From time to time we are asked by the editors of Workforce Online to respond to reader questions. Recently, we were asked to respond to a question about using “stay interviews” as part of an employee engagement strategy. I thought the answer might be of interest to you.

Dear Workforce:
I’d like to start implementing “Stay Interviews”.  What kinds of questions should we be asking and how do I convince managers that this is important?

As opposed to exit interviews which are triggered by a staff member’s departure and yield nominal benefit, or “no interviews” which is akin to playing Russian roulette, “stay interviews” are conducted for the express purpose of strengthening the bond with your best people, and discovering what causes them to remain with the organization.

They can be one of the lowest cost, highest yielding activities by a management that is striving for greater levels of engagement and productivity. That’s exactly how it should be presented to your management team. (i.e., If we won’t make time to have a 40 minute chat with our best people, how and when will we make time to replace them?)

Our research, and others’ has consistently demonstrated that the top things which create stickiness between the individual and the organization, and the attendant discretionary effort include:

• Having meaningful work and the freedom to pursue it
• Working in a positive, challenging, high performance (read, elite) culture
• Getting lots of opportunities to learn and grow (preparing to leave, if necessary)

Aside from not getting enough of one of the above, the chief cause of hitting the exit ramp is working for an unskilled, immature, or self-absorbed leader.

Conducted by a trained interviewer with position authority, stay interviews should focus on the above factors. Though some organizations find it convenient to conduct them coincident with the regular performance review cycle, we don’t recommend it, as performance reviews often carry too much baggage. Often times stay interviews are conducted on a skip-level basis as a means of adding credibility and objectivity to the process.

It is as important to realize what a stay interview is not as what it is. They are not a negotiating session, or a platform from which to rationalize or defend the status quo. Be plain about this from the start. Rather, the interview is an opportunity to listen (really listen) to the very people your annual report likely credits as being your most valuable asset. The interview should deal with questions like:

• Why do you stay (with this organization, team, leader)?
• What do you like best/least about you job?
• If something has caused you to consider leaving in the last 6 months, what was it? Has it been resolved?
• What would you like more/less of? What one thing would you like to see changed?
• What’s your dream job, and are you making satisfactory progress to achieve it?
• What can I/we do to support that effort?
• Do you have any similarly talented friends or acquaintances who should be working here alongside you?
• Is there one person in the organization who has really been helpful to you of late (so we can thank them appropriately)?

Not unlike the financial audits that every company does periodically, a combination of stay interviews with your best people, and engagement surveys of the entire workforce will inexpensively provide the organizational equivalent of color Doppler radar, with measures of actionable intelligence and goodwill. Good luck!

*****

A thought leader in the arena of leadership and employee engagement, Bill Catlette is a seminar leader, keynote speaker, and executive coach. He helps individuals and organizations improve business outcomes by having a focused, engaged, capably led workforce. He is co-author of the newly released book, Rebooting Leadership. For more information about Bill, his partner Richard Hadden, and their work, please visit their  website, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ContentedCows

I remember seeing a cartoon depicting a couple in the southern US, watching TV in a cluttered living room, strewn with beer cans, newspapers, and laundry. The wife hangs up the phone and says, “Paw, put on a shirt and straighten up the front room. Company’s comin’!”

If the momentum of a slow recovery pans out, with the attendant moderate uptick in hiring whose prediction was reported last week in USA Today, then a lot of employers will need to put on their shirts and straighten up the front room, because for the first time in years, company is sure enough comin’ through the HR office, the metaphorical “front room” of most organizations.

A December 1, 2010 article by Andrea Davis, in Employee Benefit News, reports that with hopes of at least a modest recovery, up to 60% of high-performing employees are eyeing plans to leave their organizations in 2011. That remains to be seen, of course, but what’s certain is that there’s lots of pent-up desire to seek greener pastures, and a more robust hiring picture will certainly open the gates for those who may feel abused and taken for granted during hard times.

If you’re planning to ramp up your hiring after a hiatus, it may be wise to do a checkup on your intake process, remembering that your reputation as an employer has everything to do with the caliber of your applicants. Some (no, lots of) organizations have become sloppy, cocky, and arrogant in how they treat potential new hires, reasoning that the labor supply/demand imbalance gives them the upper hand. They’ve apparently forgotten that every applicant represents a window, with a mouth, into the character of their organization.

If you know an organization like that (wink, wink, nod, nod), here’s a checklist you might want to send them anonymously:

• Do we have enough HR staff to handle an increased workload without botching the job or burning themselves out?
• Is the HR staff sufficiently trained in all aspects of their jobs, especially those who will be conducting interviews?
• Does the professionalism and consideration with which we treat job applicants accurately reflect the way we treat our employees?
• Do we treat every interviewee as we would a guest in our home?
• Who – or what – is making decisions to take applicants to the next step? Do real humans have input at every point? Or are we letting software determine who gets to play on the team?
• How well do we communicate with applicants? Do we let them know, in a timely and professional way, that they’re out of the running? Or do we assume they’ll figure it out by our inaction?
• Are we looking for the right qualities? Things that really matter? Or are we stuck on irrelevant “qualifiers” that leave the best talent to the competition?
• Do those we don’t hire feel at least about 80% as good about us as those we do?

Richard Hadden (twitter at http://twitter.com/ContentedCows) is a leadership speaker, author, and consultant who helps organizations improve their business results by creating a great place to work. He and Bill are the authors of the acclaimed business classic Contented Cows Give Better Milk, and Contented Cows MOOve Faster, and the brand new book Rebooting Leadership. Learn more about them and their work at ContentedCows.com.

Sometime very soon, when businesses are drawing slightly more assured breath, they will begin to restart training programs that were shuttered (as they always are) at the beginning of the economic down cycle. As training fees represent a significant portion of our business base, I’m all for that. But here’s what I’m not in favor of. And that is a return to business as usual, where all too often, training is seen as the silver bullet solution to every performance gap. It’s not.

As a case in point, USA Today reported earlier this week that New York Jets owner, Woody Johnson will soon spend somewhere in excess of $160,000 for “workplace training” for young, virile, male athletes who act like young, virile, male athletes within the confines of their player’s locker room. Specifically, the training was mandated by the NFL after a post-game incident in the Jets’ locker room when TV Azteca reporter Ines Sainz was, to use her words, “made to feel uncomfortable.”  Really… in a men’s locker room?

I’m all for legitimate reporters of either gender having reasonable access to players and coaches in an appropriate forum. That said, I’m confident that we’ll see offensive tackles wearing tutus at midfield before someone can “train” a bunch of half-naked 20-something year old guys to act like monks when in the presence of a not unattractive female. No, the NFL doesn’t have a training problem – they have a policy problem inspired by their slavish obsession with media attention, and a policy decision that there is effectively no place that reporters are not allowed to go.

We see the same thing in our more pedestrian organizations when:

1. An entire class or craft of workers is marched off to obligatory training because one or two knuckleheads can’t or won’t perform/behave at standard
2. A long time non-performer is sent to be “fixed” to avoid the necessity of their boss having a difficult conversation with them
3. Training is used to offset the impact of a broken policy or system

As a result, a lot of time, effort and money gets wasted.

Let’s try something different as we crank up the training machine. Rather than “spending” our training dollars, let’s invest them a little more wisely this time around:

• In areas where enhanced knowledge and skill really can make a difference
• In ways that are completely aligned with our espoused business strategy
• In a manner that allows us to measure progress, and hold both learners and trainers accountable

Maybe then we’ll get a little more bang for our buck, and won’t be as hell bent to work our way out of the next downturn by hitting the brakes on training and thus dumbing down the organization.

Your thoughts, as always, are welcome.

*****
A thought leader in the arena of leadership and employee engagement, Bill Catlette is a seminar leader, keynote speaker, and executive coach. He helps individuals and organizations improve business outcomes by having a focused, engaged, capably led workforce. For more information about Bill, his partner Richard Hadden, and their work, please visit their website at www.contentedcows.com, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ContentedCows

The following is a guest post by Zuni Corkerton, Founder and President of RefCheck.

Today’s economic environment leaves no room for risk-taking in the talent-acquisition process.  Employers simply cannot afford the costs of re-hiring (estimated to be 2 to 3 times the annual salary of the position).  Conducting limited, perfunctory background checks (e.g., criminal records) is insufficient due diligence for employers, because even in cases of embezzlement, many cases are never pursued through the legal system.  The losses that result from hiring employees without the benefit of checking their references are realized at every level of the organization—from outright employee theft to lost productivity and damaged employee morale and engagement.   Checking references must no longer be limited to senior level positions.

Because employee loyalty is at an all-time low, employers must hire people who stand a greater chance of fully engaging with the organization’s values, style, and strategies.  Will that frontline supervisor be able to effectively deal with the pressures of his/her job?  Will s/he be able to interact with the entry-level staff as well as his/her superiors?  Does s/he have the courage that your organization and the position requires?  History and past performance are still considered strong indicators of future performance, and it is only through a thorough and robust reference-checking process than an employer can gain insight into the critical aspects of what a candidate will bring to their organization.

The thought that references won’t talk is a myth.  When the right reference is contacted, and credibility is quickly established, references will participate in a conversation.  Interviewing references effectively is an art that is supported by clear processes.

Tips to Effective Reference Checks:

1. Maintain control over the references that are called.  YOU—the employer, not the candidate—determines who will be called.  Ask each candidate to provide information for his/her last supervisor or manager at each prior position, as well as their current contact information.  Today’s research tools make it possible for candidates who really want to work for you to locate these individuals.
2. Request email addresses for the references so the conversation can be scheduled in advance and the reference can allow ample time.  (At RefCheck^® it’s not uncommon to spend 20 to 45 minutes with a reference.)
3. Assign the reference-checking process to professional-level staff, so the reference can be engaged in a true conversation.  Particularly at the senior levels, references want to speak with their equals.
4. Do not adhere to a rigid Q&A format, which leads to limited responses.
5. Thoroughly document the conversation. Take notes as the conversation takes place and review the notes for completion at the conclusion.

Ms. Corkerton can be reached at:

P: 614-777-8844, ext. 12

E: zcorkerton@refcheck.com

Somewhere southeast of Chattanooga my jaw undoubtedly dropped open as I listened on XM radio to the emerging details of the saga of Shirley Sherrod, who this week got the bum’s rush from her position with the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

While driving on I-75 en route to the ATL, a route that Ms. Sherrod knows well, what I heard on the radio caused me to flash back to a former life as an HR executive at FedEx.  Superimposing the Sherrod affair onto my own career, I could envision myself in the office of FedEx founder and chairman, Fred Smith, along with the operational counterpart to Agriculture Secretary, Tom Vilsack. Even more vividly, I can hear Mr. Smith asking the operating exec, “What were you thinking?” and then, turning to me, “and where the hell were you?”  As one who gives his executives considerable operating latitude, pays them well, and generously funds HR initiatives, he’s well within reason to ask those questions, and to expect good answers. That is no less the case with our senior public servants, and so, I hope that Secretary Vilsack and the head of his agency’s HR function have had a trip to the White House, and been given the opportunity to answer those same questions.

It’s not hard to see how the Sherrod affair came to be. The obvious political maneuverings notwithstanding, we live and work in a sound bite world where speed of thought, communication, and execution (often just execution) reign supreme. Doing it better often gets trumped by doing it faster, resulting in the occasional train wreck. It serves as a vivid reminder of the sound advice given us by our mothers in our youth, with reference to crossing the street: Stop. Look. Listen.

In recent years, most HR professionals have struggled with the objective of becoming more “strategic.” What they are really saying is that they are trying desperately to earn a seat at the table, and to remain relevant in a world where meeting this quarter’s numbers, or just surviving to tomorrow pretty well trumps any and all concern for things humanoid.

With respect to our HR friends, for whom I have profound admiration, and who do a thankless job, one of the ways that we earn (and keep) that seat at the table is by finding a way to keep our clients, folks like Secretary Vilsack, from shooting themselves in the foot. We do it by working as business partners with our management team, adding value, weighing in on difficult issues, doing our homework, and certainly by imposing a business-like process whenever someone’s livelihood is in the crosshairs. We do it each time, every time, whether we think the whole world (and Fox News) is watching, or no one is watching.

With respect to our operating exec friends, the HR profession has grown immeasurably in talent and capability (coinciding too neatly with the time I left the business). You would do well to seek their counsel and to involve them (meaningfully involve them) in all of your critical business decisions. In case of doubt, just take a few minutes and replay the video of Secretary Vilsack humbly apologizing on world-wide television to Ms. Sherrod. Play… rewind… play… rewind… play. Got it?

*****
A thought leader in the arena of leadership and employee engagement, Bill Catlette is a seminar leader, keynote speaker, and executive coach. He helps individuals and organizations improve business outcomes by having a focused, engaged, capably led workforce. For more information about Bill, his partner Richard Hadden, and their work, please visit their website at www.contentedcows.com, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ContentedCows