on providing "in-the-moment" feedback, and that has proved helpful during the virus.

"We want people to know what they're doing right and where they can improve, rather than waiting until the end of the year when it's too late to do anything about it," Norman said.

Shifting Roles

The pandemic is also forcing everyone at CHG, managers as well as their staff, to be more flexible. That means employees are taking on new roles, some for which they've never been trained. And managers must show flexibility when evaluating these workers, allowing time for a learning curve and understanding that there will be hiccups.

"Our people are now learning their skills can be used in ways they never knew existed, and they're helping in areas of the company that may have been foreign to them just weeks ago," Norman said.

Andres Lares is a managing partner at Shapiro Negotiations Institute in Baltimore. Before the virus hit, the company conducted formal reviews once a year. Now, Lares said, his firm's managers check in with workers weekly.

Moreover, his firm's managers have, for now, stopped evaluating employees based on the revenue they generate. Instead, he said, "we want to see our marketing team reach out to more people than ever via phone or e-mail during this time. In doing so, we're not emphasizing sales and revenue in the short term, but we are tracking demonstrated thought leadership from our employees that leads to more sales" in the future.

Adem Selita is chief executive officer at the Debt Relief Co. in New York City, which already had an automated performance system that tracked employees' metrics by the day, week, month and year.

With COVID-19 shaking up the company's office culture, that system has changed. These days, each performance review is scheduled more than a week in advance and employees are sent a template to fill out with instructions. Employees send back their responses for the manager to look over and use as a guide during the review.

"While time is still spent on going over output, the emphasis now is on what the employee needs help with, what they'd like to work on, ultimately with three takeaways the employee will focus on and discuss in the next review with their manager," Selita said.

Communication Challenges

Following this new performance review blueprint hasn't been easy during the pandemic.

"The biggest setback at first was communications," he said. "We're moving from a management culture where leaders are steps away from an employee's desk to a scenario where leadership isn't physically present. That leads to many questions not being asked [by the manager or employee] until it comes time for performance reviews."

On the upside, managers have noted new opportunities to discuss performance more broadly.

"With traditional performance reviews, employees were using much of their allotted time discussing small-ticket items, leaving them with little time to focus on development and what they can do better," Selita said. "By establishing more regular check-ins, we've found that employees are leaving sessions feeling more capable and motivated than ever."

Ken Eulo is a founding partner at Smith & Eulo Law Firm in Orlando, Fla. His firm has decided to push back performance reviews entirely during the coronavirus crisis.

"We believe it's unfair to hold employees to the same standards during this outbreak," he said. "The economy is suffering, and we are offering limited services as a firm. Consequently, we have completely halted performance reviews for the time being, as we can't find reasonable parameters to measure each employee's performance due to the circumstances."

Eulo said his firm will resume performance reviews when its services return to normal.

"For the time being, we are trusting employees to hold themselves accountable," he said.

SOURCE: O'Connell, B. (28 April 2020) "How Managers Are Handling Performance Reviews During COVID-19" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/people-managers/pages/performance-reviews-during-coronavirus-.aspx


Company Gifts That Workers Hate

Although giving a gift to compensate for a job well done can often lead to employees feeling unappreciated and may cause them to think the gift and feeling behind it is superficial. Read this blog post to learn more about gift-giving in the workplace.


Coffee mugs and water bottles emblazoned with the company's logo. Gift cards to stores that employees rarely visit.

These are among the gifts that managers give to workers—and that workers hate, that make them feel unappreciated, and that leave the impression that their employers are thoughtless.

So says a survey by Snappy, the New York City-based employee engagement company, which found that more than 8 in 10 U.S. employees have received a workplace gift—mostly from managers—that they didn't want.

Whether it's for an employee's birthday, for a work anniversary, or to celebrate the holidays, the survey of more than 1,000 U.S. workers demonstrates that managers may want to give more thought to workplace gift-giving.

No Logos, Please

Almost 3 in 4 workers would prefer to get a gift without their company logo on it, according to the survey, which Snappy conducted in September.

"Some employees have reported to me that they don't mind some gifts with logos, but they resent feeling like a 'walking billboard' for the company," said Paul White, who has a Ph.D. in psychology, is president of Appreciation at Work, and is co-author of The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace (Northfield Publishing, 2019). "Others state that when they are given gifts that have the company's logo, the item immediately is disqualified as a gift—because the focus of the item is the company, not the recipient."

White's research into how more than 100,000 employees feel about the workplace found that only 6 percent identified gifts as the primary way they want a company to show appreciation—far below getting words of affirmation (46 percent), quality time with a supervisor or co-workers (26 percent) and getting help from supervisors or colleagues on a project (22 percent).

"Employees are not saying they do not want tangible rewards … for doing good work," White wrote. "But what the data show is that when choosing comparatively between words of affirmation, quality time or an act of service—receiving a gift is far less meaningful than appreciation communicated through these actions. For example, employees often comment, 'If I receive some gift but I never hear any praise, no one stops to see how I'm doing, or I never get any help—the gift feels superficial.' "

Are Companies Catching On?

One would think, given research and books like White's that demonstrate how people feel about workplace gifts, that managers would adjust their gift-giving practices. Often, they don't because no one asks employees what they thought about the present. Workers are in a tight spot: If they complain or don't seem enthused, they may be seen as ungrateful or demanding, White said.

In fact, the Snappy survey found that of those workers who got a gift they didn't like, 9 in 10 pretended they liked the gift anyway.

"The leader needs to be interested in what the meaning or message of the gift is, [but] most often, it is a rather thoughtless process," White said. "In work relationships, it is the thought that counts. For employees who value gifts, either giving everyone the same item or giving them a generic gift with no thought or personal meaning is actually offensive."

Cord Himelstein is vice president of marketing and communications for HALO Recognition, an employee rewards and incentives company based in Long Island City, N.Y. He said he thinks companies are paying attention to their gift-giving practices. He noted recent data from WorldatWork showed that about 44 percent of recognition programs get updated or changed every year.

"If management isn't actively listening and applying feedback in a systematic way, then there's no point in offering gifts at all," he said. "Nailing down the right balance of rewards that employees really love takes time and effort."

Best and Worst Gifts

Respondents said that some of the "worst" gifts employers ever gave them included a pin, a plaque, and a gift card to a store they'd never visited.

In fact, more than 3 in 4 said a gift card is less meaningful than an actual gift, and almost 9 in 10 admitted that they'd lost the gift card or forgotten that it had a balance on it.

"Gift cards feel transactional and impersonal," said Hani Goldstein, co-founder and CEO of Snappy. "Employers fail to realize that gift cards put a price tag on the recipient's value and make them feel like they're worth $25. Our research points to one key insight: The most appreciated gifts aren't impactful because of their actual monetary value. What matters most is what the gifts are and how they are given."

Employers should remember that things like pins and plaques, Himelstein said, "are commemorative add-ons, not whole gifts, and should always be supplemented with more substantial and appropriate rewards."

Employees also described some of the "best" gifts employers gave them, which included an espresso machine, a trip to Paris, an iPad and a television.

White noted that such expensive gifts can be impractical for a company. They may be appropriate in rare situations, White said, such as rewarding a worker who reached an exceptional goal or recognizing someone who's served long and well.

"Generally, meaningful gifts between employees and supervisors are more impactful when they are personal and thoughtful rather than pricey," he said.

Himelstein said more expensive gifts—at least those more expensive than mugs or pins—"aren't only practical, it's a best practice."

"Nobody wants a cheap gift for their hard work, and employees can always tell when the company isn't trying," he said. "Also, don't lose sight of the fact that you don't need to constantly shower employees with expensive gifts to make them feel appreciated."

SOURCE: Wilkie, D. (03 March 2020) "Company Gifts That Workers Hate" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/employee-relations/pages/gifts-workers-hate-.aspx


Viewpoint: Your First 90 Days as a New Manager

Did you know: the average turnover rate, from the Vice President Level, has decreased from 3.3 to 2.2 years. With this being said, it's important that when coming in as a new manager that the first few words said will impact the image given to colleagues. Read this blog post from SHRM to learn helpful tips on how to make being the new manager a little less difficult.


"The president of the United States gets 100 days to prove himself. You get 90."

That's how author Michael D. Watkins opens his seminal book on leadership transitions, The First 90 Days. The three-month period, as he explains, is a quarter, the time frame used by companies to track performance, and it is long enough to offer meaningful indicators of how a new manager is doing. Research shows that success or failure within the first few months of a new management role is often an accurate predictor of ultimate success, he adds.

"When leaders derail, their failures can almost always be traced to vicious cycles that developed in the first few months on the job," Watkins writes.

These vicious cycles frequently begin in a few similar ways, says leadership expert George Bradt, co-author (with Jayme Check and John Lawler) of The New Leader's 100-Day Action Plan. Some new managers do not realize the impact of their early words and actions, and are inadvertently sending colleagues the wrong message. Others focus on a new strategy before earning trust and support from the team. Others expend too much energy on the wrong projects and neglect the priorities of stakeholders, Bradt writes.

Moreover, recent widespread trends in the business world have made the task of mastering the first three months on the job even more important for new managers, Watkins says. Chief among these trends is that management is turning over at a faster and faster rate.

"The pace of transition has gone up pretty dramatically," says Watkins. As evidence, Watkins cites a recent study of Fortune 100 global healthcare companies. Since 2013, average turnover time at the vice president level decreased from 3.2 years to 2.2 years. "There's a premium on getting up to speed faster," he explains.

Watkins's approach is to break down a new manager's first 90 days into 10 separate directives: Prepare Yourself; Accelerate Your Learning; Match Strategy to Situation; Negotiate Success; Secure Early Wins; Achieve Alignment; Build Your Team; Create Alliances; Manage Yourself; and Accelerate Everyone.

Given this, we asked Watkins and Bradt to contextualize their guidance and highlight key best practices for managers. We also asked a few seasoned managers with successful track records in new leadership roles to provide their insight and perspective on what drove their success.

Preparing and Assessing

Preparation for a new managing role is crucial, and the preparation process should begin before the first day on the job. In most cases, it should start before the first job interview, explains Michael Sarni, CPP, recruiting and training officer for the Emergency Management Agency of the City of Lockport (Illinois), and president of Security Consulting Specialists.

In Sarni's view, a manager candidate conducts due diligence research on the company before being interviewed. The information-gathering process continues during the interviews, with the manager candidate asking informed questions about role expectations and the workplace environment. "A good manager…should always be preparing for future outcomes," Sarni says. "This must start before the first day they walk in the door and continue to the last day they leave the office."

Of course, the manager should also take time before the interview to prepare answers to common interview questions. In Bradt's view, all interview questions boil down to one of three basic questions: What are your strengths? Will you be motivated? Are you a fit for the organization? Given this, managers should prepare answers before the interview that convey three fundamental points: My strengths are a match for this job. My motivations are a match for this job. I am a good fit for this organization.

Another key aspect of preparation is learning about and assessing the company's culture. "I think understanding the culture—and adjusting one's approach accordingly to new challenges and opportunities—is ultimately the key to success in the first 90 days," Sarni says.

Sometimes, a manager can do this by using scouts and spies: customers, former or current employees, or anyone who has been involved with the firm and can speak to its culture, Bradt says. Sometimes, these associates can be a good source of information on an organization's unwritten norms, such as the actual hours most work, as opposed to the hours prescribed in the employee handbook; how employees socialize outside the office; how connected and active staff is through email and texting; and more.

Managers can also learn about the firm's culture simply by being hyper-observant every time they visit the office–taking note of people's interactions and demeanor, their dress, the office's physical set-up and structure, noise level, and other signs. "You can learn an awful lot by simply walking into a place," Bradt says.

In general, new managers who fail to understand a company's culture stand a much higher chance of ultimately being rejected by it. But now, Watkins says, with millennials representing the largest generation in the U.S. workforce, a new dynamic has come into play. A millennial employee joining a new company may in fact make the effort to assess the company's culture—but find it lacking. "They're not terribly tolerant, necessarily," Watkins says with a laugh.

This has created a crossroads, he says: "Is it incumbent on them to adapt to the culture? Or will they ultimately be the agents of change of the culture?" At some firms, the current situation is bi-directional adaptation: millennial employees try to fit in with the culture (at least in some ways), but the company also tries to evolve its own culture so that younger employees stay engaged and not leave. "A lot of companies are grappling with that. It's a real generational shift," Watkins says.

Overall, it behooves new managers to be aware of this generational shift and consider how they might contribute to the company's overall goal of ensuring its culture does not drive away promising employees. "Onboarding is the leading edge of engagement, and engagement is a core part of retention," Watkins says.

Owning Day One

Although preparing, learning and assessing are all key steps before the job begins, they alone will not guarantee a successful transition, experts say. The first several days of the new role will bring their own challenges.

Rex Lam, a Hong Kong-based senior consultant with Guardian Forest Security, has successfully transitioned into a few different management positions since he joined the security industry 15 years ago. While he also supports the importance of preparation, he says that well-prepared managers who are excited about their new ideas must avoid coming off as a know-it-all.

"Avoid the impulse to immediately want to make an impact for the good by changing everything. The attitude should be to learn and listen first, and do not let perfection be the enemy of good," Lam says.

Sarni advises extending the learning process that most new managers undergo in the early days, so that it covers more than just the security department. "Taking a methodical approach to learning as much as you can, not only about your own department and how it fits into the organization, but also about all the other departments with which security impacts operations and culture, should be an early objective," he explains.

He also recommends that new managers try to make the effort to learn what's below the surface. "Always dig a little deeper to learn and understand an operation further. The more one is prepared for the unexpected, the easier it is to adapt when the unforeseen challenge presents itself," he adds.

Bradt agrees with the importance of listening and soaking in information as soon as the job begins, but he also said that too many managers show up with a passive, just-do-no-harm attitude. This is inadvisable; all eyes are on a new manager during the first few days and people start forming opinions based on limited contact. "If you show up looking clueless, people are going to assume you're clueless," Bradt says.

Instead, new managers should come in on the first day with ideas of how they want to position themselves strategically, and what message they want to convey. Then they can listen and learn, and also ask directed questions that support this strategy and message.

Bradt offered the following example to illustrate: A new manager, taking over a leadership position, does due diligence and finds that while the firm is in decent financial shape, competitors are nipping at its heels and gaining ground. So on day one, the new manager listens and learns, but also asks many other department heads, "I've looked at what you've done so far, and it's amazing. What do you think you're going to do next to stay ahead of the curve?" That type of directed question reflects an active focus-on-the-future strategy and message, rather than a passive approach, Bradt explains.

Similarly, a new manager for a firm that needs to be more customer-focused can decide to spend some of day one meeting with customers, outside of headquarters. Here, Bradt recommends following the leadership maxim "Be, Do, Say." New leaders will be judged on all three, in that order of influence. What a leader says comes third; what a leader does comes second; who a leader is comes first. So, if a new leader continues to meet with customers through the first 90 days, at some point the leader will "be" a customer-focused leader in the eyes of staff. That will be part of his or her identity.

Early Wins

Early accomplishments, even small ones, are usually a big boost toward ultimate success for new leaders. If someone asks an employee, "How's the new manager?," while it's nice if the employee says he or she is likable, it's even more indicative of future success if the employee can say he or she already accomplished X.

Lam offers the example of taking over a management position for a company that wanted to alter operations so that it could plan more than three years ahead of time, rather than focusing completely on the current workload. For Lam, targeting the underlying systemic issue led to an early win. "The key is to identify the bottleneck and focus on eliminating the root cause," Lam says.

In this case, Lam identified the bottleneck—inefficient processes—that prevented the team from having enough resources and time for advance planning. So, he decided to target inefficiencies. He improved the resource allocation process for the service team; the team's quality of work increased, and costs immediately went down because outside service contractors were no longer needed. The team was also spending too much time filling out detailed reports for small expenses such as subway and bus fares; Lam distributed pre-paid cards, and this tradeoff won back time for staff.

The cost and time savings became quickly apparent, resulting in an early win for the new manager and eventually developed into a significant accomplishment. "I was fortunate to make the correct decisions," Lam says.

And the chances for notching early accomplishments increase if they are based on a broader strategy that is appropriate for the type of mission that is needed. Watkins recommends that new managers use his STARS model to match strategy and situation. Using this model, the new manager must assess the business mission at hand (Start-Up, Turnaround, Accelerated Growth, Realignment, Sustaining Success) before designing an appropriate approach and strategy.

Alignments and Allies

Often, Watkins's directives of Achieve Alignment and Create Alliances are related for new managers in the security field, Sarni says. Since security touches on every facet of a company, alliances between the security manager and managers in other departments are critical. These alliances can be made with the goal of interdepartmental collaboration, for the benefit of all.

"Often, the security function is viewed as a hindrance to operations in other areas of the organization," Sarni says. "But, if the security manager takes the time to learn as much as possible about those operations and proceed from the philosophy of being a partner with those other functions, security can find ways to not only better secure the environment, but also improve upon methodologies others are using."

Toward this aim, the new security manager can begin to educate selected managers from other departments about how security can align with and support that department's goals and objectives. "Building those partnerships and empowering other departments to feel that they have a stake in security's outcomes—and showing how it can benefit them—dramatically improves the chances of success," Sarni explains.

However, Sarni concedes that this is no easy mission. It takes people skills, emotional intelligence and some deft explaining. "These concepts may sound simple enough in theory, but the reality is far more challenging and delicate," Sarni says. "The brute force approach, even with a mandate, rarely yields the best results. Finesse, patience and understanding the nuances of the environment generally yield the most desirable outcomes."

Forming alliances and creating alignments with other departments is especially crucial for new managers charged with overhauling operations. "Through most of my career I have acted as a 'change agent' for the organizations to which I have been hired," Sarni explains. "But even in that environment, where I have had a mandate from senior management, generating buy-in from peers in different areas of the organization has taken creativity, sensitivity, and perseverance."

On a one-on-one level, it's always best for the new manager to create alliances that function as a two-way street. When discussing issues with other managers, two questions are often very helpful, experts say: What is a best practice that will help me in this firm? How can I help you be successful?

Building Your Ever-Changing Team

Team building for new managers takes a certain mind-set, says Lam, and for new managers who previously worked on their own, it requires a mind shift toward the collective.

"When you are one person, you are the star. When you are the manager, you are a star maker," Lam says.

In many cases, one of two situations apply. A new manager will take over an existing team, with the hope that it will stay intact. Or, the new manager is tasked with building his or her own team. In either instance, one principle is equally valid, Bradt says: every team member should be playing to their strengths.

This should be kept in mind by new managers busy with building their own teams and actively hiring. And it should also be remembered by new managers inheriting an intact team. They should still do a "role sort" in the first 90 days, and make sure everyone is in the right job. A good skill set/role match could mean a star in the making, whereas a mismatch can make for all sorts of problems down the road. Bradt says that one of the top regrets cited by leaders is "not moving fast enough on people" (i.e., reassigning staffers to best-fit positions) earlier in their tenure.

Finally, Watkins cites two recent trends that may have a big impact on team leading. One trend is that more teams are becoming virtual, with some members in different time zones and less face-to-face communication. This type of team can still be managed effectively, but it can take additional skills that not all managers have.

The second trend is turnover. The rate of turnover for team members is even outpacing the rate increase for management turnover. This is true in part because younger workers are more likely to leave a job if they are dissatisfied with the company. As a result, many teams are in a state of constant flux.

"What I find now, pretty much consistently, is that virtually all teams are at some point of transition at any given point in time," Watkins says. This can mean an added challenge for the new manager: learning to lead a team consisting of parts that never completely stop moving.

The Future

What will the new managers of the future have to contend with?

In the last decade, culture has become more important to the ultimate success of the company, Bradt says. Fast forward 10 years, and that continues to the point where "culture is the only thing that matters." With the continuing advancement of technology, companies will be able to duplicate almost any type of competitive advantage in product and services and operations that their competitors may have.

So the only real meaningful component that will separate companies from each other is culture. "Their culture is the only thing they can own," he says.

As for Watkins, he believes that recent innovations like artificial intelligence and the growth of ever-more-sophisticated analytical machines may have a vast impact on how work is done, giving him some pause when he considers the future. He knows that the exact extent and ramifications of this transformation (including the impact on management), and the time frame, cannot be predicted with certainty. "But I tend to believe it's going to happen sooner rather than later," he says.

"I'm wondering if there will be managers in 10 years," he says. "Your manager could be an algorithm."

Mark Tarallo is senior content manager of  Security Management magazine.

This article is adapted from Security Management magazine with permission from ASIS © 2019. All rights reserved.

SOURCE: Tarallo, M. (19 February 2020) "Viewpoint: Your First 90 Days as a New Manager" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/organizational-and-employee-development/pages/viewpoint-your-first-90-days-as-a-new-manager.aspx


Implementing AI Technology for HR

Artificial intelligence (AI) has taken the tasks of collecting, copying, entering and checking data off of HR professional's hands. With advancements in technology, AI has become a way to open a variety of opportunities to influence a company's workflow. Read this blog post to learn about artificial intelligence and how it's developing HR managers and leaders.


When HR managers embark on implementing artificial intelligence (AI) into their company's workflow, they'll be grappling with a disruptive technology that changes the way people from HR leaders to recruiters to front-line employees work.

That may be why PwC's latest Human Resource Technology Survey of 599 HR and information technology (IT) leaders worldwide shows that those leaders are cautious about leveraging the technology to drive HR functions.

In fact, 63 percent of those surveyed have not yet implemented artificial intelligence for HR, and many cite various reasons that influenced their decision not to do so, including:

•Cost of implementation.
•Complexity of integration into the existing IT infrastructure.
•Lack of skilled staff.
•Lack of compelling use cases that can be tied to business outcomes.

But while they are hesitant to jump into using AI, 42 percent of respondents said they plan to implement AI for HR over the next one to three years. The technology opens significant possibilities.

"Human resource executives want their teams to focus on meaningful tasks, such as interpreting data, decision-making, storytelling and strategies that enrich the worker experience, which is what AI solutions can offer. Without AI, HR professionals are relegated to collecting, copying, entering, re-entering and checking data," said Mike Brennan, president of Leapgen, a Manhattan Beach, Calif.-based HR consulting firm.

HR leaders will have to find the right tools, team with the right partners, and find the best opportunities to apply AI to HR functions without causing employee anxiety.

Schneider Electric's Story

Andrew Saidy, vice president of talent digitization, talent acquisition and mobility at Schneider Electric, a multinational company based in Paris, oversaw the implementation of an AI-driven platform that revolutionized the talent mobility and career development processes at his company.

Three important factors pushed Schneider Electric, which employs approximately 144,000 employees across 100 countries, to make the change. First, more than half of Schneider's employees are Millennials, a generational group whose members change jobs more frequently than workers in other age groups. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average job tenure of Millennials is 2.8 years.

Second, 47 percent of Schneider employees surveyed in exit interviews said they were leaving because they couldn't find their next opportunity within the organization.

Third, the process of matching employees to job opportunities within the company was laborious, cumbersome and lengthy.

"Recruiters were spending weeks waiting for responses, making phone calls, sifting through CVs and selecting which candidates would be chosen for interviews," Saidy said.

With a clearly defined use case for its AI strategy, the company chose to develop a cloud-based, AI-driven talent market. The HR team had to decide whether to build or buy a solution.

"This is an idea we toyed with at the start because we are a technology company, we are a digital company, and we are leaders in digital energy management," Saidy said. "We have a strong team of enterprise IT developers, and we could have had the ability to build a talent platform internally as opposed to buying something outside of the market."

What surprised Schneider's HR team was that there are many vendors offering AI solutions for HR tasks, but having so many AI solution providers to choose from presents other issues.

"You have to be careful when you select a company for your AI project," he said. The vendors "need to be financially stable" and need to have "a clear product road map and customers with proven success. You can't just go for whoever is claiming to provide a solution."

After a three-month search, which included testing vendors' algorithms, Schneider's HR and digital teams decided to buy an internal talent product from Gloat, an Israeli technology company. The platform, called Open Talent Market, leverages AI to match employee resumes with open positions, including long-term jobs and short-term projects.

Part of the software evaluation involved letting employees register on the site and upload their education and experience to get a sense of whether they thought the tool was intuitive, easy to use and engaging. Schneider used a Net Promoter Score to assess employees' experience and enthusiasm for the tool.

The company monitored the number of employee registrations, short-term and long-term jobs that appeared on the site, and successful matches of qualified employees to job posts.

Schneider's HR team also tested the algorithm's ability to adequately address bias and evaluated its security features. Schneider chose software that doesn't require candidates to enter information related to gender or race, or place or date of birth.

Keeping in mind the difficulties Amazon experienced when it built an AI-driven recruiting system that perpetuated gender bias, Schneider is mindful that many of its jobs such as engineer, field technician or electrical engineer have typically been filled by male candidates, Saidy said.

Schneider's technical team also carefully considered the software's security capabilities, measures to protect from data breaches and secure integrations. This was particularly important when considering that Open Talent Market is connected to the company's applicant tracking system, learning management system and human resource information system, as well as LinkedIn.

Recruiter Adjustment

Since its launch in September 2018, Open Talent Market has put Schneider's managers in the driver's seat and has changed the role of some of the company's 200 recruiters—an adjustment that hasn't always been smooth, Saidy said.

"Initially, some recruiters had reservations on the Open Talent Market because of the way it changed their jobs [by giving more control to hiring managers] and took away from recruiters the tasks of sourcing and shortlisting internal candidates, now done by the platform."

Making sure recruiters continue to be motivated, engaged and enthusiastic about their job as their tasks change was a key consideration, Saidy said.

"To address this, we focused on why we put the Open Talent Market in place, what is in it for the recruiters, and how they reinvest their time consulting and supporting managers as well as employees' internal mobility. Keeping the lines of communication open with the teams is an especially important pillar of a successful change adoption."

SOURCE: Lewis, N. (09 January 2020) "Implementing AI Technology for HR" (Web Blog Post). Retrieved from shrm.org/ResourcesAndTools/hr-topics/technology/Pages/Implementing-AI-Technology-HR.aspxA